THERE'S A GREAT BIG ELEPHANT IN THE INDYREF 2 ROOM. WHY OH WHY ARE WE SO INCAPABLE OF POINTING IT OUT?

 

Even though I have never shared a room with an elephant, I don't find it so very hard to imagine how it would feel. Yeah. Bloody terrifying. There are certain provisos I suppose. Like how big is the room? If the room was genuinely cavernous and I was at one end and the elephant was at the other end, then I guess it might be relatively OK. But sharing a regular sized room with an elephant?

No thanks.

So Frankland, what's with all the elephant talk on this grey Sunday morning?

Well it goes something like this.

Obviously the prospect of how an independent Scotland would manage to pay its bills continues to be a regularly aired favourite for the media.

Things don't tend to vary much.

The Scottish Government panelist will say everything is going to be be great: fairness and freedom and ice lollies for everyone.

The British Government panelist will paint pictures of a Scotland looking a lot like South Sudan with emaciated citizens fighting over who gets to eat the dead rat.

The usual back and forth will carry on for a while. Yes, I'm afraid you will be too poor to manage on your own. No we won't. Yes you will.

Until eventually it's time to wrap the thing up and the presenter will dutifully give a nod and a wink to the panelist from the British Government and dream of promotion.

And all the while the big fat elephant in the room munches quietly on a bunch of Acacia leaves and nobody notices it is even there.

Why on earth is the Scottish Government so utterly incapable of getting itself onto the front foot when it comes to explaining why Scotland will be absolutely fine and dandy as a small independent nation in the wild west world of the twenty first century?

Big talk Frankland. Is that all it is, or can it be backed up? Can flesh be retro-fitted onto the bones?

I reckon it can.

A good rule of thumb in almost anything is when in doubt, follow the money.

So let's follow.

Where is all the big money? The so called clever money. The money of the two thousand supposedly super smart multi billionaires who more or less own the planet? Who do they trust to look after their ill gotten gains?

Well that is easy enough to answer. It's not exactly a secret.

We're talking the likes of BlackRock and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

The masters of the universe. The gleaming towers in Manhattan and the City of London where all the trillions of pounds and dollars are stashed. The best and brightest Oxford and Harvard have to offer are recruited to find the very best home for the treasure of the super rich. Their Cray computer sized brains are tasked with spotting the next big thing. The Shangri La where the greatest return on capital will be found over the coming decades.

Surely such a place is as hidden and mysterious as the lost city of Atlantis. Is it the bones of an idea inside the head of some obscure Silicon Valley wizz kid which in time will become the next Facebook?

Actually, it isn't.

Instead the answer the big brains have collectively found is completely old school. Right out in the open. Blindingly obvious.

The greatest of all elephants in the room.

They call it the next oil.

And it comes out of your tap when you clean your teeth in the morning.

Oh yes ladies and gentlemen, we're talking water.

As in the second most important thing in the world.

We humans can only manage without oxygen for three or four minutes, so air has to be our number one commodity and my how the high fliers at Goldman Sachs must yearn to find a way to corner the the 'air we all breathe' market.

Imagine it? Privatised air. A dollar a day for the privilege of breathing in and breathing out. A income stream of eight billion a day. The dream ticket.

Thankfully, this particular corporate wet dream is out of reach for the moment.

The second most important thing on the other hand is very much within their grasp.

We can only get by without water for three or four days and then it is very much goodnight Sooty.

And unlike the air we breathe, water is very much buyable. And right now the big money is pouring into water.

It is the ultimate commodity. Oil was pretty good. Almost impossible to manage without. But never completely impossible. There was always coal or gas or horses or slaves to be used as a fall back if the oil ran short.

There were always other sources of power.

But there is nothing to replace water and our planet is slowly but surely running out.

Or to be more accurate, we are running out of the water we can actually do something with. As in the fresh stuff. If only we could get along with the salty stuff, we would be right as rain. To coin a phrase.

And no doubt one day we will find a practical, affordable way to yank the salt out of seawater and thereby make it usable.

So long as we don't all die of thirst before getting there.

Well the big brains at Goldman Sachs obviously don't see that day arriving any time soon which is why they are buying water companies from Chile to Outer Mongolia.

As actual human beings, we don't actually need all that much water to meet our daily needs. Drinking, washing and toilet flushing can be covered by a couple of hundred litres a day. However, even such modest demands are becoming hard to meet in more and more places. A couple of years ago Cape Town took its four million citizens all the way down to sixty litres a day each. For a while it looked like they were about to run out altogether.

This is the story of the next hundred years for city after city. Country after country.

Even the worst of governments will have no choice other than to prioritise their citizenry when it comes to sharing out whatever water is available. To try to do otherwise would mean a mass uprising within weeks.

If there is only sixty litres a day of water available for the people, what are you going to say to the brewery which uses hundreds of litres to make a single pint of ale?

You're going to have to say sorry but no.

2000 litres of water = one quarter pounder

15000 litres of water = a pair of jeans.

This will become an increasingly common story which will play out over the decades to come as all kinds of industries roam the earth looking for a place to call home. A place where water is in abundant supply. A place where they can minimise the risk of laying out millions on a new plant only to have to shut it down a few years later due to there being no water.

This will be story for ninety percent of the nations which make up planet earth.

Only ten percent will be able to say yes. Nae bother. In you come pal. We've plenty of sites for you to choose from. Water? Of course we can give you water. We've got plenty. And renewable energy? Sure. Fill your boots, pal.

And guess what? Getting warm?

Of course you are.

Scotland is absolutely in that magical ten percent.

