Category: Longform
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Peak Absurdity on the Ski School Run
Big kid went skiing with school today (his school breaks up for summer a week later than everywhere else). He had to be at school half an hour earlier than usual to catch the coach to The Snow Centre. Real snow, -6°C.
As we arrived, we realised he hadn’t brought his coat.
I quickly dumped little kid in breakfast club, and hobbled back to the car, which I had clairvoyantly parked half a mile away so the kids could scoot in the rest of the way. Bin collection day slowed things down, and the wife was in a state of undress and unable to fling the coat out of the window when I arrived home, meaning I had to haul myself up and downstairs to retrieve it myself, huffing and puffing and effing and blinding all the way.
Miraculously, I managed to walk without crutches at almost Olympic speed into school and presented a relieved big kid with his coat, literally as he stepped on to the coach.
When I got back home, again, in a pool of sweat, wife had gone swimming. She texted me to ask if our lad had got his coat, and to say “I need a Bailey’s after all that stress!”
This evening, when the lad got home, I asked him if he was glad he had his coat with him in sub-zero temperatures. “Nah. They gave us ski jackets.”
I Got My Mojo Workin'
Hovercraft’s electrifying take on Muddy Waters’ blues standard, transforming the Chicago classic into something distinctly their own while maintaining its essential swagger. The band stretches the familiar structure through strategic lyrical modifications and extended repetitive passages that push the song into hypnotic territory.
Recorded during their brief but intense 1995-96 existence, this version captures the raw energy that made their live performances so compelling. The 4-track intimacy brings the listener right into the room with the band, making the blues feel immediate and urgent rather than reverential.
The Pied Piper of Ealing
A couple of weeks ago, big kid sang at the Royal Albert Hall in “Ealing Together: Harmony in Diversity,” performing lyrics by Jewish socialist and renowned children’s author Michael Rosen in a new song “Ada in Ealing”, a celebration of a former Ealing resident, and the world’s first computer programmer and a pioneer of mathematical logic, Ada Lovelace.
Tonight he performed in his school’s musical version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a story about broken promises and failed leadership. The stage lights went out halfway through, but the show went on - the children kept singing, the story kept unfolding, and somehow the adults pulling the strings behind the scenes got the lights back on.
The biggest laugh from the grown ups watching came when the council leader overcame his cognitive dissonance about political dishonesty by not paying the piper due to budget constraints: “For a politician to lie?! It’s disgusting, disgraceful, dishonourable…. Dis could be the perfect solution!” They all understood perfectly.
Sitting in that school hall, watching children perform a story about adults who make promises they don’t keep, I realised I’d been writing about the same tale in “Perceval House W5.” The Pied Piper isn’t just a fairy story - it’s a documentary about local politics.
The council leader in Hamelin promises to solve the rat problem but refuses to pay when the Piper delivers. Sound familiar? Promise to “put people before buildings,” then close the buildings. Promise “transparent engagement,” then rewrite petition rules to stop residents asking questions. Promise to protect services by cutting them.
From celebrating Ada Lovelace - a woman who saw logical patterns others couldn’t - to performing a story about leaders who’ve abandoned logic entirely. The journey from The Royal Albert Hall to the primary school hall, from Ealing to Hamelin and back again, from songs about a mathematics logician to tales about a corrupt politician.
Ada Lovelace would have spotted the flawed algorithm immediately: spend £1 million on councillor allowances to save £750,000 on children’s centres. The logic doesn’t compute.
But she’d also have recognised the pattern in the Pied Piper story. He who pays the piper calls the tune. In Ealing, we’re discovering who’s really been programming our decision-makers.
Unelected developers and council officers concocted a plan to sell off community assets. Berkeley Group paid for MIPIM trips. The council issued compulsory purchase orders to demolish people’s homes to make way for a new road and Berkeley’s marketing suite opposite the new Elizabeth Line station. The council is “powerless” to prevent Berkeley Group poisoning the Southall community, like the rats in the nursery playground. The algorithm executes perfectly.
In the original tale, the children disappear forever when the adults break their promises. But big kid’s generation might rewrite that ending. They’ve already shown they understand the contradictions better than the politicians creating them.
