Where there's a will there's still a bloody argument

The news that Heather Ilott was awarded £164k after a ten-year fight to benefit from her mother's estate has interested me greatly - because it could be used as a precedent against someone I know. I am naming no names here - even though justification could be a defence against defamation in this case.
The woman I know says she has no intention of leaving money to one of her daughters. She says this daughter stole money from her mother - the daughter's grandmother - towards the end of her life. The grandmother is now dead. The mother and daughter have not spoken since the money went missing. The daughter was always a pretty nasty piece of work and used physical violence against the mother too, when they shared a house.
So, I don't blame her. But I wonder what the courts will make of it if the daughter challenges the mother's will.
I'm happy for Ms Ilott. But her mother was unreasonable. I don't think the woman I know can be said to be anything but justified.
It also reminds me that I and my spouse should really make a will - though it should be pretty straightforward in our case. We've talked about it and we're going to make an appointment. We have one daughter and she's lovely. That makes it very easy. If I die, my spouse gets the lot. If my spouse dies, I get the lot. When we both die, the daughter gets the lot. Simple!

Bursting the bubble

A friend of mine has blogged about how we all now live in a bubble of our own creation - a social media bubble where we follow and like the things that we, well, like.
It's true. Not only do I follow like-minded people but I also follow the political party and politicians whose views I respect and agree with. (I do read the Torygraph too, but that is only one thing that doesn't conform to my ideology) The trouble with mostly following people and organisations who do reflect my world view is that you rarely get to hear other views. Algorithms make sure you see what they know you 'like'.
So, I'm going to make a conscious effort to follow Tories, Lib Dems etc. No matter how mad it makes me.

Middle class? Moi?

Am I still working class? Maybe I'm turning into Polly Toynbee? Maybe I did years ago.

As the descendant of dockers, trawlermen, builders and shopkeepers who rented, never owned, who mostly left school at 14 or 16, and never went to university I have always thought of myself as working class.

But -- I own my own home, as do my parents. I went to university (they didn't). I go to cultural events, I love museums, art galleries, theatre, libraries, literature, Radio 4 and my favourite TV channels are BBC2, 3 and 4 and Channel 4. I read the Guardian (online, obvs). I read the Daily Telegraph (the thinking person's Daily Mail).

On the other hand I love pubs and beer and punk music and rock music and motorbikes. I belong to a union, I slag off the government on Twitter because of the way it is privatising the NHS. I vote Labour. But so does Polly Toynbee.

Are these class divisions just too simplistic? Or am I just lower middle class? Is that what social mobility has done for me? In six generations we've gone from Lincolnshire trawlerman to PR person who can only afford a Fiat Panda. Go back six generations from Polly and you get wealthy Lincolnshire landowner George Toynbee. So we have Lincolnshire and Labour in common.

But it's not looking like my daughter will be able to afford a house of her own, despite the money we have saved for her. What little social mobility there was has come to a halt.

Culturally and intellectually we are educated and sophisticated and middle class. But it is still inherited wealth that really counts.

My brain is middle class, then, but my bank balance is still wearing a blue collar and a flat cap.

I bet Polly's got a bigger car than me. And so will her children have.

Now I don't know much about football...

But I do know that for football fans, forgetting your club's name is about as likely as forgetting your own name.
So I can only conclude that David Cameron only pretended to support Aston Villa. And if he lied about that, well, I draw the obvious conclusion. Many other people will too.
And he can probably wave good bye to any support from Villa and West Ham fans.

Tall tales in the Daily Mail

I heard on BBC Radio 4 that taller people are viewed as more authoritative and as stronger leaders. And they earn more. So, being five foot nothing, I googled smaller people to see if I could find anything positive:

• Daily Mail, 11 May 2014, byline Ben Spencer – shorter men live longer [hooray!]
• Daily Mail, no date listed, byline Beezy Marsh – Why taller people live longer [oh].

Well, I didn't really need to google that to know that the Daily Mail is a bag of shite.

Hands off my PR!

I do PR. That’s my job. I have two post-graduate diplomas in marketing communications and public relations.

I work for a council. I take media calls and employ various tactics to promote services for people who grit roads, fix streetlights, find homes for children in care, look after vulnerable adults, take care of country parks, manage libraries, advise schools, run trading standards, maintain landfill sites and so on.

All of those people are experts in their field and I wouldn’t dream of telling them how to do their jobs. So why do they all want to tell me how to do mine?

I’ll do everyone a deal – I promise not to run your libraries, parks, care homes and schools. So keep your bloody amateur mitts of my press releases, posters, banners, leaflets, web pages, design and social media. You’re rubbish at it. I’m not.

Is everyone moving to Scotland?

Nicola Sturgeon wooed us all in the leaders’ debate, leaving many English, Welsh and Northern Irish people wishing they could vote for the SNP too. Well, by moving to Scotland they could.

No tuition fees, free hospital parking, cheaper houses, gorgeous countryside, stunning wildlife, lighter summer nights, the aurora borealis, delicious whisky and very few tories – you can see the attraction.

Academies and free schools – WTF?

I’ve never really liked the idea of separating children by religion for education purposes – even when for years most religious schools were of the wishy-washy C of E variety. C of E schools are a non-threatening manifestation of the established church (disestablishment is another issue I might address some time).

And now we have free schools, some of which seem to cater mostly to muslim children – depriving them and non-muslim children of mixing with each other. What a shame. Don’t we want children to grow up having friends from all backgrounds if we want a cohesive society?

I don’t like academies either. They’re a manifestation of the Conservatives’ ideology – another way to bash local government.

£3bn is to be cut from the schools’ budget if the Conservatives get in. Yet they have thrown money at academies and free schools. Why don’t they just fairly fund all schools via local authorities? Politicians say they believe in devolution. Their undermining of local councils proves that’s rubbish. 

A terrible pronouncement.

When it came to pronunciation and articulation, the BBC used to be the standard by which all others were judged. Not any more.

We get sicth instead of sixth, haitch instead of aitch (for H). And Cameron instead of git. 

A blog of one’s own.

As a former newspaper journalist, feature writer and sub-editor, and now a public relations person, I have spent most of my life writing. When I haven’t been writing I’ve been reading.

But PR is changing and my job is changing. We write fewer press releases and printed publications. So this is a way to keep on writing, when I feel the urge.

It’s also going to be good to have an outlet for the odd rant, I think.