If evil exists then it is here

Almost daily there are reports of what the Taliban are doing to their own people. Some describe them as freedom fighters, others as terrorists, but the reality is probably that they are just vile thugs who love to inflict misery on their fellow human beings.

I read with horror the report of one of their victims having been accused to using tobacco. He was taken and his hand chopped off. The hand was then boiled for a while before being sewed back onto his bleeding stump.  This morning we read of Vaccination workers being executed, depriving children of the right not to die from infectious diseases like polio.

The list of atrocities is endless and yet this criminal and vile organisation continues to attract followers and benefactors. Somebody is supplying them with weapons and with supplies and maybe it is time that they too are named and shamed. Perhaps their fellow Muslims could make a start by condemning them without reservation, but to criticise another muslim is not the way of Islam is it?

It is a cold damp and grey day here. The sort of day that makes you want to shut the doors and curl up with a good book. Days such as this one can be depressing, but I look at these reports and am thankful that I do not live in an Islamic state - yet.

They walk among us.

I like to think that I am calm and even tempered. Very few things get me worked up these days, one of the functions of advancing years perhaps.  However, the other day, I found myself in an online debate with two fundamental creationists.  I know now the meaning of red rags and bulls.  Someone once said that if you could reason with a religious mind, then there would be no religious minds.  I found out for myself that it is so true.

My own position is that of an atheist, having rejected the very idea of a deity many many years ago. My    limited scientific education led me to a very different understanding of the world and our position in it. The scientific process relies on questions, hypotheses, experiment and evaluation of evidence. Usually experiments provide part answers and open up new questions. It is about open mindedness and an ability to adjust belief on the basis of fresh evidence.

The discussion, went on for much longer than it should have and the only argument that the creationists could offer  revolved around a complete misunderstanding of the process of evolution. As in their eyes, evolution does not provide all of the answers, the process is rejected and in its absence there is a need for a creator.  One of them even quoted the laws of thermodynamics, the second  of which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed, whilst stating that everything must have been created by god. She could not see the irony in that.

My repeated challenges to their viewpoint resulted in personal attacks on me, which I do not mind, but then to be accused of being aggressive, simply for restating unanswered questions was a step too far. Entering any sort of discussion with people who distort the truth to suit their ends is futile. These people live in a different world to me and have minds that are so blinkered by doctrine that they have lost the ability to debate effectively. I will try hard to steer clear in the future.

Music

I have been listening to Striggio's Mass in 40 parts and Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium, and again my mind has turned to  people with big ideas.  Music, for me, is as near as can be to a "spiritual" experience and to have the imagination and creativity to produce work of this magnitude is simply amazing.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cn7ZW8ts3Y

Both works were written in 40 parts and demonstrate an ability to hear a complexity of harmony that is extraordinary. As it happens both works are based on religious texts, which mean nothing to me, but the music is overwhelmingly beautiful.

I once heard the Tallis in an art gallery in Ottawa. A room had been transformed into a chapel and an "Artist" had arranged 40 loudspeakers on stands around the room. Each part had been recorded separately and to stand in the centre of the room gave an all round experience.

Beethoven was recorded as being totally deaf by the time that he completed his Ninth Symphony and so he must have been able to hear the complete work in his head. To listen to that piece is an amazing experience anyway, but to know that the creator was deaf adds a new dimension.

Music has amazing power and its influence on emotions and to some extent behaviour is not to be underestimated. Perhaps musicians should rule the world.

Hair today gone tomorrow

Today, Oscar is booked in for his first ever hair cut.  It is getting out of hand and it even annoys him sometimes and so his parents have arranged for a potentially traumatic event.

Until I escaped home, I was sent every two weeks, to have my hair cut, and in those days it was for a short back and sides. I can still smell the barbers shop and have vivid memories of sitting for what seemed hours, waiting for my turn. Every adult customer, when shorn, was asked the same question before they left. "Anything for the weekend sir?" and now and then, discrete exchanges would take place as condoms, not drugs, were traded.

The hair once scarily shortened was plastered with brylcream or something similar, and half a crown was handed over. The outside air always felt so cold and my scalp felt like sandpaper, my ears protruding like a small pair of wings. It wasn't until teenage years that I dared to rebel and insist that the barber took less off and made some attempt to create a style.

Leaving home was liberating in so many ways and I stopped visiting hairdressers altogether.  I guess that someone must have trimmed it from time to time but I have no real recollection of that and by the time I started teaching, my hair was long and blonde. It stayed that way until it started to grey.

Now there is a lot less for a hairdresser to do and I am back to regular attendance, though not every two weeks. The half crown bill has multiplied a hundred times and more and i am pretty sure that condoms are no longer available.

Big ideas

Yesterday, Oscar came round as he often does, and being a creature of habit, headed straight for the toy box and the bag of bricks that I made for him.  That and the plastic digger are his favourites and only the temptations of Toy Story and "Buzz Light tits" can distract him from this.  He usually drags me down to floor level and says something like - "Granddad build a house." or it may be a wall or a boat or a space rocket, and I can usually comply or bluff. This is usually followed by him demolishing whatever I am building, with the digger, and then we start all over again. Yesterday he floored me by asking me to build a planet.  I know that he imagines that Granddad can do anything, but I had to admit defeat on that one.

It got me to think about big ideas, and the ability of some to think, not just outside of the box but also outside of their own experiences, and just how does this come about?  Do we all have that innate talent? Is it beaten out of us from an early age by being told what we cannot do? I know that my parents had that tendency and maybe their parents before them were made constantly aware of their own limitations and those placed upon them by society and circumstances.

I look at major constructions with a sense of awe. To see something as mundane as a motorway junction from the air is an inspiration. Someone imagined it and made it happen. Skyscrapers mushroom all over the world and each one is an amazing achievement of man's ingenuity and vision. We routinely fly all over the world in fragile aluminium tubes, taking for granted the genius that went into building a device that can carry hundreds of people at great heights and speed.

The history of humanity contains records of individuals who have been inspired to create on huge scales and I admire those who have had the courage to put their visions into effect. Even those architects that built religious buildings are worthy of huge respect and admiration, even though the learning process may have been costly in human life.

We owe our children a future, and only by allowing them imagination and hope, can their minds be freed to imagine. Our education system is not doing that. We force feed them with carefully selected information, like geese being prepared for Fois Gras, and blinker them with lies and dogma. We divide them on cultural and religious grounds and brand them as successes or failures on the evidence provided by inadequate and irrelevant paper exercises.

I wish that I had sufficient vision to imagine building a planet and I hope that Oscar's imagination will not be stifled before he has a chance to grow. Who knows, we may need new planets one day.

Mark

It was november in 1968 when my brother Mark was killed. I was at college and that day is forever etched into my memory.  I remember being awoken by the sub warden knocking at my door early that sunday morning, and i could tell by his face that something was not right. He told me that there was a phone call for me and that I could take it in his flat.  I dressed hastily and lumbered down the 14 flights of stairs, not waiting for the lift, wondering what could possibly have happened. I cannot recall the chain of thoughts that passed through my mind but I do remember the overwhelming sense of dread.

As I picked up the phone, my mother's voice sounded so far away; she was having difficulty in speaking and then she told me that Mark, on his motorcycle, had been in a collision with a car on his way home the previous night, and had died immediately.  I felt a numbness and told her that I'd come home as soon as possible, knowing that I had no money for tickets.  I went back to my room, locked myself in  and collapsed onto the bed. I cried that morning more than I had ever done, and when there were no more tears I put on my coat and went for a walk in the rain. I wanted to be alone, I needed time to sort out my head and the rain seemed to help.  By the time I got back to my room, I was soaked to the skin and cried out.  Only late in the day did word get out and my friend Dave rescued me from my despair.

I have never felt so desolate as I did that day, and dismal november days like today remind me of it. Mark would be approaching his sixty first birthday now, had he not been out that night, or had ridden more carefully than he did. As it happened he was approaching his eighteenth birthday when he died.

