I have learned something.

[smokingboot]

Next time I feel tired and drained, best be honest and cancel my arrangements. For I have screwed up mightily at last night's dinner out. Faced with a couple of tory voters I found myself in a boozy angry place I haven't been in for many years, and I was unpleasant; too tired to make my argument sensibly but aggressive enough to kill the evening.

A long, long time since I felt that angry. And yes it was wine, and yes it was Steve and yes, whatever. It was born of a frustration at the way things are, which doesn't justify my behaviour but does explain it. I hear about people dying on the system, I hear about people going hungry; this 'recovery' of ours is costing lives, and it is my belief that a lot of people don't want to hear it. So there I was saying it in the wrong place, in the wrong way at the wrong time. Brilliant.

In the end, I can only apologise. I sent an email to that effect, and hope it is enough, if not, there is not much to be done. Edited to add: I just received a very gallant reply, and all is exceptionally well. They don't seem to have minded my momentary transformation into a befrocked Che Guevara. Friends are ace.

Politics on the other hand...

I don't want to be just a whinging gob in the face of so much that is wrong. Stories like this:
(http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/man-starved-to-death-after-benefits-cut

And this (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/killed-benefits-cuts-starving-soldier-3923771) fill me with fury.

Both of these happened in 2014, 100 years after the Great War we still let soldiers starve. We shouldn't be letting anyone starve. Tory Glory. I can't tell you how much it costs but I can tell you how much it weighs; 35 kilos, Mark Wood's body weight at time of death. 35 fucking kilos.

Meanwhile the Great Great Great Great Great Grandson of William IV presides over an utterly corrupt government where his ministers spend monstrous amounts on limousines etc, and he tells us we are all in this together.

I fall into a kind of hopeless rage. Years ago, I barely saw and couldn't change anything. Today I see and still can't do anything.