RICHARD'S ECLECTIC WORLD

Extreme Gardening?

2011-09-11T11:55:00.004+01:00

It has been one of those years in our garden. The grass has been getting patchier, the weeds more abundant after each rain shower, the moss getting hold and on top of that the hedges, shrubs and plants have all been growing at a rate only comparable to that of the Triffids of John Wyndham’s eponymous novel, The Day of the Triffids” , or at the very least tropical jungle fauna most likely found in Brazil or Borneo.

One day I was surveying our vast expanse of manicured lawn (I wish), yes all 45 sq metres of the rear garden and decided that action was needed to make the garden a more attractive place to sit by actually sorting it out.

I had nurtured this patch of grass from rough pasture to something approaching a mown area of green stuff, or could I say, less rough pasture and it had let me down. The grass, despite my efforts of weekly cutting and careful removal of weeds, feeding and treating with moss killer had now developed large bald patches where I had been successful in my war on moss.
The shrubs needed pruning and in many cases actually digging out and moving to a more suitable place in the garden. We also have a large hedge that comprises a couple of small Yews, very large Scots Pine and several Hawthorn bushes which look great but were harbouring wayward cats, mating foxes and a large number of brambles that made getting in and around the area a bit of a challenge.

So along came Alan, a man with a pair of shears and a spade and a bit more knowledge than in terms of gardening. He arrived every Monday morning just in time for a cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit and a bit of lamp swinging and chat between me and him. He would then set about the various tasks we set often with some “labouring” help from me and now we were able to go about the various garden centres buying up the plants and shrubs that Alan directed us towards.

As we approached mid October we knew we would have to put Alan “on-hold” until next spring but not until we had completed just one more task. Alan had noted that a branch of our very wild Scots Pine (that’s the Scots for you, leave them alone too long without a bit of a haircut and treatment and they get wild alright!) we decided to lop the rather long branch that was starting to dominate the garden and block the light into my “study” on the first floor.

Once we realised that neither he nor I had a ladder long enough to reach the branch at the correct spot Alan initially suggested that I hold the ladder while he crawled out along the branch to cut of the correct amount. We soon dismissed this plan and moved to plan number two, We would hang the ladder from the branch, no. OK, plan three, we would get the step ladder, the extending ladder and our empty wheelie bin and make a tower of sorts that the mighty Alan would scale to amputate a portion of the branch, if not all or part of one of his limbs. Plan three worked, yes worked and here is the evidence. I know, all limbs are present but you can see that there is a missing tree limb!

No animals or humans were hurt during the making of this photograph and the tree is recovering well and demanding more attention next year!

I will try and bring my loyal readers up to date on this and many other matters as the year progresses.

Finally, reading the Ibiza Sun Newspaper today I saw a rather nice reference to my Blog from another “frequent visitor” to Ibiza, Mr AJ! Thank you AJ for mentioning this madness that is my Blog and thank you for your kind words also. So, keep reading!

An Introduction to Mr. P and other matters.

2011-09-11T11:52:00.002+01:00

Back in May this year I discovered or more to the point, my doctor very pointedly highlighted a part of my anatomy I would prefer not to have found right then, my prostate.

Fortunately my doctor whilst fully medically qualified is alas not particularly light fingered, if you know can imagine what I mean.

Getting to the point, I had simply gone along to the surgery for my annual review of my current medication and it was during this routine visit that I was asked how I was feeling generally. I started reciting the extensive list of mundane aches and pains and other issues that afflict we men on reaching that "certain age", when Dr.P asks, "would you mind if I just give your prostate a quick check while you are hear"? Well, actually I would mind but as he was looking at me rather assertively I had no choice but to reluctantly and apprehensively agree his examination. During this rather undignified and somewhat unpleasant procedure it did cross my mind that next time a stranger, even if they claim to be a doctor asks me this same question, I would think hard before saying yes, please do.

All I can say is that his examination bloody hurt and I did wonder if I may have been hasty in agreeing to his request. Was it worth it I thought after pulling up my trousers. I certainly hoped it was as I was to get the results a couple of weeks later towards the end of May. I confess I was more than a little apprehensive about my hospital appointment. By this time I was probably convinced I had terminal prostate cancer, had sworn my partner to secrecy and had started looking at my personal affairs in some detail.

One thing I made sure I didn't do was trawl the internet for information on the walnut sized part of my anatomy that was apparently causing so much concern.

So to cut a rather long story short, Mr P and I are very well thank you and despite three further unwelcome probing sessions by a range of specialist doctors and a swift avoidance of an even more unpleasant biopsy all is well in the nether regions.

It is a sad fact that the older you get the more invasive the medical questions and procedures get but at least this time I can rest easy until the next time!!

Reverting to or Destroying of the English language?

2011-07-20T10:16:00.002+01:00

More and more in daily life we hear the creep of Americanisms into the English language. Are we reverting to some version of 16th century English spoken in colonial times or is this the beginning of the destruction of our language? No, this language of ours is not “International English” (find software that doesn't use this term) nor is it “British English” it is ENGLISH not American or any other English, just English! Now the BBC have just published a sample of Emails that attack this trend to destroy our language and it is with some dismay that I think we may have already lost the battle! But I will continue to try to win some skirmishes on the way to total defeat. Oh and don’t mention spelling! So many “ize’s” lack of “u” in words. There are even far too many English people who say we shouldn't worry about spelling and grammar “as long as you are understood” !! What utter rubbish from the mouths of teachers is almost too hard to credit.

Here is a link to the BBC page :- "Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples" BBC

Now, I also want to add my own list of words here plus a prayer that we don’t allow a new “patois” to creep into English that has also started to appear in common usage and that is where urban white youths seems to want to emulate urban black youths and what you end up with is an incomprehensible babble of jargon understood only by a small minority of people.

However, that is all another subject so let me just end by adding my list of words and sayings.

OUT	IN
1. Guys	People	You go to a restaurant or shop and you are greeted as “what can I get you guys” – I’m 65 for Gods sake not a teen!
2. I’ll Have…..	Could I have a ??? please	What happened to please and thank you ?
3. Folks	People	I don’t wear a Stetson!
4. Any word made a verb by adding “ize”		Shudder……
5. On the back burner	postpone
6. Harass (pronounced har – ASS)	Harass without any inflection
7. Ending a statement as a question .. the raised inflection!!
8. Kick the can down the road	Not sure what this means even!
9. Pre-owned	Second hand!!!
10. Lay off	Redundant
11. Ball park figures	Estimates!!!

I leave the rest to your imagination and of course feel free to comment!
Dear oh dear, I have now started to think about some other things that grate on me like is it “aitch” for H or is it “haytch”?
What about holding a tea cup, little finger sticking out! Or the coffee cup or tea cup held in the palm of the hand instead of by the handle!
What about holding a knife like a pen!!!!! Right of wrong?
Wearing hats in restaurants or in doors when eating?
Elbows on the table?
Swearing in public disregarding peoples sensitivities?
Shopping bare chested in supermarkets?
Three quarter length shorts and outsize football shirts worn by pensioners?
Crop trousers/shorts and trainers worn by anyone who is not a Hobbit?
Answers on a postcard please!

R T F M ……

2011-07-13T15:21:00.002+01:00

Those of you familiar with the above expression will already know what it means. However, for those who are not familiar with it I think what I am about to write may give you some general idea of the full meaning of the abbreviation. I don’t want to have to spell it out really as the use of expletives is largely banned in my Blog.

OK, I often read a number of forums for people of similar interests, computing, photography, the military or lets say, history and politics. The computing and photography forums tend to be somewhat specialist and are suitable places to obtain help and advice on a range of issues not necessarily available in a manual (M). The other forums therefore tend to contain expertise on other less “technical” issues and are used for social networking more than technical support. Having said that, you do often find areas of help and advice being passed about among the various communities but sadly I have found that some of this “advice” is often flawed and the “help” sometimes ambiguous or even contradicted by other “experts” in the thread of the particular forum.

I sometimes feel the need to scream at the screen when I see a question like “I have just bought a brand new printer from PC World but can’t see how to connect it to my PC, can anyone help” – The pressure in my head builds as I want to shout RTFM!!! - what is it that stops a sensible person from opening the box and picking up the “M” and then reading (R) the (T), (F expletive deleted”) (M) – so, rearrange the letters and you can see the answer! (RTFM, got it yet?)

It’s the same with software. Why spend several pounds on some sophisticated bit of software and then spend half the time asking every Tom, Dick and Harry how to use it. There is adequate help available with the product, additional “help” is available via good old Google (perhaps not as this is almost as bad as asking your various friends on the Forum for help!) – Google only when you are a competent user and can actually sort the wood from the trees among the various contradictions you will find in these places.

One tip I always give it to subscribe to a decent Computer magazine that is suited to your level of understanding and competence. Don’t buy a 50 quid manual when you can’t tell your mouse from your desktop. Buy a magazine that caters for the newbie and the geek and isn’t trying to flog you a “free” DVD of software, much of which you will install and end up cluttering up your PC.

I now only use low cost reliable software that is not “resource hungry” (you will need to research what this means – treat it as a test!) that you can install and almost forget about until it update time. I use a simple and reliable Anti-Virus package that costs on £19 per annum, the Windows Firewall, one Adware blocker/Killer and one very well thought through “tune up utility” and nothing else. Back in the old days I had so much “contraception” on my PC it could barely run! Now, I keep the “protection” simple and clean and I always create a restore point BEFORE I install something and back up regularly, I know it makes sense. The one time I didn’t do this I had the biggest disaster for many years that took me hours to sort out and lots of gnashing of teeth and promises to RTFM!

My favourites for keeping in line are as follows:-

1. ComputerActive Magazine is full of tips, advise and other useful stuff. It comes out twice a month, is almost clear of ads and offers no “free DVD”. It is aimed at all levels of user and you can get advice by writing in (you may no get an answer but its worth trying).

2. Windows Firewall – It may be Microsoft but it works

3. Solo Anti-Virus – This is from SRN Micro and is excellent – You hardly know its running.

4. Ad-Aware

5. Malwarebytes

6. Tuneup Utilities 2011

These are the only applications running but I do have a range of other utilities that I can use if I need to. I agree its a personal choice what you use but I have found that these basics suit me now and I have a smooth running, fast starting largely error free PC now.

So, beware the advice that is thrown about in forums by enthusiastic armatures like me (I only ever give advice if I know the “solution” works and always prefer to refer anyone who asks to the Manual!

Good Luck!

PS: Learn about your PC inside out! Don’t rush at using it. Go on a course there are many free ones. Don’t tamper!

A Word to Military Re-enactors

2011-07-12T13:53:00.001+01:00

I saw this and just had to say that these people need to get it right if they want to dress up as soldiers like this.

Here is the description of the position of Attention (like these two in the photo) taken from the British Army Drill Manual – See if YOU can Spot the differences!

“Both feet are flat and firm on the ground heels in line and touching, with the toes at an angle of 30 degrees from a line, front centre of the body, both knees are braced. The arms are straight and held into the sides of the body, the forearms forced in behind the hip bones and the wrists straight. The hands are closed with the thumbs vertical and facing to the front, the backs of the fingers touching the thigh, just behind the seam of the trousers. The shoulders held down and back to bring the chest to a normal position without straining or stiffening. The head is held up with the neck touching the back of the collar. The eyes are open — still, and looking just above their own height. The chin is raised and the mouth closed. The body is now in the position of Attention”.

Like this!!!

Tut tut boys and get those trousers pressed too!

OK, It was just for fun…….

I did it by the book – or so I thought.

2011-07-11T18:17:00.002+01:00

I was lucky enough to have been able to take the opportunity to retire early in 2007 and in a way make a swipe beating the clock so to speak. Why work and die when you can relax and they die at your leisure? – Fingers crossed! I had been drawing an “occupational pension” since 1996 so was able to plan sufficiently not to end up destitute and wishing I'd stayed at the madhouse called West Sussex County Council.

So, on reaching official retirement age this year I only had to make some simple plans that were all thoughtfully laid out in the Governments own web pages. It would all be so simple (cue freaky music).

Four months before your retirement date the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) advises is the time to “Claim your pension”. Here is my story.

I call the pensions claim line in February and after the usual jumping though the various security hoops I get make the magic statement. “Hello, I am 65 in June and I would like to claim my state pension” I state confidently. “Yes sir, this is the right place to call but I am afraid that due to a backlog of claims I can’t handle your claim at the moment”. Hmmmm I though, what next. “You will be better calling back at the on the 3rd May and make your claim then”. So, given my naivety at this stage of the process I thanked the nice man on the phone and waited for three months until the 3rd May.

3rd May…. Leapt out of bed and called the DWP Claim line…. perfect, and it only took about 10 minutes to make the claim and then a month later I would be unbelievably rich!! (Perhaps not, I am just exaggerating a bit).

Come the end of May I have still not been told the actual amount or date that I will receive my pension. Mind you I have a letter from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) reminding me I am going to be 65 and that I should complete the form P161 to ensure that I am allocated the correct tax coding and personal allowance. I even receive a letter from my occupational pension provider notifying me that they have noticed I reach normal retirement age and adjusting my pension accordingly. Yipppeeee! However, still nothing from the DWP and another letter from the HMRC chasing me up for my form P161…. I make several calls to the Pensions Service at DWP and get no where. I draft a long complaint to my MP and the Minister for Pensions – I didn’t intend to post these letters unless I didn’t hear about my pension until AFTER my birthday.

Finally, on the last week of May I receive a letter from the DWP detailing my pension, telling me the day and date I will receive it and paying me a week to make sure I do not get in arrears over the 4 weeks that is normal. Wonderful, now I can send my P161 to HMRC so that I can get my new coding and allowances. After all I don’t want to pay more tax that necessary.

Last Friday I received a letter from HMRC with my new coding. It’s WRONG!!

Monday I call the Help Line and discover that despite being chased twice and then sending my form as soon as I knew my pension totals they hadn’t seen it. “It is probably sitting in an inbox somewhere” the poor bloke on the end of the phone thought. Anyway, he sorted out my coding on the spot and assured me that I would receive my new coding and allowances soon. I live in hope but am quite looking forward to see how much of a tax rebate I receive one the new codes are in place.

“I did everything by the book” I told Neil at the DWP …. “I’m really sorry” said Neil, “these things do happen but we do our best to keep up and make sure that everyone gets helped”. What a nice chap.

It’s been a long and frustrating slog to get here but I have decided to hold on to my two letters raving at the MP and government Minister until I have seen the end results of all this rigmarole.

For the time being I am happily retired, once and for all!

Cheers!!!

What the…………..?

2011-06-30T22:27:00.001+01:00

Have you ever laughed at the old lady or old man who you hear about who have put their shoes in the fridge and their butter in the wardrobe, or worse? Yes, I bet you have! Well I know that I have at some stage had a laugh at the prospect of that happening.

Well today a very odd thing happened in this household. We had friends round and after the usual coffee, tea, cakes and lots of talking the thought of alcohol crossed my mind. “Who’d like a drink then”? I asked. “I will” said one lady, “a small sherry if you have one”. So off I went to get myself a rum and a cigar. Got the glasses out of the cupboard, poured the sherry from the bottle chilling in the fridge and the rum from the bottle in its usual place, lit the cigar and forgot all about the event. A couple of hours later I was asked why I had put the sherry bottle in the kitchen cupboard with the glasses!! What next, butter in the washing machine and laundry in the fridge?

All this does make me recall that old saying from Ozzy Osborne; “of all the things I miss, it’s my mind the most”. I have not only started making regular calendar entries to remind myself of the most trivial of events but now I even leave notes around the house to remind myself to enter the events in the calendar!

Try having a look at this link about absent mindedness, I found it both amusing and informative if not a bit alarming. Just click the photograph below here and take a look.

Should I worry I asked myself? When is forgetting things just me getting old? When will it be me who, like my grandmother once said of me; “who is that man in the red shirt”? (Given it was her birthday party and I had just given her a gift) will I be saying the same of my daughter perhaps… I hope not! I may just book myself in for one of those tests that the local GP surgery have to test your basic brain function to see if there are any signs of early onset dementia. Hmmm, perhaps not, I may just let it slip my memory?

OK, back to list making!

A Ride in The Country - 1958

2011-06-30T13:46:00.001+01:00

Some time ago, in a second-hand bookshop, I saw a map of the Chichester area dated 1947 and given that I was only a year older than the map I decided to buy it.

A couple of weeks ago and having largely forgotten about the map I was scanning some old photos onto my computer when I came across some of me preparing for a cycle ride, the date, summer 1958. From what I could tell the day looked pretty good with bright sunshine and me decked out in some sort of school shirt (no fashion statements back then) and an odd looking pair of what looked like grey jeans plus a pair of rather fetching baseball boots, so there was at least some hint of a fashion craze there perhaps?

Just looking at this photo I was taken back to that summers day when three of us set out on our bikes to explore the countryside between Leigh Park in Hampshire and Chichester some 10 miles away in West Sussex, a real adventure in those days! A motley bunch we must have looked as we set off eastward from Leigh Park, which in those days was a rather new and exciting council estate, into the surrounding lush countryside and narrow roads meandering past country pubs, picnic spots, large country houses, cottages and farms. Not so today with Leigh Park being one of the largest housing estates in Britain, much of the surrounding countryside now largely developed and there being little break between the many towns and villages that were so unique in the 1950’s.

The cycle looks considerably larger than suitable for me and those “jeans” look more like my school trousers than jeans! I had a rather nasty fall from this bike when I plummeted down hill and slipped off the pedals (complete with “rat catchers”) – I was “rescued” and returned home by a Post Office engineer with my bike in the back of his van. I think this first photo was taken on the actual day of the ride. Note the baseball boots!

As I recall, we set off from Leigh Park heading westward through the new and still dusty estate roads towards the countryside by way of West Leigh. Arriving at the cross roads at what is now Bartons Road and Horndean Road we set off along the Emsworth Common following the signs to Westbourne, Aldsworth and our next planned stop at Funtington. We found ourselves cycling past open fields, small cottages and large farms set far back from the winding deserted roads. It all seemed so rural, tranquil and peaceful.

Emsworth Common Road – towards West Ashling

Arriving in Funtington we found ourselves in what was then a small and very quaint village with thatched cottages, a village store (not open as we passed) and open fields as far as the eye could see. There was a large, what we called a “manor house” on the left of the road and just off to the right in Watery Lane was Hallidays Restaurant. We gave both places a wide berth given our tender years!

Once we had cycled through the village we found ourselves on this deserted stretch of road that would take us to the outer edges of Chichester and the target of our adventure. As I recall we did not encounter a single car over this stretch of road and even went as far as riding without hands for much of the way even when we arrived in

Our next waypoint was East Ashling which we passed through without event until we got to Old Broyle Road and the downhill stretch along St Pauls Road into Chichester. I can’t remember how we arrived in the City given that we had approached via Northgate but as I recall we approached the Cathedral from Westgate. In any event when we got to the centre of town it was absolutely deserted, not a soul about and only one shop that appeared to be open. Fortunately for us the shop was a general store selling cakes, sweets and drinks. So armed with a jam sponge roll each and a bottle of Tizer was sat on the Cathedral green and ate and drank until we were bloated and feeling quite sick.

After about an hour the City seemed to come alive as the shops reopened after lunch and the streets started to fill. Shortly afterwards a policeman arrived and the City Cross and seemed to be waiting for something so us being inquisitive we waited to see what it was. Sure enough, the policeman stepped into the road and stopped the traffic that was passing around the Cross into North, South, East and West Streets and then to our surprise waved through a bus that had to pass around The Cross on the wrong side of the road!! We soon worked out that this must have been a regular event as no one took any notice as it would have been impossible for the bus to have negotiated the roundabout , that The Cross in fact was, on the correct side of the road and had no option to pass on the wrong side. I was to see this repeated many times much later in my life until the centre of the City was all but closed to traffic in the 1970’s

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Views of Chichester today.

So, exhausted and feeling as if we had travelled a thousand miles by bike (my backside did anyway!) we set off back to Havant and home.

Wimbledon 2011 or a day in A&E?

2011-06-29T16:43:00.000+01:00

Hello dear reader and welcome to some of my surreal thoughts while reading the paper this morning. Turning the pages my thoughts drifted to what some call “the world of celebrity”, the fall of a star here and there and the rise of another. Then the name of the sporting celebrities who have been in the press of late and many who have not. Then I heard dulcet Geordie tones in my head saying “ hey but you’re a mardy fish pet”. Cheryl, where did you spring from I thought? It’s funny what the brain can do at times. So the brain started working again who the heck is a mardy fish if not a bad tempered fish at all? Come to that when at my doctors I was alarmed to hear him suggest that “it may be a case of A nastier form of pavlyu chenkova “! My God I thought, will this another DRE* when I am only just recovering from the last one. Fortunately both examples of the mangling of the rich English dialects with the names of tennis players simple translates as the oddly named American player, Mardy Fish and the embarrassing medical condition I thought was being diagnosed was only the GP speaking about the Russian tennis player rated 14 in the women's seeding.

