(Note that the views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily correspond to the views or offical position of the branch or the national union.)I’ve just got back from a week on the Isle of Mull. If Mull isn’t the most beautiful place on God’s earth, then I don’t know what is. Actually, it’s not really God’s work, it’s volcanoes and ice erosion, but you get what I mean. While there, we made the trip over to Iona, set in a beautiful turquoise sea with white sand beaches. John Smith is buried in the graveyard there, along with socialism. The earth in the graveyard looks uneven and disturbed, presumably from the effect of Mr Smith turning in his grave. The graveyard, needless to say, has a view to die for.
News that may have passed you by is that the military working dogs in Afghanistan and Iraq are to get state of the art air- conditioned kennel units at a cost of £1.2 million, according to the MoD website (17 March 2008). That will cheer up the fighting force no end. I wonder how much body armour £1.2 million buys? But then the Brits have always though more of animals than people; the NSPCC, for example, takes in less per year in donations than the Donkey Sanctuary. The fines for cruelty to animals are far higher than fines for assaulting a human – I’m a magistrate, so I should know. You might say that’s because animals can’t answer back or protest, but hypocrites that we are, we still happily eat them or wear their skins on our feet. Go figure.
Anyway, just to cheer you up, and to show that EDS aren’t heartless bastards who don’t look after staff, here is a snippet I dug out from the New York Times archive: ”Electronic Data Systems, the technology-outsourcing company, said Wednesday that it had offered extra retirement benefits to about 12,000 employees in the United States if they would retire early.” (September 13, 2007) See, they are all heart. So when push comes to shove, just remind them of that offer. What’s good enough for Americans is good enough for British workers as well. There’s actually quite on lot on the NYT archive about EDS, and none of it makes particularly edifying reading, though most of it is historical, I have to say. Another way of looking at that, though, would be that the NYT reckons they’ve been shifty for years. Don’t the MoD do any research before buddying up to outside organisations? Mind you, anybody that will pay £1.2 million for kennels is not, perhaps, the most assiduous guardian of the public purse.
It would appear that my comments about the music snippets on the blog, i.e. that PCS officials don’t appear to have listened to any music after 1985, has had no effect whatsoever. (And I doubt that my comment about haircuts has had any effect either.) If you are wondering who suggested the “I wish that they’d sack me” song from Chumbawamba’s latest album “The boy bands have won…” it was me. It’s quite brilliant – best described, I suppose, as anarchist folk music. If you can’t find it, all the lyrics are on http://www.chumba.com/, but don’t try to access the site from work in your lunch break, it would be blocked by the thought police. (You can’t even access The Onion from work – I tried once.) I don’t think that Chumbawamba’s politics exactly chime with the philosophy of the MoD. To quote from their “Same old same old” song on the album, “Lately it seems no-one cares anymore that peace is a place where we rest between wars”. And that song was written 25 years ago. Things don’t change much, do they? Proverbs Ch26 v11 springs to mind. (Don’t go looking for a bible in the PCS office, you’d be wasting your time.)
The latest snippet on the blog (at the time of writing - Blogger), from a Jethro Tull song, should remind you that this great band, who I saw a few weeks back on their 40th anniversary tour, started out at Blackpool Grammar School, and are still going strong; which is more than can be said for Blackpool Grammar School. Jethro Tull took their name from the 18th century agriculturalist who invented the automated seed drill that changed working on the land forever. (Knowledge snippet) Anyway,I note that the MoD police have been sniffing round the PCS office, and that management want the site to be closed to non-members and password protected. Management ought to re-examine Article 10 of the Human Rights Act. Nothing on the blog (or in these articles) is not in the public domain. Or a threat to national security, unless sarcasm is classified as such. Anyway, I wait with bated breath for the knock on the door from MoD plod, or even worse, the heavies from PCS asking for subs.
Finally, has anyone else noticed that when one of those speed devices is at the side of the road – one of those that tells you the speed you are travelling at – everyone drives by at 29mph? I don’t. I always try to do 31 or 32mph. Listening to Chumbawamba does that – makes you rebellious.
