The solution perhaps

Think i am going to start wearing this again!

My viewpoint

Obsessions

I am not by nature obsessive, at least I don't think i am. There was a time in my life when I was deeply infatuated with fishing, and would spend as much of my waking time next to water as i could. Anglers are seen by some people as cruel as they pull fish struggling from the water with barbed hooks through their lips. I can see that point of view, though it has to be said that most anglers are very careful with the fish that they catch and return them to the water little the worse for wear. Anglers tend to be passionate about their hobby, and extremely knowledgable about the fish and the wildlife, as well as the waterways themselves, and it is largely thanks to them that our waterways are better looked after than they have ever been. Few rivers here are the open sewers that they once were and healthy fish stocks abound in places where once they had died off. Even the Thames in London has become a healthy river once more.

Young people could do a lot worse that take up fishing as a hobby. It teaches much about patience, self control, tolerance and respect as well as a deeper understanding of the environment and our place within it. Ok there are risks, people do fall into the water, they always have and always will, but without risks, what is the point of life anyway?

Ever hopeful

I am not a gardener. That would take much more energy and expertise, not to mention dedication, than i can generally muster. I do love to make things grow though. I love planting seeds, taking cuttings, thinning out and potting on, all in the confines of the greenhouse. There my plants are safe and secure and get loving care and attention. As soon as they go out into the garden however they are out of my hands and into the land of the slug and the weed. Weeds are very successful and are the result of millions of years of evolution. They thrive on neglect and so therefore in my hands they do really well. Weeds are really only plants that grow where they are not required by us and so by definition, a rose bush in the middle of my courgettes would be a weed. There isn't one of course, though i do have a surplus of courgette plants and may insinuate some of them among the well tended flora that are not my responsibility.
I am always optimistic (yes you did read that right!) when it comes to getting things going. Lat year i managed to produce a multitude of pomegranite plants, some of which are still going strong. This year I have a surplus of morning glory and today i planted the seeds of Papaya. Tropical fruits can be started but rarely come to much but I remain undaunted. At least it keeps me out of mischief and away from the computer for a good part of the day.

Golf

I am a member of a golf club. I pay my dues every year and then proceed to find lots of excuses not to play. Either the weather is bad or the course is full, or more often i have no-one to play with. That is a feeble excuse i know but it is one that I use a lot. I am not a competitive player anymore but it is a social game and plodding around, hacking at the ball and searching through the bushes for the wayward shots is not a lot of fun by yourself. I have just got back from the course after having played a round by myself, in fact the course was more or less empty and i enjoyed the walk, if not the rather indifferent golf that went along with it. Golf courses are wonderful havens of wildlife and at this time of year most are at their best. The Rhododendrons are emerging and the bluebells are in full bloom. The grass is green and lush and I have to say that it was a pleasure to be out there. very year I go through the motions of leaving the club as it would be so much cheaper for me to play per round, but on days like this, I realise that I am fortunate to be able to wander this piece of real estate whenever I want. Ok the golf costs me bout a pound per shot at the moment but I promise to make a greater effort in the future.

The Flu

I am a little concerned by the current outbreak of Swine flu. Most people underestimate this virus, which, in its multitude of forms has probably killed more people than any other.
It used to annoy me terribly when i was working, that colleagues whom I will not name, regularly took a couple of days off work claiming to have had the flu. I had it once and I felt as if i was dying. Flu is nothing like the heavy colds that can lay one low for a couple of days. With a cold it is still possible to function, with flu it isn't. It is a debilitating and dangerous disease and a pandemic is long overdue. never has there been a time when the spread of disease has been so likely. International travel is easy and it does not take long for a pathogen to be spread worldwide. With a long incubation period, the disease can be spread unwittingly from continent to continent and although this outbreak was first noted in Mexico, it has already been discovered in Canada, the UK, Brazil and Australia. People with flu like symptoms are advised to isolate themselves but will they? It doesn't take many thoughtless individuals to infect hundreds and they in their turn hundreds more. Thus is the nature of the pandemic.
We can only hope that it burns itself out before millions are infected and there are significant fatalities. Gone are the days when people were as selfless as those in Eyam, who knowing that they were infected with the plague, isolated themselves so that others in surrounding villages would be spared. People with the infection will still go to work and use public transport. Ignorance is expensive.

