Beck's Blog

Whatever Happened to "Yes we can" ?

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 10:13:00 +0000

I believe it still exists in the USA. The British think the phrase is too short. We prefer the longer version: “Yes we can, but here are some reasons why we shouldn’t”.

This is being applied mercilessly by the Home Office concerning the Ukraine refugee crisis. While Ireland and other European countries are enthusiastically taking in these desperate people, our Home Office (which is run by incompetent half-wits) is constructing an obstacle course in the shape of Visa Application forms of unfeasible length, containing such questions as Are you a War Criminal?

Then these applications appear to be dealt with on an individual basis, with no consideration being given to possible links with others; for example, a 4-year old girl was issued with a Visa, but not her mother! (So, good luck with making that journey little girl!)

That’s not the end of it; regarding the Homes for Refugees scheme, local authorities are now putting their bureaucratic noses into whether the receiving home might have potential hazards for children, such as garden ponds or electrical sockets positioned too near the floor.

Give me a break! These people have come from apartment blocks reduced to rubble, they’ve watched their relatives being executed on the streets, and seen women being raped. They’ve been starved of food and water. So now they are to be subjected to the fresh unimaginable horrors of a garden pond and low-lying plug sockets?!

By the way, the beauty of a British electrical plug socket is that you cannot poke something into the positive/neutral sockets. Try it. You need the longer of the three pins of a plug to be inserted to ‘open’ the two dangerous sockets. Our own children are not endangered by our plug sockets, so why would anyone else’s children be?

All of this is the perfect application of “Yes we can, but here are some reasons why we shouldn’t”.

An apoplectic Nick Ferrari on LBC radio this morning (I was worried for his health) was shouting “For God’s sake, sack the bloody lot of ‘em and get the Military in to do the job. The military are not only efficient, but also have compassion”. I couldn’t agree more.

THESE PEOPLE ARE KEEPING ME AWAKE AT NIGHT

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 11:08:00 +0000

These people are keeping me awake at night:

VLADIMIR PUTIN megalomaniac obsessed with re-building the old Soviet Union by visiting atrocities on an innocent neighbouring country that once used to be part of it.

DONALD TRUMP megalomaniac who thinks he's still President and believes VALDIMIR PUTIN'S invasion of Ukraine was an act of "Pure genius".

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE American congresswoman who thinks DONALD TRUMP is still President, and regards Ukraine's President ZELENSKY as "A thug". Said Covid rules were like NAZI treatment of the Jews. Nutty as a fruitcake and dangerously ignorant.

RON DE SANTIS Florida Governor often described as "Trump 2.0", supporter of voter suppression and protest suppression, opponent of gay rights.

NIGEL FARAGE Rabble-rousing English nationalist who calls DONALD TRUMP "My friend"; a driving force behind the great Brexit scam by stoking fears of hordes of immigrants. 8 years ago he called VLADIMIR PUTIN "The World Leader he most admires". In fairness, he now thinks PUTIN is finished.

VIKTOR ORBAN Hungarian Nationalist, Prime Minister who's just won a fourth term, a critic of Ukraine's President ZELENSKY, and refuses to censure VLADIMIR PUTIN. Proud to be an autocratic, illiberal homophobic, and a perpetual thorn in the side of the EU.

BORIS JOHNSON UK Prime Minister; Imposed Covid Lockdown Rules on social gathering & contact with dying relatives, then broke his own rules with a series of parties at 10 Downing Street, subsequently denying all knowledge of them; expert in bluster & waffle; a serial liar.

All these people keep me awake at night because they are, (singly or in concert) an offence to my own beliefs on morality and civilised behaviour, and a danger to world peace. In my opinion we'd all be better off without them.

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 14:18:00 +0000

“IT'S LIFE, JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT.”

Lionel Beck – March 2022

Apparently, in the Star Trek series, Mr Spock never actually spoke these words; the closest approximation to them is “No life as we know it”. So, since my title quotation is fictional in at least two senses I feel confident in appropriating it, and re-wording it to read “It’s life, Jim, but not as we used to know it” as the title of this essay, and I’m suggesting it accurately describes our own lives since the pivotal year of 2019.

