Stumble

The interweb is a wonderful thing, I was stumbling around in my usual bumbling fashion today when I happened on the blog of Helen. The first title caught my attention, I wondered how someone could blog about mangoes. I started to read and then read the next. I loved the dry sardonic humour. Even if I don't necessarily agree with all that is said I loved the style. If someone can write like this it gives hope for us all.

Have a look at Obiterati.

2008

Well the New Year has crept in amongst us. Let's hope that it is a good year. I imagine that there is every possibility of a General Election being called. We will then have to make our choices based on the current crop of venal, self serving and similarly undistinguished gutter scrapings on offer. I can't think of a single politician currently in the house whom I'd either share a drink with or more importantly buy a drink for. My father used to say that this was a question to ask when voting for some-one, I have found nothing in his argument that that doesn't hold today. The latest pronouncement that the Government are going to bring laws to stop payment for sex. Is this original thought, no! Governments and Legislators have gone through these puritanical turns throughout history. Any time you over legislate or try and ban a pleasure be it sex, drink or stimulants you simply create a huge market that has to be fed, into this vacuum step Organised crime vis Prohibition in the US. I applaud the thought behind it regarding the prevention of exploitation and trafficking of women but the method being suggested is truly ludicrous and will bring in yet another series of laws that have been promulgated by this motley crew of malcontents and wishy-washy lentil steamers that will almost immediately be held in contempt, be impossible to police and be ignored by the populace.

On a separate matter, why are we still contributing millions of pounds to Zimbabwe? Mugabe has made it plain that he views us as the erstwhile Colonial Oppressors and the root of all that ails his country. It has nothing to do with the policies of land reform that have resulted in profitable, foreign currency earning farms being handed over to the political and military elite that he relies on to maintain his power. The Uk has handed over some £62million since 2002 for just humanitarian projects. This money has been supposedly administered and controlled by the EU. In reality 90% of it goes straight into Mugabe and his cronies pockets.

Christmas Eve

Well, it's Christmas Eve and am sat here reflecting on the year, considering next year and missing work. I am one of those lucky people who gets up each day and looks forward to work, I find it hard not being at work and I doubt that I'll fully switch off over the next 10 days or so that I have taken as leave. It's been an interesting year, discovered the delights of blogging, continued my exploration of the "wild side" and have clocked up air miles like it's going out of fashion. I have ranted about politicians, the way our troops are being treated, the self serving nature of those in power and the dumbing down of our society. It seems that we are deliberately rushing headlong to a society where mediocrity is celebrated, excellence is denigrated and poor performance and stupidity are never criticised. Any form of risk is being squeezed out of society and the result is that we are producing a nation of wimps. We are encouraged to bare our emotions and if you don't do this then you must be bottling it all up and this is bad, what happened to the stiff upper lip and grin and bear it? I for one don't want to gush with emotion all the time, I don't want people to see my heart on my sleeve and I don't feel as though I am liable to explode at any moment.

Enough of my ramblings, may I take this opportunity to wish anyone who stumbles across this blog a Very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Remembrance Day Pt2

I sat and watched the service and cried. I was like a little baby, I was so pathetic. All I could think about was all my mates who have died. All the men who died in WW1 and WW2 to stop Germany dominating Europe. Who controls our destiny now? The memorial to those that have died since the end of WW2 has 16000 names on it! WHY!!!

Remembrance Day

It will soon be the Eleventh day of the Eleventh month and at Eleven o'clock most of us will stand in respectful silence and remember those who have given their lives in the service of this country, this world and the greater good. Undoubtedly there will be some who will say that the sacrifice wasn't worth it, that the sacrifice of the young lads in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't worth it. In some respects they are right, every one of the lads that has died has been too high a price to pay. We don't deserve the sacrifice that our Armed Forces have made for us over the centuries, we have squandered the legacy of their sacrifice. A land fit for heroes after WW1 and they came back to dole queues and poverty. A bright new world after WW2 and we have seen the gradual interminable decline into a nation where a 93 year old man gets beaten up on a train and his attacker gets three years in prison and will be back out on the streets in 15-18months. A typist with RSI to the thumb gets £400000+ and a paralysed soldier with multiple injuries is entitled to under the new improved, revised compensation scheme to a maximum of £285000, all the Labour Minister for Veterans affairs can say when questioned is "Well, there was nothing there before" in a pathetic attempt to deflect blame onto the previous government!

Given the profligacy of the politicians at the feed trough when filling their own coffers you would think that when it is something as sensitive as this they would do something, but it seems that greed triumphs again for political animals.

Maybe when we have our two minutes silence and bow our heads in Remembrance, we and the politicians should also be bowing our heads in shame at the manner in which we treat those that serve and face the ultimate sacrifice to protect our way of life!

To any who read this, buy an extra Poppy this year, have one less pint, put the money in the Poppy jar. Remember those who served and think of those still serving.

Taxes

I see that the lunatics in charge of the asylum paused briefly in their headlong rush to tax every facet of our lives when they decided not to impose a tax on the amount of bins you use.

It would be an interesting exercise to see just how much our tax burdens have gone up since 97. I don't think that the other crew would have been any better but at least the taxes wouldn't have been so hidden and pervasive. The tearing open and plundering of the pensions is perhaps the most cynical exercise they have carried out and to crown that achievement, look how many pensioners of failed schemes and mismanaged funds get nothing. The elderly are often left in a pitiful state by the bureaucracy, having to suffer means testing, there life's savings are taken from them to pay for care. Imagine being old with bad teeth, you'll never get to a dentist on the NHS. Taxes should have been going down, we were going to have fewer civil servants, a better health service and better schools, remember "Things can only get better". Show me where things have got better? We have a Parliament making decisions on English matters filled with Scots, a Military being put in harms way by these people-not one has dragged on a uniform. High members of the Government travelling around advising on democracy and voting who basically disenfranchised 150000 people at the election he was in charge of in Scotland.

Is there a solution, probably not however:
Let's have a Parliament where English members vote on matters pertaining to England. Matters of truly National consequence open to all members. Let's have a requirement that at least some members of the Minister of State for Defence have seen the elephant. Let's have people accountable for their decisions, when an NHS computer system doesn't work and costs billions then heads should roll. When Junior Doctors cannot be sure that they will get a post while we strip trained people out of nations that can ill afford to lose them, someone should pay! When we insist on building our own version of an Attack helicopter at considerable extra cost than buying it off the shelf so that a safe seat can be protected from job losses some one should be called to task.

Delight

The frisson of excitement when visiting a courtesan, the delight of an affair, the pleasure of an illicit liaison. I wonder if this is a feeling more particular to the male of the species? Sometimes any of the above can be sufficient without the final denouement for some men(if this is the case, are they transgressing?). I wonder how many "happily" partnered(PC comes to my blog) sit at night after their partner has gone to bed and surf they adult channels on cable/satellite, get the adult movie when in the hotel and not indulging in any of the first three activities. Are we more inclined to this now because it is more obtainable? No more do we have to fumble amongst the top shelf magazines and hope that Mrs Johnson the stalwart of the W.I comes in, then furl it up in a copy of Gardner's Monthly (that remains pristine for the rest of it's time on earth) and hand it to the newsagent. The male of the species has probably always been like this and just the way of satiating the urge have changed. It would be interesting to know whether the distaff side has the same views but have never allowed them full exposure. Surely we are all inherently sexual?