I still think of him and what he might have become.

What's in a name?

This has been a good week. On monday night Matilda Georgie weighed in at eight pounds fifteen ounces in old money.  She is a lovely little thing and both mother and baby are doing well. It feels good to have both a grandson and a granddaughter and I am so happy for all of the family.

My great grandmother was Annie Matilda, though I suspect that had no influence on the choice of the name; in fact looking back through the family tree, it would seem that there was another Matilda in the dim and distant past.

Matilda Georgie does have a link with her brother whose name is Oscar Bailey. Their mother is a fan of the movie - It's a Wonderful Life - and the lead character - George Bailey.  We will be watching it again this festive season as we always do, but this time with a real sense of completion.

Welcome to the world Matilda - I hope that it improves as you grow older.

Strange Rash

I feel rather fed up at the moment. For years now I have had a recurring problem, an inexplicable complaint that has been described by the medical profession as ideopathic. That mean that they have no clue as to what is the cause and therefore can offer no treatment.  It is spasmodic and I can go up to  year without any occurence, but now it is back.  It starts, almost always, as a small red patch in the centre of my left palm. It itches like crazy and then rapidly spreads to both hands and often the back of my scalp. In really bad outbreaks my body gets covered in hives and nothing I can do makes any difference. I have tried quadruple doses of powerful antihistimines and they just seem to make it worse, so I just have to ride it out, hoping that it will recede soon. I also feel unwell in a way that is so hard to put into words. The itching palms is awful and keeps me awake at night, but the worst thing is when it spreads to my feet. Thankfully they are pretty well itch free right now, but I dread that coming back.  The itching is strange and subcutaneous and always gets worse at night. Last night I was up every hour, more or less on the hour, running my hands under the cold tap, and as a result I am also sleep deprived.
I have had allergy tests and they prove negative, and I can see no external event that could act as a trigger. So anyway I feel pretty crabby

Police Commissioners? Why?

Yesterday, after much deliberation, I decided to vote in the elections for local police commissioner. Not, I hasten to say, because i knew anything about the candidates, or even about the role that they will have, but because this whole scheme has been formulated by the likes of Teresa May.  I happen to live in the bowels of Tory land and I am sure that their candidate will have gained the most votes, even if it happens to be a goat with a blue tie round its neck.

Here the polling station saw a steady trickle of people exercising their right to put a cross, or two, on a scrap of paper, an expensive exercise indeed as the tax payer will be footing the bill. Today all those bits of paper will be sorted and the successful candidate given the extensive powers that HMG have seen fit to bestow upon them. This includes the powers to control budgets and to hire and fire Chief Police Officers.

I feel that the running of the police force should not become a political animal, we endured Thatcher's private army in the days of the Miner's strike and that did the police no good at all. I was brought up to respect the police force and I still do, but should it become officially a political weapon, then I think that  I and many other law abiding people will lose that respect. This is, like many governmental schemes, ill considered, and the real losers will be the police themselves.

Wild things

While awaiting the arrival of number two, I am loving spending time with grandchild number one. Walking in the "forest" is a particular pleasure. We talk about nothing and everything, while he collects sticks, kicks through the leaves and looks out for squirrels. He elects to walk rather than ride these days and only gets back into the push chair when his legs get tired. I try to tell him the names of things and he tries to memorise them, maybe one day he will be able to pass something on to another generation.

There was a time when I knew the names of most of the wildlife that I came in contact with. It was deemed important when I was a kid, to be able to identify things in case you were tempted to eat anything that was toxic.  In a time when food was scarce, being able to find free food was a great bonus, and I am sure that I could have survived in the wild had I needed to. There is a plethora of food out there and it is only because people are so well fed today that the knowledge is dwindling.

It would be nice to think that Oscar can look and see an oak or a sycamore, rather than just a tree, and to know that stinging nettles hurt and that dock leaves can give a little relief from that pain. He should know that hemlock is poisonous and that toadstools with white gills probably are too. However the most important knowledge is learned from necessity and I hope that he will never need to look for food in the wilds.

In the meantime, we have fun and at his age that is probably the most important thing. I am so happy to share that with him while I can.

Grandchild number two

Tiger, as the unborn and unknown is affectionately described by its sibling, is late. It was due over a week ago and is stubbornly hanging on, probably far too comfortable where it is, or maybe not yet prepared to emerge into the world that we have all made for it.

Tiger will be born into a world that bears little resemblance to the one that I grew up in; so much better in some ways and yet so much worse in others and it seems to be getting worse. Individual freedoms seem to be at the root of many of our problems.  Human rights legislation has, over the years, led to the improvement of conditions for so many people and yet for many, the practicalities of human rights remain intangible.  In reality we are only free to do what other people allow us to do.

Abu Qatada has been released from prison, where he has been awaiting deportation to his home country to face criminal charges.  The international court of human rights has decided that should he be sent back to Jordan, that he cannot be fairly tried, and so deportation is not possible.  His rights have been placed firmly in the driving seat and the rights of others, whose lives he has damaged, and the harm that he has the potential to do is disregarded.  He is now free to go on inciting his followers into acts of racial hatred and possibly terrorism unless he can be re-arrested and tried in this country. Even his location is kept secret and no doubt he will be asking for a change in identity, a handout of state benefits and possibly compensation for time served in prison.  He comes from a culture where human rights are limited to those who wield the power and they tend to be men. It is a society in which there is little freedom of expression, no freedom of religion and where so called "Honour Killings" are acceptable.  It is a culture that condones genital mutilation and the suppression of free thinking, and it is this culture that he and his like, are wanting to instil into this country. It is a culture that is steeped in hypocrisy, inequality and violence, that sees the west as the enemy.

I was brought up to believe that freedom comes with responsibility. When we earn the right to drive, we are expected to drive carefully and within the laws of the road.  The same principle holds for any of our so called freedoms.  Qatada will not be bound by western cultural mores and yet he will enjoy the same luxuries that others here enjoy.  Perhaps it is time that the human rights laws were re-examined.

I have no concept of the world that Tiger will grow up in. I hope that it is one where there will be more tolerance and understanding than there is now, one in which freedoms have to be earned, and one in which religious bigotry plays no part.

The little things

I went to the cinema the other night.  What a different experience it is these days. Book and pay for tickets online, choose your seat and know that there will be no scramble for space when you arrive.
It was the latest Bond Film - Skyfall, and of course therefore unmissable.
Tickets nowadays cost an arm and leg and the prices of consumables is unbelievable. Gone are the days of the bored usherettes braving the crowds at intervals, in fact by and large, gone are the intervals. Nowadays it is hot seating, with a cursory cleaning of the aisles between showings.

The show began at 5.45pm and being sticklers for good timekeeping, we took our seats at 5.35. Clearly this is not the done thing as the place was more or less empty and yet when booking, available tickets were few and far between.  For the next 25 minutes, people drifted in, armed with soft drinks and mountains of popcorn and were still doing so as the main feature began. Whatever you go to see these days, there is always someone who is late, and the same someone or someones are always those whose seats are the least accessible, and they in turn are the ones most likely to make a noise as they take their time to settle down.  On this occasion the last to come in were of course at the far end of our row. I was reminded of why I am becoming less and less fond of the majority of fellow people. So many of the values that were instilled into my generation seem to have gone by the board. It isn't just punctuality, it is also consideration for others that seems so unimportant to many.  The last concert I attended at the O2 was partly ruined by people in the same row, wandering from seat to bar and back again and then from seat to the toilet and so on.  Basic manners seem to have gone by the board, and any criticism of bad behaviour is likely to raise a violent or abusive response and so by and large we are all allowing the tail to wag the dog. We are becoming less and less civilised and this is obvious in all aspects of our lives. There is less and less respect for any sort of authority; pretty soon the job of referee in football will become untenable, the police force seems under fire from all sides and teachers have had all authority taken away from them over the years. It is not hard to  imagine the possibility of an anarchistic future.

