BEATS OF LOVE

165. Make No Mistake by Keith Richards 

MY MATE Jeff proclaimed after a few weeks of me moving in that he expected Keith Richards and got John Major.

I concur that I'm risk averse and I'm paying a heavy price for it. I met the missus in the first week in January in 2012 and had we married prior to August that year, we would've fallen outside hostile environment policies. As it was despite marrying in 2013, once I was sure a marriage could last, it subjected us to the full force of law changes in 2014. By full force, I mean full force. 

Finally, our MP helped resolve matters in 2016 and they placed the missus on a ten-year route to settlement, not until I was three hours away from flying her out of the country. In 2018, she had one chance to switch routes to save time but was told the rules would have to be met in full on subsequent visas and a failure would reset the clock back to day-one. With redundancy looming, we decided it was safer to pay extra and wait longer for peace of mind. Now, knowing that all the rules could've met in full and qualifying for Indefinite Leave next April, we're devastated to learn the political party we supported and who supported us propose to reroute her, potentially meting out further punishment. 

Shabana Mahmood, being a lawyer, has wider ambitions to safeguard the ECHR and new labour's crowning glory, the Good Friday Agreement. And Indefinite Leave, amid real threats to them. Pulling the ECHR's teeth out is counterproductive, as is rendering ILR useless. Making nobody happy. We were in our local when some unhappy prick was in Nazi saluting after siting us both. 

Mahmood's sorry rhetoric apologizes for it. She understands why mixed race couples can make people feel so incensed; I guess. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

164. Up the Youth Club: Illuminating a Hidden History by Emma Warren

I LOVE Emma's optimistic viewpoint documenting this subject. Ending her revelatory turn pager abruptly before the 70% cut to youth services took effect. 

I only ever recall going to youth club discos aged 11, where I learned that my musical snobbery sat well with my more generalized snobbery. Too aloof for 2-Tone, which seemed to attract kids from the council houses and uniform dancing, the only records me and my mate Dave made any effort to dance to were New Romantic. 

We perfected a sneering disdain for most things because of this, even forming a nameless band. Inserting the lyrics 'Dance with the intercom, Speak into a plane' over a Landscape B side and some Casio keyboard action, intending to play it at the youth club in full garb. We never plucked up the courage to leave his mum's house.

As with her brilliant Dance your Way Home, sparingly but brilliantly, she prizes out history from a personal footprint. You learn lots without this cerebral approach, which again feels refreshing. Understanding that for many youth clubs were a lifeline and not simply some place to form an identity. 

It's by exploring these deeper connections with fertile ideas the book comes alive and you realize the importance of what was simply tossed away in the name of austerity.