The New Year comes....

Happy New Year.

The table sits in darkened room
Its fare all spent its contents strewn
All use now ended, empty shell
A place where memories now dwell.

For this is last years empty table
Feasted on by all those able
Some who sat and joined the fest
Have left our mortal life to rest.

Friends anew have stepped on board
As life continues rest assured
For in the light of room next door
The circle starts again once more.

A brand new table full to flowing
What's entailed not ours for knowing
Life will guide you have no fear
So take your place for this New Year.

Dine on newly laid out feast
When hope and faith are all increased
And welcome what the new year brings
As midnight bells chime 12 strong rings.

Have a good 2021 all.

The BBC Bland, Boring,Contentious.

On a day when a common thief has his life and times celebrated by no less than the British Broadcasting Association one wonders just what we can expect to see in the future.
 I wonder had Genghis Khan been around when the BBC had reporters, cameras and large amounts of taxpayers money to waste then no doubt he would have had two live docs and an invite to Celebrity Come Dancing, oh and no doubt he would have explained that his past was his past and he is a changed man, just like Biggs said he was "once a crook", sorry Mr Biggs, once a crook always a crook.
You see, I hate to put a dampener on this party but the facts speak rather louder than the man himself, that in itself is no small task given his gob was big enough for 10 such bullies of his ilk. This is a man who savagely beat a train driver over the head because he wanted to steal. That's all there is to it. He is no hero, he shouldn't rest in peace he should rot in hell and the BBC should follow on in his footsteps for once again wasting our money on such clap trap. The fact this program about a a sadistic pure thug comes so soon after the ridiculously extensive Mandela coverage should not be surprising, indeed I am awaiting a huge announcement that the Beeb have done a fly on the wall documentary during Mandela's funeral and followed the family around until the burial and even now have two reporters and an outside broadcast team monitoring "life after Mandela's death" followed by "Has he risen yet?"
Don't get me wrong, Mandela was a man of true grit, he was not an angel and in fact at one point was deemed a terrorist after the ANC turned to violence, but the big difference between Mandela and Biggs is that Mandela did it for a cause, to help free his country, Biggs did it for greed to fill his pockets.
So why is Auntie Beeb showing highlights of a low life's career instead of the highlights of say Jim Flint's career for instance, who, as a decorated Lancaster Bomber was 100 recently and sadly passed away today?
Simple. Biggs was a big mouth, a low life, a crook, but he also believed in his heart of hearts that he was a respectable villain and he dragged ALL  the wishy washy liberal minded middle and upper class with him on a wave of undeserved notoriety and ill-judged respect. The rest of us ditch walking lower classes knew exactly what Biggs was, a thieving bully and a scumbag, no more no less. The reason an ex Lancaster pilot doesn't get headlines is because he is a working class hero and God help the BBC if it dare be seen to support the common man, how vulgar.
 If I were in charge of this country I would scrap the BBC in a heartbeat, it was once a bastion of Britishness, a fortress for truth and righteousness. Now it is politically guided, prejudiced and incapable of giving the majority of its real audience a balanced or unbiased view of our world today, if it had a back bone it wouldn't be showing anything about Biggs, let alone two shows in two days and I for one will not be watching, although Genghis Khan on Celebrity Dancing would possibly get my vote, well at least the judges would be a little more respectful.

Take me to your leader...

The untimely death of Paul Walker in the early hours of today serve as an all too regular reminder that this life we are given is a fickle mistress, indeed the same goes for those poor souls lost simply doing their job or having a quiet drink in a Glasgow pub on a Friday night. The fact is we assume much in life but in reality we are here for the moment whether we appreciate it or not and nothing will ever change that, but the vast majority of us look on the optimistic side of life and for the most part it is thankfully seldom wrong.
While we are on the subject of making more of our time on the planet it would seem that over the past few years we are turning more and more to our leaders for answers that quite frankly they can't give and when they don't supply us with exactly what we want to hear we blame them for all that is wrong, that sounds fair surely?
Well no it isn't fair and it isn't even feasible, in fact politicians are just spokesmen and women, they are no different to us, they have no magic wand or secret formula to life in fact many of them will have seen much less of real life than those they would seek to give advice to. But this is a double edged sword as the more we complain to our leaders the more they intervene, the more they intervene the less we like it, Catch Twenty Two never looked so good.  If we actually changed our own attitudes and looked at our neighbour with more tolerance we could make big changes ourselves without the need for outside assistance, if we bothered to be the citizen that we all think we are instead of actually are then we would have many more answers to those questions we keep firing at politicians. We all know the local drug dealers, we all know the local thieves, we all know the illegal workers, we all know the untaxed car driver or the persistent drink driver, you may know all or some of these listed and this is but a short list, but if that is the case why do nothing?
May I suggest we do nothing because we expect our leaders to do it? In fact some of you are probably busy compiling a "Dear Deirdre" to your local rag as I write this about the hooligans in your street and the lack of Police on the beat which would suggest as I said earlier that our brighter future is in our own hands not those of Westminster ex-graduates who are about as Au-fait with modern street lifestyle as Boris is to a good hair cut bless him.  Have a great Sunday. 

Sometimes.

Sometimes words can fit in place
Like eyes and nose upon a face
Sometimes words cannot be said
So tears replace the voice instead



Sometimes life is full of dreams
All that's gold is not it seems
That distant goal a folly sought
No prize worth having's ever bought



Sometimes fools have great disguises
On the surface no surprises
But look a little deeper down
The Jesters smile or tears of Clown?



Sometimes life allows you time,
To sit in silent sweet sublime
Gather thoughts that make the man
Look in the mirror... If you can.

Pudding?. Stuff That !