* digital rectal examination

It was all a bit like listening to Barry Manilow singing “Copacabana”. When I first heard that song and he gets to the line, “ His name was Rico, he wore a diamond
He was escorted to his chair, he saw Lola dancin' there” it’s then that it all goes wrong for me because I then here “ and when she finished, he called her Rover “. Oh dear, of course, he actually singing “he called her over” - I can only snigger now at the thought.

There is even a TV Ad Campaign for “Compare the Market” with a bunch of retired, elderly Meerkats in an old peoples (or old meerkats home) so here is my final entry to the miss-heard debate.

Compare the MeerKat

I’m the one with the hat!

(If I was a meerkat)

This weeks Random Blog – Chad

2011-06-26T18:05:00.009+01:00

Well, anyone want to tell me about Chad? There are a couple of choices here now…..

There is this one….. I am waiting for someone to visit my blog from Chad and have been waiting now for about 4 years!

Or there is this very famous chad…… remember Florida?
How could you forget?

So, a quick poll:-

Local Headlines this Week

2011-06-24T09:32:00.003+01:00

I saw the following headlines in the local paper this week….

I asked myself, “how much does it pay”?

Bit drasticPerhaps?

Keep deaths on track!

As long as he washes his hands?

Will I get this in a brown envelope?

Just a few thought provoking headlines from the West Sussex press……. spoilt by me!

And finally

Vote Here!

In The Footsteps of Wallander

2011-06-23T17:55:00.001+01:00

Having been a fan of Henning Mankell it should come as no surprise that a trip to Ystad in the south of Sweden would have to happen one day. So it was some excitement that we departed from Gatwick at the beginning of June bound for first, Copenhagen where we catch a train to Malmo. We would have to catch a second train from Malmo to Ystad and then a taxi from there station there to the hotel, the Ystad Satlsjobad Spa hotel as it turned out. I will not bore you with some of the misfortunes we encountered there because I don’t want to detract from the overall success of our first visit to Sweden and our rather geek like following of the fictional detective, Inspector Kurt Wallander (I urge you , read the books from the very first one!).

The hotel was a good walk to the town of Ystad, when I say good I mean an easy walk only taking us about 20 to 30 minutes and no hills to climb. We did have to negotiate several pedestrian crossing and a railway line of two but nothing to cause any difficulties. Sweden certainly is a nice, well cared for place as far as we could tell. The houses on one of the more scenic routes into town were all different with little garden houses with matching garages and all painted various colours.

Touring the town didn’t take long and we found several nice places selling very sticky cakes and rather nice coffee. We didn’t really get time to try any restaurants in the evening but too the opportunity to snack on two days and then had a meal in our hotel on our last night in Sweden. However, the one place where we did have a couple of nice meals was on the beach promenade not far from the hotel. This little place is well known for the owner who calls his customers meals through a megaphone! “Halla Halla”!!

The walks and the beaches are perfect for budding photographers and naturalists (NOT naturists!) and given a heat wave would be perfect for a long day sunbathing.

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I mustn’t forget the main reason we went to Ystad in the first place … Inspector Kurt Wallander. We followed in his footsteps as far as we could but saved time by visiting the TV studios were the series was made and much of the story is there to see.

Fridofs and the famous “Wallander Cake” !

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The Hotel Continental where Wallander has a table reserved plus some shots of his “Office” an “flat” …. we are so sad!!! Stalking a fictional TV character!!

Finally, the view from the train of the wonderful Swedish countryside…..

The good things were the friendly people, the good food (if not a tad fattening), the beach, the walks, the hotel (if the builders had been absent!) and the weather was perfect. The bad things, not a lot really just that it was somewhat expensive. But there again, it was worth it in the end and we came home worn out. The only moment of panic was when I thought I had lost the house keys and we faced the prospect of finding a hotel overnight and then paying out for a locksmiths. All turned out well in the end when the keys turned up in one of our suitcases!!! - No further comment needed.

Revival or Resurrection?

2011-06-21T10:52:00.002+01:00

Reading recently that the Goodwood Revival is about to take place again it made me think of several other “R” words, resurrection, renaissance, return or even retribution! So taking the words, "I'll be back" as the catch phrase associated with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which he first used in his role as the title character from the 1984 science fiction thriller film “The Terminator”. Then came the follow-ups:

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Terminator Salvation

So what with my apocalyptical ending of this blog I thought, why not start if off again just like the Terminator. I know I never said “I’ll be back”, but I am, and why you may wonder (if you can be bothered).

These are pressing times in the UK (if not the world) at present and I have ranted enough to Mrs H about matters so much now that she has developed a technique whereby she manages to feign listening and nodding agreement without actually listening to a word I’m saying. It’s only when I detect a long pause after I have asked her a question that I realise that she has been actually thinking her own thoughts or even reading the paper or a book, oblivious to my ravings about the Public Sector, Unions, Teachers and the state of the nation in general. True female multi-tasking at its best!

I have been posting many of my rants on the on-line editions of the newspapers and even on the Huffington Post which is awash with so many ill informed “non-brits” that it is almost cathartic to attack them with unparalleled venom. Then to befriend them like a rather testy uncle and put them on the straight and narrow…. well it is fun after all.

I will be venting my spleen on many of my current pet
hates which include the whining public sector workers who are moaning about their pension contributions etc. But more on this later as this is only the re-opening of my old blog – yes, it’s resurrection!

The End of the Blog (Finally!)

2011-03-23T18:19:00.001Z

I have been writing this blog since September 2007 during the period leading up to, during and after our return from Ibiza. I started out by trying to see the bright side of life which was sadly ruined by the two burglaries in Ibiza. On our return I confess I found it hard to find subjects to laugh at and increasingly found myself commenting on the many annoying and irritating things about politics, the idiocy of some people in life and the amount of madness I started to see around me in this country of ours. So, enough of that sort of writing, it does me no good.

So to keep my blood pressure down and to let me concentrate on my photography interests I am stopping the blogging once and for all. My “ranting and ravings” are over, my “eclectic world” is closed and my “worries” put to bed.

Good bye to all my readers, even those who spent as long as 2 seconds a visit. Goodbye to those few who came back again and again. You were gluttons for punishment.

It’s the “End of the Blog Show”

A worrying thought.

2011-03-01T19:29:00.001Z

I woke up this morning, turned on the TV and laid back to wait for the central heating to be blasting out to full effect and then the BBC News came on and jerked me into a more wakeful state! After all the reports about some anti-cuts subject, then a bit of coalition bashing and some other tosh and then came the bombshell. Some “New guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics urge parents to recognize fever as a sign that the body is working to fight infection and not something to be feared.” Who ever they are when they are at home. Anyway, off went the BBC to interview mothers outside a school somewhere in Britain. Now, this is where I found it worrying, there was not one single ethnically British woman to be found to interview!!! There was an Auzzie, an Italian and two others of indeterminate origins who all gave very lucid and articulate replies to the question. (Perhaps that’s the issue then, may be they had to leave a lot of home grown comments on the cutting room floor?) – well what with the other BBC habit on Radio 4 of late of only interviewing American academics as “expert commentators” I am staring to believe that there are not Brits left here!!! Here in leafy Sussex we are fortunate not to have too many diverse languages to cope with (apart from that spoken by teenagers) but I am considering learning Polish for when I am at the weekly market as that does seem to be the predominant language spoken there. However, the local Big Issue do seem to be speaking another language I have yet to identify but I am sure it is east European. Again, that spoken by British teenagers is still tantalizingly far from my ability to translate it into anything our Polish and other European residents can reasonably understand, “like”. (geddit it?) …

Ah, now that reminds me! Did anyone see that truly awful, dreadful or cringingly embarrassing adverts for Thomas Cook? “We dream abaad id”… Well that’s what it sounded like it to me… annunciate young lady, annunciate!!! I have not seen the ads for some time now so I can only pray that some sane member of the Thos Cook marketing department had the good sense to pull the ads before any real people had a chance to have fits! Cringe here

Here is another fine example of one of our exports…. John Gallinano

I say no more!

Mysteries of Life

2011-02-26T22:17:00.001Z

Who is “Matanvah”?

Is this an anagram? Is it a nickname? Is it a metaphor?

Will we ever know?

Is It or he an enigma!

“We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell?
That damned, elusive Pimpernel”

Libya

2011-02-26T22:15:00.001Z

It’s with some interest that I view the current events unfolding in Libya at this time. Hearing and seeing the old names of the places I knew back in 1967 bring back many memories of driving from Tobruk

Tobruk

to Timimi (a war time desert airfield near a very small village)

Timimi

and then later being encamped near the sea at Derna, where the soil was deep red in colour and in the rain made you look like you were covered in blood.

The road into Dernah

and the road with so many hairpin bends that some journeys in a 10 Ton AEC truck laden with 300 empty Jerry cans

X300

to the RAF base at El Adem was exciting to say the least!

in one of these!

Well all I can say that once I had endured the three hour drive I needed the shower that was available at the RAF base at El Adem. The drive anywhere in Libya was usually “interesting” in that you could be accosted by dodgy hitchhikers (mainly Arab) or overtaken by Monks (mainly Italian) or driven off the road by a grey Rolls Royce (usually King Idris).

Well, you can see the chaos I left behind by just looking at the news on TV!!!

“Baby Boomers” are the new public enemy?

2011-02-20T20:46:00.001Z

In recent weeks I have been hearing so called serious reports on the BBC and in some of the press that seem to blame the “baby boomer generation” for all the current woes of the country, be it the financial situation or indeed a larger than average carbon footprint.

Well so what I say!

We baby boomers are by definition and also reality older than the simpletons that have decided it “all your fault”. We have made it hard or even impossible for them to get a mortgage, we have forced up house prices for having dared to sell our houses at a profit. Baby boomers are “greedy” for wanting better savings interest rates than the pitiful percentages currently on offer. Baby boomers are also now being accused of having higher than is acceptable “carbon footprints” . Yes, being a baby boomer means we are older and need to keep warmer, more constantly entertained because we are at home retired!

Well, so what I say!

Lets just look back a bit shall we so that I can try and justify my rather couldn’t care less exclamation. I seem to recall paying a lot more interest on my mortgages over the years that today. In fact at one time I am sure I had to pay 15%. I have paid tax at tax rates at least 2% higher than those levied today (excluding the wealthy who have had to pay a 50% levy this year). I also found it harder to actually get a mortgage when I was starting out, well get a 100% mortgage that is. I could only get two and a half times my salary, find a large deposit and then back it all up with an indemnity insurance too!

We baby boomers have lived through and survived several governments “incomes policies” which resulted in national wage freezes like nothing we have had this last 20 years. We worked hard to save money and then invest it in property and have earned the right to spend it as we like now we face retirement. We also have to spend more time looking after our well being which can and often does mean, going on holiday abroad!!!

So, I think I am back to where I started.

It’s NOT the baby boomers fault, it’s simply greed and mismanagement by a poorly informed generation who have to blame someone for their own misfortunes.

Pass the G&T please and move the ice bucket out of the sun will you please dear! Now, lets get back to this sun bathing.

The Christmas Hamper

2011-02-09T19:38:00.002Z

OK, I know it’s well past Christmas and no where near next Christmas but I just had to post this advert from the Express Dairy for a Christmas Hamper in 1973.

Yes, 33 items for a total of £6.80 which by today’s standards would be around £65. However, it is very very unlikely that you would be able to buy a hamper in 2011 and get the same value for money.

This little example may only include some wine but I don’t for one moment think it is a particularly expensive vintage.

This hamper contains:

Langlois Crémant de Loire Brut (France) Sparkling Wine – 750ml

Colli Vicentini Merlot (2009) Italy – 75cl

Colli Vicentini Pinot Grigio Garganega (2009) Italy – 75cl

Barwise’s Mince Pies x 6 – 350g

Barwise’s Crunchy Ginger Biscuits – 165g

Barwise’s Oatcakes – 125g

Barwise’s Christmas Pudding – 440g

Barwise’s Brandy Glazed Fruit Cake – 650g

Farrer’s Christmas Coffee – 250g

Farrer’s Lakeland Tea – 100g

Whitakers 12 Assorted Chocolates – 130g

Raydale Preserves Strawberry & Champagne Preserve – 227g

Raydale Preserves Pink Grapefruit Marmalade – 227g

Barwise’s Wild Boar Paté (Packaged by Ballancourt) – 180g

Farrer’s Olde English Creamy Caramels – 200g

TOTAL PRICE : £95!!!

Happy Days!

It’s a Dogs Life

2011-02-07T17:37:00.001Z

Here I was sitting having a “flat white” and contemplating the various dogs that were to be seen passing in the town and the uses they had and their owners. Well this deeply spiritual thinking then turned to the idea that you don’t really need a German Shepherd to be a police dog or guard dog, or a spaniel to be a drug searcher or a greyhound to run or a St Bernard to trek around the Alps looking for buried skiers. Why not have dogs do different things? Now my favourite dog is the Parson Jack Russell, which should not be confused with the plain old Jack Russell. Just to explain… here are some photographs!

Parsons Jack Russell Jack Russell

One, the Parsons Jack Russell (PJR) is recognised by the Kennel Club and the other not. But that’s not my reasons for preferring the rougher coated Parsons, it just look far more “naughty” !

During these musings I started to think of the PJR in all sorts of new guise, for example as a sheep dog. Imagine if you can this little tyke running up and down at the command and leaping over the backs sheep, perhaps at Gatwick airport you would see several PJR’s rushing about the passengers sniffing out any “illegal substances” or even the occasional PJR Guide Dog! But I think the very best use for one of these little gems is for queue jumping! Yes, queue jumping, particularly if you are in Costa Coffee where getting a free seat for two can be a problem sometimes. So, my plan is send in the dogs! Picture this, you arrive at your favourite cafe of coffee shop and there is a queue that people are already jumping. So, with your smart little PJR in tow you simply give the “seek table” command and off shoots little Jack. By the time you reach the counter, order and take your coffee little Jack will be found sitting at a table to two and defying anyone to come near by barring his teeth and growling. Perfect!

So that is just a few uses I first thought of but how about this final one before I leave you to consider any other uses.

Jack Russell Sleigh Dogs!!

Please leave comments and lets see just how many innovative ideas you can come up with!

Football Transfers and “Casino” Banking

2011-02-01T11:26:00.001Z

After hearing the news today lauding the huge record transfers fees paid for so called “heroes” of sport there seemed little in the way of criticism of those who seem to have the money to squander on these players. We hear screams of outrage about bankers bonuses and casino banking, greedy MP’s and cuts in public services. Yet we hear little about the actual players these days and their outrageous salaries that the likes of Wayne Rooney earn. He has revealed he is earning £90,000 a week, no NOT a year, a week! At the same time we demand that a Council Chief Executive should not earn £100,000 a year and no one should earn more than the Prime Minister. Footballers, film stars and no entity so called entertainers are pontificating about how bad the cuts are and how unfair those cuts will be yet show little sign of cutting their own salaries of curbing their outrageous spending. No, they almost wave the wads of cash under our noses while spouting anti-government claptrap for all who will listen.

It’s about time the working class stood up for themselves and told, not just MP and the government, but all these other “plutocrats” to reign in themselves.

If I hear another word about Elton John “buying” another baby, or some football “star” having to pay a poultry fine for yet another act of violence or some “B” lister moaning about cuts I will have to grind what remains of my teeth and hope for a mass exit by them from the UK!

When I nod my head and other stories

2011-01-29T20:51:00.001Z

I was thinking about that old joke where there is a man holding a large stake and another very gormless looking man is holding a very large mallet. The man holding the stake is saying to the gormless one, “now when I nod my head, hit it”. You are now supposed to see the joke!

You may see what it was that led me to thinking about this old joke when I explain what I was doing at the time when this weeks events seemed to end up with me having a good laugh at my own expense.

Picture this, I am wandering around in the kitchen while V is preparing a rather nice savoury lunch and I was no doubt getting in the way or indeed avoiding any hands on lunch preparation. As I made one of my exploratory trips into the kitchen to see how lunch was proceeding V turned to me and asked “can you get the bins out" please”. Well, there was one of those moments where I had the rather dumfounded and somewhat blank looks whilst at the same time casting a glance over my shoulder at the waste bins, both “taken out” the day before. Needless to say, my blank Dumb and Dumber look was met with a corresponding look that only a woman defied can give, harsh! But given my male desire for preservation I was quickly able to realise she had in fact asked “can you take the BEANS out” (of the tin), silly me! Well we laughed we chortled and we very fortunately saw the funny side and off we went chuckling about this little incident for a day or two.

Two days later, kitchen and I am washing up and, yes OK, we have a dishwasher but there are things I am forbidden to put into it, one of which is a large coffee mug which I had filled with washing liquid and water to soak. I suppose it was inevitable that during the washing up process I would manage to knock this mug over and drench the worktop with soapy water. Much of this water found it’s way under the electric toaster and as I wanted to avoid death by electric shock or the need to purchase a new toaster I quickly moved it and started mopping up. V started to grab kitchen roll while I picked up the toaster and noting that it was wet on it’s underside held it up in the air and quickly called to V asking, “can you wipe underneath please”. She dashed forward and started wiping the work surface while I stood holding the toaster up in the air as it if were a prize award I had just received for doing the washing up! “Nooooo not there, under the toaster” …. “I am wiping underneath” V insisted.. Nooooo the underside of the toaster” I shrilled! Yes, the second time that two regions were divided by a common language. I really am going to have to make start explaining myself properly in future as we can’t afford to have so many real belly laughs in one week!

Must have been the best few laughs we had had at something this for ages, why not try it yourselves?

George Orwell – 1984

2011-01-26T09:41:00.001Z

A question.

1984 or 2011?

The inhabitants of ??????? particularly the party members, have no real privacy. Many of them live in apartments equipped with two-way telescreens, so that they may be watched or listened to at any time. Similar telescreens are found at workstations and in public places, along with hidden microphones. Written correspondence is routinely opened and read by the government before it is delivered. The Thought Police employ undercover agents, who pose as normal citizens and report any person with subversive tendencies. Children are encouraged to report suspicious persons to the government, and some even denounce their own parents.

This surveillance allows for effective control of the citizenry. The smallest sign of rebellion, even something so small as a facial expression, can result in immediate arrest and imprisonment. Thus, citizens (and particularly party members) are compelled to absolute obedience at all times.

Given the recent hysteria in Britain today surrounding Christian B&B owners, Sports Commentators, sexism, racism, islamaphobia, secularism, the Police, MP’s expenses, the BBC and press ownership in general (well more in terms of Sky), the list is endless these days but what similarities do we find in the fictional 1984 and actual 21st century Britain?

Answers on a post card please to…..

Our Latest Visitor

2010-12-23T11:19:00.001Z

Among the abundance of garden birds that have populated our garden this year, many returning from their summer habitat, we have a new and most unusual visitor this year. A Green Woodpecker!!

Sadly, we have not seen the earlier woodpecker visitor from last year yet….. remember him?

So now we have in addition vast numbers of Chaffinches, Dunnocks, sparrows, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Long Tailed Tits, Starlings, Blackbirds, a Thrush, a Wren (only this morning but has been spotted a year or two ago but not since), Wood Pigeons (not sure if old “Edwin” is among them now), Greenfinch, Collard Doves, Blackcaps (but not here again yet), several Magpies and finally the fearsome Sparrow Hawk that arrived to devour our poor sparrows!

That looks says to me that he was not going to abandon his meal to us!!

We wait to see what else will visit in what remains of this year.

Happy Christmas and a Merry (and not too dismal) New Year!!

An Inheritance

2010-12-22T11:28:00.001Z

Now here’s a thought for those of you who are avid shoe polishers, like me. My show polishing goes back many years to when I was into my first pair of “proper grown up shoes” which were of course black and laced up – nu buckles or straps for me! Granddad taught me how to put the polish on and how to brush it off at just the right speed and pressure that would guarantee a deep shine. By the time I was a teenager and had become an Army Cadet where you needed to do a bit more than just put a shine on your boots, I was accomplished at “bulling” my boots and shoes. That is to say, sitting down with two dusters, a tin of “Kiwi” polish and, if you were not able to produce a bit of spit, a small amount of clean water in the lid of the polish tin. Armed with this you were then you were ready to go. However, if the boots were brand new you would have had to had spent several hours smoothing and preparing the hard and resistant leather so that they would adopt that deep lustre that you would be seeking to achieve.

