Welcome to Hull’s credit crunch Christmas. People are being laid off, everyone is skint and up to their eyeballs in visa-card repayments and little Tommy is destined to be bawling his eyes out when he discovers that Santa has delivered him an I.O.U and a handful of walnuts instead of a new bike and a Playstation 3.
Pub Landlords are committing ritual suicide up and down the city because everyone’s puffing fags at home to avoid catching chronic hypothermia in whatever half-arsed smoking area they have managed to cobble together. Grandmas are keeling over in their armchairs frozen to the bone due to spiralling central heating costs and with their last gargling breath cursing the Gods for not keeping them alive long enough to find out the outcome of Strictly come dancing.
Alcoholics are mixing cocktails of old-spice and ethanol as they can no longer afford their daily bucket of white cider and, somewhere in the depths of a council estate, a young boy is thinking about sniffing a can of Mr Sheen through his mothers best towel because he can no longer scrape the money together for a fiver deal of cellotape-riddled cannabis resin.
It's an 80’s revival! We've regressed 25 years in the space of 6 months and all we need to do now in order to cement our step back in time is to call for the Housemartins to reform and elect a conservative government into power to sing about. I’d say we are heading for another winter of discontent but the weak trade unions are too hung over on champagne socialism to strike.
We’ve become a nation of nodding dogs drunk on the superficial life of materialism. We've furnished our cages with Ikea furniture and set-top-boxes and forgotten about the bars underneath them. We've rewarded fame rather than talent, chased after dreams of Celebrity stardom and magical lottery wins. We’ve been fooled, duped and made to look stupid but sod it….it’s happened. We can’t change what has been but we can learn from our mistakes and ensure that this cycle of boom and bullshit finally comes to an end.
It’s time to experiment . To take risks. We have to start thinking for ourselves and not be swayed by media spin and the false promises of politicians. We need straight answers to straight questions and total government transparency. If something is broke we need to be told and maybe we can fix it. Not for self interest, company interest or financial reward but because it needs fixing for the benefit of the nation as a whole.
People need to get together and get talking. Form groups and philosophize. We need fresh ideas and new approaches to the problems however radical they may be. Maybe capitalism has had it’s day, maybe democracy is a sham. Maybe Celebrity culture has gone too far, maybe our kids aspirations are being warped and education is a farce and maybe we are on the brink of environmental meltdown.
All these issues need to be discussed but not in the corridors and board rooms of power. They need to be discussed in the living rooms and around the kitchen tables. The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people, so let’s show them some will, some desire, some fight or we will forever been known as the wasted generation of history. The generation who could have saved the world but instead just let it all slip away because of their selfish apathy and inability to collaborate with others of like mind.
It’s time we turned off our televisions for at least one night a week and devoted that time to something more pro-active.
A man who sits on his arse in a comfortable chair eating pasties, drinking beer and watching The Bill isn’t a man he’s like the pet rabbit whose name you never remember and then one day he’ll keel over and die in his hutch with a mouthful of food and someone will stick him in a shoe box and bury him in the garden. He never had a positive impact on society, he never fought for freedom, advocated any change, campaigned for the rights of all the other rabbits. He was quite content to live and die as long as someone provided him with carrots, water and straw for a bed.
The rabbit existed. It didn’t live and it’s about time we all used the life that we have in order to ensure that the future is one of community, common sense and reason. Not of splintered individualism and uncontested stupidity and if anyone wants to blame someone for the state of the world, the state of the economy and the constant war and injustice, then the first blame you should cast is to blame yourself.
You are either doing nothing to improve the situation, or you are not doing enough.
Anyway, Merry Christmas… and, to one and to all, a good night.
Bugs Bunny.
(2007)
Pub Landlords are committing ritual suicide up and down the city because everyone’s puffing fags at home to avoid catching chronic hypothermia in whatever half-arsed smoking area they have managed to cobble together. Grandmas are keeling over in their armchairs frozen to the bone due to spiralling central heating costs and with their last gargling breath cursing the Gods for not keeping them alive long enough to find out the outcome of Strictly come dancing.
Alcoholics are mixing cocktails of old-spice and ethanol as they can no longer afford their daily bucket of white cider and, somewhere in the depths of a council estate, a young boy is thinking about sniffing a can of Mr Sheen through his mothers best towel because he can no longer scrape the money together for a fiver deal of cellotape-riddled cannabis resin.
It's an 80’s revival! We've regressed 25 years in the space of 6 months and all we need to do now in order to cement our step back in time is to call for the Housemartins to reform and elect a conservative government into power to sing about. I’d say we are heading for another winter of discontent but the weak trade unions are too hung over on champagne socialism to strike.
We’ve become a nation of nodding dogs drunk on the superficial life of materialism. We've furnished our cages with Ikea furniture and set-top-boxes and forgotten about the bars underneath them. We've rewarded fame rather than talent, chased after dreams of Celebrity stardom and magical lottery wins. We’ve been fooled, duped and made to look stupid but sod it….it’s happened. We can’t change what has been but we can learn from our mistakes and ensure that this cycle of boom and bullshit finally comes to an end.
It’s time to experiment . To take risks. We have to start thinking for ourselves and not be swayed by media spin and the false promises of politicians. We need straight answers to straight questions and total government transparency. If something is broke we need to be told and maybe we can fix it. Not for self interest, company interest or financial reward but because it needs fixing for the benefit of the nation as a whole.
People need to get together and get talking. Form groups and philosophize. We need fresh ideas and new approaches to the problems however radical they may be. Maybe capitalism has had it’s day, maybe democracy is a sham. Maybe Celebrity culture has gone too far, maybe our kids aspirations are being warped and education is a farce and maybe we are on the brink of environmental meltdown.
All these issues need to be discussed but not in the corridors and board rooms of power. They need to be discussed in the living rooms and around the kitchen tables. The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people, so let’s show them some will, some desire, some fight or we will forever been known as the wasted generation of history. The generation who could have saved the world but instead just let it all slip away because of their selfish apathy and inability to collaborate with others of like mind.
It’s time we turned off our televisions for at least one night a week and devoted that time to something more pro-active.
A man who sits on his arse in a comfortable chair eating pasties, drinking beer and watching The Bill isn’t a man he’s like the pet rabbit whose name you never remember and then one day he’ll keel over and die in his hutch with a mouthful of food and someone will stick him in a shoe box and bury him in the garden. He never had a positive impact on society, he never fought for freedom, advocated any change, campaigned for the rights of all the other rabbits. He was quite content to live and die as long as someone provided him with carrots, water and straw for a bed.
The rabbit existed. It didn’t live and it’s about time we all used the life that we have in order to ensure that the future is one of community, common sense and reason. Not of splintered individualism and uncontested stupidity and if anyone wants to blame someone for the state of the world, the state of the economy and the constant war and injustice, then the first blame you should cast is to blame yourself.
You are either doing nothing to improve the situation, or you are not doing enough.
Anyway, Merry Christmas… and, to one and to all, a good night.
Bugs Bunny.
(2007)
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