When the chauffeur returned our dog Taz from Racehorse Ritz he brought with him a raft of Part One Orders. We were instructed to limit him to one room,.accompany him at all times to the ablutions, not allow him to climb on furniture and above all not let him escape to the Great Outdoors.
Here, at Stalag Luft One, an anti-escape committee was convened. It was pointed out that this entire dwelling was about the same size as my library in our home at Aberbraint. Therefore it was proposed, and seconded, that for the purposes of command the ground (and only) floor of Stalag Luft be designated as 'one room'. A further proposal was adopted that furniture be rearranged in the drawing room to limit movement in early stage of convalescence/captivity. Dog walker to be re- mustered as dog sitter.
The meeting was then adjourned and adjutant(me) retired to my study. Closely followed by Taz, who had ignored recently erected barriers and now glared at him challengingly from the plastic cone which prevents him from biting stitches. An escort was summoned and prisoner and escort were marched out to confinement suite.
Adjutant returned to study and peace reigned until rent by scream from Head Ferret. The dog under advisement had vanished. Suite search failed to discover signs of tunnel and guards were despatched to search perimeter fence. Prisoner discovered hiding behind hedge. Challenging glare replaced by smug insubordinate expression. Prisoner returned to punishment suite. Peace reigned after Last Post was piped.
At 6 am came a sound as of a plastic helmet being dashed against C.O.'s bedroom door. Adjutant observed dog butting said door. Returned prisoner to suite with adjutant spending night on armchair duty till reveille piped.Prisoner insisted on lullaby before sleep. Adjutant obliged and prisoner slept soundly
Anti-escape committee re-convened. Prisoner's records perused. Revealed considerable form for escaping whilst still an apprentice dog on recruitment to Unit.
The problem is that he insists on being with us. With us he is loving and obedient. If we are not within licking distance he gets a red mist. He is the only dog we have ever been owned by to be barred from a boarding kennels.
When he was badged with us on Anglesey he was billeted in a Kennel Yard in which bloodhounds had been confined. He pleaded guilty to burrowing beneath a 6ft high, heavy duty steel fence and tearing through wire on a padlocked gate. When repairs were effected he found a weak join four foot up, made a hole and jumped out. Left in the house, he ate through a listed window, demolished the cat flap, ripped out the phone cable and shredded the cushion flooring in a bid to burrow under the door.
Confined to cars, he ate fourteen seat belts. Estimated cost of replacing and repairing £3,000.
At this point it was discovered from a Children's TV programme that Taz is the shortened form of Tasmanian Devil. Obviously there were personality flaws his previous owners had kept to themselves. Happily his cheery, loving presence more than cancelled them out and it was observed that he only escaped as far as the gate, where he waited placidly for our return.
In the light of these disclosures, the anti-escape committee unanimously voted for compulsory parade of dog to view DVDs of “Colditz” and “Bridge Over the River Kwai” for instruction purposes. Dog warned that future acts of indiscipline may be punished by confinement to the Hole. Adjutant's objection to this description of his study overruled by CO.
Sadly over the weekend the wound became infected and Taz was back in the camp hospital, under guard, on a diet of money; leaving his bemused owners to wonder how his absence leaves a huge chasm so much greater than the space he occupies with his presence.
On Thursday we had an anxious call from the veterinary nurse. He had gone on hunger strike. He was refusing to eat hospital food. Could we bring round some chicken?
The C.O immediately went into Meals on Wheels mode and delivered a tasty melange of chicken and rice. The suggestion of the adjutant that he might like to wash it down with a saucer of Chardonnay was not well received. Before she returned a vet rang to say that if she wanted to visit Taz after Rounds she would be welcome.
That day we had lunch at 4 pm because a second vet rang to say he had been in touch with the Racehorse Ritz who said there was nothing to worry about. Wound infection often happened with greyhounds and Taz could come home the next day.
The adjutant is as well as can be expected though exhibits a worrying tendency to jump nervously for no apparent reason. No doubt in time the attendant nervous twitch will disappear.
LIONS LED BY DONKEYS
Lord Dannett, the noisy Christian who used to be C.I.G.S. is predictably against defence cuts. He says if we do make them we won't be a great nation any more. He asks if that is what we want.
General, you can bet your sweet arse it is. It is time we gave up our seat at the top table. It is time we gave up trying to turn Afghanistan into Slumberland. Afghanistanis are an undisciplined mob which lives to fight.
General, the MOD is already 3.5 million in debt financing your folies de grandeur. Add to that a further billion fighting the Libyan army, whose military experience in war is limited to stealing petrol from the 8th Army.
May I remind you that you are borrowing from your countrymen, who are so broke we are closing care centres and libraries, throwing millions out of work? We even have to buy hospitals on HP.
General, you seem to have misunderstood our role, or perhaps you have not noticed the Empire has gone. Nations sit on the top table because they are powerful and call the shots. We are not. Borrowing billions to buy lethal toys and giving billions in Aid to countries wealthier than we are will not buy us privileges to which we are no longer entitled.
But that is not the reason I want us to be a little nation, bothering no one. The reason is guilt.
My ancestors fought at Hastings, Crecy, Agincourt, in the Civil War; at Ramillies, Waterloo, Trafalgar; in the Crimea and in the Zulu and Boer wars, and every silly war including World Wars One and Two. A branch of us even fought in the American Civil War. It didn't do us any good. We learned nothing, Worse, I am of the generation of World War Two. I grew up watching the destruction of my cities, the death of my school fellows in a succession of blitzes. I spent two years in a beaten Germany, witness to its degredation and the mass obliteration of Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and Cologne.
My guilt? I have fathered a generation which has learned nothing. A generation of people like you, General, who believe that war is a solution, not a problem. It is something of which I am deeply ashamed and eager to make reparations.
Thanks to my publishing friends Revel Barker and Neil Marr, the thirty odd books I have written are being republished and all the royalties are going to service charities. It won't wash away the guilt I feel but it might help the fine young men and women who will go through life without limbs or genitals just so that our generals and our politicians can swank on a top table they have no right to share.
YOU FEEL BETTER FOR THAT ???????
A mass display of public disobedience, of judicial petulance, blatant abuse of parliamentary privilege and a commercially driven media campaign............
So now we know that Ryan Giggs had it off with Imogen Thomas. Do we feel (a) greatly relieved (b) proud that a blow has been struck for media freedom or (c) slightly shabby and wondering what the fuss was all about? Young men filled with adulation and money, surrounded by nubile young girls eager to give their all. The wonder would be that a testoterone-brimming Adonis turned down the opportunity. I do not suppose the cuckolded Mrs Giggs feels better for the fact we all know of her betrayal by the man she loved. Ms Thomas cannot enjoy the reputation that will be her lifetime companion.
I used to make a handsome living writing stories for the tabloids about similar situations. Cannot honestly say that I felt ashamed. My only fear was that one of my victims might have asked in answer to my probing:
“What has it got to do with you?” I wouldn't have had an answer.
Until recently all I knew of Giggs is that his dazzling talent has entertained thousands of supporters for over a decade. That he is universally liked...
I think I will stick with that memory and the feeling of relief that no one has been nosing into my private life in the way I nosed into theirs.
P.S. In passing, I cannnot believe that any legislation which muzzles Giles Coren is wholly bad.
Friday, 27 May 2011
Friday, 20 May 2011
EVERY DAY HAS ITS DOG
It was a funny sort of birthday. Celia painfully pulled a muscle either leaning backwards over a basin at the hairdresser or heavy duty gardening. The dog broke his leg in several places for no apparent reason but perversity. Minimal fee for physiotherapy for the Head Ferret. The dog?
We spent the day ferrying him between vets and specialist clinic. Our vet had him in for two days to take X-rays; said we had three options euthanasia, amputation or send to a specialist vet. For that, and little else, he charged us £400. The specialist was in Newmarket and deals with costly racehorses. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the clinic had four receptionists and a glossy brochure on the desk in its palatial premises.
Estimated bill £2,500 to £3,500, plus VAT, with the possibility of additional fees. I have to say from the point of view of the dog it is a bargain. Chicken lightly broiled and a phone call three times a day to tell us how he is enjoying himself
His glance has become so imperious I am practising coming to heel on his whistle and it is a good job we take the Independent. I cannot see him fetching the Daily Mirror and its like. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he was getting up a party for Ascot. I will be taking part time work to pay his fees. Not that I am complaining. I remember what my chum lifeboat cox Dick Evans said to the man he rescued from a watery grave. The man asked what he owed. Dick explained there was no charge because the RNLI was a voluntary service. The man insisted. “Very well,” said Dick, “pay me what you would have given me two minutes before I pulled you out of the water.”
When I heard Taz howling with pain I would have given half my pitiful kingdom, and the leg was so badly smashed it was a long and complex operation.
Having said that, I am concerned that vets are becoming the Dick Turpins of our day. On degree day they wear a black mask with their gowns and mortar boards. Compared to Vets the Great Train Robbers were a Hospital Saturday Fund.
As I write, Taz is convalescing with his new mates, aristocratic racehorses, and nibbling caviare blinis, washed down with Louis Roederer Crystal Brut. One of the legions of nurses who are there to do his bidding tells us he will have permanent limp.
He always was a master of the martyr's glance and the eloquent whimper. Now he is going to be unbearable limping like a latter day Long John Silver. But we cannot wait for tea time to-day to resume our roles as hand maidens.
I KNOW WHAT I DISLIKE
One good thing happened on my birthday. Revel Barker Publishing brought out a magnificent new edition of my biography of Sir Kyffin Williams, RA.
“The Man Who Painted in Welsh” replaces and extends an earlier edition, “A Figure in a Welsh Landscape”, produced by another publisher, which had so many errors as to be virtually unreadable .
