I was lucky enough that my English Lit. Teacher, working in a North Hull boys Catholic School realised that he’d be onto a loser teaching us all that Classical Poetry pony, and selected Cumbrian poet Clifford Dyment as one of our set texts, 1984 being the first year where the teacher had such autonomy. Well done Mr. Wilson (even if you were a member of the SDP, fell asleep in a lesson and we all crept out, and slagged off my handwriting whilst offering no advice about what to do about it).

Dyment made an impression on me due to the simple but interesting use of language and his poem about Windscale (“A canker itch between the toes”) is still etched on my brain even though I haven’t read it in 25 years, and am unable to find it online or a the Library.

I find poetry a bit intimidating, probably because I worry that I won’t “get” it, and find reading it a bit out of my comfort zone.

But being 41 and in Carl Jung’s Third Stage of Life, I fulfil the stereotype of only trying this stuff at this part of my existance.

This one I remember and could find online.

The poet is imagining a lazy life as a duck only to have his idyll rudely interrupted by “two boys intending war and slaughter.”

Given the date of the poem it’s obvious what Dyment is getting at.

I love the whimsy of the thing, but then with the reality check at the end. Somehow this seems quintessentially Northern and I imagine fellow Lakesman Melvyn Bragg reading this little gem.   

The ducks are clacking by the brook;
The sun is hot, but cool their feathers look.

Ducks do not plan ambitious schemes:
Their commerce is in weeds and streams.
They ask, what’s life but sparkle and spray
In a lazy brook on a lazy day?

I think, if I were five feet something shorter,
I might have been a duck upon the water,
A portly duck, with a shining bill
Yellow and spruce as a daffodil.

To me, possessed of an idle mind,
That seems a life of the perfect kind.

Two bicycles plunge into the water –
Two boys intending war and slaughter.

The brook is shallow here. There is a noise
Of water, and terror and reckless boys.

It is the manner of this performance that concerns me the most.

Flat, insipid. Lacking any sort of inspiration. In 180 minutes of Premier League football we have not made the opposition ‘keeper make one single conventional shot stopping save. Not good enough.

I said pre season that being in the Premier League was a learning curve for all of us connected with Hull City, but Phil Brown has shown himself totally incapable of making professional progress and should leave the Club now whilst we still have a chance of turning things around.

His replacement should be Blackpool boss Ian Holloway who has proved that he is ready for a shot at the Big Time.

I write only two hours after the final whistle. Emotions are running high. And the news around the City, if it is true about Jimmy Bullard has left us all incandescent with rage. The Mail and the other news media are not saying anything yet and I do not intend to repeat unsubstantiated rumours here, but the wide spread nature of this story make it veracity depressingly real.

Phil brown should go for the following reasons;

1)        He does not know his best eleven, and hasn’t done so for a year.

2)        His tactical decisions, recently 4-5-1 make the team awful to watch and Jan Venegor Of Hesslelink must be distraught with frustration at the soul-destroying role that he is required to fill playing up on his lonesome.

3)        Brown continues to fall out with is players in the most unprofessional and child like way. His stupid “motivational” gambits, the latest making the players stroll up and down Anlaby Road to see “real” people at work, and walking them around the derelict Boothferry Park so they could “appreciate where this Club has come from” are just laughable. As if any of the players give a toss about that stuff. We are all realistic enough to realise what the modern pro is like. It’s not ideal but you have to deal with it. Bobby Robson managed it whilst maintaining his dignity and respect within the game.

4)        We have become dreadful to watch, and the confidence continues to ebb from the team and the fans with every painful moment of the season.

5)        If Duffen acts now we have winnable games away at Burnley, at home to Stoke and West Ham to come and we need to be out of the bottom three come the opening of the window if we are to attract quality players.

6)        I believe that there is just about enough quality in the squad, provided it is well enough organised for us to stay up, but the axe must fall now.

Whilst compiling a series of strongly opinionated articles for a German publication, an elderly writer becomes infatuated with a much younger woman whose jealous partner devises a nefarious plan to restore his cuckolded pride.

This novel has strong echoes of Phillip Roth’s Exit Ghost as socio political issues become bound into the elder protagonist’s lust that will always remain unrequited, and like Roth Coetzee chooses current events as the wallpaper.