Lets get this straight, I am in a strange country and as such things are going to be a little different. I expect that and have great respect for other cultures and their ways and methods, though being English that custom seems a little outdated on our own soil, however that is not my point here today. Life is for living and you have to remember always that you are only here once, so discovering other countries and their habitat should be a priority, though last night I have to admit i questioned that wisdom on my way home from fetching something as simple as a little ice-cream.
If you are British you will know what that is all about, you have finished your sausage casserole and just fancy something for pudding, that feeling of your dinner being incomplete unless you have something sweet to follow the main course. Well over here in OZ the "pudding" element isn't exactly a priority, but to us Brits it's like tea without water, sausage and mash without the mash, football without teenage players crashing their Ferrari's because they can hit a bag of leather but cant drive a wedge under a door... anyway I am sure you get the picture, so it was that last night I was presented with this very scenario, IE no pudding.
This kind of travesty can only happen in a strange land as the UK larder or fridge is always brim full of sticky toffee pudding, spotted dick, trifle and custard, you name it, but the cupboard here in Newcastle NSW was bare, so even though it was dusk I headed out of the door with my dollars clenched firmly in my fist in order to right the wrong, make a stand for the traditional British pudding. Now we don't have SPAR shops over here they are 7-11's which I hope is pretty much self explanatory so in I went and filled my boots with banana-toffee flavour as well as caramel ice cream just to be on the safe side. I have to admit I felt pretty damned smug as I placed my "apres le diner" items in the carrier bag and bid my Asian friend behind the counter a "good-day" after all I was upholding a tradition that stems back to the dark ages they could take the man out of England but not England out of the man, I stood for all those ex-pats that now dwell here and have had pudding beaten out of them by their Aussie brethren, here I was taking one home for the team, the bringer of the sweet stuff after dinner, a proud Brit happily swinging his carrier bag full of goodies and looking forward to tucking in when he got back to his apartment, this was all going so damned well until i turned the next corner.
You see, one should always remember when abroad that you are not in your comfort zone, there are things out there that are alien to you. Well last night i bumped (almost literally) into one of those (different) things namely Harry (for that is now his name) the common garden orb spider who had inconveniently decided to build his massive elephant catching size web from the overhanging trees to the pavement along which I was happily walking along while thinking of my pudding...
Apart from the fact that this was damned stupid because the first person that walks round the corner would destroy it this web was also half the size of Basildon. It was ridiculous and indeed had Westminster clocked it they would have slapped a bedroom tax on it in a heartbeat and thrown said huge spider in the Tower for not getting planning permission while handing it over to a family of twenty five from OzbekistaniRomaniabad or similar, this spider was the Donald Trump of web builders and to make matters worse he was sat bang in the middle of his masterpiece so that you would probably get a mouthful of hairy Arachnid if you didn't spot him in time, how on earth I avoided this side kick from Jurassic Park I shall never know but spot him i did and headed for the safety of the middle of the road. I approached Harry from a different angle from the safety of the white lines and suddenly realised just how big this damn thing was, it was as big as my hand and could feed an African village for a week, you could hear its footsteps on the web (the world wide one), it stopped dead in its tracks when it clocked me approaching and I immediately wondered about it's jumping capabilities, I swear if it jumped on you it would be like Jonah Lomu landing on you from three stories up, it was so big it had a map of Canada on it's back, complete with logging trucks and grizzly bears, it had more attitude than a Rottweiler at a Postman's Ball, it's eyes glinted from the street lights and I am sure it was staring me out, I have to admit for the first time since I first appeared on Australian soil I suddenly realised this IS a foreign country and this was one "not so subtle" difference.
So there you have it, I headed up to the apartment post haste and slammed the door and locked it, closed the windows and started itching and seeing things, looking in my shoes, under the dunny seat, shaking the bath towel and generally being afraid that Harry had somehow followed me home. I sat down and put my ice cream in the freezer, it was now crystal clear to me why our Australian friends don't eat pudding after dinner, the only thing missing from my experience was David Attenborough and a film crew, either way stuff the after dinner pudding, when in Rome as they say, I shall stay in and leave the darkness to the wildlife and pudding to the Brits.






.

Tramps and Thieves.

Just when you think our political system and its participants can't possibly stoop any lower we get more news of lies, mistakes, cover-ups and blunders that have cost us all as a country. I talk of course of Jack Straw's admission that he miscalculated the impact immigration would have on the UK as well as the numbers that would flood into our poor brow beaten communities, the fact that a ten year old child could have foreseen such a calamity will not lessen the fact that this man who was paid by the public purse and was given a job with a duty of care will think that a simple "whoops" said out loud now will see him forgiven.
At the same time we see the Conservative Party deleting speeches from their website that were made at the time they were fighting to be elected. The obvious reason for this is they cannot fulfill their election promises, their excuse for it is they wish to keep the website current and not weighed down with older stories. I am afraid once again we see the same losers, the genuine British public. Just how many more times do we see serious misconduct from a top flight MP or  political party in this country go unpunished? I can almost hear Winston Churchill spinning in his grave. Why would all those brave men and women have fought all those years ago for a country that has ended up being governed by liars and cheats and people who should no more be in office than Biffo The Bear?.
If you were employed to do a specific job based on your experience and your ability then you should also be held responsible if you make a serious error of judgement, yet Jack Straw will make a comfortable living on the speech circuit delivering yet more spin and still getting paid for it, his very presence on these shores is an affront to the British people who will suffer for years to come with an over-populated country because of his miscalculation and inaction while in office, the man should be shovelling snow in Siberia not cash into his bank account. As for our Conservative friends does their self-righteous, ignorant, arrogant behaviour know no bounds? These people must assume that Britain will accept lies and cover-ups as an every day occurrence, they cannot surely think for one minute that we believe their pathetic excuse for blocking past promises made to us during speeches on their website? Oh, hang on, yes they can and yes we as a country probably will, you see we cannot really blame politicians for thinking they can get away with anything when we actually let them, as with modern day youngsters, there are no consequences for lies and poor behaviour so it continues, in fact it just gets worse over time, I fear for the future when days like today reveal such shocking but i guess unsurprising truths.
So, what will it take to right the good ship Great Britain? It won't be UKIP, it wont be Labour or Tory and most definitely not Liberal views. I believe that the issues will only be managed properly by a party that can nurture hard working citizens and entrepreneurs, be hard on Europe and even tougher on immigration, it should back business so that business can back the work force, it should allow Teachers to teach and Police to police, Nurses to nurse and above all be transparent and responsible for its mistakes. It should be ruthless on crime and genuine in its policies and consultation with its citizens, if this all sounds like pie in the sky it damned well shouldn't do, it should be the road map for governance, not a pipe dream.

If the latter sounds like the political scene that you grew up with then you are probably a sixties child too, it all changed with Tony Blair and the "spin word". The Tower should be overflowing and brought back to its previous stature and use, not a tourist attraction, I have a list drawn up if anyone is interested.

Life and its lemons.

I wonder if it is just myself that feels slightly disappointed Banksy has joined the political arena and spoken out about Trade Centre One on his website? Up until a few months ago Banksy had an anonymous mystique that was revered outside the capitol, many in the UK still did not know the cloaked man that inspired a generation to paint what they feel and brought a new chic to what is basically graffiti. I guess eventually we all succumb to media attention if we receive enough of it but I feel that he has joined the ranks of normality in his chosen field whereas before his art had much more power because he was almost anonymous and the very fact that he has been criticised in New York for his work in the area tells us that not everyone appreciates his style, though quite why the Mayor would chastise a near genius for decorating the city is quite beyond me.

Michael Heseltine made the case for HS2 last night, I wonder if anyone has actually told David Cameron that "Tarzan" carries about as much clout in the UK as a meat pie without the chips. He is a "has been" a political dinosaur who along with Kenneth Clarke should have been put out to graze years hence, they are bitter twisted old cohorts who did nothing but stamp their feet and back stab their way throughout their political careers, pretty much sums up the majority of politicians really, but that's another story. The very fact this man asks the UK tax payers to take a "leap of faith" as he so eloquently and convincingly put it shows he is more out of touch with the general population than ever before, how dare he assault the tax paying public's ears with such politically motivated drivel at a time ordinary decent folk are being penalised for having one empty bedroom in the family home, what a detestable individual he really is, it shows he has lost nothing of his arrogance and self righteousness and that this government is so short of politicians with believable clout they are prepared to take a step back to the dark ages to try and get their point over, let's hope one of those vines he swings on is showing it's age and hopefully gives up mid flight, it's time this political grade three listed antique was grounded and hopefully take the ill-conceived over-priced and unnecessary #HS2 with him.

