Budget, Mugabe, Adam Ant & other posts

Separated at birth: Taylor Swift's Reputation (2017) and Cliff Richard's Good News (1967)

Budget Nov 23

So, as usual, no-one's happy about the Budget. But my question is: has anyone ever been? Has there ever been a budget, from Tories or Labour, after which everyone's said "That's it! He's nailed it! Why didn't we think of that before?"

And, secondarily, has anyone run the stats on past budgets and worked out how things would have gone if the chancellor had made different choices?

I've been vaguely aware of budgets since my schooldays, the earliest I remember being Denis Healey (or Denis Sillybudget, as, for some reason, we used to call him). Then he was criticised for borrowing and being in hock to the IMF. After that I remember Thatcher's various chancellors, mostly for how much they got slagged off by Neil Kinnock for robbing pensioners and the like.

The biggest budget change I remember is when Nigel Lawson did something around 1987 which suddenly made house prices sky rocket, which they've continued doing for the subsequent 30 years, though I don't remember the details.

So, who's ever got it right? And who's made the worst ever decision in their budget? Anyone know?

In the post budget analysis I'm hearing a lot of talk of "these difficult times". It's reminded me of a concept that I read about recently - Marvel Time.

In the early 1970s Stan Lee and Marvel realised they couldn't continue to have their characters age, as this would affect spin offs and merchandise that needed the characters to remain the same. So they invented Marvel Time, wherein all major character origins had happened "about 7 years ago". Peter Parker getting bitten, Bruce Banner getting blown up etc. All stayed a vague time ago in the past, so there was "the feeling of progress, but no actual progress".

Well, that's what "these difficult times" are. They're a state of affairs that we imagine goes on now, and is so much worse than "a few years ago". (And is always the fault of the previous government, even when, as now, the previous government is over 7 years ago. Their predecessors used the same nonsense talk.)

Are "these difficult times" really worse than the past? Sure they are if you're homeless, if you're eating from a foodbank, if you're unable to get your benefits etc. But hasn't that always been the case?

I may be the only person here old enough to remember the riots of 1981, when this town was coming like a Ghost Town and there were no jobs to be found in this country. I may be the only person old enough to remember the strikes of the early 70s when we had power cuts, and TV went off at 10.30 at night, and my weekly comics only came out fortnightly cos there was no paper. I may be the only person who remembers petrol rationing, and who read about the austerity of my Mum & Dad's era in the 1950s.

But surely I'm not the only person old enough to remember the riots of 2011? It's only 6 years ago, and things were so bad people actually bloody rioted, all over the country.

Are these difficult times really as bad as any of those difficult times, or do we all have some sort of collective memory failure which makes the past seem like some Golden Age and the present have a constant shadow over it?

The Man Who Invented Christmas - review

Apparently Christopher Plummer's asked if he can be edited out and replaced with Kevin Spacey

Now come on. Facebook does know it's doing this, and does it deliberately, right? #Juxtaposition #Spooky

Toby Jones

Thanks to BBC Breakfast I have just learned I've been under a delusion for years. It turns out Toby Jones' dad is Freddie Jones out of Emmerdale, and they are no relation to Bill Dare and his dad Peter Jones. Turns out Jones is not that unusual a surname. Sorry to anyone who I might have told that Bill Dare is Toby Jones' brother. I am idiot.

Mugabe

You can tell how long Robert Mugabe's been out of the news by the number of times I've read the "Mugabe is Ee ba gum backwards" gag on Facebook this week, posted by kids too young to have heard it 40 years ago.

It was a staple of comedians, and the school playground, back when Mugabe was a mere 50 year old stripling. I don't know who said it first, was it Mike Yarwood, The Two Ronnies, or someone on The Comedians or the Wheeltappers and Shunters. But nice to see a good home being given to an old joke.

Next week: a Millennial spots the aural similarity between the words "four candles" and "fork handles". Stay tuned.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here.