So, sitting boot settled between my knees I would first brush in the polish and then spread it over the boot, take a dab of extra polish into my duster and then work it in a circular motion over a small area until it started to shine. During this process I would have to spit a small amount of saliva onto the area and again working the duster in small circles. This would go on until the whole boot was covered and the deep glossy shine I wanted was achieved. For the sake of brevity I have shortened this process considerably and also left out the many frustrating moments when a shine could not be achieved without resorting the small amount of tab water in the tin lid!!

Lets just say that I had a pair of boots that would be acceptable to any member of the Brigade of Guards and that these boots would accompany me into the Regular Army when I enlisted some years later. I had to sneak the boots in as I did not want anyone to realise that I was perhaps 2 years ahead of the other recruits! These boots lasted me all through my service as a soldier and I was foolish enough to leave them behind when I was discharged nine years later, oh I do wish I had kept those boots.

Now, when I went into the Army my granddad gave me his show brushes and a fine gift they proved to be. They had been issued to him when he enlisted in 1914 aged 17 and they saw him through both world wars and left the army with him in 1945 when he continued to use them until he retired in the late 1960’s. These brushes were so impregnated with polish that you were able to simply run the “putter on” over a pair of shoes and then buff them with the “polisher” and with little of no effort a shine would be forthcoming.

These brushes have seen service in the UK, Cyprus, Libya, Germany when I was a soldier and have travelled the world with me ever since. This year is their 96th birthday and they continue to serve me well and thanks to the little somewhat insignificant inheritance from granddad. But what an inheritance as each time I use them it is he I think of with immense affection and gratitude for the things he taught me about life, history and the Empire that he remembered so well.

Granddads Brushes – 96 years old this year!

CV:

Issued 1914 Royal Hampshire Regiment

Used from 1914 – 1946 by Sgt. W Bond

1961 – 1961 used by me in Cyprus, Libya and Germany

Travelled the world from France to America and Spain.

Still in use today providing fine service and a credit to British brush manufacturing in the 19th & 20th Centuries

Cuts and more cuts – an economy in recovery?

2010-12-16T10:20:00.001Z

If anyone thought that somehow the economy was going to recover without some sort of pain then think again. There was an election, admittedly without the clear majority anyone needed or indeed wanted, and cuts were promised. Hard times were forecast and people [the electorate] demanded action be taken and action was taken, is being taken and more will follow. Great, just what we need? Oh no, now we have people whingeing beyond the realms of sanity. Students are unwilling to pay for an education AFTER having had 12 years of FREE education up to Secondary level and now they want another 3 years free? Who pays? The Tax Payer pays. Pensioners (I admit I am a pensioner) are now demanding that their FREE travel passes are not limited in an effort by Local Government to cut costs! Why? Because they want to travel BEFORE 9:30 in the morning! Why? Because they are stupid!!! I despair.

So, without listing all the areas that are to be cut let me just ponder just how these cuts everyone needs and want (?) going to be met without anyone feeling the pinch? I think I know the answer. “The rich and those greedy banks have to pay” … oh yes. How without making us all pay in the end anyway?

So my message to everyone is to stop flaming moaning get your wallets out an just pay up and get on with it, after all, you can’t take it with you!

PS: Those flaming “celebs” are back on the rampage again, this time it’s all about the worlds biggest trouble make since, Hitler, Ghegis Khan, Stalin, Ho.. you name them…. But oh poor Mr Assange is a “hero” .. No, sorry he’s an idiot. Send him down I say, 50 years on Devils Island that'll teach him.

Do we really Care?

2010-12-14T17:31:00.001Z

I am not about to pontificate on the rights and wrongs of care for those in our society who are needy or indeed those who would have us believe they are when all they want to do is stick out a hand for a handout from the British “Welfare State”.

No, I am asking the question, “do we really care what political party of political persuasion an actor supports of believes in”? Strange as it may seem, I don’t care a jot! But what I do care about is the privileged position an actor or “celebrity” is in that permits them to think that they can [the actor or “celebrity” that is] pontificate to us, the general public about matters that rarely touch them.

I’m fed up listening to so called “fringe” comedians constantly blathering on about how terrible the government is [actually it may be but that’s for real pundits to decide not some “lovey” from the arts world] when we are in the middle of a crises not seen since the second world war. It is often these “edgy” comedians who are also the most offensive towards minority groups in this land of ours, the most foul mouthed and often the least amusing. There there are the high minded “edgy AND minority” comedians who are far too well educated to more among we mere mortals. Now these are the most dangerous because they are actually funny at times and have or will soon become, “National Treasures”

So, apart from irritating me a lot the answer to my original question is, No, I don’t care what they say. Just stop saying it on the airwaves for which I am paying taxes!

Happy Days!

Student Protestors – Poor Dears!

2010-12-01T09:14:00.001Z

The British press has been reporting on the current rash of student protests across Britain over the increases in university fees in the not too distant future. Now I don’t object to protest too much just so long as it confined to peaceful protest and not an orgy of mindless violence and vandalism all in the name of “anger of this governments cuts and increases in fees” . Anger, over what? A free university education or at least a heavily subsidised one paid for largely by the tax payer. I seem to recall a time when gaining a degree was not gaining it as a “right” but earning the degree through hard work. Yes, it was probably free in those days but it was never going to be able to stay free! Now I have paid tax for perhaps 47 years now and look likely to have to continue to pay tax on my income (a combination of Sate Pension and my Occupational Pension) for at least another 20 years. Frankly I don’t see why I should have to subsidise a degree course for some of the unbelievably stupid so called students who have rampaged through our cities causing countless millions of pounds worth of damage and costs associated with policing. I saw one report of a student complaining that all the trouble was caused by the police who were attempting to stop the “rioters” (students?) attacking a building. Do we need anymore Sports Scientists, Dramatists, Hotel “experts”? I don’t think so. We need plumbers, electricians, skilled motor mechanics, brick layers, plasterers and carpenters. These workers need to be skilled and taught well but they don’t need flaming degrees!

Here are a few of the least useful degree courses I could find but I am sure that if it were not such a boring experience I could find more.

Childhood And Youth Studies

Creative And Performing Arts

Creative Technologies And Enterprise

Drama And Performance

Entertainment Technology

Film Studies

Hospitality Management - BA (Hons)

Hospitality Management With Tourism

Investigation And Evidence

Why not let me hear about any even more useless courses you can find and perhaps even some that have no purpose whatsoever! In my days of working I often interviewed people for jobs where it was clear that they were not interested in actual employment, they were only interested in being “professional academics” leaping from one degree course to the next and all funded by the state! Seems to me that the belief that the state provides all is still alive and well in modern Britain.

Gnashing of Teeth!

2010-11-19T10:58:00.001Z

If there was a single news item that was destined to spoil my day it was the interview of the ever popular ex soldier, ex-Lance Corporal Joe Glenton formerly of the Royal Logistic Corps. This sanctimonious excuse for a former soldier is going to “return his medals” or his “veterans badge”, I’m not sure quite which given the conflicting reports on the television. In any event if I had my way I would have demand them back the day he was convicted of going absent without leave and disobeying a lawful command which resulted in this useless article serving a well deserved six or was it nine months military detention.

This is a man who now pontificates on the manner in which the war in Afghanistan was, is and should not be fought. This is a former logistician who served ONE six month tour in Afghanistan and then refused to go back. All I can say is that he should not have joined up in the first place if he was going to pick and choose which orders he was going to obey, which oath he was to take and which battles to fight or not.

He brings shame on his regiment, the army and his country as well as on himself for he is NOT a proud example of a man at all. He is supported by a fringe of left wing unpatriotic wasters who would rather see the world spin out of control in a nice liberal free from control nanny state.

Glenton, stuff your medals and badge where the sun don’t shine and let the real heroes of Afghanistan wear theirs without your slimly shadow casting itself over them.

NOTE:

Joe Glenton was a British Army Lance Corporal and war resister from York. He argued that the war in Afghanistan is illegal under international law and faced court-martial for Absence Without Leave as well as charges related to his protesting the war. After pleading guilty to going AWOL for 737 days at a court martial, on 5 March 2010 Glenton was sentenced to 9 months in the Military Corrective Training Centre, the UK's military prison in Colchester.On pleading guilty to going AWOL, charges of desertion, disobeying orders and bringing the Army into disrepute, were all dropped.

By way of contrast, Wootton Bassett (Wikipedia)

Recent history

In the early twenty-first century, the bodies of fallen UK servicemen and women from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, having been repatriated to RAF Lyneham, usually pass through the town on their way to John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, in readiness for the coroner. This has led to people assembling along the route of the funeral cortège initially from the local area and occasionally some mourners with a connection to the dead. On 12 October 2008, a parade was organised by the armed services to thank the town for their support.^[9]. This drew national attention to the town's salute to the fallen; and relatives/friends not attending the RAF Lyneham ceremony choose to pay their first respects at Wootton Bassett, joined by representatives from their towns and other, unrelated visitors, leading to speculation that the event had become a form of 'grief tourism'^[10]^[11]. On Friday 29 January 2010 HRH The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall visited Wootton Bassett to lay a wreath at the War Memorial and to meet local people.^[12]

The War Memorial in Wootton Bassett is a simple pedestal topped by a bronze of hands holding up a globe. The erection of the memorial was quite recent, and was the vision of local girl Jay Cunningham who felt that the memorial garden in the cemetery and the memorial hall on Tinker's Field were not a prominent enough memorial.^[13] After a successful five year publicity and fund raising campaign, the memorial was unveiled in October 2004. The design was chosen by public vote, designed by Lance Corporal Alan Wilson of the Wootton Bassett army cadets with the bronze sculpted by artist Vivian ap Rhys Price^[14] from nearby Calne, 10 miles to the south.

In 2009, Wootton Bassett made headlines after radical UK Islamist group Islam4UK suggested the town as the site of a proposed march. The proposal, led by Muslim extremist Anjem Choudary, came under widespread condemnation from British citizens, including Muslims, politicians, and the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Some right wing citizens, mainly from outside of the town, said that they would "defend" the town if they felt they needed to.^[15] However, on 10 January 2010, Islam4UK announced that it decided to call off the protest, claiming that the publicity generated had "successfully highlighted the plight of Muslims in Afghanistan" and so "no more could be achieved even if a procession were to take place in Wootton Bassett".^[16]

In May 2009, the Royal British Legion honoured Wootton Bassett with a special award in recognition of Legion members who turned out to honour hundreds of fallen British servicemen and women being repatriated from Iraq and Afghanistan^[17]. In 2009, it was revealed that the Queen had spoken to Gordon Brown about the possibility of granting Wootton Basset Royal Patronage, making it the third 'Royal' town in the country, after Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire and Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent^[18]. However, the news was received with mixed reactions. Whilst over 2,600 people signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling for Wootton Bassett to be 'officially recognised in some form',^[18] Wootton Bassett Mayor Councillor Steve Bucknell stated royal patronage would not be welcome, claiming that whilst local residents were "humbled" by the honour, "we didn’t expect anything...[in return]...and that is still the case".^[19] On 21 December 2009, Wootton Bassett received one of The Sun's "Millie" awards for its tributes to the fallen. The award was presented by HRH Prince William and received on behalf of the town by Mayor Steve Bucknell and British Legion treasurer Ann Beavis and Cross Keys landlady Kirsty Lambert.^[20]

In March 2010, in another example of the national symbolism of Wootton Bassett, there was a mass parade of bikers. Associated charity fundraising is reported to have reached £100,000.^[21] Motorcyclists from The Royal British Legion Riders Branch, many of whom are former service personnel, attend every repatriation held in the town.^[22]^[23]^[24]

The Bravery of Britain's Youth London 2010

2010-11-12T18:12:00.001Z

I have to say how impressed I was this week watching the assault of the enemy position lead by such brave young me in the face of a much better equipped enemy. The attack was fast and furious with no signs of fear as the advance force hit hard at the waiting enemy under covering fire from their comrades from the flanks and from those braver ones who had scaled the upper floors of the objective. Amid a hail of missile and smoke the attacks pressed forward and the position soon fell. Sadly it was only held for four hours before an enemy counter attack was able to regain the ground.

No, I was not watching fighting from Helmand province, nor from anywhere else in Afghanistan. I was not watching real, truly brave young men and women fighting for their lives against a determined and ruthless enemy of insurgents or Taliban.

No I was not witnessing the true bravery of our soldiers I was sadly watching the very worst example a mob braying like a pack of wild animals engaged in a frenzy of destruction.

The mob, yes mob, was our own “brave” students! Students rampaging in London because at some time in the future, probably when they have graduated with some noddy degree, for a FREE university education. Perhaps not free but they certainly don’t want to pay for what they learn, no they want the taxpayers to pay. That’s people like me who have paid tax all our lives and get little of nothing back from the state for doing so. In fact while State Employees demand protection for their pensions which I have to pay for still out of tax on my pension, students add insult to injury by expecting me to pay for them too!

I suggest that the braying mob of trash that attacked the police and wrecked a building in London causing over a £1m in damages would be well suited to launching some similar attacks in Afghanistan against the real enemies of the world and not attacking and biting the very hand that feeds then here in our country.

I was pleased to see that many of these useless wastes of space were named and shamed in the papers this morning. I doubt they will be shamed given the warped and distorted view many of these so called students have of society today.

The 14th November is Remembrance Sunday many people young and old will parade in London watched by tens of thousands of people who be thinking of the real youth of Britain who every day place themselves at the doors or death and do so without riots, strikes an constant whinging.

It is those brave young men and women of our armed forces who will be of greater value to our future society than the rabble who rioted in London on the 10th of November.

Autumn at Petworth Park, West Sussex

2010-11-04T16:43:00.004Z

Few words are needed to describe the beauty of an English autumn day in the West Sussex countryside.
These photographs were taken at Petworth Park on the 3rd November shortly before the annual cull of deer that will be on the 5th.

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Barack Obama does not have a tea party?

2010-11-03T20:52:00.001Z

Prior to Obama’s election victory in November 2008 I found myself having a rare conversation with my daughter about politics. We have debated several issues over the years mainly about minor issues or with me trying to avoid major confrontation (Bull fighting was one I managed to shy away from). Anyway, one issue that came up in conversation was her admiration for the pre-election successes of Obama and how good a victory for him would be good the the US and the World in general. I have to say that for some reason I was not convinced. I can’t put my finger on what it was that made me to this lack of conviction save the fact that I could see little reason why the black community in the UK would get so excited over Obama given that there would be little hope of his “yes we can” mantra.

In the UK, “no you can’t” I heard myself thinking. I was also unconvinced over his ability to actually make any real change in US attitudes. What I didn’t know at this time (given his rapturous welcome in the UK) was that Mr Obama was rabidly anti-British. This antipathy based largely on massively flawed “evidence” from the Obama extended Kenyan family. I thought it odd when he was quoted as fact, that his grandfather had been tortured by the British Army during the Mau Mau campaign in Kenya during the late 1950’s. Sadly, his evidence was flawed because the Army had not been deployed against Mau Mau at the time of the alleged torture. Anyway, this is neither here not there, it was not a consideration in my suspicion of the Obama “yes we can” approach to the election. It was just that it was so unlikely.

So, in this conversation with my daughter in 2008 just prior to the US elections that I said that if Obama would win that he would simply turn out to be a “busted flush”. He would achieve nothing and would find himself turned on my the American people who would soon discover that it is not just a matter of saying “yes we can” and that IT will !

So here we are in November 2010 and for some bizarre reasons the UK press is awash with the US mid term elections and, surprise surprise, Obama has had a thrashing from the electorate. The “Tea Party” is over? What next, will Mr Obama manage a recovery like that of Bill Clinton proving that HE was the real “come back kid” an appendage earned after his successes in the 1992 Presidential campaign?

Obama has been accused of being a “Socialist” by the Republican Right, clearly they have not lived under real socialism or indeed under the benign kind of UK style of socialism (?) – a National Health Service and State Pension Scheme can hardly be seen as bad can they? Oh “yes they can” if you are American?

I am being cruel now and I do not intend that. I am simply saying to all those who thought that Obama would be the one who would save the World. He didn’t, he won’t and let me remind you all… I told you so back in 2008.

What of the future in the US? Well, certainly no universal health care or universal “state” pension that’s for sure. Why not? Oh that’s because the well off in America can see no point in paying tax to help those who are NOT well off. But then this is all together another subject.

PS: The “Special Relationship”, forget it! It stopped with Bush and Blair and died with Obama. The so called “relationship is all one sided where may American politicians seem to believe that the UK is just another US State and that US Laws apply in the UK yet UK Laws DO NOT apply in the US. Extradition, one way. Trade, one way.

The new “treaty” with France and our shared defences may prove far more realistic than the one we have had with America. But we will have to see.

Cat Scaring for Beginners

2010-10-31T17:40:00.001Z

Before I am deluged with hate mail from all you cat lovers out there I have to declare I I too am a cat lover or long standing. I have kept cats for most of my life and have been fortunate to have had many good experiences with our feline friends.

There is one BIG but here. Now that I don’t keep a cat I have got used to the freedom from responsibility that goes with pet keeping and also from the understanding that animals, and cats in particular, are very independent and also not very fussy about where they go to the toilet. Now when I was a cat owner my cats never spent a penny (or worse) in our garden. Clearly they went off and did their business elsewhere and so, I never worried about it.

When my own cats had sadly died (both at a fine old age of 17 in both cases) I suddenly found myself on the receiving end of unwanted feline attentions! Yes, with regular monotony some roaming moggy would deposit a large “message” slap bag in the middle of my lawn. Now most times I would spot this and with some revulsion manage to remove it (why are these messes often too loose to handle!?) from the grass before I found myself on the receiving end of sprayed droppings when I had missed the “message” and mowed it with my rotary lawn mower. I shudder at the vivid recollection of this smelly experience even after a 10 year gap.

To combat the cats that were doing this to me I spent a small fortune of a variety of chemical, so called repellents. Sonic devices that the cats treated with utter disdain, simply wandering around the outer edges of the garden having somehow worked out the range of the particular device I had fitted. In one miraculous event I saw next doors cat slide over the fence like a reptile rather than a cat and after a short bit of reconnaissance “Bob” literally “bunny hopped” over the invisible beam!!! £25 down the drain I muttered as I tossed the useless kit into the bin. Mind you the first time I had installed it Bob’s first encounter was truly awful (for him) judging by his blood curdling caterwaul. He certainly worked his way around the thing thereafter.

One day discussing my massive expenditure anti cat measures someone suggested to me that they had heard that if you filled several 2 litre clear plastic bottles with water and placed them strategically around your garden they would somehow deter cats from visiting your garden all together. I viewed this suggestion with some scepticism but decided that it may be worth a try and given that it was free of any further expense, why did I have to lose.

Well, three bottles of water placed in the garden later, not a cat to be seen.

Success!

PS:

I have now had to employ this practice again now that one or two cats have been calling here to stalk the birds that feed here. Not while I am watching they wont be.

Any other NON LETHAL ideas would of course be welcome. Please feel free to post your ideas in the comments.

The Perils of Alcohol

2010-10-13T19:16:00.002+01:00

I was listening to a programme on the radio this morning where the comedian Dave Spikey was relating an incident where he had inadvertently thrown something containing a chemical into a furnace which exploded and in the process set light to his hair.

This story, from this comedian, in such an amusing way made me think back to a very old friend of mine, lets call him “Kev” shall we? I found my own recollections of a similar incident made me laugh ‘till I cried over my porridge!

I went like this, one day during our time in the Army, and no doubt during of just after one of our nights out and the consumption of several large bottles of Cypriot beer Kev raised the subject of some stage or circus acts he had seen. These were where some of the acts involved a showman passing needles, apparently painlessly, through their cheeks and fire eaters “safely” blowing jets of flame from their mouths. “I can do that” he declared!

Trust me I thought, I don’t think it's safe. But given the amount of beer that we had drunk I was finding Kev’s reasoning (the face is “immune to pain in certain places”) rather compelling and enough to have me agreeing with his assertion that he could “do it”. Mind you I was not in a month of Sundays going to try doing it myself.

So Kev prepared himself first taking his needle, a cigarette lighter to use for both sterilising the needle and igniting the “fuel” for his fire eating experiment and finally a container of butane gas.(liquid lighter fuel not being readily available) “are you sure about this” I ventured. Kev assured me that he was as he no doubt swigged another good slug of Cypriot beer. In all honesty I can’t remember if we had any beer with us or indeed just how drunk we were at the time, if indeed we were even drunk. But something had possessed us and I was not about to change Kev’s mind.

