Wednesday

Sloths

Well I know one reason why I was knackered, sloth!
The bug that never leaves me does not help but not having anything stimulating the (very) little gray cells does not help. So today when I was forced out of the routine to meet a pretty young woman under orders from the Fuhrer at the dole office, I found this helped. Stimulating thought, encouraging words, and a slapping (twice) on the side of the head from a handbag (just to make sure I was listening) all added up to a nice hour. Of course we argued, I met her in a cafe and she wanted to pay! Modern wimmen need a good slap themselves sometimes! Will it help find work? No! There are no jobs for lazy, fat, slobbish, miserable gits it appears.

Guardian

The remembrance service is over for this year. We have remembered the dead of the Great War, and all wars since, including the present conflicts. Yet we have seen one woman run to the 'Sun' to complain The Prime Minister misspelled her sons name in the note of condolence he sent her and she runs to the 'Sun' to complain! If the PM takes a moment from his 14 hour day to send a note of condolence, in his famously bad handwriting, (he is blind in one eye and has restricted vision in the other) and he has done this over two hundred times at least, is it right to run to the press? I am left sympathising with the loss of her son but wondering if she has received payment for this? When Brown phoned her she records his call? Not something most of us would do, at least not to give to the papers anyway. Indeed the 'Sun,' owned by Rupert Murdoch and having already made clear his desire to support the Tories in the coming election, are using a dead soldier and his grieving mother for political ends, and hope to profit from this. A disgrace all round.

Tired

Why am I so tired all the time?
Answers please on a £20 note to this address. I just want to sleep all the time, I just cannot be bothered, I am getting so unfit, and I zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Poppy

Poppy Scotland
Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal

The Great War of 1914 -1919 changed the world for ever. The British Army had grown from a world wide total of just over 450,000 to almost five and a half million, most of them based in Western France. The dead numbered 750,000 and almost all suffered wounds, both physical and mental. The nation at home, for the most part totally ignorant of the real nature of the war, was riven by the suffering and the effects on those at home. Afterwards the loss of so many men, fathers, sons, brothers, loved ones, was heightened by the inability to find a place to mourn them. British troops were buried in the field and not returned home. So many went missing that even now, 90 years on, some 300,000 are still missing, somewhere under the battlefields.
This left relatives with no place to mourn, and when the King ordered a two minutes silence in November 1919:-

All locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness,
the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated

on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.

The creation of the timber cenotaph, for the Victory Parade in 1919, caused such a stir that it had to be made permanent by 1920. Thousands marched by seeing in the cenotaph the only place to mourn their dead, not just the nations. The fact that riots in places such as Luton and Manchester in 1919 were caused by returning soldiers being unable to find work, often jobs promised when they enlisted were refused by manufacturers on the grounds of 'time lost,' or 'changing situations.' All lies! Also in 1920, on the 11th of November, the 'Unknown Warrior' was buried in Westminster Abbey. This also brought thousands to London, many convincing themselves that this was their son, husband, brother, father. The sense of loss was deep and a permanent scar left in the hearts of many. My aunts mother in law, who died around 1960, kept the letters her son, shot by a sniper in October 1918, had written to her in a handbag found only after my aunts death. Many others kept such mementoes all their lives.


During the conflict a Canadian Army soldier, Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae, had written the poem:-

In Flanders fields, the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

an American lass called Moira Michael wrote an answer to this

And now the Torch and Poppy Red during the war
We wear in honour of our dead.

She then started to wear a poppy, and sold others to raise money for wounded soldiers. A friend from the French YMCA, Madame Guerin, liked the idea and made artificial poppies to raise cash for war orphans, of which there must have been many in France after 1918. By 1921 the British Legion began to sell them and now raises millions each year through the sale of plastic poppies.

Originally we remembered those who did not return from the Great War, soon we commemorated those from the second war, and by the sixties we lost concern for war and the memory thereof. In spite of the 'Cold War' and the closeness of mutual destruction, we wished to live in the prosperous 'here and now' and ignore the military side of things. Vietnam meant ban war not commemorate it. 'Make Love Not War!' was the cry, although in reality it was more 'Make Tea not War.' However, Ireland, the Falklands conflict, the Gulf war and the Iraq and Afghanistan adventure have once again brought home to us the cost of war and engendered a respect for men of the armed services, whether we agree with the war or not.

