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.

One swallow

Well the may is out, but I am not ready to cast a clout.  Old country sayings are often misunderstood, and Ne'er cast a clout 'til May is out,  probably the most misinterpreted. May refers not to the month but to the blossom of the hawthorn tree which usually emerges in that month. May blossom is one of the most beautiful and though relatively short lived, it brightens the hedgerows and gives a promise of summer to come. The smell is sweet and pungent and perhaps not to everyone's taste  but I love it when the sun shines and that smell oozes through the country lanes.
I saw the first swallow this morning;  Just the one; it was swooping around the old pub that is being demolished just over the road. It was probably looking for last year's nesting site and saw no point in hanging around. Maybe it is coincidental that at last the sun has emerged momentarily, that signs of summer are beginning to appear.
As a boy I loved the spring, and still do. I remember woods carpeted with bluebells, or primroses, madly reproducing and growing before the canopies of the trees shaded them out. Meadows full of cowslips and buttercups and of course the migratory birds including the cuckoo. Nowadays it is rare to hear the cuckoo and it's numbers are depleted probably due to lack of suitable habitats for it's hosts to nest in, or maybe the host birds are getting better at hiding. Either way the cuckoo may be on its way to extinction.  Those familiar with its song will probably miss it but for many, it will pass like so many species have before, unnoticed.  Extinction is a fact of life, and any species that fails to adapt to change is doomed.
I am enjoying  this spring in a new habitat. I have left the coast and am revelling in a fertile and species rich location. I grew up by a river and there is a smaller but similar stream just along the road and my walks take me back, re-introducing wildlife that I had almost forgotten. I am told that there are kingfishers there and maybe one day I will get up early enough to see one.  Before that though I will wait until it is warm enough to cast that clout.

Sport

There is a very lovely woodland walk close to here. It meanders along the banks of a small river, through a mix of mature oaks and coppiced hazels. I have become fond of daily strolls along there, often with a sleeping Oscar in his push chair. The other day I stopped a while to watch a game of football between tow teams of thirty or forty somethings and was pleasantly surprised at the entertainment value of the game being played between two teams both eager to win despite the lack of financial incentives. There was a small cluster of spectators, enjoying themselves despite the inclemency of the weather, and I was reminded of the true nature of sport. There were no dives, no arguments with the referee, and no aggressiveness on the pitch.

We are unfortunately hosting the Olympic games this year. It is not just premiership football that has lost direction it seems. Sport at it's highest level has moved so far away from what most of us were brought up with, and the Olympics are nothing more than a vast money machine in which highly paid athletes meet on an international stage attempting to generate national pride for their homelands.

This year's olympics are beginning to look like a military operation, with ground to air rockets, defensive radar installations, armed police, troops on high alert and goodness knows what else being installed at great expense. I am sure that huge sums of cash will be spent on opening and closing ceremonies, in attempts to outshine previous nations attempts at impressing the watching world. Tickets for most events are already sold at very high prices and many, will almost certainly have been acquired  by various means by touts who will be selling them for even higher prices as the games get closer.  Our airports are already stretched to breaking point with huge queues at immigration, and this summer, things will get so much worse.

We are a country in dire financial straits and yet we are spending billions to provide a showcase for thousands of professional athletes to do what they are trained to do and have dedicated their lives to. There will be tens of thousands of drug tests, necessary because so many competitors have, in the past, cheated their way to success. Now the cheats are finding ways of avoiding detection in our win at any cost world.

I have no idea who won the game at the weekend. I have no idea who was playing whom, and frankly it didn't matter. I imagine that it mattered to those on the pitch, but I am sure that the manager of the losing team was not sacked nor hounded by the press because his team did not win. The only true sport takes place at an amateur level.