The scene was set, Kev was ready though I should add at this stage that he was on a period of leave and had grown the semblance of a beard which was to prove crucial later on. Taking several deep breaths Kev embarked on the first part of his “act”, the needle passing through the cheek trick. We carefully “sterilised” the needle with the cigarette lighter and then with some confidence Kev started to push the needle into and through his cheek.

After about three seconds all Kev’s confidence in his belief that there would be no pain was cast to the wind as he wailed loudly with the needle simply piercing the outer part of his face and leaving him in no doubt that this part of the act would have to be abandoned.

Kev never to be considered a coward or a fool (in public) quickly abandoned this part of his plan and quickly moved on to stage two of his plan, fire eating.

I suppose fire eating was not the right description for this next feat as it was going to be more like fire blowing. What we had not taken into account in this “keystone Cops” approach to fire eating or body piercing was that butane was not the best “liquid” to attempt to blow from ones mouth and ignite. No, it was to end all of Kev’s dreams for a life on stage as the soft “whoomp” as he lit the jet of expelled butane. With the “whoomp” Kev’s beard ignited and after a few seconds of frantic beating the singed beard was simply smouldering and giving of the distinctive reek of burning hair.

I cried with laughter then, just as I did when I recalled the story at breakfast. I trust Kev has not and will not try that trick again?

I must remember to write about his attempts once to trim on his beards with those old fashioned hair clippers barbers used to use. Now that’s another story, watch this space!

Broome, Western Australia

2010-10-11T09:59:00.001+01:00

Why would I want to write about Broome I hear some asking. Why indeed and only because that I had never heard of the place until I heard from one of it’s residents. I didn’t hear directly from this particular resident, only via a rather active Forum I visit. Lets just call him Jeremy and leave it at that. More of him later after this short introduction to Broome.

The temperature never seems to fall below 30 degrees !!! It is HOT!

I leave the rest to Wikipedia

Broome, Western Australia

Now lets return to “Jeremy”. He is by all accounts barking mad. I can only conclude that it is the heat down there in Broome that has got to him. His writings and ravings can only be described as unbelievably complex and straight from the X Files and Conspiracy Theory central.

Here is a small and rather tasteless example of his latest “theory”…

“Re prince Harry the Nazi
The Jews or I should say Mossad would not be in existence today, had it not been for British and American intervention during the second world war.
Mossad are Very grateful to British intelligence for there help in liberating the Jewish people and destroying the nazi's.
joesph mengele and claus barbie were two pedophiles who were with the gestapo, they were responsible for the rape torture and murders of jewish children. they were also carrying out experiments on the children”.

I reproduce his writings to make sure my readers do not mistake his ravings for any opinions of mine!

This is the first line from another one of his musings.

“The da Vinci code contains a factual account of the Christian invasion of northern Europe” .

Finally, another;

“Be warned about boose imports into England.the latest trick is to manufacture booze using industrial alcohol”.

There are several more of these somewhat crazy assertions that make amusing reading. However, the more worrying “Jeremy” is writing such things its that his “air space” on line is being shared by several other “theorists” with different but sometimes equally outlandish views on life in modern Britain, politics and education in our schools. Some of them are actually politicians and teachers!!!

I will leave this subject alone now as I fear any attempt to challenge some of the proponents will return to long term abuse. (bring it on I say!)

Police Must Reclaim Streets?

2010-09-23T21:35:00.001+01:00

Today I saw this headline on the BBC News Website!

“Police 'need to reclaim streets', police chief warns” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11394354

Now that got me to thinking. When was it we last saw our local PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) – for my International readers not familiar with this term, these are NOT police officers. They look remarkably like police officers, but they ain’t!

Well, it has been several weeks since the PCSO for our area was here. I spoke to him, he nodded, I spoke to him again and he carried on nodding, he had a look around and then he went. I have not seen him since! Early this week a police patrol car came down our road, he drove slowly, got the the end of the cul-de -sac and realised it was a dead end! He turned round and vanished, he was clearly lost.

Now, after this BBC report on the words of wisdom from the Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O'Connor was timely. Why you may be wondering by now? Well, here’s another thing. Not only are PCSO’s absent from here where we live, they are also often in short supply in the town centre. When you do see them they seem to be simply delivering mail to shops in the town. They may sometimes be giving directions to a lost tourist or they may be seemingly striding off somewhere across the town, I know not where to!

Ah but today, only hours after the BBC report the town was awash with PCSO’s AND regular Police Officers!! Not just one or two either, a fair multitude of blue uniforms were spread abundantly about the mean streets of Chichester.

Now, I will admit that there were five [Yes, FIVE] PCSO’s “post coding” bicycles at the Town Cross with a long queue of people waiting for the magic anti theft seals to be added. More surprising was the emergence of no less that SIX uniformed, REGULAR Police Officers patrolling in pairs!!!!!!! I may be wrong there in that there may have only been four and I may have seen one pair twice, but I’m not sure. So lets say it was three pairs anyway.

It seemed awfully coincidental to me.

PS: Congratulations to the PC who I have often seen patrolling in the distant past who spotted last week getting out of his patrol car to do a little bit of “beat work” and, my God! He had lost an enormous amount of weight. He had shrunk from his previous 19 stone (that 266 pounds to any Americans out there) to somewhere around 224 pounds which was a fantastic achievement. He’s a big bloke anyway so he carries his new “slimmer” self very nicely now and looks almost svelte in his uniform and stab vest now.

Form your own conclusions folks and now misbehaving on those street corners this weekend or its a good cuff round the ears for you this time. No namby pamby ASBO I’m afraid. [that an Anti Social Behaviour Order for all you non-Brits out there]

Cyclists Again!

2010-09-19T14:47:00.001+01:00

It goes without saying what my views are on cyclists who use the pavements as I have made those views very publicly in my blogs. Living as we do here in Sussex we often see well known personalities, mainly those appearing in theatre, who are for one reason or another visiting our city.

Today, while taking our usual “yomp” into town we were confronted by Jeremy Paxman! Yes, he of the TV. He who famously asked Michael Howard the same question 14 times! He of the often razor like put down! Yes, the man himself, on a bike….. a bike…. I still can’t quite believe it. Sadly, Mr Paxman was riding on the pavement and sadder still he was heading directly towards us and showed now sign of giving way to us mere mortal pedestrians from such a rural or provincial town such as ours. We were peasants no doubt, blocking his path, standing in his way.

He cycled past us as if we didn’t exist, brushing so close to me that I could swear I smelt his cologne. Not a word to say, excuse me, sorry or whatever platitude he could offer that would compensate for my having to step sharply aside from his frantic pedalling.

Mr Paxman, pavements are for people, roads are for cyclists!

Next time on Newsnight or University Challenge please try to remember that ordinary mortals always remember famous faces, especially when they are rude and inconsiderate.

PS: Why were you not wearing a safety helmet, reflective vest and goggles for your epic cycle ride around Chichester?

For more on Mr Paxman and Cycling please click here

4945 Visits

2010-09-14T22:24:00.001+01:00

I got fed up watching the figure creep up so reset my Blog stats!! So it’s back to Zero! I do however have over 80,000 visits to my book and over 30,000 to my short story….. Yes, I was bored!

Killer Jewels ?

2010-09-14T18:53:00.001+01:00

It seems that I must be one lined up for a sticky end given that I heard a doctor talking about “killer jewels” the other day. He was it seems, a dietician of some sorts and was banging on about the number of “killer Jewels” that were being consumed [?] by people. Blimey I wondered, I have bought loads of jewels, worn some (not knowingly) and given a fair number away to Val as gifts! What is going to happen I wondered?

Of course I am being really very silly now as I am really taking about those flaming food labels that give you every detail of the killer meal you are abut to eat. Now as I sit here reading from this pack of rather nice Habas Fritas ( roasted or deep fried broad beans) I note that the 200 grams I proposed digging into now looks rather less desirable!

So this 200 grams has a nice concise list of ingredients stating that it comprises 84% beans, vegetable oil and salt. That leaves 16% of the bag with what?

How about this per 100 grams:-

Energy Kj	1811
Energy Kcal	438
Protein	25g
Carbohydrate	43g
Sugars	2g
Fat	14g
Saturates	8g
Fibre	8g
Sodium	720mg

Now these beans are really nice with a glass of sherry or wine, or both, and are now consigned to the “treats cupboard” for another time when I am perhaps not so concerned about my heart and waistline!

Sorry, I have just got to have a nibble of these beans AND the “killer jewels” – I am going to stick to KCals as there seem to be less of them!!!

Edwin and the Lonesome Dove

2010-09-12T10:05:00.001+01:00

Edwin was a proud and rather portly wood pigeon. He loved his garden and he loved his Edwina too. But one day poor Edwina was foolish enough to meet Mr Hawk and that was that, she was gone. Edwin never saw poor Edwina again.

One day as Edwin roamed around his garden picking up an occasional seed or a small morsel or even just an interesting item here and there he wondered if he would ever meet another Edwina. “Oh dear” he sighed in his deep voice.

Winter came and went and Edwin was still in his garden picking up his bits and pieces or taking a little exercise by flying around the trees and roofs of the nearby houses. Sadly he had still not found another Edwina.

Spring was late arriving but the trees were leafy and there were more morsels to pick up. Edwin was quite portly now and liked sitting on a nearby roof in the sun watching the other birds as they played and fed their young.

Edwin was still wondering if he would meet another Edwina when one warm summer day he noticed he was being watched by a lovely grey collared dove.

One morning Edwin flew up to the roof where the dove was sitting, “Hellooo, my name’s Edwin” he cooed in his deepest wood pigeon voice to the lonely looking dove.

The dove cooed in reply, “Hellooo Edwin, my name’s Dorcus” and with that she flew off to a nearby pine tree and waited for Edwin to follow. “Shall we fly around the place” she cooed with a flick of her wings.

Edwin thought for a long while and then asked, “would you like to go for a fly around the houses Dorcus”? She thought for a long while too, because that’s what pigeons do, then answered “oh yes please Edwin, lets go now” and off they flew, round and round the houses until they were puffed.

Dorcus flew straight back to Edwin's garden and perched on the fence looking down at the flowers while Edwin flew up on to a nearby roof where he could see Dorcus and the flowers in his garden.

A WORK IN PROGRESS………… Copyright - Richard Bond 2010

A good stab in the back!

2010-09-10T20:12:00.001+01:00

This past few months has seen the launch of several political writings from many of the most influential players from the last decade of power. It all started [fro me] with the dreadful Cherie Blair’s cringingly indiscrete book covering her time in Downing Street and her awful “contraception equipment” description while staying with the Queen at Sandringham. I shuddered at the thought. Then along came dear old cuddly Alistair Campbell with his two books each more revealing than the last, yet lacking some of the juice that we voyeurs were seeking. In the meantime Chris Mullin was penning his wonderfully wicked diaries which while casting no new light on our opinions of the Blair world did at least confirm what we all hated about Blaire and his cohorts. The second set of diaries by Mr Mullins are doing the rounds now and they do make good reading. But then along came Peter Mandelson and his bitingly cruel, as only he can write, memoir. Wonderful.

With all these revelations about who said what about whom and who stabbed who in the back and what so and so thought about what and who I, was reminded of the scene in Reservoir Dogs when all the gang were pointing guns at each other in a bloody stalemate. Again, wonderful!

So what is next to emerge? Yes, Gordon Brown!! Will he save the world, stop the world economic crises “in America where it started”, will he not borrow tens of billions of pounds to pour into projects that would only cost more tens of millions of pounds and result in …. what?

I salivate at the thought of the next round of political blood letting as the Leadership campaign gets underway in the Labour Party.

Enough of this, I am planning a curry!!

Elitism or not?

2010-08-20T15:35:00.001+01:00

I have just picked up a copy of out local free newspaper, the “Chichester News” and read the regular column by TV & Radio broadcaster, Tommy Boyd. Now some of you who have heard or read Tommy’s material may find him irritating or plain silly. Now I will confess to not being anti Tommy in any way as I too share many of his gripes and observations about life in general.

In this weeks edition Tommy has drawn attention the noise that was made over three nights this week at Goodwood House during the latest attraction there, the “ Vintage Goodwood”. This event closely followed the “Goodwood Festival of Speed” and will be itself followed by the “Goodwood Revival”. In fact once we have recovered from the speed of the vintage we will no doubt need revival! Where will it all end?

Anyway this whole “Goodwood Thing” got me to thinking. We had, as Tommy pointed out in his article, endured the three nights of throbbing music that lasted up until midnight on the Friday, Saturday AND Sunday. We had endured the traffic congestion during the earlier “Speed” thing and we will have to endure it all again during the next “Revival” thing! So with all this in mind I rattled off a quick “missive” to the Estate of the saintly Earl of March or is it Lord March, I am never sure these days but I do think he is the Earl.

Anyway, I rattled off this email to one of his minions asking just how much, as a percentage, the Earl and or his estate puts back into the local charities of the immediate area surrounding the Estate.

At this stage I just want to remind my readers that the Goodwood Estate comprises a rather lovely stately home, extensive well kept grounds, a world class horse racing track, a large golf club, an hotel, a motor racing circuit and finally a small airfield! I am sure that there must be some farms and other enterprises hidden away in that lot somewhere but this list will have to do.

OK, back to my mail to the Estate. They have ignored me which is no surprise as I am not one of the many somewhat wealthy patrons of the facilities provided by the estate given that attendance at any of the events I have mentioned will cost a couple around £110 just to get in the the venue. As I have moaned about in my earlier subject about the Festival of Speed where buying a ticket gets you nothing other than dusty, weary and lighter in the pocket by an extortionate £12.50 for a programme and heavens knows how much for a beer and bun!

Poor old Tommy ( I use the term lightly given that I am considerably older than he) got reported to the police for playing loud music at his home. Who, if anyone, has complained about the noise from that flaming “Vintage thing”.?

All in all I think that Goodwood “events” are all about playtimes for rich nobs and very little else. How about some discounts for local people, how about including a programme in the extortionate cost of entry to an event? How about a bit of obvious public donations to the local community?

Is it all about elitism or am I missing something? You know, sometimes I feel positively Marxist!

If only I had a penny for every.......

2010-08-09T10:33:00.002+01:00

Yes, if only I got a penny for every [fill in your own choice here] I have spent, saved, seen or in my case, had visits to my on line book. I received a letter today from MyBook.com triumphantly announcing and congratulating me on my 70,000th visit to my little book.

I sat here pondering this minor moment of “celebration” in the rather bland looking email that simply states just a few words :-

Your myebook
An Uneventful Soldier - Revision2
has been read 70000
times.
Thanks for choosing
myebook.com

“Seventy thousand” I say to myself, is this seventy thousand people, one person reading it seventy thousand times, do they read it or simply glance at the fist page and clear off? So many unknowns to ponder about who it is that stumbles up the work of art. Some are forced to go there by my constant prompting, reminding and cajoling. Others clearly find it via a visit to my Blog which is also by accident. But still I do wonder what it could have earned me in royalties!

Well, only £700 if I were to rely on only a penny a visit but if it had been a published paperback I could have SOLD seventy thousand copies by now!! Like heck I could. To be honest no one wants to read about a bunch of “cold war warriors” prancing about in the army with very little action. No major wars, no real dangers in that era. I should have done my soldiering a couple of years earlier and been to Aden or Borneo to write a “proper" book!

No, these days people only want to read “true life” war stories. Andy McNab, Chris Ryan, Tim Collins, Sgt Dan Mills and Chris Hunter to name but a few. No, “action” in the bars and clubs of 1960’s Cyprus and Germany do not attract sales. Perhaps I need to fictionalise my book, give it some blood and guts, add a bit of a conspiracy to it and change the names to protect the innocent.

Better still, find a better subject to write about. I tried this with my short story “A Summer Affair” which has had 23,460 visits so far. No blood and guts just a funny little story about…… sorry, you will have to read for yourself.

Now, my next book, let me think.

What is British and what is English?

2010-08-02T18:16:00.001+01:00

There has been so much in the US press lately about Ssshhh… you know who, BP… I don’t want to shout in case the President is reading this.

Anyway, there has been so much said and there seems to be so little understanding about just who or what is British and who exactly is English. Or come to that who owns BP and if its BRITISH Petroleum or what. Just for the record BP has not been BRITISH for a long time. It is in fact 39% American and Britain some 40% owned, I think. BP also employees LOTS of Americans So, “BO” can’t point the finger at BRITAIN but at the workers who were on that rig!(who were American and from other companies OTHER THAN BP!!

OK, lets keep on track. You Americans who read this I just want to explain a bit about the UK or Great Britain as it is also known and how it’s made up and it’s not ALL called England!!

First of all Her Majesty the Queen is the “Queen of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” and not just England. The island of Britain which of course includes Scotland and Wales which also both countries in their own right that form the United Kingdom.

Culturally, whilst we are all similar in that we speak the same language (mostly) we are in fact quite different in many ways. Just for the moment lets forget about the Scots hating the English, the English hating the Welsh (and vice versa) the Northern Irish hating the Irish in the Republic (forget the Republic for the moment also because it has nothing to do with England) and of course the Welsh hate everyone else – only joking!

Other ways you can tell up apart is that all those people from Scotland wear long skirts called Kilts(remember Braveheart and Mel Gibson … hmmm) and all those people in Wales wear, not sure what, but that they often wear a leek in their lapels like a flower – for all my Welsh readers please remember I AM writing this for Americans!!

Now, the Irish, that’s our “British Irish” who will tell you they are Irish but also British and if you dare ask them why they don’t have a government in a place called Dublin, they will tear your ears off. They will also tell you in no uncertain terms that they are BRITISH. Remember, NOT English! OK, but be careful if you ask this same question of a “nationalist” person from Northern Ireland as they will probably tear your ears off too if you suggest that they have a government in Westminster – that’s in England by the way.

I hope you keeping up with me here?

Back to England again. This country is made up of lots of different people including many thousands from Scotland, Wales and Ireland (both North AND South) and also many more thousands from the former Commonwealth and most of Europe. To be fair it’s hard to find a true Englishman these days given the degree of inter marriage over between all the peoples of the British Isles, the Romans, Vikings, Normans and the Saxons over the centuries. England, for simplicities sake, comprises 48 Counties which have quaint names like Cornwall (ooops, they don’t think they are English but we English ignore this), Bedfordshire and Sussex and many more.

Now look at this lovely map and see how all our little countries fit together!

Now just remember, when you tell everyone how you “beat the English” in that war you had back around 1776, how small ENGLAND is…. so how easy was it to “beat” us?

Now, at the top of the map is Scotland and these days Scotland has its own “Scottish Government” which released that mass murderer back to Libya. We in England didn’t do it. And don’t forget, the British Government can’t tell the Scottish one what to do because Scotland is not a State (Like Alabama or New York or Texas) and Britain is NOT a federal state. Americans need to remember this if they are politicians and want to summon British politicians to give evidence in America. Also remember its good if American political bodies provide evidence to “friendly fire” enquiries held in the UK in future, then we may be more cooperative with you.

Now, back to the map. That bit of green with the little flag with a dragon on it, is Wales. Wales is not IN England! There are lots of things about Wales that the English love. Its hills and valleys and the cottages that are often for sale there at knockdown prices but for some reason though these cottages often mysteriously get burned down?

Now the Welsh have their own distinctive language which is spoken by many Welsh people but largely in the north and west of the country. Wales is not a separate state as it is a “Principality” but it does aspire to a form of self government similar to Scotland. I am sure its more complicated than that so I apologise unreservedly to the Welsh for my over simplification of matters. Other than that I don’t mind the Welsh until they start getting free medical prescriptions at the expense of the English tax payer!

I am exhausted and bored with this subject now and ask that any interested parties either drop me a line, post a comment or simply insult me in anyway you fancy if you feel offended in anyway by my description of your homeland or heritage.

Before I go, the map. I have marked it up for you. England has the flag of Saint George, Northern Ireland has the same flag but with a “red hand” on it which is very symbolic to “loyalist” Ulstermen. Never question its presence without wearing your running shoes.

The next one is the Welsh Dragon, that’s easy – it’s Wales. Then you have Scotland, the Saltire or Saint Andrews cross. Don’t worry about that flag you can’t insult a Scot – but remember it’s always polite to say “that’s a nice English accent you have there Taffy, where are you from” …..

Finally, that little island tucked away between all those big islands that make up the UNITED KINGDON (or GREAT BRITAIN) is called the Isle of Man – and no, it’s not a gay enclave off the coast of Lancashire. I am not sure what purpose the Isle of Man serves nor am I sure if they are English or not. I have been there once and that time I did actually see a UFO!

