China in your hand (apologies to Carol Decker)

We hurtled down a rocky path and even the hill hardy battered jeep groaned in protest. The rain grew stronger and soon lapped at our six pairs of ankles in the old jeep; we soldiered on. It was 1986 and in our usual state of bravado we had decided that on our trekking trip to the mountains, we would get to the Chinese border to, get this: buy erasers and pencils to fill our Donald Duck magnetic pencil boxes. We were early teenagers desperate to acquire coveted Chinese erasers that we could swap for championship striker marbles.
After an exhausting three hour border procedure designed to remind us that we were to be subservient to the vastly superior People’s Republic, we were greeted by its first citizen. It was a mountain dog who with his assorted coterie crossed the borders as their whim took them, if they fancied their chicken steamed or fried they were on the right side of the border and when the call of the curry became too strong to resist, they crossed back into India.

The village was tiny and the track muddy but a few larger houses were freshly painted in white and feted with bright red flags: Government buildings. One of these was the store which our guide took us to. Even then the marvel of Chinese manufacturing engulfed our senses: six different types of pencils, banks of Hello Kitty erasers rejected by American importers sat in empty oil tins, large plaid printed hard covered notebooks sniffed imperiously at us from the sample glass cases and the mercantile communists demanded to know if we were aware of their minimum purchase requirements. They looked rather bemusedly at our individualism as we stepped up to negotiate our own orders, and advised us to club together to meet the minimum.
Out in the street, clutching our purchases in red paper bags the dogs were the only denizens of the village, the locals seemed curiously absent till we spotted a hidden square. The people sat in odd clumps repairing cycle tires and no one talked. There was an odd industrious air that was totally missing the usual jocular and noisy camaraderie ever present on Indian workshop floors. A few vacant and dismissive glances at us were all we merited. The wet towers of tyres and dripping broad hats suggested that the workers had continued working through the rain in this open square. Their stoic silence shushed our noisy schoolboy chatter and we reverted to library behaviour pointing at a stray chicken and whispering at the impressive mounds of cycle tires on display.
We wanted to stop for some lunch but it seemed that lunch was not on offer even for paying foreigners. As we walked through I felt a prickle on the back of my neck and a strange sense of dull hostility from the silent streets and dark doorways along our path. Even the sun seemed to prefer the company of the large clouds which seemed to race northward away from the Indian border. Our guide hurried us on, no doubt eager to make his way back to his cronies at the border with his bag of fermented brew that he had brought out with him after he had slipped into a doorway in a lean to at the back of store. As we drove away, I turned around and saw the dogs’ race alongside our jeep. A narrow eyed child plump cheeked but strangely narrow framed had toddled to the side of our path and a pair of determined hands pulled it out of sight more worried by its observations of us than cleaning the dried stalactites which hung from below its nostrils.
Across the border we were greeted by three urchins, the guide’s cronies and a blaring transistor. The sky was blue, the sun hot and the smell of mustard seed and spring greens on flat griddles was in the air. We tightened our grip on our paper bags to make sure that they did not get contaminated by the pungency of turmeric and cumin, as our precious stash would need to hold onto its aloof and damp desirability in order to trade well. Twenty four years later, when I read this article in today’s Economist http://tinyurl.com/36mng4s I was reminded of that peculiar day.

They pimped my PM!

I love The Economist-besides the witty reportage and reading stories and forecasts that break in the national papers much later I love their covers.
Take a look at David Camerons pimped up image on this weeks cover here:
http://www.economist.com/node/16791720

I mean that must be the most radical pimping makeover Cameron's ever had. Funnily he doesn't look too bad for it.Kinda suits him.
Now if our well meaning albeit hot tempered Gordon had been pimped in a similiar fashion: lawdy-lawdy, one can only wonder at the result-Pennywise the clown anyone?
Conversely, the leader of the Lib dem (Mr. Bland and totally unmemorable) may not do so badly either if subjected to a radical makeover a-la Cameron in this image.

Flippancy aside, its an interesting article and proves the point that no one loves a recession better than the Tories. A great chance for them to unleash their long pent up fire and brimstone on us mere UK mortals who've been slumbering in the arms of Bacchus trying to cope with the hangover after the party. Having said that it's their time so let them shine and let's hope the swingeing cuts are applied at the right points. We hope that with their sharp instruments of cessation they display the expertise of a veteran chinese acupuncturist  instead of acting like a teenage hunter in the woods armed with a blunt pen knife facing a wild boar.

On that note my latest bug bear happens to be unions who go on strike when pay rises are not forthcoming. Hello! Do they not know most of us are on pay freezes and pay cuts leave alone pay rises?

When the staff at BA and Unite together bring down our national carrier it will be the union officals who will still have a job while the "comrades" or "colleagues" they seek to represent will be left in the cold on the dole.

Why, oh why, oh why in this day and age, with minimum wage protections and with employment law being so comprehensive in this country, do we still need unions?

In my limited opinion, unions ought to exist to counsel workers who have lost their jobs by offering them training and support to find new ones. It's a coaching and support facility that's required but until we root out the self interested militants in charge of  unions that day is far away.

If you want to see how our self serving and well paid union leaders behave in public take a look at this http://tinyurl.com/29qfohl

Still I know deep down that one day love will find its way; albeit a teensy weensy bit later for some people than for the rest of us:).



Gosh it's all turned politically intense on my blog today, dear reader.I blame the heavy swollen thunderclouds and feeble mid teens temperature that have turned our London summer into a total washout.

On a  more cheery note my dear bloggistas (is that even a word?) it's almost time for the weekend and I am heading for Martiniville!

Beauty is love and peace is fine.