I'm still feeling melancholy.

And unusually sane.

I grew up in a small town in the Scottish borders where racism and homophobia were the accepted norm. My Dad once told me if he ever met Julian Clarey he would kill him. When I began putting up posters of Soft Cell I got in one day to find them all gone and a poster of Samantha Fox in their place. I'm not even gay, and she's a lesbian so I'm not sure what that was supposed to accomplish. I did ask, but my Mum said 'ask your Dad' but he'd fucked off conveniently abroad again to find work as an economic migrant.

Thing is though he came back after Thatcher had forced him to broaden his horizons a changed man, he'd seen at least part of the world, no longer did he wish to kill gay people for no reason, no longer did he refer to racial minorities using the crudest slang imaginable. He'd become something more, something better.

And that's the direction of travel I, at least, had assumed would continue.

But it seems I was horribly mistaken.

And that's why I'm not just melancholy but seriously fucked off.

By the way,the "Relax" in Walls Come Tumbling Down",is a reference to the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song.You probably knew that.

By coincidence,there was an 80 year old woman in Summer School doing a project on the Jam,we hit it off,platonically to be clear,spent most of the time when not trying to avoid being spokesperson in workshops etc(do it first,get it out of the way) discussing music,politics and doing crosswords.I happen to have done full time at Uni and the OU,I much preferred the latter.

Funny last couple of days on internet,expressions of love to accusations of snooty wrongheadness.Of course,only one person has actually met me,still surviving after the experience which is a bonus.and non really know me,probably somewhere vaguely in the middle,that'll do.

A Stones Throw Away


For liberty there is a cost, it's broken skulls and leather cosh
From the boys in uniform, now you know whose side they're on
With backing, with blessing from earthly God's not heaven
A stone's throw away from it all
Whatever pleasures those who get from stripping skin with rhino whip #
Are the kind that must be stopped before their kind take all we've got
With loving, with caring, they take great pride in working
The stone's throw away from it all, all, all
Whenever honesty persists, you'll hear the snap of broken ribs
Of anyone who'll take no more of the lying bastards' roar
In Chile, In Poland, Johannesburg, South Yorkshire
A stone's throw away, now we're there


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This all fell apart because out academic adviser from the local university disappeared, but when I got the chance to start an MA (or possibly M.Ed, we never quite got that far) dissertation it was about internet forums and using online social media resources in the classroom.

This is a good place.

HindleA wrote:plus an excuse to do a dissertation on the Style Council

I love you.

Good to hear.FWIW in the '80's there was an OU course called popular culture,it was nominally a second level but really was a third,Stuart Hall and all that jazz,Le Guin was part of it,among with Brecht,psychoanalysis,, linguistics,it was the sort of eclectic mix and knowing just enough to waffle sufficiently convincingly,I revelled in plus an excuse to do a dissertation on the Style Council and listen to music,watch TV films mention Gramsci,hegemony,semiotics and Freud a few times and pass with flying colours,I loved it.

Citizen JA You can call me whatever you like, I just finished 'The word for World is Forest'.

Ursula is magnificent. In her prime she could produce fantasy for money while still coming out with shit like 'The Lathe of Heaven'.

I love the woman.

An anthropoligist, an expert, an intellectual.

All the things we are now expected to despise.

But I'm not giving up, much as she wouldn't.

Sky'sGoneOut wrote:...as long as I never meet a Brexiter or Trump voter ever again.

(cJA edit)

Be consoled, Brother, out of a world population of over 7bn, only a small fraction voted for either.


p.s. I hope you don't mind my taking the liberty of calling you Brother. I mean it the way Ursula LeGuin meant 'Brother' and 'Sister' in The Dispossessed. We're interdependent as well as unique individuals.

I'm drunk, I've had a good day with a good walk before the rain. But nothing seemed like fun anymore, nothing made me want to smile.

I've pretty much had enough of being a member of the human race.

Thankfully I've saved up some money, enough I hope to be blasted on a rocket to Mars.

I can handle hard radiation, a low atmosphere and freezing temperatures as long as I never meet a Brexiter or Trump voter ever again.