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.