Kyffin's views on modern art were sulphuric. How he would have relished this from the new “i” newspaper;
THE VALUE OF TRACEY EMIN
“Until the late 20th century art was unfairly dominated by people who could draw, paint and sculpt well. Tracey Emin's success demolishes the elitist notion that only the technically able should attempt a professional artistic career............................”
IRISH EYES ARE SMILING – AND NO WONDER
Andre Maurois once said that if in the eyes of an Irishman there is anything more ridiculous than an Englishman, it is an Englishman who loves Ireland.
Yet, once again, Our Gracious has been sent, poor lady, to lie abroad for her country. To placate our troublesome neighbours, she has been required to lay a wreath at the memorial in Dublin to that country's martyrs, ignoring the fact that most were executed for murder. Then it was off to take the blame for the Croke Park massacre.
That bloodstained former unemployed plasterer and pederast's brother, Gerry Adams, subsidised his IRA past with unemployment benefits and now lives comfortably bolstered by parliamentary pensions. But he retains the ill manners of his back street birth. He calls the Queen's visit insensitive - and he should know. He is one with that undistinguished cabal of former terrorists who gnawed at the hand that fed them. Archbishop Makarios brought blood to the streets of Cyprus; Yitzhak Shamir was operations officer of the Stern Gang which murdered Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte; and his predecessor as Israeli prime minister Mr Begin was leader of the Irgun Gang, which had the massacres of the Palestinian villagers of Deir Yassin and the occupants of the King David Hotel on its battle honours.
As so often the case, it is the sainted Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent who tells the true story:
“There's a wonderful book about Bloody Sunday by Michael T Foy, 'Michael Collins's Intelligence War' (Sutton), that I sincerely recommend, from which most of the following details are taken.
A Captain Newbury was staying with his wife at a ground-floor flat at 92 Pembroke Street that morning, when two IRA volunteers arrived at the front door. Still in his pyjamas, he fled to the back window, where a third volunteer was waiting: the three men cut him down in a ferocious volley of shots, while his wife screamed beside him.
After throwing a blanket on her husband's corpse, she collapsed, and gave birth to a stillborn baby. Some days later she herself died. Michael Foy thinks that Captain Newbury was not an intelligence officer. Of the 13 defenceless men murdered in their bedrooms that morning, Foy reckons eight were intelligence officers: the other five were 'unlucky'.
These included two Irish Catholics, an RAF officer (and cousin of Oscar Wilde) Lt L E Wilde, and Captain Patrick McCormack, an army vet, who were both murdered in their beds in the Gresham Hotel.
It could have been far, far worse: many decent IRA men simply ignored their orders, and shot no one.
In the aftermath of this slaughter, Dublin Castle correctly sensed that many soldiers and RIC Auxiliaries would be thirsting for revenge, and confined as many as possible to barracks. Alas, some Auxiliaries, aided by untrained recruits from the Depot at Phoenix Park, arrived at Croke Park, and perpetrated the infamous and legendary slaughter.
But according to Michael Foy -- and I am inclined to believe him -- these RIC men were out of control. They were not following orders, nor were they implementing policy of any kind.
Six of the Croke Park dead were buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, along with the bodies of the innocent Wilde and McCormack.
These evil events now exist largely in a realm of legend, which states that the British secret service was crippled in one brilliantly organised stroke, and so the cruel British army got its revenge with a massacre of the innocents of Croke Park.
But no soldiers opened fire at Croke Park, just policemen -- and most of the recruits doing the shooting were Irish. And if the British intelligence was so crippled by the assassinations, how come the terms of the Treaty 13 months later so comprehensively favoured Britain's strategic interests?
Queen Elizabeth was not born when Bloody Sunday occurred, and neither she nor any of her family had any association with it. This cannot be said of the Irish State, of which the third Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, was involved in the shooting of an unarmed army officer that morning -- the one-legged Captain Baggalay, who was not involved in intelligence, but in civil administration.
His murder was an atrocious affair, but no intelligent person would seek an apology for such a deed in the middle of a very dirty war so long ago.
For the queen to offer a one-sided sorry for Bloody Sunday would merely give a fresh and needless lift to the wings of nationalist mythology; while for the poor dead Newburys in their pitiful Pembroke Street flat, no one either knows or cares.”
- Kevin Myers
Irish Independent
We spent the day ferrying him between vets and specialist clinic. Our vet had him in for two days to take X-rays; said we had three options euthanasia, amputation or send to a specialist vet. For that, and little else, he charged us £400. The specialist was in Newmarket and deals with costly racehorses. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the clinic had four receptionists and a glossy brochure on the desk in its palatial premises.
Estimated bill £2,500 to £3,500, plus VAT, with the possibility of additional fees. I have to say from the point of view of the dog it is a bargain. Chicken lightly broiled and a phone call three times a day to tell us how he is enjoying himself
His glance has become so imperious I am practising coming to heel on his whistle and it is a good job we take the Independent. I cannot see him fetching the Daily Mirror and its like. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he was getting up a party for Ascot. I will be taking part time work to pay his fees. Not that I am complaining. I remember what my chum lifeboat cox Dick Evans said to the man he rescued from a watery grave. The man asked what he owed. Dick explained there was no charge because the RNLI was a voluntary service. The man insisted. “Very well,” said Dick, “pay me what you would have given me two minutes before I pulled you out of the water.”
When I heard Taz howling with pain I would have given half my pitiful kingdom, and the leg was so badly smashed it was a long and complex operation.
Having said that, I am concerned that vets are becoming the Dick Turpins of our day. On degree day they wear a black mask with their gowns and mortar boards. Compared to Vets the Great Train Robbers were a Hospital Saturday Fund.
As I write, Taz is convalescing with his new mates, aristocratic racehorses, and nibbling caviare blinis, washed down with Louis Roederer Crystal Brut. One of the legions of nurses who are there to do his bidding tells us he will have permanent limp.
He always was a master of the martyr's glance and the eloquent whimper. Now he is going to be unbearable limping like a latter day Long John Silver. But we cannot wait for tea time to-day to resume our roles as hand maidens.
I KNOW WHAT I DISLIKE
One good thing happened on my birthday. Revel Barker Publishing brought out a magnificent new edition of my biography of Sir Kyffin Williams, RA.
“The Man Who Painted in Welsh” replaces and extends an earlier edition, “A Figure in a Welsh Landscape”, produced by another publisher, which had so many errors as to be virtually unreadable .
Kyffin's views on modern art were sulphuric. How he would have relished this from the new “i” newspaper;
THE VALUE OF TRACEY EMIN
“Until the late 20th century art was unfairly dominated by people who could draw, paint and sculpt well. Tracey Emin's success demolishes the elitist notion that only the technically able should attempt a professional artistic career............................”
IRISH EYES ARE SMILING – AND NO WONDER
Andre Maurois once said that if in the eyes of an Irishman there is anything more ridiculous than an Englishman, it is an Englishman who loves Ireland.
Yet, once again, Our Gracious has been sent, poor lady, to lie abroad for her country. To placate our troublesome neighbours, she has been required to lay a wreath at the memorial in Dublin to that country's martyrs, ignoring the fact that most were executed for murder. Then it was off to take the blame for the Croke Park massacre.
That bloodstained former unemployed plasterer and pederast's brother, Gerry Adams, subsidised his IRA past with unemployment benefits and now lives comfortably bolstered by parliamentary pensions. But he retains the ill manners of his back street birth. He calls the Queen's visit insensitive - and he should know. He is one with that undistinguished cabal of former terrorists who gnawed at the hand that fed them. Archbishop Makarios brought blood to the streets of Cyprus; Yitzhak Shamir was operations officer of the Stern Gang which murdered Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte; and his predecessor as Israeli prime minister Mr Begin was leader of the Irgun Gang, which had the massacres of the Palestinian villagers of Deir Yassin and the occupants of the King David Hotel on its battle honours.
As so often the case, it is the sainted Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent who tells the true story:
“There's a wonderful book about Bloody Sunday by Michael T Foy, 'Michael Collins's Intelligence War' (Sutton), that I sincerely recommend, from which most of the following details are taken.
A Captain Newbury was staying with his wife at a ground-floor flat at 92 Pembroke Street that morning, when two IRA volunteers arrived at the front door. Still in his pyjamas, he fled to the back window, where a third volunteer was waiting: the three men cut him down in a ferocious volley of shots, while his wife screamed beside him.
After throwing a blanket on her husband's corpse, she collapsed, and gave birth to a stillborn baby. Some days later she herself died. Michael Foy thinks that Captain Newbury was not an intelligence officer. Of the 13 defenceless men murdered in their bedrooms that morning, Foy reckons eight were intelligence officers: the other five were 'unlucky'.
These included two Irish Catholics, an RAF officer (and cousin of Oscar Wilde) Lt L E Wilde, and Captain Patrick McCormack, an army vet, who were both murdered in their beds in the Gresham Hotel.
It could have been far, far worse: many decent IRA men simply ignored their orders, and shot no one.
In the aftermath of this slaughter, Dublin Castle correctly sensed that many soldiers and RIC Auxiliaries would be thirsting for revenge, and confined as many as possible to barracks. Alas, some Auxiliaries, aided by untrained recruits from the Depot at Phoenix Park, arrived at Croke Park, and perpetrated the infamous and legendary slaughter.
But according to Michael Foy -- and I am inclined to believe him -- these RIC men were out of control. They were not following orders, nor were they implementing policy of any kind.
Six of the Croke Park dead were buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, along with the bodies of the innocent Wilde and McCormack.
These evil events now exist largely in a realm of legend, which states that the British secret service was crippled in one brilliantly organised stroke, and so the cruel British army got its revenge with a massacre of the innocents of Croke Park.
