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!