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I’ve been wandering about in the cobwebby bits of the internet looking at things about the actor John Mills. He was a frequent star in the end-of-war era films that must have influenced me. He started out in Hollywood sharing a flat with Errol Flynn – the bedposts there must have some good tales to tell. I trolled through Flynn when I had finished with John and somehow got onto Papa Hemingway. He and Flynn had always seemed a bit of a pair – hairy chested, hard-drinking, macho males whose real adventures might not always matched up with these images. Out of the page came the quotation below -
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. -- Ernest Hemingway

That got me back to the current B Liar or Blair discussions. Not only a small world but almost perfectly rounded as well. I have wondered what his fascination is with school children in the last few days as he has made much of his visits in his TV opportunities. I think that he has realised that he is less likely to have to answer difficult questions or meet antagonistic voters than if he were amongst adults. Shadows of his drubbing by the Womens Institute?

Crime figures are another fertile area for skullduggery. Back in the days when I collated the Germany crime figures there was quite a bit of massaging as to what constituted a crime and how the severity might be a factor in determining whether it was something like GBH or assault. I came across this in the blog of a magistrate. http://thelawwestofealingbroadway.blogspot.com/ He should know whereof he speaks;

At election time law-and-order is inevitably near the top of the politicians' agendas, and that brings up the perennial question of whether crime is worse than it used to be, or better, or just different. The accepted wisdom seems to be that the British Crime Survey, although not perfect, is about as near as we can get to an indication of how things are going. Nevertheless the parties will grab at any statistic that seems to bolster their own case.

I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties, which some now see as a golden age where old ladies walked the streets in peace, the village bobby might clip you round the ear for scrumping, and the Krays imposed the kind of rough justice on their East End patch that the paramilitaries now administer in Belfast. The law, policing methods and political sensibilities have changed immeasurably since those days, and there are so many variable factors that I believe it to be quite impossible to reach a meaningful conclusion.

Just to mention a few of the variables that have affected perceived crime rates over the last generation:-

* The explosion in recreational drug use. From a bohemian minority pursuit drugs have become one of the largest industries in the country and account for a huge percentage of the workload of the police and the courts, while consumption continues to rise and social approval, or at least indifference, increases. Vicious turf wars are killing scores of people every year. Some very nasty people indeed have access to millions of pounds of drug money, with the power that brings them.

* Prosperity has increased across all classes which is reflected in property crime and theft. Few homes, even middle class ones, had many portable goods of any real value in the Fifties and Sixties. Ironically, the recent fall in burglary may have something to do with the flood of cheap imports from the East, making stolen goods hard to sell for a worthwhile price.

* Men would routinely beat their wives and the Police were not interested in 'domestics'. Now the Police treat all such assaults seriously and the CPS prosecute even when the woman has changed her mind, summoning her to court if necessary. One woman on my patch called police fifty times in twelve months, and they attended every time. That's fifty crimes of violence for the politicians to wave about.

* If two men settled their differences outside the pub at closing time, nobody would call the police - it was just what men did. Nowadays, it's more violent crime in the stats.

* Armed robbery, by the old-time 'blaggers' rapidly dropped off when the police started to shoot back. Nowadays credit card and financial fraud pays better and is safer. There were no credit cards in the Fifties.

* In real terms drink is as cheap as it has been for a century or more, and practically anyone can afford to drink himself into a stupor whenever he chooses.

* The number of cars has vastly increased - more theft of and from cars, more dangerous driving, more road rage.

* The loss of deference right across the social scene has left many of our citizens convinced that they have the right to do what they want when they want, a problem that has even spread to schools and to hospital A & E departments.

* Relatively few people had their property insured - with no prospect of an insurance payout many crimes went unreported. Nowadays the Crime Number is all-important so the statistics go up.

These examples only brush the surface of the problem. The only thing of which I am sure is that nobody knows how much crime there is, or how much crime there was in the old days. If anyone tells you that they do know, you know that you are listening to nonsense.

I certainly cannot express it better m’lud.