When then five year old Zion asked the Council Leader directly about the gasworks poisoning and got a “too sciencey” response, he understood perfectly what was happening. Tonight, performing as part of a story about broken promises and failed leadership, he understood it perfectly, too.
The lights failed, but the children kept going. The system breaks down, but the community adapts. Sometimes the show must go on until the grown-ups remember how to keep their promises.
And sometimes, just sometimes, the lights come back on.
URGENT support to fund a legal challenge to Ealing Council’s decision to close 10 children’s centres.
So It Goes: AI On The Absurd Logic of Ealing Council
🎧 I fed my satirical piece about Ealing’s democratic innovations into Google’s NotebookLM.
Two AI hosts discovered how perfectly logical it is to close children’s centres while voting yourself a 70% pay rise. They marveled at the mathematical elegance of spending £1 million on councillor allowances to save £750,000 on community services. They found it remarkable that one person could tweet about “putting people before buildings” and then close the very buildings where people access services without experiencing any cognitive dissonance whatsoever.
The AIs were particularly impressed by Ealing’s latest innovation: rewriting petition rules to prevent residents from asking follow-up questions. Democracy 2.0 - now with less democracy! Much more efficient than the old system where people could actually influence things.
But here’s the thing the machines found most puzzling: impossible things keep happening in Ealing. Communities save their Young Adult Centre. They protect their Town Hall. They refuse to accept that decisions have been made.
Mrs. Patel might just save her children’s centre too.
The Save Ealing Children’s Centres campaign is live. The AIs think this is statistically improbable. Mrs. Patel understands perfectly.
Listen, then read why resistance isn’t futile.
An artificial conversation about very real absurdities.
Also available in Punjabi:
URGENT support to fund a legal challenge to Ealing Council’s decision to close 10 children’s centres.
Perceval House W5: Where Local Democracy In Ealing Goes To Die
The Children’s Centres Crusade
Chapter 1: The Art of Political Contradiction
In the London Borough of Ealing, our elected representatives have perfected something remarkable: the ability to hold completely contradictory public positions without experiencing any apparent cognitive dissonance.
Take our Council Leader. On January 15, 2015, he tweeted: “Think its really important that we put people before buildings. Important we keep activities going & that can be done in a different way.”
Ten years later, he’s closing children’s centres, buildings where people access those activities.
This isn’t hypocrisy - it’s innovation. Why limit yourself to consistent principles when you can have all the principles, simultaneously?
Mrs. Patel, a parent trying to save her local children’s centre, discovered this when she attempted to navigate Ealing’s democratic processes. What she found was a system so logically perfect that resistance had become mathematically impossible.
Chapter 2: The Democratic Möbius Strip
“Who decides about children’s centre closures?” Mrs. Patel asked at a council meeting.
“The Cabinet,” she was told.
The Cabinet explained they were implementing officer recommendations based on budget pressures created by government policy following community consultation showing residents wanted services maintained differently.
“So who can change the decision?”
“The decision-makers.”
“Who are the decision-makers?”
“The people with authority to make decisions.”
“Who has that authority?”
“The decision-makers.”
Mrs. Patel found herself trapped in a perfectly circular system. To influence the decision, she needed to identify who made it. But everyone who appeared to make decisions claimed to be implementing someone else’s decisions. The decision seemed to exist independently of anyone actually deciding anything.
Image: Jono Hey, [Sketchplanations](https://sketchplanations.com/mobius-strip)
It was like a democratic Möbius strip - no matter which direction you followed, you always ended up back where you started.
Chapter 3: The Mathematics of Progressive Budget Management
The numbers, at least, were clear:
- Cost of councillor allowance increases (2022-2025): Over £1 million
- Savings from closing children’s centres: £750,000
- Council Leader’s pay rise: 70%
- Number of children’s centres being closed in Southall: 3 out of 6
The Council Leader had discovered something revolutionary: you could simultaneously claim budget constraints while voting yourself substantial pay rises. The secret was treating these as completely unrelated mathematical operations.
“We have to make difficult decisions due to budget pressures,” he explained, while awarding himself £58,000 annually.
“But you spent more on pay rises than you’re saving,” Mrs. Patel pointed out.
“That’s a different budget.”
“It’s the same money.”
“You don’t understand local government finance. And we need higher calibre councillor candidates.”
Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly.
