Can't care, won't care

I'm all out of rant.
I'm so lost without it.

I don't care about anything any more. I mean, I do care a bit, I care a bit about a lot of things, but I don't feel evangelical about any of them. I want to. I want to have a subject to bang on about at the drop of a hat that isn't "aren't my children exceptionally talented and beautiful and polite and other things that are of no interest to anyone that isn't their parent?"

See, I care quite a lot about fish. I feel that people who bang on that "meat is murder" and then eat fish are a little hypocritical. Don't get me wrong, two of my most favouritist people in the entire world are pescetarian types, and anyone can eat what they like, but neither of these people are the "murder! murder!" types. I eat chicken occasionally despite being ostensibly vegetarian these days. I also eat jelly babies. I don't care what other people eat. Even fish. Unless it has a head or shell on, then it makes me a bit ill. That's just me, sorry, and it's fine -really! - if you do it when I'm not there. It just seems a bit wrong to say it's cruel to eat a chicken, but it's not cruel to eat a fish. But, I don't want to offend anyone and people are entitled to eat what they want (there aren't diminishing chicken stocks - not Knorr, don't be silly - but we'll not go there). If it's about taste, or preference, or dislike for farming methods, anything like that, fine, but do not tell anyone that it is murder to eat one animal and not another.

Incidentally, they make good pets, they are not just decorative and it does matter when they die.

And that's as passionate as I get about anything and I don't want to offend people so I need to retract most of it.

I care quite a lot about Boris. He is an idiot and I will happily explain why at any given chance. But I get a bit boring about that because it's all transport related. Mention the word "transport" and people glaze over. Also, being passionate about a hatred for a human being is not very nice. I find gleeful mirth at the fact that my clever, clever phone wants to correct "Boris" to "virus" and bore people occasionally.

Do you KNOW what he's wanting to do to traffic lights?

Oh. Ok.

I raise an eyebrow occasionally (rarely a sign of passion) at the reports on why *we* are so much happier in times of crunching credit because now *we* do things like walk in the park and have friends round to the house. Oh do *we*? *We* didn't do this before? What is the point in life if you don't enjoy the stuff that's just THERE? Were *we* that obsessed with things-that-cost-money?

Yada. People drink too much, too often. I don't. I don't see why almost all social occasions have to revolve around getting drunk. See fish comments for "best keep this to myself or I'll offend, well, everyone". Do you really need to be drunk to have a good time? Really? Oh, never mind, social skills aren't all that. Really? Moving on.

The environment. I care. I do what I can without unduly affecting my life. I'm a bit lazy. I think the people that can do anything aren't, and the people who know what they're talking about talk about the wrong things. And the wrong things are being done. It's hard to get passionate about something when you see what the other, more influential, people are doing and getting it wrong. Yes! I have changed all my lightbulbs! Yes, I don't use a tumble drier! Yes, I walk places! Oh, you're landfilling all my rubbish. That's grand. And where do I recycle these things? Hmm? Oh right. Paper only, or I can take bottles to the park. Great. Thanks for your help! Oh good, more biofuel, that's just what we need. Ach, I'll just turn the light on again.

Invasion of privacy: I'm too ignorant to care. Rights of the motorist? Selfish gits, get out and walk. Other things? Can't think of them so I clearly don't care that much.

And so we come to the end of everything I could care about, in a lot more than 140 characters.

Sigh.

Topical rantage

If I blog about what I'm studying then it counts as study, right?

Right. Thank you for reassuring me.

Through my studies I'm coming to realise that some of the decision taken re: transport aren't actually bonkers after all, that some of them are due to legislation and even that legislation has some sound basis for being. A slow understanding that probably means I'm on my way to being one of them. Cycling's the future, you know. Yeah. That was me that said that.

And so I appreciate how I used to think, and that everyone possibly doesn't read the same policy documents I do. But my opinions were never printed in a national magazine. Ray Winstone's have been. Today I read how he hates the congestion charge because there's all that money being taken and where's all the money for hospitals? Errr. Ok.
Answer to Mr Winstone: because the money is for transport. The legislation to allow for congestion charges was brought in in order to attempt to improve the appalling transport system we have. The money has to be sunk back into transport. It's the law. It's what it's for. And yes, theoretically the money could be clawed back from elsewhere and reallocated for hospitals, but that would defeat the purpose of introducing a scheme to improve transport.

When you see all the bus and cycle improvements that have been done so far, oh yes they have, it's a bit hard necked to whine on about the cost to the car driver. We do have a problem. We do have to do something about it. We have to stop being lazy fat arsed whiners that drive to the end of the road. We need to car share to the end of the road. Or do that perambulation thing people used to do before the car was invented. Boris is wrong: Ken was right.

