Im Abendrot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppoqUVlKkBU

In a few hours, 2016 will be consigned to the history books. In some parts of course it has already passed and much of the world is asleep in 2017.  It has been an interesting year in the Chinese curse sense.  Health issues apart, the rise of the right wing both here and abroad have raised spectres that most of us would like to forget, and now we have increased antagonism between the superpowers, fighting like children over their toys.  

The world should be uniting, there re so many problems that we face as a species and yet we continue along ridiculous isolationist pathways. The likes of Nicola Sturgeon have set in motion a very dangerous and undesirable cascade.

I wish my reader a happy New year. It is being delayed by a second but the inevitable will arrive for most of us just after midnight.  I don't suppose that 2017 will be much better for the planet than this one has been but we can still hope that people start thinking again.

At Sunset (Im Abendrot)

We've walked, hand in hand,
thought hardship and joy,
Now we both rest
from walking across the silent countryside.

All around us the valleys are fading,
it has already become dark. Just two larks are rising,
dreamlike into the heavens.

Stand here and let them fly about,
it will soon be time to sleep,
lest we go astray
in this loneliness.

Oh further, silent peace!
So profound at sunset.
How tired we are of travelling:
Is this perhaps death?

Christmas song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I65_S78WHJY

Agricultural Caress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TAa1ghqKwc

Apart from the Archers, most of us have no idea about the realities of agricultural life and the nitty gritty of food production.  My own experience of farming was on a very small and inefficient farm back in the sixties. It was run by an alcoholic Irishman, though his son probably did most of the management. They had a small herd of cows and the rest of the operation seemed to be centred on them. How they made any money is anyone's guess and such enterprises probably no longer exist.

In those days everything we ate was seasonal. Well ok maybe we had Corned beef from Argentina and baked beans from the USA but most stuff was locally produced. Now we have any produce we like at any time of year and farms have become huge businesses and part of the global economy. It is the only way that enough food can be produced to feed the burgeoning population.

Farms are much like factories today, employing highly technical solutions to most processes and in some instances employing migrant workers on very low wages to do the jobs that machines cannot yet do.  having done many of those jobs myself, I can empathise with those people, but for many, a job of any kind is better than no job at all.

The farm that was a part of my childhood had its seasons and we would participate in most of the processes that went on; probably out of boredom more than anything else. We may not have been a very reliable workforce but neither were we paid. For us the work was an entertainment of sorts as well as an educative process.  I learned a lot of pretty useless stuff in school but the learning on a farm is about reality and that has stayed with me. I value and appreciate food because I know that producing it is a long and complex business and one that we should not take for granted.

Hell, fire and damnation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_zuTjtKdI

I just got back from shopping.  I know that some people love it but I could see little evidence of that as I wandered aimlessly around the high street today.  Most people seemed as clueless and desperate as each other and as for christmas spirit - well!

Ok I put my hand up to being a bit of a scrooge on the surface, but underneath there is another one. It does seem to me that most people find this time of year very stressful, and while it benefits local shopkeepers to some extent, the real winners are the corporations who are. like gigantic hoovers, sucking people's hard earned money from them. People are as always spending money that they don't have, incurring debts for plastic crap that nobody needs and few want. We will buy huge amounts of food, much of which will go to waste, and all of this for one day of lunacy. Black bins will soon be piled high with garbage, and that holy of holy, the christmas tree will be heading for recycling and another bloody silly season will be done and dusted.  

In the meantime we smile and wish each other merry christmas and send off the usual pile of cards to people we never see and may think about once a year. We realise that we have forgotten some and have to get more cards to reciprocate, and so do they. It is a time when we find out who is dead and who is dying, who has split up and who have paired, who have reproduced and who has left the country. 

So for me the shopping is done, I won't disclose what I bought but I did find a Pratchett book that I haven't read and a really good DVD compilation of the Old Grey Whistle test in a charity shop. That takes the edge off a little.

Solid Ground

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLqVWsSJC0o

I went to the grandchildren's nativity play this afternoon, and while it was delightful to see the kids perform and show their families what they have been working towards for the last few weeks, it struck me that they are all being prepared to take their places on the treadmill. Ok they have a few years to go yet, but they will be taught to compete, to value property and to fit into the machine that is our society. They will strive to succeed in jumping through whatever hoops are fashionable and hope to find employment that pays them enough to afford a mortgage, which they will spend the rest of their lives paying back. They will then  build homes which they will spend very little time in because they are too busy working to make money, and then at the end of it all their accumulated things will end up in black plastic bags and landfill. Their houses of course will be taken over by the next cohort coming through who will have to raise even more money because the prices of properties has gone up, and so it goes on. Welcome to the machine.

We own nothing. Property is a myth but it is a powerful one that the capitalist system depends upon; in the words used at most funerals, we bring nothing into the world and we sure as hell can take nothing out of it. We are stardust - all of us and simply passing through. Maybe we should think less about ownership and and more about sharing of what we have. You cannot own the land, the land owns you, and to it you will return.

Like a Rolling Stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sftw5k_JRs

When I first heard this song in 1965/66, the world was a very different place and I was a very different person. I loved the song even though I had no idea what it was about. The concept of homelessness was alien to me; limited to the occasional "tramp" that would wander through the village. We'd give them tea and something to eat but then they would pass on and we probably never gave them another thought. It was seen as a lifestyle choice perhaps, and for some it may have been.

In this dog eat dog world, it is now becoming more and more difficult to make ends meet and with falling incomes and rising house prices, unscrupulous and greedy landlords are evicting tenants in order to raise rents and make more profits. As a result, more and more people of all ages are finding themselves on the streets and this is one of the tragedies of a so called civilised society. This is the legacy of long term government by parties that worship the capitalist ideals and does not look like getting fixed any time soon.  Council flats and houses were there to provide affordable housing, and when these were sold off to make profits for landlords, they were not replaced and now the concept of affordable housing seems to be based around cardboard boxes under bypasses.

The problem always seems worse at this time of year, with cold nights and all of the vulgarity of the festive season forming a contrast with the reality of misery for so many.   

My grandson is an innkeeper in his school nativity play today. He and all the rest of his privileged friends will put on the usual display of middle eastern mythology to the delight of their parents and relief of their teachers. I recited the temptation to subvert things by prompting him to tell the unwed parents, that they had plenty of room.

Albatross

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u4vb3OPN_w

My brother Mark would have been 64 today had he not died at the age of seventeen in a stupid accident. He had been drinking with friends and was riding his motor cycle home. They were fooling around and he rode directly into the path of an oncoming vehicle. The whole family was of course devastated and probably never recovered from that.

After the funeral I went back to college and took his record collection with me. They were all 45s and  quite a lot of them were by Fleetwood Mac. I didn't even know that he liked them, and I remember sitting in my room playing them for hours on end. Albatross, Man of the world and Oh well must have driven my neighbours mad over a few days, but they did help me to come to terms with his death, something that my parents never did.

I understand , I think, why some people find comfort in their religions. It probably enables them to imagine their dear departed to be in a better place and still in some way alive. For me and many others, death is an ending, not a beginning. Mark will be remembered by the few family  members who still exist and his images will probably somewhere exist even after that.

The summer of that year, 1968, my cleaner, yes we were spoiled in those days, tidied my desk and put a pile of records on the windowsill in full sunlight.  Vinyls do not cope well with heat and when I returned to my room, they looked like a pile of black poppadoms so my physical link to him had gone.

