The end of a decade

The last day of 2010 and millions of people around the world will be anticipating a night of celebration. For many that will mean dressing up and setting out to get as drunk as they possibly can, ensuring that the start to the new year will be as painful and unpleasant as the last one and the one before that.
David Cameron assures us that 2011 will be a tough year, but that his machinations will see the country slowly recover and get back onto its feet. There speaks one who has never known what it is like to be poor, jobless and helpless. For many of those who voted for him, 2010 has been a year of misery, and the next year promises more of the same. When the energy bills come in after this cold winter, even more will find their wages insufficient to pay the bills.
For me 2010 has been a good year, largely due to the birth of Oscar, and an ability to play a small role in his life. His arrival has changed so many things and has given me a completely new focus. I had no preconceptions about grandparenthood and was rather unprepared for the bonding that took place from the first time that I met him. He has given me a new lease of life, and I view his growing up and development with an enthusiasm that feels rather wonderful. He just had his first christmas, and although he was pretty oblivious to the whole thing, he added a magical ingredient to my least favourite time of year.
I hope that your year has been a good one and that despite the mismanagement of our countries by self seeking politicians, that you can find happiness and optimism in the New Year.

Season's salutations to my reader

Dilemma

For once I feel sorry for our home secretary. She has been placed in a very difficult position regarding the proposed visit of Pastor Jones to to the English Defence League. She can ban him from entry to the country and face accusations of prevention of free speech or allow him in and risk him inciting racist behaviour. Her dilemma does raise some important issues, and I am sure that many people have mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Pastor Jones is a loony and he wants to address a bunch of right wing loonies. I can see no reason for preventing that. No-one has to listen and clearly he can be arrested if his words are seen to be inflammatory. What concerns me is that had he been planning an attack on say Atheism or Buddhism, there would be no fuss and even less publicity.
We bend over backwards in order to appease one particular religious group and it seems that we do so because of fear. We are afraid of the consequences of confronting them and their failure to integrate into our society. Fear is dangerous and the situation will not go away, despite successive government's head in the sand approach.

It has begun

It is the season for Nativity plays, when that sickly sweet middle eastern fable gets re-enacted by children and others old enough to know better, all over the world.
Proud parent will watch their toddlers tread the boards - many for the first and only time in their lives, wandering around dressed as peasants or angels or whatever, not remembering what to do or where to go and everyone loves it. Especially the church! How better to get punters in than to engage the children in a bit of a panto and then to make the parents feel guilty for not going to church more often.
Then there is the silly Santa Claus nonsense! Surely even the most intellectually damaged child can see that the high street is full of strange men in red suits wanting them to sit on their laps? How many Santas can there be? And how can he get around everyone in one night?
We tell the children so many lies and when they grow up they find it hard to distinguish truth from reality and that is how the Liberal Democrats got into government.

Not my fault

My blog seems to be attracting some unwelcome attention. Someone ore something, probably a bot, its sending in all sorts of comments that are fundamentally advertisements for various companies and I do not welcome these. Comments yes but random rubbish no! That is my role, and i will not have someone else doing it here.

The internet is a wonderful Earth shrinking phenomenon, but like everything that becomes accessible to all, it has become bloated and corrupt and will no doubt be our undoing in the end. We have a generation of kids who are becoming addicted to games online, we have Wikileaks attempting to destabilise the world through its anarchic approach to secrecy, we have porn virtually everywhere, scam after scam via email, and then of course there is Nigeria.

No-one seems to read anymore, there isn't the time as we spend it glued to google or facebook or whatever quick fix seems to do the trick. We are all becoming absorbed into this beast which seems to have a life of its own, and now it is growing horns and teeth. Sooner or later it will consume us all.

This is the way

I love movies, well some movies anyhow. The other day I watched The Bucket List again. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play the roles of men, my age or thereabouts, dying of cancer. The idea of a bucket list is that they have a list of things to do before they die, and luckily Jack Nicholson has enough money to make most of their wishes happen.
I was lying in bed this morning, contemplating getting up, when I drifted into the half sleep state and was thinking that perhaps I too should have a bucket list. At my age, nothing can be taken for granted and more and more parts are wearing out. To my alarm, and this was a few hours ago and nothing has altered, my list has nothing on it. Obviously I would like to see my Grandson grow up, but other than that all ambition seems to have gone. Most places that I want to see i have seen, and most things that I want to do i have done; those that I haven't done I am no longer capable of doing or were never possible in the first place. What does this mean? Is my life done and dusted already? Am I just wasting space? Or do i have something still to offer? This has been a sobering morning and i feel pretty detached from everything and everybody. Maybe this is the way the world ends - "Not with a bang but a whimper!"

The Big O

The art of con

I was reading an article the other day that described the varieties of tea that are available. For me, tea comes in handy bags, and as long as it is hot and strong, I am not particularly bothered about its history. I know that I should be more selective and should probably seek out tea with a fair trade label, but I don't. We can all be apathetic and cannot possibly care about everything.
What prompted me to comment was reference to a particularly expensive tea that is sold to those who have more money than neurons. I think it is called White Virgin, though I may be wrong, and costs a huge amount of cash. What is special about this tea? one might ask. Allegedly the difference between this tea and others is that it is not touched by human hand, and is harvested by women wearing gloves who cut the leaves with silver scissors! I confess that when I read this I laughed. So ......... what! How does this improve the purity or flavour of the tea?
I was reminded of growing up in a market gardening area in the days when every fruit and vegetable was harvested by hand. Brussels Sprouts were always picked after the first frosts, often is bitterly cold conditions. You can't wear gloves to pick sprouts and hands get very cold. Quite often pickers would pee on their hands to warm them up - a sensible solution to the problem.
We live in a society that seems obsessed by labels; so much so that there is a huge illegal industry out there forging labels so that people can buy them more cheaply, and now everyone can sport the Gucci, Armani, Burberry and all the rest of the must have labels. Now of course, it is hard to tell the fakes from the real and so who cares. It would seem that some people will spend all they have just to be a little different from the crowd, and yet by so doing they are just joining a different crowd.
I still love Brussels sprouts but always make sure that they are well washed and peeled before cooking.