Lunch, Football Books and Doves.

As one of the near million or more who opened a can of beans today I began to cogitate on the worth of this fine food, a food that was is so important to our health that during the war it was declared an 'essential foodstuff.'  It has been essential in my house for many years.
Somehow beans grown in South America made it to Europe during the 1500's, possibly by being swiped from Spanish and French ships by English pirates, and bean stew became popular world wide, the world being Europe and the Americas and the rest did not matter much.  Haricot, also known as 'Navy' beans for some reason are covered in tomato sauce and make a complete dinner for many in the UK.  This tells us much about them!   
Heinz, who sell the most, and probably many 'own brand' types also, claim that around 50,000 tonnes of beans arrive annually for their Wigan factory from the Americas, a fact which might change come Brexit!  Their sauce is based on a US model which originally contained pieces of pork (pork & beans still on sale somewhere)  first produced in the UK by Heinz in 1928.  The beans had first been sold as an expensive foreign import in 1901 by Fortnum & Mason at 9d a tin.  Considering some earned around £1 a week then (with 240d to a £) you see how pricey it was.  Today Heinz and other charge considerably more but wise folks like me buy own brand beans, considerably cheaper and if you don't like the sauce ad a bit of imitation Lee & Perrin's sauce to spice it up a bit.   Even the English queen likes the beans and has given Heinz a Royal Warrant, she always has some on order, probably for Philip.
Pie and beans, meaning a Scotch mutton pie, was a staple of my diet in Edinburgh, in this wilderness these pies are unobtainable and the English mince pie is frankly disgusting!  Therefore my diet suffers.  Being cheap and flexible they cover a lot of mistakes leaving me feeling fed even though no restaurant would remain open if they offered what I ate.  I however suppose it is possible to live on a diet of beans?  If this is cheap I may give it a try.

Someone indicated a book might be missing from my collection.  This usually means they have nicked it so I had a quick check and all the appropriate books are in their rightful place.  It may be someone did not look close enough....

Someone was watching me with the tins of beans muttering "I'm game for dinner" and when I looked he had hopped it.  I wonder if he had obtained the wrong idea?  He ought to know we don't eat birds like him these days...usually...

Thirsty Thursday

Christmas time saw the wine cupboard overflowing.  I had almost a third of a bottle of 'Laphroaig' whisky sitting there as it had been for several years 'Laphroaig' being one of those whiskies you take occasionally.  Beside it sat a near empty bottle of 'Highland Park' that arrived at Christmas last, also a half bottle of cheap French Brandy that took my fancy one day.  Today this is all that survives!
I drink rarely and sparingly yet since Christmas a few weeks ago all has gone including this years  'Highland Park' which has only a small drop left.  This thanks to Man Flu!  
Tomorrow when I reach Tesco, if indeed I make it, I will have to spend money to refit as the cough remains alongside other unwelcome symptoms.  This one takes a while to go and I am right fed up with it.  It is costing me a fortune!

I'm right fed up with this bint pretending she is doing something in Europe when it is all games to her.  The 'Black money' behind Brexit will win, she is most likely part of it, and soon this mess will reach fruition without something sensible happening and the UK will soon be defunct.

This is not a good negotiating position to be in yet that is all she can offer.  With big business heading for Holland or Slovakia, Paris and Berlin the tax haven she and her dodgy peers seek will enable the elite to prosper while we suffer, and that under US authority, it is what Brexit is all about - their wallets and serfdom for the rest. 

Weary Busy Tuesday

Tired and weary as I was I threw aside the ageing army blankets (what does 'WD' stand for?), clambered out of bed and headed to the museum.  Once there, when they eventually opened the door, I found I was to be confronted with 90 children in the shop (not all at once).  This usually requires two people but my friend and colleague was taken from me and replaced with another, a wrong other!  I was not pleased.  Some folks you find difficult, when tired, busy and not in the mood I was not best pleased to be lumbered today.  
Then of course when we tried to use the till it would not work!  Nothing moved it, nothing made it let us ring up items.  The first ten kids stood there somewhat confused but sort of content.  Good job they could not hear me when underneath the desk.  Eventually after scrambling abut underneath I pulled the plug out and then replaced it, a very old tactic which worked!  
By leave time I had seen off 60 kids with teachers most of whom were very good indeed.  One small group of 10 year old boys did look as if they were trouble and they did not have a proper teacher accompanying them just a 'helper.'  After they ran off to have lunch I found the taps in the boys loo left on running at full volume.  I wonder what else they managed before they left?  I suspect they nicked something also but not sure enough to mention it.
So irked I slept and now wish to sleep again while watching football again.
  