However sometimes I wonder if we remember correctly. Those who served will remember what they went through, and the comradeship such difficulties produce. However it appears today we promote an almost idol worship of the dead. The parade through Wootten Bassett, the lowering of flags, while intended as respect appears to enlarge the grief and uses the dead as objects rather than commemorates them. Some also appear to be looking for a remembrance, not of the fallen, but of a situation of their own imaginings. Possibly a longing for the past empire, or a world as they wish it to be rather than the one that is. All are wrong. We need to remember, just remember, the dead. From the Great War and those that followed, and today we can remember also the dead on the other side also. For many who were there 'doing their bit,' it can even seventy years on be hard to forgive or forget, but for us we can remember all the dead. Whether we will regard Taliban dead, or those who attack our forces anywhere in the world today in this way is less likely,but it is time to consider all the dead in conflict, and fight to bring such conflicts to an end, not just to remember.

Old Newspapers

Historic Newspapers

Probing around through the dust I came across an old 'Daily Telegraph' newspaper and an even older copy of 'The Times' given to me on one of my birthdays. I suspect they came via the 'Historic Newspapers' company, or at least one very like them. Fascinating stuff these old papers. You can find out what is in the news on the day you were born, or if the date has no significance for you the news is often interesting in it's own right. Naturally the obvious thing is the fact that news never changes. While the layout becomes more colourful, the style follows fashion and the terminology attempts to speak the language the readers desire, news itself never varies. Shock or sentiment is the main ingredient. Horror, war, trouble and strife, scandal and exposing the famous sell papers. That never changes.

In 1951 the Korean War filled the headlines, truce talks being uppermost. Iran was upsetting the British by having the temerity to take over their oilfields. Ptah, how dare they! Don't worry, we soon sorted them out, and they are the Yanks problem now. Energy was in the headlines as there were fears of a coal shortage by winter. A simple statement, but it conjures up images of the whole of the UK living under a permanent cloud of smoke from one end to the other. Today we fail to realise how mucky the nation had become because of pollution. When I grew up in Edinburgh all the building were blackened by years of smoke, 'Auld Reekie' indeed! However the whole nation suffered this way. It caused smogs in many places, smoke was brought down by rain and got into the lungs increasing bronchitis and cancers, ruined women's washing even on a clear summers day, and saw the 1970's given over to high pressure hoses, at great cost and nuisance, used to scrub clean Edinburgh's buildings.

In amongst the world news come the usual, yet equally important tales of 16 year old lassies being swept out to sea in a boat, and brought home late at night, an MP upset at not being invited to meet a Princess because he was a Socialist, a DC-6 plane crashing in the States, a not uncommon event at the time, and of course the cricket, and even worse, the dreaded tennis results! However this summer paper did offer fur coats for a mere 10 gns, though you could pay more if you liked. The 'Guinea' was an absurd amount of £1 1/-, One pound and one shilling, used for many years for selling racehorses long after it had gone out of fashion elsewhere. Fur coats also have disappeared, and also the Fox stoles (2 gns) that were once so common. How do they keep warm today I wonder? In 1951 they could buy a 'Gamages' electric blanket for 69/6d or an electric massage vibrator for a mere 52/6d, a bargain I would say.

Fascinating, but in the end the world of the past is just the same as the world today, as human nature does not change so the world it affects will not change. A brief look through history shows that it was ever thus.

Blonde

I Don't Understand!

Two men, independently and unknown to one another, sent me this today! I do not understand why?
This is a BBC report on an Australians research which has left him with the idea that being 'Grumpy' is good for you! What has this to do with me you ask? I have no idea! This Australian psychologist, and those two words put together ought to bring your cynicism to the fore I suggest, this man claims the 'grumpy' make better decisions, are less gullible and think more clearly. Oh yeah?

"While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine."
"The University of New South Wales researcher says a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain "promotes information processing strategies."

Now how on earth does he come to this conclusion? Well as a 'psychologist' you will understand he conducts experiments which will lead to results, he says. His volunteers (who they? Students looking for cash for booze I suspect) were required to concentrate on either good or bad things in their lives (that opens a few doors I would say). Then the tests asked for 'eyewitness accounts' and judgement of 'urban myths' (what myths?) among other things (what things?).

This Aussie, a psychologist by the way, comes to the conclusion from this that miserable folk make better judgements and decisions. So how come folk think of me? Does my situation remind you of someone who has made a correct decision? Does our benevolent Prime Minister look at the world through happy clappy eyes and find himself loved by all? No of course not! he is a miserable git who only smiles when, er...I will come back to that, and where is he now? He has the lowest popularity rating of anyone, his chances of election success rate less than my chance of success with Beyonce (whoever she is?) and every decision he takes comes back and smacks him in the face! Australian politicians, as the psychologist would know if he came of of his privileged University world, are a miserable, course, rude bunch of cretins that make the English parliament look polite! Yet he doesn't know what a mess they make of things?

