Sunday 31 May 2009
What the world doesn't need part 1
For want of anything better to do, I have been compiling a list. We tend to do this a lot, and some people seem to make a living out of compiling lists of the world’s richest, the world’s sexiest or whatever. We are presented daily with lists of all sorts, and we even make our own for the many shopping trips that we make. I made one this morning before going to the DIY store to buy the materials for a small deck that I am planning to construct. However, rather than do that I am sitting here making another list. Whenever I go out into the world, I get to thinking about all the things that the world would be better off without. I haven’t included myself or any other individual, though people could feature at number one, neither have I included religion as that would be far too obvious. This is not an ordered list and neither is it definitive as it could change easily in a short space of time, especially once I start constructing. However here is my own particular list of things that the world would be better off without.
1. White vans
These things are everywhere and in my opinion are the worst driven vehicles on the road. They tend to be driven by aggressive and anonymous young men on the whole and, always seem to be empty. If you are going to be hacked off by another driver, the chances are that he will be driving one of these. I believe that a high proportion of these vehicles are routinely involved in criminal goings on.
2. Brit Art
The likes of Tracey Emin and her associates, pushed the concept of art as far as it would go and they got away with it, thanks to the money of Charles Saatchi. Does the world need sheep in formaldehyde, graffiti covered tents , unmade beds with soiled sheets or even diamond encrusted skulls?
3. Designer labels
I refuse to be a walking advertisement for a clothing company. People wear labels as a way of saying “Look what I can afford.” Try getting kids to wear anything without a label these days. Parents spend so much money than often they can ill afford simply because of pressure from the kids.
4. Innapropriate clothes
Just walk down any high street as soon as the sun comes out! Enough said!
5. Christmas
I have ranted about this so many times already!
6. Plastic toys
I recently visited friends who have two young boys and a mountainous mass of plastic toys. Most of these items do not get played with, the packaging they come in providing more entertainment and stimulus. Kids have imaginations, the best toys help them to use them.
7. Blogs
There are millions of blogs out there. Most of them, and I include this one, are a waste of time. I spend time and effort thinking of things to say, and at the end of the day, none of it accounts to anything worthwhile at all. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean that you should!
8. Virtual reality
What is wrong with the real world? Well there is a question in itself and it would take so long to even begin to answer. Virtuality gives people an alternative in which they can hide. Rather like ostrich behaviour, it only offers an illusion of escape.
9. Girl/boy bands
Being easy on the eye and being able to hold a basic tune seems to be the only requitement to make a fortune from the world of Pop. There was a time when one had to be able to at least play an instrument, even if it was just the three chords, but not any more. Sampled sounds electronic virtual bands and young nubiles prancing around are the pap that the kids are provided with.
10. The daily mail
This right wing publication has a huge following. Its readers abdicate the process of thought, allowing the editors to do that for them. It is at best a Tory rag and at worst a thoroughly dangerous manipulator of minds.
1. White vans
These things are everywhere and in my opinion are the worst driven vehicles on the road. They tend to be driven by aggressive and anonymous young men on the whole and, always seem to be empty. If you are going to be hacked off by another driver, the chances are that he will be driving one of these. I believe that a high proportion of these vehicles are routinely involved in criminal goings on.
2. Brit Art
The likes of Tracey Emin and her associates, pushed the concept of art as far as it would go and they got away with it, thanks to the money of Charles Saatchi. Does the world need sheep in formaldehyde, graffiti covered tents , unmade beds with soiled sheets or even diamond encrusted skulls?
3. Designer labels
I refuse to be a walking advertisement for a clothing company. People wear labels as a way of saying “Look what I can afford.” Try getting kids to wear anything without a label these days. Parents spend so much money than often they can ill afford simply because of pressure from the kids.
4. Innapropriate clothes
Just walk down any high street as soon as the sun comes out! Enough said!
5. Christmas
I have ranted about this so many times already!
6. Plastic toys
I recently visited friends who have two young boys and a mountainous mass of plastic toys. Most of these items do not get played with, the packaging they come in providing more entertainment and stimulus. Kids have imaginations, the best toys help them to use them.
7. Blogs
There are millions of blogs out there. Most of them, and I include this one, are a waste of time. I spend time and effort thinking of things to say, and at the end of the day, none of it accounts to anything worthwhile at all. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean that you should!