Targets aims and objectives

When I was a kid, just a few years ago, I worked on the land during each and every school holiday. I picked plums, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, beans, peas, and for one miserable week I pulled beetroot and filled wet hessian sacks in the rain.  I even worked on wheat harvests, hauling hundredweight sacks by hand, and spent many long summer evenings bringing in hay from the fields. In those days, no-one mentioned targets probably because they were implicit and in jobs that were piecework, self imposed. You could spend all day in an orchard and fill as few or as many boxes as you liked. You only got paid for what you did. Self imposed targets work well as they are often linked to incentives rather than threats.
I did take on jobs that had targets imposed by physical means. One summer I worked in a cannery, and spent a long time getting to know broad beans. My first job was on the machine that removed the beans from their pods. The beans arrived from the fields in sacks piled onto pallets. I emptied the sacks into the machine and my target was to empty the pallet before the next one arrived. Failure to do so meant a backlog and that encouraged the management to start paying attention. Those that picked the beans also had targets; they were paid by weight and each bag had to hold the same amount. That target was occasionally met by putting bricks into the bags along with the beans. This did wonders for the machinery and we were supposed to make sure that bricks did not get past us. That of course meant we had to work slower and so the pickers bypassing their targets meant that it was harder for us to hit ours, and when bricks got into the viners, the whole line would come to a halt while screens were repaired.
We live in a society where targets seem to have become the be all and end all. Schools have to ensure that a set percentage of students pass their exams within certain set grade boundaries. Failure is penalised by OFSTED and the media. OFSTED operates on the misguided notion that all year groups are identical. Those who have worked in education know that this is not the case - there are good years and there are bad years, and this makes it very difficult to meet targets that someone festering in an office somewhere has dreamed up and imposed on everyone.
The health service has become hide bound by government targets. It is all very well to insist that a patient must be seen within a very short time frame and would be admirable as an aim if there were sufficient staff to meet that target. As it happens the target is being met by and large but the attention that patients receive has probably deteriorated, as health workers are so busy filling in forms and hurrying queues through the doors.  Nurses are no longer carers as they once were; they too are busy,  polishing their degrees and writing reports; patients get in the way.
Imposition of targets on people who are already working hard is counterproductive, and there needs to be a rethink on public service contracts in particular. Working with people is not like working with machinery or with bank balances and it is unfair of any government to fail to take into account the fact that people are individuals and cannot be relied upon to perform in predictable ways.
Let people set their own targets and maybe performances will improve.

A tidy desk shows a tidy mind - Mine is empty

I am trying to better myself. Physically that is not going to happen I know. I will never be athletic again, if indeed I ever was but my mind could do with  a great deal of improvement. This week I vowed to enhance some of the few skills that I have and decided to learn coding.  I have some books on C and Perl and one or two other languages and chose to make an attempt at C. I read through chapter one quite happily and understood most of it. Chapter two made me realise that I need a compiler so that any code I choose to write can be made accessible to my computer. Chapter three made me realise that the book assumed that I had a PC and not a Mac. At this point, my helicopter of a brain lost interest and I moved on.
Whilst watching dinosaur movies with Oscar on Youtube, I noticed reference to a 3D animation program called Blender. This is free - a major consideration these days, and so I downloaded it and printed out a 36 page introductory tutorial. Thereby hangs a tale of woe. I sent the file to the printer and waited. The printer insisted that there was no paper and so refused to do the job. (Yes we have all been there!), so i spent a couple of hours trying to sort that problem. It turns out that the file was demanding premium paper and that goes in a different part of the printer and that was empty because I don't have any of that type. I tried converting the file into a PDF and sending that, but by this time the printer was constipated and sulking, and so i gave up and reverted to my old printer and at long last got the printout I required.  I sat down for a session, opened the program and the tutorial page one.  Of course there was very little relationship between the tutorial and reality. The screen looked totally different and I find that a numeric keypad is essential - I don't have one. Now I am spending hours looking for fixes so that I can make a start. It has since dawned on me that the tutorial that I printed out is for a PC - no wonder I can't make it work.
Maybe my mind is not meant to be improved or maybe it is just too late. Perhaps I should have listened to what my teachers said rather than go my own way and do my own thing.  Maybe I should go for the physical improvement after all. Yes that's it - this week I'll have my hair cut.

