Happy Christmas!

Just in case anyone reads my blog - I wish you all a very happy Christmas.
And if you don't read my blog - then you should!
It's important to me.
But it's only important to me - nobody else.
So what the hell - Merry Christmas anyway:-)

Nuclear Bullshit

Robert Gates, US Defence Secretary, has defended Israel's nuclear armaments at a Middle East security conference attended by most of the Arab world.

He does not see the comparison between Israel's nuclear arsenal and a possible Iranian nuclear capability. He stated that Israel does not train terrorists to disrupt the Lebanese government.

This, understandably, brought wry smiles to the faces of government representatives from the Arab states in the region.

Of course Israel does not train terrorists. It has no need. It has a legitimate military to do its dirty work.

Like suppressing the Palestinians.

Like taking the Golan Heights from Syria.

Like invading Lebanon on several occasions, killing thousands of innocent civilians over the killing of a few Israeli soldiers.

But all this is legitimate because it is the army, not a bunch of terrorists.

Yeah, right.

Who was it who helped build that army?

Who gave the Israelis the know-how to make nuclear weapons - which could be called "weapons of mass destruction" (where have I heard that phrase before?) and the means of delivering them?

The Yanks!

No wonder the other governments taking part in the conference thought that Mr Gates was the comedy act in between the real discussions!

With statements like those from Mr Gates who can believe anything that the US government says? But then, the US government is so tied to the Jewish vote that it dare not do anything less if it wants to survive.

There will be elections next year to see who is President of the US. It doesn't matter to the Israelis which party gets in because they have the monetary leverage to make sure their desires are fulfilled whether the President is a Republican or a Democrat.

Shit happens . . .

Unfortunately American shit costs lives.

Free Speech?

The Oxford Union, that august body which supposedly represents the epitome of free speech, was on a loser to nothing.
They had invited David Irving - famous for his denial of the Holocaust - and leader of the British National Party Nick Griffin to a debate.
The President of the Union is quoted as saying he wanted to be able to demolish their arguments in open debate.
How naive.
Needless to say the gates to the building were besieged by protesters who opposed giving these people a platform to state their views.
Words like "fascist" were bandied about. Voices were raised. They were determined not to let the two men through - or any of the other people who had tickets to be there.
Personally I abhor Mr Griffin's party and all it stands for. As for Mr Irving - I don't know enough about the Holocaust to really know what happened. But in truth millions of innocent people were incarcerated, tortured and killed in the name of the Nazi state.
But is it democracy to shout down all with whom we disagree?
Aren't we supposed to be able to debate and decide?
I think that these two men's cases are strengthened by the protest. A much better way of dealing with them would have been to have listened in total silence to their cases and then voted them down unanimously. In a democracy all sides of the argument must be considered and then the voice of reason will really be seen to prevail.
THAT would have been real free speech.

The Last Explorer . . .

The MV Explorer is no more.
It hit an iceberg.
Water got into it and it slowly sank.
Thankfully, all the 150-odd passengers and all the crew were able to evacuate the ship and get into lifeboats. They were picked up safely and taken to King George Island.
MV Explorer was not a brand new ship but it was designed to withstand the rigours of Antarctic voyaging. It had been sailing these waters for many years, latterly packed with tourists who came to see the wonders of the Southern Continent.
Now I may be a killjoy but why do these people go? They know they are not doing the planet any good by wandering round the Polar seas in a big, fuel-hungry ship. They feel safe because they are in an artificial environment - safe and warm within a large floating metal box. Looking out in wonder at the ever-diminishing ice that is all you can see of Antarctica.
And contributing to its demise by even being there!
I'm glad that no-one was hurt.
But I hope the incident will make others think twice about the unnecessary intrusion into what is the planet's last really wild place.

Slipped Discs

HM Customs and Revenue, the Government department which collects our taxes, has lost a couple of computer discs in the post. Nothing unusual in that - big organisations lose little things all the time. It's no great hardship - just make another copy and do what you were going to do with it anyway.
Not so simple!
The discs in question contained personal details - names, National Insurance numbers, bank account details, possibly even bra sizes - of about 25 million people. That's not far short of half the population of the UK!
The top dog of HMCR resigned as soon as the news broke - even though he probably had no input into the operation in question.
The poor junior clerk who actually packed up and sent the discs by insecure means was also forced to resign - even though he or she was probably only following orders from above.
The people who actually decided that sending sensitive information via a private delivery service without even a means to track their progress seem to be getting off Scot free!
Banks and other financial institutions have gone into overdrive - probably at no small expense - in an effort to protect their customers from any fraud caused by the release of their customers' details.
Hopefully the discs will turn up in some obscure office in a Government department and it will be discovered that no harm was done. But the harm has already been done. Confidence in the ability of the people who collect our taxes has always been low - now it is non-existent!
Furthermore, a most important Government department could possibly face prosecution under the Data Protection Act. This Act is there to protect the ordinary citizen from the misuse of data held about them by banks, businesses, Government departments - in fact anybody who puts your personal details onto a computer or other means of storing information. Obviously losing data such as these breaches such legislation. So HMCR could face prosecution. A massive fine could be imposed, especially if - as they should - they treat each one of the 25,000,000 as a separate case.
But who would pick up the bill for the fines - and the expensive legal costs involved?
The ordinary everyday taxpayer in the UK.
In other words YOU and ME!
Shit happens . . . we're all on a loser either way!

The Fight for Democracy?

Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in the hope of returning the nation to democracy. She had been warned that extremist elements would try to assassinate her. She resolutely ignored the threats saying that nothing should stand in the way of her democratic mission.
Miss Bhutto is the daughter of a previous president who, although he brought Pakistan into a democratic state, later in his tenure of office turned corrupt. He was finally hanged for all sorts of crimes against the state. Whether these were put-up charges we may never know. Then the present military regime took over and has remained in power in one form or another for many years - propped up by the Americans who look on the present regime as a bastion of defence against the Taliban in Afghanistan and are therefore prepared to overlook other misdemeanours like human rights abuses etc. (Shades here of previous American relations with Iraq, Iran, Korea, Vietnam . . .)
Back to Miss Bhutto. As I said she stayed firm in her resolution to try to bring back democracy - even to the point of making arrangements with the present regime to have charges against her dropped (don't ask me how - I don't have a clue).
So on arrival in Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile (because she would have been thrown in jail or executed if she had stayed) she staged a big rally. It was well publicised and at least 100,000 people turned up to line the route of her procession. She was carried in an armoured truck - just as well for her because, predictably, two suicide bomb attacks were carried out on her truck. The truck was disabled by the first. The second blast was even bigger and took the lives of at least 130 people and cause many more hundreds of casualties.
Miss Bhutto was interviewed after the event and told of the carnage.
I wonder if she stopped to consider the causes? She had been warned that attempts would be made on her life. She knew she needed the massed support of the people to carry her campaign. It was obvious that many thousands would be at any demonstration she organised. Yet she still carried on. She knew that there was a risk not only to her life but to those of her followers. I wonder if she really realised the true risks each one of her supporters was taking just by being in her vicinity? She probably did. She probably also calculated that such deaths and injuries would help rally support for her campaign against extremism.
Did those people who died or were injured really want to die or suffer for the cause?
I wonder . . .

The Fat of the Land . . .

