The end of a decade

The last day of 2010 and millions of people around the world will be anticipating a night of celebration. For many that will mean dressing up and setting out to get as drunk as they possibly can, ensuring that the start to the new year will be as painful and unpleasant as the last one and the one before that.
David Cameron assures us that 2011 will be a tough year, but that his machinations will see the country slowly recover and get back onto its feet. There speaks one who has never known what it is like to be poor, jobless and helpless. For many of those who voted for him, 2010 has been a year of misery, and the next year promises more of the same. When the energy bills come in after this cold winter, even more will find their wages insufficient to pay the bills.
For me 2010 has been a good year, largely due to the birth of Oscar, and an ability to play a small role in his life. His arrival has changed so many things and has given me a completely new focus. I had no preconceptions about grandparenthood and was rather unprepared for the bonding that took place from the first time that I met him. He has given me a new lease of life, and I view his growing up and development with an enthusiasm that feels rather wonderful. He just had his first christmas, and although he was pretty oblivious to the whole thing, he added a magical ingredient to my least favourite time of year.
I hope that your year has been a good one and that despite the mismanagement of our countries by self seeking politicians, that you can find happiness and optimism in the New Year.

Season's salutations to my reader

Dilemma

For once I feel sorry for our home secretary. She has been placed in a very difficult position regarding the proposed visit of Pastor Jones to to the English Defence League. She can ban him from entry to the country and face accusations of prevention of free speech or allow him in and risk him inciting racist behaviour. Her dilemma does raise some important issues, and I am sure that many people have mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Pastor Jones is a loony and he wants to address a bunch of right wing loonies. I can see no reason for preventing that. No-one has to listen and clearly he can be arrested if his words are seen to be inflammatory. What concerns me is that had he been planning an attack on say Atheism or Buddhism, there would be no fuss and even less publicity.
We bend over backwards in order to appease one particular religious group and it seems that we do so because of fear. We are afraid of the consequences of confronting them and their failure to integrate into our society. Fear is dangerous and the situation will not go away, despite successive government's head in the sand approach.

It has begun

It is the season for Nativity plays, when that sickly sweet middle eastern fable gets re-enacted by children and others old enough to know better, all over the world.
Proud parent will watch their toddlers tread the boards - many for the first and only time in their lives, wandering around dressed as peasants or angels or whatever, not remembering what to do or where to go and everyone loves it. Especially the church! How better to get punters in than to engage the children in a bit of a panto and then to make the parents feel guilty for not going to church more often.
Then there is the silly Santa Claus nonsense! Surely even the most intellectually damaged child can see that the high street is full of strange men in red suits wanting them to sit on their laps? How many Santas can there be? And how can he get around everyone in one night?
We tell the children so many lies and when they grow up they find it hard to distinguish truth from reality and that is how the Liberal Democrats got into government.

Not my fault

My blog seems to be attracting some unwelcome attention. Someone ore something, probably a bot, its sending in all sorts of comments that are fundamentally advertisements for various companies and I do not welcome these. Comments yes but random rubbish no! That is my role, and i will not have someone else doing it here.

The internet is a wonderful Earth shrinking phenomenon, but like everything that becomes accessible to all, it has become bloated and corrupt and will no doubt be our undoing in the end. We have a generation of kids who are becoming addicted to games online, we have Wikileaks attempting to destabilise the world through its anarchic approach to secrecy, we have porn virtually everywhere, scam after scam via email, and then of course there is Nigeria.

No-one seems to read anymore, there isn't the time as we spend it glued to google or facebook or whatever quick fix seems to do the trick. We are all becoming absorbed into this beast which seems to have a life of its own, and now it is growing horns and teeth. Sooner or later it will consume us all.

This is the way

I love movies, well some movies anyhow. The other day I watched The Bucket List again. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play the roles of men, my age or thereabouts, dying of cancer. The idea of a bucket list is that they have a list of things to do before they die, and luckily Jack Nicholson has enough money to make most of their wishes happen.
I was lying in bed this morning, contemplating getting up, when I drifted into the half sleep state and was thinking that perhaps I too should have a bucket list. At my age, nothing can be taken for granted and more and more parts are wearing out. To my alarm, and this was a few hours ago and nothing has altered, my list has nothing on it. Obviously I would like to see my Grandson grow up, but other than that all ambition seems to have gone. Most places that I want to see i have seen, and most things that I want to do i have done; those that I haven't done I am no longer capable of doing or were never possible in the first place. What does this mean? Is my life done and dusted already? Am I just wasting space? Or do i have something still to offer? This has been a sobering morning and i feel pretty detached from everything and everybody. Maybe this is the way the world ends - "Not with a bang but a whimper!"

The Big O

The art of con

I was reading an article the other day that described the varieties of tea that are available. For me, tea comes in handy bags, and as long as it is hot and strong, I am not particularly bothered about its history. I know that I should be more selective and should probably seek out tea with a fair trade label, but I don't. We can all be apathetic and cannot possibly care about everything.
What prompted me to comment was reference to a particularly expensive tea that is sold to those who have more money than neurons. I think it is called White Virgin, though I may be wrong, and costs a huge amount of cash. What is special about this tea? one might ask. Allegedly the difference between this tea and others is that it is not touched by human hand, and is harvested by women wearing gloves who cut the leaves with silver scissors! I confess that when I read this I laughed. So ......... what! How does this improve the purity or flavour of the tea?
I was reminded of growing up in a market gardening area in the days when every fruit and vegetable was harvested by hand. Brussels Sprouts were always picked after the first frosts, often is bitterly cold conditions. You can't wear gloves to pick sprouts and hands get very cold. Quite often pickers would pee on their hands to warm them up - a sensible solution to the problem.
We live in a society that seems obsessed by labels; so much so that there is a huge illegal industry out there forging labels so that people can buy them more cheaply, and now everyone can sport the Gucci, Armani, Burberry and all the rest of the must have labels. Now of course, it is hard to tell the fakes from the real and so who cares. It would seem that some people will spend all they have just to be a little different from the crowd, and yet by so doing they are just joining a different crowd.
I still love Brussels sprouts but always make sure that they are well washed and peeled before cooking.

Happy Chappie

Poverty

I am not poor, but neither am I wealthy and never expected to be. Of course poverty is a relative term and as such it is likely that a significant proportion of our UK population will soon be slipping into that category. The cuts that the Condems intend to impose will result in mass unemployment with no jobs being created to absorb the waves that are certain to come. Unless those who are about to join the unemployed have made provision for that day they will be in serious trouble.

As a child I never thought of myself as being poor, but compared to most people today, we were very poor indeed and had no access to the so called essentials that people expect today. In those days, if you couldn't afford it, you just didn't have it, and we had no choice but to live within our means. We lived in a small council house with no double glazing or even roof insulation. When it snowed, as it often did, the snow was often blown through the roof tiles and into the loft where it had to be shovelled out before it melted. We had no heating, other than a single coal fire in the living room, and no hot water, other than that boiled in a kettle or in an old copper boiler. Our WC was outside across the yard and the bathroom was supplied with a cold tap only. We had no TV, no car, no computers or video games and few changes of clothing. Food was scarce and so we ate what we were given by and large; and if kids wanted money they worked for it. Everyone that I knew was more or less in the same boat though and so the way we lived seemed quite normal and we were not particularly unhappy, nor did we feel deprived.

From that position of course the only way to go was upwards, and life did steadily improve as the years went by. The standardof living that I enjoy now has been a long time coming and it would be hard to go back downhill again. For many that will soon become a reality, though i doubt that many will go back to the state that we lived in in the 50s. I hope not.

Throwaway

Toxic waste is never far from the news, and in an ever expanding technological era, the disposal of it continues to be a problem.

Landfill sites are becoming harder to find, waste treatment facilities are few and far between, while the stockpiles of poisons get ever larger. Some companies are shipping the stuff abroad, paying others to take on the problem of disposal, and vast heaps of our garbage is inflicting harm on the poor of those nations, whilst those in charge reap the benefits.

The Chinese have the right idea. They export theirs by the container ship load, and we, like many other western countries, pay them for it. It is November so pretty soon the shops will be full of it, all ready for that unmentionable one day in midwinter.

