I'm busy doing nothing

Am having a slightly extended Easter break even though kids are back - was supposed to be working today, but then had to be off tomorrow - tiresome domestic / medical stuff - so decided to make a weekend of it.

Which means I am free to write a blog at 4:15 in the afternoon, even if it's just a quick one.

I was delighted that the Trussell Trust exceeded its normal take by a couple of orders of magnitude, due to the reaction of right-thinking individuals to the Mail on Sunday's tricks (see last blog). So at least something good came of it.

And maintaining an Easter theme (very loosely) I was astonished by the BBC's Rev show last night. Really beautifully done - emotional and spiritual almost, though with plenty of comedy. Check it out.

I suppose there are lots of good comedies that have a semi-tragic element behind them. I don't just mean the biopic- friendly stuff on Tony Hancock or Kenneth Williams. It's simply that for us to relate to a character there usually needs to be something appealing about them; something human. It's why The Office really works because of Tim and Dawn (the painting set etc) and not because of David Brent.

Elsewhere, I'm not writing about football, other than to lodge my indignation that the first nine minutes of the BBC news at lunchtime was about David Moyes. Orwell had something to say about the proles, football and the lottery - uncomfortably close to the bone these days.

So, that's it. Despite being a Gentleman of Leisure today I have other stuff to do. Not least I have to figure out some more French in advance of a Voxcetera rehearsal tonight.

P.S. Break a leg to all those involved with Sweeney Todd tonight. I am going on Friday, and may I suspect need some time off pies thereafter.

Easter - it's more than just chocolate bunnies you know.

It's been nice to have a few days off. Not done a lot mind; went to see Sixfold playing in Forest Hill on Friday - which was really enjoyable. And since then have been to the gym a couple of times, done some paperwork and slept. All things that needed to be done, but lacking the wow factor.

But Easter is a time for reflection, so I guess that's OK. I am not a believer - far from it - but I'm not evangelical about it any more. There are bigoted idiot Christians; but there are bigoted atheists too. Most in either camp have their hearts in the right place and we should fight against dogma and bigotry regardless of source. I don't buy Christian morals and values or Christian generosity; I can quite easily refrain from killing sprees without feeling the hand of God on my shoulder. Most of us are good, most of the time.

So it was nice to see the Mail on Sunday today lay into food banks for being a soft touch. I am ashamed to think that we are in a country where kids go to school hungry. Where people have to choose between heating and food. Or ask at the foodbank for stuff that doesn't have to be cooked because they cannot afford the power. Could you find one person who has exaggerated a bit to get stuff from a charity? I'm guessing so. Just like people exaggerate their insurance claims or their CVs.

Many people must be hugely ashamed to have to go to strangers for food. It's not begging, but it's not far off. And foodbanks do have criteria, requiring a referral and limiting the number of visits.

Most of the foodbanks, at least in South London, are run by churches. This is an area where religions do score over atheists. Not generosity, but organisation. Churches have buildings and regular meetings - it makes that easier. It's just a shame that they have to.

So, as you unwrap your next Lindt chocolate bunny, say a word of thanks. To God, dumb luck, the invisible Pink Unicorn (Bless Her Holy Hooves), whatever you like, for the fact you are one of those who have enough to eat. And next time a foodbank is collecting outside your supermarket, but something extra and give it to them. Perhaps buy it instead of a newspaper.

Or give them some money direct - The Trussell Trust is running a drive on Just Giving for Easter. I did, and the good feeling lasted a lot longer than the one that the chocolate gives.

Poodles in China

Picked up tickets yesterday for Chris Difford & Glenn Tilbrook at the Union Chapel in November. Thinking of it as a birthday present to myself. Back when I was at college and trying to earn a few quid working behind the bar, the Squeeze singles collection was a fairly regular backing track.

I loved the wordplay of those songs - listen to "Slap and Tickle" or "Pulling Mussels from a Shell". And Chris Difford has continued that until this day - even naming an album "Cashmere If You Can" signals an intent in that department doesn't it? And I've decided this year that I should go and see my earlier idols while I still have the chance.

Number three son has returned healthy from a school ski trip to Italy, with, typically, the only injury caused messing about playing football. And number two son is just about to go off walking the Pennine way with his Cadet group (after going to Wembley to see Arsenal this afternoon). So the house is having some quiet weeks.

There are times when quiet is my greatest wish, but more often I miss having them about, and find myself talking to the gerbils instead (they are good listeners, to give them their credit). And at least I have an extended weekend coming up next time; I'm already thinking about what I want to do. Ideas via FB or Twitter please. As it stands, I shall be trying to start writing the book I've been thinking about for the last few months. If I don't do it soon, I never will.

Autobiography

Easter approaches with speed, and I welcome her with open arms. Not for religious reasons, nor indeed for chocolate. Simply for the chance to have a rest.

I am pretty tired at the moment. Pretty much everyone at work has been ill, so I've been waiting for the morning when my throat was thick and my head heavy. But I think the germs have been fighting each other off until today when I have started feeling very tired and run down.

I have been reading Tracey Thorn's wonderful autobiography, which I recommend to anyone - though particularly those who liked their post-punk pop like me. She has an engaging writing style, completely without pretension, and with a matter-of-factness which is I suspect, entirely genuine.

this is the third biog I have read in the last year, ad also the third I have read in the last ten years. Andy Kershaw and Danny Baker are the other two, since you ask. All great reads, and all people I tremendously admire.