In spite of his efforts I refuse to accept his findings. Cheerful folk make better decisions because they are relaxed, less worried, and unhurried. Miserable folk do not make good decisions because they are depressed, care nothing about the outcome, and suck lemons for rest and recreation. I have on occasions helped out in psychology experiments. One showed us lots of words on a screen, one at a time. Then lost of pictures in a similar vein. Later we were asked, in a controlled manner, to say of we had seen the words or objects during the second run through. The result? We learned that words are harder to remember than pictures! Wow! That was well worth the experiment. Some may claim they realised this long years ago, the cavemen did while drawing bison on the walls! Another bright young lass showed eight photograph slides. Only one of those who attended pointed out that the first four were black and white, the second four colour. Or was it the other way round? However that was the test. We all noticed but thought nothing of it! She got a degree from writing a million words about this!

I'm depressed now, I think I will go away and think! I've just thought, was George W Bush cheerful? He had his hand on the nuclear button. What did you think of his decision making?
The two that sent me this are cheerful also......

Monday Evening

I discovered around lunchtime yesterday that it is now November. One day Autumn was changing the colour of the leaves, although not as much as this picture has, they ought to be bright yellow not sullen brown, and yesterday the rain came! It was so bad that Dundee United had to abandon their game at half time! Now that doesn't happen that often these days. The weather was not so bad here, it stopped raining occasionally, but winter has set in. This of course gladdens the hearts of those greedy utility company folk. The electric and gas people will be rejoicing like a banker who has found a fifty pence piece, and already there are grave noises about price increases. While it is true Russia increases the prices there is no doubt who makes most profit. Still, mustn't grumble I say, just rejoice and get on with it like I always do. I'm not one to complain you know.



Our good friend Rob at Mulled Vine has been doing some writing recently, this in spite of the three females in the house and a job to do! His completed work, in the form of a diary, has drawn admirers to him like pretty young girls around a rich, senile old man (no not me, the four letter word shows that is not likely to be me!). Read this and see if you can do anything for this talented writer. He does not want to be rich, just 'comfortable.'

Ephesus

Turkey in Photos

I had a comment from Kerem today regarding a mention I made of Ephesus a year or two ago. He was the owner of this photograph, and I had left a link, as I have once again, to his excellent site. I was pleased about this as it gave me the opportunity to complain that I am here and Ephesus is there! This I find to be somewhat unfortunate! Even worse, my friends David & Sheena have earned themselves a holiday and are at this very moment cruising around the
Mediterranean, including a stop off at Turkey! Only the other day it struck me, while I watched the weather forecaster smiling while she informs the world of the rain and wind that is about to descend on the land from top to bottom, that I wander drenched through this world they are touring Ephesus and complaining about the heat! It is indeed an unfair world.

Ephesus is one of those places I really would like to visit one day. The number of buildings still standing since the harbour silted up, the sites possibly visited by Paul and John, and many other leading church folk of the first century. The theatre where the silversmiths led by Alexander attempted to stifle the church with several thousand crying "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians" for two solid hours! The now silent buildings, bar the cries of the tourists of course, speak of lives lived long ago. I would love to stand there and listen to those stones speak of the past, if you see what I mean.

Celebrity

Looking through pictures of theatre and movie stars of long ago I was struck by our need of 'celebrity.' Today we have lots of mediocre 'stars' filling the TV screen entertaining, they say, the masses. The Chinese ambassador has complained about the house next door where some stars of one TV programme (The X Factor?) are besieged by teenagers looking for their 'heroes.' I use that word loosely! Their 'fan adoration' has left the place a mess, and caused a noise nuisance, as you can imagine! The 'Daily Mail' specialises in gossip concerning famous women and their dress sense, while the 'red tops' specialise in what these women do while undressed. The private lives of the famous, footballers, TV stars, politicians and any rich and famous person, appears to be what the masses wish to know. It has always been thus I suspect.



Magazines abounded in the twenties and thirties full of tales of the movie stars. Such was the desire for Rudolf Valentino that women committed suicide when he died. I cruelly think neither were much of a loss but this does reveal the emotional emptiness of some. Reading Josephus 'Jewish War' we note the amount of time given over to the intrigues of Herod's palace. The bitchiness and backstabbing between the women, the conspiracy from the men seeking the throne, and the constant infighting that helped destroy Herod's mental balance. Roman writers realised that sexual adventures, political infighting, avarice and the lives of the great and good were food and drink to the Roman populace. Something within us needs to know what the famous are up to, especially if it is sexual or just bad! Why?


