jeffthelion

It's been a weird week. Our country is at war with someone else and pretty much no one I know wants to be involved in it! I discovered this week that Britain has been technically at war with SOMEONE every year since 1707, which is kind of insane but is probably reflective of our nature when we've had a drink, we never back down for ANYTHING!

Once again though, it's a case of my friends feed on Facebook not reflecting the political will of the country as a whole, I should be getting used to that old chestnut by now.

I also went to hospital this week, for my nine monthly appointment since my operation in March. It seems like years since it happened, which is probably why I should give myself some leeway on the bit of weight gained over the course of 2015!

I came to terms with the fact that I'll never play football again at some point during my recuperation, I'm not even supposed to run on my hip, as I've already got arthritis in it. Yes, I'm really 32!

What I never really considered was that I will eventually need the hip replaced and if I don't, I will be in pain. I also never thought that I might not be able to do any exercise in future, if the worst comes to worst.

So, it's up to me to lift weights, use a cross trainer and swim as much as possible, drop the weight and I get to keep my hip in my body for as long as possible. It's pretty unequivocal really.

I'm not down about it and when it does aggravate me, I need to remind myself I'm in an exceedingly happy relationship, with good friends and family plus a cat. I live in my own flat, have a secure job, am training for better and best of all, have a fully functioning brain and mind, I like being physically fit but this situation could be so much worse. Not being able to think for example, would be awful. Or living in Syria. Yes, I am damn lucky and I should never forget that.

The last week since the last real life post has absolutely shot by, it started with having a meeting on Wednesday with a Doctor who examined me to confirm I could return to work.

So, I did! The following day in fact, working for 15 hours on a General Election Polling Station from 6.30AM till 10PM in the evening. I'd voted Green via postal voting the week before.

As me and Toni are massive political nerds, I then ran on adrenaline and beer till 7AM the following morning to catch the results and invited a few friends round for an election night party!

The drinking with Ben (Lib Dem), Christian (Tory scumbag) and Stevo (Labour) started off well, then went swiftly downhill when we saw what an awful mess the UK was getting itself into.

As much as it was fantastic to see the Scottish Nationalists being so successful with their far left politics, it was horrific to see England blindly voting in people who happily give a 43K tax cut to the 1% of richest and then take money off the poorest and most vulnerable in society, leading to food banks becoming commonplace in this 'developed' country.

As Nick Clegg defined when he resigned as Lib Dem leader, "the politics of fear had won", Labour had been equal in the polls but the Tories near the end said that the SNP would be in charge of Labour if they didn't have a majority in our system (which isn't true at all.)

The 'Little Englanders' fear of the Scottish then saw the Tories get voted in and with the system as bent as it is, (with only 2 parties who can ever win, in its' present form), they got in to wreak more havoc and cuts on public services and make their mates even richer.

Toni cried on Friday morning, I just despaired. I didn't even get to laugh at Nigel Farage not getting in.

It says a lot when the daft racist (together with the Greens and Lib Dems) is the best hope for changing this archaic system. UKIP had 3.8 million votes and got 1 MP, the Tories got an MP for every 40K votes they got, it's incredible and incredibly depressing!

Thankfully, we had some cheer on Friday evening as Emma came over from Sheffield and we all went out to see Jane and Damien in Town, as Jane was turning 40! It was a fine evening, of pretty much all left wing, liberal people trying to forget what we had just seen and dance/drink to forget.

We slept in on Saturday morning before heading out to a local café in Hulme, that trains people who have had tough upbringings to be chefs and serve great breakfasts which absorb alcohol!

Then on to Spotland Stadium in the afternoon, for Rochdale Vs Swinton with Stevo, I took the beers he left on Thursday night and he brought a couple too, so we had a couple each on a 20 minute train journey! So it continued, it was a fine day, apart from Swinton losing away again (deservedly so.)

After sobering up a fair bit and watching Friday Night Lights with Toni when I got in, the Sunday night sleep was blissful. After a lot of relaxing, Toni had her college essay to do and I started work on the Swinton programme.

