Peace Train

I was about to start this post by saying that it feels a bit daft sitting here typing garbage in the certain knowledge that no one will read it, but having just checked my stats I see that I have still been getting visits during this hiatus, so now I feel guilty, which doesn't mean that any of this tripe will be worth reading.

As readers of my various blogs will have noted over the years, I am in the wrong profession and my working life is, well, dismal really and a few years ago I became a bit of a spiritual seeker; not in any profound way, but I would read a bit here, meditate a bit there, albeit without any consistency. Over the last twelve months my working life became worse than ever and the harder I try to find an alternative, the more entrenched I seem to become.

However, I decided not to moan about it, as I did in the past, nor swear revenge on those who were mistreating me and I determined to just try to keep my head down, be civil and polite to everybody, never lose my rag, accept my own part in my circumstances and just try and get on with it. The stuff that has gone on hasn't just affected me, it has affected others, in a much more profound way and one poor bugger has probably lost his position and his pension after many years of selfless service.
He and I were, are, victims of a nasty little coterie of gossip mongers and trouble makers, who seem to delight in causing trouble for others, whether it is justified or not.

Well, things have turned around a bit. The complexity of the work that I do is now recognised and I have been assured that senior managers are now aware that I have been most unfairly treated, which is gratifying. The point of all this is that without the spiritual shit I have read and the meditations that I have done, I would have been raging against the world for the last twelve months and demanding that not only is justice done, but that it is seen to be done.................and my position would have got worse. In a very small way, I have been trying to tread the eightfold path, and, in my case, there seems to have been some benefit in it.

Not that I have rendered myself incapable of righteous rage, far from it. I have been raging of late about the coverage of the dodgy donations to Labour. I am neither an an apologist for, nor a supporter of Labour, but this whole business is making me mad. The Tories accepting the moral high ground on these issues is laughable and the fact that no one challenges them is sickening. We don't have to do a historical trawl either, we just have to look at Michael Ashcroft, who is intent on buying a win for the Tories. A high ranking tory and a peer of the realm , who cannot tell us where his home is, not that he is trying to avoid paying tax in this country or anything as morally dubious as that.

The media, the pack animals have sniffed Gordon Browns blood and will not rest until they have satisfied their blood lust; it is the perfect illustration of power without responsibility. Meanwhile the Tories get away with murder; the sole focus of political reporting has become the haplessness of Gordon Brown. Cameron is praised to the high heavens on account of his his patrician ability to pour scornful abuse on someones head without advancing the debate or engaging in any kind of philosophising at all.

The soap opera at the Blues continues and Steve Bruce has departed for Wigan, where his style of play has already drawn comment from one of his new players. Wigan are going down, as sure as eggs is eggs. Dave Whelan must have lost his marbles. Meanwhile, the takeover of the club seems less likely and we have snaffled Scotlands manager.

The first signs are very encouraging, not least because we won our first game under the new regime, not that many buggers in the media seem willing to give us any credit for it. Two things struck me in Big Ecks first week: one was the way in which he spoke about the game and the way it should be played, with an emphasis on passing the ball. He noted that every player at the club should be able to pass the ball. The second thing was comments made by the new assistant relating to the club and the fans. He said something along the lines of it being a proper club with proper, passionate fans. I know that it was all PR, but it made a change from seeing the fans slagged off by the board and the manager.

The game against Spurs was interesting. Some Blues fans pointed out that Mcleish chose a similar formation to Bruce, which is true enough, but there were significant differences. The most noticeable change was that already, after only two days in charge, the team were actually passing to one another; even trying to pass it out from the back. They weren't actually very good at it, to be honest, but Rome wasn't built in a day and they will surely improve. Another pleasing factor was his willingness to go for the points, which in this case worked a treat; it may not always come off, but when it does, by Christ it is sweet.