A new survey states that Britain has become the most obese nation in Europe. We're a load of flat slobs. The average weight of a 12-year-old boy has gone up by 6.6 kilos and a 12-year-old girl by an astounding 7.4 kilos.
Daily in my place of work I see globs of fat sticking out over waistbands. To me it looks revolting. But then I am from a time when slim was the norm and fat people were looked on as abnormal, to be made out as figures of fun and derision. Not that the norm was "size zero" (whatever the hell that is) but most people had a waist that went inwards and hips that were wider than the waist.
I don't want to deride obese people. I just think of the few I have known in the past who have died far too young because their hearts have not been able to take the strain any longer.
Talk is of the Government having to do something about fast food outlets, excess drinking and eating and making our diet more healthy. For goodness sake, governments of all persuasions have been preaching - and legislating - about unhealthy foods for years. Still we, as a nation, consume.
And There is the answer.
CONSUME.
Our whole society now lives on consuming. If we didn't consume - whether it be food, gadgets, toys or almost anything - the whole fabric of our society would crumble.
While we live in the Consumer Society we will never curb our desires and live more healthy lifestyles.
So I will just have to remember the times when young girls and guys were slim and attractive - not just lumps of lard with globs of fat hanging out of their clothes.

Renewed Faith in Car Mechanics

The saga of the cars continues.
Last week the windscreen washer switch on the present car went wrong. No worries, I know I have a spare in the old car, so I'll just swap them over . . . easy!
So off I go to the Haynes manual. It tells me that I have to remove part of the dashboard to gain access to the switch. It also tells me that to do that I need to remove the steering wheel. So I follow the instructions and set to work.
Remove the central cover on the steering wheel - done.
Undo the nut revealed underneath the cover . . . having finally found the right socket to fit the nut I start to undo the nut - but I can't! I use a long handle - no effect. I tap the handle with a mallet - still the frigging nut won't turn. It's almost as if it's been welded in place!
So I give up and call the local Renault dealer to arrange for them to fit a new switch.
Come Friday, they say, and it'll cost you £80. Well, we thought, it's got to be done. You can't drive long distances in shitty weather without washers.
Come Friday my wife duly takes the car in. She waits while they do the job. Then a rather sheepish fitter comes back and says that the part they ordered is the wrong one. It does the job but it is not the right shape. He will contact the spares warehouse and see if they can send the right one by tomorrow.
So today I ring them. "Have you got the replacement switch?" I ask. "They've sent the wrong one again", says Dean, apologetically. "We can try it and see if it will work but I think the shape of the stalk is wrong and may impede steering."
I commented that it was such a shame because I have the right switch in another car but cannot get the steering wheel off to gain access to it.
Back comes Dean: "You don't need to get the steering wheel off if you have the right thin T10 screwdriver to get to the screw behind the wheel. I'll lend you mine!"
I am now halfway through the job of swapping them over and just waiting for the missus to come back from shopping in the car so that I can finish the job.
I want to say a big "thank you" to Dean at Renault Minute in Staple Hill, Bristol. His loan of the tool has saved us £80 and, indirectly, I have now got a working windscreen washer.
LATER THE SAME DAY . . .
So the Missus comes home . . . I swap the switches . . . and still the bugger doesn't work! SHIT! So I try both switches in turn on the old car. Both work perfectly. SHIT AGAIN!
So I decide that it's the wiring or the connector. I fiddle with the connection to the switch. It makes no difference. I look at the connection at the pump end. Some connection, but only if I press really hard on the connector. I finally get my head under the bonnet and get the aforesaid good lady to work the switch while I fiddle with the pump. It works spasmodically. It still hasn't dawned on me that the obvious answer is the pump is buggered!
But finally, in desperation, as a last resort I swap the pump from the old car.
EUREKA!
The frigging thing works! Perfectly! Every time you press the switch!
If only I'd gone right through the whole system before taking it to the mechanics . . .

So what IS Facebook for . . .?

I recently posted an entry to this blog with a tongue-in-cheek comment that I didn't really know what Facebook was for.
I received a comment from "Anonymous" which read as follows:

I remember once, as a young child, sitting in a garden in Bristol while my brother was being born. A wasp flew past and I made some comment about how much I hated wasps. My Uncle asked me: "Why don't you like wasps?" "Well," I replied (I was clearly a very articulate toddler), "I'm not sure what they are for.""What they are for?," my uncle exclaimed in surprise, "Why do they need to be FOR anything?"Today, I get to say the same back. Facebook isn't FOR anything (though it has many uses it can be put to). It's just THERE and, unlike wasps, it's bloomin good fun!

Well, nephew Kevin - I'll tell you what Facebook is for. It is for fun, as you state. It enables friends to communicate. It enables you to increase your circle of friends via "cyberspace" (what a horrible word!)
But mostly it's to make Money, Ackers, Filthy Luker, Bread, Dough, Cash for its instigators.
They have made piles of greenbacks . . . and good luck to them!
I just wish I'd been the one to think of it!

Conscience or abuse?

So Sainsbury's, that bastion of western capitalism, has decided that it will allow its Muslim workers to opt out of dealing with alcohol in its stores.
Very commendable. Let's try to accommodate all beliefs and viewpoints within our workforce. If there is someone who has a religious problem with the sale of alcohol then let's help them by letting them get someone else to do that part of their job. So when Muhammad sees a bottle of plonk or a tinny advancing down the conveyor he puts up his hand and another employee scans that through so that he can avoid being involved in selling it. Likewise Abdul can opt out of stacking the shelves in the wine aisles.
All very commendable on the part of Sainsbury's . . . or is it?
Many Muslims have stated that this is not the road to go down. They state that Muslims, like any others, have a duty to fulfil their duties as employees. They have a contract which binds them to act within the law of the land. It is legal to sell booze in this country and it is reasonable within the law to ask employees to assist in the sale of such merchandise. So, if they have issues with selling alcohol, they should not apply to work in such an environment.
If taken to the extreme, this would preclude all Muslims from working in any job in Britain - and, for that matter, anywhere in the world. Women would not be allowed to work anywhere where there were men. No Muslim would be allowed to work for any company which profited from money which has been loaned - most companies rely on shareholders (lenders) to finance their businesses. I could go on . . .
Take as another example Jews. No Jew should work in a supermarket because they might sell pork. Hindus might also have an issue with beef. Buddhists may have problems with meat in general.
There are many other sections of society who could claim that parts of their beliefs would be compromised by working in certain situations.
Isn't it time that common sense prevailed? If you have problems with a certain job, don't apply for it.
Or is it a case of Human Rights rules over all other considerations?
Could it be a case of people claiming religious conscience in order to take advantage of the system? I hope not.
But I still cannot be sure that it is not the total abuse of the system, thus turning the term "human rights" into "what suits me".
I write as a "don't know". I neither believe nor disbelieve in a deity. Is there a God? I don't know!
I have a respect for my fellow man inasmuch as I treat them as I hope they would treat me - with a respect for a way of life and a right to life.
As such where they have issues, I hope I could accommodate them. But I hope they hold the same view on my way of life. If they can't, then we all have a problem.
Belief and conscience have a way of dividing humanity which leads to dispute, argument and - eventually - war.
Let's hope that Muhammad can come to terms with either selling alcohol or changing his employment.

Recognition!

At last! Someone has commented on my blog!
I told one of my friends on the notorious Facebook to look at my blog and she did. Furthermore she made a comment!
Thanks Charlotte!
Albeit she said she liked it and would read more of it later . . . but I then sent her the url of a particularly amusing one (in my opinion) entry.
I hope she reads it and tells her friend how good it is.
Perhaps I can build up a following . . .
But then - perhaps not . . .