A few of you might have seen this tragic event in the National sports News:

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/may/10/keighley-cougars-danny-jones-tribute-coventry

Keighley's first away game after their 29 year old Captain's death is versus Swinton, so we've gone to town on it, with a one off cover and three pages in tribute to him, it's taken A LOT of planning today as well but we're nearly done.

This type of effort and the fact that the game's supporters, who may never have seen him even play have donated over £100,000 to his widow and five month old twin daughters, says so much about the community in the game I love.

https://www.justgiving.com/dannyjones29

Even if the country is going to shit, there are still good people around, this is tremendously comforting in times like these.

It's been nearly a week since I had my hip arthroscopy, Toni said the other night that "I was handling it really well." At first I was unsure how to take this, as I thought that in the context, it was about, how would I handle being on crutches, the after effects of the operation etc.

In that sense, it's going brilliantly, I thought that I would essentially be bedridden for the first fortnight, in a groggy haze of painkillers and needing ten hours sleep a night, for my body to recover.

This is NOT the case, due to a (couple of) prescription fuck ups, I'm conserving painkillers till Friday, having less painkillers than prescribed and the pain is at most, wince-inducing but largely not present. I can hobble around quite well, even helping Toni with her most hated chore, washing up and I'm sleeping around 8 hours (but not very deeply, alas), leaving me feeling awake but not particularly sharp.

Toni actually meant that as I am a social beast, she hadn't come home to me screaming and crying, wiping excrement on the walls and talking to the cat, as I hadn't been down the pub or to a gig that week. Well, I have six weeks of this, you can't rule it out.

Today, I got the chance to watch the Budget get announced, considering that it affects those who work most, it gets shared in the middle of the day, when most who are working can't see it!

It's a grim spectacle. The ugly schoolyard shouting down of each other is ironically what turns people off politics and towards the alleged 'protest vote' parties like UKIP, Green Party and Monster Raving Looney Party. It would have taken around 20 minutes less to conclude, had the speaker not have to chide various backbenchers, bellowing over the speeches.

It was a typical kind of UK Budget too, the Tories saying that they could be trusted with the economy and having some promising economic figures yet not even mentioning the problems which affect a lot of working people - lack of affordable housing, the NHS remaining free, jobs not being zero-hour contracts.

It's a case of not what has been said but what hasn't been said, that's the concern... Anyway, at last David Cameron has agreed to a verbal joust on TV with all the other party leaders before the Election, so that should be fun!

I tempted fate in the 2011 High and Low Points by saying that it was possibly "the least punctual review of the year ever!" - that was posted in June 2012, this is September 2013 for the 2012 one now, oops!

In a year of positivity and joy, here are the rare poisonous bits:

1. Laura incident – A downside of the Stag was how it ended, a mate (at the time) joined us at the Sunday night Sonic Boom Six afterwards. As the night ended in the early hours in Big Hands, she got upset and I tried to drop her off home in a taxi and head home myself, she wouldn’t go and ended up in our flat waking up Toni and causing a massive fucking scene and row.

Not how I wanted my Stag to end at all, but it’s dead and gone and so is she from my life.

2. Cameron’s treatment of Benefits – As I work in a job that is directly related to the distribution of Benefits, his shocking decision to force the poorest to shoulder the financial burden has not only made my life trickier but also forced many into Food Banks, starvation and stealing.

This is all caused by the fact that the Countries of the World can’t get their act together and make businesses with billions of pounds of profit pay their damn taxes into public purses, not private bank accounts. If everyone paid the correct tax to the correct countries, you wouldn’t need to have an ‘age of austerity.’

3. Leaving shared living – The downside of moving in with Toni was giving up shared houses, I really did love living with mates (it’s also much cheaper than living by yourself Ben!) Aside from Jonny’s awful laziness and living with Sarah G*****d and her horrible habits, it’s been a good ride! But with getting married, the cord needed to be cut!

