Unemployment and True Grit
Published 14 Oct 2010 09:30
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FIGURES released yesterday reveal that jobless figures have risen in Scotland from 7.2 per cent of the working age population to 8.6 per cent.
An additional 13,000 people were on the dole between June and August this year.
Naturally, the various political parties will be pointing the finger at each other.
It’s Labour’s fault, it’s SNP’s fault, it’s because we’ve got a Lib-Con (Con-Dem) Coalition.
And believe me, it’s all going to get worse - not just because we’ve still got the dreaded public sector cuts to come but also because we’ve got a Scottish Government election next year.
Mud will be slung, rhetoric will be thundered, cant will be...er...canted.
Meanwhile, if fears prove correct, the jobless figure will rise.
Politicos, depending on what colour of rosette they wear, will tell you that this latest rise is due to students and those who previously claimed benefits joining the job market.
That may be true but the number of jobs out there is dwindling.
Look at Lloyds Bank. They’re going to cut over 4000 jobs across the UK. Correct me if I’m wrong but did they not register a profit this year? And how much are their top chappies getting in bonuses?
I’m not businessman - you only need to look at my finances to know that - so perhaps there is some secret truth that eludes me about all this (Like more cash for shareholders, 41 per cent of whom are us, the taxpayer. Not that we’ll get a sniff of that because it will vanish into the vast black hole that is government spending).
Business is not a black and white world. Making pots of cash does call for various shades of grey. But all too often it’s the ordinary person, the one who is least to blame, who ends up in the red.
So here’s my message to the hopefuls at the next Scottish elections: remember you are there to represent the people, not a party, not an ideology, not a special interest. Tell us what you are going to do for us. Convince us that you care what happens in whatever constituency you’re standing. Assure us that you are more interested in our wellbeing than in pushing party policies.
Believe me, we’ll listen.
I gave a young friend a copy of True Grit to watch this week. Well, I had to do something to drag him away from his xbox.
He and his girlfriend watched it and, if truth be told, I really expected him to come back and say it was pants, or whatever the young folk are saying now.
I mean, it’s an old guy with an eye patch, an annoying young girl and a has-been country and western singer pursuing the bloke who played the Corleone's lawyer in The Godfather across the west.
No CGI, no blue aliens, no zombies, no attractive vampires looking tragic.
However, they both enjoyed it, which means there’s hope for them yet.
The shock news is that they’ve remade it.
Here’s my reaction....
AAAAAARRRRRGGHHH!
Okay, even if it is the Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country for Old Men) who have reportedly gone back to the original novel, all I can think of is...
AAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!
Remakes of classic movies seldom bode well. 'Charade’, the template romantic comedy thriller with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, was remade as 'The Trouble with Charlie’. Never heard of it? Not surprising, it was dire. Mark Wahlberg was no Cary Grant, let me tell you.
Director Tim Burton 're-imagined’ 'Planet of the Apes’ a few years ago. Mark Wahlberg took over the Charlton Heston role. It was pants (or whatever the young folk are saying now).
Someone redid 'The Italian Job’. Mark Wahlberg was in it (I’m beginning to detect a pattern). It wasn’t bad but it was not a patch on the original. And no-one said 'You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.’
Sylvester Stallone was in a new version of 'Get Carter’. Result? Box office poison.
But in Mark Wahlberg's defence, he was in 'The Departed' and darned good he was, too. In case you didn't know, the Scorsese flick was a remake of a Hong Kong thriller called 'Infernal Affairs.' Keep that in mind for a pub quiz.
Okay, maybe the Coen Brothers will pull 'True Grit' off. Jeff Bridges may well put in such a towering performance that we’ll forget all about John Wayne’s 'fat old man’.
The hell he will....
This blog appeared in Cumnock Chronicle 16 Oct 10
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