Minding our own manners?

Minding our own manners?

Yet again as I await to get on the bus this morning on my way to work, as two people were getting off, people started to get on at the same time, with the people getting off having to squeeze there way off the bus. Would it have really made that much of a difference had people just stood back in an orderly fashion to let the people get off the bus before getting on?

Or the problem of people skipping queues, be it to buy tickets for an event, or in the post office? Why the rush? It’s not as if the bus journey is going to get any quicker (Well 10 seconds quicker but come on!)

We are becoming more and more like the Yanks and it’s very frightening if you ask me, I laugh when I see someone complain about US tourists here, when in them I see the ‘Yank’ personified.

Going crazy if we end up approaching a red light at a junction, if we have to wait more than three minutes for a bus or we are waiting more than five minutes in a restaurant for some food.

We are turning more and more into a ‘Me’ generation. ‘So long as I am happy and get what I want f*ck everyone and the consequences’, would appear to be the order of the day. I am one of the minority who have had his toes stepped on one time too many, and feel the need scream ‘STOP’ as the ‘Me’ generation continue to cause havoc in their wake, as their envy goes greener, along with the desire to surpass the Jones’s, never mind keep up with them.

So we should now stand up and rail against these ignoramuses. The next time someone shoves past you getting onto a bus, forcibly tries to jump the queue in a boozer, or slams a door in your face as you are walking into a shop etc you should put them in their place as they are asking for it big time. So demand to know of them on a bus, what there problem is and what not, make them think twice before they go on ‘auto-pilot’ again.

So if you are in a queue at a bus stop and the bus comes along, take your time and orderly get on the. If a Friend is three minutes late for a meet, do not scream at them on the phone, give them about 10-15 minutes to arrive, THEN ring them, but in a calm and collective manner, to ascertain their current location and so forth. If a n old person or pregnant woman gets on the bus and there are no seats available, please give up your seat. Do not sit there looking around you all the time hoping someone will do it instead, absolving you of the moral responsibility when a good while later someone does give up their seat. When driving around a roundabout, do not cut across others, narrowly avoiding a three car pile up, and do not try and cut across people when looking for a carparking space, they got their first, accept that fact, and drive on!

All in all, if people stopped thinking solely about themselves, and sometimes took a look around and stopped to think for a second instead of running around like an enraged bull, how things would be so much better for us all!

Why must he always explain??

To me, without a shadow of a doubt, the best artist to have come out of this Island of ours is the man from Hyndford Street, East Belfast, Van Morrison. he may have turned 61 on August 31st last, but he is going stronger than ever, still travelling the four corners of the globe, year in year out, playing to packed houses all over the place.

I was 16 when I got my First Van Morrison album. My sister was travelling to New York to visit some cousins, and asked me if I wanted her to pick me up anything over there. I had just heard a very good song on the radio from an artist the DJ said was called Van Morrison, so I asked her to look and see if this guy had a Greatest hits Collection, and if so to buy it for me.
I thought nothing of it until about two weeks later when my sister came to pay us a visit, and she told me that the last time she was over after coming back from her trip, that she had forgotten to bring the CD I asked for with her, but that she was giving it to me now.
So I went upstairs and pressed play on the CD player, and sat on the bed. What I spent the next hour or so listening to just blew my mind away. I was particularly taken aback by the tracks 'Sweet thing' 'Warm Love' and 'Wild night' in particular.
Thus a musical love affair was well and truly born.

So I was listening to this new CD intently for about 2 months, when upon visiting the local Shopping Centre to get stuff for School, I spotted a new Van Morrison album on display in HMV.
I resolved that when I got my pocket Money that weekend I would buy it, and did.
This album gave me a taste of a different Van to the one I had initially become accustomed to. Though it sounded different to the stuff on the 'Greatest Hits' Album I had been listening to, it was still a masterpiece all in itself.
'Rough god goes Riding' 'This Weight' and 'The Burning Ground' particular highlights for me.

