The Insane Ramblings of a Village Idiot

Dear Interweb, since yesterday I have been bombarded with comments from people that seem to think I am Dick Cole leader of MK, I am very much not Councillor Cole and his blog is here http://mebyonkernow.blogspot.co.uk/ - For the love of god go hassle him – All the Best , TVI

Some random stranger said tonight that “I know all about you” and meant it with malevolence.

Its ages since I used this blog, and  am deviating somewhat by using it to blog something personal.  Way back in the day “The Insane Ramblings” was a way for me to blow my top, learn how to write and make myself feel better.  In fact it worked.  In the last few months though I have been hit full face with the “black dog”, Churchill’s euphemism for depression.

So where did this come from, let me explain.

Now, many people who know me from social media will not realise that I have an acute form of mood disorder.  Aged 16 I became very ill indeed, my glands became swollen, I had terrible headaches and all of a sudden I became a type 1 diabetic loosing three stone in the process.  My doctors thought I had some exotic form of cancer and I was subject to a series of humiliating tests.  This was of course my GCSE year and I missed 3 months of school and went from a high performing pupil to an average one over night.  A very stressful situation in my private life at the same time, involving the kind of scares the terrify young people (if youve been there you know what I mean), meant I started to exhibit extreme anxiety and depression, so dark in fact that I forget the entire rest of the 6 months after this point.  Luckily for me I got better, I had a viral infection that dominated my weak immune system. By the time I started sixth form I was 9 stone with a 28 inch waste, I could feel my bones in my arse when I sat down, no bum to speak of.  I started my college courses and information that I could usually digest became like garbage, floating around my mind in no particular order, torturing me, reminding me that only 12 months ago …this was easy.  I dropped an A level, I had to give all I could to 2 so I could at least salvage something.  I passed, I did OK and thankfully I found a subject which was like instinct to me, RS.  I was very luck indeed to be offered a place at Kings College London studying Theology, I took it up in October 1991, and for the first time I felt like I was alive, I drank, partied, met a lovely girl it was great.

Once you have been in mental health crisis, you slip back quickly, especially when untreated. In 1993 I lost a great deal, the girl I loved, my beloved grandfather, and like a smash in the face I was down again, this time I started drinking and living at night, my college noticed my disappearance and asked me to take a year off, “you can get a 2:1″ they said, “you just need a rest”. So I came home and I never went back.  I met a woman, she and I were good friends, and as it happened we got together, she had three children, 2 very young. I needed a future, it seemed ok, it seemed fine…within a year I was trapped in a home where my partner hated me and wished for me to go no further than the bottom of the shit pit.  I mean she really hated me.. My son was born in 1995 – I felt fantastic for 24 hours, I sang to myself as I walked to pay phone to give the good news of my lovely sons birth to my mum and dad.  But my son was ill, after 3 months he developed huge abscesses under his neck and needed several operations to remove them, my partner was ill and couldn’t go with him to hospital, I held him down as they put the drains into his little hand and pumped him full of drugs.

But times change, the constant presence of my little boy made me feel whole lot better, his love made me feel like I could live.   I floated into a job working at Tesco, filling shelves, check outs – It was miserable but every single person I met who was not a manager was a bloody good person, I made a lot of friends, some I cared about deeply.  I married my partner, we had stopped arguing, I had a job my son was older, we were coping. But a bombshell- 1 year later- she decided that we had a deadline,  if we didn’t “get on” by Christmas day we would split up.  So boxing day 1998 I was thrown out, back to my parents, alone & without the only person I cared about.  As you can imagine the “disease” hit again, I sank deep into hell, I sank so deep that I lost all my weight again and this time started drinking like never before, downed it by the pint until the pain was killed dead by spinning rooms and white cider.

So time moved on in 2000 I was late coming home from a visit to London, and I arrived to see my son 7 hours late.  My train was delayed, I had to take my girlfriend to the hospital, she had pneumonia.  When I arrived my ex -screamed at me that I was not allowed to see him,  but my son ran to me and held my legs so tight and said “I want my daddy” and she said “you go and live with your father then” so I walked him home to my house and phoned her and said “you don’t mean that surely” and she replied “Yes he’s better of with you”, since that day he has lived with me.  Being a single parent is hard, very.  From the age of 4 I have been my son’s primary carer, I love him, he has made my life worth living.