And being a part of the magical ten percent of places where water and renewable energy are in huge surplus with have any number of benefits.

Like being able to tell the corporations desperate to find a water rich home that a forty percent corporation tax is non negotiable. As is a generous employee pension fund. As is providing all employees with the best working conditions in the world. And maternity care. And sick pay.

And of course the companies would much rather be in Bangladesh paying a dollar for a twelve hour day, but Bangladesh is all out of water.

All the dollar a day goldmines are running dry.

In the years to come, there will be a price to pay for locating factories in the places where water is to be had.

Places like Scotland.

I mean, just take a look at a map. If Carlsberg were to create the perfect water collection system....

Here are a few cold, hard facts which London is no doubt more than aware of. Facts to keep them up at night.

Scotland has 31,000 fresh water lochs.

Scotland is home to 90% of the UK's fresh water.

England is on track to start running out of water in 25 years.

Scotland only uses 1% of the fresh water we have available.

I'm going to say that again.

1%

99% percent is available to take us into the brightest future of just about any country on earth.

So long as we wake up and claim the right to own our own future and not allow it to be stolen.

It's the elephant in the IndyRef 2 room.

And you can bet your bottom dollar the smug faced bastard from the British Government knows it only too well.

It's what our lords and masters in London have been on with for four hundred years and more.

They are the leaders in their field when it comes to stripping a colony right down to the bone.

When the Brits arrived in West Bengal in the seventeenth century it was the richest place on earth.

When we left in 1947, it was the poorest place in the world.

Now what happened there I wonder? What indeed?

Well this is something we should all be all too familiar with here in Scotland. It's yet another elephant right there in the room. All that North Sea Oil money which was piped straight down to London to pay for the M25 and Crossrail.

Do we seriously thing anything has changed? Do we seriously think they don't have their plans in place to go to their colony stripping playbook which has been four hundred years in the making?

And yet the panelists from the Scottish Government refuse to paint the big picture.

It's all about water, stupid.

The new oil.

And we are Klondike.

Can anyone seriously suggest with a straight face that the Government of a newly independent Scotland will struggle to sell treasury bonds?

Seriously?

Try selling the fairy tale of endemic Scottish poverty to a Goldman Sachs bond trader tasked with finding a safe ten year home for a whole bunch of big money.

We own the box seat and right now we are allowing a public school boy from London to sit in it rent free and it seems we are too shy and embarrassed to acknowledge the fact that the said box seat is actually in our name.

Now if that ain't an elephant in the room I really don't know what is!

SCOTTISH FRIENDS HAVE BEEN ACCUSING ME OF BEING OVERLY ANTI ENGLISH IN MY DESIRE TO SEE ITALY WIN ON SUNDAY. AM I? HERE IS MY EFFORT TO EXPLAIN MYSELF!

 

I've been on the receiving end of all kinds of funny looks over the last couple of weeks. How come? Well, it's all down to the football. Most people I meet are more than aware that I am a full on English born advocate for an Independent Scotland. Back in 2014, this was something of a novelty. Not any more. Now there are thousands of us – those who packed our bags and headed north out of Dodge. We sensed what was coming. We sensed it and we ran.

Well, we have a name now. We are the 'New Scots'. I have mentioned many times before in these digital pages how weird it feels to experience the sensation of being proud of my country. It is something I never thought would happen.

But it has.

And people get that – thankfully.

And people also pretty much get the fact I was  100% behind the Scotland team in our group stage clash with the neighbours from the south.

What people are more surprised at is my fervent desire to see firstly the Ukrainians and then the Danes turf the English from the tournament.

'Really?' they ask. Don't you think that is anti-English? Racist, even?

For the sake of clarity, I should point out each and every one of the people who have asked me this are Scots. Original Scots.

'Yes' supporting Scots. 

And of course they are all fully signed on to the 'live and let live' ethos of modern day Scotland.

So am I anti-English?

Of course I'm not anti-English.

So what am I? What fuels my very real desire to see the majestic Giorgio Chiellini lift the trophy on Sunday?

It is a deep gut feeling of anti-England.

Not England, the geographical entity.

Not England the place that happens to lie beyond the Cross of St George and the 'Welcome to Cumbria' sign on the M74 at Gretna.

No.

It is the kind of England which has been slowly emerging from a dark cave for forty years and more.

It is the kind of England I used to see on the streets of Blackburn in the late Seventies. Skinheads in Doc Martins and braces, brandishing their cans of Special Brew. Brick red faces all twisted in hatred.

"We're going Paki bashing, We're going Paki bashing ... Na, na, na ..."

It is the England that spawned the pond life who used to strut into the little corner shop across the road from us to rob cigarettes under the the threat of snarling Dobermans.

It is the England which set my car on fire at three in the morning for my crime of being part of a mixed race couple.

Back in those days, this England was fringe. A dark thing which from time would emerge from the sewers to stink the place out.

The NF. The BNP. The Chelsea Headhunters. Millwall's F Troop. Combat 18.

Like a few random nutters trying to stage a coup d'etat outside a beer hall in Munich back in 1923. Bunch of clowns, right? All piss and wind. No real threat. Nothing to see here guys.

Until there is something to see.

Until they become the Government of the day.

Until they send five million souls up their chimneys.

Until the joke turns sour.

The modern day descendants of the NF thugs who stomped through the streets of 1970's Blackburn are the DFLA.

Oh how the pond life always loves a set of initials? Are you familiar which this particular line up of letters?

Well, wait for it.

The Democratic Football Lads Alliance.

Seriously. It's true.

