Fine To Speed.

While we sit and bemoan our pot-holed roads and shabby health service we would do well to remember those two low life individuals who had a lovers spat and ended up behind bars a few weeks ago. How much I wonder did that little investigation cost us the taxpayer while the two of them played their tit for tat argument in the public arena?. Far from jailing the two miscreants I would have slapped a half million pound fine on each of them and paid for some pot holes to be repaired, preferably by those two miserable snivelling autocrats along with a few more I could think of in a chain gang style reminiscent of the America's in the 30's.
Why should we detain two filthy rich liars at Her Majesty's pleasure?. It is no surprise that we are in such a tawdry financial state when such people are pandered to or even bothered with by the Police. What a complete waste of Public money over a speeding offence. Fine them some big bucks and get them filling pot-holes for a week or two, now THAT is justice !.

I do just wonder why kids spelling is so abhorrent these days. We have trainees through the company that cannot spell or much even write. Any form of written work is a complete disaster from them as they simply are not up to keeping records, it's bordering on insanity. Well, then again perhaps we shouldn't be surprised when we see American youngsters programmes with misspelled words such as EaSTAR (honestly i kid you not including the capitol letters)  etc, now some cool programmer in the States must have thought he had struck gold when he thought of putting "star" in Easter but come on guys.. these are kids, they will see it and soon they will be spelling it like that, it's a problem I am afraid that will only get worse as time goes on and we get Americanisms like organize and socialize and "crock of shit".  Rest my case.

Our new Collie pup is making herself at home... by chewing everything that can fit in it's tiny mouth, at the moment she has a par chant for coal... of all things, in fact she has eaten enough of late to rival the Flying Scotsman on the steep climb up Shap with a head wind, quite what the outcome will be for her intestines or her passenger carrying abilities remains to be seen. She is however now finding out what "Down" means and also the word "No". This in itself is no real surprise as she is hearing those two words twice every 60 seconds at the very least. It all adds to the wonderful experience that is puppy ownership and if you are not prepared to have more bite marks than a Transylvania prostitute on everything in your house and have a welcome "poop" some mornings to greet your bleary-eyed start to the day then i suggest it's not for you.  I don't suppose anyone wants a puppy by any chance ? :-) #justkidding

Sunday Roast.

It seems the Europe debate is set to rumble on, it could even come to a head as soon as this week, but we shall have to wait and see. Europe has become a very different place to the naive select few Countries that made the first bold steps towards a single market amongst their closest neighbours way back in the early 70's.
In those days it seemed like a gilt edged plan full of promise and a wonderful way to build a solid trading bond with allies that couldn't be broken.
As with all massive institutions however, there comes a time when the sheer weight of different opinions and bureaucracy has turned it round into a slow moving overbearing giant with little or no relation to the sharp, fit forward looking ideas it started out with originally.
This is very much the case apparent with our own wonderful NHS, now overburdened with a management that has lost complete control of finances and direction due to the sheer weight of opinions, targets and lack of strong leadership, in effect no-one is singing from the same hymn sheet, the nurses are over-worked as more and more legislation is heaped upon them along with targets that simply can't be met, what was a straight forward simplistic idea that benefited everyone in the Country is now a wounded angel with a heart that must surely soon slow to a murmur and eventually die. If this all sounds familiar, well take a look at Europe, what started as a fine idea has grown to be unrecognisable.
 So if we jump ship with Europe, walk away and say thank you but no thank you my guess is that we could then drop all the legislation that burdens such institutions like the NHS and effectively save it from the brink, sorry if that sounds very simplistic but i believe it to actually be the case.
For too long Doctors and Nursing staff have had to put up with plastic managers dreamt up by our European brethren and placed there to "protect" our human rights. Poppycock. What has happened in reality is that we now have good staff working ridiculous hours on poor pay while these autocrats with their smart suites and skirts waltz around with a clip board's with yet another form for them to fill in while on twice the money of the people actually doing the job, sounds like Europe still?, you bet it does.
  Here is a bold statement, if i was given the reigns of the NHS today, I would wager my reputation that I could half it's budget within 12 months and turn it into the pride of this country as it always was deemed to be. No, I am not joking and neither am I some magician, but I do have one thing that is coherently missing from this now aimlessly wondering lost giant, I am from the private sector. I have been in business over 22 years, I know how to run a business and I know what the requirements are to stay afloat and be competitive, these are key elements that until put in place will see the demise of the NHS, it will be privatised, in fact its on its way so now because it is deemed a poison challis by all politicians who themselves have no business acumen let alone the will to tackle the issues which will leave it to wither and die due to pure mismanagement, nothing else. So go on Mr Cameron, let me have the reigns for 12 months, let's face it I could hardly do worse could I?.