Government is currently looking at increasing the weights and speed of tractors. To you in the City that may be no big deal but to us more rural based bodies it's a disaster in the making. You see farmers are not stupid, they receive hefty subsidies from our European brethren, they get heavily discounted VED for their machines and they also get rebated (red) diesel which more often than not ends up in the family car and Land Rover. If you couple that with land prices growing at their fastest rate since records began you begin to build a picture of an industry that is becoming a monster. So why I hear you ask should I be concerned about thirty two tonne tractors doing thirty miles an hour on our roads? Well one very good reason is that haulage companies deserve fair competition like any industry and if farmers are allowed to "haul" then they are in direct competition and as such should be subject to drivers hours rules, appropriate driving licences and appropriate record keeping, none of which farmers need to undertake, yet a young seventeen year old can drive for fifteen or twenty hours in a field then take a fully loaded thirty two tonne tractor out onto our highways and do thirty miles an hour on tractor tyres and much longer stopping distances, I fear the worst and I also fear that because government has given this such a short consultation time (February 2014) I fear they have not looked at the implications of such a move. Sounds all too familiar from a bumbling idiosyncratic bunch of Eton educated half wits... I may have only been Grammar School educated but at least it gave me something that the present incumbents of government have never had and that's a taste of real life and oh my does it show,

Charity Begins At Home.

How would you measure a disaster? You ran out of alcohol the night before and forgot to get more that day? Your insurance is due on the car and you can't afford it? Or perhaps you didn't get your expected pay rise?
Either way none of the above come close to being on the receiving end of a two hundred miles an hour storm when you were already living in a tin hut. The people of the Philippines have found themselves in such a position over the last few days indeed a new storm is brewing threatening more carnage, it is true devastation on a huge scale with over ten thousand dead and some of those bodies still lying under collapsed buildings and even hanging from trees where they were cruelly tossed.  That to me would be a disaster.
So why do I ask such a question? Surely the answer was obvious? Well actually no it wasn't obvious according to many short sighted people who I am ashamed to say class themselves as British. Having read some of the comments tagged to the bottom of news stories covering the disaster it seems we Brits are starting to lose our compassion for our fellow man in peril. Many of the comments emanated from pure ignorance of how emergency aid funding works, it is set aside and put there for good reason, it cannot be used by a Political Party to bolster our own NHS or help our own homeless it is overseas aid and it is their for such a time as this, most of those commenting on the stories I am sure go through their door at night close it and enjoy a warm home, it may be tight money wise but that is life, no-one said it was perfect but it's hardly third world status. I do however take issue with the European Union grant aid of only two point five million pounds while Britain supplies ten, Brussels is as mean as it is unruly.
I do have to admit I also feel the UK is currently being overrun with too many people who will fail to make a valid contribution to our cause, when people come to London on a Euro Passport to simply beg and send their forty pounds a day "earnings" back to Romania or Bulgaria then clearly the system is broken, we have been saying that for years but systematic governments have ignored this political hot potato as the answer is clearly a move away from Europe which, let's face it will never happen in my lifetime as there is simply not the leadership in place to see it through. But on the other hand when I see comments from basically well fed and watered Brits decrying aid to starving homeless people who are victims of an unprecedented disaster through no fault of their own it saddens me greatly, we are a caring passionate Nation and a proud Nation despite our current lack of a figurehead of worth to keep those traditions in place, if you ever start to doubt that we still hold such values close to our hearts then take a look at the funeral of Harold Jellicoe Percival this week, a lone ex RAF soldier who died at 99 years of age, he had outlived his siblings and had no children, he worked as ground crew with the famous Dam-busters squadron and after leaving the Army lived a solitary existence, but following an appeal by the undertakers for mourners to attend the ex serviceman's funeral over two thousand people including ex-servicemen and women turned up and filled the church and even the street outside in the pouring rain, that to me is what my country stands for and represents, the voice of humility and respect for others, they are values that even Hitler and his mighty armies could never overcome, he found to his cost that you cannot fight truth and honesty.
 So the reality is we still have that heart, but i fear it is a heart without a head to lead it, we have politicians who are now so interbred and image sensitive that their traditional values have been watered down to an almost non-existent level, they are as out of touch with reality as the people who made such acidic comments concerning aid to the Philippines but as much a part of the reason why they were made in the first place. It is time we had some proper leadership in this country and as Sir John Major so rightly said in an article this week, it needs to come from within the ranks not from the Officer and Gentleman's club, we need an experienced and capable pair of hands to help cope with the realities of life in Britain in 2013 not silver spoon fed ones.

A Famous Battle against Periplaneta Australasiae (or Roachy for short)

Apparently Cockroaches can fly.. I kid you not, mind you its not something a Brit would be completely up to speed with as thankfully we have very few of said bugs even more so the airborne variety, though thankfully fly screens on the windows and doors here in OZ usually keep them in their natural habitat but when you do have the odd faux pas and forget to close one then expect to see the insect equivalent to a Lancaster bomber with eminently less rudder control heading your way! I say this with confidence and experience as one came to visit last night as I was watching Demolition Man on the TV of all things, yes you heard right I did say Demolition man, the TV is not one of Australia's strongest points in fact the Brit Sit-Com repeats are a welcome release trust me, which is just as well as they are on all the time!.
Anyway, back to my big flying friend, he came into the room and landed above my head behind the settee, then had another little buzz around until I flicked him off the wall with a newspaper. The problem was he then disappeared..... now I am not squeamish normally but when confronted with a contender for "Fat Bugs R Us" in your living room while relaxed is not my idea of entertainment, even less so when he goes AWOL after the first engagement, I had visions of him plotting his revenge with a quick mouth crawl while I slept, or slipping across a few morsels of food with his germ ridden ass dragging along it for spite, oh yes believe me it was an uneasy sleep last night, not knowing whether I was going to get a re-enactment of Sir Guy Gibson and his Dam-busters crew across the valleys of my Duvet as soon as the light went out was not a great feeling.
Luckily, morning came and I headed for the bathroom still mindfully aware that my adversary was still in the building, I showered and came into the kitchen for breakfast being ever vigilant, even checked behind the settee where the last sighting occurred and nothing, but I was not at ease I had a feeling I was being watched, it was an uneasy truce.
I ate breakfast and tidied the apartment whistling along to my favourite tune as I did so, keeping a beady eye out for you know who. Suddenly without explanation or introductions there he was! scurrying across the carpeted floor towards the glass door on to the Balcony, he was limping from our earlier incursion and was easy prey, I stepped forward with the Telegraph and let him have both barrels all at once, the deed was done I had won the day, the Luftwaffe Telegraph had struck the fatal blow to our hefty flying friend and all was well again, I just need to remember that fly screens serve a purpose over here. I will stand on sentry duty if the door is open again, I am already looking at searchlights and barrage balloons to weigh things in my favour, I have also subscribed to The Telegraph so I have ammunition aplenty, this could be a long and bloody campaign.

#HS2 and jobs for the boys.

