Knitting Politics*
I have not got the cold. If I say/write that often enough my body might actually believe it! I can still breath through one nostril, which is about par for the course for the past nearly thirty years. Ok, so the other nostril needs blowing occasionally and last night's sleep was more broken than usual and I finally gave up this morning and got up as more sleep was evidently not forthcoming. Sorry about the (mis)spellings, Dear Reader, I may be up but I'm not entirely with it!
Last night I was with it. I was knitting Mum's cardigan and came to the end of a ball. "Oh well," I thought. "I'll just wind up another couple of skeins and carry on." Except that there were only three skeins left, and I am only down to the increasing for the hips. I do hope 7 skeins will be enough. When I compared yardages given in the pattern and on the skein label it looked like plenty. But then I've made certain bits bigger. Hmmmm. I still have to finish increasing for the hips, knit the hip part of the cardigan - not too short cos Mum doesn't like a draught round her middle. The bottom band will be knitted straight on in moss stitch on smaller needles, rather than being garter stitched at ninety degrees to the body of the cardigan. Then there'll be both sleeves, from the armhole down, and the button bands. Here's hoping. I am not knitting particularly fast because I don't want the yarn to run out before the cardigan is finished! Never mind the 'fun' involved matching different dye-lots, this would be a case of "Please would you dye me up another skein, and please could you make it match the other seven you did for me?" Hmmm.
Then I have to select some suitable buttons. I've an idea, but am not sure whether that will be a) suitable or b) available. Must go check my button tins in case I already have something appropriate.
Meanwhile one of the Labour leadership candidates, Jeremy Corbyn, has said he will seriously consider having 'women only' carriages on trains. Now back in the nineteenth century there were 'Ladies only' waiting rooms and 'Ladies only' carriages on some trains, so that women could travel without being bothered by importunate male travellers.
While I quite like the idea of 'Women Only' facilities on the railways, I also think it is avoiding the actual problem. Yes, 'women only' carriages might be safer for women travelling on their own but . . . Shouldn't trains be safe for women, or men, to travel on their own and not be bothered by other passengers anyway? It is the twenty-first century now, not the nineteenth. What of those who strove and protested so hard for 'Equality' back in the sixties and seventies? Were their protests to no avail? Are modern men so recidevist in their attitudes that women travellers need to be segregated for their own saftey?
Isn't that kinda blaming women travellers for any situations which may arise? You know, like blaming women who walk around cities for when they get attacked - even if they're attacked in broad daylight or in well lit places or even places with security cameras. Ok, so take reasonable precautions - like don't go wandering around after maybe 11pm, in the pitch dark, drunk or 'improperly' dressed. All of those could be regarded as 'provocation' by a certain kind of man. But even then the man is at least as much of the problem as the woman, possibly more. If the man has also been over-partaking of alcohol, well . . .
Actually the whole Labour leadership contest is a bit of a mess. Apparently under Ed MIlliband Labour was 'unelectable'. Whether this was him, voters' perceptions of him, Labour's (lack of) policies or voters listening to David Cameron's repeated simple message that to vote for Labour would be to vote for higher taxes, higher spending and a worsening economy. I don't know whether that would have happened but Cameron really got through to some via their fear and greed. His repeated assertions that things would be better with the Conservatives, voters would be richer, would get to keep more of their money also got through, apparently. But that's the Conservative party for you. They may have said they were in favour of 'hard working families', but are they actually going to do anything for some of those hardest working families who maybe have two or three jobs just to make ends meet and are then in need of aid from Food Banks. Yes, Dear Reader, we have people in employment who are paid so little that they qualify for Aid, or they end up needing it anyhow!
A lot of people seem to be favourably impressed by Jeremy Corbyn and his stated policies. They're very much Labour as she used to be - nationalise the railways (and maybe a few other industries), raise taxes and use the income to care for those who need it, etc. I'm not in favour of a particularly centralised government but one which is committed to care for all people in the country has got to be a Good Thing.
The other three candidates:- Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham are all younger and all, more or less, New Labour. Which, as Readers may remember, at times turned out to have policies to the Right of the Conservative party's. I'm not sure whether that's changed at all now.
The other thing is that electing the Labour party leader is done by all party members. People have been signing up in droves so that they can vote - even dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives - and boasting that they have. Such 'members' have a not so hidden agenda, to destabilise Labour even further. Others signing up are admitted Corbyn supporters. In fact so many different people have been signing up for so many different reasons, and only some of them because they are genuine Labour supporters, that the words 'brewery', 'mass inebriation' and 'inability to organise' have all sprung to mind with alarming alacrity!
Spokespeople for the Labour party have said that they are going through all the new applications to join iwth a 'robust' verification process. The idea being to weed out Conservatives, and also Troskyites and Greens apparently. Whether the verification process will be 'robust' enough, or even accurate, remains to be seen. Of course, the fact that a verification process is being applied also leads to questions of censorship and trying to impose a particular demographic on members. Something which, apparently, the Labour Party has always been against. Hmmm. 'Organise', 'inebriation', 'brewery' and 'couldn't' again all spring to mind!
Things will carry on like this for a while yet, it's still August, still the 'silly season'. Who actually wins the election will be announced 12th September. Don't hold your breath, Dear Reader, but it's going to be a bumpy ride with plenty of mud being slung by all involved. Such is the level of politics in the UK these days. Hmm, with all that mud flying around maybe a 'women only' carriage on a train wouldn't be such a bad idea after all!