 

Doing some clearing up this morning and came across a Silverstein book. Sat down to glance through it – four hours later……… His work goes back to when I think I most enjoyed myself. We could all do Mick Jagger impersonations, drinking lasted all night with hardly any intoxication, work was worthwhile and not too demanding anyway. Old Shel wrote some serious stuff as well as Dr. Hook lyrics. Almost any of his songs grips me – somewhere amongst my stuff I have a CD of him doing some of them. The bit of poetry that sticks is this one.

 

There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends

 

 

In my blog-land wanderings I’ve found one written by a guy who purports to write from a nursing home. He’s 74 but has a fine attitude to being out of regular circulation. Here’s and example of his sort of stuff

 

Just because we live in The Home for the Feeble doesn't mean we're dead. We have feelings: remorse, pity, anger, fear of psoriasis, and like that. To say nothing of intense heating of the loins. Well, not all of us. Those of us whose prostates have bit the dust are more or less bereft of hot loins.

But not Jillian Comeagain. For one thing, she never had a prostate to give up, and she's ordered an aluminum casket so she won't burn up in a pine box. Jillian is 95. She has had her cap set (see how old people talk about courting?) for one of the two bachelors in The Home. I could see this coming, so I planted a he-voice-activated tape recorder in Jillian's pad, and one day got this after he came calling:

She: "Say something nice about me."
He: Yes'm. Le's see: Your hair is nice and shiny, sure 'nuff, like the tails of the rats that got into Uncle Fred's axle grease. Your varicose veins don't remind me of anything so much as a road map to the county dump. And I love to gaze into your limpid pool of sties. Now, you say something nice 'bout me."
She: "Did you know you were circumcised with pinking shears?"

Splutter, phtz, sqawk....Tape malfunction

 

Well, as you can see, I’ve been wandering quite a bit. This has kept my mind busy and off the sort of crap I usually post. I’m ending this now so as not to spoil a good posting.

 

I've written before that my maternal Grandmother was Irish and reputed to have second sight. I do remember she seemed to speak in phrases but not even she could have come up with this


There is a funeral going on in your town, do not travel long distances or travel out of your town. You have to stay in your town until the funeral is over, for if you leave during a funeral before it has finished your trip will be full of bad luck.

If you hear 3 knocks and no one is there, it usually means someone close to you has died. The superstitious call this the 3 knocks of death.

If you leave something that belongs to you to the deceased, that means the person will come back to get you.

If a firefly/lightning bug gets into your house someone will soon die.

If you smell roses when none are around someone is going to die.

If you don't hold your breath while going by a graveyard you will not be buried.

If you see yourself in a dream, your death will follow.

It is said that if a dead person appears to you in a dream and asks you to go somewhere with them, don't do it! No matter how much you loved the person in life, if you agree to go somewhere with them you will soon follow them in death.

If someone dies and a child that is too young to understand death was close to that person, you must cross them over the open grave or they will be haunted with memories of the deceased.

If you look at a full moon over 20 times in one night, bad luck will be cast upon your whole family, with a following death not late after.

If you see an owl in the daytime, there will be a death.

If you dream about a birth, someone you know will die.

If it rains in an open grave then someone in the family will die within the year.

If a bird pecks on your window or crashes into one that there has been a death.

If a sparrow lands on a piano, someone in the home will die.

Two deaths in the family means that a third is sure to follow.

You're not supposed to walk among a cemetery with open graves without a veil over your head. Especially children.

If a bird gets into a house there will be a death

When you experience a chill up your spine, someone, somewhere has just walked across your future grave site.

If a picture falls off the wall, there will be a death of someone you know.

If you spill salt, throw a pinch of the spilt salt over your shoulder to prevent death.

·Never speak ill of the dead because they will come back to haunt you or you will suffer misfortune.

If you take pictures of someone while in their casket, you will bring death into your family immediately.

You must always leave the house using the same door as you came in or face a horrific death.

If a clock that's stopped working chimes suddenly then a death will befall the family.

If a mirror is broken and a piece of it lands over the threshhold of your house then the next person to enter your house will die.