4. My Dad ‘ending holidays’! – My Dad’s controlling nature was demonstrated by being asked where he would be holidaying next, by saying that he didn’t want to go anywhere ever again! This is a decision not due to money, just that he doesn’t like the hassle.

This is despite the holiday for our wedding seeming to energise my Mum (who suffers from depression), so much, yet what he says goes in their relationship. I have since given them a UK Hotel break as a present for their 70th birthdays, ha!

5. My Dad’s whinging about holiday – While me, Toni, our mutual friends and Toni’s family were having the time of our lives on The Seychelles, my Dad and Sister seemed to be trying their best not to!

See point 14 about my sister but my Dad said he had a horrible second week where they stayed in the same hotel as the first, minus the rest of the group, I hope he was just missing us...

It turns out that he was unhappy that there was a ten minute power cut (in a Third World Country, who’d have thought it?!) He was even upgraded to a villa from a room after an issue arose and complained about the villa being too big! It beggared belief!

6. Toni’s Mum’s continuing legal fight – Toni’s Mum got harassed in her job essentially for being disabled and because her boss was an inconsiderate arse, she spoke up, got the day in a tribunal and it dragged out horrifically for all concerned.

7. Seeing Amanda’s treatment at work – I watched as someone I was close to in work get royally fucked over, she trained with us, yet wasn’t kept on as she worked for a different temp company than the Council one, only offered temp contracts.

Inferior people inside the Council were then trained by her but were clearly not as good then took her job.
Even though she really liked it (and was liked by most of the floor), she chose the security of a job she hated over being screwed by a job she enjoyed, nonsense.

8. Mrs Brown’s Boys – It’s as funny as kittens on power lines, it’s as funny as Alzheimer’s Disease in your family, it’s as funny as the Holocaust... and it may go on longer!

It’s a bloke in a dress being a Mother who is an utter cunt, it seems to have been made thirty years ago and yet it hasn’t. It’s not a case of not ‘getting it’, the jokes can’t be not got, it’s just disappointing that other people relate to it. Absolutely fucking awful but I suppose even the BBC has to pay the rent, eh?!

9. Not getting to drive as much as I could – This is a major problem, as Toni or my Mum show, if you don’t practice, your skills tend to dissipate into piss fairly quickly.

So, it’s been a relief to (so far) this year make up for this and get plenty of driving in.

10. Rejection from Social Work MA – Manchester City Council offered the chance to complete a MA in Social Work (paid for by the Council) as long as you stay in their employment 3 years after the course finished.

It was a great opportunity and something I was very much interested in, from the sounds of someone on the inside, they went for experience over anything, 1 person under 30 got in, it’s not the end of the world and there will be other opportunities.

11. Toni missing Pulp gig – See the Hundred Reasons entry in my Top 15, why, oh why did they have to clash? Grrrr!

12. Having to go in goal! - With Ste Ross retiring, Ste Porter playing basketball, Rob, Fella permanently skint, Beeb crippling himself and Mike Richardson invariably doing other things, it was left to me to don the ‘Keeper gloves... with varying degrees of success!

My tactic of ‘playing like a defender’ i.e. blocking everything with my legs, as I was essentially a defender playing in goal, worked with some teams but was hopelessly exploited by others, bah!

13. City winning the title – It all seems such a long time ago, with the title now back on the correct Red side of Manchester but yes, they did win the league, so down came the banner in the Stretford End! Not won the Champions League yet, have you though?! You blue bastards!

14. My Sister’s behaviour on Honeymoon (that sounds odd! I wasn’t on honeymoon ‘with’ her..!) – While we were having a ‘gay old time’ at the beach, Toni’s final night of freedom was spent with my sister, who spent the night ignoring her on the computer and switching on the air conditioning when told not to when she thought Toni was asleep.

This was compounded when asked at the end of the holiday (which she didn’t pay for and didn’t buy others drinks on!) what her favourite part was, she replied: “The flight home!” – charming!

15. Celebrity paedophiles – It’s really sad to think that pretty much half of your childhood heroes on TV were a bunch of kiddyfiddlers, that’s what happened if you’re aged 25-35 in the UK this year.