We saw them on the tele last summer when they descended on London to protect the statue of Winston Churchill.

Mob handed and collectively pissed. Red faced and bald. And off the scales angry.

We see them at England away games staggering about waving their inflatable Spitfires.

"Two World Wars and one World Cup, do -dah, do – dah day!"

Before England were turfed so unceremoniously out of Euro 16, they sang out their clever new ditty on an endless loop.

"We're all voting out!

We're all voting out!

Fuck off Europe!

We're all voting out!"

Eat your heart out Oscar Wilde.

And yes, they can be amusing in their shambling, vomiting idiocy.

Until they are no longer so amusing.

Until their spitting rage is corralled and harnessed.

Until they are dressed up in nice, crisp brown uniforms and issued with their orders.

Until a gang of chancers and con men bottle up the hate and turn it into an election winner.

Then they don't seem so funny any more.

And before you know it, you have a bunch of laws called the 'Enabling Act'. 

And then as surely as night follows day, you duly arrive at Kristallnacht.

Then they deploy Polish Workers of the slave labour variety and build the chimneys of Birkenau.

And it really, really doesn't seem so funny any more.

The road to Birkenau started with winning an election.

Have you seen what Priti Patel has in mind for Asylum Seekers? It basically means plasti-cuffs and a plane ride to Ascension Island. And 360 Tory MP's will bay and wave their ballot papers in triumph whilst the Labour Party opposite pretend to play with their phones because they don't want to do anything to upset the good folk of Hartlepool.

Or Rotherham.

Or Dewsbury.

Or Dudley.

Or Basildon.

And yes.

Blackburn.

It is why we ran.

Escaped.

Fled.

Found a sanctuary.

Because what was fringe on the streets of Blackburn in the late 1970's has finally become mainstream.

The monsters have emerged from their caves and donned suits and ties and now they are gloating about having the power to put those fleeing war and torture onto a plane to Ascension Island.

And OK, this is a rant. I know it is a rant.

I feel like ranting.

Let's go back to the inflatable Spitfires.

The Battle of Britain was fought out seventy one years ago. 

And we won.

Thank Christ.

Our pilots were a bit like the good guys in Star Wars. They came from all corners of the earth to stand up to the Nazis – Canadians, Indians, Kiwis, South Africans, West Indians, Czechs, Americans.

The pin up boys all the girls wanted to marry were the Poles who had learned the ropes in 1939 when Hitler first introduced Blitzkrieg to the world.

Oh, I almost forgot!

Many Spitfires were piloted by young Scots.

The Battle of Britain wasn't actually an England Germany thing.

So.

If Scotland had been lined up to play Germany in Euro 20, can you picture the Tartan Army brandishing inflatable Spitfires and belting out "Two World wars and one World Cup!!!!"

Of course you can't.

Obviously.

It isn't what we are. Scotland has left such nonsense far behind.

Do I have anything against the players who will pull on their white shirts to take on Italy on Sunday?

Of course not. In fact I think they are absolutely commendable, each and every one of them. They are a shining light. The fact they have completely ignored the pond life booing and the poisonous words coming out of Downing St and continued to take the knee speaks the kind of volumes Priti Patel would love to burn.

Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling, Jordan Henderson, Tyrone Mings....

These guys are absolute role models and they have my total respect.

As does Gareth Southgate.

And yes I appreciate they are offering a more effective opposition to the Tory Government than the Labour party could ever dream of mustering.

They have my absolute support in all things other than the game against Italy.

I will be honest now. I have asked myself a few questions about all this stuff. Am I actually behaving like a racist as several people have suggested?

Most of these self doubting thoughts were cleared away yesterday when I listened to the Anfield Wrap podcast. This is the 'go to' podcast for all followers of Liverpool FC.

Lo and behold, the main topic of discussion was why most Liverpool based Liverpool fans are openly rooting for Italy in the final. You see there has always been this catch phrase.

"Scouse, not English"

It's why we always boo the National Anthem at Cup Finals.

We remember what Thatcher did to the city in the 80's.

We remember Hillsborough.

And we will never forget.

A couple of years ago, some bright spark at the top of the EDL – The English Defence League – thought it would be a good idea to stage a march in Liverpool. They never made it beyond the steps of Lime St station.

They got the absolute kicking of their lives.

They were sent home tae think again.

Scouse, not English.

Listening to the familiar Scouse accents work their way through why they would be rooting for Italy did me a power of good.

Of course I am not a racist.

And I am not anti – England.

I am anti a certain version of England. It is a version which has taken fifty years to climb up out of the sewers and get its hands on the reins of power.

Inflatable Spitfire England.

Or should I say En – Ger – Land.

I am the Berlin Jew who saw the writing on the wall in 1932 and got the hell out.

I might even have chosen Scotland as a sanctuary from the Brown Shirts of my home turf.

And now I am planning to tune into the radio to listen to the 100 metres final at the Berlin Olympics.

Do I have anything against the runners representing Germany?

No, not a thing.

So surely I should be supporting them, I am a born and raised German when all is said and done.

Well actually, no.

No, I'm not.

So who do you want to win then?

Well, there's this American runner.....

His name is Jesse Owens.

SUPERMARKETS - BREXIT SCOTLAND'S CANARIES IN THE COAL MINE

 

Once upon a time things happened and the news reported them happening. It's a straight forward sort of concept.

And now? Now such a sequence of events seems like the so called 'Old Normal'.

Now we see stuff happening and it seems to take forever for any kind of explanation to arrive via the mainstream media.

In 1948 George Orwell promised this new world would arrive in 1984. His vision was right enough, he was just thirty years premature. Not bad, all things considered.