To err is human to err and know it is foolish, to err with billions of tax payers money should have been made a treasonable offence at the start of the twenty first century but I doubt that will ever become a reality and it is with faltering hope for the sake of everyone in the UK that this ridiculous #HS2 idea is put to rest before another penny is spent in conceiving and defending it. I am sure the idea in itself has merit, after all it is no secret that the UK has an appallingly outdated, overpriced and cramped rail network, it desperately needs modernisation but in the same breath you could apply the very same statement to our health service, police service,schools ad infinitum, you name it they are all at breaking point. So you may ask and rightly so why the push for #HS2 when there are already so many other existing issues that require re-organisation and additional funding?
Without being a doomsayer one would need to go back to the days of William The Conqueror, a bastard boy of Viking descent who split England up and gave much of the land to his Norman friends before his death as well as placing his son William on the throne, something his older brother Robert obviously disagreed with as they fought until William's death in 1100 and thus their younger brother Henry became king, if you see a pattern emerging here then you wouldn't be wrong, jobs for the boys is another term for it and that is exactly what we have here today with #HS2 albeit slightly be smudged by political smoke screens and posturing and the inevitable spin, the Norman descended land owners are still of the same dynasty and it is those money men of this once great Anglo-Saxon Isle who will yet again rest assured have their way.
You may now be forgiven for thinking that I have slightly lost the plot and that the men in white coats and a straight jacket are but a street away from closing in on this introspective Shropshire man who paints such a picture of skulduggery and cronyism in these modern times but spare me The Tower and a spell in the stocks just yet, for as an Englishman am I not part of one of the greatest democracy's that was ever formed? Am I not granted the right to peaceful protest and a vote at birth? Well, strictly yes but only if our inherited Norman money men say so.

Too many times over the past few years I have wanted at least a say or God help me a vote on critical decisions that are shaping the country of my birth but it seems that right is slowly being ebbed away like the moon talks to the tides to keep them in their place, "resistance is futile" to quote a well known adversary of Captain Jean Luc Picard.  If the #HS2 were put to a referendum tomorrow it would be voted out, the same as the vote on membership of the European Union, these are but two items that I feel I will be able to play no part in and as an Englishman it makes my blood boil, scarce wonder voting in elections is at its lowest ever ebb when it is but a token voice for a clutch of aristocratic nincompoops who couldn't control a food fight at a kindergarten without having a firm of consultants to asses the risk. We are being held to ransom by people so far removed from the actual reality of daily life that their ability to govern is diminished beyond repair and will be for at least the next two generations and that's if we introduce new blood now, I predict the next great leader of any repute that takes up the mantle for the common man and gets his full support will not be of Oxford or Cambridge University descent and education, I suspect they will arrive from further North. The sooner the better for me, I would love to go to a Polling station and see what all the fuss is about I would also dearly love the right to say where and when my hard earned taxes were spent and that would not include yet another useless firm of consultants to assess the impact of such unnecessary follies as #HS2 

I haven't got a plan... so nothing can go wrong.

Somewhat sunburned and finding thirty four degrees an odd combination with the word November I have retired to my writing cave with a peeling face and arms wondering if we Brits will ever be designed for such temperatures or if we should stick to our sub-thirty summers and sub-zero winters. The answer of course is to rejoice in both, the wonders of modern day flights mean we can enjoy the other side of the world in twenty four hours so I guess it's something we should get used to.
This trip has been quite a tough one in many ways so far, the flying for starters and then the heat but also a strange call from the UK that I have never felt before, perhaps it happens when you jet around the world often that eventually your natural home calls out to you, whatever it is it's an uneasy feeling and I don't much care for it. My writing always gets inspired when I am over here however and I have settled into several thousand words a day already and that can only be a good thing, I covered a recent transport show in Newcastle and I found it very interesting gleaning facts and figures off owners and taking pictures of such wonderful pieces of machinery that had clearly never seen the road salt that our UK trucks have to endure. The gleaming alloy and stainless steel on show was testament to the dedication these guys have in keeping their lorries in pristine condition despite the work they do.
There are changes going on all round at the moment, some welcome some not so welcome but with change always comes new challenges, something we humans are very good at creating and even worrying about. It was indeed Spike Milligan who came up with one of my favourite all time quotes "We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong" I love that line, it says a lot about the man who said it, his mind was not governed by such restrictions we place on ourselves, he thought in a manner that we mere mortals could never do.


The darkness has descended on Newcastle and another day is fought and won, only time will tell how easy or how hard the fight will continue to be but I for one have never been a quitter so expect to see me somewhere in the melee doing just what I have always been used to doing and that is fighting for survival, I have had a lifetime doing so and that will never change, enjoy your Tuesday UK I am off to welcome Wednesday with a smile.

The Minority Vote?

They say that the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions, maybe there is a valid point in that statement, yet I doubt it would ever stop someone who believes in their chosen course from moving ever onwards to their rendezvous with certain calamity. I suppose in reality we all have a lemming-type attitude somewhere hidden beneath the surface, be it exposed in our determination to see a task through to the finish whatever the outcome or be stubborn enough to stick with say a relationship that clearly bears little or no fruit, these are clear examples of sticking with your "wing man" that we really should have learnt from many years ago but still persist in continuing.

Having flown over to Australia in the last few days I was given ample time courtesy of British Airways to ponder such things as why we are such an antagonistic race, surely if we all got on with each other and shared the resources we have more fairly the world would be a much better place? Instead we have wars and fights and arguments etc that just seem totally pointless, I have yet to see any politician with a gun in his or her hand stood in a trench at four in the morning waiting for someone to take a pot shot at them, no that is done by the foot soldiers who unsurprisingly don't want to be there but follow orders and obey their superiors. The fact that those superiors are people who will not get killed by a snipers bullet and fine dine and drink best champagne with other "superiors" means that is one hell of a leap of faith for the soldier.
I think if government ministers thought more about the results of war and were put on the front line to witness it first hand we would have far less conflicts than we currently do, it's easy to play war games in an armchair. I guess as we gain experience through life we see things through different eyes, some of us also have offspring that we care about deeply and hate the thought of them being brought up alongside the theatre of war and accepting it as the done thing, it should be the last resort, not the guaranteed climax to negotiations but I somehow think while we have leaders we will always have wars.

The forest fires over here in Newcastle have been very intense and at times for the population very scary. Uncontrolled fire is nature at her most fiercest, especially when fanned by such high winds that have plagued the area for the last few weeks, it's almost the "perfect storm" as far as bush fires are concerned.
While travelling over from Sydney I happened to be speaking to a very nice couple who lived in the area and we got to talking about the fires, obviously they were both concerned as the fires were a little close for comfort but during the conversation I asked why the area we were travelling along now was not being control burned in stages so that the huge bush fires were not allowed to start stretching their claws across thousands of hectares and judging by the look they gave one another they too were as perplexed as I about the seeming lack of the most obvious action, the answer I was given very much surprised me, as apparently that is exactly what the Aborigines used to do, they would control burn areas in rotation but because the "Green" group don't want burning because of wildlife and emission issues that burning is now only allowed once every six years and apparently that will soon be voted to seven. I was astonished that modern day Australia bowed to such pressure from such sentimental beings as to me a bush fire is as much a part of nature as the leaping whale in Sydney Harbour, it's planned to take place in the grand scheme of things to help keep the balance and ensure longevity and the spawning of new life, it's a classic tale of "The road to hell" as I have commented above and I fear Australia is heading for much more devastation and heartache if these vast areas of bush are controlled by the wishes and hearts of the few while the sacrifice is felt by the many. Perhaps some of those high ranking Green ministers would like to grab a hose and stand alongside the brave men and women now tackling such horrific fires, or perhaps the fine dining and champagne while having a jolly good talk about the matter is much more appealing..?

