MOT, shopping and a legacy

17 April 2013

It looks like it will take me a few days to get back into the idea of writing this bog on a daily basis; please bare with me as I do so.

My VW Golf had to go in for an MOT yesterday so Jan followed me up to the dealer and we went off for a ride around afterwards.  First stop was a garden centre close to Coventry air port at Bagginton.  There we bought a trough like planter and a load of bedding plants for it.  After that we headed off to PC World where we bought a Norton 360 Gold security package.  We bought it new because it seems that it's cheaper that way than doing an online renewal, or at least it has done the last twice I have tried it.  From there it was home via the Crow's Nest and a pint of Fortyniner and a Smirnoff Ice.  Later it was back to pick up the car and into town for a bit more shopping before arriving home around 5.20pm.  Top and bottom of it all I was so tired that I just felt pretty well washed out and not up to doing much at all - hence no blog yesterday.

And so £8million is being spent on saying 'Goodbye' to Mrs Thatcher.  OK. I didn't have any respect for her as either a person or politian, but some of things that have been said and done since she died as well and truly OTT.  Even so, I don't agree with the cost of her state funeral!  There are questions of what her legacy will be.  For me it's easy to see every day. 

She made it possible for council tenants buy their houses.   Sounds good that doesn't it.  Did she foresee that problems with that policy I wonder?  The problem came a couple of years later when the new home owners found that with the increasing loan interest rates and the rate of job losses all over the UK, they couldn't afford to pay the mortgage.  So the then 'stay-at-home' mums went out to work to help pay the bills.  Now of course that it is expected that these mums will return to work as soon as possible after the birth of their children.  It is no longer an option but an expectation. 

This has then resulted in far less parental influence on all the kids as they grew up from the mid 1980's onwards.  Those kids are now having kids of their own the society as a whole is now suffering from that lack of parental influence.  Mad Maggie as I have always called her had a lot to answer for one way or another. The loss of so much of our manufacturing base was destroyed by her and government, a loss we are still having to deal with on a daily basis it seems sometimes. 

The loss of the coal industry is down her and her alone!  I don't accept that it needed sorting out in the way she went about it.  She actually provoked the miners to go out on strike.  The questions, "WHY?"  The answer is simple, "REVENGE!"  In the 1970s when Ted Heath was Prime Muppet, the miners went on strike and won and Ted Heath's government fell because of it.  Thatcher was the energy minister at the time and lost her job because of it and was banished to the opposition.  At the time she gave a TV interview where she promised that she would never forget what the miners had done and would be looking forwards to their pay-back time.  And that is what she did. 

However, Scargil played into her hands because of lack foresight and a lack of guts.  He is another man I have little time for and to honest he didn't help his unions just cause.  By not going for a full ballot because he knew full well that he wouldn't win it, only half of the miners were out for the full duration of the strike.  Even then a good number of the miners were going back to work.  Even though his prediction that the aim was close most if not all of the mines country was correct, in the end the strike became more about Scargil's political life than saving the coal industry.

Did Thatcher do anything that I agreed with?  Well, yes she did.  She sent a task force to the Falklands and kicked out the invading Argentine army.  The cost to the UK was huge, but it was a cost we as country had to face up to otherwise that same thing would have happened all over the world.  For that, and for that alone I thank here.

So now I need to find a photo ... ah yes, this one ... 

an Aerial Leader motor bike, a real classic of a bike.  We had word the rider and he had taken off the side fairings to he could give it a run and sort of a few niggles that might be there without have to strip the bike while he was out.  I was a real pleasure to see it.

A funny today then ...

A mate of mine recently admitted to being addicted to brake fluid. When I quizzed him on it he reckoned he could stop any time.....