Back in the good old days, prior to and including her first year of power, I recall talking about America and its society. Little was I to realise, although somewhere there was a portend banging around in my brain, that what we discussed would now be a part of our reality.

I recall, fondly, how we were appalled by how the USA treated its own citizens.  The idea of having to pay for health care was an anathema to me and those I spoke to on the subject. I can hear the echoes of those words, as if they are bouncing off the walls of the room I now sit in. ‘Do you know that some Americans can’t even afford to go to hospital? Some don’t even get medicine because they can’t pay for the prescriptions.’  Even then I understood how unfair and ridiculous that was. (The richest country in the world and it couldn’t  look after its citizens) I knew that being poor in America was a crushing and horrid life. Thankfully, I was a Brit and that would never happen in this country. We had learnt that society pays for society, because that’s the only way we can all be looked after and look after.

Today I look at a health service that is privatised in all but name. To believe otherwise would be naive in the extreme. A fool I may be. Naive? Never!

In the same conversations we talked of how wicked it was that American children had to get into debt just to go to college. How, state schools were badly managed and delivered poor education, that they were infected with gang cultures. Oh yes! Gang culture in the good old…has been around a long time. This was an infection we, as a nation, contracted after far too many family holidays to the other side of the pond. Not one I’ve ever been on. Even if we could have afforded it, I fear my family wouldn’t have enjoyed it. This leads me onto my point. I recollect that, very few British people I spoke to, wanted to emulate American society. I remember. Yet, now we have our children getting into debt, just to go to college, never mind University. We are making the next generation pay for their own generation. Surely we should be paying for them, on the basis that we’ve been here and should have made sure there was enough money to educate the next in line.

What I’m trying to say is: we have become the 51st state. Something we should never have been. If anything it should have been USA the 5th county of the UK. But we’ve had far too many butt licking politicians who were more worried about their own advancement that they forgot they were there to do the best for us.

We now have: Private Health companies embedded into our NHS. Monies from NHS budgets now streaming into private hospitals, making them stronger and the NHS weaker. Health Insurance companies flogging us dodgy insurance. An old adage that I remember: Insurance only works as long as you don’t claim on it. Ask a huge proportion of American citizens who have been diagnosed with  terminal or regressive diseases, who find that their insurance doesn’t cover them for that.

Our Children are indebted to make a better society through their penurious time in academia and beyond.

We have gang violence of epidemic proportions. Poverty extremes, and the least mobile society for generation. We have become the stomping ground for the worlds plutocrats and right-wing ideologues.

All that I found offensive about America is what as come to the UK. Private injunctions, blame-claim culture, Tuition Fees, private health care, private dentistry, gun crime, fast food, obesity, and ignorance. May be the only way back is to cut up our passports and promise not to go there again. May be it’s just time that we said no more to this nonsensical, self, egotistic greed and say it’s time to be British again. We were moaners, but we could fight when we needed. We may have liked a good fry-up for breakfast, but we were never obese. We may not have been as wealthy as America but at least we could afford to educate and treat our population. We may even have been a little reluctant to jump on the 7 day work till you drop dogma of the Yanks, yet we still created the Industrial Revolution. We may well have liked a couple of beers in the pub, but at least we knew it had been brewed with hops and barley and not some chemical process that had no relationship to such a process. All of this may be true, but….We were British, we closed on a Sunday, half day on Wednesday, was looking forward to shorter working weeks, to our kids going to university for free. Retiring young and being human.  So let’s be British again. Let’s tell the Yanks to take back their cranky neo-con economists and let us run our country as we like!

Round one, he would come out all guns blazing and knock seven barrels out of his opponent but, just as the crowd were feeling robbed he would slow the pace down and let the inevitable loser back into the fight.

In our case, the Tories went straight into round one with a flurry of punches that would knock the wind out of any adversary. Tuition fees, tax hikes and an assault on public services that even Thatcher herself would have been proud of. Unlike Ali, the Tories know that their opponent is the crowd and even they know you can’t knock all 60 million out at once. Round one knocked a good few out, but there’s still more to come. They know that if they get their opponent too angry he might hit them with a howitzer of a punch and knock them into unelectability for a generation.

