We are getting our just deserts

The General Election was only three weeks ago, and already we are seeing the impact of that result. In the Queens Speech, the quaint anachronistic ceremony where an aging unelected rich person dictates from a speech produced by the governing party. I take one policy as an example where popular rhetoric will have the opposite impact.

Britain is in the midst of horrific housing crisis. In a town like Leeds there are in excess of 23,000 people on the waiting list for social housing. These people are typically being subsidised by the taxpayer to stay in sub-standard accommodation provided by private landlords. Our young people and not so young people cannot afford to purchase houses in the South East of the company. I believe that you need a salary of £70k to be able to buy a house (flat with one bedroom) in London.

What is the government’s answer to this, to enable tenants of social housing  to buy these properties. These belong to private housing associations, largely charities, who have either bought or built these properties using commercially raised money or money donated. Essentially they are privately owned properties. Now imagine the outcry if the government was to compulsory purchase any property owned by a landlord to give the tenants the right to buy. Let us take the example of tenant farmers on the estates of the aristocracy. The Magna Carta would be invoked, human rights would be violated. The parallel is the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.

So could we stand for this unfairness if this policy had a good outcome?  Typically these properties have to be sold at a huge discount, and even then many of the tenants cannot afford them. If we take the parallel of state council house sales in the 1980s and 1990s typically a significant number ended up in the hands of private buy to let landlords to be rented out again but this time not at social rents.

The sugar on the pill is supposed to be that for every house sold to a tenant another one will be build to replace it. A great idea, but of course as the houses are sold at a discount this will require a subsidy from the taxpayer. Again if experience is a good predictor of the future, in Doncaster they sold in excess of 200 council houses between 2010 and 2015, how many did they build, just nine.

So here is an example of a policy that was conceived for political reasons and will actually make the problem worse, very much worse. I will leave you with the questions as to whether we will ever know the truth, still this is the result of democracy, and we get what we deserve!!!

A Wet Summer

I am just looking out on the garden after delivering Marion to choir, one question I am not having to answer is whether to water the flowers after the weekend’s planting. It is pouring with rain, not only that the central heating is on as it is around 11 degrees outside. Despite all of this the grass continues to grow and grow.

I think this time of year particularly in the North of England is one of false expectation. After a few sunny days we think that summer is here. The reality is that it takes some time to ramp-up, and often at this time of the year the long evenings are also comparatively cold.

No matter today I have had the guidebooks out and been preparing for our holiday. Really there is so much pleasure in the anticipation. I am hoping Wi-Fi permitting to be able to blog every day about our progress hopefully including many pictures and reports of our culinary adventures.

We start in Zeeland, which is the part of the Netherlands that is reclaimed from the delta of the Rhine. There we are meeting our friends Hans and Mirjam for the weekend. Our friendship goes back over 25 years, so it will be good to go over past times and get a Euro perspective on life, as well as exploring a part of the world that we do not know.

From there we will drive through Belgium and Eastern France to the medieval town of Langres. Still planning which way to go but I hanker after visiting Verdun en-route. Langres is a transit point on the way to the Vosges Mountains near to Colmar. There is some fantastic scenery, delightful villages and even better great Alsatian wine. We will then drive across the middle of Switzerland to Courmeyer in Italy but in the shadow of Mont Blanc. The objective there is to take the cable car 9000 feet up the Mont Blanc Massif. This part is totally reliant on experiencing good weather.

The final part of the first part of the holiday is to drive to the cottage that we are hiring in the small Provencal village of Villedieu. The best thing is that the temperatures during the next week there are in the high twenties. It will be great to see some sunshine. I will describe the second part of our itinerary in a later blog.

As I look outside it is still raining.

Great Sadness has descended

First of all apologies for the lack of a blog over the last week, unfortunately I have not been on top form. I have now fully recovered and am back in the saddle. However I am now in a fragile mental state, if you do not understand then you have not looked at yesterday’s football result.

Yesterday was the play-off final at Wembley, Middleborough v. Norwich for the right to play in the Premiership. It was held at the home of British football Wembley Stadium. Wembley has not been open very long and is a state of the art sports stadium situated in north London. It was a very early start so that there was no room for error. By the time we reached the motorway it was full of cars bedecked in the red colours of the Boro. The motorway service area that we stopped at was a sea of red. An enterprising tradesman had set up a stall selling scarves and favours. We parked three tube stops away from Wembley in Farouk’s car wash, “knock on the caravan door to let out mate”. We met Laura who was bubbling with enthusiasm. To fortify ourselves we had a suitably unhealthy lunch of chips, pizza, and KFC. Oh Iain had a baked potato, but there was much cheese and baked beans in the filling.

