It's been a while...

Well, back again after being way too long in mild horror and disgust at what has happened. What's new? Not a lot really apart from Brexit which you may have heard about or Fucking Brexit as it should be known. What utter bollocks is that? Despite living in Kipper central in Thanet, a desperate island of extremely well-informed Quitters who do depend in part on large sums of money coming in from all the international students who spend their welcome Euros on goodies which are now 15% cheaper for them than following that really wise well-thought through advisory vote a year or so back.

Still, at least the vile Farage did not become our MP but instead we got the very honest, upstanding and definitely not guilty little Craig Mackinley who actually increased his majority here despite his name being bandied all over the press for his upcoming trial for electoral fraud in 2015. I suppose it shows how fair and open-minded (other adjectives are of course available insert one here _____________) many of  the forward thinking and sophisticated voters of South Thanet and other deprived areas are. Still, he wears a hi-vis jacket, hard hat- has a pretty wife and a matching Daily Mail dog - so the perfect person for the area. Ugh.

Still, on the bright side up the coast in Ramsgate on the harbour we have the world's biggest Wetherspoon's now which gives me something else to boycott  as Mr Wetherspoon himself is a funder of the swivel-eyed Quitter movement and of course it is, or was, opposite the most excellent Belgian Cafe which is the absolute antithesis of a Spoons - and, of course, as carnivorous capitalism dictates the original and quirky cafe has been put out of business by this corporate vampire which provides cheap food and cheap beer for the undiscerning. A winning formula which will suck the life and colour from other pubs and cafes in Ramsgate which, like much else in Thanet, needs as much life and colour as it can get.

Milk and honey

Need to get this out of my spleen. You know. This UKIP shit, the Tory twats, the legitimising of racism, arseholes in their millions about to shoot themselves and 50% of the rest of the population in the foot? For what? Some spurious and largely abstract notions of 'freedom', 'sovereignty', 'control' about which I am fairly sure the vast majority have very little idea about beyond vacant, empty meaningless words used essentially for the vanity of that appalling over-rated conman, Boris Johnson - a vicious right winger who has got this far surrounded by sycophants not least in the media, and by having an alleged shambolic 'personality' which has helped him to be voted in, twice. Why the success, the populism? Simple really, you know vote for Bojo  '  'cos he's a bit of a laugh, innit?' A sadly successful ploy to win the support of the hard-of-thinking.  And we are supposed to believe that this highly educated and articulate opportunist is now for Brexit based on 48 hours of weighing up the pros and cons of the EU rather than his own sordid career advancement.

Farage, the genial racist-in-chief,  of course has had to have a purpose to his life, I can see that and whilst deploring the poisonous bigot have slightly less disrespect for him than Johnson. Not that either of them would ever really care I dare say. Gove at least has a little more intellectual clout about what he says; however, the results of his education policies show that such intellectual clout leads to badness. It comes to something when I end up agreeing whole-heartedly with John Major's summation of the ideologues pushing Brexit.

Now, back to the EU - I remember being taught about the process of European integration as part of my history A level. Doubtless it must have been nefarious EU propaganda as it seemed pretty reasonable given all the horrors of European history and the great post-war advances in western Europe which have since cemented democracy in the post-Soviet east.  Moving forward, when teaching in secondary schools, Europe, what it's for and how it functions hardly got a mention. So little wonder that folk no so little and depend on a one-eyed septic press which has been nearly all hostile, passing misinformation as fact for as long as I can remember. One Alexander B. Johnson was involved in that - making up facts got him the sack from I think  The Times. The Great British patriot Murdoch sacking a liar - it must have been bad.

So, it should be no surprise that most people have little idea of what the EU is for nor what it does; nor do I suspect most politicos really know either. Out of curiosity, I attended a few Labour meetings to see what was happening after a thirty year absence. Not a lot. Dispiritingly, I stopped attending as, among the youngest,  I felt like I was in the last days of a near extinct species - that may just have been Thanet where the local Tory MP, Craig McKinley, is being checked out for fraudulent election expenses. Ultimately, aside from Plod and C4 news, who cares?

