written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Showing posts with label Rant.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rant.. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 October 2013

Information? We’re swimming in the useless bits.

19:54:00 Posted by Unknown , , 2 comments

Evening all.
Firstly, I am mega sorry for being so late with this blog today. I’ve been thinking about the way in which we are provided with so much information sometimes on the news- not necessarily corresponding, nearly always conflicting, that it is hard to even make out what you’ve actually just been told.
One example from this week was that the economy is apparently growing- and yet record numbers are turning to food banks. We hear that HS2 will benefit huge swathes of people and then that a different poll- looking at a completely different set of what if criteria thinks several places might not benefit as much- which isn’t the same as a loss, is it.
The very same mis-information with fracking. How many people have heard the companies themselves admitting that it will make little to no difference to our gas prices (the rest of the world already being so far ‘ahead’ of us)- but on the same report that these things aren’t mentioned on, we hear how it could potentially bring a boom to industry and energy security.
We’re all pretty fed up of the bull, aren’t we.  Isn’t it time people were treated as decent, thinking beings and given a decent outlet- I dunno, something like “The News”, on which to see the facts presented, spin free, in bare form and then talked through. This, I suspect is a pipe dream, but until then, we’ll just have to keep filtering through the heaps of partial fact they keep spooning us, in the hope at least then we can find an ounce of sense or reason behind the next scandalous decision (like the most hated disability minister in years being given a new job, enforcing the bedroom tax, for instance).  .  
You’re a better man than me if you make sense of it. Until next week then, here’s a poem.

Dear Controllers of Information.
Feed me all of the statistics
I want to see each little bit
I’ll make up my mind before it gets refined
I’m long past trusting BBC tricks.
I remember I learnt in my schooldays
How music is organised sound
How knowledge is power but vast reams of data
Need sorting for their meaning to be found.
So don’t tell us one side of the story
This is Britain, we’re not in a Cold War
Don’t we deserve to know, where the money did go
Why the rich pay less tax than the poor
Because projects might not come in on budget
But the pros can still outweigh the cons
Tell us, why should we back everything you put past us
After so many times, you’ve been wrong.
I propose then a shake up of stats feeds
A straight ban on biased bits of news
Present facts from all sides- if there’s nothing to hide
Then we’ll make up our own bloody views.

Thanks for reading,  S.



Monday, 19 December 2011

Holidays are coming...

12:51:00 Posted by Shaun , , , 2 comments

Hasn't it gone quickly again. As I write this blog there is less than a week until Christmas. Am I ready? No. Am I worried? A little. I have six days to finish present buying, wrapping, sorting and I'm a little unsure as to whether or not Santa will have time to pick up presents for my cousins and so on before the big day. I figure he'll only come to collect them if they are really good kids, so I don't think I need to buy them really.
I think at this time of the year there is so much going on that everyone gets a little pressed for time. I'm booked up for the tail end of the week now- family gatherings and suchlike have crept in and so any hope of a quiet Christmas has fallen away. With this in mind I have been a little annoyed at the overwhelming commercialism that goes on. I found out this morning that Kim Jong-il has died. Heart attack apparently, which is a shame because I always wanted Team America to sort him. Alas, I missed the news breaking because I was playing Christmas songs on a loop. I bought into it..
This brings me, rather tediously onto my post for this week. DGPS on Friday was themed "Yule", the blog this week is themed "Christmas" and so a little duplication is acceptable I think. Also, I am hacked off with X Factor ruining perfectly good singles. I urge you all to buy the Military Wives CD this week. If you're buying Little Tits, you have to get an extra copy of the Military Wives CD, these are the rules. On that note then, a poem.

I Wish I Could be Christmas Number One

Every year there is a migration
Scores of young girls all bouncing in line
As they snake their way down to a studio
Each with a number, uniquely assigned.

Al the odds have the face for the big time
All the evens are weird but filmed too
In the line where the freaks tell sob stories
and the producers decide who goes through.

The balance is always a fine one
Young Mariah was filmed quite a bit
She hoped to be deemed a contestant
Not just there to be laughed at, but win it.

When Mariah stepped up to the microphone
With the audience readily primed
She put in a seamless performance
No one seemed to care that she'd mimed.

So Mariah came through the auditions
With a fresh face and recorded notes
By the time she left the judges houses
She had gathered a strong public vote

Mariah became bookies favourite
Ambitious and gunning to win
Though backstage the producers were nervous
For without auto-tune, she couldn't sing

But Mariah still swept home to victory
Splashed the kind of cash she'd never seen
Had a hot tub installed in the garden
and gold plated her marble latrine.

The phone rang one day to change everything
her manager, bearing bad news
the newspaper headline expose
left her dropped with a case of the blues.

Mariah slumped into her futon
From the vodka she took a good glug
Circling labels in an old Yellow Pages
She could call with her record to plug.

For a while she toured round the country
Was MARIAH, as seen on TV
But the Christmas lights switch on in Dagenham
wasn't all she had hoped it would be

By December her schedule was empty
Her bank account had long since drained
It was good being a star whilst it lasted
But she knew, time was up in this game

So Mariah sold up and went quiet
On the high street no one knew her name
And she sat alone, crying at Christmas
Wondering why all the songs were the same.


Cheers for reading folks. Have a great Christmas. Shaun