So much news, so little time. It’s cold here and raining so I didn’t go to the the bank. Their problem - not mine.

Henry has broken free and Henry’s Mum is home again after the BIG KNIFE job. Please wish her well.

Big log fires here and a small Dad medical emergency which turned out to be nuffink. So that’s OK.

Next week is very challenging - please cross fingers. Can I get my car back with electric problem fixed? Can I manage a trade in of Herself’s car for something s-m-o-o-o-t-h-e -r and better? Can I survive a meeing with a BIG Corporate Client and win more cash next year? Can I survive a meeting with ‘Rikki’ (?) my ‘personal trainer’?

A new year and a new page turned. I wish you all well and hope that you will achieve some of your objectives for 2006.

Your dad.

Well, it’s the Magick Day today so a very Merry Christmas to one and all and Herself and I wish you all a thumdumptiously super New Year. It’s just before lunch (free-range Scots beef and similar veg) and the sky is bright blue and the sun burning down. Not a sound. No-one moving. No cars and no usual Christmas sighting of the NEW BIKE / DOLLS’ PRAM / and any etc with wheels. Surely they’re not all getting video-games for a present?

We had mugs of tea and the log fire lit by 6 am; idled time away reading and doing crosswords; opened presents and made and took fone calls. The issue with presents between us it not how much moulah can you spend but how imaginative are they? I have a tiny radio-controlled car with traffic cones to make a tricky course which works very well in the kitchen (non-carpet floor) but nowhere else. Is Herself trying to wean me back into said place where I used to reign supreme? But I bought her the cook-book ‘Roast Chicken and other stories’ by Simon Hopkinson voted Number One cookbook ever. We exchanged steely glances over the ripped wrapping paper. As another gift for Her I sent a chunky donation to the Cats’ Protection charity and received a lovely little cuddly (toy) kitten as a thank you. She’s tickled pink. So that’s alright then.

Recently I’ve been having a bad time physically and mentally. A very good friend sent me an item by Collin McCarty which I would like to share with you all:

Twelve things to always remember and one thing never to forget.

Your presence is a present to the world.
You’re unique and one of a kind.
Your life can be what you want it to be.
Take the days just one at a time.

Count your blessings not your troubles.
You’ll make it through whatever comes along.
Within you are so many answers.
Understand, have courage, be strong.

Realise that it’s never too late.
Do ordinary things in an extraordinary way.
Have health and hope and happiness.
Take the time to wish upon a star.

And don’t ever forget - for even a day - how very special you are.

Well, not perfect, but worth thinking about. If it doesn’t fit you and your life as it is at present - print it out and keep it. Because you may well need it.

Go in peace, friends - Dad

A nothing-much kind of day today. Herself swapped today with her alternate part-timer who wanted to go shopping but she has little to do in the office apart from watch over a corporate Christmas bun-fight from 4 pm. I can’t imagine anyone will stay more than an hour. So she might be home earlier than usual which would be nice. 3-in-the-morning jazz playing quietly. Aaah.

I went off to the library for a last-minute book transfusion and complimented a normally v. reserved lady librarian on her outrageous Christmas ear-rings. Deep blushand stutter in response, so that was nice. Meanwhile the hordes are out there, driving like maniacs with fists clenched on steering wheels, looking neither right nor left (nor sane) chasing down the almost-forgotten last mince pie or pack of sprouts. Which reminds me - - -

Having hated motorbikes since I was about 12 I decided to learn to ride one when I was 65. And then bought the Harley - yowzer!! Believe it or not I took my test on Christmas Eve. Plus-side - few trucks. Down-side - even more demented drivers frothing at the wheel. Of course, I passed first time (yawn) and had a great time. Including reducing the Examiner to tears of laughter as he recalled something I did. (Anyone who missed it the first time I told you - just ask and I’ll explain).

It’s very peaceful in the corner where we live. Pocket Park with lovely trees and a meadow with wild flowers lies behind the garden fence and most of the neighbours have been here for years. We know each other and though we don’t intrude - we look out for each other. That’s nice. We have this deal with Ken & Pat next door. Herself goes off at 6 am to buy the papers - and buys theirs, too. We have their house keys and look after their home / plants / w.h.y. and they have ours, ditto. Any car, any stranger turns up here and at least 10 pairs of eyes will clock them. So that’s nice.

I don’t know about you but most of the e-mails I get are garbage. Do I want ‘Meds’ whatever they are? Is my personal person in need of assistance? Why not throw money at the most amazing ding-bat stock? Come on. But I got a new one today. It seems that I have bought into www.viewpornstars.com. But why would I do that? In a long and quite satisfactory life I have seen sundry women dressed and undressed and understand about all the bits. So why would I need to peer dimly at a doubtless bored female person? The ones I ‘knew’ were never bored even though they may have just been bored. So to speak. As it were. Just don’t let on, OK?