I think that he likes my cooking.

a money saving idea

I have come to the conclusion that the world does not need health and safety inspectors. Just let loose a toddler in any situation and they will gravitate uncannily to whatever is not safe for them. This is instinctive and there is no training required. Admittedly they will need supervision but even so the saving worldwide could be enormous.

Wittering on

As I write, my grandson and his mum are on their way here. Emma needs a holiday and I am looking forward to spending some time with them both. The house has been cleaned and tidied and as much as possible has been made baby safe. As he is crawling now, that is not entirely possible and no doubt he will zoom in on and identify the items that I have forgotten about. Kids have an uncanny knack of finding the things that they are not supposed to touch and he is no different to anyone else.
So for the next week I will find my time taken up by a very demanding but very loveable little chap, and if past experience is anything to go by, I'll be pretty exhausted at the end of it.

I am aware that I have written little in this blog for a while. I guess that on some level i need an audience and often i feel that I am writing to myself and that gets a little dull. Then of course I have had little to write about. Retirement is not always wonderful, and I can go days without talking to anyone. My forays into the outside world are becoming fewer and further between and my tolerance of people in general seems to be wearing very thin. It is almost as if I am unconsciously withdrawing into my own tiny space little by little and I may eventually fear the prospect of leaving it. Rather like a dying star there may come a time when I implode.

An ex colleague imploded this week. He had been ill for a while and so his demise wasn't surprising. All sorts of people have written tributes on the usual social networks, and none of them seem to have any connection to the man that i knew and detested.
Perhaps it is a good thing that people look back at the positives and forget the hard truth when people's lives come to an end. To speak now of what I, as well as most of his colleagues knew about him would not be appropriate, though I will not join those who wish to see him in such a rosy light. I do feel sorry for his family and close friends, but I will not miss him.

Before long, no doubt, Margaret Thatcher will go the same way and the media will already be preparing for the event. Obituaries will already be primed and ready for release and as is always the case, she will be seen in a glowing light and people will mourn her passing with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I may be in a small minority that will not rue her demise and will probably celebrate the event.

I have no doubt that my own end will be a cause for celebration for some and i hope that they will have the courage of their convictions and do so in style.

The way it is.

There is a rumour going around that the word "Gullibility" is to be removed from the Oxford English Dictionary.
Human beings are programmed to trust other human beings and as a result the vast majority of us are easily misled or conned. Most cons are pretty harmless. The stuff that is reported in the newspapers must have some relation to facts but the pressure to sell forces the publishers to massage and manipulate in order to make stories more interesting or attention grabbing. I pity any scientist who's findings get seized by the tabloid press, only to be sensationalised and misrepresented in order to scare or to raise the hopes of the public.
Commercials, especially those for female maintenance products are truly awful. Outrageous claims backed by pseudoscience, are swallowed whole by desperate women trying hard to stay youthful, whilst others truly believe that a caffeinated soft drink can make you fly.
We laugh at the old westerns where, dubious characters made a living by selling snake oil or the elixir of life and yes these people still exist. Now they sell far more exotic products, at much higher prices to a population that, though supposedly more educated, remain as stupid as ever.
Politicians sell policies that are worth less than the glossy paper that they were presented on, and thrive on the ignorance that they preside over. Religious leaders, (Ok I couldn't resist it.) propagate their own mythologies and lies, and find no shortage of takers. Parents present their kids with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy...... and so it goes on. Lies upon lies are the natural order of the day and people wonder why it is that as we get older we tend to become cynical.
It is worth remembering that the system in which we live is dependent on the fact that many of the people can be fooled ALL of the time.

It ain't fair

There is so much babble in the press about fairness, level playing fields, equality of opportunity and so on. The forthcoming cuts are said to be fair and from the point of view of those about to wield the knives, they will seem to be. Those in charge tend to come from privileged backgrounds where they already have the advantages of wealth, intelligence and social placing. For them it is almost impossible to imagine being without those things, however in touch they might claim to be.
Life is not fair. It is nasty brutish and short and for some it is nastier more brutish and shorter than it is for others. People who crave fairness are disillusioned. The only true fairness lies within the legal system, which, on paper anyway, puts no-one above the law and our courts do make an effort to put that into practice. However, within any system there is corruption, and the wealthy, or well placed may find ways to bend any system in their favour.
We are the products of our genes, and they provide a biological lottery, with unpredictable outcomes. We have to play with what we are dealt and make the most of what we have.
Children need to be made aware that fairness is a rarity and that the best they can hope for is a bit of luck or a tremendous amount of skill in playing the game.

Teeth

Beginning the food adventure

Burning of books

The burning of books has always been a controversial act, and yet it is an act that can be interpreted or used in a variety of ways. It is the custom in some parts of the world to burn worn our religious texts as a mark of some form of respect. In other cultures it is seen as a form of censorship or as a snub. Pastor Jones used the threat of making a bonfire of the Q'ran as a means of sticking two fingers towards the mad Mullahs and getting himself on the map at the same time. There is no way that his actions can be justified in the current climate, and had he carried out his threat, goodness knows what may have been preciptated as a result.

The whole series of events raises interesting points though. Burning of the American flag seems to be an almost daily event in places like Kabul or Tripoli and yet such actions are not condemned by the world as being , pardon the pun, inflammatory. Again it seems that the world of Islam is the only sector of the world population that cannot be provoked without fear of some horrific backlash that is likely to result in the deaths of more innocent people.

I for one am tired of hearing that Islam is a religion of tolerance. Pick up a copy of their sacred book and open it almost randomly and you will find passages that suggest otherwise. It would seem that the worst thing that one can be is an unbeliever. Such are condemned throughout, to hellfire and damnation or just death in the short term. That doesn't strike me as being tolerant.

We have the military wing of Islam, refusing to allow elections to take place, threatening to cut off the ears or hands of those who vote. Then we have women sentenced to death for "crimes" such as adultery, or flogged in public for exposing their faces.

What exactly do they tolerate?

Respect

I have an old friend, a fellow teacher, whose views on life the universe and everything are very different to mine. He is a Christian and is a man for whom I have the greatest respect. I respect him for what he does and the way that he goes about his life, and because he was one of the best teachers that I ever met.

We are constantly told that people deserve respect because they have faith, and this is something that needs to be brought into question. Religious leaders are held in awe because they "have faith" and of course because they wear the fancy dress associated with their particular club. We are supposed to hold these people in awe and of course many people do.

Why should the fact that someone has a strong belief, give them the right to be respected? There are many who believe that the Earth is flat, others that we are constantly visited by UFOs and some that think that a conservative government is a good thing, and these people are rarely held up as pillars of society or as anything else other than figures of fun. Yet Barmy Bishops, Mad Mullahs and the rest of the leaders of those unwilling to think for themselves are held in high esteem by society at large.

One of the most dangerous men in the world is coming to Britain along with a huge entourage, and we as tax payers will be contributing three million pounds as a contribution to the expenses. The Pope will of course be welcomed by the masses, although he can expect to be met by some degree of protest. As leader of his dedicated band, he has a lot to answer for, but in his position he can justify anything on the basis of dogma, and so will probably stand aloof from the protesters, maintaining his stand on abortion, paedophilia and contraception.

I have never met the pope and have no wish to do so. I do not respect him nor his office and I fail to see why we as a nation are shutting our eyes to the perils that he and others like him are inflicting upon the world as a whole. Respect is not a divine right, but alas there are many who believe that is the case.

