BACK TO WHAT PASSES FOR NORMAL?

The 2012 London Olympic Games are almost over. So, this week, BBC Radio 5 changed its link announcements from "Radio Five Live - Your Olympic Station", to "Radio Five Live, Your Paralympic Station". It would have been much more fun to have had Nicky Campbell, Sheliagh Fogarty and Victoria Derbyshire presenting their programmes after a dozen cans of Special Brew (each): "Radio Five Live - Your Paralytic Station". But that didn't happen.

"I say, everyone...I think that Peter Allen
and Aasmah Mir might have been drinking..."

Paralympics apart, Britain is returning to what passes for normal under the Coalition, which, according to a poll today, only 16% of people think will survive the current parliament. A pointless poll, because the coalition ceased to exist a few months ago. Indeed, apart from Dave and the other bloke pretending that they were coming together "in the national interest" in May 2010, it's pretty much been a Tory government ever since, regardless of the Liberal Democrat claims of taking "millions of people out of tax", as that will be achieved by Cameron and Osborne putting millions on the dole as the cuts begin in earnest, later this year and in 2013.

The author, Mark Haddon (The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time) went on record this week saying that his accountant got all uppity, when Mr Haddon insisted that he wanted to pay all the tax he was due to pay, and told the accountant not to "avoid" any of it on his behalf. Good for him. But, with respect to the author, his is a small voice of sanity in the madness that is tax accountancy. Now, if Wayne Rooney or Bono or Bob Diamond or (when Hell freezes over), Philip Green were to have expressed a desire to pay all of the UK tax that they should, then that might have been an entirely different matter. But that didn't happen, either. Still, well done, Mark Haddon.

So back in the real, post-Olympic world, life goes on. And in the life of the Prime Minister, that means going on holiday. How lovely. Dave told a press-conference on Sunday that "...politicians need a holiday too...". He went on to explain that he and his family were having a "holiday" and he was not going on "annual leave", suggesting that the two things were entirely different. In his case, because it's not "annual leave", he will still be "in charge", while he is on "holiday". I'm buggered if I know what he's talking about. I have to assume that he is making a differential point in order not to leave Osborne, Hague or May "in charge". The Deputy PM, er...whathisname...will also be on holiday (just a holiday, not a non-annual-leave-break) at the same time as the PM is away. I don't know who prepares the Government holiday chart but that was really poor management. However, the Deputy PM has never deputised anyway, so what difference will it make? Dave will be on holiday for ten days before returning for "some commitments" and then going away again for a few more days, only in the UK for the second trip. That's two holidays, then. I hate to be a pedant (no, actually, I love it), but when the PM said he "needed a holiday"...see what I mean? It's a bit like Osborne wanting to give one hundred and ten per cent. And these people are "in charge", whether they're here or not. Jesus Christ Almighty...

In places where Jesus Christ (almighty or otherwise) is only revered as a prophet rather than a deity, there are some curious arrangements. In Saudi Arabia, what passes for government there has decided to create a "Women-only City". Under Wahabi Sharia Law, sexual segregation is a big item but, with the Saudis wanting to court international approval rather than the usual opprobrium, they are making a gesture that is on the laughable end of a liberal agenda. The idea is, that women should have an opportunity to have some "independence and financial security". To this end, a new city will be built in the Holuf district, where all of the workplaces and housing will be exclusively for women. The jobs, typically, will be in "IT, Food Preparation, Pharmaceuticals and Textile Technologies". So, that's Call centres / wrapping lettuces / putting pills in boxes / making t-shirts, then? Holuf is about two hundred kilometres from Riyadh and one hundred from the Bahrain border but it does have the campus of the King Faisal University where, doubtless, they will be introducing a women-only Faculty of Shitty-Jobs-To-Appease-The-West. Of course, what the Saudi regime could have done was to allow women to drive cars without the permission of a man, or have a discrete shag without the threat of death by stoning...that might have been a better start.

Tea-break at the Holuf lettuce-packing factory

On the jobs front in the UK, Mark Serwotka arranged for Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) employees at JobCentres to have a little strike for day. Apparently, the bosses are making their lives hell in "draconian circumsatnces". These people work in call centres. Call centres are not all pleasant places, that has to be admitted (apart from the ones about to be created in Holuf, of course). I don't really have any objection to PCS staff taking industrial action...even strike action, although it's a bit dated. But I do have a huge objection to Serwotka. In a couple of months, I will be posting the Fourth Column's "Tosser of the Year" awards and right now, Serwotka is in the top three and, remarkably, he's ahead of Osborne. I have complained at length about our top politicians never having had proper jobs. The same applies to some of these idiots in the unions. I have been a member of a trade union all of my life. They are important, and necessary parts of our society. But it seems to me that they have lost the ethos that made them so. In my day, union leaders had done twenty to thirty years on the "front line" before helping the workers improve their respective lots (Scargill apart).