So it’s take care, now, and get set up for a magic Christmas. Wish everyone around you well, and spread the love, right? My best wishes to you - Dad

Foggy and not nice at all today. So I’m not going out. I have this awful feeling that there must be something I’ve forgotten to do. I just can’t think what, though. So I give up. More Jools Holland though.

I have a lot of time for Lord Hutton’s comments so his suggestion that his and my political ideas seldom meet up was food for much thought. Apart from the blessedly extremely rare example of someone throwing abuse about and so demonstrating a lack of ability to listen, consider and debate things reasonably, I have the impression that my fellow blog-ring participants are an intelligent lot who think quite deeply about the meaning of life. And I have a strong feeling that most or even all of us share agreement about core objectives of how we would like things to be. Differences surface when the question of how to achieve those objectives arises. As a broad statement I loathe politicians on principle. Because of a devotion to dogma and all too frequently a total lack of consistent personal principle.

I often bang on about being a passionate egalitarian - so I’ll spare a repeat of the definition. I truly believe that everyone is equal - apart from those who demonstrate by their behaviour that they are despicable and unworthy of respect. But we are all different. Equal is NOT identical. I have certain skills, knowledge and norms of behaviour. Someone else, let’s say a brain surgeon, is very different from me and I can respect her / him for the things I can’t know or do. The same is true of the bloke who delivers my mail (he wears shorts all year round - hail, rain, snow or sunshine. Now THAT’s different from me!) and the driver of the garbage truck I joked with this morning. Both equal, decent but different people.

So the challenge is how to bring equality of opprtunity, equality of treatment and equality of respect to people who are equal - but very different one from another. That’s one of the reasons I get a sense-of-humour-failure when I see people like brown and prescot (see above re unworthy of respect) talking about and acting out class warfare. If we replace the highly emotive term ‘class’ with the term ’sector of the community’ - because there are people with differing ways of life - differences between the nature of people are NOT determined by their ’sector’ but by how they conduct themselves and their relations with others and their community. In plain speech, there are shits everywhere just as much as there are inately good people everywhere.

So I suspect that Lord Hutton and I want to see the same achievements for people and our world, we simply disagree over the best and fairest way to bring that about. So that’s alright, then.

Enough heavy thinking for now.

The good news about Henry is that since he can get a pass out on a Sunday, and Christmas is on a Sunday, it looks as if he and Trouty will be having Christmas Lunch with his Mum, brother and his wife. So that’s nice. Then he’s out on the 28th. with out-patient attendance after that. My New Year wishes for him are impossibly high, but I do so hope he will have a happier time of it in the future.

Well, no special thoughts today other than suggesting we value all that we have in this life rather than regret whatever we lack or have lost. Let’s enjoy Christmas (no, NOT the ‘Winter Holiday’ or any other daft euphemism) and face the New Year with hope and cheer.

Take care, folks - Dad

A bright sunny day here after an overnight frost necessitating the hot water over the windscreen to get going early this morning - off to do a training programme for a local firm. Went well; everyone happy; cheque already received. There’s trust. Then I got the glasses back so I CAN SEE properly again. Jools Holland and Friends playing today. Yeah!!

Talking of medical matters as one often does at my age I’ve invested in a new tool to help to force me to do what the Doc demands - take more (Some? Any?) exercise. So I went online and bought a ‘Talking Pedometer’. Can’t wait. Walking about just for the exercise is bad enough but being nagged whilst doing it? Aaarrgh! I think the site was www.presentsformen.com I dared not explore it fully for fear of what other total toecover (family term for generic useless present) I might buy. Wish me luck. Will my pedometer have a true English accent, or a Regional accent or a mid-Atlantic one? You can tell just how traumatic this is for me.

The term ‘traumatic’ naturally turns my thoughts to bliar et al. So Prescot wants a return to class war? That says it all, really. Merely 100 years out of date. The fact that he failed the 11 plus just proves what a fair and true test that was. He needs to be disposed of as hazardous waste. My letter to the DT about bliar’s totally, cringingly, complete f-up of OUR (NOT his) Presidency of the EU wasn’t printed. So with just the one glorious exception my record of non-letter-publication remains pristine. Since my name is not F. Forsyth (Who he anyway? Judging by his over-long garbled letters he cannot be a professional writer) I can’t get my letters published despite the fact that I write quite cogently and as a free-lance journalist have been published hither and yon (and also listened to on the National Beeb) for years. So I know I write well enough - but I’m not on the ’secret list’. It’s a racket. Harrumph. brown is merely a more fluent but innately equally uneducated (this is not a comment about academic qualification - one can be apparently ‘educated’ yet learn nothing) bitter socialist determined to wreak vengeance on decent people. Class war too. Please deliver us from these perverts as soon as possible.

