Happy New Year, everybody.

On this day, in Nineteen Hundred and long time ago, I was born.

My birth day greetings to you all. And many happy returns.

Let me get this straight.

The police shoot a man (who may or may not have been an immediate threat to life but certainly did not have a gun on him when shot.)

As a result there’s an outbreak of rioting – the worst for nearly thirty years.

The remedy for this is …

for the police to be allowed to shoot people!

Have I suddenly woken up in a fascist state?

I see that the Military Wives are making the news – even in Canada.

Much like Strictly Come Dancing which, while its run lasts is impossible to avoid even when you don’t watch it so determined is the BBC to ensure synergy across all its outlets, the Military Wives never seem to be off the airwaves here.

At least it means that that other pile of kack on the other side – which I also never watch – won’t be providing this year’s Christmas No. 1.

I know that the proceeds from the sale of each Military Wives CD will be donated jointly to The Royal British Legion and the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen Families Association – two worthwhile causes (though it could be argued that the welfare of ex-servicemen is a direct government responsibility) – and that the formation of the choir itself will have boosted the morale of the choir’s members (and for all I know their partners in the forces) but the whole thing strikes me as being something of an exercise in manipulation.

OK, the words may not be the purest poetry, they are taken from letters from and to forces sweethearts after all, but that’s forgiveable.

But does anyone else think the tune is just awful?

So now it’s The Dear Leader who’s passed on.

You daren’t switch on the news…..

Mind you, Big Rab, who monitors the North Korean News Agency on a semi-regular basis, has been of the opinion that something was amiss for some while. Perhaps they were trying to ensure the succession.

The Agency seems not to have featured the news of Kim Jong Il’s death yet.

I doubt it will mean better times for the North Korean people whoever takes over the mantle.

And, today, Václav Havel.

It’s given to few writers to affect their country in a material way, still less to achieve political office. Havel became President of Czechoslovakia and then, after the split (which he opposed) with Slovakia, of the Czech Republic.

His was one of the voices which ensured that Czechoslovakia’s revolution (unlike the 1968 Prague Spring of Alexander Dubček and its aftermath) was a velvet one. The times were with him in that of course, as they weren’t with Dubček.

I remember one year there was a host of well-known people died between Christmas and New Year. In 2011 it seems to be happening earlier in December.

Václav Havel: 5/10/36 – 18/12/2011. So it goes.

And now it’s Christopher Hitchens.

This death wasn’t so much of a surprise, though, given that he’d been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer eighteen months or so ago – a circumstance he greeted with his characteristic fortitude.

It’s sad such an idiosyncratic and outspoken voice has gone.

Christopher Eric Hitchens – 13/4/19489-16/12/2011. So it goes.

A couple of days ago Dobie Gray, now, on Tuesday, it was Russell Hoban.

Looking on my shelves I find not only his children’s classic The Mouse and his Child nor yet just the remarkable Riddley Walker but also The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, Kleinzeit, Turtle Diary and Pilgerman.

Hoban was quite prolific (Fantastic Fiction lists 87 books) so I didn’t manage to keep up with all his output.

His work spanned a multitude of genres from the post-apocalyptic Science Fiction of Riddley Walker through Fantasy to Realism and he seemed equally at home in them all.

In the field of Science Fiction, though, and its close relation Fantasy, it will undoubtedly be for the tour de force that was Riddley Walker – a novel written in an English so far from the standard that it might at first seem totally unreadable (trust me, with a little bit of effort it isn’t, and is well worth that effort) – and The Mouse and his Child that he will be most remembered.

Russell Conwell Hoban: 4/2/1925-13/12/2011. So it goes.

I see from this that Dobie Gray, whom I featured as number five in my Reelin’ In The Years series, has himself drifted away.

He didn’t have many hits but was apparently big on the Northern Soul scene.

This is his other widely known song, The ‘In’ Crowd, from the 1960s.

Dobie Gray (Lawrence Darrow Brown): 26/6/1940 – 6/12/2011. So it goes.

The above is a Scottish phrase – well West of Scotland really – much used in childhood, which means more or less that things have not turned out to my liking and I’m in a huff, the rest of you can do what you like but you can’t play any more because it was my ball you were playing with and I’m taking it home with me now.

This seems to me to paraphrase what the UK Prime Minister, Mr Irresponsible, aka David Cameron, has done vis-a-vis the rest of the EU. The only differences are it wasn’t his ball and he might have gone home, but the rest haven’t.

Whatever “protections” he sought for British financial institutions* he quite plainly has not got. Moreover he will now have little influence – as he will not be involved in the discussions – over any steps taken in the future in these matters, thereby making it more likely that the situation he professes to avoid will actually come about. Brilliant!

And why does the BBC news keep referring to his veto? It wasn’t a veto. He has not stopped the other 26 members of the EU from creating a new treaty. Indeed by the BBC’s own accounts they seem keen to go on without him (and us.)

He has also thrown a very large bone to the anti-EU elements within his party, who, far from being satisfied, have now tasted blood, and will go for the jugular. UK politics will, as in the John Major era, be mired in endless argument over the EU.

(The people’s response in any subsequent referendum they secure may not quite go the way they want either. Given that the Tories have been banging on for so long about how bad the economic prospects are right now – a self-fulfilling prophesy by-the-by – what possible sense would it make to sever our connections to our biggest export market?)

[*The very organisations to a large extent responsible for the mess several European economies are in.

Who lent money to those countries who are now so heavily in debt?
Aren't those debt holders in part culpable for the ensuing difficulties?
Is it not the responsibility of a prudent lender to make sure there is a good prospect of the debtor paying the money back?

They seem to think they are on a one-way trip to profit and they should receive all their money in full.
Well, they should take a good part of the hit. They helped to create the hole the world economy is in.]