Boring Sunday

This has been my view for much of the day.
French or German football for me as I have no SKY and no interest in what they were showing anyway.  I also did nothing of any sort worth noting, even the papers were more empty than normal, and I cared nothing for anything but sleeping again, which I managed somehow.
It began to feel a little bit like this Hancock show from 1958.
If that does not work this might...

 

Man Flu Survivor!

We Man Flu survivors normally take great pleasure in fulfilling the daily duties glad just to be moving around normally once again.  I had hoped today would see that scenario come into being but unfortunately several things went wrong.  For a start the idea of shopping at 8 am went out the window as I did not rise till well after that time, then the weather, claiming to be 3% was in fact much colder as the wind bowled it along at a merry pace round here.  Instead I cleaned myself and the dwelling up and ate what was left for breakfast.  It was half 12 before I actually got out and with the sun high in the sky, partly obscured by clouds, the temperature reached a mighty minus a lot!  
Walking into the freezing wind I hurried to Sainsburys and instead of a slow meander as hoped I once again fought the battle of the Little Big Horn to push past the hordes of trolley wielding folk each determined to be first and having no consideration for the other.  In my mood I fear I was at times tempted to join in.  Gratefully I paid over the top (as you do at Sainsburys) and ran back home for the warmth of the gas boiler.  
How lovely to be out.  How lovely to see the sky and watch the world pass by.  How lovely to be almost normal again and then get home and remember all the things I forgot to buy in my hurry.  At least I can now wait until Monday without adding starvation to my ailments.  The world is a better place when the mind is clearer and the streaming stops.  Headaches which lessen in power also save money as paracetamol remains lying there gathering dust.  It amazes me when people spend money on 'Nostrums peddled in the market place' as one Doctor called them when most cold cures are one of four over the counter remedies with added lemon or whatever and all costing a fortune.  Own Brand and lemon drink are cheaper and work just as well unless there is a reason specific tablets are required.  When working in Maida Vale the nurse gave me paracetamol and a small bottle of 'Hospital whisky.'  This was a concentrated whisky, just add hot water, and take three tablets every four hours, it worked!    Now when energy returns life will return to normal grumblings.  

Man Flu

Also available in female versions!

Snow

Late last night as I coughed and sneezed I read online that snow had arrived.  Sure enough from the kitchen window I had a good view of falling snow, snow thick enough to begin to lie.  I had not noticed as falling snow is always quite unlike rain that likes to patter or beat against the window.  The field opposite began to gather the horrid stuff and I was not too keen.  I suspect drivers were not too keen either as around here are lots of back roads that get ignored while the main drives are kept open.  The dips and bends gather snow and frozen water which make life hazardous.  I suspect few cyclists will be ought late last night.

This morning most had withered away.  The fields retained a covering of white and areas of the roads and pavements had white frosted parts with some frozen water in the many dips in the car park as I passed.  I passed at a few minutes past seven this morning desperate to get in and out as quick as possible!  I was in no mood for the crowds that come later on a Wednesday but the fridge was empty and eating is a requirement I am loath to miss.  So in spite of temperatures below zero and noting few others out as yet I hurried up, grabbed a basketful of needed grub and hurried back in to enjoy the Man Flu before anyone noticed me.  Sadly I was too early to buy whisky as the law says wait until 8 am, even if it is your breakfast!  I care not as I was just wanting enough for a couple of days.  Now I sit while the wee chicken slowly cooks behind me.  This was chosen as it saves thought and will last a day or two.  
Several friends have this cold also, a bug that goes on for weeks rather than days.  It has been making me tired for a week or two and those other sufferers were far from happy when they bore it. However this has happened to me so much in recent years I understand how it works however it is something I can do without.  This however will leave soon but others I know suffer extreme pain from infection on their metal hips or undiagnosed problems causing weakness and pain, I have it lucky really.