Cheer up, Dad!! Feeling smug at having cracked the Christmas present problem I have devised a cunning plan. Herself has dressed our modest sized tree and the lights sparkle so as to lift the heart. Starting yesterday I plan to put another present under the tree for her each day until THE DAY. I created the tags in PowerPoint so she may read the obscure teaser messages - but mustn’t open the packages until THE DAY.

‘Love’ is a complex and difficult word. Perhaps its true meaning is linked to the person about whom it’s used? I’m not happy when people debase the word ‘love’ and say to all-comers ‘I lurve yu’. But thinking about it, I love my wife, I love Henry’s Mum (quite a lot, actually) I love Henry - and his brother and sister. But those ‘loves’ are different. Perhaps we should stop ‘loving’ everyone and anyone, respect our differing loves for those close to us and then really remember how important those loves are to us and make sure the objects of our love know how much we love them - for who they are and how much they mean to us? Go on - tell your differing loves of your love for them. You see, it might mean a lot to them. And loving ‘A’ in one way takes nothing away from loving ‘B’ differently.

Keep working on the Christmas thing - with my kind of love to you all - Dad

My mind and bum are numb, my back is killing me, my right wrist / fingers feel weird and I can’t see straight. (An arm came off the glasses with the latest prescription and my back-up pair are the previous one so things are a bit blurry. Who can afford TWO pairs of new glasses when there’s a new formula? When I have to have a new pair the last pair become the back-up. REMEMBER - if you wear prescription glasses never drive a car or travel away without having a spare pair with you. You’d create a very big accident on the motorway if your glasses got broke and you had no spare. Anyway, special computer glasses on now, though, so the screen / text is crisp and clear.)

I also have sparkly bits all over my forehead and I twinkle in the lights when I move, Herself says. So what have I been doing? The first correct answer accomapanied by an English Bank Note (I have a long memory for the Estonian one!!!) will win a small bottle of aftershave (no, it’s NOT genderist - I KNOW women shave bits too) providing you also pay the postage. I learned this scam from the people who think I’m an idiot. (Whoa!! Health & Safety Alert!! You don’t want to be killed in the crush, do you?) I get these ‘Notifications’ that I’ve won something and it will take a mere 10 minutes at Z quid a minute to find out what that is. Huh.

Alright. I give in. I’ve DONE THE CARDS!!! Whatever snobs say about hating computer labels on Christmas card envelopes, those labels take the (extra) pain out of writing Christmas cards. No, really, I like the people I send personal cards to but the killer was looking up and writing the addresses. Bing!! Gone. Just a few changes to cope with.

Better yet than that, we have a posh, smart, super Post Office Sorting Office 5 mins down the road so we take our mail there and it drops straight into the lap of a dedicated mail-sorting person. Which means we get the jump on others who have only a lost, lonely, unloved post box into whose maw they commit their earnest concerns. Yeah! Done it all!! Phew!!! Please accept this as a kind of C’ Card to you personally. You are fortunate in that lacking knowledge of your location I can’t turn up saying ‘Ho-Ho-Ho’ and seeking warming festive liqours.

Well, food calls. I have no news of Henry or Trouty but hope they’re doing OK. My love to them both. Amidst your own family-centred festivities this coming week please spare a prayer for them both.

And my thoughts today? We’re all of us imperfect. Which doesn’t mean that everything we do is blighted. Not at all. Take private comfort from the things you do in your life that bring no harm or - even in a small way - help others in our world whether human or other. Take heart from contributing to rather than taking from.
Perhaps try, even if you fail, to influence others to cause less harm. Anyone from the head of government (sadly, no capital letters apply in England - which used to be part of Britain which has been disolved by fiat not referendum) to your next door neighbour. BUT - as someone said (was it Kipling - please advise) ‘Softly, softly catchee monkey’.

Think on, as they say in Yorkshire. The White Rose County whereas everyone knows that Lanacashire (the RED rose County) is best. Oh, and it’s completely irrelevant that I was born in Lancashire.

Rest well and rise refreshed. Dad

Bright sunshine but a sharp cold wind today. Eva Cassidy playing and Herself busy with this and that.

Desperation did indeed bring Inspiration so I have completed the Christmas purchses for Herself. She’ll be surprised. A one day hire of a three ton truck; a set of heavy lifting equipment suitable for serious road accidents; self-contained breathing apparatus - I was alight with ideas. But I wound up buying smaller and more delicate things after all. Though I did really hanker after the heavy lifting stuff. Oh well, Perhaps next year.