The film was enjoyable as Bond films tend to be, and the premises both clean and comfortable, though on balance, I can see why more and more people are more likely to watch films in the comfort of their own homes and away from the population in general.

Days and days

I have been trying to find out what day it is today.  Oh I know that it is tuesday because my computer tells me so, but what "Day"is it? Every day seems to have been allocated a label other than its date. We have, of course, national holidays and days of religious celebrations that date back to when the lunacy began, but there are so many more now than there were a few years go. Mother's day stemmed from Mothering sunday was traditionally an event that allowed the servants one day off to visit their mothers.  Then along came father's day, grandfather's day, grandmother's day and so on. Given enough time we'll have third cousin's day, unless of course the card manufacturer's have already planned that one.

On this day in 1925 the first TV images were transmitted by John Logie Baird, so maybe we could declare this National TV day and we could all celebrate by watching TV all day long. But wait, a large clump of the population does that anyhow and there is little to be gained financially by having everyone on their couches for longer than usual.

Declaring a day special does not make it so. National no smoking day, I would assert makes no difference. Those who smoke will continue so to do, and those that don't will not even give it a moment's thought.

Tomorrow is Halloween, or all Hallow's Eve. A religious celebration based upon the belief that on this night the souls of the dead return to visit. Like most of this mumbo jumbo, the date has shifted from time to time at the whim of Rome. Although this day originated in Europe, it travelled with the settlers to America, and like everything else that they lay hands on, it turned into a money making scheme and like all American absurdities, it travelled back over the pond and now we have yet another period when cheap plastic garbage from China fills the shops and children are encouraged to beg from door to door, fuelling the greed and consumerism that our system relies upon.   For many people, tomorrow night will be a misery as hoards of people in ridiculous costumes roam the streets knocking on doors; and no, I am not talking about the police.

Religion and other crimes

It has been a while since the last rant; I seem to have been bathing in the ever enlarging sea of apathy, along with most of the rest of the world. Sometimes it is easier to drift along with the tide.  People often ask atheists why they care so much about religion and why they cannot just ignore it and get on with things.  It is easy to bury one's head in the sand, and so, though there is nothing that I can actually do, I feel the need to express my horror and disgust at what happens in the name of religion.

This week, a fourteen year old girl was shot in the head by members of a pernicious group of muslims. Her crime was to want to go to school and to support the rights of girls and women to have an education.  If there has been a public outcry, then it has not been well reported.  Such crimes take place on a daily basis is some countries and are considered acceptable because they are perpetrated in the name of  a god.  These people are so deeply indoctrinated from birth that everything they do is determined by the vile doctrines that control them. Education is the biggest enemy that religion has, and it is no wonder that governments are so glad to support religions, whatever brand of nonsense they subscribe to.

This week there was a documentary on TV about a group of fundamental creationists, who were taken on a road trip and confronted with evidence for the process of evolution.  It was a scary program in that five, reasonably intelligent adults, when confronted with hard facts that contradicted their faith, were unmoved. For them, Noah's ark was real, dinosaurs and men cohabited, the world was created a few thousand years ago and that humans were created, from.......what?  For them, Adam and Eve were the first people, they had two sons, Cain and Abel, one of whom killed the other. So where did the rest of the people come from. The bible doesn't give any help there so that was brushed aside.  To many people the bible or the Qran is the absolute truth and everything written in it is fact.  Having seen these five, and realising that they represent a huge and growing number of people throughout the world, it is terrifying to think of so many who have abandoned their powers of reason. Such minds can be so easily led by the charismatic and manipulative church leaders, many of which have ulterior motives.

Only recently we learned of the death of the leader of the Moonies, who most people would describe as a lunatic sect.  To the members of that following, the self proclaimed representative of god, was just that and they were quite happy to follow his every word and to fill up his bank accounts. He died a very rich man, and I am sure that there will be others stepping in and collecting the contributions from those whose minds have been damaged.

I can see little difference between these so called extreme groups, and the rank and file followers of any denomination. 

My family however dysfunctional

Recently, I was given the task of editing and reformatting a family history that someone had put together in Word and frankly looked a mess.  This  encouraged me to dig out a box of old family photos of my own and to begin to make some sense out of the jumble of images that go back as far as 1914. Nearly a century of snatched instants of time and I realised that most of it is and will remain a mystery to me. There are people that are my ancestors that I cannot even identify, and so putting the story together and the pieces in the jigsaw will be a major undertaking.  I have decided to have a go at it, if only so that future generations may have a clearer picture of where they have come from; maybe then they will have a better sense of where they are going

I know that I have done some of the groundwork in this blog - it originally set out to become a record of my own experiences, but I was unable to maintain focus and it has become a vehicle for ranting and venting, knowing that my audience is small and distant.

Family histories seem to be in vogue these days. With the internet, searches for information have been made simpler and access to a whole range of information technology makes presenting findings and ideas so much easier than ever before. Perhaps people are beginning to realise, like myself, that they have become detached from their families. Previous generations had extended families that rarely travelled and so all lived in the locality and were aware of each other's existence. I do remember as a child having a large number of aunts, uncles and cousins that we actually met  on a regular basis and everyone knew everyone else's business.  It has been said that the biggest contributor to outbreeding was the invention of the bicycle.  Then of course, and I am talking of the 1950s and 60s, the frequency of cars and other means of transport began it's steady increase and so escaping from one's locality became a simpler process.  The expansion of the education service gave people greater opportunities and  families began to spread out. MIne certainly did, though there is still a nucleus that never left the area.

I find it sad really, that  I know so little of my parents past. Both were very cagey about talking of their family histories and only recently am I finding out some of the reasons why.  I always knew that my mother was very young when I was born.  She was in fact sixteen and a half.  It doesn't require a lot of maths to work out her age at my conception.  It would appear that my father and she ran away together and the fact that she was underage meant that he risked a prison sentence had they been caught. It seems that the family closed ranks and he was protected.  No doubt I was on the way when they were taken into the custody of my grandmother.

I will keep digging. There are relatives that are still compos mentis and are a source of memories that I have never before had interest in or access to.  I still want to know why my mother and her twin were given away as very young children and what effect that had on them both.  I want to know about what went on in my family in the six years that I was in hospital and what difference it made when I came home. I guess there will always be unanswered questions and perhaps in some ways that is a good thing.

I have relocated to Skyrim.

I like computer games. There I have made my first confession of the day and no-one is there to absolve me.
My current obsession is a game called Skyrim. I  read about it in a sunday paper and thought that it looked rather intriguing and spectacular. I bought it and was not disappointed. Unlike many first person shooter games, there is no shooting but a lot of barbaric sword play, or in my case bludgeoning opponents with a two handed war axe. It lacks subtlety but is more effective for one with diminished reaction times. Also unlike many games, it is not linear. There is no preset pathway to follow and the world of Skyrim is huge and worthy of exploration. There are quests, and these can be taken on in any order and ever intertwined.  The whole landscape is beautifully rendered and explorable, with seasons and day and night, and there is a vast plethora of beings with which to interact. It is a game with no clear ending and I can imagine that it would be possible to ramble aimlessly (metaphorically speaking) forever.
I'd had a long session the other day; well it was raining and besides I have so much time on my hands; I happened to have been scrapping with a couple of dragons, as you do, and looked out of the window. A Crow flew past and for a nanosecond, I thought it was another dragon.  You see - these games ar absorbing and somewhat dangerous when reality starts to blend with virtuality, but who am I to worry about such things.
Computer games are so very forgiving. I have been killed so many times in Skyrim, only to be given yet another chance and not even having to start again from scratch.
Sometimes I'd like to be a Catholic: do whatever you like and then confess and be absolved. It's rather like a computer game in some respects. You play, you sin, and then you own up and get a press of the restart button.  What is more they believe that when you die, you get an extra life.

Hope I die before I get old.

