"People are bloody ignorant apes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living in the past

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

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

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

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

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

House buying

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

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

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

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

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

Changes

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

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

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

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

2016

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

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

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

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

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

celebrity status

Talking of things that we do not really need, we seem to be in a phase of decline in which anyone who has been on TV becomes a celebrity, and that status draws in the worshippers like moths around a flame. The media is obsessed by them and whole sections of newspapers are dedicated to the raising of mere mortals to pedestals that they can only fall off.

I watched Celebrity Pointless on tv the other day. Not only did I not know who any of the supposed celebrities were, but could not see how on earth they had gained that status. What did become obvious throughout the show, was that whatever they had done, clearly did not require a brain, and the whole show was a demonstration of sheer stupidity, something that they all seemed to revel in. Stupidity has become a badge of honour, something that anyone can strive for and achieve with minimal effort.

Celebrities are role models for the next generation; it is no wonder that educational standards are falling. 

Things that we really do not need.

This is the season when we are reminded constantly that we live in a world where the only think that matters is money.  Without it you are in trouble and it seems that the more you have, the more you want. So many people have far more money than they can possible spend in a thousand lifetimes and yet they still want more.  In pursuit of more money we are exposed to barrage upon barrage of temptations and expectations that are designed to separate us fools from the money that we have. In consequence we buy mountains of garbage that we could really do without. In no particular order we have -

Bottled Water.  We live in a country where tap water is cheap and clean and yet there is a flourishing market for bottled water, much of which probably comes for a tap anyway. It is seen as essential to have a bottle of water with you wherever you go and you must also drink it the right way. It has to be drunk through the side of the mouth, not the front, and it must also have the right label.  So we are accumulating vast quantities of plastic waste simply for the sake of fashion.

Christmas wrapping paper.  Thousands of miles of printed paper is used each year to wrap gifts that no-one really wants and is torn up and thrown away into landfill along with the excessive packaging that seems necessary to make cheap plastic rubbish  attractive and saleable at inflated prices.

Christmas crackers.  Was there ever any product more ridiculous or less desirable?  How many tons of materials and how much energy is wasted in their production each year? I am sure that the chinese economy is maintained by them but really?

Christmas lights.  Ever since the Griswolds' Family Christmas, it seems that some people like to illuminate their neighbourhoods for the month of december. They are wasting so much energy and goodness knows how they pay the electricity bill when it comes. On top of that other people drive around their neighbourhoods to look at the displays, thereby wasting fuel and pouring more exhaust fumes into the already polluted air.

Christmas food generally.  Super concentrated calories that have short lived appeal. Christmas cakes and puddings laden with sugar, fruit and alcohol seldom get fully consumed and much of what we put on the table gets left and discarded.

Plastic toys and games.  I remember when plastic was a novelty. It has worn off!

Christmas cards. Why oh why do we send them?  Probably because everyone else does and though the post office makes a fortune, it is an annual chore that most people would quite easily shed.

I could go on, and I know that I do tend to, but then what is this blog for? Maybe we could do without that too.

That time again

I went on the bus into town yesterday as I had one or two things that I wanted to buy and for once I chose not to leave everything until the last possible moment.
Being a monday and being not too close to the actual event, the shops were not the usual feeding frenzy and all seemed pretty quiet and almost normal. Normal that is apart from the fact that all of the shops seem obliged to play endless streams of christmas muzak and many of the poor workers were dressed as elves. I did feel for them, sitting at their tills for hours on end, looking both bored and stupid.  I don't think my tenuous grip of sanity would last a day in those conditions; give me ten minutes of Bing Crosby or Wizard and I would need to insert the nearest christmas tree into whoever was responsible for inflicting so much agony on so many people.
Anyway, job done I returned home feeling quite smug, now able to complete the small part of the process that I have any responsibility for.
There was a time, many years ago, when my main cast at Christmas was to fill the children stockings. Sorry if this is a spoiler for anyone, but the man in the red suit and the rest of it is a myth.  I would of course leave it until Christmas Eve and late on christmas eve at that. I would have been to the pub for a few drinks with friends and would return after closing time to find a mince pie and glass of sherry waiting for me.  Having struggled to deal with this offering I would then fill the socks with bits and pieces and quietly transfer them to the foot of each of their beds. They never once woke up so I guess I was able to keep quiet.
Now it is the grandchildren that hang up socks on christmas eve and it is their parents job to maintain the myth and the harmless lies that we tell our children, while we look on and enjoy the memories of our own childhoods.
So we are near to the end of the process; so much time and energy spent on wondering what to buy and then buying it. So much umming and aahing about the annual christmas card battle and the huge expense on stamps, the stocking of vast quantities of alcohol and food, the yards of wrapping paper and the real enemy - sellotape, the end of which is forever vanishing.  Soon it will all be over and the landfill sites will be festooned with the waste and the big businesses will count their profits while we wander witlessly into another year.
Wishing that anyone reading this has a joyful time with friends and family, enjoy your Christmas or whatever you choose to call this festival of capitalism gone crazy.