  

Sympathy? Brexit? Whisky?

Sympathy?  Not a bit!  Only women muttering "Wimp" and "We just have to get on with it" and all the while not getting on with it.  I fixed them today however, I stayed at home and let them 'get on with it' while I suffered the slings and arrows (coughs & sneeze & ludicrous tiredness) all day long.  At least what passes for a brain cleared a bit although no longer adding whisky to my tea probably had a part to pay in that.  However I remain indoors avoiding the cold wind and bright sun while reading about snow falling and leaving drifts across road and rail.  Possibly tonight we might get this horrid white stuff just in time for me to visit Sainsburys for more Brexit stock.

 SKY

While the world goes about its business Theresa and the 650 gather in the House each with a smile on the face and a knife in hand to stab in someone's back, just who as yet they are not too sure but it will happen. 
Brexit again on the agenda, again it is life or death, again speculation mounts, again nobody knows what is going on.  On all sides the chattering continues but in the House each MP is looking to his future.  The eyes are on their hoped for promotion, they follow the man (surely not another woman) who will lead the Tories while on the other side they all hope Jeremy suffers a sudden failure and is carted of to hospital allowing a leader to take over. 
It is difficult to believe this is happening.  Can this really be the state of government of a leading nation?  Can all this be the fault of a small group of Eton toffs fighting for the top job?  Tory Brexiteers have always been there sniping away from the south east, filling their tabloids with stories of lazy unemployed, cheating sick and of course millions of immigrants taking over and every one an Islamic terrorist who will cut your throat as you sleep!
So the sheep vote for Brexit and those more thoughtful who did also find that whatever they expected will not be happening.  Promises will not be kept, trade deals will not happen and while the Hedge Fund managers, all Brexiteers it appears, will be making a killing the millions who voted Leave will be out of work and losing their homes, their families and their NHS (bought by US cash).
I may go back to bed while they 'debate' in the House.  Watching it all day might lead to a brick through the screen.

It's no good, the bug made me sit and watch Parliament this afternoon and the low nature of the debate drove me to drink.  l now sit here in bed suffering Man Flu while coughing loud enough to keep the neighbours awake.  Whisky for warmth then as the weather man again promises snow, rain, wind and horror, he might even mean it this time.  As my work colleagues refused to send a nurse to aid me  tomorrow will find me early up at the shops filling the empty store cupboard as I have already promised.  Whether I can be bothered is another thing especially after the Brexit vote...

Saturday Whisky...

The wee bug that has hung around for weeks decided to hang around my throat last night and remove what energy I had from me.  This I counteracted with whisky to no effect, well except more drowsiness.  However in spite of remaining horizontal all morning the sapped energy did not return.  This was awkward as I had to be at the museum for one o'clock having promised to cover the Saturday man.  

 
Blearily I sauntered in wishing to be back in my bed.  It became obvious the girls thought in similar fashion, they wished me away again.  However I remained and took my place at the till where we welcomed the guests to the opening of the new exhibition.  The high heid yins were there, including the Member of Parliament, photo ops important at such a time when folks question his allegiance to the area, and all went swimmingly as far as I could see.
Crittalls the window people were very good to their staff.  A sports club, good conditions, good money and in the 20's one of them built the village of Silver End equipped for all requirements of the time for his employees.  It was obvious that a company that people were happy to work for, some for over fifty years, would bring a  decent few people to the museum and so it proved.  They came to see portraits of the workers!  
During the 20's someone decided to organise oil painting off those who had served the company well, usually those who had served many years.  Thus there were a collection of paintings of workers high and low on offer and today we gathered the majority of them together for the first time in 90 years.
Many were donated by the locals, their grandfather posing happily or not as the case may be, and naturally at the beginning there were queries as to whether the information was correct.  Being the people we at the till were we passed the buck to the curator and moved away.
Running home as soon as I could I have sat here watching football ever since longing for the final whistle so I can sleep.  Tomorrow I will also watch football and remain indoors out of the rain, wind and cold while I sup whisky for medicinal reasons.  I might require to do this also on Monday...