Don't smoke or drink! Eat a healthy diet! get regular exercise and you will live longer. But why?  I spent  yesterday visiting an old folks home; one of the better ones as it happens, a beautiful building in a lovely location with huge accessible gardens and a high staff to resident ratio. The carers seemed to actually care and the place was spotlessly clean, brightly lit and so very quiet.
However they are presented, these institutions are waiting rooms and the sad spectres that sit around in corners, or are wheeled from place to place without blinking, exist from day to day in their own worlds if they are lucky, or in some terrible nightmare if they are not.
Talk to most people and they would rather be put down than consigned to such a place, and yet the number of homes is increasing all of the time. They are big business and each person brings in around seven hundred pounds a week. For that they get a room, they get 24 hour care and they get fed and kept warm if not happy.
When our pets get old and unable to live independently, we do the kind thing and kill them. People say - put them to sleep, but of course that is just a euphemism. People die, they do not pass on or go to meet their maker, they die and the atoms that make them are recycled.  Death is sentimentalised, largely because we are incapable of imagining not existing. It is hard enough to imagine the world before we were born, let alone the world after we are no longer in it, and so primitive man envisaged some other place, a better place that we all go to after we die. This gives comfort to many and fair enough if that is what they need. For some, they believe that if they die a glorious death, usually involving some insane act of suicide, there will be many virgins waiting to satisfy their every need. I wonder what incentive there is for female suicide bombers.
Everyone dies, it is just a matter of when and how?  I do not fear death, though I am not so keen on the process of dying, especially if it means sitting around in a sterile room, gazing vacantly at ancient decrepit bodies, incapable of wiping my own bottom.
Life is rather like an escalator, and I am of an age when the top is coming into view and I see others toppling off. There is no emergency stop and no possibility of running back down. A healthy lifestyle is well and good but it just means that more time can be spent on the last few steps, and that those years gained may not be all that one hoped for.

Les vacances

I just got back from a short holiday in France. It is a lovely country, and although we didn't go far, there was plenty to enjoy. The Emerald coast has wonderful beaches with reassuring views of the white cliffs of Dover peering from the mist.
I am not a huge fan of holidays. Let me rephrase that; I am on permanent holiday of course, but often cannot see the point in spending a great deal of money to be somewhere else that is often less comfortable than being at home, whilst doing things not much different to what I would normally be doing at home.  Ok there is scenery, I'll grant that, but even scenery can become samey after a while and even that can be marred by the weather. Then there is the food. Yes the food can be wonderful but eating out at more than fifty pounds a time can quickly drain a bank account and disturb delicately balanced digestive systems. For the cost of one meal I could easily eat for a fortnight at home.
Yes it is nice to experience a different culture (up to a point), and would be so much more satisfying if I had paid any attention to French lessons at school, but in any foreign country, I feel myself surrounded by people that make even less sense than people at home.
Museums, galleries and religious buildings and monuments are legion of course and wonderful if you like that sort of thing. To me all churches look and smell the same. Grim reminders of the suppression of ignorant peasants who funded the buildings while probably starving and being fed fairy stories.
There is always a town or city just down the road, and when you get there, it turns out to be rather like the last city or town that you visited, but we always hope that there will be something exciting or different.
Shopping is the same wherever you go. Supermarkets are supermarkets all built to a fundamental model that encourages people to buy things that they don't want or need, and these days, thanks to the Eurozone, even prices are much the same.
Anyhow, I did enjoy the week, much of which was spent walking on endless beaches and very little spent zooming from town to town. The kids were back at school and the holiday season coming to an end and so nowhere was busy and that suits me well. The Gite was tiny and cosy but the owners were friendly and generous and I still love France even if, for me, a highlight of any holiday is coming home.

Lies, damned lies and ..............

It is an alarming statistic based on current trends and demographics, that by the year 2025, One third of the world population will be Muslim. It is said that the goal of Islam is world domination and the overthrow of the west and the evils of democracy and it would appear that the battle is being won. Simply by breeding rapidly and crushing anyone who disagrees, the toxic dogma and its fanatical purveyors are biding their time and awaiting the inevitable outcome. Sharia Law for the world and a return to the dark ages.
It is easy to see how and why religious wars begin and why some groups have been and are persecuted.   I would do more or less anything to resist being absorbed into an Islamic world.  Unlike other religions, Islam has no tolerance for the unbelievers. Their book is filled with hatred and violence towards those who choose to think for themselves and should any muslim dare to leave the "faith" there is only death and disgrace. It is a club, into which infants are admitted, indoctrinated and then imprisoned for the rest of their lives, much like other mainstream religions.
People who fear the overwhelming growth of what is a fundamentalist religion, are branded Islamophobes and racists.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with race; it is about a middle eastern, mediaeval doctrine that has no relevance to those who believe in freedom and democracy. Most people don't seem to care; maybe because we are apathetic and only concerned about our own little worlds and have forgotten about the monsters under the bed.  Islam is a monster and it thrives on fear and ignorance. It is growing rapidly and perhaps it is too late to stop it.

Sniff

It has not been a good month. First pneumonia, then a bad back and now a rotten cold. I know I shouldn't complain but if I can't moan to myself then who else can I moan to?
It seems that moaning is the thing to do anyhow; people seem to moan and complain about everything and are always wanting to blame someone for whatever happens in their own little world. Social media sites are infested with moaners, and I know that I don't HAVE to use Facebook and Twitter, but each has a strange compulsion.  Facebook is a way of keeping up to date with distant friends and family, but I find it fascinating what people air in public.  Much of what is posted is inane drivel that can be of no interest to anyone but the person who wrote it. I am not interested in people's dogs and their ailments or who has a hangover this morning and why?  People post so many so called motivational messages, and incredibly bad photographs. How hard is it to delete shots that are out of focus, and why post 500 pics of your day trip to Bognor?  People seem to befriend and "unfriend" one another with amazing frequency, while others make a hobby of collecting as many contacts as possible.  It would seem that some people spend most of their waking moments generating posts and responding to those of others. Those accused of crimes are often villified on facebook, generally before they have been tried and convicted, and there is no doubt that many people's lives are blighted by poisonous facebook campaigns.
Anyhow, I do post the odd rant on facebook and usually get my share of complaints as a result, so generally I keep my rants to myself or for the edification of anyone who should read what I write here.
I suspect that now that the country has forgotten the olympics, there will soon be plenty for me to complain about.

It is over

The games have finished and the fat lady sang at one of the most lavish parties that this nation is likely ever to see.  It was a spectacle indeed and it would seem that no expense was spared in the attempt to celebrate the best of Britain.  I watched much of the olympics and have to say that the BBC did an amazing job at making most of the sport available to everyone. Coverage was wide and commentaries well done and with some measure of impartiality. I also sat through the opening and closing ceremonies, both of which were a mixture of the very good and the blandly awful.

Last night saw the closing ceremony which got off to a bad start and never really recovered.  It was a celebration of 50 years of british music but it was not necessarily a celebration of what was good. It was a celebration of what is popular and there is a big difference. It would seem that what is most popular has style and yet no substance, as demonstrated by a gaggle of models and the strange appearance of the synthetic Spice Girls that must have reeked of botox.  Another highlight seemed to consist of a guy that plays other people's records, who was accompanied by an attractive stick insect and someone else chanting gibberish in a monotone.  Yes ok I admit it I am getting old and I have no understanding of herd mentality, but even the old Kink was dreadful and only the drummer from Pink Floyd showed up, and he looked as if he had been dragged away from his Horlicks.

In my humble (ish) opinion, the people representing our musical heritage were outclassed and upstaged by the electronics, the lightshows and the slick organisation that kept the whole thing moving.

It is true that our musical heritage is rich and varied. For the latter half of the 20th century, the best bands in the world were British and the musical influence was wide ranging and powerful. Bands came and went and some, a few, stayed. The quantity and quality of music today seems much less varied. The emphasis is on short termism, boy bands and girl bands dominate, singing dull songs with electronic accompaniment. Then there is the Rap, Hip Hop genre. I am sure that it requires some sort of talent to talk in rythm but give me punk anyday. At least the punk bands never claimed to be any good.