Conspiracy theory

By and large, the world's press is an out of control machine, designed to promote propaganda and the views of the wealthy owners.  Yes there are newspapers and other media outlets that try to present information in a balanced and truthful manner, and then there are the rest who see their role as sellers of newspapers and advertising.

Rather like politicians, the media are no longer trusted and many look at each story as being a fabrication, or at least a distortion of the truth, and who knows? they may well be right. However to see every catastrophe as a conspiracy is probably not a good thing.

There are plenty who believe that America never put a man on the moon, that area 51 hides evidence supporting the existence of aliens, and that the attacks of 9.11 were either bogus or home grown as a means of turning the west against all things Islamic.

The social media give a platform to anyone who has an opinion. Last week, the tragic events in Paris were being blamed on Israel. Allegedly the killers were not fundamental Islamists, but Mossad agents, there to encourage France to make war on Syria.  An interesting idea, and one can see that any action against the Arab nations by the west would be applauded by the Israelis, however it does seem unlikely that however demented they may be, Mossad agents  are unlikely to become suicide bombers.

Some believe that Jeremy Corbyn's rise to the leadership of the Labour Party was engineered by the Tories, knowing that he could never lead the party to an election victory. His humanitarian views, his care for social welfare and for those unrepresented by the government make him an easy target for the tory press and so the labour party are and will remain toothless for the foreseeable future.

Many believe that ISIS is a construct of the West and that it is supported and fuelled by arms manufacturers and governments that make profits from war.  This does seem believable, though the truth does have a habit of seeping out eventually, so time will tell.

It gets harder and harder to keep anything quiet. Any organisation that fosters wrong doing will, sooner or later be exposed by whistleblowers, either out of a wanting to do the right thing, or out of revenge. Public shaming is so easy today and in that there are dangers.

The truth is out there somewhere, and probably lies between the press and the social media. Perhaps we are not ready to accept it yet.

Fools and their money

Groupon has an offer this morning, selling two acre patches of Lunar land for ten pounds.  For this sum, you also receive a certificate that purports to prove your ownership.  No doubt there will be some eager to purchase such a thing and I am sure that many will receive these certificates as christmas gifts. It would seem that the purveyors of snake oil have resorted to online sales.

Plastic crap seems to drive what is left of the economy. Everywhere you look there is ready made garbage that appeals to children and is bought by the tonne by adults at their wits end trying to appease the voracity of appetites for Peppa pig, Ninjago or whatever happens to be in fashion right now.   Within weeks the garbage that is being purchased now  will have lost any sort of attraction and will  be consigned to the black bins along with the superfluous wrappings.

Much of what we buy has redundancy built in.  So we no longer maintain or repair, we just replace things because that is the cheapest option and of course the skills needed to repair things are slowly dying out as are venues where repairs can be done.  I cannot remember the last time that I had shoes repaired for example. Maybe modern materials are better, but my shoes seem to last forever and if they should wear out they will just be replaced.

Everyone wants your money. Never a day goes by without some charity or other sending out pleas for cash, online scams are there in abundance and comment are bleeding the bank accounts of the unwary and unprepared. Of course if you have any left then the tax man wants to take his share too.

I remember a friend who got involved in a pyramid scheme and tried to convince me to participate.  I think it was a company that sold cleaning products. Each salesperson was supposed to recruit eight others, each of which made some payment to the recruiter and so on.  What he hadn't realised was the exponential nature of the scheme and how quickly the population of the world would become Amway salespersons if it continued.  He eventually conceded that it was a stupid idea, unfortunately he had paid in his dues.

