Police Commissioners? Why?

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

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

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

Wild things

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

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

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

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

Grandchild number two

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

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

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

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

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

The little things

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

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

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

Days and days

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

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

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

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

Religion and other crimes

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

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

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

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

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

My family however dysfunctional

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

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

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

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

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

I have relocated to Skyrim.

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

Hope I die before I get old.

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

Les vacances

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

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

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

Sniff

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

It is over

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

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

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

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

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

Role models

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kitchens

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

Let's hear it for Wetherspoons

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

A long weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hard to believe that he is just 2 years old

T Rex

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

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

Photoshop

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