by Jon Biddle
I, like most people, look forward to their Saturday mornings. The same cannot be said for my wife Sam, she dreads Saturday mornings. Why? Well, Saturday mornings are when we film The ‘I HATE This Book’ Podcast, which if you haven’t guessed from the title, is a podcast where I read a book my book The Harvester, to my wife, whose usual life comprises art, glitter and all things beautiful. Which is the opposite of the book and Sam, rather fairly, hates it?
Chapter 13 went up on Monday and if you’ve missed it tune in to hear about Ford Capri’s, Sam’s craving for raw meat and the lack of kebab shops in our area 20 years ago alongside the usual helping of psychopath Dale Broc and Detective Alex Brown’s attempt to stop him. As we move towards the next few chapters prepare for it to get darker as the full extent of what this story holds unfurls and comes together. If you want some exciting bonus features, then don’t forget to become a Patron to our Patreon account.
While Saturday morning may be not much fun for Sam these days, it hasn’t always been like that, which I guess is why she has stayed with me, and we now celebrate our 30 years of marriage, yep, 30 years and we yes, we don’t look our age. I put that down to lots of sex, I’m shrugging here, what can I say.
I have spent more time married to Sam than I have spent unmarried, that’s the joy of finding your twin flame early in life, you get to spend more time with the person who brings you the most amount of joy. It is also another 30 year anniversary of something far more tumultuous than my marriage. Think about what has happened in the world since. The place is unrecognisable.
An unidentified West Berliner swings a sledgehammer, trying to destroy the Berlin Wall near Potsdamer Platz, on November 12, 1989, where a new passage was opened nearby. (AP Photo/John Gaps III)
It is 30 years this week since they invaded Kuwait. We didn’t know it, but it became what we now know as the first Gulf War. Iraqi forces annexed Kuwait before being forced to leave by the United Nations, though on their way out they set fire to and destroyed over 600 oil wells which took nearly a year to undo. Thirty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell and the shifting political landscape across the globe was changing just as fast as real world borders. The Balkans…
The technology landscapes? The day I got married, I had to use a phone box to speak to my best man, David Hogston. A normal thing to do, right? How about now, almost to the day, I witnessed my son getting married with Jenwin’s family stuck in the Philippines and Australia because of Covid-19. They could sit and watch the ceremony live on my iPhone? The whole thing? Imagine telling myself thirty years ago that you won’t have call boxes, you can live stream to anywhere in the world a live 4K broadcast… I wouldn’t know what 4K was back then either.
I can’t imagine in the last thirty years where in the world apart from some isolated conflict there has been the same stability as there has been in our marriage. November will be a real turning point politically as we wait to see what happens with the US elections, if even with the blatant voter suppression Trump is voted out, his thinly veiled threats to hold on to power regardless of the outcome make for a very interesting next four years at least. Or if Biden takes power, he inherits a country in the grip of a pandemic and a burgeoning socio-economic revolution framed as a race war. Not exactly the best start to his presidency, but a real chance to prove to people that the Democrats are more than just Republicans in a different outfit and do still hold the values they were founded on. I read an article recently that 75% of the American people are Democrat and the problem has been a republican majority in the senate. If Trump goes, they will flush him down the bog with the rest of the GOP, finally giving the majority public, the Democratic country they so want. The disgruntled, heavily armed 35% republicans will not like this one bit… he says grabbing the popcorn bucket.
Other than that, here in the UK we wait to see the outcome of Brexit. We watch as the nation tries to rebuild itself following the pandemic; we see if all the praise and clapping of essential workers translates to better treatment for them in the long run which at the time of this going to press will not happen. We even have to pay for our own covid testing through a tax levy by the government, of which each time they expose us to the virus, we have to be tested. Pay freezes all around for healthcare professionals (not doctors, I didn’t see them jump up and down for us in our defense), while the politicians vote overwhelmingly to give themselves yet another pay rise.
Cunts, there’s nothing else I can say about that, all of them, cunts!
Anyway, always politics etc impedes my world, sorry not sorry.
I said in my last blog that the key to marriage is never taking your partner for granted. I hope we do the same for the NHS workers, Carers, Supermarket Employees, those working in transportation and the many, many more professions and people who kept us going as best as we could. So, like I made sure that every day for the last 30 years I have appreciated Sam, let’s make sure for the next 30 years we appreciate them.
Thank you, and.
Stay Frosty.
Jb