So should I buy up a chunk of lunar land in the hope that prices will rise?  I don't think so.

Subservience

The leader of the Labour party certainly makes an impact. We all know that he can never become Prime Minister, and yet there are plenty out there who love to criticise and condemn him for even breathing. He is it seems a man of principle and he is not afraid of challenging the status quo; for that I admire him.
The tabloids have been pointing out his refusal to bow to the queen; a move that some see as shocking behaviour. Why should any human being bow down to any other? It is an act of subservience and one that says "You are my better and I know my place."  Throughout history the ruling classes have had their way, they have been obeyed and worshipped even and the population as a whole have been kept in their place.  Children have been brought up to follow along in the same paths as their parents and so the process has continued.
The monarchy and their underlings have enjoyed this for long enough and it is high time that political leaders,  of whatever party, used their own free will rather than continue along the usual lines just because it has become deeply entrenched in our traditions.
Maybe humanity has evolved to be led by the nose by those deemed stronger or fitter or smarter than they are. The current Royals seem neither strong, fit or even smart, and the most likely next monarch is certainly not one to command a great deal of respect.
Royalty, like religion, has served a purpose, in the suppression of free thinking and thus maintained a stable society in which the wealthy use and abuse those less well off. Fewer and fewer people are so easily conned by either organisation, despite the efforts of the press, and Mr Corbyn was right to demonstrate his refusal to adhere to the ritual, however symbolic it may be.  To accept that someone is better than you is also to accept that others are worse and in a modern world that is not acceptable. I will bow to no-one; we are all human beings.
  

Educational standards

Never a week goes by when someone is having a go at schools and/or teachers. Every one of society's ills is blamed on the establishments that are charged with the education of our children. If kids display a lack of manners, it is the school's fault, bad behaviour, abuse of drugs, knife killings, you name it are all the fault of the school.

We are living in strange times where the needs of the workplace are constantly shifting and because of this, the politicians like to fiddle with the running and the purpose of our education system. More and more is being squeezed into a curriculum that has been overburdened for decades; more and more is expected of teachers, who are constantly bombarded by "new" initiatives that pop in and out of fashion every few years or so, and then there is the accountability that has shifted from student to teacher.

I was browsing through some of the old textbooks that we used in the seventies; the Nuffield Science scheme and the Schools Council Integrated Science Project, and the quality of the material and the demands placed on students were worlds apart from what is expected today. Yes students are still expected to learn, but it seems to me that the emphasis is no longer on the process of learning but on the assimilation of a lot of unrelated facts. Practical work is being phased out on economic grounds, and health and safety concerns have reduced worthwhile experiences to a complete sham.

Taking children out of school has become an administrative nightmare as well as a dangerous activity, taken on only by the brave or foolish, and so for many children, school has become intolerably dull.

Social pressure is a huge factor in how attitudes have changed too.  Learning is seen as being uncool and succeeding academically has very little street credibility. Many young people want to be successful, but their role models are footballers or talentless celebrities that shoot to fame via reality TV shows.  Some come from families that place no value on education, but see schools as containment for their children for part of the day.  They are not taught the most important of life's lessons at home, the parents expecting someone else to take on that role, or not caring one way or the other.  Education is not valued by much of the population; it is seen as irrelevant by some and who can blame them - for many the curriculum is irrelevant. We seem only to value things that we pay for and everything else is taken for granted.

Educational standards are not down to the schools, they are the responsibility of all of us, parents, grandparents and adults in general have a role to play is changing the attitudes of young people and engendering responsibility and self worth in a generation that is in danger of losing its way.

Poppies

Every November, the British Legion takes to the streets and floods every retail outlet with trays of artificial poppies.  This is their big fund raiser and I assume that the cash raised goes to good causes, though these days you can never be sure.  Apart from raising money, the idea is to raise awareness of the terrible events of 1914-1918, when so many lives were lost in a seemingly avoidable conflict. The poppy is seen as a symbol of peace and it is easy to imagine the battlefields, once red with blood, changing in the aftermath to fields festooned with the fragile poppies.

