I'm Alright Jack

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Week from Monday 29th April 2024
Week from Monday 6th May 2024 - M'Aidez! It's that time of the year (already!) when the BANG COLLAR DAZE come thick and fast. Not that it affects my own scheduling! Long weekends, shorter weeks, makes no diff! I am required to live from day-to-day (and particularly NIGHTS), coping with shifts in routine only by WRITING STUFF DOWN, making lists, ticking boxes, calculating averages. It's what I do now. Occasionally, I might pour out any thoughts into 'This Here BloggyDiaryDoodah' as they occur to me, even if it is at three-thirty in the morning!

Painful nights, comfortable daze...

I managed to hobble down the road to cast my vote in the LOCAL ELECTIONS. But the results showed that no form of #StopTheTories 'tactical voting' will ever work in Fareham. Even the specialist websites can't offer a definitive solution. I can't see any way of shifting the SelfServatives out of THIS borough. I'm not saying that the town is full of truly awful people (well... maybe...), it's just that they're mostly "I'M ALRIGHT JACK" complacent. A broadish mixture of smug land owners, 'white van man' small businesses and a lot of ex-navy types who still believe that the sun shone out of Thatcher's arse. Mail readers all, I shouldn't wonder. But there just aren't enough "woke lefties" 'round here, folks who actually CARE about stuff, to ever swing it. (The turnout in most of the wards barely scraped twenty percent.) Nationally, the signs are encouraging... but boundary changes or no, this place is indelibly BLUE. A reminder that this is the constituency who thought that Suella Braverman would be a good idea. I dismay...


THE OTHER KIND OF 'CYCLE'... Naturally, I've been following the fortunes of the LIDL-TREK squads all season on that soshul meejer, but opportunities to actually WATCH A RACE have been slim. But the GIRO D'ITALIA kicks off this weekend, so I've been scrambling about on the 'dials', trying to find out which unlisted backwater TV channel is carrying the seven o'clock 'highlights' show this year (it's supposed to be on the oft-unreliable DMAX. Setting the digibox to record and hoping for the best!)

Our man for the sprint finishes is JONATHAN MILAN (earning himself the 'ciclamino' jersey), while JUANPE' LOPEZ is notching up a few GC seconds along the way (currently in seventh place on the leaders' board), with all the other guys in full support when it's needed. So apart from the dreadfulness of the telly commentators, and the inevitable certainty of another win for Pogačar, it's been (g)ripping fun so far...

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