Otherwise good enough news apart from bliar giving away zillions of OUR money. Because the Gov’t has none of its own after brown gave our gold reserves away when the market was the lowest for generations. Charity begins at home. bliar threw away money we need for the police, hospitals and schools. He has NO MANDATE to do that. What in God’s name is the matter with people in Britain that so many can’t see what a self-obsessed dickhead the man is and how much damage he’s doing to us all? I bloody well despair.

Difficult to think calmly at present after that. However - Christmas is a stressful time so set yourself an objective. Behave and say things in a way that will make the harrassed person in the shop, the family, the pub - whoever - smile and enjoy a small moment of pleasure in a frantic life. The true spirit of Christmas is internal and brings a lift of the spirit to those whose lives you touch. Many small kindnesses of spirit are of much greater value than outward displays of greed and power.

You can do it!! Dad

Mixed weather - very cloudy first thing - and more Chet Atkins playing. Herself in a right state today - too much to do and too many things not going right. Her car is in while they locate a mysterious water leak somewhere on the body and she has a loan car. Wanted to go to Tescos at 5.15 this morning (usual practice) and can’t find loan car keys. Language - stress - temper. Finds them in the place she had carefully placed them yesterday so as not to mislay them. Zipped pocket in handbag never normally used. Xtreem frustration and didn’t get to do her shopping. More problems over the internet (see below) and emotional temperature at Vesuvious level. Then good news. Re her speeding clanger, letter arrives offering remedial driving course instead of being nicked and getting licence endorsed. Over the moon. (The cost is the same as the fine would have been). I had just read an article about all that and saved it so she can read about what’s going to happen. Phew. After that everything went right. Sweetness and light. Cassoulet for lunch? Yup.

Microsoft have started INSISTING on stuffing random downloads on to my computer. I can’t find out what they are for and can’t choose not to have one. So far every time they’ve done this my computer has a period of hysterics and Norton Security goes up the wall. Got Norton fixed but this morning all desktop icons moved including quick-starters on the task bar. Can I put it all back where it was? Can I Hell. And M’soft Help is as much use as a bicycle is to a fish. I have several reasons for loathing Bill Gates. His mere existence is one.

Must do the Christmas cards before the weekend because they’re raining in thick and fast. Thank Heaven for computerised labels.

Christmas v. low key this year and no mega presents but I have no idea about a special one for Herself. I just can’t think of anything she really needs. Oh well. Desperation brings Imagination. Please. Fortunately some years ago the family agreed a moratorium on presents within the family. Very sensible. We each donate to a Charity instead.

Thanks to Julianna for kind comments - hope you’re keeping smiling and all set for Christmas. Have a good one. Thoughts too for Mort’s Mom. Hope things are OK with you, too. Otherwise my thoughts to those I’ve come to meet through this site and have shown me much kindness. Have the kind of Christmas you want and my best wishes to you all. Thanks for talking to me and here’s to a good New Year. Special thoughts for Henry and Trouty - this could be a funny old Christmas but a real fresh starting point. A quiet prayer for you both.

Christmas is a very stressful time for many people and lots of people have rows and worse. Then there are people who are sad, lonely, perhaps facing Christmas after a sad loss. So two ideas. You won’t be having any rows with anyone and will move fast to put the lid on anything that might be about to break out. Also have a think about the people you know who may face a too-quiet too-miserable time and make a small extra effort to speak to them / phone them - anything. Send a private card after Christmas to say you hope they’re OK. Make the effort to think of others outside the usual family and friends - it could mean an awful lot to someone having a rotten time.

Go in peace, friends - Dad

Top of the News must be Henry and apart from his blog (pls see my comment) he phoned me this am. In top form - so that was v. good. Everything crossed for him. And please spare a thought for indomitable Trouty. Luv yer, hen!

Weather bright after a cold night. Sunshine and that. Back to Chet Atkins. Always there when I need him.

Great excitement about the drama with the fuel depot fire in Hemel Hempstead. Next to an industrial estate known as Maylands Avenue. Also close to a residential area known as Adeyfield. It’s a small world.

During the War (Which war? WW2 1939 - 1946 [most people think 1945 but don’t forget the Far East / Japan]) many thousands of homes had been destroyed by people in thrall to Hitler. So a PLAN was devised to build a series of so-called New Towns. HH was one. It was built surrounding a small village and was a few miles from the village of Redbourn where my Dad had his factory having been bombed out of London and that’s where we lived for some years.

Following our marriage Henry’s Mum and I lived in an new flat in HH in - yes - Adeyfield. That’s where Henry was born. And his brother (but in a house there, not the flat).