It seems ironic that now the poppy has become a point of conflict in itself. Some feel that everyone should wear a poppy in November, and because that is the way that they think, anyone seen without a poppy is branded as some sort of traitor.  There is a jingoism that blossoms every year and the symbolism has been hijacked by the far right groups such as Britain First, which seems to have taken over from the BNP and the National Front.

There are a number of pro military organisations, that seem to be emerging and growing in size with passing time, and just like in the first world war, it is those who get killed or maimed for life that are labelled as heroes.  In reality of course, some that go to war were heroic, but the majority were ordinary people in the wrong place at the wrong time and had no choice in their actions.

Modern warfare is very different to that of the early twentieth century. Much of the carnage is now delivered from afar and soldiers do not spend months at a time knee deep in mud in trenches infested with rats. Hand to hand fighting and the ridiculous charging at machine guns probably never happens. Those that had to do so had no choice - they either faced the hail of enemy fire or were shot by their own officers if they refused.

Being killed in warfare is tragic and rarely heroic. Yes of course there were men who sacrificed their own lives to save their comrades but for most soldiers they were trying to survive as would anyone in their position.

Petty arguments over symbols have a habit of escalating and each year the conflict over who wears poppies and their "Britishness" seems to grow.  While the poppy is seen as a support for war in general, many people will refuse to wear one and I do not blame them.

More and more silliness.

This has always been a silly time of the year. When we were kids, this was the time when we'd have access to fireworks. Penny bangers appeared in october and we would buy as many as we could afford. Tuppence bangers were better but of course you didn't get as many, so we would wander the streets armed fully with pockets filled with explosives.  They were of course relatively harmless and would frequently explode in your hand if you were not careful; it was painful but I still have all my fingers and I don't remember anyone getting hurt. They were materials for experimentation and we'd explore their potential to the full.  They were quite small and slender, no more than three or four inches long including the blue touch paper and a short fuse. That was the unreliable part, a fuse burning could take two or three seconds but sometimes they would burn almost instantly and so throwing them at each other was risky in so many ways.  We would insert them into plastic airfoil models that we had grown tired of, causing our Messerschmidts and spitfires to shatter and burn and we'd wrap them in clay so they would sink in the river hoping to kill poor unexacting fish. The results were always a disappointment.  One day we discovered that soft parcel string would smoulder for ages and therefore made a great time fuse. We'd put timed bangers under people's door knockers and then run away to watch from a distance.

There was always a village bonfire night. It wasn't well organised and families would just take their own boxes of fireworks to the recreation ground where the communal bonfire had been constructed. It was an opportunity for people to get rid of their rubbish and that pile seemed to grow and grow through october until by november it seemed enormous. Quite often it didn't make it as far as the fifth because some idiot would ignite it just for fun and so we'd have to build a new one.   The fireworks were generally pretty tame and lasted a very short time and as the fire diminished everyone went home. WE'd all dash down in the morning to find the heap still smouldering and we'd get it going again, piling all the unburned debris at the perimeter on top. Then we'd look around for failed fireworks and throw them not the fire too. Our pleasures were very simple in those days.

We now have the continuum of craziness that begins in October with Halloween and runs through until christmas with a media driven spending spree, parting the people from their money with a fluency that is frightening.  Even the film industry chooses this time to release the huge blockbuster movies.

November the fifth is now about huge commercial displays and the consumption of mountains of processed food and the sales of chines manufactured rubbish designed to attract the eyes of children who seem to be given anything and everything that they want.  The parties and displays are not limited to the gift either, they seem to begin as soon s Halloween is done and continue for many days afterwards.

I still love fireworks however and wallow in the smells and sounds that take me back to times when austerity was the norm.

Stocks and shares

Jon Ronson's book "So you've been publicly shamed" is the current choice of my book club. I confess to almost giving up on it after sixty pages but I tend towards the "I've started so I will finish" school of readers.  It deals with the social media and the ways in which people, through little fault of their own, (Max Mosely aside) become the victims of hate attacks via the internet.  It reads a little like a Panorama programme and documents a number of high profile events that brought shame upon various persons. It would seem that Flickr and Facebook have become the modern day equivalent of the stocks.