Since then I have bought many of his official albums, and tonnes of bootlegs too.
As far as I remember, I have 4 different versions of Moondance, and 3 Different versions of 'Have I told you lately' between the legit albums, and the Live bootlegs. Most ordinary Music fans would not see anything in the different versions, but intricate and separate nuances in each have intrigued me no end. Each one complete with his wonderful melodic distinctive voice, some versions slow in tone and other a fast higher pitched enthusiasm is present.

I am a big fan of Van for his music, and I believe he is a songwriter par excellence. The poetry in a lot of his songs are just magical. It's like finding a book, and when as you read through it all these fantastic images seem to come to life. Just now I have rediscovered what I would personally class definitely a 'lost gem' from Van Morrison - The song 'Country Fair' Track 10 on the grossly underrated 'Veedon Fleece Album' Twas just going through my collection on my computer, and decide just to click on it as a hunch, and it is infinitely beauty and calmness personified.

Just to hear Van go into one of his trance like chants with just a flute and guitar or Piano in the background is truly a joy to behold. - Actually I would love to see, and I'm sure many other Van Morrison fans too, a 'Sean Nos' Van Album, featuring Van's voice and nothing else!

But sadly a fair whack of my friends and acquaintances look at me with abject horror if they are in my house, and I stick on a Van Morrison CD in my Hi-fi, or select one of his tracks in a Juke Box in a pub and so forth. They just pass a remark that 'he would put you to sleep' or that 'My Grandad listens to him, but he's like 50 years older than you for Christ's sake!'
And then inevitably another of the group I'm sitting with pipes in 'Actually you would not BELIEVE what I read in the paper the other day about him!' I simply reply 'Whatever it is I don't wanna know'; 'But I thought you were a big fan of his' I would here coming at me from my left. 'Yes indeed I am a fan of his, Van's music is magical and mystical, but unless you are going to tell me you read he is releasing a new album soon, or is playing a gig in Ireland within the next 6 months, I don't wanna know'

It saddens me that so many journalists and what have you, simply see the lyrical genius as nothing more than something to ridicule. As Louis Walsh would tell you, you would have to be an artist of immense talent to be able to remain strong in the music business for ten years, never mind for over 30 as Van has managed. So what if he gets a bit stroppy at times, or likes to have a bit of a laugh in some hotel bar in Dublin - Who doesn't like to have a good time with his mates down the local, or gets p*ssed off if he is stuck for the past 20 minutes on the Grand Canal, having only moved 200 yards in his car??
Some journalists constantly go on about how the new album he has brought out that they were reviewing is 'nothing like Astral weeks/ is nowhere near the standard of Astral Weeks' etc. But that album will still sell loads of copies around the world. Check out David Bowie's first album, and his last, do the same for Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton and so forth and you would find significant differences in both albums, but at the same time they both, in the musical sense, are both equally good albums. Yes you might suddenly remember an album he released an 1974 that surpasses everything else he produced before or after it, yet you still still there thoroughly enjoying the Bowie/Clapton CD he released in 2006.

I just wish Van would be given the credit he genuinely in the fullest sense deserves, and instead of knocking him 24/7, that even just now and again, people acknowledge the major contribution that Van has made to the Music scene over the last 30 years and more.

I have no doubt that when Van passes away (Which hopefully will be a very, very long time away!) they will almost certainly erect a monument and the like to him in Belfast, and other places around the world. But why wait until then? He deserves fulsome recognition for for the joy he has brought into many peoples ears and hearts, but sadly it my well end up being whenever God shines his light oin him, and lift him and turns him around towards heaven, that many begin to truly appreciate what they had in their midst...

Will people who voted Democrat be 'Short change-d'?

So the dust has settled over Grant Park Chicago, and the Council's sanitation department has cleaned up all the empty bottles and other rubbish from the grass fields that dominated this public amenity. Barrack Obama is busily annointing the courtiers to his throne, whilst the cheerleaders who were in Grant Park on Tuesday Morning Eastern Time day dream about all the great things Obama will do for the USA now that he has his hands on power - Or will he?

Obama spent a mind boggling $600 MILLION on his election campaign. His PR people kept droning on and on about the fact that, as they put it, so many ordinary men and women were putting their hands in their pockets, and handing over what little cash they could afford as they shared Obama's 'Dream' for The US. But the truth is not full of rainbows and lush green grass on the other side post January 23rd, and Obama's inauguration.