8. Virtual reality
What is wrong with the real world? Well there is a question in itself and it would take so long to even begin to answer. Virtuality gives people an alternative in which they can hide. Rather like ostrich behaviour, it only offers an illusion of escape.
9. Girl/boy bands
Being easy on the eye and being able to hold a basic tune seems to be the only requitement to make a fortune from the world of Pop. There was a time when one had to be able to at least play an instrument, even if it was just the three chords, but not any more. Sampled sounds electronic virtual bands and young nubiles prancing around are the pap that the kids are provided with.
10. The daily mail
This right wing publication has a huge following. Its readers abdicate the process of thought, allowing the editors to do that for them. It is at best a Tory rag and at worst a thoroughly dangerous manipulator of minds.
Friday 29 May 2009
Taking steps
I just got back from a walk and feel knackered. There was a time when I could walk all day and often did. As a kid we had no real alternative until we got bikes that is, and then we didn't walk anywhere. Walking is a wonderful way to pass the time and in the main it is pretty healthy. Walking through inner city streets may not be so but even there the experience can be very pleasurable.
There is no better way to see a place than on foot. That way you can peer over fences, examine gardens, stop and talk to people or, just stop for a while and take in the view. You can even look back and see the places that you have passed from a different perspective.
Many years ago, when i was alive, i would take parties of kids on walking holidays. We'd go to places that were outside of most of their experiences and show them both the pleasures and pains of walking everywhere. Accommodation was always the Youth Hostels, and in the old days one was expcted to arrive at a hostel under one's own steam. Motor vehicles were frowned upon, and so we'd be dropped off by our coach and abandoned in the Welsh mountains for a week. Everyone carried their own kit in rucksacks, and booted and anoraked, we'd wander from hostel to hostel, often losing the way, and being Wales, nearly always getting wet.
I loved those walks and, despite the moaning and complaining so did the kids. To do that now seems an impossibility to me. I no longer have the fitness or stamina that such walks require, and on top of that my hips and knees are no longer up to the task. Three of four miles is about my lot, and today I have been reminded of it.
There is no better way to see a place than on foot. That way you can peer over fences, examine gardens, stop and talk to people or, just stop for a while and take in the view. You can even look back and see the places that you have passed from a different perspective.
Many years ago, when i was alive, i would take parties of kids on walking holidays. We'd go to places that were outside of most of their experiences and show them both the pleasures and pains of walking everywhere. Accommodation was always the Youth Hostels, and in the old days one was expcted to arrive at a hostel under one's own steam. Motor vehicles were frowned upon, and so we'd be dropped off by our coach and abandoned in the Welsh mountains for a week. Everyone carried their own kit in rucksacks, and booted and anoraked, we'd wander from hostel to hostel, often losing the way, and being Wales, nearly always getting wet.
I loved those walks and, despite the moaning and complaining so did the kids. To do that now seems an impossibility to me. I no longer have the fitness or stamina that such walks require, and on top of that my hips and knees are no longer up to the task. Three of four miles is about my lot, and today I have been reminded of it.
Wednesday 27 May 2009
Painted Lady
For the last few days, we have been inundated with butterflies. Mostly they have been Painted Ladies and have been a joy to observe. These wonderful creatures are migrants from southern Europe and Africa and they come here to feed and breed.
It seems a long way to travel, particularly under their own steam, but they make it, and this year looks like being a bumper year for them. They are a timely reminder of reasons not to use garden insecticides.
Today it is raining again so they are hiding away, protecting their wings no doubt.
We as a nation are inundated by immigrants from all over the world. There are colonies from all nations changing the nature of the country and this has been going on throughout history. The English have probably been successful because of a capacity to absorb and benefit from other cultures and gene pools.
We are in hard economic times and unemployment is rising. In such times people look to the immigrants and understandably lay the blame for their predicament at their door. In times like this, the British National party creeps out from under its stone and starts to become an attractive proposition for many people. They represent all that is loathesome about this, and most other countries whilst claiming to support all things British, including the monarchy - the descendants of immigrants.
Like the Tory party, the BNP thrives on ignorance, the main difference being that the BNP does not have the support of the wealthy. They are likely to gain ground in the next elections as I suspect that many people will fail to register their votes in protest over the parliamentary scandals. These are dangerous times.