But no soldiers opened fire at Croke Park, just policemen -- and most of the recruits doing the shooting were Irish. And if the British intelligence was so crippled by the assassinations, how come the terms of the Treaty 13 months later so comprehensively favoured Britain's strategic interests?
Queen Elizabeth was not born when Bloody Sunday occurred, and neither she nor any of her family had any association with it. This cannot be said of the Irish State, of which the third Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, was involved in the shooting of an unarmed army officer that morning -- the one-legged Captain Baggalay, who was not involved in intelligence, but in civil administration.
His murder was an atrocious affair, but no intelligent person would seek an apology for such a deed in the middle of a very dirty war so long ago.
For the queen to offer a one-sided sorry for Bloody Sunday would merely give a fresh and needless lift to the wings of nationalist mythology; while for the poor dead Newburys in their pitiful Pembroke Street flat, no one either knows or cares.”
- Kevin Myers
Irish Independent
Saturday, 14 May 2011
TIME WITHOUT NUMBERSt
I suppose it is because I am 82 on Monday (I took quiet pride in getting TWO birthday cards from Gordon's Gin PLC and an invitation to sky dive from my gorilla charity), HIM UPSTAIRS didn't think there would be any harm in letting slip a few secrets. So I woke this morning having heard Him answer the age old problem. “Is there any proof we have an immortal soul?”
It is a lot to take in with the morning tea bag but it seemed pretty simple the way He explained it. “You just tell your brain to count to the limit of numbers and then go on counting..............”
How long will that take ?
“Time is an artificial concept.”
It gave me quite a boost on the way to the bathroom to realise I had achieved Enlightenment effortlessly and it was only on the way back that I hit a snag. How do I go on counting when I have reached the limit of numbers?
I tried asking Him but as usual when there are awkward questions – it was the same when I asked him the reason He appears in some religions as an elephant - He copped a deaf 'un. Mumbled something about some chap called Yorrick and dreams and philosophy. He did, however, let slip something about counting beyond numbers being possible beyond time which I have still to work out. He did saytime was artificial and how can you go beyond something that isn't there, especially when you are counting non-existent numbers? I have got nothing to worry about anyway. I have just come across the fragments which are all that are left of the teachings of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, as you know, is the citizen who taught Socrates:
“All things were together, infinite both in numbers and in smallness, for the small too was infinite and when all things were together none of them could be distinguished for their smallness....”
Pick the bones out of that. All I can say is, it's a funny sort of fragment to leave lying about for later generations to trip over. I mean, he did say ALL things were infinite ….........?
Naturally when you get Stable info from the Elephant's Mouth, as 'twere, you like to share it. So when I got to the clinic to have the most recent stitches removed, I told the pretty nurse about counting beyond numbers.
I forgot how the Head Ferret likes to be part of the audience when someone is inflicting pain on me and she was kibbutzing. “If you were constantly counting in your head how would you carry on a conversation?” she wanted to know.
I ask you?
I replied with icy dignity that some of us can count under our breath. And I made up my mind I was not going to tell her about Elephants and God, not if Hell had me.
“Counting away in your head, you'd never BE ABLE TO FOLLOW THE PLOT IN SPIRAL,” she countered, a touch smugly, I thought.
She had me there. It's bad enough trying to keep up on the corpse tally and wondering if the lady detective ever took a shower. It was like in “The Killing” wondering if that detective was ever going to change her jersey and what sort of state was her underwear in? Never did find out who did it.
The Swedish Wallander was OK. A relief to discover Sweden has even less scenery than the Fens and that not all Swedish women are fanciable. But Branagh's version had me banjaxed. For some reason he replaced activity with the lengthy pause. I know it's a great help not having to learn as many lines but it is confusing to some poor devil who is trying to keep up a corpse count whilst going up to several million in his head trying to communicate with his immortal soul.
So anyway, I have told Him to lay off answering any more questions before they are asked. I'll be meeting Him soon enough and he can tell me everything all at once......But if he could see his way clear to making sure Branagh has a shave before he goes to work........
I gave myself a special birthday gift. I resigned from Facebook and Twitter. I have always felt uneasy about being part of those networks. It was like watching TV in the daytime, which offends one's Protestant work ethic long after one's working life is over. The nosey networks offended some deep sense of being grown up. The catalyst came for me when I found myself seeking to identify those shabby men who have taken out super injunctions. It is nearly half a century since I enjoyed an adulterous association but I remember how the enjoyment was diluted by the feeling of shame. I do not expect actors and professional sportsmen to behave like grown ups: their choice of occupation maroons them in childhood. The knowledge that one has been adulterated against hurts, I would imagine, but for that you have to be Grown Up. The act itself verges on the absurd. If I knew the identity of those shabby injunction men I would not be any the wiser and, anyway, they should be judged by their on-stage prowess. Beyond that they do not exist in an adult world.
I am constantly surprised at the number of my friends who are happily married, despite the adverse publicity, and I believe that it is broken relationships that have produced our feral young. That doesn't mean that I think the act of marriage is important. If one feels able to betray the trust of someone who is important to one then the contract is void anyway. What I object to is that the guardians of our law and our freedom are prepared to corrupt that law if the price is high enough.
I am heartened by the number of my readers who have praised me for casting off the need to tweet and be two Faced-book.
CORRESPONDENTS KEN AND COLIN WRITE........................
Closing the 'news' programme on Friday evening, ITV Wales anchor Jonathan Hill said: 'The end of an historic day for Wales.'
???????
Another hung Assembly, another washout for Plaid, little harm to the Tories, the referendum on AV means nothing changes and more than 50 per cent of Welsh voters couldn't be bothered to turn out.
****** ********* ********
ALMOST half of people living in an area of Rhyl can’t read or write well enough to function properly in every day life. Teenage pregnancy, unemployment, low birth weight babies, alcoholism, poor sexual health, obesity and suicides amongst men are also among the issues that need to be tackled, a report into the levels of deprivation and ill health across Denbighshire claims.
****** ********* *********
Champion runner Roger Bannister has achieved a knighthood, was the first Sports Council chairman, and is a famous neurologist. Two contestants on Friday's The Million Pound Drop ,Andrew and Vanessa were asked; “In 1954, did he go into space, run a sub-four minute mile or become the first man ever to put the toilet seat down?” Andrew shouted, "I think I've seen 'Bannister' written on a toilet!"
++++++
A new guide book has ruffled feathers across Wales after describing Cardiff as a “prodigious drinking town” and Bangor as “soulless”.
The latest edition of Lonely Planet suggests weekends in Wales’s capital see it invaded by “hordes” of “lads and ladettes”, who go “tottering from bar, to club to kebab shop whatever the weather”.
The book is equally critical of Bangor, saying the North Wales city’s “glory days have long since faded”.
POT CALLING KETTLE......
Can we trust our government with custody of our national language?
Heard today: "It's up to drivers to upskill themselves..." - Philip Hammond, MP, Transport Secretary
.LOCAL Newspaper Report
Reported in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle:
A lady died in September, and MBNA bank billed her for October and November for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance that had been £0.00, now was somewhere around £60.00.
A family member placed a call to the MBNA Bank:
Family Member:
'I am calling to tell you that she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.'
MBNA:
'Since it is two months past due, it already has been.'
Family Member:
So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?'
MBNA:
'Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to The credit bureau, maybe both!'
Family Member:
'Do you think God will be mad at her?'
MBNA:
'Excuse me?'
Family Member:
Did you just get what I was telling you . ..
The part about her Being dead?'
MBNA:
'Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.'
Supervisor gets on the phone:
Family Member:
'I'm calling to tell you, she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'You mean you want to collect from her estate?'
MBNA:
(Stammer) 'Are you her lawyer?'
Family Member:
'No, I'm her grandson'
(Lawyer info given)
MBNA:
'Could you fax us a certificate of death?'
Family Member:
'Sure.'
( fax number is given )
After they get the fax:
MBNA:
'Our system just isn't set up for death.
I don't know what more I can do to help.'
Family Member:
'Well, if you figure it out, great!
If not, you could just keep billing her.
I don't think she will care.'
MBNA:
'Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.'
Family Member:
'Would you like her new billing address?
MBNA:
'That might help.'
Family Member:
'Heaton Cemetery, Heaton Road, Newcastle upon Tyne Plot 1049.'
MBNA:
'Sir, that's a cemetery!'
Family Member:
'Well, what the **** do you do with dead people on your planet?'
MBNA were not available for comment when a reporter from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle rang.
'
It is a lot to take in with the morning tea bag but it seemed pretty simple the way He explained it. “You just tell your brain to count to the limit of numbers and then go on counting..............”
How long will that take ?
“Time is an artificial concept.”
It gave me quite a boost on the way to the bathroom to realise I had achieved Enlightenment effortlessly and it was only on the way back that I hit a snag. How do I go on counting when I have reached the limit of numbers?
I tried asking Him but as usual when there are awkward questions – it was the same when I asked him the reason He appears in some religions as an elephant - He copped a deaf 'un. Mumbled something about some chap called Yorrick and dreams and philosophy. He did, however, let slip something about counting beyond numbers being possible beyond time which I have still to work out. He did saytime was artificial and how can you go beyond something that isn't there, especially when you are counting non-existent numbers? I have got nothing to worry about anyway. I have just come across the fragments which are all that are left of the teachings of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, as you know, is the citizen who taught Socrates:
“All things were together, infinite both in numbers and in smallness, for the small too was infinite and when all things were together none of them could be distinguished for their smallness....”
Pick the bones out of that. All I can say is, it's a funny sort of fragment to leave lying about for later generations to trip over. I mean, he did say ALL things were infinite ….........?
Naturally when you get Stable info from the Elephant's Mouth, as 'twere, you like to share it. So when I got to the clinic to have the most recent stitches removed, I told the pretty nurse about counting beyond numbers.
