We want our EU contributions cut!

No apologies to returning to a grown up topic I've spoken about in the past on this blog namely Great Britain and its relationship with the European Union. If you haven't read them, no doubt searching the blog would bring them up.
Anyway, I think most of know the UK has got a large deficit which regardless of what our opinions on how we're reducing it and how that is affecting ordinary folks, we are doing it by reducing the amount of money we spend on government services.
One item of expenditure we have over here is our contribution to the budget of the European Union and there is a lot of talk from them about increasing by around 4 or more percent the budget contributions because it says it needs that to pay for its programs even though most National Governments like ours are doing the opposite ironically to pay for bailouts from the EU!
It is fair to say their is a schism between the opinions of the Political Establishment  here and that of many ordinary people regardless of party politics and it can be summarized as this:
Most Britons like people from Europe, they are happy to visit, co-operate trading with and certainly have no desire for conflict never mind war with them. The one thing they will not accept is a political Europe with it's own sovereign parliament, binding Europe wide laws, financial regulation and currency.
That's because they have a proud history of having one of their very own to which they remain happy with.
Now in the last few days because their is a split between the generally pro EU Liberal Democrat half of the Government and the more anti Political EU Tories meetings were held and the Tory Prime Minister decided he was going to argue at the upcoming EU Budget meeting for a Freeze in contributions , the idea being in time it would have to reduce some of its ambitions.
Unfortunately for him many of those of his party not in the Cabinet thought otherwise wanting a cut on the grounds that it was unfair to expect people to have to accept cuts in what National Governments spend on goods and services we use and for them not to do the same.
I'm not a Tory but I have to say I agree completely with that especially when the spending is not and hasn't been accounted  for properly year on year for a very long time.
Last night in the vote on the proposition, just for one this once rebel Tories and the Labour party defeated the Government by 307 votes to 294 making it clear through our representatives what is is so many of us feel.
I only hope the message isn't lost on people involved in the European Union not least the Comissionaires.
Today Britons have spoken.

2011 and all that!

Well here comes the End of the Year and I don't know quite how I'm gonna summarize it at That Boarding School Girl yet cos you see I write very much off the cuff with no plan and that.
Looking at events, well we've had highs the most obvious being the Royal Wedding and lows such as the wanton destruction that occurred in August where vast areas were destroyed most noticeably at Reeves Corner, Croydon whose flaming image I still find hard to get out of my mind as well as the senseless destruction of the Sony dvd and cd warehouse in London.
Internationally we've had change albeit incomplete in the Middle East, the removal of Saddam Hussein and Osmar Bin Laden and the recurring problem within the Euro Zone economies and it's currency.
I take no satisfaction at all for saying this but it appears at years end there's no fix to the debt problem currently existing with what appears to be more a kind of idea for fiscal rules in the future to be approved March 2012.

The EU leaders missed the bus and all we have is more embittered relations between the UK and the rest of the EU.
I only hope for the sake of Eurozone members their luck changes next year.
Things to look forward to next year include OUR Olympics that no matter how fragile our economy is here in the UK will be a great success as well as a mood lifter and the 60th anniversary of the present Queen of the UK, Canada and host of other places that will be marked with vists, events and no doubt street parties.
Talking about me though, I'd say that my health's been pretty constant although last years major Flu outbreak did leave me out of commission for a period leaving me with some permanent problems around my throat making it difficult to talk for long.
Regarding this blog, we are at a stable point in its continuing evolution having greatly simplified the structure, tidied up the links, made finding interesting entries easier and finally cracked what this blog is about (and what it's not). It has over 13,000 counted reads to date.
Looking back at some of my music projects I started and documented, I completed most of them and although changes to the importation rules on V.A.T taxation make importing some expensive to ship items like records difficult, I feel nonetheless I will be able to complete them.
I also have learned to be less concerned around the opinions of a vocal minority regarding what versions of a album to own and above all to enjoy the music as an end in itself not worrying unduly about what the waveform might look like or if the person who put this out is on a "approved" list of mastering engineers.
I intend to continue in making my own path involving you but notheless directed at what I find most satisfying be it music, fashion, anime or whatever.
I'll end by thanking the "G Plussers", the Angelic people, the regulars of the Audio Speakeasyand, Imwan plus Bone place, the crazy people of the Weird Persons Group(tm) at CR, Luna Rain and finally Muza_Chan for your contribution to my happiness this year.

Memories

Memories, eh?
Lots of of us have them form the time we were born to our current time not forgetting those memories from the past that are passed down through the generations but this whole subject has often intrigued me
For instance you may know of friends may be friends from your school days who when asked what they thought about those time might give you an account of how good they were or others who seem to have scarcely a good word to say about them but in each instance you feel a little uneasy.
Maybe that's because you remember stuff that happened that both of these two don't and when you add it to their accounts you might feel it alters the narrative you get from both regarding how they feel it shaped them.
Perhaps that's one function of memories. A Justification for who we are today?
But there's this other function we touched on, the passing down of factual knowledge about our pasts, that of our families, the communities and sometimes the countries they have lived in.
These maybe the order of family members -the "Family Tree", what they did and why as well as what happened where we lived and why it mattered. For instance a Saxon Cross near me was destroyed by people who thought it represented a form of Idol Worship and it's significance having been restored is to act as a reminder of the dangers of extreme ideology. Some counties such as the one I'm presently living in Great Britain have a lot of history -some of it bloody - and it doesn't take a lot of studying to see how that shaped their society.
So you see memories are important for us as people personally as well as societies but need to ensure they're as complete as possible to draw the best knowledge and wisdom from them.