Fork handles, Two Soups…Ch,ch,ch,Changes..

I saw Victoria Wood at The Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone twenty years ago. The audience was largely female and, from the opening minutes, splitting its sides. As a male sitting among guffawing females, I smirked amiably at the cascade of jokes about corsets, tampons and stretch marks. The rapid-fire songs were ingeniously funny and the night’s conclusion was a standing ovation of several minutes. Now this unique little flame is extinguished – along with so many others of too young an age this year. Prince.

Today I have tuned in to hear a couple of sanctimonious doctors rail about patient safety. I wish the ‘junior doctors’ would come clean and say that this is about money, Saturday overtime pay and Jeremy Hunt. I’d be more inclined to appreciate that their subsidised education and high income potential was worth the effort of my latest missed appointment. The BMA have some questions to answer too.  And as for Jeremy Hunt, the sooner he becomes rhyming slang the better.

Talking of money, I notice that someone you won’t have heard of, a soccer luminary by the name of Dominic Solanke, is asking to be paid £50,000 a week by Chelsea. He has yet to play in the first  team but believes that his efforts to get in the top XI deserve a huge reward. Unlike doctors he doesn’t appear to work on Saturdays at the moment; nor at any other time in the week. He’ll soon be in the Sunday Times Rich List, published at the weekend, along with a number of premiership soccer players, most of whom actually get selected.

Obama’s entry to the EU in/out  thing was tedious wasn’t it? Does anyone care who the next mayor of London is? And at £29million do we really need to repair Big Ben? I’m only asking. Other questions that have plagued me of late include: Why has it taken so long for BHS to become insolvent? How much more mud will stick on John Whittingdale before he falls on his prostitute’s sword? Has anyone got a good word for Donald Trump? Even his supporters revel in the anti-hero unpleasantness of the man.

As we slouch towards voting for this or that in May and June bigger pictures appear above me. The value added to our lives by Victoria Wood et al. Justice for the 96 of Liverpool. And debates on big issues where self-interest and lust for power come second to what is right and what is wrong. It would be good to ch, ch, ch, change things for the better, not just for ourselves.