Irrationality

Anyone who knows me will verify that I am reasonably placid and not easily angered. For some that in itself is an irritation as i don't rise to provocation. However odd things do make me feel really irked and often it is trivialities that other people see no harm in that get me going.
The other night, whilst staying in my daughter's house, I found myself watching the X Factor on the TV. I should have left the room and gone for a walk or gone to bed but I chose to stay. For those lucky enough to live abroad, the X factor is a "Talent" show. The word Talent is in inverted commas as I feel that such a word has no links to the X factor. In this show, a panel of judges, none of which seems to have a shred of talent themselves, let alone personal skills or even charm, preside over appalling performances by anyone who has the brass balls to stand up on stage and make idiots of themselves. Occasionally someone crops up who can copy a current pop song and it is they that get the plaudits from the panel and the privilege of going on to the next round. As the weeks go by the numbers get thinned out and the TV viewers get to vote on who should survive. This of course costs them money which goes to swell the bank accounts of the judges.
I believe that talented musicians emerge from years of practice and study and not through singing karaoke whilst out of their heads on cheap lager. However this is not the feeling of X Factor fans and those fat cats who run the show. It is about raising someone from the gutter to pseudostardom, whilst making huge profits from those who can least afford it.
The parade of contestants last week, and most likely next and the week after was like a queue of unemployables with an audience selected from a care in the community programme.
This show is extraordinarily popular and represents the terrible state of the popular music industry that is pushing tasteless pap down the throats of the youngsters of today.
I feel better now!

Being Granddad

I have spent the last week, well a considerable part of it with Oscar. He is a lovely little fellow and as babies go, he is very good. Having said that he is also exhausting. How mothers cope, especially single ones, is way beyond me. A baby is a full time occupation and a drain on ones energy.
I seem to be able to get him to sleep now and then, but his mind seems always on the go and he wants attention all of the waking hours. It also seems that attention alone is not sufficient. I can carry him around for hours or even stand with him, but will he allow me to sit down? It seems that I must be uncomfortable in order for him to be settled. How does he know i wonder? He can be fast asleep in my arms but as soon as i sit down, he wakes up.
Having said all that, he is a joy to be with and most of the time he is a smiling chuckling little chap who is fast becoming a little boy rather than a baby. I already tell him stories even though he understands not a word, and i look forward to the pleasure of doing the same when he is able to.
I know that he won't remember me next time i see him, but there will come a time when he does and i hope that he anticipates seeing me with as much pleasure as I anticipate seeing him.

Innocence

Originality

I don't think that I have ever had an original idea. The vast majority of us are in the same boat, and what to us may seem novel is not and has almost inevitably been thought of my someone else. Someone said that there are only a small number of stories, and that all the novels ever written are just variations on that limited supply of themes, all new novels being dervatives of those that have gone before. Being original gets harder and harder as time goes by as each field of human endeavour must have its limitations. In the early 20th century an eminent physicist was quoted as saying that we knew all there was to know about physics, and of course that was how it appeared before the discovery of sub atomic particles and radioactivity. All of a sudden, physics became the new frontier all over again.
There are still vast areas of science that remain huge challenges and for the prepared mind there is still much scope for discovery and new ideas. An there lies the rub. So few of us have minds that are open and prepared. Modern society does nothing to encourage free thinking. We educate or children to jump through hoops and pass examinations that require little more than memory of facts, and because educational institutions are bound by accountability and the production of standardised products, this sausage production line continues through to the majority of universities. These are churning out graduates, some of which can barely look after themselves let alone get jobs and push the frontiers of knowledge back.
We are so fortunate to live in enlightened times. We have all the advantaged and are no longer suppressed by the stupefying blanket of the churches. Throughout our history those organisations have tried their hardest to block freedom of thought, and have failed spectacularly, with pioneers prepared to risk their freedom or even their lives in order to pursue that freedom. Only in recent years has Rome apologised to Galileo for jailing him for asserting that the Earth orbits the sun. It has taken them hundreds of years to reach the same conclusion.
No government wants a free thinking populace, and with the controlling element of the church losing its power, the media, Television in particular, has been the tool by which we are regulated and steered. I was at a dinner party the other night, where Gordon Brown was being attacked by many of those around the table. Not one of those people had any personal knowledge of the man, had never met him and yet, they were all able to say how awful he was. They were basing their argument on nothing more than what they had read in the tabloid Tory press and had seen on the television. All spouted the same lines and of course will have been led by the nose to the polling booths to vote for the ConDems, and for a while will think that the new government are wonderful.
Many times i have said that I have a yearning to write. I read a lot and admire so many that are masters of their craft, and when i sit down to make an attempt at doing so I find myself overwhelmed with my own lack of originality and so i get nowhere. I have ideas of course but cannot claim them as my own. Maybe the only way would be to forget everything that I was ever taught and start again from scratch; maybe then I'd even discover myself.

World Cup Willies

Apart from the really dedicated fans, and the multinational community that live here, the World Cup is over and done with for another four years. Our team, so feted by the press before they left, have returned this morning, creeping into the country at sparrow fart, unsurprisingly without a reception to welcome them home.
The excuses will be made and the deep analysis will begin, millions of words will be written about why our national team was so deplorably bad and yet the truth of the matter is that fundamentally we are just not good enough. The rest of the world has improved and we have not.
England was once a major world player in more or less everything, but those days are long since gone and there are few fields in which we can claim to have some sort of lead. We are still there in the arts, and hanging on by the skin of our teeth in some aspects of technology, but sadly we no longer excel in very much at all.
We have become a society driven by greed and the desperate urge to acquire as much material wealth as possible whilst doing as little as possible to attain it. We are alcohol fuelled has beens, with a whole generation prepared to settle for poor standards in more or less everything and it is no wonder that so many prefer virtuality to reality. Thatcher's declaration that there is no such thing as society has borne fruit and with the CONDEMS in power, the fragmentation of what little remains will continue.
We need people to accept rewards that do not involve vast sums of money, job satisfaction should be a reward in itself and those that work should be paid a good living wage. Is a football player worth more than say a doctor or a policeman?
Our players have become vastly overpaid and overindulged, and like overfed animals they do not have the hunger to win. I'd like to see a world cup in which all the teams were comprised of amateur players. They would train together as a team and play together as a team, and although we may not see the dazzling individual performances of the likes of Messi or Ronaldo, we may see more sides either winning or losing as a team.

A narrow thing

Well England managed to squeeze a result from the game and will go through to the last 16 in the finals, meeting the old enemy on Sunday and probably having to suffer the traditional penalty shootout. The press and the country are of course rallying behind them again because this time they did their jobs properly and so they ride on a small crest, that is until the next game.

There did seem to be a reduction in the number of St George's flags everywhere, especially on cars, but that I reckon had more to do with the facebook story that the government had requested all men with small penises to sport a flag on their car so that a survey could be taken. That seems to have been forgotten very quickly - oh the short memory span of the Sun reading Condem supporters!

Grandson

World cup woes

Writing is a strange occupation. Some days it is easy to sit and write a few pages, the words just seem to fall out and assemble themselves appropriately , or not, onto the page, while most days it is a real struggle. I often feel that I have something that I want to say but cannot seem to generate the energy needed to express myself.
Since I last wrote anything, the world cup has been the all consuming news, in such a timely fashion burying the fact that we have a "Condem" alliance running the country. The machinations that will see us all suffer from a death of a thousand cuts are going on largely un-noticed as everyone's attention, The England Team excepted, have their attention on football.
South Africa is under the world microscope and so far, things seem to be going well. The pitches and stadia seem to be good, crowd behaviour has been benign, buried under the roars of the awful vuvuzelas, and there have been good games as well as bad ones.
The English press of course have been up to their usual tricks; building up the team as if they were the next best thing to gods, and then as soon as they fail to produce miracles on the world stage, condemn them as the worst things since sliced bread. That is the price of fame here and it is no wonder that some refuse to join the bandwagon and set themselves up for the merciless attacks from press and fickle public alike.
At the moment, the St George's flags are still flying hopefully. They adorn the walls of the housing estates and flap noisily from the roofs of bay racer's cars, and a lull of disquiet reigns waiting for the decisive game on wednesday afternoon, that could see the England squad of ridiculously wealthy ball kickers either save their embarrassment or leave South Africa to the teams that are able to put that new ball into the net.
Should the unthinkable happen, it will be the first time since 1958, and the players may have to sneak back into the country under cover of darkness or individually through various backdooors. The manager, so feted by the press in recent years will have to resign and the flags will come down and no doubt litter the gutters for weeks.
Football needs to come to the attention of the axe weilding chancellor, and the ridiculous wages that these primadonnas are paid need to be taxed heavily. Maybe then, like many of the filth rich, they will leave the country and some proper footballers who love the game can be used to replace them.

