Christmas Time Blues, Dwarfs and Movies.

As far as Christmas's go, this last one has seen me age about twenty years almost overnight, although I hasten to add that I hope to be back to my normal age quite soon.

 

My reasoning for this statement, well for many reasons this year I just could not get into the festive spirit no matter how hard I tried and so in the end I gave up and gave in to my boring side.

 

( For those who are beginning to feel "oh my, its another depressive one - I can only say, "hey mister, this is MY blog, its not a personal email to you ... if you want to read something light hearted and jovial go back a few entries or better yet, go pick u something from Spider Robinson or Craig Shaw Gardener" :o)

 

I have to admit that it all started when my friend from the train let me down by not repaying the money I gave to her back in February of this year. Despite begging, threatening, cajoling and otherwise trying to get her to repay it, she has steadfast refused to budge and thus seriously harm my bank balance.

 

Partly because of this, and a few other things of course, meant that I have heavily relied upon my overdraft facility. I was unaware that this is considered a serious faux pax by the British Consulate's across the world as was a major factor in my ex-girlfriend being refused entry for Christmas. ( nb. she was still my girlfriend at this point! )

 

When I found that this use of my overdraft had gone against us I decided to refinance the house mortgage, so that I consolidated all my debts in one place and wiped out my overdraft at the same time.

 

However in order to do this it meant I could not afford to continue to send over to her any more money and THIS was when she got all personally affronted and we decided to call it a day. It deeply depresses and saddens me to learn that less than a week after receiving the last amount of money was sent over she can suddenly fall out of love with me.

 

Of course, the truth is that she can only have been after me for my money, and despite the precautions I took to protect myself against this kind of false affection it still happened.

 

My only real crime was being prepared to try and find love abroad. Many of my penfriends have found love which has led to marriage and children for some, however my luck / choice of partners has not been so smooth or fortunate.

 

Knowing that this is not even the fist, second or even third time that I have fallen prey to this kind of pseudo affection, I have been forced to admit that I am a bad judge of women's intentions and as such will no longer look for love abroad, or even in this country for the foreseeable future.

 

As all this came to a head in the middle part of December, and I had already planned out my entire Christmas > New Year > January holidays around her stay here, I was at a lose end for much of the holidays.

 

With the fiasco of the UK airports, and my finances in the most appalling shape in my life, I did not really want to face the prospect of trying to grab a last minute holiday, and with my lodger away for the main four days, I turned my attention to an old labour of love of mine, to wit ... my Dwarf Army.

 

Apart from the trip to my mothers for Christmas Day meal, the entire last four days I have remained at home, in front of my television for amusement and mental stimulation whilst ploughing through the arduous task of transforming two score and more of dullish grey two inch lead figurines into units of battle scarred and hardy Dwarf Warriors, in preparation of pitting them against the mighty forces of the Dark Elves, High Elves, Lizardmen and the undead fiends led by their own nightmarish Vampire Lords.

 

Without the aid of a magnifying glass, or powerful lamp, I set about a strict regime of at least twelve hours of under-coating, base-coating, detailing and then fine detailing at least fifty of my most used models. I also recreated a Anvil of Doom base and the movement base for over a half dozen powerful war machines.

 

I do not think for a second that this was my best work, but then I have had little practice in over a decade of painting such fine detail on this medium, and furthermore there is only so much you can do with a limited variety of brushes and an equally limited number of paints. I am content that my painting is at least on a par with my fellow group of gamers, but it would never even get past the preliminary round of a Games Workshop Golden Demon Award competition.

 

During this obsessive bout of modelling, I did manage to watch, or at least listen, to quite a lot of television at the same time ( mainly watching whilst the paint of drying! ) however I was aggravated on more than one occasion by the overly long duration of adverts.

 

Not only do may adverts have very annoying jingles, but they seem to go on, and on, and on - repeat themselves two or three times during a single break, and one totally gobsmacked me by advertising for a savings scheme for a Christmas Hamper in 2007 ... on BOXING day 2006. Talk about trying to get in early, but woooow ... that's just not even funny.

 

On the up side though, the Royal Institute Lectures are as good as ever, I have eaten my way through about a kilo of chocolates and mince pies and have re-watched at least a dozen good movies, as well as another dozen no so good flicks.

 

And now, the painting is done, my lodger has returned and with his the usual bedlam and broomsticks are also about to restart, my remortgage is imminently about to complete and as part of my New Year celebration I always resolve to put aside the mistakes of the past year and look forward with eagerness to a bright new start.

 

So all in all ... Hold on 2007, Dickon's coming ... :o)

How many presents ???

My family decided a few years ago that this time of year was getting a little too expensive for all our tastes. Coming from a big family who almost all now have large families of their own, having to buy presents for all the uncles and aunts, sisters and cousins, it became clear that there were just too many presents that need to be bought.

 

This is a three fold self inducing curse as a) we don't have the money; b) we don't have a clue what to get that many people who would otherwise already be getting more than a dozen other presents from the family ( so asking other people what so-and-so wants is more confusing than illuminating ); and c) we don't have the time to find and buy that many presents.

 

As none of us have won the lottery, married a millionaire, or inherited a vast fortune, we mutually agrees a few years back to limit the number of presents to just out immediate family, our mother plus one sibling, the one being drawn blind from a hat of names.

 

This ensured that everyone gets at least one sensible present and no one is forced to either remortgage their house or take out a loan just to keep up the rest. It also ensured that you don't just get a collection of tiny presents that are as cheap and random as the contents from a dozen Christmas crackers.

 

It might not work for every family, but this suits us and ours just fine and dandy thank you very much.

A Christmas Message

I hope this letter finds you healthy and in good festive spirits.

It is now December 12th at 7.59am and I have just posted the International Christmas cards to my friends abroad that trust me enough to give me their addresses.

Apparently there is also a western tradition to include with the sending out of Christmas cards a letter that briefly covers all the things that have happened or been important in my life in the last 12 months.

I have never done this before, but I feel that in email form, it might be a great time to start my own yearly highlights letter.

Of course far too much has happened to put in full details, but I feel it would be nice to at least give mention to a few things.

So here are a few of the things that I remember about 2006. It has not been the best year for me, but I have tried to remain positive throughout.

Two of my international pen pals got married to their respective partners and six more have announced news that either they are soon to get married or have become pregnant. Sadly also three friends have split apart from their previous partner.

Following my employers being taken over through a corporate buyout, the rules and conditions of my job have changed and it has become a job I no longer enjoy working for and eagerly am trying to leave.

I turned 30 in April and to celebrate I held a large part and invited all my family and friends I knew. I was very happy that all my close family travelled down to attend.

It also showed me how rare true friends are, as despite being given months notice some still did not know where it was, while others did not even attempt to attend, saying that they could not make it without even trying to see if they could.

The other cruel lesson I learned about friends, money or myself, is the old saying "Neither a borrower nor a lender be". I have always tried to help out others wherever I can and if this means lending them money then I would willingly give them as much as I could in order to help them out.

Sadly every time that I have done this I have been badly let down by the person who I lent the money to, and this has placed me in a lot of financial debt and worry. The simple truth is that unless you are a large company with the ability to take people to court and blacklist their credit rating, most people will make no real effort to repay a loan given to them.

This is true for both men or women, near or far, old friends or new. If people do not have the money to buy something large then lending them the money is normally folly as it is also unlikely that they will have enough spare money to repay you what they borrowed.

The other half of the lesson is that I am far too soft emotionally, and need to toughen up, as half the problem is my own in offering the money in the first place. Although it pains me to do so, I have now firmly had to decide that no matter the person or the situation I will not place myself in financial debt again to help out another.

I managed to find a new lodger to come and say in my spare room, however things did not work out as planned and she left shortly after having a disagreement with her old boyfriend. However the timing was good as it gave my old friend Leigh a chance to move back as my lodger once again, after he became ill and had to give up his job til he recovers.

My mum and sister completed their garden conservatories which they have both been looking anticipating.

My friend David has had another book published and this was the first one that I actually went out and bought as soon as I saw it in the shops. Unfortunately due to a printing error the publishers did not include an acknowledgements section and so I have not managed to see my name in print again.

I managed to visit my 20th country ( including all the major parts of the United Kingdom ) and fell in love with a woman from the Dominican Republic.

Sadly her Visa to visit the UK and stay with me in December was denied for some very minor faults and although it has prevented us from spending time together this Christmas, we will try again in April for my birthday.

Other countries I managed to visit this year were Northern Ireland, Scotland, Hungary, Norway and Sweden. On my travels I met lots of wonderful people and experienced much that each country had to offer, however they were all done on my own.