Promises, promises . . .

So it looks as if Scotland has taken over British politics - again!
Last time it was James I of England and VI of Scotland.
Now . . . have you noticed that all the leading politicians have Scots names or ancestry - or both?
Gordon's an out and out Scot. David has the eminently Scottish name of Cameron. Sir Menzies (pronounced Mingies) Campbell is a Scots ex-athlete of note with a posh English accent to disguise his roots.
Even Tony before this present lot has a Scots-rooted name - Blair.
It looks like the beginnings of a Scottish Empire!
It seems lately that a prerequisite for becoming a politician is to have Scots roots.
Now I don't give a damn where my leaders come from, or their background. All I want from the government of the day is a fair and just society.
Dream on, Mac! One promises to cut this tax. Another says he'll take this many millions out of certain tax brackets by raising threshholds. Another says he'll make the country greener and cleaner. Another says he'll increase the number of people sent to prison. Another counters that prisons cost us too much and he will reduce the costs by executing everyone who has broken the speed limit. Then the first comes back and says he'll do all this and do it without costing any of us a penny!
And so on . . .
All of them have election fever and would promise to provide flying pink elephants for all same-sex partners of 16 and above if they thought that would tip the balance in their favour.
Whoever gets into power - whether it be the present incumbent or some other twat - all the average person wants is to be able to live decently, safely and comfortably.
But that would be Utopia.
I suppose I will have to vote for a lying prat - otherwise the wrong lying prat will get in . . .

I've been Facebooked!

Alright - I own up. I've finally succumbed and become one of the trillions of geeks involved in the latest phenomenon of Facebook!
I've made friends with friends I already have (what?) and swapped inane messages on the"Wall" with Karleigh, Andi, Kevin and others too numerous to mention.
I've put a picture on my entry and seen lots of pics of my younger friends at drunken parties - sometimes showing off under the affluence of incahol.
I've invited them all to view this blog - perhaps they will, perhaps they won't. I won't know unless they post comments.
I've joined various causes, including the "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue appreciation society" and one that purports to support the Buddhist monks in Burma.
I've done all this and yet - I still don't know what its all for . . .

Roland's on the Rampage!

The cheeky little beggars!
They stroll into my back garden, help themselves to apples and then scurry away as if they owned the place!
They don't give a sod that they're our apples. OK so they're windfalls and we just haven't cleared them from the garden but that's not the point - they're OURS!
I'm not talking of local wayward kids scrumping apples, I'm talking rats!
Two of them to be precise, a large greyish one and a smaller more brown-coloured one. I'll call them Roland and Roberta. Bold as brass you can see them scurrying about in our garden minding their own business and then disappearing for a few moments into next door's garden to give morsels to - I suspect - little baby Rolands.
Having observed this for a little while we decided that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!
So we obtained a bait box and laid it on their normal route. A week or so went by with no sign of any of the bait being taken. Then today, glancing out of the kitchen window, I noticed Roland going about his business in the garden and going into the bait box! I watched fascinated as he took some of the bait and disappeared next door for a few seconds - presumably passing food to family. Then Roberta joined in, both of them ferrying morsels into the neighbouring garden and then after a few seconds reappearing for more.
My next door neighbour called in the pest control people from the local council. He said any rats would probably be coming from the area at the back of the local shop about 100 metres away where they heap all their rubbish waiting for collection. He said there was no sign of rats in next door's garden - but what does he know? I've witnessed them coming through a gap in the fence and then disappearing back there. So that is why we had to do something for ourselves.
There is something quite cute about these little rodents doing what little rodents do and it makes me feel guilty that I have poisoned them and condemned them to a slow, lingering death in agony as the anti-coagulant in the poison gets to work and they bleed to death internally.
At the same time these little furry friends can bring disease to the neighbourhood and as such should be destroyed.
It's just a pity that their way of life and ours do not lend themselves to peaceful co-existence. I know that there are plenty of places nearby where the rats would be undisturbed. Streams run nearby - one even running through a small Wildlife Conservancy area which is probably a safe haven for them.
But wasteful man leaves all these tit bits around - discarded crisp bags, snack crumbs, other tasty morsels - which are easy pickings for Roland and Roberta and all their many, many cousins.
I mustn't get too soft or I'll end up creating a Rat Sanctuary in my garden!
Wouldn't that be cute . . . ?

Flying . . .

I did it!

I'm still up in the clouds!

I went flying!

It was a perfect day. Almost totally clear with just a few whispy clouds floating around at about 4,000 feet. Visibility was perfect. Wind was almost non-existent.

We arrived at the airport and I was soon walking across the tarmac to a small two-seat Cessna 150 aircraft - call sign Golf-Bravo Romeo Tango Juliet.

We did the preliminaries - a quick check around the aeroplane and some discussion of what the controls did and what the instruments told me - and then we were taxi-ing towards runway 27 awaiting clearance from ATC for take-off.

In a small aircraft like the 150 you certainly feel the bumps and lumps. As we flew over a local quarry soon after take-off at about 1,000 feet and climbing at a rate of 300ft per minute there was a sudden updraught caused by hot air rising off the bare rock of the quarry. It gave me a bit of a kick but all was under control.

I had an hour of pure excitement, finding it challenging to think of controlling a machine not just in two dimensions like a car - left, right and ahead - but also up and down! Remembering to keep the craft level while in a banking turn made you really think at first. But when I ceased gripping the controls and relaxed and let the craft do most of the work I began to relax and enjoy the exhilarating feeling.

All this was thanks to my darling wife Ros and my two sons Andi and Chris, who paid for the flight as my birthday present.

Thank you for one of the most exciting times of my life and an experience that will live with me for ever!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place . . .

One bloke borrows money from another. He promises to pay it back with interest. He then lends that money to several other blokes, who each promise to pay it back with interest. They then lend it to more blokes, who each also promise to pay it back with interest. Bloke number one then asks for repayment of his loan. Bloke number two says he has to find out who has the money so that he can get it back and repay Bloke number one. Blokes three, four and five say they have to find out who has the money so that they can repay Bloke number two so that he can repay Bloke number one.
And so on . . .
This recently happened in the "good ole US of A" - that bastion of capitalist society. The lending had got so out of hand that nobody knew who owed whom and how much it was. The situation led to several financial institutions going broke because they couldn't find their money!
This led to a financial crisis in the US which had repercussions worldwide.
In the UK we used to have wonderful institutions called mutual building societies. They were originally started by groups of people who invested money and became equal shareholders in the society. They lent money to other people for the express purpose of buying their homes. The borrowers also became shareholders on account of the property they were buying belonged to the building society until the loan was fully paid. The people who invested money did so for the purpose of saving and as such they were paid a rate of interest. The people who borrowed were able, in the long term, to own their own homes. They paid a slightly higher rate of interest. The difference in the rates of interest paid for the administration of the society.
Through most of the 20th century this system worked well. You went to a building society when you needed to buy a house and they advanced you a loan called a mortgage. You could have as much as thirty years to pay the loan at a rate of interest much lower than bank loan interest rates.
Then the big banks got interested in widening their business. They started issuing mortgages. They also thought it would be a good idea to buy up building societies. Many of the shareholders of these building societies - both borrowers and investors - saw a quick buck and sold their shares.
Some of the bigger building societies then realised that they could break into the banking world and reverse the trend. So they decided to cease to be mutual societies and become public limited companies. Members would become shareholders not only in name but also in the eyes of the Stock Market. Or they could just take the value of the shares to which they were entitled and run - which many did. Most of these companies then expanded into banking, insurance and many other financial areas.
Now there are only a few mutual societies left.
Northern Rock was a building society based originally in the north of England. Although it gave up its mutual status it still based its business mainly on the lending of money for the purchase of homes.
But the scenario recited at the beginning of this post doesn't just happen in the US. It has spread worldwide. Northern Rock got caught up in this web. It realised that it had lost track of some of its investments and may not be able to meet the demand should its customers decide to withdraw money. So - with a good track record - it went to the grand old lady of Threadneedle Street (The Bank of England) and asked for financial backing. The Old Lady said yes and everything should have been fine. But Mr Average Northern Rock Investor got wind of this and decided that it would be better to invest elsewhere - just in case.
We now have the scene of hundreds of people queueing up outside Northern Rock branches to take out their money in case the bank goes under. More than one financial pundit has said words to the effect that in Britain this has not happened in living memory. Shares in Northern Rock have plummeted to below the level when the institution was first floated on the Stock Exchange.
Most of this is attributable to the fall in confidence in financial institutions brought about by the stupid US capitalist system of borrowing other peoples' borrowings.
People in this country - ordinary savers and borrowers - are losing confidence in their banks and want to see their cash in their hands rather than as a number on a bank statement.
Since the Bank of England has backed Northern Rock perhaps now would be a good time for the Chairman of the Grand Old Lady of Threadneedle Street to be seen going into a branch of Northern Rock with a large wad of cash and opening an account to show his confidence in the organisation. Perhaps he, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, should even buy shares - or is there some rule against it?
If only we could keep it simple like it used to be . . .