As the world around us changes, I tend to look to the supermarkets for clues.

They are the new canaries in the coal mine in Brexit/Pandemic Scotland.

Their very shelves became newsworthy in the early weeks of lockdown when the Dunkirk spirit morphed into a stampede to bulk buy toilet rolls.

The slow thinning out of the shelves in the wake of Johnson's woeful Brexit deal has taken longer to reach the pages of the press.

The mean reason of course is the dogged determination of the majority of our newspapers to maintain the Brexit fantasy Island story they peddled in 2016. And the BBC is a cowering dog trying to protect itself from the Tories yanking away its licence fee.

But they can only hide something for so long.

If you take 60,000 EU truck drivers out of the road haulage equation, well it's going to get a whole lot harder to deliver all the stuff you want to deliver. It ain't exactly rocket science.

Of course our gallant leaders in Westminster will spout all kinds of guff about training up an army of great British drivers, but I doubt any of them has ever had anything to do with a 38 tonne truck in their lives. To produce a new Class One HGV driver requires many things. A clean driver's licence, at least 4 years old. A few thousand quid. No problematic medications. And even when you've passed the test, there will be relatively few hauliers willing to put you in sole charge of sixty grand's worth of kit.

I was delivering to the people we work with in Kelloholm last week. Most of the food they distribute comes in through Fareshare. Every week they head up to Glasgow to fill up their long wheelbase van. Last week they drove home about 15% full.

Why? Did the supermarkets have no short date stuff for them to collect? No. Instead the supermarkets had no spare wagons to deliver the short date food to Fareshare. The only show in town was to fill up the skips round the back of the store.

Next up.

Supermarkets set great stall on what image they present to the customer. Which products are put at eye level on the shelves? What sits immediately outside the front door? What promotion is awarded the gold plated space at the beginning of the customer's journey through the store?

A couple of things hit me last week.

I expect Tesco are accustomed to doing deals to selling the first stop through the front door space for pretty big bucks. You wanna punt your new line of pot noodle? No problem. Cut us a nice fat cheque and the space is all yours for a week. Buy one get one free. Half price it. Whatever. Your call.

But not last week. Instead this most precious of retail space was given over to a large poster extolling the virtues of becoming a Tesco delivery driver.

As in no income whatsoever for Tesco.

A rather frantic job advert. Only a couple of years ago, one call to a local employment agency would have been more than enough to guarantee a queue at the door the next morning. Not any more it seems. Now they are having to use their best retail space in a frantic bid to attract staff.

How can this be? Unemployment is supposed to be rocketing? Why is there no queue at the Tesco door?

Once again, it is hardly rocket science. The British workforce is thirty million or so. The other thirty million of us are either too old, too young or too sick to deliver for Tesco.

The last eighteen months has seen the thirty million figure shrink by two million – all those EU Nationals who have departed these fair shores and don't seem overly keen to come back.

7.5%

One in fifteen.

Who are these people? Basically they are young, well trained, hard working and not sick.

As in not easy to replace. This kind of exodus would normally attract all kinds of news stories. We need a solution and we need it now! Let's get these people back!

Ahhh. Are the vote Leave Team about to throw the doors open to well trained and motivated young Europeans to come across the Channel to get us out of jail?

Hardly.

Instead the immigration goons are throwing Italian teenagers into Yarlswood and deporting them. It seems the Tories think this is what the good folk of Hartlepool demand. Maybe they do. Who needs fresh fruit and veg anyway?

Our press seems reluctant to report this kind of stuff. The press over in Europe have no such reservations. European papers are filled with all kinds of horror stories about how their young people are being treated at the UK border. They wonder if Britain is becoming the next Hungary?Maybe we are. It is hardly the best way to behave if we want the two million missing workers come back to fill in all the holes.

But what the hell. We have our treasured sovereignty, right? Who needs fresh fruit and veg?

Flags next. All of a sudden flags are everywhere. A few weeks ago Johnson said he wouldn't take the knee as he abhors such blatant gesture politics. Of course he does. Then England bury a few demons and beat Germany 2 – 0 and all of a sudden he is posing for the cameras standing on a Cross of St George flag, tailor made to fill Downing Street from gutter to gutter.

What a twat.

However, I best not be too hypocritical here. When the 'Yes' Campaign does it's stuff and fills whole cities with a sea of Saltires, I'm all in.

Flags are becoming an increasingly big deal in Supermarkets as they try to pander to their customers.

Morrisons put their true Yorkshire leanings on show for all to see. They use the area outside the front door to sell plants and every pot is wrapped in the Union Jack. No doubt this plays well in the retail parks of Dewsbury. Up here in Scotland? Maybe not so much.

Tesco are more pragmatic and they are canny enough to offer up a blend of Saltires and Union Flags. It is a rather fine demonstration of a corporation trying to keep the balls in the air and attempting to keep Scottish customers and the Tory Government happy at the same time.

Best of luck with that one guys.

Probably Aldi and Lidl are the most interesting on this front. These are stores where the decisions about flags are all made in Germany and they don't appear to be remotely conflicted.

They are wall to wall Saltires.

These are retailers who have been correctly guessing which way the wind is blowing for years. Right now, their car parks are always full whilst the car parks of the old giants empty out with every passing day. By choosing the Saltire over the Union Flag, it seems like they have taken a read on Scotland's future and made up their minds.

Let's hope they are as right about this as they have been right about everything else.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and it is probably fair to say most of the shows I listen to don't tend to spend much time on extolling the virtues of the Clown King in Number 10. But they have adverts which sometimes play a rather different tune.