Even Boris might have a clue about the Forth Bridge. It is not news that it's coming to the end of its life, I think it's been known since around about when it was built. The new plans are spectacularly short sighted and the funding to be borrowed from the Treasury against budgets up to 2018 was always a little optimistic. So the Treasury said no, we're not going to be in power then so we can't say (or something like that) and now we're up in arms because we'll have to use our own funds and business investments to build a stupid new bridge that isn't what we need and that we've needed for a damn sight longer than the plans have been in process so we can't turn round and say that it's because of the crunchy nut credit.

I'm still a bit confused about the other new bridge at Clackmannanshire. What's that for? It goes across the same bit of river in the same direction (more or less) to end up pretty much at the same place as the existing Kincardine Bridge. Why did they keep it a secret? Does it have a reason? Can't it be used to relieve the Forth Bridge? Could it not have been built somewhere less on top of the existing bridge? Couldn't it have been combined with the needs of the new crossing that isn't going to ever be? It is very nice and shiny, I do like it, and went across it completely unecessarily and drove the 2 feet back to Kincardine just for the hell of it.

facetiousness aside, I believe there is good logic for this bridge but it seems a little shortsighted (again) not to allow some sort of link up for the crossings

You know when you type a word so often it becomes weird and doesn't look like a word any more? That just happened with bridge, I need to stop talking about bridges now, although the word does look satisfyingly like a bridge between the b and the d. They should be called brids. Much better. Maybe sbrids to get the approaches in. Hmm.

25 marks for bridge planning? I feel confident.

Ignorance

That's my ignorance I refer to by the way. Just in case anyone hasn't got the time to read past the first line and wants to decide I'm mocking someone else.

I'm reading this book just now, called "Who Runs Britain... and who's to blame for the economic mess we're in" by Robert Peston. I would like to know the answer to this question, hence the purchasing of the book. I am on page 5, due to courseworks and what not, so I'm not all that in a position to judge.

But I can judge myself. And I'm off on a talk-about-myself thing, I do apologise. Blame Chandler.

I'm back to this whole "I don't know what I think" thing. I make a crap anarchist, because if someone's in charge, I get all meek and think "ooh, how exciting, he's in charge, how very assertive". (if it's a he; if it's a she then I think, ooh she's not very pretty, no wonder she went into politics). I like being told what to do. Within reason. If I kind of wanted to do it anyway.

I want to be told to do the things I want to have the freedom to decide that I want to do. On the fence a bit on that one.

Libertarian: make your own decisions. Nope. Too much responsibility. No thanks.
Fascist: force me to do things I don't want to do. No thanks.

Next?

Right's bad, right? So why does David Cameron make so much sense? Is he from the shiny happy wing that like social cohesion and want to join Europe? Does that really exist?

And why does Boris Johnson make so little sense? No, Boris, don't listen to the people, they don't know what they're talking about... oh you did it anyway. Never mind. "We love you because you bumble". No. No bumbling. Be assertive.

Nick Clegg's nice. He always says nice things. Very nice. Totally harmless. Being nice. I just looked to see if there was anything not-nice about him and the worst I could find was that he'd said he'd slept with no more than 30 women. Oh, really. How terrible. Obviously we all want virginal politicians that bumble. Anyway, I likes him: can promise the moon on a stick as will never have to provide, thus promises little pretend moons on matchsticks because that's rather nice.

I have no idea what Gordon Brown says about anything because I think he has a nice voice and immediately switch off. It's not intentional, I find him very boring. He's a lovely MP, he writes occasionally about how much he wants to improve Kirkcaldy and is often seen at the Rovers, but yawwwwwnnn. Oh, you did what? We spent how much? And you're not... ok. Alistair Darling, similar problem, I watch his eyebrows and the words wash over me. I can't remember who the rest of them are, those government types, boring people that drivel on. I like some of what they say, I'm kind of annoyed about the whole war/economy thing, I don't really care about them. VAT, woop, I've saved about 10p this week, I appear to mostly buy VAT free goods anyway. I buy a wodge of things, look at the receipt, Total bill: £45.97 VAT saving: £0.02. Oh wow! Really? Every little 2p adds up. If I start buying stuff I don't normally. Biscuits. I need more biscuits in my life just to appreciate the VAT decrease.

So, as demonstrated, I'm a bit clueless.

And back to the book...

I was slightly dubious as he's from the BBC and they might just possibly be a teeny bit biased against the government, but hey, no conclusions jumping. But he's not really. He's one of those people that absolutely categorically knows what's right in his mind, he knows exactly what he thinks and what he believes in. I want that. I want to know. I don't want to be woolly and impressed by young, nice, unbumbling people in suits.

I want to care. I want to be passionate like I was about hating Jack McConnell. I knew I hated everything he said, it was easy, shout "you're an idiot!" at the TV a lot, object to every word he says. Easy. Why can't I hate the rest of them like that? I need to hate more, then I'd care more, then I'd know what I believed.