The day before the last elections I wrote a poem:
Election Day tomorrow,
But the country’s up in arms,
We don’t know who to vote for,
‘Cause they all greased their own palms.
We feel like we’ve been cheated,
As they swapped their second homes,
And filled them up with pricey crap,
Like designer garden gnomes.
We’ve watched in mounting horror
That the country’s run by fiends,
We don’t HAVE to pay for loo seats,
And for posh moats to be cleaned.
“No I won’t resign,” they say,
“I’ve done nothing untoward.”
Then thirty seconds later
They have fallen on their sword.
But tomorrow if you go to vote
I must make a little plea,
Be careful who you’re punishing
Or we’ll get the BNP!
In spite of my warning (or maybe because only about 12 people read my blog) the BNP won 2 seats in the European Parliament. Oh dear. More people should read my blog, clearly. Tonight newish MEP and leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, will be appearing on Question Time and now it seems the country’s up in arms. Er, hang on a minute. Have they already forgotten how it was that he got his seat? He didn’t give it to himself. That’s right, people voted for him. Somebody, somewhere, indeed several somebodies saw the BNP at the top of their ballot paper and put in a big fat cross. What possessed them? Well, who can say? Of course there are BNP supporters out there, lurking, let’s be honest, there are a lot of racists now that all these “Johnny Foreigners” are coming in and taking our jobs blah blah blah-di blah. Ask them, of course, and they’ll say “I’m not racist or anything but…..” when they proceed to be just that. But are there more of ‘em out there than ever there were before? I doubt it.
Maybe it was a protest vote by some people. A bloody stupid one I’ll grant you. But how often do people really consider the consequences of such a thing? They don’t imagine other people will do the same. Do they? “I’ll just stick my cross in this here BNP box,” they think to themselves, chuckling slightly, “and when they read out the results and see they got one vote those Labour and Conservative chaps’ll think twice about fiddling the expenses again.” How very naïve. Or could it be down to voter apathy? We’re very well known in this country for being far too lazy to get off our bums and walk to the local school to vote. It’s not like we have to go far or have to write our names or anything. “But, you know, I went out for a walk last week and I must have ventured a whole 50 feet from my house and I’ve been to work and I’m tired and I just can’t be arsed.” And women! Think of those poor suffragettes that starved themselves just so you could not really be that bothered to exercise the right to vote they so vigorously fought for. Shame on you!
But whatever the reason behind the BNP wins the fact remains that they were democratically elected, whether we like it or not. And the protesters outside the BBC seem to have conveniently forgotten that. They also appear to have forgotten what living in a democracy means. Have we got any right to stop anyone, regardless of how odious we find them, expressing their views in public? Can we really hand someone a European Parliament seat in one hand and then say well, actually, we didn’t mean to give YOU a seat, can we have that back, please so we can give it to someone else we like a bit more? No? No. That’s not democracy, is it? And sure, you can stop Nick Griffin from having a public voice but you don’t want to make him a political martyr. The fact is when he gets his 15 minutes on Question Time tonight he’s bound to be so vile and objectionable that most people won’t make the same mistake twice of allowing him a parliament seat and maybe they’ll be a bit more careful when choosing who they vote for or if they vote at all. I wonder, though, of all the protesters (mostly students) outside the BBC tonight how many of them actually voted in the June elections? Very few, I’d say. In which case they’ve only got themselves to blame.

My daughter has reached the age where, if you put her down somewhere for a sec while you make a cup of tea/answer the phone/go to the loo/scratch your bum or quite literally do anything at all, when you turn back she’ll be gone.  She’s been crawling for a while and that was bad enough but now she’s walking, really properly walking.  No longer does she take the few faltering steps of a couple of weeks ago; it’s now full-on, knees-raised stompy walking in the style of R Whites’ secret lemonade drinker of the 70s.  Damn it.

This walking causes me many problems.  For example, if I have some food, any food at all, she will come stomping over to beg for some.  And I really do mean beg.  She makes this horrid whiny “mmmmmmm” noise and it seems the only way to stop it is to shove whatever it is I’m trying to eat in peace in her gob.  Oh, she’s good.  She seems to be of the opinion that my food is her food regardless of what it is and regardless of whether she actually likes it or not.  I must admit it is pretty amusing when you give her toast with marmite and her whole face contorts and she shakes her head from side to side.  What’s that you say?  Evil parenting?  Pah, she shouldn’t be so greedy.  Or keep coming back for more when she knows she doesn’t like it.  At least I haven’t videoed the marmite face…..yet.

But it’s not just food that’s fair game for her now.  The cats find themselves of great interest and if they’re stupid enough to stick around when there’s an excitedly shrieking baby thudding towards them they’re likely to fall victim to a bashing or have their whiskers pulled.  If she could say more words than “wassis”, “wassat”, “dog”, “cat” and “foot” (each with varying degrees of recognisability) she’d probably say “I’ll hug him and squeeze him and call him George” at the unfortunate kitties.  Similarly the fish tank is regularly clobbered, sending the poor buggers zooming off to hide behind Spongebob’s house.