For my generation in Britain there are phases in our lives that are indelibly written into our memories:

The Second World War
Wartime and Post-War food rationing
The 1947 deep freeze
The 1950s-60s ‘Cold War’ threat of mutual annihilation (including the Cuban Missile Crisis)
The 1963 deep freeze
The 1982 spat with Argentina over the Falklands
The fall of the ‘Berlin Wall’ in 1989 with the accompanying collapse of Communism, the USSR and its replacement by the Russian Federation.
The 2001 destruction of the World Trade Centre ‘Twin Towers’ by Islamic terrorists
The rise of Islamic terrorism and mass murder by bombing atrocities in our cities

So now it turns out (looking at the above list) that the “life we used to know” was actually fraught with difficulties, discomfort, and downright fear. So then I now come to:

2019-2022 – Covid-19 Pandemic, then the Russian invasion of Ukraine ..

.. and the title of this essay suddenly seems inappropriate, because it appears that this IS “Life as we used to know it”!

On the other hand, we did actually enjoy a period of relative peace accompanied by a general increase in living standards over the past 25 years or so. We have become accustomed to it. Which is why I originally chose the title, because 2019 seemed to be a tipping point, throwing us into a despair that is in marked contrast to the life we had more recently enjoyed. So it seems that life in the long-term is journeys through tranquil country lanes interspersed with enforced rides on a roller-coaster wearing a blindfold.

From 2019 onward we’ve had to suffer lock-downs, face coverings, social distancing, interrupted education, no visits to theatres and cinemas, highly-controlled and limited visits to restaurants and pubs, cancelled sporting fixtures, anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, plus a generous helping of fear, general anxiety, depression and other manifestations of mental illness. Then, just as we thought we were recovering from the ravages of Corona Virus and getting back to ‘normal’, a delusional, deranged, power-mad dictator in the Kremlin unleashed a totally unjustified invasion of Ukraine because Ukraine had the audacity to exercise its sovereign right to think about membership of both the EU and NATO.

The world unleashed its disapproval of President Putin, and imposed harsh sanctions upon its financial systems, Russian individuals of interest and their properties, the provision of armaments to Ukraine, and reduced dependence upon Russian oil and gas.

None of this can be done without also hurting ourselves to some extent, and so what we have to look forward to now, after more than two years of Covid restrictions, is a kind of War-time economy for the foreseeable future. Food, goods and services are already in short supply through the (predictable) consequences of leaving the EU, fuel prices are going through the roof, and so we are moving even further into the darkest recesses of the forest instead of coming out of the trees and into the sunshine. (I seem to have switched metaphors here. I should have said, we’ve been thrown back on to the roller coaster wearing a blindfold.)

What with the fear, pain and deaths caused by a new virus, and the atrocities being visited upon hospitals and residential areas in Ukraine, people who believe in God must surely be asking themselves how exactly is He showing his boundless love of mankind right now? (And, as a Humanist, I would add – or at any time in history, come to that).

It is difficult but important to get something positive out of all this, and come out the other side in the same way as we’ve managed to do with all the other vicissitudes throughout the periods I’ve mentioned above. For example, during the anxiety-laden Covid Lockdown periods (especially the first serious one), we found the permitted 1-hour per day exercise periods outside to be beneficial, because not only did we have the unusual pleasure of walking in the middle of main roads, we learned new courtesies to others as we bid them “Good Morning or Good Afternoon” or “Thank you”, by way of compensation for giving them a seriously-wide berth as we passed them on our walks (fortunately being able walk into the road in order to do so!)

We also appreciated the utter peace caused by the absence of traffic, so we could actually hear birdsong. We learned (we shouldn’t have had to) how to look after and care for our neighbours, and indeed other people we didn’t even know, delivering meals to them, and checking they were managing OK.

I hope that we can rediscover pleasure of visiting our High Streets and Shopping Centres, because if we don’t, the already diminishing number of thriving shops, pubs and restaurants, since decimated by Covid restrictions will continue to disappear because we have become a nation of online shoppers through necessity. It’s almost a habit now. If we need something we don’t even think about going out to find it physically. No, it’s straight on to the computer, find what we want – click – debit/credit card number – click – and a few days later there’s a courier on your doorstep.

As we now appear to be moving into a ‘wartime economy’ (thanks to the need for sanctions on Russia, with retaliations, in particular regarding oil and gas) perhaps one important positive mind-set would be to learn the important difference between what we want and what we need.