Despite arranging to meet people in a few of them I have also learned that it is best to plan your holiday on our own and around yourself and not rely on meeting up with anyone. This at first seems selfish but in the end it is just a prudent course of action and will prevent you being stranded in a foreign city or country with no idea of what to do or where to stay.

Well that just about covers the big points for 2006. It had many small points both good and bad that sort of evened out in the end, sadly most of the big points this year were negative.

However I am keeping my head held high and am looking forward to a bright and challenging 2007, where I can move on and take the second step on the road to my creative dream of becoming a travel writer.

The Christmas tree in my front room smells wonderful and all the festive lights and decorations are up in my house, as I prepare to celebrate another year in my house. It also reminds me that my current house, where I have lived for the last 5 1/2 years is also the longest that I have ever lived at the same address.

It took me 25 years, but I finally think that I have laid down some thick roots and so until I am ready for my next big jump, most probably abroad, I am content to remain here for the next few years as well.

Take care and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Operation Acoustic Kitty (OAK)

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=636

 

I spotted this link as part of a comment on my friends blog and I just had to write my own piece about it.

 

From having followed the link it appears that the CIA scientists spent more than 5 years and $15 million dollars ( from the years 1961 to 1967 ) trying to create a cyborg cat as a spy listening device.

 

As I read it, I could see that despite its absurdity, it was just as likely to be true as false. And thus I decided to write my own account of how it was likely to have initially occurred.

 

This is loosely based upon the meagre crumbs of credible evidence I came across and also heavily laced with sarcasm and my own flavour of artistic licence.

 

---

 

Operation Acoustic Kitty ( a.k.a. My cats got no nose, how does it smell? ... terrible!!! )

 

Back in the early 1960's a couple of long haired Uni grad students were chilling in their dorm room, smoking a bit too much of the old wacky backy and listening to their Elvis EP's.

 

In the news they had just heard about the Commies shooting down a U2 spy plane and in their drug fueled state of mind began to kicking round a few ideas for alternative methods of spying.

 

Neither of the two lads, Dan and Wez {for surely they were both male and had typical names}, had any real goals in life and their only objectives seemed to be booze, drugs, chasing campus chicks and dodging real work.

 

Among the ideas that floated round their dorm room ceiling that fateful night was 'ways to disguise spy devices as cobwebs', 'what colour are sheep in your dreams?' and 'why can't you buy mouse flavoured cat food? '.

 

Then all of a sudden the idea struck Wez like a bolt from blue. Flipping back through an old history book he comes across the piece of text he had been thinking about, to wit "Russians train dogs to carry explosives into battle ".

 

Despite the Commies unsuccessful efforts, Wez feels sure that, if done properly, the use of domestic animals as spy devices is still a great idea. Sadly their Uni prohibits dogs on campus grounds, so instead to test his theory Wez turns his hazy attention onto his own pet pussy.

 

With Dan stroking him furiously to occupy him, Wez began to blow smoke into 'Frees'' poor face, for that was his cats name. Thus is was that Free, for that was the cats name became their first volunteer cat test subect. Once they were sure that Free was suitably intoxicated, Wez ordered Free to go across the room and listen to their other roommates sleep talking mumbles.

 

In response to having smoke blown into his face, Free carefully jumps down off his owners lap and crosses the room to where the air was slightly less thick with fumes.

 

"Eureka" cries Dan, "We got ourselves a walking spy carrying device. Now all we got to do is to fit a recorder to him and were all set."

 

A few months later ... after much trial and error, Dan and Wez feel that they have got enough of an idea to get some proper government funding to finish their project. Not only will the project allow them to finish their Thesis, but if they can somehow drag it out long enough, they can also probably bum around and escape doing any real work for the next couple of years at the very least to boot.

 

Enter onto the scene, a complete loon of an CIA officer, one Victor Marchetti.

 

Now Victor was not the sharpest tool in the work box so to speak, but he knew enough about inner-politics, and when he heard about a few Uni kids with an idea for making a spy-moggie he thought that this could be his ticket up the ladder of espionage success.

 

On the upside, if it worked then he can claim full responsibility and thus all the credit and benefits attached with coming up with a new technique to get one over the Ruskies, especially as they were about to beat the US into getting the first man into Space.

 

On the downside, if it all went tits-up he could deny all knowledge and be sure that he could bury his involvement and the corresponding paperwork for the next 50 years, and be fully retired before anyone further up the chain of command became any the wiser.

 

Plus finally, the best bit of all, was that it wasn't even his money that he was playing with, for as usual it would fall to the good-old US tax-payer to foot the bill.

 

So Victor went to see Wez and Dan and gave them a grant, plus their own private lab sealed off from the rest of civilisation, in exchange for exclusive rights on the spycat.

 

For their part, it was the best day in Dan and Wez's lives, a real bumper payday, and whenever Victor grew impatient or curious to see where the fruits of his belief were, all they really had to do was produce a few meaningless graphs and baffle him with some semi-plausible sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo until his eyes glazed over and decided that it must be proceeding nicely and then go back to stuffing themselves with pretzels and cappuccinos.

 

Thus it came to pass that Dan and Wez succeeded in reaching their ideal positions of finding as many different ways to pass the time of day as possible, without ever doing much anything, and all in the name of helping the country.

 

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and even for a patient man like Victor, 5 years is as long as he could fiddle the numbers before he had to shelve the idea. Luckily for him he was also 5 years closer to retirement and had already found another golden goose to go after.

Losing sight of my Life's Dream

Well I have finally had enough of playing Mr Nice Guy.

Life and ex-friends have screwed me over tooooooo much for me to just sit back and hope that it will all get better.

My girlfriend ( but mine for how much longer? ) from the Caribbean has been refused an entry Visa to the UK for Christmas.

The two main reasons stated were :-
a) that they don't believe that she will go back after the holiday, and;
b) that I use my overdraft regularly and cannot prove I am able to support her during her stay in the UK.

Realising that neither of these are really my fault it has done nothing but left a foul taste in my mouth.

I now hate with a passion, hitherto never personally experienced, all the "so-called-friends" who have borrowed money from me, then screwed me over by refusing to give it back.

At the very top of the list is a woman that I have known for many years because we catch the same train, work in the same area of London and meet up regularly for drinks and meals.

I have explained the situation to her on many occasion, but she has revealed her true inner bitch by not caring in the slightest.  

Others who have incurred my subtle wroth are others for much the same reason, but nowhere near the same extend or level of pure "I-don't-give-a-shit-about-you"-ness.

 

However one did manage to leapfrog herself above the rest by saying "I can't give you any money this month as I need to buy lots of presents for my family". My only reply was as sarcastic as I have ever been, with something close to "Gee then its a good job I don't come from a BIGGER family myself really, isn't it!!!". Such selfishness I never expected from that one individual and it cut me deeper than the rest, though I do my best not to let it show anymore.

 

NB - I am lucky to still have both parents, 4 sisters, 1 brother, 9 nephews & nieces and a myriad of cousins, half cousins and the many related in-laws, almost all of whom I am on very good terms with and who live virtually on my doorstep.

In order to try and avoid using my overdraft at all, I have had to remortgage my house, a thing I hate to do ESPECIALLY as I am not even at the end of the current deal and thus I am liable to pay plenty of fat fees just for the privilege of moving mortgage brokers.

 

So in short ... "a very big thank to all those who take and don't give ... one and all you have succeeded in pushing me to the brink of financial ruin and distancing me from my life's dream by at least a decade ".

 

I refuse to give in on my dream, but I have to accept that I have am too soft to make it in the cold hearted and ruthlessness of the London business community, and that if things do not change soon then I may become too old to fully enjoy my dream house when I finally get there.

 

And just when I thought that things could not really get much worse, { without losing my health, which I am forever grateful is and has been great through my life }, my girlfriend tries to hang me up with guilt over not sending over her some money this month.

 

However, having stated that it is her own fault, combined with her daft friend who suggest she state to the visa department that she is my long term fiance, I now have to save every penny in order to clear my overdraft immediately and for at least the next three months.

 

Thus I said I was unable to, and gave her a classic Hobson's choice. "Money now but don't come over until at least September or no money but come over by April at the latest?" - Sadly she chose to go for option 3, to wit, she suddenly asked could I "give her a moment" and then instantly disconnected. Seeing as I had already waited up until almost midnight to have this most important of all conversations, this was not the best way to say goodnight or to resolve this tricky situation.