I forgot how the Head Ferret likes to be part of the audience when someone is inflicting pain on me and she was kibbutzing. “If you were constantly counting in your head how would you carry on a conversation?” she wanted to know.
I ask you?
I replied with icy dignity that some of us can count under our breath. And I made up my mind I was not going to tell her about Elephants and God, not if Hell had me.
“Counting away in your head, you'd never BE ABLE TO FOLLOW THE PLOT IN SPIRAL,” she countered, a touch smugly, I thought.
She had me there. It's bad enough trying to keep up on the corpse tally and wondering if the lady detective ever took a shower. It was like in “The Killing” wondering if that detective was ever going to change her jersey and what sort of state was her underwear in? Never did find out who did it.
The Swedish Wallander was OK. A relief to discover Sweden has even less scenery than the Fens and that not all Swedish women are fanciable. But Branagh's version had me banjaxed. For some reason he replaced activity with the lengthy pause. I know it's a great help not having to learn as many lines but it is confusing to some poor devil who is trying to keep up a corpse count whilst going up to several million in his head trying to communicate with his immortal soul.
So anyway, I have told Him to lay off answering any more questions before they are asked. I'll be meeting Him soon enough and he can tell me everything all at once......But if he could see his way clear to making sure Branagh has a shave before he goes to work........
I gave myself a special birthday gift. I resigned from Facebook and Twitter. I have always felt uneasy about being part of those networks. It was like watching TV in the daytime, which offends one's Protestant work ethic long after one's working life is over. The nosey networks offended some deep sense of being grown up. The catalyst came for me when I found myself seeking to identify those shabby men who have taken out super injunctions. It is nearly half a century since I enjoyed an adulterous association but I remember how the enjoyment was diluted by the feeling of shame. I do not expect actors and professional sportsmen to behave like grown ups: their choice of occupation maroons them in childhood. The knowledge that one has been adulterated against hurts, I would imagine, but for that you have to be Grown Up. The act itself verges on the absurd. If I knew the identity of those shabby injunction men I would not be any the wiser and, anyway, they should be judged by their on-stage prowess. Beyond that they do not exist in an adult world.
I am constantly surprised at the number of my friends who are happily married, despite the adverse publicity, and I believe that it is broken relationships that have produced our feral young. That doesn't mean that I think the act of marriage is important. If one feels able to betray the trust of someone who is important to one then the contract is void anyway. What I object to is that the guardians of our law and our freedom are prepared to corrupt that law if the price is high enough.
I am heartened by the number of my readers who have praised me for casting off the need to tweet and be two Faced-book.
CORRESPONDENTS KEN AND COLIN WRITE........................
Closing the 'news' programme on Friday evening, ITV Wales anchor Jonathan Hill said: 'The end of an historic day for Wales.'
???????
Another hung Assembly, another washout for Plaid, little harm to the Tories, the referendum on AV means nothing changes and more than 50 per cent of Welsh voters couldn't be bothered to turn out.
****** ********* ********
ALMOST half of people living in an area of Rhyl can’t read or write well enough to function properly in every day life. Teenage pregnancy, unemployment, low birth weight babies, alcoholism, poor sexual health, obesity and suicides amongst men are also among the issues that need to be tackled, a report into the levels of deprivation and ill health across Denbighshire claims.
****** ********* *********
Champion runner Roger Bannister has achieved a knighthood, was the first Sports Council chairman, and is a famous neurologist. Two contestants on Friday's The Million Pound Drop ,Andrew and Vanessa were asked; “In 1954, did he go into space, run a sub-four minute mile or become the first man ever to put the toilet seat down?” Andrew shouted, "I think I've seen 'Bannister' written on a toilet!"
++++++
A new guide book has ruffled feathers across Wales after describing Cardiff as a “prodigious drinking town” and Bangor as “soulless”.
The latest edition of Lonely Planet suggests weekends in Wales’s capital see it invaded by “hordes” of “lads and ladettes”, who go “tottering from bar, to club to kebab shop whatever the weather”.
The book is equally critical of Bangor, saying the North Wales city’s “glory days have long since faded”.
POT CALLING KETTLE......
Can we trust our government with custody of our national language?
Heard today: "It's up to drivers to upskill themselves..." - Philip Hammond, MP, Transport Secretary
.LOCAL Newspaper Report
Reported in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle:
A lady died in September, and MBNA bank billed her for October and November for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance that had been £0.00, now was somewhere around £60.00.
A family member placed a call to the MBNA Bank:
Family Member:
'I am calling to tell you that she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.'
MBNA:
'Since it is two months past due, it already has been.'
Family Member:
So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?'
MBNA:
'Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to The credit bureau, maybe both!'
Family Member:
'Do you think God will be mad at her?'
MBNA:
'Excuse me?'
Family Member:
Did you just get what I was telling you . ..
The part about her Being dead?'
MBNA:
'Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.'
Supervisor gets on the phone:
Family Member:
'I'm calling to tell you, she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'You mean you want to collect from her estate?'
MBNA:
(Stammer) 'Are you her lawyer?'
Family Member:
'No, I'm her grandson'
(Lawyer info given)
MBNA:
'Could you fax us a certificate of death?'
Family Member:
'Sure.'
( fax number is given )
After they get the fax:
MBNA:
'Our system just isn't set up for death.
I don't know what more I can do to help.'
Family Member:
'Well, if you figure it out, great!
If not, you could just keep billing her.
I don't think she will care.'
MBNA:
'Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.'
Family Member:
'Would you like her new billing address?
MBNA:
'That might help.'
Family Member:
'Heaton Cemetery, Heaton Road, Newcastle upon Tyne Plot 1049.'
MBNA:
'Sir, that's a cemetery!'
Family Member:
'Well, what the **** do you do with dead people on your planet?'
MBNA were not available for comment when a reporter from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle rang.
'
Friday, 6 May 2011
IN MEMORY
You will not have heard of her but when Rebecca Osborne died a bright star went out of our firmament. Someone told Lloyd George, “I thought you would have been taller.” Lloyd George replied: “In Wales we measure people from the neck up!”
By those standards Becky was the only giant I ever met. In size she was no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman. A crippling illness meant that she was only three feet high and weighed just 40 lb. She suffered from Werding Hoffman syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes wasting of the muscles.
Suffered? Not Becky. Although almost totally paralysed, with only slight movement of the head and hands, she was a successful novelist and short story writer, a painter, a maker of exquisite miniature rooms and a gardener, though her garden was a toy wheelbarrow. She made jewellery and greetings cards, lace and tapestries on tiny canvases with a miniature needle and very fine thread.
She also made friends like Princess Anne, the writer Celia Haddon and the actor Anthony Andrews, who took her to lunch and gave her his prized “Brideshead” teddy bear.
She was an indefatigable charity worker. With her mother Jenny she turned their garden at Foxbrush, Port Dinorwic, in North Wales, into an award winning member of the National Gardens Scheme.
She was 28 when she died. Even in that she was a record holder because no one else suffering from the disorder, including her sister Vicky, had ever lived beyond the age of six. Nor, it should be said, have many fit people packed so much into so short a time or extended so much love and friendship to so many people.
She once said to me: ”I am long past my sell by date but I cannot let something as silly as a disability stand in my way. There is no point in letting it beat you.”
It never did. She exhibited her tiny 3D model rooms at National Eisteddfods all over Wales. She had sell-out shows at Oriel Ynys Mon, Anglesey, for which she won the North Wales artists development award; Oriel Bangor and the Beaumaris Festival in which she competed successfully against hundreds for a showing in the festival exhibition.
She lived with her parents Jenny and Brian at Foxbrush, a converted 17th century mill. Devoted parents who every night for 28 years took it in turns every half hour to turn her over in her tiny bed; who tirelessly supported her, were her ardent followers in everything she chose to do and were broken hearted and bereft at her loss.
Becky was never able to go to school. Teachers came to her but she had to take whatever teacher was available. For a year it was a music teacher; for two years she learned nothing but maths. She enrolled at the Gwynedd Technical College to do A level English. More accurately, the College enrolled in Foxbrush. A tutor would arrive with five fellow students who became her devoted friends. Needless to say, she passed with top grades.
But nothing in life became her so much as her manner of leaving it. She had been deteriorating since 1997, when she was told she had only three weeks to live. In contemptuous response she joined the Sealed Knot, went to a dozen musters a year, researched the Civil War in exhaustive detail and cozened her parents into a frenzy of costume making and creating cameo roles.
For ten weeks before her death, she bravely battled against excruciating pain which became worse over the Christmas holiday. Even then she was building 3D rooms for her next exhibition and when her hands became totally paralysed used her mother's hands.
When she died there was a Memorial Exhibition of her works although in truth she needed none. Becky is her own memorial which she erected in the heart of anyone who was privileged to know her.
IT'S A PUZZLEMENT..........................
I do not wish to rain on anyone's parade but in the matter of Overcoming Osama how does the Arab, a desert dweller, acquire a tradition of burial at sea? I know the camel is the ship of the desert..........
From the Nazis down to Sad Saddam the tradition has been to bring monstrous criminals to trial and execution. So why kill the pyjama clad binned Lada? He was surrounded by wives and unarmed. They said they shot him to prevent him committing suicide Either wasy he is jusy as dead and a murdered martyr has the edge. Thpmas a Becket's death by asprin butty would not have had quite the resonance How much greater the humiliation of bringing him to public trial than to shoot him in the presence of his children, a practice universally condemned when done by the IRA? We got terribly upset when America invaded Grenada without telling us. How would we feel if the S.E.A. L's raised an angry flipper raiding a terrorist cell in London?
And while we are in questioning mode, who were the two nuns who were sitting the best seats opposite the winning post at the Royal Wedding? I am not saying they had no right to be there but I am puzzled that none of the so-called commentators saw fit to explain their presence.