So 2 years later I met a lay who had all the same interests to me so I let my self go , I let myself once again feel some kind of passion and affection, except there was a hidden secret. Her mind was intent in a kind of war with me, I kept my distance but still, one minute peace, one minute total blitz. She got pregnant , we had a son, but the mood swings and the constant angst and insanity drove me once again into a major pit. In 2004 we parted ways – I have not seen my son since, it is my greatest regret.

After this there were ups and downs the details of which are irrelevant- Most of the time I acted like a child trying to recover his boundaries.  I have had someone in my life who I care about deeply, the thought that they are still in this world has made life feel better.  But the toll of illness and acute mental health issues take their toll, and in 2010 I was diagnosed with heart disease, and in 2011 I had a triple heart bypass.  Look death in the face please, be told the odds by a man of medicine, wake up with tubes in your chest draining blood into buckets, hear people dying near you as you fight to breathe, then understand how it feels.
I have legitimate reasons to be what I am now.

So why the long face? Because its been shit. I have a real reason to feel like I do. The pathetic statement “I know all about you” is that , pathetic.  You will never know me , snippets of gossip from people from my past , rumours.  But you will never know me.

2011, what a year it was.  The year got off to a bang in January when a lunatic cut my chest open with a team of nurses and tinkered with my ticker.  Following a few days in intensive care attached to 2 giant buckets of blood, not to mention a tube up my willy, kidney failure, pneumonia and got knows what else I was ferried back to Penzance where I sat in the arm chair for 2 months.  In February 2 weeks after my operation my delightful wife decided to fuck off to Japan for a 4 week holiday meaning I had to go and live with my equally delightful parents who spent the entire month winding me up like a top.  By the end of the month of course, the planet’s Arab population decided to kick off the yoke of their oppressors. Starting with Tunisia and spreading to Egypt, Libya and the rest, the people rose up and challenged the western sponsored dictators that had been crushing freedom for decades.  March therefore, saw me glued to Al-Jazeera as the battle for Tarir square kicked off, running battles, camels, riot police, all excellent TV.  The best bit of course was the hope, I like hope.  Anyway, by this stage I am still as disabled a dog with one of those wheel things on and only able to trot to the shops to buy the occasional diet coke.  By the end of the month a major triumph ensued when I walked to my parents house in a astonishing 30 minutes (usually takes 10 minutes).  Sadly on March 11th, we had the terrible sight of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Having so many friends in Japan, not to mention family of course the household a tense 5 or 6 hours, thanks to the power of skype we managed to get through to loved ones and thankfully the only injury was to my mother in laws dance trophies. April of course brought us the wedding of HRH the Prince William and Katherine Middleton.  During the event I booed myself hoarse over the blatant display of privilege and wealth that still blights our nation in the 21st Century. Other nations Royal families and heads of state would never, ever dare to lump so much cash into an event for someone who isn’t the head of state.  I also marvelled at the bizarre frenzy of patriotism on twitter where one user claimed “anyone who doesn’t support the happy couple should be shot”.  Of course the main talking point of the day was Pippa Middleton’s arse, aesthetically pleasing but  in my opinion, nowhere near round enough.  Of course while Pippa was wiggling her assets, evil dictator with no mandate, David Cameron, was taking on evil dictator, Col “Where’s me marbles” Gaddafi. Following  the brutal crushing of the Arab spring, the enlightened French, British and to lesser extent USofA, decided to bomb the shit out of the Libyan army to save the lives of protesters, well done to all involved.   May arrived and I strutted out in public for the first time since the whole heart surgery nonsense taking part in the Penzance May Horns, a very pleasant evening was had by all, despite a massive sulk from certain former participants.  A few weeks later, warmongering, formerly popular, US President Barack Obamba decided to send in the A-Team to blow away evil terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden.  Grotesque celebrations erupted on the streets of America people chanting “U-S-A” as if the whole thing was a bloody game, not that I shed one tear for that mass murdering git you understand.  June saw me back in Hospital for another operation, as spectacularly incompetent hospital, Treliske decided to blast my eyes with a laser under general anaesthetic, it bloody hurt.   June also saw the Golowan festival in Penzance hit new levels of tat, with the introduction of Pirate day, the least imaginative idea ever.  Penzance was strewn with 1000′s of kids with eye patches and fake parrots, all things piratical has now spread to every other feast day and festival in West Cornwall, in fact you can’t fart in the street without a bloody pirate walking past.  I have to confess I did enjoy the later stages of Mazey day as the pirate kids buggered off and I got wazzed in the White Lion with one of our towns finest civil servants and friends.    August saw the single bravest event ever recorded by a news crew as SKY news’s Alex Crawford reported live from the fall of Tripoli.  Alex is our nations finest reporter by miles and the events unfolding in Tripoli were all at the same time, terrifying, jubilant and extraordinary.  The reporting the next day highlighted just how brave and funny the Libyan people are,  ordinary volunteers sporting the mad dictators uniform in the most comic fashion, while their comrades fought like hell to free the city from the grip of tyranny. August also saw the single most stupid own goal in history as a load of rioting numpties trashed every Argos and Sports World in London giving that bastard David Cameron a perfect excuse to peddle his broken Britain crap.  Criminal behaviour was everywhere this year of course, with the banks continuing to take the piss out of us normal folk, paying themselves huge bonuses while the economy is going to hell in a hand cart.  All this greed led to the rise of the occupy movement, which continues to fight against this iron grip of the financial elite.  October of course included my Birthday , I had a special Birthday present this year as “Mad Dog Gaddaffi ” was found in a drain, sexually assaulted and shot.  Nice to know American style justice is spreading around the world so freely.  October also saw the rise of the Cornish Gazette, my pet project to rid Cornwall of spin and bullshit. So far I have received only one legal threat, and a number of outraged emails.  Strangely some people don’t understand the concept of satire at all, and have taken some of the articles so very literally.  November also saw my wife taking another month off to bugger off back to Japan, thanks.   December was OK, if you like that sort of thing! So as the year draws to an end what are my predictions for 2012.