I do believe we have probably had our summer. One day this month we received a whole two days of sunshine and reached a heady 22 degrees. It's now half way through May, 6 weeks from the longest day and the log burner is still in constant use, leaving one or two of us scratching our heads over the Global warming saga. One thing that really did strike me as quite hilarious the other day was the LEZ ( London's Low Emissions Zone) legislation. It made me chuckle that Londoners have the toughest legislation in any City with regard to vehicle pollution and believe it to now be full of quality Oxygen that only comes second to a walk in the Shropshire hills. As much as i hate to be a party pooper just look skywards you guys... what isn't getting you from ground level is sure as hell making up for it in the sky.

I am about to go into the kitchen and grab my favourite tipple, those of you who know me will be aghast to think I am drinking Scotch this early, but no, that OTHER favourite tipple, coffee. I am sure that I would be rendered as useless as Superman with a bar of Kryptonite on his lap if I were to ever go without that first brew of the morning and despite so many claims that it is bad for you and can cause hyperactivity and can be as addictive as any drug I am sure I have it all under control, why anyone would worry about 15 cups a day is beyond me, it's just those damned scare mongers again, I can give up any time I want to....

Enjoy your Sunday I am sure you all deserve it.

Life-less.

I have always lived according to good family values, I hope I know right from wrong and can judge and be judged without fear of retribution. I have always done exactly what has been asked of me in this life and indeed sometimes even more, much more. I have given the better part of my working life to being self employed and running my own business, it started under Margaret Thatcher and is currently languishing under David "dithering" Cameron. So, I guess you could say I have been around and am no fool.
How wrong can you be. Being a fool is not always about trying to make people laugh or jumping on to a trampoline from your garage roof or playing chicken with juggernauts on the Motorway's.
No, being a fool can be a lot more subtle than that, it can take the shape of a simple decision or a wrong turn down a side street, it can be you being very gullible, sincere or even plain soft but either one of these will suffice to put you into the sub category of the heading under "fool".
I have to admit i am strolling into this sub category under the "just too soft" label, i am a huge guy some 6f.1" and an ex rugby man, i am good at self defence and keep fit through work and mountain biking and can sprint and run like a guy half my age, something i enjoy doing, so it would seem very odd wouldn't it that this guy is a bit of a push over. Well, it is odd, but it is also very rare. I don't want confrontation at any price and I will shy away from it where and when I can, call it cowardly if you like but I have been taught that you listen to people and allow them to have an opinion and base your decision on what they want and think. To those of you with a little more aggression this must seem a ridiculous position for a big lad to take but it's me and I am finding it ever increasingly difficult to stay afloat amongst the sharks and opinionated selfish people out there, in short it's something I am ill-equipped to fight as size counts for nothing in this battle, only the sharpness of your tongue and your will to have everything your way or none at all, sadly elements of life that i lack.
 Am I resigned therefore to such inequality?. Well time and tide will tell as it sits uncomfortable with me for the first time in my life and it's past time to start making decisions that suit me. Unpopular as it may be.

Watch this space. x

Advice for the heart.

Never write while angry or when upset. The rule of thumb all who aspire to write should adhere to, but sometimes the passion rules the pen and you end up printing something you may well live to regret at a later date.
I feel at the moment like screaming to the tree tops how i feel and what has befallen me over the last few hours but the gentleman in me says keep it to yourself. I have a few very trusted friends who will know what i mean here but they are very few.  In reality you have to sit down, take some of the grief on board and start over. Letting it eat you and destroy your thought process is a major mistake, it is far better that you chat with those trusted friends and get back out into the world so that you can re-evaluate just what the implications of what has happened really are and so deal with it.
It doesn't matter how nice you are to people or how you treat each one that comes along, life is far from fair and however good your intentions remember they are the pavement to hell.  I am fortunate to be someone born with a sense of right and wrong, i have my parents to thank for that, but in the current climate it holds little water and is in fact considered a weakness. How very sad. How very alone it will leave those who are able to worry about others without thinking about it as I know first hand.
If i was to offer some advice on this subject it would be to not act rashly, take it all on the chin and let it wash over you because it's coming whether you like it or not, take a stroll, get back into the normal groove of life no matter how much that hurts and make sure you get amongst good people that you trust and know well. That way you get back to normality a bit quicker and it will allow you precious time to actually put it all in perspective.
As you may be right in thinking, this is what i did today, the first reaction is always the pre-cursor to the tidal wave of emotions but you have to sit tight and not lose your bottle.  I am OK with where i am at the moment, not happy admittedly but i wasn't that happy beforehand so i have little to worry about in reality.

