Traditions - do we need them?

Traditions are habits, behaviours or ways of thinking that are passed on from generation to generation. Modern Biology refers to these phenomena as Memes and there is now a branch of science called Memetics. They are elements of what we call culture and each culture has its own set of traditions.

One such group of traditions we call Christmas. This is in essence a midwinter festival that was hijacked by the church as another means of manipulating the poor. Now that the church has lost most of its power, the reins have been handed over to the world of commerce with all the might of the media behind it. Christmas is huge business and still the poor are the ones who are being manipulated. The have nots are encouraged to spend what they do not have in order to accumulate the trappings of what the media tell them they want, and the financiers allow them to max out credit cards in order to pay for it. People already in debt, exacerbate their situation each year by going along with the herd in the hope that they can clear the debt before next Christmas.

It is such a silly season with people buying stuff for others, largely stuff that no-one wants or needs. Fortunes are spent sending greetings cards around the world, often to people that we barely know, let alone care about. Why do we do it? So many people loathe the whole festival these days; even the churches fill up with once a year worshipers who only go because it is traditional. Nowadays it is likely that a midnight mass will turn out to be a drunken brawl, as getting drunk and fighting are seen by some to be traditional. Even priests were brawling in Greece this year.

We also seem to be accumulating traditions. Covering your house with gaudy tasteless illuminated decoration has spread from somewhere; probably America, the seat of tastelessness. We are supposed to be concerned with energy efficiency and yet millions of Megawatts are wasted each year in high streets, stores and on the houses of so many. Those people would not go around wearing a tee shirt with “I am a twat” written on the front and yet they will adorn their houses with frosty the snowman or inflatable Santa Clauses, sucking energy from the National grid like hungry leeches. No doubt the huge energy bills will add to the ever increasing debt.

It has become a season of greed and selfishness. It perpetuates the consumer society and is one cause of misery for so many. It is a bone of contention between faith groups, and therefore another cause of dispute and lack of understanding. Rubbing any aspect of religion into people’s faces is wrong, traditional or not.

The end of the year

Another year has passed and the world is no better a place than it ever has been. The human race remains stupid, greedy and divided, and those divisions have little to do with geography and much to do with philosophy. In Douglas Adams' Hitchikers guide to the galaxy, there is a philosopher's strike, which though seemingly idiotic, would in many ways be a wonderful reality. Philosophy is by it's very nature divisive and has been the root cause of so much suffering. Philosophy gives us religion and it gave us communism. It gives us Conservatism and Socialism, it gave the wealthy excuses for the perpetuation of the class system that still lies like a canker at the heart of our society. Any philosophical system asserts an authority that is undeserved, and yet people follow in their droves, content to allow other, "cleverer" people to think for them. In the west, we value freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and yet there is precious little evidence for the latter in the bulk of the population. We switch on the TV and accept what we are told, trudging ever onwards towards whatever the capitalist system offers.

The end of the year has been stress filled for so many people who have seen their incomes devalued or even being taken away, thanks largely to a system that is based on greed and gambling with other people's livelihoods. We have a government that serves only the wealthy whilst claiming that we are all in this mess together, and yet there seems to be no alternative. We are in a hole and yet we keep digging, hoping to find treasure.

I am moving house. At least I hope so. Our fates lie in the hands of the solicitors who make money out of us by shuffling paper. Documents are sent out via email, printed out by clients, signed and posted to them. They seem to do no chasing up, leaving all phone calls to the clients. I am sure that they do something but it seems that they are taking a lot of money for a service that has seen better days.

I will be sorry to leave this Island. I have spent forty years here and it feels like home. However, the crossing to the mainland is so expensive and at present so frequent, that it makes sense, economically and familywise to make the move while we are still capable. So this could be my last entry from this side of the water. Thank you for taking minutes of your life to read this, and I do wish you a happy holiday and the very best luck for next year.

Moving on

I have lived in the same town since 1971, and now it is time to move The great stimulus being Oscar of course. At 20 months he has a huge pull and it will be so nice to spend more time with him. (I think)
So the house is in a state of chaos, even though we do not have a moving date, there is so much that needs sorting and rationalising. So much clutter accumulates with time and i am a hoarder - I can't seem to throw anything away on the basis that i deplore waste. However, black bags are filling and being dispatched to the appropriate places. Charity shops are benefitting and through local freecycle groups, individuals too are making use of stuff that I have been hanging on to.
There is sadness and joy associated with such a big upheaval. It has been a long time since i experienced mainland life and no doubt there will be a change in pace that I will need to acclimatise to, though I will probably stay at home just as much as I do now.
However, there will be new opportunities of course and I am sure that babysitting skills will be called upon frequently.
I will miss friends that I have known for a long time and maybe there will be new ones, but I am not good at socialising so we shall see what happens there.
On the whole I feel that it is the right thing to do and that this is the right time. I now await the legal processing to be completed before we get a date for completion - I just hope that it doesn't take too long.

He is growing up

baby boomers

So Michael Jackson's family are planning a series of law suits, blaming everyone in sight for the shortcomings and death of their famous cash cow. They must be obscenely wealthy already and yet rather than grieve the loss of their relative, they are grasping for yet more money. They are representative of the avaricious unpleasant society that we live in today.
Those of us born in the years immediately following the second world war are referred to as the baby boomer generation, and are being held responsible for the current state of the world. Every generation blames the one that came before, and so I guess that the current younger generation will one day be held accountable too, probably for the appalling quality of music as well as the debt ridden state of the nation.
As a child, I, and many of my own generation, was brought up to abhor debt. If you wanted something, you worked and saved until you could afford it. People saved money all year long so that they could afford christmas. Summer holidays were almost unheard of, and we accepted wearing clothes until they wore out. There were no credit cards, many people didn't even have bank accounts.
Now, everyone wants everything whether or not they have the means to pay. Everyone has a car, or more than one, no-one is without a washing machine, tumble drier, flat screen TV, games console and most impressively the latest and most expensive mobile phone. Many people are up to their necks in debt, taking out more credit cards to pay off what they owe until they get to the state when they can no longer pay. Nowadays it seems that debt is a badge of honour and no longer a stigma.
We live in an age of consumerism, driven by the capitalist system that thrives on the perpetuation of greed. By making those at the bottom of the pile think that they are somewhere else if they accumulate the trappings of those at the top, the parasites at the top make sure that the wealth continues to flow in the right direction. The bank accounts of the wealthy, like black holes, suck in more and more gaining a stronger and stronger pull, while the rest of us struggle to keep up. The spiral intensifies and sooner or later the whole edifice must collapse.