Full English

Went cycling this morning and did something that i haven't done in a long time. I stopped at a cafe and had a full English breakfast of toast, fried bread, two eggs, sausages, bacon and tomatoes, with a steaming mug of black coffee. The place was filled with holiday makers, who, until recently i would have described as elderly. Complementary newspapers were all "The Sun" and i confess that i did scour a copy of that pitifully foul publication, just to remind myself as to how bad it really is. The breakfast was actually very nice, even if it was artery clogging and adipose stimulating, and the premises a reminder of my roots.
Now i feel too full to move and so the rest of the day will probably be squandered; we must pay for our pleasures.

Those who can, do, those who can't, destroy!

When I was at school, certain activities were obligatory. In fact thinking about it, most things were, especially for boys. Girls had a much easier time of it by and large. All boys were expected to be members of the Cadet force, dressing in horrible itchy uniforms that must have been surplus stock from the war, lugging around Lee Enfield 303 rifles that still had firing pins and were therefore able to shoot real bullets, and generally posing around for what purpose I never did understand. Another expectation was participation in the annual cross country run. Every boy in the school that did not have some medical exemption, and a not from your Mum was pretty useless in those days, had to run in this competition and the girls were merely expected to watch.
Now some boys liked this sort of thing and were good at it. Some were just prepared to go along and suffer it, while some of us hated it so much we’d do our very best to scupper things.
I think that this is a form of human behaviour that we see reflected in other walks of life. In the 90s there was a period when British Art and pop was making headlines, and a young breed of “Artists” were becoming phenomena, largely due to the financial support of Charles Sacchi. He seemed to buy whatever these enterprising people were prepared to produce and call art. And so piles of bricks, unmade beds, and animals preserved in formaldehyde, became works of art. It seems to me that these people were rejecting the formality of the “Art” establishment and pushing things as far as they were able to. Rather like us boys who couldn’t keep up with the real runners, we had to make our mark in some sort of rebellion, these people produced an anti art, similar to the way that the 80s saw a rise in anti music.
Our rebellions were always short lived and did nothing to change the establishment. We had our moments of infamy and the next year things were back to normal. Phases of destruction seem to come and go and the world nods and carries on as always. Yes Charles Sacchi’s collection still exists but does it mean much and would it matter much if it were to burn down tomorrow? I suspect not.

Harlequin

St George's Day Rant

Today is Shakespeare's birthday and also St George's day. St George, the slayer of dragons and patron saint of England. The flag of St George is worn by English teams and the red cross on a white background is supposed to raise patriotic fervour wherever it is waved. Now according to what i have read, St George was born in Turkey in the third century AD, he lived later in Palestine and became a Roman soldier. He was a Christian and was tortured and later beheaded because of his faith. What has any of this to do with us? and what is the point of patron saints anyway? It strikes me that there are so many of them that the title becomes pretty meaningless, rather in the way that titles handed down by the royals are.
George was sanctified - is that the right word? - for his resilience to torture and his refusal to accept the Roman version of God or Gods. They knew they were right of course as did he and so the whole thing was really a futile argument with George bearing the brunt of the process.
Religions cannot lose can they? What they offer is a plethora of jam tomorrow, and in exchange for payments today, and there is never a shortage of customers. People have been prepared to die for believing in the invisible man and the paradise that is offered in exchange for their wordly misery. Poverty is supposed to be a christian value. Do the poor not realise that it is only of value to the wealthy, in whose interest the organised religions grew? Of course they don't. They are told from birth that suffering is good for the soul. It is even better for the coffers of the church.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

I know that everyone is talking about her at the moment, but why should I be any different. I have never claimed to be original, and I must say that Susan Boyle, the frumpy and unexpected celebrity from Britain's Got Talent has got a lot of people thinking and hopefully examining their prejudices. We all have them, I know that i am heavily prejudiced against any form of religion, and when I saw this woman appear onstage and listened to her interview, I, like many people did judge the book by its cover. She does not have the looks of a celebrity, she is dumpy, plain and badly dressed, and yet she has the most amazing voice. As soon as she sang she had the judges looking embarrassed at their own attitudes and the audience on its feet. It was a phenomenon. A hugely sceptical and negative audience was transformed into a standing ovation within a few seconds. I think this says much more about human behaviour than it does about Susan Boyle, who knew that she could sing.

We do make hasty assessments of people and this has become so true in modern times where many people are obsessed with the way they look. It is not just women who are caught up in this need to look young and fashionable, and much of western economy is dependent on people being dissatisfied with their appearance. Hair colouring, make up, designer clothes, perfumes, detox, botox, all of these suck in the money of the foolish like sum huge maelstrom, and yet however people look they still want more and more changes. Yesterdays outfit is so.........yesterday, and people with vast wardrobes full of hardly worn garments rush out to buy the latest labels claiming that they have nothing to wear. And so, someone is seen wearing out of date clothes poor make up and who does not fit the mould is seen as somehow unworthy.