I almost forgot, what IS an Englishman?

Try this:

The English (from Englisc) are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn.

Just putting on my body armour and helmet now and hunkering down to await the flak!

Why so Precious?

2010-07-30T17:16:00.001+01:00

A broadcaster questions and challenges a local government representative about food in schools and, quite rightly some may say, accuses the said official of being a “food fascist”. Now, the broadcaster has not called the official a Nazi or of being a member of a fascist political party. No he has simply equated a dictatorial approach to giving dietary advice as being some what “fascist”. Oh heavens above and hand wringing terrible of this blunt speaking broadcaster to have called a policy of a single individual “fascist”. The outpouring of outrage and accusations fly about with threats of legal action (and no doubt the hope of a nice little windfall from the case) and gasps of horror about one little word.

These days it seems impossible to not be accused of some sort of “ism” or “ist”, be it “fatist”, “hightist” or whatever other invented word that is really meant to mean, prejudice. However, I have to exclude from this the true “isms” of Racism and fascism which are truly unwanted and detestable “ism’s” of the worst types.

Recently I dared to write in my local paper about the cyclists who ignore all sanity, riding in and out of shoppers in the pedestrian precinct and generally terrorising anyone who gets in their way. In my minor rant I dared to use the expression about this irresponsible group of cyclists when I referred to them as “cycling fascists” . Oh oh dear or dear oh dear! I found a response in the paper the following week from someone called Colin Turton of Williams Road in Bosham. He was, he said largely in agreement with what I had ranted about but he was outraged that I should use the word “fascists” to ridicule this minority of cyclist who plague our precincts and pavements. He went on to accuse me of “serious and dangerous prejudice” He refuses the let my statement go unchallenged well he can, for as far as I am concerned that is what they are! I of course concede that my remark was not in any way attributed to the law abiding and responsible cyclists of this land! Mr Turton, get a life and stop being so precious.

Just for the record and so I can feel better, can I just refer Mr Turton (if he has inadvertently come across my Blog) of my much earlier rant about cyclists and see on context my frustration particularly after an attempt by one idiot on a bike to intimidate me by cycling around me on the pavement.

b***** cyclists!!! August 2009

I rest my case"!

What a sauce!

2010-07-16T15:50:00.001+01:00

Every 2nd Friday is Market Day in Chichester and among the many stalls erected in the City centre there is one that stands out, Interestingly called “Ishmaels Mother”. We first encountered the effervescent, exuberant and very personable Khalid Ishmael while casually peering at his wares on one of our visits to the Farmers Market. Then, while dropping small tasters of his addictive curry sauces into the small spoon he had provided each of us at the same time he had launched into his inimitable and entertaining “sales patter”. Despite his outrageous flirting with Valerie he still managed to flog me three packets of sauce which we thoroughly enjoyed and have been going back for replacements ever since. However, he did note that this week we had been absent for a month! We have only had one sauce we didn’t really take too and it was one that he had suggested “was good with bananas” – Not for me is wasn’t, but there again I had it with prawns!

I am pleased to say that I will be adding Ishmael’s Mother to my Blog now and confess that I should have done this some time ago. Well, now I have revamped my Blog and tidied up the links etc. and place Khalid's URL right where it should be, under “Food & Drink”.

I wonder if Khalid can bottle his exuberance at all and sell that as a curry sauce?

So, armed with our new supply of sauces we headed off to the Hornet to our favourite Deli at Hornet Provisions and the “Cafe Upstairs” [See the link under “Food & Drink”], where we can always rely on an excellent meal from the ever present John Clint and his trusty assistant Anita. After a nice glass of wine a very satisfying meal and strawberry cake (Shared!!) it was off back home to contemplate a forthcoming curry in the not too distant future plus of course an evening of Italian fayre at the “Cafe Upstairs” as soon as we get the call…..

Meetings, Bloody Meetings!

2010-07-12T17:07:00.001+01:00

Who remembers that training video that was put out by John Cleese Training? It was very funny at the time and I recall that no matter how many times we were shown when working at IBM and in the years following with other employers, the number and duration of meetings NEVER went down! I have sat in meetings wondering why I was there, wondering what the meeting was about, sleeping at one time and even chairing a meeting I wasn’t able to stop!

When I retired I swore that I would avoid meetings and largely I have. Except for the odd regimental association committee meeting that no one wanted to be at so progressed with great speed towards the nearest bar.

Now, it seems I have found my self involuntarily attending someone else's meetings and I am not even at work or in a workplace. No, I am sitting or trying to find a seat in Costa’s Coffee where I live. Most of the time finding a couple of free seats where we can enjoy our daily “Flat White” (with THREE shots of espresso) and doing the crossword is easy. But often we have to both prevent queue jumpers dashing from the back of the queue by carefully interfering with their progress and snatching the seats away from them just in time.

The bad news is that once we have secured our seats we find ourselves next to a group (well at least two people and sometimes more) in the midst of a business meeting. Laptop open, notes spread all over the table, intense and sincere looks on their eager faces and talking the talk. Oh yes, invariably resplendent in a business suit, corporate ID slung around their necks, Cross pens glinting in the sunlight, if they are near the window, buzz words bursting from their lips like spittle!

I have had enough of the parade of Local Authority, Local Government, Local School Governors, Salespeople, Arts and the theatre “luvvies” and heavens knows who else taking over the only place where you can get a decent drink of coffee!

I went as far as writing to both the Chief Executives of the County Council and the District Council about the matter and am sorry to report that only ONE had the good manners to reply in a prompt, constructive and conciliatory manner. The one from the District Council simply ignored me.

I was thinking of asking Costa’s to make their Coffee shops “business meeting free areas” but I can’t see that they want to see a decline in their revenue based on the rants of me and I can’t say I blame them. I even considered leaving small, neat and conveniently placed post it notes begging that those tempted to hold a “business meeting” in Costa’s, think twice and leave the business at work!

So the next time, any of you who may be reading this please, remember that the bloke looking over your shoulder or peeking at your minutes or jabbing a finger your at your laptop and demanding “scroll down scroll down” will be me and you better have an status update by 09:00 the next morning!

Please please please, no more meetings in PUBLIC places! Costa’s is for COFFEE not for MEETINGS!

PS: I did once and only once hold a meeting Costa’s coffee but I was very quiet and very discrete and took no notes!

Goodwood Festival of Speed

2010-07-05T10:14:00.001+01:00

There are times when what seemed like a good plan at the time soon becomes clear that is wasn’t such a good idea at all. This is what we discovered when I somewhat recklessly decided that it would be nice to go, for the first time, to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Actually, it was when I said “lets go to to the Festival of Speed this year, it’s a bit expensive but we have never been” and then when I added to that statement the insane idea that we could walk from home. Why you may ask, “because it’s not far from home after all is said and done”. A Bad plan !!

It was to prove fortunate however, but for all the wrong reasons, that we didn’t walk there in the end. The wrong reasons being that on the day we were to set off on this epic walk from home to Goodwood was the day that Val threw a very expensive sicky! Now no one, least of all me, would have wished the awful state she was in after contracting some vile virus from somewhere that left her completely incapacitated (I won’t go into details here as they are not pleasant). In any event, given her condition and given also that she insisted that I go alone, I decided to rescue some of our outlay and rather than walk I would drive there. Then at least if I did receive an “emergency" call I would be able to get back home relatively quickly.

I soon realised that our initial enthusiastic and excited estimates of the walking distance from home to the festival site had been grossly under estimated once I had noted the distance by car as being 3.5 miles. This was not including the distance we would have to walk from the car park to the actual festival site which I am sure would have added another mile or two at least to the “route march” that I found myself on once I got to the Goodwood Estate.

It was to prove an interesting and tiring day which I have many mixed feelings about but one thing is for certain, it would not have been an ideal day out for the lady of the house!

The highlights of the day were for me the fantastic flying display by the Red Arrows which until now I had tried to observe from the garden, only to nearly break my neck trying to spot the passing aircraft with little success. This time though it was "up close and personal” with a commentary and a view on a giant TV screen. The outcome being an example of one of the many photos I managed to take.

Good Things about the show were I suppose quite personal and therefore not everyone's cup of tea. However here are my highlights of the day.

2 Royal Tank Regiment display of the latest military vehicles and a fine example of their main battle tank. It was good to chat with them and recall my brief attachment to them in Libya back in the dark old days of 1967.

A bit different from the Centurion I learned to drive!

The Red Arrows display team put on an incredible display which was all the more exciting given that this year I was actually under it and not darting around the garden at home trying to keep tabs on them each time they flew over the house!

I could almost see the pilot as I took this photo.

The cars on display were overwhelmingly out of my reach in terms of cash! I simply drooled.
The Parking arrangements were pretty good and there was a form of rustic transport from the car park to the show fields which was good if you had to wander about looking for a lost car as some unfortunates seemed to have done at one stage. I on the other hand had counted the rows back to where I was parked (row 52) only to discover that several more rows had been fitted in by the time I came back for the car. I still found it with ease and didn’t need my GPS phone either.
The Cuban Cigar roller – Anibal Delgado Gonzalez was a star. He may not have been a voluptuous Cuban virgin rolling the cigars on her tanned thighs – but he did roll a mean “robusto”. Yes, I bought one hot off the table NOT his thigh!!

Anibal Delgado Gonzalez – Cigar maker, taking a smoke break!

The “Chunky Chips with Curry sauce – I have no more to say on this other than, even at £2.50 they were great!
Juliette Lowe the young local jeweller from Singleton who had the perfect gift on hand for the poor sick thing at home!

There were many more “good things” to numerous to mention but there were also some Bad Things that cant be left out from this even.

Programmes at £12.50 (admittedly with a “free radio”. I thought this was excessive given that we had already forked out £75 for tickets in advance so a FREE programme would have been nice!
Food prices were crazy with a Pims at £6.50 as was a sausage & onion roll. £4.50 for a bacon sandwich and of course my chips at £2.50, but there were good!!
Walking from the car parks was a bit of an ordeal as the dust got thicker and thicker as you slogged along with the crowd only to find more dust at the event its self. I came home looking like I had been working on a building site.
Entry fees do seem very high to me and there seems to be no incentive to buy early. Not it seems as I have already pointed out, no inclusive programme with the pre-ordered tickets.
The Dust was a major drawback for the nose, throat and any asthmatics but it wasn’t the organisers fault. All I would say is just be prepared for it.

All in all a great day out with lots to see and do and some interesting people to watch!

Photos from the day

View Full Album

Mice –v- Tablets?

2010-06-28T10:44:00.001+01:00

Since the beginning of the year I have been putting myself through a course of Photoshop lessons from CD’s that come with an excellent magazine called “Digital Photo”. I have six copies so far and have already been having some, all be it, limited success with manipulating some of my photos. One of the videos that I watched suggested that the technique the tutor was using to outline a part of a photograph could be better achieved using a tablet than a mouse and so, I was hooked on the idea. Initially I could only find new Wacom Bamboo One tablets for sale at a price that was too high, for a potential failure such as I, to expend on the basis of a whim. Off to Ebay I went and purchased a used tablet in such good condition that I would never have known the difference from a new one.

Wherever I read about using a tablet I found a recurring theme, “they take time to get used too”. How true was that to be. Anyway, I persevere with the little gadget and only revert to a mouse when I find I am making so many handling errors, shutting down sessions I never wanted to and dragging lines across photographs that were odd to say the least.

So far so good, I have had some really interesting results from both using the tablet and from my Photoshop lessons and despite my numerous errors with the tablet and stylus I am getting faster and more accurate every day.

Here is an example of both learning experiences, Photoshop and using my tablet!!

I think I am going to be DUAL user though…………….It’s a Score Draw for me then!

UPDATE: Launching my new range of greetings cards… See my cards on Ebay now!

2010-06-24T18:15:00.001+01:00

Since Since the launch of my successful Christmas cards in 2007 I am pleased to say that I am now about to launch my new 2010 series of greetings cards. Each card is A5 size and is left blank for your own greeting. Please take a look and my “new collection” , and tell me what you think or even better, place an order!

The larger (C5) cards are £2.50 each and the smaller ones a very fair £1.50 – does this seem reasonable? I don’t mind the truth!!

So, to help you choose from the latest images please browse either of the links below. One of the links has a musical accompaniment and the other is simple a slideshow, go on have a look at both!

My Card Store – Picasa Web Album
Richard's Card Store – On YouTube
To buy one they are now on Ebay!! – Donation to Help for Heroes!!

Terms Business are as follows:-

Please allow up to 28 Days for delivery as cards will be custom made and this takes time.

Postage – Will be on request and dependent upon number of cards ordered and of course where I have to post them to.

Payment should be via Paypal please or by arrangement direct with me if you

Please actually know me!

Please note that all photos are Copyright me!

Just a couple of samples of the C5 size and the smaller versions…..

Robots

2010-06-19T09:39:00.001+01:00

I heard an interesting piece on the BBC News this week about the introduction of robots in a Scottish hospital. The report started out by explaining that “A new hospital being built at Larbert in Stirlingshire will be the first in the UK to use a fleet of robots to transport goods and equipment. Well my this took me roaring back to when I was working at IBM. During the mid 1980’s as I recall it was decided to introduce a range of industrial robots perform a range of manufacturing tasks and even a fully automated warehouse. But by far the most useless of all this robots was the one that looked exactly like the one featured in this BBC report on the robots that are going to do almost everything except operate on the people who one day will be admitted there.

However, what I recall most about our robot at IBM was that whenever I came across it there seemed to be some problem with the thing. I would turn a corner and find it lurking and stationary in the middle of the gangway on which was the yellow “track” that the glorified train was supposed to follow. Usually a hapless storeman or “Line Analyst” as some stockmen were called was dispatched to “re-boot” the thing, that is to say press a large red button on it and hope that it detected its track on the ground again and set off to where ever it was going to shudder to a stop and be unloaded by the “Line Analyst” who was supposed to be waiting for the parts to restock the manufacturing line.

I suspect that it was not the cleaners who had damaged the guidance track when polishing the floors, although it may have been a contribution, but more likely the “Line Analyst” who could have grabbed his trolley, gone to the stores and restocked in half the time!

This is what I thought these robots would look like

But this is what they actually look like!

Err, the one on the right it the robot!

I feel relieved that it’s unlikely that I will be admitted to this new Scottish hospital so do not have to worry if my medication arrives “untouched by human hand”, or my meal or even a robotic nurse. I didn’t trust the things back then in the dark days of the Mid 80’s when clearly IBM was way ahead of the robotics games.

So just where did David Stark, a director of the architectural company Keppie Design really get the idea? I bet he was an young industrial engineer at IBM Havant back in the 80’s or if not, he knew someone that was!!

PS: Remember this!

Three Laws of Robotics

Waste Recycling

2010-06-14T09:39:00.000+01:00

I was encouraged to hear the news that the new Government has decided to drop plans to charge householders for recycling their rubbish. There is also talk of some Local Authorities actually rewarding householders for the material that they may send for recycling and that this may include shopping vouchers etc. This is all excellent news as we wont now feel compelled to recycle but actually recycle because we want to and collect an M&S Voucher on the way too!

These days we seem to recycle an enormous amount of newspaper and cardboard, much of which is from packaged food and tea bags. We used to compost as well but now that we have a largely low maintenance garden we have little in the way of space or material to continue to do so.

We are also fortunate to only have two “bins” for our waste. A black household waste bin and a maroon recycle one that is just about large enough for us. We have declined a green garden waste bin for pretty much the same reasons we are not composting these days. So I feel we are doing about as much as we can in terms of waste disposal, except with glass which we have to take to a nearby collection point. However, given that our glass collecting may take a long time I don’t think we are a problem in that respect.

However, I do have a major gripe about the few bone idle, lazy and anti-social residents of our estate who are guilty of leaving their bins sat in front of their houses, on the pavement, causing an obstruction from anyone having to negotiate the footpath. This thoughtless practice is not only unsightly, it is a hindrance to mothers pushing prams as they can be forced into the road to avoid the offending obstruction.

Needless to say, at night, anyone returning from a night at the pub may find themselves victim to a wheelie bin collision!! I suppose this could lead to a nice little earner in the way of compensation?

Why oh why don’t the Local Authority do something about this particular lazy habit and fine the culprits?

This leads me onto another little niggle I have about car parking. Why oh why do the owners of cars around here who have a garage (either integral to their house ) AND a parking space adjacent to the house of garage, insist on parking their car as near to the front of their house ON THE PAVEMENT?

This is not only against the law (as far as I recall) but it is another safety hazard to the walkers of this land. Yet again it is just another example of lazy (if not stupid) inconsiderate, thoughtless and selfish people who do not consider the implications of their actions.

I pray that if we have a major fire here or a medical emergency that the Emergency Services are able to get their vehicles to the scene without hindrance.

Where was I? Oh yes, recycling.

Keep it up!

The Queens Birthday Parade 2010

2010-06-13T16:45:00.001+01:00

As ever I spent a happy time watching this spectacle on TV and recalling that as a young Junior Solider MAD and I spent many a happy few hours practicing left and right forms, marching in line in quick and slow time and for me many hours as a “Stickman” or more understandably as Escort to the Inspecting Officer on parade.

[Left to right: Me as Escort, “Right Hand Man” with my platoon and my platoon marching past the inspecting General – I am the first on the left of the picture] Hill Platoon B Company – Shiny B !!!

Despite having been born in London, lived there for many years and been a regular soldier I had never been to see the Queens Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour). So taken with this I thought it would be a good idea to enter an application for entry in the ballot for tickets for the 2011 parade. I won’t hold my breath though as I am sure that there are tens of thousands of applications each year, but I can live in hope!

Perhaps Peter White or my friend “MAD”may put in a good word for me?

I stole Peter White’s sandwich

2010-06-10T11:27:00.000+01:00

OK, it’s been over 10 years now but I feel it’s about time I confessed. For those of you who are not familiar with the name Peter White, let me explain by this LINK to the BBC profile of Peter.

Peter White

Also, for those who may not already know , Peter is blind, a great broadcaster and sadly, a failed comedian! However, I like to listen to him and always enjoy his wit and humour despite his comedy act for the BBC once!"

Now, the sandwich. I still shudder inwardly at the shame of what I did all those years ago but perhaps by telling this story I can gain some forgiveness or perhaps… no, I think I will have to wait and see.

I was on a train travelling from West Byfleet (I think) to London. I had left the office in a hurry and had missed my lunch and being both very thirsty and even hungrier I decided to risk the offerings being pushed along the train by the rather disinterested South West Trains employee.

Along he came with his cart laden with fizzy drinks, sweets and biscuits and ONE cheese sandwich. In fact only ONE sandwich in total and I was going going to have it at any cost. I stood up from my seat and followed the trolley and was surprised to recognise a voice coming from the seat ahead of me. yes, it was Peter White with his guide dog. “Have you got any sandwiches” he asked just as I was surreptitiously removing the one and only sandwich from the trolley while the vendor was distracted by both Peter and his dog. “yes, I have one cheese sandwich left sir” said the hapless vendor who turned to retrieve the cheese sandwich.

He at first looked confused as he searched the empty space where the sandwich has nestled and then slowly looked up at me to see that I was holding the precious item in my hands, close to my chest with a look that said “it’s mine, all mine"”!! The look on his face said, more of less “selfish thieving bastard” but I was unabashed as at this time my hunger had turned me into a potential mad axe man and there seemed no likelihood that I would have the grace to hand it over to be sold to Peter White.

With a withering look the vendor advised the no doubt hungry Peter White that he was, sorry but the sandwich “had gone” to which Peter replied “oh, I’ll have a mars bar then please”. And with Peter facing me behind the sandwich vendor, I duly paid for the sandwich while the attendant continued to glare at me and saying loudly, “the cheese sandwich Sir, that will be £2.50 please”!

Named and shamed? No sadly not as I slid off back to my seat and devoured the vile concoction of overly mature cheddar, stale bread and dry salad. The worst sandwich I had ever eaten.

I suppose I did spare poor Peter White the ordeal of eating the offending thing I suppose. But I still cringe at what I had done every time I hear his cheerful voice on the radio. It was a shameful thing to do given that he could not see me while the attendant had his back to me but I was in the full view of Peter who was facing me as I literally took the sandwich from under his nose.

So ten years on, Peter White, I humbly apologise for my despicable and reprehensible act of selfishness and promise that if I ever see you again I will identify myself to you and, if you wish, give you new but much fresher cheese sandwich!

Obama and BP: White House is not Anti-British?

2010-06-08T08:18:00.000+01:00

Hmmm, you do have to wonder don't you? OK, lets see now what is it that BO has against BP.