When I covered Royal Visits or any great occasion I always wore comfortable shoes because it involved a certain amount of pavement pounding. The ladies whose job it was to mingle with crowds at the wedding wore shoes with heels so high they could scarcely totter. The three principal commentators demonstrated a total inability to Dimbleby (senior, not the dreadful brothers). I do not think that Huw Edwards, BBC man in the hot seat, should have needed the teleprompt to which his eyes nervously strayed. Would never have caught Wynford Vaughan Thomas, Vincent Kane, Hywel Gwynfryn orAlun Williams, Welsh presenters and my old chums on such occasions, allowing one in their presence.
You may have heard how at the Glamorgan match Edward Bevan, veteran BBC Wales commentator, continued his commentary as a cricket ball smashed the window of the commentary box, hitting him in the back. That was the THIRD time it had happened to Bevan. They don't make commentators like that any more.
STORY BOARD FOR THE ATTENTION OF DEAN SWIFT
A GIANT orange pumpkin will loom large over a historic market town if tourism campaigners get their way.
They believe a 131ft high structure in Gwydyr Forest above Llanrwst would rival Gateshead’s iconic Angel of the North as an attraction.
ARC, a group set up in 2004 to boost tourism in the Conwy Valley through cultural regeneration, claim the eco-friendly sculpture, designed by New York artist Steven Brower, would bring in visitors.
ARC member Megan Broadmeadow said: “It’s at the planning stage at the moment, but we'd like to hear people's views and involve everyone in developing this landmark structure.
“It will be not only a visual icon, but so large that educational, arts and green activities can happen inside it. It will be built from recycled materials and be eco-friendly where possible.”
++++++ +++++++ +++++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++
Police seized £300,000 of cannabis plants in a huge drugs raid - then had the haul stolen from under their noses.
Detectives boasted about the giant drugs bust and even posed for pictures with the massive crop of illegal plants.
But, as police stood guard at the front of the cannabis factory, thieves broke in through the back.
+++++++ ++++++ ++++++ +++++ ++++++ ++++++
Council staff in South Wales have spent the equivalent of more than 888 years on sick leave last year.
A combined total of 324,431 days were taken off sick by staff employed by councils.
Stress, neck pain, headaches and viral infections were among the reasons given by staff for time away from the office and tucked up in bed.
Bridgend council staff took off sick most frequently, with every employee (equivalent) taking 10 days and seven hours off work on average during last year.
+++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++
Northumbria Police spent £1,775,996 on “corporate communications” in the last financial year. This includes £458,602 on “media services”, with the rest going on public consultation, internal communications, marketing and the force website.
The Sunday Post monitored press releases between 9am on Friday, March 11, and 9am, on Monday, 14 March.
During those three days, the media services department released: a minor road accident; a robbery at a shop; a stolen car; a stolen dog and an appeal regarding an assault from a week earlier.
However, a request under the Freedom of Information Act revealed there were 4,665 incidents, including 674 crimes.
These included 55 cases of grievous bodily harm, 20 other assaults, one armed robbery and three other robberies, five rapes, 12 other sexual assaults and 69 burglaries.
+++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++
A chief fire officer who retired with a payout of £425,000 returned to work soon after to do the same job with a salary of £75,000.
Peter Holland, from Lancashire Fire and Rescue, has even claimed that the deal has saved taxpayers a 'fortune'.
Not even my old chum Ken Ashton could make that lot up!!!!!
By those standards Becky was the only giant I ever met. In size she was no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman. A crippling illness meant that she was only three feet high and weighed just 40 lb. She suffered from Werding Hoffman syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes wasting of the muscles.
Suffered? Not Becky. Although almost totally paralysed, with only slight movement of the head and hands, she was a successful novelist and short story writer, a painter, a maker of exquisite miniature rooms and a gardener, though her garden was a toy wheelbarrow. She made jewellery and greetings cards, lace and tapestries on tiny canvases with a miniature needle and very fine thread.
She also made friends like Princess Anne, the writer Celia Haddon and the actor Anthony Andrews, who took her to lunch and gave her his prized “Brideshead” teddy bear.
She was an indefatigable charity worker. With her mother Jenny she turned their garden at Foxbrush, Port Dinorwic, in North Wales, into an award winning member of the National Gardens Scheme.
She was 28 when she died. Even in that she was a record holder because no one else suffering from the disorder, including her sister Vicky, had ever lived beyond the age of six. Nor, it should be said, have many fit people packed so much into so short a time or extended so much love and friendship to so many people.
She once said to me: ”I am long past my sell by date but I cannot let something as silly as a disability stand in my way. There is no point in letting it beat you.”
It never did. She exhibited her tiny 3D model rooms at National Eisteddfods all over Wales. She had sell-out shows at Oriel Ynys Mon, Anglesey, for which she won the North Wales artists development award; Oriel Bangor and the Beaumaris Festival in which she competed successfully against hundreds for a showing in the festival exhibition.
She lived with her parents Jenny and Brian at Foxbrush, a converted 17th century mill. Devoted parents who every night for 28 years took it in turns every half hour to turn her over in her tiny bed; who tirelessly supported her, were her ardent followers in everything she chose to do and were broken hearted and bereft at her loss.
Becky was never able to go to school. Teachers came to her but she had to take whatever teacher was available. For a year it was a music teacher; for two years she learned nothing but maths. She enrolled at the Gwynedd Technical College to do A level English. More accurately, the College enrolled in Foxbrush. A tutor would arrive with five fellow students who became her devoted friends. Needless to say, she passed with top grades.
But nothing in life became her so much as her manner of leaving it. She had been deteriorating since 1997, when she was told she had only three weeks to live. In contemptuous response she joined the Sealed Knot, went to a dozen musters a year, researched the Civil War in exhaustive detail and cozened her parents into a frenzy of costume making and creating cameo roles.
For ten weeks before her death, she bravely battled against excruciating pain which became worse over the Christmas holiday. Even then she was building 3D rooms for her next exhibition and when her hands became totally paralysed used her mother's hands.
When she died there was a Memorial Exhibition of her works although in truth she needed none. Becky is her own memorial which she erected in the heart of anyone who was privileged to know her.
IT'S A PUZZLEMENT..........................
I do not wish to rain on anyone's parade but in the matter of Overcoming Osama how does the Arab, a desert dweller, acquire a tradition of burial at sea? I know the camel is the ship of the desert..........
From the Nazis down to Sad Saddam the tradition has been to bring monstrous criminals to trial and execution. So why kill the pyjama clad binned Lada? He was surrounded by wives and unarmed. They said they shot him to prevent him committing suicide Either wasy he is jusy as dead and a murdered martyr has the edge. Thpmas a Becket's death by asprin butty would not have had quite the resonance How much greater the humiliation of bringing him to public trial than to shoot him in the presence of his children, a practice universally condemned when done by the IRA? We got terribly upset when America invaded Grenada without telling us. How would we feel if the S.E.A. L's raised an angry flipper raiding a terrorist cell in London?
And while we are in questioning mode, who were the two nuns who were sitting the best seats opposite the winning post at the Royal Wedding? I am not saying they had no right to be there but I am puzzled that none of the so-called commentators saw fit to explain their presence.
When I covered Royal Visits or any great occasion I always wore comfortable shoes because it involved a certain amount of pavement pounding. The ladies whose job it was to mingle with crowds at the wedding wore shoes with heels so high they could scarcely totter. The three principal commentators demonstrated a total inability to Dimbleby (senior, not the dreadful brothers). I do not think that Huw Edwards, BBC man in the hot seat, should have needed the teleprompt to which his eyes nervously strayed. Would never have caught Wynford Vaughan Thomas, Vincent Kane, Hywel Gwynfryn orAlun Williams, Welsh presenters and my old chums on such occasions, allowing one in their presence.
You may have heard how at the Glamorgan match Edward Bevan, veteran BBC Wales commentator, continued his commentary as a cricket ball smashed the window of the commentary box, hitting him in the back. That was the THIRD time it had happened to Bevan. They don't make commentators like that any more.
STORY BOARD FOR THE ATTENTION OF DEAN SWIFT
A GIANT orange pumpkin will loom large over a historic market town if tourism campaigners get their way.
They believe a 131ft high structure in Gwydyr Forest above Llanrwst would rival Gateshead’s iconic Angel of the North as an attraction.
ARC, a group set up in 2004 to boost tourism in the Conwy Valley through cultural regeneration, claim the eco-friendly sculpture, designed by New York artist Steven Brower, would bring in visitors.
ARC member Megan Broadmeadow said: “It’s at the planning stage at the moment, but we'd like to hear people's views and involve everyone in developing this landmark structure.
“It will be not only a visual icon, but so large that educational, arts and green activities can happen inside it. It will be built from recycled materials and be eco-friendly where possible.”
++++++ +++++++ +++++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++
Police seized £300,000 of cannabis plants in a huge drugs raid - then had the haul stolen from under their noses.
Detectives boasted about the giant drugs bust and even posed for pictures with the massive crop of illegal plants.
But, as police stood guard at the front of the cannabis factory, thieves broke in through the back.
+++++++ ++++++ ++++++ +++++ ++++++ ++++++
Council staff in South Wales have spent the equivalent of more than 888 years on sick leave last year.
A combined total of 324,431 days were taken off sick by staff employed by councils.
Stress, neck pain, headaches and viral infections were among the reasons given by staff for time away from the office and tucked up in bed.
Bridgend council staff took off sick most frequently, with every employee (equivalent) taking 10 days and seven hours off work on average during last year.
+++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++
Northumbria Police spent £1,775,996 on “corporate communications” in the last financial year. This includes £458,602 on “media services”, with the rest going on public consultation, internal communications, marketing and the force website.