Like David Peace’s masterpiece “GB84”, the narrative is a bit unconventional as we have three strands on each page. The first paragraph is polemic, e.g. “On Tony Blair”, or a rant about semantics; the second is the author’s account of his burgeoning relationship with his young Filipino neighbour who he enlists to type the above opinions. Finally we get to see the story from her viewpoint as she works out what she means to the old guy, whilst her current beau hatches a devilish plot against the (inwardly) randy writer.

This was my first foray into the South African’s work and I found it compelling and with a simple flow, and you can see how Apartheid would impact on anyone’s opinions, no matter how Liberal their intentions.

His views on the role of the State, in a critique of Locke and Machiavelli were a challenge especially when the issue of pragmatism over ideology are discussed, the context of our Labour Government being a very good case in point.

I spent a fruitless afternoon last week searching for the Booker Prize winners work in the Library. I wondered what the dickens was going on. Surely we aren’t that philistine in Hull. Then when I got home it was pointed out to me that his name starts with a “C”, not a “K”. Doh!

So to the amazing Vercors novel “You Shall Know Them”.

This book blew my mid to the extent anything I say about it will be banal and never do the thing justice. Suffice to report that it’s the best novel I’ve read in ages.

Here’s the basic idea; get out and get yersen a copy pronto.

Written and set in the 1950’s, an anthropologist joins an expedition to PNG and in the jungle they come across what may be the missing link between humans and our primate cousins.

He inseminates a female (turkey baster just in case you were wondering), brings the mother to be to England where she gives birth. He registers, baptises and then kills the offspring before proceeding to call the police and demand to stand trial for murder.

What follows is just a fantastic debate on the nature of what it means to be human seen from multiple points of view.

By 2015, Britain with the Tories would be less productive, more divided and unequal. It wasn’t, contrary to the assertion of Calvin Harris “Acceptable In The Eighties”, and it ain’t acceptable now!

They would cut £5 billion from targeted investment in the recovery this year alone, and risk turning the recession into a depression.

They would target investment on a tax giveaway of £200,000 to the 3000 wealthiest estates. That's £2 BILLION over the course of a Parliament to the richest people.

They would put jobs at risk opposing our fiscal stimulus, racking up a higher bill to pay for the hundreds of thousands more on the dole.

They would make life harder for families at work by cutting Sure Start and tax credits.

They would scrap our guarantee of a job or training place for young people out of work for a year.

They would put the NHS at risk by mortgaging the assets of local hospitals.

They would put special interests before patients’ interests - scrapping Labour’s guarantees for patients, including the guarantee to see a specialist within two weeks if your GP suspects you have cancer.

They would cut the equivalent of 3,500 Police Officers from our streets this year alone and make it harder to use DNA evidence in catching criminals.

They would stand in the way of new green industries by opposing wind farms up and down the country.

They would isolate Britain on the fringes of Europe and have already joined up with Far Right Parties who deny the Holocaust in the European Parliament.

“Now that we know the scale of the risks we have created and are creating, it would be selfish,

irresponsible and morally wrong not to act now to reduce our carbon emissions and do all we can to

protect the future.”

Laudable stuff, evidence surely that the Tory Party has really changed, really recognised that this issue matters and really will do something about it if they win the Election. Which they won’t by the way.

Cameron pushed his Party into being re branded as Think Green Vote Blue, and having a nice green tree as a logo. Not because they believe in the cause, but because they think it softens the toxic Nasty Party brand and taps into people’s concerns.

But when you try to espouse values that are alien to you, an own goal is always on the cards.

Cameron delivered the first Lee Dixon v Coventry 1992 moment when he had himself filmed cycling to work at the Commons in order to reduce his personal CO2 emissions.

Nice one Dave. But getting your chauffer to follow you with your gear rather defeats the object. Did you think no one would notice? Probably as you expect reporters to just say what you want them to say in the manner of an Eton Fag shining your shoes.

David Davis, until his stunning act of political Hari Kari last year was a prominent Tory Front Bencher and was set for the Home Office until his spectacular misjudgement which forced an un necessary by election, provoking the ire of Cameron who sent him to the back of the class in disgrace. Davis was a regular on TV and trusted by the Tory hierarchy to help them with their image problem.

I wrote to him last week to enquire if he was going to engage with the 10:10 lobby group survey of MPs regarding what they were going to do to reduce CO2 emissions.

“I will be entirely frank with you and tell you I am a sceptic on our ability to halt climate change by reducing CO2 emissions”. (Sic).