Now I have access to whatever music I wish to hear, but Albatross on a scratchy vinyl would still sound wonderful.

Anthem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wRYjtvIYK0

My current ear worm is this song by  the late great Leonard Cohen.  I never got to attend any of his concerts and now of course it is too late.  We do tend to imagine that we have plenty of time to do things and we put things off.

I have a diagnosis at last, and although not definitive, it seems to be the most likely one.  It would appear that I have developed a form of epilepsy and am being treated for that with purple pills that I have to add to my growing list of medications. I was already feeling unworldly before I began taking them but at least the episodes should be kept at bay. The next batch are overdue so maybe the pills do work - early days.

So now I have to find other things to write about. Mostly my posts here are pretty random and I babble about  whatever has come into my head. I sometimes wonder about those of you that read, or at least open the posts. I know that I have a small number of followers but you are of course anonymous and that is how it should be.  Occasionally I get a comment from someone but these tend to be few and far between; I must say that comments are welcome as it reminds me that I am not writing in a vacuum.

Anonymity is a double edged sword however and many people expressing their views on the web, do so only because they cannot easily be identified. Sitting in a darkened room can give a great sense of safety, and in those circumstances it is easy to be brave and even aggressive.  I am a frequent user of social media and I do use Facebook to express my views and to occasionally challenge the garbage that gets published, and for that I am frequently in trouble with some people that I know; especially those who think that the sole purpose of Facebook is to display their dinner or their pets.  At least with Facebook, people can identify me and I can limit my profile access to those who I wish to communicate with.

Social media will change the world more than we can imagine. We live in a world community and yet that community is divided and kept that way by manipulation of wealth. The rich have had things their way for centuries and there is a whiff of change in the air. There will be revolutions; the current system does not work and cracks are already appearing. Let us hope that light does get in and that the whole thing does not fall apart; anarchy is not an attractive option.

Brain Damage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z39KZAryzk

Another in a long succession of bright sunny days, but so cold. However this is preferable to the dull dark rainy winter days that are the norm.  Today is also my appointment with the neurologist and I hope that I may get some answers, though of course he may have none. Some things are mysterious and have no answers. We do tend to think that all questions can be answered, and of course Google can do most things but there will always be mysteries.

Science has made much progress in our understanding of the brain, but it remains the least well understood organ in the body. It is fundamentally a mass of cells, neurons of  several types, blood vessels and fluid filled spaces, incapable of independent existence but it is where WE reside. Our thoughts, memories and emotions all originate in the brain, the rest of our bodies are there to ensure the survival and to provide stimulation for the brain.  We can describe the nature of nerve impulses and their propagation, we can to some extent comprehend the effects of those impulses on muscles and glands and we know how many of the hormones released operate, but we still do not fully understand memory or even our sense of self. There are some that believe that the brain is far too complex for us ever to understand it fully.

Some believe that the self is a soul and that it is immortal, remaining in the body as long as it lasts and then moving on.  It is easy to see why these beliefs are held, as when the brain shuts down completely, all we are is a lot of meat that will in a short while decompose into component parts. The idea that we have gone forever is for some very scary.  For me it isn't; we are all temporary and must face the fact that the world was here before us and will continue when we die. Some of us will be missed by a few people but we will inevitably cease to exist apart from in the memories of others or in family photographs.

I know that there is no tumour in my head, and for that I am grateful. I have known a number of people who have had them and have suffered horribly as a result.  There is some comfort in that knowledge but I am not sure how I will feel this afternoon, whatever the news may be. Remaining a mystery may be as hard as having an explanation.

The Crying Game

Yes, I know that I am writing a lot these days, and probably not making a great deal of sense but I am, by writing, trying to make sense of myself.  Of course no-one is obliged to read my words but I hope that one day they can be used by people that I care about, to understand me a little.

I was brought up, in strange circumstances by most people's reckoning, to keep opinions and emotions to myself. It was  a survival mechanism, by and large and encouraged me to inhabit my own inner world, a place where very few have ever been allowed entry to.  As children we were always encouraged to be brave and not to cry under any circumstances, probably because other people's tears are hard to cope with, or was it because it was a sign of weakness?

My head is all over the place these days, I have issues i know, but I suspect that they are of a physical nature and one of the changes in me recently has been an outbreak of emotional episodes that seem to run concurrently with the other things. I have never been one to give in to public displays of anything at all, least of all tears. It seems now though that has changed and the smallest things can on some days reduce me to a blubbering heap. It can be an image, a look on someone's face, a piece of music or anything of beauty.  If I see someone else crying I join them, though I still fight really hard not to. If I am alone then I just let go and then it passes until the next time.

Crying gives relief I know and some people are very good at it. I am a beginner and know that I have a long way to go before it seems like the right thing to do. In the meantime I am taking steps to unwind what is inside me by committing my inner feelings to this blog. If you are reading this, thank you and please bear with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrSTPNkPcDE

Patterns

One of my favourite phases in science education involved a scheme called SCISP. The Schools Council Integrated Science Project. I still have the books somewhere. The overall theme was patterns, looking for patterns, analysing and applying patterns and so on. Admittedly it was designed for the more able students and was meant to challenge them and enable and encourage the thinking process. I remember one particular experiment where the students used a simple electrolytic process to measure the charge carried by a a single electron. I wasn't expecting much in terms of accuracy but was thoroughly impressed when the first group to finish came up with a value within five percent of the textbook value.  They were pretty thrilled too.

We use patterns so much in life, anything from construction to train timetables and yet we give them little thought or consideration.  The year that is thankfully coming to an end, like other years, follows a pattern of day and night, of seasons and so on, all events that influence and determine our own lives and the patterns that we live by.

I have recently had so many scans and procedures to investigate the strange episodes that have taken over my life.  They seem to follow a pattern of sorts. As I write I am aware that the next batch is overdue and I know that soon a day will be wiped out with a succession of mini seizures and that the following few days will be filled with fatigue and lethargy.  The results of the most recent scan, showed that thy lower half is ok and that nothing is growing in there that shouldn't be so that was a relief. The next appointment is thursday when I see the neurologist for the outcome of the brain scan and the EEG. I am guessing that if there was anything crucial, that I would have been called earlier, but that is hope as much as pattern interpretation.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GTmN7Fhv6o

I just wasn't made for these times

We had an elderly neighbour, when I was not so elderly, who frequently looked at the news and said that this was not her world any more. Things do change rapidly these days and probably more than we are able to manage, and I am beginning to feel the same.

When I was growing up, things seemed to change very slowly, if at all, and each year was more or less the same as the previous one. Technology was in a very long and extended infancy. There were no computers, mobile phones or even remote controls.  I remember at college, learning about binary and hexadecimal systems and thinking that this was pretty irrelevant, and mocked a fellow student who said that one day a whole record collection would be stored on a divide that would fit into the palm of your hand.

My smartphone and smart TV are infinitely smarter than I am and each has more computing power than I am capable of comprehending and it seems that there is always a new gadget around the corner.     It appears that it is now possible to control virtually all things electrical in your home from your phone. We are becoming so very dependent upon this electronic revolution and many of us are becoming addicted to screens and would suffer withdrawal should we become deprived for any length of time.

I have always been a fan of computers, I loved writing programs and love the access that they give us to the world, but am also aware of the dangers of social media and in particular the damage that too much unverifiable information can do.  These are interesting times indeed and I am sure that I am lagging behind, but perhaps that is an inevitability.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7_TbMIVnA

The eve of destruction

Since human society emerged, there has probably been a sense of impending doom. Life is nasty brutish and short, and for some nastier, more brutish and shorter than others.  Bible enthusiasts seem to revel in the weird and rather ridiculous book of revelations and use it periodically to predict the end of the world, and of course for everyone, on a personal level, the world will end as far as they are concerned.