The Sunday Post monitored press releases between 9am on Friday, March 11, and 9am, on Monday, 14 March.
During those three days, the media services department released: a minor road accident; a robbery at a shop; a stolen car; a stolen dog and an appeal regarding an assault from a week earlier.
However, a request under the Freedom of Information Act revealed there were 4,665 incidents, including 674 crimes.
These included 55 cases of grievous bodily harm, 20 other assaults, one armed robbery and three other robberies, five rapes, 12 other sexual assaults and 69 burglaries.
+++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++
A chief fire officer who retired with a payout of £425,000 returned to work soon after to do the same job with a salary of £75,000.
Peter Holland, from Lancashire Fire and Rescue, has even claimed that the deal has saved taxpayers a 'fortune'.
Not even my old chum Ken Ashton could make that lot up!!!!!
Saturday, 30 April 2011
A HEALTH UNTO THEIR MAJESTIES
The Big Idea had been hiding halfway down the second bottle of an indifferent Chilean Chardonnay and when they reached it the Head Honchos of Channel 4 pounced on it with many a glad cry.
“Let's Dig the Dirt on the Middletons,“ they chorused, and off they went clutching their buckets and spades. They struck pay dirt straight away. The young bride's great-grandfather was a coal miner!!!! The groom's great-grandmother OWNED coal mines.
History was clearly not the a strong point with the Honchos or they would have been aware that it was a far, far greater thing to be an honest miner than to be numbered among the mine owners, some of the more justly reviled men in recent history. One even had his plea for forgiveness cut into his gravestone.
But to what joys of discovery this led. The Duchess of Cambridge's (the last Duke also married a commoner) near relations were a supermarket manager, more miners and a leisure centre cleaner. As it turned out, they were also very likeable, honourable and happy and not at all envious. The supermarket manager and cleaner had little schooling and had worked fiercely to get to the positions they had achieved. Unlike their new in-laws.
Royal families, until recently, had defied all efforts to educate themselves and they had lied, cheated and murdered for centuries to get where they are today. By his own efforts, one great-grandfather of the bride had amassed considerable wealth, which he left to ensure that his descendants, including the bride, could get the sort of education that only the most recent royals could boast; and in doing so produced the first Queen in history with a university degree.
It is only fair that examination should be held into the family into which she has married.. The Queen, for example, and the question of whether she is entitled to rule on religious grounds. She descends from Prince Albert, whom, it was said, was the product of an affair between his mother and a Jewish court chamberlain. Curiously, late in his life, Edward VII befriended the Jewish banker Ernest Cassell, whom he knighted in return for financial advice. The two men looked so alike it was said they were BOTH the sons of the Jewish courtier by different mothers. Ernest was known as Windsor Cassell and Edward as The Caresser. When he died, one of his mistresses threaded black ribbons through her daughter's underwear and a Jermyn St grocer sold black Bradenham Hams. Recalling, no doubt, his prowess at Bed and Board.
Our Queen's Georgian ancestors include a barking madman, three bigamists, two murderers and a traitor to the Crown.
Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, the Albany Herald, claimed in his book “Lord of the Dance“ that, amongst others of history's notables, he and the Queen descend from Vlad the Impaler, the historic Dracula, and Elizabeth Bathory who bathed in the blood of maidens. The late Queen Mother, claimed the American investigator Kitty Kelley, was the daughter of a Welsh housemaid. Wallis Simpson and her appalling traitorous husband teased her with the nickname “Cookie”, and James Lees Milne claimed to have heard the Queen tell her mother: “The difference between us is, I am Royal.”
I should add that it was from that much loved commoner that the Royal Family became human and survived. The new Duchess will repeat the magic.. I just wonder if we are doing the right thing marrying the loving and lovely Catherine into this disfunctional assemblage.
HUZZAH FOR THE BBC
The decision to put the R4 “Today” programme on air at breakfast time was sheer genius. They are right in thinking that is when the most people turn the radio on. My Archives programme, which followed it, took over its audience of seven million.
What the BBC fails to take in is that people may switch it on but at that time of the morning are far too busy to LISTEN to it. They have not reacted with fury at the way its abject presenters treat the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, both men of considerable intellect, like recalcitrant school boys. Their manner is rude, their frequent interruptions are offensive. They make the novice interviewer's error in believing they and not their guest is the person to whom we wish to listen.
Their own gods, who are allowed to rant untrammelled, are rather strange. Ian Hislop is an ex-schoolmaster who edits “Private Eye”, the organ of elderly undergraduates. Nothing more. Yet he was allowed to bad mouth Andrew Marr without interruption. Surely it does not matter how belatedly Marr rejected his own decision over super injunctions? He did so. Hislop is society's disagreeable terrier whose proper province is the heel.
Meantime your sympathy is sought.................................
Despite paying annual salaries of hundreds of thousand of pounds, BBC Director General Mark Thompson claimed it was “extremely hard” to fill executive roles as the broadcaster tried to cut costs.
In the past year, the BBC has pledged to reduce what it pays in some executive roles after repeated criticism.
Mr Thompson is trying to find a new director of television after Jana Bennett left the public service part of the BBC to join BBC Worldwide, its commercially-funded arm.
Miss Bennett’s remuneration in the last financial year was £517,000, but it is understood that the salary on offer to her replacement could be less than £400,000.
How can anyone live on that!
On a luxury note: We celebrated my first day as a monarchist with fish n' chips and champagne. God Bless the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who have the good sense to live on Anglesey, guarded by Meyricks, with whom any upstairs servant who gossiped with downstairs servants was sacked. When we lived down the road, the Meyricks had a game keeper who terrorised an entire district. Glad I am no longer the island news gatherer.
“Let's Dig the Dirt on the Middletons,“ they chorused, and off they went clutching their buckets and spades. They struck pay dirt straight away. The young bride's great-grandfather was a coal miner!!!! The groom's great-grandmother OWNED coal mines.
History was clearly not the a strong point with the Honchos or they would have been aware that it was a far, far greater thing to be an honest miner than to be numbered among the mine owners, some of the more justly reviled men in recent history. One even had his plea for forgiveness cut into his gravestone.
But to what joys of discovery this led. The Duchess of Cambridge's (the last Duke also married a commoner) near relations were a supermarket manager, more miners and a leisure centre cleaner. As it turned out, they were also very likeable, honourable and happy and not at all envious. The supermarket manager and cleaner had little schooling and had worked fiercely to get to the positions they had achieved. Unlike their new in-laws.
Royal families, until recently, had defied all efforts to educate themselves and they had lied, cheated and murdered for centuries to get where they are today. By his own efforts, one great-grandfather of the bride had amassed considerable wealth, which he left to ensure that his descendants, including the bride, could get the sort of education that only the most recent royals could boast; and in doing so produced the first Queen in history with a university degree.
It is only fair that examination should be held into the family into which she has married.. The Queen, for example, and the question of whether she is entitled to rule on religious grounds. She descends from Prince Albert, whom, it was said, was the product of an affair between his mother and a Jewish court chamberlain. Curiously, late in his life, Edward VII befriended the Jewish banker Ernest Cassell, whom he knighted in return for financial advice. The two men looked so alike it was said they were BOTH the sons of the Jewish courtier by different mothers. Ernest was known as Windsor Cassell and Edward as The Caresser. When he died, one of his mistresses threaded black ribbons through her daughter's underwear and a Jermyn St grocer sold black Bradenham Hams. Recalling, no doubt, his prowess at Bed and Board.
Our Queen's Georgian ancestors include a barking madman, three bigamists, two murderers and a traitor to the Crown.
Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, the Albany Herald, claimed in his book “Lord of the Dance“ that, amongst others of history's notables, he and the Queen descend from Vlad the Impaler, the historic Dracula, and Elizabeth Bathory who bathed in the blood of maidens. The late Queen Mother, claimed the American investigator Kitty Kelley, was the daughter of a Welsh housemaid. Wallis Simpson and her appalling traitorous husband teased her with the nickname “Cookie”, and James Lees Milne claimed to have heard the Queen tell her mother: “The difference between us is, I am Royal.”
I should add that it was from that much loved commoner that the Royal Family became human and survived. The new Duchess will repeat the magic.. I just wonder if we are doing the right thing marrying the loving and lovely Catherine into this disfunctional assemblage.
HUZZAH FOR THE BBC
The decision to put the R4 “Today” programme on air at breakfast time was sheer genius. They are right in thinking that is when the most people turn the radio on. My Archives programme, which followed it, took over its audience of seven million.
What the BBC fails to take in is that people may switch it on but at that time of the morning are far too busy to LISTEN to it. They have not reacted with fury at the way its abject presenters treat the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, both men of considerable intellect, like recalcitrant school boys. Their manner is rude, their frequent interruptions are offensive. They make the novice interviewer's error in believing they and not their guest is the person to whom we wish to listen.
Their own gods, who are allowed to rant untrammelled, are rather strange. Ian Hislop is an ex-schoolmaster who edits “Private Eye”, the organ of elderly undergraduates. Nothing more. Yet he was allowed to bad mouth Andrew Marr without interruption. Surely it does not matter how belatedly Marr rejected his own decision over super injunctions? He did so. Hislop is society's disagreeable terrier whose proper province is the heel.
Meantime your sympathy is sought.................................
Despite paying annual salaries of hundreds of thousand of pounds, BBC Director General Mark Thompson claimed it was “extremely hard” to fill executive roles as the broadcaster tried to cut costs.
In the past year, the BBC has pledged to reduce what it pays in some executive roles after repeated criticism.
Mr Thompson is trying to find a new director of television after Jana Bennett left the public service part of the BBC to join BBC Worldwide, its commercially-funded arm.
Miss Bennett’s remuneration in the last financial year was £517,000, but it is understood that the salary on offer to her replacement could be less than £400,000.
How can anyone live on that!
