It's Ranting Time!!!!

I've had a few weeks of lost, confused soul-searching recently, coupled with a resurgence in my writing for pleasure. And now, having been satisfied that I have finally hit upon my multi-million pound literary idea, and in true U-B style have realised that it's got bugger all to do with what I've been writing about so far, a comment in an earlier post has managed to return me to my bilious, misanthropic state (with less swearing, because apparently I keep on getting blocked bypeople's WebSense systems).

It stems from my earlier Olympic post, when I believe I let out a bestial howl of rage against the world for the fact that the IOC decided to give us the Olympics.

Many people have said about this "but our neglected athletes will finally get some funding."

Neglected my left bollock. I am sick of hearing this. I swear it's no coincidence that everyone who says this is of a vaguely sporty persuasion themselves. I consider sport to be less important than inspecting a recently-plucked nasal hair. I am not sporty in the slightest. Well, no, that's not true, I play golf and I swim. But neither of these are really sport. Physical exercise pales in comparison to the possibility of eating more pies. No, as people who know me will testify, music is my thing. And compared to music in this country, "our neglected athletes" are as the Royal Family compared to a Big Issue salesperson.

I can hear the cries of rage now - "but what about opera? And the Festival Hall?! What about Government Subsidies for the arts?!" And what I direct these people to is "What about Wimbledon? What about the new Wembley Stadium? What about Government support of professional sport?"

And that's the difference. When people talk about "our neglected athletes" they are, of course, talking about at grass roots level. And therefore, it's only fair to compare that to grass roots level in music and the arts. Now, last time I checked, sport was an essential part of the National Curriculum (albeit smaller than in our days). And with the Government fight against obesity, it will become more and more important. Despite selling off land, most state schools have some form of playing area, and some form of sports hall.

Yet the Labour Government has comprehensively stripped away all funding from the arts in school. When I was at school, it was in the dying days if music in the curriculum. Every school still has a pool of "school instruments", but these were falling into disrepair, and it was only through the good nature of some instrument suppliers that they were repaired at all. Now, the majority of these supplies have gone.

Last year, the Government suggested having a central pool of instruments to share around many schools. This comes from someone who clearly has never, and has shown no interest in ever learning an instrument. It doesn't work on a timeshare scheme!!! You need it to practice on!!!! These same cretinous imbeciles would never even think of suggesting that schools should ahve a central pool of sporting equipment, and that budding tennis players should share rackets. BECAUSE IT'S A STUPID IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The day arts funding, particularly in schools, comes at least vaguely close to sports funding, I will be a happy boy. But no, with the Olympics on the way, even professional arts will see their funding slip away. And that is a sad thing. So to all those people who say "what about our poor neglected athletes", I blow a general raspberry in their direction.

On a separate note, I was highly amused to see that, on my "referrers" tag in Bravenet, one of the ten listed there was someone who'd done a search for "ass fishermen".

What?!!!

I don't understand!!! Alright, perhaps it's a euphemism I don't know about. Perhaps it's to do with "dangling your rod". But I'm sorry, anything with the word "dangling" is not in the least bit erotic.

So to Mr "Ass Fishermen". I truly hope you found what you were looking for.