If I thought I was struggling to get anything done before the pesky little monkey became mobile, though, it’s absolutely impossible now.  She’s so quick and she always makes a beeline for all of the things she’s not allowed, easily picking out the remote control or the phone over and above the millions of toys we have provided for her education and entertainment.  And while sometimes it’s possible to get her to sit still with some toys and a cup of milk (but you have to strap her into her high chair so she can’t escape) it’s never for long and soon I’m back to chasing her around and stopping her from climbing the stairs or breaking things.  She’s most contrary and I have no idea where she gets that from…

I realise I’m complaining about what most parents are overjoyed by but I have managed to produce possibly the cheekiest child ever to have been born.  Plus she’s my third.  I’ve seen it before.  And well might my husband (for whom the demon child is his first) gasp in wonder at her increasingly sure and steady stomping, but he doesn’t have to chase after her all day.

So, against my better judgement, I have succumbed to the bright colours, dreadful songs and patronising speech of children’s television, most particularly CBeebies.  I bloody hate CBeebies.  It’s not just that programmes like Balamory and Big Cook Little Cook are a chore to watch (and believe me they are) it’s also that the presenters in between are absolutely terrible so there’s no respite from the awfulness.  They talk utter twaddle.  They sing very badly.  They draw rubbish pictures.  Aren’t they embarrassed?  I am for them.  They’ll never work again, not if anyone ever finds out they did CBeebies.  In fact they really never do work again, as my older children are now 12 and 10 I’ve been subjected to CBeebies hell before and the presenters from then have disappeared.  I suspect the BBC had them shot.

I may despise it but the effect on my pesky daughter is amazing to behold.  She will quietly sit watching this rubbish for 15 whole minutes at a time.  15 whole minutes in which cats, fish and household objects are safe and I could relax if only I wasn’t screaming inside for this dreadful crap to end.  I can only imagine what she’s thinking as she watches it, it’s hard to believe she’s enjoying it and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s only watching it to gain ideas of how to use children’s television as a vehicle in her plot to take over the world.  Seriously, I’ve seen it in her eyes.

Given that I am no longer a number but a free woman it’s pretty unusual for me to find myself at the Probation office any more.  Sure, I drive past it on occasion, en route to town or wherever, but it’s not exactly somewhere you’d choose to visit.  You’ll not be surprised to learn that it’s a depressing sort of place, neutrally decorated so that all the marks show up on the walls and all the stains show up on the carpet, with posters up advertising all sorts of offending behaviour courses, schemes about giving up smoking/alcohol/drugs and information on what you have to do if you have a community service order.  And a sign stating tops must be worn at all times.  Lovely.

Today, though, for the second time in a few months I braved it because I had a meeting about some potential unpaid writing work for the Probation Service in my area.  Writing the whole Porridge series for this blog has re-awakened my interest in matters of criminal justice, you see, so rather than sitting around on my bum (as you are well aware I am incredibly proficient at) I thought I’d get off it and do some good.  Or something.

Portsmouth City Council has become something of a bastard in recent years, in particular when it comes to parking.  It used to be that you would have to pay in city car parks during daytime hours only.  Not any more.  Not only do you have to pay extortionate rates whenever you park now, you also find that, rather like rats, you are never more than 6 feet away from a parking attendant.  So, with 5 minutes to go before my meeting and as I was filling up the parking meter with about £450 worth of 10p pieces I was somewhat alarmed to see one of these attendants eyeing up The Beast (the Flaherty family car is big).  I’d only been there for 20 seconds, for the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s sake!  And where the hell did he come from?  He must have been hiding behind that Corsa!  When he started writing something down I panicked and loudly informed him, while still shovelling coins into the meter and giving him a Paddington hard stare, that it was my car.  He looked very disappointed.  Bastard.

All in all not the best of starts.  And next came the walk to the Probation office door.  I’ve been there many times, but if there are ever people outside smoking, and there usually are, it’s pretty intimidating.  It sounds snobbish of me, and I don’t mean to be, but I feel out of place there.  The people you see look as though they’ve fallen on hard times.  The conversations you hear are not like any conversations I’ve ever had.  Today three drunk people, two men and a woman smoked and talked about the job centre, manicures and breaching their licences.  Who’s drunk at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon, especially if they have a Probation appointment?

The problem is that I feel guilty for feeling this way.  They’re people, just like me and you.  And as I’m trying to style myself as some kind of ambassador for ex-offenders in the hope of altering the attitudes of the wider public, maybe I should have a little empathy, after all I’ve been through the system and then some.  But it’s so hard and I realise my hopes for being able to do something positive in the fight to reduce re-offending rates are a little idealistic.  This won’t stop me though and I’m determined to chip away at attitudes a little bit at a time.  But next time I have a meeting I might suggest we meet in the coffee shop…