So the big news of the week is of course, the weather!
Once again disruption rules the land, planes cancelled,
sporting fixtures cancelled, Bands unable to get to Gigs!, let alone audiences
prepared to prise themselves from the warmth and comfort of their living rooms,
or beds.
The good news is of course it’s here today (Sunday) and will
be gone tomorrow (Monday).
Well at least it has given the Coalition Spin Doctors a weekend
off, for they have been busy folks poking Argentina, filling our screens with
pictures of the Falkland’s, slowly cranking the rhetoric up against Iran and
Syria in fact talking about anything except all the aggro in Parliament with
the House of Lords or the real effects of the Bills that Government Whips are
chasing through the Commons.
Of course they have been helped on the way by Harry Redknapp’s
argument in Court, a Government Minister feeling the full wrath of a woman
scorned and of course a certain footballer was being stood down as England
Captain.
Despite all these important and critical distractions we
should not lose sight of the new restrictions being put on the poor by what is
being called Welfare Reform. I
understand the attraction of “capping” Benefits, but if we are to this then we
must ensure that weakest in our Society are protected, and I don’t just mean
sickest and most disabled, I also mean those who cannot speak for themselves,
because they simply do not understand how the system works.
What would of course be real reform is for the Welfare
system to be simplified, some of the forms are just so complicated one needs a
University Education to work out what information is being asked for!! And I’m
still confused……. Lol The last time I
was sick all I did was send off a sick note and that was it, now, when you’re
feeling at your lowest you are awarded with a form the thickness of a Bible to
work through.
And what’s all this business about not trusting a Doctors
sick note anymore? No! if you’re off sick over an extended period
off you have to go for someone else to diagnose what you already knew…… talk about doubling the cost of illness.
OK, we all point the finger at people we suspect of playing
the system, I suspect we all know one or two folks who have mystery illness
that only seems to inflict them when called for medicals etc. made worse when you see them climbing on
roofs or doing heavy digging in the garden, or
sprinting for a bus, but I’m sure that a simplified system would find
the “hook swingers” out faster and more effectively than the current madness.
Just a personal point of view.
And while we are all debating as to whether we can all
survive on £26K or not, remember what lies behind it, a whole raft of new
regulations and systems designed to reduce expenditure, do not be fooled!! Or
distracted.
As to the NHS Bill.
Quite simply this needs to be stopped in it’s tracks immediately. It’s total madness. Why every Government thinks that giving
Consultation and Management Companies Billions of NHS pounds to introduce new
systems and ways of working is cost effective I really don’t know.
Of course we’d all prefer the Government to concentrate on
the one thing that really matters, which of course is getting the National
Economy going and helping as best as we can to get our Trading Partners in
Europe back on track.
There were some other distracting stories this week. I was struck by the Report that suggested we
on the left are more intelligent than our friends on the right of
politics. But then we already knew we
were more intelligent, and any actions or words from the Left that suggest that
the Report might be wrong are obviously minor slips in the main scheme of things. Didn’t see the Report go HERE
And as if to prove it the Tory MP for Guilford decided to
entertain us with her stereo typed image of the North, heavy drinking, chain
smoking and spending all our time in bed breeding. A bit frightening to think that this view of
the North is still held firm by some who spend their lives South of the Watford
Gap. Of course I’ve tried to point out
that we can no longer afford to drink or smoke, and the reason we’re in bed is
to stay warm, thanks mainly to her idiot friends in the City and her Comrades
in Government. Check for the story HERE
Interestingly both stories from the Daily Mail!!
And this is not a Party Political Broadcast for the Labour
Party. None of our Political Parties
seem to have any answers, mainly because they are not prepared to think outside
of the market and Capitalist Box. All
our major Parties are keen to tell us what they can’t do, rather than what they
will do.
Well’ it’s been sometime since my last political rant.
And of course a Political Rant is my own smokescreen to
cover up the fact that it’s been a strange and quiet week.
I say quiet, Friday was a bit of a nightmare. I turned the computer on to discover that the
jmucreate.com Web Site had been suspended!!
It took a few hours to get hold of someone at the Host, but we got there
in the end.
I was not best pleased to discover that the site had been
reported for carrying inappropriate content, and given the current sensitive
atmosphere around Web issues and content my Host has a policy of act first then
find out. Not helpful, but I can see
why.
It turned out that the complainant, Mr Anony Mous, was being
directed to certain mainline Genre that made the Web so famous, and found this
hurt their sensibilities. The problem
for me was that none of my links, as far as I know, will take the viewer to
such exotic content.