So today it is back to normal and the country can reawaken the awareness of the mess that we are in. The condems can go back pretending that all will be ok and George Osborne will continue to drive the economy like a two year old in a pedal car. Cameron and Clegg will pretend that they like each other and will be looking for another way to distract everyone from reality. Isn't it time that the Royals produced another mouth for the country to feed?

Role models

Oscar is changing rapidly. He is absorbing information like a black hole, and like a black hole,  there is so selectivity in what he absorbs.  Every word, or expression is taken on board, processed and often repeated.

Oscar is fortunate to be born into a loving and caring family, with parents who put his interests before their own.  They are already considering options for his schooling and have his name down for a private primary school.

I have mixed feelings about this but can understand their reasoning. I spent my working life in Comprehensive schools, coming into the system at its inception. I went to a grammar school and at the time did not appreciate what it had to offer, so for me, the new system appealed and for many years in my experience it was successful. There was opportunity for all and with the original introduction of GCSE there were clear goalposts for everyone to aim for.  Of course, even through the rose tinted spectacles of time, things were never perfect. There were kids with problems and behavioural issues were part and parcel of the system. Some kids were dealt with in special schools with staff trained to help them, and some were able to be assimilated into the mainstream in time. Then came Inclusivity; a means of saving money as specialist schools could be closed and kids with problems, some very severe problems, could be incorporated into the main stream regardless of the ability of teachers to deal with them. As time went by the numbers of these kids increased and their influence became far reaching and destructive. Instead of dealing with the problem, falling standards were met with curriculum changes that made examinations much easier, meaning that kids could get away with doing less and still the pass rates in public exams increased. This smoke screen fooled no-one really but politicians love statistics. Lies are the currency of the politicians and education became a football that distracts from other issues. Poor exam results could be blamed on teachers. Bad behaviour could be blamed on teachers.  Integration and larger class sizes were not the problem; teachers were the problem and so OFSTED was born on the political whims of a government that all sent their kids to private schools.  Ofsted is a stick that is used to beat the teaching profession into submission and it worked. Teachers became machine operatives, working to formulae, delivering tedious National Curriculum pap in a style that meant boxes could be ticked, forms could be filled and men in grey suits could write lengthy reports on schools that few read and less cared about. 

By placing a child into a comprehensive school, there is a risk that that child may not receive the education that is most appropriate to their needs.  The system deals well with the less able,  and to some extent the very bright will survive whatever they are treated to, but the mass in the middle are forgotten, their lives often made a misery by behaviourally maladjusted fellow students who run rings around authority and can do so with impugnity.  To be in a class with  a few delinquents is appalling for many students and yet it is their everyday experience with teachers powerless to do anything about it.  To weaker kids, these become role models and it is so easy to be sucked in to their behaviour. Not to join in is often a cause of bullying. Even strong willed kids have to be very brave to avoid the pressures of their peers.

I believe that is is one’s peers that are most likely to influence the direction in which a person is likely to travel. Yes role models have some clout but the media seem to love celebrity for the sake of celebrity.  Reality TV programmes demonstrate the worst of the worst, talk shows seem to be a celebration of homosexuality and sport is about greed and  winning at all costs rather than about competition.  So called talent shows are used to mock the incompetent and elevate a lucky few to the heights of celebrity for a few months before being dumped by the phoney system that has used them for profit.

The Olympics are being vaunted as an inspiration to a generation, but even these wonderful games are blighted by cheating and suspicion of drug abuse.  Our best athletes seem to come from families that have nurtured them and their abilities, and most seem to have been educated privately. 

There will be a temporary interest in sports thanks to the likes of Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Ennis, both of whom seem like contenders for sports personality of the year, but the likelihood is that Mr Gove and his cronies will continue to sell off school playing fields and public amenities, and so the aspirations of the majority of kids will be doused before they have chance to be realised.

We are a divided nation and as long as our kids aspire towards being Jordan, Girl or boy band singers, or premiership footballers, we are doomed as a nation. The media needs to present role models of some worth and make achievement cool. Our current youth culture, dominated by an Afro American attitude will change eventually but unless there is a radical change in the media and in the state school system, then a change for the better seems unlikely.

Hold up the team that successfully put a spacecraft and vehicle onto Mars, or the people who built the Olympic Stadium and executed the opening ceremony. Celebrate the discovery of the Higgs Boson or the designers of the things that we all take for granted. These are the role models that I’d like Oscar to look up to. Sadly, I suspect that he would not find them in a state school.

Kitchens

For the next two weeks we will be without a kitchen. The room is still there of course but it is an empty shell. The  fitters are working hard but everything has to be replaced, including the plastering of the walls.
When I was a child, things were very different, the kitchen was the heart of the house; it was often the only room that was warm and certainly the only one with  a table and chairs.  It was the room where we sat and played when it rained or when it was dark or too cold to be outdoors, and it was a very simple room indeed. In terms of equipment there was an electric cooker, a cold water tap and one electrical socket into which was plugged an electric kettle. There was one cupboard with crockery and pots and pans, and one drawer with cutlery.  It was a very small room too and yet five of us regularly sat and ate together and sometimes we'd even talk, although it was more a case of four of us listening and never daring to disagree with the fifth. It is more than forty years since I last sat there and yet my memories of those times are indelibly etched into my mind. I can remember the colour of the walls, the Marley red tiles on the floor, the door to the outside yard that always stuck, and the rows and fights that took place there. I am desperately seeking happy memories but can find none. Most of what I recall about those days are neutral at best - days when there were no raised voices. Days sitting, waiting for the weather to improve so that I could escape. The best times I suppose were when my father was at work; at least then, stress levels were low, though the anticipation of his return rarely filled me with anything but dread.
Meals  were very different then. Food was still in short supply and incomes were very poor. We did get fed though and there was always one cooked meal a day, usually meat, potatoes and a vegetable of some sort. The only variety though came from seasonal produce. There was no local supermarket, just a local grocer and butcher. The week's groceries were delivered in one cardboard box that often smelled of soap powder.
There was no refrigerator, no freezer, no washing machine or dish washer. there were no blenders, mixers, breadmakers, woks or coffee machines. Things were very simple, though I would not describe them as the good old days.
I won't complain about the noise of power tools as pipework and wiring are replaced, vast numbers of electrical sockets are installed, and gas pipes relocated and water supplies cut off then re-installed. The new kitchen will be worlds apart from the one that I grew up in; it will not be the hub of the house, there will be no table to sit around,  it will be a place to create meals largely from foods that we, as children, didn't know existed. 

Let's hear it for Wetherspoons

The Wetherspoon chain of pubs is much derided. I know people that wouldn't be seen dead anywhere near one of their outlets, on the grounds that they are filled with layabouts and alcoholics. I am sure that there are many layabouts and alcoholics that frequent them but who can blame them when the prices are so much lower than anywhere else.  I have heard it said that they have a bad atmosphere and no music. Well,  no music these days has to be a good thing. What passes for music in so many establishments has become a throbbing cacophany of Afro Carribean nonsense, the nasal whinings of the latest pop chick or the bleatings of pre-pubescent boy bands.  As for atmosphere, Wetherspoons take over old places and bring them back to life. I recently visited Whitstable and there, an old cinema has become a Wetherspoons pub called The Peter Cushing. It is a lovely art deco building and the interior is lovely. In Tunbridge Wells, they took over the old Opera House and have restored it to some of its former glory. It is a beautiful place and the quality of service, the value for money food and the cost of drinks make it, and so many like it, a worthwhile venue for breakfast, lunch or evening meal.   Yes breakfast at Wetherspoons can be had for less than four pounds. If you haven't had a full English breakfast in a pub atmosphere, then you are missing a treat.
Even the inner city Wetherspoons have their charm, and yes I am sure that many livers are damaged much more cheaply and effectively there than most places, but hey - we all make our choices and some of us cannot afford to be snobbish. 