Right now there is a Sainsburys ad which is popping up all the time. It's all about how they are the 'go to' place for Brits planning an all singing, all dancing barbecue. Fair enough.

Here's their catch phrase.

'Level up your barbecue with Sainsbuys!'

Seriously! Their focus groups must have promised them massive sausage sales as a result of piggy backing onto this particular piece of Johnsonian drivel.

Time for a few conclusions. A few bullet points.

Our supermarkets don't have enough people to drive the trucks to fill up their shelves.

They don't have enough people to drive the trucks to get rid of their waste food to Fareshare.

They are struggling to employ people to drive the vans to deliver their stuff.

Their food is 20% dearer and rising.

And their brains are well and truly fried when it comes to what flag they should fly in their Scottish stores.

And every day their vast car parks are home to fewer and fewer cars.

With the exception of the two German supermarkets.

Their car parks are full.

Their prices have stayed low.

And they are all Saltires.

THE VIEW FROM THE FOODBANK - A HARD, HARD AUTUMN IS COMING.

 

Over recent years the nation's foodbanks have become something of a bell weather. The number of emergency food parcels we hand out is deemed to be a measure of how the country is doing. Lots of parcels means things ain't great. An easing in numbers indicates a degree of hope for better times ahead.

In a way, I guess this makes us kind of useful.

In England, the cost of getting yourself selected to be a candidate in a General Election runs to thousands. Wannabe Tory MPs in particular need very deep pockets indeed to have their name put in front of the electorate. The last time I looked, the average hit was north of £30,000.

This has pretty severe real life implications for the rest of us. It means the House of Commons is more and more a home people with little or no understanding of the lives most of their fellow citizens are leading. It is why they pursue so may idiotic policies. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Bedroom Tax.

So in a perfect world things could go something like this. Government enacts a new policy. Within weeks it leads to a ten percent spike in food bank demand. Government consigns aforesaid policy to the bin.

That would make sense, right? Chances of it ever happening? Aye right.

So. The last eighteen months of First Base figures give a predictably clear snap shot of what we have all just been through.

February 2020 - One month before the first lockdown - 500 parcels.

August 2020 - Six months into the pandemic – 2600 parcels.

May 2021 - Fourteen months into the pandemic - 1400 parcels.

Which of course begs the question 'Where next?' 

What will First Base's new normal look like as the warmth of the summer bleeds away and the cold winds of the coming autumn start to blow?

Well it is pretty hard to find much in the way of sunny optimism. The media is filled with tales of people whose lives have taken on a brighter sheen as they work from home and save a living fortune on commuting costs. And all the while the value of their bricks and mortar goes up by three percent a month. I was listening to the Guardian's Politics Weekly podcast a couple of months ago. I cannot remember the context of this quote, but one of the panel journalists said '... and there are some people who have to manage on less than £50,000 a year'

Some? Talk about the Westminster Bubble? You could hear the shudder in her voice as she tried to picture living a life on less than fifty grand a year.

Here in Dumfries and Galloway, there seem to be many reasons to see signs of promise in the post pandemic future. Every rural property to hit the market attracts a ferocious bidding war. It isn't hard to see why. Picture a London lawyer in his fifties suddenly able to imagine a working life needing only one day a week in his London office. He can sell his £2 million home in Putney in ten minutes flat and shop around for a country estate here in Dumfries and Galloway: a picture perfect working from home Shangri La. No university fees for the kids. No slow death from air pollution. No daily sardine experience on the tube. What's not to like?

And then where are all of those decent folk with sought after skills who are growing steadily more disgusted at what England is turning into. It seems many of the good folk of Hartlepool are more than happy to live in a land yearning to become the new Hungary under their beloved Donald Trump wannabe.

Many don't. Many crave the chance to live in a country where the Education Department is not run by an ex fireplace salesman who is now ordering all English school kids to stand and sing the kind of song Josef Goebbels might have written. There is a chorus line to be repeated time and again.

"Strong Britain, Great Nation......

Strong Britain, Great Nation......

Strong Britain, Great Nation......"

For Christ's sake! Hartlepool 2021 becomes Magdeburg 1937. 

So it comes as no surprise to see an increasing number of people choosing to flee Johnson's England in favour of a better life up here in Scotland.

Every plumber and joiner and sparky is booked up for months and months. I spoke to a builder a couple of weeks ago who told me he had to drive all the way to Edinburgh to buy five bags of cement.

And all of a sudden factories and farms can't find staff.

Good signs? Sure. No argument from me. So does this all mean First Base might not be too stretched this winter....?

I doubt it. Sadly there are far too many warning signs for any such optimism.

There is a lot of talk about the end of the Furlough Scheme, but I don't see that as a particularly big deal in our neck of the woods. There are lots of vacancies and finding work isn't going to prove to be so very difficult.

Everyone goes on about the unemployment figures. At any given time there are about 2000 people on Universal Credit in Dumfries and Galloway. Warm bodies actively seeking work. In theory. In reality? Not a chance. We see the people on this list on a daily basis. There is another list. Citizens of Dumfries and Galloway on the methadone programme. At any given time this runs at about 1500. See the crossover?

These are people whose lives have been wrapped up in the world of Class A drugs for twenty years and more. Their brains and bodies bear all the scars. As far as the Job Centre are concerned, they are tip top: all primed and ready to milk 500 cows or do a 12 hour shift in a fish factory or to drive an HGV to Portsmouth and back. Back in the real world? Not a chance.