So onto Round two.

Round two  Ali comes out and jabs a bit, a few deft digs to the body, just enough to wind a little and sap a some energy from his foe. Then he would perform a rearguard action and lean on the ropes to allow his newly invigoured opposition the naive belief he was back in the fight. Unbeknown to him, Ali was allowing the man to exert some much needed energy, energy he would need for later rounds.

We are now in round two. The Tories came out with some truly vile ideas: reductions in housing benefits for the poor, a right dig to the ribs with the obliteration of invalidity benefits, a loosening of employment legislation, (shown be the employment in Birmingham  of Indian contractors in the IT department of the council, bearing in mind there is more than enough skilled individuals for the positions here) an all out assault on the perceived middle-class.  Like Ali, or more unlike Ali, for he only fought one at a time and they are attacking the majority of the population, they start to perform a rearguard action.

Health reforms, weekly bin collections, selling off our forests all seem to have been put out of action by the assault of indignity by the British populace. But the Tories know better. While we’re punching at them they’re sitting back and absorbing the punches. In truth it’s we that are tiring. In our minds we feel victory is ours, this weakens us significantly. For, like Ali, they haven’t really tired and aren’t on the defensive.  The predicted knock out was round three and that is yet to come. The body punches of ‘NHS reform’, seem innocuous now, but the damage was already done to our weakened body and mind.

The so called concessions made over the NHS are just that, so called. In reality nothing has changed. The Secretary of State for Health has kept his responsibility, be he would have any way. Has anyone ever heard of a politician that didn’t crave power? No! They never relinquish it without a fight yet Lansley’s policy was to rid himself of a job. Complete balderdash. Of course he needed to stay in control, there is no other way he could have brought his pals into the NHS otherwise; and like the newly invigorated fighter, we believe we have the upper hand.   His intention was always to be there, he just wanted us to give him the mandate for the changes to come. (Some of the most violent Tory lead changes the country has ever experienced).

As for there being no chance of the NHS now being privatised, don’t be so naive! The private sector is still in there and now with a nod and wink from the doctors themselves. A mark of genius by this government.

Round three is yet to come, let’s see what punches we get in that one and whether we can get lucky with a desperate flailing blow!

Have a read of the description and tell me if you would seriously buy a car from this guy!

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Item: 220768216260

Postage and packaging

Item location: Middlesbrough, Cleveland , United Kingdom

Postage to: United Kingdom

Return policy

Payment details

Seller’s description

Ford Focus 1.8 Zetec Ghia Mint Green (Possibly works underwater but this is unconfirmed)

If Trebor made car paint then I imagine it would look something like the colour of this car, it’s a pale minty green. I will include some green Trebor mints in the sale so that you can compare for yourself. Please specify if you would prefer Extra Strong mints instead, they are white (unlike the colour of this car) but I personally prefer them even if I do hold them partially responsible for the decay in one of my teeth.

I took this car in part exchange along with some cash for another car I was selling. I didn’t really want it but I wanted the car I had less and since I am a valeter by trade I saw potential in this.

The engine is sound as can be, the gearbox is a dream, it steers like it’s on rails and all of the features and electricals work as designed. It’s the Ghia model (what does ghia even mean?) so has a bunch of extras such as heated front windscreen, air con, electrically adjustable front seats and an upgraded dash.

Inside its quite lovely, dark and mysterious but shiny and clean. I would feel quite happy to host a business conference inside it. Refreshments could be served through one of the electrically operated windows. Drinks could be placed in 1 of the 2 available cup holders. If your business meeting was for more than 2 people then some of the participants may have to hold their drinks, they might whinge a bit because of this but just remind them that in some parts of the world they haven’t even invented drinks yet.

Nothing nasty to report about the inside of the car, no rips or scuffs, its very tidy actually. I have been driving this minty little number around for a few days now and I was surprised how nice it is to drive and have opted to drive this rather than my Mondeo. OMG I am such a liar, I just remembered that the passenger side door handle is a bit scruffy, that’s all though.