Aid?

I am bloody cold. We are having the central heating boiler replaced and it is a three day job so we have no  heat at all.  As is often the case the job has turned out to be fraught with problems and the one that they are struggling with as I shiver and type, is how to get the gas supply to the boiler. I suggested a wireless link but unfortunately for some reason that won't work. I am told that by the end of the day we should be up and running though. Hmmmmm we'll see on that one. In the meantime my core temperature is dropping and I am not a happy chappie.
It does make me wonder why some people become polar explorers or mountaineers, putting their lives at risk in freezing conditions and for what? To go to places that so many have been before, just to say that they did it too? It might make some sense if they were to venture into new territories but apparently places like Everest are becoming pretty crowded and there is a waiting list to go up. Pretty soon McDonalds will be opening a branch up there.
Talking of Everest, I see that India has launched a test ICBM in order to flex their muscles at the Chinese and other Asian neighbours. Now that strikes me as expensive posturing and almost as pointless as climbing Everest. What is more, India is the biggest single recipient of foreign aid from the UK. That means that we, whilst struggling in economic adversity, are paying India to niggle the Chinese. One can only hope that the Chinese don't know that we are footing the bill. How embarrassing it would be if they knew that we were so stupid.
Anyhow, venting my spleen is not helping my thermoregulation as I hoped it might. Maybe I'll walk around a bit or even try a press up. It's either that or set fire to something and that might be seen as inflammatory.

A note to readers

I welcome readers and critics but please note that I am not looking for a romantic link with a woman (or a Man) from Russia or any other eastern or western nation. Neither do i wish to buy whatever you are selling whatever your race colour or creed.

Here we go again

Life seems to revolve around builders, plumbers and electricians. As I write, a lean to roof off the kitchen is being replaced. Between buying and moving in a large hole appeared in the aforementioned roof and it can only be a matter of time before it rains.

It has been a difficult period for our beloved government. It would seem that everything that they turn their hands to is falling apart, and each gaffe is quickly followed by a new one that eclipses those that have gone before. To say I told you so would be smug and so I won't. Desperation now seems the order of the day, and now Mr Cameron is aligning himself, just like a US President, with so called Christian values. In a week when a lunatic has won a landslide election victory thanks to the support of a Muslim majority population, it would seem to be rather silly to appear to be backing a minority group or claiming that Christian philosophy is what is missing from the big society. The so called big society is a myth that has no place within Tory policy or thinking and to hijack the foundering Church of England in order to save their skins is a real sign of weakness.

As a nation we are supposed to be proud of our freedoms. Human rights and freedoms are also a myth. We are free to do what? We are free only to do as we are told by those in power and free to do what we can afford. Those freedoms are progressively curtailed as the favoured few feather their nests at the expense of the rest of us and even the so called freedom to speak one's mind is a luxury that few can afford to exercise. If I criticise a women's group or even an individual bearer of two X chromosomes, I am branded as sexist. If I dared to speak to a child I could be branded as a paedophile and should I have the temerity to express an opinion about Islam, I am branded as racist. Strangely I can criticise any other religion with impugnity but none of us dare to condemn the fastest growing religion/political system in the world. Any politician dealing with Islamic groups must do so as if walking on eggshells and as a result they get away with murder - quite literally in so many cases. I am no racist and though I love children, I am no paedophile either, but I do object strongly to any political philosophy that oppresses its subjects and removes their right to think for themselves. The tories haven't got there yet but it can only be a matter of time before we have a mosque in Downing Street.

Mr Cameron is trying hard to patch his roof, to shore up his walls and to restore the edifice of government to something worthy of respect. Soon it has to rain and I suspect that his builders are cowboys. I hope that mine are more reliable and less corrupt.