 

Research

With a strange weariness hanging over me, the weather offering frozen ground in the morning and no desperate requirement of leaving the house this meant I needed something to occupy my mind that did not require much thought, normal business as it were 
So I poked my freezing fingers into the laptop and once again returned to may family history which has lain dormant for a while.  Much of this has been done and questions asked and answered but I decided to check it out and clean things up.  
When I say family history I refer not to my family but my grandfathers first family, he remarried when a widow and I descend from the second wife not the first.  This point is important as the first wife had problems and there may have been a combination of this that led to her ending up in Dundee Lunatic asylum!  
With feet pressed against the radiator I dug out what had been found, tidied the paperwork and then somewhat foolishly decided to print off what I had found.  Grandfather and his wife had seven children in 18 years, four girls and three boys.  In spite of the age only one child died, Mary expired from pneumonia aged one year and two day in 1902.  In sorting things out I placed the printed matter in individual plastic files, all very neat, however I forgot how long it would take to print things off.  There were birth details, census's, death notices and a summary page along with individual items from each.  It also required chasing about on ancestry and the Scotland's people site going from one to another before not always finding what I was looking for.  However it did cross my mind that rather than struggle through my life with the rubbish jobs that once fed me doing something like this was more interesting and I wish I had found a way in years ago. 
It is interesting what can be found.  The British Newspaper Archive is a great help with newspapers from long ago.  This can be frustrating however when the paper you want is there but not the year you need to search!  Umpteen millions of pages but not all are as yet online.  However I did find an explanation regarding the tale of two sisters who married the same man.  One parried this insurance accountant in 1904, she died however in 1928 and then in 1933, a suitable expanse of time, her sister moved in.  This was helped by copies of the death notices in the 'Scotsman' the paper men of his ilk would have been reading at the time.  His wealth was clear as he lived up Liberton Brae, expensive middle class then as now.  Thanks to Google Maps I could also find the houses they lived in!  How strange to be excited finding info about someone I never met!  The other sister had already married well.  The behaviour of the mother might be involved here as this one lived in Newcastle and not with the family.  This before she was 13 at that.  
Another interesting insight into the mother was that two years after his marriage granddad places an ad in the local paper telling the world he is not responsible for her debts!  Something was amiss.
I got so involved in all this I ran out of black ink and had to venture out to Tesco to pay for more, £18 a go!  
The brothers were easier to sort out, at least two of them were.  One spent time in Birkenhead where his eldest sister loved with him for a while, then he is found in the 'Manitoba Rifles' fighting for the Canadian Army, aged 35, and disappearing into the chalk on the 5th July 1916.  I must look them up sometime.  William however was in the RNVR and spent the war on small 'sloops' supporting the war effort.  The details on his discharge papers are hard to decipher without a knowledge of Naval terms but he appears to have done all right.  He died in a house in East London in 1936, his probate went to his sister.
Robert however adds mystery to this.  He is 16 and a drapers assistant while at home in Edinburgh but does not appear anywhere again.  I canny find a death certificate, (there are hundreds with his name and it appears the family always had a Robert somewhere) he is not on a census, and has disappeared.  Add to this my aged aunt one time mentioned a tale of that family concerning a son taking poison and then another doing the same which makes me wonder.  In 1891 they are all at home, dad working as a steam engine driver, but in 1901 he is elsewhere along with two sisters and one son.  He remains married and one son is England but where are the rest and why is the engine driver now a general labourer at 55?  Mary has died, has son killed himself, has mother gone over the top as she is now in the lunatic asylum, and yet no info anywhere regarding this.  I need to keep digging.
That is how I have spent two cold days, filling my head with such things, all meaning little in the end but I find it interesting and it keeps me off the streets.  

