Life after the Election!

Expressions of disappointment at Thursday's election results are still all over my Facebook page like a rash. None are quite so determined as the actions of the garden centre owner who put up a notice asking any customers who voted Conservative to identify themselves so that he could impose a 10% Tory tax. Our daughter commented that the right wing must not use social media as ALL her friends on Facebook and Twitter had been urging everyone to vote Labour. I thought she was intelligent enough to know there is a wider circle outside your own group of friends!!!! 

And the analysis of what went wrong and how it happened continues in the newspaper. But on the whole life gets back to normal and we just get on with things. 

So, on Saturday we went into Manchester to a concert of Russian music - Rimsky Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin and so on - at the Bridgewater Hall. Because the concert started at 7.30 and it takes so long to get into Manchester from our neck of the woods, I persuaded Phil that we should eat out beforehand, and off we went to Panama Hatty's where they serve an interesting mix of mostly Central and South American food. All good. The conductor at the concert was of the enthusiastic school, jumping up and down on his podium and demonstrating sheer delight in the music being played. Apart from a boring wait in Oldham bus station for the last bus home - listening to repeated reminders that floors can be slippery when wet, that pickpockets might be operating in this bus station despite the fact that this bus station is regularly patrolled by Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive police (really!), all delivered in tones suitable for talking to a demented five year old - we had a very pleasant evening. 

And here are a few odds and ends gleaned from the weekend's newspapers. First there is a man who decided to become a Jedi - not because he was a Star Wars fan but because of the ancient Egyptian Djedi and their philosophy. He designs and makes and wears his own costumes, which appear to be based on the Star Wars outfits, finding them more comfortable than "normal" clothes. He even sells on outfits he no longer wants to wear to people who dress up to go to Star Wars conferences. He carries a light sabre because small boys like to have their photo taken with him and cannot understand if he does not have one. The local police recommended that he should register this "weapon" with them so that he had a licence to carry it. Needless to say, at 45 he has still not found a partner who wants to share this life style with him. On the other hand, his philosophy seems to keep him perfectly happy. Who am I to say he is odd? 

David Hockney, artist with a work ethic who goes to bed at 9 pm, was interviewed at length. He stresses the work ethic because when he decided to go to art college, age 16 or so, one of his neighbours said that most art college students , indeed most artists, do no work. He, however, worked hard from the word go, or so he maintains, and still does so. He sold his first painting in 1957 at the Yorkshire Artists Exhibition for £10. It was a portrait of his father. The proceeds were enough to keep him going for more than a week. In 2009 his painting "Beverley Hills Housewife" sold for £5.2 million. I wonder how long that kept him going. 

How strange is the relative value of money! I remember withdrawing £2 at a time from my student bank account and living most of the week on it. My first job, selling shoes in the summer holidays, paid me just under £4 a week. I blew most of the first week's pay one summer on the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now I would probably just download it. The songs might not be in the order the artists intended but it would be free! 

Hadley Freeman, journalist, born in New York City in 1978, describes herself as having been "a typical older child from a middle-class Jewish family: well-behaved, anxious, bookish". She was not allowed to watch commercial television but made up for it when her mother finally let her rent videos. She was surprised to be allowed to do this because her mother, she says, was "the dorkiest mother ever, who only ever gave us fruit for dessert". And we thought it was just Woody Allen who had an odd view of the world. 

And then there is rabbit show jumping. Rabbit show jumping? Big in Sweden since the 1980s apparently. Who'd have thought it? And some people want to introduce it in the UK. There are rules and everything, all about not stressing or forcing the rabbit. You're not going to get rich doing it though. One enthusiast, interviewed by Zoe Williams, when asked if she did not think she might find training dogs or horses more satisfying, replied that the big advantage is that you can transport ten rabbits easily to an event while it's much more difficult with ten dogs or ten horses. When not training rabbits she is a driving instructor. Does she make rabbits do an emergency stop? Things to conjure with; mainly it means she has flexible hours that fit around taking ten rabbits to showjumping events. Of the two aspects of her life she declares, "Rabbits are much easier to train, though. Humans don't listen." And rabbits do?? 

The world is still full of odd and interesting things!