Ok I know that I don't give a damn for trends or fashion. I keep myself clean and generally tidy, but confess to wearing clothes until they wear out, and i don't actually care much what people think about me, but I am sure that there are many whose lives are made miserable by their inability to fit into other people's expectations. Obsession with appearance in my opinion is shallow, and appears to be a form of desparation. We cannot cling on to youth and by wearing the latest fashions, all we are saying is that we have no minds of our own. You might as well go to church!

That poor old sun

According to the news, the sun is cooling down. There is very little in the way of solar activity such as sunspots or solar flares, and some people believe that this may lead us into a period of global cooling. Last time the sun was observed to behave in this way was in the 17th century and preceded a mini ice age. Having said that, there is as yet no evidence to support this theory and global temperatures continue to rise.
Today is a lovely spring day with little wind and in the best spots in the garden it is very warm, insects abound and plants are growing rapidly. i don't particularly want to think about falling temperatures right now, and although astronomers must find the solar rest period fascinating, I'd rather focus on the next few months when we can at least hope for some spring and summer.
It can only be a matter of time before the fundamentalists get hold of the story however and claim that some entity has turned down the heating as a counter to global warming. It is so easy to take events such as this and through a deep misunderstanding of any scientific principle, explain things away through the actions of one's invisible friend.
There is no doubt that global temperatures are on the increase. What is not so certain is the cause. Greenhouse gases are a probable trigger but it is also possible that we are experiencing natural cyclic weather fluctuations that may have causes not necessarily associated with that. It may be a cynical way of looking at things, but to convince the world that we can counteract these changes by reducing fuel consumption may have more to do with the looming crisis of not being able to provide fossil fuel at the rate that the population demands it.
What is clear is that largely, the climate is something that man has never been able to control. We are here as the result of a series of accidents that produced self replicating molecules, which through mutation after mutation and the process of natural selection, led to what we see as a pinnacle of evolution. We have not been here long in terms of Earth history and it is possible that we may not be here for much longer. It is comforting to some to believe that we are here for a purpose, but that to me seems to be the equivalent of a fairy tale. I take my comfort in having no purpose whatsoever.

(ps - I'll be interested to see what ads pop up today, especially if i throw in some random words such as - Teddy bear, Peanuts, handbrake, lemmings, prostitution, Tomb raider, Police, Hungary, Canadian Dollar - please keep clicking the ads!)

Times gone by

Adrenalin

The Easter holidays are over and things are back to normal. I will get back into my daily routines and once again become acclimatised to my own company. Normally we'd have gone to France for a short break but the exchange rate has made that a much less affordable prospect and so it was a holiday at home. I do love France, and I have always found the French people very friendly. The roads are so much better than ours and there is so much less traffic. The food can be wonderful and the scenery spectacular, and on top of all that we usually fill the boot of the car with wine. Now our wine stores are almost gone and supermarket special offers will have to become the norm until France becomes affordable.
I love travel, but have never been in a position to do so without being very careful with money. I suppose i have never been poor, at least not since i was a child, but I have never been well off either. Journeys have had to be saved for and have always been on limited budgets. I often think that if I did have a lot of money then I would spend it travelling. Most material things I already have or I don't want and so in terms of belongings there is nothing that I want. Mostly what I crave are things that are no longer easily accessible. Excitement I guess is the main item on my shopping list.
I was thinking this morning about exciting events in my life, and I guess that most of them were associated with dangers. There was a time when I'd have a go at anything, but that phase of life seems to be over and vicarious pleasures are feeble in comparison. Being scared can be very invigorating and the adrenalin rush associated with that is an addiction. As we age I suppose we become more sensible and aware of our physical limitations, and that is, like habit, a great deadener.
I don't think i want to be scared any more as the kinds of things that scare me most are associated with a failing body, but some excitement of some sort wouldn't go amiss.

Theft?

