Come Friendly Meteorites

Just a small one.  Only a small meteorite do I wish Manchester's way.  One just large enough to take out a convention-centre, say.  And perhaps a few smaller hotel-sized and taxi-sized buggers.  Evil fuckers can't all be in one place at the same time, I suppose.

Ministers should waste no time to make unpopular cuts to pensioner benefits, a think tank director has said.

Many of those hit by a cut to the winter fuel allowance might "not be around" at the next election, said Alex Wild of the Taxpayers' Alliance.

And others would forget which party had done it, he added.

At the group's meeting at the Conservative conference in Manchester, former defence secretary Liam Fox said spending cuts must be "for keeps".

Mr Wild said the Tories could not wait until a year before the next election to make the necessary cuts to the winter fuel allowance, free bus passes, the Christmas bonus and other pensioner benefits.

Mr Wild, who is research director of the think tank which campaigns for lower taxes and highlights examples of Government waste, said the cuts should be made "as soon as possible after an election for two reasons".

"The first of which will sound a little bit morbid - some of the people... won't be around to vote against you in the next election. So that's just a practical point, and the other point is they might have forgotten by then."

He added: "If you did it now, chances are that in 2020 someone who has had their winter fuel cut might be thinking, 'Oh I can't remember, was it this government or was it the last one? I'm not quite sure.'

"So on a purely practical basis I would say do it immediately. That might be one of those things I regret saying in later life but that would be my practical advice to the government."

You might well regret it indeed, you fascist piece of shit.  The few pensioners who manage to not freeze to death, not die at the hands of cuts to the NHS, and not lose their memory to Alzheimer's, should remember those words the next time the 'Conservative' Party comes knocking at the door with promises of 'Security.'


* References to meteorites hitting Manchester above are in the name of Hyperbole.  References to fascism are in the name of Accuracy.

Sleeping Homeless in Manchester: A Visual Guide

In an attempt to aid the valiant efforts of Manchester City Council to provide and care for all its residents.

ALLOWED

Doorway:

Cardboard-Box:

Sleeping-Bag:

Bus-shelter:

NOT ALLOWED

Tents:

But lest anyone accuse the councillors of heartlessness, note that Pensacola, Florida passed an ordinance in 2013 that banned:

 Sleeping out-of-doors under one of the following circumstances:

(i)                  Adjacent to or inside a tent or sleeping bag, or

(ii)                Atop and/or covered by materials such as a bedroll, cardboard, newspapers, or

(iii)               Inside some form of temporary shelter

Maybe it's a nod to the somewhat colder climate that Manchester, England generously allows its homeless population the luxury of sleeping under newspaper & cardboard that Pensacola, Florida would deny theirs.

* Yes, I know the spikes depicted are/were in London, though similar anti-homeless measures are popping up in cities all around the globe.  And the other pictures, bar perhaps the last, aren't of Manchester either.  And ?

New Order: Denial

Way different tempo from that on Movement...

I'm guessing this is one of those pivotal moments where what was written, in the style at least of Joy Division, finally started to transmute into what would be New Order.

Joy Division: Heart and Soul

Joy Division: She's Lost Control

Surveying her Domain ?

Those who know will probably either have seen said image within the last year or two, or...are of a certain age... Myself, I've been in love with this image and its variants every since I saw it.

My favorite Irish Republican

Oh, look, we've got mail:

Uh...Gerry Adams ?  The Omagh bombers ?  The geniuses that helped bring about the redevelopment in the Arndale area of Manchester ?  The would-be assassins of Thatcher in Brighton ?  The dicks that brought about the closure of the rotating restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower ?  The would-be bombers of Canary Wharf ?  Miscellaneous murderers of a few thousand people in Northern Ireland ?  Wait, wait...you are referring to the IRA, right ?.....

Oh, you mean the radical bomb-throwing extremist fuckers in the US Republican party.  Nah, mate...I don't hold with yer actual terrorists, like...  Who d'you take me for ?  Peter King ?

Joy Division: Failures

Mere words wouldn't do Curtis & Co. justice.

Joy Division: No Love Lost

Had to post something from Joy Division, having watched the BBC doc. recently on iPlayer.  Not a bad take, though a little heavy-handed on the Yay, look at mighty modern capitalistic Manchester thing, and the idea that Curtis & co. had anything to do with that, which is complete and utter bullshit.  Worth watching if you're a fan (or even if not, cos' what the fuck is wrong with you), but Corbijn's take in Control is still more compelling, and, may I daresay, more in keeping with the feelings of the times, rather than how we may now wish(/pretend) them to have been.  Oh, and I'd entirely forgotten that Samantha Morton played the part of Curtis' wife in that piece.  I really need to see it again.  But no, the BBC thing doesn't suck.

Buzzcocks: Everybody's Happy Nowadays

Buzzcocks: I Believe

Da fuck ?  I put in the video URL, of the service that Google owns, and duh-huh, can't find it...  I edit the HTML manually, and it takes the audio, but for some reason throws up an error on the image.  Another video URL, again from the service that Google owns, and duh, somehow, can't find it.  Edit the HTML manually again.  Fucking tossers !

Don't believe boys & girls in shiny tech. companies that promise the earth whilst drooling over thine own data.  Fuck 'em all.