#MYLDN (1519)

I don’t necessarily disagree with this equation but did we really need a name for it? Is that helping at all? And why are you trying to make Britastrophe happen, yeah? How is that gonna get us out of this mess? It’s also not very good let’s be honest.

Why do we feel we have to labradoodle everything these days? It’s like everything has to be simplified to fuck and made hashtagable before anyone pays attention? It’s like our current government seem more focused on creating the right slogan rather than implementing genuine measures to combat Covid. The virus can’t read. It doesn’t give a shit what catchy phrase you use. Maybe now the Spin Doctor of Barnard Castle is gone, they won’t focus quite as much on advise that rhymes and think that’ means the job is done.

So featured this week are some random wall scrawls alongside some stickers & posters that have been plastered around to jolt people into thought. I think it is the fact that printing has got become much cheaper which has spurred on a new wave of slightly more professional executions than dragging a fat sharpie across a wall as presentation for people’s message out there on the streets. Its become more and more of a thing as you can see..

Many are of an anti-government nature but as in the drug one above, (which I don’t really understand tbh -are they drug shaming or class shaming ?) they can be sometimes quite oblique in their intention. Although most, it has to be said, are of a political nature as are most things these days and am quite astounded how over-politicised are lives have become recently.

It feels like almost everything goes through this political polarising filter. It would appear our persuasions are being pulled whilst others are pushing their own agendas. There was a time when not everything was about politics. It seems to really dominate all aspects of life at the moment. I think we all need to take a step out of the red corner and the blue corner and stop looking for a fight with the opposition at every turn.

I blame the 24 news feed which just wants to stoke our rage to keep us wired in and the easiest way to do that is to push our respective buttons & beliefs. But all it achieves is increased polarisation when we really all need to be coming towards the middle. I miss the centrism of 90s politics. Less black and white, less hostile, less like feeling you had somehow fallen into a civil war you don’t remember starting.

As for the anti-lockdown brigade trying to incite dissent, (well done on the logo & slogan, lovely work ;) they are seemingly the only ones oblivious to the irony that their activity will most likely prolong the very thing they want to end. And its pretty fucking pointless..I mean, go ahead, ignore the lockdown by all means, then what? What are you gonna do? Everything’s shut for fuck’s sake.

And so I will end this week of walled bulletins the way I started it, with some good ole fashioned sprayed graffiti with no real agenda other than to delight up your day…are you talkin to me? Awww, shucks n stuff..thanks!

#MYLDN (1387)

A week of famous bods this week. The celeb endorsements were obvs designed to flog my book (few more to come) but I wanted to also flag up the power and influence that the cult of celebrity has had on politics. It has obviously always had the popularity contest element to it but now, like America, it dominates to such a degree, that nothing else seems to matter anymore. This is nuts when the process involves making a decision about who we choose to govern our country and something that will ultimately affect all our lives so dramatically.

All I seem to hear in this run up to the general election when discussing potential leaders is whether people like them or not. Not what they stand for. Not their policies. Not their actions. But what does it matter? They aren’t going to become your friend. You’re never going to hang out with them or have them over for dinner so who gives a fook if they are ‘your type of person’ or not? What matters is are they competent, decent, intelligent? Are they going to do what is right? Are they going to put the citizens of their country first? Will they serve rather than be self-serving? They need to be leader material not mate material.

We also must accept that our opinions of these people are based on how they have been represented by the media and it is the way they are reported that dictates how we feel about them. We have never met them so it is not based on anything real. We don’t ‘know them’ know them. We just think we know them. We are basing our judgment on a flimsy easily digestible version of them, a 2 dimensional construct that has been fed to us.

We are essentially responding to a ‘character’ that has been ‘created’ to be loved or vilified. It is a perception of a person that has been presented with an intended purpose. The media are deliberately trying to sway you for and against the politicians because they are driven by their own political agenda. They are not objective. It’s not like they just want us to be informed. They are a propaganda machine and not to be trusted. We must see through these motives and we must take this on board before we let it affect the way we vote.

And if you don’t vote you don’t get to complain after and really isn’t that what we live for in this country? Why take away one of your favourite pleasures in life…