The late and the very late

I seem to get annoyed so very easily these days, and by such trivial things. Bigger things don’t seem to bother me in the same way, the big things worry me and concern me but do not irritate me like the trivia do.
One current gripe is TV advertising and the way that they set and describe prices. What once was say five hundred pounds has now become four hundred and ninety nine pounds; irritating enough but when spoken is has become just four nine nine. Is the language becoming digitised along with everything else? I can see no justification for this trend but the practice is firmly embedded now and seems unlikely to change.
Another cause of my discontent lies in the media as a whole, and refers to perpetrators of crimes and also their victims. It seems now that should you be unfortunate enough to be murdered, robbed, raped or pillaged, you are judged according to your way of making a living. Beth Scroggins is never referred to as simply Beth Scroggins, she has to beBeth Scroggins, solicitors clerk. Why? Why not beth Scroggins, lovely girl, or Beth Scroggins stamp collector, or even just plain and simple Beth Scroggins. I once saw an ad in a local Portsmouth paper, offering a job in a Tampax factory as a fitter. Imagine that. It would be bad enough being murdered but then being referred to as Bill Sykes, tampon fitter would compound the misery.
We as a society seem obsessed with success that is measured in terms of our earning potential, and in the eyes of the press our worth is not in who we are but in what we do to make a living. When I am murdered, probably for irritating the wrong person, will I be reported as unemployed or as a retired teacher, ex farm hand, ex factory worker, ex fruit picker, ex Portsmouth Football club sweeper, ex barman or what? I think that Corpse would be more appropriate.

Cheese on toast

I love to cook. When i go out to eat, I find myself analysing the dishes that I enjoy and trying to work out the ingredients and the methods used by the chef. I then take those ideas and attempt to replicate them at home. I read cookery books and steal ideas from them too, but when it comes to cooking, I rarely follow a recipe. I see cooking as a creative art and love to invent and tweak dishes. Mostly it works quite well and most people consider my food acceptable at worst. Good food need not be expensive, and most things that I prepare are done on a low budget.
Not long ago, I went with the family to Pizza Hut for lunch. I am renowned for my attitude to pizza, which I often refer to as cheese on toast, which fundamentally it bears a striking resemblance to, though in the latter there is more cheese. A pizza may look wonderful when it arrives at the table, but my word what a mark up in price. A handful of dough is flattened, baked and smeared with tomato slurry, various scraps are thrown on and the whole thing is baked again for a few minutes, and for that you can pay up to ten pounds. A rapid analysis suggest that the ingredients could cost up to a pound, unless of course you are buying in bulk, in which case you can probably halve that. Ok they taste nice but why are we prepared to pay such inflated prices for something so simple?
Try lightly toasting some bread, smearing it with tomato puree, sprinkling some grated cheese, some chopped olives or anything else that takes your fancy, popping it under the grill and voila - faux pizza, cheap and cheerful.

Hair

I have been listening to the soundtrack from Hair. It was a wonderful show, and in the sixties it was full of hope, colour, freshness and melody as well as protest and pathos.
The 1960s did seem a time when a generation looked at the rotten world of politics and through protest, both physical and in song, hoped to change the world for the better. Let the sun shine in was the mantra and many believed that it would happen.
Yes some changes did take place, there was a break away from the previous generation and the greyness of post war life. Pop music became a phenomenon, fashions and lifestyles slowly changed and there was a sense of liberation and optimism that now seems so misplaced.
The planet is still polluted, there are more wars going on than ever, black people are still seen as inferiors by huge parts of the American population, ignorance and apathy are rife, and still the politicians bleat on about how much better their policies are than others.
We are in a worse mess than we were post war. Yes then the country was in deep debt, the population living largely in basic accommodation and yet there was that ray of hope that things would get better. It seems now that things can only get worse, and still the men in suits are making decisions that feather their own nests at the cost of the rest of us as well as the planet upon which we depend. It is not the planet that needs saving, it is us.

Gender issues

I am a little weary of hearing that women get a raw deal, of glass ceilings and of sexual inequality. In my humble opinion, women get a pretty good deal these days and in so many ways are advantaged rather than the reverse.
There was a time when this was not the case, women had to struggle to gain what they have today and in doing so, have brought about huge changes in society, which while being of benefit to women in general have not necessarily improved the society in which we live.
Our education system changed even before the advent of the National Curriculum, in order to shift the balance in favour of girls. There was a time when boys were higher achievers in many subjects in schools. This was recognised and strategies employed that disadvantaged boys and enhanced the achievements of girls. Now, more or less across the board, girls achieve greater academic levels than boys. This of course follows through into the fields of further and higher education with more girls gaining qualifications than boys, with all of the consequences that follow. Has anyone noticed how many police chiefs, doctors, solicitors and heads of educational establishments are women?
The media offers strong positive role models for girls, some more desirable models than others, but nevertheless, a disproportionate amount of presenters, newsreaders and so on are women. In TV drama, women are more often than not presented as strong characters with men presented as being weak and inferior or just downright stupid. The consequences of this will be far reaching and downright dangerous. It seems that the only role models for boys are sportsmen and bland members of boy bands.
Women in the west are so very fortunate. Only this week in Saudi Arabia, after having been given voting rights, a woman has been sentence to public lashing for daring to drive a car. A large proportion of the world population are repressed, subjugated and have plenty to complain about. Maybe those women who shout so loud about equality should count their blessings.

Indian summer

Strictly speaking the current wave of warm weather is not an "Indian Summer". Indian summers are usually periods of warm weather that follow heavy frosts and as yet we have had nothing like a single figure temperature. I am being pedantic I know, and enjoying the sunny spell just like everyone else that is not a farmer.
Autumn is a lovely time of year and for some people that I know, it is their favourite season. The colours of leaves, the hedgerow fruits, the smells and the misty mornings all have their charms, but for me, all of these are the harbingers of winter to come. The shorter days, the dying plants and the migrating birds and insects are a sadness and i am reminded that spring is a long way away.
The economic life of the EEC has been quite short, and it seems to have reached a state of development where the super wealthy have harvested the fruits and filled their larders to bursting and migrated to their winter homes in the sun, while the rest remain. The frosts are biting hard and the damage done may be irrepairable. There is little left to sustain the community in its current form, and the prospects for a financial Indian Summer do not seem very likely. Winter will be very long, very cold and very expensive.

