Biscuits and tunnels

It's been a very exciting week, here in Wirral, even for me - and I missed half of lozzing around in sunny... oh, never mind, I don't want to rub it in.

There was the Royal Visit, which I'll come back to shortly, and there was the Big Strike.  Luckily I was on holiday, and luckily for my colleagues Wirral libraries are closed on Wednesdays anyway, so no-one had to lose a day's pay to make a stand against all this goal-post moving.

The media seems to be stoking a war of attrition between the workers in the public and private sectors over this. They say public sector employees are better paid, have better pensions and are better represented than private sector ones who don't have the luxury of unions. I'm sure there's truth in that, but my question is:  'Because you have no voice, should we stay silent too?'  Shouldn't somebody be standing up against the way the banks, big institutions and off-shore companies continue to take us all for a ride?

I love this joke that is doing the rounds (except that it's no joke):

A Banker, a School Teacher, a Tory MP & a Daily Mail reader are sat around a table. In front of them is a plate, upon which there are ten biscuits. The Banker scoffs nine of the biscuits. The Tory then turns to the Daily Mail reader and whispers in his ear: "Watch out, that teacher is after your biscuit".

I was, however, affected by the strike - when I arrived back in Liverpool at 10.45pm, the tunnels were closed due to industrial action, the only detour being via the Runcorn Bridge (far right of the map) to get home to the Land of Broken Biros (far left) - an extra 35miles!  So I gave unplanned custom to those same whining private sector workers by holing up for an hour or so at an all-night purveyor of food and beverages until the tunnels reopened.  Well, I say 'food'...

I'm sure with imagination there is something we could all do to make our voices heard about the liberties being taken (reckless bankers, price-fixing energy providers, bonuses for the inept, wars we didn't want, tax havens for the super-rich etc etc) without people losing pay and/or being inconvenienced by the big clumsy tool of a general strike. If I think of it I'll let you know.

Maybe I should have mentioned all this to the Queen... to be continued