How does it affect me? Well, I suspect many of those bringing in nearly 50 million quid into the area through its language schools might choose to give their money to somewhere less overtly racist. Why stay with a host family who hate, without really knowing why,  where you are from? Yes, racist, white on white racism.  Ironic really, if it wasn't so sad. Yes, blame fellow Europeans for taking advantage, as many Brits also do, to travel and improve their lives taking advantage of often shit wages that British employers, perhaps donors to the Tories, choose to pay them.

Democracy and sovereignty - yes, on the doorstep many I spoke to in Thanet anyway,  have little concept of what either of these two concepts mean.  I had one muppet say that she wanted Britain to remain so that 'we' could stay in the Eurovision Song Contest. I tried not to wince but at least she was for Remain if for perhaps not the right reasons. Others talk frequently of dictatorship without being able to name a single example of it. That said when you talk of pooling sovereignty people take that in. No war between major states since 1945 also resonates. Free movement of people still though does not do much against the once dog-whistle migrations.

Freedom, sure there will be. There will be lots more. Lots more for the extreme right, the loony neo-liberals,  running the Tory party. Freedom, even more deregulated, unfettered freedom for companies, not-necessarily with our best interests at heart,  to buy parts of the NHS which we allegedly own, and then sell it back to us for inflated prices.

Of course it may all turn out to be milk and honey but I very much doubt it and as we queue up in the lines for non-EU passport holders, pay a premium for access to a club we were already in and have to accept free movement of people half the population supposedly don't want. And, further down the line perhaps when the milk has turned sour and the honey doesn't taste quite so sweet, under a Gove / Johnson / IDS government,  50% of the population might scratch their braincell and ask' why did we do that?'

Thought for the day

Twiddling thumbs

Whilst I am extremely happy at not having to teach dying languages to horrible, or even unhorrible English teens, the fickle world of EFL means, like so many on the poorly paid and tenuous EFL treadmill,  that I am forced every so often to take an obligatory extended unpaid holiday. It's great really apart from not being able to swan off to say the Caribbean, nice bits of Asia, or even France which is a mere 11 hour swim from my back garden. Yet, at the very nice school to which I am attached the paltry pennies do not roll in and the old staffers do not retire or die - some have been there since well before the turn of the century on nice (for EFL) contracts so they will not be heading off to the garden centre soon. People from another arguably more decent age of employment -  so why should they make way for an eager young upstart? I know I wouldn't.

So it is back to twiddling thumbs and finding imaginative ways of not going for a £6.50 an hour job that I am far too qualified to take on and conversely way too unqualified or experienced for.

Forklift truck driver, copy analyst (whatever that is), auditor, legal secretary, plumber and various others on offer at the local temp agency. None saying EFL teacher.

Picture the scene:

Over made-up, power-dressed, stiletto wielding temp agency hackette, biting curiously on the end of her pen as she takes 0.000025 of a second to size me up and realise that there is no finder's fee to be made from the badly smart-casually dressed epitome of a bored EFL teacher who has darkened the doorway and interrupted her coffee, anti-social media and gossip.

''Yes sir -  (may I call you Prentice - hmm,  that's one BA, two x MAs a plethora of certs and training...oooh a Certifcate of Kindness -  excellent now what else are you able to offer...? Oh, yes, er...the present perfect. ? OK, thanks so much for coming in, it's been so lovely to meet you, we'll most certainly be in touch....'

However, the local refugee club has got back in touch and offered me some voluntary teaching (we'll pay your fares) with those young kids who really do want to be here and to leave behind the Horrors of war and make a contribution to their new country that is holding its nose at them but political expediency and perhaps a smidgen of racism, won't allow them.

So the fickle finger of fate is luring me back to supply teaching which is a particular circle of hell into which I really do not wish to desperately descend despite the relatively reasonable rates.  It has happened before and although the money was good for teaching it is a form of prostitution too far at my age. The kids love it of course as it is yet another opportunity to give grief to someone, the micro-staffrooms offer no chance to mingle or break into cliques of overworked, whinging teachers drowning in management -  the supply teacher is ever the outsider until some desperate head offers you a contract as a bum in the seat to help him or her with the staffing problems brought about by the latest staff member to go on the sick. Sticking plaster is what you are but it can be OK taking it for what it is - glorified babysitting with, if you are very lucky, some lovely kids who are grateful for the sticking plaster and the possibility of being taught. Be too good you may be offered a longer-term contract and sucked into the vortex of targets, bollocks and bullshit that moved me on out of the state system and back into the less uptight and rigid and targeted-filled world of EFL where the money, security and opportunities are crap especially if you failed to get out when you were younger or faiedl to be the owner of the school raking in profits and paying disposable human resources a pittance. 