Our flat was on the third floor and one Summer’s day as I was attending to the car out back, Henry’s Mum appeared on the balcony saying that baby Henry was inside but she’d locked herself out of the flat. Aargh!! So, stupidly, I took out my keys and threw them up to her. Hmm. Not a good idea. They went over the top, on to the roof and fell into the gutter. So now neither of us had keys. BUT I had the car keys. So I hit the road to the Fire Station. Peace. Calm. Men catching the sun - aah. Help! Help! Yeah, wazit? Baby, wife, flat, keys. BIG men explode into life, blue flashing lights, siren, HUGE fire truck followed by me and sod the speed limit. (Enough about that, OK?) Extending ladder, man, collect keys from gutter and hand to palpitating Mother standing on balcony. Tidy kit away. Offer tea. No need, tea available in Fire Station. They cruise quietly away. And people think a mere vast explosion causing many casualties (but thankfully no deaths) and millions of pounds worth of damage is important?? [Note: That was a joke. It’s v. serious, OK?] I wonder if Henry knows about that? Perhaps we never told him.

Oh and by the way, his Mum and I both worked for a firm in Maylands Avenue. I expect the building’s just been flattened. It’s a funny old world indeed.

Which natcherally brings us to recent chatter. Whew. Thanks to everyone who posted a comment. I enjoyed all of that and thought that there was much value in the views expressed. The interesting thing is that I think that we share many common views about the world even though there may be fierce differences of opinion about specifics. So after a high-level adrenalin charge, time for something peaceful.

I’m off again tomorrow for a trip to meet more students doing a gap-year in the Year in Industry. I’ve found the psychology fascinating. Here am I in my 70’s listening to thoughtful, responsible people in their late teens expressing their ideas after a first submersion in the world of work in engineering - upon which we all depend. Leave aside a twit or two, I just wish there were more of them. Alight with the possibilites they see. Blows my head away. And joy of joys the woman I’ll be with is called Charity. We took a little while to get our views of each other sorted. She was so nice about me. She holds up a shield to the world (I haven’t yet figured out why) and claims that I’ve seen straight through it to her real self. I hope so. She seems fierce - but she’s soft butter inside and unsure. She’s lovely to work with.

Most people see others in one dimension. With a label. Lout. Gay. Jew. Crunkly oldie. Tarty girl. Whatever the law says we can’t prevent people from seeing others in that way. Some people see others in two dimensions. Lout BUT cares about music. Gay BUT cares for disadvantaged people. Jew BUT cares about the community.
We need to see past the first two dimensions into the third dimension. The reality of the soul within the person regardless of the convenient labels we all use when thinking about others.

So please use 3D vision. And bring tranquility. Dad

Abandoned, I am! Herself has driven off to visit unwell Mum and quite frail unwell Dad - due back late tomorrow. But she’s just phoned to say she got there in v. good time with fairly light traffic. So that’s good. Weather better than yesterday and warmer - but not amazing. Bach playing today - sparked by a reference in a novel I’m reading. Good stuff. I wish I played an instrument other than drums / percussion. I love that and always did but just now and again I’d love to play twiddly bits and tunes. But the grass on the other side of the fence is always greener and it’s too late now.

Well, I seem to have lit the blue touch paper with my previous musings. Firstly many thanks for the various insights I received. That’s an aspect of this blogging business that I just love. I’ve always loved debate as opposed to two ‘deaf’ people just repeating the same shouted frozen attitudes at each other. But some response seems called for so here’s where I’m at. (If you’re bored with the topic(s) look away now).

Firstly some general principles. There are millions of people and so statistically a percentage of them will do bloody stupid things. For each of us there will have been times when we did unwise or downright stupid things. I certainly have. Fortunately, most of the time we get away with them and harm neither ourselves nor anyone else. But sometimes we do.

Then, in reality, accidents happen. An accident is just that - someone in the wrong place at the wrong time or doing the wrong thing - like standing on a swivel office chair to reach something off the top shelf, twisting, falling and striking a sharp edge on the way down. There is an insane culture around at present saying that there should be no accidents and if one happens it MUST be someone else’s fault and there must be compensation. Stupid. People should look out for themselves and avoid hazards like a damaged pavement stone or ‘trip’ as it’s called. Just watch where you walk, OK? If the problem is caused by active error on the part of someone else then that leaves room for discussion.