I want a new car, but I don’t need one. There’s nothing wrong with the car I already own. I want a new suit, but I don’t need one. I already have three perfectly good suits. I want another European River Cruise, but I don’t need one. I can have three or four holiday breaks in the UK for less than the price of the river cruise. I want to drive into the next town, and I want to drive to Scarborough or Whitby for a bit of sea air, but I don’t need to. I can walk to my next town and I can get a bus to Scarborough or Whitby (especially as I have an old git’s free bus pass!)

We can make choices to make our lives easier or less expensive, and whilst we are doing that we should remember that however much we care to moan about whatever dire situation we believe ourselves to be in, it is NOTHING, it is ZILCH, compared to the plight of the millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing from President Putin’s atrocities.

Above all, we should endeavour to treat people as we wish them to treat us, care for those less fortunate, forgive those who we think fall short of our own exacting standards; do a bit more loving and a bit less hating.

That should be LIFE AS WE KNOW IT. "To boldly go where no man has gone before" .. that is to say, stop worrying about Split Infinitives, hold on tight for the roller-coaster ride and look forward to when you can get off.

I'll end with a story I found on Facebook .. A man in Moscow goes into the newsagent's every morning, buys his newspaper, looks at the front page then throws it into the bin. He does this every day for a week until the shopkeeper asks him why he keeps on doing that. The man replies, "I'm just checking the Obituaries." "But", says the shopkeeper, "The Obituaries are always on the inside pages, never the front page." The man replies, "Believe me, the one I'm looking for WILL be on the front page!"

Keep smiling.😎

Trumpian Tragedy

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 12:04:00 +0000

The tragedy of Abraham Lincoln was that he went to the theatre. It is tempting to be sorry that Donald Trump didn't himself patronise the theatre. He has, nevertheless, spent four years creating his very own style of theatrical performance, and we are currently watching the tragic finale.

This failed businessman (who managed to persuade nearly half of the USA that he was successful) has provided a deluge of inappropriate behaviour, a fountain of religious hypocrisy, and a cluster bomb of personal insults. He ran roughshod over hitherto accepted norms of behaviour:

Demeaning women
Applying insulting epithets to colleagues and political opponents alike.
Calling fallen veterans suckers and losers;
Making fun of disability.
Telling a presidential competitor that he had an ugly wife.
Demeaning a high-profile war hero because he'd been captured.
Sucking up to tyrannical dictators whilst insulting his international allies.
Disrespecting the British Head of State by walking directly in front of her.
Standing next to the British Prime Minister at a press briefing and publicly belittling her.
Making it OK for Americans to hate each other.
Instilling into the national psyche that the free press is the "Enemy of the People".
Organising grandiose Mussolini-style photo ops.
Surrounding himself with crooks and sycophants (any one of which could be "A great guy" one day and a fired "Loser" the next.)
Telling well over 20,000 documented lies, the very first one being about the number of people attending his inauguration.

All of this was deemed as acceptable (and even enjoyable) behaviour by what became known as his "Core Base" .. that section of Republican voters who were happy to accept as 'Facts' anything their Dear Leader told them were facts. Some even thought Trump had been sent by God! Their slogan was "Make America Great Again", the irony being that in their approval of their saviour's behaviour they were in fact making America an international laughing stock (which is not my definition of "Great"). The other slogan .. "America First" coined by Trump was made worthless by the fact that much of his Trump-branded goods was made in China!

The final act of this tragedy has been beyond the imagination of most of us: the storming of the seat of democratic government by a howling assortment of thugs, criminals, idiots, neo-NAZIS, white supremacists, anarchists, and vicious hooligans calling for the Vice President to be hanged (presumably because he had officially confirmed that Joe Biden had decisively won the Presidential election).

Donald Trump and his MAGA brigade stuck to the belief that Trump had in fact won the election by a "landslide", and an evil cabal of Democrats (all of whom are apparently Satan-worshippers and Communists) had "stolen" the election by nefarious means, in spite of a series of court judgements that said otherwise. "President" Trump encouraged his supporters in this direction, and promised to be there with them. Of course, he wasn't. He should have said "I'm behind you", because he was .. a long way behind, watching it all on TV. (More 'leadership').