Of course the world will end, as far as humans are concerned, sooner or later. Probably by natural causes; a meteorite strike or a new disease, something beyond our power to control.

I am old enough to remember the Bay of Pigs incident, which placed us within a hairs breadth of war with Russia. It was I suspect a game of cat and mouse with both sides bluffing and counterbluffing, but is was a very scary time even for those of us who did not understand what was happening. It wasn't very long after the end of WW2 and for many the memory of the use of nuclear weapons was very clear, and their use again did not seem an impossibility. Now we talk about MAD, mutually assured destruction, and we hope that the situation of a stalemate will always prevent the lunatic use of such devices. We hope that our leaders will have the sense and the humanity to resist any temptation to start something that cannot be stopped.

Now we have the rise of the ultra right and their barmy racist attitudes. Both sides of the Atlantic seem under the influence of the lunatic fringe and it is they that are calling the shots.  Property and shares are the most important criteria and people will come a way down the list in terms of priorities.
A fragmenting Europe and a fragmenting UK cannot be seen as a good thing and yet there are those who promote Nationalism as the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe we are doomed after all; maybe we should be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMq66DhYUmM

Late November

It is a beautiful day, though raining oak leaves.  They seem to accumulate much faster than I can sweep them so perhaps I will leave that job until the last one drops.

The winter solstice is only weeks away and the spectre of the silly season looms, but even that will soon be over and done with and we can at least begin to think about a new year and hope as always that it will be a better one than this has been.

2016 will go down as a turning point in history. This has been the year when the reality of mortality has been underlined so frequently and those that began the upsurge of celebrity are leaving their oh so public lives behind.  Next year will be no different in that respect  and it is an inevitability that reminds us all of our own limited time.

It has been a year when many of those without a voice found one and were pursuaded that the current system stinks and that it should be replaced; not by a humane and caring government, but by something fundamentally even more evil and divisive.

For me it has been a year of health concerns and hospital visits and tests. I have had everything scanned and proper now and await results still. I have a doctor's appointment next week and then an appointment with the neurologist in December. These things do take time I know and remind me that I am just one patient amongst countless others, many of whom have needs far more urgent than my own.  Part of me wants results, and part of me does not, especially if there is nothing that I can do about what is wrong.

In my job as a teacher, the emphasis shifted towards the end of my career to testing and measuring and assessing anything and everything. Whilst ticking boxes and filling forms made some people happy, it became clear that we were measuring things that could not be changed and this to me seemed an awful waste of time and effort. In terms of health, knowing that there is a problem that cannot be solved only leads to worry and concern.

So life goes on; as some people leave the stage, more enter to take their place, it just seems that in some fields that quality is being replaced by quantity.

This lady left the stage a long while ago and far too soon, but we all have to take our exit sooner or later. Let us make sure that we enjoy the time that we have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQiWL0HfIJs

Lurching to the right

The world is going mad.  I am convinced that fundamentally people are insane or at least terminally stupid.  We have been manipulated by a right wing government for years now. Even under New Labour the political right were in charge - Blair and his cronies were watered down Tories after all.

So people in the West are tired of the corruption and greed of the capitalist system protected by the right wing, and so what do they do? They shift their allegiance to the far right, blinded by empty promises that things will get better for them. Things will not get better for the majority of people while we have a privileged few owning most of the wealth and being protected by the status quo.

The likes of Farage, Johnson and Trump have cleverly insinuated themselves into the minds of the disenfranchised and led them by the nose into the cesspit of nationalism. We are embarking on a dangerous journey and I fear for the future.  The very idea of Farage as an ambassador would be funny if it hadn't been seriously suggested.  Yes politics, and parliament need a shake up but it seems that everything is in danger of falling apart if these people get their way.

Mark Twain once said "If voting made a difference they would not let is do it."  Maybe he was wrong.

Another night at the opera

Getting to London is easy from here. There are plenty of trains and if you choose your time you can usually get a seat. That part I don't mind, but being in London is for me a bit of a nightmare. I don't handle noise well and am even less comfortable being surrounded by so many people, many of whom are more intent on their phones than they are on where they are going.

It was a short walk from Charing Cross to a nice Mexican restaurant, but the noise inside was almost double that of the outside. Why do some places feel the need to play music at such high volumes? For me it wipes out any hope of conversation or even hearing what the waiters have to say.  The food was nice however and the service very good so we left in plenty of time to walk around to the Coliseum, a venue that I had never been to before. It is sumptuous to look at but the seats are not that comfortable and legroom is sparse,  this is important when you are taller than average.

Tosca was beautifully directed and performed, the orchestra was particularly good.  There were distractions however. For me, the appearance of the lead roles is important if I am to suspend disbelief. Tosca and Cavaradossi were both rather plump to say the least, and without wishing to be fattest, I find that difficult. They both had wonderful voices however and produced the volume that is required in such a huge venue. Their acting was adequate though there were moments when the director seemed to have run out of ideas as to where they should be in musical interludes. Her final leap from the battlements was not a disappointment. She fell backwards, arms outspread into the void and did not bounce back into view.

It was a very worthwhile experience and at fifty pounds a ticket it should have been. The audience profile was not entirely made up of us silver haired retirees but we were the large majority. Like most things, opera is becoming very expensive and unaffordable to many people and that is a shame. Maybe we silver heads are keeping it going at the moment and there will probably be more coming along to replace us,  I hope so.

The journey home was straightforward and the silence of home so very welcome.

A night at the opera

Cosi Fan Tutte is not my favourite of all operas, but the Covent Garden production this week was truly wonderful. To fully appreciate an opera you have to be there, to witness the live production and it's multi dimensionality.  The Royal Opera House is a delight. It exudes class, albeit of a rather fading variety, and provides an experience that only a few of us get to taste.

Mozart's music has stood the test of time and still seems remarkable. His ability to show human emotions through music is remarkable, and and almost packed house on monday night were enthralled, mesmerised and thoroughly entertained by this great production.

Getting there means a train journey and a reasonable walk through crowded London streets, and I find that quite uncomfortable. The number of homeless seems to grow each time I visit, and while there are people struggling to survive, we were indulging ourselves with a meal out and expensive tickets. Yes I felt pangs of something approaching guilt and was reminded of how we as a society are divided, and not just into haves and have nots.

Opera is not to everyone's taste, it is something that may or not may grow on you with exposure, but it does require an ability to concentrate in order to follow a silly story and an ability to appreciate the intricacy of a musical score, and three hours can seem a very long time.

Each new production, requires new interpretations and this was no exception. There were two things that still have be baffled and I would appreciate input on this. During the overture, the cast in full traditional costume took curtain calls, unapplauded,  but acted as if otherwise. The second thing was an illuminated COSI FAN TUTTE was deliberately edited towards the end of the second act, to read COSI FAN TUTTI. The subtlety of which has passed me by.

Beatification

I am sure that the truth about Mother Teresa lies somewhere between Christopher Hitchins' view and that of the political wing of the Roman Catholic Church. Fundamentally she was a human being, and like all human beings, fallible. She had a very good press coverage and a recognisable image. She was a distraction from paedophile priests and other un-Christinalike activities in one of the wealthiest organisations in the world. Her death, refocussed the public eye just where the church did not want it and so what do they do?  