Tomorrow is another day and remember always that you are you, there is no-one else that comes close x

All That I See.

The innocence of that which greets my eyes
From swirling willow led a merry dance by summer's breeze
To Swallow's resting weary wings on thermals lofty rise
The sky a deepest blue the sun so high that scarce a shadow falls
And distant cry of sheep that haunt the valley's twisting spine
God's would bow their heads to all that here transpires
A sweet calm to quench the thirst of nature's finest hour.
I have grown with all that lies before me, deeper and richer,
And with that richness comes a wealth that few will ever know.











  

The Sunday Roast

Sunday morning here in Shropshire, the street outside in the small Town I live in is deathly quiet. It's something I don't often get to see as I am usually long gone to work or some other "pressing" task that requires my undivided attention immediately. Lay here in bed with my laptop on my knees I find myself wondering just why we have to do so many things in life at such break neck speeds?.
We have targets for everything, be it patients in the hospitals or children in our schools, we find ourselves at the mercy of schedules that must be met. But, just why do we do this? Does it enrich our lives to be striving for targets that are invariably never met thus provoking in depth searches for the reasons why?, I seriously doubt it. I think our main problems today arise from wanting more and more and expecting it. Then when we get disappointed we start searching for answers, the truth is life is full of disappointments, tragedy, fun, love, you name it it's in there and because we are so used to a "pill" for everything it comes as a harsh reality when one is not available. Working to schedules is in reality a necessary evil, without at least the basic of targets we would never get anything completed but my interest here is why we have to have so many committee's and sub-committee's to look over us while we do it, surely if a target is not met the person involved can work out what went wrong and why?.. or perhaps big brother really is trying to make us all perfect !.

Yet again this Sunday the papers lead with a public figure facing charges for heinous crimes that were supposedly committed some while ago. Of late so many of our "heroes" of television and the like have been exposed as underage child abusers and sex pests it's little wonder we as a nation are becoming less and less trusting of what we are told by such 'icons', too often pleas of innocence outside a courtroom are followed a few months later by a full confession or at least partial charges being admitted and it's beginning to shock us less and less.
I have to admit, I find the whole celebrity thing astonishing. I can never see what gives a person who acts or plays a sport well for instance the right to preach to us all about their views, like their profession gives them a wisdom beyond their years?.  The truth is celebrity status means you get your voice heard and as we are seeing at the moment even the true icons are sometimes nothing but dirty old men or perverts, thus underlining my astonishment at the air time these people get preaching to us the rights and wrongs of living our own lives, while they 'bite' fellow competitors, take advantage of youngsters supposedly in their care or just down right lie, they are the worst of the worst as far as role models are concerned, the fact most personalities are usually two different people surely means they would be more in line for counselling than the rest of the whole population put together, let alone be allowed airtime to give us advice on how to be the perfect human being.

This week has been quite tough for me, we have a new puppy 12 weeks old and full of life, she is also it seems full of poo. This latter item has been at the forefront of my daily early morning chores, even with newspaper down in her cage she sleeps in at night it has been a most wretched of tasks to carry out. The upshot of all this is I have had no breakfast all week, just a quick cup of coffee and out through the door after the 'mopping up' exercise has been completed. I think for someone who is mechanically minded the sights and smells of a puppy are all a little too overwhelming, we are a tough breed but the smells we are used to are very much softer oil based and as such this new task is wholly unpalatable to our sense of smell.
Anyway, I hope that with some extra training and guidance it will be just a minor distraction from the actual ownership of a wonderful Border collie pup who is as cheeky as it's owner albeit the owner is slightly better house trained!.
One off-shoot of all this is that i have lost weight... not a diet plan i am about to launch on YouTube or make into a DvD just yet, but hell if it works for now i can live with it !.

