Wednesday 25 June 2014

Goddamn It! It's Not About THAT!

I'm going to insult some of you.  Yeah, I've probably been insulting your intelligence in this blog for a while, but today, I'm just going to come out and say it, I'm going to insult you.  To be honest I think the ones I'm going to insult need it.  Probably won't achieve much, but...well, I haven't thought much past that.  Rest assured there's a good reason, I'm sure you'll come up with one, you brainless fuck.

Got this booklet through the door this morning.  Actually, this afternoon, since the poor, overworked postman would be shoving the bloody things through every single fucking door.  The booklet was called What Staying in the United Kingdom means for Scotland.  It claims to be information.  It reads like a fucking book full of patronising orders and flimsy proclamations to me.  It's a publication created by the vested interest of Westminster*.

And it was the final straw on whether I should go off on a fucking rant about the question of Scottish independence.  I'll tell you right now, I'm for it.  Just get that right out there before any ambiguity can set in.  I'll be voting yes.

Do you want to know why?

Probably not, but I'm going to tell you.  I'm sick of London being the centre of every decision made in this country.  It feels like every political and fiscal decision made by the UK government is for the benefit of the parasitic resource sink in the south east.  I have nothing against London, it's a wonderful place to visit, but that doesn't mean I want every decision made in the rest of the country used to prop it up.  It's not right and it's not fair.  Money and people who would benefit areas like Yorkshire, Cumbria and Central Scotland are drawn to the city to the detriment of these places.  How the fuck is that right?

It's like the clichéd school bully who demands your lunch money and gives you nothing but pain in return.  The rest of the country only gets inflated house prices in return for sending tributes of people and money to the insatiable London.  A whole country can't be used to finance a single city.

Yet we, the Scottish people are urged to stay with this abusive relationship, because, we're condescendingly informed, it's better for us.  Yeah, I like being scudded in the head with a cane while some cunt who has enough money already dips my fucking pocket.  And none of the current national parties will do anything different, because we have a bunch of creepy career politicians who are beholden to equally creepy business interests.  Rich folk helping out rich folk, aye they have our best interests at heart.  Bunch of fucking cunts.

And you do realise why some of the Better Together people are shouting so loud, right?  No?  How about if I say they're MPs?  That help you out?

They are another vested interest.  What happens to all those Scottish MPs in the event of a 'Yes' vote?  That's right, they don't get their subsidised trips to London any more.  Oh no!  Their relevance will twirl away down the toilet.  You know and the nice, generous expenses and chance at a juicy peerage.  But of course the money and title has nothing to do with it, it's all about doing the best for their constituents.  I do wish there was a sarcasm tag.

Let's be clear, too, this isn't some wrong-headed Braveheart** pish about fucking the English.  That has nothing to do with it.  I think the rest of England could benefit from getting shot of slimy shits that inhabit Whitehall.  The UK government doesn't really represent Scotland or the rest of the country as it stands.  If the current UK government wasn't hacking up the NHS or punishing poor people for not having enough money or being led around by the nose by tabloid journalism, I might waver a bit more, but what we see is Tories and LibDems slashing at the infrastructure of welfare and finger-fucking the wounds.

And that's another thing, all the fuckwits who think "I don't like Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon," is a valid reason for voting no, please take a swim in the North Sea with bowling balls tied to your legs, because your diminutive IQ is dragging the rest of us down.  Yeah Salmond is an egotistical goon, but we don't need to have him forever.  An independent Scotland will still be democratic, we won't suddenly become a dictatorship.  Vote the fucker out once we have our own country.  Simple as that.

I'm sure there's a chance he'll turn on us when he gets into office, but I'd rather take that chance over dealing with the Westminster fuckers who've shown they'll happily slit a newborn's throat if it got them a few extra coppers in their pockets.  The breed at the top in the Houses of Parliament at the moment are the most heartless, corporate and ideology-driven fungal-infections you can imagine.  In it together; or in it for themselves?  You shouldn't need to think about that if you follow the pattern of their behaviour.

Essentially, if you vote 'No' to independence you've forfeited your right to complain about any Westminster government, because you told them you were happy to let them continue to do whatever the fuck they like.  I mean they've already fast tracked privatising the Royal Mail, what kind of shit is that?  Who's to say the next government won't start to renege on devolution, because, "Clearly you want to have more to do with Westminster.  Why else would you stay in the union.  Come, this will only hurt forever."

Tell me you can't imagine that walking modelling balloon David Cameron doing something like that to appease the great Maggie.  Seriously, can't you just imagine him having a shrine to Margaret Thatcher in his bedroom, with the mask he makes his wife wear when he's fucking her hung up next to unnervingly intimate photos of Thatcher?  David Cameron and that smirking goblin Nigel Farage show the same contempt for Scotland as Thatcher did.  It's the same contempt they hold for anyone not as rich as them.  You want a shit-monger like Cameron to still be making decisions from Downing Street?  Fuck, do you want barely there political drone Ed Milliband in Number Ten?  What sort of hell do you think he'll rain on Scotland?  Those adenoids are just waiting for their revenge, people!