Stocks were meant to inflict shame on those convicted of petty crimes that were not worthy of the hangman's time, and brought attention to individuals who in the eyes of the law had inflicted criminal acts on the local community. There are arguments that favour the return of such devices but it would seem that the social media are there first and are inflicting horrible punishments on some people.

It also seems that some are immune to the shaming process. Take the Tory front bench for example, or in Ronson's book, Max Moseley, who was discovered in a BDSM, Nazi themed club, enjoying himself enormously. The fact that his father was a well known Nazi supporter probably had a lot of bearing on the way that the press went for him. It would seem though that the exposure and the judgements made of his behaviour fell off him like water from a duck's back. He confronted the attackers and bore no shame of what he was doing.

It appears that human beings fall into two categories when it comes to shame; those who have none and those who find the experience mortifying.  Those in the latter category have frequently been driven to suicide as the result of mass personal attacks.  The attackers of course are part of a mob and remain anonymous. They have no notion of the harm that they do and are easily whipped up into a feeding frenzy like sharks given the smell of blood.  Crowd behaviour is a scary phenomenon. The Nuremberg rallies, Tory party conferences and football crowds all demonstrate the way in which masses of people in the same place can behave like one organism with only one identity. A crowd has no conscience and no capacity for shame, it allows the baser instincts of normal individuals to take over.

Do people experience little shame today?  It seems that most behaviours, as long as they are legal are publicly accepted and that shaming is an externally inflicted thing based on the prejudices of others and the capacity of humans beings for hatred and shared bigotry.

Tax credits

I do not understand the economy.  I do know though that our system demands that money is circulated and that each time it changes hands tax is paid to the government, thus meaning that all of that money should end up in government vaults. Of course if you are wealthy enough and clever enough you can ensure that you pay as little tax as possible and that you can squirrel away as much as you like in offshore accounts or in other schemes designed to help the rich.

The government borrows billions of pounds in order to finance various projects. Where does that money come from?  I assume that it comes from the bank accounts of those same tax dodgers who then profit from the loan paybacks at interest rates dictated by themselves.  Public debt is huge of course and it seems that it gets worse as time passes and yet those that lead our financial organisations pay themselves millions in bonuses every year.

So this week the nasty party decide to pass legislation to take money from the poorest and according to the media, expected the upper house to rubber stamp the bill.  Of course they didn't; you don't get into the Lords by being stupid and they know well that their very existence is precarious. To pass such a bill would have strongly associated the upper house with the nastiness of the current government and given the fickle nature of public opinion and the fragile nature of the place of the house of Lords, a yes vote would have been a suicidal step.  As it is the Lords have gained credibility and the Tories will shrug off the defeat and simply change the wording of the bill which will probably be passed next time.  They are determined to claw back money from the least well off whilst happily encouraging the wealthy to get wealthier.

It is the poorest that spend money in this country; the wealthy are more likely to spend elsewhere and so it seems to me to be nonsensical  to punish the already impoverished, but as i said - I do not understand economics.

Spectre

Yesterday we ventured into our nearest cinema complex to see the latest James Bond movie. Even though we left in plenty of time, the traffic was so bad that we arrived with only five minutes to spare. I am almost phobic about being late for anything and so we hurried in to find our rebooked seats, the lights were already dimmed and the back row was in complete darkness so  seat numbers were invisible. Fortunately we knew that we were sitting next to a gap and found our seats. The place was barely half filled when the programme began, first the interminable adverts and then the obligatory trailers of course. During this time, the place began to fill up, mostly with large people waddling to their seats carrying buckets of popcorn and monster trays of very unhealthy looking foods and large sized soft drinks.  There is a law, I am sure, that relates the lack of punctuality with the seat positions and the last to arrive are always the ones sitting in the middle of the row, thus making sure that the largest possible number of people are inconvenienced.

Next to me were two middle aged women who had a prolonged conversation whilst periodically examining their photo albums on their mobile phones and digging out consumables from crinkly packets and generally annoying me to the point where I wanted to move; but of course by this time there were no seats left.

Once the film started the volume drowned out the distractions but by this time I had remembered what I dislike about people in general and of gatherings such as this one.  I feel that many people no longer have any consideration for their fellows and feel that they can do whatever they want regardless of others.  Perhaps consideration should be taught in schools as it no longer seems to happen in families.

