Happy Mondays…

I’ve been sitting here looking at the computer screen trying to think of something to write for Monday Club, and to be honest I’m drawing a blank. I’ve had a pleasant enough weekend – the sun has shone gloriously and I spent time at a local poetry and music festival with some friends yesterday and went out for a few beers Saturday night – but another blog about poetry and music and what I did at the weekend seems a bit, erm, lacklustre.

I’ve had a quick shufti at the news to see if there’s anything happening out in the wider world that grabs my attention, but I’ve been uninspired there too. It just seems to be the same old same old, with 99% of the stories boiling down, in one way or another, to variations on the theme of man exploiting man in the most vile ways possible, and that’s not really something that’s likely to cheer me up at all, now, is it?

One story that did stir my interest for about 45 seconds was the latest employment statistics, indicating that around 80% of new employment opportunities are within low paid industries like retail and care work, offering hourly rates of less than £7.95 an hour. I almost felt a rant coming on over the widespread implications of that… and then I thought ‘why bother?’ The simple fact is that the vast majority of people – especially the politicians and economists behind the social engineering process creating the situation – already know the implications and are either too apathetic to do anything about it or actually have a vested interest in perpetuating the creation of an impoverished and downtrodden underclass. Nothing I say, do, or rant is going to make a blind bit of difference, is it, so why waste my breath or virtual ink?

By now anyone reading this will probably be thinking ‘well he’s a right old misery-bollix today, isn’t he?’ And they would be right. When I can’t even muster the energy for a good old-fashioned rant then the chances of me writing something interesting are pretty much non-existent…

So why bother, you may be asking, to which I would answer, possibly in the voice of Les Dennis doing his impression of that woman who left Coronation Street about twenty years ago, Well I don’t rightly know… But I think it might be because I’m wondering about all of the other Monday Morning Misery Bollixes out there, and thinking that among all the good news and weekend-at-the-seaside posts they might, in the sense of a problem shared being a problem halved, be reassured to see something more in keeping with their own mood. For them I offer gifts of valium and chocolate.

 

 

 

And here, by way of an apology, is a nice picture of a fluffy kitten in a basket for the rest of you