Vive La France

I have just got back from a trip to what has become my favourite country, France. As we all do, I found myself making comparisons with home, and although being on holiday is not the same as living somewhere, I find France to be a refreshing change. The roads are excellent and driving on them is a pleasure compared with say the M25 or any major road at most times of the day. Drivers seem more courteous and considerate of other road users and maybe this has a lot to do with the low traffic density as much as the attitudes of the people.
I love the way that the people, wherever you go, acknowledge your presence. People talk to each other and greet each other, something which we seem to have forgotten how to do.
On the downside, France has a number of drawbacks and I am slowly learning that for most of France, work is something that they like to keep in perspective. Sundays are hopeless as everything is closed, not that ther was much to be open in the village that we were staying in. Lunchtimes are impossible too - again everything closes for at least 2 hours from midday, so you might as well just go back to bed or go for a long walk until things start to move again. Many places also close on mondays or tuesdays and then there is the half day closing on wednesdays. Most of the time we were there, people were notable by their complete absence, and frankly that suits me very well.
The ferry crossing was tolerable because we had booked a cabin on the way over, and on the return trip the boat was free from the infection of school parties. I was reminded though of the huge drawback of public transport - that being the public!
However, my love affair with France continues and I will quite happily go back there at any opportunity. One day I might even learn French, though that would mean that I'd have to speak it!

Lake Balaton

Summer seems to have come with a vengeance. Only days ago we had to have fires going and now every door and window is wide open and the house is really warm. It seems such a waste of time to spend it indoors, but there are still things to do and too long in the sun, we are told, is bad for you. It never seemed to bother us as kids, though I suppose we wore more clothes in those days and rarely lay about soaking up the rays. Sun screen was for us a thing of the future and sunburn a lesson that you didn't easily forget.
I think the last time that I got sunburned was in 1969 after a bunch of us canoed our way across Langstone harbour and spent a few hours sunning ourselves in the sand dunes. The pain that night and for the following days was intense and debilitating, and although the ministrations of some rather lovely fellow students were quite interesting, there was no compensation for the stupidity of my actions that day. Since then I stay in the shade where possible, and for the sake of other people I keep my body covered.
No doubt the sun worshippers will be out on the beaches today and white flesh will sizzle in the heat, skin will redden and peal and global warming will get the blame. The sun also brings out the summer outfits, some of which are actually attractive to look at, but I am sure that some should be made illegal, if not on the grounds of decency, then on the grounds of bad taste.
Today will see scores of disposable barbecues pouring out smoke over every common, beach or park as people fall for the supermarket practice of dressing up unsaleable cuts of meat and past their sell by date vegetables as barbecue fare. These will be ceremonially burned, polluting the air and creating a litter of aluminium foil, unburned charcoal and scraps of inedible food.
Drinkers will join the smokers outside the pubs and shopkeepers will bemoan the lack of sales whilst wishing that they too could be at the beach or the park.
The same will be happening all over Europe as the weather seems set fair for a few days and i am sure that even the shores of lake Balaton will be festooned with bikini clad beauties as well as beached whales in lycra.

Stupid questions

Of all the questions that are meaningless and impossible to answer, I would guess that most of them start with why? Try conversing with a four year old if you disagree.
"Why is that picture up there?"
"Because it looks better there than on the floor."
"Why?"
"Because we can see it better there."
"Why?"
"Because the light shines on it better."
Why?
"It just does -ok!"
"Why?"
You know what I mean, and it isn't just children that ask that question. How often are we asked for our opinions only to have that awful follow up - "Why?"
Most of the time the Why question is impossible to answer fully without incurring the inevitable repeat. Even fundamentals like "Why did you make Chilli again?"
"Because i wanted to."
"Why? we had it yesterday."
It's probably because that's all i could find or all i could be bothered to do but I have no idea really.
From a purely scientific point of view, asking why is rarely productive. "Why are there rainbows?" for example can produce all sorts of stupid answers that offer fairies, leprechauns or God as perpetrators. It is much more sensible to ask What is a rainbow. That can be answered reasonably lucidly by most intelligent people, but there is usually some dimwit at the back who will follow your explanation with a "But Why?"

Why did I start this??????

Keeping abreast

The press are being castigated for trivialising the role of women by, for example commenting on Theresa May's outfit and shoes. Now I don't wish to defend the media in any way shape or form, they are as best a pretty pernicious bunch and would sell their own grandmothers if that had any left, but on this issue I think that castigation is rather unfair.

There are huge differences between men and women and many of us celebrate that fact. Having said that, most women are rather obsessed by their appearances and seem to spend a small fortune on maintaining an image, a habit that becomes increasingly expensive as gravity and weathering take their toll. While most men seem content to let nature take its course, women struggle to keep up with the latest fashions. Some become obsessed with shoes and with some it may be collecting underwear.


Some women love to show as much of their skin as possible, with skirts up to their armpits and fleshy bosoms hanging out of their tops, and then moan and complain when men stare at them. Who are they kidding when they say that they dress like that just for themselves. Most women want to be admired by both men and women, they yearn to be looked at and compared to those around them. Just watch two women meeting for the first time - don't bother to listen to the conversation just watch the eye movements as they scrutinise each other comparing outfits and makeup; and if both are wearing the same thing, watch how the sparks fly.

Some women pay a fortune to have implants to accentuate their breasts, some to the extent that they can no longer walk properly and pay scant attention to the fact that in later life those prostheses will level out around their knees.


How many women; of course there will be some: would be content to turn up to work in a shirt and tie along with sensible shoes and trousers? Until they dress in the same way as men, they must expect to be treated differently. Just because I might glance at your cleavage or admire your thighs does not mean that I cannot take you seriously.

Eyjafjallajokull

So the small volcano in Iceland is creating air travel mayhem once again. It would sem that much of the UK airport system is again to be paralysed as millions of tons of ash and carbon dioxide as well as sulphur compounds are pouring into the air with no sign of abating.
I hate flying, not that I am scared of crashing, lets face it most pilots would rather do anything than crash. What does it for me are, primarily, airports. As soon as you enter an airport you become part of a queue that seems to never go anywhere. The check in is a pain in the bum and then there are the lounges, where people mill like sheep waiting for flights to be called, haemorrhaging money on vastly overpriced food and beverages. Shell suited parents with their fat kids predominate and are not easy to ignore, and the noise of the assembled throngs penetrates every cubic centimetre of space. If ever I am tense it is in such diabolical situations. Then there are the departure lounges where everyone sits in plastic rows eying up the fellow sheep and hoping that you don't get to sit next to the huge woman who takes up two of the seats in the lounge, or the noisy kids with their games consoles and bags of sweets.
Then there is the plane - an aluminium tube with seats packed so close together that there is room for either you or your legs, and you know that once in, it is almost impossible to get out.
There was a time when the cabin staff were pleasant almost to the point of servility, but now it seems that they are doing you a favour. The food is awful, drinks are hard to get hold of and expensive and the flight is occupied by the dreadful thought that you have the prospect of getting out of an airport at the end of the journey, while breathing in air that becomes increasingly contaminated by the bodily odours of all those on board.
Holidays are allegedly about relaxing and one that involved flying is as far from that as one can get. So next week i am off to France - on a boat. Eyjafjallajokull can do what it wants and I will remain calm and relaxed in the knowledge that if it stops the boat from sailing then we are in deep trouble.

Day Two

Day one

Here we are, day one of the new Tory/tory coalition and already the unemployment figures are rising. It is amazing what can be accomplished with almost no effort at all. It was sad seeing Gordon Brown leave office yesterday but he did so with dignity and I have no doubt that before long, many people will be wishing that he was back.