Apart from the appalling syntax and grammar, this is a pretty stunning admission by a Senior Tory and evidence that no matter how much they put on the pretence of being concerned, the reality is that they don’t give a damn about the environment.

Extrapolate this to their pronouncements about the NHS and Education and you get to the truth of the matter. Their values of bullying the weak to advantage their own will never change.

Contempt.

That sums up the Tories whole attitude to those whom they consider they are born to rule over.

You can see it in Cameron’s face when journalists challenge anything he accepts as received fact.

In a recent interview on Radio 4 he said; “We will continue to support SureStart”, as if he had been asked to endorse Terry Christian as a member of the Bullingdon Club.

What Cameron didn’t say that by “support” he means that they won’t shut these centres which provide a life line to many vulnerable people (and could be a good means to monitor benefits take up and use) right away, but rather let them whither on the vine by withdrawing £200 million annually as announced on Monday by a slack jawed Tory Councillor in Dorset. Hmmm. There’s an image.

The latest example of withering disregard for others comes from George Osborne who described his amateurish attempts to present himself as a professional politician with ambitions to manage the Treasury as “presentational errors” and “and not significant to the debate.”

You what mate?

So when the axe comes crashing through the Public Sector and the Tories push the economy into a “death spiral” (Danny Blanchflower of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Group) and people start receiving their P45’s it’s just an error old boy. Don’t worry old son, it’s not real, just a theory.

The same was said about Milton Friedman’s bonkers monetary ideas.

That’s all they are to the Tories. Ideas on a spreadsheet.

So whilst Thatcher, Joseph and Howe pored over figures in Number Ten about the money supply, millions of real people with real lives were thrown out of work with all the consequences that flowed for which we are still paying now.

Professor Blanchflower again; “We are in the midst of the worst recession most people alive have ever experienced, or will probably ever experience," Blanchflower writes. "Lesson one in a deep recession is you don't cut public spending until you are into the boom phase. The consequence of cutting too soon is to drive the economy into a depression. The Tory economic proposals have the potential to push the British economy into a death spiral of decline."

Now let’s look at the Tories favourite bete noir, Incapacity Benefit.

Osborne “revealed” that he intends clawing back £600 million over the next Parliament by putting the worst offenders back to work. Sounds good, and as a unwilling recipient of IB (I want to work but they won’t let me, even after I had made concrete enquires as to working 10 hours a week as a counsellor in Hull schools, long story) it absolutely winds me up how people play the system, but if you can find enough Doctors to conduct 3,000 interviews PER DAY, and then sign people off with no recourse to a second opinion or an appeal, then you should be put to work at the UN solving the Palestinian Question in the morning and the Arms Race before afternoon tea.

Quite aside from that Gorgeous George went on to say a further £300 million would come from cutting £25 a week from those on the top IB rate.

One fatal flaw here George. There aren’t enough people on top whack to raise this figure. So I assume you are going to do what you did in the ‘Eighties then? You know the wheeze? Inconveniently high unemployment stats are making Jim Prior and his fellow wets err, well a bit damp, so you sling a load of people onto IB and hey presto! Only 3 million unemployed! Bargain! Then demonise them in the Daily Mail and cut the £25 that way. Nice one geezer! Way to go!

It proves the Tories have nothing to say about the real issues when the spectre of IB is raised. Good headlines in the right wing media for an issue they have no way of solving, and in the great scheme of things is fairly insubstantial when measured against the NHS and Education budgets. Not that we should just look the other way. Peter Hain was in the first phase of doing something about this as his constituency in Wales has nigh on 50% of working age people on IB, something he was determined to act on by introducing private firms (shock horror!) to work one to one with claimants, taking time and effort to see what they CAN do (me, six half days a month as a counsellor to young people and offenders please!) and help them to take the plunge.

What happened to Hain? Oh yeah. He made a balls up of his accounts and guess what? He resigned, did his time and came back having learnt his lesson.

The one thing I dislike the most about current times is the almost savage cynicism abroad, about everything from football (there’s too much money, too much this, too much that, too much hype about the England team yada, yada) to society in general (chavs, dumbing down, perceptions about crime) to politics.

The later two are corrosive and important.

I could blag on about how such an attitude is lazy, self-serving, decadent and doesn’t do anything to help. But what’s the point? You can’t change this by being equally negative about other people’s negativity as you end up being dragged into their cynicism. You follow me. Good. I thought I explained that quite clearly actually. Do keep up.

