Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

No, not a post on the motto of the French Revolution. Just a clever (?) little attempt to create an excuse for a post, and I really had to wrack my brains for something to illustrate the Liberty part!

Liberty

For years parking has been becoming almost impossible in my street because of its proximity to two railway stations, a large hospital, buses, a shopping centre and the Docklands Light Railway, not to mention one building project after another. I have collected two separate petitions over the years, and finally the local council did a consultation, which strangely enough produced the largest number of votes in favour of a residents' parking zone they'd ever had. At a meeting in October last year, they told a select few of us that the zone was due to be implemented in February/March this year. When nothing happened, I called those responsible, and was informed that they had been "asked to implement another zone first". In other words, someone pulled strings, and we paid. Then the purdah period for the general and local elections put everything on hold. Finally we were given a new date of August 31st.

Meanwhile, we continued to be unable to find a space to unload heavy shopping - sometimes not even in our own street, but a couple of streets away. Vehicles travelling along the street could not pass each other because the road was not wide enough, and there were no passing spaces any more than there were parking spaces. Reversing the whole length of the street (150 houses long) was not unusual, and with several blind bends, not easy either. Needless to say, damage to our cars was frequent, and never owned up to.

Well, August 31st came and went, and though we had the parking bays marked out on the road, the Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) was still not in operation. People continued to park, and the situation remained infuriating to say the least. Then signs appeared on lampposts announcing it was residents' parking only. Because the pay-and-display parking machines for the odd nutcase who wants to pay inflated prices to use the street for parking had not been available for installation, they could not implement the CPZ. But what the heck? People saw the signs and stopped parking, at last! They were too stupid to notice that no one has parking permits in their windscreens, but what do we care? So we finally have all the freedom of a CPZ, but we haven't yet had to pay for the privilege.

Equality

I can't imagine being alone in finding it sick that some US states are so determined to prove that they are in favour of sex equality that they insist on executing women as well as men. So what if a woman has an IQ of 72? The cut-off point is 70, so she counts as a genius, right? I mean, they even execute children in some states, right?

These barbarians have no idea how - well, barbaric - they seem to the rest of the developed world. It's nearly 50 years since the death penalty was abolished in the UK. Isn't it about time the US proved it is a civilised country and followed suit? I don't understand a country that venerates guns, demonises abortion and executes people. That's a really confused bunch of attitudes towards the sanctity of life.

Fraternity

The result of the election to replace Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party was announced this afternoon. The frontrunners, brothers David and Ed Miliband, were described by Hillary Clinton when she met them (when they were still govenment minsters) as "good-looking". Mmm, not my cup of tea - they're no D'Onofrios, that's for sure.

David and Ed Miliband

David is the elder, which is going to make things very odd for him, because Ed has won.

Strangely, as they were descended from the same socialist background, Ed is far closer to the Party's roots in the labour movement, while David is a fan of so-called New Labour and Tony Blair's way.

Me? I vote Green!

So, there is my totally false attempt to use the old French slogan to make a post. You can relax for another few years now 'cos I won't be doing it again in a hurry!