There is indeed an interest in others lives, especially someone you admire, or detest, who is a celebrity of one sort or another. However do we need to know all the corruption? Is it just cheap titillation or living out our mundane fantasies through their, apparent, lives. In the end we find they are all just broken people like ourselves. We tend to discover they are no happier than we are, often very much the opposite, and riches do not satisfy their ambitions. There is of course no shortage of those who wish to be famous, don't we all at one time or another, and as Clive James claimed recently, being famous comes at a cost, and he did not like the cost! Once famous you are not your own. You belong to others and they will use you to fulfil their lives through you.
Pop singers and movie stars are never far from a photographer. Some are pleased by this and all eventually have had enough of it. Footballers are abused and cheered equally during their careers. They are subject to abuse from friend and foe and find the media demand them at all times, then deliberately twist what they may say! yet we still want to be like them at some time, for we need to be appreciated and indeed loved for what we are. I suspect that lies at the heart of those who wish to be celebrities, the need to be accepted, and loved for being them! For those on the outside the need are the same, the opportunities less so we use them to satisfy our need to be loved.

Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

So said John Keats in 'To Autumn.'
He had a point and in spite of 'global warming' the seasons are still basically the
same. The chilled evening saw mist surround the world by ten o' clock last night,
and this morning we have a world shrouded with thin mist. What a difference this
makes to our outlook. Natural light, and plenty of sun does increase our happiness
quota. Which is why we work best with large windows and an outlook over the sea,
preferably somewhere in the Med! Still, mist produces some good photographs and
while all I managed was this quick snapshot it gives the feel of the morn.

The main purpose of the day was to report to higher command and explain the job
hunt. 'Hunt' being a meaningless word. On Monday I met yet another lass who is
going to help me find work. The previous efforts fell because of my age, knee
and the total lack of jobs available! This new lass, a pretty young Hungarian,
quickly came to the same conclusion. She was kind enough to inform me I don't
look 58, only 48 she said.
"You are lovely," said I, "But could you make it 38?"
"I'm not that lovely," she said somewhat sarcastically.
Reporting to the fuhrer today took little time and I was soon wandering around
Tesco looking for bargains. The trouble with this was the crowd in the middle of
the day.Not only the crowd but the kids they brought with them, all ten million of
them. Sweet little ones with grannie, sulking big ones with mum, adolescent girls
enjoying spending dad's money on clothes and adolescent boys in groups just being
adolescents! Why are we not allowed to shoot them I ask? At least the fridge is
almost full.


My fitness is almost non existent after the recent bout of flu so I wandered up the
old railway in an effort to get away from the kids. This was a daft idea as this was
where folks were taking the kids to wear them out instead of them breaking the house
apart! Jumping of the path to avoid Johnny as he attempted to ride his bike at thirty
miles an hour with his head down and his eyes closed. A long way behind came granddad
desperate to catch up with the brat! I was safer at home!

Celtic 0 Heart of Midlothian 1.

What a wonderful evening!
The miserable experience on Saturday of struggling against Falkirk are long behind us now.
This was a well deserved victory against one half of the sons of evil!
Three good chances in the first half that should have had the game won by half time. Certainly Celtic made a go of it and had two good chances then also, with several more in the second half. However the Hearts ought to have had more goals in the second period, we deserved them, just as we deserved the luck. That luck was supplied by Celtic putting Georges Samaras on after we scored. His inability to hit a barn door made Christian Nade look like a sharpshooter!
Nade it must be said showed what he has lacked so far, skill, determination, and most importantly willingness! he wanted to win and could have had at least two goals to himself. His run into the box produced the penalty from Fox's amateur tackle, and Fox, himself a good full back, was shown up by Heart of Midlothian's Lee Wallace, clearly the best left back in Scotland!
Altogether while Celts made a spirited effort we had no faults, defended their attacks stoutly all over the field and possibly have found in little Black the man to play just behind the striker. His running and contribution in the first half was excellent! What a shame injury took him from the field. This position also stops him tackling and getting booked, something he tends to do almost every few minutes! MacManus callous, clumsy foul on Driver just before the end revealed the nastiness deep within. An ex-Hibernian player with spite, or just a failing defender afraid to lose a second goal. I think it was the latter. How the ref did not issue a straight red I failed to understand, however he was looking in the direction of the incident and only the linesman was able to note that Driver was clearly through on goal. Therefore off he went.

I just hope we have Rangers in the semi, if we draw St Johnstone or St Mirren we could lose!

