UK – Page 110 – don't confuse the narrator

political ambiguity

It’s the first time in decades that I’ve been in the UK for a general election, and I’m finding all this uncertainty absolutely fascinating. Maybe the fact I don’t have to live with the aftermath – at least not as a resident – helps.

I liked this quote from the BBC lunchtime television news today:

[The Liberal Democrats] must decide who they want to govern.

In normal speech, at least, that is delightfully ambiguous, and conjures the idea of the Lib Dems keeping their coalition partners, whichever party they might be, on a very short leash.

Technically, that interpretation probably demands the use of “whom”, but how many of Britain’s electorate would distinguish the grammatical forms?

magnificent

Political commentary is a bit dry, so I’ll add this photo to brighten the page up a bit.

The tree was grown from seed and although it’s about twenty years old, it’s been kept small and is only about six foot tall. It has around ten flowers each year.

The slightly strange framing here is because the photo was taken ‘blind’ from underneath with just a phone camera.

The photo prompts me to post a fragment of a collaborative poem from a couple of years ago. I really should go back and worry it into some kind of shape, but, for the moment, these are the last few lines:
Continue reading “magnificent”

political priorities

On the BBC lunchtime news today they were talking about the new MPs at Westminster whose attempts to find their way around would be hampered by the fact they don’t know if they are part of the government or the oppostion.

I was particularly taken with the comment that they’d be:

learning how to use their new laptops, learning how to use their new phones and learning how to do their expenses.

Just think how much more confident the public would have been in the political system last year if MPs had been taught how to claim their expenses correctly.

april

While others bundle and bunch
 under umbrellas, shrug
 into pak-a-macs and hunch deep 
into their collars, their faces
 scrunched, gurning
 against the elements, she 
pokes tongues 
at raindrops and laughs 
glitter from her hair. 

In the UK we are used to hearing that “April showers bring May flowers”, an expression that apparently can be traced to its earliest known form – Continue reading “april”

not if, but when

It's not if we catch you, it's when — Big Brother is watching you

For reasons I won’t go into, I clicked a link to watch a video on YouTube and was startled by the advert that came up alongside.

I don’t think I have a particularly guilty conscience, but I can’t imagine I’m the only person who has seen that appear on their screen and immediately started wondering what on earth they’ve been doing that they shouldn’t have.
Continue reading “not if, but when”