BP is “British” as in British Petroleum
So What. In fact the company is INTERNATIONAL and the workers involved in the disaster were AMERICAN!
OB’s gandpappy was “tortured by the British in Kenya”
Well who says he was? IF he was a member of the Mau Mau then he would have been initiated into the group in a secret ceremony which involved eating human white flesh!! Mau Mau were only sort of Freedom Fighters and in 1950’s Britain mistreatment of captured fighters was not typical as at this time they had not met anyone from the American CIA !!
BP is a successful company in the USA and provides many jobs.. Hmmmm
The economic and financial destruction of BP by BO would be of benefit to the good old US of A and the Oil industry

Darn me I almost forgot. BO has a forgotten that Britain seems to be an ally who’s soldiers are fighting themselves ragged in an unwinnable war. So why don’t we just up and bugger off back home and leave St Barak and his merry men to fight off the Taliban on their own?

See this little spoof report I found on the internet

Obama and BP: White House is not Anti-British

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s1i76160

Finally, yes I do love to drive every nail home I can, will we ever stop importing so many American English words and sayings into our own dear language?

Britain declares war on words that snuck into our skedule...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1284254/Britain-declares-war-words-snuck-skedule-.html#ixzz0q5kLwEjw

When I'm Sixty-Four

2010-06-05T08:00:00.000+01:00

(With thanks to The Beatles !!)

When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?
You'll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you
I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings, go for a ride

Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?
Every summer we can rent a cottage in the
Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck, and Dave
Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine forever more
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

Hoo!

Well, here I am on the left ….. almost as fit as a fiddle and ready for the time I get my pension in 2011 !! But how did I make THIS lady laugh so much?

Those ‘Buxom Vixens’?

2010-06-03T08:20:00.001+01:00

I have to be amused about the number of ‘hits’ my blog has been receiving where the search line includes those fateful words, buxom and vixen! Now I can only guess at what the hapless searchers are looking for when they enter those two magic words. Sadly I am still only able to guess at their frustration when they only find my observations of the local fox population (Vulpes vulpes) – Link

Sorry boys from wherever you are!

I am still mystified about who my visitor is from Plano, Texas who visits quite a lot but consistently ignored my small appeal to know more about him/her and Plano. Come on, let me know?

On the subject of buxomness I have to tell my readers, even if they are not interested. I have been on a diet, in fact I continue to be on a diet and have lost several pounds! From my 164 ponds in February this year ( I had been heavier prior to then) I am now a mere shadow of myself at ….. drum roll….. a svelte and almost slim-line 151 pounds and still falling!!

How did I do it? No, no fancy diets, not diet drinks and no, not even starving myself. I have counted calories and reduced my intake of most things. Yes, even alcohol. There is a downside though, I have had to have all my trousers altered to suit my new physique but I will not get so thin as to end up looking like Iggy Pop!! This is to say, NOT not what he is today although in his hay days, that would be OK.

‘IP’ Then ‘IP’ Now Me, Left-Right ?

My birthday is soon so I will be relaxing my diet for at least a day to accommodate my intake of food and booze!

Finally, my pet hate. Poor ‘speeelin’ …..

Will the illiterates who can’t spell or even understand the difference between THERE ( as in over there) and THEIR (as in it’s theirs ) get it right AND remember if they are not too addled that it is spelt THEIR and NOT THIER … heavens it even looks wrong!

They know who they are but they hate me so much they don’t even read my blog. So those who know who they are, please, give them a kick for me!

Spotted: My latest laughable ‘speelin’ (One of so many I’m sad to say) is:-

AMBALANCE

No words necessary.

Another Flat White Please

2010-05-29T09:26:00.001+01:00

We are Costa fans and have a coffee there almost every day. We have ONE favourite Costa outlet and that is our local one in Chichester.

Why is it our favourite? Because the staff are polite, friendly and take the time to remember who you are.

Not only that, they also are keen to make a great cup of coffee and as far as I am concerned make a “benchmark” Flat White.

Now we also have to recognise that a Costa branch in Brighton, perhaps not as friendly as Chichester but certainly as efficient, is also very good in terms of their Flat White’s.

Without doubt whilst we have sampled Costa coffees in Salisbury, Guildford, Portsmouth and Southampton I have to say that the Southampton branches are far and away the very worst coffee drinking experience in terms of our Flat White’s. We have tried four out of the five outlets we know of in Southampton and not one has been able to produce a really good drink. The staff are polite but that is as about as far as it goes as I don’t think they have a passion for coffee making.

Our last Flat White experience in Southampton was so bad I was compelled to be honest with the poor unfortunate barista who had made the drinks. Who, despite my declaration that “this coffee is not very good looking” to “frankly, this coffee is not at all good” and “can I have the milk topped up please” – was met with a somewhat odd, bemused or uncomprehending grin from the unfortunate barista on the receiving end of my rather restrained tongue lashing.

All in all the drink was not made with any degree of care. The milk slopped in and the finish (normally a sort of tulip shape) was just not present!

So sorry Southampton, outside Waterstone’s the one inside Waterstone’s plus the one at the top of the West Quay Mall, you have failed us in our search for a really good Flat White!

Chichester however scores a resounding 10/10 if you combine the welcome, the service and the coffee.

Is it summer?

2010-05-27T18:00:00.000+01:00

After several days of clearing the garden shed, cleaning out the garage of empty packing cases left over from our return from Ibiza, planting a new shrub in the garden, feeding the lawn and finally buying some plants for the front of the house. What can it all mean? I suppose that now I have started wearing shorts and layering on factor 50 to my head, I have to conclude, it must be summer.

The clincher must be cutting the grass every week which is now becoming lush and green and the fact that I seem to be thinking plants all the time.

As it’s summer, we have had a short break in Brighton with the obligatory meal at Indian Summer “the only Indian restaurant in Brighton” We had lunch a few weeks ago at Chilli Pickle in Brighton another fine eatery which I cannot recommend highly enough. We stayed at “One Broad Street” in the care of the ever humorous, helpful and Queen of Granola making, Ramola!! (and Mary who we have never met). This is a fantastic little place just far enough away from the busy centre of Brighton and near enough to the sea to be perfect. The rooms are bright and clean and full of little quirks that reflect the personalities of the owners of this B&B. We love it there and plan a return visit in the not to distant future.

There was another “first” this visit to Brighton with a visit to the Brighton Pavilion and the current exhibition about the many hundreds of Indian Soldiers who were treated there during the First World War when the Pavilion was used as a hospital. I was a little disappointed by the rather small nature of the exhibition but it did have some excellent photographs and a short film showing King George V during a visit to the hospital and presenting a Victoria Cross to an Indian Army Officer, Jemadar (Lieutenant) Mir Dast of the 55th Coke's Rifles ( Frontier Force ). He insisted on standing to attention to receive his medal despite being very weak after having been gassed. Much of scene at the hospital was so similar to scenes today of our wounded soldiers recovering and rehabilitating at another “Brighton Pavilion”, Headly Court today. History does have a habit of repeating itself doesn't it? We still need the same “Help for Heroes” today!!

The Case for Polygamy, or not?

2010-05-12T10:29:00.001+01:00

I read recently that President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has five wives and possibly a sixth in view. Lucky him some may say but, just for a moment, consider this possible aspect of polygamy. Lets assume that it is a woman who is the person with multiple husbands! Just how can we imagine this scenario would this pan out?

First of all the sleeping arrangements with all these husbands, now doubt all “alpha males”, vying for preferential treatment. Who for example would be in the double bed for the night or one of the spare rooms or, heavens forbid, the husbands dormitory!!

There there is the matter of laundry. Would the lady of the house be expected to do the washing and ironing for all the husbands?

Cooking, would the wife still be expected to cook for all of the husbands (except of barbecue days of course) or would the husbands take it in turns cook and thus create a huge amount of washing up? Hell, who would do that, the wife?

Then there would be the matter of the TV remote. This symbol of male superiority would now be in the hands of a woman!! Would sports TV be a forgotten viewing treat for men (admittedly not ALL men)? Or would “loose Women” take over?

How many towels would be left wet on the bathroom floor, for ever and a day?

I cannot add any more to this list of unlikely woe’s given that women have clearly sussed the disadvantages of polygamy for women and have decided that surely, one man is enough.

Have though men not worked out that often the saying “less is more” should be enough and NOT take on more wives?

Well Jacob, all I can say is, each to his own.

A breather from elections at last

2010-05-12T09:27:00.001+01:00

I am pleased to say that the General Election is at last over! However, we have no doubt got to suffer weeks of analysis about the makeup of this new Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition and see many slips and trips. Good Luck to them I say and lets hope it works well!

I will not be posting anymore “political” blogs (at least for several months) and will concentrate on more mundane matters.

I SAW THIS SILLY RANT ON FACEBOOK...

2010-05-11T16:25:00.000+01:00

For my readers from Bracknell Forest Council

The ranter lost my vote very soon after I started reading this rubbish in blue below!

“complete insanity, teaching children to shoot”

“Kennel lane school in bracknell Berkshire, use a centre to take the kids to every now and then, to teach the kids outside activities. What a wonderful idea i hear you say. Now in this day and age wich we live in, with the violence on the streets, kids , gangs weapons, and young children mugging old folk. Also GUNS on the streets.
Now wich head teacher in their right fucking mind, would actually condone, their children in their care,( well not their children, our children ) and take them to a centre for outdoor pursuits, the Oakwood centre, and put in their hands a if*****g rifle and teach them to shoot. …..
And on it went for ever, this ranting and raving about a subject that may indeed be controversial but not one that warranted the venom that this person posted on Facebook. It was not as if the school was about to arm these kids with automatic weapons and unleash a new Michael Ryan or Thomas Hamilton on the world. No, they were going to do what a lot of schools and cadet forces have done for generations, let them LEARN to shoot [in this case Air Weapons] safely and responsibly. Shooting is a sport and a discipline as is of course archery and darts. I spent many years as a competitive rifle and pistol shooter, representing my County and winning several championships over the years. I also acted as the organiser for the development and encouragement of pistol shooting in Sussex and over this period saw many many young people from all backgrounds and walks of life and educational backgrounds join in to learn to shoot. Not a single one of them caused their sponsor or club they attended any problems at all. Some of them had learning difficulties or behavioural problems all of which seemed to evaporate once they found themselves with the target weapon in their hands and under the watchful guidance of a coach. As far as I know none have become terrorists or mass murderers.
So with the extreme reaction that the Facebook rant in mind I asked the worried individual to think about his position and to debate with me if he wished. SILENCE.
I think its a good thing to get kids of ALL abilities to try something new and risky (even to us) and then see how many blossom into international sportsmen and women. Shooting, Archery and even darts, we all need fresh blood to join in. Past Governments over reacted to the tragedy of Dunblane and wiped off the face of British Sport many thousands of eager competitive target shooters, the businesses that supported them and a place on the international sporting scene.
Evidence to date shows that the ban on handguns in the UK had no effect on gun crime at all. In fact the ownership off illegally held weapons and gun crime in general has rocketed since the ban!
My case is closed.
NRA/NSRA use this link for more information on the Sport

A nightmare….

2010-05-11T10:29:00.001+01:00

Last night I had a terrible dream about a spinning top… or something like that. I was in a circus ring and I was a performing horse of all things. I was surrounded by people dressed up as clowns and jesters. Some wore masks but they all had one thing in common… they were “spin doctors”.

Peter Mandelson

Charlie Whelan

Derek Draper

Alistair Campbell – the worst of them all!

Damian McBride

Jo Moore (Good day for bad news lady – now long gone)

I was so relieved to wake up from this nightmare and realise who these people are, or were, but then slightly bemused by some of the left wing rhetoric we see about “nasties” in the Conservative party. I think you would have to go a long way to find any to match this bunch above.

Mind you there are still some class war warriors, misogynist bigots and deluded left wing commentators out there who still love to blame Mrs Thatcher for today's woes or yesteryears problems of Britain today. Many of these outdated old pundits of course managed to buy their council houses under Thatcher and exploit the years of “boom” without complaint (sadly there was a bust to follow). They will of course claim that there was so much injustice yet these same armchair pundits scream about the EU and how terrible it is, about uncontrolled immigration and the terrible way the armed forces are treated but still vote with their DNA and not reality. Perhaps I too am guilty of voting my DNA too, but we shall see.

All I can say about these people I criticise here is:-

Hypocrites!

Stargazing or star struck?

2010-05-10T09:31:00.001+01:00

What an experience we had yesterday! Something neither of us had done since we were children and something we will surely do again. We sat in the dark, heads back in a semi reclined position with hypnotic music lulling us into a sort of minor trance, well not quite.

We paid a visit to the Southdowns Planetarium in Chichester. What an experience that turned out to be given that neither of us had been to a planetarium since our teens, or earlier.

Those reclining seats turned out to have come from a Boeing 747 at some stage and were so comfortable they could only have come from Club Class because I never remember seats with such soft padding on any 747 flight I have been on!

To our surprise the planetarium was packed and they music, although very 1970’s sounding, was almost as hypnotic as I implied earlier. It was if anything a bit like the soundtrack from a rather low budget Sci-Fi movie.

Anyway, we are now hooked and I am busy searching for maps of the night sky so that we can find Venue, Mars, Saturn and the International Space Station without an endless debate about both being “sure it is” when we are not. Did you know that the International Space Station is as big as a Premier League football stadium? No, neither did we!

Right, we are off to the shops now for a 100 inch reflector, some thermal underwear and some of the biggest maps of the sky we can find. Actually, were not but we will be spending a little more time studying the night sky to spot with some degree of accuracy now just which shining stars are stars and which are planets.

So it’s goodbye for now from the 3rd Rock from the Sun and hello Space!

PS: After watching the presentation yesterday I am now convinced there is NO life out there!

Surprise, what surprise?

2010-05-08T10:38:00.001+01:00

I knew deep down when I went to bed on the eve of the General Election that we would wake up to bad news. That is not to say that the Tories gaining 97 seats at the expense of Labours 91 losses and the LibDems loss of five seat was bad news, not at all. What was bad was that the real loser, Gordon Brown was as the Sun newspaper said, “squatting” in 10 Downing Street.

OK, the Tories only had a 36.1% of the votes or more to the point 10,706,647 against Labours 8,604,358 and the LibDems 6,827,938. So what if the combined Lib / Lab vote was more. The fact remains that the electorate did not vote for the other two parties in sufficient numbers and the Tories did indeed climb a mountain to get where they are today.

So here we are with the prospect of some sort of coalition which I fear the LibDems will spend more time demanding ‘payment’ for services rendered in supporting Cameron than in getting on with the job of ditching some of Browns profligate spending and borrowing policies.

I saw a friend of mine write elsewhere that if the Labour voters who so much hated Brown had NOT voted, if they didn’t want to vote LibDem or Tory, then Brown would have had an even worse political defeat!

Lets NOT forget what he did to the country behind our backs when he was the ‘Iron Chancellor’ shall we? I for one know that our voting pattern is, as I was told recently, in our DNA. It’s hard to NOT vote for your ‘blood party’ then – I have only not cast a vote once and regretted ever since.

Lets see what pans out over the next few days.

[Regards to my friend ‘MAD’ who is no doubt feeling quite mad now over the result he least wished for] ‘TIT’

Thought for the day

2010-05-05T08:17:00.001+01:00

Harriet Harman…………………person

Ed Balls…. yes

Ed Miliband…

David Miliband……

Jackie Smith……

Shaun Woodward…………….£££££

Bob Ainsworth!! ….. Lest we forget

I don’t care much about the result tomorrow but I do care about NOT forgetting just what people have thought of this bunch up until now …. One is set on destroying our society, one is a millionaire others are plain weird and one, is responsible for our soldiers….. he has been so quiet of late! Where is he?

Coalition Government – A Good or Bad thing?

2010-05-02T10:31:00.001+01:00

I for one don’t think that a coalition government (like a coalition in war time) would work in our favour, the electorates favour that is. Why, because the parties would spend more time on bolstering their own position and riding out votes of confidence than serving the needs of the country to a sufficient degree.

An interesting article from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_government

I always think that the people who always say a coalition is best are those that speak most and know least!

Discuss!

Bizarre Spellings on the Internet

2010-05-01T16:43:00.007+01:00

OK, here we go. I have been trawling the internet among my usual haunts and finally, possibly at my wits end, I have to list some of the very worst examples of bad spelling I have seen in my trawl. Some people, indeed some of my readers, may say, ‘Oh it’s OK to spell a word wrong. All that matters is that you are understood’. Sorry folks, no it’s not alright ! I feel that in an educated and modern society there should be no reason why people who hold down important jobs should have abysmal grammar or not be able to spell the very basic of everyday words. Nor should there be any excuse for anyone not to be able to tell the difference between a full stop, comma, apostrophe or semi-colon!! Genuine typos apart this is not a good thing to see in this day and age and yet I see great works of great “erudite art” poured out into a Blog or Forum without a single correct use of any of these punctuation marks, except by accident perhaps. So with a little tongue in cheek, here are some of my favourite spelling mishaps lifted from various places on the internet and they are all from adults.

*Wrong*	*Right*	*Wrong*	*Right*
Allways	Always	Can,t	Can't
All-ways	Always	Becouse	Because
Accomidation	Accommodation	Parants	Parents
Differant	Different	Thier	Their
Conversasion	Conversation	Musium	Museum
Currant	Current	Traval	travel
Surviver	Survivor	Corrination	Coronation
Cinima	Cinema	Challange	Challenge
Wich	Which	Crimanal	Criminal
Replyed	Replied	Warmist	Warmest
situatition	Situation	ofended	Offended
Favorites	Favourites

Of course if I have made any spelling or punctuation errors myself, I duly apologise. Feel free to disagree with me if you wish but you have to be prepared to reveal who you are as I don’t debate with anonymous commentators.

Re: The Election! I notice a high degree of complacency regarding my little “not to be taken seriously” poll with only 7 visitors voting so far in what looks like a landslide for the “minority parties” right now. Come on you lot it’s just for fun so cast your vote.

I don’t care who wins (I do really) but I really don’t want a Hung Parliament OR Proportional Representation OR a Coalition Government and to be honest where in the world do these systems of government / election actually work? I can hear the screams now!

A “Flat White” please!

2010-04-19T15:02:00.001+01:00

All I have to say about this arrival in UK coffee shops from Australia / New Zealand is that we are hooked. Val and I were both hardened Latte [extra hot] and Americano [with hot milk] until this coffee masterpiece arrived. We are now both hooked on this creamy “coffee beverage prepared by pouring steamed milk from the bottom of steaming pitcher over a single shot (30ml) or double shot (60ml) of espresso” – yes, it’s a winner. There is however a very big “but” to warn those of you who may wish to try one of these drinks out.

1. The barista must take time to make the drink. You don’t want it to be rushed as to do so ruins the effect.

2. It has to be hot!

3. Don’t let the surly barista with the indeterminate non-British dialect slop the coffee all over the saucer and then all but throw its replacement at you when it arrives back at your table.

4. Make sure you praise the barista who makes you a good one and tells you which is the better of the two [if you order two that is]

Recently we visited two Costa Coffee outlets in Southampton and suffered a Flat white as I have described in points 1 & 3 and in an outlet in Waitrose in Chichester also had a bit of a “devil may care” prepared flat white that left much to be desired and me with 1000 extra loyalty points on my Costa card by way of compensation! I just love Whitbread now and not just for its beer either!

By far the best flat whites we ever had were from a Costa in Brighton which in fairness we have to say that our local Chichester branch is very close indeed.

I commend this little gem of a coffee to those of you who may prefer a novel beverage and yet not lose the taste of a espresso!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_white

Pray we don’t have a hung parliament!

2010-04-17T17:30:00.001+01:00

I know it’s easy for many people to chant “lets give them a chance” or “a coalition would be best” or even “a hung parliament is probably best for us all”. Let me just say NONE OF THESE ARE GOOD IDEAS!

Firstly, letting the LibDems in will be terrible beyond belief to all those floating voters who (1) Hate the EU (2) Hate Gordon Brown and New Labour including Blair or (3) don’t vote consistently. Why? Because they are further to the left of British politics than Stalin or Pol Pot! That’s Why! [Oh and the Labour Party]

Let me give you ten good reasons why not to let Cleggy near power.

1) Lib/Dems are just not squeaky clean & holier than thou at all

2) The party isn't as Liberal or Democratic as they will tax the pants off us!

