Margaret Thatcher: After the Funeral

I WATCHED Margaret Thatcher's funeral live across the news channels. Interestingly CNBC didn't carry it, neither did Russia Today ~ but CCTV, the Chinese news channel had some pretty good commentary. In the end I switched off BBC World in favour of France 24 in English where the studio guests made some very insightful comments. (I did try the French version, which you can get on Hotbird but they were babbling on about Reagan's White House more than her so I switched over...)

Wasn't (granddaughter) Amanda Thatcher's Bible reading (Ephesians 6: 10-18) impressive?

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

I wish I could read like that to a group of international VIPs and a television audience numbering tens or hundreds of millions and remain so composed.

So typical of me to make some ridiculous statement and not explain it. "I love a good death" doesn't mean I'm glad Mrs Thatcher is dead, but that I like it the TV and press tributes to her life. I'm still very undecided about what to think about the woman. I was seven years old when she got into power, so during my teenage years for as far back as I could remember there had been Mrs Thatcher and the Queen and it felt like it was going to be that way for always.

I do think Margaret Thatcher was a great politician ~ but more important than this she was a truly great stateswoman who defended British interests abroad. Many foreigners, who didn't have to live with the effects of her domestic policies, looked on her with admiration. She was so obviously superior to her international counterparts (especially Ronald Reagan). She DID "get Britain working" ~ but also forced millions into long-term unemployment. She started hacking into the welfare state. Suddenly you had to pay for eyetests, dentistry and prescriptions (although you pay a flat-rate prescription charge (currently £7.20 ($10.99) ~ not the retail price of the drugs)). Then there was the vastly unpopular poll tax, replaced by the even more unfair council tax (the poll tax to fund local goverment was levied per person; with the council tax you are "jointly and severally liable" meaning if you share an address with fly-by-night types you are liable to get hammered for their council tax as well!)

There are many good politicians and great ones who make lousy statesmen (and women). Example: former (Labour) health secretary Patricia Hewitt, who was so obviously oily and slippery and yet totally rivetting to watch. I remember the time the BBC were interviewing her when her only response to a sticky question was how insulted hardworking doctors would be to hear such an impertinent enquiry. I thought she made a cheap shot there and I wasn't the only one to be totally unimpressed by her interview performance (which was usually fascinatingly flawless) or her lousy performance in high office.

Then of course there's Tony Blair. Amazingly charismatic at the beginning of his reign. And still able to be (apparently) disarmingly frank at the end of it. He gave every impression of being George Bush's lapdog and leading Britain into a war with Iraq that nobody I knew (and hardly anyone across the country) actually wanted. Or a war in Afghanistan that nobody understood. As of 2010 we were supposed to have lavished £20,000,000,000 ($30,492,453,118) on these escapades. And now the government's complaining it's running out of money!

Back to Margaret Thatcher: one of her greatest and most controversial legecies was that she allowed millions of people to buy their council houses and flats. Which I think would be a brilliant idea ~ if only local authorities had been required to replace all accommodation sold with new housing stock. Now we're in a situation where demand massively outstrips supply for public housing. The new Conservative-Liberal coalition are introducing a £14 ($21.34) a week "bedroom tax" where parents of grown-up children will be forced to pay extra for the now-empty bedroom. Which will undoubtedly cause a massive population cascade from 2 and 3-bed properties into single-bedroom flats. Leaving almost nothing left for vulnerable single people who would otherwise be in emergency accommodation. Or just sleeping on the streets. (Or in squats, like I used to do.) I was in temporary accommodation for about eight years before I finally got housed (and how that happened I have no idea. There was a process called "bidding", which I was told happened automatically, though you could somehow express an interest in particular properties. Anyway I got one I really like so I'm happy.

Other news about me: I'm still learning Spanish. Amazingly. I watch a Spanish-language Iranian TV channel on Hotbird called Hispan-TV. They do some quite good (overdubbed) dramas. I also get direct feeds from South America, eg Argentian president Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner's address to the nation. If I were in power I'd refuse interviews and do presidential-style videos too.

After the Spanish Linguaphone has been done and dusted (I'm still only on lesson 18 of 30) I would like to pick up some Italian too. But I'm terrified of getting the two languages mixed up. Just about every Spanish verb form (and there are loads of very complicated ones) seems to have its parallel in Italian (essentially the same thing, just spelled differently) and I know that if I don't really force Spanish grammar to seep into my very bones and my soul I'm just going to get hopelessly confused and not actually speak anything at all. While I only get four TV channels in Spanish, I get over 150 in Italian, including Rai 1, 2 i 3 i QVC Italia etc. Which means ample opportunity to practise. In my experience, apart from the close study of grammar, the major predictor of success in foreign language acquisition is PRACTICE. If you don't use it you'll lose it. So when I'm not tuned into Ethopian folk music all night I let them babble Spanish at me while I sleep. Somehow my befuddled brains dub this over into strangely mangled English. Which means I can't speak Spanish very well (because nothing like that happens with German or French telly). You see why I wanted Hotbird now? 1300 TV channels cannot be wrong!

Well I've gotta go. Binky is languishing in the mental hospital. For the FIFTH time in less than 12 months. And I have to bring cigarettes, scented candles, hair mousse etc etc etc etc etc before she flips her lid...

SO IN SUMMARY. YES MARGARET THATCHER WAS WONDERFUL (APART FROM MOST OF HER POLITCIES...)

VIDEO: Amanda Thatcher's reading at her grandmother's funeral...

