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  Ratty's Rathole! |
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| Home Page | Ratfile Archive 2 On MarriageDecember 15th, 2002 While researching information in preparation for the imminent return to my seaside home, I chanced upon a story from the Helltown Observer. Someone living in the run down rather seedy western extremes of the place lamented that she didn’t know a single person that was married or in a stable relationship. If a society is anything, then its cornerstones must surely be its relationships. Without them we are adrift, flitting like fireflies from one brief encounter to the next. We spread our seed and step away from commitment or permanent settings. Far be it for me however to pontificate or preach the gospel of lifelong fidelity. Folk change and stray, couples grow apart. Divorces are sometimes far kinder than decades of masochistic domestic misery. If the limb is rotten, then sever it cleanly and make do with a stump. There are no prizes for chaining two people together who have grown to detest the air that the other has breathed. But on the other side of the equation, let’s not throw in the towel so easily at the first little spat. Mrs. Rat and I have had our anxious moments, our mini-dramas and such, but we’ve learned to accept that we can simultaneously be wrong and right as well. To accept that opinion is not always reality is a giant leap for a relationship to succeed. Our manic grinding society with its compulsion to consume and the machinations of marketing has much to answer for. But even so, we will endure. Others will be less fortunate. “Nil carburundum illigitimi” (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”) Don’t Blame Me, I’m a Victim Too! December 1st, 2002 I don’t generally watch a lot of television. Too much of it is designed as a distraction to keep our minds off the more important things that beleaguer and worry at our heels. On Friday, I happened to be home when a programme came on that Mrs. Rat urged me to watch. It was one where the guests have those mosaic blobs partially masking their faces and voices that sound like characters out of a Merry Melodies cartoon short. It introduced a girl who abuses her brother. He is about twelve, she around twenty and still living at home. She was the only one not disguised. She appeared to be wearing no makeup, and had a simple hairstyle. The woman described how she administers kicks and punches to her brother on a regular basis. When asked, his response was “Well, I can’t say I actually like my sister very much.” Very diplomatic of the lad I should imagine. He irritates her so she said. I can imagine your reaction. Horrible creature should be thrown out on the streets. But wait while I complete the picture. Her mother used to administer stern punishment for the slightest infraction of her rules. Her step-father, the boy’s real father used to strike his wife occasionally, but beat the girl regularly until her mother finally admitted to herself what was happening and divorced the swine. He was also coming into her room from the time she was about twelve and sexually abusing her into the bargain. This continued for several months apparently. She was too terrified of the consequences to reveal it until she appeared on the television. Now the young woman fears that should she ever have her own child, she is likely to be an abusive mother. Here they are clinging to the apron strings of their hierarchies while playing their games of pass the buck. Social workers or factory shirkers they all pay the price as the old song goes. Who is to blame, and how will this cycle of hate and vengeance be broken? Wish I knew, but I hope someone out there does! Monument to Hate November 5th, 2002 This was written in reaction to a discussion on the merits or otherwise of a statue to former Prime Minister Thatcher. Appropriate that it came out on Bonfire Night. I grew up in a white-collar working class family. My father voted TORY more out of habit than for any real affinity for what the bastards stood for. It was 1979, I was just 17 and the vile woman won the election. My father warned me that she would be no good, she had no sense of balance, or restraint. Hers were the politics of hate. He resigned from the TORY party the following year after a 30-year membership and voted Labour for the first time in his life. Then came the event that forever scarred everyone in my family. He lost his job, and suffered a nervous breakdown. Never a day on the dole in his life, my father fell apart. I was there in the winter of 1981, snow thick and swirling on the hillside as he tried to kill himself. My mother and I managed to drag him back inside. It was the first time I saw tears run down his cheeks. I thought of Thatcher and her cold incessant droning voice, her cruel demanour and fanatical assertion that only she was right and idiots and extremists peopled the rest of the world. You were either for her, or no more than a bug to be squashed. I was unemployed for all but a couple of weeks of 1983, that was soul destroying. I scoured the South Coast in search of a job, Norman Tebbit and his callous jibes about getting on yer bike and looking for work ringing in my ears. There was no work to be found. I watched my father fall apart. He died in October 1993 of cancer. He never really recovered. I always regret that I couldn't introduce him to my wife, or show him my writing. He always encouraged me to reach my full potential and be myself. There is a poem to Thatcher, concerning a statue erected to her memory entitled "Plinth of Darkness." Well, we don't need such a thing. Her legacy and memory is engraved everywhere. Look at the generation of kids that grew up never working, the "me first and to hell with you" generation, the elevation of the football hooligan to a role model for the yob culture that has sprawled out of the pubs into every corner of our lives. See selfishness and greed given a makeover as "enterprise culture". Look at the emasculation of the NHS that five years of Labour has yet even to begin to reverse. I consider the crime, the polluted congested roads with everyone crawling along to their destination, and see the result of the "car culture" ideological idiocy that the madwoman inculcated during the horrible time she was in charge. I think death is too good for her if truth be told. If I could have just one wish, it is this. I would take Thatcher to a state of the art life support system, and plug her into it as she screeched out her objections. She would be in considerable pain, but she’d get no morphine out of me. I would switch it on, and that machine would keep her alive for years in that ghastly state. She would prey for death just as many she victimised pleaded for their lives. I would show her no more mercy than she demonstrated throughout her terrible reign. That foul woman deserves to endure the same suffering as she happily inflicted on so many others. Only, I would give it back to her with 18 years of compound interest! Drugs and Such November 3rd, 2002 Being behind the wheel under the influence of anything is unwise, but alcohol impairs the driver more than cannabis. A cannabis smoker will drive far slower for one thing. Yes, this gateway idea is total nonsense. Although I concede it may be true for a certain percentage of the population that would have advanced from one substance to the next as it is in their makeup. For the majority though it is clearly a smokescreen and nothing more. I used cannabis on and off for about ten years and during that time was never interested in trying anything else. I did cocaine a few times, during the time that I had totally stopped smoking ganja. No, there wasn't a gateway from one to the other, simply the offer was made and I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Waste of time in my opinion, I tried playing pool on coke and much to my disgust couldn't get a single ball in. Usually do a little better than that when I am unimpaired. I don't bother with drugs anymore, since I don't feel the need, but I agree that they should be legalised and people should be able to make their own choices. Take it out of the hands of gangsters and low life as well. In the early 60s, heroin was still legal. There were an estimated 500 or so users in Britain, chiefly musicians and artists. I believe they criminalised it in about 1969. By the late seventies and early 80s, well, you know the rest... There are plenty of legal drugs out there that cause harm. There's alcohol for instance, I saw a figure that suggested about 40% or more of violent crime is a result of too much booze in the system. Smoking causes cancer. I continue to smoke fully cognizant of the risks. There are shelves jammed full of prescription and over the counter pills you can lay your hands on. An acquaintance of mine once related the tale of how he mixed cough mixture and red wine together. It made him as high as a kite for most of a Sunday! Heroin is a powerful painkiller that if prescribed by doctors is used in some cases by terminal cancer sufferers as about the only thing to keep them out of excruciating pain. It’s obviously not a wise thing to get into, as it is so addictive. Addicts desperate to finance their habit commit so many crimes. If it were legal, then they could live relatively normal lives, hold down day jobs and seek help in cleaning up rather than the twilight existence that most of them have. It's natural for humans to want to get high, animals too, they will drink beer, eat dope plants anything at all to achieve an altered state of consciousness. Give people the information, and let them decide what they put in their bodies. Pardon me, I must get some Aspirin for my hangover. |
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