String

How long is a piece of string? No that is not a statement about my Chinese mate, it is a question, a question that ought to ask, "Where is my piece of string?" You see we all have that piece of string in a drawer, kept there 'in case it is needed.' Now I know that I have a small white string bundle somewhere in the house and yet it has disappeared! I know it is there, I can remember it sitting there, unused, and asking 'Do we need this?' Yes is the answer because there will always be a time that piece of string comes in useful.
Now is such a time!
You see the plant on the window has one branch shooting far out to the side. This requires a piece of string to haul it back closer to the centre . I ought to have done this a long time ago I admit but failed to realise until too late the danger of the shoot heading of to the far wall instead of the ceiling. Now when I take action I fear it may be too late! However if I do not find the piece of string I may never know.

I have found several small black plastic containers that once held film for the camera, lots of black plastic 'ties' too short for the purpose and a few large yellow ones that are just as useless. There is a very small white piece of soap in the shape of a pig, and a red, green and yellow marble that I use as a 'spirit level,' but no string. There is also an inordinate amount of dust. Possibly someone, or something, has died there in times past? The small white length of string, tied in a red Royal Mail rubber band, should be in this drawer but isn't, which means it can only be found in the tool box. While cutting my fingers on blunt, rusty sharp edges, and shoveling rather too many loose small nails aside I find no string but a tube of, used once, superglue which will not open. Isn't it always the way? Withdrawing my bloodied fingers I rummage in the only other drawer that would contain the string, leaving little red blotches on the papers, books and the so rarely used camera equipment found there, and find no string! I did however find a 400 ISO film with a 'use by' date of 10/2007, and a map of Slough. No, I don't know either!

It is one of life's little laws that if you do not want any string you will find plenty. All I require is a short piece of string, no more than two feet in length (stick the metrics you folk) and I can only find biodegradable rubber bands, and they will not do the job. It looks like my Triffid will continue to head for the wall instead of the ceiling all because of the piece of string! If it ever turns up I will force it to feed the plant and rush out and buy a whole new ball of string which I shall keep in my pocket until I need it!

Change the Clocks!

This morning I awoke at around 20 minutes past eight. I was delighted to have forced myself back to sleep, several times, but eventually faced the call of the world to offer myself to it. The world responded by ignoring my existence. I sat here and read the papers online, depressing myself at the Heart of Midlothian's inability to score a goal against the team bottom of the league! I should rejoice they did not score and get their first win, against us! There was little that interested me, I glanced at the blogs, always poor on the weekend when folks insist on having a life instead of blogging. There were few with anything to read. I watched the beginning of the Moto GP on TV for a while until that got boring also. Being Sunday I sat in the bath and read part of 'Three Men in a Boat' and wallowed for an hour.
Back at the desk searching for inspiration I overheard someone mention the clocks going back. I phoned 1-2-3 to check the time and discovered it was not, by now, 12:25 , it was instead 11:25 am, and no-one had told me! The cheek of it! Not for the first time the nation has amended the clocks and not bothered to inform me what was going on. I could get paranoid about this but will put that aside for now. To be honest this is not the first time this has occurred. I can recall marching jauntily into a church to be laughed at by people coming out! A year or two ago I rode in the sunlight up the old railway one bright Sunday morning pleased that no-one was around. Well I had the sunshine to myself that day, it being six in the morning while I still believed it was seven! Now I think about it I really can believe this is a government conspiracy against me! 'They' are out to get me. I wonder if my phone is being tapped?

Lazy Friday

To brain dead these days to write much, as you may have seen! However the bug is slowly leaving and occasionally I find my eyes open, only occasionally mind. So to entertain you here is a picture of one of the spiders webs that appear all over the windows these days. There is no sign of Boris himself, he likes to hide in a crevice nearby, but he and his brothers are big brutes for this part of the world. Obviously they are well fed! I watched on deal with a leaf from one of the trees nearby that stuck to his web the other day. He spent a good long while fighting with it and eventually removed the thing and repaired his well constructed web. Amazing that spiders get no instruction, spend no time in college, have no degrees in engineering and yet built such complicated, slender, yet strong constructions as these! And they say there is no God? These webs, the design of a flower, the way a birds wing is constructed, hollow and with struts across to give strength, the ability of a fragile butterfly to migrate over thousands of miles never fails to amaze me.

Rain

Look at that rain! Rain, in the 'driest county in England,' at that! It's a disgrace! What can be done in such weather? The rain gets into everything, it gets into your socks through the holes in your shoes, women take your eye out with their umbrellas, drivers cannot see clearly when using their mobile phones or stuffing their faces, and when wearing rain type jackets you sweat like the proverbial pig! If I want this sort of weather I will rush of to the Scottish hillsides!
It has rained all day, indeed it began late last night, and still comes down, either in that thick drizzle that speaks of the Aberdeenshire coast, or in monsoon storm like heavy drops. At least the monsoon is warmer! I suppose we should be grateful this lot is not in fact arriving via the North Sea for then it would have picked its way across the remaining ice caps to entertain us further.