(by the way, Amanda is only 19; "we are a grandmother" was her older brother Michael...)

I do love a good Death

SO MARGARET THATCHER IS DEAD! I can't think of a single other person who polarizes opinion in Britain so much. I would put myself at a central point in this ideological schism. Half me loves her (well, being as I'm Southern, middle-class and didn't grow up on a sink estate) I loved her when she was in power), the other loathes the woman.

While she was selling off state monopolies in telecommunications, power, steel, oil, railways etc I thought "privatization" was a great idea. Now I see it as nationalized theft. If it's good business to generate a load of electricity and sell it off in bulk cheap to companies who then sell it on to us the customers ~ why can't they sell it that cheap to begin with? Cut out the middlemen and give the discount to the consumer?

Thatcherism was, after all, supposed to be a consumer-driven society.

It's SHE who put millions on permanent state welfare handouts by destroying industry and employment in the North.

I do like the pretty buildings ~ you know, the skyscrapers and all ~ that Thatcherism (and neo-Thatcherism) generated.

Also there's "Thatcherite food" ~ which tastes a lot nicer than a lot of bland traditionally "British" fayre ... pasta with loads of pesto and foccaccia. What used to be called "foreign muck" is now the Daily Bread of the bourgeoisie!

Hey and according to today's Sun newspaper Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead is now number one in the download charts!

I would love to go on but I'm in an internet cafe and about to be terminated. Hope you're all doing well.

HERE'S THE VIDEOs...

COMMIES (and others) CELEBRATING MAGGIE THATCHER'S DEATH

ON THE STREETS OF BRIXTON

SCENE FROM 1939 WIZARD OF OZ

Breakfast at Iceland

I NEVER went to bed last night. I was too busy pottering about (can't even remember what I was doing now)... O yeah! I saw The Audrey Hepburn Story on True Movies 1, which inspired me to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's on DVD. The extra material was quite interesting. I have to say, if I had to go on a date with a dead film "goddess" I'd pick Audrey Hepburn... or maybe Marilyn Monroe; I don't know. I'm sure Audrey would have been more "real"... and she looked so pretty even in old age with her non-plastic-surgery UNICEF look...

Hey did you know when Katherine Hepburn died, Mrs Thatcher went and condoled a bemused Audrey at some Buckingham Palace shindig on the death of her "mother". I mean Audrey and Katherine... neither fitted the standard "starlet" role, and yet both so different...

Ukh, I nearly ran out of electricity yesterday. Thankfully I managed to top it up in the middle of the night: £15 ($24.14) so that should last me another week or two... (unless it gets really cold).

Well I've just been on a minor shopping spree. I bought so much food in Iceland that I ran out of money. I was having a real Glodemer Party fillin' that basket with Chinese chicken in blackbean sauce and chicken fried rice £3 ($4.83); "cooked meat deal beef 'committed to giving you the best deal on Beef trimmings' 450g £1.75 ($2.82); 4 white part-baked baguettes £1 ($1.61) ;

Iceland Taste of the Orient beef in ginger and spring onion with egg fried rice (in squishy packets) and I hope it tastes nicer than their frozen version which is like festering dogfood that's been left sweltering in the back of a car in high summer for three days ~ probably tastes like Old Mother Crack Pot's cooking £3 ($4.83); Iceland cheese coleslaw 300g 75p ($1.21) oh and some very yummy ready-cooked roast chicken thighs 4 for £2 ($3.22)... by the way, to any of you Americans, does this sound too expensive to you? I've heard a lot of price tags in American shops would be the same as here, only in dollars, obviously, not pounds ~ giving the American consumer a saving of 38%. Then I went into the charity shop where the lady asked me to mind the till while she dashed to the loo (she must trust me). I got some Judge Jules mix CD called Clubbed, something called React 10 (which I hope is dance music, but I honestly have no idea. As I told Lavatory Lady, I'm so old now I haven't a clue what's what. Then she said "If you're old what about me~?!" £3.50 the pair ($5.63 (that sounds expensive for second hand CDs)) Oh and I found a classic work of modern literature: Shirley Conran's Lace in hardback for £2 ($3.22 ~ it all sounds very expensive in US dollars). Lace is the book about the poor little rich girl, who, in seeking out her roots ends up confronting her possible parents with the line: "Which one of you bitches is my mother? Which one of you bastards is my father?" Oooo great high-fallutin literature!

Well I can't remember the point of this... o yeah because I'm tired and hungry. Might not make it back in to post whatever other rubbish I end up doing today so here's a Red King parrot ~ as used to frequent Bimbimbie's gardens only she says she's not seen any this year. The parrots and cockatoos do a constant flap-around the countryside, cleverly alighting on the right tree at the right time ~ when fruit is in season. Clever birdies...

I bet Bimbimbie will go white and nearly fall over to hear me say this, but I would quite like a king red as a pet. After having seen a documentary on traditional tribes along the Amazon where one family had a pet parrot perching on a stick outside their hut ~ and it obviously didn't want to fly away ~ my views on keeping intelligent birds in captivity has changed. Intelligent being the operative word. I wouldn't want any of those tiny finches who go nuts whenever you get near their cage... And as for cages they are, in my opinion, something for birdies to eat, sleep and shyte in ~ not to be locked up in when you're home. That's most unfair. You wouldn't keep your itchy tabby in a cage, so why the parrot... know what I mean..?

Look at this kitty ~ she looks like a Furry Owl (and I bet she is a she ~ hasn't she got such a feminine spirit, you can feel it...)

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