Consequent upon the howling mob rampaging through The Capitol building, Joe Biden's inauguration will be a poor affair, with little or no public attendance, taking place encircled by a fence topped with razor wire and 15,000 armed National Guard. No doubt Trump will take solace from such a travesty of what normally occurs befalling his erstwhile opponent.

It's good to know that arrests and prosecutions have ensued from all of this, but I worry that Biden's going to have a hell of a job on re-uniting this divided nation and restoring their international reputation. We must hope that this particular tragi-farce is never shown again on the world stage, or indeed the 'provincial theatres' of State governments.

Footnote for Cult Members: It would appear that God has had second thoughts.

The Age of Stupid

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 09:11:00 +0000

This was the scene in a London park yesterday, 22nd March.

Similar scenes could be seen on beaches and at popular tourist spots around the country.

For me, it's Day 1 of the new (non) working week, and I feel acutely aware that we are truly living in the Age of Stupid.

Thousands of people appear to think that they have some kind of superpower that protects them again Covid-19. Not only are they deluded, they are also ignorant and selfish, giving no thought to the part they a playing in spreading the disease and increasing the death rate.

Some people go in the opposite direction: a paramedic reported that he'd been slung out of his lodgings because his landlady regarded him as a health risk. Well, let's hope she doesn't need a paramedic any time soon.

Teenagers are having parties; some are standing around the streets in close-knit groups joking and laughing about ignoring all the current advice. Well, let's hope that when they are laying in a hospital bed they continue to appreciate the joke.

Pauline and I are not in self-isolation as we currently have no symptoms, but we are mainly confining ourselves to the house, and if we go out for exercise or essential shopping we think about where we are, and try to observe "Social Distancing".

It's a weird life we are all (apart from the idiots of course) having to endure, but there are ways to adapt, perhaps by taking Stephen Fry's advice: make yourself a schedule (either mentally or on paper); slow down time by doing everything at a relaxed pace, slowly and methodically, be it household tasks, or cooking. After all, we have all the time in the world right now. Nothing is happening. The country is closed. It's an opportunity to read stuff we've never read before, listen to music, appreciate the garden if you're lucky enough to have one. Re-evaluate what is and what is not important in life.

At first I was angry and depressed. For the first time in 58 years of marriage we will not be going away this year. I had made all the plans, paid all the deposits, happily basking in the anticipation of what was to come later in the year. Now it is all out of the window. There are only two choices: angrily fume about it, or just forget it and seek other kinds of pleasure.

To end on the subject with which I began this piece, it is now time for the Prime Minister and our Government to stop all the weasel words about ADVISING us to do this and ADVISING us not to do that. It is time for the French approach .. Compulsory Rules. You may think this is extradordinary coming from someone who values individual liberty and has never hidden his Liberal Democrat credentials, but these are extraordinary times.

It was announced on the News this morning that McDonalds had decided to close all their restaurants. Half an hour after hearing this announcement there was an advert on LBC encouraging us to enjoy breakfast at McDonalds. The Age of Stupid.

"It's Life, Jim, but not as we know it."

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 17:31:00 +0000

It’s Saturday 21^st March 2020 and Day 1 of being without my part-time job. All schools are closed until further notice. (Nobody worked out how a school transport driver could work from home!) My wife also lost her job as a Doctor’s Receptionist following reorganisation of the Practice surgeries to deal with Covid-19, resulting in our local surgery operating without a receptionist.

Now we have to learn to how fill our weekdays constructively, and live without the benefit of the wages that supplemented our Pensions. But we are fortunate. There are many who are much worse off, so to complain would be both unreasonable and churlish; and if we have to self-isolate we have the benefit of a garden. I feel sorry for the poor souls who live in apartment blocks.

So - schools closed, pubs, clubs, cafes, restaurants, gyms, theatres, and cinemas closed. Britain is closed. We have cancelled theatre trips and holidays. 2020 will be a year unlike any other we have experienced.

These are strange times. When did my wife ever go shopping at 7 a.m.? The answer is, today. She was entitled to take advantage of special opening hours for people who have the dubious privilege of being over 70. Yesterday I called at our local Pharmacy (no hand sanitizer and no thermometers by the way) and found a shivering queue of people outside the door on which there was a notice permitting only one person inside at any time. Outside, the queue was spaced out, not in the sense of being on magic mushrooms, but physically spaced out. Social Distancing. When I got inside to pick up my prescriptions, I found a shopping trolley and two chairs placed in front of the counter to prevent close contact with the pharmacist.