A long weekend

"People are bloody ignorant apes."  I think is was Estragon who said it in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

 Millions of people descended upon the capital this weekend in order to catch a glimpse of the Queen and her ever growing family. People stood in the pouring rain for hours waving their flags and worshiping from afar, perhaps catching a glimpse of expensive clothes or even more expensive security that surrounds the entourage.

The 60th anniversary of her Coronation has been hyped by the press for many months. The publicity machine that is the establishment, has done its job and millions have been sucked into the massive diversion that has cost the public purse a vast amount of money at a time when it can least afford it.

The public is very easily mobilised and manipulated even in these cynical times, and for some reason, a significant proportion seem to think that the Monarchy is significant in their lives.  Yes there are trusts set up in the names of various royals, but their actual input into those organisations are about as significant as HRH's contribution to Gordon's Gin or whatever commodity bears her coat of arms.

I have heard so many people say this weekend, how proud they are to be British?  Why? Why this weekend?  Why not when we lose at football? Why not when our wonderful Sun Readers run riot in the streets or smash up bars on the costa del whatever?  We have Her Majesties Government that sees the poor as inconvenient and an economy in tatters, none of which has anything to do with the Crown. The Crown does not interfere, the Crown does not influence, it just is, and costs the country a small fortune to maintain.

People say that the Royals bring in tourists and help the economy. How then do cities like Paris, Rome, New York and all the others manage? Would they benefit from having monarchs?  If so then we could rent ours out for months at a time and perhaps then they would become affordable.

Hard to believe that he is just 2 years old

T Rex

Oscar had his first trip to London the other day. When I say first, I mean as a cognisant person; baby trips don't count. The outing got off to a bad start, I carried him onto the train and accidentally bashed his head into a luggage rack that I just hadn't seen. So even before the train had departed, we entertained fellow travellers to an Oscar at near full volume. No real harm was done however and the rest of the journey turned out to be trouble free and we arrived in the big city armed with everything that he needs.
The primary object of the day was to visit the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. Being exam season, I had hoped that it would be quiet. Of course i had forgotten that there are such things as Primary schools, and also forgotten just how loud a group of kids can be, especially in the confines of the long walkway from the tube station to the Museums.  It was a reminder, that if there is a hell then we are already there. I am sure that primary kids en masse would make a wonderful weapon.
We accelerated past the long multi coloured noise machine and made a break for the museum, knowing that they would catch us up sooner or later, but even a few moments respite was so welcome.
Oscar loved the dinosaurs, skeleton after skeleton, bone after bone, he was in his element for at least five minutes. Then we turned a corner and cane face to mouth with a life sized animatronic T Rex. Now Oscar loves his T Rex models and knows the name very well, but he was not prepared for meeting one in a darkened room.  I have never seen him scared before but now I have. His whole body tensed and he climbed up and around me like a squirrel up a tree. He shook and trembled and steered me away from the thing and we found ourselves ploughing against the noisy tide. Once away from sight, he calmed down and so grasping him tightly I more or less ran through the gallery, past Tyrannosaurus and out of the display and into the gift shop.
All seemed forgotten and he was told that he could have one more dinosaur to take home. So he chose six and was negotiated down to  a Parasaur and a Triceratops at ten pounds a head. He settled for that and so we left the museum all smiles.  Hyde Park was a short walk away and from there a tube to Trafalgar square where he chased the few remaining pigeons for a good half hour while the adults flopped and rested.
The train home was busier than the one in and we shared a seat with a serious looking woman conducting her business on her smartphone. Oscar sat and looked at her in his usual charming way and soon had her entertained with his dinosaurs.  She maintained a straight face as he babbled on and eventually asked him what dinosaurs ate.  He pondered a moment and then told her that they ate bouncy castles. At this point all hope of her getting anything worthwhile done, evaporated and she fell under his spell as people tend to.

It was a lovely day and I think he enjoyed himself. He certainly enjoys his dinosaurs which are rapidly dominating his house. Better that than his other obsessions, lawnmowers and diggers.

Photoshop

What a wonderful tool Photoshop is.  Its ubiquity is demonstrated by the fact that, like Google, it has become a verb in common parlance. I photoshop frequently is a statement that would have made no sense not so many years ago and yet today, most people would know what I mean. I am a rare person in that I have a legitimate and paid for copy of the Adobe Creative Suite. It runs on my machine because of an inbuilt translator that was standard in the Mac OS a few years ago. However the latest upgrade to the system software no longer includes this software and should I choose to upgrade I will have to repurchase Photoshop and the rest of the brilliant software that I use most frequently. The full cost of that runs into four figures and I don't think that I can justify the expense. So I am stuck; I cannot upgrade my operating system without incurring huge losses and looking into the future, it is almost certain that I will be disadvantaged and left behind as software will move further and further away from what I have now. In the meantime I will continue to use my old outdated versions and hope for the best.

One swallow

Well the may is out, but I am not ready to cast a clout.  Old country sayings are often misunderstood, and Ne'er cast a clout 'til May is out,  probably the most misinterpreted. May refers not to the month but to the blossom of the hawthorn tree which usually emerges in that month. May blossom is one of the most beautiful and though relatively short lived, it brightens the hedgerows and gives a promise of summer to come. The smell is sweet and pungent and perhaps not to everyone's taste  but I love it when the sun shines and that smell oozes through the country lanes.
I saw the first swallow this morning;  Just the one; it was swooping around the old pub that is being demolished just over the road. It was probably looking for last year's nesting site and saw no point in hanging around. Maybe it is coincidental that at last the sun has emerged momentarily, that signs of summer are beginning to appear.
As a boy I loved the spring, and still do. I remember woods carpeted with bluebells, or primroses, madly reproducing and growing before the canopies of the trees shaded them out. Meadows full of cowslips and buttercups and of course the migratory birds including the cuckoo. Nowadays it is rare to hear the cuckoo and it's numbers are depleted probably due to lack of suitable habitats for it's hosts to nest in, or maybe the host birds are getting better at hiding. Either way the cuckoo may be on its way to extinction.  Those familiar with its song will probably miss it but for many, it will pass like so many species have before, unnoticed.  Extinction is a fact of life, and any species that fails to adapt to change is doomed.
I am enjoying  this spring in a new habitat. I have left the coast and am revelling in a fertile and species rich location. I grew up by a river and there is a smaller but similar stream just along the road and my walks take me back, re-introducing wildlife that I had almost forgotten. I am told that there are kingfishers there and maybe one day I will get up early enough to see one.  Before that though I will wait until it is warm enough to cast that clout.

Sport

There is a very lovely woodland walk close to here. It meanders along the banks of a small river, through a mix of mature oaks and coppiced hazels. I have become fond of daily strolls along there, often with a sleeping Oscar in his push chair. The other day I stopped a while to watch a game of football between tow teams of thirty or forty somethings and was pleasantly surprised at the entertainment value of the game being played between two teams both eager to win despite the lack of financial incentives. There was a small cluster of spectators, enjoying themselves despite the inclemency of the weather, and I was reminded of the true nature of sport. There were no dives, no arguments with the referee, and no aggressiveness on the pitch.

We are unfortunately hosting the Olympic games this year. It is not just premiership football that has lost direction it seems. Sport at it's highest level has moved so far away from what most of us were brought up with, and the Olympics are nothing more than a vast money machine in which highly paid athletes meet on an international stage attempting to generate national pride for their homelands.

This year's olympics are beginning to look like a military operation, with ground to air rockets, defensive radar installations, armed police, troops on high alert and goodness knows what else being installed at great expense. I am sure that huge sums of cash will be spent on opening and closing ceremonies, in attempts to outshine previous nations attempts at impressing the watching world. Tickets for most events are already sold at very high prices and many, will almost certainly have been acquired  by various means by touts who will be selling them for even higher prices as the games get closer.  Our airports are already stretched to breaking point with huge queues at immigration, and this summer, things will get so much worse.