3) Vince Cable isn't as good on financial matters as he takes credit for

4) The Party is led by a closet social engineer and exponent of every form of political correctness called Nick Clegg

5) Their existing MPs are not worth a penny

6) They're just as bad on "tax & spend" as the current Labour lot, if not worse. “it’s only cost a penny on tax” I hear them muttering even as I type

7) They're the worst pro-EU party of the lot and that that's not a good thing for all you all you rabid anti EU people who don’t want to vote Labour or UKIP or even BNP!

8) They're one of the worst pro-global warming / Pro-climate change / pro-Scam green tax parties of all, just when it's been exposed as a massive fraud.

9) They've not really changed that much since Jeremy Thorpe was leader or Charles Kennedy or…..

10) An update, [thanks to John Redwood] and back to Vince Cable again..... he's a "serial flip-flopper"

I would rather fly in the face of 42 years of consistent Tory voting and vote Labour ( even with Gordon Broone at the helm) than suffer the open toed sandals of a powerbase of LibDem MP’s nannying us into our graves that they will have us dug with our hard earned taxes.

A Final reminder to those of you who hate all things PC… beware the LibDems.

Who hate extra taxes, beware the LibDems

Green taxes, want them? Beware the LibDems!

Ah that’s better now I have got it off my chest and with thanks to John Redwoods own Web Pages!

http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/09/14/can-you-think-of-a-better-name-for-the-liberal-democrats/

Have a bash at this Fantasy Election 2010 Poll - Remember It's just fun!

2010-04-12T08:00:00.001+01:00

Come on it is only for fun so cast your vote here and lets see if we can predict the result of the UK general election on the 6th May 2010....Remember it's for fun! May the 8th you may be the lucky one to have tipped the balance? (or if it's NOT a 'Hung Parliament' May the 7th).

The NHS and Smoking

2010-04-11T18:27:00.000+01:00

Now it’s fairly well known that smoking tobacco is not actually that good for your health. Despite the protestations of ASH the evidence is still firmly on the side of the medics of the land (if not the world) and that is “Smoking Kills”.

So when we were on our way back from our regular constitution from the town to home we take a short cut through St Richard’s Hospital. Everywhere you look that are a couple of giant signs and a multitude of smaller one warning that smoking is not permitted in any building OR the grounds of the hospital. This I think is evident given the number of smokers that lurk on the very boundaries of the Hospital puffing their cancer sticks.

It was with some considerable surprise when only last week we noticed the number of patients and Staff (?) who seem intent upon defying the Health Authority edit and lurking around so many corners of the hospital. We have spotted numerous smokers actually smoking next to the "No Smoking” signs!! One woman complete with pyjamas and a rather fetching pink dressing gown left the maternity wing and sat down in the sun outside of the Dieticians office and lit up! Two other women came out from the hospitals specialist treatment area which is not far from the nearby cancer treatment facility and then, yes you’ve got it, lit up under the No Smoking sign right outside the doors. Finally, a young woman in a wheel chair was sitting outside an admin building (under another No Smoking sign) puffing away on a fag. Is there perhaps special dispensation for the wheelchair bound in terms of smoking?

We did wonder if the NHS/Hospital ought to be doing more to make sure that its orders were obeyed? Should there be “fines” levied?

I suppose some may argue that if they are terminally ill then smoking wont make any difference. I still think that the NHS should be doing more.

Now, My Quote of “Quotes of the week” (from the Mail on Sunday 11th April)

“Wooden-headed bureaucratic silliness combined with a well-meaning and completely misplaced anxiety about giving offence to non-Christians”

(Dr Rowan William, the Archbishop of Canterbury
responding to attacks on Christianity, highlighted by the case of a nurse wearing a crucifix on the wards)

My next blog will be about the crazy idea of giving votes to 16 year olds!!!

Technorati Tags: St Richard's Hospital chichester,NHS,Smoking,Cancer

Freedom of Speech is dead?

2010-04-04T18:01:00.002+01:00

Before I start I just want to make it clear that I am not in favour of the rights of people to abuse the hard won rights to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not give people the right to preach sedition, hatred or pure bigotry. However I think that everyone has a right to an opinion which often is something that cannot be openly voiced due to the multitude of laws and regulations that prevent or curtail some loud mouthed or overly opinionated members of society to let forth all sorts of bile under the heading, “I am only speaking my mind” or “I was brought up to speak out” or “I learned to not hold back”. All these assertions are misguided.
I do feel strongly thought that in this country there are too many social engineers (yes I know, my current hobby horse) that impose so many minority issues purely out of some ideas of supposed political correctness. Whilst I do not profess to follow any religion these days I do however accept that we are not a secular state and that the Church of England is in fact the “established” church and the Queen the “Defender of the faith”. How therefore can public bodies such as the NHS or similar organisation place other religions sensitivities above those of the established church? Why don’t these people listen to the likes of Peter Tatchell (I am no fan of his) but he has recently being speaking some sensible stuff about minority groups and how the beliefs and opinions of religious groups must be respected.
So many laws have been introduced in the last 13 years that it’s almost a criminal offence to have an opinion about anything. B&B owners are not allowed to pick and chose who they can have staying in their house. Committed Christians are not allowed to say they object to homosexuality on the grounds of their religion yet no one condemns or takes legal action against other religious objectors. Politicians introduce abortion laws that fly in the face of the doctrine of the Catholic Church yet expect the Pope to change the doctrine. Catholic adoption agencies are forced to close because of this same poorly thought through law. Faith schools or all the major religions are forced to take pupils that will be poorly suited to the religious syllabus yet the Government take little or no notice of this. I still can’t help but feel that the right of minority, special interest or gay rights groups would be better served by they in turn respecting the rights of religious groups and those individuals who seem to seek out confrontation and legal action should be more dignified in their approach to gaining acceptance of their beliefs and life style choices.
Enough of this ranting and back to relaxing! I leave you with My Quote of “Quotes of the week” (from the Mail on Sunday 4th April)
“It’s nice to see him making a speech that no one is paying for”
(David Cameron on Tony Blair’s appearance on the hustings last week.)

NHS Hospitals – A Question

2010-04-03T18:05:00.002+01:00

Most days we make a point of walking into Chichester, it’s a good way to get fresh air and also a very good means of exercise. So we set off on one of the routes we favour pick up a paper, drop into Costa Coffee and have a “Flat White” each and then set off back home having done whatever else needed doing during our venture into town. Now I have to say that we generally avoid the town at weekends or bank holidays given the number of people thronging the streets at these times. But on those occasions when we do venture out we invariably make our way home via our favoured route, which is through the grounds of St Richard’s Hospital. It’s relaxing, relatively clean and tidy and it feels shorter than going around the houses. Strange to say that on these occasions when we do use the hospital route at weekends or bank holidays the hustle and bustle, the full to overflowing car parks and the stream of doctors, nurses, visitors, patients and all the other staff that are employed at St Richard’s during the working week seem entirely absent, the place seems to be almost deserted. Well as ever, this got me to asking some questions

Why are there no visitors on weekends or holidays? (given the empty car parks)
Where are all the hospital staff hiding?
Do people only have accidents or need hospital care during working hours?
Who is actually looking after the patients on the wards?
Why isn’t a hospital a fully 24 hour operation/Service?

All I can say is that I don’t want to be admitted to hospital at a weekend or when there is a public holiday and nor do I want to be in one during the same times.
I think that ALL NHS staff working at hospitals should work the same shifts as the medical staff so that there is cover ALL the time and not at the convenience of the workforce!
Discuss!

Is this the latest transplant option, off the shelf?
…………and what the heck!

An Election is on the way….

2010-03-28T15:30:00.002+01:00

Frankly I can’t wait to see the back of this present government of mean minded, autocratic, “nannying”, hypocritical, bitter, spiteful, mealy mouthed bunch social engineers that have imposed a raft of politically correct policies and laws that have robbed us of our innate sense of fair play, our rights to a contrary opinion, indeed any opinion at all. I want to eat what I want to, I want to decide for myself if I smoke or not, how much wine, beer or spirit I drink and even what sort of religious ornament I choose to wear. I don’t want the rights of minorities who largely hate everything about our society to leave me with own rights made to seem as if they are criminal. I don’t want some zealot to rob the pension funds of our hard working people, to sell the gold reserves of the country to some Eastern European (or any other European come to that) and leave our glorious nation the laughing stock of the world. I don’t want to be ruled from some 21st century office building in Brussels. I don’t want to live under a Government who despises the Monarch and fights a war on a poultry budget at the expense of our brave young men and women who are sent on these foolish missions.
I don’t want much to I?
But what I do want is a truly fair society where old values that were good for us in past decades remain so in new decades to come. I want savers to be paid a fair interest on their hard earned savings. I want our children to be treated as children again and not as some alternative species that can do what it likes when it likes at the expense of decency. I want to see our fundamental values remembered and retained and I want to feel that it is NOT wrong to be British or English and that the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish are not somehow “better” than we English. I want people in authority to be respected and decent people, women, older people and nurses to be treated with deference and not disdain.
I want a lot don’t I?
I also want to see everyone with a better basic education, to be able to spell correctly and know that it is NOT alright to speak your mind, that it’s not a positive thing to do so. It is often rude and ill mannered to do so as it is to swear in front or people without restraint and let children do so too, unchallenged.
Beards should be banned (perhaps with burkhas) and the “have not's” should stop blaming everyone else for not having what they want.
sadly, I fear that none of these aspirations of mine will ever be realised. One party will leave office and another arrive and sooner or later there will be countless revelations about some deed done years before or another run of sleaze or corruption…. and on it goes.
But please spare me a new “Class War” in this country where there are so many so called working class who think they are working class, dozens of Social Liberals who think they are middle class (but are upper or lower) – the upper classes don’t know who they are, only what they are! I can’t face another torrent of Champagne Socialism – we all know who they are – public school and university then into the “Social Engineering Workshop” of life.
“Oh dear. How sad. Never mind” as the Sergeant Major in “It Aint Half Hot Mum” would say!

Fine Cell Work – Better than sewing Mailbags!

2010-03-25T18:48:00.001Z

A most unusual and heart warming story about a project for prisoners. I heard about this from my sister who’s partner was responsible the production of this report on a really innovative project. Who would have thought that some of the men and women involved in this project would have come from the backgrounds they have and who would have thought that they would see their work displayed at the V&A !! I spotted my sister in the video too… bet she didn’t think I would!

Anyone for a bit of needlework?

Comparisons

2010-03-21T18:14:00.002Z

This week I read in the papers that a businessman in the west country, Karl Winn, 60, of Taunton who runs a web design business (WebEurope) had been letting forth, with some vigour, just how little he cared for the countries armed forces.

He said he would rather 'recruit ex-drug dealers, convicts and child molesters' than employ former servicemen or women”.

Interesting prospect I must conceded, but one that I feel compelled to study more. Given that soldiers in their hundreds are fighting for their lives in Afghanistan (and probably for ours too unless we want the followers of the Taliban here in Britain detonating bombs!) while this businessman is essentially saying that he would prefer to have a paedophile to have direct contact with him, his family and the families of all the people he would be in contact with. Well I suppose that may be a bit of an assumption but I feel its pretty close. In the same week I read the following citation from the press about one of our many decorated heroes but one who’s name was familiar to me through my own regimental association website – It was that of Captain Wayne Owers, Royal Logistic Corps. It goes like this:-

Captain Wayne Edward James OWERS, The Royal Logistic Corps, High Threat IEDD Operator, Helmand Province, March - August 2009

Captain Owers operated with every Battle group and the Brigade Reconnaissance Force during a phenomenally intense period. He has rendered safe and exploited 93 lEDs; the greatest quantity ever dealt with in a single operational tour by a British Operator. Such courage and resolute determination to complete tasks irrespective of the risk to his life has been inspirational and served to instil real confidence in commanders and subordinates alike, enabling countless missions to succeed and has directly saved innumerable lives.

Thank heavens for Captain Owers, QGM and fortunate for us that we will never have to rely upon Mr Winn for our protection or indeed in my case for a job!

Joining The Army

2010-03-19T16:21:00.002Z

Some time ago I decided to request a copy of my Regular Army records so that I could use the information to help me write my book, “An Uneventful Soldier”.
So after providing the necessary identification I promptly forgot all about it and carried on with life as normal. Then one Saturday morning while lounging in bed with an early cup of tea I heard the thump of a large package come slumping through the letter box. On retrieving the large envelope I saw that at last my records had arrived.
Everything was there, my attestation papers, my interview results and the comments by recruitment officers together with their recommendations for my suitability for enlistment. It seemed that I was suitable for service in my chosen regiment, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps plus the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers ( I never knew about that!!). Additionally I would have been able to join any infantry or armoured regiment had I wished to do so.
Only very recently V and I were going through these various papers when I spotted some points that I had not really noticed in the past, that I was “very keen on rugby and football” and that among my hobbies and pastimes were, Army cadets, Photography and, yes…. “playing rugby and football”. OK, I don’t suppose that this sounds unusual for a 15 year old getting ready to enter Junior Leaders Training, as sport is a key element of military training and development.
What was unusual though must have been the sight of me standing before, first the Medical Officer and then the interviewing Selection Officer because here I was at a towering 5 feet 5 inches and weighing in at a massive 110 lbs squeaking the words “ I play rugby and football Sir”.
Imagine this conversation:-
Officer: Name?
Recruit: Bloggs Sir!
Officer: Why do you want to join the Army Bloggs?
Bloggs: To fight for my Queen and Country Sir.
Officer: Excellent Bloggs, Hmmmm, I see you have had your medical and you are 5 feet 5 inches tall and 110 pounds! Excellent!!
Bloggs: [Squeaking] Thank you Sir.
Officer: Do you play any sports Bloggs?
Bloggs: Oh yes sir, I play rugby and football for my school and for my county [squeaking even louder]
Officer: [Suppressing fits of laughter] Ah yes Bloggs a fine figure of a man! Perfect for the Infantry!
I won’t go on but God how they must have laughed after I left the room to await their verdict, I know I would have done so!
V and I read on, a few years had passed and I was now a towering 5 feet 6 inches tall and a whopping 124 lbs and still stating in my records at some stage “ I play rugby and football Sir” The truth was of course entirely different as I hated both sports and in fact excelled in Shooting which never seem to have been mentioned. I managed to avoid most completive sports (except bizarrely and terrifyingly boxing!!) by opting for cross country running, a solitary sport that we could conduct without interference or supervision!!
I was ultimately caught our when joining a new unit in Germany I was interviewed by my new Company Commander and in answer to the inevitable question, “and what sport do you do Corporal”? I answered “Squash Sir”. To my horror he replied, “Excellent corporal, I have been looking for an opponent for some time”.
One match later I was “outed” and placed properly in the shooting team where I stayed and did actually excel.

Writing a book

2010-03-04T17:48:00.002Z

Some years ago I set about writing a book about my short career in the army during the 1960’s. To say it was a labour of love would be a lie as in reality the actual writing was an ordeal. I never thought for one moment the amount of effort that would go into just trying to recall events during the nine years I had chosen to write about.
For a start I had to figure out the correct order of things, should I write chronologically or should I write about events in some sort of random fashion that suited some ill thought through process. Of course I decided to start at the beginning, a middle and then have an end! How silly was I to think there was any other way. My other problem was should I write a squeaky clean version of my near on nine years as a British soldier, no swearing, heavy drinking, mad womanizing and all sorts of other bad behaviour? I opted for a slightly “sanitized” but honest recollection of how it was and what I did with some minor confessional stuff just slipped in here and there. Major confessions will have to wait a good number of years I think.
I think it has taken me about 5 years to complete the short work of some 95 pages of A5 text comprising 35896 painfully written words. I am still not happy with the book in its entirety as there are still silly spelling and grammatical errors discovered every time I read it. However, I have mastered the chronology now and where possible linked the event in my life to one of “historic” importance at the time I write about. For example, the assassination of John F Kennedy, the Vietnam Anti War riots at the US Embassy in London and of course our dear old pal Colonel Gaddafi of Libya when he was only a junior army officer in the Libyan army.
Well, the books sits on MyEbook at http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=2532 only waiting for me to take the time to post it on another publishing site in paperback form and see if I can actually sell it. If only I had a penny for every one of the 27,650 viewings it has had !!
My short story, “A Summer Affair” ( http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=20876 ) is also doing well with 6648 viewings so perhaps I need to concentrate my mind on my next writing venture!

Bacchanalian Days long gone

2010-02-14T16:42:00.001Z

Wikipedia has an entry that says; “The bacchanalia were wild and mystic festivals of the Roman god Bacchus (or Dionysus). It has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry”.

Now I have to confess that I have partaken in quite a bit of “drunken revelry “ over the years particularly as a young man when I was in the Army and when hangovers were short lived and recovery Swift. Perhaps for the best times have changed and these days I am more cautious in my approach to alcohol. That is not to say that in the years after I left the Army my abuse of my body and alcohol did not diminish to any huge extent.

In my late teens and twenties it was common place for us lads to set off to the pub on a Thursday night, as it was pay day after all, and aim to sink eight pints of “brown and mild”. Heavens only knows why that would be the tipple of the era save to say that Lager was not widely sold in the pubs we went into, if at all. Drinking spirits was an occasional and daring display of machismo where we would order a pint and a whisky chaser and not know what the hell we were to do with the thing other of course than to drink it. If you were really wanting to be sophisticated we would order Vodka and Lime or a whisky and soda only to dispense the soda with such vigour and abandon that the drink ended up over oneself or any unsuspecting customer who had the misfortune to be at the bar at the same time. The Vodka and Lime however was served in a small old style champagne glass or something similar and served only to spoil the beer you had just downed. We would then stagger back to barracks via the local fish and chip shop and get off to bed carrying an empty fire bucket having dumped the sand or water somewhere convenient and not caring if a fire broke out in the night or not. Clearly this should stand as scientific evidence that alcohol diminishes responsibility and depresses the senses with out the need for experts throughout the world spending millions to research this fact and then publish it.

After leaving the Army I don't suppose my drinking habits changed too much other than to say I dropped the “brown and mild” and simply kept to “mild” and as yet had not really discovered wine heavens forbid that we soldiers would even have considered it as an option unless no other alcohol based beverage was available. It was NOT a man's drink!

Now here I am thinking about how that pattern has changed, red wine, white wine, spirits and a whole plethora or beers and lagers later I have come to an almost abstemious position drinking only a glass of wine or beer a week let alone every day, but it has to be a good one mind you not any old rubbish. Looking back and given the number of awful hangovers I have endured or should I say inflicted on my long suffering partner I should have kept myself in check long ago. I recall one awful day when having gone to a friend with her “just for a visit” and I ended up so incapable that V had to drive back home while I clung to life out of the side window of the car at the same time demanding that she “drive slower”. Sadly I was unaware of the long tailback of traffic from Selsey to Chichester that I was causing by my unreasonable demands.

I still like to have the occasional Rum and Ginger beer with fresh lime or a Whiskey and ginger with a cube of ice or a nice Irish single malt(Scotch brings out the irrational in me so I have avoided it since my 35th birthday! I mustn't forget the good old G&T though but only if served with Plymouth Gin and Fever Tree Tonic or a nice Spanish brandy with a Bolivar cigar ah, memories.

So now it’s a long hard think about a drink and only a small tipple now and then for me. How am I about this? Happy to nip downstairs and mix a non alcoholic spritzer of ginger cordial and sparkling water topped off with a squeeze of fresh lime…… Cheers!!

Probe into Mystery in Chichester

2010-01-30T18:00:00.000Z

For some time now I have been in quite considerable pain with what most other sufferers would recognise as a “frozen shoulder”. However, after taking my ailment to the medicos and several failed treatments from my GP, a steroid injection, some X-Rays and finally an Ultrasound scan. I was to learn that I didn’t actually have a frozen shoulder at all. I had an equally painful condition called “Calcific Tendonitis”. Seemingly I had a deposit of calcium about the size of a couple of Jelly Beans neatly settled in the rotator cuff area of my shoulder. It was this relatively small deposit that had been causing me some really terrible pain, upset my sleep pattern and at times prevented me carrying out some pretty basic task like putting my belt on or even pulling my trousers on in the morning when getting dressed!
Well, I am pleased to say that after a minor medical procedure that involved me having a needle inserted into my shoulder under ultrasound scanner, a considerable amount of pain killer and lot of what felt like digging and stabbing, although it was actually careful probing and extraction, the offending calcium deposit broken up and much of it sucked out. This rather uncomfortable procedure rather than painful one plus two days of further discomfort (quite painful discomfort if I am honest) has left me facing six weeks of slow recuperation. So far all seems to be quite good now and after about 10 days my arm and shoulder is already 100% improved in terms of mobility and very low level of pain. I think I could say that I am down from pain level 9 to pain level 2 which is wonderful given the months of agony and broken sleep I have endured!
Just to give you a rough idea of what went on during the procedure here is a video of the procedure with the exception that mine was undertaken using an ultrasound scanner that had the “picture quality” more associated those blurry scans that many new mums get from the midwife. I have to confess that I was rather disappointed that the doctor was not prepared to let me follow the the procedure on his monitor!!
And now the Movie!
Release of calcific deposit from the shoulder

Wear the Fox Hat!