High Expectations

Tomorrow is the day I go flying!
Yes, I finally take to the air in a two-seat aircraft and hopefully I will get to fly the machine under the watchful eye of an instructor. I'm so looking forward to it. The last time I did this was ten years ago in celebration of my 50th birthday. Then I was able to take my two sons in the passenger seats of a four-seater machine, leaving my wife on the ground to wait and hope I brought us all back safely.
This time I was hoping to be able to take my darling wife - but the only machine available is a two-seater. So, once again, my darling wife has to wait on the ground while I go up and get an hour of pure enjoyment. I do feel miffed because I so wanted her to share in the experience.
Nevertheless I intend to justify my family's birthday present by getting the most out of it in terms of experience and enjoyment that I can.
But it would have been so much better to have shared . . .

Where have all the Stars gone?

I mentioned in a recent post that I was on holiday in West Wales recently. One thing really struck me while I was there. Llangranog is a tiny hamlet in an idyllic cove. There are some houses, two pubs and a cafe. As I mentioned we stayed in one of the pubs right next to the beach. Each night we were there I would wander out on to the beach just before going to bed to have a smoke. I remember looking up and seeing a clear sky with lots of bright stars. Where I live on the edge of Bristol you can look up on a clear night and see just a few of the brightest of stars.
I got to thinking: Is this a result of global warming? Is it atmospheric pollution? After all when I was a kid (was it really half a century ago?) I lived pretty well in the heart of Bristol. We all burned dirty coal fires to keep warm. There was still plenty of heavy industry in the area pumping out more fumes and pollution. The Clean Air Act hadn't even been thought of. And yet, if you looked up on a clear night you could see thousands of stars - the bright, the not-so-bright and many hundreds of small dim specks in the sky.
Then the real reason dawned on me.
Light pollution.
We are obsessed with light. We more or less floodlight our streets and motorways. People light up their gardens for "ambiance". We have security lights, advertising lights all blazing away all night. Car lights are much more powerful nowadays and there are so many more vehicles on the roads. I sometimes feel we even have lights to light up our lights!
I can't talk. The company I work for sells all sorts of lights including the ubiquitous security lights and garden lighting. Everything from a 0.2 watt LED garden lamp to a 500 watt security floodlight. Now many of these devices have some advice in their instructions for use about using lights responsibly in order to reduce the impact of light pollution. But who reads the instructions? I suspect very few. Thus many security lights invade their neighbours' privacy and many light up as much sky as garden.
If only we could have a special night designated "No Lights Night". If it happened people would look up and be astounded at how much light Mother Nature provided and how much of it we are drowning with our own brash and ugly floods of misdirected light.
Think of the stars we could see.
Think of the carbon emissions which could be saved.
But then, think of the rich pickings for all the burglars . . .

Recycle or Renew?

I went to the opticians today. I was more than a year out of date with my eye test and I had noticed a distinct deterioration in my eyesight so I finally decided it had to be done.
I have, at present, two pairs of spectacles - identical frames, identical variable focus prescription lenses, but one clear for everyday use and one tinted for use in bright sunlight. Both frames are in good condition and fit very comfortably so I thought I would just have the prescription changed and use the frames again. It would save the cost of new frames.
So along I went and explained what I wanted. It turns out that opticians must make a large mark-up on frames because the deals they offer mean that it is cheaper to buy new frames with your new prescription glasses than to have the lenses changed!
When I made the point that I wanted to recycle the present perfectly adequate frames the young lady dealing with my query - one Ceri by name - stated that all old frames were recycled by sending them to Africa to help the poor people there.
Very commendable!
But . . . how much in the way of carbon emissions is generated by sending old spectacles to Africa? How much less would it be for me to send some cash to African charities?
I will probably have new frames because I cannot afford the difference. But I will still feel cheated and in some ways guilty that I could have been greener about the whole issue.

Get Fit and be Damned!

For many years my wife attended Yoga classes. She went because she felt it exercised her body and helped keep her in trim. And I have to admit that she has a beautifully slim figure. She stopped going because she preferred pilates, another form of gentle exercise which helps to keep her trim.
I will also state that my wife has no religious views. She was brought up C of E because that was where her parents went. We were married in her local parish church - mainly because that was what her parents wanted, not because we had strict views on making promises before God. She teaches in a C of E school - not because of her religious views but because it is local and it suits her. In short, my wife is a religious "don't know".
What is all this leading to? All will now be revealed.
The Reverend Derek Smith, a vicar at St Michael's Church, Melksham, Wiltshire, England, has told a local yoga group they are not welcome in the church hall.
Why? Because of the connections with the Hindu faith.
The vicar said that spiritual leaders in the East insisted that yoga was inseparable from Hindu devotional practice and therefore yoga was "un-Christian". Perhaps they do hold that belief. But practitioners in this country probably don't think that. I have no hard evidence but I would be prepared to wager that even most teachers of yoga in this country think first and foremost of the good that yoga can do for the body's fitness. Perhaps there doesn't have to be that religious link?
Ask most people who go to yoga classes in this country and they will tell you they go there to keep fit. To keep in trim. To keep healthy. Do most of them go to practise devotional exercises? The answer would be a resounding "no".
The Bible states that the body is a temple to God. As such we should look after it and keep it healthy. Yoga could help.
I wonder how fit Reverend gentleman is? He is reported to be 50 years old. Does he have a paunch that would benefit from some exercise? I don't know. I know one thing. His brain definitely needs exercise. If he thought before he talked he would realise that Jesus didn't discriminate about who he talked to. He taught us to love our neighbour. He taught us to turn the other cheek.
Hang on - Jesus is considered a prophet by the Muslim faith.
Should we ban Jesus from our churches because he is "un-Christian"?
Oh shit! This is getting out of hand . . .
Nuff said.

Horse shit!