 

But at this is typical of her behaviour as of late, I am inclined to take some offense at this, and wrote to her in my broken Spanish saying just as much. I would not be too surprised at all to find myself dumped and on the "free and singles" market again in the very near future. However, seeing as in the last 5 months all she has done is ask for money, muck things up officially and send me photos of her wearing skimpy bikinis, I am sure that I can do much better for much less without even trying.

 

After all, the Internet is filled to burst with images of scantily clad women of every possible background and most are completely free to view, save or download!!!

38 Unclassified Persons

In the UK there are exactly thirty eight unclassified figures.

These are people that somehow do not {or no longer} officially exist in any capacity what so ever.

They are not accountable to anyone except themselves and their single contact with the real "classified" world.

How they live, or how they became unclassified, I do not pretend to know, but what IS believed to be known, is that these are highly trained individuals that and able to dispatch any opponent, regardless of experience or weapon, in under ten seconds - even someone as accomplished as Jean Clause Van-Damme.

What else do is believed to be known about them, is that they do not look like toned athletes or bronzed Adonis's, but instead appear like regular Joes the same as the likes you or me.

They hide behind the smokescreen of their story being so ridiculous that no one would believe them and I personally know that at least one hangs out in a quaint little wine bar just off Berkeley Square.

And how is it, that I seem to know such facts about these shadowy figures? Simple, because one got drunk at the venue of our office christmas quiz and told a fellow member of our staff, who thought it so bizarre he could not wait to tell me.

So what do I believe?

Well, considering that Bruce Lee was the most famously skilled Martial Artist alive, having studied dozens of fighting methods and techniques, and even created his own style-less form called "Jeet Kun Do", yet even HE only boasted of being able to defeat any opponent in under sixty seconds, for someone to suggest that they can defeat anyone in under ten seconds is nothing but drunken optimism bordering on mindless drivel, at least IMHO.

As for the rest of his claims? Hmmm, maybe he was just play acting the part of the classic drunk to disguise the truth behind the facade ... but I doubt it.

Litvinenko - Conspiracy

I saw in the news the other day that a former russian spy, called Litvinenko, was poisoned and seriously ill in hospital.

The folks at work joked and ribbed me about the fact that I was most probably going to announce that it was "yet another" one of my conspiracies.

Here are a couple of links to news stories after he died late last week.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/17403.html

http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901061204-1562917-2,00.html

http://thechronicleherald.ca/AtHome/543335.html

He died after being given the substance, polonium 210, which “is not the kind of weapon that any kind of amateur could construct,” acording to Dr Andrea Sella, a lecturer in inorganic chemistry at London’s University College.

"Polonium 208 and 209 occur naturally in trace quantities in certain minerals -- they are the daughter products of the decay of uranium," said Dr Andrea Sella. However "Polonium 210 is synthetic and small amounts are made every year in specialist laboratories," he added.

For my part, I did not know of Litvinenko or his work, yet this does not stop me from asking the question, Why was someone murdered by being given a lethal dose of such an obscure and clearly non-organic poison?

It is complete lunacy to suggest that this was a random act, for merely obtaining the substace would require specific knowledge and privaledged access, with no doubt a large bankroll needed to finance the purchase said poison.

This is clealy not an accident, not the work of a lone assasin hell bent on revenge, fame or fortune. It must have been carefully planned and carried out, for it to be able to get past the guard of a ex-spy still in the prime of his life and very much active in the pursuit of his own private investigations.

Whatever the deepest motive may be, the simple truth is that he was murdered in a cold and calculated manner by a group of individuals, and thus this a conspiracy.

It shows that his murderers are still out there and plotting their next move, as this is unlikely to be their first or last act of illegal and immoral criminal intent.

It also shows me, with my work colleagues as a varied cross section of the general public, that sadly apart from being entertained by the media, the general public neither knows nor cares about anything except their own individual lives.

No one has been talking about this at work, yet you cannot get them to stop talking about the latest "bush tucker trials" from last nights "I'm a celebrity ..." tv show.

The whole thing makes me sick ... not the show, but the ignorant and uniformed apathy from those around me.

Thankfully, there have always been champions willing to step up and fight those who abuse their power and position.

However having tried and failed to even explain to the general public why this is necessary, and having been ridiculed by the very same people I am trying to help, it really does make me stop and think "if this is how they treat their champions, are they even worth protecting anymore?".

A Long Couple of Weeks

Its been a long couple of weeks for me, and with Christmas fast
approaching then I can honestly say that things are not going to get
any quieter any time soon.

For me, the last few days have been a case of "when I have the time to
write then I have nothing to write about, but if I have something to
write about I'm too busy doing it to find the time to write".

I have got a few things that I really want to write about, but they
cant really be fitted neatly into one blog entry, and if i tried to
keep them short enough for one entry then I doubt that I do them any
justice at all.

However, I feel that I have to try or else admit that my dream job of
a travel writer is no more than that, a dream, so here I go.

Last weekend I was invited to a work colleagues 40th birthday party in
Essex. Despite being the furthest away geographically from her house
or the party venue, I was the ONLY person from work who attended.

This fact did not surprise me, as not only is she notoriously known
for not attending the parties of anyone else, but neither is she the
most liked of all the staff's directors.

However what did surprise me is that a) she invited lots of others
even though she knew they would never come; b) the people she invited
said that they would come even though we all knew they would let her
down at the last minute; c) she got upset over how few actually turned
up on the night; and d) that not one member of staff ( other than
myself ) though of actually trying to break the mutual deadlock.

Everyone is running the same sort of mental program "well she didn't
turn up to mine so I won't turn up to hers" - the ideal of turning the
other cheek or trying to reach out with an olive branch never seems to
even enter their heads.

Despite the fact that it took me a lot of time and money for me to get
all the way over to Essex, for only a couple of hours actual partying
then having to spend the night in a nearby Premier Travel-Inn, I was
glad that I went.

Firstly, it I always try to open myself out to new experiences, and as
she had invited her entire Salsa dance class ( including teachers )
this promised to be much more than your ordinary 40th party.

Secondly, with great free food and drink, of enough different
varieties to please any palate, it was certainly not a party where it
would be hard to stuff yourself if you were hungry or bored at any
time.

Thirdly, about two/thirds of the way through, her dance teacher
decided to try and get everyone up and dancing by holding an impromptu
Salsa lesson. Having only had a few drinks, I was not too far gone to
be able to form part of the circle and having no partner with me, I
ended up dancing with none other than the birthday girl herself.

Salsa may look simple to start with, and if I could leisurely study it
privately I am sure that I would pick up the basics soon enough, but
with the dark disco lights and part way through a birthday part, well
... I was not in danger of winning any "Come Dancing" trophies that
night.

Towards the end of night I decided that I would not stay to be the
very last out the door and went to fetch my coat, only to then be
faced with this darling little girl called Aisha guarding the coats
and carrying her pale blue teddy bear under one arm.

Before I could explain why I was going and allowed to take my own coat
to this most unlikely of monitors, her mother came up and started
chatting with me.

Which very soon became chatting me up. The lady in question was the
girls mother and an old school friend of the birthday girl.

She was quite taken with my laid back manner and after admitting that
I was waiting for my girlfriend to come here from the Caribbean she
said that she was quite disappointed with the modern English girls if
"available and pleasant" English men feel that they need to look
abroad for future partners.

After an hours natter I politely extricated myself with the minimum of
fuss and made my way into the night, towards where a warm bed
beckoned.

The following morning I overslept just a fraction, but was early
enough to learn a valuable lesson. Travel-Inn's have a policy of 100%
refund if you are not completely happy with your nights sleep, but I
never knew how easy it was to claim it and get a full refund.

While I was waiting to go, a guy came up to reception and mentioned
that during the last night the people in the room above started a
party at 2am and woke him and his entire family up.

When quizzed as to why he did not try to contact the night porter, who
could have sorted it out, he rather off hand that, "well i got my kids
asleep see, didnt want to leave them on their own".

And with no more than that they then offered to give him a full refund
and in cash, then let him leave. I could not believe that it was that
easy, or that his reason was so transparently a lie yet they did
nothing to argue the case.

I guess this is just another case of upper management having no touch
with reality, and political correctness taken that one stage too far
... again.

Oh well, despite not liking the look of the guy, as he was doing his
own bit to bring strike a blow against the corporate machine, I could
only smile, look on, and plan to spent my next hotel visit in another
Travel Inn hotel, this time perhaps not costing as much as my last one
had.

The Uninvited Guest

I have to share about the tale about what happened to me the other night.

On a perfectly ordinary November evening I left work as normal and walked to Victoria, making my way home.

