Do you remember when things just worked?

The drains were cleared twice a year, potholes were an occasional annoyance, councils employed their own staff and they mostly got the job done unless they were striking.

But our bins got emptied, the streets were clean and in the poorest areas of London where I grew up, the oldest people still cleaned their own doorsteps religiously and many of them had a key on a string so that the milkman or his son ( me) could put the milk inside.

Policemen were large gruff creatures and they walked a beat with cars in reserve, you fucked with them at your own cost.

The NHS had a huge number of community hospitals and you could get local treatment for minor illnesses.

Our army and navy, although diminished, could fight and win a war in South America and the RAF could send a message that was undeniable.

If you can remember this, you’re getting old.

Nothing has worked like that for a very long time.

Our councils are nearly bankrupt as they try to cope with the sheer amount of migrants being forced on them.

So care suffers, particularly for the mentally ill, because some fucking genius decided to let ‘the community’ care for them.

The old suffer, fewer buses and services, more hostile young men fighting in the streets outside their houses and flats while they stay quiet and hope that the problem of the day blows over.

A politicised police service colludes with community leaders’ as to how they will police the streets.

The UK government gives 11 billion pounds to other countries to fight climate change or some such horseshit – knowing that the money will be stolen and funnelled back into a banking system that’s the only winner.

Our electricity is the most expensive in the whole developed world and we’re constantly lectured about our co2 emissions by rich scum and elected filth who fly everywhere and travel first class.

Our brand new, shiny Prime Minister, who lectured the country for years in opposition now appears to be the creature of a billionaire.

But.

As of a few days time from now, you have to register with the government if you own one single fucking chicken.

That’s not a joke, I wish it were

Here’s the thing though.

One of my very few, actual friends disagrees with me about almost everything, particularly politics and regulations.

I was walking the doglets earlier today and asked her if she’s registered her flock ( she rescues chickens) – and I was a little surprised.

‘No. I suspect my anti-establishment mate Thunderdog may have some views, but I’m VERY NERVOUS about registering them. I am a personal small holder with a protected coop and I don’t let mine free range in winter or if there is a bird flu outbreak, to keep them safe. I am very wary of Defra.’

And then the kicker.

The thing that I’d personally been thinking about.

‘Although one of my neighbours is a cunt and will rat me out, no doubt.’

So.

Do you remember when we just lived without thinking about whether our neighbour would turn us in for being against the current thing?

I do.

I don’t know how we get back there but if we don’t, it’s going to get bloody.

I know what side I’m on and it’s not the fucking Chicken Stasi

It’s pouring out there as I type this. We’ve had over a day of constant rain and more is predicted tonight.

I still had to walk the dogs though, or, more accurately, ‘dog’ – Milo the Weather Dog only ventures out when he needs to. He’s a dog that knows his own mind and he’s not a fan of rain at all.

Cairo needs the exercise though, even though we’d both rather not, but she sets a pace that’s tough to keep up with, so I get a workout too.

It’s a commitment and a duty that I understood when I adopted her and it won’t stop until one or both of us are too infirm to do it.

It’s part of the code that makes my strange little psyche up.

Anyone who knows me in real life will know that I’m as far from a saint as it’s possible to be, I’ve led a life full of incident and I’ve caused some hurt along the way, the pain that I’ve given some people to own gives me regret and….I’d change some decisions if I could.

But I can’t.

So I try to balance my life where I can and help others when possible as a partial balance for my less admirable actions.

But I do have a code of sorts.

Like most people’s, it’s stolen from others but some of it is hardwired and some taken from long observation of others that I have considered to be admirable in my life.

Some of the stolen stuff is here, but stolen or not, I try to live by them after a fashion.

“It is said that the warrior’s way is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways.”

Miyamoto Musashi

The Book of Five Rings

“Everybody has laws he lives by, I expect. I have mine as well.”
“What laws?”
Bond Rogers was dismayed. Yet she waited, evidently as curious as her son.
“I will not be laid a hand on. I will not be wronged. I will not stand for an insult. I don’t do these things to others. I require the same from them.”

Glendon Swarthout, The Shootist

And when my time comes ( and I’ve had close enough calls to know that I’ll accept it ), I hope. It’s like this.

“When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”

Tecumseh

I’ve worked at a senior level for over twenty five years now and I’ve lived by a code that demands that I take nothing that’s offered by others.

If a supplier buys drinks, I buy one back, I don’t take free trips, hardware, gadgets or cash.

I’ve been offered outright bribes a few times and laughed in the faces of those offering them, if they were existing suppliers, I cancelled their contracts the next day.

I’m nobody’s creature and nobody will ever be able to call in a ‘favour’

And so, the news that a very rich man has basically bought a whole government has given me a whole new perspective on the politics of our little country.

Watching these elected filth make excuses for cash donations, private shoppers, free tickets, pool parties, use of penthouse apartments and a fucking ‘working birthday party for press and lobbyists’ has made me realise that we’re a banana republic and probably have been for a while.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better and it’ll never get better if we don’t hold them to account.

Once upon a time, I’d have just shrugged.

Not now though.

I’m going to judge them by my own standards.

They’re failing.

It’s been raining here for the last twenty hours, the roads are flooded again and Milo the Weather Dog waited until 4pm to go outside, he hates the rain and can seemingly wait forever.

Cairo isn’t as bothered though and she came for a four mile walk through huge puddles and running water before coming home to a warm shower and a robe, there may have been treats involved.

If you walk out of my house, turn left and walk half a mile through a private lane, you turn onto an unnamed road that leads all the way to the A41, it’s all hills here and the water runs fast down to the curve in the road; it can get really flooded there.

Some people would blame those floods on climate change or whatever, but in reality, there are drains that run to culverts, they get blocked up and the road floods.

On today’s walk, I could see that the most useful drain was becoming clogged.

So I walked back a hundred yards or so to where somebody has left a spade by a gate.

I used the spade to clear the drain and the road around it, the water flow speeded up and began to clear.

We then carried on with the walk and I put the spade back when we returned – for the next time that it’ll be needed.

And it will be needed.

It sits there patiently waiting for the time that it knows MUST come ( or it would if it were sentient).

It’s a crappy metaphor, but it’s the closest that I can come to for the state of the country right now.

A draconian crackdown on mostly ordinary people has resulted in a strange, muted mood, but the problems that they protested about are still there and getting worse.

At some point, we’ll all have to play our part in opening the path for the flood that’s coming, or risk being silenced for ever.

And on that cheery note, I’m going to go back to reading a book, listening to music and snuggling up with the dogs.