The Sunday Roast

I sometimes wonder if Sunday mornings are God's way of apologising for the previous week, I have to admit I haven't been a big believer in a greater power above since school but I can see both sides of the coin, people feel the need to believe strongly in an after life and find it hard to accept that when we die we die, they think that surely for those at the top of the food chain there has to be more? It's an argument that we will never get the real answer to, so until then we are stuck with religion, though as recent events in Kenya have shown the whole of mankind would certainly be better off without any form of it.
I watch the fighting and bombing on TV at the moment with much dismay, I guess I am a pacifist, I prefer not to use violence to get my point across so it seems incredible to me that anyone would stoop to harm or even kill another human being for the sake of an imaginary friend or great redeemer. Just how difficult would it be for all the armies to lay down their weapons and walk away? The answer is not difficult at all for the people doing the fighting as they would be overjoyed to stop and go home to their loved ones. So the question is why don't they do it?
If you need an answer to that you need only to look at men who play the civilised card but really underneath have a hidden agenda. No-one who sends bombers over a city or sends humans with explosives into a packed shopping centre can ever be called civilised, they have stepped on to a path that is very difficult if not impossible to ever get off as the element and realities of war are soon forgotten and it becomes a matter of pride, be it a Nation or a band of terrorists as pride we all know is a much more lethal weapon than any suicide bomber or fighter aircraft.
History has shown us that the gun leads to the table, so why don't we cut out the middle man and go straight to the latter to sort out our differences? Alas it will never happen while we have a multi-million pound arms industry, that is akin to the likes of drugs cartels, they feed on misery and if there is not enough fighting going on then money will be paid to ensure some is soon started, it's the way of the world. If you have noticed an underlying theme through this piece then you won't be wrong, money is the root of all evil and it has ensured that wars have a never ending place in our society, be it between two drugs gangs or two super powers you can rest assured money and financial gain will be embroiled in the mix, greed knows no limits.
So where does that leave someone like me who see's the obvious? Well actually as much as I hate to say it my thoughts are worthless because I don't have millions of pounds and my voice is far too small to be heard, I am the silent majority, one who sits back and sighs at the idiosyncrasy of grown men killing women and children because of a religion or money, but it's something that has been a part of our society since we first picked up a club or a rock and lived in caves, its in our genes so it will never disappear from our society, but like John Lennon's vision in the song "Imagine" we peaceful bunch can dream about it, the reality however seems as far away as ever.

No place like home a flight to OZ.

Excerpt.
There is no place like home. A Flight to OZ. Out on Kindle 20th October 2013

Chapter One: A Flight Of Fancy

Heading down to Gatwick Airport one sunny Tuesday afternoon in the middle of May was definitely not on my busy agenda six months before, come to think of it three months before, but my wish to see the “Land of plenty” kept pushing and nagging at me until I decided the call needed to be answered. In that 3 short months I had planned out and scheduled my foray over to Sydney Australia (Manly to be precise) and set my course for the adventure of a lifetime. But first (and if you are me this is a BIG first) I had to fly over there via Dubai and then on to Kingsford Smith International. That may be a fun filled time for the majority of the population but for me with my intense dislike of heights it was a huge call, add to that my mechanical knowledge about anything from hydraulics to gas cookers and you see why every noise creak or groan from my aircraft was an imminent disaster about to happen and the plane would be sent tumbling to Mother Earth and Haste la vista one emerging author yours truly..

Despite this minor issue however, I sat in Departures drinking my coffee on the second tier of Gatwick’s many restaurants feeling up for the adventure. It was just bravado I can assure you of that, but I was intent on going and if that was the case I had to fly. I waited the three long hours to board and duly walked the “gangplank” to the plane, it was far bigger than any plane I had been on before, (to those of you who rely on such information to make your life complete it was a Boeing 777) and it had two wings and I can assure you that was very comforting for me. I sat in my seat next to a young Indian woman who was clearly part of a family of four, but I must have looked very threatening because within seconds of them realizing she would be sat next to me for the next seven hours they dumped their young lad in that seat and she promptly moved across one, he must have been all of seven years old, I could almost hear their thought’s and I chuckled to myself, as surely if I was unsafe for her to sit by why would the kid be any better off?  Anyway, after witnessing the family giving me their son as a sacrificial lamb we went through the drill of lifebelts and seat belts at which point I closed my eyes as I didn’t want to be reminded of crashing into the sea or falling out of the sky but thankfully we were soon taxiing down the runway and within a matter of seconds all the throttles let loose and we were airborne.

Now if you like flying, at this point you will be looking out of the window, organising your lunch and selecting your favourite movie. If, like me you are not so keen, the air hostess will be slowly peeling your fingers out of the seat cushion and pushing you back from the “brace for impact” position whilst slapping you very hard across the face to try and stop you yelling at the top of your voice “We are all gonna die!”. This done she smiled at me and asked me if I needed a drink. There is telepathic for you, it must be a pre-requisite at flight attendant school to get the nervous flyer's pissed first so they fall asleep quickest and the rest of the flight will be a cinch.

So with the prospect of alcohol all of a sudden this flying thing started to look a little more acceptable, I asked for a Scotch and smiled at her, I smugly thought to myself that I didn’t get this treatment last time I flew to Holland or France, a couple of stiff Whiskey’s and I will face a dog fight in a Spitfire with no bullets let alone a seven hour flight on a Boeing. My excitement as those of you who do fly regularly was very short lived as I noticed aforementioned hostess trotting down the aisle with a miniature bottle of Whiskey that was a complete understatement of the word miniature in itself, in fact it was so small she had placed the bottle in the glass so that she could find it on the tray when she got to me. That in itself is just a small misdemeanour as I thought all it means is she will use a lot more shoe leather during the flight fetching and carrying beverage of that small amount but then  when it was actually poured it was somewhat like the food you get served, you want it right up to the point it is placed in front of you and you actually smell it, this wasn’t Scotch but more essence of dyed tap water matured and bottled in Kazakhstan from Camel Urine and desert grit. Whatever it was, it resembled Whiskey but it sure didn’t taste like whiskey, in fact I was sure I heard Robbie Burns let out a spine chilling cry as the top was spun from the bottle.

