A headline: "Seven bands from the 80s we wish would reunite" (BBC Entertainment & Arts)

A paragraph: "Children of the 1980s, rejoice – the original Bananarama line-up is back together at last. Which got us thinking – lots of 80s bands have reformed over recent years but which ones are we still wishing would reunite?"

A suggestion: Talking Heads. (Note the article date before exploding.)

I can but hope.

I know several people who voted for the first time last June, in the Brexit referendum, their intention being to send a message they’d had enough. Enough of what I found it difficult to pin down both then and now; not one of them will admit to racist tendencies, well aside from the pensioner my wife encountered outside the polling station: ‘Finally, a chance to get rid of the darkies,’ she said. My wife said nothing. What a wasted opportunity, on any level.

A conventional protest vote has a target, and last year’s was no exception. A conventional election though has an opportunity to change the effects the next time around, by ousting the subsequently-unpopular people who raised the subsequently-unpopular policies. In any event the 2 terms of each government repeats, in general, 2 terms later. But nothing changes apart from the cuts and the discontentment.

The upcoming General Election provides the best opportunity to change UK politics and thus the direction the country takes for the better, for the long term. Conventional wisdom and the tactical voting spreadsheet doing the rounds online dictate that a Labour vote in all-but secure Liberal Democrat areas is the *only* way to rid ourselves of the troublesome Tories.

No.

Voting Liberal Democrat across the board would elect Liberal Democrats who would implement Liberal Democrat policies. It really *is* that simple. Why is this concept so opposite from ingrained, monotonous behaviour?

The party’s devastating loss of face after the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition was a predictable consequence of the larger party’s ability to dictate terms, to insist on, for instance, the humiliating climb-down on increasing student tuition fees. Ask people to name one issue that would preclude voting for each party and this would be the most popular in the casual observers’ response to the LibDems. Given the choice between, for example, raising the minimum tax threshold with the benefit of taking the nation’s lowest-paid entirely out of tax, or raising those university fees, the choice was plain. I can’t *begin* to feel the sense of loss most Liberal Democrat politicians must have felt; the inability to explain why the choice had to be made. Appeasement.

So what do the Liberal Democrats actually represent, whose lives will be made better were they to be elected?

The easy bit first, making lives better: how’s about me, how’s about my family, everyone I know? It’s a party that aims to not intrude into people’s lives or business decisions, and to encourage freedom and tolerance. Not in the manner of the Conservatives’ ‘Big Society’ project (removing funding and support), not by any means.

The hard differentiating bit, the biggest in-the-news-today bit: Brexit. In common with the other smaller parties not called UKIP they’re opposed to disturbing the common notion that to derail Brexit would subvert the whole Democratic (big D for definition) process.

People who voted for Brexit don’t, in the main, realise that shouting down those who ‘lost’, calling them ‘losers’ and demanding they stop moaning is not democracy in action, it’s paving the way towards a bleak future. It’s a future in which everyone agrees there’ll be disadvantage for *some* in the UK. As long as it’s not themselves, but the reality is nobody knows how this’ll all play out.

This brings me on to an interesting point. Interesting to me, so I’m writing about it. Someone I’ve know for a long time, who won’t tell me how they voted last June, has definite ideas on how Brexit will play out. It involves showing our current partners that we can indeed be great again, have lots of things that we can sell that the rest of the non-European world wants, we don’t need Europe at all, and finally that we should cut our ties *just to see the looks on their faces.* Really, that’s it. The futility of discussing it at all is evident in 2 areas:

1. As a ‘loser’ any argument I make is automatically diminished, even dismissed, simply because I lost. Unless we’re discussing Turkey’s 51%/49% vote margin, to turn their premier into a de-facto dictator for maybe the next 12 years. *That’s* not democracy is it!

2. Any point I raise in response to a politician’s obvious lie or inability to effectively communicate is deemed “just your opinion.” Yeah.