Today I am in campaigning mood. I'll tell you all about it - but first I must give you some background info.
For several years now it has been an offence to let your dog roam free on the streets. Dogs must be kept under control (usually meaning on a lead). It is also an offence to let your dog "do its business" in a public place without clearing up after it. All around the streets you see law-abiding dog owners stooping down after their dogs with their little plastic bags picking up the canine excrement they leave behind. Most do it from a sense of civic duty - but some only do it because they face a fine of up to £1,000 if they are caught.
All very commendable. It leads to cleaner, more healthy streets for our citizens.
It's a shame that it would not be workable - at least in this country - to enforce this type of law against cat owners. It really upsets me to find little piles of cat turds in my garden. Perhaps people should be made to walk their cats on a lead just like dogs. Then perhaps some of the wildlife that visits my garden - birds, hedgehogs, other rodents - would not be needlessly killed. I know it's instinctive for cats to hunt and kill small animals but that harks back to the times when they killed to eat. Most cats are well fed and they just kill from instinct, not from a need to eat or survive.
One day I'm going to get a shotgun . . .
But I digress.
I'll take you back to the title of this entry. Horse shit!
I live in a suburb quite close to countryside. Very often one sees horses being ridden round our streets.
In case you hadn't noticed, horses are much bigger than dogs or cats.
Thus, they produce proportionately more excrement.
It seems quite acceptable that horses can dump a load of hot, steaming shit whenever and wherever they feel the need.
A cat produces a few grammes of detritus. A dog a little more.
A horse?

PILES OF THE STUFF!

Do we ever see a rider stopping and shovelling it off the road into a sack? No, they leave it there for others to avoid as best they can. Cars spread it over the road. Cyclists and motorcyclists have to try to avoid it as best they can or else they stand a chance of skidding on the stuff and suffering serious injuries and damage to their machines.
In times gone by people would rush out of their houses to shovel up the piles of muck because it makes good garden fertiliser. These days we have no need because we can buy it from the local garden centre nicely sterilised and not smelling like a farmyard.
It's about time that the people who own and ride these beautiful animals took responsibility for the damage they are doing to the environment.

SAVE OUR STREETS FROM HORSE SHIT!

Time to learn about keeping time . . .

I haven't mentioned it before but quite recently I celebrated my 43rd 18th birthday (do the maths yourself). Spouse and offspring were all strictly instructed that mention of the numbers 6 and 0 together were strictly taboo! So they honoured my wishes and produced a beautifully appropriate birthday card. They also clubbed together and bought me a flying lesson! Joy of joys - it's a great feeling to be behind the controls of an aircraft, soaring through the clouds into the brilliant sunshine above and knowing that the craft is going where it's going because YOU are controlling it - even if it is under the strict control of an instructor.

They bought me a flying lesson ten years ago when I reached my half-century (oops - I've given my real age away!) and that has lived vividly in my memory ever since, especially as I was able to take the two kids with me in the passenger seats. This time I'm hoping we can again secure a craft capable of taking passengers so that my wife can share the experience and pure excitement.

Another thing I had listed as a possible present was a watch which showed both analogue and digital time.

Well, my wife's sister and her husband came to see us today and brought me a present of a super watch.

It shows both analogue and digital time.

Great! Just what I wanted and I'm very happy to wear it and use it.

It also shows the temperature.

Useful!

It shows the date.

Also very useful!

You can use it as a stopwatch.

This can have its uses.

It has an alarm.

Good for when I fall asleep in my lunch break!

It can also tell me the time in any part of the globe.

Just in case I want to telephone someone in Outer Mongolia without waking them in the middle of the night.

It tells me the phases of the Moon.

Like I can't look up and see what shape the Moon is?

It also tells me - based on all the other data - when is the best time to go fishing.

Fishing? I have never been fishing in my life! Neither would I ever want to.

Nevertheless, it is a beautiful watch. I would like to enrol in a University degree course on how to set the whole thing up so that I can make it do what I really need it to do - namely tell the time.

As I said I would like to learn how to set up the watch by taking a degree but - I haven't got the time . . .

Cars - who'd have them?

I have just spent the last two days working on cars. Nearly two weeks ago my wife bought another Renault 5. It is almost identical to the one she already owns - except that the latter has nearly 80,000 miles on the clock and the new one has less than 28,000.

So we decided it would be a good idea to take all the best bits off the old one and transfer them to the new one.
Now I am not a mechanic. But I have a little book which tells me exactly what to do and how to do it.

Tailgate gas struts - a doddle.
Swap the back bumpers - no problem.
Wheel trims - a piece of cake.
Swap the radios - OK, I went about it the wrong way. The sensible way, as I realised halfway through the job, was just to swap the whole console. But by that time I had managed - via various sweats and swearwords - to strip out one radio! Ah well, shit happens!
Change the windscreen wiper motors. Well, the book shows you the complete sequence of operations for taking out the windscreen wiper assembly so that should be easy! The book, however, does not allow for the fact that not everything is exactly like the book. So, it says remove the bonnet seals - done. It says remove the windscreen washer reservoir - after some shoving and pushing and a lot of swearing, again done. Remove the windscreen wiper arms - no problem. Unscrew the bolt of the motor mounting bracket - it won't unscrew! The locking nut doesn't lock - it just turns with the nut you're trying to undo! Decided that I can't do that and have to reassemble all the bits I'd taken out just to make a working wiper again. Several hours of wasted labour, not to mention wasted breath swearing at said wiper assembly.
On the whole, though, a reasonable job done. We can live with the fact that the wipers don't self-park. I even washed the new car (that's probably the first and last time it gets washed!).
Several hours work over several days has made me realise that I will never make a motor mechanic.
As I said before - shit happens!

Holidays!

We have just come back from a superb break in Wales! Yes, Wales! Not the Algarve, the Spanish Costas, Peru, Australia, Thailand or any of the other popular destinations of the great unwashed British tourist-cum-lager-lout.
For the first time ever we didn't book anywhere. We just pointed the car and hoped we would be able to get accommodation when we arrived. We landed up in Lampeter in West Wales, found a B&B in the Castle Hotel and did some exploring. Hotel OK, if you allow for the fact that the loo had a Sanilav which made all sorts of industrial noises when it flushed - IF it flushed! The float valve had a habit of sticking so that the cistern did not always fill - shit happens . . .
The countryside in the area is beautiful - lots of hills and rocky coastline with beautiful rocky coves. We stayed in Lampeter for two nights, visiting local beaches and places of interest. Devil's Bridge was notable. It is a wild park with an amazing waterfall which drops down and down over many stages. It's not Niagara or the Victoria Falls but it has a beauty and serenity all its own. Visitors from many different countries were there and yet there was still a sense of calm and peace as we all marvelled at the wonders of nature.

We then moved to a marvellous little village on the coast which goes by the name of Llangranog. If you are exploring the region make a point of staying in the Pentre Arms Hotel. The accommodation is relatively cheap, comfortable and the food is superb! Breakfast is traditional English fry-up and extremely well cooked. Evening dinner has such an extensive menu with the accent - as you would expect from a coastal village - on seafood. Freshly caught swordfish, mackerel, hake, cod, plaice all featured on the menu along with more exotic dishes like Moroccan lamb, lasagne and other pastas and traditional dishes like steak and kidney pie, beef in Guinness and many more too numerous to mention. Staff were always courteous and helpful, although I felt a little regimented when it came to evening meal times when the restaurant was in great demand. Go to their website: http://www.pentrearms.co.uk/ and take a look for yourself. Llangranog is a beautiful little cove with lovely walks, beautiful scenery, wildlife and even - when the tide is right - surfing! Go there and enjoy!