I caught my usual train, sat together with the same familiar faces, and then disembarked at the same place I always did, along with my fellow London commuters.

The slow plod through the high street was as lacking in anything interesting as darkened hour long train journey I had just took had been, and not even the fox who lives in the wasteland at the end of my road made an appearance to mark today as being anything other than yet another bland Wednesday in the year 2006.

With a gentle sigh, I slipped the keys out of my pocket and began to fumble them into the front door, when without a sound it quickly slid its way open.

"Shhhhhh" came a hushed voice of my lodger from within, and with my curiosity peaked, I did as he suggested and very gingerly stepped inside, removing my thick woolen coat with more care than normal.

"We've got a visitor upstairs" he barely breathed, quieter than I've ever known him to be", and I don't want to disturb it".

For a second I thought that it was his baby girl who was asleep upstairs, before I realised that the day was all wrong and also he would never refer to her as an "it", thus it must be someone, or something, else.

At that point I began to get a slight stirring of the hairs on the back on my head, as straining in the dim light of my front room I could indeed hear something coming from up above.

"What is it?", I whispered, then realised all at once that I was nowhere near as proficient as he was at it, and determined to make an even greater effort to be quieter the next time I chose to spoke.

A tight lipped frown and a shrug of his shoulders was all that he gave in reply, but his message was clear. He didn't know.

Leigh and I had been childhood friends, and always been there as friends, right up through the years and all that it had thrown at us.

I had never known him to be scared or anything except his own cursed luck or intermittent poor health, but often growing up, we had sleepovers where we used to have semi-silent conversations while his parents slept in the next room.

And just like then, it was always me that had made the most noise and got us in trouble!

As we both stood in silence, I took time out to look at him and while he didn't seem to strike me as being scared right at this point, the fact that he wasn't tromping about in his large military ex-issue combat boots meant that something clearly was getting to him.

Slipping off my own shoes I decided to break the tableau and as quietly as I could crept nearer to the middle room, and thus to the foot of the staircase leading up.

From my new position I could now hear more of the feint sounds, though their source and meaning was still a mystery.

I would probably have stood there for an eternity without ever braving to go further, if it hadn't occurred to me that whatever was causing the noises was uninvited and also in my bedroom.

Even if I could have somehow managed to get to sleep curled up on the sofa, I would have needed to get into my room the next morning to get a fresh set of clothes for work.

But not only that, but as my bedroom door was not locked there was no reason to think that whatever it was would not simply come out whenever it felt like it, and this way, at least I got to face it on my terms.

But before I did, I wanted get just a little more information.

Turning back to Leigh I chose to speak again, this time in a whisper so soft that I doubt it would have disturbed the flight of even the small feather.
"How long has it been up there?"
"A couple of hours."
"Do you have any idea what its doing?"
"I sounds like its eating your carpet!"
"Ridiculous", I spoke, just a shade louder than I wanted.
"Shhhhhh" came the only reply with a face like thunder.
"Well how did it get in?", I managed, this time somewhere like as
quiet as before.
"I left the window open to let some fresh air in."
"So, how did it get up there in the first place?"
"It flew"
"It flew, preposterous" I cried, making possibly the loudest sound
that I had heard since before I got my keys out of my pocket and
attempted entry.
"Will .. you .. be .. quiet", his eyes glared at me, the meaning clear
even though I swear I never saw his lips moved.
"I'm not just going to just stand by idly while some uninvited critter comes and feeds his appetite with my carpet", I said with only a trace of effort in keeping my voice down. "I'm gonna tell that, what-ever-it-is, that my house isn't a free McDonalds for every hungry bugger with a taste for something in the blue and carpet range. I paid good money to get it underlaid"

He gave me a look of resigned defeat mixed with, its-your-funeral, and headed off silently into the back room and away from the stairs.

Thankfully my house is carpeted throughout, so I knew that if I remained quiet I could probably creep up the stairs and at least glance a peek under the door, before deciding if I really was going to be as brave or foolhardy, as I had made myself appear.

In careful, time practised pace, I proceeded up the stairs until finally I was within eye shot of the base of the door.

Because I have got multiple wires criss crossing my house, I have always found it advantageous to have larger than average gaps at the bottom of my doors, but now I was putting this gap to a new use.

Glimpsing beneath the door, I could see a form, sitting hunched over, and looking for all the world to see, like something out of the Wizard of Oz.

Sleek blue fur glistened in the half light, as the miniature beast that seemed to be of a close but different chain of evolution from our own, huddled up and continued to slowly chomp handfuls of carpet fragments.

Mounted midway on its back, I could see the things impossibly thin outstretched set of double winged appendages.

That's right, I could hardly believe my eyes, but what I was looking at was nothing short of a blue furry winged monkey, eating my carpet.

And I know that you wont believe me, but never-the-less it remained there, stationery and chewing, long enough for me to take out my camera phone and take a few shots.

So before you cast judgement on me, see for yourself and see if you too don't come to the same conclusion as I did!

Letter to Boiler Repair Man

Friday 17th November 2006
Mr Robinson
With regards to the repair of the leak on my Alpha Ocean 240 Combi
boiler, I hereby include a cheque in full and final settlement for
£75.
When we initially spoke on the phone I gave you details of my boiler,
the nature of the leak and requested you come round to view it and
provide me a free estimate. Shortly after you visited my house I
contacted you again and you said that it was about "2 hours work,
required several washers and some other parts" and quoted £125 plus
VAT.
Realising that this seemed high for what to me seemed such a small
leak and minor fault, I requested that you also perform a service, to
which you agreed."
Seeing as the parts used were readily available from any plumbers
merchants or hardware store, I have guestimated that you were charging
£25 maximum for parts and £50 for each hours labour.
So I was more than a little upset to learn that you have only spend
around 20 minutes to change the one washer and then leave.
How on earth could a Corgi certified plumber , such as yourself,
having already been made aware of the problem and seen the fault
personally, make such a huge overestimate of time and resources?
What made matters worse is that you displayed little or no care when
moving about in my house, having been witnessed by my lodger treading
dirt into my front room carpet, but more seriously bashing my bead
curtain with your toolbox and managing to break off several of the
strands. As I have myself managed to move entire wardrobes and even
mattresses up and down my flight of stairs with relative ease, I find
it unacceptable that you could not traverse through an open doorway
without causing this damage.
Having already given the boiler a general inspection myself, and
having it second opinioned by a friend who is a plumber / electrician,
I can see no signs what-so-ever of you making any attempt to give any
other part of the boiler even a quick once over, let alone a complete
service.
If you had given it a once over then certainly you would have no doubt
disturbed the thick dust that is on most of the boiler! Also you would
have spotted that some of the other washers are also on there way out
as I feel it would have been prudent to either replace, or at least
mention this, on your invoice.
What you have actually done, is nothing short of attempting to
seriously short change me, by charging me 2 hours work when all you
did was change a single washer, that took you no more than 10 minutes.
Your website advertising a free call out, but even if you include that
and the time to travel from Chatham and back it still does not come
close to 2 hours time or effort.
As such I still feel highly overcharged in agreeing to pay a single
hours time, plus some towards the one washer, but will do so in an
attempt to settle this amicably. I have not at this time deducted the
price of getting my carpets cleaned or in replacing the broken bead
curtain, but if you should seek additional funds then I will be forced
to do so as well as getting an independent mediator.
Regards

Rotten Banks

On the same day that I wanted to write a sentimental entry about continued climate change and yet another 8 plus earthquake I had something far less serious, but much more personally annoying happen to me, and thus has soaked up most of my recent attention and free time.

Banks

Not only have FD wiped my password vault but they are now going to do away with free banking and charge £10 per month just for having an account. Not a chance so this is one account I have to cancel.

Woolwich in their 'infinite wisdom' are trying to repeatedly charge me £35 for missing payments to my credit cards, purely because they take forever to clear cheques.

I've phoned and even visited my bank and all they give me is the "it's your official obligation to... blah, blah, blah" spiel - so that's the end of my working relationship with those guys too.

My credit cards are all getting very upset because Woolwich are bouncing their direct debit requests, so they are charging me also for missed payment AND because it's not their fault I can't even complain to them and try to get this back. Plus this only harms my credit rating for further borrowing or remortgaging in the future.

My former friends are still unwilling ( able and ready, just not willing ) to return the money that I have lend them, which if I combine it all together runs into the several thousand pounds.

