Just getting stuff sorted for our French gigs, its looking like we will do about 8 gigs at two locations as we are going further down south after the first week and a half. I am seriously hoping that the weather will be a bit warmer this time. Still some UK gigs up and coming in the first part of May to keep us amused too though.

Just sorted out my postal vote application for June the 8th. My personal hope is that a good number of the younger folk will vote, but I don’t hold out much hope as there seems to have been an outbreak of mass insanity in the UK. I shall be nestled down in a place called Mazamet  (near Toulouse and Carcasonne ) with luck on that day and should be playing a gig and drinking a decent Red wine if the fates permit.  I did in a period of madness consider moving out that way, but with my language skills are pretty lacking, though not through want of trying and the fact that its looking a lot like a lot of the reciprocal rights will in all likelihood go when we leave the EU that little dream is screwed now.

Whats not to like about the following:

“Health and social care

• Immediately halt all Tory hospital closure plans
• Scrap the one per cent pay cap on NHS staff wages, bring back the NHS student nurse bursary and fully-funded education and enshrine safe staffing levels in hospitals and medical centres into law
• Increase the carers’ allowance by an extra £10 a week

Security and policing

• To protect police budgets and put 10,000 extra police officers into communities
• Support for Britain’s nuclear deterrent and Trident weapons programme

Education

• Measures to cap class sizes in schools and provide teachers with the resources they need
• Extending free school meals for all primary school children

Housing

• A “rights for renters” pledge with new legal minimum standards for landlords to ensure that homes are “fit for human habitation” including tackling issues around wiring, damp, sewage and water facilities and repairs
• To build one million new homes over five years, at least half of which will be council homes

Employment

Labour has come up with a 20 point plan which it claims will fix the “rigged economy” in work. The package includes promises to increase the minimum wage to match the national living wage and to scrap unpaid internships and zero hour contracts.

Here’s the full list of measures:

• Banning zero hours contracts
• Four new Bank Holidays
• Raising the minimum wage to £10
• Banning unpaid internships
• Restrictions to prevent employers wishing to recruit labour from abroad undercutting British workers
• Repealing the Trade Union Act, which introduced a threshold for workers voting in strike ballots for action to be legal and also requires workers taking part in industrial action to give employers a minimum of 14 days’ notice rather than seven
• Guaranteeing trade unions a right to access workplaces
• Awarding public contracts to companies which recognise trade unions
• Ending the public sector pay cap which currently has pay rises for public sector workers capped at 1 per cent a year until 2020.
• Introducing new rules to ensure company takeover proposals include a plan to protect workers and pensions
• Maximum pay ratios which would mean bosses could earn no more than 20 times that of the lowest paid worker in their company
• Equal rights for workers whatever their job e.g. part-time, full-time, temporary or permanent
• Ensuring all workers can access trade union representation
• Abolishing employment tribunal fees
• Doubling paternity leave to four weeks and increasing paternity pay
• Strengthening protection for women against unfair redundancy after having children
• Giving equality representatives in the workplace statutory rights so they have time to protect workers from discrimination
• Reinstating protection against third party harassment (for workers who may experience harassment from third parties such as clients or visitors)
• Holding a public inquiry into the blacklisting of workers e.g. in the construction industry
• Introducing a civil enforcement system to ensure firms comply with gender pay auditing

”

That’s the Labour Manifesto, but no doubt you will want to make your mind based in what these guys have told you to think.

BTW  for all those about to troll and moan austerity go here for facts  >

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp

It seems to me that in many ways the world is becoming more backward by the day. People are so easily manipulated, brought and sold without even knowing it.

Though I am slightly to young to remember much of the early sixty’s it did seem a much more optimistic time, and there was a lot of very good music about.  I had always listened to music, before I ever thought of playing any sort of instrument. I really started soaking it in from the age of 4 or so. Both of my sisters being older 9 years and 12 years older  gave me a lot to listen too. They had very different musical tastes though from each other. There was always a radio to listen to and it all sunk in over time. When we finally got a council place there was room enough to get my self a very rudimentary guitar, which got me started. Then came the Piano and the Violin and the rest is history as they say. I was very late to playing though being about 16 whilst I do OK I wish I started a lot younger. My music reading is not that great so its a limiting factor in what I do now. Its a bit odd having a sort of mini-music career at my age, but have been privileged to meet and play with some really cool people. That’s something I never expected.  How long I can manage doing what we do now is another matter as humping equipment about and the driving does not get any easier as time passes. I will stick at it while I can though, but you never really know whats around the next corner.  Also most of  the people I work with are 5 to 10 years older so time is limited to a certain extent.  I do know a jazz pianist  who played till he was about 90 odd then conked out, but he was not driving himself up and down motorways at that age.

In other news, I have a couple of new tunes on the go, but with one of them I am wrestling with the lyrics somewhat, so It may not get finished anytime soon. I have been writing songs and trying to compose for 40 years or so now, so I have a bit of a back catalogue.

I have the time to write this as tonight’s gig was cancelled due to a double or possibly triple booking. Fortunately this kind of thing does not happen too often, Out of an average 135 gigs a year we might lose 3 or 4, but often dates are just moved around so it works out OK over the year. Its really weird having a Saturday night in though. There’s a gig on Sunday night though, so that should keep me amused.

So its business as usual on the whole.