Wednesday 20 May 2009
Books
I love books. I collect books like a hamster collects its food and store them wherever there is a space. I don't often buy new ones, much preferring to scour the shelves and bins of the charity shops or the dusty collections of the second hand book stores. I have books on most conceivable subjects and most of them are unread. I buy a book, put it on a shelf and then think - "I must read that one day" and of course then along comes another and so on. I acquire them so much faster than i can read them. I guess many books will pass from person to person never having been read at all.
Books are still my favourite source of information and entertainment The feel and smell of a good book, the weight and the texture of the pages are all a source of delight before you even get to the contents. I was brought up to treat books carefully, to always turn the pages from the top corners and to not fold the pages, and those rules are still deeply ingrained. I admire those that write them and even the crappiest of books represents an achievement as someone, somewhere deemed it fit to publish.
I am reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion at the moment. Now i know that Mr Dawkins has a tendency to rant, ok so do I, and he also has a tendency to put people down very severely, but he also puts together arguments that are compelling and based on real evidence. I am not saying that he is always right, but on the other hand I have come across no counter arguments that hold water at all. Most of his opponents base their arguments on the Bible, and that as a source of reliable data has been discredited for centuries. As a result it is hard to take them seriously. Dawkins'book is an entertaining read but I would no sooner base my life upon it than i would the Bible. To put all one's eggs in one basket is such a phenomenally stupid thing to do.
Books are still my favourite source of information and entertainment The feel and smell of a good book, the weight and the texture of the pages are all a source of delight before you even get to the contents. I was brought up to treat books carefully, to always turn the pages from the top corners and to not fold the pages, and those rules are still deeply ingrained. I admire those that write them and even the crappiest of books represents an achievement as someone, somewhere deemed it fit to publish.
I am reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion at the moment. Now i know that Mr Dawkins has a tendency to rant, ok so do I, and he also has a tendency to put people down very severely, but he also puts together arguments that are compelling and based on real evidence. I am not saying that he is always right, but on the other hand I have come across no counter arguments that hold water at all. Most of his opponents base their arguments on the Bible, and that as a source of reliable data has been discredited for centuries. As a result it is hard to take them seriously. Dawkins'book is an entertaining read but I would no sooner base my life upon it than i would the Bible. To put all one's eggs in one basket is such a phenomenally stupid thing to do.
Tuesday 19 May 2009
Time wasting
I waste so much time. As I write this I am playing six games of scrabble simultaneously on YOUTUBE. Mainly I am losing too, but that isn't a problem at all. It is a passtime but what on earth am i achieving? Absolutely nothing. I don't even feel that I have much to say any more and prefer to keep quiet. I force myself into writing here but most days i am struggling to say anything at all let alone anything meaningful.
It is cool and windy again so I can blame the weather for not getting out more, and yes i know that it is a feeble excuse. The builders have evaporated again. They came and made a lot of noise and mess and now that the concrete is down they have cleared off and goodness knows when they will return. Making coffee for them was a way of punctuating my days, so i quite look forward to their eventual return.
I have an appointment at the allergy clinic this afternoon. An emergency appointment made around three months ago. i have no doubt that it will again be a waste of time, the usual skin tests and the same result. It shows a very small reaction to house dust and that is all. The outbreaks that i am prone to seem to have no cause and there is no pattern that I can identify. My time will again be wasted but then i would have wasted it anyway!
It is cool and windy again so I can blame the weather for not getting out more, and yes i know that it is a feeble excuse. The builders have evaporated again. They came and made a lot of noise and mess and now that the concrete is down they have cleared off and goodness knows when they will return. Making coffee for them was a way of punctuating my days, so i quite look forward to their eventual return.
I have an appointment at the allergy clinic this afternoon. An emergency appointment made around three months ago. i have no doubt that it will again be a waste of time, the usual skin tests and the same result. It shows a very small reaction to house dust and that is all. The outbreaks that i am prone to seem to have no cause and there is no pattern that I can identify. My time will again be wasted but then i would have wasted it anyway!
Sunday 17 May 2009
Respect
Respect – “To show deference or regard to”
I was always brought up to be respectful. We were drilled in deference and it seemed that the world was a dfferent place where everyone knew their place and some even stayed there. We were told to respect our elders, to give up seats on buses to “ladies”, to be silent in libraries and churches and to be polite to people. There were pillars of society who were held in great respect by the whole community, the doctor, the policeman the schoolteacher, the clergy and even the politicians , who were by and large the local gentry.