Before you say or think anything, No I don't have any proof cos they were friends, Yes I was naive to trust friends with money, No I didn't have the money to lend them in the first place, Yes I am having to pay interest to the people I borrowed it from, No I won't ever be lending people money again, and Yes I have told several friends to cut up my credit cards and hit me round the head with a large solid piece of wood if I mention that I am thinking of lending, or have just lent, anyone money in future.

I have always ensured that my house was safe before I lent money out but these latest turns of events have meant that I am no longer comfortable and content with my finances and if I do not take preventative measures things will become decidedly uncomfortable in the not too distant future.

i29 Multiplay Computer Convention

For those who have never been to one before, i29 (I for Intel, the main sponsors, and this being the 29th convention) was yet another successful Multiplay computer convention.

But when I say computer convention, I want you to understand that his was not a large group of solely male teenage nerds meeting up in their chequered shirts and brown corduroys, all drinking Dr Pepper and arguing over who has the fastest motherboard.

This was a semi-organised hoard of several hundred computer gamers, geeks, salesman and spouses / other halves, ranging from ages 12 to 60 and from every social spectrum you care to name.

There were a few stalls selling the latest gadgets and boards for those with more money than sense, but these were not being run by bored techno-geeks who would bamboozle you with jargon, oh no … these were run by two very fine and very busty babes wearing nothing more than makeup, a white crop top and the tightest pair of hot pants sold on the planet.

For entertainment there were the life size tank and armoured jeep displays to advertise Battlefield 2142, a supped-up Toyota sports car to display Need For Speed, a four way dance-mat competition, plus karaoke, guitar legends 2, pub quiz, drinking boat race and a raffle with over 100 prizes (one free ticket with every entrance ticket) who's top prize was a brand new laptop.

And not to mention a couple of sex young babes walking about wearing white crop tops and hot pants … oh I’ve mentioned them already, silly me.

Spread over the three main floors of Newbury Racecourses main building and spilling over into the Tote betting bar, there was always somewhere to get booze. For those who liked hot food there was a choice of fast food meat wagons set up for the masses, or for those who felt like being REALLY lazy, you could always order a Dominoes Pizza from the on-site van and have it delivered right to your computer station!

The fact that the sleeping accommodation was a bring-your-own-tent kind of affair, this did nothing to dampen the spirits of those who turned up. Thankfully I was with my good friends Rob & Natalie who being old hacks at these events came with a tent the size of a small bungalow and enough sleeping gear to bury a family of polar bears. Which was a good idea as the temperature did indeed drop below zero on the first night we were there.

For more details on the actual event, and for photos, you can always go to the link below which is from the Multiplay official website.

Multiplay

For me, it was a great experience that I am very glad I participated in, and having seen it from a few sides now, firmly believe that at any large event such as this, you get as much out as you are prepared to put into it, and those who turn up and think they are above all the high jinks and drunken merriment will only be short changing themselves.

I must admit that due to the fact I am not a big drinker, and was already short of sleep, meant that I no doubt missed out of a lot of hours of happy drunken socialising.

For me there were many moments that I hope to never forget, but here are a few of the ones I really want to share.

Helping my friends put up a large tent in the dark and the pouring rain. I don’t know what it is, but to know that we were all pulling as a team to get the tent up and get dry quicker, brought us that tiny bit closer together.

Realising that Rob had not had time to check his computer before we left and once we did get there he found out that it needed a bit of minor computer surgery to get it to come back to life.

Watching the stack-a-pig contestants try to build the tallest tower of pink you pigs.

Watching my friend Natalie become the first person to officially propose marriage to her fiancé Rob live on air, whilst at a computer convention – right before the start of the pub quiz.

Having come second in the pub quiz and then gone on stage to collect a cup full of coins as the prize, to then without discussing it out loud, to all as one suddenly chase our quiz team leader around the sage with calls of “mine, mine, mine”, paying homage to the seagulls from the animated hit movie Finding Nemo.

After witnessing the ease at which some people got mega high scores on both ‘guitar legends 2’ and the dance mat game, all sitting in a group getting steadily drunk wondering how hard it would be to design a three in one game that required dance mat coordination, guitar strumming ability and a songster karaoke performance.

All deciding that we could suffer no more pizza for awhile, so instead got a large group together and made up an order for the local Chinese takeaway that ran into multiple pages.

Witnessing the final of the Quake 4 tournament where the number 2 seed got his ass handed to him on a plate royally by the number 1 seed, with a victory points margin that was more like a cricket score than a football match.

And last, but not least, the fact that everyone went around calling each other by their online user names, which was surprisingly not confusing at all, though slightly amusing to me as the convention was being run by a guy called Whizzo, whose brother RedEye was a joint commentator / announcer with yet another guy who called himself TosspoT.

Oh, and although I myself found it slightly annoying after the first few hours, almost everyone else had purchased or borrowed a large inflatable hammer and found it hysterical to have hammer fights anywhere, with anyone and for any reason.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable, if slightly cold and expensive, weekend where you could have just as much fun in the bar chatting with friends as you could have at your computer station shooting the hell out of other fellow gamers.

A Mortgage is for Life

It would seem to appear, if the latest newspaper headlines are not all completely the works of fiction, that the brains behind the UK's finance and banking world have finally lost the communal plot and began to lead us down to what I can only see as financial suicide.

Here are two links to support my point :-

Money Week

Telegraph

The current train of logic of these boffins is that the price of housing in the UK has reached a point so high that first time buyers cannot afford to purchase one.

So, instead of concentrating their efforts to :-
Increasing the earnings of the average person;
Reducing the price of housing;
Building more affordable housing;
Reducing the amount of associated house purchasing costs;
Or reducing the interest rate { they have actually increased it for other reasons apparently }

... they have decided that the best choice of action is to increase the amount of years that you can chose to repay your mortgage over. { Wow, nice choice, that's exactly what I would have done ... NOT. }

To give an example, it is now technically possible for an 18 year to take out a mortgage over a massive 52 years and end up repaying almost 6 times what he initially borrowed, with his final repayment just before he starts to claim their pension { for, no doubt, it will have been raised to at least 70 by that time }.

Also they have increased the amount of times your salary that you can borrow to enable you to purchase more expensive houses than ever before.

And finally, they have actually started giving more than 100% mortgages, which means that they will allow people to purchase a property and instantly be in negative equity, instead of needing to come up with any deposit or down payment.

In real terms this means that instead where before a persons situation was :-

Income = £20,000 / Mortgage Allowed 3.25 x salary = £65,000 Borrowed / 5% Deposit = £3,250 / Property Value £ 68,250 / Equity Upon Purchase = £3,250 / Repayable over 25 Years at £227.50 per month ( plus interest ) ... Total paid after interest of almost £117,000

You now get something that is more like ...

Income = £20,000 / Mortgage Allowed 5.05 x salary = £101,000 Borrowed / -5% Deposit = £5,050 / Property Value £106,050 / Negative Equity Upon Purchase = £5,050 / Repayable over 40 years at £220.90 per month ( plus interest ) ... Total paid after interest of almost £286,350

So although the monthly repayments are slightly less and they can purchase a house of a slightly more value, the same person who would only pay £117,000 now will end up paying £286,000 for more of less the same kind of property AND they will be locked into paying this probably right up until their 70th birthday.

Plus if the property market was ever to fall the person would, instead have a little equity in the house to fall back on, find themselves completely shafted and have literally less than nothing to show for it.

Need I say that I feel all this is a bad idea and can only hasten the next financial crash in the UK economy? No, I probably don't !!!

My REAL concern, is that I doubt these financial boffins have ever tried talking to a teenager recently. With their chavisms and "not bova'd" attitude towards any of their civic duties and responsibilities, it is only matter of time before these unruly children suddenly face the cold hard reality of the real world and are completely unable to cope or meet repayments.

And who could blame them? For the last few years they have been granted far too much free will and lost most of their moral values and discipline along the way, and yet these money maestros expect them to understand the implications of a contract that won't expire in less than twice their current years alive !?!

If they can't seem to grasp why 'happy slapping', 'teenage pregnancies' or addictions like smoking, drinking or recreational drugs, are bad ideas, then how can they comprehend documents that are so crammed with technical jargon and small print that it takes a dedicated lawyer { who had to spend many years studying in order to become qualified } many hours over several weeks to complete.

The short answer ... they can't, they won't and when those who are making the decisions realise this it will be far too late to remedy this colossal error in judgement.

Penfriends

Trying to find and maintain a good international e-friendship is a lot harder than it seems.

 

First you have to decide if you care how old they are and which specific country they come from, or else you get literally hundreds of men begging for handouts and women offering marriage proposals.