 

Tuesday Twaddle

Amazon

To encourage the Brexit sponsoring billionaire who owns Amazon I bought this book from him.  He appears happy with that and so he ought to be, after all how much would he have in the offshore banks if it were not for people like me and those shifty accountants he employs? 
This meant that as I was defending the Western Front from those empire builders I had no time to do anything else.  Just as well as I am lazy and did not wish to do anything else.  
A strange book in some ways, it does not 'flow' like a story as it is based on his notes written up at the time but this does give an immediacy to the action in some ways.  Otherwise it is similar to the experiences of what the gutter press refer to as 'our boys' in that the war is fought with the usual problems fro those in the front line and ignorance from those behind.  It therefore makes a mockery of war in many ways.  A good read and once again one I could not put down, in spite of the odd ways in which this translation is written.

It is still going on.
We are no further ahead.
The country does not know what is happening.
Parliament does not know what is happening.
The PM does not know what is happening nor what she is doing.
These men do.

 
These tax dodgers all support Brexit, many live abroad, and like James Dyson that loyal Brexiteer would move their business out of the UK to save money and pay less tax.  These, and who knows who else are behind Brexit.  Telling the little englanders that leaving would give back 'sovereignty' (which we had not lost), create wealth (for them) and kick out all those horrid (mostly black) immigrants that at taking our jobs and living off the dole.  The lies have borne fruit, the media has stolen the nation and it appears nothing can be done.
Disaster awaits...

Morning, Noon and Night.

For the first time this week I rose without the heavy sleep hanging over me, a touch off that bug that has been going around here.  So just after seven a.m. I  trudged in the freezing weather up to Sainsburys.  It was colder than I anticipated, some frost lay in places in the park, and I was unable to open my eyes properly but that means nothing at that time in the morning.
High above the warning red sky offered a day of terrible weather even if the BBC site claims it will be chilly but none too bad around here.  Rarely does the red sky warning fail, somewhere today someone will feel the weather hurt them badly and I therefore must lay plans to stay in all day, once I have popped into the museum to pass on some info for one of the volunteers there.  I expect grumbling re the cold to be heard all around, but not from me as I never complain....

Wandering round to the museum just after ten with the weather colder than it was at seven I went to drop off the material for Keith.  He was busily involved in researching Braintree history back into the distant past.  What will come from this I know not but it looks good.  Judging by the size of he work he has done I am glad he is doing this and not me.
I am much happier than he, he is meeting with others to discuss that work, while I am watching the Scottish Cup on the BBC.  Much better than making my head spin with staring at long lines of aged information written in small and often undiscernible letters. 

My busy day is over, two football matches and reading my book has worn me out.  I had little time to spend arguing with Brexit lovers today, they must miss me?  Mind you Brexit has been pushed back by Prince Philip proving his manhood by crashing cars and then returning to the wheel without using a seat belt.  Vast acres after the accident spoke of his 'bravery' but almost none mentioned the people he crashed into.  They were of no importance I suppose.  I wonder who pays for the cars he crashes...?

Nothing Has Changed

Two votes in the House and nothing has changed.  May is still there fighting hard to keep the Tory Party together in site of the knifing in the back that continues daily.  Once again she stands outside No 10 spouting the same meaningless speeches, once agan nothing changes and the time runs out.
Where will it all end?  
I have avoided most of the talk that has been flung about, none of it makes any difference and little among it makes sense.  The PM is intent on avoiding a party split, the nation has voted emotionally from a 'little englander' viewpoint and now regret this as all the factories, at least those that are left, make plans for moving to Slovakia.  The lies have taken root and the ones fooled into voting for Brexit now are the ones who will pay the price.
I note also how the 'Baby Boomer' generation are again being told they have lots of money and their pension may have to be taxed.  This has been hanging around for a while and the media like the lapdogs they are were quick to promote the 'rich pensioner' idea as a 'theft from the young.'   Once again Tory lies will make others pay while they dodge tax and do very well thanks.  