We are a country in dire financial straits and yet we are spending billions to provide a showcase for thousands of professional athletes to do what they are trained to do and have dedicated their lives to. There will be tens of thousands of drug tests, necessary because so many competitors have, in the past, cheated their way to success. Now the cheats are finding ways of avoiding detection in our win at any cost world.

I have no idea who won the game at the weekend. I have no idea who was playing whom, and frankly it didn't matter. I imagine that it mattered to those on the pitch, but I am sure that the manager of the losing team was not sacked nor hounded by the press because his team did not win. The only true sport takes place at an amateur level.

Targets aims and objectives

When I was a kid, just a few years ago, I worked on the land during each and every school holiday. I picked plums, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, beans, peas, and for one miserable week I pulled beetroot and filled wet hessian sacks in the rain.  I even worked on wheat harvests, hauling hundredweight sacks by hand, and spent many long summer evenings bringing in hay from the fields. In those days, no-one mentioned targets probably because they were implicit and in jobs that were piecework, self imposed. You could spend all day in an orchard and fill as few or as many boxes as you liked. You only got paid for what you did. Self imposed targets work well as they are often linked to incentives rather than threats.
I did take on jobs that had targets imposed by physical means. One summer I worked in a cannery, and spent a long time getting to know broad beans. My first job was on the machine that removed the beans from their pods. The beans arrived from the fields in sacks piled onto pallets. I emptied the sacks into the machine and my target was to empty the pallet before the next one arrived. Failure to do so meant a backlog and that encouraged the management to start paying attention. Those that picked the beans also had targets; they were paid by weight and each bag had to hold the same amount. That target was occasionally met by putting bricks into the bags along with the beans. This did wonders for the machinery and we were supposed to make sure that bricks did not get past us. That of course meant we had to work slower and so the pickers bypassing their targets meant that it was harder for us to hit ours, and when bricks got into the viners, the whole line would come to a halt while screens were repaired.
We live in a society where targets seem to have become the be all and end all. Schools have to ensure that a set percentage of students pass their exams within certain set grade boundaries. Failure is penalised by OFSTED and the media. OFSTED operates on the misguided notion that all year groups are identical. Those who have worked in education know that this is not the case - there are good years and there are bad years, and this makes it very difficult to meet targets that someone festering in an office somewhere has dreamed up and imposed on everyone.
The health service has become hide bound by government targets. It is all very well to insist that a patient must be seen within a very short time frame and would be admirable as an aim if there were sufficient staff to meet that target. As it happens the target is being met by and large but the attention that patients receive has probably deteriorated, as health workers are so busy filling in forms and hurrying queues through the doors.  Nurses are no longer carers as they once were; they too are busy,  polishing their degrees and writing reports; patients get in the way.
Imposition of targets on people who are already working hard is counterproductive, and there needs to be a rethink on public service contracts in particular. Working with people is not like working with machinery or with bank balances and it is unfair of any government to fail to take into account the fact that people are individuals and cannot be relied upon to perform in predictable ways.
Let people set their own targets and maybe performances will improve.

A tidy desk shows a tidy mind - Mine is empty

I am trying to better myself. Physically that is not going to happen I know. I will never be athletic again, if indeed I ever was but my mind could do with  a great deal of improvement. This week I vowed to enhance some of the few skills that I have and decided to learn coding.  I have some books on C and Perl and one or two other languages and chose to make an attempt at C. I read through chapter one quite happily and understood most of it. Chapter two made me realise that I need a compiler so that any code I choose to write can be made accessible to my computer. Chapter three made me realise that the book assumed that I had a PC and not a Mac. At this point, my helicopter of a brain lost interest and I moved on.
Whilst watching dinosaur movies with Oscar on Youtube, I noticed reference to a 3D animation program called Blender. This is free - a major consideration these days, and so I downloaded it and printed out a 36 page introductory tutorial. Thereby hangs a tale of woe. I sent the file to the printer and waited. The printer insisted that there was no paper and so refused to do the job. (Yes we have all been there!), so i spent a couple of hours trying to sort that problem. It turns out that the file was demanding premium paper and that goes in a different part of the printer and that was empty because I don't have any of that type. I tried converting the file into a PDF and sending that, but by this time the printer was constipated and sulking, and so i gave up and reverted to my old printer and at long last got the printout I required.  I sat down for a session, opened the program and the tutorial page one.  Of course there was very little relationship between the tutorial and reality. The screen looked totally different and I find that a numeric keypad is essential - I don't have one. Now I am spending hours looking for fixes so that I can make a start. It has since dawned on me that the tutorial that I printed out is for a PC - no wonder I can't make it work.
Maybe my mind is not meant to be improved or maybe it is just too late. Perhaps I should have listened to what my teachers said rather than go my own way and do my own thing.  Maybe I should go for the physical improvement after all. Yes that's it - this week I'll have my hair cut.

Aid?

I am bloody cold. We are having the central heating boiler replaced and it is a three day job so we have no  heat at all.  As is often the case the job has turned out to be fraught with problems and the one that they are struggling with as I shiver and type, is how to get the gas supply to the boiler. I suggested a wireless link but unfortunately for some reason that won't work. I am told that by the end of the day we should be up and running though. Hmmmmm we'll see on that one. In the meantime my core temperature is dropping and I am not a happy chappie.
It does make me wonder why some people become polar explorers or mountaineers, putting their lives at risk in freezing conditions and for what? To go to places that so many have been before, just to say that they did it too? It might make some sense if they were to venture into new territories but apparently places like Everest are becoming pretty crowded and there is a waiting list to go up. Pretty soon McDonalds will be opening a branch up there.
Talking of Everest, I see that India has launched a test ICBM in order to flex their muscles at the Chinese and other Asian neighbours. Now that strikes me as expensive posturing and almost as pointless as climbing Everest. What is more, India is the biggest single recipient of foreign aid from the UK. That means that we, whilst struggling in economic adversity, are paying India to niggle the Chinese. One can only hope that the Chinese don't know that we are footing the bill. How embarrassing it would be if they knew that we were so stupid.
Anyhow, venting my spleen is not helping my thermoregulation as I hoped it might. Maybe I'll walk around a bit or even try a press up. It's either that or set fire to something and that might be seen as inflammatory.

A note to readers

I welcome readers and critics but please note that I am not looking for a romantic link with a woman (or a Man) from Russia or any other eastern or western nation. Neither do i wish to buy whatever you are selling whatever your race colour or creed.

Here we go again

Life seems to revolve around builders, plumbers and electricians. As I write, a lean to roof off the kitchen is being replaced. Between buying and moving in a large hole appeared in the aforementioned roof and it can only be a matter of time before it rains.

It has been a difficult period for our beloved government. It would seem that everything that they turn their hands to is falling apart, and each gaffe is quickly followed by a new one that eclipses those that have gone before. To say I told you so would be smug and so I won't. Desperation now seems the order of the day, and now Mr Cameron is aligning himself, just like a US President, with so called Christian values. In a week when a lunatic has won a landslide election victory thanks to the support of a Muslim majority population, it would seem to be rather silly to appear to be backing a minority group or claiming that Christian philosophy is what is missing from the big society. The so called big society is a myth that has no place within Tory policy or thinking and to hijack the foundering Church of England in order to save their skins is a real sign of weakness.

As a nation we are supposed to be proud of our freedoms. Human rights and freedoms are also a myth. We are free to do what? We are free only to do as we are told by those in power and free to do what we can afford. Those freedoms are progressively curtailed as the favoured few feather their nests at the expense of the rest of us and even the so called freedom to speak one's mind is a luxury that few can afford to exercise. If I criticise a women's group or even an individual bearer of two X chromosomes, I am branded as sexist. If I dared to speak to a child I could be branded as a paedophile and should I have the temerity to express an opinion about Islam, I am branded as racist. Strangely I can criticise any other religion with impugnity but none of us dare to condemn the fastest growing religion/political system in the world. Any politician dealing with Islamic groups must do so as if walking on eggshells and as a result they get away with murder - quite literally in so many cases. I am no racist and though I love children, I am no paedophile either, but I do object strongly to any political philosophy that oppresses its subjects and removes their right to think for themselves. The tories haven't got there yet but it can only be a matter of time before we have a mosque in Downing Street.