Change has a way of percolating slowly through the food chain, the pain usually being felt from the bottom upwards and getting diluted as it goes up, while the benefits work the other way around. I recall a tale, perhaps apocryphal, about a tribe of South American Indians who held a particular mushroom species sacred. The reason for this was that it, when eaten produced a wonderful high and the high ranking priests were the only ones allowed to go tripping. However, many pharmaceuticals pass through the body unaltered and the high priests, no pun intended, would urinate into jars that were passed on to the lower echelons in the priesthood who would then drink the pee and experience a trip all of their own. They in turn would pee into jars that would be passed down and so on, until the lowest of the low would get to drink the pee and receieve no benefit. This is the future folks and I hope that you are higher up the ladder than I am.

Apparently Oscar was awoken this morning by his bowel movement. These eruptions can be startling and messy too, and we all hope that this sort of event is not something that we can look forward to.
It seems fitting that this should happen on election day. The polls have been open since seven and no doubt there has been a steady trickle of disenchanted folk just itching to scratch their cross on the ballot paper, before carrying on with their day, which they know will probably not change very much regardless of the outcome. I would imagine that those who have been campaigning all these weeks are having a lie in, in preparation for being up all night to find out what sort of conservative government we will have for the next five years. Whatever happens the damage will soon be done and we as a country will blunder on towards the next crisis and there will be someone else to blame; there always is.
What happened to society? What happened to personal responsibility? What happened to truth? Today there is no such thing as an accident. Someone is always to blame we are always looking for scapegoats and looking for someone other than ourselves to take the blame for whatever goes wrong in our lives. The no win no fee legal system is partly to blame of course but that in itself has grown in a place where there was room for it to grow, and no-one bothered to pull out the weed until it had seeded and spread.
Whatever the outcome tomorrow, there will be no change, at least no change that is discernable to most of us. Yes times will get tougher, money will be worth less and all of us will have to make sacrifices but the filthy rich will still get richer while the majority pay for the mistakes of the few. Oscar will still grow up in a better world than those who grew up in the thirties and forties, but in many ways he will be less well off. I hope that he learns that there is more to life than material gain, that people matter more than property, and that you do not have to follow the doctrines of others in order to live a fulfilling life.

Gardens

I am not a gardener but I potter about trying to get things to grow and usually failing miserably. When you have a garden ther seems and unwritten obligation to keep it looking like something, but unless you have the will and the ability, it is hard to keep it up. I like a nice lawn, and I work quite hard on keeping my little patch of grass healthy. I feed it and cut it regularly, trim the edges and reseed or returf the bald spots each year. It gets more attention than many ladies nether regions and yet it manages to look good for few weeks of the year only. As soon as it starts to get warm, it starts to let me down and by the end of the summer it looks like one of the less fertile areas of the Gobi desert.
This year I decided to get on top of the vegetable patches too and assiduously dug, raked and weeded them so that they would be ready to accept the seedling that I had started off in the greenhouse. Then we had to go away for a ten day period and of course it chose to be warm and sunny and when I got back, all my seedlings had died. I now have a choice - to say sod it and forget the garden this year, or to buy lots of plants from a garden centre and let them die when we go away on holiday again. The former option seems more attractive but then the whole place will become overgrown and shabby and I'll have to spend hours getting it back to a reasonably tidy shape. It all seems pretty futile and I can understand why many people cover their gardens with paving or gravel. Even that though is a lot of work and expense, and it looks pretty awful too.
I suspect that the size of the garden, along with a body that is failing will be the trigger that initiates a move, and probably away from the island that has been home since 1971. The mainland, or at least one of its inhabitants beckons and it cannot be long before the siren call has to be answered.

Change?

OScar has been here for a week and I am amazed at how much time and space he can occupy.

The media are flooded with the forthcoming election, and it is beginning to look as if the country will get the government that it deserves. This is unfortunate as the nation as a whole has yet to recover from the greediness and grasping philosophies of the last Tory government, and few can remember what they are really like.

The tory mantra this time seems to be the word "Change", and this taps into the nature of a society with a short attention span. Management and middle management seems to flourish on change for the sake of it, and everyone taking on a position feels the necessity to bring about changes regardless of need and regardless of what has gone before. Workforces get tired of seeing the same cycles repeating themselves and so become cynical; but it is the way of the world.

A worrying statistic is that almost 50% of the population are below average intelligence and it is this group that are most likely to be persuaded to vote in the direction that the tabloids lead them. Unfortunately most people cannot remember what a tory government is like and that is a great pity as we are likely to find out once again to the cost of most of us and the benefit of the few.

Fortuanately Oscar is oblivious to all of this and as yet unable to stand on his own feet. With his mother to cater for all his needs that is fine for now, but in the future he will need to change that. Woe betide anyone who cannot.

Mistakes

We all make mistakes, and some learn from them. Clearly women all over the world have been making a huge one in dressing immodestly, and therefore, causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. According to learned Islamic clerics they should desist immediately so that the Earth can settle down. These people expect to be taken seriously?

Yesterday I lost concentration for a while and made a mistake that caused me a great deal of regret for a couple of hours. I have no excuse, I should have seen it coming but I didn't think about it at all until the damage was done, however I am pretty sure that I won't do it again.

I had spent some time in the garden and realised that in my recent prolonged absence, I had lost most of my seedlings. Now i don't grow much but I do like Chilli peppers and so decided to deseed a fresh one and try once again. I am a hands on type of person and so I split the tiny red chilli by hand and separated out the seeds to dry them. Then the phone rand and I dashed off to answer it. That was the distractor, and once I'd done there I went to the loo. That was the error. I had no sooner finished and washed my hands when i realised that I had done those things in the wrong order. Part of me began to burn-intensely and all I could do was thrust it under the cold tap. It didn't help, the stuff must have been absorbed into the skin and the pain was horrible, all i could do was squirm and curse my stupidity. I dashed around the house hoping that a frenzy of activity might distract me. Believe me when that part of you is on fire there is nothing that can distract from it, and so I suffered in a silent scream for the rest of the afternoon.

So lesson learned and contrary to common wisdom, it is best to wash your hands BEFORE going for a pee.

Another phase

It is tempting to make this an Oscar appreciation page, but I know how boring other people's children can be and so will resist. These have been a strange few weeks however and getting back to normality will take a while, especially as we are now in the silly season of a general election.

It would seem that this will be no ordinary election as the populace seems to hold most politicians with little respect and some with a real hatred. Nothing is cut and dried and at the moment it looks as if there are three horses in the race rather than just the usual two old nags. The rise of the Lib Dems may seem refreshing to some, but the real danger is that apathy will win the day and a very low turnout at the polling booths could be a disaster. Support for the far right is on the increase and it is likely that these pernicious little bands will rally a great deal of support. We shall see in due course, I just hope that we don't end up with the government that we deserve.

Seasons

Having spent a few days meeting and getting to know Oscar has been wonderful. I have never really been one for other people's babies but I must say that seeing him was something very special.
Returning home was difficult but necessary, and his arrival has been made more poignant by the news of my Mother's death. She died last night, taken finally by pneumonia after a long struggle with emphysema, the price of a lifetime of smoking. I don't feel sadness, just a sense of relief as her suffering has been long and terrible. If there is a sadness, then it is that she didn't get to meet Oscar, though she did live long enough to be aware of his birth, and to know that she has become a great grandmother even if she could never enjoy that. I guess that now I am an orphan - Goodbye Mum - be at peace.

Welcome George

Last evening, just as I got to the pub to start the quiz, the news of George's birth arrived. He weighed in at 9lb 1oz and mother and child are doing well. He has been called Oscar Bailey Lander and this is quite spooky. As you might have already read, I used the name George as a matter of convenience, and unbeknown to me, that was also what my daughter had taken to calling him. What is more, the name Bailey was taken from her favourite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, the central character being George Bailey. How weird is that? I may have to think a little on this before writing more. Welcome to the world Oscar Bailey, may it be a better place having you in it!

Come on George

George seems to be either too lazy, too comfortable or too lost to find the way out. Maybe today will be the day, I do hope so for his mother's sake.
Uncertainty is a bit of a mixed blessing. It can be nice to be surprised, but it is a great convenience to know in advance when an event is likely to take place. Apart from anything else it makes planning a lot easier. I know, I don't have much to think about, let alone plan, and what I do on a day to day basis has little impact upon anyone else and even less on the world in general, but even I have commitments of sorts. I am having to prepare my monday night pub quiz well in advance and having to leave it with the barman in case I cannot be there. He doesn't like doing it one little bit but then he shouldn't worry as if I am not there, a whole team will be missing and that means it probably won't run anyhow and would it really matter? However I see it as something that I have to do, at least for the forseeable future.
Anyway George, I do hope that you make an appearance soon so that some semblance of normality, albeit a new type, can return to family life.