Oscar

Points of view

It seems that I go through phases where I have plenty to say and others when think, what is the point? I know that I have a tendency to rant and that others find it tiresome; some even being bold enough to tell me so. Most people that I know, see the world, all of it, in shades of grey, whilst I have a tendency to see some aspects in black and white.
For me, sometimes, trying to see both sides of an argument is like being a liberal democrat. By sitting on the fence, you are neither one thing or the other, diluting and diluting everything down to some mediocre regression to the mean. While keeping the peace it rarely solves anything; though polarised viewpoints may not either.
When two people take on views that are totally opposed to each other, it does not mean that the reality of the argument lies somewhere in between. It is quite possible that one of those arguments is actually right and the other wrong; so accommodation of an opposing point of view may well be a distortion of the truth. For example, there are, I believe, some people who think that the Earth is flat. Now i believe, on the basis of a great deal of evidence that the Earth is more or less spherical. To meet somewhere in the middle of this would mean that the Earth is a hemisphere with a flat side and a rounded side. Ok that is a compromise and a ridiculous solution that appeases no-one and so i will continue to argue my case and so will the flat earth devotee. Many arguments are as polarised as this one and rather than fight in one corner, so many people will do their utmost to appease both parties in the hope of keeping the peace. It doesn't work.
Agreed there are arguments where an appreciation of shades of grey are clearly desirable, and where entrenched viewpoints are counterproductive. The situation in Israel and the relations with Palestine being a good example. Both sides are deeply entrenched in political and religious dogma and neither side is prepared to give way. In That situation middle ground must be found and agreed upon, and that seems so unlikely.
By making stands and arguing a case, i am considered by some to be bigotted, and perhaps i am; another failing to add to my list, but I will continue to voice my opinion even if no-one else wants to listen.

Canary Islands

Since I lost put finger to key, I have been on holiday in Lanzarote. A haven for ex pats, lots of English bars, but despite that, a wonderful place. I am not fond of travelling, especially by air, and the flights were predictably uncomfortable, noisy and not very pleasant. I have to say t this point that I was not at all looking forward to the trip, the thought of spending a week in Chavland in the sun did not appeal, but things turned out well in the end.

The Island is not as i expected it, and although there are the shaven headed, tattooed Lobsteroids present, they are thin on the ground and easily avoided. The local people are so very hospitable and pleasant, the food wonderful and the climate perfect.

Putting airplanes aside, I would go again.

Times to come

Well the riots came and went again, for now. In that time people have ranted and raved, expounded, pontificated and ranted; it has brought out the worst in most of us. To watch our young people behaving so badly was very disturbing and although they were blindly attacking property rather than people, it was still very frightening to watch.
I remember realising that as a high school teacher, my role was largely about bluff. At any time those students could, if organised, simply walk out of the school, run riot and do whatever they wanted. There was nothing that the school could do to stop them. The same is true of gangs in the streets; if organised, they have great power and there is little that can be done to stop them. These I am sure are just the beginnings of more widespread civil unrest.
We live in a society that thrives on blame and accountability. When anything happens, someone has to be blamed and suitably punished, and so of course gut reactions required the rioting youths to be shot, horse whipped, disembowelled or locked up for life. Parents were to be evicted from their council homes, benefits were to be stopped and all those involved publicly humiliated.
Only days later, heavy prison sentences are being handed out and there is now an outcry saying that the sentences are too harsh.
Our police force are being granted new guidelines (powers) so that they can respond differently, if and when the unrest breaks out again; when it does and heads get broken and young people die, there will be further claims of police brutality and so it goes on. This is part of the price we pay for living in a democracy, and a very divided nation.
I certainly do not condone the actions of a relatively small number of mindless hooligans who bashed up their own communities, but the damage they inflicted was contained. The damage done by the bankers in recent years is widespread, long lasting, and the perpetrators were never brought to any form of justice and are still being rewarded, while the rest of us suffer from their greed and vandalism.
Yes the rioters should be punished; they should have been sprayed with a dye so that all of them could be caught, not just the ones who showed their faces, and then perhaps rather than take away the benefits from those who claim them, they should all have been given long terms of curfew and community service, repairing some of the damage and cleaning up the communities that they normally terrorise, earning the benefits instead of expecting them. Obligatory evening classes in citizenship and responsible parenting might also keep them from the streets and give them insights into a different way of life.
The greatest challenge though is to give people some hope and something to strive towards. This will never happen under a government that is more interested in the welfare of those that already have everything.

Midsummer madness

The tabloids, and therefore the bulk of our population seem more interested this weekend in the demise of yet another unfortunate junkie, than they are of the terrible events in Norway or the catastrophic famine that is sweeping through eastern Africa.
Amy Winehouse made some bad choices in her life, but they were hers to make and she probably died appropriately, and at the same age as so many teen idols have done before. The peoples of Somalia do not have the luxury of choosing how to die. That choice has been removed, partly by the drought that has gripped their lands for so long, but also by the civil strife brought about by warring factions, probably funded by other countries. The Islamic forces that maintain chaos in Somalia are refusing still, to allow aid from foreign sources, claiming that moves to help their people are politically motivated and so the people continue to die or to undergo terrible hardship and long journeys to neighbouring countries.
The world of Islam is utterly contradictory. Muslims will generally claim that they are peace loving, caring and charitable people, and yet virtually all centres of conflict in this world involve Islamic forces. Yes there are Islamic countries in the United nations, but when do we ever see any of them supporting their fellow Muslims in places like Somalia. It would seem that religious dogma is far more important than the lives of women and children. It is a pity that Saudi Arabia, and the other wealthy Arab nations cannot practice what they preach, and plough some of their enormous wealth into supporting those who never were given a choice when it came to their religion.

The boy done good innit!

