Welcome to the Daily Debate.

The home of all meandering opportunities for windbag Mezzo to ramble.

Disclaimer – Daily?? There definitely won’t be one tomorrow.

Seattle: The sugar covered fruit jelly of cities?

Christmas time comes around.  You sit round the open fire, passing presents out from beneath the tree.  It’s a peaceful time and everyone is appreciative of the home made jumpers knitted by granny.  Little Billy loves his spinning top and sweet wee Isla is galloping around on her toy horse. 

It’s the most…wonderful time…of the year. 

Then suddenly there’s the present from uncle Artie.  

There’s a feeling of impending dread among some of the people sipping egg nog.
Mincemeat pie crumbs fall to the floor as those who weren’t around last year sit agog.
Those that were, shudder at the memory of the soap on a string sets he got for everyone.
This is one present; a small flat box, a box of chocolates perhaps with gooey soft centres and some with nuts.
The wrapping paper falls to the floor and there is a slight groan as a box of sugar covered fruit jellies appears*.

“What’s that?” Isla asks expectantly.

You look round the room at the other adult faces.

“Sweets that you’ll like my dear.”  Isla gallops off giddy with excitement while you grin inwardly thinking you’ll not be so happy in the future.

Sugar covered fruit jellies.  Along with Turkish delight, the Marmite of the confectionery world but without that disgusting taste yet still remarkably unfulfilling.  Sweets/candies that people with false teeth can get their…ummm…teeth in to.

Personally, I can take them or leave them.  When the chocolate supplies have run out and it is weeks until Easter…they are the confectionery of last resort…unless they’ve already been donated as a raffle prize.

Anyway, you were warned about the rambling, on to the topic of the day. 

Seattle.

I am on record as saying, I love the idea of competition cities.  If I wasn’t already a crew leader and over 45 days old, I’d have been at the head of the queue taking the jump into Seattle.  Not because I crave the limelight but the cut and thrust of relationship building and back stabbing.  This is not a cue for someone to relieve me of my current responsibilities and give my son or daughter that opportunity.

However, we sit here, almost three months after the initial announcement still with 50% of the spaces up for grabs and only one real family. 

Now yes, people can say “Louis, but they were full and there’s been a selective culling of the establishedish families there.”

Indeed.  There has been the involuntary removal of one or two (or three or four or five…who can keep count!) families and the politics around that are not what is up for debate.  Additionally some get there, go bold then take the chance to retire.

A common gripe is that the “establishment” keep the same bloodlines at the top yet here we have a city where those brave/foolish enough to stick their heads above the parapet can get the opportunity to lead.  Some competition cities have been downright brutal and chaotic, like shaking a bottle of fizzy pop and opening the lid.  There is always a time where a steadying influence calms all the fizz and then it becomes almost business as usual.

Is there a danger of people who have been bold there in the past come back and perpetuate the “always the same at the top” myth?

Is there an apathy around “I’m alright Jack, but I’m sure as shit going to retire if I’m not going to get the chance to go bold in *insert home city here*”?  If the myth is that the same bloodlines rise, what makes that person confident they’d get that chance?

Have all the bloodlines…who are obviously always at the top…done it so often that the chance to lead is treated like playing pass the parcel with an unpinned hand grenade?

Basically, why is Seattle like the fruit jellies…a city concept that isn’t to everyone’s taste; a land of opportunity, a treat of last resort or the very definition of a no-win situation?

Do the current inhabitants feel that they have grown into the role or were they confident the notes from granpappy’s journals were enough?

*Insert typically under appreciated gift of your choice that isn’t universally despised by all the family.

P.S. sugar covered fruit jellies are my dodgy analogy in the situation, what would yours be?