Oh ps - I don't suppose it will make any difference but whoever is posting their ads here, please don't!

Still waiting

Well George resolutely remains in a cosy and warm place, and who can blame him/her? Reality will arrive soon enough and the process of living and carving a niche in the world will begin. Perhaps George has been sensibly waiting for the weather to improve and today the sun is shining again and no doubt the temperatures are beginning to climb towards a seasonably acceptable level.
It isn't just George that is late, everything seems to be on hold at the moment. Spring flowers are late, the frog mating fest was late and the usual upsurge in insect life has been delayed. It is as if the natural world is holding its breath and waiting for the instruction to start. We have got used to a succession of mild winters and early springs I guess and also lost the ability to wait. Today's world is about immediacy; everything has to be here and now and the quality of patience is fading from our lives. No-one seems prepared to wait anymore, and that is a shame as quite often the wait and the anticipation is more rewarding than the actuality.
I believe that I am a very patient person. I learned patience in my childhood, there was little choice, and also through a career in the classroom, though I have to admit that it was stretched a little there from time to time. To teach patience to children is difficult, especially today, but I believe that to do so is to give them a gift that they will one day appreciate.

Waiting

I am awaiting the arrival of my first grandchild. He/she was due on saturday, but as is common with these things, the due date and the day of arrival did not co-incide. It is a strange feeling waiting for the appearance of a stranger that is likely to bring about changes in ones life and I find myself thinking about his/her future and what it might have in store.
So many children come into the world each day and the path that lies before each and every one of them is a lottery. Many are born into terrible situations, even in so called civilised countries like those in the west, while others have every advantage known to man. I suspect that George, I'll call it George for now as that is a pretty unisex name, will have a great start in life, with a beautiful home, loving parents and hopefully, the support of the rest of the family.
Even so George faces a hazardous and unpredictable future in which a tiny decision can make so much difference to the rest of the life that they face. Many hazards are beyond anyone's control and the future of human life as always remains in the balance. It seems that humanity must make some choices soon in order that we as a species can continue to evolve and make all of our lives better. George will be born in a world that lies on the brink of major changes and I can only hope that those changes will be positive and that one day George can make a contribution to it.
I am unlikely to see George grow up and can probably make very little difference to his/her life. I will plant a tree for George on the day of the birth and maybe one day George will look at the tree and see it as my substitute for a prayer on his/her behalf.

I'll drink to that

British pubs are closing at the rate of nearly 40 a week, or was that a day? It is no surprise though as landlords (and ladies) are being squeezed buy heavy taxation from the government, hyped costs from the big businesses who own the breweries and suppliers, massive rates applied by local authorities and on top of all this the recession that is crippling all but the bankers who caused it.
The pub is a part of the social network. A place to meet people from the locality, to talk , to argue and to find out what is going on in the world. For some people it is a lifeline, and it may be the only place they can go to find company without the need for an invisible friend.
I run a pub quiz. This was instigated on a monday night in an attempt to draw in punters on the quietest night of the week, and sometimes it works. Last night there were just the two teams however, a total of 12 people, all of whom of course bought drinks at the bar. Had we not been there there were 6 others in the pub and by the end of the evening that was down to two. The landlady is of course worried for the future.
I maintain that village pubs in particular are worth saving and it is time that the community realised how important these little gems can be. It seems that churches can generate huge amount to rescue their crumbling fabrics and are often the recipients of lottery grants to keep these edifices growing and yet the numbers of sheep that heed their shepherd on a regular basis is waning.
I will assert that many pub communities actually do more good in the community than some of the churches, and should therefore be elevated to a higher status, or at least given the same tax consideration that the churches get.
We need the pubs. They add colour and variety to our towns and villages and the big advantage they have over the church is that pubs do not have pulpits.

just a thought

On the fringe

Schools are being told that it may be illegal to enforce the wearing of skirts by girls on the grounds that it may discriminate against transexuals. Do the people that make these decisions believe that transexuals are not going to be discriminated against for other reasons? We are all subject to discrimination and have to learn to live with it. People are people and all have their prejudices. I confess to being prejudiced against those with extreme right wing views and those at the other end of the spectrum. I am prejudiced against those who worship stupidity and see it as a badge of honour, and those who put religions in front of their regard for fellow human beings.
I am discriminated against all of the time, on the basis of my age, my gender and probably the way that I dress and the opinions that I hold. It is all part of living in a society, or in my case on the fringe of society.
I was wondering how far t his PC madness can go, perhaps the following could become illegal in the future

Taking driving licences away from blind people or alcoholics.
Locking prisoners in their cells without a bedtime story.
Giving kids homework
Not giving unemployment benefit to those in work.
Speeding fines
Maths tests
The list is endless - unless we wake up and realise that all of this is just a terrible dream!

Contrasts

This weekend, for reasons that I will not go into, I saw The Brits Awards and also the BAFTAs. I am not a fan of either show, though I do believe in praising achievement, as long as that achievement has been the result of effort rather than circumstance.
We seem to have evolved a culture where the concept of praising achievement has been taken to silly extremes. I some schools children may be rewarded for just turning up, and others for managing to behave in a civilised way. Others who do this as a matter of course, receive nothing other than confusing messages.

Anyhow, the two "ceremonies" were fascinating in the sheer contrast that they demonstrated. On one hand we had a slick, well presented and civilised display of talent, with intelligent people being given well deserved accolades for, in some cases, years of work, honing their craft to the highest of levels. And then there were the Brit awards.

Ok I know that I am a grumpy old git, as my son likes to remind me, but there was a time when Britain produced a plethora of talented young people who could outshine the rest of the world when it came to pop music. There was little of that talent on display this year. The most memorable talent was an American and the rest, bland, ordinary and unoriginal.

All that we can seem to offer is surface. We have pretty boy bands who sing reasonably but are utterly dull unless you happen to be a twelve year old girl, sexy girl bands who appeal to most men until they start to sing, and the rest seems to be Hiphop, a brand of sound that seems to me incomprehensible and of no worth whatever. Britpop is in a sorry state, and like all aspects of modern culture becoming dominated by women. It is a shame as there are many talented bands out there, producing new and original stuff, but alas they do not fit the moulds that the likes of Simon Cowell produce. The only saving grace is that the average act these days has the life expectancy of a mayfly.