If a robin redbreast flies in the window of your house, there will be a death in the house.

Once you have left a cemetery, if you remember something you have left behind (a scissors for cutting flowers, a trowel for planting blooms) you cannot go back for it and must leave it there because you risk bringing death away with you if you do.

If you say the name Mary Worth 100 times into a mirror in a darkened room and she appears in the mirror, you will soon die.

If you look into the eyes of the deceased, they will haunt you forever.

If your dog becomes rabid, it fortells a death in the family.

If you are the last one who talks to someone who dies, they will be with you always.

If you wear a necklace with a cross, and it breaks, your death is near.

If a white dove flies at the windsheild of your car someone in your household will die a natural death soon.

When a loved one dies, pour bourbon around the room in little drops to prevent evil spirits from coming into the house.

If a group of people are near a fireplace on New Year's Eve and one of the people's shadows does not have a head, that person will die within the year.

Look up at the moon and if there is something red passing by it, someone close to you will die very soon.

Leaving shoes on a table for an extended period of time will bring sickness or death.

If you take three steps backwards while walking away from a loved one's grave, you will die within the next three months.

A grain of salt takes a second of life away. if u get covered in salt you will most certainly die soon.

If you see an ant in the winter, it means death for all people living in your house.

If you brush your hair more than 111 times a day, you or somebody very close is sure die.

If your hair begins to turn grey before the age of 30, you will probably die 20 years earlier than expected.

If any animal dies in the household, you must get rid of all memories of him or he will haunt the house.

Water in the grave (when dug out for the coffin) means they will be restless in death

If you see a raven flying toward your house, the woman you love is doomed to die unless you can keep it away from landing on your house.

If you see an ambulance or a hearse you must touch a button or you'll be the next one in it.

The cry of a curlew or the hoot of an owl foretells a death.

A single snowdrop growing in the garden foretells a death.

Having only red and white flowers together in a vase (especially in hospital) means a death will soon follow.

Bringing hawthorn blossom into the house will be followed by the death of the mother of the house.

Sailors believe that a sick man on board ship will not die until land has been sighted.

If a dead person's eyes are left open, he'll find someone to take with him.

Mirrors in a house with a corpse should be covered or the person who sees herself will die next.

Pregnant women should not attend funerals.

Nothing new should be worn to a funeral, especially shoes.

When a good life was lived, flowers will grow on the deceased's grave. But if the deceased was evil, weeds will grow.

It is bad luck to meet a funeral procession head on.

Funerals on Friday portend another death in the family during the year.

If a broom is rested against a bed, the person who sleeps there will die soon.

Taking ashes out of a stove after sundown will bring a death in the family

If you count the cars of a passenger train, you will hear of a death.

When you see large drops of rain, there has been a death.

Seeing a white chicken on your way to a funeral brings bad luck.

If a woman is buried in black, she will return to haunt the family.

If rain falls on a corpse, the deceased will go to heaven.

Thunder following a funeral means that the dead person's soul has reached heaven.

You will have bad luck if you do not stop the clock in the room where someone dies.

If your rose blooms twice in the same year, it brings death.

If a cow moos after midnight, it is an evil omen.

If you prick your finger on the thorn of a red rose that looks black, you will die.

A white moth inside the house or trying to enter means death.

To see a tree blooming out of season means death as does dreaming of a white horse.

Hearing a hen crow means death, unless you kill the hen.

If a hearse stops while passing your house, it will choose its next victim from your house.

If the coffee grounds in the bottom of a cup form a long, straight line, anticipate a funeral.

Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house.

A diamond-shaped fold in clean linen portends death.

A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad omen. It can be reversed by reaching under the bed and turning over a shoe.

·If you touch a loved one who has died, you won't have dreams about them.

A hat on the bed means death in the family.

If an owl looks in the window of your home during daylight hours, a death will occur in the family.

Never hand scissors to someone or they will encounter a painful death.
(edit: which is why I always throw 'em)

If you hold your breath while you drive by a cemetery, evil spirits can't enter your body.

