General election & a dream coming true!

The past week has seen me not getting to bed much before 2am everyday, waking up 5 hours later, completely dishevelled and looking like a zombie, which isn't all that newsworthy in the great scheme of things.  Of course the news from Britain is that Gordon Brown, a dour Scot who wanted to climb Arthur's seat in Edinburgh, got lost on the way there and somehow ended up becoming the British prime minister.  So the moral of the tale is, if you want to avoid becoming prime minister, don't lose your way when going to Arthur's seat.

Yes, another general election, when all the senior politicians will pose in front of cameras, trying their hardest to appear as matronly as possible whilst at the same time falling over themselves to become the butt of many fashion jokes.  Men get off easily, wearing as they do those boring dark suits by Armani, Boss etc, and so remain as bland and banal as ever.  The politician is no different to the banker, in for what they can get, whilst refusing to give anything out.  The thing is though we know that we can't trust bankers, but we should be able to trust politicians.  Alas poor politician, I never knew him that well, so it's hardly surprising that politicians, on the hustings, standing proudly on soap boxes, mingling with real folk, want to get away to play a bit of a blinder and get elected to 'serve' the needs of the electorate; which is nonsense in the vast majority of cases.

There are some very good politicians, but these are generally too busy doing the work they were elected to do and so don't get much of a mention.  The problem with political life is that to get known you have to enter the dog fighting arena, or should that be the 'cock pit', where an uncanny ability to blow your own trumpet helps enormously.  Sadly, the most successful politicians seem to be those not doing the things they were elected for.  But anyway, the next few weeks will see the media feeding frenzy, which will be stuffing itself on a vast amount of inconsequential rubbish, no doubt helped along by an amount of hot air dangerously close to melting more of the arctic ice cap, which in turn will threaten the good people of Greenland as it becomes ever more liable to disappear due to rising sea levels.

On a more personal note, having finally got my book published, click here for a copy, I've sold a few and whilst I'm as much in the dark about what people like to read as the next man, I've already received some wonderful feedback about it.  Clearly I'm under no illusions that this book is likely to make my fortune, but it somehow makes you feel that you're contributing to someone's life in a positive way.  As my son, Tony, pointed out last night good reviews are one thing but also bad reviews are a possibility too; yes, my son likes to keep his dad's size nines firmly planted, and rightly so.  So bad reviews will come and I don't really mind that providing it's constructive because that always helps, no matter how negative it might appear.  Besides my ego's not that big and I'm unlikely to use the self destruct button at worse, or for that matter run naked around the city shouting 'Woe is me, woe is me' or some other fanciful quote from 17th century England.

However, as a final note, and now I'm having to market the book which for me is an oxymoron, no idea what it means but I've always liked the word, I would ask all of you to spread the word and ask friends etc to download the free sample of the book, it only takes a couple of minutes.  Or if you're feeling generous and want to see this old miserable git move ever closer to his ultimate dream of following the one love he can aspire to and achieve, then please buy it.  I've left the price of the book low, so that I don't have to compete against the price of a starbucks coffee.

Many thanks everyone who has supported me, and helped make a lifelong dream happen.  From little acorns do mighty oak trees grow, or in my case 'From wriggling tadpoles to who ate all the pies' hell, he needs to do something to help him smile! :-)