Good morning one and all - I open my heart on this Sunday morning and deliver unto you my wisdom and a love so warm it will leave you with a nice toasty feeling.
I am in a giving mood, I know there are some out there in the world who are feeling disheartened and are full of sadness at the state of the world, but fear not and cheer up for I am here to tell you all we have never had it so good!
I can hardly remember a time when Pinot Grigio stayed on offer for so long at Tesco, I can hardly believe that not only do we have Strictly and X Factor, but now we have I'm A Celebrity! Can you believe that Robbie and Take That have banded together and are cheering us all with their new song, a song that gets in your head and that keeps many bed wetters up all night (think about it).
What else is there to bring joy into your lives, oh yes, a Royal wedding in the offing - how much more joy do you need, Prince William and Catherine announce to the world that they are to be married. Diana's ring makes it back into the Daily Mail and the middle classes sigh in unison.
And glory upon glory - the Pope has softened on the use of condoms - though being soft makes the use of condoms hard...
So why are you still sad? Is it because you are spending too much time listening to the nay sayers, those who have taken against our beloved coalition - blaming them for everything that goes wrong in their lives?
OK there might be a few jobs go here and there but did we really need a squirrel protection officer or a crossing guard equipment deployment team?
And all these students marching and breaking things - well you should know better. Get back to your studies and eating your pot noodles and Countdown.
These are supposed to be the intelligent ones, these are our future and they can't even get it into their heads that the increase in fees is something they pay back in the future when they are earning good money and if they don't earn good money they don't pay it back!
And the same for all the worries about cuts in benefits if you turn down a job - well why should you turn down a job that will get you more money unless you are a lazy bastard who has grown fat on the backs of real working people?
And if there are no jobs to be turned down, you get to keep your benefit - it all seems fair to me.
Not that I am against protests or people expressing their views about things, but I'm with Lord Young on this - Mrs B and I remember mortgage rates that left us living on a diet of Findus crispy pancakes and corned beef. We worked hard and bought a house and we struggled to fill it, not with luxury items but with essentials. We had no carpets and we had second hand curtains, but we managed somehow.
Anyway, that was long ago, long before reality TV had been invented, so not only was it financially harder back then but we didn't have dancing and singing on the telly to cheer us up - we only had When The Boat Comes In, The Professionals or Bruce Forsyth and The Generation Game.
Now we have the gaiety of Simon Cowell and the extra gay gaiety of Louis Walsh. We have people who are only famous for being famous being forced to eat cockroaches and kangaroo testes and we have Anne Widdecombe dancing...hosted by Bruce Forsyth. Perhaps things haven't changed at all!
I do have to say how happy it made me, seeing Ms Widdecombe in her yellow dress being twirled around the floor. It was like the sun had come to earth and was so happy to be here it just had to dance, that's how warm I felt. And how wonderful that they gave her a costume that matched the colour of her teeth.
And seeing Cheryl take on Wagner on the X Factor as he had said nasty things about her council estate roots - yes Wagner, leave the girl alone! She dragged herself up from nothing, and now she gets to go on Children In Need and talk down to us all about poverty when she has hardly two diamonds to rub together for warmth!
The icing on the cake, and winning the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role - Dr Gillian McKeith.
We have never had it so good - to be able to pick up a phone and torture celebrities like this, amazing.
Have I rambled, have I lost my thread? I think not...the theme is cheer up you miserable old sods. Life is too short to be wasted on people who are not prepared to enjoy it.
I can take some of you moaning minnies to houses where they know what real hardship and loss is - the homes of those who have lost a loved one. But what they have not lost is their dignity or their pride.
So we are living in hard times - so what? At least you are living and you wont starve to death and you are not likely to be killed by malaria and you and your family won't be murdered because you are from the wrong tribe.
We have gotten too soft and we have forgotten just how bloody lucky we are to live in this country, an accident of birth landed you in the UK not Afghanistan or sub Saharan Africa - this is not a hard life, this is a time of financial difficulty which we will come through and we will still have Wetherspoons full of people who have the money to buy beer and cigarettes even though they don't work.
Of course we should always strive to protect the really vulnerable in our country, but we should also try and inspire and remind people that pride and self esteem are not based in material wealth.
I must away now, I think my caviar on toast is nearly ready...
But seriously, all of you, take a look at your lives and see how many things you have in your home that are not essential at all, for example - if you are reading this blog you are not poor, not really poor. You might be poorer than some others but you are rich compared to those who don't even have a chair to pull up in front of a computer, let alone a computer.
And when you write your replies arguing how wrong I am, think how lucky you are to be able to express those views, think about the education you received that allows you to spell all of the words correctly (although some still have not realised spell checker isn't something Harry Potter uses).
Go and march and get it out of your system, protest and smash windows and hurl objects and cause mayhem and then drive your car home or catch a bus or train, put the key in the lock, turn on the lights and turn on your TV and turn off your sense of proportion.
Never had it so good.
Addendum:
This is only my view and I am aware how very fortunate I am - that's why I stated in the blog that I feel I can concur with Lord Young.
I come from a relatively poor background, education and working in the public sector was my route to where I am today. Mrs B still works in the public sector and her job is at risk like everyone else. This does not change what I feel. I hate to see my taxes supporting those who refuse to join in. I gladly pay tax to support those who cannot. In fact, as a self employed worker I pay extra taxes and have less access to benefits but that's another story.
I am still paying my student loan, quite happy to do so, Mrs B couldn't get a loan for her degree because she studied part time. Her degree doesn't make her job any more secure.
Anyway, without wanting to dismiss the comments of my friends - who I have great respect for in what they have achieved for themselves and their families - I reproduce said comments and then draw their attention to the actual wording of the blog.
'There was a lady there yesterday who uses a day centre 4 times a week and when she does her self harming reduces. They're now asking her to pay about 10.50 a week to attend, from benefits that will be cut too. It's not all selfish people on marches...'
'Some of us are still paying ours off and trying to save to send our own kids to uni and look after elderly parents as adult social care costs have been drastically raised. That ain't funny the rich get richer and we must not believe or consider our children bettering themselves if we come from a council estate. I've lived this once as only the kids from the private estate were told they were good enough. It took me years to believe in myself that I was clever enough to succeed. When I did I got a job in local government now that's going to...'
I clearly state that we should strive to protect the vulnerable, and that we should inspire people and remind them that self esteem is not based in material wealth.
I also acknowledge we have hard times to face and OK, perhaps there is a certain glibness in my 'so what' - but as you have heard me say before, even I am not perfect.
Moving on...what's next?