 

{ Sadly most of these are from the poor African and Pacific Island nations, which does nothing to gain our trust or dispell our often mistaken media-created low perception of them. }

 

Then you have to wade through the many profile that are mostly :- 

i) too brief as to give no clue to their personality;

ii) too much that you already feel that you know and dislike the person;

iii) men clearly seeking romance instead of friendship;

iv) women bored of men wanting more than just friendship so now insist on women only;

v) fakes trying to lead you off and ensnare you to join premium dating websites;

vi) young teenagers desperate to grow up by faking their ages;

or vii) ones that have been placed a million years ago with a now defunct email address.

 

Then follows the sadly repetitive "getting to know you mails", where you basically repeat everything that you wrote on your profile and answer the same questions again and again. It is quite sad that in today's society the majority of people still believe that asking what you do for your occupation gives them a better judge of who you really are!

 

It is equally disheartening that often people who meet me can guess my occupation without every knowing or understanding the "real me". They pigeon-hole me with others of the same ilk and never get past that suited image, when in reality I am truly unique and not conforming to any stererotype you might chose to label upon me.

 

With a low batting average of only one reply for every ten prospective befriending emails sent out, it's a double blow when some of the replies come back as negatives, with comments like "sorry, I am only interesting in meeting gay guys and your not " attached.

 

And even if you do manage to make a correspondence last more than a few weeks, the blow falls even harder when they finally get married and / or begin to start a family and admit that they will have very little time to write in the future.

 

Receiving the annual email from those wayward friends are like the belated birthday cards from Great Aunt Hilder, more often than not without anything new to read but still enough to make you feel a little guilty if you pretend to just ignore it or don't send you own reply within the next couple of weeks!

 

However, I will continue to keep in touch with old friends, and hunt out for some new friends, as I always get a warm buzz when I get a great long email to read. Also some of the friendships that I have made online have blossomed into strong and lasting relationships with people that I trust, respect and value highly.

 

I think it was Sturgeon who said "90% of everything is rubbish" well that may be true, but I'm still prepared to suffer the masses, as often I have found in that last 10% that which is truly remarkable and certainly worth searching for.

My Place In The Sun

I was debating for a little while on how exactly to begin this entry, but no matter which way I ran it thought in my head it never quite came out right. Thus I gave up and settled on that this was indeed the best way to start it, by explaining how I couldn't.

And for me, the funny thing about writing is that as soon as I start, it just flows out of me, and both the best and the worst thing I can ever do is stop of go back to edit it. On the one hand, editing it allows me to iron out any grammatical mistakes, but on the other it not only stems the flow of new ideas for awhile but it also too often lengthens a perfectly adequate shortened version of the same thing.

However, as my oldest friend gave me the title of "tangent queen" more than a decade ago ( and I'm getting steadily worse with age apparently ), it is sometimes never-the-less required for me to go back and heavily rework something as otherwise, unless you happened to be a gifted mind reader or know me very well, you would not have the foggiest idea of what I am going on about.

The only saving grace is that when it comes to private in jokes or keeping secrets I can be vastly more open than most and still not give the game away. In a way it is as if I have learned to, instead of breaking the truth, to give it back from such an angle that you probably won't even recognise it as what it really is, at least not without a little deeper thought.

And with that out the way, I can now get back to writing what this entry was meant to be all about, to wit ... My Place In The Sun.

Although this may seem very premature, and also possibly very arrogant ( or foolish ), it is with a sort of detached awareness that I am prepared to now announce that I am 99% sure that I am going to own a bar in Malaysia ... eventually.

I can already clearly visualise many of the bars parts, such as the karaoke area, the billiard table and darts board ( that will hardly ever get used ), the small selection of games behind the counter ( like a few decks of cards, dominoes, chess/checkers board as well as a mahjong and a backgammon set ) and a few ex-pats happy to see a fellow Brit while they congratulate themselves on moving out here but at the same time slating the current UK government for all the mistakes its making back home.

And what, I hear you ask, gives me this feeling of complete confident, enough to make such a sweeping claim and risk getting serious egg on my face? Well it comes from many different things that when added up together all seem to blend into a sort of fateful inevitability.

1) It ties in perfectly with me wanting to retire in a country that is warm, English speaking and in the far east.
2) It will be a perfect base for me to try and launch a few of my other business ventures ( like the travel writing, the bar stories novel and the personalised tour guide services ).
3) It's an idea that has been strong enough to repeatedly drift in and out of my mind for over half my life.
4) Because I am from the same line as both my parents and my older siblings, which means I'm capable, determined and stubbornly I-won't-take-no-for-an-answer head-stong when I need to be.
5) Because I am not only a Taurian ( once again head-stong ) but was also born in the year of the Fire Dragon ( could you get any more Asian influenced ).
6) Because high up on the list of my favourite books are the Callahan's Bar stories.
...
( I could go on with many many more of these small reasons which individually are pretty pathetic and don't hold much water, but together all build towards a greater unified reason, but I will save them here in an effort to keep this entry short and readable, but what I will do is just give the last two which for me are clinchers !!!)
...
7) Because thanks to my good friend Bob I have some of the Malaysian DJ equipment needed.

Over a year ago he could already see in my eyes that I meant it and was serious, enough so in fact, that he went online and purchased as a present for me, some lights that can only be used in the far east due to their differing electrical circuitry.

He was waiting for the ideal time to present it to me, but as he and his family are now themselves moving down to the coast they didn't want to risk losing it or having it damaged in transit, so they ended up giving it to me on Friday night after a fireworks party.

Note . If your ever lucky enough, like me, to have friends & family who have that much belief in you and actively encourage you to have a go at succeeding in something you've had your heart set on for more years than you can remember, it's not only a colossal waste not to even try, it's also an insult to them!!

And finally the other major reason is 8) Irony...

When you consider that all my life I have spent far fewer than most adult males free time in bars, rarely like to get drunk and lose control, only twice ever managed to work even a single shift behind a bar ( and BOTH times ended up being complete fiasco's ), don't actually like the taste of most bitters; lagers; whiskys; wines or spirits and my own step-father drank himself to a very early grave ... what could be more ironic that me ending up owning a bar !!!

And before anyone can say that, with that last paragraph alone, I have ample reason to never even set foot inside a bar again let alone attempt to work in one, let me just clarify one thing. I am not saying that I will run, organise and work in a Malaysian bar, only that I will own one.

I'm not saying that it will be a crowning success, I'm not planning to make a killing, I'm not expecting to make a tidy profit and I'm not even preparing to barely break even most weeks.

Not at all.

At the moment all I'm predicting is that one way or another I will end up being the legal owner of a Malaysian Bar, and I'm hoping that it won't make significant losses until such times as I find other ways to balance the books or I decide to give up the dream and offload it before it financially cripples me for the foreseeable future.

Britons Most Spied Upon Nation

For those who feel that I am paranoid, read this.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/02112006/140/britons-most-spied-world.html

" " Britain is one of the surveillance capitals of the world with everyday movements subject to more and more scrutiny, according to the Government's information commissioner.

Demand is growing for a debate on the number of CCTV cameras in Britain - 20% of the world's spy cameras are in the UK - one for every 12 people.

Information commissioner Richard Thomas has warned the UK is in danger of turning into a Big Brother society.

He says more and more personal data is being collected on all of us by the state and big business.

A report ordered by his office found most techniques used to survey the UK public are automated and out of sight.

They include surveillance of international travel, consumer spending, internet use and mobile phones.

Some of this benefits the typical UK family, but it can be "personally threatening" and has wider consequences, the report warns.

It says surveillance can lead to the loss of individuals' anonymity and privacy in different areas of their lives.

The report, produced by a group of academics, predicts that by 2016 surveillance will be ramped up even more.

Shoppers may be scanned as they enter stores, while schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat.

On the plus side, Mr Thomas said surveillance could help fight terrorism and crime and improve access to public services.

But he added: "As ever-more information is collected, shared and used it intrudes into our private space.

"Mistakes can also easily be made with serious consequences - mistaken identity, inaccurate facts or inferences and breaches of security." ""

What links Work, Callahan and a Leach ... read on

You know when its time to move on when the moral of the office has got so cold and low that even a snowplough would find it hard to scrape it off the floor.

 

When we all found out this morning that our companies parent company have decided to ring in sweeping changes that take away the last of the personality of the old company already more than a few of us began to drag out and dust off our our old CV's and consider updating them.

 

But when they were caught red handed intercepting and reading emails of staff, and not just any old staff but even company directors and the actual MD himself, then IMHO its time to cash in your chips and walk away.