Beatification does not happen too often, as by their own rules, they have to prove that miracles have been brought about. Now it seems that two patients have recovered after she prayed for them. Enough evidence to now refer to her as Saint Teresa.  Does this not seem rather mediaeval?  Does it not demonstrate that the whole process is and always has been a political move?  It does encourage speculation into what they are up to now.

It's a funny time of year

September is here already, the nights are drawing in and the hot spell seems to have strands of chill in  it. Spiders webs are more visible in the mornings and the leaves are showing signs of ageing.

More important than these things, the shops are in a back to school frenzy. For weeks now they have been teasing parents with their advertisements, but now reality is looming large and many parents are so looking forward to getting rid of their kids for five days a week.

As a child, the summer holidays seemed very long and often very warm. We had very few things to look forward to apart from not being at school, and both parents were at work so we made do and created our own entertainment. I am sure there were times when boredom would take hold but by and large there was always something to do in the big outdoors.

As a a teacher the holidays seemed very short and the last week in particular was rather like a sunday night, with the spectre of monday morning sitting on your shoulder.  There will be many teachers out there now feeling the stress building again as they prepare for yet another fun packed academic year. Many will be parents too and will have very mixed emotions regarding the back to school experience. Uniforms will have been outgrown and will need replacing at great cost, equipment will have to be replaced so that their kids are not disadvantaged.

I had a leather satchel; it was given to me by my grandparents when I passed the eleven plus, and I kept it going until I left school seven years later.  I guess it didn't carry much of interest, a few books, a ruler, set square and protractor and maybe a packed lunch. There were no electronic items then, no calculators, no tablets or mobile phones, times were much simpler and in many ways much easier.
Children today have all the material things they want; even the poorer families seem to have mobile phones and computers and of course access to social media and all of the problems that come with that.  In my day social media was limited to graffiti written on desktops with the point of a compass.

So next week children will be squeaky clean, well groomed and dressed, lined up for photos and sent on their way to the next year of their education and mothers will heave sighs of relief along with grandparents who have been in loco parentis for the last six weeks., and the world will get back to normality for a while.

What is the point?

Societies, universally, have rules that have developed throughout history. We appoint lawmakers and law keepers and have systems in place that are supposed to punish or rehabilitate those that choose not to abide by those laws. Without some sort of legal system we would be living in an anarchy and is such a dog eat dog world only the strongest would survive and evolution would kick into reverse.

When a six year old refuses to do as he is told without making a lot of fuss, and then declares that he doesn't like being told what to do by adults there is some cause for concern.  This is a symptom of the way that society at large is changing.  Laws, or rules it would seem are for other people.  This week we have seen a number of tragic drownings around the coast, some due to people choosing to ignore instructions regarding safety in tidal waters.  Go to any beach where there are instructions about where not to swim and you can be sure that there will be plenty who ignore this instructions.

Using a mobile phone while driving is of course dangerous. I need all of my attention on my phone just to make it work and cannot imagine driving whilst using it, but there are plenty who do. It is of course illegal and yet so many flout this law, imagining that they are in some way above it or maybe they believe that they have superpowers and are able to give enough attention to what is going on around them.

The attitude of the six year old is worrying. If he thinks that he can go through life ignoring instructions from adults then he is in for some hard knocks, and maybe that is what is missing these days. There seem to be no real deterrents, no punishments that mean anything. I was taught a valuable lesson when I first went into teaching, and that was, never threaten a child with anything that you do not intend to carry out. It would seem that there are plenty of threats and dest no follow through, and maybe that is why he refuses to do as he is told.

Test results

This week saw the release of GCSE results along with the predictable press coverage. If the results are good then the tests are too easy and if they are not, then the schools are to blame. The press are a pretty loathsome bunch and should never be taken seriously.

I also had some results. For several weeks now I have been dreading the outcome of my scan. I even went away on holiday and thought of little else. On friday the day came to see my GP again; she has been on holiday too so that explained some of the wait.  The previous night we had a long chat about the possible outcome; we both hoped for the best but were prepared for the worst and so the twenty minute sit in the waiting rood seemed an awful lot longer.

We were ushered into her surgery and for a moment she was unsure of why I was there. then it dawned on her that I had not been informed, and she was quick to tell me that the shadows on my lungs were scars from previous infections and that there was no sign of lymph nodes or cancers. My relief was intense, tempered with the fact that I have to have another scan on my lower body. By the time that is done, I will have been very thoroughly examined. I have an appointment for an eeg in London but will have to wait until october for that one and then goodness knows how much longer for some sort of follow up.

So, well done to all those who got good news this week and commiserations to those who were disappointed.

Looking at life

I just got back from a week in Margate. We rented a lovely house in a quiet seafront area and enjoyed a week of wonderful weather with the extended family. Of course we ate too much and drank too much, but there were no arguments and no fights so everyone had a good time.

I have never been to Margate before, and only really knew of it by reputation from the 60s, when every bank holiday it seems there was an invasion by rival gangs of Mods and Rockers who would use the beach and  the town to brawl and terrorise the innocent.

Margate is a lovely place; it looks a little tired, but it has been a holiday Mecca for much of London for a long while, and they still arrive each day in their droves, bravely setting up camp on the sands and purchasing the cheap plastic rubbish that seaside towns seem to have in endless supply. Many will head for Dreamland - a traditional fairground, designed to take away as much tourist cash as possible in the least possible time. Sadly the place is in administration, though still attracting swarms of visitors despite the terrible inefficiencies involved in taking people's money. Queues are the norm and the staff don't seem to care one way or the other, hardly surprising really.

I like to watch people, and it seemed that the world and his wife visit Margate. Probably a good cross section of the outer London population. It was so nice to see huge Asian families in full traditional costumes, picnicking in the heat and surrounded by scantily clad others, slowly grilling in the sun. So many acres of flesh on display, much of it obese, covered in ghastly tattoos and handfuls of sunscreen. What is is about a beach that makes people want to expose their bodies, however unsightly they may be?

On a completely different note, I have had my chest scan and now have an appointment for a scan on my head. I am rather hoping that they find nothing in either; at least nothing that should not be there.

Update

I now know that I have shadows on my lungs.  I was never a fan - preferred Duane Eddy!

Health continued

I saw a neurologist yesterday and answered a lot of questions. He prodded and poked and hit me with his little hammer and made me touch my nose with my eyes shut and wrote down a lot of notes in indecipherable handwriting with an elegant fountain pen.  He talked about temporal lobe epilepsy and has put me down for a CT scan and a sleeping ECG at Kings in London.  After that I will be seeing him again for whatever conclusions he can come to.

Killing two birds with one stone, I also had my chest Xray. There are many advantages to being early in the system and everything yesterday was quick and efficient. We were out of the hospital before my appointment was due to begin.  The Xray technician gave me cause for concern though, she looked at the image and told me that I should see my GP as soon as possible. Now they usually tell you to wait for a few days before making an appointment so clearly there is something amiss.  I have an appointment in just over an hour and so I sit and wait and worry of course, like I have been since yesterday morning.

Ill health has a way of focussing your mind and can become all consuming. I think about mortality, I think about friends who have already gone and I think about the possibilities of pain and suffering. I know that I am naturally pessimistic, but lets face it, I am getting longer in the tooth and am pretty fortunate to have got this far. Anyway I will continue to record this story as long as I am able.