The film was as good as expected and kept to the Bond formula with all the usual spectacles and violence and it is good to see these things on the big screen,  but on balance I think I prefer to watch movies at home.

The end is nigh

Now that the ruling classes have the upper hand again, it seems that they do not care anything about what they say or do. They have no opposition and can do and say anything they please. In such circumstances the true face of greedy and selfish can be seen, but of course by the time of the next election will have been forgotten.

In just a few days we had Liam Fox suggesting that pensioners benefits should be axed an the basis that many of them will be dead by the next election and those that survive won't remember who was responsible.

Princess Michael of Kent declares that animals have no rights as they do not vote and pay no taxes. (Does she?) Clearly then,  children and the poor have no rights either.

Jeremy C Hunt says that those on low income need to work harder if they want more money. I wonder if he ever did a hard week's work in his life? I suspect not and certainly not for the pitiful payments that those on minimum wages receive.

The NHS is in dire straits, again, and by slow and devious means the tories are dismantling it along with many other services that this country has always been proud of.

The BBC is under attack constantly, mainly for having the audacity to present opinions that are balanced and out of step with their own pernicious plans and schemes.

They sell off to their wealthy Saudi Arabian buddies, as much of the family silver as they can get their hands on in order to feather their own nests and while all this is going on we have Cameron and Osborne cleaning that they represent the middle ground and blatantly stating that they wish to fix our society's problems.  They have no interest in fixing anything and most of the problems of our society have been created under conservative governments.  Thatcher was bad enough but the current incumbents are even further to the right and have been let off the leash.  Is this how revolutions begin?

Royalty

Someone said the other day, and I can't remember who it was, that the current Queen is the longest reigning monarch and yet in that time, she has done or said nothing that counts. I don't know enough about the royals to either agree or disagree, but it does seem to me that we have an institution that has long outlived its usefulness.  Yes there is a lot of support for the Royal family, but there is also a lot of antipathy towards the ruling classes in general. Prince Philip is the sort of person that you want to slap in the face; he doesn't give a damn about anyone outside of his privileged little circle and has the manners of a pig. Prince Charles, poor man, comes over as a well meaning but clueless buffoon while the rest of them try to keep low profiles and get on with their less than ordinary lives.

We are constantly told by the press that the economy actually benefits from having them; I am not sure how but there it is, I know so little. Is that a good enough reason to maintain the situation where a very expensive and exclusive group are given the illusion that they mean something?

Just imagine what it would be like if they actually had power.  The next monarch would probably abandon the NHS and replace it with alternative health services including homeopathy for all. Architects would all be fired and new builds would all be along neo-classical lines. He would I am sure want to be a hands on leader and would lead us into so much trouble that he would make the Tory government look competent.  Oh let us hope that it never happens.

Waiting

It is a little depressing, yet a sign of the times, to sit down in a doctor's waiting room, to find, along with the usual magazines, a collection of novels. I am sure there are places and situations where appointments are managed well, but it seems that these places are getting fewer and further between. As it happens this morning's appointment was only a few minutes late, but we were the early birds and would not normally expect the hefty delays associated with our overburdened NHS.

I was brought up to be punctual and polite. The latter tends to slip now and then but I always strive to be punctual to the extent that I am usually early for everything. When we lived on the Isle of Wight, it was a bit of a joke that whenever we went away, we were always back in plenty of time for an earlier ferry than the on we had booked.

We wait for everything it seems.  Buses and trains rarely arrive on schedule, we sit in traffic queues for hours, ferries are held up by weather conditions and immigrants desperately trying to get into the country. We wait for hours at airports, both in attempting to leave and in returning to the country, and we wait to be served in shops pubs and restaurants.

On the other hand, some facets of our lives have improved and waiting times have all but disappeared. Online purchases often arrive within a day, and TV programs can be accessed at any time with ease and no more do we wait for movies to be sent by post, they are watchable at the touch of a button.

What would we do with the time that is wasted waiting? Very little I suspect, we all seem to dash around from place to place or from job to job, slaves to the clock and desperate to save time. Whatever we do the time will pass and that, there is nothing we can do about.