 I struggled awake this morning, heavy with sleep for some reason, while the girl mumbled on about the weather on the wireless.  "It is going to be chilly," she said apparently unaware that it is the middle of January and therefore 'winter.'  As she did so I noticed large flakes of snow landing on the window.  This was chillier than I had hoped.  
Within an hour this had evaporated and the sun shone brightly all day fooling some into thinking it warmer than it was.  I was not fooled and remained indoors bar taking the rubbish out and risking frostbite.  Minus 1 tonight, a few weeks of this and the Gas and electric men can plan their bonus.' 

Film Night #Laurel & #Hardy #Busy #Bodies

Laziness Forces me to introduce FILM NIGHT!

It's cheap, it's old and it reminds you off me, er hold on...

GRRRRrrrrr....

I called someone a 'snowflake' today!  
This worries me.  
I am becoming a 'Daily Mail' reader!
I was irked, annoyed and put out by his comment and reacted without due care and attention.
This is of course not unlike me.
However I sit here fuming at my stupidity.  That ought to be one thing I am used to but no, I am surprised at how grumpy I am these days, grumpy at 'Daily Mail' levels and that is a worry.  
This anger arises easily as I look around me and see importance poured on things that are not important, celebs, adverts, stupid comments from a TV/pop/film star for instance.  Little things magnified out of proportion and now I am doing it also!
This generation is not easy to understand, their priorities are not major, minor things appear important and I suspect this is as a result of both they and their parents, and probably grandparents being brought up in a life of comparative wealth.  The middle classes, those who power the movers and shakers, have never worked in the real world and the following generations have nothing positive to aim for except the 'self.'  Me first has always been the way of the world but now many have the ability and expect the right to do anything even if it is absurd.  (At this point I would deviate (get it) into a rank about 'trans' but I will spare you this but it shows the point well)  Previous generations lived for the day as they were paid so poorly they had nothing spare, today this is less common.  The 'chattering classes' appear to be heading nowhere and this, like almost everything else, annoys me.
I am of course aware there are over a thousand foodbanks and many suffer under the austerity that leaves poor George Osborne struggling along on £2 million a year.  A friend of mine helps run the local one and meets some very hard cases but they are not the people who anger me.  It is the ones who do not notice and do not care.  The false dawn of the Hippy years saw many wish t make the world a better place, today people only seek self enjoyment, not a wrong in itself but they appear oblivious to the real world.  The PC world has raised a generation with a false moral outlook, 'if it feels good, do it' has become the value, the result is a mess.  An inability to know right from wrong and replace this with a false morality kills.
There again of course I could be, as my friend Wendy has often informed me over the past forty or so years, just a 'Miserable git.'  Maybe she has a point.
However I do see myself getting angrier, is it age?  Is it the generation around me, or is it I am just a git?  

          
Talking of drunken Twitter users I note that Trump has decided to shout at Turkey.  He has threatened them, a NATO ally, with repercussions if they don't do what he slurred.  Now the cynic in me says he has lots of money from Putin's friends, which means from Putin, and Turkey is a front seat for NATO on Russia's border.  Now could this be one of the ideas the Kremlin has put into his head to lessen the threat from next door I wonder?  I am convinced this could not be the case, he is after all a President and the US would not elect a stupid man as president surely?

Books, The Invisible Cross, and Others

Having finished my first Christmas book the other day I have been awaiting delivery of something to read.  This is not because I have no books lying around awaiting use but because most of them are the slower type of read, I wanted something that I could not put down and would be an easy read.  Too many of the others I can only take one chapter at a time, then my brain requires rest.
Three of these I have never heard off before,  the Ernst Junger one I have wished to read for some time,and I am happy to consider these will be easier to read and more interesting than anything available on the nearest TV set or grubby daily paper.  We will find out son enough.
The books all came via Amazon, for reasons of their own the Junger book was sent separately to the others and came via Royal Mail, dropping happily through the letter box along with a final demand for someone else.  The others however came by Amazons own delivery men, 'White Van Man' and normally a 'Black or Tanned Van Man' who had never been in North Essex before, had 500 drops, no map bar a 'Tom Tom' that was out of date and could not speak English.  Whether he had a licence or insurance I would not like to ask.  So today, Saturday, I am informed books are on the way, again it is natural to expect arrival about seven in the evening but happily he arrived as I looked out the window checking on strange noises outside.  This before noon and with an English driver at that!
Now I suppose I must go and sit in my bed for a few days reading all this stuff, I do not wish it to go to waste.