I'm off to knit some more of Mum's cardigan before I run out of yarn. Y'all have a good day now!
*That's Knitting and Politics, not the politics of knitting. That's another blog.
Last night I was with it. I was knitting Mum's cardigan and came to the end of a ball. "Oh well," I thought. "I'll just wind up another couple of skeins and carry on." Except that there were only three skeins left, and I am only down to the increasing for the hips. I do hope 7 skeins will be enough. When I compared yardages given in the pattern and on the skein label it looked like plenty. But then I've made certain bits bigger. Hmmmm. I still have to finish increasing for the hips, knit the hip part of the cardigan - not too short cos Mum doesn't like a draught round her middle. The bottom band will be knitted straight on in moss stitch on smaller needles, rather than being garter stitched at ninety degrees to the body of the cardigan. Then there'll be both sleeves, from the armhole down, and the button bands. Here's hoping. I am not knitting particularly fast because I don't want the yarn to run out before the cardigan is finished! Never mind the 'fun' involved matching different dye-lots, this would be a case of "Please would you dye me up another skein, and please could you make it match the other seven you did for me?" Hmmm.
Then I have to select some suitable buttons. I've an idea, but am not sure whether that will be a) suitable or b) available. Must go check my button tins in case I already have something appropriate.
Meanwhile one of the Labour leadership candidates, Jeremy Corbyn, has said he will seriously consider having 'women only' carriages on trains. Now back in the nineteenth century there were 'Ladies only' waiting rooms and 'Ladies only' carriages on some trains, so that women could travel without being bothered by importunate male travellers.
While I quite like the idea of 'Women Only' facilities on the railways, I also think it is avoiding the actual problem. Yes, 'women only' carriages might be safer for women travelling on their own but . . . Shouldn't trains be safe for women, or men, to travel on their own and not be bothered by other passengers anyway? It is the twenty-first century now, not the nineteenth. What of those who strove and protested so hard for 'Equality' back in the sixties and seventies? Were their protests to no avail? Are modern men so recidevist in their attitudes that women travellers need to be segregated for their own saftey?
Isn't that kinda blaming women travellers for any situations which may arise? You know, like blaming women who walk around cities for when they get attacked - even if they're attacked in broad daylight or in well lit places or even places with security cameras. Ok, so take reasonable precautions - like don't go wandering around after maybe 11pm, in the pitch dark, drunk or 'improperly' dressed. All of those could be regarded as 'provocation' by a certain kind of man. But even then the man is at least as much of the problem as the woman, possibly more. If the man has also been over-partaking of alcohol, well . . .
Actually the whole Labour leadership contest is a bit of a mess. Apparently under Ed MIlliband Labour was 'unelectable'. Whether this was him, voters' perceptions of him, Labour's (lack of) policies or voters listening to David Cameron's repeated simple message that to vote for Labour would be to vote for higher taxes, higher spending and a worsening economy. I don't know whether that would have happened but Cameron really got through to some via their fear and greed. His repeated assertions that things would be better with the Conservatives, voters would be richer, would get to keep more of their money also got through, apparently. But that's the Conservative party for you. They may have said they were in favour of 'hard working families', but are they actually going to do anything for some of those hardest working families who maybe have two or three jobs just to make ends meet and are then in need of aid from Food Banks. Yes, Dear Reader, we have people in employment who are paid so little that they qualify for Aid, or they end up needing it anyhow!
A lot of people seem to be favourably impressed by Jeremy Corbyn and his stated policies. They're very much Labour as she used to be - nationalise the railways (and maybe a few other industries), raise taxes and use the income to care for those who need it, etc. I'm not in favour of a particularly centralised government but one which is committed to care for all people in the country has got to be a Good Thing.
The other three candidates:- Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham are all younger and all, more or less, New Labour. Which, as Readers may remember, at times turned out to have policies to the Right of the Conservative party's. I'm not sure whether that's changed at all now.
The other thing is that electing the Labour party leader is done by all party members. People have been signing up in droves so that they can vote - even dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives - and boasting that they have. Such 'members' have a not so hidden agenda, to destabilise Labour even further. Others signing up are admitted Corbyn supporters. In fact so many different people have been signing up for so many different reasons, and only some of them because they are genuine Labour supporters, that the words 'brewery', 'mass inebriation' and 'inability to organise' have all sprung to mind with alarming alacrity!
Spokespeople for the Labour party have said that they are going through all the new applications to join iwth a 'robust' verification process. The idea being to weed out Conservatives, and also Troskyites and Greens apparently. Whether the verification process will be 'robust' enough, or even accurate, remains to be seen. Of course, the fact that a verification process is being applied also leads to questions of censorship and trying to impose a particular demographic on members. Something which, apparently, the Labour Party has always been against. Hmmm. 'Organise', 'inebriation', 'brewery' and 'couldn't' again all spring to mind!
Things will carry on like this for a while yet, it's still August, still the 'silly season'. Who actually wins the election will be announced 12th September. Don't hold your breath, Dear Reader, but it's going to be a bumpy ride with plenty of mud being slung by all involved. Such is the level of politics in the UK these days. Hmm, with all that mud flying around maybe a 'women only' carriage on a train wouldn't be such a bad idea after all!
I'm off to knit some more of Mum's cardigan before I run out of yarn. Y'all have a good day now!
*That's Knitting and Politics, not the politics of knitting. That's another blog.