You should always cover your mouth while yawning so your spirit doesn't leave you and the devil never enters your body.

The soul of a dying person can't escape the body and go to heaven if any locks are locked in the house.

If a cow raises its head and smells the air, someone has died nearby.

Never put your shoes on the table or you will die by hanging.

If rain falls on a funeral procession someone related to the deceased will die in the near future.

Rain falling upon an open grave means bad luck for the family.

Whilst reading the papers this morning, something struck a chord in that part of my brain that goes back to the days when my brain filled my skull. After a lot of poking about, I came up with a phrase to Google and came up with what I wanted.

This is it. It comes from writing by Thomas Hobbes, a Brit who lived between 1588 and 1679. “Man is not naturally good but naturally a selfish hedonist -- "of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself".  As human motives were, in their natural state, guided by unenlightened self-interest, these could, if left unchecked, have highly destructive consequences.  Left unrestrained, humans, propelled by their internal dynamics, would crash against each other.  Hobbes tried to envision what society would be like in a "state of nature" -- before any civil state or rule of law.  His conclusion was dispiriting: life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", a "war of every man against every man".  

Nonetheless, as all people are equal (in a physical not a moral sense), possessing a passionate love of survival (right of nature) and some degree of rationality (law of nature), Hobbes concluded that a viable, working society would arise as an equilibrium between these competing forces.  The logic is simple.  Any person's right of nature justifies violence against everybody else. Consequently, in the interests of personal survival, people will come around to agreeing that they should renounce their right to use violence.  However, this yields up a tense and unstable equilibrium.  The moment one party deviates from their promise, all will deviate and war restarts.”

It strikes me that this very old statement has much validity today. It encompasses everything from road rage to street violence through to the lack of integrity in what now passes as politics. I think I’ll have to go back to my old mate Hobbes and see what he said about winning National Lotteries. I spoke a couple of days ago about the difference between holidays and retirement. I don’t think I’d have gone looking for the statement on a holiday but as it is I got quite determined to root out the background to something that was whispering to me from so long ago. Oh, and by the way; Google – Respect!

We’re running down to the Great Day of Democracy when we have our say – huh! Some chance. There is no prospect of a Tory getting elected here so I will vote for the Lib Democrats. My attitude for them is that they are just about OK as individuals but G*d forbid they should ever get to a position of power in Westminster (or Holyrood)

I’m seriously impressed with this broadband business after years of saying it was not needed by me for the way I used the internet. That is still true – what has happened is that my style of cyber-wandering has changed. I now follow a heck of a lot of blogs on all manner of topics. Something that intrigues me is where the vast spread of journals etc. will lead. Think of the mobile phone. I remember when I was buying them for my Arabs. They were about the size of a brick, had a very short range and had to be licensed by BT. The waiting list for licences was yards long so we had to buy licences on the black market at about £1000 a go. That was a grand in 1980 terms. Looking at what today’s mobiles and smart phones will do and feed that into blogging as it is now.

 

Almost back into the old routine already. Out of bed by 6:30, dog walked, breakfast,  first read through of papers, Sky News and then work out what the day needs. Midday is another dog walk – longer than in the morning. Then it is p.c. time and detailed scanning of the papers. I try to stick to this routine as I find that things get missed if I change the routine. What things? Damned if I know; I just forget them. My pda is a very useful thing in imposing routine plus it is something else to fiddle with or check up on e-mail.

 

I’m still walking a bit lop-sided after my dream. I was in a steak-house in Tucson. Outside were a crowd of demonstrators from the Vegetarian Alliance or some such. The doors had been closed and locked to keep them out until the police could get there. I had paid and wanted to leave and no freaky rent-a-mob was going to stop me. I pushed hard at the doors. I woke up I know not how much later on the bedroom floor with the mattress on top of me. I had a monster bruise across my neck and my right side is all aches and pains. Last time I had a dream like this was when I was being mugged by three guys. I karate kicked one of them and must have broken a toe or two on the bedroom wall where my foot made contact. I suppose I will have to forego the cheese sandwiches!