 My bottom lip was now firmly in my lap but I drank it anyway and another five before the hostess said “No more sir”. The fact I could sink half a bottle of Teacher’s Scotch in a normal night’s drinking and still sing every word to “Sweet Chariot” while auditioning for Dancing On Ice while Hollie Willoughby balances on one shoulder should give you a clue that I was not even close to pissed, but the bar was now closed to Mr. James so I had to divert my attention elsewhere from the grumbling engines and flexing wings that were about to break and cause our imminent deaths (that does happen you know). The answer to my prayers came very swiftly and from very close proximity to my seat in the form of the on board entertainment, no, not the TV on the seat in front of me but my fellow passengers or more succinctly the one’s sitting next to me. It may come as no surprise that the Indian female sat in the next but one seat had not suddenly decided to do a belly dance, no far from it in fact she was sat with her head against the TV screen positioned on the seat in front of her in the semi “crash position” I had so perfectly displayed just an hour before during take-off looking like she was praying. She may well have been but it was a little unnerving as to why and I thought to myself if there was something she knew I didn’t did I ought to be joining her? I got my answer when she was still there five and a half hours later, you guessed it she didn’t like flying either, these women eh? Where’s their courage? It’s just a little plane ride…

So I sat there smirking with my arms folded with a cheesy grin overjoyed with the fact that someone else on the plane was actually more nervous than myself, I grabbed my headphones and looked at my TV selection which was full of repeats… but it was also at that point I noticed the seven year old next to me who was busy watching some Indian cartoon and was chuckling and giggling away but also fidgeting. Now trust me I hate fidgets, it’s a real pet hate of mine, topped with that he kept knocking my arm off the arm rest, I know it was his armrest but show some respect young man who is the adult here?  I planned my counter attack with military precision; I duly scrolled through all the movies until I spied the perfect specimen, so I clicked play and sat back with a grin reminiscent of Mr. Bean at his best and waited in anticipation. I was not to be disappointed, I chose “Pirates of The Caribbean at World’s End” simply because I knew damned well he would not be able to resist having a quick peek across at my screen. This of course was the case and before the first hour of the film was up he had joined his mother praying at the monitor in front of him while assuming “that” position as he was so shit scared. I have to admit I sat back in my seat chuckling like some schoolboy who just flicked teachers ass with a paper clip and got away with it, but also very happy that the fidgeting had stopped despite my rather less than honourable method in getting him to cease such behaviour but hey sometimes being the grown up can be fun too!

After all this excitement I thought it may be prudent to take a nap. Well, when I say nap I use the term loosely, have you ever tried to nap on a plane? No…seriously?  Well I tried but I just couldn’t, it was impossible in between the bumps in the invisible air we were flying through and the seat belt warning “bong” coming on to warn us of immediate disaster and the wings dropping off (that happens you know) and the smell of burnt sausage and scrambled egg getting delivered on a trolley that had more rattles than Fisher Price and V-Tech could possibly produce in one lifetime it was a non-starter, top that off with the sound of the toilet being flushed more times than a virgin bride at a swingers party and I was always going to find it a struggle.

 So with sleep out of the question I once again turned to my screen in front of me and selected a few episodes of “The Mentalist” (it reminded me of home as it was all repeats) but at least it helped the time slip by and before I knew what was happening I had wasted an entire hour of my lifetime pre-judging the outcome of an American drama series, which I rarely watched or bothered with at the best of times but I assume having a captive audience is more of a necessity than an optional requirement with most of those programs in any case.
 After what seemed a life sentence sat next to the two Buddha’s who were still chanting for all they were worth (the boy seemed to be shouting parlay?) and the excruciating acting ability of yet more dodgy American drama actors we were more or less about ready to land in Dubai, though at the very mention of that fact the look on the Indian Woman’s face opposite me turned from one of mild panic to sheer terror as we started our descent and I have to admit it was enough to have me in stitches, but it was only matched by the face of her seven year old boy who would be having nightmares for weeks courtesy of Davey Jones locker and one very vindictive Englishman sat next to him. The descent could be seen on the screen in front of me, something the Mother and son were obviously not concerned about as even though they were leaning so close to the screen it wasn’t actually switched on, so I watched as we dropped below Ten thousand feet and found myself calculating in my head just when we would be safe if we dropped out of the sky, the fact it’s about twenty five feet without sustaining serious injury escaped me as I sat there randomly thinking that now we are below ten thousand feet we are safe, so I looked across again at my nervous neighbours and saw that the poor woman had by now grabbed some beads and was holding them tightly in her hand as we headed in-bound to Dubai, I am not sure how they would protect her in a crash but maybe it’s one of those religious things whereby she gets thirty virgins and a Porsche if she keeps hold of her beads for the entire crash, in any case I found myself feeling a little jealous that I didn’t have such a security blanket (or beads) so instead my wondering mind and boredom let my hand wonder to the TV and I switched on my in-flight entertainment to outside cameras…

Now… forgive me if I am being stupid here but you may have got just a small hint that I don’t like heights or planes and especially looking through the windows, but here I was suddenly confronted with a bird’s eye view of the outside, looking down at the ground as well as a strategically placed camera on the top of the tail looking forwards. To say it was poor timing was an understatement, I nearly pinched the woman’s beads and joined her at the temple of in-flight entertainment screens as I saw very small cars travelling directly below me and an airport miles in the distance, I also learned from that view almost immediately that ten thousand feet was still very bloody high and could still kill us all if the wings dropped off (it really does happen you know) so I suddenly shot forward and pressed every button I could get my hand on to blank the view, suddenly The Mentalist looked a good bet even the repeats.  This duly done I slowly sat back in my seat and watched the descent on the screen in a Sat Nav format, much easier and far less graphic! The plane circled once and we slowly coasted towards the runway, I was sure that by the time we landed those beads would have to be surgically removed from the Indian lady next to me, such was the pressure that she was hanging on to them, so I watched her as we gently touched down in Dubai International, a place where my Anglo Saxon fair skin would be put to the test in temperatures reaching thirty eight degrees by the way and to my utter astonishment she calmly sat back in her seat, smiled at her husband and children and went straight back into “mummy” mode.. From sheer terror to complacent caring mummy in the screech of a set of wheels and some terra firma… to be honest I know how she felt, except the Mummy bit of course.

Now, if you have been used to farmers with wellington boots and holes in their jacket pockets while wearing caps that don’t fit and bemoaning how poor they all are then Dubai International will come as quite a culture shock. From the full height waterfall stretching some sixty feet in the air to the gold embossed hand rails on the escalators through to the ornamental pool full of Koi Carp and surrounding vegetation the place was a wonder to behold never mind venturing into the City itself. It was a most beautiful place and very well organised with shuttle trains between gates and young people walking around with “Can I help you” on their T shirts all of them more than able to guide you through this metropolis of an Airport. The shops stretched for half a mile and included every big name you could think of, even the clocks in the walkways were made by Rolex; It was like the Willy Wonka’s of bling, from gold merchants to silversmiths from Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, Lacoste, Calvin Klein, Couch, Gucci you name it they were queueing up for floor space and I can tell you for a country lad from Shropshire this was quite some sight even if my Barclaycard one thousand pound credit limit was as much use as a prayer mat at an English Defence League meeting, it wouldn’t buy me the complimentary display box never mind the jewels that go inside it, but I was still in awe of the place.  