Copyright law must be very complex. Intellectual property is pretty hard to protect and there are probably more pirated versions of music and movies than there are bone fide kosher versions.
The internet has enabled people to copy and share more or less any sort of file these days and those trying to enforce the law must feel that they are spitting into the wind. There cannot be many people out there who do not have any pirated stuff in their collections, and the thing is, it doesn't feel as if you are doing anything wrong.
Piracy of music really took off with the invention of the cassette recorder. Suddenly it became easy to record the latest album and give copies to all of your mates. Thus at a stroke the number of LP sales should have been vastly reduced. It didn't really happen did it? There must have been millions of illegal copies of all of the Beatles albums made, and yet i am not aware of any claims from them that they were impoverished by the process.
I remember Napster. The website that enabled and encouraged the sharing of music files. It was a wonderful way to meet people and to share ideas as well as files, and I believe that the "illegal" sharing exposed many people to music that they would jot of heard of before, thus encouraging them to go out and buy stuff. Napster was taken to court and closed down by the band Metallica, who didn't like the idea of not being paid for something. Ironically their drummer was recently reported as illegally downloading a copy of their own album. Now there is a thorny legal issue.
I know people who download whole movies to their PC. The copies are usually poor in quality and personally I can't see the point. Renting DVDs is quite cheap and even buying them from Amazon or Play.com makes them quite affordable. I guess that there is a genetic predisposition within the human genome that urges us to try to get something for nothing. Fundamentally we all have the potential to become thieves and only very few of us manage to keep that tendency in check.

another favourite place

A favourite place

Baaaaaa Humbug

Never being one to miss an chance to put his foot in it, the Archbishop of Canterbury- the leader of the C of E, has allegedly, according to the Times, put forward some wonderful ideas for getting us all out of the financial pickle that we are in. We should all, according to the wise one, change our lives, incorporating the monastic values of poverty, chastity and obedience. Now, i can understand the poverty bit. Many of us have taken to living beyond our means and become worshippers of material wealth, and that we should try to change. Capitalism however depends on the flow of money, mostly into the bank accounts of the very wealthy, and unless people are persuaded to spend, then their billions may begin to shrink a little, and we can't have the poor things suffer can we?
How chastity can help is beyond me! We are already shrinking in population size, at least the indigenous population seems to be. Without some good health sex, then we are doomed. The age balance is already out of kilter and there is a pressing need for young people to ensure a future.
Obedience? to whom? I can only imagine that means his God, and the words of that book that has caused so much strife in the world. Books are written by people and not by invisible men. Does it never cross people's minds that the world has moved on and that we no longer live as tribes in the middle eastern deserts. Ok the messages of peace and loving each other are all very well, but let's face it the Bible is filled with barbarity and contradictions.
Should be all follow his advice and live the lives of monks, we'd be stepping backwards in time towards an idealist age where the clergy lived in protected communities, sheltered from the poverty that surrounded them and immune to the overbearing ruling classes. It is a pipe dream. No wonder the church is losing the sheep that it likes to think that it controls.

ps My goodness - look at the ads! Oh do click on them and see what the others have to say!! hahaha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvu0lrliPW0&feature=related

this seems apt and is very beautiful xxx

Here comes the sun

It is a glorious day here and as it is a bank holiday people will be out in their droves, milling around in parks and town centres, flopping about on beaches and exposing as much of their skins as possible to the damaging UV that makes us all feel so much better. Tomorrow there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as the sunburn kicks in and the phrase “never again” will be heard all over the country.

The last time that I got burned in the sun was in 1968 and I remember it so well that I am very careful not to expose myself again. Having said that, exposing my body to the world is not a good idea. There comes a time in most people’s lives when most of them is best kept hidden and I hate to put people off their dinners. It was a day like this but probably in June. I was then at Teacher Training College in Southsea, and in those days I wanted to do everything. If there was a society that interested me in any way I’d join it. After all it was free and there were so many facilities that were at one’s disposal. As a member of the canoe club, we had access to some wonderful sea canoes, and even the odd life jacket or two, though in those days the concept of health and safety hadn’t been invented. Anyhow on that day we decided that we’d head off for Hayling Island, a relatively short trip over Langstone Harbour and the rather treacherous strip of water that linked the harbour to the open water. Hayling was then a quiet refuge for a few and was littered with sand dunes, and it is here that we spent a couple of hours without any shade. Sunscreen hadn’t been invented then either, or if it had we couldn’t afford it. We fried in the mid day sun without realising it, the pain only kicking in once the canoes had been put away at the end of the day. To say that it was painful does no justice to the experience. My back and shoulders were a shade of red that I had never seen before and it was hard to move let alone do anything. The only good that came out of the experience was the sympathy I received from two rather nice girls, who took me back to their room and covered me with oils and unguents with tender hands. Even that was painful though to some extent soothing. I was in agony for a couple of days and had learned a hard lesson.