I can imagine what it’ll be like when the to-be-elected politicians decide to impose more cuts, real austerity measures; the inevitable tax rises and service cuts won’t be popular. But I’m rambling again…

The Liberal Democrats are, to me, the obvious choice. Everyone who votes Liberal Democrat is making a choice to move away from the bit of the status quo we have direct control over: a move away from the Conservative Party, a move away from the once Conservative-lite now ostensibly Marxist-lite but still Parliamentary Conservative-lite Labour Party.

So go on then, why, specifically the LibDems?

I read the document linked to in one of my previous blog posts, the document itself is the Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Constitution. My blog post, though *almost* inconsequential, at least provides some sense of my interest. The document is not, you will note, a Manifesto. I’m not linking to that. Why? Rhetorical question: When was the last time all of a Manifesto’s promises were implemented?

How long have we got to restore sanity to the UK? 6/7 weeks.

I had a birthday recently. Nothing special, aside from to those colleagues who remembers my 'special day' and who didn't receive the cakes and biscuits it's customary to provide.

So, a few weeks on, and after occasional good-natured banter designed to motivate me, I finally left a few packs of cakes and a box of biscuits in the office kitchen. Well-received it all was too.

Speaking of late birthday surprises, Theresa May called a UK General Election for June 8th 2017.

Yeah, of course I fear the worst.

I was wrong. The 139th White House Easter Egg Roll event went ahead with the Trumps in attendance. I guess I'm simply not in tune with a lifestyle which allows separate taxpayer-funded flights for the President and the First Lady, from Washington DC and New York City, to Florida for a couple of days. And then back again.

Some people will point at this one event, ignore the history and the numbers, and assume the world is returning to normal. Hey, the First Lady might have organised and supervised the planning of the Egg Roll.

Others will watch the following video and groan:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39622126

Or read this article and groan:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/17/trump-jokes-with-easter-egg-roll-attendees-throws-make-america-great-again-hat-back-into-crowd/

You know, I am enjoying reading stuff from The Washington Post. It makes a nice change from, er…

With 99% of the votes counted and the totals being 51.4% for, 48.6% against, the Turks elected to become a dictatorship.

Like other recent close tallies, I've the feeling this won't end well for the average citizen's belief of what democracy is.

The Trumps flew to Florida on Friday, in separate jets. It's looking as though they'll miss the annual Easter Egg Roll, a 138-year-old tradition, will be somewhat curtailed in scope. A shame.

From the second article:

"Since 1878, the Easter Egg Roll has always been coordinated by the first lady. Seeing as how Mrs. Trump not only lives 200 miles away from the White House, but has yet to bother putting together an official staff, this year’s event, like Trump’s numbers in the popular vote, is expected to underperform bigly."

(The writer's emphasis.)

Is anyone taking bets it'll be recorded as the most successful event ever? Forget tradition, tradition is not for those looking to the future! Forget history, history is tor those who would read books. Books, books are for…

No.

I had intended to write about the passing at 117 of the world's oldest person, Emma Morano, but my attention spa…

Yeah. It's very unlikely there's anyone else alive born in the 1800s, the nineteenth century, the end of the Victorian era. Imagine the social, the technological change she'll have seen living through the entire 20th century. I simply cannot imagine the personal losses she'll have endured; every family member…

I'm having a profound moment here, not an epiphany as there's something quite logical about the effect of extreme age on statistics. No, mine is a sense of missing something.

There's a scene in one of the Lord of the Rings movies which brought to life something I'd never really considered in depth. The specific scene, though powerful, is unimportant here; what is is something seen in old, grand churches: statues side-by-side above stone tombs, once lovers, creators of life, holders of shared dreams, together forever in stone, mourned by fewer and fewer and then none as the passage of time takes those who once knew…

Yeah, sure it's a privileged few afforded such a luxury in death. The common man gets nothing likely to last even tens of years. The despots, the landowners, the moneyed classes of our history: immortalised.

Will the Trump era be looked back on with anything approaching warmth, a sense of a shared timespan, a belief of having achieved something?

Can I place a bet?

Incidentally, I have a bragging-rights-only wager with @texrat (Twitter), that the White House Press Secretary will last only until late August 2017. Randall thought he'd be gone roughly by the end of March. Not roughly, I think I mean approximately. Perhaps; I'm still suffused by Schadenfreude.