One law for . . .

The Freedom of Information Act was supposed to bring transparency. It was supposed to enlighten us. The ideals of free information, open government - and no hiding behind "official secrets" were supposed to give us all the knowledge that we were not being spied on by bureaucrats, big business and any other snoopers who may have an interest in our personal lives. It applies to anyone in the land. Anyone can apply to see records, data, statistics, information which may affect them.
Except now, it seems, what our MPs are doing and saying will be exempted from the Act. They have voted to exempt themselves from the Act on the grounds of confidentiality. The bill allowing this has already been thrown out once but they had another go and passed it in an almost empty house which only just had enough members present to mount a quorum. It was a Friday when there are few members in the House of Commons because most are on their way back to their constituencies for the weekend. Hopefully the Lords will block the Bill but maybe not.
If MPs get the right to exemption from the Freedom of Information Act how soon before others claim that same right? Doctors, clergymen, government departments . . .
How long before Joe Bloggs , the local postman, applies for exemption on the grounds that he knows everybody's busines in his area because he steams open all the letters before he delivers them and he doesn't want his wife to know he is carrying on illicit affairs with half-a-dozen sex-starved housewives on his round?
Nuff said . . .

Honesty vs Lies

Jessica Lynch is an attractive lady from West Virginia. She was once a soldier serving with US forces in Iraq. She was under fire and, according to the Great American Dream only surrendered after all her colleagues were killed and she had used up all her own ammunition.
She was rescued by some very brave soldiers, taken back to the US and feted as a heroine. The brave girl who took on the Iraqis, fought them with all her might and - against all odds - survived.
Today she appeared before a Congressional committee to tell the world that she was not a heroine. She apparently hid in her truck and prayed. She obviously felt it was time to bring the truth to the wider world.
I don't blame her. Had I found myself in her position I would have been messing my pants and begging whichever deity who might be listening to save me.
Jessica, now a mother, must have mustered up a great deal of courage to come before the world with her story.
Telling the truth takes all the courage in the world in this age of spin and deceit. Who do these liars think they're kidding - only themselves in the end.
Jessica Lynch is now a true heroine because she told the plain, unvarnished truth.

Women's Lib

For more than 40 years we have been bombarded by the (now old fashioned) term "women's lib" or equality for women. So now women can not only participate in the armed forces but they can go to war instead of just doing administrative jobs. They can learn to shoot and bomb the enemy.
This means that they could also be at risk of being shot and bombed by the enemy. . .
The recent capture and detention of 15 British sailors and marines who may - or may not - have strayed into Iranian waters while on a mission to stop and search suspect cargo vessels has been hyped up even further than it normally would by the British press by the fact that one of their number was a woman.
A mother of a three-year-old daughter, no less.
We were outraged. Undertones of dirty tricks. Who could sink so low as to put such a pure and innocent being as a woman into such a terrible situation?
Now let's get this straight. I am not a chauvinist. I believe that women should have all the opportunities that men have. If they want a way of life that they want they should be given the chances to realise that. Their dreams, hopes and aspirations should be given equal status with that of men. That means they must also make the decisions which lead them to such a career, knowing the risks that are entailed in making those decisions.
So why are the media making so much fuss over the fact that a woman, who happened to be a mother, was captured? We did not get much about whether any of the men captured had children. We were not given much detail of their relationships.
Aren't the media being chauvinistic over this whole episode?
Haven't they thought of the thousands of innocents - women, children and men - who have been killed in the "righteous" war against "evil"?
Bollocks!
Nuff said . . .

Decades too late . . .

An historic act took place in Stormont Castle today. A sight which I never thought I'd see . . . Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting side by side announcing that the DUP and Sinn Fein would form a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland on May 8, 2007.
That date will hopefully go down in history as the beginning of the end of sectarianism in Northern Ireland. I say hopefully because there are many rifts to be healed, many differences to be ironed out.
Paisley will be happy because it makes him Prime Minister designate. Adams will be happy because his party will have powerful positions in the government.
Will the people of the province be happy? Only time will tell . . .
Time.
Sixty years ago this year I was born in Belfast. My late mother was a Protestant Baptist and my father (I don't know if he is still alive or not) a Catholic. In those days Protestants and Catholics did not mix, let alone marry and have children. My mother had helped to build bombers during WW2 and went on to join the Royal Air Force. My father was also in the RAF (I wonder how much castigation he had to endure from the Catholic side because he was "fighting for the enemy"?)
Needless to say my mother never talked to me about why we moved to Bristol, England when I was an infant but I suspect we were hounded out by sectarian bigotry - neither side would want to associate with Papist or Prod scum. We lived in various places until we were taken in by a kindly couple and given a living room and a bedroom in their house. We were to stay for 14 days. In the end we stayed for 14 years. Elsie and the late Ted Essery were our Good Samaritans. In fact Elsie, now in her nineties, is still referred to by my two grown-up kids as "Grandma Essery".
My father was posted to India with the forces and the family was separated. We would get the occasional letter and money for my upkeep but not much else. Then he contracted tuberculosis which, in those days, was considered as much a killer as cancer is today. He survived but with a chip on his shoulder as large as the Grand Canyon. He never came home to live with us. I gather he became a tramp, living on what he could in the way of state handouts.
I have been lucky. My mother sacrificed even her own diet while I was young to bring me up whilst working like a slave for a pittance firstly in a chocolate factory and later in a tobacco factory. She died of cancer at the age of 59 without ever seeing her two grandsons.
Going back to Mr Paisley I remember going to his Free Presbyterian church in Larne, NI in the 1970s. I was curious as to who would listen to this ranting bigot. I entered a packed church and after the obligatory hymns and prayers the "Big Man" rose to preach. I do not remember the words he spoke - just the horror that so much hate could be spewed out in the name of God. I rose to leave in the middle of the sermon and was politely but firmly informed by a "sidesman" who was built like a brick shithouse that Dr Paisley had not finished and it would not be good manners to leave without hearing his whole sermon. I did not argue. I sat quaking for the rest of the service, not hearing a word just fearing for my own safety.
A couple of years later I entered a Catholic church in Belfast. Again I was shocked and saddened to hear hate and bigotry being preached in the name of Jesus. Christianity should not be like that. "Love thy neighbour" - just so long as he is on the right side of the divide.
Back to tonight. I watched Messrs Paisley and Adams and listened to their guarded statements and the tears started to flow down my face. At last some common sense, some realisation that we must work and live together.
I cried. Tears of joy that perhaps at last there could be an end to the bigotry and violence. Tears of sadness that it was too late for my mother and father.
And then I thought "If only this had happened decades earlier . . ."
Perhaps my mother and father would not have been hounded out of the province.
Perhaps I would have been "wee Tommy", living in Belfast and growing up in a vibrant, living society unaffected by the troubles of man fighting man in the cause of bigoted ideals.
Perhaps my mother would not have had to work all her life just to stay alive . . .
Perhaps . . .
But for her, for my father, and for me it has all come decades too late.