As I write this, Rishi Sunak is still hell bent on taking away the £20 a week he added to Universal Credit in the early days of the pandemic. In the Autumn. Just as the wind turns cold.

Three big things have happened over the months of the crisis. All three go under the banner of 'inflation'. It seems yet another 1970's favourite is about to rear its ugly head again and kick us in the teeth.

Jummy Savile, Gary Glitter, rampant racism, Israeli jets killing Palestinian kids, .... inflation.

Nuts and bolts. Imagine your disposable income is £93 a week. 'The Brew'. Universal Credit for an individual adult.

It is cash to be spent on life's basics. Food, heat and light, rent.

Well at least Housing Benefit will continue to cover most of the rent. Except it seems like many have used the pandemic as an excuse not to pay any rent at all as the threat of eviction has been null and void for a while. Why pay the rent when you can spend £300 a month on dodgy street valium?

Well these salad days are about to end. The piper will demand payment in full and evictions will sky rocket. No wonder the good folk in the Homeless Department are dreading the coming months.

Food. In February 2020 I used to log on to the websites of the Supermarkets to order in deliveries of tinned spaghetti for the princely sum of 13p per can.

Now the best price I can find is 35p per tin. Now I was never the best at maths, but even I can see a 300% price hike here. So where is the 2.5% inflation we read about in the papers? I guess the prices in Waitrose must have stayed relatively stable.

First Base shops from the value range, so we notice what most pundits miss. The supermarkets have used to pandemic to thin out their value ranges and to jack up the prices. A trolley's worth of shopping which cost £30 a year ago will now cost at least £50.

Power costs are headed the same way. Yesterday Ofgen authorised the power companies to hammer home a record breaking price hike in the autumn. Every day the Johnson government chooses to print money in order to avoid the ultimate nightmare of taxing the super rich sees the value of the pound diluted. To buy in power on the world market, you need to first buy dollars. Then you use the dollars to buy the power. And as our currency continues along the road to becoming toilet paper, we will all see the consequences of what they like to call Quantitive Easing when we pay our electricity bills.

Will people be able to stump up for an extra £30 a week for food and power when their benefits are cut from £93 to £73? Seems unlikely.

Then there is the plight of those on minimum wages. Millions of families were barely able to make their incomings stretch far enough to cover their outgoings before the pandemic. The new normal will mean they will have to find £40 or £50 a week extra for food and power. And rent? With property prices shooting up so fast, rent increases will not be far behind. Will wages rise quickly enough to keep up? Will employers be able to pay out 10% more?

Maybe they can and maybe they will. And maybe Rishi Sunak will back off on his threat to take away £20 a week from those on Universal Credit.

I guess we will all find out soon enough.

I am pretty sure First Base is going to need all the help we can get in the months and years to come. If you are minded to help us out, you can find our online fundraising page via the link below.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL... ONE ...TWO ..THREE...

 

This blog of mine can be a gloomy affair at times. Guilty as charged! There's no point trying to argue otherwise.

Well. Not today. Today it is all sunshine and light for a change.

As the late Ian Dury said back in the day, 'reasons to be cheerful...one...two...three...'

I started out on yesterday feeling upbeat, still basking in the glow of Man Utd 2 – Liverpool 4. This is a very special kind of glow and one which lasts for a while.

A headline in the Guardian took me to a story from Glasgow which set me up for the day.

In a nutshell, a Home Office 'Immigration Enforcement' van pitched up on a street in Pollocksheilds to detain two Indian guys. Both were entirely harmless individuals who have been living and working in Scotland for over ten years. No criminal records. No terrorist links. Both had very much become a part of their local community and they well liked.

As opposed to Priti Patel's Home Office.

The immigration goons did their thing. They crashed into the flat and cuffed and 'perpwalked' their prey out to the van. Priti Patel is obviously keen the British public should be in no doubt about her determination to spend tens of thousands of pounds from the public purse on putting blameless people on eye wateringly expensive deportation flights. This must be why these guys like to drive around in vans proudly branded with the words 'Immigration Enforcement'. 

Big and bold and brash

I guess this kind of thing goes down a treat in Hartlepool and Basildon.

Pollocksheilds?

Aye right. Not so much.

One local lad clocked onto what was going down and immediately got himself under the van and onto his phone. Social Media did it's thing and within a matter of a couple of hours the street was filled to overflowing with thousands of Glaswegians who were not about to let the van move so much as an inch.

Stand off time.

The hours rolled by and every party bar the Tories slagged off the Home Office in the Scottish Parliament.

The message was clear as clear can get.

This isn't Little England.

This is Scotland.

This is Glasgow.

An it ain't happening. Not on our streets. Not on our watch.

So Home Secretary. Why don't you go and stick your 'Immigration Enforcement' van where the sun doesn't shine?

Oh how she must have hated it. I mean, just picture her. Sitting in her Home Office lair watching the pictures. Desperate to get somebody to order the cops to don their riot gear and break a few heads. Except she couldn't because these were not her police. These were our police. Scottish Police. Scottish Police who can only be issued their orders by the Scottish Government.

So all Priti Patel could do was watch. And fume. And dream of sending a company of 1 Para up to Glasgow do shoot a few of the uppity natives who so clearly did not know their place.

Instead she had to fold.

The back doors of the van were opened up and the two lads were let back out into the light.

Forces of good 1 – Forces of evil 0

Scottish Parliament 1 – Home Office 0

Scotland 1 – Little England 0

People Power 1 – Arrogant, nasty, hateful Home Secretary 0

Was Priti Patel's smug face anywhere to be seen? Not a chance. No doubt she took the time to lay into some trembling intern who just happened to be in the corridor as made her way to the Ladies to cream 'I HATE FUCKING SCOTLAND!!!!!' at the top of her voice.