Events, but largely the development of the media as a weapon of mass destruction, has changed everything. Where respect was once an expectation, now it must be earned, and once destroyed it is almost impossible to re-establish. Over the years, the pillars that support out system have gradually been eroded and perhaps this presages some major shifts in the way that things happen.
Money has always been a driving force in our history and those with the wealth were always in powerful positions and could use it to their own benefit while appearing to benefit the poor. The Catholic church is a prime example of an organisation that has bled the poor throughout its history and used its power, lies, dogma and authority to bolster the rich while claiming that poverty is a blessing. In times gone by the proclivities of some of their priests toward the sodomisation of young boys was well hidden, but now the stories come out on an almost daily basis. How can such a body continue to command the respect of the public, and why on Earth should they?
Why should we respect the people in positions of power and authority, when they manipulate their positions to feather their own nests. We are in a parlous state as our politicians fall by the wayside one by one, continuing tales of corruption and greed.
The public is losing what little respect they had for their representatives, and a next election could see an upsurge in the political parties that represent the most despicable aspects of society. They say that we get the government that we deserve and perhaps that is the case.
I was always brought up to be respectful. We were drilled in deference and it seemed that the world was a dfferent place where everyone knew their place and some even stayed there. We were told to respect our elders, to give up seats on buses to “ladies”, to be silent in libraries and churches and to be polite to people. There were pillars of society who were held in great respect by the whole community, the doctor, the policeman the schoolteacher, the clergy and even the politicians , who were by and large the local gentry.
Events, but largely the development of the media as a weapon of mass destruction, has changed everything. Where respect was once an expectation, now it must be earned, and once destroyed it is almost impossible to re-establish. Over the years, the pillars that support out system have gradually been eroded and perhaps this presages some major shifts in the way that things happen.
Money has always been a driving force in our history and those with the wealth were always in powerful positions and could use it to their own benefit while appearing to benefit the poor. The Catholic church is a prime example of an organisation that has bled the poor throughout its history and used its power, lies, dogma and authority to bolster the rich while claiming that poverty is a blessing. In times gone by the proclivities of some of their priests toward the sodomisation of young boys was well hidden, but now the stories come out on an almost daily basis. How can such a body continue to command the respect of the public, and why on Earth should they?
Why should we respect the people in positions of power and authority, when they manipulate their positions to feather their own nests. We are in a parlous state as our politicians fall by the wayside one by one, continuing tales of corruption and greed.
The public is losing what little respect they had for their representatives, and a next election could see an upsurge in the political parties that represent the most despicable aspects of society. They say that we get the government that we deserve and perhaps that is the case.
Thursday 14 May 2009
Alcohol
So the government plan to raise the price of alcohol and ban the concept of the happy hour in order to reverse the binge drinking epidemic that seems to be sweeping the country. Most high streets here are pretty unpleasant at night, especially at weekends when mostly young folk leave the clubs and bars. Drunken kids can be quite amusing but en masse they can also be very volatile and threatening. They are also very vulnerable and obviously are doing themselves no good at all.
This is where I go on about how different things were in my day. Well frankly they weren't that different. Alcohol was probably in relative terms as accessible as it is now, and as a young man I also abused it as often as i could afford to.
When I lived at home things were different. To come home smelling of alcohol was a dangerous thing to do. My father, who became more of an alcoholic as he got older, would have beaten us had he got a hint of that, and so I was a late developer, waiting until I had escaped home and gone to college. The rest is history I suppose, and yes I must have been almost as obnoxious as some of the kids are today, though I have never been violent and never deliberately got involved in vandalism.
I hold my hand up to the fact that I do like to drink. A bottle of red wine has an almost irresistable pull, especially of an evening, and it is a lot cheaper than going out. Alas there are days when that one bottle leads to a second and even rarer days when the brandy bottle seems to find its way into my hand. I do have days when i don't drink at all but they are few and far between. Oddly, i don't particularly crave alcohol, and I can easily do without it but I know that it is becoming a habit. Would the propose price increase make any difference to me? I really doubt it and I feel that would be the same for most people. Those that binge today will also binge tomorrow. Some will grow out of it and others will make a career out of it and probably not live to an age where they are old enough to know better. Perhaps natural selection is still at work.
This is where I go on about how different things were in my day. Well frankly they weren't that different. Alcohol was probably in relative terms as accessible as it is now, and as a young man I also abused it as often as i could afford to.