It’s a Ford Focus from 2001 which is exactly 1 year after 2000 when the world didn’t end and VCRs continued to work. I didn’t do much that New Years eve, not because I was afraid an airplane would fall out of the sky and land on me, I just fancied a quiet night in with my girlfriend of that time, I say girl’friend, she was nearly 40 but a proper sporty little thing, bit ugly but perky where it counted. I myself am no beauty box so us both being a bit ugly I never had and insecurities that she would run off with my best friend lol. But she did about a year later! He left his wife, went a bit mad, got sectioned then released, turned out to be an alcoholic and now has pancreatitis, all is well that ends well.

The alloys on this MINT GREEN (it’s not blue or black or red or any other colour, deal with the fact that its mint green to avoid disappointment. If you thought maybe it was silver but the sunshine in the photos made it look a bit green you were wrong) are in genuinely good condition. I gave them a quick tickle with an alloy cleaning brush but they need a better clean than that but since I am quite busy trying to get in to the girl next doors knickers I can’t be bothered. The plastics are all nice and black, the tyres are all insanely named cheap brands but have good tread on them. I valeted the car so it’s looking good and smells divine – you might want to lick it but I recommend against this since some of the cleaning products I use are bad for tongues.

The windows are unbroken glass, have no chips and critically are transparent unlike bricks which are not often used as a window making material, they are tinted at the back so if you take that lass from the chippy up the hills you can do what you like in the back and won’t be seen. Unless someone looks through the windscreen and then the games up and the pillar box is down.

It’s done 107K miles which is much further than I can run and I wouldn’t even attempt to run that far not even for comic relief or children in need unless there was a cash incentive then I would consider it and work out some way to cheat. It would be an elaborate cheat including most likely a helicopter and several disguises, somewhere I have a dress up banana suit which I have only used once so I would probably try to get some more use out of it since I think it cost me about £60 a few years back.

The exterior of the car is generally in pretty good condition, there is some surface rust under the rear wheel arches (not that bad) and its had a small ding on the rear which has been tarted up a bit and doesn’t look that bad. There are a couple of places (arches, rear bumper) that have been resprayed in places probably due to surface rust in the past. I say resprayed, it actually looks like it’s been done by a drunken blind clown at night hanging upside down from a moving giraffe. Honestly, Ghandi could have done a better job slapping paint on with his flip flops. Estimated cost to have this resprayed by someone that isn’t mentally incapacitated is about £150-200 but who knows, maybe you aren’t the picky type and just want a motor that runs well, is comfy and proper posh on the inside.

It’s got MOT and Tax until July and I really can’t see any reason why it won’t fly through its next MOT (apart from the fact that cars don’t fly, be cool if they did)

Aside from the couple of dodgy resprayed bits this is a very decent car that runs beautifully but is green.

Any inspection, test drive, pretend flight is more than welcome. If you don’t want to drive it you can just sit in the driver’s seat and I can make engines noises but there will be an additional fee for this. I can also make airplane noises my Airbus A380 is very impressive, helicopters are harder but I can try if that is your thing.

You can see from the pictures that overall this is a bang tidy motor and you have my word it drives well. If this doesn’t sell I really couldn’t care less, I will keep driving it around not pulling birds. I don’t need to sell it but if you want it you can buy it.

Don’t forget its fathers day soon! What do you buy the dad who has everything? Well if he has a crazy a$$ large desk you could buy him a full scale replica ford focus 1.8 zetec ghia paperweight. If you know someone like Doc Brown for the back to the future trilogy maybe they could make you a remote control lie the one he had for the DeLorean DMC-12 which would be way awesome!

Update, Tuesday 12th April: < I like this colour I just pretended to get off with myself in the back seats, I had someone confirm that they could see me. This unfortunately means the windows are only lightly tinted and it isn’t privacy glass. Also worth mentioning that this car runs on petrol which can be bought at ‘petrol stations’, if you are unfamiliar with these then ask someone for directions to a place that sells over priced cold sausage rolls. 

I can confirm that the petrol low light works, it just came on.