There have to be some positive aspects. Perhaps there are. We are having to re-evaluate what is important and what isn’t. People are learning (re-learning?) how to co-operate, how to help each other, how to be unselfish. Some people are not, however. There are those who still persist in trying to buy up the entire contents of supermarkets as if they are about to be consigned to a desert island, and the lady seen in our local supermarket this morning picking up a pack of “Wonky” Carrots at a discounted price and rejecting them in favour of a perfect cauliflower. If you need to eat, does it matter if your carrots aren’t straight? And why is there a kind of mass hysteria over toilet rolls?! Supermarkets really need to be more rigorous in their rationing system.

On the negative side, there the people who are totally amoral (one of them is running the USA), happy to operate scams, sell magic potions to ‘cure’ the virus infection, engage in blatant over-pricing, or steal food from food banks; and the young people who think they are immortal, joking about ignoring all the current advice concerning “social distancing”.

Party Politics is changing .. and it needs to! There are positive signs that parliamentarians who normally spend their time tearing lumps out of each other in our highly adversarial system are ‘morphing’ into beings prepared to countenance more reasonable discourse with each other, co-operating in the face of an invisible enemy. I strongly feel that if we can move to a position where we recognise there is more in life that unites us than divides us, then Covid-19 will have taught us something useful. Whether we are Socialist, Conservative, Liberal, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, ‘Brexiteer’ or ‘Remainer’ (sorry to bring that up again), or none of the above, we don’t exclusively hold all the keys to wisdom, knowledge, vision, or political ideas.

It’s going to be a weird 2020. Learn to appreciate new values. Stay strong. Stay well.

2019 Election - Just Another Day at the Office

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 10:45:00 +0000

Well, for this Liberal Democrat, it was just another day at the office. A lifetime of disappointments and false dawns has hardened me. I do, however, stick with my basic social liberal democratic philosophy of life. Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Whilst the Liberal Democrats' vote went up in most constituencies, they didn't win many new seats, and lost some they already had, including the seat of Party Leader Jo Swinson!

Conservative Leader Boris Johnson (who marked his campaign by refusing an interview with one of Britain's most forensic political interviewers, pocketing an ITV journalist's phone, and hiding in a dairy company's fridge) romped home to victory by somehow persuading hardened lifetime Labour suporters in the industrial Midlands, North West and North East to risk the psychological trauma of actually voting Conservative.

As for the Labour Party, their performance was so bad that their number in Parliament roughly equates to the representation they had back in 1935. Their programme almost made Michael Foot's 1980s manifesto ("The longest suicide note in history") look reasonable. Whilst enthusiastic Labour activists, in particular, their 'Momentum' group appear to be enthralled by their Party being led by a couple of pseudo Marxists, it turns out that this enthusiasm for hard-left politics is not shared by the general population.

To end with what I started with, Jo Swinson's personal, and Party's disappointing performance is, I believe, entirely down to her. She made two massive strategic errors, which stretched some Party members' loyalty to breaking point. Firstly, she stood before the Liberal Democrats' Conference and announced herself as Candidate for next Prime Minister. It reminded me of Liberal Party Leader David Steel some years back, telling Conference to go back to their constituencies and "prepare for Government". That went well, didn't it?! Secondly, by announcing her intention to cancel Brexit unilaterally, without a second referendum, she effectively told 17 million people who'd voted to leave the EU to get stuffed. She appeared to have misunderstood the meaning of the second word in the title of her Party.

Both Labour and Liberal Democrats are now looking for new leaders.

Happy New Year! (We hope)

Disunited Kingdom

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sat, 03 Aug 2019 12:51:00 +0000

When I last visited Sirmione in Italy I gained free access to a museum because I was an EU citizen.

When I last visited Budapest in Hungary I was able to ride the city trams free of charge because I was a Senior Citizen of the EU.

In all of my frequent visits to Europe I knew that if I needed medical treatment I could get it without my bank balance being raided.

I could also make phone calls on my mobile without the charges being ramped up.

I was able to cross from one country to another with no more bureacratic hindrance than crossing from England into Scotland.