It's Not Cricket

Bob Woolmer died last week. Mr Woolmer will be remembered by many as an excellent international cricketer who gave a lifetime of service to the sport, playing for county and his home country England. His playing days over, he went on to coach international teams, including South Africa and finally Pakistan.
It was as coach to the Pakistan team that Bob was in Jamaica with his team for the Cricket World Cup. Somehow Pakistan lost to rank outsiders Ireland, who have never figured at all on the world cricket stage. A day or two later Mr Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room. After long investigations the Jamaican police declared that he was murdered.
The media were quickly rife with stories of how Mr Woolmer was about to blow the gaff on the cricketing Mafia who made millions on betting on, and fixing, matches.
This may or may not be true. There may be corruption within the sport - it has been proved in the past.
If it is true then the old instinct of cricket being the gentlemen's sport of fair play has disappeared for ever. The taking of a life for the sake of monetary gain over a game of cricket is the final nail in the coffin of the concept of sport for sport's sake.
Sod all you greedy money-makers. Especially those in the sub-continent, where betting is banned, both by law and by religious belief. Why should I respect Islam or, for that matter Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Buddhism or any other religion that preaches the love of life and then turns its head away from the depravity of the worship of money?
Cricket used to be a sport. Now, along with most other "sports", it is centred on money and greed - the combination of which seems inevitably to lead to violence, suffering and death.

Bear reasoning

"Well Mrs Smith, we killed your son because you were suffering from post-natal depression and rejected him straight after he was born. We know that you now say you've changed your mind and you want to love him and cherish him but at the time we thought you had disowned him. We thought that if his own mother didn't want him who were we to bring him up without the nurture and environs his mother could provide. So it became an absolute necessity to administer a lethal injection. It was for the best."
Knut is not a human baby. He is a baby polar bear born in the unnatural environment of Berlin Zoo. His mother gave birth to two male cubs and immediately showed no interest in looking after them. Perhaps because she could not do the naturally instinctive thing and dig a cave into the ice where she could suckle them and keep them warm and safe. One of the the cubs died but Knut survived and was bottle-fed and is now three months old. He is soon to be shown to the general public and the zoo's director hopes that - with dwindling numbers of wild polar bears - he could be able in future to father future generations of polar bears in captivity.
But animal activists are saying that Knut will be living in such an unnatural environment that it would be better to kill him rather than make him live a life of captivity.
I take no sides except to say that if this was a human baby no one would be even considering killing him. Do we really think we are that much superior to the animals that we have this power? If so we should go about mass euthanasia of every domesticated animal - be it a pet or a farm animal, a camel in the Sahara or a pony in an English paddock, because they are living in an unnatural environment.
I wonder if that activist enjoys his steak?

Fault Lines

It seems the recent rail crash of a Virgin Pendolino train was caused by faulty points. A spreader bar and some bolts were loose, causing the train to derail because the rail lines were not evenly spaced. It is difficult to inspect all the thousands of miles of track for faults like this, so Network Rail has built a £5 million train designed to shoot around the network at high speed making video recordings of the state of the rails and equipment. The inspection train had made a run over these faulty points just two days before the crash and video of the fault was recorded. So why wasn't it picked up and acted upon? Even if a repair could not be effected immediately a temporary speed limit of 20 mph over the affected points would have made it safe to travel. Network Rail tells us that the only way to view this inspection video is to slow it down to "super slow motion" so that faults could be picked up. Thus to view even one day's inspection video would take at least a month. So why did Network Rail bother to build, let alone run, this super train? We are told it is so that investigation of incidents and accidents can be clarified. A little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted - but having CCTV footage of the horse getting scared and ready to bolt. It would be laughable were it not for the fact that a woman died, others were seriously injured and no one can say when the line will be cleared and repaired and opened again for services.
Nuff said . . .

Cowboys masquerading as plumbers

Now - I'm not really blaming the plumber. After all, he has a qualification which says he can do the job. He probably thinks he is qualified and he is - in some respects. He can pass exams, he can fit and repair and inspect modern central heating systems.
The problem is that most of us don't have all-singing, all-dancing modern condensing combination boiler systems.
I have an old-fashioned back boiler which heats up to ten radiators and a primatic hot water cylinder.
So an experienced plumber would have taken one look at my cylinder and sussed it out as primatic. Not so the so-called qualified plumber who came to sort out my central heating. He was surprised, not to say confused, that there was no secondary cold water supply tank for the central heating. He looked at the hot water cylinder and stated that it was all wrong and where was the cold water supply coming from for the central heating part of the system. He took his new toy, a power flushing appliance to my heating system. It blasted out lots of nasty, black gooey sludge. This was probably the only positive thing he did. When he re-started the system he seemed surprised that no hot water got through to the radiators. At this point he was still unaware that it was a primatic system.
He set the boiler on its highest setting, opened all the radiator valves and hoped. When very little heat got through to the radiators he expressed surprise, mild annoyance but mainly mystification that it hadn't worked. He then stated that he could not explain and said "Try it for a bit and give me a ring later on, I'm off to watch the Rugby on the TV."
I called him the next day when there was no improvement. He finally came round and that was when he discovered that the cylinder was primatic.
Now I am not an expert but primatic cylinders need a completely different treatment to direct cylinders. The fact that he had not sussed the type of system immediately shows that college learning and City and Guilds qualifications are no substitute for years of experience. With the best will in the world this guy has set himself up as a plumber. He probably even believes he can do the job.
There is nothing better than training on the job with an experienced qualified tradesman. You can learn all the wrinkles that the theorists in the colleges don't even know about let alone teach! Once he had got his paper qualification, our friend should then have gone as a practical trainee with a real plumber to learn about the real world of pipes and heating and joints which don't necessarily occur in the theoretical world of college education.
I wish the guy well in his career. But he can rest assured that he will not get a penny out of me for the "work" he has done on my heating system.
I do not want to be used as a learning curve for a theoretical plumber.
Should he kick up about lack of payment I will post his name, address and telephone number on this site and others so that all the people in my local area will not be caught in his delusion of qualification.
Perhaps it is the job of these colleges to train cowboys . . .
Perhaps I might even give him a Stetson . . . .

Keep on Truckin'

Well, at last I've got my new amplifier! I picked it up from my son's flat in Birmingham after the eBay seller kindly delivered it to him (it was advertised as "pick up only" and the seller kindly took it to Andi's place because Andi doesn't drive). I got it for a song - thanks Mark - and I was worried that it wouldn't live up to expectations.
I shouldn't have worried.
There is something about a spring reverb unit that sets my soul on fire. This amp - a Custom Sound Trucker - has such a reverb. Pure heaven! Ecstacy! It is not massive, just 45 watts RMS, but it's more than big enough to use at home and I dare say it could hold its own in a small gig venue. Needless to say I have now damaged the tendons in my left hand by playing my new guitar through this amp all day!
I will persevere. I will practise again tomorrow. And the next day, and the next day and the next . . .
The amp isn't perfect - it's probably more than 20 years old - but it's probably the best amp I have ever owned.
There's only one thing to say - I'm gonna KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

