Just another Autumn day

We haven't had any poetry for a while, I think we can just about still call it autumn and there's a lot going on in our world so here is

Just another Autumn day by Roger McGough

In Parliament, the Minister
for Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
announces, that owing to
inflation and rising costs
there will be no Autumn
next year. September, October
and November are to be
cancelled, and the Government
to bring in the nine-month year instead.
Thus we will all live longer.

Emergency measures are to be
introduced to combat outbreaks
of well-being, and feelings
of elation inspired by the season.
Breathtaking sunsets will be
restricted to alternate Fridays
and gentle dusks prohibited.
Fallen leaves will be outlawed
and persons found in possession
of conkers, imprisoned without trial.
Thus we will all work harder.

The announcement caused little reaction.
People either way don't really care
No time have they to stand and stare
Looking for work or slaving away
Just another Autumn day.

1,2

How will our world be next autumn?

Not the first woman

As I didn't post last month I thought this week would be a catch up of a quote from each of the books read in August. It took a long time, partly through the break of Paris in July but I finally finished it.

'She was not the first woman, nor the last, to resent watching men with considerably less talent than herself enjoy far greater and challenging opportunities.' Amanda Foreman Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire.

Round About a Pound a Week

My thoughts on Round About a Pound a Week have been circling and now I think they have settled. I've been living my twenty first century life and thinking about their lives, seeing where my thoughts fit into their lives.

My first jolt was when house hunting last week. We're thinking are they big enough for us and maybe more if we were to grow as a family? Yet how many people lived in these same terraced houses? How large were the families? How many families - perhaps two to what were then two up two down. When they were built were the property developers aware of the cramped conditions people would endure? If the government had played a more central role would larger houses have been built? Would they have limited the sub letting?

"But, when all is said and done, these reforms could do very little as long as most of the present buildings exist at all, or as long as a family of eight persons can only afford two, or at most three, small rooms to live in. The rent is too dear; the houses are too old or too badly built, or both; the streets are too narrow; the rooms are too small; and there are far too many people to sleep in them."

Many of our blogs, my conversations with friends and family about cooking. I love having the time to sit and read cook books to decide what to cook or bake, yet as Maud Pember Reeves notes

"So much has to be done each day. The Lambeth woman has no joy in cooking for its own sake."

These are the women who enable the Jocelyn Playfairs to write the books we read. These women still have hopes, dreams, intelligence yet no time or space or materials to share them. Our female authors may feel trapped - how more so do these women feel. Can there be differing levels of feeling trapped and if so does it make any difference?

"All these women, with perhaps, the exception of Mrs K., seemed to have lost any spark or humour or desire for different surroundings. The same surroundings with a little more money... and a little less to do, was about the best their imaginations could grasp. Mrs K. liked being read to... It roused her imagination in a way which was astonishing. She questioned, she believed, she accepted."

There is so much to say about this book but I'll finish by saying read it and keep this quote in your mind as you read it.

"They are respectable men in full work, at a more or less top wage, young, with families still increasing, and they will be lucky if they are never worse off than they are now."

Round About a Pound a Week

I haven't finished Round About a Pound a Week yet but I'm already finding it fascinating.

"Had they been well housed, well fed, well clothed, and well tended, from birth, what kind of raw material would they have shown themselves to be?" Maud Pember Reeves Round About a Pound a Week

This was first published in 1913. Polly Toynbee's 2008 introduction to this book.

'Social mobility has ground to a halt in the last twenty-five years. Birth is now almost certainly destiny. Some people may escape - but only in the same sense that some people may win the lottery....Britain now has the same distribution of wealth as it had in 1937 - and it's going backwards. At the present pace of growing inequality, we will return to 1913.' Polly Toynbee

Influencing Mass Thought

A House in the Country was first published in 1944. This passage seems to live throughout centuries and countries.

'In passing it struck Charles that one of the differences between totalitarianism and democracy was that the dictators told their people what they must think, while democratic leaders set out to show theirs what they were thinking. Whether or not these two methods of influencing mass thought came to the same thing in the end remained to be seen.' Jocelyn Playfair A House in the Country

25th January 2011

RefuTEA

I'm posting today about something that will happen tomorrow. Maybe by reading this today if you see this out and about tomorrow you'll know a little more about it. The Refugee Council are organising this as a fund raising event.

Why your RefuTEA matters
Everyday we meet asylum seekers and refugees who have fled the most unimaginable situations, including war, torture and persecution. They are simply looking for a place of safety, as any of us would. They want to rebuild their lives - to work and contribute to society.
In the UK, the vast majority of asylum seekers are not allowed to work and are forced to rely on government support, typically around £5 a day. As a result, many live in poverty and have poor health.
Flaws in the decision-making process mean too many people who genuinely need protection here are turned down. They then live in limbo – unable to return home safely, forbidden from working and reliant on very limited financial support, or left destitute and homeless. Recent estimates suggest there are around 300,000 destitute, refused asylum seekers living in Britain.
The Refugee Council helps these asylum seekers and refugees in the UK and is campaigning for a fairer, more humane asylum system. Your RefuTEA will help us raise the vital funds we need to continue our life-saving and life-changing work. We can’t think of a better reason to put the kettle on.
Thank you!


And why did they choose tea? because 'Tea is supportive, warm and welcoming - that’s just how we want refugees to feel in the UK.'

Right off to bake my cake.

Election Thursday 2

A short one today but it brings a wry smile to my face when I read it and then look at the date - the start of a new millenium.
'It would be nice if the poor were to get even half the money that is spent studying them.'
Bill Vaughan The Observer 2nd January 2000

Election Thursday 1

So, the elections have been formally announced and in four weeks time we vote. Are you interested in the upcoming elections? Do you see yourself as political? Looking through my quote book I've stored quite a few about, not necessarily politics, but about nations, democracy, how we get along in society and what society means. So for the next four Thursdays the quotes will be slightly different. This first one is where good oratory feeds into poetry and sometimes prose. If the message doesn't agree with you I hope you like the rhythm.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected Prime Minister, I warn you...

I warn you that you will have pain – when heating and relief depend on payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won't pay in an economy that can't pay.

I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor cannot afford.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light...

If Margaret Thatcher wins

I warn you not to be ordinary

I warn you not to be young

I warn you not to fall ill

I warn you not to get old.

Neil Kinnock Election Speech Bridgend 1983