Letters to the Times

[Cotty]

Three things I'd like to draw attention to.

1. Money markets
I sense an agitation in the banking minions. As Dixon of Dock Green bears no relation to the modern policeman, so has evaporated the credibility and respectability of the w a n k i n g community. It's all gone pear shaped Greco style. I suspect disillusionment is growing among us punters?

2. Kelly the gov'd insp.
A superb tv realisation of a sensitive subject. Kelly was a truly remarkable man. Christlike if we are to be swayed by the dramatisation.

Watching Stone's flawed but impressive Salvador there was a line in there about the government misleading "the people" as regards the involvement, the military and financial commitment to a sinisterly dubious regime. It just seems sadly topical.

3. Blair and Oliver.
Give that boy a knighthood and the power to change things. Nora is a remarkable heroine of our times. She's practical and sensible through necessity and experience but has that rare quality and capacity to change her mind and her whole life if presented with unequivocal proof of a better way. Her transformation from sceptic to convert was magnificent. Good television and the best advertisement for Oliver's campaign. She also has a precious relationship with her husband. I respect and admire that unquantifiable bond they undoubtedly share. Me and my misses both responded to Oliver's disregard for what was best for him, his business or his family life. That's what makes him worthy of the big love he has on a day to day basis. I believe he is genuinely concerned about this school dinners issue. There is no percentage in genuine or integrity for politicians. Jamie's naivety about the noose he's putting his head into (think of Geldof/Bandaid) is sweet and probably what will save his sanity and his marriage. That's another thing he has in common with Nora. Shame on you Blair, spend four hours of your life and watch the documentary. I was sold the second the doctor went into the details of constipation and children puking up faeces, and if I hadn't been I would have been by the reaction of parents, teachers and Nora (the embodiment of dinner ladies everywhere) when they all acknowledged the behavioural change in the children. Shame on every mother f u c k i n g politician who doesn't immediately consider doubling resources available for school dinners and appropriate working conditions for those who are doing the grafting.

To finish
Can we not now start to challenge our own governmental system. I understand that it's the best we've got but there should be inflexible legisation introduced to make every politician accountable for the effects and consquences of any law that is passed with their name attached to it that at a later date is proved to be made purely on the grounds of expediency and convenience. Any financial advantages gained through personal associations should be subject to a specific tax so that there is absolutely no personal gain should be obtained at the expense of the ordinary every man and woman tax paying general public who I believe are short-changed by their political leaders.

(Always think)

[michele cryer]

Great article Cotty!

[Mitch]

Cotty I think is being rather provocative and 'mischief making' when he talks about challenging our governmental system, and that it's the best we've got all in one breath.

What's in this though is where we differ - for he sees the necessity of government - that we need to fight and protest for a better government, whereas I'm pulling away from this, and trying to work hard in the day to day to build alternative ways of living for ourselves, that we create, not that is created for us by top down government.

But if Cotty would always think, then he would trace the links to his three disciplinaries and many attempts to fight his employers ISS in a Cheshire Hospital Catering Department right back to this corrupt New Labour Government, and before to a Tory government which began that process of contracting out services such as catering, leisure, cleaning, rubbish collecting and so forth to contractors like unscrupulous ISS with a remit to cut costs, erode employee conditions including pay, health and safety, pensions, union membership and contractors who create working atmospheres of fear, stress from increased workloads and increasing hours (note the dinner ladies sweating their guts out on Oliver's dinners), as well as eroding policies and procedures on training, equality and quality - which all result in things like increased bullying, discrimination, mental health issues for workers strung out and exhausted, and deaths and accidents at work. All these filter back into home life - in short create misery.

But Cotty has been fighting the beast of government in his own workplace - he should see the connections.

On Jamie Oliver - I do not doubt his sincerity, what he is putting on the line, but his naivity stems from his belief that he can change things working within the system, with the system's rules - he may tweek with it indeed using his celebrity, supported by his sincerity and hard work which people will warm to. But by going along with it all, do we not actually condone in some way the cult of celebrity as our saving grace. I have always been rather allergic to leaders - and certainly to celebrities - spokesmen and women for the people - wot rot. Should we not speak for ourselves?

We are back to 'charity' again - and I reject it. It will not lead to real change, and if government condones something, if it invites it in I am always suspicious, because when they do this they know they are controlling it. We have a corrupt media out there too, that will daly for a while with Oliver, but may well come in for the kill shortly because they love to play and tweek with the cult of celebrity.

It is hard to imagine alternatives outside such a beast of a system, but really if Cotty thought about it he has been imagining such alternatives, and trying to create them since he was about 18 years old!

He has the fighting spirit, but has not yet shaken off the chains.

Cotty's missus, the likes of me mister, 'as spoken - titter!

[Mitch]

Letter to all Dinner Ladies:

Isabella Ford, writing in 1893 on working women's conditions and wages had some excellent advice which seems to me as relevant now as it was then:

"THE REMEDY

And how must all this be remedied? how must a better order of things be instituted?

Salvation lies mostly near at hand, within us (if we could but see it) and not without us - not in any one scheme or idea.

It is not, therefore, from legislation only, in which as yet they have no part, that salvation will come, but from the women themselves. The general teaching to which hitherto they have been subjected, must be reversed. We must teach these women to rebel and not to submit. We must arouse them to a better knowledge of their own worth, their own infinite value. We must stir within them a discontent which will make them loathe their surroundings, and make them insist on obtaining happiness and rest. We must show them it is one of the most selfish of crimes to submit to injustice, since each of these submissions adds a link to the chain of slavery fettering all working women, not in England only, but all over the world. We must teach them that their individual responsibility is as great, exactly as great, as is men's responsibility".
(Women's Wages and Conditions Under Which they are Earned by Isabella O. Ford, The Humanitarian League's Publications, No. 8, 1893, William Reeves, London).

The dinner ladies uniting over abysmal low pay and overwork, would shake the system indeed. Teaching self-worth so that others begin to act for themselves is the rub Mr Oliver.

[michele cryer]

Thanks Mitch...you've brought up some really good points...

[Cotty]

JUST IN PASSING

Jamie Oliver has given the government a wake-up call. Once again well done Jamie. Jamie may well be a celebrity and celebrity means so very little these days but he's still just a guy that stood up Howard Beale style and said, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take any more". The power is in our hands not the government's. Wake up government we may be half asleep out here in the real world but use the power you've been given on our behalf judiciously.

As regards Mitch the pregnant dog's response to my letter to the Times, I may disagree with everything she says but I'd die for her right to say it.

[michele cryer]

Cotty said:

JUST IN PASSING


As regards Mitch the pregnant dog's response to my letter to the Times, I may disagree with everything she says but I'd die for her right to say it.

Awww...Cotty...you big old sweetie!!

I agree that Jamie has done a superb job of making the government/schools and employers of the dinner ladies prick their ears up to the needs of our children...good on him!