2010-01-27T19:31:00.004Z

Well that’s what I thought I heard her say when I said I was just going to take some photos in the countryside the other day.
Anyway after much fruitless searching among my vast collection of baseball caps, flat caps, trilby hats and several woolly head warmers I found that I didn’t actually have any fur hats at all. I will have to ask exactly what it was I heard shouted out at me as I left by the back door now.
In terms of wildlife that has been encountered in this little corner of Chichester over the past 10 months range from birds, cats, dogs and foxes. OK dogs and cats don’t count as wildlife but they are animals all the same.
There has been an extensive list of bird visitors that I have compiled many of which I have never seen before which is mainly due to my having lived in cities most of my life I suppose.
We have seen so far:-
Dozens of Blue Tits, Long Tailed Tits, Black Headed Tits of both sexes, Greater Tits, a Chaffinch plus some Robins including one with a twitch of sorts and numerous Sparrows and Dunnocks. There have also been some Crows, Magpies, Wood Pigeons, Collard Doves and a lone Wren! But best of all and a very first for us ever anywhere .... a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers who are now regular visitors to the feeding area that looks a bit like an assault course for birds. We also suspect that we have seen a sole Redwing and also a Blackcap.... this is an ever growing interest now and I feel a new set of binoculars are a must for 2010!

We have become bird obsessed with us grabbing binoculars mid washing up and even my old shooting spotting scope which is a little bit cumbersome. It’s just fascinating watching the way the birds seem to come in groups and follow regular feeding times.

Here are just two examples:

Then, surprise surprise, I had a call from a TV wildlife production company that makes nature programmes for BBC “The One Show” asking about my entry to the “mystery garden visitors” request. Stardom may be forthcoming but if its me or the foxes we will have to wait and see.
Now, where the fox hat she said, I just cant seem to find it right now?

Review of 2009

2010-01-10T16:37:00.003Z

So readers, was it the END of a decade (NOT a century as I originally typed!) or the START of a new one? Is it Twenty Ten or Two Thousand and Ten? What will we call the period between 2000 and 2009, oh we have that don’t we, “the noughties”, so what about the period from 2010 to 2019 and how will we know the difference between the 20’s (1920’s) and the “new 20’s”. Heck I don’t care it’s a New Year and one that will see a General Election, the continuing war in Afghanistan and some warmer weather I hope. However, there is little I can do about any of those events and so I am going to reflect on the 12 months past.
January 2008 saw us back in the UK for only three months and settling in surprisingly well in Copnor given that it was not a place we really wanted to be on returning home in the previous September. I note that I didn’t write a Blog for that month, presumably I was too busy getting home, moving into my Aunts for a couple of weeks, wondering what the heck we were going to do about buying a house and generally getting back into the swing of things here in the UK. I think I spent the rest of the year ranting about house hunting, estate agents, the recession, a shop lifter in Southsea, queue jumping and various other trivial matters. Finally, in December 2008 I was fully reintegrated back into the UK way of life and all its wonderful shortcomings!
So, 2009 is fully documented in my sometimes demented Blog which started with a short trip back to Ibiza to see the new family member Neo Bond Serrano, Alix’s new baby boy. Neo is a year old now and quite the little poser in all his photos as well as remarkably blonde for a little boy growing up in Spain!
The Cheeky little Chappy at a year old ………
February 2009 I was still having a moan about IKEA and BT as we were by now in need of a phone and the internet if we were to house hunt successfully. We were also worrying about what to do about our savings, not getting a better rate of interest but how quickly we could spend it before interest rates vanished all together! Buy a house I heard us screaming at each other! March 2009 was starting to prove to be much better apart from my rising blood pressure which did not start to fall despite my best efforts to relax. We actually moved into our new house on the 6th and what a relief that was, I seem to remember that it was tiring but not stressful… or am I deluding myself here? I see from our diary from the month that it comprised, furniture deliveries, visits to the tip and Homebase and IKEA as well as various meetings with friends – we are home!
April 2009 was not particularly eventful apart from getting the garden sorted out, numerous visits to the doctors that I hadn’t planned on and generally settling into the new house.
Christmas Day was the highlight of the year with us deciding to go out and eat at a local hotel and we really looked forward to the occasion. We duly arrived at just after 1pm and had our starters at about 1:30, a slight delay but it was busy. However our main course did not arrive until 2:40 by which time I was overly hungry to the point of feeling ill and too in need of food to complain about the under cooked vegetables, warm food in general and the lack of interest in my comments to this effect. So Christmas Day evening turned out to be letter writing day! It all ends happily I’m pleased to say as we now have a FREE meal for 4 at the hotel next week!!!!!
New Year, very quiet!!!
I suppose now all I can say that between May and December we are now able to say that we are completely established. We have new neighbours who are charming and we would hardly know they were there. I am not sure what the summer will bring with the three, yes three student houses just along from us but I can only keep my fingers crossed.
All I can say is that this is now where we call Home!!!!
Happy New Year for 2010

Review of the Year 2009 - Coming Soon!

2009-12-30T10:54:00.001Z

OK, it wont be the BBC but it will be mine!

Watch this space as usual

And will the visitor from Plano, Texas please leave me a comment or two and let me know more about who you are.

Happy New Year

The Alternative Christmas Carol

2009-12-18T18:05:00.002Z

“Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve” – I was sat busy in my study, blogging. It was cold, bleak, biting weather and I could hear the people go wheezing up and down, on skateboards beating their hands upon their breasts, and clattering upon the pavement. The clocks had only just gone three, and it was quite dark and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring houses (sorry only bit of poetic licence here) like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. Well not really, as all I was trying to do was steal a lump of Charles Dickens prose then! And no one called "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" in a cheerful voice to me. As I said I was blogging. Anyway, off up to bed passing the spare room where I decided to make a quick diversion to hang up a coat. Well once in there I decided to undress for bed and not disturb the already slumbering lady of the house (it was no where near three as it happens, it was more like 10:30). Anyway, not having turned the bedroom light on I stumbled around at bit in the dark and then turning to leave the room I was met by a horrifying apparition (hence my Christmas Carol references). There wavering in front of me was a ghostly white figure, fat and bloated, stooped and ghastly. My heart thudded in my chest and what small amount of hair I have stood on end. Darting from the room into our bedroom, the lady of the house who was now awake demanded to know what was wrong. I gabbled out what I had seen to which she replied, “oh don’t worry it was only your reflection in the full length mirror, good night”. What a relief I thought, No! Hang on surely it wasn’t me was it? No, it was a ghost, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Happy Christmas! See you in the New Year

I have eye for the birds!

2009-12-14T11:30:00.002Z

I never thought that expression “pulling a few birds” in retirement would be so easy given the number of visitors I am having at home right now. All shapes and sizes and degrees of “friendliness” and all sorts of colours too. OK, to be honest they are the feathered variety of birds but nonetheless they are welcome visitors given the time and effort that has gone onto attracting them to the garden.
So far we have seen three varieties of Tit, blue, common and coal, a Robin, a host of sparrows of course and at first a lone Starling. At first we thought that this poor lonely looking Starling had got lost, was abandoned or had been brought up thinking it was a Sparrow. So my plan to “discourage” it was put on hold which with the benefit of hindsight was a mistake as now we have six of the flaming things thrashing about among our little garden birds like a gang of thugs.
I tried all sorts of ways of deterring these unwelcome guests but somehow each time they managed to outwit me and take most, if not all, of the suet block I had put out for the tits etc. I think I have found a partial solution now (omitting the Facebook suggestions I got involving my already discounted 12 bore and a new one, “get a Sparrow Hawk” ) which is to hang a peanut feeder ball that is not so attractive to the Starlings as they are rather ungainly in flight and find hanging or flying upside down somewhat difficult. Added to this is a new cage type feed with tube for seeds in its centre. So now I hang a square of suet in its small cage inside this larger bell shaped feeder cage. This doesn't stop the Starlings feeding but it does limit the amount that they can take and they soon get bored and clear off.
These arrangements have not gone without problems though and I have been forced to go out in all weathers to re-hang the feeders, top up the peanuts, the suet block that has broken and scare off the cats that are sitting underneath the feed area in hopeful anticipation of a bird supper.
We have had some very funny moment watching the hapless and greedy Starlings, perched on a metal rod that keeps the inner suet block away from them, spinning round desperately trying to leap from the rod to the peanut feed ball that is hanging nearby.
Our highlight though this week was to see our first of now what has been several visits of this little colourful chap!

Meanwhile my efforts to thwart the starlings are almost as epic as the efforts I made a few years ago to deter the cats of the neighbourhood when they were using our garden as a cat public toilet and battle ground. I spent a fortune on cat repellent potions, condensed lion dung and an electronic device that only worked once before I gave up on that little purchase. The first night I installed it we had gone to bed and at about 10:30 I heard this blood curdling caterwaul indicating that the unfortunate cat from next door had triggered the device. From then on “Bob” the cat from next door still came into the garden but walked all around the edges keeping his distance from the detector. One day to our astonishment Bob came into the garden peered down the length of the lawn and then bunny hopped over the beam given off by the cat deterrent device! I gave up after that and was shocked to learn form our paperboy that he was the one that could hear the painful subsonic sound given off by the device and it made him want to run away! In the end the real and as it turned out the cheapest and most successful was the positioning of three or four 2 litre mineral water bottles half filled with water at strategic points in the garden. These it seemed had the effect of “dazzling” the cats and deterring them from using our lawn as a toilet.
These days the cats are kept at bay by simple vigilance and a sharp clap of the hands but my latest attempt at blocking their route under the fence at the side of the house has caused a minor mystery which I think we may have solved. The other day I laid all sorts of entanglements in the shallow dip under the fence knowing that the cats would not be bothered with trying to negotiate the tangled maze and would climb the fence if they wished but it would limit their access to the undergrowth directly under where the birds were feeding. Today I saw a cat shooting out of the garden using the old escape route and on investigation found that all the tangled branches and thorny twigs etc had been removed and the scrape made completely clear. Now no human could have done this as the scrape is inaccessible to any path outside. We think it is our old friend Mr Fox who has been along and cleared his pathway given that we blocked one of the three that featured in our garden when we moved in. Clever devils foxes!

Alesha Dixon and Darcey Bussell on Strictly Come Dancing

2009-12-13T11:03:00.005Z

Sunday morning, I wake up to this “news”, I quote from the “Sun” of course, (Not my paper of choice ) posted as a headline on an Internet Web Page – the headline goes:

“Fans blast ‘spoilt’ Alesha Dixon and ‘boring’ Darcey Bussell on Strictly Come Dancing”.

Now this caught my attention only because I am a keen viewer of Strictly Come Dancing rather than an avid fan or just plain fan. I like to watch the dancers progress in a manner that I would never have achieved in my ballroom dancing lesson days under the watchful eye of the late Howard from Selsey who was the most patient of teachers. I could not and still cannot dance. While we were having lessons we went to a company dance one evening and I had to position myself in the same corner of the dance floor so that I could remember what I had been taught… fortunately for the world of dance, I have given up.
OK back to “Strictly”. I have been ranting for weeks now, in fact ever since the arrival of Alesha and the departure of the sometimes acerbic Arlene Philips who whilst older than Alesha she was after all a professional dancer and I thought entitled to be a critic of the competitors. However, Alesha could have perhaps got away with this had she been able to actually express herself in other than than show biz clichés and appalling grammar. In other words better to say “that dance was very good and you were better than last week” than “that was yours, you owned it and you was better than you was last week”. There was a brief period a couple of weeks ago when I was shaken to the very roots to hear Alesha (I am still worried about the spelling of her name actually) utter a whole sentence with neither cliché or misuse of the past tense. Sadly the clichés and grammar are still driving me mad and added to that now is the simmering presence of no doubt fragrant and former prima ballerina Darcy Bussell who has joined as a judge for a short period. Visually another item of BBC Strictly “eye candy” she has the right to criticise as far as I am concerned, her grammar is perfect and her speech clear and happily no clichés. But oh so dull. I wanted to see her strike out at the pompous acid tongued Craig Revel Horwood, or poke of Len in the ribs for his over enthusing or better still remind Alesha that she can’t dance!!!!!
So it’s back to the screen next week for the Final, will it be Chris or Ricky? Who knows but what I know is that they only have to bring on the “dancing girls” to make my night!

Restaurant 'Meal Deals' a recessionary phenomenon?

2009-12-08T19:51:00.005Z

Some time ago now I wrote about the excellent “Menu del dia” that we came across in Ibiza and I suppose common across Spain. We would go out any lunch time and a two course meal plus a glass of wine or bear all for anything from €7.70 up to €25.00 … all excellent value for money in each case. So why on earth pay for two meals when you can shop around and get two for the price of one we thought and off we went searching very successfully for these deals that we had not encountered in the UK.

So on our return home last year from Ibiza we were happy to find that many places here were starting some sort of meal deal and I am sure that this has certainly got a lot more competitive of late given the current economic situation. However, you do have to be careful where you go and make sure you read the small print carefully as many of the deals don't cover a Friday or weekend. You also have to make sure you know if you can order anything form the menu or if you are restricted to a limited choice.

Recently with a friend who I talked out of eating at Raymond Blanc's new eatery in Portsmouth we went to eat at the Ha Ha Bar where the deal looked great at £10 discount when you spent £20 on main meals. All went went until the bill arrived and our lunch turned out to be nearly £40 even with our £10 discount. I had made the fatal error of not taking account of the cost of the side orders, drinks and coffees! To top it all the waitress was at a loss to explain how our £10 discount came out on the bill at only £8 and that our drinks cost over £8 when we had only ordered a pint of cider and a pint of lager.

I have since returned to Brasserie Blanc in Portsmouth and we had an excellent “meal deal” with attentive, professional and good humoured service. The meal itself was excellent and well worth a re-visit. There are two types of deal two courses at £11.90 or three at £14.35 wine included! We were also offered a daily alternative of a starter and main meal at £7.50.... a lovely place it is too!

But in Brighton there is another excellent place to eat again offering two courses for £10 no drinks included I'm afraid but in this case, who cares. This is from “Indian Summer” in East Street Brighton and rather cheekily describes itself as “Brighton's only Indian Restaurant”?

From our point of view the best deal around at the moment is the two course feast (well hardly a feats really) at Truffles in Southsea where you have a choice of two menus, one at £6.50 and the other at £7.50 but you do have to add the cost of a glass of wine or beer which still leaves the meal and the bill still one of the best deals going.

A spectacularly bad example of an offer in Southsea (French theme restaurant that I will not name and is not tagged here) was very enticing indeed and were still serving at 3pm which was very convenient turned out to be one of the worst meals ever. The fish ordered was smelling so strongly it could not be eaten leading to a fast conclusion that we would not be eating there ever again … £5.50 for two courses should have been a clue?

Another tip is when presenting your “meal deal” voucher is to make sure they deduct the value from your bill as there have been a few occasions where the discount is missing and the look of shocked horror on the waiters face when you highlight this is often so contrived it hard not to laugh.

There are of course many other places offering “two for one meals”, “Kids eat free” or simply a discount when ordering.. We have eaten well at Loch Fyne for two courses at £10, Prezzo, Zizzi, Ask , Brasserie Blanc in Portsmouth and Indian Summer in Brighton all offering two for one meals and all places where good food is served at good recessionary prices! Why lose out when most if not all of these meal vouchers are available by registering with the particular restaurant website or with MoneySuperMarket.com who issue regular emails with the vouchers.

To top it all you can even eat at home cheaply with the major supermarkets offering their own versions of the meal deal with our favourite the M&S “Dine in for two” plus a bottle of wine all for £10 which is excellent value! Get there early, pick the most expensive dishes and wine and walk off with a shopping basket sometimes worth over £20.

I did have a moment of concern recently when many of the deals seemed to disappear from the restaurants but it soon came back when the recession seemed to be getting deeper. Perhaps rather than watching the stock market we should tour the High Street and monitor “Meal Deals”

No, I am not getting fat I am just saving money!!

The USA – V – Europe (and its not football)

2009-12-08T19:49:00.000Z

Just as I was finding it hard to both avoid a rant this month or comment of the likely extradition of Gary McKinnon to the US “on charges of perpetrating what one US prosecutor claims is the "biggest military computer hack of all time." to which all I can say was brilliantly done. OK it's Illegal for to him to have done it but there is some medical justification which is too complex and well enough debated in the press at great length so I wont repeat any of it here.

At the same time as this saga trundles on there is a trial in Italy of an American student, one “Foxy” Knox for murdering a British student for which she has been tried, found guilty and convicted. Great, Italian Police and Legal system has worked, job done!

So, in the McKinnon case the US Justice Department and talking about getting this unlikely spy and banging him up for 60 years ( a death sentence to most 40 year olds I would think) and throwing away the key. In Britain we protest from the very further reaches of the country even from the corridors of power there are cries of NO! Yet the Home Secretary sits on his hands in craven worship of the Super Power... idiot.

Meanwhile in the USA the papers are yammering about the poor Italian legal system and the failure of the case to be investigated properly and, wait for it, the trial being “Anti-American”.... heaven forbid!

Clearly Britain is not capable of trying Gary McKinnon in a British Court as no doubt our ancient legal system is nowhere as sophisticated and foolproof as the American one and the rest or Europe are just a bunch of.... I dare not thing what they think of the rest of Europe given their low opinion of both Britain and Italy.

Frankly I am fed up with what was described so eloquently in a British daily paper today as “the Americans have a chauvinistic world view which holds that no country on earth can dispense justice as fairly as the good old US of A”. Admittedly this may be a rather over heated description but the weight of law has usually been against Britain when seeking the extradition from the USA of IRA murderers and gaining information of “blue on blue” incidents that saw British soldiers killed by “gung-ho American pilots” in Iraq. After all, we are not worth the effort are we?

I will get back to my “Meal Deal” Blog as soon as I have calmed down...... Nurse!

Hypnotism and football

2009-12-02T18:13:00.002Z

I once read a book called "Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance" - I can't remember a single thing about it unless there is one small detail I recall about having a left and right side of your brain that helps in some way in life. Anyway, the reason for reading this small work of art was to improve my target pistol shooting in some measure that would take me from club and county level to perhaps County and Country level followed by Country and International level. Well, it didn't work for me. However, in recent years I have been studying "Football Premier League Managers" to see if they could be utilised in some form of self help group as Hypnotherapy practitioners. Now why would they be useful in that respect I hear you screaming (I am slightly deaf remember so scream louder if you can). I am not sure if I am being fair now when I state that almost all the Premier League Managers that come on TV to talk about their latest success or failure all do so in the same monotonous drone whether the news they are passing on is brilliantly good or devastatingly bad. I have had to conclude from this that they are actually attempting to hypnotise their entire fan base so that the hapless manager can keep his job and the that the rest of us have been tricked into thinking we like football!

Now to my untrained non-football supporting or even interested ear is that Alex Ferguson (I don't bother with the "Sir" bit), Avram Grant, Arsen Venger, Rafael Benítez and at least 20 more all speak in the same dull monotone and are only barely identifiable by their own particular national (aka foreign) dialect.

The fact is that once they have cleared the TV screen I look at the nearest clock and bingo, I realise that I have been out of it for 2 hours and for some reason, until I bang my head on the wall, have have a passion for the "beautiful game" (whatever that means?).

I expect all you avid "footie" (another word I have gained through hypnosis) fans will be foaming at the mouth and gnashing your teeth at my heretic thoughts and comments on your passion (when did football take over from sex?). Please, save your breath on anonymous phone calls, horses heads, letter bombs, letters packed with anthrax and the like as I am too old to be bothered with any offence caused.

I do believe that when these hypnotic managers come on TV they all have some key word or phrase that they utter, usually on a Sunday morning on News 24 or some other meandering Weekend news programme. The moment they utter this particular trigger and having received some subliminal instruction from them , I imagine myself and thousands of others leaping out of bed naked, darting down the stairs to peel and eat a raw onion and then rushing out into the street to perform a David Brent style dance before returning to bed. Later coming out of the hypnotic state that "Sir" Alex put me in and worse still being none the wiser and I wonder why I am getting odd looks from the neighbours!

Perhaps I will give the Sunday news a miss from now on, anyone for a game of footie?