We decided to walk to the stadium to savour the atmosphere of Harrow. By the time we reached it ninety minutes before kick-off it was buzzing with the red of Boro and the yellow of Norwich. At this time we were on a complete high, see the photo below.

 The stadium is approached through a series of ramps; we then had a substantial climb up to the top level where we had seats on the front row. The approach to the seat was vertiginous but gave a great view. The atmosphere in the build up was brilliant. This was definitely the high point of the day.

When the game started though it was downhill all the way. Norwich were snappier in the tackle and all round better organised. After both sides hit the cross bar Norwich scored twice in quick succession basically through Boro mistakes. At this time I was afraid that Norwich would run riot. They did not but stifled the life out of the game, so Boro surrendered meekly without troubling the scorers. It was a great occasion but a highly disappointing result; it is back to the Championship next year.

As a consolation our trip home was very good, Iain’s car had not been sold by Farouk and we were home by 10pm. Even Laura who was disconsolate after the game had recovered by this morning. So thoroughly enjoyed the day, hated the result. Roll-on next season.

Football, Football, Football

One of my more far-flung readers has complained that the blog did not contain mention of last night’s football match. That is because it was almost midnight when we arrived back from a pulsating if somewhat one sided game. I also felt that it would be better to allow time for reflection rather than diving straight in. Well here goes.

The game in question was for the right to play one final game at Wembley to decide who will enter the Premier League next season. Middlesbrough led 2 to 1 from the away leg last week at Brentford. We arrived early anticipating a sell-out crowd, even then we were unable to park as near the ground as usual. (There are some disadvantages of a full ground). By the time kick off arrived the ground was full except for a few spaces amongst the Brentford supporters. The noise as the teams entered the arena was deafening.

At first both teams stated at 100 mph with very little football being played, and Boro in particular being very physical. Gradually the Boro midfield started to impose themselves on the game and started to set a pattern. Brentford had very little dangerous possession in the final third of the field. The first goal came midway through the first half. It was a peach of a shot from a central position after some excellent wing play. This calmed my nerves, ever the pessimist I was anticipating Boro fluffing their lines on the big occasion.

In the second half with Brentford needing to sore two goals they had to be more aggressive, and for the first ten minutes it looked as though they might score. Brentford had a couple of chances, but by now with Boro playing on the counter attack looked vulnerable as was proved. Both second half goals were effectively the result of counter attacks. With a four-goal lead the last ten minutes became a formality with the crowd running through their repertoire of chants and songs.

At the end there was a ritual pitch invasion and a parade of the players. 

The most important thing was that we are now going to contest the play-off at Wembley on Monday week. With Iain we already have our tickets. There will doubtless be a blog after that about our trip to the Twin Towers (oops showing my age there).

Everybody thinks I am Toad

When I canvassed opinion today about the contents of today’s blog, I received the unequivocal response to discuss why I am a toad. I will let my educated readership judge as to whether or not I deserve this epithet. Just to place this in context Laura is staying with us in advance of the Middlesbrough football game tomorrow. The usual pessism applies to the game.

Last night I went to bed a little early as I felt less than 100%. However I did not disturb anybody and it allowed the ladies to remain drinking sparkling rose wine. Presumably they were also chewing the fat.

Today we all went to our voluntary work where I did not see the ladies all morning. I was perfectly civil and indeed friendly to all those who I met with.

Then in a very toad like fashion I took Laura and Marion out for lunch. At lunch they had the run of the menu including multiple drinks. We then split to undertake a little shopping. Nothing that took more than a few minutes.

When we arrived home I perhaps did the only thing that could nominate me for toad membership. We are having problems with our downstairs toilet seat. So I invested £5 in an expanding nut. This looked easy to fit however it did not prove to be so. I spent an hour with Laura’s assistance trying to fix this seat with no success. I must admit that there were a few shouts of frustration. I have to call in the plumber.

For the remainder of the afternoon the ladies did some sewing while I undertook some work. They upstairs and me downstairs. We then all sat down while I wrote this blog.

I will leave it to you whether I am a toad. I should have one of those voting buttons at the bottom of this blog.