Chapter 4: Environmental Priorities - A Scientific Approach
The Council Leader’s environmental consciousness follows a precise hierarchy, documented through his public responses:
Tier 1 Emergency Response: Eels gasping in the River Brent receive immediate action [pdf) and public concern.
Tier 2 Public Complaint: Someone’s “bag and/or small child” taking up a tube seat merits a public tweet about “Some people.”
Tier 3 Busy Schedule: Children gasping from toxic air [YouTube] in bedrooms get told " I’m very busy." [YouTube)]
When five-year-old Zion asked him directly, “Peter, why didn’t you help us?” [YouTube] about the gasworks poisoning, the response was so technical that Zion said it was “too sciencey” to understand.
This established a clear principle: if environmental concerns can’t be explained to five-year-olds, they’re probably too complex for five-year-olds to experience.
Chapter 5: The Southall Paradox
Only in Southall can carcinogenic benzene, and naphthalene - which is known to be potentially fatal to some people with African and Asian heritage - be released into the air from the Gasworks development at levels way above legal limits and be simultaneously “not hazardous” according to Ealing Council.
One moment the Headteacher at Blair Peach Primary School is reporting asthma and headaches [p. 10] caused by very strong smells from the Gasworks site; in another moment, the developer’s head of construction is appointed to the school’s board of governors [pp. 7-8] and arranges to remove dead rats from the nursery playground [p. 11]. These events are clearly unconnected.
It’s all perfectly normal in Southall, where kids can be locked in class without ventilation on hot days to protect them from the harmless petrol odour, and the developer’s “community liaison officer” can simultaneously be the chair of Southall’s charity umbrella organisation, an ex-Tory tobacco salesman whose former employer paid for our ex-MP’s research assistant to attend a jolly. Nothing to see here!
Here’s where things get even more interesting. The Council’s own “Southall Reset” [pdf] document acknowledges that “challenges of deprivation, low pay, are particularly acute” in Southall, contributing to “deeply embedded health and wellbeing challenges.”
The Race Equality Commission Report “highlighted the need for an investment in adequate primary care in Southall” and “deeper meaningful engagement, and better conversations with residents.”
The Council’s response to this need for MORE investment? Close children’s centres.
“So you know we need MORE investment?” Mrs. Patel asked.
“Absolutely. The evidence is clear,” they said.
“Then why are you closing children’s centres?”
“Budget pressures.”
“But your own report says we need more investment, not less.”
“That’s a different report.”
“It’s your report. You wrote it.”
“Different department.”
“Same council.”
“Different budget.”
“Same money.”
“You don’t understand local government.”
Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly. They could officially acknowledge that Southall needed more investment while simultaneously cutting investment. They could document the problem and implement policies that made it worse. Each document existed in its own logical universe, disconnected from actual decisions.
Chapter 6: The MIPIM Negotiations
Every year, the Council Leader attends MIPIM in Cannes - what Private Eye calls a “booze ’n’ hookerfest” - with expenses paid by Berkeley Group, the company behind the gasworks development that’s been poisoning Southall residents.
He goes to “negotiate hard” with developers.
The documented results of these negotiations:
- More developments approved
- Continued toxic air from gasworks
- Larger councillor allowances
- Closure of community facilities
Either he’s a remarkably poor negotiator, or “negotiating hard” means something different in Cannes than it does in English.
Chapter 7: The Zionist-Anti-Zionist Synthesis
The Council Leader represents Southall Green - 69% BAME, one of the most ethnically diverse wards in Britain. Many of his constituents have strong views about Palestinian liberation.
His attitude? “People who commit themselves to being opposed to Jewish national self determination / liberation aren’t my cup of tea. They can exist, sure, just outside of the Labour movement.”
So he simultaneously represents a diverse community while working to exclude people from that community based on their views about Middle Eastern politics.
It’s a masterclass in representation: represent everyone, except the people whose politics you disagree with.
Chapter 8: The Protection-by-Destruction Innovation
The Council Leader has pioneered a new approach to public service: protecting things by eliminating them.
“We’ve made the decision to protect the front line by working with what we have, rather than allowing Govt Commissioners to slash and burn services,” he explains, while slashing and burning services.
It was like watching someone slash the low-hanging fruit on the trees and then set fire to the orchard; then selling the “infertile land” to developers when there’s nothing to eat.
