Umbrella talk July 11, 2008

What’s new? Annan Athletic up the road from me have replaced Gretna (up the road from me) in the Scottish League and Spain replaced Greece as champion football nation of Europe; Glastonbury Festival was better then ever and J-Z excelled in his prime-time slot; Noel Gallagher has turned his attention to knife-crime as a result of the breakdown of family and community life which he blames on the Thatcher ‘survival of the strongest’ government of 25 years ago. PAUSE…Cumbria is as beautiful as ever (come visit us) and its principle city Carlisle along with Canterbury, Oxford and Cambridge are among the few places UK where house-prices are continuing to rise, as people on these islands (and beyond) lose faith in the monetary-value-of-what-they-are-doing against the rising-value-of-what-people-are-doing-elsewhere (India and China etc.) and against the sheer-cost-of the-essential-commodities-power-and-petrol. PAUSE… Having been against Nuclear power with all its catastrophic even if hypothetical dangers, our Cumbria seems on course to resume its industry and thereby reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and therefore Cumbria, lacking confidence in its farming and manufacturing and tourism and arts agendas, seems likely to continue uncomfortably to be betrothen to it. No bother. We all have compromises to make PAUSE… That great distraction the football season will again be upon us by next time i write x Stuart Roy Clarke