The solution turns out to be a reminder to all of us to make
sure that we have all the correct Protection in place. The complainant had picked up a germ that had
corrupted his / her Browser.
There are a lot of such viruses etc. out there so please
make sure that you use a well-recognised Anti-Virus Programme and that you only
download updates and new versions of standard programmes from the Official Web
Sites.
For the Acoustic Rotherham Web Site it’s all well that ends
well.
This week on the Web Site we’ve added two new poems to Poets
Corner HERE from two of Rotherham’s
finest, Carol and Christine. I’ve also
been finding more Festivals to add to the Festival page HERE and Diary listings HERE.
It’s been a week when
all the spies have reported being cold, hence I don’t think they’ve been out
much.
Roy Blackman has not enjoyed the best Winter as far as his
health is concerned, and for a change has been behaving himself by enclosing himself
in the warm. This means that I have not
yet been able to get Roy to Masher Towers to sign the CDs. We are due to meet today (Monday) so fingers
crossed. It’s also meant that many of
you who have been attending Roy events will have missed him and thus not been
able to get your hands on a copy of the CD yet.
Orders can be taken on the Web
Site HERE or you can simply wait
until a member of the Committee or Roy himself hits your event / Club /
Festival.
The CDs for the Press have been prepared and you should
start to hear more about the CD in the media over the next couple of weeks.
The Official launch Party date I’m hoping to sort with Roy
later along with his programme of visits to Clubs. I’ll publish all of Roy’s dates, health
permitting, on his Reverbnation page HERE I’ll also import the information to his
Acoustic Rotherham page HERE
For media folks who
may be reading this, Roy is available for personal appearances / interviews
etc please contact Richard at acousticrotherham@jmucreate.com
in the first instance. Thank you.
While we’re talking about the Bard of Rotherham, I thought
some might be interested in a vacancy to work with School Children for a poet who works with the Yorkshire dialect. You can find all the details HERE
Despite the weather I’m told that the first outing of the Davenport Family has gone extremely
well at the weekend as they warmed up (in more ways than one) for the Cheltenham Folk Festival next weekend. Liz says “it’s rather loud” so if they have
to use a PA my sympathies goes out to the engineer who has to balance it all
up. It’s brilliant that our local talent
hitting Festivals out of the County you can find the link to the Festival on
the Diary page HERE Gig listings and
samples of their great sound can be
found on Liz and Pauls Web Site HERE ,
and if I may be so bold, there is something very reminiscent of some of the early
Copper Family tracks, but I need to hear more.
You can also find details of the Ciarán
Boyle CD “Bright Flame” on the
excellent Web Site Hallamshire Traditions.
Further North the latest edition of the Fool’s Gold News Blog is out and about packed with the usual great
range of information HERE
Those who can remember back to the dark days of 1973 / 74
might remember the imprisonment of 24 Trade Unionists who became known
collectively as the Shrewsbury 24.
Amongst them was Ricky Tomlinson who later became more famous for his acting
and comedy.
Nearly forty years after the events Legal Appeals against
the convictions of these men are to be mounted.
To help finance this a CD has been launched “Who’s Conspiracy”, containing eighteen tracks of political
songs. There’s also intro from Ken Loach
and an outro from Ricky Tomlinson.
Tracks from all the top political song writers. Full details HERE
along with details of other ways in which you can help the Campaign for
Justice.
So to the week ahead.
Well you’ve probably guessed from the above that it’s been a bit quiet
on the immediate local scene this past week, that’s not to say that there has
been a lot of beavering going on under the surface. I might have more news of that later this
week. However, this week is jammed
packed again with good things, starting of course with Tuesday night’s gathering at the Red Lion in Braithwell. This
looks as if it is building into a major night out, with many a fine musician in
attendance plus a special guest spot from Masher guitar Teacher, Mark Hearne,
who is always a treat to listen to. Who
knows, the Masher himself might even break free from his walls of confinement
for an evening. The Roy Blackman CD will
be available.
On Friday we have ROMP
in the House at the Bridge in Rotherham, a fantastic night of Open Mic Poetry,
and if you’ve not been along to sample one of these evenings, WHY NOT?? And
the Roy Blackman CD will be available at this event, so bring thy cash!!
All the usual Clubs / Sessions etc and you can find it all HERE
So with that and the feeling I have forgotten something
important we’ll leave it for another week.
Whatever you are doing this week have fun, support the local
music scene and KEEP IT LIVE
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