But that wasn’t even the worst part. Mrs. Patel had discovered something even more troubling. Back in 2012, a group of unelected businessmen had met to play Monopoly [pdf] with public assets. Not the board game - though the principle was identical. They wanted to “sell off our public assets for £20m profit.”
Their target included “buildings used for services for vulnerable adults, children and families.”
“So they planned this years ago?” Mrs. Patel asked the councillor.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” the councillor said.
“But you’re closing children’s centres,” Mrs. Patel said.
“We’re protecting services by cutting them,” they explained patiently. “We’ve made the decision to protect the front line by working with what we have, rather than allowing Government Commissioners to slash and burn services.”
“But you ARE slashing and burning services.”
“We’re protecting them by cutting them responsibly.”
“How is closing them protecting them?”
“If we don’t close them, someone else will close them worse.”
“Who?”
“The Government Commissioners.”
“Have they said they’ll close them?”
“Not yet.”
“So you’re closing them to prevent them being closed?”
“We’re protecting them by cutting them.”
Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly. Round and round she went, trapped in a perfectly logical system designed to make resistance impossible.
The beautiful thing was that everyone was telling the truth. The councillor really didn’t know about the 2012 meeting. The 2012 meeting really had happened. The plan really was being implemented. Nobody was really in charge of implementing it.
Somehow, a decision made by people who didn’t officially exist was being executed by people who officially couldn’t stop it. This allows him to be simultaneously the protector of services and the person closing services - a remarkable administrative innovation.
Chapter 9: Democracy 2.0 - Now With Less Democracy
But the system’s crowning achievement is happening right now. This month - July 2025 - Ealing Council is rewriting the petition rules in direct response to successful community campaigns.
On page 294 of their July 15, 2025 council papers [pdf, see p. 294], you can see democracy being crossed out in real time. They’re removing:
- Residents’ rights to ask follow-up questions
- Requirements for senior officers to give evidence
- Meaningful participation in debates about their own petitions
They’ve solved the democracy problem by removing the democratic bits from democracy.
The timing is perfect: after communities proved they could win by building independent pressure (Save Southall Young Adult Centre, Save Southall Town Hall, Save Warren Farm Nature Reserve), the council is changing the rules to prevent it happening again.
Soon residents will be able to petition - they just won’t be able to ask questions, get answers, or participate in discussions about their concerns.
It’s democracy in name only, which is much more efficient than the old democracy where people could actually influence things.
Chapter 10: The Southall Young Adult Centre Miracle
But here’s the thing - resistance is still possible. In 2022, the Council wanted to demolish Southall Young Adult Centre to build 60 flats. The usual process commenced: consultation theater, predetermined decisions, official helplessness.
Then the “Save Southall Young Adult Centre” campaign launched. They didn’t try to work within the impossible system. They built independent pressure. They refused to accept that “decisions had been made.”
They won.
The centre was saved.
“How?” Mrs. Patel asked.
“We stopped playing by their rules,” the organisers said. “We built power they couldn’t ignore.”
Chapter 11: The Impossible Solution
Mrs. Patel realized the children’s centres could be saved the same way. But it would require doing something the system said was impossible: organising outside the official channels, building independent power, refusing to accept predetermined outcomes.
The Council had just changed the petition rules specifically to prevent another people-powered victory. But that only proved they were afraid of effective organising.
The system’s weakness was its strength: it was so obviously absurd that anyone paying attention could see through it.
The Council Leader could tweet about putting “people before buildings” while closing buildings where people accessed services. He could claim to protect services while cutting them. He could represent diverse communities while excluding their political views. He could prioritize eels over children and call it environmentalism.
All of this was only possible because residents had been playing by rules designed to make them lose.
But the campaigns to save the Young Adult Centre, the Town Hall and Warren Farm proved the rules could be broken.
Chapter 12: The Choice
Mrs. Patel had a choice. She could continue navigating the impossible bureaucracy, filing petitions that couldn’t ask questions, attending consultations about predetermined decisions, lobbying councillors who claimed to have no power.
Or she could do what the other campaigners did: build independent power and refuse to accept defeat.
The children’s centres could be saved. But only if parents stopped trying to reason with an unreasonable system and started building the power to change it.