I wish you all a great week ahead and enjoy the forecasted 'sunny' Bank holiday' !









 

Open Heart, Open Eyes.

Such fire that burns inside my mind
That once knew passion e'er so blind
Succinct in fledgling lover's arms
Yet vulnerable to all her charms,

For day's aplenty once were tasted
No hour thus spent was deemed as wasted
Lay in arms of passion's making
A heart so open ripe for taking

And there whilst open singing praises
Life at once the dagger raises
The sonnet Thorn Bird's requiem
To hell's own fire it does condemn

Brave men and true fall for that spell
Though none so brave they live to tell
An open heart Achilles heel
Life's harsh reward for those who feel

So my allegiance duty bound
To wait my turn with scarce a sound
Will pass me by and strike another
No more then I,  that tortured lover.

One Swallow doth not a Summer make..

Sunday comes and goes. Nothing new in that I hear you shout at me like some scolded child forever ignoring their parents good advice. Well, maybe there are two sides to every story, after all "judging a book by it's cover" is fraught with danger if we are to believe all we read.
You may or may not be surprised to know (depending whether you know me very well or not) that I was a walking disaster at school. Oh, don't get me wrong, in my primary school where my mother was deputy head i was a star pupil, but with your mother there everyday it was hardly surprising.  No. i mean high school, or in this case Ludlow Grammar School after i passed my 11 plus as it was at the time.
From the very start i struggled. My maths fell into disarray and my science was diabolical, languages became a bore and i was dropped from Latin to do Spanish, the equivalent these days of leaving the Premier League to play for your local youth club.  I wasn't lazy, far from it, I just needed pushing, but this was the last intake of Grammar School pupils at Ludlow and dare i say it teachers were putting the time in until retirement, many of whom i recall should have gone 10 years BEFORE I got there !. Hey ho, that was my lot. But... obviously i shone at English and literature. Dickens and Shakespeare left an indelible mark on my soul for which i shall be forever grateful. They opened up a world of culture and life changing views that remain with me to this day, if only my teacher Miss Baldwin could see me now, in fact it would be even better if my music teacher Mr Arney who has now sadly passed away could see me play a Strauss Waltz... I am sure he would near faint !.

I guess, joking aside, my message is that the fact i was a complete and utter failure at High School should not be a deterrent to those of you who are unsure of their own ability when traversing the avenues of your High School life and this so called "growing up" that adults keep forcing upon you. I am much more in tune with who I am now than I ever was at school and i firmly believe if you have a spark it will take more than a few hopeless years at a last gasp Grammar school to dampen it to a glow. I managed English and Art "O" levels before i left. I was seconded to work on a farm at 15 and there you have it, David's school day's.  I firmly believe that if  i was in a class today I would never be allowed to slip through the net as i did in the 80's, it couldn't happen in today's climate of Stats and OFSTED inspections which in many ways is supremely  comforting, but I do find all these inspections and tests a little too intrusive on a child's ability to enjoy their time facing the chalk and board, or lap top screen as it's now well known.

So, therein lies a tale, hopefully you can see i am living proof that you do not need school to be a success to make it in life, granted its an awful lot easier but I now find the level of experience i have obtained in my endeavours easily outweighs any paperwork i may have received from an exam judge, I have graduated with full honours from the school of life and there really is none better.

Have a great week.

The winds of change.

Hot coffee, lap top, Twitter, a recipe for a wasted morning !!  It's very hard to concentrate when you have a world to talk to. Twitter is something you completely get or you really don't, there seems no in between. I have many friends who raise their eyebrows still when i mention Twitter but as I hail from Shropshire that is hardly surprising, the highlight of most people's week over here is a shopping trip to Aldi's.

