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.