TONY ON RECESSION, TIME & MORE

Including Three Word Wednesday and Totally Optional Prompts.
Have you had a go yet?

Welcome to my Wednesday Magazine post.
Britain seems to be heading fast towards recession. All the indicators are there. The last quarterly report showed growth seriously down. As inflation becomes higher than wage increases, unions are beginning to call for strikes.

Fuel protests are beginning.

The government is even asking supermarkets to stockpile food for when Britain shuts down. And now a survey of 5,000 businesses shows the feeling is high that recession will hit within a couple of months.
What’s the governments answer? Well, Brownski has told people to stop throwing away food – generally, tighten the belt. Quite right. But interestingly, nothing about the ‘quick profit’ mentality of many businesses, which seems to be going into overdrive at the moment to save themselves.
At the consumer’s expense, of course. So Big Biz is being contemptible of the consumer – again – and the government is putting all the blame on us. Hopefully, when this is over, the consumer will remember, and shun this Big Biz nightmare.

Britain is finally to have two new aircraft carriers.

But predictably, many think it is a ridiculous expense when not enough is being spent to protect troops in Afghanistan. I agree with the latter, but not the former.
Something has gone wrong with military planning, and it’s very dangerous. For instance, you need three carriers to guarantee full coverage; and they should already have been built. Take the new Typhoon fighter for the RAF.
Years late, it was initially for an air defence role, but has just had to be cleared for ground attack, too. Why? Because it was conceived when air defence was thought the main role. Times change, and ground attack is now primary.
The world changes, but now military planning plans only for the moment. Britain, at present, has only one credible armoured division – after all, that’s all we need – a problem affecting most western nations. Really? And what happens if Russia suddenly becomes aggressive once more?
The west, my dear friends, would be defenceless.
Next Magazine Post, Friday. See you then.

© Anthony North, July 2008

NO TIME

No time to write this poetry thing,
got to get on, really zing,
make it quick, let it sing,
I’ve finished – Ping!

But …

This is silly, it’s not that bad,
rush it too much and it could be really sad;
We don’t want to make people so full of doom,
that all they think of this poem is gloom;
But that’s tough luck,
life can suck,
I’ve really took,
Oh …

Now stop it!
Such a precious thing is time,
think it out, make it rhyme,
ignore the clock, don’t listen to the chime,
produce the words,
make people think,
sublime

(c) Anthony North, July 2008

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SUSPECTS A’PLENTY – Fiction

To say her behaviour was inappropriate was an understatement, but I loved her. And to discover her body, in our house, strangled like that …
The police discovered me in quite a state. The DI in charge of the investigation did what he could to comfort me, but it was an impossible task. And anyway, I had no alibi, so I could see that he was treating me as a suspect. Indeed, it was only when they looked into my wife’s past that suspicion was removed – that, and my obvious distraught state.
I did, of course, know of three of her lovers, but the fourth was even a shock to me. But which one was the killer, the DI had no idea.
‘It’s not good enough,’ I stormed after two weeks, with no clear suspect.
‘I understand how you feel,’ the DI said, ‘but they all have a motive, and none of them have an alibi. Any one of them could have done it, and working out which is a tall order.’
Even the only witness proved of no use. She had spied a man approach the house at the right time wearing a black coat, but no such coat was found – nor the ring that had been taken off her finger; an obvious trophy of the killing.
I turned to drink after that interview, and for days on end I would drink myself into a stupor. One night, I caused trouble in a pub and the police were called. Luckily, the DI was in the station at the time, and he smoothed things out for me – gave me a warning, nothing more.
‘I know how you feel,’ he said, ‘but this isn’t the answer.’
‘Well I’m going to find the killer myself!’ I shouted as I left.
Two days later I was back. I’d broken into one of the suspects’ flat, searched the place, but was disturbed.
‘I can’t keep bailing you out like this,’ the DI said. ‘One more thing, and I’m going to have to nick you.’
The drink increased, and so did my determination. And it was in the flat of the second suspect …

‘Get to his flat,’ I told the DI from, my mobile, ‘now!’ And I told him where to look.
They got there quick, took the shortcut in their determination to act on my information. And sure enough, they found the coat and the ring under the floorboards.
Well, that was three months ago now, the man in prison, refused bail, waiting for the trial. And it seemed such a perfect crime, even waiting so long to plant the evidence. But the thing that made it such a perfect crime was the one thing that meant it couldn’t be.
My behaviour. You see, I’m not really a killer, and what the police took as grief was really the guilt that would disclose the real killer in the end.
And when will that be? Most likely when the neighbours notice the smell and break down the door to find my corpse swinging from the rope, this confession on the floor beside me.

© Anthony North, July 2008