There is however, great joy to be obtained at such times. For one, I stand at the window, coffee cup in hand, waving to passing postmen. They, preparing to deliver what will end up as paper mache usually find it in them to wave back, sort off. Kids love this weather. They run about jumping into puddles and receive stern warning from neurotic mothers about flu and bronchitis and care nothing for either the sickness or the telling off! Dogs, happy to be out in the park, rush about smiling happily at everybody, enjoying the chance to stretch their legs and run, meet other pooches, and really annoy the owner, he who trails behind wrapped in oilskins, carrying a large golf umbrella and grumpily wishes her indoors had bought a cat instead!

Give me a place somewhere sunny please!

Rotyal Mail Dispute

The 'Daily Mail' and other right wing press, are going full out in attacking the striking postmen. This is no surprise. For many years government, both parties, have wanted rid of the Royal Mail. On top of this an EU directive forced 'competition' on to them and allowed 'TNT' and 'Deutche Post' to operate parcel delivery in the UK. They were also allowed to take mail, at cheaper rates than RM, and dump it on Royal Mail to deliver. That's right, they collect mail from the big companies, and a few small ones, charge them less than Royal Mail do, and then give it to RM to deliver for them. When I was a postman, three years ago, it cost RM 13 pence to deliver mail. Privatised companies paid RM only 12,5 pence per letter, a profit of 0.5 pence per letter! It is no wonder RM loses money!

While complaining they are losing mail the postman is actually delivering much more than before. Not only the normal mail, but the increase coming from those using the private companies means the postman's bag is bigger than ever. The pressure from above is such that while the mailman has three and a half hours to actually deliver his sorted mail, he spends half his day sorting the stuff by hand first of course, he actually needs four to five hours to deliver it. Royal Mail will NOT pay overtime for this! Add to this the increase in packages carried by the postman, 'E-Bay' and others causing this, the number of bags he has to deal with has doubled, and this means running around collecting the things, all adding to his time frame. Many complain the postman does not wait while knocking at the door, although this is often more to their slowness at answering! I have watched a woman wander about the house, knowing I am standing there, fixing her hair before she answered! "I ONLY HAVE FIVE HUNDRED OTHERS TO THINK OF BITCH GET A MOVE ON!" Yet the postie is the one in the wrong? Far too many display the normal human failure of thinking the postman is a servant, their servant, who should wait on them. They forget he may be a servant, but he is not servile! So give what you wish to receive.

Even when the management at a sorting office know their job the men at the top are working to an agenda designed to paint the postmen as the 'bad guys.' This is clearly seen in the message given through the press. The vast amounts of 'delayed mail' that lies undelivered in sorting offices (well the main offices actually) is blamed on industrial action. What is not said is that much of this is deliberately put aside in an effort to cast blame. Other areas will not allow this mail to be delivered as they refuse to pay for the men to do overtime. The increased pressure to remove all the full time, trained, postmen, and replace them with part time casuals, untrained and unfamiliar with the 'walks' they are given, saves RM cash but ensures mail delivery is harmed. This style of delivery is that used by TNT and others in Belgium, Germany and Holland. Their the mail is a mess in many areas, industrial conflict abounds, and posting a letter is vastly more expensive than in the UK.

Clearly the government wishes to save the 'taxpayer' money by selling off Royal Mail. This means that in the long term prices will increase, Lands End to John O' Groats next day delivery, all for 32 pence, will disappear, and the normal postman who is aware of your comings and goings (and who has signed the official secrets act by the way) will no longer exist. By saving the 'taxpayer,' or should I say 'Daily Mail' reader, a few pence in tax a year this policy will increase the cost of his mail, and business costs which will rebound on him, exorbitantly! They did this with Electric, Water, British Rail, the buses and of course Gas! All utilities that once served the nation, and while they were badly run and needed modernised they did not rip folks off and make billions in profits for the few! While some posties were not keen on work, I can think of three in particular, the majority just get on with the job. Today they are being badly treated by a management that cares nothing for them, the service, or anything but money! They should care about that, Crosier is taking millions each year for his three day week! The service has degraded badly in the past couple of years through this mismanagement. Time to renationalise the utilities, and support the postmen's efforts to keep the service element of Royal Mail. Bring back Joseph Chamberlain!

