Politics – How do you eat an elephant?

Since last I wrote I have mostly been being busy writing to my Member of Parliament. Spare a thought for the dude if you will. I mean, it isn’t exactly his fault WeeGee moved to his constituency and then wound up with loads of time on her hands at exactly the same time that the Brexit shit started to REALLY hit the fan…..

Don’t panic though! I’m not about to get all political on you, well, not really anyway. My friends and family get quite enough of that in real life and besides, it’s not as if we’re going to solve Brexit here in one blog post, are we? We just have to accept that some people think it’s all a bit shit, and some people ~~are wrong~~ think it’s a bloody marvellous idea. Regardless of the rows we’ve had over the years and short of a MAJOR* occurrence here in the UK, the fact remains that in less than a month it looks like the UK is set to leave the European Union. The only question, it would seem, is whether we leave in an orderly fashion (whereby we agree to the agreement that the UK Government has already agreed to) or in a disorderly fashion (whereby we do not agree to the agreement that the UK Government has already agreed to). And it’s the prospect of a disorderly Brexit that has led me to seek urgent assurances from my MP. Usually when I write to my MP I do it because I’m a bit of a busy body and I listen to too much Radio 4, but this time it really is personal.

It is still not immediately clear what, if any, plans the Government have made to ensure the continuity of supply of LIFE-SAVING cancer drugs in the event of a disorderly Brexit. As far as the publicly available information goes, the position appears to be “if” everybody does what the government have asked them to do, there “shouldn’t” be a problem. The thing is, I’m pretty reliant on those life saving cancer drugs at the moment – if and shouldn’t don’t really cut it for me and quite frankly, they shouldn’t cut it for the Government either.

I was, and indeed am, a staunch remainer – I’ve never made any secret of my views on this matter. But at this late stage, I am willing to accept that we probably do now have to leave the EU even though I wish it wasn’t so.

But here’s the thing – if we really do have to do this – and I might just about accept we do – WE DON’T HAVE TO DO IT UNTIL AND UNLESS OUR GOVERNMENT HAVE MADE EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE PLANS AND ARRANGEMENTS REQUIRED TO TO KEEP US ALL SAFE, FED, AND IDEALLY ALIVE. That we have anyone in Government (or on the opposition benches for that matter) who would even contemplate doing anything otherwise is the biggest political failure, travesty and tragedy of my lifetime.

And that – as well as this – Letter to my MP – is all I’ve got to say about that……

Here’s a song to play us out. I do so love it and it seemed appropriate…..

Love you all lots, like jelly tots,

WeeGee xoxox

*A collective ‘coming to our fucking senses’ might just about do it

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but there’s this petulant man-child who thinks he’s the President of The United States of America ALL OVER the Internet. I think he might actually be COMPLETELY nuts, as in “Maybe someone ought to stage an intervention before this shit gets out of hand” kind of nuts….

nuts

There are many things I don’t understand about Donald Trump. His hair, for one thing, is a constant source of wonderment. I mean, HOW THE ACTUAL FUCK does a dude who gives every appearance of being vanity personified – and who has all the money he professes to have – try on all of the hairpieces in the million dollar hairpiece shop and decide THIS is the look he’s going with:

I know it’s a cheap shot and I know nobody would dream of commenting on his appearance if he happened to be a female politician. The thing is, my concern is less about his appearance and more about what his hair tells me about his judgement. I truly don’t know what to make of his daily decision to leave the house with something that might actually be alive sitting angrily atop his head. There is one thing I know for certain, though: that wig was ABSOLUTELY NOT chosen by a rational man….

overcomb

At the end of the day Donald Trump is not my President, so Donald Trump isn’t really any of my business.

ASIDE: If I were an American he’d be ‘hashtag-not-my-President’ but as things stand, he is ACTUALLY not my President. Politically speaking, this is the only advantage I can find to being British at the moment….

The trouble, of course, is that the President of The United States has long been regarded as the de-facto leader of the ‘Free World’ and I think I might belong to that, whatever it is, if it still exists.

Look. All I’m saying is that if aliens landed tomorrow and I was forced to introduce that stinking sack of bile as Our Leader I’d be FUCKING mortified on behalf of the whole of humanity. To be honest, when the aliens do land tomorrow (What? Aliens land every day. ALTERNATIVE FACTS ARE FACTS TOO, deal with it, snowflake.) we might be better off taking the little buggers to a different Deplorable Leader – one who can string a sentence together and who perhaps isn’t completely devoid of any of the qualities that usually stop other people, and presumably aliens, from wanting to punch you in your face until you stop saying words.

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I suppose the thing with Donald Trump is that he demands a reaction. It doesn’t really matter whether you loathe him or you love him, one way or another you can’t help but respond to his strange dog whistle. Maybe the best thing to do is to choose not to respond to the hatred. I fear it may be too late for that this time but I’ll tell you what, next time an odious dickhead in a toupee turns up wanting to be the boss of anything I vote we ignore the fuck right out of it……

My response to Trump is, as you can see, wholly negative. I don’t get it and if I spend time trying to get it I start to feel like nothing will ever be right again – at which point I have to stop trying to get it for the sake of my sanity. I can’t understand how someone so graceless, so nasty, so utterly vacuous and so completely incapable of articulating even the most basic of arguments has become so fucking powerful. I JUST DON’T GET IT. I mean I get that some voters feel disillusioned and disenfranchised and I get that disillusioned and disenfranchised voters will (and indeed should) seek to effect change but I don’t get why anyone would seek anything in the darkest of dark places that is President Trump’s mind.

ASIDE: Incidentally, I feel much the same about Nigel Farage and his nationalist cronies here in the UK, although thankfully, as things stand, they are ‘just’ all of the above without any of the power. Farage, for all his bluster and airtime, is still nothing more than the shitty little tail that wagged Britain’s dog straight out of the European Union…..

straight-outta

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The question I’ve been asking myself, for months now is WHAT IN THE NAME OF FUCK are we supposed to do? How do you stand up for what you know to be right when what is wrong is so much louder than anything you can come up with? How do you make the world the best it can be when the worst of it is at the fore?

How do you stop monsters in their tracks?

Of course, I don’t know the answer yet, not really, but I do know that there’s no good trying to do it all at once: How do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite. How do you make the world better? A little at a time.

Personally, I know I need to be careful. I need to be mindful that my mental health can be fragile, that I have a tendency to obsess and that I am easily crushed, defeated and overwhelmed. I need to remember that refusing to stand idly by is not the same thing as taking on the whole world.

And so, I’ll draw my lines in the sand. I’ll figure out what matters the most, as far as I can, and I’ll figure out how I direct my energies towards making even the smallest of differences. My time, my money, my words, my actions: these are the things I have and I’ll use them. I’ll write to the dudes in suits, I’ll smile at strangers on trains, I’ll march, I’ll agitate, I’ll volunteer, I’ll send charities what I can – in cash and in kind. In short, I’ll take my anger and I’ll use it.
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I won’t sit down. And I won’t shut up. Most of all, I’ll turn up for the task, every single day. Bite by bite and a little at a time, the monsters will be quietened.

Love you all lots, like Jelly Tots.

WeeGee xoxoxo

Category: Politics

WeeGee versus Brexit: this time it’s personal

What’s that coming over the hill?