We are where we are but I still believe that we have the power to change things if we want to, either through direct action such as the 10 for 10 campaign which aims to encourage us all to reduce our CO2 emissions by err 10% next year.

I’m not wholly sold on the man made climate change thing, but if there’s an outside chance we can do some good then why not give it a lash?

http://www.1010uk.org/

It’s no big deal and if everyone has a go, then you never know. And it keeps our MP’s honest. They have to answer you. Make ‘em work!

Barack Obama is the single biggest reason to believe in the power to change things by politics in 2009, if not indeed so far this century.

There’s the usual carping form the cynics about Obama’s backstory, presented here in unflinching yet unsentimental detail and I was a bit surprised that the McCain crowd didn’t make more of his admittals of personal failings, but the momentum that Obama generated from personal campaigning which avoided the usual corporate hand cuffing meant there was little the Republicans could do about it.

I was enraptured from the first to the last page. Obama’s easy conversational style with his quite mind blowing belief in the good of other people made me realise just what a monumental thing the American people have done in placing power in the hands of a guy who, just twenty years ago was sitting in a queue on a Saturday morning to seek arbitration from New York Housing Corporation due to experiencing land lord problems.

We all know what that’s about! I don’t know anyone who hasn’t gone through a scenario where a landlord is trying to screw the tenant, no matter how subtly.

His grounding as an organiser in the Chicago Projects and his admital that he often felt like jacking it all in only to be kept going by a pot of tea with an elderly resident who needed him, really struck a chord with me. What a man.

Barack Obama is dreaming up the world he wants to live in, and making it happen. Actually happen. Amazing.

Obama’s vulnerability is just so honest, and the way he writes about his family, it’s dysfunctional nature and yet the love that comes through just inspires me.

What a difference a week makes.

After suffering the mother of all hammerings at Anfield allied to a week of feverish speculation regarding Phil Brown’s job around the City (seemingly the conversation de jour at all bus stops) we were looking for a reaction from the players, given the Perma Tanned One’s observations regarding thrown towels on Sky, to see whether that oft bandied phrase about “losing the dressing room” was true.

This performance suggests not. We were denied a stonewall penalty in the opening phase of play and suffered a minor scare at the other end almost immediately but there was no sign of panic, or of lowered heads. The players kept on working hard for each other and gradually we took control of the game form a well drilled Wigan side who kept the ball well but came up against a better balanced home team line up.

The key for me was the decision to move Zayette into a McMahon type-shielding role in front of a central defensive partnership of Sonko and Kilbane. Both have oodles of experience, but are no great shakes in the pace department. Thus Zayette’s presence allows Kilbane in particular, to just sit, read the game and clear up when needed.

Venegoor of Hesslelink led the line on his own, fitness levels are coming along well, and he brought Geo and Hunt into the game expertly. Negative? Perhaps a touch as he is prone to get isolated and there is tremendous pressure on Hunt to be a jack-of-all-trades, breaking up play and supporting the Dutch target man. The Irishman looked dead on his feet and PB needs to make sure that Marney does his bit especially in fire fighting scenarios which will become apparent against the top six.  

Barmby was promoted to Skipper, a wise move if he is going to be a regular starter. With all the best will in the world this isn’t going to be the case and there is a strong case for Geo to have the armband until the return of Ashbee and the inclusion of Ghilas as a right hand side starter. The Brazilian has been a new man since signing a two-year deal recently and took the plaudits, deservedly as the Observer’s most Valuable Player of the Week. His tackling back was a real eye opener and he clearly feels more settled in Hull now and he has a big role to player as a leader in this team.

One swallow doesn’t make a Summer and all that jazz, but I am much more assured that the Management, Staff and players are all singing from the same hymn sheet. The upcoming fixtures are kind and this win will prevent the build up of pressure from getting out of hand.

·                            Boaz Myhill,

·                            Andy Dawson,

·                            Kamil Zayatte (Seyi Olofinjana, 81),

·                            Paul McShane,

·                            Ibrahima Sonko,

·                            Kevin Kilbane,

·                            Deiberson Geovanni,

·                            Stephen Hunt,

·                            Dean Marney,

·                            Nicky Barmby (Kamel Ghilas, 64),

Ja       Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink (Steven Mouyokolo, 90)