I know that I am getting old and with that comes inflexibility and to some degree intolerance. I also know that languages are dynamic and constantly evolving to suit the needs of changing cultures. Having said that, I do get irritated by some trends that seem to be creeping slowly and steadily forward.
There is a leaning, in North America at the moment, but we all know that what happens there will happen here too, towards the abandonment of handwriting being taught in schools. The reasoning being that it is no longer necessary to be able to write anything by hand. This will do for literacy what the calculator did for numeracy, and generations to come will be utterly reliant on electronic devices for any sort of communication.
English is a beautiful language. It is the language of Shakespeare, Byron, Keats, Tennyson and Terry Pratchett; it is the chosen language of international communication and yet is is becoming devalued by the popular media to such an extent that within the forseeable future, it will bear little similarity to that spoken by my generation or even that of our children.
Influences from poorly educated sports pundits and commentators have eroded the use of adverbs to the extent that they are on the verge of extinction. Afro-caribbean youthspeak dominates youth culture, and then there is the slow but steady trickle of Americanisms that are forever polluting the vocabulary of English speakers everywhere.
I am no expert in the fine use of words, but to me the spoken word can be beautiful. Continued erosion of the literacy of the young can only lead to the conversion of what once was wonderful into something akin to gibberish.

Pot luck

I find it amusing when people come into large sums of money and say that it won't change their life. True it may not change them as a person, though even that is debatable, but money does make a difference to the way people live and the way that others see them.
Last night, someone in this country won 160 million pounds on the lottery. I find it hard to envisage that much money, but I know for certain that should that person be me, my life would change and so would the lives of a lot of people that I care about. I would probably not be tempted to pour it into the major charities as i suspect that much of the cash that they raise does little good in the long term, but I'd like to think that I could give a lot of people a step up the ladder.
When you think about it, money is only meaningful when you don't have enough to pay the bills. I have been in that position many times and like a lot of people, I spent most of my younger days trying hard to avoid debt. It wasn't always possible and of course for all of my working life, I had a mortgage that meant that I had to keep working in order to make the payments. Now I "own" my house, though of course all that means is that I have a lot of money tied up in bricks and mortar and I no longer am indebted to one of the modern day usurers. When I die, the house will eventually be sold and all that money will then be passed on to my family and so it goes on.
I have enough money at the moments to fulfil my basic needs, and I guess that is because my needs are becoming simpler as the years pass by. My needs are governed by my income and my desire not to get into debt, and I know that should I be lucky enough to win the lottery, my needs may suddenly change. However in order for that to happen, I'd first have to buy a ticket.

Spot the child

Oscar has chicken pox. Childhood diseases are things that we all take for granted as we all survived them. We think of many of these ailments as trivial and for some that may have been the case, but what people forget is that some of these illnesses can have catastrophic effects. When i was a child, illnesses were matter of fact, and if a child got say chicken pox, everyone would bring their kids around to make sure that they all became infected, in the sure knowledge that once you'd had it, you didn't get it again. It was the same with measles, though now we know that measles is a nasty disease that can cause all sorts of problems including, in a worst case scenario, death. So in an enlightened age we have vaccinations against many of these infections.
A few years ago, a renegade doctor, whose work has since been discredited, claimed that there was a causal relationship between the MMR vaccination, and the likelihood of a child becoming autistic. Many parents, understandably as it appeared in the Daily Mail, refused to have their children vaccinated. Of course some of them went on to develop autism, and the rest were simply prone to contracting measles, mumps and rubella.
In order to be effective, vaccination must be given to a significant proportion of the population. This confers what is called herd immunity, and means that should the disease occur, then it will be contained within a local area. Lack of herd immunity allows epidemics to arise, and in some cases pandemics.
There are new strains of some diseases that are being imported through immigration from third world countries and we are all at potential risk from resistant strains of TB and Polio. Antibiotic effectiveness is rapidly being eroded by overprescription and lazy application, and all of the time, bacteria and viruses are mutating and evolving into forms against which we have little or no protection.
Obsession with personal hygeine, though not apparent in everyone, means that infants environments are virtually sterile; their immune systems are not allowed to develop properly, and so they are more easy targets for infection. Our warm draught free homes are incubators for all sorts of unseen agents, and these agents are beginning to win more battles in this war that seems unwinnable.
Oscar may or may not get chicken pox again; that is down to his ability to generate the antibodies that he needs. he has had his MMR vaccination but there are so many other enemies out there. Whether he meets them or not, and how he copes with them are largely down to luck, and perhaps pharmacologists receiving enough grants to produce the ammunition that we need to turn things around once more.

Os

Behaviour

There is a school of thought, probably with a low attendance rate and failed by OFSTED, that believes in behavioural change as a mechanism for driving evolution. Natural selection, as described so eloquently by Charles darwin in the nineteenth century, cannot fully explain the way that the human race has evolved, and now it would seem that there are no real selective agents at work. There are no advantages in physical strength or even mental agility in terms of survival value; thus it is likely that the way we behave will be more significant for generations to come.

From a distance it would appear that most people behave in ways that are expected of them, led largely by the media, through advertising, populist TV and a weak and watered down education system that has been manipulated as a political football and watered down by successive governments in order to reduce the ability of people to think for themselves.

This week and last, thousands have flocked to Wimbledon to pay huge sums of money in order to watch tennis, many worshipping at the shrine of a young arrogant Scot who declared his feelings about England a long time ago. The media is full of him, only because there is no Englishman out there who can bonk as well as he can. So his adoring fans cheer and shout for someone who loathes England and the English. Fascinating media manipulation and a true demonstration as to the way in which we are led.

