non-poetical

The DCTN strap-line is “(mostly) first-person poetry, prose and opinion” and I try and keep the blog more poetical than political. Of course, with the UK election looming, this is going to be more and more difficult; I suspect there’s more politics in poetry than there is poetry in politics.

So, recognising that politics are bound to enter into things sometime soon, I’ll get started with a few fairly random recent thoughts. First, a somewhat startling headline snipped from the BBC website:

Well, that’s what I read as I scrolled down the screen, although scrolling further revealed a few more words: “Labour plans abuse case power review”. (The headline on the actual story page – Sex abuse: Labour promises power for victims to challenge police – begins to be complete enough to make some sense.)

I haven’t bothered to check on which party is most focused on education, nor what changes each has planned for the National Curriculum. I wonder, though, how the politicians would fare if they attempted the 11-year-old’s maths SATs test on the Telegraph website last week. Particularly if they had attempted it before readers pointed out the fundamental flaw in the fourth multiple-choice question. It’s now been corrected, but when I took this screen shot there was definitely a pair of parentheses missing:

Rather than trusting the traditional parties, perhaps we should look to the alternatives. I am intrigued by the main “Manickfesto proposal” of Nicholas Robert Blunderbuss Green (Official Monster Raving Loony Party) to relocate Nessie to the lake on Abbey Fields in Kenilworth.

The photo – taken from the OMRLP site – is appealing, although the idea of yet more people dithering round the shops on a Saturday afternoon is less so.

Exploring recent news for the same area, I came across this apparently unrelated story, (again from the BBC) which comes, if not from Kenilworth and Southam itself, from a nearby electoral district:

They claim the flaming projectile was launched from a trebuchet, but it sounds suspicious to me. I’m no expert in weapons, but wonder if Blunderbuss is so confident of his own area that he has attempted a coup in the neighbouring constituency. Enquiring minds want to know.