 

The cheese was really gorgeous this last incident. For real. It was Bishops Finger which is a really foul smelling product but has a superb flavour. Bit like durian really.

 

I’m in a bit of a state of nonsense at the moment. All down to that man B. Liar. He gave a pledge to cut crime by 15%. How the hell does he work that out if he has not already worked out how to cook the books? It is just like saying he will cut average monthly rainfall by 8.625%. Rain comes down – he cannot control it. Baddies do bad and he cannot control that either. The manifesto that causes me the most amusement is that of Lib Dems Ginger Whinger. He makes guarantees that appeal to just about every person, every class, every interest.

 

Caroline’s pub has had more coverage courtesy of Michael Howard who has been in twice with the dogs of the media in pursuit. The photographers get the name of the pub and the brewers in all the photographs. Her efforts last year won the Marketing Pub of the Year Award so what they will give her this year – Lord knows. Mrs. Howard has also mentioned her in her daily diary on the Tory website so more kudos.

Well, that little holiday was nice while it lasted. We set off last Saturday in almost monsoon rain. As we got up a little higher, it turned into snow. There was about six inches of it on the ground and more coming down.

The Sunday and Monday were wet but we got out and about OK. My attitude was that if one is looking for fine weather, one wouldn’t go where we go. The rest of the week was fine and sunny so we were able to enjoy the whole thing of driving alongside the lochs with the hills towering above us on the land side.

The new car managed everything we asked of it. Being a bit higher up than the C5 we got a better view of things.

We parked in Inverary overlooking the loch. Guy from car alongside made his way to the waters edge with a car mat in his hand. Threw this onto the beach and then washed it by swishing it about in the water. Went back to his car and returned with three more mats. Threw them down. A little too keen as they went into the water and sank with hardly a gurgle. I had to bend over and examine something on the floor of the car so he would not see my hysterics.

When I first retired, I thought that it would be like one long holiday. This last week away has shown me that this is not so. Don’t know why this is but it feels quite different to be on holiday.

Great over-dosing on fish and seafood. I think we only had one meat meal whilst away and that was venison. We should be so healthy that we will never die.

There is still a lot of exotic bird life over that side of Scotland. We saw a few hawks etc. but they do not seem to be having such an impact as those in Yorkshire where they had decimated song birds and quite a bit of the feathered game.

Seals much in evidence. At one place they were on rocks no more than ten feet from the edge of the beach with some very young cubs (or whatever baby seals are called) They stayed steady as I photographed them but got a bit boogied when the sharp nosed dog focussed on them. She had a great time. I am now confined to walking alongside flat water so most of our trots were alongside the lochs. She found a great game in searching for dead things and then rolling in them.

Off now to catch up on 4Ms and mail. Not too bad – btinternet put 600 in the spam file and I only had some 20 that needed reading.

 

 

I've cheated on the routine of posting. Yesterday's effort has been held ack so it will combine with today's. The rest of today will bve devoted in a big house cleaning exercise (so any burglars will not find us less than spotless) and the packing of large garments into small bags.

The place we are going seems quite well provided with the more than basics of labour saving devices but I'm hoping it will be a bit rural when it comes to communications. This political ranting is already too much for my gentle stomach. The talk about immigration is particularly heave-making. It is now too late to do anything really effective. The immigrants already here will retain their own cultures and raise their children the same way. Our birthrate is apparently going down in the (I'm not being racial if I use the word 'white') white community and up in the various nationalities that constitute in the main body of immigrants. The recent trial of the ricin man shows just how capable some incomers are at creating multible identities. One case found these irregularities - how many more must there be about which we know nothing?

The other topic is taxes. Thankfully, I only pay tax on pensions but as I have three of these I end up as if I were some middle manager when it comes to the leakages from my starting income. Norma tells me that they are treated as 'unearned income' - Huh!!

I think that the tax money is put to better use up here than dahn suff but how long the Dons of Devolution will be able to maintain that is unsure. One of the thoughts about coming here was that there is a higher level of common sense amongst the Scots and that they might really start things booming with their limited independence. This has not taken off yet but I suppose we have to work on the lines of crawling before walking.