 I did though at this point also realise that I needed to turn my mind to the next flight, I tried to imagine just what fourteen hours on an Airplane would be like given my history but being happy to have got the first seven hours over with was somewhat of a triumph in itself and just how bad could it be? So I headed for a coffee shop to celebrate my success that the wings stayed on and I didn’t fall forty thousand feet to my death (It happens you know). I wondered over to a money bureau as I was clean out of Dirhams, though I have to admit the exchange rate seemed awfully good at six to one but that was until I found out a coffee is nineteen Dirhams, it seems even their God giveth and taketh away.  So there I was sitting at a Costa coffee and soon enough I was asked if I wanted to plug my laptop in and did I know there was free airport Wi-Fi? All the things you would not expect from the same establishment in the UK. I sat down and let my long suffering Facebook buddies know that I was safe and sound on the ground in Dubai followed by the usual horrendous Airport photos from my iPhone with half your body and a third of your face caught in the frame along with three blurred people walking in the background, oh and don’t forget Twitter and all the other social media outlets we tend to inform when we do something remotely different, in fact I am sure I collected another twenty Instagram followers that afternoon too but they only lasted a few hours.  By the time I had done the rounds and let everyone know I was still breathing I was ready to go and line up for the next bout of flying.  I dragged my feet across to check in and looked out on to the runway; there stood the biggest aircraft currently flying passengers in the world today (Airbus A380 for you anoraks again), it looked huge and I was quite heartened by that fact as that meant less turbulence, surely?

As I sat on the plane waiting for everyone to board I noticed that it was actually quite new, it had that lovely new smell about it the same as you get from a new car, it was also very clean which is another sure sign it hadn’t been subjected to any food fights or sick passengers. I was sat just behind the left wing on an aisle seat this time, the size of the wing meant I couldn’t see a lot which heartened me as that meant the ground would be obscured too. As the passengers loaded I noticed the queue was not very long and sure enough within ten minutes everyone was on-board and the doors were being closed, this meant that I had three seats to lie across and sleep on, surely now I could manage to shake hands with Mr. Sandman and meet the rest of his family!  Moments later and we were airborne at the end of the runway, which at the speed we were doing is definitely a good thing, so I keeled over and went to sleep, well I tried to go to sleep, I dozed and that was about it, it was 14 hours of hell and I hated it, but the means justified the ends in my eyes even though I felt every little bump and jolt, I think I may be more suited as a Mariner than a Pilot due to the fact I can swim but definitely not fly.  Thirteen hours and fifty minutes later on what turned out to be a very uneventful flight we lined up for a landing in Kingsford Smith International Airport, we circled over the Harbour bridge and the pilot pointed it out but I of course looked at my feet as the sight of the ground from that high up would have had me once more in the crash position and needing the cushions to be surgically removed, we dropped on to the runway at five minutes past five in the morning and yes you guessed it, it was raining for England only this time it was OZ style.

Enjoy it now.

I am beginning to enjoy my writing very much, in fact it is becoming a way of life. I had the poor fortune of losing one of those items one would take for granted a few months ago while visiting Australia. While I was there the family had a move around and my beloved piano was placed against an adjoining wall. That wall happened to be adjoining our neighbours and they heard every note when i played meaning I lost the ability to play for some considerable time. But as with any instrument it keeps calling you if it is something that enriches your life and so my piano slowly won me over to the point where I had a move around while on my own one afternoon, lo and behold i got my piano to sit against the far wall by using my grey matter and I can't tell you how good it feels to once again play, like seeing an old friend again.
We take so much for granted these days and complain bitterly if things don't go our way, we have become accustomed to having what we want when we want it, something Mother nature never intended for any species as it takes away the ability to fight or work for what you need. The stalking of prey and fight for survival so prevalent in animals translates in the human world to a trip to Sainsbury's and Googling the symptoms of our latest illness, somewhat of a break in tradition as far as the origin of the species is concerned. I wonder just what the distant future holds for us, as I am sure we will evolve as the technology we have now evolves with us leading to a more and more sterile existence, I think I may be glad that I will not be around to witness such a time.

Stop, Look and listen

Distant bells that sing a background sonnet
To the green and pleasant land that stretches out before
The birdsong cuts its way across the shimmering fields
As cattle stand and stare their tails swishing to the beat

The sun sits in the bluest sky no feathered clouds to fear
It's warming blanket smothers every nook and cranny
Only shadows spoil her fun and leave a refuge from her charms
The hot and bothered flee to seek that shaded corner

The gentlest breeze carries heaven's very scent and teases senses
It's warmth and richness lifting up the soul with every breath
Insects sing and dance as if this day will never end
Their gentle background humming belies their manic stance

How sad it is such fayre is offered yet we choose to ignore
For further on beyond the fields that surely hold life's key
A constant stream of metal flows along the blackest stream
Like angry ants they file on through not looking left nor right

To them this show of earth's own soul is of no consequence
Their goal a lonely path that promises rewards of gold and silver
Single minded, ignorant and blinkered to real wealth,
From such shadows I appeared, I ran away and now I am richer than ever.
 
  

Ludlow Hospital Shambles..NHS Waste...Time for Change

Interesting times here in the UK as the Health service finances come under scrutiny once more with billions found wasted on a computer programme that is not even workable. I hope the instigators of this disaster are sent to The Tower as a century or two ago this would have been the case, but oh no we allow such stupidity these days. It is however all the more galling if you are a South Shropshire resident or more pointedly a Ludlow resident as the £127 million pound community hospital proposed and approved over a period of many years now seems to be sitting with it's head in the Health budget cuts noose.
Quite how so-called "experts" can justify wasting billions on one hand and then deny an already hard done by County of much needed services is quite honestly a travesty of the highest proportion. Our very fine MP Philip Dunne has said that there will be some "hard hitting questions" if this hospital is scuppered due to a 1.2 million a year deficit in its running costs, I would suggest that the people in charge ought to join our so called NHS computer experts in The Tower. Society seems to allow for such people to make such blunders and walk away as if it is "just one of those things" I often think back to Lord Archer being jailed for a few years for lying in court, it affected a newspaper and a few egos, yet he received a stiff sentence for his crime, so why should some civil servant who has miscalculated to the tune of billions to this country walk free from such a mess that clearly could cost someone their life?
Perhaps if we started locking some of these fools up for a minimum stretch of ten years they might think twice before launching into another hair-brained scheme that has no hope of working, I for one think they are a disgrace to this Country and should be kicked out of their jobs without further delay at the very least, if you were a tax payer and you owed one thousand pounds you have to pay it and rightly so if its due, but in turn that taxpayer should demand that his hard earned tax contribution isn't handed to Biffo The Bear and spent like water on some hair brained ill conceived pie-eyed illogical computer program that was never required in the first place, those billions would have built many hospitals countrywide and indeed some of that money would would have safe guarded the Ludlow Hospital Ad Infinitum. I hope those idiots who spearheaded this stupidity losing all this money at the same time don't sleep too comfortably in their beds, I am sure their grandparents would have been very proud of them...

The Sunday Roast.