The Council Leader would continue inhabiting his world of simultaneous contradictions, where closing centres meant protecting them and cutting services meant investing in communities.
But Mrs. Patel had learned something important: impossible things happen every day in Ealing politics.
If the Council Leader could be simultaneously progressive and regressive, protective and destructive, representative and exclusionary, then maybe Mrs. Patel could do something equally impossible.
Like save a children’s centre.
The Young Adult Centre campaigners had already shown it could be done.
Now it was the children’s centres’ turn.
Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly. Even this right wing authoritarian Labour government thinks it’s a bad idea to close children’s centres.
Chapter 13: The Engagement Paradox
The Council Leader had perfected the art of simultaneous engagement.
He could tweet about “absolutely committed to engaging, listening and compromising” while sharing photos of residents protesting his refusal to engage, listen, or compromise.
He spoke frequently about “transparent engagement” and “finding the compromises everyone needs to make” - usually while explaining why the compromises residents needed to make were accepting whatever he’d already decided.
Even councillors who were “most responsive” resigned rather than “effectively endorse his toxic brand of politics.”
But the real innovation was tweeting “Welcome to Dystopia” while creating it.
Chapter 14: The Investment Paradox
The Council Leader had achieved something remarkable: he could simultaneously remember genocide while investing in it. “Remember Yesterday, Act Today,” his council posted about the genocide of 8,732 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica thirty years ago, while investing £112 million in companies enabling genocide of more than 28,000 women and girls in Gaza today. More than 50,000 children killed or injured in Gaza to pay for his pension.
It was beautifully efficient. Why limit yourself to one genocide when you could remember one while funding another? The children understood perfectly.
Equally impressive was his ability to close children’s centres for budget reasons while sitting on the board as a paid director [pdf] of a corporation that had just received £140 million in public funding. The logic was flawless: children’s services were unaffordable, but corporate development was essential.
The Council Leader had mastered the art of proportional response. Children’s centres closing to save £750,000? Budget pressures, difficult decisions, no choice. Sitting on the board overseeing “one of the biggest regeneration schemes in Europe” with £140 million in funding? That was worth £2,000 a year of his valuable time.
It was a masterclass in priorities: Europe’s biggest regeneration project required his oversight, but Southall’s children’s centres were an unaffordable luxury.
He could simultaneously claim there was no money for community services while helping to plan a “mini-Manhattan” in his own borough. The vision was clear: 54-storey towers, yes. Children’s centres, no.
He’d found the perfect balance: cut services locally to save money, earn money regionally to oversee developers’ profits. It was like a perpetual motion machine of fiscal responsibility.
Chapter and Verse: The Evolution of Enlightenment
In 2010, our future Council Leader shared his frustration about “sitting around not understanding all this punjabi” at community meetings in the area he would later represent.
By 2020, he had evolved. “Words have consequences,” he tweeted. “Impact is as important as intent. Culture is defined by leadership.”
Ten years of personal growth had taught him that words matter. Which made it remarkable that he could simultaneously lecture about cultural sensitivity while closing community centres in the same diverse communities he’d once struggled to understand. It was a masterclass in progressive evolution: you could acknowledge that words have consequences while ensuring your own words from the past had none.
Disclaimer
Readers who think this is all a bit unfair, unbelievable, unhelpful or downright unlawful…
The most revealing evidence of how the system works came from inside the machine itself. In 2022, leaked WhatsApp messages [pdf] from the Ealing Labour councillors’ group chat revealed what they really thought about their leadership.
Mason’s own Labour colleagues called the Council Leader “callous, ruthless, sectarian.”
They discussed votes of no confidence, referenced “corruption and even theft” regarding the previous leader, and debated “bribes” and “rewards” for loyalty. Meanwhile, publicly, they maintained perfect unity and collective responsibility. It was the perfect illustration of how the system works: private recognition of the problems, public performance of harmony.
Mrs. Patel understood perfectly. The same councillors who privately criticised authoritarian leadership accepted Mason’s cabinet positions and pay rises to sit in silent support during council meetings.The leaked messages proved Mrs. Patel wasn’t imagining the contradictions - even the people inside the system could see them. They just couldn’t say so publicly.
URGENT support to fund a legal challenge to Ealing Council’s decision to close 10 children’s centres.