1) My wife will spend at least 3 months in Japan.

2) More operations and illness.

3) The financial elite will still screw us over.

4) The Euro will go into meltdown leading to the deepest depression in history.

5) The coalition will come to a sticky end leading to a general election that the Tories will win, Lib Dems will be consigned to the bargain bucket of history.

6) SKY News will become so right wing that it will start sponsoring UKIP.

Happy New Year one and all!!

Do you know what I really haven’t missed planning committees in the slightest since I packed politics on the head last year.  It was with a sense of deep unease then that I decided to tune into Kremlin Kernow’s strategic planning committee via webcast this morning to see the result of the Hayle supermarket tussle that’s been dragging on for some time.  Now putting the eventual result on the back burner I want to make a few comments about the state of Cornish democracy and the council more specifically.  First of all Cornwall council seems to have a recruitment policy that requires all their staff to be bleached before assuming office, every single one of them looks like they have had their personality washed clean by a mechanical process and their pallid complexions can only be the result of spending time in a small box and being only fed milk powder like a veal calf.  They puke meaningless words like signalising (putting up traffic lights) and linkage into the air polluting language’s goodness in an effort to sound smart and informed. They post unreadable power point presentations on over head projectors and read them out like a failed 6th form lecturers who have lost the will to live. In the mean time what also struck home was the appallingly bad standard of debate, with only the occasional flashes of decency from a few like Cllr Andrew Wallis most of the flaming balls spoken by the members of this council would make St Michael’s Mount annual parish meeting look like the Oxford Union.  There was one spectacular thicko who asked the most off the wall questions, a farmer type who seemed to be eulogising about the past and one woman councillor who played this “I am only a cute little woman” game while looking about 69.  In the mean while Ruth Lewarne from my home town kept me smiling by rolling her eyes and chuntering what seemed like serious swears every time the Hayle councillors spoke.  Most are so out of touch with reality that during the debate it was highlighted the lack of a public dance hall in Hayle and that it was a shame that the Council hadn’t consulted the fucking local wives club??!!!! Is there any such thing in the twenty first century, perhaps the local sankey society or temperance club should also be consulted or the coopers guild or the Unionist club. The very same councillor kept bleeding on about how the application should take into consideration women’s shopping habits , and that women would prefer this kind of supermarket or that kind of supermarket , amazingly unaware that men and woman do that kind of thing equally these days.  So in all honesty I am filled with contempt for the whole thing and filled with woe that a potential Cornish assembly could be lined with meat heads of gigantic proportions.  So in the end a big company won. the result was not unexpected and it may help poor old Hayle, but thank god that I have given up politics and I can now sit here telling you the truth about just what does go on up in tosser towers.

The Cornish Gazette, independent and Satirical news for Cornwall.