Holidays

My phobia of holidays has been fed, nourished and watered this weekend, leading me to speculate on why on Earth we seem to go to such great lengths to take them in the first place.
It is impossible to escape the one thing that many people are trying to escape from. Reality follows us around like a faithful dog, and like a dog it always has the capacity to bite your arse just when you least expect it to.
When you take a holiday, you are taking a huge risk; stepping outside of one's comfort zone inevitably leads to problems, whether it be in the quality of accommodation that you will find, or the nature of the others that you find also trying to escape.
I am trying to find the positives here, but having spent several hundred pounds on a weekend away, I am struggling to come up with anything other than a change of scenery, that were worth spending that much cash on. I didn't sleep well, the food was ordinary, the weather indifferent, and the journey intolerable. Sitting in a traffic jam for two hours and then having to extend a three hour journey into a seven hour marathon is not my idea of fun.
Going abroad is worse. I loathe airports and the cramped metal tubes that carry millions of sheep to exotic destinations where they can burn themselves to crisps, drink themselves sick and return with more diseases than they set out with. Unless you are lucky enough to have shed loads of money, any holiday you take is constrained, and it is impossible to escape from ones fellows however hard one tries. You can of course find places where no-one else goes, but there are usually reasons why they don't go there and so you might just as well stay at home.
Inevitably then, holidays are spent milling about with people that you don't really want to have much to do with, spending money on overpriced food, seeing tired sights, waiting in queues, moaning and complaining at how bad everything is, and then coming back to pay the debts that your time away have incurred.
I know people who regularly fly off to find the sun. They lie on a beach somewhere for a week, come back red or brown and probably have aged their skin by ten years in the process. I just don't get it.

Moaning

Moaning and complaining seems to be a national passtime and there are some who are never happier than when complaining about something. If your country is invaded by jackbooted psycopaths, if your government is stealing everything to feather personal nests, if your bankers are bleeding your economy dry while unemployment rockets, if the poorest are made poorer by reduction in benefits, if price rises turn essentials into luxuries then there is something worth complaining about.
A group of cyclists are hoping to ride naked through Portsmouth in order to highlight the problems faced by cyclists on our increasingly busy roads. Of course, the blue rinse brigade is up in arms and may take to the streets to protest on the grounds that public decency may be affronted. Maybe there will be counter protests against the blue rinsers and so on.
The thought of cycling naked does not inspire me, nor does the prospect of following behind large pink wobbly bodies. The likelihood is that most of the participants will have bodies that, like mine, are best kept under wraps. Having said that, nudity is not offensive. We all have bodies and they come in such a variety of shapes and forms. I assume that those who find skin offensive, still bathe fully dressed.
Of course one person's freedom can tread on the toes of another but that is life. We are free to do what others allow us to do and that is all. Freedom is a myth.
Personally i hope that the naked cycling event does take place. It could provide an entertainment for many, bearing in mind the potholed roads and the distinct possibility that it may be cold.

Blackbird no longer singing

I am very fortunate. I enjoy freedoms that are denied to so many others, and that is a sadness. I am sitting here listening to Mahler intermingled with birdsong from the garden just outside my window and contemplating what to write about. I have no real problems or worries in my life and yet I feel ill at ease.
"Life is nasty, brutish and short." I was reminded of that recently. For weeks, a pair of blackbirds have been building their nest in a bush by my front door. They laid a clutch of four eggs and the female has patiently sat, waiting for her brood to hatch and for her family line to continue. Such tame birds: when not on her nest she would wander around looking for food, more or less ignoring me, as I appeared no threat to her. This morning I looked into the nest, and found that the eggs have indeed hatched, and the corpses of her little brood lie cold in the remnants of the shell. The female has vanished, no doubt the victim of a neighbourhood cat or a bird of prey. I confess a sadness that is not altogether rational, and have been contemplating mortality in more general terms.
I am at a time in life when my limited range of skills and talents have less and less value. There is not much that I can do with a poorly equipped toolkit and I seem to have slipped into an uneasy contentment, that disturbs me on a more or less daily basis. I watched Morgan Freeman and jack Nicholson in The Bucket List, the other day and feel the need to perhaps produce a bucket list of my own, while I still can; and maybe to amend that list on a week by week basis. Long term goals have never been my forte, and I have never been good at resolution keeping either, but again, this is not the first time, I want to make more of what days i have left. I have given this a little thought and by recording items here, at least I have a reference point and others might wish to add items to my list. So far I have the following ;-

To learn a poem - maybe more than one
To make something with my hands.
To write a short story.
To paint and actually finish a picture.
To learn a new skill.
To do something good for somoeone else.
To meet someone new.

The last one will probably be my greatest challenge as I am not at all good at socialising any more and have lost the need for the company of others.
I will do my best to begin ticking things off the list, as and when and if I can achieve those goals. In the meantime, life passes by and I will probably continue to make little impact on the world as a whole. I hope that my comfortable existence continues as it is, at least for now, but like the blackbird, I have no idea what is coming around the next corner.

Never never land

When I was a kid, and it doesn't seem that long ago, if you wanted something, you paid for it with cash. If you hadn't enough cash, you couldn't have it and so you saved your pennies and halfpennies, your threepences and tanners, your bobs and two bobs, half crowns and so on until you could afford to pay. That way you knew the value of something and were more likely to take care of it. Of course there was hire purchase available, where you borrowed and paid off your debt week by week, but we were encouraged not to do that. Hire purchase was called the "Never never" for a good reason, and its use was a step on the road to financial disaster.
How the world has changed. Now we all have credit cards and many people are up to their necks in debts that they may never pay off. I know some whose credit cards are tiered so that each one is used to pay off the debt on the previous one. We borrow money for mortgages, the country borrows money for everything it seems, and at the neck of all this lies the poison that is our system. The real parasites of this world are not those claiming benefits, or making a few pounds on the side that the tax man does not see, but those who sit in plush offices, manipulating the markets, buying and selling debts, trading in things that do not even exist, gambling with money that belongs to someone else, secure in the knowledge that their six figure bonuses and huge profits on the side will be protected, however much they lose.
The wealthiest group in the world are those who make nothing. It is the greed of the hedge fund managers and their like, that allowed people with no income to borrow ludicrous amounts of money and thus produced the avalanche of financial crises that we are all now experiencing. The present government of course blame the previous one, but they know deep down that in such a poorly regulated system, no government can keep check on the criminal activity of the bankers that bleed us dry every moment of every day.
I have savings and no debts, but of course that is a disadvantage. My savings decrease in value and the fact that I own my house means that I will probably have to use that to fund any care that I need in my old age. Those who reach their dotage in debt, will of course have everything paid for them, and i suspect that in not many years to come, they will be the vast majority.

we're all just bricks in the wall.