Mr Cameron is trying hard to patch his roof, to shore up his walls and to restore the edifice of government to something worthy of respect. Soon it has to rain and I suspect that his builders are cowboys. I hope that mine are more reliable and less corrupt.

Another sunny day

Such a lot has happened since I last wrote here. The main event has been a major relocation, and i am now no longer a resident of the isle of Wight. The move to Kent went well and the new house seems like home, despite its tendency to absorb money much faster than I can keep track of.
So I have left behind a lot. Friends, some of whom I have known for decades, I know that I will probably never see again, and as I am not overly socially inclined, I suspect that I amy not find making new ones at all easy.
Change is sometimes difficult and I know that I must make a lot of adjustments to my way of thinking as well as my day to day living. I have already changed my dentist, my doctor and soon my hairdresser. That will be strange indeed as I have had the same one for as long as i can remember. Her job has got easier as my hair has reduced in length and density over the years. We are well located for most of the essential services and all but the dentist is an easy walk from here.
We have a huge basement/garage and that has been a real bonus. Much of the boxes went down there in the first instance and so unpacking could take place at a leisurely rate and rubbish could remain unseen until disposal became necessary. The sun has shone since we have been here and the garden, although in need of TLC is coming on nicely. We have a much improved broadband and TV package - goodbye Mr Murdoch and hello Mr Branson, and now we await the first big job - the replacement of the boiler. My word that makes a big hole in the bank balance! Then it is a new kitchen and bathroom - everything else will have to take its place in a long line.
I seem to be constantly tired. Part of that is the amount of physical labour and the stairs, but I also caught a nasty bug from Oscar. He safely negotiated his second birthday and has recovered from his infection, mine remains and I look forward to feeling good again one day soon.
I have tried to keep abreast of world events and must give some thought to the implications of Bradford West electing a lunatic. I don't suppose though that George Galloway is any worse that Cameron or Clegg and is no more dangerous than Boris Johnson. TIme will tell.

Antipodean trip

I think that the jet lag has just about gone now, though I am still waking up far too early in the mornings. New Zealand is so very far away both in space and time and it is hard to imagine that just over a week ago I was still there.
We flew via Hong Kong this time and had a couple of days stopover there. I have never felt so tall as I did in Hong Kong. A fascinating city that gives a little insight into the Chinese culture. People there are so polite and friendly; I guess with the degree of crowding that they experience it is a necessity to try to get on with everyone. Enduring memories of Hong Kong are the smells and sounds as much as anything else. I was happy to escape the smells of cooked meat of dubious origin and flew into Auckland on a bright and sunny day. So nice to escape the february cold and dark and to feel the warm sunshine. From there another flight on a tiny prop plane up the Whangerei and a few days touring the northern tip including a coach trip along the ninety mile beach up to Cape Reinga. We learned a lot about the Maori culture as seen from the Maori point of view; non Maoris have quite a different take on things.
Two more flights down to Blenheim and then a long drive to Christchurch for a few days, back to Blenheim and then another long drive to Titirangi for a long weekend in a shearers hut, daily fishing trips out in the sounds, and much feasting and drinking of wine. Back to Blenheim; visits to beer festivals, wine festivals and various wineries, a helicopter flight over the sounds and then the long journey home having missed the freezing cold weather.
New Zealand is changed since my last trip there, it seems more up to date than it was. Having said that, it is not a place that I would wish to live. It has magnificent scenery everywhere, and clean well designed towns and cities. It has good roads and affordable housing, it has rugby as a national obsession and then there is the wine industry that is taking over many parts. Vinyards are huge, one alone, the Yealands estate, has four square miles of vines. There is a danger of monoculture which is both risky and uninteresting.
However it is a great place to visit and I take away some wonderful memories. Now back to reality and the packing up of the house for a move next week.

2012

This is supposed to be the year that the world ends, according to the Mayans. Of course they didn't see their own end coming and that does not give their prediction a lot of clout. However, there is much going on that does give some credence to such a possibilty.

Personally, 2012 has not been a great year. I have been ill for the last three weeks and this week, with just one week to go until the move, our buyers backed down and so we go back to square one. The following day, Mother in law, who was in a care home for a couple of weeks respite care, fell and broke her hip. She is 86 and such things at her age are not to be taken lightly. She was struggling to look after herself as it was, so goodness knows what will happen now.

Globally we have the American Republicans and the Muslims - two groups of fundamental religious maniacs, both utterly convinced that their god is on their side and that the modus vivendi is written down in ancient ramblings of middle eastern mystics. They use their religions to justify anything at all and i am not sure which is the scariest. It would seem that the republicans are on the rise - surfing a wave of greed that epitomises the American way of life, and their dog eat dog philosophy has to be a recipe for disaster.

And then of course there is North Korea. A nation so far suppressed that they don't know they are suppressed. Maybe the word was removed from the dictionary. The population seems happy to starve while supporting the second biggest army in the world and an arsenal of weapons that makes even China nervous.

We have the former Soviet Union, broken into corrupt and despotic states and the whole of Africa that seems ungovernable and which is ready to be taken over by Islamists. While over here, economic doom and gloom is exacerbating the gulf between the rich and poor and the vast majority are bathing in a prolonged and apathetic stupour, knowing that whatever government we have, only ever represents the interests of the few.

Maybe the Mayans got it right.

Happy New Year

So another year begins, gilded with optimism and ambition. Huge life changing resolutions have been considered, sincerely made or rejected, and many already broken. We live in the hope that things will get better, but experience teaches us that this is an illusion, and that in reality, things are likely to deteriorate for most of us. While the haves are feathering their nests, and continue so to do even in the bleakest of times, the have nots will continue to struggle, fighting for the crumbs handed out in the name of charity. Nothing much has changed in the post war era. Balances of power have shifted and technology has advanced far more speedily than people’s ability to cope with it.

I once had a Scooter. It was an old Lambretta, that I bought for two pounds from someone who must have felt that they had done really well. It worked, though never manage to break any speed limits. It was for me the greatest technological item that I owned. It was a foothold on a new kind of freedom, and I loved it. I even understood how it worked. I was familiar with pistons, spark plugs, gearboxes and brakes. I could even do routine maintenance and could recognise faults and manage basic repairs. Ok my knowledge and abilities were at a basic level but there was no sense of mystery.

When I open the bonnet of my car, to check the oil or refill the windscreen washer, I know that the underlying propulsion system is fundamentally the same as my old scooter, I recognise little that is packed so neatly into that space. Should anything go wrong under there, I am completely at a loss as to what to do. The same applies to virtually every mechanical device that I use today. Even a toaster has become impossible to maintain. No-one is interested in repairing and so we just replace anything that fails.

I am of course sitting at my computer and always grateful for the fact that it is a Mac and therefore more reliable than most. For the majority of us the workings of these machines will always remain a total mystery. While I do understand the basic principles of memory chips and the logic systems of programming languages, I have about as much chance of repairing a computer as I have of doing an oil change on a Jumbo Jet. Most people have no understanding of binary notation and some will never manage denary either. Computers left the man in the street behind, decades ago, just as we were coming to terms with BBC Basic or the Sinclair ZX80. Technology rules the world and the technocrats of course have absolute power.

This year, technology will zoom forward yet again and the helpless humans will wallow in the wake, making use of what we are given and becoming increasingly more reliant on systems and programs that we understand less and less. People will continue to kill people, others will destroy the environment for their own personal gain, cities and towns will become more crowded and retail traders will continue to fail, draining the high streets and enhancing the prospects of the Amazons and other online businesses. The poor will get poorer and the wealthy won’t care at all. The status quo for some will be maintained but one day, this fragile entity that we call society will fall apart. All we can hope is that this is not the year.