Freedom From The Mundane - A Writer's Blog

Monday, May 15, 2006

Jack The Pillock

Dreary start to the day. Dark skies and rain everywhere matching the mood I'm in on most Monday's when the realisation of another week in Hell is about to commence. Sometimes, one must admit to themselves their own limits and learn to live with it. I get that a lot round here.

Since I'm in the mood for an argument, here's a thought. Why is Jack McConnell fannying around promoting Scotland as the bees-knees, lapping up all the glory over his amendments to our social structure and spending time sucking up to American billionaire Donald Trump, when this is the kind of thing we have to read about in our newspapers.

The Scotsman - Youngest Mum Ever

It's about an 11-year old schoolgirl from west Lothian, who got pregnant to a 15-year old boy and is saving up her pocket money to support the baby! Why, she's even toying with the flippant idea of taking on a paper round to pay for all those nappies and bottom wipes.

The girl has said: "I get £10 pocket money every week so I'm putting it in the bank and I've managed to save about £60 so far.

Obviously this girl and her family knows something that the rest of us don't, and that is it isn't terribly expensive to bring up a child. A baby doesn't really need the support of a responsible family around it.

Maybe if she chucked her 20-fag-a-day habit and asked her mother to dole out some more heroin from her flat instead of taking it herself, they might be able to afford a pram that can double as a cot.

It's an absolute fucking disgrace. This girl fell pregnant after getting pissed with her mates and smoking cannabis. She then had sex with the boy, who has since been charged with statutory rape, and now she is heavily expecting. She's already quit school (she's 11 remember) after getting into fights with her fellow pupils.

Unsurprisingly she has been warned that the child could be taken into care. I mean she's only a baby herself - two years older than my own daughter who still plays with dolls and paint brushes and thinks that Lego is still a pretty good idea. How can she possibly be emotionally ready to take on the burden of raising a kid? "But her family can help her," I hear you say. "But her Mum's a junkie in denial", I retort. The situation just gets worse with every passing sentence.

I suppose the only clever thing that little girl has done is to sell her story to The Sun newspaper, who predictably are taking a caring stance while using it to generalise the poor state our education system and social structure in this country is.

As usual the one person who will suffer most is the unborn. He or she is being born into the most dreadful of situations, being in the middle of a tug of war between the social services and her family at one end, and drugs and alcohol at the other.

But it's okay, because Scotland is "vibrant, modern place to live," according to Jack McConnell. I can't help but wonder if some of the money that was wasted on that awful council building at the foot of The Mile had been put into some form of sex education, then that little girl might still have some choices left in her life, and her baby a future.

End of rant.

I have installed a radio (to the left of the page) with some reggae for you to listen to. It's got a small selection of some my favourite Jamacican Ska tracks and I intend on uploading more of my favourite music in the coming weeks . I was thinking of having themed weeks to link in with certain events happening around the world and also for requests for certain bands to be played in a weekly slot. Let me know if you like it and if you have any requests for tunes, send them to me at colin@colingalbraith.co.uk

Didn't get much done in the evening other than updating my blog. I tried to work on Stella and Hunting Jack but was just too tired for any of it. My eyes were hurting, like the tendons were strained at the back of my eyeballs. I ended up going to bed early with something to read.

Colin 10:43 am

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