On a luxury note: We celebrated my first day as a monarchist with fish n' chips and champagne. God Bless the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who have the good sense to live on Anglesey, guarded by Meyricks, with whom any upstairs servant who gossiped with downstairs servants was sacked. When we lived down the road, the Meyricks had a game keeper who terrorised an entire district. Glad I am no longer the island news gatherer.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
A DICKENS OF A MESS
Tear down the statues of the ancient gods, smash to smithereens the busts of Pericles and Alexander, the later monuments to the Madonna and the crucified Christ. We have a new God to worship. Let the trumpets sound for......
MR MICAWBER
His prophecy has come true: annual Income £1, annual expenditure £1 and sixpence; result misery.
This is the new economy of the Western world which is led by the nation with the biggest debt in the history of mankind. Currency experts say that it is inevitable that America will default on its debt. The likeliest method would be to pay off its debts by inflating its currency to a level which makes it worthless. That is progress. It makes the Weimar Republic, in which household debts were paid with wheelbarrows full of Deutsch Marks a haven of prudence.
In 1939 Britain went to war to preserve the freedom of Poland. Four years later it abandoned that luckless country to fifty years of slavery under Stalin. Once again we are going to war to establish the right of the Middle East to be governed by the Wahabi, standard bearers of Arab fundamentalism. We are so deep in debt we cannot afford a navy or an air force and our soldiers fight for their lives under the banner of redundancy. Yet we are spending millions in a failing attempt to defeat Gaddafi, the Mad Mullah of Libya, and we are sending military advisers to train the rebel army. Familiar? The United States of Micawber did just that in every pointless war with evil - which they later lost.
At home our government denounces local councils who make savage and unnecessary cuts in essential services whilst hoarding reserves of many millions. In this campaign against windmills the Quixote is fittingly bucolic Suffolk. Its chief executive runs the Croesus Fan Club. Its new fire chief has charged council tax payers almost £20,000 in decoration and removal costs – while plans to cut front-line services go ahead. Public cash helped David Johnson move to the county of Suffolk, even though he heads the Essex brigade. The fire chief and his senior colleagues clocked up tens of thousands of pounds in other expenses – including billing taxpayers for gentlemen’s clubs, lavish hotels and lobster dinners. Mr Johnson’s moving costs included £3,704.60p for new carpets, £3,466.93p for floor tiles and £324 for Laura Ashley curtains. The £20,000 total included £3,877.50p in estate agent fees, £2,402 in removals and £4,563 for a mortgage redemption penalty. The fire chief used to live even further afield – Nottinghamshire – but had a temporary base in Essex until his move to Suffolk.
The disclosure comes at a sensitive time for Essex Fire and Rescue service, where Mr Johnson is in charge of slashing staff numbers from 52 to 24. The brigade is trying to cut £10million from its budget.
Not to be outdone, Manchester Council has handed out free mobile phones to nearly two out of every three of its own workers. More than 7,000 town hall staff in Manchester have been given mobiles, with the bill of more than £1.2million a year paid by the taxpayer. Where our leaders cry “Onwards and It's-All-Up words” we follow.
A friend paid £250 for new spectacles with which he couldn't read a word or even see my PC screen. The optician explained: “You need to let them settle. There should be a settling in period.”
“But I can't see a word on a page.”
'Yes, well, the optician did say cataracts are developing.”
“Yes, but not that quickly.”
“She has allowed for some deterioration in sight by your next eye test in a year's time.”
“But I can't see to read now - or, more importantly, type and teach.”
“Yes, but has she explained the Varifocals have been manufactured to give you balanced sight when you raise your head?”
“But I still can't read.”
'Well, maybe you'd better come back for a repeat eye test...”
Yesterday he emailed me: “Been back to Specsavers - they say it's the way I hold my head, all wrong.”
Reminds me of the time when I bought my first stereo and complained it sounded like any other bloody gramophone. The man said: “Ah, there is a difference but your ears are not tuned to hear it. Your dog will know.”
Or the time I had difficulty buying a computer in Wrexham because the machine said there was no such island as Anglesey.
When a crater swallows the economy the first fissures invariably find press freedom. Now we have the Super Injunction. As always, the present threat is from lawyers. There is a game which is traditionally played in the Bar Mess during Assizes. Comic cases are brought which stretch the credulity of the listeners. Now the Judges are doing it as a day job. From the French Revolution onwards lawyers have been the catalyst for unwelcome change. One should be grateful for anything that shields one from the pranks of priapic peasants or cavorting celebrities but now these super injunctions are been used to deny a victim a voice against authority, and attempts have been made to gag parliament. We may be roaming in the gloaming but the Dark Ages beckon.
I cannot for the life of me see why people are surprised that Gordon Brown, who tested the Micawber Theorem to our destruction, should be a front runner for the top job in the International Monetary Fund. There is a precedent. They made Blair Envoy for Peace in the Middle East - and look what a good job he has done.
I have just the signature tune for our leaders. Reader Neville Stack sends this from YouTube:
“The Rogues' March used to be played to drum out dishonoured soldiers from the Army. During the playing they were stripped of rank, badges and buttons, then normally flogged, the Drum Major counting the amount of lashes, and then they were marched out of the camp with dishonour.”
Homeless Big Issue sellers are to be equipped with smartphones so that they can begin acting as news gatherers, the charity has said.
The vendors will be encouraged to blog and use social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook to capture and upload images and audio, according to Big Issue founder John Bird.
“Big Issue vendors stand on streets up and down the country come rain or shine, hence they are uniquely connected to their local area,” said Bird.
“We want them to become the eyes and ears of their neighbourhoods, offering a unique perspective and simultaneously developing the skills which will get them off the streets.”
P.S. I have just learned that Decca pays £ 2,500 (minimum) a table for the pop stars on its label and guests at the Classical Brit Awards (whatever that is).
MR MICAWBER
His prophecy has come true: annual Income £1, annual expenditure £1 and sixpence; result misery.
This is the new economy of the Western world which is led by the nation with the biggest debt in the history of mankind. Currency experts say that it is inevitable that America will default on its debt. The likeliest method would be to pay off its debts by inflating its currency to a level which makes it worthless. That is progress. It makes the Weimar Republic, in which household debts were paid with wheelbarrows full of Deutsch Marks a haven of prudence.
In 1939 Britain went to war to preserve the freedom of Poland. Four years later it abandoned that luckless country to fifty years of slavery under Stalin. Once again we are going to war to establish the right of the Middle East to be governed by the Wahabi, standard bearers of Arab fundamentalism. We are so deep in debt we cannot afford a navy or an air force and our soldiers fight for their lives under the banner of redundancy. Yet we are spending millions in a failing attempt to defeat Gaddafi, the Mad Mullah of Libya, and we are sending military advisers to train the rebel army. Familiar? The United States of Micawber did just that in every pointless war with evil - which they later lost.
At home our government denounces local councils who make savage and unnecessary cuts in essential services whilst hoarding reserves of many millions. In this campaign against windmills the Quixote is fittingly bucolic Suffolk. Its chief executive runs the Croesus Fan Club. Its new fire chief has charged council tax payers almost £20,000 in decoration and removal costs – while plans to cut front-line services go ahead. Public cash helped David Johnson move to the county of Suffolk, even though he heads the Essex brigade. The fire chief and his senior colleagues clocked up tens of thousands of pounds in other expenses – including billing taxpayers for gentlemen’s clubs, lavish hotels and lobster dinners. Mr Johnson’s moving costs included £3,704.60p for new carpets, £3,466.93p for floor tiles and £324 for Laura Ashley curtains. The £20,000 total included £3,877.50p in estate agent fees, £2,402 in removals and £4,563 for a mortgage redemption penalty. The fire chief used to live even further afield – Nottinghamshire – but had a temporary base in Essex until his move to Suffolk.
The disclosure comes at a sensitive time for Essex Fire and Rescue service, where Mr Johnson is in charge of slashing staff numbers from 52 to 24. The brigade is trying to cut £10million from its budget.
Not to be outdone, Manchester Council has handed out free mobile phones to nearly two out of every three of its own workers. More than 7,000 town hall staff in Manchester have been given mobiles, with the bill of more than £1.2million a year paid by the taxpayer. Where our leaders cry “Onwards and It's-All-Up words” we follow.
A friend paid £250 for new spectacles with which he couldn't read a word or even see my PC screen. The optician explained: “You need to let them settle. There should be a settling in period.”
“But I can't see a word on a page.”
'Yes, well, the optician did say cataracts are developing.”
“Yes, but not that quickly.”
“She has allowed for some deterioration in sight by your next eye test in a year's time.”
“But I can't see to read now - or, more importantly, type and teach.”
“Yes, but has she explained the Varifocals have been manufactured to give you balanced sight when you raise your head?”
“But I still can't read.”
'Well, maybe you'd better come back for a repeat eye test...”
Yesterday he emailed me: “Been back to Specsavers - they say it's the way I hold my head, all wrong.”
Reminds me of the time when I bought my first stereo and complained it sounded like any other bloody gramophone. The man said: “Ah, there is a difference but your ears are not tuned to hear it. Your dog will know.”
Or the time I had difficulty buying a computer in Wrexham because the machine said there was no such island as Anglesey.
When a crater swallows the economy the first fissures invariably find press freedom. Now we have the Super Injunction. As always, the present threat is from lawyers. There is a game which is traditionally played in the Bar Mess during Assizes. Comic cases are brought which stretch the credulity of the listeners. Now the Judges are doing it as a day job. From the French Revolution onwards lawyers have been the catalyst for unwelcome change. One should be grateful for anything that shields one from the pranks of priapic peasants or cavorting celebrities but now these super injunctions are been used to deny a victim a voice against authority, and attempts have been made to gag parliament. We may be roaming in the gloaming but the Dark Ages beckon.