I would imagine the President of the United States is not sleeping quite so well in his bed as he used to. Pushing ahead the vote to bomb Syria while his own country suffers from the affects of the world recession and parts of the USA are also still in various types of disarray from hurricanes and tornado's is a mighty big decision, in fact if I was from New Orleans I would be pretty miffed that several million pounds worth of missiles will be heading for foreign lands while the tin shack you live in drips water and is frighteningly cold and insecure. But aren't all leaders guilty of foreign intervention when in reality their own house needs to be put in order? I am not making light of the atrocities being carried out in Syria, but my guess is without the intervention from so called "allies" the Syrian uprising would have been quashed years ago and chemical weapons would never have been deployed, so in a way we are all responsible for the cruel deaths we see on the TV screens before us.
Dictators as history has all too frequently shown us have a self belief that will lead eventually to thousands and thousands dying simply because they think they are invincible, but I think seeing so much bloodshed is making the world very tired of the West removing a dictator only to have the country split into a million pieces afterwards with all the many factions vying for power. If we leave Syria to its own affairs and stop arming the rebels Assad will take control again and the world will have an uneasy peace. This is not what people want but history shows us we cannot and should not intervene as the outcome is all too common, we get dragged into a conflict that has no end. It should be with a very heavy heart and much consultation that Obama reaches for that red button, if not for the people of Syria then for the people in his own back yard who are suffering from a horrendous lack of financial aid, after all charity begins at home does it not?

The real feel of Autumn is upon us and to be fair we have had a great summer by our standards, in fact a week of sunshine would constitute a summer theses days never mind a whole month! So now we think of heating bills electricity bills becoming larger and larger as we slip towards Christmas time and of course all the energy companies will HAVE to put their prices up as they are starving and destitute. I think its long past time that the UK government took back the powers of these parasitic service companies and brought the bills more into line with other European companies, who actually own the UK supply of energy due to our own mismanagement and apathy, I mean why would a French electricity company risk losing customers at home with higher bills when it can hit the pockets of UK residents instead?  It was mooted this week that the government is looking at buying back the energy supply contracts and running them as a National company, now that would be an election winner if ever I saw one.

I am a big fan of Boris Johnson, he has done much for London and the Olympics was a shining star that will never fade in the hearts of the British people, just how much Boris had to do with it remains to be seen but his conduct during and after the games was excellent. Unusually for Boris I totally disagreed with his proposal this month to penalise trucks in Central London that do not carry a cyclist aware set of equipment while in the City. This is plainly another absurd cost and yet more overheads for an industry that has been hard hit by the recession and in my humble experience of some thirty years driving trucks/buses/cars etc is that our good friend the cyclist is getting a little too much of the cream while disobeying nearly every law in the road traffic act. Admittedly they are very vulnerable and very small compared to trucks but a truck driver cant put his feet on the ground and move his truck two feet from the road in a heartbeat.
 Make no mistake if a truck is in London it's there to work, they pay for the roads the cyclist enjoys and that's how it should be as they do the most damage, but there has to be an element of awareness and self preservation on the behalf of the cyclist, all too often we see them without lights, pedalling on pavements or in a stupid road position that the poor truck driver has to make 44 tonnes compensate for.  I am a keen cyclist, I go up into woods and forests and enjoy it immensely, I am lucky i live in the country.
 I would suggest to Boris that rather than burden the poor haulage industry with yet more legislation to deliver in the capitol that he puts the money into more cycle lanes, or even a training module where a cyclist actually gets to sit in a 44 tonne truck and see the problems they and their two wheeled self powered obstacle in the road actually cause for even the most experienced of heavy haulage driver. When all is said and done, without the services of these huge lorries and the guys that drive and run them we would have no fuel in our tanks or food on our tables and even more ironically the bike shop would have no bikes, so as my Grandad used to say, "Don't flog the willing horse" Boris.

Now on Kindle, hope you enjoy.

Nice to see the first responses are favourable to my poetry book now out on Kindle  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DRJ3OIQ  many thanks to those who have purchased the book and even more so to those that have given it such excellent reviews. My first novel "A False Twilight" is also now out and getting good first reviews, http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E1RHJFM  if you havent done so already please download for the bargain price of 0.99c and enjoy.

The Sunday Roast. Real Life.

Blaming governments for all our ills is pretty much the standard these days. We moan when they make decisions and we bemoan their lack of decision making.
There is no one single fix available for the huge range of things that any government may encounter yet we turn to them like a frightened congregation turns to it's God in times of trouble. This symptomatic rush to expect a magic wand from our leaders is indeed true folly, yet we still look up to them to provide the answers and when they get caught out spying on us or make decisions we don't accept it soon becomes apparent that our God may just be someone else's Satan, indeed it's a thankless task. The answer is simple, many years ago governments ran departments and national companies yet were seldom seen or heard of, but now they are in the news every minute of the day. Governments have become too involved in our day to day lives because we have cried to them so often about how terrible things are, as a result we have now "over-sensitized" our leaders allowing them to believe we actually want their intervention in everyday life, it has become in affect a "Nannie state" the answer is in our own hands, we need to start taking a little more responsibility for our own actions and hence expect less from government, in return we may gain more freedom, nice thought anyway.

The first of the month arrives and with it the ordeal of getting the kids back to school, new uniforms are all pressed and washed and the worry of new classes and new school's enters the heads of parents and children alike. It's a bitter sweet time as many of us parents will be seeing  our kids go to new schools and face new adventures, the worry never leaves you as a parent but it can be equally stressful on your off spring, something we well remember despite our own advancing years !



I guess we all have times when life is tough, but what happens when those tough times build up over a long period?. You never know just how you will react to such things until they are upon you, of late I guess I have had more than my fair share, life has thrown all its dirty washing at just one man it seems and I happen to be the only one stood up. I watch the atrocities in Syria and around the world and my sanity tells me that there are so many more people worse off, I guess it's like your Grandmothers voice from your childhood, trying in some vain way to bring reason where very little exists. I would be lying if i said I was happy at this precise moment, in fact I don't think I have personally ever felt so low, it's a difficult thing to live with and its at times like these where you need a sense of humour, a very good one, but even that has deserted me. Being a poet and a writer only compounds such issues of feeling so down as so much of a burden is carried with that thought train that rattles continuously through my head like the six a.m express, it never stops.
There is little I can do to stop any of the torment at the moment other than the obvious route out, its a well worn path by much more distinguished folk than I, so I guess for once at least I would be in good company, but I have always lived with the thought that there may be light at the end of the tunnel, though at the moment that theory is being severely tested as the future strays from dark room to darker room. I guess if you have never been in this position these will seem strange words, but to me they knit together like that scarf your favourite auntie used to knit and there lies my biggest worry. Either way I guess my thoughts and deeds will have little or indeed no impact on the world we live in, much like my life up to now, after all "There is always someone worse off" didn't Gran used to say?.

A nice walk in Ludlow...

Had a lovely walk across the top of Whitcliffe above Ludlow this afternoon with my two youngsters, thought I may share it with you, the castle was absolutely stunning as always. Its no surprise that Ludlow is so popular with tourists far and wide, but I view it with mixed emotions as it is where I went to school (Ludlow Grammar School) and where I spent most of my youth and I see it as a very different town to the one I knew back then, but I guess change is inevitable, Hope You enjoy the pictures of our afternoon out.