Everyone knows these days about the hazards of sunbathing without protection and yet it would seem that we are not capable of learning from the mistakes of others. We all have to make our own mistakes, and live with the consequences.

Happy Easter

LIke most festivals, Easter means different things to different people. To most, I would guess that it means a few days off and nothing more, to some it means pigging out on chocolate, to florists it means a boost in sales, and to the faithful followers of an ancient middle eastern story, it is the pivotal point of their year. Some take it very seriously, attending church services day and night, and there are some who love nothing more than to re-enact the barbarous events of a crucifixion, a standard Roman punishment in days gone by. Ok I understand little about religious faith and have never studied the literature, but I really do wonder what drives these people forwards. Faith is an amazing human phenomenon, and we all put our faith in things from time to time. Whenever i fly, I put my faith in the technology and the pilot, who I am sure doesn't want to die either. I plant seeds and have faith that some of them at least will grow, but these "faiths" are based on observations, evidence and statistics. I have a faith in scientific methods, as science is a search for the answers to questions, those answers coming from evidence that can be verified over and over again.
I was reading an argument put forward by a fundamental christian the other day, who was ranting about the Myth of science and how scientists deliberately set out to confuse people by using a different language. He cited DNA as a popular scientific myth, and argued that if you put things in acid, they corrode or dissolve, therefore it could not be possible for our bodies to contain Deoxyribose nucleic acid. Now i can see where he was coming from, he probably attended a science lesson once and didn't really understand what was going on. Acids are nasty and dangerous - that is enough science for me! Religious faith is much simpler, it is written therefore it is right! Ok I realise that not all people with religious faith are that dumb, but a great many are, and are so easily led. They are not called a flock for nothing!
I hadn't intended a religious rant today, but it seems that world events steer me in that direction. It seems to me that there is so much about organised religion that is cheap and nasty and hyppocritical, and when the Pope travels to his various ports of call in a bulletproof car, what does that say about faith?

Failings

My mind, like my physical world is pretty disordered. I revel in clutter and find that trying to impose some organisation into my world just doesn’t work well. If I impose a system, then I quickly tire of it and entropy takes over once again.

I have a large collection of recorded music on CD, DVD, Cassette and Vinyl, and yes I still have the facility to play all of them. Recently I have been re-discovering the joys of Vinyl, with fluffy stylus, scratches, pops and clicks, all those things that once annoyed , now seem to have some sort of charm. Either that or my tendency to look backwards is being satisfied. None of my collection has any real order. I did once arrange everything alphabetically but that took me weeks and then I didn’t maintain it, so the natural disorder took over again. Then two moves within a year meant that the whole lot got remixed and I don’t have the urge to resort. Oh the vinyls are all together and I have them in two sections – Classical and other, but that is about it. The Cds are neatly shelved and the cassettes are in a big box under a bed somewhere and goodness knows what is in there.

I am the same with books and clothes and more or less anything, and it always seems that life is too short to worry about cataloguing things.


When I think about this, it all comes down to yet another personality disorder. I am fundamentally lazy, and nowadays I seem to have the concentration of a goldfish. I cannot settle to anything much for very long and most things that I do do not satisfy me. I always wanted to do something really well and have never managed to achieve that, and I suspect that has much to do with my failure to stick at anything for long enough. I am so easily discouraged and that too is a failing.

Recently I realised that I have insufficient bookshelves. This is one of the issues associated with downsizing. I gave hundreds of books away but still there are plenty more, some in boxes and others in piles elsewhere. I have however found a novel way of making space for them and that involves making shelves from books. One book is sacrificed and acts as an “invisible” shelf. (See photo) I now have 8 of these on my tiny office wall and plan to put up another six or so. There is still no order to anything but at least it gets them out of the way and I think they look rather good.

If anyone wants to know how to do this - let me know :-)

PS - Allegedly I will get paid if people click on the ad links here so feel free to click away to your heart's content :-)

I don't believe it!!

Like many people I suspect, I have been rather irked this week by the goings on regarding the salaries and allowances of our elected representatives. Ok some of them have a relatively short employment span but those that actually do any good seem to be elected over and over again along with those who are in the so called safe seats , and they more or less have jobs for life. There are some constituencies where a goat would be electable as long as it wore a blue rosette, and frankly perhaps a goat would give better value for money. Many of these MPs have second and third jobs as well as investment portfolios and country mansions, and yet they are still griping about their salaries and allowances. It has been said that to award themselves a pay rise is political suicide, and so they have been quietly raising their allowances until their incomes have soared in real terms while the rest of us have seen a steady decline .