The fact is that a lot of the murky cesspool that has characterised the Bush regime will remain. So instead of Obama getting rid of the political pollution that has reeked America and who's smell has stank across the world, the rotten morass will continue to grow largely unabated. Yes you might have different hands controlling the levers, but they will be driving them in the same direction as Bush and his cronies have been doing for the past eight years.

NOBODY hands over money for nothing, (Well unless you're a Wall street trader treading the markets that is!) and make no doubt about it, a large chuck of the $600M donors will have been given receipts detailing exactly what it is they have bought. If Obama was even 1/4 of the man many are making him out to be, would Corporate, Capitalist America have ploughed so much money into his election campaign? Of course not. I doubt there are many companies giving Money, if at all, to Ralph Nader at this moment in time. They know that Ralph has his problems with the Capitalist system, wheras Obama is quite happy to shake the hand of the devil and do whatever is asked of him, hence all the money he has received in return, during the election campaign.

The average worker will suffer big time as a result of the financial crisis in The States, whilst the banks will continue to get off Scott free. Yes they put a small number of high level bank executives in the Public I.D. parade for one and all to see, whilst they quietly used them to divert attention as the rest of them were allowed to sneak out the back door unnoticed, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake. One Senior Wall Street Executive splashed out $6000 on a shower curtain!! You can imagine the look on the face of a woman from Harlem if you knocked on her door and offered her a similar one at the same price!

Healthcare schemes, that are criminally underfunded, will suffer even more, as well as Educational initiatives for kids from disadvantages areas, and other important schemes.
Many couples will find that the box from the Xbox 360 they bought last Christmas is actually there new home, with the government standing idly bye as the banks are allowed to do whatever they please to try and squeeze every last dime they can out of ordinary people.

Just as much as the Bush regime centred so much of it's foreign policy around the need to grab as much oil reserves as he can, so the Obama presidency will in all intents and purposes be the same. Obama talked about a potential mass roll out of renewable green energy sources in The States, but he has produced little or no budget costings or time scales for such a momentous plan. This is because it is highly likely his 'plan' was merely verbal, in order to get more votes, and will not be lifted from the tongue or page and turned into factual, visible reality.

The Dollar is no longer king and plays pauper to The Euro, and the US economy is rolling down a very steep hill with disaster lying in it's wake, but the momentous and thrust is so sever there is nothing people can do, using the implements of Capitalism to stop it.

What we need in the US is democratic Socialist administration of the whole country. The people would have the right to decide how the economy is run, how their local police force operates, and be able to appoint judges in a fair and democratic manner etc. They should also be able to universally get access to free and properly resourced health and education care, and religion would have no official mandate or whatever to interfere in the official running of the country.

So there will still be thousands of troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan heaping misery on the local population.
There will still be Billions of dollars sent to Israel, and hundreds of millions sent to Egypt etc, without any form of accountability whatsoever asked of those two nations.
Many more US citizens will continue to die from easily preventable illnesses due to not having the money to pay for healthcare.
Children will still be taught in totally unsatisfactory environments, and schools will struggle to assemble even the most basic of education programmes due to the severe lack of funding.
Many people will lose there homes and their livelihoods, and will struggle to afford the most basic of necessities in life.
Black ghettos will remain black ghettos, with large amounts of unemployment, drugs, crime and people dying young as they cannot afford healthcare.
Many US based companies will continue to treat workers in their factories in the Far East in a similar fashion that harked back to the days of Black Slavery in the USA all those many years ago. An issue that was oft talked about during the recent election campaign. these companies will still throw tonnes of money at Obama to keep him sweet.

So Two years or so down the line, a Black man who voted for Obama, rang his neighbours and leafletted their houses in support of him; gave whatever little money he had to his election campaign, and got up at the crack of dawn to be one of the first in line for the queue for the rally in Grant Park Chicago - He will stand at the television watching another viscous right wing announcement by the President, as he shakes his head and mutters 'Why Barrack why?'