When I lived at home things were different. To come home smelling of alcohol was a dangerous thing to do. My father, who became more of an alcoholic as he got older, would have beaten us had he got a hint of that, and so I was a late developer, waiting until I had escaped home and gone to college. The rest is history I suppose, and yes I must have been almost as obnoxious as some of the kids are today, though I have never been violent and never deliberately got involved in vandalism.
I hold my hand up to the fact that I do like to drink. A bottle of red wine has an almost irresistable pull, especially of an evening, and it is a lot cheaper than going out. Alas there are days when that one bottle leads to a second and even rarer days when the brandy bottle seems to find its way into my hand. I do have days when i don't drink at all but they are few and far between. Oddly, i don't particularly crave alcohol, and I can easily do without it but I know that it is becoming a habit. Would the propose price increase make any difference to me? I really doubt it and I feel that would be the same for most people. Those that binge today will also binge tomorrow. Some will grow out of it and others will make a career out of it and probably not live to an age where they are old enough to know better. Perhaps natural selection is still at work.
Wednesday 13 May 2009
Sleep
Most of my life i have been a good sleeper. There were times when a student, that I would sleep for up to 18 hours at a stretch, regularly missing breakfast lunch and dinner as a result. As a child sleep would be an escape from the realities of life and nowadays, I approach bedtime with anticipation reserved for one of the best times of the day. Unfortunately my ability to stay asleep seems to have been drastically reduced. I don't need to get up to pee, and i am not worried about anything, I just wake up. I go back to sleep over and over again but it is frustrating not to be able to stay asleep.
Some nights as i turn off the light I focus on really happy times hoping that those feelings will stay with me in my dreams but mostly it doesn't work. I began last night thinking about some of my experiences fishing. Summer days alone on the riverbank, the buzz of insects and the smells of haymaking and the babbling sounds of the running water. Balmy one might think, but then as thought trains tend to, I thought of days when my father would go fishing alone and would come back late. He'd bring fish back with him and I could never understand why. There'd be a bucket of fish, silver grey scaled with creamy white underbellies, stiff as carrots, mouths gaping wide and totally inedible. We tried one once and it tasted like the river looked. Only once can i remember bringing a fish home. I'd read somewhere that Pike were a delicacy, and so when I caught a nice one, I popped it into a sack and brought it home. It said that they need soaking, so i put it in the bath and half filled it with cold water - we had no hot anyway. I thought no more about it until later that evening when mother came home from work. There was a scream as she went into the bathroom. The pike was swimming around, well trying to - there wasn't a lot of space for it. Clearly I had failed to dispatch the beast and it seemed non the worse for wear. At that point, i felt sorry for it and guilty that I had taken it away from its home, so, I popped it back into wet sack and set off once more for the river bank. I released it and it swam off seemingly in perfect health. I often wonder if that pike ever got over the trauma.
I didn't dream about fish father or fishing, i did wake up several times in the night, and thankfully I got back to sleep again.
Some nights as i turn off the light I focus on really happy times hoping that those feelings will stay with me in my dreams but mostly it doesn't work. I began last night thinking about some of my experiences fishing. Summer days alone on the riverbank, the buzz of insects and the smells of haymaking and the babbling sounds of the running water. Balmy one might think, but then as thought trains tend to, I thought of days when my father would go fishing alone and would come back late. He'd bring fish back with him and I could never understand why. There'd be a bucket of fish, silver grey scaled with creamy white underbellies, stiff as carrots, mouths gaping wide and totally inedible. We tried one once and it tasted like the river looked. Only once can i remember bringing a fish home. I'd read somewhere that Pike were a delicacy, and so when I caught a nice one, I popped it into a sack and brought it home. It said that they need soaking, so i put it in the bath and half filled it with cold water - we had no hot anyway. I thought no more about it until later that evening when mother came home from work. There was a scream as she went into the bathroom. The pike was swimming around, well trying to - there wasn't a lot of space for it. Clearly I had failed to dispatch the beast and it seemed non the worse for wear. At that point, i felt sorry for it and guilty that I had taken it away from its home, so, I popped it back into wet sack and set off once more for the river bank. I released it and it swam off seemingly in perfect health. I often wonder if that pike ever got over the trauma.
I didn't dream about fish father or fishing, i did wake up several times in the night, and thankfully I got back to sleep again.
Tuesday 12 May 2009
Clematis
I have shut myself into my office - the whole house vibrates with the digging and drilling! Excuse me if I go insane. I know that it will be hard to know the difference :-)
Thieves?