When staying in hotels in my own country (UK) I've benefited from efficient and pleasant service from staff who were recruited from other EU countries.

When admitted to hospital I received superb attention from doctors, nurses, health care assistants, and cleaners, many of whom were from the EU (and beyond).

I eat vegetables that have been picked from fields (sometimes in freezing or wet conditions) by workers from other EU countries. Far from 'stealing our jobs' (we currently have low unemployment rates) they are doing work that many of those who are unemployed don't want to do.

The quality of our rivers, our coastal waters, and the air we breathe, the safety of our cars, and much else are controlled by EU regulations that we ourselves have helped to formulate.

Far from being a 'Vassal State' 'Shackled' to Brussels, and 'Dictated to by an unelected bureacracy', we have jointly participated in Europe's future with other elected leaders, and an elected parliament. We have been able to opt out of a single currency, and to opt out of the Schengen 'open borders' agreement.

We have benefited from cross-border policing, national security, medical and scientific co-operation and co-ordination.

We trade freely not only with millions of people on our doorstep, but with 70 other countries around the world via agreements made with the EU. So far, there are only provisional separate agreements with a dozen of them.

As for 'Unelected bureacrats', since when were Civil Servants ever elected, in any country?

And yet our nationalistic tub-thumping Brexiteering government expect us to replace all this with what? .. Turbo-boosted Optimism! WHY?! Because a slim majority of us voted for it after being fed dreams, aspirations, and lies instead of real facts. Some of those voters phone radio stations, and when asked to explain why, or what is it they could do outside the EU that they can't do now, they come up with garbage such as .. "I want to eat fish and chips out of newspaper again" (nothing to do with the EU), "I want to control our borders" (we already do), and "I want to buy curved bananas" (tabloid newpaper myth). Thankfully, nobody has yet said, "I want our money to return to £sd!" (Also nothing to do with the EU).

And now our new (undemocratically chosen) arm-waving blustering Prime Minister has a parliamentary majority of only ONE (and that's even counting the dubious support of Northern Ireland's DUP). There's only one solution now .. a General Election and an end to this madness.

Atrocity in New Zealand

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 10:59:00 +0000

The monster who cold-bloodedly killed and injured over 50 innocent people in New Zealand the other day is a self-confessed Fascist and White Supremacist. I have skimmed through the 70-page manifesto that he posted online (or at least I've skimmed through as much as I could stomach). The man is totally unhinged and a ball of seething hatred and vitriol. Where does such vile rage come from? When and why did he lose his moral compass, (if he ever had one of course)?

During my speed-read of his stinking slurry of words, a couple of names jumped out of the page, one from the 1930s and one from right NOW. He professed admiration for the British Hitler-loving OSWALD MOSLEY, and he identified DONALD TRUMP as a "Symbol of White Identity and Common Purpose".

Let me be clear .. so-called White Supremacy has about as much place in a civilised society as Fundamental Islamic Jihadism, or Evangelical Christianity spreading the word of Jesus with firearms. It is all based on HATRED of anyone who differs from them in religious belief or cultural norms. If we wish to maintain anything vaguely resembling a peaceful liberal democracy, then we need to stamp on any kind of racial or religious supremacy movement wherever it raises its head. It is easy to be led by people who appeal to one's basest emotions, until you find yourselves sleep-walking into a tyrannical State where the only people who are happy are the haters and the fanatics.

You can find the seeds of this potential dystopia all over the place right now. You can find it in increasingly hate-filled discourse between people in Britain on either side of the European Union 'Brexit' debate. You can find it in Poland and Hungary with the increasing State control of newspapers, television and the legal systems. You can find it in the USA where the President regards journalists as the 'Enemy of the People' and puts forward the preposterous proposition that the Democratic Party is filled with people who not only believe in uncontrolled borders but are also in favour of crime.

We need to wake up and re-set our common moral compass, desensitise it against the magnetic pull of populist leaders, and appreciate that whether we are black, white or brown, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or atheist, we are human beings who have evolved in pretty much the same way, and have the same basic needs, emotions, anxieties, health problems, humour and joy. We all bleed if we are cut, we weep when we lose loved ones, and we all have the capacity to achieve great things.

BREXIT .. It's up to US

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 10:09:00 +0000

My earlier Blog was an attempt to lighten the mood. Now is the time to get a bit more serious.