Then you have the leaders of the Scottish Labour party and the Scottish Conservative party, Johann Lamont and Ruth Davidson, who hold the people of Scotland in such little worth they don't believe we can think for ourselves.  Johann Lamont just out and said it.  Ruth Davidson hasn't in so many words, but, because she's a Tory, it's an easy bet she believes it, too.

They all subscribe to the same corrosive notion that rigid capitalism is the most sensible economic option.  Yeah, and trickle-down economics works.  Fucking hell, the idea of infinite growth for anything is the most preposterous notion ever conceived.  Not to sound hysterical here, but it's a big old lie.  It's a lie to keep already frighteningly wealthy and powerful people in the power and wealth they think is their right.  It's the same lie that's led to sell offs of public services or the barmy notion that public services should be profitable.  That's not the benchmark of a public service's worth; efficiency isn't decided by how much money electricity, public transport, the postal service or healthcare makes, it's how well they're doing to stop society from crumbling around our ears.  Taxes from the businesses these services help to support should be invested, not wrenched in bloated bills from the pockets of normal people.  The fact that Westminster politicians are so cowardly and lacking in imagination to dare deviate from this dogmatic bollocks scares the living shit out of me and it should you, too.

Do you really want to be still part of that shit?  If you do then you're a fucking moron.  You don't deserve my respect.  Or air, for that matter.

I'll concede, though, both sides in this campaign have been guilty of being cagey on several subjects.  It's not been a nice campaign.  The Yes side have stooped as low as the No side and that's fucking shameful.  We shouldn't let this political bickering put us off getting our own country.  The transition won't be easy, my friend, but there's a chance it will be worth it.  Can it really be as bad as what we've had shoved down our throats already?

* There's a brilliant ripping apart of it here.  Or there was.  The fucking links died hasn't it?

** I fucking hate that piece of shit button-pressing film.  It's not about freedom, it's about a fucking sociopath annoyed because he can't get his dick wet.

Dude, already happened, wipe the spittle away.


Will

Wednesday 4 June 2014

Tut tut tut. I'm So Disappointed in You.

It's been a little while, hasn't it?  Not quite as long as before, but I've been quiet for the better part of a month.  Not that you'd notice.

Why?  Well because none of your fucking business, nosy bastard.

I've been waiting for something to strike me just the right way to say something about it.  I've also been holding back on something that will come in time.  Oh, my yes, I got me a big bag of bile right here on that score.

So, this little bit of fuckwaddery was brought to my attention.  Read it and let it sink in, right under your skin, that burning itch is normal.  One Direction fan fiction given a huge advance and now being adapted into a film.  This isn't a precedent, because a previous fan fiction bod got a book deal out of her work.  Loving the Band was rushed to e-book, without much said about the advance.  Actually I noticed the Independent was curiously reticent about giving any kind of details on the deal, kinda weird, doncha think?

The new one seems even worse, because there's this suggestion that there hasn't even been an editing process.  Ahem, what?  Are you fucking kididing me?  This blog led me to this blog.  Our erstwhile writer in the second blog is, understandably, bemused.  I'm fucking furious.

As she points out, we writers* are told when we start out on the long, frustrating, painful road that we have to be at our fucking best.  Hone our shit to a razor-sharp edge and then, maybe, a publisher might arch an eyebrow in interest.  Once we've been allowed in by the erstwhile gatekeepers we are sent to editing boot camp.  I know a few professional writers who go through the wringer with edits to get their work in what is considered publishable shape.

Yet, we see this girl get her work fast-tracked by the publisher.  Not her fault.  I'm not angry at her, there's no point, she's probably delighted to have her work in print and getting a fat cheque for it and let her enjoy it.  As Jenny Trout points out, there's always a chance Anna Todd might mature into a good writer.  Although looking at Emily Baker, that might not hold.   The people my ire is aimed at are the publishers.

This will probably mean I'll never see my work in print, but, fuck it, the more people who point this shit out, the better.

This kind of thing is part of the same horrible decline that's happening with the film and music industries: risk-averse bullshit where the blandest shit is shoved at us in pretty packaging.  New things are to be shunned if they don't instantly have millions of people clamouring for it.  Anything that makes even a wee bit of money is jumped on and aped, without understanding why it's popular.  So publishing has followed suit, getting quick-fix crap on the shelves and paying the often vacuous cardboard cut-outs we call celebrities wads of money for ghost-written drivel.

It feels like the industry is kicking sand in the face of people like myself, hungry for a break, but told we're not quite good enough or what we're writing isn't quite right.  When poorly-written shit** is packaged and thrown out for public consumption like it's the pinnacle of writing achievement, we the mass of writers, who feel like we are kept out by this shit, we have to look askance at the big publishers and ask if they know what the fuck they're doing.

I don't know where to go with this now.  My anger's played itself out.  Impotent, impotent anger.  I'm going to lie down.  Really we should expect better from the big publishers, shouldn't we?

I'm a fucking writer.  I might not have success, wealth, fame or even earn a living, but I do the work.  That's how it works.

** Let's not mention that fucking shit-monger E.L. James who hit on the genius idea of shittily re-writing shit fiction.  That's so fucking expired it might cause me a stroke.

Don't get me started on self-publishing, though.  The advice for that makes you like a needy arsehole.  Nope, not for me.


Will