An unpleasant experience

I have an old lady friend who I visit from time to time. We drink tea and laugh a lot, she talks about her childhood and some of her happier times, and if necessary I do odd jobs for her. Like many older people she gets into a state of panic very easily and I have told her over and over again to call if she needs help. She is reluctant to do so and so yesterday afternoon as I was settling down to a post lunch doze, she called, and I knew that she was panicking.
When I got there, she was indeed at her wits end. Something had got into her fireplace and was making a great deal of noise. Now this is an old large Edwardian fireplace that has been fitted with a gas fire of considerable vintage. It is sealed in with a sheet metal screen that is screwed into the fabric of the fireplace and the fire itself sealed in with gaffer tape. The whole thing was moving and it sounded as if some large beast was fighting to get out. The sheet metal bulged outwards and bits and pieces were clearly cascading down the chimney.
I ushered Liz very slowly out of the room, not wanting her to be there when whatever it was was released, made her a cup of tea and proceeded to dismantle the arrangement that had lain their untouched for decades. Of course the screws were corroded in and could not be budged and so I eased the fire away from the chimney, disengaging it from its flue and from the heavy duty tape that held it in place. While this was going on the occupant of the dark space behind had fallen silent. Beneath the fire was a hole that led into the cellars below. What on Earth could have come up? However that thought was dispelled when I realised that there was no connection between that hole and whatever lay beyond. Unable to free the sheet metal barrier I could only thrust my hand through the flue to investigate what had been making the noise and that hole wasn't very big. Tentatively I groped around in the dark, half expecting to be bitten or dragged screaming into oblivion - I watch too many bad movies! Nothing! Whatever it was had moved out of reach.
I found a walking stick near to the front door and returned - thrust said stick up aforementioned chimney and waggled it around. Mayhem in the chimney resumed as the trapped beast sprang back into action and I caught my first glimpse. A large and very scared Wood Pigeon was struggling to get back up the sooty passage that it had come in by and was hopelessly failing. Almost as scared as it was, I resumed my attempts at grabbing it, grasping it's tail firmly I endeavoured to release it from its prison. I succeeded with the tail but alas it had become detached from the poor bird in the struggle and i was left with a large handful of warm feathers. There was now less of the bird to struggle and the poor thing flapped and floundered while i tried to grab it by something else. I found a wing and eased it from the hole, most of the wing feathers came out in my hand an the now dismembered bird escaped into the room in a cloud of feathers. On all fours I chase it around the room, under chairs and around furniture, under curtains and over sofas until the petrified beast ran out of will to live and I grasped it with both hands. I could feel its heart pounding in my grip and see the fear its eyes. I couldn't bring myself to wring its neck and so released it outside the back door. To my amazement it flew away. I still don't know how it managed that with no tail and one and a half wings. No aircraft could have achieved that I am sure.
I returned to the room of carnage, picked up the feathers and reassembled the fire, feeling quite shaken by the plucking of a live bird and feeling very bad about the pain that I must have inflicted.
The consolation of course was that Liz was back in posession of her peace of mind and that should the pigeon meet a swift end in the jaws of a fox, it will be preferable to a long death in a fireplace.

Pie in the sky

I am well aware that what I think may well be completely wrong, and that others hold completely opposite viewpoints that probably have the same validity or otherwise. It would be a duller world if we all thought the same.
We are running towards a general election and the two contending parties are squaring up to each other and beginning to show traces of their true colours, though I don't suppose what they say between now and whenever the election happens, will make much difference to the outcome.
We as a nation are in a financial mess, and have been put there by mistakes made by a greed that is inherent within our society. Everyone seems to want something for nothing, and the banking world took things into their own hands, attempted to make a few too many fast bucks and now we all have to pay for what they have done. The bankers however continue to recieve their huge bonuses, and will receive unending support from the conservatives on both sides of the house. Budgets are being designed and ways of clawing back the bankers losses from the rest of us are being proposed on one hand and rejected by the other. The current government want to increase taxes, especially on the wealthy, while their opponents prefer to rob the poor and keep them in their places, forcing the elderly to sell their homes in order to fund their care in later life. This will of course remove the last incentive to invest one's earnings in property as those without houses to sell will be looked after anyhow, and those recipients of big bonuses will have cash to spare.
Voting at the next election will make little difference to most of us however. Only the wealthy can gain from a new Tory government and almost no-one can gain from maintaining the status quo. Surely we should consider the end of party politics, and strive to elect a government that represents the interests of us all.

Coming and going

People come into and leave our lives all of the time. I have been lucky enough to have met a large number of wonderful people, most of whom have sat before me in classrooms. Of course not all of them were in any way close and our relationship was both fleeting and professional, but nevertheless our lives did brush for an instant in time and we may have learned a little from each other.
As we grow from infant to child and from child to adult it is probable that more come into our lives than leave; I can still remember becoming aware of the finite nature of existence when just a boy, and being told of the demise of an elderly neighbour who i was quite fond of. The memory is crystal clear and the profound nature of that realisation represented a real turning point in my consciousness. He had gone. Forever. The end. Even then I had no belief in afterlives; those concepts are there to comfort those who fear death and cannot handle not being here. A hundred years ago, none of us were here. We did not exist by any definition of the word and in another hundred years we will be in the same state and the world will have moved on.
I am at the stage when few people come into my life, and those that do are often not welcome. Many people that I have cared about have gone; some have died and others simply gone along different pathways. Just a select few remain and those I value beyond material things.
I am not easy company, and do not make friends at all well anymore. I share my mind with very few and my feelings with less, and guess that makes me at best self centred. I rue some of my past and some of the friends that I have lost and have learned much about trust, and feel that on days like today, that I have changed little over the years. I am self contained to a great extent and realise that I will probably never feel fulfilled, but that is true of most people so there is no cause for complaint.
In just over a month my daughter is expecting her first child and I am looking forward to meeting someone new. I hope that this new life will be one filled with good things, but mainly that he or she will, when she gets to my age feel a sense of accomplishment and that their life has been well lived. Good luck little one, you will need it.

a short rant

So our first Asian Judge has proclaimed that Sikh children should be allowed to wear their ceremonial daggers to school. The claim that no Sikh child has been involved in knife crime strikes me as being rather irrelevant, and surely it is time that such ludicrous claims should be dealt with unsympathetically. It seems that as long as you can tie in a behaviour or a habit to a religion then every one else is scared witless to challenge it. Sikhs have no more right to carry knives in public than anyone else and they should be stopped from doing so, because it is the law of the land. We are not a Sikh society; sick perhaps, but thankfully we are not yet ruled by any religious sect.
In the same day's news we hear of a sixteen year old girl, buried alive by her father for talking to boys. Where were her rights? Once again we see that religion is not about peace and goodwill to one's fellow man; it is about bowing to the will of an idea or to another human being who expounds upon that idea. When oh when will people wake up to the true source of evil in this world?

Waxing lyrical?

I like to think that I have an eclectic taste in music; I do listen to a lot of it and generally tune in to radio 3 for mornings and listen to my collected stuff in the afternoons and evenings. As i write I am listening to Beth Gibbons and Rustic man, a band I know nothing of but the noise that they make is very pleasing.

I do try to listen to whatever comes my way and try to understand what musicians are trying to do. There was a time when they were more about making music than making money, but I am afraid that those days are long gone. I am sure that there are plenty out there for whom the music is far more important than the paychecks but everyone has to live.

What we listen to and enjoy is a very personal thing and there are genres of music which to me have no impact or meaning and i am sure that is so for everyone. I cannot relate in any way to Rap or Hip hop, and at the same time cannot comprehend the music of many modern classical composers. I don't particularly like Johan Strauss of Franz Lehar, and most traditional scottish music irks me.

I can understand then that many people can not relate to what I listen to. The leap from britpop or indiepap to Mozart or PinkFloyd is a huge one and therin lies a chasm which some will never cross in either direction.

Pop music is about youth culture and history shows us that the quality and type of music is an audible commentary on the times, or at least it has been since the forties and fifties. Good times and bad times have a way of producing music with impact and meaning for those to whom the music is aimed.

Good music has power to move people, either thought the overall sound, rhythm, melody or lyrics, and no one has yet managed to have a universal appeal. Even the Beatles at their best never achieved that, and they probably reached more ears than Beethoven ever did. And so when I hear what seems bland, banal and tediously plastic song releases, I must remember that someone out there actually relates to this and that makes it valid.

Bring it on!

Well the struggle for equality continues with the government attempting to change the ground rules and remove glass ceilings allowing freedom of opportunity for all. Now I do agree that we should all have access to the same opportunities, but we should also be realistic.

Well the ex-Nazi leader of the most powerful religion in the world seems to be planning a visit to England because he fears that the new legislation will give free access to positions in his church to homosexuals of all things. How terrible that would be? No longer would they be able to discriminate on the basis of sexuality - or anything else for that matter. Within decades they could be taken over by men in dresses, waving handbags in strange ceremonies.

This is an organisation that preaches tolerance, and yet displays very little of that to anyone who lives outside of their faith. It values poverty as a virtue as long as they don't have to endure it, and like all big companies has vested interests in it's own power and survival.

In my opinion an influx of homosexual bishops could only do them good! A lot of choirboys would be far safer than they are now.

Just how stupid can we get?