Interesting times

My health seems to be an issue these days and visits to NHS facilities are the norm. I seem to be a bit of a mystery in terms of the symptoms that I present and so I am subject to test after test, and this morning for the first time, the dreaded C word was mentioned.

My GP is a lovely woman and has started to smile every time that I walk into her surgery; maybe I am the equivalent of the Guardian crossword for her as I seem to present her with cryptic problems each time I go in.  This morning I was expecting a run down on the results of my blood tests, which did happen, but what I was not expecting was to have my abdomen manipulated and to have my prostate examined.  She is very thorough, and having a cold finger rammed into me just after breakfast was enough to make my eyes water.  I will say that she was very quick and assured me that all was well in that region. One part of me that seems to be ok comes as a sort of relief.

She went on to tell me that my blood pressure is marginally high and also that my cholesterol levels are marginally high too and that I should consider taking statins.  I have to have a chest X ray next and then there is the possibility of an abdominal scan should nothing show up there.  Life is certainly not boring at the moment, though I would prefer not to see quite so much of the NHS.

Tears

As a child I learned independence at an early age. I also learned to keep my emotions well under control. It was unseemly to display any form of emotion, we were seen and not heard for much of the time.

Last night I cried. I am changing, I know that; inside me things are happening and I do not know what they are, but frequently nowadays I find myself on the brink of tears.  It was a film that triggered it this time. The tree of life tells the story of a relationship between a boy and his father; a father who does not know how to let his son know that he loves him.  The father comes over as harsh and a bully, and the son is incapable of understanding and dealing with the situation. His own love and affection are centred on his mother and he takes out some of his feelings on his younger brother.

There were so many echoes of my own childhood in this movie, and so many long forgotten memories came flooding back. I remember now my parents fighting. They frequently did while we were in bed supposedly asleep, though the house was small and everything could be heard upstairs. I still have no memory of what they were fighting about but can still hear them shouting at each other, my mother in tears and myself hiding under the bedclothes, powerless and clueless too. It seemed to happen a lot and I remember crying myself to sleep, quietly of course, so many times. Eventually you can get used to most things burying the negative thoughts under layers and layers. I learned not to cry, I learned also that I had to escape, and that I would never put any children of my own through the same experiences.

I have no memories of hugs in my childhood. Living at home was mainly about getting through the days. I never had a meaningful conversation with either of my parents; everything was boy appearances. My father was right, it was his house, he paid the bills and that was it. I may be being unfair to him but it is how I felt at the time and those feelings all came flooding back last evening and I was unable to hold back the tears. I felt stupid, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. maybe it was cathartic but today I don't feel very different and the recently exposed memories are as fresh and newly turned earth.

The film is beautiful. Powerful and moving with little in the way of dialogue. There wasn't much dialogue in our house anyway and maybe that added to the state that I found myself in.

Terry Pratchett said that some people believe that before you die, your whole life flashes before you. It's true, it is called living.

Fakes

I remember a time when plastics were a novelty and then came a time when they were the in thing. Now we are surrounded and becoming buried in the stuff. Things that once were of aesthetic value have been replaced by plastic that has no real value at all.

We live in a counterfeit world, often glued to TV, through which we are bombarded with information, much of which is pure propaganda, generated by the media owners and backers. We become absorbed by programs that allow us to experience vicariously, fake plastic lives. Our politicians, under the glare of the media, cannot speak freely and so adopt personalities that they believe will be acceptable.  We live in a world where appearance is everything. Cosmetics industries are vast and we probably spend more on our appearances than we do on health.  Women in particular are pressurised into being something that they are not.  No-one enjoys getting old, but the cost of preventing the appearance of waging escalates and some will stop at nothing to ward off the ravages of time. Breast implants, botox treatments, and enhancements of virtually every body part are available  at a cost and I won't even start on clothing.

Images in magazines are often photoshopped, enabling anyone to shed years with a few pixel manipulations. Make up and hair treatments also mask what really lies beneath, to the extent that we cannot believe anything that we see.

Political campaigns are base on anything but the truth. The truth seems to be whatever a political party wants it to be. The recent referendum was an example of this, the successful side basing their drive on fear and a hatred of foreigners. It worked.

Plastics are made from oil and as such contain a lot of carbon. This is effectively sequestered for decades, if not centuries as most are not easily degraded.  The oceans are riddled with the waste plastic that we don't have the wits to deal with properly and so wildlife suffers.  In turn we will suffer but it seems that most people couldn't care less. We are taught to consume, and to live for the day, to put on fake faces and to ignore reality. We do so at our peril.

England

I watched the game last night. Experiencing England playing is like having surgery without anaesthetic and also having to watch it.  It was a poor performance at best and Iceland did very well; their style of football much less predictable and refreshing to watch.  The English team let their fans down is so many ways; some have paid a small fortune to attend the games and to indulge in their ceremonial jingoism, some even having gone to the trouble to beat hell out of rival fans. Nothing like a few scars to bring home as souvenirs.

Our football players have inflated egos as well as salaries and see themselves as something special. They are paid a lot of money and when the chips are down they fail to perform. You can blame the coach but the reality is that the team are no good. A team is more than the sum of the parts; egos get in the way and that is why Iceland were by far the better side.

2016 has been a dreadful year so far, so many good people have died and now we are witnessing the death throes of English football along with democracy, the labour party and common sense.  An historic year and so far for all the wrong reasons.

Class

The word class is coming back into fashion. I have seen many references this week to the term Class Traitor, relating to the chaotic state of the labour party and the alleged organised coup against their leader.

I am reminded of the  wonderful sketch with John Cleese and the two Ronnies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c

Upper class, middle class and lower class seems to have blurred a little since the sixties, though underneath the divisive categorisation still exists.  The upper classes still exist, detached from the rest of us and from reality supported by sycophantic followers who consider them a wonderful thing. The real blur lies between working class and middle class. I always considered myself to belong to the working class; I was brought up in a council house and my father worked in a factory. Then I became a teacher and overnight my classification changed in the eyes of society, if not in my own. Surely those who work for a living should all be part of the same group if we are to have such ridiculous classification.

The labour party was born from a need to protect the rights of working people. It represented them and was backed by trade unions, without the unions and the labour party, working people would have far fewer rights and lower incomes than they have today. Naturally the capitalist elements of society abhor the unions and Labour party alike and have been undermining these organisations since their inception.

Now the working class are abandoning the labour party and incredibly they are flocking towards an ultra right wing UKIP, in the mistaken belief that they will in some way be better off.  It seems likely in the light of our exit from Europe, that many companies will be leaving the UK and jobs will vanish along with them. UKIP will not want an increase in benefits and so the working man will be consigned to the scrap heap again.  Meanwhile the upper classes carry on as normal.

At the end of the day we are all the same, we are human beings, though some by accident of birth are more privileged than others.  Without a moderating influence though we are returning to the dog eat dog world of the past.  Sad days indeed.

Results

Well it is done and dusted and now we await the fallout and the consequences of going it alone. A small majority has decided that we should break our ties with Europe and stand alone in the world.
It would seem that the motivation to leave has been complex. Immigration seems to have played a significant role as has dubious statistics regarding the amount that we pay into Europe. Some believed that that money will now be ploughed into the NHS or used to fund pensions or to benefit ordinary people, but of course that will not happen.

I do not pretend to understand the complexities of our membership of the European community, nor do I grasp the full implications of going it alone; I suspect that most people are in the same position. I do feel though that we are embarking on a dangerous journey, with a population seriously divided and becoming even more disenfranchised and disillusioned with the system that we have. We call it a democracy, but it really is a bit of a sham. A large and significant proportion of our population vote according to the wishes of the tabloid press and the media in general. Most of which is owned and controlled by the political right. They had done a good job of destroying the Labour party, and the Liberals died a death when they became Lib Dems. UKIP is on the rise and the electorate will have to choose between the far right and the ultra far right. That is not really much of a choice for the majority of the people but it is realistically what we have to face up to.

Party politics is no longer working and yet we still go through the motions of electing representatives, who in the main represent their own self interests.  To go against their own party is political suicide and so they don't.

I feel for our future generations, whose horizons have shrunk almost overnight. The value of the pound continues to tumble and more and more companies are considering relocation to mainland Europe. There are increasing attacks on foreigners as we sink into the quagmire generated by Farage and Johnson.  It is possible that Scotland and Northern Ireland will go their own way and stay in Europe, leaving us stranded like seals on a mid atlantic outcrop.  I hope that I am wrong.

Goodbyes

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for my boyhood best friend.  I was best man at his wedding, and so this was the second time that I had sat in the same church.

I am not one to feel comfortable in churches but sometimes it is necessary to show respect and love to those who have died, or at least to their families and friends.  As always the building was old, steeped in history and overwhelmingly gloomy.

I last saw Martin last autumn. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was in considerable pain.  He managed however to be himself, the old Martin that I had spent so much time with as a boy was still there and we had a lot of laughs. Even then I knew that it would be the last time I saw him.

The church was filled to capacity and beyond; people stood at the back and every pew was filled. I have never seen a memorial service so well attended. Martin was clearly loved and remembered fondly by a lot of people.

The service began with Albatros, by Fleetwood Mac. An old favourite from the late sixties, and a song that I will never be able to dissociate from his memory. The rest was readings from his family and friends along with the usual religious reading and hymns,   which passed over my head as is usual.

There were several people there that I had grown up with and it was so nice to see them again after so many years. But I did wonder which of us would be next. It feels like standing on an escalator and getting closer and closer to the top - or maybe the bottom. Life is nasty brutish and short, so the saying goes, it certainly feels that way today.  Cheers Martin - Happy times.

Conflict

So very sad to hear about the awful massacre in Orlando. I am tempted to say that it was a mindless act but that is unlikely. The perpetrator was acting according to his belief and that is far more scary than imagining a mindless act.

I cannot imagine any of my beliefs making me want to harm another human being, let alone murder dozens of fellow human beings, and yet every day we hear of senseless barbarity being perpetrated in the name of a belief.

As a species we are divided in so many ways. We are divided by national borders, by colour, by religion, by gender  and by political persuasion and it is the divisions that seem to dominate and dictate world events.

There also has to be someone to blame when things go wrong. The FBI are under scrutiny now for not recognising the perpetrator as a threat, his family, if he has one may also be held culpable, but it is doubtful that the authorities will put any blame onto his beliefs; to do so would be to threaten a very fragile stability and to fall into the hands of the likes of Donald Trump who see the very existence of foreigners in his country asa a threat.

Fundamentalism of any sort is dangerous, but they all have roots. Most of the terrorist activity that we hear about has the same roots, and it seems that the roots are growing very comfortably with new shoots and suckers popping up everywhere.  The war on terror is not succeeding and each act is simply driving wedges into an already stressed situation.

We are rapidly approaching a referendum in which all eligible will be able to vote on a monumental decision and yet most of us have no real clue as to possible outcomes. It seems that the big issue for many is that of immigration.  Most will vote on purely selfish grounds, their decision being led by their belief, which in turn has been manipulated by the media machine. Few will give any consideration to the future and the implications for their children and grandchildren. The likelihood is that we will be leaving Europe in the hope that we can become great again. Echoes of Donald Trump and his nationalism that seems to be whipping his supporters into a Nuremberg-like frenzy.

If we go it alone, it is likely that we will become as insignificant as countries like Canada, and will be in the hands of the Tory party for decades to come.  May your God help us.

NHS

It is somewhat disconcerting when a GP tells you  that the NHS is fucked. Yes she used those exact words. She is young and looking to do something else with her skills and talents; whether she can find anything that pays as well remains to be seen.

I have had a lot of contact with the health service throughout my life; I have spent a lot of time in waiting rooms and in wards, the prospect of repeating the latter terrifies me now.

Getting appointments to see a GP is pretty hard. They seem to have endless lists of patients, each of which is probably a bundle of issues that can only present one problem in the allocated ten minutes. There was a time when GPs at least pretended to be interested in the patient rather than the problem but maybe that is just me. Much of my childhood was spent in the hands of the NHS, and although I remember a lot of waiting around, I always felt that someone cared.

The modern NHS is now in the hands of managers, with the structure being tiered; managers appoint underlings and so on, jobs are manufactured as the whole thing becomes a business ready for a takeover by the private sector.  Hospitals are no longer friendly, welcoming places. They are anything but. Car parks charge a fortune and retail outlets abound. Far more employees are there to run the building than to care for patients and the salaries of those in high office bleed the purse.

We are in danger of losing a wonderful service that we have all paid for and made use of, and that many of us owe our lives to. The current government is made up of many wealthy people who have interests in private health care and would love to give away the whole thing so that their friends can profit from it.

Being ill

We take so much for granted and yet it takes very little to change our lives. We are vulnerable all of the time and yet we tend not to think about that or indeed our mortality. The latter tends to come up more often as we get older and an awareness of out impending check out becomes clearer with each passing year.

I was at the doctor's this morning for a misery inducing urticaria that strikes me periodically. She seems to be exploring the causes but I don't think she will find it. It has been investigated by a number of GPs over the years and they all end up throwing up their hands, and so I live with it until it gets me down again. Mostly it is absent but when it manifests it dominates my life.

I was actually not thinking too much about it this morning but that was what the appointment was made for.  The other issues that I have need new appointments. There was a time when a GP had time to talk to you and find out what was wrong. Talking sometimes was all that some needed, maybe a little reassurance and possibly for some a prescription for a placebo. Ten minutes is now the limit and so I have had to make two more appointments, with different doctors who will deal with each problem in isolation rather than dealing with me. I am more than my conditions but hey they are human beings working to rules inflicted on them by bean counters.

I have a very painful knee - I have no idea what is causing it and no idea whether I should be working it or resting it. At the moment I am doing the latter but when I do get up to walk the pain is excruciating and so I tend to do this as little as possible.

More worrying is again a long standing problem which just won't go away. This is in part due to my inability to express what is happening.  I am writing this as a means of assisting myself in describing what happens and maybe I can start to make sense out of it.  Ok here goes, I am having periodic episodes that are quite scary.  They are not painful but deeply unsettling and each time I get one I wonder if it is the last one, the big one.  I go weeks without one and then maybe I will experience four or five in a day and sometimes at night too, then they are gone again.  The odd thing is that each one begins with a feeling of deja vu. I hear the laughter already. It could be a sound, a smell, any sensory input, though more frequently it is something I see. Then I know it is coming. It feels like something inside me has burst open and my body is being flooded by something warm. My ability to think and process becomes impaired and I have to stop whatever I am doing and wait it out. It lasts less than a minute generally and then all is normal, whatever that may be.  I am not sure that I have described it fully but that will do for now. I have something in writing and that may be of some help to someone.

So yes things could be better, but i am still here for now and grateful for that despite the pain and the fear. I am taking nothing for granted.

Referenda

Or is it referendums?  We are under a blitz of garbage from the media - in out in out what's it all about? I mean it is not as if the outcome will have much effect on most of us; we will still be bled dry by the filthy rich, whose interests will be protected whichever way they turn.

As Mark Twain said, "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it."  Besides most people have no idea what they are voting for, couldn't care less or can't be bothered when it comes down to actually putting a cross on a piece of paper and pushing it into a large black box.  The majority in this country are pretty apathetic and would not scratch their bums if someone else was willing to do it for them.

The current shambles of a government were elected by a minority. They usually are, with nearly half of those qualified to vote either not registering or just not turning out, and so we get what we deserve.

It would seem that the loony right is split between going and staying, and so by voting I will be forced to agree with half of the tory party. That goes against the grain I must say, but on balance it appears that the really crazy elements are urging us to leave Europe. They seem to want us to shrink back into something that they believe was great. I am sure that they would have us re-instate Hadrian's wall, Isolate the Welsh and cast the Irish loose into the Atlantic. By isolating us they can re-instate the old ways, get rid of human rights and fully exploit the workforce  while kicking Johnny Foreigner out of the country.

Many people are fundamentally selfish and couldn't give  toss about anyone else, many are also intrinsically racist or xenophobic. They are well represented by the current government.  After the referendum has been and gone, the consequences will become known and the recriminations will be the next distraction.

Domestic pets

This is a dangerous topic but one that crossed my mind this morning. A large white dog came bounding from the close opposite this morning. Full of youthful enthusiasm it made a thorough nuisance of itself, jumping up at little old ladies and terrifying their own dogs, before running back and forth over the main road causing cars to take avoiding action. The owner appeared five minutes later and was able to locate the animal and carry it back home.

Now antisocial behaviour by dogs is blamed on their owners I know; dogs simply behave according to their genetic disposition when given the chance, and it is up to the owners to watch them, control them and clean up their shit. A lot still fail to do this and most pavements will have a dog turd or two to tread in.

Dog lovers are legion of course and for many they are company, an excuse to exercise, or even child substitutes. Some love their animals more than they care for human beings and that is understandable, given the way that human behaviour seems to be going.

Cats cannot be considered to have much of a relationship with humans at all. They like the shelter and food supply that they are provided with but naturally they are vicious predators and love to kill mice, voles, shrews and small birds simply because that is what they do.

Recently there was uproar in the press about dogs being eaten in China, or Korea, I can't remember where, and yet people quite happily eat pork. Pigs are highly intelligent creatures and yet few complain about them be exploited as a food source. Dogs however seem set on pedestals yet I suspect that far more children are attacked and maimed or killed by dogs than by pretty much any other non insect animal.

Pet lovers seem to have little time for the rest of us who cannot relate to their animals in the same way that  they seem to.  Many of us do not enjoy being sniffed, licked or leapt upon and fail to appreciate the animal hairs that seem to abound wherever a cat or dog has been.

I do not dislike dogs or cats, I will even give attention to my grandson's hamster, more out of pity for it than anything else. Putting animals in cages, keeping them in houses all day long or chaining them up does seem rather cruel and unnecessary yet this is what happens  to many domestic pets. People accept this and yet complain about the conditions that food animals have to endure.

We anthropomorphise, it is a human trait; we talk to dogs and cats as if they can understand and yet they do not. They may understand emotions and can respond to threats and the like but how much difference is there between a goldfish and a caged animal?

Books and things

My reading began when I was hospitalised at the age of three. Well to be fair it was probably a little later than that,  and I remember being taught to read by nurses. Some would spend a long time with us children and would bring us books to keep us entertained.  Books were an escape from the institution that we are in and for me reading is still an escape, though what I have to escape from I am not sure.

I read for pleasure and rarely do I pick out a non fiction book. Text books were always a bore for me and even newspapers and magazines do not fill me with enthusiasm. When i read a newspaper, I scan headlines and may read a few sentences of an article but rarely will I stay focussed until the end.

I have joined two book clubs since moving here and enjoy both, though they do differ substantially. One of them has a dozen members who meet at member's houses and each member takes a turn at choosing a book. The meetings are fairly formal, each member taking turns in expressing an opinion about the most recent choice. When everyone has had their say, a general discussion may take place, but all chat is about the merits, or otherwise, of the current read. When the discussion peters out we all go home.

The second club is different. There are usually five or six of us and I am the only male presence. I do feel a little on the outside, but the discussions are less formal than the other group and also not only about the book. Book choices seem to just appear from a general conversation and there is more conversation about other things than just the book. 

Book clubs are a good way to widen one's reading. I have read books that I would never have thought of picking up, some of which have been a pleasure to read. Others less so, but that is the nature of reading novels; some writers appeal whilst others do not.  Frequently I have several books on the go at once. This week I am reading "The Book Thief","  "On writing" by Stephen King, and   "Disclaimer "by Renee Knight. I find it helps to keep the books in separate rooms, but even so when  it comes to discussion it is sometimes hard to remember which book is which and plot lines may get confused.

My grandson is six and is now reading fluently if rather woodenly. It is hard to get him to express feeling in the words or even to give some sort of acknowledgement to punctuation but he will get there. I am happy that he loves books, loves stories and loves to read. There are few more valuable skills to learn.

In or out

Whilst sitting in the dentist's chair and experiencing the near drowning experience again, I distracted myself by thinking about the upcoming referendum. To leave or not to leave is indeed the question, and I admit to not having a clue as to how to cast my vote. I suspect that many will not bother as they feel that their vote counts for nothing. In general elections that may be the case but in this instance, in theory at least, every vote counts and it seems that all is in the balance.

I find myself looking at the supporters of both sides and tend to be swayed in the opposite direction to  many of those. This puts me in a tricky spot as I do not want to side with Cameron and his cronies, but neither do I wish to side with HRH and the half of the tory party that wants us to leave.  The pamphlets simply find statistics that support the vested interests of the few that back them, and the media are driven by their wealthy owners; even the BBC can no longer be seen as neutral.

Whatever decision is made will benefit the wealthy and the rest of us will probably see little or no difference, regardless of what we are told. We are powerless at the end of the day and like me in the dentist chair, incapable of being heard. 

A night at the opera

I saw Tosca last night. It was a company that I have never heard of and in a venue that I had never before visited and so I went along with some trepidation. I always arrive early for everything, and last night was no exception. We had a meal and a couple of glasses of wine in a nearby restaurant before the show and found our seats with at least fifteen minutes to go. I like to watch people even though I am not fond of being amongst them, and it fascinates me to watch an auditorium fill.  I often place bets with myself as to which seats will be filled last, and it is usually those in the middle of a row, where the most people can be disturbed by those who linger in the bar for as long as they possibly can, or leave going to the toilet until the last possible minute. Seven thirty came, and there were still people faffing around looking for their seats and generally making nuisances of themselves, and it struck me that these were people of my age or even older; people brought up in different times and with different social values, or so I naively imagined. In fact the whole audience was made up of the silver haired, with a handful of younger people possibly there to look after their parents.

Opera is an acquired taste. There is nothing natural about it, and yet it encompasses so many art forms in one experience. To go to an opera is not something that most people would consider unless they are already interested. To begin with it is expensive, and then you have to suspend your disbelief as often, wholly unrepresentative people take on the roles of young lovers or whatever. It requires concentration as well as understanding and let's face it opera does not have a lot of street cred.

What is the future for provincial opera companies? When my generation are no longer there to fill the seats, will the next generation be willing or able to take our place?  I suspect not, and that is sad. Opera may one day be limited to places like Covent Garden and will be the property of the wealthy. The rest may never experience the thrills and the emotions that go along with performances of Puccini, Verdi, Mozart and the rest of the great operatic composers.

Tosca was good. The orchestra very professional and the cast performed with their hearts. It was a good evening even if my lack of faith in my fellow humans was underlined once again.

"People are bloody ignorant apes."

I try to like people.  I used to be gregarious once upon a time but somehow these days it all seems too much effort. Don't get me wrong, there are people that I like a lot and I can even cope with small groups but en masse, people generally make me want to withdraw into my cosy little shell. Even walking through the high street is, for me, an unpleasant experience; everyone seems oblivious about the presence of others and the respect for personal space seems to be a thing of the past.

I know that the flaw is in me and I try to analyse it. Partly it has to do with hearing loss. Having only one ear is quite a handicap. I have no perception of depth of sound and none of direction either. All sounds come from the same source and that could be anywhere. Where there are many sound sources, they all come in together and it is impossible to distinguish one from another and so I feel isolated in crowds where everyone is talking at once or if there is a plethora of background noise. It is hard to describe really but I just cannot function well in a crowd.

My intolerance of other people becomes more enhanced as I get older and in a few days I shall be heading for the airport.  Those places seethe with bodies and noise and smell. As soon as you enter the terminal you are trapped into a processing machine. Expected to check in three hours prior to the flight then herded through queues and  into the departure lounge along with the rest of those on the same flight.  I will examine the company carefully and hope that I don't have to sit next to the enormously fat person, the one with a cough or the one with a young child of any description. Flying is bad enough without making the nightmare worse.

In small select groups, people are ok. I enjoy spending time with friends and family and although I am happy enough in my own company, I would not wish to be alone for an extended period of time.

In Terry Pratchetts book "Small Gods" the villain dies and finds himself in a desert of black sand alone apart from the figure of Death. Death says "YOU MAY HAVE HEARD THE EXPRESSION - HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE. IN TIME YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG."  *
Death vanishes and leave him there for eternity.

* Death always speaks in capital letters
** Samuel Beckett.

Living in the past

This year has begun strangely. Already a number of names that I grew up with have died and January is only half done. Someone said the other day that looking back into the past is pointless and that we should either live in the present or look forwards.  I certainly live in the present, and yet I find that replaying the past has many positive aspects. At my age, speculation about the future seems rather pointless, especially as those dying around me are much the same age as I am. My best friend from childhood is very ill and unlikely to last long and talking about old times with him is much more pleasant and productive than thinking about what is yet to come. I suppose the thing is, that as you get older, you have far more past than you do future and the distant past is far easier to recall than what happened yesterday.

Talking about the past can also be cathartic, buried memories can be the cause of issues that we do not understand, while opening those memories can enable us to put them away and allow them to rest. Most of us have skeletons in our cupboards and life when we were children was very different to what it is today. Our parents had lived through the terrors of the second world war, many were traumatised by what they had been through, just like their own parents, and there was no counselling in those days, you just had to get on with it. No-one wanted to talk about the wars; it was as if the telling of it would unleash nightmares and make it all happen again and so it was blanked out. No parent is perfect, and times were very hard for young working class families.

We edit our memories all of the time and by talking with those whose lives overlapped can help correct the errors and put things into perspective. We can still bury the unpleasant if we wish, but however bad the experiences may have been, they are part of who we are and accepting that enables us to live with who we are today.

I look back a lot, especially when I hear of the deaths of my contemporaries, and I am trying to create a log of my life, both in this blog and in a more extensive autobiography. This way my children and grandchildren will have a glimpse into the past that might serve to inform them of their own roots, whilst allowing me to indulge myself in reliving  some of the past.

Terry Pratchett said that there was a rumour going around that before you die, you see your whole life flashing before you; it is true, it is called living.

House buying

We bought our first house in the early seventies. Prior to that we had lived for a year in a caravan close to the beach which was wonderful in summer and pretty dire in the winter. We had almost no money and to buy a house was huge step. It cost us five thousand pounds and was a tiny terraced house without central heating or a decent bathroom or even running hot water. We took out a 90% mortgage and raided meagre savings to fund the rest. It was a step on the ladder however and we made the most of it.  We had pretty low expectations I suppose and that was the way that we had grown up.

Things are no easier today. Our son wants to buy a house rather than continue to plough vast sums of cash into the bank of a landlord who manages to raise the rent every single year   and who also requires that they pay a sum of money just to renew a contract.  

Many MPs are landlords and recently they failed to pass a bill that would have made landlords maintain their properties to a decent standard.  In the same week the tories are planning to demolish the sink estates, selling the sites to their friends and ensuring that affordable accommodation is becoming a thing of the past.

Buying property in London is already pretty much beyond most young people and property is being snapped up by companies and foreign investors, pushing the price of a basic property above the half a million threshold.  Even here in Kent it is hard to find a place  less than 400,000 pounds  and this is just silly money.

Mr Cameron and his friends have little idea as to what is meant by affordable, as to those with their hands on the reins, everything is affordable.                      

Changes

So David Bowie has died: his death, like his career was stage managed and as always, the media loved him for the opportunities that he provided. He was a remarkable human being, who did much to change the ways that people looked at the world and at themselves. He made it easier for people to be different, to be themselves and to accept themselves, as well as producing music that was in itself different and challenging.  His contributions to society were enormous and the tributes have come from all over the world.  Few performers or entertainers are worthy of the label celebrity but he most certainly was.

Musicians since the early twentieth century have set out to challenge the status quo (not that band), and have reflected the need for change. The Jazz and Blues that originated in the USA, opened the way to fighting racism and division in that country. Later, protests against war drove a whole wave of musicians, notably Bob Dylan, to rail against the futility of conflicts and the divisions within societies in general.

The sixties saw an explosion in bands playing a new sound altogether and dressing in styles that were a rejection of all that had gone before, this led to the Glam Rock of the seventies and then the anti music revolution of punk. After which it seems to me that music lost its way and few bands or artists have been able to be original or to challenge  or to bring about real change.  Everything is now about money; to see a band perform costs an arm and a leg, and the likes of Simon Cowell can put together relatively untalented bands and make them famous for five minutes.  Talented musicians with something to say seem to be absent and the kids are growing up with pap.

We may never see the likes of Bowie again; the rich and powerful dictate what music is made and aired, and of course they do not welcome change.

2016

Well that is another year gone, and I still don't understand the nature of time or its interconnectedness with the dimensions of space. I try, but frankly I struggle with three dimensions let alone four. I keep meaning to acquaint myself with the quantum world but having been told that it is possible, even ordinary for a sub-atomic particle to exist in more than one place at the same time; my mind is boggled. I suspect that those that claim to truly comprehend the quantum world have access to see of the world's best drugs and are not sharing.

From the tiny knowledge that I have, it would seem that at the sub-atomic level, things do not behave in the ways that we have come to understand, and yet there are some who believe that the odd behaviour of particles can be used to explain so much of what we experience.  I was directed to this expensive video by an acquaintance and have ploughed through part of it, but it would seem that quantum mechanics has been hijacked by those who wish to apply micro behaviour to macro situations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qisWnwj8VaA

They may be right, but as I watched this, the words bull and shit, kept cropping up and I did find it very hard to swallow.

I must watch again when I fully understand the true nature of life, the universe and everything. Maybe this year I will attempt to understand gravity.