Sources: All tweets, council documents, and quotes are publicly available and linked in the original post at https://davidmarsden.info/2025/07/11/perceval-house-w-where-local.html
Try your hand at democracy in Ealing with our fun interactive FAQs, budget calculator and decision-making process explainer!
Related reading: Southall Under Siege | The Property Lobby | Air Quality Strategy Response | Action you can take | Think of the children | Save Ealing Children’s Centres (official campaign website)
Forking* Hell (Again)
Almost exactly sixteen years ago I wrote a blog post titled Forking* Hell! about the relentless, sleep-shattering racket of reversing forklift alarms from the Beaver Industrial Estate (aka Chancery Gate Business Park), just a stone’s throw from my home.
It took months of escalating complaints, sound diaries, late-night MP3s, and even a YouTube video to get Ealing Council to take the matter seriously. But eventually, following site visits and interventions, they did. Forklifts were fitted with quieter white noise alarms, acoustic barriers were repaired, and the beeping stopped.
For a while.
We had more beeping in 2013 and 2017. Each time it was the same old story, but also it was eventually resolved.
2025: Guess Who’s Back
After years of relative peace, the problem has returned. Forklifts with traditional beeping alarms are once again reversing their way into my headspace—late at night, early in the morning, and all day long.
This isn’t a one-off. It’s relentless. Some nights, the beeping continues past 11 p.m.; some mornings, it starts before 7 a.m. I work from home. My wife does too. Windows stay shut even in hot weather just to make it bearable.
And once again, I’ve gone through the motions:
- Sent detailed emails to the council
- Provided audio recordings and video footage
- Explained the site history and previous resolutions
- Pointed out that something has changed recently (a broken barrier? a new operator?)
Response time from the council: One week.
Reason for delay: “Your email may have been blocked because it included links.”
Suggested action: “Call us next time it happens.”
Because obviously, I’ve got nothing better to do at 6:45 a.m. than call a noise hotline while forklifts beep through my kitchen window.
A Brief History of Beeping
Here’s the timeline in a nutshell:
- 2009–2010: Original complaint. Acoustic barrier found faulty. Council intervened, site improved.
- 2013: Issue re-emerged. Council visited, spoke to operators, and beeping was replaced with white noise alarms.
- 2017: Warning signs. I emailed again asking them to restrict night operations or use quieter alarms.
- 2025: The beeping has returned. My patience has not.
The Ask (Again)
I’m not asking for miracles. Just the same thing that worked before:
- Site inspection
- Identify the offending units
- Replace the beepers with directional white noise alarms
- Check the acoustic baffle hasn’t fallen apart again
- Remind businesses what Best Practicable Means under the Environmental Protection Act actually means
If you live near the estate and you’re also being disturbed, I encourage you to file your own complaint. Noise pollution doesn’t fix itself.
Want to Hear It?
You can:
🎧 Audio recordings from our kitchen
🎥 Video showing forklifts in action (YouTube)
Déjà Beep
History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes, said Mark Twain.
In my case, history reverses slowly, with a loud, repetitive beep that echoes off corrugated warehouse walls and slices through what was once known as my attention and the “quiet enjoyment” of my home.
*Thanks again to Andy C
Person of Interest 101
The voicemail asked me to call 101 and quote my call reference number.
It took three attempts to get through to a human being. I guess they really are all busy dealing with emergencies.
“‘Ello, ’ello, ’ello. What is the nature of your call today?” (Why do police officers always talk like this?)
“I reported a crime online yesterday. I got a text and voicemail asking me to quote my call reference number…”
“Is that Mr Marsden?”
“Why, yes it is!” (Impressive detective work!)
“I’m afraid the online reporting form isn’t very helpful. It sends the information to us in a way that makes it difficult to understand what actually happened. Just give me a minute while I go through it.”
[A full five minutes on hold later…]
“Hello sir. You want to report the theft of your son’s scooter?”
“Yes, that’s correct.” (By now I wanted to report the theft of what little hope I’d had left when I started dialling the call.)
“Does the school have any cctv footage?”
“Yes, they do, but they haven’t reviewed it yet, as far as I know.”
[Another five-minute intermission.]