As the four horsemen of the Apocalypse stride out once more across the world with the prospect of a second round of financial Armageddon I would like to muse on what we might expect from the potential imminent collapse.  My belief in social justice and the like is based on my love of history and surprisingly, economics and not on an emotional response to injustice, not there is anything wrong with that of course.  The current situation we are in financially is not for the record because of over spending from any government of any colour but in reality the fact that the UK had to pay almost £1 Trillion to prop up a failed financial system to avoid complete economic collapse, 3 expensive wars may not have helped but that’s another story.  When the government paid the banks billions it ensure that they would have to borrow more, increasing the deficit, companies went bust because of the lack of borrowing facilities as banks sought to minimise their risk, tax receipts from these companies and their workers went up in smoke and more money had to be paid in benefits to cover the human cost of this the biggest financial fraud in history.   Since 2009 we have been experiencing a slight upturn in economic fortunes but in any real sense we are in a stagnant state, the government knows this and has continued printing money without there being any actual money there, this practice is known as quantative easing and is based on a bit of trickery here and there but in truth is fictious wealth.   Interest rates are so low because if they are returned to normal levels there would be mass re-possession of homes as peoples income would not meet the demands of mortgage payments.  Inflation ticks away in the backround but not in the way it used to, pressure on supply of essential goods is becoming increasingly harsh, oil is more expensive as governments in the near east realise that their wealth is finite and start hoarding.  Food is increasingly expensive, commodity traders are similarly buying up and hoarding future production of grain etc to ensure future supply to big customers who pay their bills, they are also increasingly dictating prices unethically like a big cartel.  Meanwhile in Greece…The pressure on the world economy has led this country who was always borrowing more than others to keep up with the rest of the world find it increasingly hard to pay its bills, the one size fits all management of the Euro means that the economic policies that keep Germany and France stable damage Greece and other smaller nations,  Germany and France and even the UK need Greece in the EU because it needs a big open market to sell stuff, Greece manufactures next to nothing, its a good place to flog stuff.  All these pressures mean that Greece cannot pay its debts to the banks, even though they have been told they must flog nearly everything and cut , cut, cut.   Greece is almost certain to stop paying its debts or default, like when you stop paying your debts creditors stop lending,  your credit rating drops and you are untouchable financially but the people of Greece are suffering to keep the banks in pocket.  When (not if in my opinion) the default happens the big banks in major EU countries will come under amazing financial pressure and may collapse such is the risk.  The EU governments have some emergency money tucked away but this will not be enough, the governments have already bailed the banks out once THEY HAVE NO MORE MONEY.  When banks fail the first thing is that people loose savings, they just disappear, suddenly millions of people are worth half what they were.  People can’t spend as much so companies become worth less than before , share prices crash.  Pension funds invest in government bonds and shares, they become worth less money, they come under huge strain and crash.  The banks and government in the UK are less exposed than places like Germany but the EU is Britain’s biggest market if it is going tits up we are sure to follow within months, regardless of how much money you have saved through cuts. BOOM!!!!!!

So what does this mean socially, well in times of great crisis where financially people suffer there is an effect called political polarisation where people seek extreme solutions.  In Weimar Germany this led to the growth of the far left and far right , and ultimately the Nazi’s.  We will be a stones throw of nightmarish totalitarianism (I expect dressed up as “emergency” or “National government”) if we allow these movements to gain hold here or in Europe again.  Simple populist solutions seek to blame outsiders for any problems or lead people to believe that swift cruel action will make us all better, like purging the species to ensure somehow less defects.  Be very sure though that the language of extremism is creeping into the main stream and new simple ideologies (government bad, companies good for example) are miring the pragmatic solutions to this coming crisis.

So the actions of some very greed men have once again put us on the edge, ordinary right thinking folk may once again pay for huge casino they played.  But let us blame the poor and innocent or the outsider for this but use our brains and try and intelligently think our way out of the situation and not boorish fools like Messrs Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Milliband dump their rhetoric and opportunism on our heads.

Her endeth the lesson.

TVI

The Cornish Gazette, independent and Satirical news for Cornwall.