I cannot for the life of me see why people are surprised that Gordon Brown, who tested the Micawber Theorem to our destruction, should be a front runner for the top job in the International Monetary Fund. There is a precedent. They made Blair Envoy for Peace in the Middle East - and look what a good job he has done.
I have just the signature tune for our leaders. Reader Neville Stack sends this from YouTube:
“The Rogues' March used to be played to drum out dishonoured soldiers from the Army. During the playing they were stripped of rank, badges and buttons, then normally flogged, the Drum Major counting the amount of lashes, and then they were marched out of the camp with dishonour.”
Homeless Big Issue sellers are to be equipped with smartphones so that they can begin acting as news gatherers, the charity has said.
The vendors will be encouraged to blog and use social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook to capture and upload images and audio, according to Big Issue founder John Bird.
“Big Issue vendors stand on streets up and down the country come rain or shine, hence they are uniquely connected to their local area,” said Bird.
“We want them to become the eyes and ears of their neighbourhoods, offering a unique perspective and simultaneously developing the skills which will get them off the streets.”
P.S. I have just learned that Decca pays £ 2,500 (minimum) a table for the pop stars on its label and guests at the Classical Brit Awards (whatever that is).
Saturday, 16 April 2011
ENGLAND! PLEASE CAN I COME IN ?
To hospital to book a date to have yet another skin cancer removed. It is the Acne of the Aged.
The girl said, “Don't forget to bring proof of your nationality.” I was shocked. I said, “Young lady, the badge on my blazer denotes membership of the finest regiment in the British Army, the Veterans' badge was given me by a grateful country for the blood I spilt in the service of the king in NAAFIs all over Europe.
“My ancestors were invited to this benighted country by Edward the Confessor in 1033 AD to build castles to keep the Welsh at bay. Had they known that a thousand years later you were to insult us, we would have stayed in Normandy and you would be scraping cancers off hordes of chapel goers in suits made from old prayer book covers.”
She said, “Oh, wouldn't it be fun if you brought evidence of that!” “Your wish is my command, I told her.” I am taking my two-volume family tree. I I am not a fan of the Fenland countryside but it is still England, which is more than can be said for the rest of the country. We have a large immigrant population but they are working on the land, doing jobs that our own people scorn. . Having said that and speaking as an unashamed tribalist, I am delighted that the Government has decided there are too many immigrants. I object to the way a large Muslim population do not assimilate and in many places have stolen my country. They bring their home country with them.
That would not have been permitted in Ancient Rome. I am reading Bettany Hughes's delightful book on Socrates and I suspect there was a movement in Athens as well to control outsiders. In both cases, this was achieved by limiting the right to citizenship. Citizenship was much prized. Pericles introduced a law that said a person could only become a citizen if both his parents were.
Citizenship should be a qualification for the benefits of the Welfare State. By the same token (lovely phrase,)I cannot see why women cannot decide for themselves whether to hide their faces or adorn themselves with a crucifix. The idea of using relics of instruments of torture as expressions of faith puzzles me but it is no affair of mine. Are heavy veils to be banned as signs of mourning?
In the Late Middle Ages sumptuary laws governing dress were instituted as a way for the nobility to cap the conspicuous consumption of the prosperous bourgeoisie of medieval cities, and they continued to be used for these purposes well into the 17th century. But I see no reason for them now. The only necessary law would be against wearing full veils through customs. Simple to say that if you cannot show your face you cannot come into or get out of the country. Robbers wear masks to hold up cashiers. Are we to ban their use at parties? And what of the Venice carnival?
Our poor country. My son in Baghdad told me this morning he is appalled at the way our diplomats crawl to the sheiks,
ALL >>>>>> AND WIND
The instruments of destruction of the long green silence of countryside are of course Wind Turbines. The Triffid de nos jours.
According to Stephen Mitten in his book on cognitive archaeology “Prehistory of the Mind”, our world is a play that has gone on for six million years but all the action is confined to a hundred thousand years. Human life has appeared in 25,000 of them. If this, as he claims, is the last act it has been a tragedy in which the human race has played Feste the Clown. The EU imposes laws governing the use of natural resources. We respond by offering energy providers huge sums to create wind farms on land which the farmers are glad to rent to them to ease their own financial difficulties.
…........................................................
Sometimes I dislike my trade. At the moment Catherine Zeta Jones is the butt of journalistic self righteousness because of a speech she made at an awards ceremony. They suggest it proves she was barking mad. It doesn't. It shows how delighted she was to get the award and she made that clear in a speech which was generous to her production team and her parents, touching in its innocence, and evidence of how much she loves her husband. For me, it just proves what a very lucky man he is.
The Welsh call it 'hwyl' and the Sais could do with a portion of it.
THIS IS WHAT SHE HAS TO PUT UP WITH
Dawnette Knight, 35, stalked and threatened the Hollywood star, claiming she was in love with her husband, the actor Michael Douglas.
She was ordered to pay $200 (£115) to Zeta Jones, who branded Knight "evil".
Knight had denied the charges but entered a plea deal and admitted one count of stalking and three counts of making criminal threats.
In a letter read out to the Los Angeles court, the actress said: "You have profoundly affected me in how I conduct my life.
"Your actions will be with me the rest of my life - how I will be constantly observing, looking over my shoulder."
She was accused of sending threatening and violent letters to Douglas.
One letter said: "We are going to slice her up like meat on a bone and feed her to the dogs."
Knight apologised in another letter, claiming she had been in love with Douglas.
Giving evidence, Zeta Jones said she was so shaken she had come close to a nervous breakdown and had feared she was going to have a heart attack.
The girl said, “Don't forget to bring proof of your nationality.” I was shocked. I said, “Young lady, the badge on my blazer denotes membership of the finest regiment in the British Army, the Veterans' badge was given me by a grateful country for the blood I spilt in the service of the king in NAAFIs all over Europe.
“My ancestors were invited to this benighted country by Edward the Confessor in 1033 AD to build castles to keep the Welsh at bay. Had they known that a thousand years later you were to insult us, we would have stayed in Normandy and you would be scraping cancers off hordes of chapel goers in suits made from old prayer book covers.”
She said, “Oh, wouldn't it be fun if you brought evidence of that!” “Your wish is my command, I told her.” I am taking my two-volume family tree. I I am not a fan of the Fenland countryside but it is still England, which is more than can be said for the rest of the country. We have a large immigrant population but they are working on the land, doing jobs that our own people scorn. . Having said that and speaking as an unashamed tribalist, I am delighted that the Government has decided there are too many immigrants. I object to the way a large Muslim population do not assimilate and in many places have stolen my country. They bring their home country with them.
That would not have been permitted in Ancient Rome. I am reading Bettany Hughes's delightful book on Socrates and I suspect there was a movement in Athens as well to control outsiders. In both cases, this was achieved by limiting the right to citizenship. Citizenship was much prized. Pericles introduced a law that said a person could only become a citizen if both his parents were.
Citizenship should be a qualification for the benefits of the Welfare State. By the same token (lovely phrase,)I cannot see why women cannot decide for themselves whether to hide their faces or adorn themselves with a crucifix. The idea of using relics of instruments of torture as expressions of faith puzzles me but it is no affair of mine. Are heavy veils to be banned as signs of mourning?
In the Late Middle Ages sumptuary laws governing dress were instituted as a way for the nobility to cap the conspicuous consumption of the prosperous bourgeoisie of medieval cities, and they continued to be used for these purposes well into the 17th century. But I see no reason for them now. The only necessary law would be against wearing full veils through customs. Simple to say that if you cannot show your face you cannot come into or get out of the country. Robbers wear masks to hold up cashiers. Are we to ban their use at parties? And what of the Venice carnival?
Our poor country. My son in Baghdad told me this morning he is appalled at the way our diplomats crawl to the sheiks,
ALL >>>>>> AND WIND
The instruments of destruction of the long green silence of countryside are of course Wind Turbines. The Triffid de nos jours.
According to Stephen Mitten in his book on cognitive archaeology “Prehistory of the Mind”, our world is a play that has gone on for six million years but all the action is confined to a hundred thousand years. Human life has appeared in 25,000 of them. If this, as he claims, is the last act it has been a tragedy in which the human race has played Feste the Clown. The EU imposes laws governing the use of natural resources. We respond by offering energy providers huge sums to create wind farms on land which the farmers are glad to rent to them to ease their own financial difficulties.
…........................................................
Sometimes I dislike my trade. At the moment Catherine Zeta Jones is the butt of journalistic self righteousness because of a speech she made at an awards ceremony. They suggest it proves she was barking mad. It doesn't. It shows how delighted she was to get the award and she made that clear in a speech which was generous to her production team and her parents, touching in its innocence, and evidence of how much she loves her husband. For me, it just proves what a very lucky man he is.
The Welsh call it 'hwyl' and the Sais could do with a portion of it.
THIS IS WHAT SHE HAS TO PUT UP WITH
Dawnette Knight, 35, stalked and threatened the Hollywood star, claiming she was in love with her husband, the actor Michael Douglas.
She was ordered to pay $200 (£115) to Zeta Jones, who branded Knight "evil".
Knight had denied the charges but entered a plea deal and admitted one count of stalking and three counts of making criminal threats.
In a letter read out to the Los Angeles court, the actress said: "You have profoundly affected me in how I conduct my life.
"Your actions will be with me the rest of my life - how I will be constantly observing, looking over my shoulder."
She was accused of sending threatening and violent letters to Douglas.
One letter said: "We are going to slice her up like meat on a bone and feed her to the dogs."
Knight apologised in another letter, claiming she had been in love with Douglas.
Giving evidence, Zeta Jones said she was so shaken she had come close to a nervous breakdown and had feared she was going to have a heart attack.
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