Except she would never say 'I hate fucking Scotland' because her Essex upbringing renders her incapable of speaking the letter 'g'.

So it would be 'I hate fuckin' Scotland.'

Just to be accurate.

Check out the video. It's a pure belter.

PRITI'S SCOTTISH NIGHTMARE

A podcast took me to my reason to be cheerful part two.

Tales from America and the sulking orange monstrosity who is no doubt a source of great inspiration to our Home Secretary.

Poor old Donald.

Banned from Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and every social media platform any of us has ever heard of.

So Donald. What can a sulking seventy something year old man-child do?

Well. The Donald has made his great entrance into my world. The Blogosphere.

I could say welcome Donny, but I don't think so.

He's been quite busy with his spleen venting.

Surely the world of blogging is about to be taken to a whole new level. I mean this new entrant is a man with more reach that anyone on God's green earth. An ex President of America. A reality TV star. Ninety three million followers on Twitter......

Surely....

Well. Apparently not. The Donald's first few efforts at blogging have attracted 200,000 page views each.

Hang on a minute here. Have I got this right?

In the blue corner we have the orange one. An ex President beaming out his bile to a nation of 330 million, 70 million of whom voted for him a mere matter of months ago.

In the blue corner we have the food bank manager from Dumfries punting out blogs to a nation of 5 million Scots.

No contest, surely?

Numbers

The Orange One – Highest number of page views for a blog – 200,000

The Food Bank Guy – Highest number of page views for a blog – 120,00

So fair enough Donny, you're winning. But it ain't exactly by a county mile, is it? It seems like the food bank guy might just be breathing down your neck. In fact, it seems like you are every bit as much of a busted flush as those poor saps driving the 'Immigration Enforcement Van' in Glasgow.

And just in case you don't believe me, here's a snap shot of my Stats page.

Reasons to be cheerful, part three.

Peace, our chief volunteer down in Uganda sent me a bunch of photos. Last week the Kupata Project distributed sanitary pads to 2000 school girls. Enough to make sure they will not have to take days off from their education for the next year.

Smiling faces on a sunny day under the green hills of Africa.

Check it out.

How can I be anything other than cheerful?

Oh, and by the way. Just in case you hadn't heard. Liverpool beat Man Utd 4 – 2 last week.......

I HAVE JUST DONE THE SUMS. FIRST BASE HELPED OUT 22500 PEOPLE WITH EMERGENCY FOOD IN THE YEAR OF COVID. MY GOD.

 

The Stats page tells me this will be my 428^th blog. Christ. Enough to make a man feel tired in his bones. Over the years I have written about all kinds of stuff.

But never shop windows.

Well it seems the time has come to put that right!

I was driving down Buccleuch St a few weeks ago. Everything was lockdown quiet. 'To Let' signs. 'For Sale' signs. Shuttered offices and pubs.

All the trappings of our 'new normal' laid out right there.

The lights turned red when I was twenty yards shy of being let through.

I looked left and stared the front window of First Base squarely in the face.

Not great.

In fact, worse than not great. Bloody awful.

It was hardly the first time I had come to such a conclusion.

I had been coming to the same conclusion for months.

Now, when all is said and done, we're a Foodbank. We don't have to project an image of secure prosperity. We're not accountants or architects. We are not required to offer up a vision of quiet, efficient affluence.

We don't have to show off all the letters at the end of our names. In fact we don't need to show our names at all.

We just need to make sure our doors are open when we say they will be open. And we need to make sure when people come us in need of food we always have food to give them.

But even so.

There was no hiding from the fact our front window was a complete disgrace.

Ragged looking blinds. Tired paintwork. Cobwebs.

And a couple of faded, dog eared posters which all of a sudden had become outrageously out of date.

Posters bearing information from times long gone.

Tired old posters in a tired old window in a tired old street.

Old information.

Old news.

Old normal.

The weary, creased paper was still telling anyone who cared to look First Base were helping out 450 people a month with emergency food.

450 a month had seemed like such a lot when we first taped the posters up for the passing world to see.

Over 5000 a year.

So many hungry mouths to feed thanks to the years of austerity. And in the years following the hanging of the posters, the figure of 5000 per annum became the norm. Demand sometimes edged up and demand sometimes edged down. Cold weather caused spikes. Summer sun the opposite.

It seemed like 5000 parcels per annum would be the foreseeable future.

Predictable.

Settled.

Regulation.

Until it wasn't.

Until we were all told to stay home and save lives.

Until the end of March 2020 when the world we had known was turned clean on its head.

So it wasn't just the tired scruffiness of our front window which rattled my cage as I waited on the lights tuning to green.

It was also the utter redundancy of the information we were offering up.

It hit me then. The first anniversary of the first lockdown was a mere matter of days away.

52 weeks of our new normal.

Maybe it was high time for some new posters. Some new information. Some new normal.

I parked up, locked up and headed inside.

What actually is the new normal? Time for some sums.

Coffee. A piece of A4 paper. Twelve sets of figures spanning a year's worth of our new normal.

Holy Christ.

22,500

And all of a sudden the posters in the front window seemed almost quaint. Like pictures of garden parties in the long hot summer of 1914.

22,500.

How many people live in the area we support? 

About 100,000.

Wow.

We have helped out the equivalent of almost 25% of the population in the twelve months of Covid 19.

So.

New posters. Some new information for anyone stuck at the lights. Not 450 parcels per month. Not any more. Instead its 400 a week now.