The Wall, arguably, Roger Waters' magnum opus, is a strange creation. It could be viewed as an introspective whinge about the hard life that has led to his millionaire status. There can be few people that have made so much cash out of expressing their hatred for the way that they were brought up and in particular for their mother.
However, the stage show was wonderful. Waters remains a consummate showman and has put together a remarkable staging of his work. His vast ego remains intact, as does his musical ability and incredible sense of timing.
I saw this production at the O2 last weekend, and was impressed by the venue almost as much as by the performance. I was less impressed by a number of my fellow human beings however. Having paid a minimum of seventy five pounds for a seat, one might imagine that people would want to enjoy every last second of the performance; alas there are many who find the urge to drink copious amounts of alcohol, far more important, regardless of whose pleasure they may be disrupting. To drink oneself silly is of course a human right (allegedly), but to spill expensive lager , to tread on the feet, and to block the view of fellow concertgoers is to my old fashioned way of thinking, totally unacceptable. Why pay such sums of money for a ticket only to spend the whole evening walking to the bar or the toilet?
Once again, I found myself despising the behaviour of my fellow man, reinforcing my own unsociability. Waters creates a wall between himself and the audience; and to a great extent I can see where he is coming from.

Bin and Gone

It seems that the balance of world peace lies once again in the hands of two groups of religious fanatics. Watching the celebrations in New York yesterday, though understandable was quite nauseating. Ok so Bin Laden, a thoroughly disturbed individual, is dead, but the group that he represents is not and someone will rise to take his place and the rest of us will wait with bated breath to discover the horrors that the Arab world will unleash on the west. His assassination will appease the republican morons in the USA but will do nothing to defeat the growing and pernicious movements of the Arab desires to take over the world and defeat those who they perceive as unbelievers.
Christians as well as Muslims claim to be peace loving and yet here we have, bible belt USA murdering arabs all over the world, while arabs in their turn resort to equally cowardly attacks on innocent people, muslims included, all over the world. Killing their figureheads is like cutting the head off the medusa and does nothing to eradicate the toxin that is inherent within both cultures. The religious foundation simply underpins and justifies the violence, allowing adherents permission to use thuggery in the name of their own particular God.
If I were president of the USA, right now i would be feeling very nervous.

The brainless in awe of the chinless.

The majority of people like to have a leader. To have someone to follow is a comfort as well as a way of abdicating responsibilty. Leadership is an essential skill and without leaders, society would cease to exist. Good leaders produce successful groups, whether in business or in sport or any other field, and when things go wrong it is the leaders that take the blame.
Unfortunately many people are so easily led that the media can exert a very powerful influence and can govern the way in which people behave. The press has been guilty in the past of whipping up hatred against many minority groups; gays, hoodies, black people and asians have all been subject to media initiated campaigns that have more or less instructed those who like others to think for them, to hate others without really knowing why.
The press can castigate a political party, reporting their own versions of the facts in order to turn the populace against them and thereby control the electorate and the outcome of elections. Advertisers spend ludicrous amounts of money to sell useless things to people, and it works. Human beings are gullible and potentially so very dangerous when following blindly.
Tomorrow is a perfect example - More of the aristocracy are getting married in order to produce more aristocratic mouths for the public to feed. The media have hyped the event to the extent where it seems that the vast majority will be glued to their TV sets so as not to miss a second of the procedings. There are flags and bunting in the streets and parties organised, real money spent on worthless trinkets and trivialities and the whole of the fashion industry now hangs on whatever clothing hangs from the royal bride to be. What a lot of nonsense!

Having recently spent a wonderful week with my grandson, I have come to the conclusion that people of a certain age should be prevented by law from becoming parents. Being around a child is physically and emotionally draining as well as all consuming. It is hard work being a parent, and even harder as one gets older. Children need, and demand attention, they learn from constant interaction between the world and those around them, and it is a parent's duty to put the needs of the child first. For many this comes naturally but that does not make it any less of a full time and very difficult job. There are no opportunities to throw sickies, or to take a long lie in when you have been up half the night changing beds, mopping up sick or changing smelly nappies. Babies need routines and you change these at your own peril.
I love Oscar in a way that I never imagined possible. He is simply amazing and I will do everything that I can for him, but I know that I could not cope with his demands on a 24 /7 basis. I am too old and lack the energy, and yet there are women of my age who still wish to become mothers, and men older than myself who still become fathers. To me it seems sad and strange that a parent should not have a chance of watching their child grow up and to put a child at risk of becoming an orphan at an early age seems irresponsible to say the least. Parenting is a massive responsiblilty and should never be taken lightly, and yet is it a biological function that we take for granted, most parents rushing into that territory without thinking things through. I guess that if it were possible to think through the issues fully, to imagine the pains of birth, and the trials and tribulations that come with it, then parenting would very soon go out of fashion. For those over 60 however, there is no excuse.

Sadness

It is raining and I find myself at a loose end. It is a time of change for me and I am not comfortable with some changes, however I have to remind myself that I have been lucky and have no cause to complain.
I just finished a wonderful book; reading it that is, I don't think that I have a book in me. Jostein Gaarder's The Solitaire Mystery. He is a Norwegian philosopher/theologian who writes about philosophy in terms that even I can understand. Rather akin to a modern Alice in Wonderland, he looks at the world and at belief, through the eyes of a child, and it is through the eyes of innocence that the world looks wonderful and mysterious and fascinating. As I get older, this is much harder to recapture, and my experiences with other people amplify my cynicism to the extent that I am finding it harder and harder to believe in anything or anyone. A valued friend and colleague once said to me - "The only thing that you can rely on others to do is to let you down." By and large he has been proved right. So I find myself withdrawing again and looking for hints of that wonder and amazement that only the natural world can provide.


William Blake - Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

Just a pic

A birthday

Oscar is one year old today. How quickly the time flies and how rapidly he changes. This time a year ago he was still keeping everyone waiting and i was convinced that he had to be a girl. Now he is a personality in his own right and is developing so many skills that will see him through his life. Happy birthday little man.

