CLEAR AS MUD

What a muddle! I need surety, a bedrock, a knowledge that I am (although not necessarily captaining the Good Ship Watson) heading in the right direction. Dealing with ambiguity is an occupational hazard as a manager, a father, a husband and as a citizen, but some kind of contextual surety is demanded to assure sanity.

Regarding the election, I needed someone clever, trustworthy and neutral to help me order my thoughts and make the right choice – not just for me, not just for my neighbours and for my ‘manor’ but for the greater good of my proud island race - including that lot at the top and the left of Great Britain. No such mentees were forthcoming, so I voted with my head, my heart, and my gut; the result has left me and my childers a financial headache for decades to come (to be fair, whatever colour takes the reins we must all quaff deeply from the poisoned chalice), the heartache of wondering whether my actions have dealt fairly with wimmin, gays and the (somewhat less vocal) majority of society who don’t care about ones sex or sexuality, and a sea of diarrhoea to swim through before a less smelly horizon hoves into view.

So, now the posturing and preening, the cajoling and romancing, the spinning and the flesh-pressing is over, what have we got?

Well, I now know what I know I don’t know, and the following is part of that cannon (WTF is he talking about? Ed.)

I am as vague about the election results as Bertram Wooster, but without the calming Jeeves to save me from disaster. How can the blue chappies have gained so many seats, hold more seats than the red wallahs and not have won (a dubious term in the UK’s parlous state) the right to govern? The election process we have at the moment (which I have not seriously queried in my 34 years as a voter, thus proving me to be a bear of very little brain) has the legitimacy of a game of P**h Sticks.

What is first past the post? What is proportional representation? Why are we one of the few European nations who cannot trust their elected representatives to deal with each other in the electorates interests in a collaborative, mature and non-tribal manner? How can the electorate not be allowed to vote because the rules say that the doors close at 22:00? Crikey, in Athens the presiding officers and their clerks would have been barbequed if they’d tried that! And what were all those queuing people doing for the other 14 hours of their day? I suspect that this is a reflection of the mobile phone, unlimited TV channel, ‘Googling is better than visiting a library’, just in time mindset which infiltrates all of our lives now – but hey, that’s another rant altogether.

I get why the global economy is so interested, and I suppose a run on the pound will stimulate the economy from an exporter’s perspective, though it will limit the amount of sangria I can afford … assuming I can fight my way through the ash cloud. At the risk of sounding like Edward (I hesitate to call him P**h Bear in case some fascist filters might stop my followers logging on via their work servers - I hear you my disciples, I hear you) we cannot carry on humming a happy tune and hoping the bees don’t sting us whilst we dip our paws into the hive for more honey. Then again, there is no sense in being alarmist and shouting ‘We’re all going to die’ as we rush to tell the King about the sky falling on our head.

The tale of Chicken Likken and Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Goosey Loosey and Foxey Loxy (everyone’s favourite flea-ridden and urine-drenched cunning hero) has interesting parallels with my world, bearing in mind that my particular zone is a curious space with unique wants and needs which do not include a bigger, thinner TV or a chosen football team to dissipate my emotions. Although the fable has a common premise, the telling of it can focus on different subtexts depending on your chosen paradigm. Is it about stupidity and egocentricity, about not believing everything you are told, about the ability of Foxy to use the mass hysteria to his own ends? (Hmmm, I have a mental picture of cunning bankers licking their lips). And the ending is just as malleable, with some characters playing different roles and some happy endings focussing on escape, some on revenge.

Like I said – clear as mud. I know I can’t live in an Enid Blyton world, but surely I deserve some rational linkage between the levers pulled and the outcome? Isn’t that what we all want? Even if we see the world through a heroin haze we should be accorded the respect to know what the best gear is before we stick ourselves.

Keep warm, people, I’ll talk at you again soon..

Anne