     Amazon

This is an excellent book, though I would not refer to it 'as eloquent as  any war poem'  but it does reveal one man's heart while engaged in fighting a war, a war about which he new little as it happens.  An Englishman with experience of fighting in India at the end of the Raj finds his 1st Battalion the Cameronians now engaged in fighting a very different and superior enemy.  This he does well, as situations change the battalion suffers losses and he takes over command while his superior becomes Brigade General, a position he also will soon be in line for.  Alas he does not follow the commands of the Divisional Generals behind the lines while fighting at Loos, along with his Brigadier he demands that if they wish him to proceed as planned they must come and look at the situation and give him the order in writing, as he has a right to demand.  They do not come.
This made him possibly a marked man and it was until 1918 he actually became a Brigadier, three years late!
We know all this from the letters he sent to his beloved wife.  These he attempted to write daily, not always possible, and reveal his care for his family, his desire to get out of the line as he was ageing and the burden of command as the years past and the war developed wore him down.  His wife's replies he destroys, to precious for others to see.
This is an excellent insight into the battalion commander under duress, the stress of war, care for his family whom he rarely sees, and the care for his men often dying because of blunders and mistakes.
One interesting observation was his lack of understanding of how the war was going.  His friendship and relationship to senior generals did not help him develop a picture of the overall situation, the newspapers offered nothing but propaganda, and he asked his wife for info he was not receiving.  He lived on after the war, another came and went and he continued his happy life until his death in the 1960's.  The war of course he never spoke about.
Overall a very good book, worth a read.

Several times I have come along the street round the corner I have heard a bird sing happily somewhere above me.  At lunch time as I passed by there he was again, a wonderful cheery song in a gray day.  This time I could see him even though the light was poor and I am glad to know it was this Robin chirping away while Sparrows buzzed about him in the tree.  If the weather deteriorates as some claim it will then  hope he survives.  A month of real winter is due and I hope it s not like the one being experienced in Europe.  I hope the bird survives as the song brightens each day.

Thursday Cogitation

The tenth of January twenty nineteen, yet another year has almost finished before I have got over Christmas, and that itself appears far in the past!   Staring out into the gloom does not cheer me early in my morning, neither does Radio 3 cheer as it ought this morning, the wrong choice of music for me.  I wish for something more cheery, ah, Brandenburg Concerto's, that's better, I need something cheery as in a minute the news will appear bringing tales of Brexit, squabbles in parliament and little encouraging me to go out and meet the world.  The world itself is gray and chilly, the people wrapped up, gloved and woolly hatted as if the Antarctic was on their minds rather than Tesco, only young girls heading to college dress skimpily to attract the strange creatures attending them, tardily attired males who consider themselves 'trendy' while looking, as all youths do in every generation, a mess.

My mood might be affected by the pile of paper lying beside me.  This contains information regarding the graves in the Bocking End Congregational Church graveyard.  This has been in use so long many of the tombs are now unreadable and others soon to be similar sadly.  However I checked up some of the names and was struck by how much many achieved, at least in child rearing, and how quickly their life had passed, life is much shorter than we realise, and only after fifty do we realise we are next!  The age span of the names is also great, one church minister was serving the church there for nigh on fifty years, greeting many when they entered the world and burying them around him when they left, while others failed to reach five years in their Victorian life.  Many women lie there dying in their twenties and thirties, childbirth often the cause.
Others appear to have been successful in business, a builder married the girl next door, began as a carpenter, became a builder, then a master builder and eventually died in what I presume to be a house he himself built in one of the more prestigious streets.  Today that house will cost well over half a million, possibly much more, it is an outstanding building!  His other buildings will stand all around probably for many years yet.
I sometimes wonder how people survived the physically tough eras in the past.  Walking was the most common form of travel until railways appeared, and then we would not venture far unless we sought a new life or had a public day off.  Medicine was rare, mostly old wives tales and experiments, until the mid Victorian days when ether arrived operations were rather drastic, germs were not discovered until much later and sickness was dangerous.  Hard labour, poor wages, poor prospects, even though life improved as the century came to an end, in comparison to today the opportunities had to be fought for and life was strewn with difficulties.  We have it so much easier and I am aware of many faults and difficulties we all face today. 