Those of you who know me will have noticed I have been beavering away like a Japanese production worker of late on my latest project the Cornish Gazette.  Over the past few years I have noticed that while there is a wealth of Cornwall centred community media, there is bugger all focusing on those in power and either satirising or scrutinising their activities so much so that a culture of do what you like no one will notice or complain has crept into some of our institutions, this has been particularly acute at tosser towers AKA Kremlin Kernow AKA County Hall.  It seems that the bastions of all crappiness are cutting left right and centre, spinning, over riding democracy and generally being shit bags without anyone saying ‘ang on mate what the hell is this all about.  There is also a sense of the ridiculous creeping into Cornish life in general that is crying out for comment, tub thumpers, flag wavers, corporate gibberishers, sinister back room organisations, mad religious groups, traditions going all funny and tacky. So it came to me that although I love sitting down on a Thursday and reading my papers such as the excellent Cornishman or online news sources such as the equally excellent Cornwall Community news or Cornwall24.net (not its barmy forum cousin cornwall24.co.uk, madness I tell you) that a new news approach is needed.  The aim then is to produce a “private eye for Cornwall” if you will, with added comedy. mockery and actual scrutiny.  To see the style we our talking about we have produced a series of promo videos to generate some interest in the project and in the mean time please visit our site which is in test mode www.thecornishgazette.com just to see the look and feel of our end project -The whole thing launches 19th October 2011 we welcome contributions in particular from the excellent award winning Cornish blog scene bloggers (hint, hint Rob and the rest).  TVI

Council watch !

The Gazette investigates!

The Best Raper in the land!

Spotlight on Cocknish!

Trollman Balls!

The Gazette investigates again!

Low hanging fruit! The week in gibberish.

Blah Blah Cancer Blah Blah Daily Mail Blah Blah Gawd bless 'em

I have spent the last 7 or 8 months avoiding the times before 9am like the plague, I have found that my post op fatigue is greatly reduced if I lounge around in the sack like a hippo until about 10am and get up just in time for “cash in my celebrity attack homes under the hammer relocation jumble sale morning kyle show” or whatever other crap the beeb is peddling this month.  There was a time however, I was like every normal person and woke with the lark to pursue a career lifting boxes for scousers or being paid less than the national minimum wage by my local MP.  As a News junky it was of course my duty to absorb the daily issues via the BBC news service which in my memory was at least watchable.  As my health has recovered and my heart has begun to work normal again I have found that once again I get up at a normal civilised time of day, imagine my surprise if you will when I turned on my TV recently and discovered that BBC breakfast has in fact become a flaming pile of horse shit.  First of all when the hell did the BBC deicide that it was the Daily Mail health section? Every day and I mean EVERY DAY BBC brekkers runs a eating eggs gives you cancer sort of story, this morning it was some pathetic study on eating 200 extra calories when you are pregnant leading to a slow painful death and 20 mins later a incredibly officious busy body from the anti-smoking charity “Kill all bastard smokers now” who wants to classify 101 Dalmatians as an 18 certificate film because Cruella de Vil smokes in it!  Its paternalistic shit beyond comparison.  Another obsession is the Royal family, now think what you will about the Royals, like them or love them, but the unquestioned deference and worship spewed at their direction is almost unbelievable in the 21st century, you almost expect the Duke of Kent to sprout wings and fly heavenward such is his perfection according to the BBC.  Worst of all is grinning weather face, Carol who sits there informing us that the its going to hent it down all day with  a wind chill of minus 65 degrees with a massive smile on her fizzog , the last 30 seconds is always devoted to flirting with “Billy” Bill Turnbull (who the BBC refuse to capitalise on their website , somehow indicating his worthlessness?) who looks like he has swallowed some geriatric psychiatric pills.  Another feature of Breakfast of course is the Londoncentric arts review, this morning it was interview with disturbingly odd Tom Conti who is appearing in an obscure west end play named “Smash” which surely no one outside a 100 mile radius of Trafalgar square will ever see, or ever care about.  At the weekend it gets no better when you are served a dose of seemingly incredibly thick (bit of sex pot though) Susanna Reid, who spouts some appallingly crass statements without ever realising what she has said.

So what is the choice you cry!?  SKY news has on occasions in the last 3 months been flaming brilliant, Alex Crawford’s reports from Libya were simply astonishing.  As Alex entered Tripoli with the rebel forces (all the while broadcasting using a webcam) SKY went to an ad break, on their return Alex was in the middle of Green Square, the words “I am here broadcasting live from Green Square” nearly made me crap myself with excitement.  She is just brilliant.  But of course there is other side of good old SKY news, the dirty diggers minions like toad like tory puppet Adam Boulton and revolting cow Kay Burley who likes to throttle reporters for jollies and is about as useful as tits on a fish.  As I write this I realise the best thing to do is in fact to go back to flopping around in my bed until noon and ignore the “sick world” presented in the news altogether. AND I WANT MY LICENSE FEE BACK…again.

TVI.

The Cornish Gazette, independent and Satirical news for Cornwall.