Great Break

Ros and I have just returned from a great break touring the North Midlands and South Yorkshire. We started on Sunday by visiting Ros's sister, Diana and her husband Peter in Edgmond, Shropshire. We stayed overnight and caught up their news. Then we took a leisurely drive across Staffordshire into Derbyshire where we toured parts of the Peak District National Park, stopping for a while in Bakewell. Bakewell is most famous for its Bakewell tarts. I was very sad to discover that the tarts in question were baked confections - not the saucily-dressed, over-painted ladies I had hoped to see! Never mind, we had a great time exploring the area and then, by a series of expert navigation from my wife and a little gut-instinct from me we arrived, via a planned look at a local reservoir, in Sheffield to visit Debbie.
Debbie was one of our bridesmaids more than 30 years ago and neither of us have seen her since the day we got married. She was instantly recognisable and it was lovely to see her and her family. We chatted for hours and she produced one of the best home-made lasagnes I have ever tasted! I was really jealous of her daughter Sarah, who has recently been given a Fender guitar on which to learn - not just any old guitar but a brand-new Fender! I harken back to the days when I bought my first guitar. It was a piece of orange box with some strings on which I bought for 10 shillings (that's 50p or about $1 for you youngsters!). I painted it bright scarlet because that was the "in" colour for guitars in those days and it helped both me and my friend Derek to learn the rudiments of the guitar.
On the Tuesday, having stopped in a Travelodge and been pleasantly surprised by the basic but comfortable room there, we travelled to Leeds to see Ros's brother Malcolm. We all went to Roundhay in Leeds and had a superb meal in the Roundhay Fox pub - recommended by all of us for good food at reasonable prices with good service. Across the road from the pub is Tropical World. This is a series of greenhouses joined in expert ways to give you a tour of various tropical scenarios. Plants, birds, butterflies, fish and other animals. A genuine attempt at a small-scale Eden Project which - especially for the modest entry fee of only £3 - was extremely entertaining and educational. Bristol should take a leaf out of their book, especially as their own version - Wildscreen - is due to close. Bristol's trouble was they tried to be too technological. Lots of interactive screens, not enough actual specimens and extortionately high prices.
A walk in Roundhay Park, a beautiful area of green in the middle of Leeds, and back to Malcolm's flat for tea and biscuits rounded off a beautiful day.
Back to the Travelodge for a good sleep and then today another exploratory drive through the Peak District National Park. We stopped in Glossop for breakfast in the Glossop Cafeteria. Reasonable English breakfast for me of sausages, bacon, egg, beans and toast. Ros had sausage and egg in "barm cake" - which turned out to be what I would call a bap and others might just call a round bread roll. Washed down with a good mug of tea, it did the job!
The final destination was Birmingham to visit our son Andi. He has just split with (now ex-fiancee) Steph and was putting on a brave face for us. It seems the split is amicable enough but it can't be easy for either of them when Steph and he have to share the same bed while she looks for somewhere else to live. I imagine it must be fairly strained at the moment. Andi cooked us a good pasta dish which was more than adequate for our needs. He chatted to Ros a lot. I was in a semi-doze because I had done all the driving over the last few days and knew I still had 100 miles to drive home tonight. Andi has serious exams towards his degree in less than a fortnight and is practising his trombone like mad for these at the moment. He seems to be bearing up and I know he will do his absolute best.
All in all a great break. Now back home I have a new toy to play with. I bid on and won a guitar amplifier. I had only bid on it because the seller was in Birmingham and it was a "pick-up only" item. I told Andi I was bidding and he said he'd pick it up for me. As it was I won the amp for a bargain price and the seller even delivered it to Andi's flat for me. Thanks very much Mark - I've sent you glowing feedback! So now I have this monster sitting in my music room waiting for me to try it out tomorrow!
Perhaps I should distribute ear-defenders to my neighbours first . . .

Secret Police

We are to have a new system of local taxation in England. Local taxes - known as "council tax" will be assessed according to the value of your property. Thus the more your house is worth the more you pay. All very commendable, you may think. But what about the old widow who has lived in the same house all her life? It's big enough to raise the family of five who have all now fled the nest. Hubby died leaving her very little in the way of pension. The house, because of its size, is worth lots of money and - although it's perhaps too big for her now - she is loathe to move. She is old and frail and the trauma of looking for, viewing, buying and moving to a different house is just too much for her. Besides which, she has so many happy memories of the loving family and husband with whom she shared the house that she is wants to live out the rest of her life there and wishes to die in a place in which she has had so much happiness.
So she will be taxed accordingly and - although she is one person using the services of the local government she will have to pay the taxes as if there were six people living in the house. Furthermore if she improves the house, perhaps to make it easier for her to remain there, she will increase the value of the house and thus increase her taxes. New central heating will increase the value of her house. A modern bathroom with perhaps an easy-access bath to help her in her old age will again increase the value. All of the things which would help her have a comfortable old age will go against her when it comes to paying this tax.
She will not be able to hide any of these improvements. There will be a team of inspectors - already being dubbed the "Council Tax Police" who will have an absolute right to enter your home and assess its value. You will not have the right to refuse entry and if you try you will be fined up to £500 for each day their inspection is delayed.
"Hey guys, I've got an idea for some easy money. Let's make ourselves some bogus identity cards and go and inspect some old pensioners homes. We can suss the joint to see what they have that's worth stealing and we might even be able to fleece them for some bogus fines if they show signs of objecting!"
So far no one has given us any guarantees about how these inspectors will identify themselves. So the whole operation is open to the fleecing of gullible, law-abiding people. I don't know of a copper-bottomed guarantee that the guy at the door is the genuine article and I am sure we will get many confused and bewildered old people being defrauded on their own doorsteps.
Now to a more recent announcement. England is to get a smoking ban. Smoking will be banned from every public building and workplace on July 1. The only places where it will be legal to smoke will be in the open air or in your own home. I can see the benefits of this and in many ways, even though I'm a smoker, I agree with the general idea of it. But, once again, someone has to come up with a stupid idea that we won't go along with this new law and so - it must be enforced. Plans are afoot to employ clandestine "smoking police" to go into bars, pubs, clubs and work places and check that the law is being upheld. There will be as many as 20,000 of these spies. They will be allowed to secretly video acts of lighting up which could be used in evidence in a court of law. They will be able to apply on-the-spot fines to transgressors. They will also be empowered to fine proprietors if it is seen that they allow such breaches of the law.
How bloody sad.
In Scotland they have had a smoking ban for nearly a year. They already have a squad of 11 "smoking inspectors". In the time the law has been enacted the inspectors have recorded no breaches and imposed no fines.
In Ireland - which has had a similar regulation for some years - there has been no massive outcry nor many cases of the law being flouted.
Why does this government think we will need to be policed?
The control freaks who seem to run this country cry "it is for the public good".
I think it shows a sign of insecurity. Or perhaps it is just a money-making exercise.
The police state is alive and living in England.

Political Correctness is the New Bigotry

A Student body has been refused funding by the Students' Union on the grounds that it breaches human rights. The body in question is the Christian Union. Its meetings are open to all but it has an understandable qualification that to become an officer in the Union you should sign a declaration that you believe in God, the virgin birth, and other aspects crucial to the Christian belief. This says the Students' Union, is a breach of Human Rights. Presumably they say a Buddhist or a Jew or a follower of Islam should be allowed to lead a Christian Union.
BOLLOCKS!
Ask a Muslim if he would like a Christian to be an Imam. Ask a Jew his views on a Sikh being the local Rabbi.
Political correctness has been taken to the extreme and beyond.
Dear Mr Blair,
I am instituting legal proceedings because I was excluded from participating and voting in a Commons debate. I know I was not elected to the House of Commons but there was no one in the House who could air my views because all the parties who stood in my constituency were of different political persuasions to me. I therefore claim the right to air my own independent views directly in the chamber.
Should you continue to refuse my request I will take legal action under the Human Rights Act. If, as expected, my case is thrown out by the courts I will appeal to higher courts. And when the Appeal Court refuses my action I will demand that the case be heard not by the Law Lords (after all they have a vested interest being in the House of Lords) but directly by the European Court of Human Rights.
The European Court will have to find in my favour on the grounds that everyone has an equal right to be heard. Everyone has a right to hold and express their views.
Or have they?
Once again . . .
BOLLOCKS!!!!!