Try this for a brutal current example. Two nice young teenage girls wanted to go by train to Cambridge for Christmas shopping. They had to buy tickets on one platform then cross the railway lines to the other platform to join the train that was waiting there. They were killed by a train coming the other way at about 1oo mph. That is awful. Their families are desolated and two lovely young lives have been snuffed out. But it was an accident. So although there were warning lights flashing which they must have seen people want to blame the railway company because the access gate wasn’t locked. The unpalatable other face of the coin is that they should have got to the station earlier to allow comfortable time to buy a ticket and cross a clear line to wait for the train they wanted. They should have attended to the light signal. They should have thought ‘we can’t see the other line past the bulk of the train standing in the station so we can’t be sure that nothing is coming so we shouldn’t risk it’. But they did. And they’re dead. And that’s horrible. But that was an accident. It is ludicrous to seek to prevent anyone, ever, from suffering an accident caused by an error of their judgement - or that of someone else - or an uncontrollable physical event - like the tsunami.

Unconvinced? Mad at me? As I understand it (and this may vary from State to State - I don’t know) in the USA if some stranger enters the grounds of my property or, worse, my building, I can shoot him / her and it’s their fault for being there uninvited and unwanted. Here in the UK if I confront a burglar on my property and I have the strength to oppose them or, dear me, use a weapon of any kind, I am WRONG and have offended against the burglar. What? At my age I could never win against a young man intent on stealing from me. So the only way I can defend myself and my property would be by using help - sword, gun, w.h.y. But I would be wrong. And this blisteringly stupid damned Labour government filibustered out a private member’s bill to put that imbalance right. OK. Why are any of you suppoorting an unspeakable government that believes a burglar has more rights that I have when he’s on my private property? Please explain why that is not totally and absolutely perverted. Sick. Yuck. So the State and politicians can be wrong.

Which brings us to speed cameras in the UK. These are a steam-hammer to crack a nut. Two police forces reject them (rightly) and say it’s not sheer speed that’s the problem, it’s poor driving OR an accident caused by the cyclist / pedestrian behaving without thought. They say that cameras do not reduce accidents but good traffic policing does because they catch bad drivers. Where cameras are put up, traffic police are taken away. So bad driving goes un-noticed but a technicality brings a fine without being able to say that the road was clear and dry, weather fine, vehicle fully under control.

The area where I live is littered in cameras. We were told that they would be set up only where there had been a series of accidents with pedestrians. Not true. There are a number set up on clear stretches of road where there hasn’t even been a two car fender-bender let alone an accident which hurt a person. There is a notorious strech of dual carriageway with a 40 mph speed limit between two roundabouts. The line of the road is straight, no hidden stretch of road - nothing. But because there is housing on one side which has a separate service road in front of it and is not on the main road itself - it’s 40. That kind of thing simply makes a mockery of all these do-gooders.

Stu was concerned that when I adjust the radio or heater in my car I might hit a cyclist. He didn’t mention the number of EXTRA accidents caused by cameras because people have their eyes pinned on their speedo rather than the road (Fact). He didn’t mention that when I was out and about earlier this week in the dark there were bloody death defyingly stupid cyclists who were riding along WITH NEITHER FRONT NOR REAR LIGHTS. And this is LEGAL??? And he didn’t mention that through my inflated Council Tax I have paid for ‘cycle ways’ to be created - BUT stupid cyclists refuse to use them - and there is no law saying that they have to. So I’m in the car, the cyclist won’t use a dedicated cycle track and insists on wearing dark clothing whilst ambling along without any lights whatsoever - and suddenly it’s MY FAULT if I hit him? Go make sense of that. You can’t, because it’s non-sense.

Brad really lost his sense of humour with me which I’m sorry about. No speed camera would stop a very elderly lady making a very unfortunate mistake and hitting his family at 25 mph on a zebra crossing. See above. It was an accident. The driver’s fault, not the family. And had the driver been a drugged-up youngster in a stolen car doing 45 mph then he may well have lost his family. No camera can change that. Seen the recent picture taken by a speed camera of the faces of 3 louts in a stolen car doing 40 in a 30 limit? You need police for that, not a camera. And Brad - I didn’t set out to cause offence but your comment is an example of the impossibility of discussing in public ideas which libertarians propound but which are not necessarily sensible. Lord Hutton suggests that ‘as long as the average [person] can speak their mind there is no problem’ - but I’m afraid that obviously there is. Just because you do not share my viewpoint doesn’t make me wrong. So no need for language that might offend the kids.

Cars don’t kill people, people do. Guns don’t kill people, people do. Yet because one deranged person tragically murdered children in Dunblane my wife and I - and many other perfectly sensible people - had to surrender the pistols we enjoyed using on the local range and now can no longer enjoy exercising our skills. For many years I was a certified weapons training instructor and safety / range officer. I am very highly aware of the need for the safe handling of firearms. But some lunatic politician in an orgy of publicity-seeking has taken from me a particular pleasure and decreed that he knows better than I and indeed that I am incapable of exercising care in the use of firearms. Sheer arrogant offensive libertarian nonsense. I bet I’ve fired more rounds in safety and taught more people safe weapon handling than he even imagined. And meanwhile there has been an explosion in the number of ‘Saturday night specials’ owned and used by scum who never had a lesson in gun use in their lives but blow others away every weekend. So it’s OK for them but not for me. That’s plain disgusting.