Right - that's me off. See you Sunday week if the sea does not wash me off some rock or the seals treat me as one of their own. At least I'll not have to worry about Wood peckers attacking my baldy bit.

Photographers & cheap journalists – gather round. Great news -

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (Reuters) - Mentor Corp. will try to sway a U.S. advisory panel in favour of silicone breast implants on Wednesday, a day after they narrowly rejected a rival's bid to end a 13-year ban on the devices.

Just as Pammy Anderson and Dolly were getting into the knees-warmer category. So; all is well.

This implant interest brings me to something else. I see poor old Angela Dworking has died. In her own misguided way she drew very considerable attention to feminism back in the days of ‘All men are rapists’ She got the blame for this rather fatuous comment. I seem to remember from when I drew much amusement from arguing against feminism that it was not Dworkin who coined this phrase but that it appeared in the book Womans Room. Those days of quite fierce commitment seem to be over even though the world that the leaders wanted has not come about. We all seem to be living alongside each other.

We’re going to take the Picasso away for a week over on the West coast. I’ve booked a self-catering cottage just below Lochgilphead so we will be OK for seafood and fine beef in Oban as well as oysters from Loch Fyne. We’ve been over that side of Scotland quite a few times now and have always enjoyed it’s view of the water and the meandering route the roads have to take around the edges of the sea lochs. Sable will like it as she gets to chase real deer through the woods. We leave next Saturday just to make sure we get there before the midges arrive. Doubtless we’ll do the circuit of the Mull of Kintyre which means seal watching and birds of prey.

 

Another topic overlooked whilst I was AWOL was the story of the American woman who was said to be in vegetative state. Anyone who might complain about the election coverage here in UK as being excessive, thronged by the ignorant, complicated by the expert, should look at the internet coverage of this incident. The religious element ranging from the fervid – almost rabid – to the total flat-earth non-believers were all involved. There were allegations that her parents were secretly giving her life-bolstering injections. The total break between her parents and the husband led to all sorts of further allegations.

My own opinion on this is not fully set in stone. I cannot imagine how things took some 13 years between the accident and the application to withhold nutrition. The parents would seem to have regarded their daughter as some sort of pet that they could not let go to the vet. At the beginning my suspicion was that the husband had decided to act now as he had a new squeeze. Yes, he had but not a new one. The whole saga has reinforced my conviction that my Do Not Resuscitate order is a right and proper precaution against the prospect that I might end my days plugged into the electricity like some condom-vending machine.

Ok – time for some uplift as the old film star said. We took delivery last evening of the new car. The new Picasso is a neat little thing. In terms of interior space it seems as large as the old C5 but is most certainly nowhere as big overall. It has all the toys we had before except the rain sensing wipers. Seems that Citroen are having trouble with the software related to this. How ‘if raining = on’ can be difficult, I do not know. Still, that’s what makes money for programmers. The bits are all there waiting to be switched to go when the computer decides it can accommodate them. Sable is happy with her space in the load area so the main objection that I feared is withheld. Cannot afford to have a moaning dog.

Small joke brought on by news that Tesco supermarket has enjoyed record profit and will now extend even more into Tesco convenience stores within towns rather than large out of town shops. Lady is in spice aisle of small Tesco. Asks spotty faced youth in Tesco tabard, “Do you have any cloves?” SFY replies, “Not many – just some t-shirts over there” Boom Boom

I’ve embarked on a small piece of annoyance. I have been looking at the (new) Freedom of Information legislation. My mind then turned to what it could do for me. What I set in train is a demand to the Army Records people to see any and all documents that might be in my personal file that I did not see at the time the item was created. Don’t know even if there are any but it might dredge up something from some back-stabbing bar steward in my past. First hurdle seems to have been cleared; they have admitted that I was in the Army so that is a start. I had to give them further and better instructions which I have now done. I was tempted to raise things by replying that I would get my solicitor to answer but decided to leave that arrow in the quiver until it may be better fired.