2006: poetry, hate crimes in the news, and a loss still keenly felt today
It’s an entry from 2006 that, every year since, gets an impressive flurry of hits around GCSE exam time. Thankfully, I know the information I posted in Carol Ann Duffy: A Beginner’s Guide, all about one of Britain’s most successful poets, is correct—but really, despite GCSE results around the country usually being quite good, it concerns me that kids are still using the Internet for last-minute revision despite all the warnings that, when it comes to study, books should be used and not websites that haven’t been given a stamp of educational authority. I mean, I know the stuff I wrote isn’t fiction, but I agree with the advice. Sites like Wikipedia are most often used, despite anyone being able to contribute to them.
tags: 2006, archives, bereavement, Carol Ann Duffy, cats, China, David Morley, Dolly, Iran, poetry, retrospective, UN, US, ZimbabweThe times we try to live in: a wide-ranging rant (but don’t worry, there’s humour in there as well)
I give in to the torrential and near-continual rainfall this summer. I give in to the inevitable liquifying of my brain owing to the bickering between the only two parties we ever see elected to government, both of them mediocre headline-chasers, uninspiring and with memberships hungry for power for power’s sake, keen to bring in yet more control freak policies, and to fuck over those least capable of withstanding being fucked over by anyone. I give in to the newspapers, TV and radio that have collectively decided it’s time for a Second Great Depression because it promises great opportunities for photographers to snap starving waifs in the city centre of Bradford (which, we’ve been told, by a misnamed think tank, should be emptied of human life as quickly as possible, with the refugees rehomed by uncharacteristically generous and practical-minded Oxford and Cambridge dons).
tags: Africa, anger, chavs, China, Conservatives, credit cards, debt, depression, estate agents, Georgia, global warming, inflation, Labour, mortgages, Olympics, opinion polls, politics, rain, rant, recession, Russia, SAD
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