3 Para

3Para

While flying home for my mothers funeral I got chatting to a man from 3 Para about Afghanistan. This was an interesting conversation with a chap who had seen action there and was in every respect the type of man you wished to have on your side. The Para's have a reputation for being somewhat 'rough' but this did not come across with this man. He was an excellent representative for his regiment and I confess I was impressed. This image was given further evidence when reading the book he had recommended, '3 Para,' the story of their adventure in Afghanistan. He is pictured here,

"Loud and lovable,
Sergeant Dan Jarvie was
one of the most popular men in 3 Para."

That I can believe!

The Para's intention was to support the 'reconstruction' of damaged Afghanistan in the Helmand Province. Once there however political games from high above led to there aim being distorted and they became becalmed in several locations 'holding the fort' instead of moving through the land in the manner they were trained for. This was because once in position the Taliban then chose to attack, at great cost, these establishments. The constructive side of the operation soon became secondary and disappeared altogether by the time of their return to Colchester. This it must be said was not the fault of 3 Para!

In Sangin and Musa Qaleh, in Now Zad and at the Kajaki Dam they met stiff resistance with determination and skill. They suffered much. The weather was hot and they were wearing full kit. Mines planted during the Russian occupation caused much damage, RPG's and sniper fire, attacks on compounds and vehicles bringing supplies were costly. 3 Para endured them all and fought on, not quite exhausted, until relieved.

This well illustrated book tells the story of the tour of duty, the clashes with the Taliban, the attempt to make friends with the locals, who were caught between the Taliban and an army that may well be gone tomorrow, and the power struggles above. The Afghan president and his governor, the American wish to blast the Taliban out, and the British attempt at 'hearts and minds' which the 'John Wayne' educated U.S. forces never appear to understand. The impression is given of a country with far to many divisions, too much corruption, a Taliban imposing from without their religious view, the western force doing likewise and a government more interested in position and making a fast buck. While the Taliban can never again reconquer the nation they can never be removed either. The people are of no importance in all this!
There is no easy answer, and too few wish any answer at all!

The battle group of which 3 Para were the leading edge, consisted of a company from the Royal Gurkha Rifles, a detachment from the Royal Irish Regiment, plus Scimitar and Spartans vehicles from the household Cavalry to add an armoured section with the 7th Royal Horse Artillery adding their 105m guns. Engineers, medical, and air transport combined to make a significant and powerful force. By the end of the tour this force had suffered fifteen deaths, including an interpreter, and almost fifty serious wounds. The war situation moves on, the wounds remain for life. On top of this there are the 'post traumatic stress' problems that few speak about but manage to send hundreds, or is it thousands, of ex-servicemen to jail!

There were of course medals, some posthumous. Corporal Bryan James Budd of 3 Para, noticed his men had been injured during a fight in a field of tall maize. To protect them while medical aid arrived and tended these serious injuries, he took off in the direction of the enemy fire, firing in their direction to draw the enemy to himself. He disappeared! When found later he was lying dead alongside two Taliban. He was awarded the Victoria Cross!
Corporal Mark William Wright, also of 3 Para, was also killed in action. He was awarded the George Cross. Many more received awards or were mentioned in dispatches.

Patrick Bishops book gave a very good understanding of the complexity of the Afghan problem, far better than any news report could do. In spite of the changes in the situation, and there have been many, the danger for the Para's does not go away. Insufficient equipment, a lack of support, the confused ideals behind the action and the nagging question, "What are we doing here?" Let's face it, nobody really knows what the purpose is. This war was another of 'Dubyah' Bush's adventures, and it is doubtful if he ever found out where Afghanistan is! Obama wants to get out but has no idea how to do this, and Gordon Brown is reluctant to send the troops asked for by the army. The 'Vietnam' thought lurks in the background. Nobody has ever conquered this troublesome people. The fear of Islamic terrorism, real enough in itself, may not be faced in this area, especially if the real foe is in Pakistan! What will happen to this sad land? There is no answer to that at this time.

3 Para have been back once already, in 2008, and will return again next year. While they will do their job well I hope there are clear objectives marked out for them, achievable objectives at that! I do not wish to see Dan Jarvie, and his tremendously powerful handshake, lost for no good reason. These men deserve better for the determined, effective, service they provide for this nation.

H.V.Morton

At the beginning of the book, 'In Search of H.V.Morton' the author, Michael Bartholomew, tells the story of Morton's disappointment at meeting an author with whom he had become besotted. He was still a child and was reluctantly pushed forward by his mother after he had discovered the great man was not what he had imagined. The disappointment never left him and he made it a point never to reveal anything of himself deliberately, relying only on the written word and nothing else. The story is related because those of us who have built up a picture of Morton in our minds will quickly become similarly disappointed when we meet the real man!