The press has it in for the MPs at the moment. It would seem that there has been a great dal of abuse of the expenses system and that most of the incumbents of the houses of parliament have been on the fiddle at the tax payers expense. Now the MPs themselves argue that they have done nothing wrong and that all the claims are within the law. As they make the laws then they ought to know what is within it and what is not. What most people think though is that they have been less than honourable in the manipulation of a system set up to allow our representatives to run homes within a reasonable distance of Parliament. The whole thing could be resolved by building a hall of residence somewhere in Westminster where MPs could be designated a small functional flat that would allow them to sleep over whenever the need arose. Thus whenever an Mp was voted out, that flat would immediately become vacant and there would be no need for us to fund all these second and third homes that are at the heart of this silly and corrupt system
MPs are human and like all humans they will make the most out of any system that exists. The fact that they constructed the system is moot. We are all capable of using or abusing the system. I remember as a student, claiming bus fares that i hadn't actually paid because I was getting a lift. I reused train tickets whenever i could get away with not handing mine in at the end of a journey, and if there was a way of claiming any other expense, i would make it. Everyone I knew did the same thing. We are talking very small change of course but to students, small change meant a few extras that would otherwise not be possible to buy. The only difference really between us and the MPs is one of magnitude, and of course opportunity. Most people have to pay all their own expenses when it comes to getting to work and running their homes. I do not believe that anyone can really justify the ownership of two homes in a world where many have no home at all. MPs are well paid in relation to most of us and the current state of affairs simply underlines the fact that the more you have, the more you want. Greed is a powerful drive and I think that it is time that our politicians lost the right to be addressed as "Honourable members".
MPs are human and like all humans they will make the most out of any system that exists. The fact that they constructed the system is moot. We are all capable of using or abusing the system. I remember as a student, claiming bus fares that i hadn't actually paid because I was getting a lift. I reused train tickets whenever i could get away with not handing mine in at the end of a journey, and if there was a way of claiming any other expense, i would make it. Everyone I knew did the same thing. We are talking very small change of course but to students, small change meant a few extras that would otherwise not be possible to buy. The only difference really between us and the MPs is one of magnitude, and of course opportunity. Most people have to pay all their own expenses when it comes to getting to work and running their homes. I do not believe that anyone can really justify the ownership of two homes in a world where many have no home at all. MPs are well paid in relation to most of us and the current state of affairs simply underlines the fact that the more you have, the more you want. Greed is a powerful drive and I think that it is time that our politicians lost the right to be addressed as "Honourable members".
Friday 8 May 2009
The best of all possible worlds
We often hear the expression “In a perfect world”, and I was wondering what that might be. Of course what is perfect for me might well be a nightmare for someone else and vice versa. Many writers have envisioned worlds where there is a sort of perfection and that always turns out to have major catastrophic flaws that lead to the demise of the inhabitants. Some people imagine that there is a heaven, another life after this one, where everything is perfect and even that has a multitude of interpretations. Perhaps we are all looking for something that cannot possibly exist on the basis that the unattainable is always far more attractive that what we can reach or even aspire to.
For me, there is no such thing as perfection, and it s not something that I aspire towards. Everything has it’s flaws and failings and every place has its drawbacks. I think that this is what is known as cynicism and seems to come to some of us with age. It’s odd how I used to imagine that happiness was a possibility, but as happiness is an absence of unhappiness, and maybe too an absence of suffering and pain, accompanied by unrealistic sense of optimism for the future, it would seem that too is an unattainable state. I am not unhappy. I live in the present these days, and each day I take as it comes. The world will never be perfect in the eyes of everyone, but there are parts of it, and maybe even situations where it comes close. May you find your own place in whatever world you want it to be.