Surely we have reached rock bottom in the stagnant pool of political correctness, when it is not permitted to advertise a job for a reliable worker on the basis that it discriminated against those who are unreliable. Does this mean that to demand a qualified or experienced worker is unfair on those unqualified or inexperienced? There has to be a point beyond which we cannot go without losing touch with both common sense and the world of reality.
Some people clearly still believe in equality, and yet this has never been realistic. Our society only works because of inequality, it always has, and as long as there are people it always will. All animal populations are made up of individuals that are different. Some are stronger, fitter, prettier or more able to breed than others. Some are better fighters and some are better at finding food. It is this fundamental inequality that drives the process of evolution, and although those with religious faith would have us believe otherwise, the principles of evolution still apply to humans. Apart from biological inequalities we are also subject to inequalities of geographical and cultural bases and so although laudable in principle we do not even come close to equality of opportunity.
I hope that when I travel by air, that the pilot is far more able than I am in handling an aircraft. I hope that the surgeon to whom I entrust my life has not been given the job because someone thought that he deserved a chance, and I hope that the car that I drive has been designed and assembled by some sort of intelligence.

Retail things

One of the benefits of the world wide web is that it by and large protects me from shopping. I have never liked it but my reasons for that have changed as I have grown older. As a youth, I would trail around with my mother, knowing that we could not afford to buy the things that I would have liked and always having to settle for what was affordable, which of course was never very much. Shops for me were placed that offered temptation and made me painfully aware that I was poor.

Of course things change, and for now at least, money is not an issue. I still trail around the shop, pushing a trolley and watching time passing so so slowly. My input is rarely required and mostly irrelevant and this morning I spent a while composing a list of reasons for hating the whole experience. Near to the top of the list are strangers. People with long faces, ambling around like myself, blissfully unaware of those around them, shuffling from aisle to aisle all probably feeling the same sort of antipathy to each other. There seems to be a rule, that wherever you happen to be you are always in someone else's way, so it is impossible just to stand in neutral and disengage from the whole experience.
Following someone while pushing the trolley is a nightmare, far worse than driving in a convoy. Take your eyes off the leader for one instant and said leader vanishes into the maze of aisles, evoking another rule, that being whichever way you go is the wrong way.
I hate trolleys - I always seem to get one that has a wheel that sticks, making steering difficult, and as the load increases, impossible. Mostly I am tempted to pick up the trolley and carry it around, though the ergonomics make that tricky and plainly it would be a stupid thing to do.
I hate the fact that it is impossible to buy just a jar of coffee without having to choose between hundreds of combinations of brand, type, size etc. I loathe the uniformity of fruit and vegetables and the fact that one store is much the same as any other.
I despise the appalling attitudes of some of the staff who in some stores seem to imagine that they are doing you a favour, and I loathe the use of psychological opportunism in the way that supermarkets display goods persuading people to buy what they do not need.
For me, the perfect shopping experience is to search through my favourite sites, make my selection and simply type in my credit card details. To enhance my experience i really do want an iPad, and that I will order online.

I believe

An accusation that is often thrown my way by those that have religious convictions is that unless i believe in something then my life must be without meaning. At this point in any discussion I usually bring things to a halt, as to argue further leads to a circular debate that goes nowhere.
It is impossible not to believe in something; it is part of being human, and with most people it is possible to change beliefs in the light of experience or when presented with evidence. Most of us at some time in our lives believed in Santa Claus, Fairies,the bogey man, God and the Easter Bunny, because we were told that these things existed. Parents pass on these untruths as a means of controlling their children, either by threat or anticipation of something good. Most of us grow out of these fictions and do not hold our parents responsible for misleading us, but some do not and hold onto those beliefs with grim determination. There are even those who believe that the earth is flat and many that believe that the holocaust never happened. Fundamentally some people can be induced into believing anything.
I am a natural sceptic and yet I too have beliefs, and there are many things that I believe that I cannot prove. I believe in Science as a process. Where Science scores highly is in it's scepticism. The scientific process is based upon hypotheses formed from observations. These hypotheses are tested experimentally over and over again, until the outcome of an experiment allows the formulation of a Law. A law might state that under circumstance A, B will happen, but with Scientific laws, this only applies until it can be proved otherwise by different experiments. There are many principles that have stood the test of time and can be accepted as truths, and even the most rabid fundamentalists cannot argue that.
I believe that there are probably other life forms in the universe, and that the universe is so large that we will probably never find evidence for their existence. I believe that the universe is eternal and that there is no creator nor need for one. I believe in energy as the currency of the universe and its transmutability.
I believe in the Atom and its structure of fundamental particles, and that one day we will understand the very nature and origin of those particles.
I believe in Evolution and that we are merely a part of an ongoing process that too few people understand.
I believe that people are intrinsically good and that some are made evil by the life into which they are brought. I believe that adherence to the writing in one book leads to a narrow view of life that hinders the moral progress of humankind.
I believe that capitalism is wrong, but as yet we have no workable alternative. The system has produced huge benefits but has also produced a world that is obsessed by property and material things. We have become greedy and self obsessed and this in turn has fuelled religious backlashes and the terrorism that is a canker on civilizations.
I believe that we are failing to make good use of extending lives and that many people are left to rot by the rest of us. We think more of pets than we do of fellow humans and many elderly folk die without dignity in squalid conditions.
I believe that our children are neglected by parents and society in general, and that many children should be taken away from their abusive parents while they still have a chance.
I believe in friendship, family and freedom of thought and expression. I also believe that there is no God but of course I cannot prove it, any more than I can prove that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! I believe that saying something is true, however frequently, does not make it true.

Desert Island Discs

We have a long running Radio programme called Desert Island Discs. The program selects someone of worth, a celebrity of someone eminent in their particular field, and during a fairly personal interview, they select eight records that they would choose to take to a desert Island, along with a book and one luxury item. This programme has been running for decades, and is as popular today as it has always been. Unlike most chat shows, it seems that those involved are more relaxed and more likely to share their memories than they otherwise would.

I will never be famous or eminent, but I often wonder what I would choose given the opportunity. Choosing eight records/songs is really very hard, and justifying those choices even more so, because to justify a choice is to give something of oneself, and that is something that I have become very wary of. To give of oneself is dangerous in that it makes one extremely vulnerable. In this Blog I do come close to that but as readership is limited to a very select few, I am prepared to take that risk - up to a point that is.

I am sure that my choices would vary according to time of day, season of the year and my own frame of mind but for now my list might, in no particular order, look something like this -

1. Bruch - Violin Concerto. This is one of the first Classical pieces that I ever owned. I played it over and over again. It is a sublime and very emotional work, and one that was very significant in some of my darker days as a young student.
2. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lot of Love. As a student I, like many others in the late 60s discovered heavy rock for the first time. There were two of us who owned the Led Zep 2 album and we would strive to play the song in synchrony at each end of our corridor. Alas our players operated at different speeds so we never achieved anything but the irritation of others.
3. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb. Probably the best ever live performance that I have ever witnessed was the last Floyd tour. I always knew they were good but that night I was transported to a different plane!
4. Monteverdi - 1610 Vespers. For me this is possibly the most wonderful music ever written. To hear this performed in ST Marks Venice would be the most remarkable of experiences.
5. Beatles - Hey Jude. A simple song but one that to me represents the end of those heady hippy days when we were yojng careless, healthy and happy.
6. Richard Strauss - 4 last songs. The last of these Im Abendrot (At Gloaming), was the last thing that Strauss wrote. It seems like he knew that he was dying and this was his farewell. If there was a last piece to hear then this would be it.
7. Beethoven - Symphony number nine. It is difficult not to choose something of Beethoven. Such a brilliant mind and such a tragic life. He strove though the most horrendous difficulties and produced the most sublime music. When he wrote this he was completely deaf and yet he was able to hear the whole thing in his mind. It reminds me that my own hearing loss is nothing compared to his.
8. Loreena McKennitt - Dante's Prayer. I discovered Loreena in recent years and even travelled to Brittany to attend a concert. She has the ability to move me, and this song rarely fails to bring tears to my eyes.

If I had to choose just one of the above it would be the Monteverdi, though the choice would be difficult.

A book? Well I'd have to choose something that would never become a bore so maybe it would be the Oxford English Dictionary.

The luxury item would have to be a supply of pens and paper. That way i could perhaps learn to write and draw.