In motion

Since my last post, a tentative approach to an estate agent resulted in hands almost being bitten off in the rush to get the house on the market. Within a week we have become a commodity and have already been peered at and poked at six times. Having strange people wandering around the house is a little like having your private parts examined by the doctor, and don't you just hate it when they say - "Oh dear!" in that tell tale tone.
I have been asked if, next time there are people viewing the house, if I would kindly not be there. I don't know what i am supposed to do; go for a walk maybe or perhaps go and sit on the swings in the park while people I don't know and don't want to know are breathing on my furniture. Of course I will comply as it is what is expected of me, but I will not pretend to like it.
Of course, all the details, including full colour photos, are there on the net for anyone to peruse so now I can be violated remotely by anyone who knows where I live, and of course by those who randomly find me on their computers. It is a strange feeling, rather like being given a massage by a large hairy person of indeterminate gender.
Of course it has also meant that we need to look for somewhere else to live. Our target area is 150 or so miles from here and so our searching has to be remotely controlled and that in itself is far from easy, though i have to say that Google maps makes it a lot easier to eliminate possibilities. It has been a reminder that I am a bit of a social misfit and that I have prejudices that are based on past experience of neighbours from hell, and there lies a huge issue when it comes to choosing a house.
For now there is a long list of properties that all look much the same, and until we can make the trip physically, it will be hard to make a shortlist and impossible to make a choice. Having said all that - someone needs to give me enough money to enable me to move.

To move or not to move

Living on an island has both advantages and disadvantages. By and large the advantages outweigh the alternative unless of course you want to go anywhere. The mounting cost and the inconvenience of the ferry is becoming a real issue and the time is coming when the pull of the mainland is beginning to exceed the magnetism of life overseas.
The prospect of selling and buying all over again does not appeal though, and as spring begins to wake up, i am seeing all of the things that need doing before even considering putting the house on the market.
Apart from the upheaval, there is the gamble involved in moving to somewhere new. At present I enjoy a great deal of isolation, peace and quiet. Interactions with neighbours are minimal and I can go for days without seeing anyone. There is no traffic noise, no sounds from the neighbourhood and a house that by and large suits my needs. To find somewhere that meets those specifications, would be most fortunate, and I realise that many compromises must be made. I am not sure that I want to renovate another house. My body and mind are not really up to that and there is no bottomless pit of cash either.
What is clear though, is that ties to the Island are becoming fewer and further between and that this is probably the right time to consider a final move. Over the next few months I must give this serious consideration as I am sure that there will be things that I have not thought about.

My ear still rings

On Friday night, I put aside some of my prejudices and went to see a band called Fleetwood Back. Now i am not normally a fan of tribute bands and I am not convinced that my mind has been changed as a result of that experience.

One thing that the evening reinforced, was my increasing intolerance of the general public. Events like this tend to focus my mind on what is happening around me rather than what I am there for, and as always the audience was complete with its fair share of dick heads. I know that I am easily niggled but what is it about some people that gives them the right to be completely unaware of or uncaring about others. Every public event seems to me to be the same in this respect. There are always those that turn up late, and you can guarantee that their seats will be in the middle of a row, ensuring the disruption of as many people as possible. The same people will probably want to go to the toilet part way through as they didn't have time to go before, and yes, they are the last back after the interval. There are those who insist on keeping their smartphones on; ostentatiously reading their precious texts, oblivious to the bright glare that draws the eye of everyone within twenty metres. There are those that insist on singing along, out of tune and often with the wrong words. Some like to bob up and down in their seats in, or out of time to the beat, and those who leap to their feet at every available opportunity.
Why do I always end up sitting next to the guy who sits with his legs spread as wide as they will go, invading my space and forcing me to spend my time with my knees pressed together and straight in front of me?

The band on friday were of course living in a fantasy world where they make their living pretending to be someone else. They had made great efforts to dress like and even look like their heroes, and from a distance the appearance was pretty authentic, though I confess that when I first saw the faux Stevie Nicks, I thought it was the fat guy from Gavin and Stacey in drag.

Performancewise, they were competent. What they lacked in subtlety they made up for in enthusiasm and sheer volume, and they did get better as time passed. Such a pity though that they did insist on entering into dialogue, in which they stayed in character and a false American accent, badly done is enough to make anyone cringe.

Anyhow - the audience gave them a standing ovation, partly because the band had urged everyone to stand up for the final "Go Your Own Way", but on balance they probably deserved it.

I guess that I am just getting old.

Another rant

Within any culture, there are ways that people go about their lives and many behaviours are specific to particular groups and have developed for logical and sound reasons. Cultures have evolved along with the multitudes of discrete populations, and are fundamentally the reason why we have boundaries and borders. Quite rightly, nations are proud of their cultural heritages and will strive to protect their ways of life.
Time passes however and the world has changed. Borders are largely more permeable and the flow of people from one country to the next is diluting populations and aspects of individual cultures are absorbed and blended, or should be. There are however areas of total inflexibility where countries are dominated, not by a naturally evolved way of life, but by ideas thrust upon them by zealots, fearful of having freedom of thought and speech, just in case their facile and ludicrous edifice should be torn down in a deluge of logic.
In Pakistan, a teenage boy has been jailed for something that he wrote in an examination paper. He is being held under blasphemy laws that have no moral or logical basis. They are so corrupt that anyone can accuse another without having to provide evidence, and once accused there is no defence. I have heard this defended on cultural grounds. We have a huge immigrant population that is growing disproportionately and though I applaud a multicultural society, it would seem that a significant portion of these people do not wish to integrate into our culture but simply to propagate their own, and many would like to introduce their own laws. There will come a time when they are a majority group and such laws as those in pakistan could find themselves dribbling into out statute books. Within any country dominated by one religion there is no scope for tolerance nor is there any flexibility. There is just one set of rules and that was written a long time ago in a part of the world that has remained unaltered in many ways since medieval times.
We need to prevent the continuation of ghettos and do more to integrate all of these groups into OUR culture before it is too late.

Farewells

I have written before about my friend Elizabeth Green, who I have got to know well over the last few years. She was a neighbour, and her dour and overbearing husband meant that we had little to do with either of them until after his death. Since moving away, I have been visiting Liz frequently and enjoying hearing about her life. She was evacuated during the war and spent much of her childhood away from her parents and acting as a surrogate mother to her younger sister Alice. She went to art school in London just after the war and eventually went into teaching. She was forced into marriage because in those days living in sin was not permissible for female teachers. Though she loved John in her own way, neither of them wanted to be married and their relationship was shall we say different. John fell downstairs one night in a drunken state and broke his neck. After that he was housebound and became a burden that she wasn't prepared for. After a number of years of suffering he died and Liz was left in her large house filled with paintings and arthritic hands that ensured that there would be no more paintings to be done. In recent years she has spent her days in front of her TV, chain smoking, becoming more and more agorophobic and waiting for the inevitable.
This week there was a gas leak in her house and she had to be evacuated...again...... This time to an old folks home and from there to hospital. Like a fish out of water she became confused and disoriented and sadly last night she died. I will miss her.