So let’s lighten up a bit and become more questioning about whether the nanny-state is necessarily right. And let’s reclaim the rights of the individual and the need for us all to become personally responsible not slave-subjects. Britain used to be the land of the free. Not any more.

You all know about John Dunn (b. 1834 lived in S.Africa) He became very strongly associated with the Zulu Nation. In 1856 a civil war broke out between the King’s two sons Mbuyasi and Cetshwayo. Many thousands of Zulus died. Cetshwayo won and the King let him effectively run the Zulu Nation. He became King on the death of his father in 1872. He asked Dunn to be his Secretary and Diplomatic Advisor and Dunn was subsequently acclaimed a Zulu Chief. Although he had a white wife, to her displeasure he was awarded sundry Zulu wives and ultimately wound up with about 45 of them and sired about 110 children - so there’s a lot of Dunn history about to this day.

He said ‘The creation of wealth is almost a duty because of the widespread benefits that flow from it.’ Why is a University Graduate like Brown unable to understand that without a strong and thriving private sector there will be no funds for him to squander blindly on the public sector?

Have a peaceful day - Dad

Oh what a horrid day, weather-wise. Clouded over and no sun, raw and cold. Too much to do to loiter by the fire so dumb central heating on. Ugh! Country & Western playing. Yee-hah!! Herself is teeny-tinying like mad - Christmas demand. DIY snowmen in demand. Strings of mini-lights either coloured or white in great demand - I did a deal to buy in several cases of them at a v.sharp price so the profit margin is v. good. It needs to be.

Why? It’s all about speed cameras. I LOVE good cars. In my younger days I was a Club Racer and paid attention to driving my car well / fast / safely rather than the theoretical speed limits. Then as things became more repressive I became more cautious. For years I owned and drove Sports Bentleys as my ‘company car’. 7 litre engine, sports supension, would accelerate through roundabouts as if they were on rails. Never stepped out once. Left all the boy racers, Mercs and BMW’s for dust. Magic!! But these bxxxxy cameras have done my head in. I now abide v. carefully to speed limits but even so the mere sight of a camera puts my pulse rate / blood pressure through the roof. Since I have (fairly minor) heart problems this is NOT A GOOD THING. They freak me out.

Herself is normally more cavalier than I. A 40 mph speed limit means ‘not less than 40 and somewhere over that’ to her. Coming back from a Craft Fair the other night along a road that I warned her was awash in cameras she bit her lip and stuck to under 40. But missed the 30 sign. Flash.Bang. The Wallop came in the post this morning. I would have been physically sick had I seen the flashes in my mirror and died when I got the letter. She is just spitting mad and can’t understand how she missed the 30 sign. So she needs the profit to pay the fine and is mad as a parrot that her unblemished licence will have the dreaded points on it now. And she was nicked for doing 36. In top gear you can get up to that whilst adjusting the heating or the radio. It’s al bliars fault. He’s got to go. Him, his unreconstructed rabid socialist love / hate mate brown and his bloody awful rotten sick political party.

Which segues naturally into Dave Cameron. I LOVED his session with bliar at PM’s questions. Magic!! Cameron set the agenda and the tone. He had bliar on the back foot beautifully. I LOVED the crack about the Labour Chief Whip sounding like a child and ‘Have you finished? Right?’ Oh, I’ve been waiting years for that. Please God (and I don’t write that lightly) will this guy save my country from the appalling damage done by bliar and that weirdo brown. They’re wrecking the place.

The internet is taking over. We’ve ordered more food over the internet than ever before. And some of the stuff - meat, cheese, sausages - w.h.y. - are superb. Back to the kind of meat I could buy in the country 40 odd years ago. Proper beef, properly farmed, kindly slaughtered and then hung for 3 weeks. Cor!! Slobber slobber.

Broke off there to take a call from another old friend. Bad news. It seems that life is in a permanent state of upheaval these days. Broken marriages, medical dramas, kids going wrong - whatever happened to the life I remember? What’s the root cause of all this disturbance? Well there’s no one simple answer. But it seems to me there’s a whole bunch of so-called libertarian ideas that have resulted in ripping the guts out of society. And we’ve all lost out as a result. The thing that angers me most about these people is their arrogance. They fondly imagine that only they are right. If anyone chooses to hold a different view - they abuse them rather than debate. I can’t be doing with that. We’ve long reached the stage where observations about society can be discussed only in private behind closed doors. To speak out is to be villified. None of this is right. It was the same in Nazi Germany. So why are so few people worried?