“We’ll need to take a statement from you and your son. The earliest I can visit you is next Friday between 8 and 9 a.m., or 12 and 1 p.m.?”
“My son will be either going to school or already at school during those times.”
“What about next Saturday?”
“Yes, that would be better. My only concern is that, by then, we will have lost not only his scooter, but what little chance there was of ever getting it back or finding out what happened to it. When I was growing up, the police would have just visited the school…”
“Yes, same here. Unfortunately, we can’t just go into schools these days. But don’t worry - this case won’t just be sitting on my desk.”
Somewhere out there, Finch and Reese are watching every camera feed in New York, saving lives in real time with the help of an all-seeing AI.
Meanwhile, in my corner of the UK, a ten-year-old’s scooter vanishes in broad daylight, and the only Machine involved is caller id at the local police station.
“OK. Thank you, officer.”
Keir Starmer's identity crisis
Keir Starmer is a walking, talking political identity crisis. Starmer is a man - at least we assume that’s what he is. We have not verified his biological sex. We see him using the men’s toilets (at least that’s what I assume) and playing football with other people who appear to be (unverified) men. Ok, let’s put it this way. Starmer is an unverified man, or at least, appears to self-identify as a man. I tell you what, for the sake of clarity, I’m just going to refer to him - or them - as a person.
Starmer is a person who lied to Labour Party members to win their votes to become the elected leader of the Labour Party. He made a series of pledges to enact socialist, progressive policies. All of which he’s reneged on. As leader of the Opposition to the murderous, racist liar Boris Johnson, Starmer went out of his way to consistently support the Tory government.
His entire strategy was to remove any possibility of mistaking him for a Labour leader, and one former Labour leader in particular. If anything he was even more right wing than Johnson. Crucially, he had no responsibilities and therefore appeared more competent and professional than Johnson. Having established himself as a Tory clone, Starmer was able to position himself as the “change” candidate against the dripping wet washout Rishi “carry on” Sunak. It was no contest. Starmer won by a landslide and had a mandate to do exactly as he was told by his advisers/handlers.
I see people complaining now that Starmer has no policies, no principles, no political beliefs. Yet his entire career, and certainly his entire election campaign, was built solely on the pursuit of power. Pledges, promises, missions, principles, beliefs - they’re all for losers, people who identify as something or other. Starmer’s handlers positioned him as a nobody. A no-one. Someone no one could possibly identify with. Someone who could win votes from Tories in Tory seats dressing to the right, from Labour voters in Labour seats dressing to the left, and from Liberal voters in liberal seats dressing to the right again but this time wearing orange underpants. Hell, he even won votes from Scottish Nationalists wearing a tartan dress and no knickers.
It was an amazing and amazingly brilliant election-winning strategy. But it does mean that we have a Prime Minister who panders to the electoral threat from the right. It does mean we have a PM who is obsessed with people’s genitals, and whether they had them at birth. And it does mean that we have a leader who eats three Shredded wheat for breakfast every morning just to look tough for Reform voters even though he has a severe gluten intolerance. Hence Starmer’s persistent strained facial expression and his whiny voice.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the cost of fish and chips and more
Three days ago I went to Ambridge’s fish and chip shop in Spilsby to get lunch for me, my mum, my wife and two kids. A run-of-the-mill affair, uncontroversial, and unremarkable.
As a fan and occasional exponent of legacy microblogging, I described my experience in as few words as possible, and - accompanied by a couple of boring photos - I published on my micro.blog website.
Now, I say this whole adventure into the great big outside world wasn’t noteworthy, but that’s not quite true. Mum had given me two shiny plastic twenty pound notes to buy the “two haddock, one chips, and three peas” described in my post, and I had given one back thinking that this “ludicrous order” couldn’t possibly cost more than twenty quid.
It turned out that it cost £20.40, so mum was right to offer me more, although I was also correct in thinking that £40.00 was about £20.00 too much.
On micro.blog, which is known for and proud of its general sedation and nuance, I received zero engagement. Par for the course, expected and absolutely fine. I post for myself, and my kids, and while I certainly don’t mind at all if anyone else comments, it’s not a problem if no one does.
Micro.blog has a clever in-built feature which allows you to “cross-post” things you publish to Threads (among others). So that’s where my fish, chips and peas post went, too.