I confess I have as yet not read the whole book, just a review a while ago which indicated just what exactly the 'real man' contained. That was disappointing enough but a glance at certain chapters of the book, concerning the works I had written, indicated I would indeed not find the man I imagined. The discovery that his books were something other than what they appeared to be also fails to please but I suppose reading with eyes open more often would have shown this already. One day I will finish the book, if I spend long enough in the library keeping warm, but I am unsure if I actually wish to at this moment.

It rings true however that the person we read is not the person who lives. Therefore the idea of the writer keeping his counsel and ensuring his life is not lived in the public eye is one I agree with. The written word ought to speak for itself, and this is why I disagree with photographs of journalists in the press. It looks good presentation wise for the paper but it makes the person more important than the word. many journalists may of course see nothing wrong with that, and the nearer they are to the tabloid end the more they will see themselves as important it appears at first sight. The words ought to be honest, preferably knowledgeable, and worth reading. The person behind them should be irrelevant. There again we do pick up a picture of the person writing the words, hopefully we have seen the real one and therefore will not be disappointed if we run into them.

1950's planning

One good thing about 1950's planning was the idea of open spaces. I came past one such estate today. These houses were planned in the late thirties, or during the war and eventually someone got around to the design and building of them in the early fifties. Houses for people, council houses originally and foolishly sold of by Thatcher. One of the stupidest policies she came out with. Owning your own home was an ideal, and one so many could not keep up with yet she encouraged the sale of the very houses that were meant to provide for those that could not afford to buy! Naturally the socialist voters who bought their home cheap flogged it for a fortune leaving thousand in the lat 1980's in debt up to their eyes. A short step to the recession we now endure worldwide! Today we are building 'social housing' the very thing she killed off! Today the houses are cramped, with small areas of green for gardens and probably built on land that ought to be left for the 'green belt,' or even worse, land that has had hundreds of years of industrial use
and contains all sorts of bad stuff. Superb! Those house built in the fifties at least had open spaces, in truth larger than required, but gave the occupants a better life than the overcrowded tenements and houses they had suffered for many years. Such long sighted policies ought to be commended. There is no doubt the people sometimes responded badly and many areas of good housing were reduced to slums by the people who inhabited them, so much for the socialist idea that people would change if the housing improved! However for those who did make the most of it the houses are a blessing indeed, so much so many did not move even if they bought their house and like my mother lived in them for over fifty years. Quite right too!

This estate has large green areas, possibly caused by the slopes making it unsuitable for housing, and what was once farmers fields are now areas of green with the occasional small wood, like the one pictured above. A small benefit to those who live here, because we need trees and bushes around us. We need the sight of green grass and a wide variety of wildlife nearby. This opens our minds and takes us away from the daily struggle, unless of course it rains, then it's just mud and only the dog is happy!

Intellectual Stimulation

I often listen into Radio 4's 'In Our Time' with Melvyn Bragg for intellectual stimulation. The idea is simple. Several clever folks gather around the table with Melvyn and discuss their specialist subject. It could be the Battle of Thermopylae, Geoffrey Chaucer, Virtue, the Whale, or Heritage. Almost any subject under the sun will be discussed here.

I like it as I get a better understanding of lots of different subjects, if I am interested in them that is, and enjoy the experts pointing out one another's faults in that polite academic manner they love so much. I do get irritated, not a habit I suffer from as you know, when Melvyn attempts to speed up the speaker in an effort to fit the programme into the 45 minutes allotted to it. Naturally his summing up of their chat takes longer than the one speaking, and he of course has no idea what he is talking about when he does this! Quite funny in one way but just shut it Melvyn and let them speak! The added benefit of such programmes, and the subjects range far and wide it must be said, just trawl through their archives all of which can be listened to there and then, the added benefit is that if you know something about the topic you can then shout at the screen and disagree. This is something I, but not my neighbours, enjoy!

Of course some speak disdainfully of this programme, usually other Radio 4 people at that. I suspect their university education has revealed to them the uselessness in any practical manner of the information gleamed from such experts. This is of course true. An understanding of the 'Dreyfus Affair' means very little to those waiting on the bus on a rain soaked Monday morning. Understanding Aristotle's Politics means little to a mother attempting to persuade her brat that school is not Stalagluft VI, quite what relevance Aristotle has at all is a question in itself I suppose. However surely we all need to know about Babylon don't we? I would say we do myself. After all the word is used quite often these days.

Ah well, at least my mind is stimulated and awake after listening to...er, what was I listening to just now? Anyway, I enjoyed it, whatever they were talking about......