This blog is getting too deep!

Do good by stealth. Do one thing to help other less fortunate people in the next day without anyone knowing you did it. It could mean gifting money (But not just to an arms-length charity. That might salve your conscience but is not personal enough); it could mean how you respond to someone; it could mean helping someone less favoured than you. But it will be your secret. You will remember it in private and that will lift your spirit as you lifted the spirit of the person you helped.

My CD is playing the song ‘The wind beneath my wings’. I’ll play it again. Go in peace. Dad

Normal service is resumed!

Damp, cold and gloomy today. Ugh. Playing 3-in-the-morning s-m-o-o-t-h jazz since Herself shot off to work at 7.15 this morning and won’t be back until 6.20. Another ugh. Fireplace with a heap of fine ash reminds me of the super fire we had from about 6.30 yesterday morn until bed-time. Mixed coal and (free) well dried birch wood. Oh we do love open fires!!

Well what good news from Henry!! I’m so glad he’s sticking it out despite being surrounded by morons. He must be so pleased with so many lovely supportive comments. On his behalf - thanks a lot, everyone, it will mean a great deal to him and brave Trouty, too.

In my mid-twenties I spent a year in a Sanatorium in Norfolk with TB. That was character-forming! But we didn’t have TV and very few idiots, thank the Lord. Being confined to bed when you don’t feel ill - but are actually very ill - is extremely frustrating. Very different from Henry’s situation. But I shared a room with a super bloke about my own age and as we got better we worked off our frustrations. So to speak. Actually received wisdom was that TB heightened one’s sexual voltage (unless you really were at the end of the road) and there were many stories about patients past and present. I remember Leanna Hood whose room was on the floor above mine. I wonder whatever happened to her? The pity of it is I’ll never know. Anyway, eventually me and my chum re-organised and re-branded the patient’s shop and made it make a profit for the first time in living memory; took over the library, re-bound damaged books and blagged new ones from a charity; ran the hospital radio service. They must have been glad to see the back of us. Everyone left in the end. The nasty bit was discovering whether you’d leave on foot or in a box. It took them 6 months to figure it out for me and some good friends left horizontally. Enough!! Another day I’ll tell you about how we trapped the Occupational Therapist.

Well, I’ve just found out that I’m a Veteran. Ain’t that great? An old friend of mine asked if I’d got my Veteran’s Badge. What? Well, ’tis true I was a Regular Officer in the RAF (which is where I got the TB and why I was invalided out) but I never served in a war. Lo and verily, so long as you served well and truly - call the Veteran’s Agency and thou shalt receive a neat badge providing you still know your Service Number. I did and I’ve got one. Dinky. And I’m going to wear it, too.

Where did the year go? It’s Christmas already - again! Which means another birthday looms and another toll on my age. I just don’t feel that old. I don’t suppose you do, either!!

Now let me tell you a story:
Two old (literally) friends of mine were part of my circle of friends when I was a teenager. As tends to happen in such groups, they married. They are both very intelligent. She is quite unwell now but was always a worker. She would beaver away through the night if need be. He disliked the dead burden of a daily job and shirked - but was clever enough to get by. We did various things together including setting up an Art Gallery and starting a magazine. Cor!

She is a staunch Catholic. They had a son, then twins, one M one F, then another son. Two disaters befell them. Their first-born was found to have serious mental disabilites so they withdrew to live and work mostly at home to care for him. She had a high profile career in the broadcast media - until she became too ill to continue. He became a free-lance journalist - and then stopped. In his mid-teens the male twin died after coming off his motorbike. His Mother has never recovered from that to this day.

Her disbaled son frightens people. They don’t know how to cope with him because he’s big and abrupt when he speaks. When I visit, we get on fine because I deal with him as he deals with me and he can understand that. So we’re mates. The other day she was having a bad day and spoke sharply to him. He grabbed a coat and ran out of the house. Big drama. Came out OK in the end. Now she’s beating herself up for causing the problem. I’ve tried to explain that I know how well she treats him and how much she cares for him so to err is human and she lost it, just a bit, once.

We all get it wrong with our loved ones (and our un-loved ones) from time to time. The issue is not ‘Did I cock it up last Thursday?’ It’s ‘Do I normally get it right?’ Occasional failure is allowed because we’re all frail human beings.

Stop beating yourself up. What is past is past. So do better next time, why don’t you? Carrying and displaying abject misery doesn’t help - and it keeps making the others miserable just because you are. Button it. Swallow it. Tomorrow is an as yet unspoiled day.

Thanks again to you all for your comments about Henry. And have a peaceful day. Dad