 

Which is a real pain as on the train coming into work this morning I just finished reading "Callahans Con" and thus the largest emotion running through me at the moment is, or was, free love for one and all regardless of their situation or background.

 

It is not lightly that I say I more than enjoy reading anything from Spider Robinson, as he has such a way with words that I don't even want to find fault in his work and am happy to fall completely in with the illusion that I have just pulled up a bar stool beside Jake, Eddie and the rest of the crowd.

 

Even if I am cynical enough to know that the world around me is a big and nasty place, its still refreshing and entertaining to be able to place in a place where there just are no justified prejudices and where there is a group of friends that honest-to-Gaea are so farther down the road to true enlightenment and spiritual awareness that they can on occasion form a comune of true telepathic ability.

 

Sure, it sounds like sci-fi and it probably is, but to me its more like the proper next step of human evolution and if she species wants to survive then I'd also say its almost essential that someone somewhere starts to try and go down that route, or else were all in deep deep FUBAR.

 

It is also a place where I could see myself fitting in and being happy to while away many an evenings swapping puns, singing, listening to acoustic guitar riffs and the most excellent pianist that the Bronx even produced. Oh, and did I say that its also probably one of the only bars that you would be most welcome in at any time, on any day, in any clothes, with anyone you chose to have accompany you and drink whatever the damn hell you felt like without even raising so much as an eyebrow from anyone else!

 

The only other noteworthy thing to write about is that I went to see my doctors yesterday, to get something for my long-overdue-time-to-go-away cough. I was pleasantly flabbergasted that I was only in the waiting room for under two minutes before being given the go ahead to see my doctor.

 

I was less than impressed however than again in under two minutes he had diagnosed it as "a minor chest infection" and prescribed a course of Amoxicillin for the next week. This is, for the uninitiated, the westerns worlds modern equivalent to the leach of the dark ages.

 

Regardless of what seems to ail you, their first suggestion is to "take three Amoxicillin tablets each day for the next week and come back if things haven't improved". However as it got me home early in plenty of time to give out treats to my families kids on Halloween evening, then I guess in some ways it was worth the hassle of getting a half day from work.

Chavette

I just have to tell you about what happened to me today, as its just too funny not to.

 

I was on my way to work this morning, on the usual train, when I noticed this young chavette { a.k.a. - female chav ... loud, stupid, dripping with gold jewelry, tarty designer clothes, pink glittery cell phone, dodgy accent and brains at the bottom of her fake Armani handbag ! } talking on her mobile to her friend on the train.

 

She was nattering away, dawdling far too slow for her own good, and generally just making a bit of a nuisance of herself. It was at that moment that fate intervened and I saw a golden opportunity to have a little fun at her expense that was just too tempting to pass up.

 

To help set the scene, you have to know that we were travelling to London on one of the new fully electric trains which have two sets of sliding doors between each carriage. To open these doors you only have to press the button on the door from the old carriage and then step through where a motion sensor will pick you up and automatically opens the second  door, normally that is.

 

For these motion sensors are not always that sensitive and it can often take a bit of effort to get them to work. A sure way to make the second door NOT to open is if you are hesitant to step up to them, as their range is limited and they don't seem to pick you up on the other side of the first door.

 

From her conversation it was easy to guess that she had never been on an electric train before and seemed reluctant to risk getting stuck between the carriages. Thus, this is where I allowed a little devilment and wickedness to run through me and quickly hatched a devious plan which was sure to entertain me, even if only for a short time.

 

As I was sitting almost next to the door, I calmly got up from my seat, walked across and said to her that there was a card detection device on the other side of the door, and to go through you have to show your ticket to the sensor.

 

Then as if to demonstrate and prove my point, I got my own ticket out and waved it towards the motion sensor, which detected the movement, and opened the door. Naturally her only thanks was a quick ta, before walking on and through to the next carriage, fully believing my instructions.

 

With her now back on her way I returned to my seat, but I could not help but chuckle to myself at the thought of wondering how many times she will get her ticket out and wave it at the motion sensor thinking that that she has to do this before either she realises for herself or another passenger tells her the truth.

 

Once again proving that money, jewelry and a pretty face mean absolutely nothing in the survival stakes, and furthermore that when civilization suffers its inevitable collapse I already know who will be among its first casualties.

Wonderful Praise

I popped round to visit my sister last night, as part of an errand to feed my other sisters cats, but of whom I could not find her front door keys.

As it turned out I had got the wrong weekend, so didn't have to rush off at a certain time, and so instead I decided to stay for a bite to eat and a bit of a chat.

During the conversation my sister said that she had inherited our mothers fondness for "decent and respectable" people, almost to the level of being a snob.

As we all shared our families very humble beginning, we all like to think that we have bettered ourselves throughout our lives, so to call each other a snob now and again is not always such an insult as it first turns sounds.

For example, I am very houseproud, so I don't mind being called a snob in that all the furniture in my house is new and not second hand off my sisters or leftovers from the previous house owner.

But what put a huge beaming smile on my face is what she turned round and said about me, but before I tell you, can you guess what it was?

Well it was the matter of fact statement - "But not you Dickon, you will look for the good in anyone!"

It may sound like a line from a politically correct movie, but to hear it from my own sister { who never pulls her punches when she's with me } when its just immediate family around, made me feel like a billion euros or more.

Personally I feel tat it is important for my own self esteem & self respect to live up to a set of principals that I set for myself, but to learn that others not only notice but grudgingly admire me for it is even better.

After that even the drizzling rain on the way home could not dampen my high spirits.

When friends go bad

There is an age old saying "Never a borrower nor a lender be".

 

I have never really held this true, and on this occasion I chose to lend a good friend { at that time he was one of my very closest and had been for years } some money to get himself a 2nd hand car and I also lent his my two television sets.

 

I won't go into the hows or whys, because it irrelevant { just take my word that he's an overbearing, paranoid and jealous pr*ck and I finally got sick of his behaviour}, just the result is we parted as friends.

 

The bad news is that he had not repaid me the money I lent him when we went our separate ways. The fact that he was now not going to repay me the money I was prepared to grudgingly accept, but I saw no reason why I should let him continue to enjoy viewing tv on my television sets.

 

So I arranged with his girlfriend {my true best friend for many year} to collect it over this weekend. However when I rang up on Friday to find out what time he replied that they were already outside waiting for me to collect.

 

That's right, this complete and total puss boil on the face of humanity had decided that he didn't want me even entering his house to collect my own belongings, and without telling anyone had just thrown them out and let them stand out in the rain all day.

 

What a ******* waste of space he really is, and what a way to thank me for all the years of friendship and trust I gave him in me lending him the sets in the first place.

 

It really makes me stop and think ... I believe that there is much truth in

 

As pure and innocent as snow, we are born into this world - and it isn't until we are shat upon by those we once had a care for, that we lose this innocence and begin to distrust and disrespect the world and everyone in it.

 

But we must not let them win. We must not give in to the hate, distrust and double standards that are rife in this world. We who want to live in a better world, must go on caring, must go on trying and be prepared to be hurt in the hope of finding true happiness.

Lazy Sundays With A Cold

In all the world there are as many different things to do or think as there as people.

 

For example, I have heard people quote that "There are more stars in the sky, than grains of sand in the whole world".

 

How can anyone say for sure that is right ?!? Unless of course your going on the logic that the universe is truly infinite, but the number of grains of sand on this world is not ( many billions of trillions perhaps, but not never ending ) thus the first will dwarf the second.

 

Or, as a mate of mine said upon viewing the amount of fast food menus pinned up on my kitchen corkboard, "Do you ever actually cook?".

 

Even assuming I was THAT lazy and THAT rich, surely out of boredom I would have tried it a few times out of curiosity !?!

 

Well they are the first few thoughts that floated through my mind as I woke up this morning.

 

With my lodger away this morning it gave me a chance to do a few things in comfort and in my own time.

 

Thus I have compiled two short lists of things best to try and not so great to try on a lazy Sunday morning while you have a grotty cold.

 

Great :-

 

* Reading your mates latest blog entries.

* Seeing how much Vicks Vapour Rub you can smear on before it becomes overpowering and actually makes breathing worse.

* Listening to soft rock and indie music.

* Randomly watching Jonathon Creek episodes curled up on a real leather sofa wrapped in a fake fur throw, while scoffing mint aero and quaffing doctor pepper.

* Hoovering and polishing your best room { ok, not everyone ideal choice but I like it ! }.

* Ordering a Pizza - with a barbecue base and extra pineapple - and watching South Park with your best mate, who's also your lodger.