Ok, so maybe that was a little harsh but I have to confess this County does produce some one-offs and if you think i am joking let me introduce you to some characters.  Firstly there is a guy who comes into our yard with an old rusted out 4x4, he wears a cap and is deaf as a post, mid sixties cut him through the middle and he says "farmer" all the way through, his truck has never been washed outside or inside and is full of bale twine and plastic, the fact he is as deaf as a post is just as well really because his sheepdog barks out of his open drivers door window right behind his head and only the occasional  "LIE DOWN" shouted at the top of his voice will give the briefest respite from the dog's constant noise.
Then we have the two brothers, in their 70's both of them, never seen the end of the M54 motorway and if they ever lost site of Clee Hill (local landmark) they would be hopelessly lost. They come out every Friday whether they need to or not as its a "trip to town", it's the highlight of the week for them, they seldom have their teeth in and are always dressed in their suits when they come out come rain or heatwave, we have been to the farm to repair tyres on site and it is a venerable shit hole...quelle surpris !
But this is in deepest South Shropshire.. a backwater praised as much for it's scenery by tourists as it's inequality amongst it's inhabitants is lambasted, it's a harsh environment with neglected roads, hospitals and schools, it gets the second best of everything yet manages despite all those facts.. If you ask my feelings I have grown tired of it's hardships and some of it's inhabitants ignorance to many thing's cultural, but it's where i grew up and where my family are, though the love affair is waning as i grow older and I tire of the lack of facilities from a simple mobile phone signal to a fully fledged modern hospital that can cope with the ageing population... of which i don't think i will be around to witness..

This is true. Absolutely true.

I have found myself wondering of late just how the Prime Minister of this fair isle gets to hear about what is happening on the shop floor of this Country.  I mean, let's face it, if you are the boss of a huge company and you have never walked amongst the people at the sharp end how on earth do you get a picture of what your policies are doing for productivity and value for money not to mention achieving their aim without wasting valuable time and assets?.  If, say for instance our PM is being advised by people of a suited nature it is quite feasible is it not that he is only being spoon fed what he actually wants to hear rather than what is actually really happening, in fact it is MORE than likely.
I say this because as a businessman of some 20+ years with my fair share of battles under my belt I have learnt that if you want to know how the workforce is doing you ask them, not a manager. It stands to reason, if the manager says it's dreadful and everything is falling apart and not working then you would be quite within your rights to dig a little deeper and even quiet possibly replace that manager with one that can knock it all back in to shape.  If you ask the workforce you will get a few moans and groans but invariably you will also get some invaluable information from people who are at the front line, not sat in an office waiting for their targets to be met while making up a new bulletin for all the staff to read and act upon, thus justifying their position in the company.
So, let me say this, if by some wonderful miracle dreamed up straight from a Hollywood movie i was to wake up in the morning and find myself  the PM of this Country,  this is what i would do: I would head to the hospitals all over the country and spend at least a month on the front line, i would then do it with the Police, the Fire Service, Teachers etc etc until I had built a picture of what is really going on in UK Plc at this present moment in time, because without that inside knowledge how the hell can you instruct ministers and their underlings to write policies that are actually meaningful and more importantly relevant?. Simple answer and a very true one. You can't hope to.
If all you have known is life in Oxford and a sheltered up-bringing amongst your like minded brethren you are no more equipped to run this Country than a tribal elder from Timbuktu. Sorry but that is also the truth.
Many years ago i started a new job selling equipment i knew very little about straight into a European market hungry for the goods, but instead of bluffing my way through and making it up as i went along i spent 3 months on the shop floor helping to manufacture the items before i even TRIED to sell the product and even more importantly and surprisingly I made alterations on the factory floor to help production run smoother that are STILL there to this day, so you see it was of mutual benefit to everyone concerned.
Now I am not suggesting the PM gets his overalls on and heads for the nearest NHS Trust but what he could quite easily be doing is sitting down and talking to those that matter the most and that is the people actually doing the damned job,  not those sat in an office writing about how they would like it done, I think he would get one hell of a surprise at what he uncovered in the way of waste and mismanagement while getting a truer picture of what is actually needed to get this country back on its feet.
If, like many right now, you are wondering just how i seem so sure there is waste culture and a lack of moral judgement in middle management in many government departments then i cam reveal my sources, you see fitting a tyre to someones car is a little like having a haircut or being stood at a bar and having a drink, people relax and as you work they tell you all about what is happening in their life and where the problems lie in their jobs and in case you do need a little more proof that my theory actually works yes I do fit tyres still occasionally...it's how i find out just how the ship is being steered and the continual theme that keeps recurring is one of managers making silly rules and spending much needed front line money on theories and plans that only see the inside of a waste paper bin when passed to the next level of management..... Think on Mr Cameron, i am apolitical and I for one always find people struggle to argue with the truth and none of the above is incorrect... as unlike you I talk to the workforce.