Here were 2011's piss and poo pies: http://jeffthelion.livejournal.com/222777.html
Saddest of all, was my favourite football commentator and wordsmith extraordinaire Stuart Hall, one of the people who inspired me to want to go into Sports Journalism, being convicted of sex crimes, while in his eighties.

So, it's been an odd old week, for anyone unaware out there, Britain has lost an old Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, at the age of 87.

This is unlike any other British 'establishment' figure has been dealt with that I can remember, sure people didn't like Princess Diana, but not many openly LOATHED her, this is the case here.

Toni described the mood in Manchester on Monday as: "It was obvious which people knew of her death, they had smiles on their faces or were talking on the phone or with other people, with smiles on their faces!"

Meanwhile, the news media tries desperately to suppress the deep and widespread detestation that a lot of the UK populace holds for her and her ideas - the Poll Tax, costing many areas of the country most of their jobs (while not creating any to replace them), anti-gay policies, not giving schoolchildren free milk, the list goes on...

Channel 4 had a live discussion today in Easington, Co Durham, an old pit town in the North East. It had to be prematurely ended when a woman in the background began shouting her objections over the local Tory MP sent in to defend Thatcher and her policies, it all seemed rather uneasy and you got the feeling that the Tory MP's car may have been vandalised by the time he left the establishment.

There's a camp over here saying 'respect the dead', while there's another saying 'why should we paint a woman so openly reviled in life as a saint in death?'

Personally, I'm with the latter camp, would we be looking for the positive sides in Hitler, for instance, if he lived to a grand old age? Did we look back in fondness when Augustin Pinochet passed away? Or do I care more for the feelings of the relatives or for the many more people who were negatively affected by her leadership in the past or to this day?

Easy answer, I'm afraid.

I do expect protests at her funeral and I do expect that many minutes of silence this weekend will be anything but reverent. Do I support this? Yes, that is freedom of speech in action.

Yes, it does seem that David Cameron is weaving into the new Tory fabric many Thatcher-ite philosophies and her policies have indeed outlived her withered body but the Tories got in during 2010 with just 37% of the actual vote, I sincerely doubt their popularity has increased since then.

If the left-ier parties don't get in at the election on the back of this, they need kicking. Or at least need to take note of the Benefits of having a sense of humour:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead-could-reach-number-one-following-margaret-thatchers-death-8566042.html

Margaret Thatcher - RIP? No, she can fuck right off!

You know when you revisit a song for the first time in ages and it's brilliant as you remember it? That feeling about the song in the music box! I still can't believe the amazing thelma_viaduct agreed to move the wedding for a gig, excited is the word! Less said about the Pulp 'unpleasantness' afterwards the better..!

In wedding news, we have rings, plans for the invitations, Toni has a dress and I should have shirts for me and the Best Men by the end of today!

Exceptionally, for the first time since I was a wee babe-in-arms, I'm under 15 stones (14st 9lbs in fact!), I know norbert_beaver loves these weight updates!

So, question of the week, can you vote in the US Election and whether you can or not, who would you vote for?

Personally, I'd go for Obama, anyone willing to liberate America into giving themselves free healthcare (or at least more free healthcare) would get my vote, you guys pay ridiculous amounts for everything!

Plus, he seems to have joined the rest of the Developed World in not giving a tiny fuck if gay people want to get married; it's amazing to us how wound up the USA gets about this! How is it even a factor in the election?

Follow our example - David Cameron tried to bring gay marriage into political play over here, got laughed at and the issue was dropped quicker than the 'Jim'll Fix It - DVD Boxset' release for this Christmas!

See above..!

"We have the right to choose between Labour and Tory,
Like we have the right to choose between Coke and Pepsi,
No matter who you vote for, the government always wins.
Time to empower ourselves!"

This is the only video on Youtube of it, unless someone has labelled something wrong elsewhere:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ5P_U6Rxfc

So obtain it and the album 'Under The Fog', if you can!