The Boy Kershaw introduced me to world music. Danny B has a love of trivia and music that humbles me in its amazing depth. In fact looking on my shelves, I think (only think because books in this house are ordered chaotically, stacked on to of each other, and one behind the other) the only other biography I can find is X-Ray, the oddly told story of musician extraordinaire and Muswell Hillbilly Raymond Douglas Davies. I'm sure I have a couple of vols of Tony Benn's diaries somewhere, and a copy of Morrissey and Marr: A severed Alliance - maybe behind some Victorian ghost stories or something.

I suspect that anyone lower down my list of heroes simply isn't someone I want to read about. They won't grow with the telling and life is too short.

I remember at my high school we had something called English Enrichment. This was an extension group in today's parlance. A rebellion by ancient and old-fashioned English teachers who believed in stuff like grammar (and whose hatred of my use of the word 'stuff' even then, I now commemorate in the title of this blog). But who also believed in setting of pupils in a school where it was anathema (I am using big words today in case they are reading this).

One of the assignments was "write your autobiography". As a painfully shy (about) 13 year old boy in a class 90% female, who felt he hadn't done anything yet in his life (with I think some justification), that one was never going to go well. I wrote a poem. And since then I have been suspicious of people who write about themselves. There is the fish-in-a-barrel joke about today's latest sleb singer nobody "writing" a book, but they are just to laugh at.

Either someone is good at what they do or they are not, I don't want to know what they had for breakfast. In that way most modern biogs are very slightly less ephemeral and very slightly more monomaniacal versions of Heat magazine. Yes a biog of say Churchill would be different, but I'd read that to understand the history better.

So, when I do have enough shelves to do it there will be a choice one for the few people I think are important enough to read about. Not the Tracey Thorn one though, cos that's on Kindle!

Saturday

Saturday, and the Saharan conditions have abated.

I spent the morning at a vocal session on the South Bank - learning a bit more about singing songs from musicals, with a range from Sondheim to Les Mis. Great fun followed by fish and chips in a decent pub in Southwark.

And having gone and helped my son pick up some furniture for his newly refurbished and very grown up room, and done the ironing, it has the feeling of a good day of balance between achievement and entertainment.

So now its time for tea, blogging and pontification.

Despite its concrete brutality, I rather like the South Bank. It doesn't feel like proper London, but still contains a friendly mix from skateboarders to serious art people. Plus it has book stalls - another of the addictions I may not have told you about, and nice cafes. And people walk for the sake of it, not just to get from A to B as they do on the other bank. Which, come to think of it I have never heard called the North Bank. I resolve to spend more time on the rive sude (is that right?).

Being in on a Saturday however brings the 'what to do' concern. I don't do the Voice, and try to avoid Casualty in case Charlie Fairhead is still in it. (He is.) That man is the BBC's Ken Barlow. Not in the boring, druidic, sexually-promiscuous, non-rapist way. Just in the "ravens in the tower" can't get rid of him way.

I could consider our new London Live TV channel. It has reruns of Smack the Pony and Spaced on, which would take me nicely up to Stewart Lee time. Or I might run a coupe of episodes of Brass Eye. Or read.

I've been listening to a new (to me) podcast which is basically a long chat between Frankie Boyle and a Canadian comic called Glenn Wool. Not for the easily offended, but very amusing. Called Freestyle,if you are interested, and shows Boyle to be a deal more educated than he comes across usually.

Tomorrow, off to see Bart's Choir at Cadogan Hall doing some Bach, and I suspect frantically trying to learn some French folk songs before Tuesday's Voxcetera rehearsal.

How do you sleep?

You may not have heard of Yashika Bageerathi. She is the girl that was deported to Mauritius yesterday. As a nineteen year old, despite the fact that her mother and family are in the UK, she can apparently look after herself, and so, even though she was six weeks away from her A-level exams, she was flown out of Heathrow last night by Air Mauritius.

There are so many ways to attack this, because it is a shameful act. We could have let her stay and finish the courses that our taxes have been paying for her to do. Then, assess her as an adult on that basis.

Or we could say that this is a nineteen year old girl who was given asylum in this country because of an abusive family in Mauritius is now being sent back to the same country without her mother. And that is simply wrong. Having admitted this family, we owe them a duty – one we have breached.

And as human beings, do we not have compassion? If any of you don’t feel at least a slight tug of unfairness when you read this then please close the blog now. Following the lead of Jonny Marr*, I forbid you to read it.

So this is what we have become. A nation that will separate a 19 year-old schoolgirl from her mother, and is prepared to jeopardise her academic future if nothing else, so that we can be seen to be tough on immigration.

This country may or may not have an immigration problem. That’s not the subject of today’s sermon blog. But if we do, it is principally a problem with unskilled migrants who are state dependent, or are here illegally. And how does deporting a seemingly intelligent schoolgirl deal with this?

Ah well, it will go down well with the voters of middle England who might have been thinking about defecting to UKIP, and hide behind their net curtains in fear of the forthcoming Romanian hordes.

So Mr Cameron, and Mrs May - because whatever you say about courts and process you could have stopped this – I hope you slept well last night. Knowing where your loved ones are and that they are safe. Because I am guessing that Yashika Bageerathi’s mum didn’t.

*when David Cameron appeared on Desert Island Discs, he named a Smiths song as one of his choices. Jonny Marr was incensed, and tweeted that Cameron was “forbidden” from liking the Smiths – I think on the grounds of being a complete t**t.