Monday 4 May 2009
a strange sad day
As days go, Saturday was a long one and a strange one. My mother lives 120 miles away and she has been taken into hospital again. I haven’t seen her in quite a while so on Saturday we had an early start and a long drive to a hospital in a strange town. The staff allowed the visit even though it was not visiting hours and so I got to hold her hand for a couple of hours while watching her struggling to breathe. She suffers with COPD and has frequent attacks where breathing becomes a real problem. So she is taken into hospital and given oxygen on a more or less full time basis. She panics of course as is understandable and becomes dependent on the hissing mask that covers her face. She doesn’t even eat as that would involve taking off the mask. I hold her hand and try to impart small talk, but I am not good at that and so I begin to feel guilt that I am not able to be there for her apart from short visits. When I do visit her at home, I rarely stay long as when she is at home she persists in smoking, the habit that has made her ill in the first place. Each cigarette makes her worse and I hate to watch her killing herself. Never being the most rational of beings, she claims that smoking is the only pleasure she has, and cannot see the irony in what she says. She is getting thinner and weaker and her will to live seems to be diminishing, and it seems that there is nothing that anyone can do for her. That is hard to deal with and so I came away leaving her gasping noisily for breath, aware that any visit could be the last one. She refuses to contemplate a nursing home though I suspect that pretty soon that she will have no choice in the matter.
Leaving the hospital we then travelled south to Dorchester on Thames, arriving in plenty of time for a pub meal before an evening concert. On my bucket list was The Tallis Scholars, a choral ensemble that specialises in Renaissance music. And so I spent Saturday evening in a church. More accurately it was a mediaeval abbey, which I must say had the most amazing acoustics, and was packed with others who sat transfixed by the most wonderful sounds that you can imagine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4VoKso5ERI
I sat transfixed and thought a lot about my Mother and what the future might or might not hold. Lives are short in relative terms and some at least are not very happy ones. She has had a rough life. She was born on a farm in Canada at a time when life was very hard. The family was large and she and her twin sister were given away as the parents couldn’t manage to keep them. They were shipped back to the UK and looked after by relatives. She was pregnant by the time she was 16 and so married and had me. We lived in a council house that was basic to say the least, with no heating and no indoor facilities. I fell ill with TB and was taken away from home for 5 years. Later my brother died in a traffic accident, my father lost a leg in another and then he died. While her twin sister travelled and prospered, she stayed where she was and didn’t. She lost much of her eyesight and now her lungs have deteriorated to the point where she wants it all to end.
I feel helpless and very sad for her.
Eventually got home at about 3am tired and emotionally drained.
Leaving the hospital we then travelled south to Dorchester on Thames, arriving in plenty of time for a pub meal before an evening concert. On my bucket list was The Tallis Scholars, a choral ensemble that specialises in Renaissance music. And so I spent Saturday evening in a church. More accurately it was a mediaeval abbey, which I must say had the most amazing acoustics, and was packed with others who sat transfixed by the most wonderful sounds that you can imagine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4VoKso5ERI
I sat transfixed and thought a lot about my Mother and what the future might or might not hold. Lives are short in relative terms and some at least are not very happy ones. She has had a rough life. She was born on a farm in Canada at a time when life was very hard. The family was large and she and her twin sister were given away as the parents couldn’t manage to keep them. They were shipped back to the UK and looked after by relatives. She was pregnant by the time she was 16 and so married and had me. We lived in a council house that was basic to say the least, with no heating and no indoor facilities. I fell ill with TB and was taken away from home for 5 years. Later my brother died in a traffic accident, my father lost a leg in another and then he died. While her twin sister travelled and prospered, she stayed where she was and didn’t. She lost much of her eyesight and now her lungs have deteriorated to the point where she wants it all to end.
I feel helpless and very sad for her.
Eventually got home at about 3am tired and emotionally drained.
Sunday 3 May 2009
Friday 1 May 2009
Respect
It's interesting that today, the voice of the Atheist is being heard, louder and in some places for the first time in history. The various churches have ruled the roost for most of history, and to speak out against the church has traditionally been seen as blasphemy. We are often told about the Christian martyrs who died for their beliefs, but rarely do they refer to the countless others who were tortured or butchered for disagreeing with them.
There are still parts of the world where there is no such thing as free speech and where to be an atheist is to have a very short life expectancy. A schoolteacher was jailed recently for naming a teddy bear after a man who kicked off the world's biggest and most dangerous religion.
Islam aside, the churches are losing their grip and it is as unlikely that I will be jailed for denying the existence of a god as there actually being one. And so for the first time in history the Atheists are coming out of the closet. Many people have lost respect for the churches, and that is unsurprising with the tales of corruption, hypocrisy and sexual deviation that seem to be the norm in the modern church. As an ex teacher, i know that respect is something that has to be earned. It is not something that once lost, is easily regained, and as things are, it would appear that the churches are on a slippery slope heading towards oblivion. One can only hope that it applies to all of them, but I suspect that will not be the case.
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