Also I just took delivery of a docking station for my laptop, the box it came in is surplus to requirements as I have plenty of other empty boxes. I will include this box in the sale at no extra cost. Finally for today, I think a pound coin fell out of my Bermuda shorts and has lodged itself somewhere under the drivers seat, if I don’t find it before the car sells you can have this too. Dont be disappointed if its only 50p though, it sounded like a pound but could have been a 50.

On 12-Apr-11 at 12:09:28 BST, seller added the following information:

Last night I bought a multi-pack of ready made bovril drinks, just sipping at one now. I want to share the warmth so will leave one of my bovril drinks in one of the 2 cup holders for the winning bidder. You can choose which holder, left or right, but you must supply your own hot water.

On 12-Apr-11 at 13:24:01 BST, seller added the following information:

Sorry, the free cardboard box is no longer available. I used it to make a Flux Capacitor. I have now installed this in the Mint Green Ford Focus. It is untested and not covered in anyway by Ford warranty. When I go to buy a sausage roll later I will put some more petrol in and then zip her up to 88mph. If successful I will go back in time to catch the moron that touched up the arches and paint him mint green then ask him how he likes it! I will also go to McDonalds in the early 90′s when they still served root beer and stock up. I miss their root beer.

On 12-Apr-11 at 14:10:26 BST, seller added the following information:

The reserve is Ssssssshhh! £800 or if you prefer to look at it another way, thats 800 items from a pound shop.

On 12-Apr-11 at 23:16:56 BST, seller added the following information:

Bad news, my attempts at time travel have been brought to an ugly full stop. I just remembered that the speed limit in th UK is 70mph so I cant reach 88mph. Probably just as well, have you seen Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure? Napoleon was a bit of a handful and I dont have the time to baby sit him. Good news though, my pal was let off with a caution after his dog attempted to hump an old lady that collapsed recently. He was trying to get her in the recovery position and Floyd (the dog) thought it was a game. Someone didnt see the funny side and reported the incident to the police.

Did I mention this car has a leather steering wheel? Probably not suitable for vegetarians – not sure? I dont speak vegetarian so cant ask one.

On 13-Apr-11 at 08:27:55 BST, seller added the following information:

It is with great sadness that this morning I must inform you that the mint green ford focus has been poo’d on by a bird. I have had a quick look around the neighbourhood and there was 2-3 birds that looked a bit guilty, I have issued them with verbal warnings but on this occasion I am not prepared to perform DNA testing. 

I will remove the offending poo splash with my high power jet wash, I know its high power because I once shot my friend in his marble collection and I swear he had tears in his eyes. I once hid 2 sachets of brown sauce in his wallet and then forgot about it for at least 2 months until he called me from work saying words that would kill a nun instantly. The sachets had finally burst making it look like he had gone to the toilet in his pants, he wasn’t allowed to go home and change so spent the whole day soiled. 

Speaking of contortion-ism, I confirm I can not wrap my leg around the entire circumference of the time machine ford focus, I hope this does not affect the final auction price. 

Questions and answers about this item
Q:  Hi, I love the idea of a minty green car. What I really need to know is is it a peppermint green, spearmint green or more of an applemint green? p.s I want your babies A:  You seem very hung up on the colour green, to avoid disappointment I should tell you now I can only make pinkish colour babies. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  i think i love you A:  I wish you could make up your mind, uncertainty makes me nervous. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  Has anyone told you that you are first-rate writer? Get all this lot to a publishers NOW – you won’t need to sell second-hand cars, you will make a fortune (tell Stephen Fry to budge over as you are on your way to the top) As a granny, I particularly loved the bit about the dog, the humping, and the prostrate old lady….made me snort coffee out of my nose! A:  If you were my granny I would make things for you to stick on your fridge, I would make them out of recycled materials because I know mature people are concerned about the world exploding, which is ironic since they are less likely to be around when it happens. P.S I bet you can still shake it on the dance floor. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  i want to buy the car, just to meet you! re read a million times and showed everyone on facebook hahaha A:  I really wish there was a million reread certificate. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  I think I might be in love with you. Is this going to be a problem? A:  Only if you like to fondle gerbils 15 Apr, 2011

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