...and another thing: South bloody Thanet

...and another thing, yes, as a Little Englander of a certain age  I have lived most of my life under the heel of right wing governments of various hues of dankest blue or swivel-eyed Blairlite baby blue....(and yes, I did vote for him in '97 when he was  the bright smileyish future). Fortunately, I have had the chance to be away from the country too and could put my hands in the air and cop out limply by saying 'nuffink to do with me.'  However, these spells overseas aside from some poorly paid development work have been spent prostituting myself in loony Islamic absolute monarchies with appalling labour practices, dismal (they say uber-respectful) attitudes towards women and non-believers, so I really shouldn't be too worried, angry and pissed off as I am at the election results...especially a month on.

...but I am.

Ah well, at least being in Britain means I won't have any students or colleagues accusing me personally for the crimes of whichever fools are in charge. Years back, and long after the events, it was as if I had to take personal responsibility for the abuse meted out to say striking miners; various acts of murderous thuggishness from English footy supporters, drunken vomitous, shagful tourists in footy shirts;  as well as supine behaviour towards whichever sociopath was in the White House especially B*sh. Iraq? Yes of course- that was my fault (both times) and it got a bit sticky  being an obvious Brit when our toadying involved pointless torture and deaths just downwind from brother or sister Muslims. It can't have been easy for some of my studes or co-workers having to be taught or deal with someone who was seen to be representing a form of  'the enemy.' Whatever they did think, they kept it to themselves in class anyway. There were a few iffy moments politically but they tended to be with gobshite Americans who, for teachers, were generally among the most illiberal I have worked.

And now, I work (when there is work!) in a college with a large EU intake smack in the middle of UKIP's only council. Our historically corrupt local body is now led by the ex-Tory father of 12, bankrupt - the estimable healthy looking Chris Wells. An opportuistic Tory defector to the rancid kippers after losing his seat a year or two back. This charming man defaulted on his already discounted school fees. His local Tory party, the story goes, bailed him out rather than have one of their brothers on the councils as a bankrupt, he paid them back by defecting to the kippers when he lost his council seat. Subsequently, he has had the bailiffs at the door helping themselves to make good the shortfall to the council tax he hadn't been paying. Just the sort of man you want in local power....(sighs)

The all new Muppet Show

Yes, life is good - a new swivel-eyed loony and rabid right Conservative government exemplified by Michael Gove at Justice. Our version of democracy is as ever a weird and odd thing. 76% of folk voted against all the oncoming bullshit and bollocks. Shy Tories eh (sighs). There were some tortured discussions at work where most were not shy about their politics - anyone but Farage obviously,  even if it meant holding your nose, closing your eyes voting for the slightly less swivel eyed former UKIP treasurer carpetbagging for the Blues. However, there are some old school lefties who, like me,  could not physically put an X next to a Tory least of all one who claimed his link to Thanet is that he has a yacht in Ramsgate harbour. The slimy toad possibly with small man syndrome did actually make me nearly spill my drink in Ramsgate by canvassing me for a vote. Needless to say I laughed.

The new look Thanet District Council

Although little Enoch lost,  the council is the only one in the country to go Kipper. Not sure how sophisticated it makes the electorate - reject the UKIP candidate but vote in a Kipper council. Maybe it's me the unsophisticated one?  However, there maybe an unintended consequence from this vote. You are a prospective student / group leader planning to come over to one of the 700 odd language schools in the UK. Thanet has several in Ramsgate, Margate, Broadstairs bringing in millions to the local economy to host families, local cafes, restaurants, shops.  You do your research into the area - notice that  a racist Little Englander party similar to some of the nasties you have in your own country runs the local council. In fact it is the only one in Little England run by these objectionable fools. These fearful English nationalists/racists  have a strong voice in what is an economically  depressed area. Would you still be keen to take your trade to such a fearful, angry, unhappy place?  Where else could we take them / the money - hmm....Brighton looks nice...

Jesus and Mohammed say......