But is there some kind of curious genetic thing going on...?

Derek Hatton ?

Mark Serwotka?

Sure, Serwotka worked in the Benefits Agency for a while but he is a "career trades unionist" that has simply not grasped the current mood of the nation. His steadfast refusal to work with government and the civil service is, frankly, embarrassing to the TU movement. His pathetic threat to disrupt the Olympics though Border Agency actions had all of the hallmarks of a man with no grasp of the pragmatism of 'Realpolitik', as his ideological notions appear to be entrenched in non-negotiable positions. And he really needs to understand the laws relating to ballots, as well as the fairness and reasonableness that has to underpin employment law. OK, when Oliver Letwin said, in July 2011 (as the Coalition's policy chief on public service reform) that "..excellence in the public services would be achieved through fear of losing jobs and...real discipline...", Serwotka was right to be a bit pissed off. But his actions were ineffective becuase he didn't really know what to do. He should have asked Hugh Lanning to deal with it...in fact, Hugh should be General Secretary of the PCS. Or me. Or...anyone other than Serwotka.

Which one of these two handsome chaps is
Mitt Romney's running mate?

On the other side of politics and of the Atlantic, Mitt Romney has appointed his presumptive VP candidate. This is Paul Ryan. I was very upset to learn that Paul Ryan is the Congressman from Wisconsin and not, as I had hoped, the resucitated Paul Ryan who wrote the million-selling classic 'Eloise' in 1968 that his brother Barry took to No.1 in the charts (or, 'Hit Parade' as we knew it then). That Paul Ryan died in 1992, aged only 44, but his legacy will, hopefully, be greater than that of the Tea Party, Neo-Con, arch-Roman Catholic that hopes to be only a 'heart-beat' away from the presidency in a few months' time. Ryan, just to give you a flavour, is on record as against foetal abortion in any circumstances - including pregnancy through rape or incest. And to make his candidacy even more worrying, Rupert Murdoch has come out this week in Ryan's favour.

While the non-paralympic games have been on, it has been easy to ignore or miss all sorts of shit that's been happening, bearing in mind that UK news broadcasters have spent all of their time extolling Team GB and the feelgood factors of the 'medalling' and 'podiuming'; the new verbs associated with athletic success in 2012. In most of the newspapers, it was necessary to plough through at least twelve pages before there was a report on the horror of Bashar Al-Assad's repression or the monumental cock-ups of Osborne's chancellory. Had the Olympic Games not been coming to an orgasmic close, the tabloid papers would have been fulminating over the tragedy of Tia Sharpe's death, allegedly at the hands of some scumbag quasi-relative who may or may not have stored her body in the loft of the family home. As usual, according to the screaming headlines (on page 94) it was not the scumbags that were at fault, but the police, for having failed to search the property effectively. Damned if they do; damned if they don't.

And in amongst all of this, Sid Waddell died, aged 72. If you've heard of Sid Waddell, then it's most likely that you will have only remembered him as a commentator on darts. "On the Oche"...that was his catch-phrase, as doubtless EJ Thribb will write in the next issue of Private Eye. But Alnwick-born Sid was more than just the guy that said that about the 'oche'; the game-line that has to be nine feet, three and seven-eigths of an inch on the diagonal from the bull's eye of the dart board. He was a state-school educated Oxbridge scholar of English and History; a television producer, scriptwriter, novelist and sports biographer. A sort of Stuart Hall, but without the casual racism, monarchism and reactionary dogma. Sid Wadell would have been one thousand times better as the General Secretary of the PCS than Serwotka. Sid Wadell was a fucking genius, too. Here are some of his quotes. Some of them may have been pre-scripted, but I'd like to think that his vaulting intellect just ensured that they tripped off his eloquent tongue as he brought the crazy game of darts alive for the viewing public:

"When Alexander of Macedonia was thirty-three years old, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer....Eric Bristow is only twenty-seven".

"Look at the man go! It's like trying to stop a water buffalo with a pea-shooter"

"If Phil ('The Power') Taylor had been at Hastings against the Normans, they'd have all gone home."

"It's the nearest thing to a public execution this side of Saudi Arabia"

"The atmosphere here is so tense, if Elvis walked in with a portion of chips, you could hear the sizzle of vinegar on them..."

If only Sid had been feeling OK, then I might have just watched some of the Olympic Games - if he'd been in a commentary box; with Barry Davies or Claire Balding. 

Sadly, No Longer on the Oche, or on the Earth
Sid Wadell (1940-2012)
(Already sorely missed)

So, there it is: Back To What Passes For Normal in Dave's Britain and, if your there, three hundred-odd miles from me, in Boris's London, there's a very good chance that everything is going to be shit from now on and there'll be very little in the way of distractions after the Paralympics.

My advice, therefore, is to join in the "Paralytics"...