Unbelievably, when I got back from our long family weekend away, my post on Threads had received over 167,000 views, 333 likes and 351 comments (indicating also that I have been mildly “ratioed”).
Now, I don’t use Threads much and navigating and replying to all 351 comment isn’t viable. I thought it would be more fun to create a Fishy FAQs.
Fishy FAQs
Q: And?
A: And nothing.
Q: And…?
A: And nothing…
Q: And you point is?
A: Nothing. Other than that my mum was right that it would cost more than £20.
Q: What kind of ludicrous order is that?
A: Two haddocks - half each for me, my mum, my wife and ten year old. One chips - half for me, half for my ten year old and four year old to share. Three peas - one pot of peas each for me, my mum and my wife.
Q: Surely you check the total before paying?
A: You mean before ordering? Or before giving £20 back to my mum?
Q: Did they let you off the 40p?
A: No.
Q: When did you last buy a takeaway of any description?
A: November 2024 at the same fish and chip shop. I arrived after it had closed and managed to come away with a battered sausage and a few chips.
Q: Where is this?
A: Spilsby.
And some fact-checking!
Fishy Facts
CLAIM: Fish and chips is still better value than a fast food chain.
FALSE. For pure cost, McDonald’s and similar chains are better value.
CLAIM: BREXIT!
TRUE. Brexit has led to higher prices.
CLAIM: You have to factor in the full cost of getting fish from the sea to the chippy.
TRUE. It’s not just Brexit!
CLAIM: Make your own, it’s cheaper!
TRUE. It’s a lot cheaper, but also less convenient, takes longer and isn’t always or often practical.
CLAIM: No one forces you to buy it. If we all stopped buying fish and chips from the chippy, prices would come down.
FALSE. High prices are due to supply and other costs, not local demand.
CLAIM: Jacket spuds and pizza - fish is a luxury!
TRUE. Cheese is cheaper than fish!
CLAIM: Only 3 peas? You should have got a tin.
BOOM TISH!
CLAIM: 3 pot’s of pea’s? You and your mum will be farting for England!
TRUE. Although we only had one pot each (see above).
Lastly, and most importantly, here’s how prices vary across time and the country.
- Pre-lockdown: £6.50
- Post-lockdown: £11.95
- The other day: £15.00
- Here: £8.00/£19.50/£23.90
- Where I am: &16.00
- Kent: cheap as chips
- Sydney: £7.00
- Australia: £7.50
- Paris (cordon bleu 3 course meal with a bottle of wine): £30
Fish and chips price map of the UK
Ecclesiastical gobbledegook
Had a good week with work. Lots of serendipitous connecting things and people together means that we now have what we hope is a very realistic big funding opportunity in front of us, which will enable us to get started with our proposed new youth centre.
We also got accredited as a Living Wage employer via and thanks to the Young Ealing Foundation. Through that connection we got two hours of free business consultancy thanks to the often-maligned-by-me Ealing Council. I wasn’t expecting much from this, but it was absolutely incredible, such a fantastic consultant! Not only did she give some very honest, useful and practical advice to develop our vision for community transformation, she also put me in touch with a couple of potentially very useful contacts.
She said I very eloquently painted a moving picture of life in Southall with it’s rich tapestry of people and cultures, it’s unique mix of all faiths and none, and it’s wealth of community resilience, resistance and defiance in the face of very real challenges from the National Front and the Special Patrol Group in the 1970s and 1980s, deep-rooted socio-economic problems of poverty, deprivation and low pay, pulling together and surviving the COVID pandemic despite chronic overcrowding and few remote-working jobs, and fifteen years of austerity politics topped off with a cost-of-living crisis under successive ConDem, Tory and Labour-in-name-only right wing neoliberal governments, and the needs of our 16,000 young people currently served by just one youth centre and struggling with the everpresent threat of lack of work and education, drugs, offending and knife crime.
At one point she asked me what my job title is, and suggested I’m working way above my pay grade. Which was nice to hear. She described me as the driving force of our project. I suggested maybe I was more rudder than anchor. She said I’m the captain of the ship!
To be honest, I felt like I’d had ten years of successful therapy in the space of three days.
She also left me with my favourite phrase of the week rightly critiquing a section of text on our new website as “ecclesiastical gobbledegook”.