Black Country Day

It’s Black Country Day on Monday, the 14th of July. Now these events don’t always get the publicity they need before the event. We only learn about them afterwards. We have a great history in the Black Country and strange traditions.

It ay bleedin’ Monday is it?

One of the traditions is to get out of bed on a Monday morning with an hangover muttering, “It ay bleedin’ Munday is it?” and then stagger out to work. So I was wondering why this special day  was planned for a Monday. Then I realised that Dudley Council was involved and the Black Country Museum was trying to cash in selling souvenirs. Then it all became clear. We have a sense of humour in the Black Country though, so we’ll have the special day on Monday and celebrate it on Saturday. That meks sense dow it? In Darlo they have something planned and will be putting up an outdoor stage in King Street. It’ll be no expense spared in Darlo. They’ll be dancing in the streets to the Darlo Disco. I could pop up and photograph that… It seems that Dudley is claiming to be the capital of the Black Country. They con pay fer it…

Public School Boys

The House of Commons Speaker has written to party leaders urging them to clamp down on “yobbery and public school twittishness”. John Bercow said that the tone of the debate was putting off the public.

In the Black Country we know they are all overgrown public school boys playing with people’s lives and making a mess of it. They should all grow up and stop being so petty. The name calling and the petty slogans are pathetic. Iain Duncan Smith is a snob who thinks he knows best for people less fortunate who have had real problems. He looks down on people here from his mansion with it’s 5 bedrooms, swimming pool, tennis courts and thinks we don’t know how he got it. George Gideon Bleedin’ Osborne thinks life outside London is all about money grabbing. Not content with building on flood plains they want to frack underneath them. While fracking isn’t as bad as some hippy campaigners would have us believe, it still has to be regulated. We can’t have an unregulated free for all, we have seen what happens when we had that in the housing market and in banking. It’s bleedin’ barmy, as we say in the Black Country…

Executions

I read an article on the BBC website today that said a psychologist who supervised executions in the US still has nightmares about it and now thinks execution is wrong. It’s too late now, but it’s easy to be swept along by a tide of public opinion opposed to a minority. Then you lose your humanity, especially if you don’t actually witness the effects of your inhumanity. This guy saw the effect of pulling the switch on the electric chair and as much as he might rationalise it,  “It’s the most premeditated form of murder you can possibly imagine and it stays in your psyche forever.”

It’s easy for members of our government to pass judgement from on high on whole swathes of the population, but one day they might have to face what they have done. Let the nightmares begin…

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