Our next exhibition reflects greatly on one of the large businesses that once employed thousands of townsfolks, Crittall Windows.  By the end of the 19th century Courtaulds Mills, Lake and Elliott and Crittall's employed thousands here, all were decent employers and workers happily remained employed at these companies for most of heir working days.  All paid decent wages, good working conditions and social clubs and events.  Crittalls had a large social club almost opposite their extensive factory, now all gone and replaced by housing, and paid good wages with excellent conditions for the time.  During the Great War they replaced men who had gone off to serve with women paying the same wages and prepared 18lb shells for the war.  One of the Crittalls built the small town of 'Silver End' around one of his factories for the workers, social clubs, parks, shops etc all available in a modernistic setting.  While few of the early settlers remain, most must have passed away by now, the village is still clearly well laid out although the benefactor 'feel' may now have long gone.  If only our millionaires today acted like this towards their people?  I suppose they have no contact with workers and therefore have no idea what the workers lives are like, politicians today mostly failing to have ever 'worked' having always been politically minded.  They are indeed far from us all.  The Crittalls however knew their people and this exhibition will show oil paintings made by the company of workers at all levels from shop floor to boardroom.  These were made in the 20's and at least one person I have met has a granddad who is among those portrayed by the artist (whoever he was).  This ought to being in the public, half the town worked there or knew some family member who did, and it will run on until the new year to allow schools a chance to bring the kids in and learn about the towns past.  
No-one paints portraits of their workers today.

 

Work

The sun was up, the sky was blue, and so was I as he sun shone but failed to heat.
Chilled and weary I entered the world of work once again and once again it smiled upon me, then left me to it all day.  How marvellous to have had nothing to do for two hours this morning!  They who must be obeyed were all in a meeting, that went on all day, I think one of them is still there talking away and has not noticed the rest have hopped it.  This left me with nothing to do but attend to visitors who did not show.  At least for most of the day that is then they all came at once, parcels being delivered, visitors, people asking for bus timetables, more visitors and then it as time to go home.
Naturally at this point I made a mess of the till and our one big customer of the day, until then our only one, suffered my incompetence.  Once sorted he smiled and left, feeding them chocolates while we sort the till helps ease people I find, especially women, and then reporting to boss who had sneaked out of meeting and being clouted with ledger book, I sailed home.
Marvellous this ability of mine to make mistakes no-one else ever makes.  I see this as a "cough" gift though the boss says otherwise.

Geordie taking over at the 'Mail' recently  offered a chance for the tabloid to improve the quality aspect, turn from Brexit and produce journalism once again.  Sadly this has not materialised.  Indeed it appears to have gone further in quality.  Instead of haranguing the EU or screaming about immigrants Geordie fills the paper with royal stories, mostly untrue, and mediocre celebs.  So we have tales of what she wears, what she said to him, and what ex-employee claims she said he said that week when she did or he didn't.  Hundreds comment each taking sides in this needless soap opera.  Geordie knows his audience and 'News' is not what they seek.  To this end David Beckham the mediocre footballer with pouting wife has reappeared constantly.  Oh joy, we need to know about him, her, the sales, the fashion, the money don't we?   Well no actually but the DM reader apparently does.  Brexit has been pushed carefully aside and Geordie is, like everyone else, unsure what will happen, so he hedges bets in case he needs someone in the future.  Dacre, the strange previous editor has departed who knows or cares where but Geordie must improve the quality or folks might be wanting the old man back again.