It is later than you think

Douglas Adams, in his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, said that "time is an illusion- lunchtime doubly so."
Yesterday saw the funeral of my aunt Joan. I didn't attend; instead I will talk about her for a while. She was my fathers older sister, and lived for 88 years in the house where she was born and grew up. She was a spinster with her own hairdressing business, fiercely independent, right wing, and very difficult to get on with. Joan fell out so easily with everyone in the family and eventually alienated herself to the extent that only near neighbours would visit to make sure that she was still alive.
Joan was found unconscious on the tiled floor of her unheated home in the depths of winter and was taken to hospital where she came round and refused food, water or treatment of any kind, and died more or less as she had lived-alone.
Her rented house had not been properly maintained, the windows and doors rotting and draughty, the roof leaking and carpets and furniture mildewed and mouldering. Cupboards were stuffed with clothes and shoes that had once belonged to her parents, and nothing seemed to have been thrown away in years. My long suffering Sister who had visited her regularly and suffered abuse for her efforts, assisted neighbours in clearing the house, knowing that her small estate had been willed to those neighbours, and organised the funeral. I toyed with the idea of attending but as i never visited when she was alive, I could see no point in making the long journey to say goodbye to her corpse. I can do that from here. I do not feel guilty. We choose our friends but family is thrust upon us. My remaining Aunt on my father's side is also very ill and she is as mad as a bag of cats. I will not be attending her funeral either.
My dear friend Liz is 84 years old and yesterday had to be evacuated from her house because of a serious gas leak. She was transferred The stress and lack of opportunity to smoke brought on a funny turn and so they have transferred her to hospital, oddly to the last ward that I was in. I suspect that Liz will not be going home again. It would appear that the house needs a lot of work to make it safe and when that can be done I have no idea. Her relatives are either very old or far away or detached from her and I suspect that many are just waiting to inherit their share. Liz is a lovely human being and sadly losing her memory very quickly. I know that I will miss her when she goes and hers will be a funeral that I will certainly attend, should I be in a position to do so. However one can never be certain. Joan I will not miss, as we had no relationship to speak of; the sad thing of course is that she had no real relationships at all in her life and that there is no-one left to miss her.

The sound of music

It is sad to see the demise of HMV. There was a time when most high streets had a selection of stores that sold music in its various forms; and then along came HMV and the others fell by the wayside. The chain is likely to close a number of its outlets in the not too distant future and this means that some towns will no longer have over the counter music available.

The music industry has been in trouble for a while and the blame has been laid on illegal downloads. Why would anyone buy what you can get for free? Companies have tried various measures to combat this type of piracy and because the practice is so widespread, none of their curbing efforts have been effective.

People blame the demise of the record shop on Internet shopping, and of course it is easier and cheaper to buy music that way. I know that I always buy music and movies from Amazon or Play.com from the comfort of my office, not that I would describe myself as significant in the cash flow crisis that is dragging HMV down.

I have always liked music. It is an important part of my life albeit as a receiver. In the old days when I was alive, the music industry was flourishing; singles cost around 35p and each week a vast and varied range of new singles hit the shelves. Top of the pops was highlight of everyone's week and the charts were based on actual sales. Albums would cost One pound 50 and the covers were works of art worthy of hanging on the wall.

I saw the Beatles on stage, it cost 25p for the ticket and later, at college we hired Status Quo, already a known band, for forty pounds - Yes forty pounds for the band, and for that they played all night. I paid 20p to see Cream and the same to see many other bands; even then it wasn't a lot of money. Bands would play small venues and none complained that they were not making a living. Most of them did that for years, learning their trade and selling the occasional record, and yes there were the odd one hit wonders with little or no talent but to stay in the game you had to be a musician. Bands would often pay for the love of it and of course there were many even then that thought they should always do so. The Isle of Wight festival in 1970 saw 600,000 people arrive, many of whom had no tickets and baulked at paying three pounds for the three days. There were riots and the clash between business and ordinary people marked the beginning of the slippery slope.

Then of course big business took over and the stadium concerts began, and with a hike in size came a hike in costs and the spiral of profits soared. I paid 60 pounds to see Genesis along with thousands of others at Twickenham. All of that band are already wealthy - what is that all about?

There is musical talent around today but there is little that shouts out to be purchased. Much of what is on offer these days comes from synthetic kiddie bands whose talents are minimal but sufficient to slake the uneducated thirsts of todays kids. The rise of Hip Hop and Rap provides an anti-music that is fashionable among the politically correct and is anathema to those who like melody or lyrics that are comprehensible.

HMV's biggest problem is not the pirates or the internet, it is a shortage of anything worth selling that has brought them to their knees.

A fresh start?

I don't make new year resolutions as a rule. They are far too easy to forget and rarely do I maintain the enthusiasm for new things.
I am sure though that the number of people in their lycra shorts and new trainers, that I see jellying their way around the morning streets, have decided that this will be the year that they leave the couch and burn off some of the adipose tissue that has accumulated during the previous years. I am sure that the lycra will not wear out and that the spanking new Nikes will get little use after the first few days.
I went for a walk on January the first and my faith in my fellow man took yet another dive as I ploughed my way through streets littered with vomit, beer cans, broken bottles and rejected food containers.The way of life of so many of us has become ugly and utterly self absorbed. LIttle thought is given to others, and the notion of being nice or polite to fellow citizens seems to be a trait that is very rapidly vanishing. We have become obsessed by the present, by the here and now, and by the accumulation of material things that at the end of the day have little or no worth. We all die and no-one counts the black plastic bags that those goods end up in.
Having said all this, I realise that by withdrawing from society is not an answer. By doing so I am abdicating any responsibility for what goes on the world, and that in itself is irresponsible and self destructive. So this year I am determined to reverse my implosive tendencies and try to spend more time with more people - No doubt it will last no longer than the lycra shorts.