22,500 in the year of Covid.

And it doesn't seem like we are returning to anything remotely resembling the old normal any time soon.

Demand peaked at 2600 parcels in August.

Now? Now things seem to have settled to a steady 1700 a month. Or thereabouts.

Still pretty much 400% more than it was once upon a time.

Will things change any time soon? Well of course this is the question on everyone's lips.

From where I sit, basic maths make any easing in demand look pretty unlikely.

We buy in a whole bunch of food. Every week.

Yeah, I know. Duh!

And when buying a whole bunch of food, it seems pretty clear to me inflation in the cost of food is at least 10%. Maybe even 15%

The cheapest tin of old normal spaghetti was 13p.

The cheapest tin of new normal spaghetti is 38p.

3% inflation? Aye right.

A couple of weeks ago I sorted out our latest electricity contract. In a time when the oil price had crashed all the way down to zero, I harboured some hopes we might see prices being held steady.

Aye right.

Old normal price 11.5p per unit.

New normal price 15.0p per unit

If my maths are anything like right, we're talking a 30% increase.

So let's be conservative here. Let's say food and power are up 10%

And then let's say wages stay the same.

And then let's say Rishi Sunak gets his way in the autumn and yanks back the £20 a week he added to benefits.

Well, you don't need to be Einstein do you?

Food and power costs up, wages flat and benefits down.

That doesn't look to me like a ticket back to the days of the old normal. It looks to me like more of the same.

It looks to me like we won't be changing our new posters any time soon.

It looks to me like the vast need for emergency food will continue on and on and on even if when we are all able to wake up from the Covid 19 nightmare.

And First Base are going to continue to need all the help we can get. If you are minded to help us out the link to our online funding page can be found below.

Because the New Normal looks like its going to be a pretty tough place for an awful lot of people.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

RAY, THE INSPIRATIONAL SIX YEAR OLD SUPERSTAR IS RAISING FUNDS FOR THE KUPATA PROJECT. BE INSPIRED. IN FACT, BE VERY INSPIRED!

Charities often look to stars from the worlds of sport and show business to help to raise funds.

Well, the Kupata Project has been lucky enough to win the support of an absolute superstar.

Ray

I guess before telling you about Ray, I need to tell you about the Kupata Project. We are a small Scottish charity and we raise money to provide Ugandan school girls with free sanitary wear. Why is this important? Easy. Access to sanitary wear means up to 25% more time in school.

Which is life changing.

Of course it is life changing in a country where the average wage is barely a dollar a day.

The Kupata Project has no offices, no paid staff, and no fat expense accounts.

What we do have is a magnificent team of committed young Ugandan volunteers whose dedication makes everything we manage to achieve possible.

Every penny we raise goes to buying 'SoSure' re-usable sanitary pads which are made by a non profit organisation with a factory in Uganda.

Each pack of two pads costs £1.50 and we give the girls two packs each – enough to meet their needs for a year.

£3

£3 per girl per year.

It is a life changer which is very affordable.

So

It's time to tell you about Ray.

Full name – Ray Tumuhimbise.

And of course you have never heard of him, even though he must be one of the world's greatest athletes for his age.

Which is 6.

Yes.

6

At six years old Ray is smashing records right, left and centre. At six years old, it is already clear Ray has already joined an African hall of athletic fame which is home to the likes of Kip Kano and Gabriel Haile Selassie.

Over the last year, Ray has become the young king of the Mountains of the Moon, a string of towering volcanic peaks which straddle the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These are true life Hollywood mountains, wrapped in impenetrable rain forests and rising through the clouds to jagged peaks. They are home to gorillas and a myriad of wild life. They climb over 15,000 feet into the blue African skies. They offer movie backdrops billions of years in the making. Picture King Kong. Picture Jurassic Park. OK? You get the picture.

These are the mountains Ray has taken on.

And conquered.

Vanquished.

Earlier this month 2021 he took on Mount Muhabura. 4127 metres. That's 13540 feet in old money. A few hundred feet shy of the Matterhorn.

Ray went up and down Muhabura in under nine hours. Yes. You read it right.

Under nine hours.

At six years old.

Now you can see why Ray has to be one of planet earth's greatest athletes for his age.

He must have the legs of a mountain goat and a pair of lungs the size of the Congo rain forest.

He's a pocket size force of nature.

Maybe the next African athletic superstar.

But that is all in the future.

Right now Ray has offered to help his sisters by raising funds for the Kupata Project.

And his next quest is Mount Sabinyo.

Here it is.

3645 metres. 12,000 feet.

Sabinyo is a long extinct volcano which stares out over the land where we human beings took our first tentative steps on this earth.

The borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic republic of the Congo meet on the summit.

Sabinyo's sheer slopes are jealously guarded by ancient forest. The route to the top means climbing hundreds and hundreds of precipitous feet of the kind of rickety ladder you only tend to find in the movies.

It is a ladder which requires both courage and raw strength, both of which Ray has in spades.

His goal is to ascend and descend Sabinyo in a handful of hours.

I know.

Crazy, right?

Six years old!

We will show you how he gets on in future blogs. Now we really hope lots of you might be willing to place a donation to offer the encouragement he deserves. For such a young boy to be willing to do this to raise money to help his sisters really is very special.

Ray really is very special.

If you are of a mind to support him, the link below takes to to the fundraising page we have set up for him. And please, please share this link. We hope as many people as possible can be inspired by Ray. We have all lived through many dark and depressing weeks and months. Here is something to inject some optimism and hope.

Something to be inspired by.

RAY'S ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE