Lake Balaton

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

Stupid questions

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

Why did I start this??????

Keeping abreast

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

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


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

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


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

Eyjafjallajokull

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

Day Two

Day one

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

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

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

Gardens

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

Change?

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

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

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

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

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

Mistakes

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

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

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

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

Another phase

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

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

Seasons

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

Welcome George

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

Come on George

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


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

Still waiting

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

Waiting

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

I'll drink to that

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

just a thought

On the fringe

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

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

Contrasts

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

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

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

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