The basic rate of pay for a backbench MP is near as dammit 60,000 pounds, which must be about a million Canadian dollars, and many people with part time jobs would probably be delighted to earn that, but on top of that, most MPs can claim for second homes, heating allowances, travel – often first class, salaries for staff, and those can be members of the family, porn movies, entertainment, goat food and more or less anything that they can get a receipt for. So how do the poor dears manage? I guess that they stick the measly 60,000 into Swiss bank account and live on their allowances as long as parliament is in session.

Watching debates in the Commons can be quite revealing. Our representatives are more likely than not to be absent, and a representative few are present to keep the numbers looking reasonable and to make sure that the other side doesn’t go unchallenged. Where are the rest??? Surely they are not in their constituencies, or if they are perhaps they are refurbishing their homes at the tax payer’s expense.

In my opinion, the public have lost faith in politicians and in party politics particularly. There seems to be little difference between the parties anyway and it is time that people could vote for the candidate that best represents them regardless of which particular dogma they subscribe to. That way the country would certainly get a representative government.

There is a downside to this though. With the ever growing population of ethnic groups, it would not be too many years before they have a majority in the house and even a Muslim Prime minister. Then we’d have Sharia law introduced and we’d plunge back into the middle ages. Perhaps that would be a good thing, at least then we’d really have something to complain about – but only very quietly!

Spotification

I have discovered a wonderful program called Spotify. It is essentially an online Jukebox that enables one to listen to, but not download, a vast library of music. At the moment I am listening to Jocelyn Pook, not to everyone's taste i am sure but this woman has a beautiful voice and her music is hard to categorise. It seems to bridge continents as well as genres and I find her songs haunting and beautiful.
Music has so much power to change the way that we feel and the way that we think. I remember many moons ago, when i ran the drama group at school, that I got us involved in a project run by the Kent Opera company. It was part of their brief to provide an educational input and they would tour various schools running creative projects and this particular year the theme was silent movies. As a group our task was to produce both a movie and a filmscore, and at the end of the project, all the movies were shown on screen at the National Film Theatre and the score was played by the Kent Opera Orchestra. Can you imagine the buzz that the kids got from seeing their work on such a stage? Anyhow, what i want to write about was the pre-project session that involved staff only, along with the kent team, who incidentally incorporated a silent movie pianist! The point of the day was to highlight the way that music can make one think or feel, and this was superbly demonstrated by showing a piece of film several times but each time with a different musical background. The same scene completely changed its meaning according to the music that was being played.
Directors make very considered decisions when picking music for their movies. Long gone are the gung ho soundtracks that would accompany John Wayne into battle, and glorify the carnage that is the reality of war. Next time you see Platoon, or The Dear Hunter, imagine how those movies would seem so different with a 1940's accompaniment.
Music for me is essential. I'd rather do without wine than be without it. Having lost the hearing in one ear I now treasure what i have left and dread the prospect of losing that.

April fool's day

I heard the other day that the Oxford English Dictionary is to remove the word "gullible".
No I didn't believe it either.
I have never been very good at practical jokes though I know there are plenty of people out there who love spending hours plotting and planning devious schemes in order to embarrass or belittle others. Ok it is a tradition, and its roots are probably lost in history, but in these modern times when most of what is thrown at us is a lie, it seems pretty pointless to add more fuel to a fire that already burns so brightly.
Every day we hear about corrupt politicians, who through greed or powerlust, lie to their peers and the public in the sure knowledge that one day they will be found out and pay the price. By then of course their nests will be well feathered and they can vanish into a safe obscurity.
The media bombard us with half truths and exaggerations, presenting views of events in ways that manipulate public opinion, to suit the fat financiers that run the press.
Advertisers build smokescreens and persuade the gullible to buy their products with outrageous claims that must be pretty close to becoming downright untruths.
Political parties manipulate statistics, inflate figures and facts in order to gain public support, and so it goes on.
The greatest and most influential of lies come from the perpetrators of the various religions and as so many people seem happy to believe the nonsense that they are told, they survive and grow.
It is no wonder that people fall for the April fool's joke. We are indoctrinated into believing what people tell us and it is so much easier to do so without question.
I am not saying that I cannot be fooled. I am sure that we all can. It is impossible to go around without believing some people and in the end we have to accept that some do tell the truth.
I have no plans to go out today and so therefore like most days, this one will pass me by.