 

Not-So-Great :-

 

* Trying to learn off by heart the lyrics to "One Week" by Bare Naked Ladies { could not get through much before having a coughing fit }.

* Doing the washing up in a pair of marigolds with holes in them.

* Studying your daily Spanish lessons { have you ever tried to roll your Rrrrrr's with a cold and a cough ... not easy }.

* Catching up with a few weeks un-replied-to emails.

 

As I hope that I will be fit and well by next weekend I do not expect that I will be able to try out many more for awhile, but if you have any comments or ideas for things I should try next time I am, as always, open to suggestion.

Are you dating an Alien?

At the moment I am bunged up with the cold and flu, but I'm determined not to let this get me down too much. Instead I was thinking more about how bizarre links seem to crop up in the most unlikely of situations.

 

The comment that my friend David wrote about my song was very apt as he mentioned Bernie, who first began writing from his fathers place in Market Rasen. Why is this so relevant to a Gillingham born and bred poem/song writer like me? Well, for the last decade or more my father has been living in Market Rasen.

 

Admittedly this is not a solid concrete link of anything mystical / alien, but when you think of all the song writers he could have compared me to, and of all the towns in the world my father could have decided to move to, this is indeed a very eerie coincidence.

 

And after mulling that over for a short while, my mind began to wander and visited a memory of a most unusual conversation that I was having with my old hairdresser, who also was on my pub billiard team for a couple of years.

 

He was under the firm belief that he was engaged to a woman whose genes originated from another cosmos other than our own. IE - after living with her for a few years and mixing with her family he was convinced she was an alien.

 

Like you are probably doing now, I was sceptical at this, and yet also I was intrigued, and with this as a possible thread to something more I had to ask why he felt this, what possible reasons did he have for thinking this?

 

After all, did he mean that she slept three feet above the bed linen, or had a third eye or something?

 

No, it was just that her entire family had the very disturbing habit of finding / creating very similar links from two completely separate events or articles. Requiring just a bit more clarification I pressed on and asked for a specific instance he had notice this.

 

Thus he went on about how he was in his garage playing billiards with his almost brother in law, when all of a sudden his bro' in law took a shot and then lifted up his cue and said "There you go ... !", leaving the rest of the sentence hanging with a extremely cheesy grin spread right across his face.

 

It took my pool playing buddy a few seconds to catch on to what he meant, til eventually he realised and looking down at the table. There he saw that with his opponents last shot, he had potted all the red balls and leaving only yellow balls and the black.

 

But what was so relevant and spookie, was that the remaining yellow balls were in a perfect geometric shape of a star constellation ... and not just any old star constellation, but the very one that they had been gazing at together only the other night or so before whilst out night fishing.

 

Was it mere coincidence that all the yellow balls had come to rest in exactly the right positions to display the constellation, or was it something else, I had no idea. But what was sure freaky was that he said that this was only one tiny example of what he was on about, and that the rest of the family were just as gifted, and that far from this event being unusual this was very much the norm.

 

Assuming that this wasn't just general team-matery male bonding rubbish that he had made up then it certainly makes you think, and then again if people like David can make similar links then why not a whole family?

The invisible arm of the law

In the news recently, I have heard a lot about the total success of purging Medway of drugs and drug pushers. Although this might seem good news a little investigation into this has set off a number of alarm bells in my head.

I have no 100% solid proof per say, but that's mainly due the fact that I don't want to get myself flagged higher as you will see soon below!

However ... it is my firm belief that it probably went something very much like this :-

The police in general wanted to show that they were doing something positive in the war of drugs. And because they were getting nowhere fast busting the few they were catching smoking illegal substances, someone high up must have decided that they needed to take a new approach and so they switched from post- to pre- selling offences.

One bright spark ( probably an ex grower himself ) realised that to grow the illegal plants in the cold and wet UK climate, requires a lot of heating, especially to keep up the humidity.

So the police secretly went and asked all the regions gas and electricity suppliers if they could look at their records for abnormally high bills or other anomalies. And a short while later, hey presto, they got some fresh new leads { aka. names and addresses of people whose bills were different from the norm}.

They then went to the phone companies and asked to see the itemised phone contacts of these "new leads" to see if they can trace any regular line of communication, thereby confirming their suspicions. Again, a short time later and voila, a few more leads.

They might even have gone to the lengths of intercepting emails and verifying which websites potential growers or distributors used as part of their expanding collection of evidence.

Finally I have no doubt at all that they also had many of their biggest targets followed day and night, in a similar fashion to how the D.S.S. tailed my mate and ended up forced him to repay the £60 or so {see earlier blog entry}.

Now many will see this as clever investigating on their part, and I cannot deny that it has indeed seemed to have caught a lot of the growers / distributors as can be counted by the high amount of arrests there were and be seen by the vast amount of locals seemingly going a touch more stir crazy for no reason what-so-ever.

But before we rush off to pat the police on the back for a job well done, let us not forget how this all started. Which was, that "They wanted to find someone guilty of something to make them look good in the public image, and so decided to began checking private individuals utility bills for any patterns or anomalies".

Yet it is with that simple act they have blatantly chose to cross the line and are now fully invading our civil liberties. For, based upon this logic of investigation, it is clear that you are no longer allowed by English law to be an individual. You can no longer use any more ( or less) electricity or gas than your neighbour without it being monitored and flagged as "abnormal behavior which requires further investigated".

Neither should you ever allow yourself to be in telephone contact ( be it knowingly or not ) with anyone else whose usage is deemed abnormal.

For anyone with an ounce of logic or reason there can be no denying that the "big brother" superstate is well and truly here and appears to be gaining momentum every day.

And just how far will this inventive guesswork lead them?

They already have bar coding and CCTV in most high streets, and outside shops, so I guess also that anyone who now purchases extra long rizla papers, a bong { which are 100% legal to buy in this country, just illegal to use with banned substances } or a pipe { exact same logic } may now find themselves being monitored "just in case!"

But here is my final little bit of food for thought on this :- almost without exception everyone will fractures the occasional law once or twice in their lifetime, whether its by accident, rebellion, stupidity, ignorance, peer group pressure or whatever.

And the main reason why so many minor infringements go unpunished is that they also go largely unnoticed due to the fact that the police are not, or at least were not, looking for them.

With the police now seemingly happy to spend many man hours investigating people for a new myriad of reasons and with the powers to go back into your history as far back as they care to, it will not be long before many of these previously hidden crimes will become unearthed.

Once that happens, then just like the congestion charge, millions will soon find themselves being arrested or fined for something, even if it happened many years ago and has been long forgotten by all concerned.

Is this really the best way to fight crime and protect society in general from the hardened criminals and deranged psychos of this world? Or is it just a way of extorting money and massaging their conviction figures, just a lot?

Will this sort of utility bill scrutiny help rape victims, abused children, or confidence tricked pensioners? Will it save lives and take guns and knives out the hands of gang members? Hardly ... no, its a way of cowing the normally law abiding public into complete submission.

Now, perhaps more than ever, can Orwells vision of two totally segregated class of people be seen to be coming true to life.

Oh, and if your unsure of what we do to petty criminals in jail ... the latest press headlines is that the remaining tax payers are forking out so that the state can afford to pay them to play scrabble. And if that isn't the state desperately trying to use up all its resources in a mindless and anti-constructive way then I don't know what is!!!

Song (Soft Rock Ballad) - Love of the Blind

Love of the Blind

If I want you, but you need him,

and he loves yet one more.

Then how can any one of us,

have love call at our door.

For cupid's bows bent out of shape,

his arrows always miss.

With none around who turn my head,

enough to want to kiss.

(Chorus)

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Trips up your heart, clouds up your mind.

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Come dance with me and I'll make you mine.

We're firty young and single free,

though this can't last for long.

For your too hot and sexy in

that midnight black sarong.

I've tried my best to catch you eye,

but that's all been in vein.

For your out every weekend chasing

borish hunks again.

(Chorus)

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Trips up your heart, clouds up your mind.

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Come dance with me and I'll make you mine.

It's time to face a simple truth,

that you just can't evade.

For lust springs from the eyes it seems,

so if your cute your made.

And as for those dress look like me,

who are not hip or cool.

Just close your eyes and trust your heart

else stay a loveless fool.

(Chorus)

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Trips up your heart, clouds up your mind.

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Come dance with me and I'll make you mine.

Love of the blind.

Close your eyes.

Love of the blind.

Trust your heart.

(Chorus)

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Trips up your heart, clouds up your mind.

Love of the blind, love of the blind.

Come dance with me and I'll make you mine.

Love of the blind.