Whether you voted to leave the EU or voted to remain, you didn’t vote for the unmitigated chaos that we are now wading through, and neither did you (no doubt with a few swivel-eyed exceptions) vote to be poorer, or to be marched off the cliff by a group of fanatics telling you that you’ll enjoy the drop and when you hit the water some of you will drown, but others will swim on until they rock up on the sun-drenched beaches of an island called Our Glorious Past.

The UK does not do referenda as a matter of course; we are a representative democracy in which we elect Members of Parliament to represent us to the best of their ability. But thanks to the efforts of Nigel Farage and others of his ilk, former Prime Minister Cameron tried to stop his Party from haemorrhaging votes to UKIP by promising us a referendum in the mistaken belief that the country would vote to remain. All he achieved was to cause an acrimonious division of roughly one half of the population against the other half. It is Cameron who is to blame for the mess in which we now find ourselves.

Then along came Theresa May as the new leader of the Conservatives, and thus Prime Minister. She demonstrated her soundness of judgement by calling a completely unnecessary election (she had a working majority, remember) in the belief she could increase her majority. The result was that she lost her working majority and had to ‘bribe’ the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland to prop her up in Parliament. As a result, the Northern Irish bigots have her over a barrel.

The problem we have with our Parliament now is that there are divisions all over the shop regarding how to proceed with Brexit, the worst of which are within the governing Party. Even within the Prime Minister’s Cabinet there are divisions between ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’, and there are further divisions even between the ‘Leavers’; some want a good deal with the EU, others are happy with no deal. The Labour Opposition also has its fair share of Brexiteers; the Party is torn between supporting a deal brokered by the Prime Minister and opposing everything she comes forward with in the hope of triggering a General Election which they are fairly confident of winning. The two Parties which are consistent in their desire to remain in the EU are the Liberal Democrats (not enough of them to make a difference) and the Scottish Nationalists.

We can no longer rely upon Parliament to come to any meaningful decision on how to proceed, which brings me to the so-called People’s Vote being called for by increasing numbers of despairing people. They are shouted down by every Brexiteer in the land uttering the wearingly familiar “We’ve already had a people’s vote in 2016 and we voted to leave the EU. We don’t want a second referendum.” I despair: are these people so thick that they cannot realise that what is being asked for is not a second bite at the cherry, but a vote on the DEAL that is finally served up to us? Clearly Parliamentary arithmetic is so fluid that the only people who can accept or refuse the final deal are .. US!

WE were given a vote on the original proposition, and now, to have our say in how we implement it is not a denial of democracy, it is an EXTENSION of democracy. It is Democracy Plus. After all, from time to time we elect Parliament, and by extension, Government. Nobody says that a decision we take on that should not be re-visited five years later. Nothing is set in stone forever. Conditions change. New information becomes available. People ‘fall off’ the electoral register when they reach the end of life; others come on to the register when they reach voting age.

There is nothing wrong with the ‘People’s Vote’. Give us the real facts, and give us the vote.

People's Vote

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:46:00 +0000

Brexit for Dummies

A Brief History

About two years ago there was a referendum on whether we should all eat a Full English Brexit or opt for the healthier Continental option. Just over half the country voted in favour of the Full English Brexit and ever since then we have been a Disunited Kingdom inhabited on the one hand by ‘Brexiteers’ and on the other by ‘Remoaners’.

It was all started by a man called Nigel who was uncomfortable with hearing foreign languages being spoken on the train and yearned for the ‘good old days’ when farage balloons were flying over London and we were busy telling the pesky Germans where to stick their bratwursts.

He started a political movement called UKIP which came to be known as the Kippers (which, as you know, also feature as an option on Full English Brexit menus). UKIP was so successful that eventually they represented as much as 0.3% of the British House of Commons which threw the then Prime Minister “Call-me-Dave” Cameron into a blind panic, believing that the Kippers were causing a stink by stealing Conservative votes. So Dave went for discussions with the European Onion to see if he could peel away some of the layers without causing tears at bedtime. He returned waving a piece of paper, declaring “Peace in our time”. Sorry, that was someone else, back in the good old days. But the effect was the same; it wasn’t peace and he hadn’t persuaded anyone to make the Continental option look more like the Full English. But he was confident that he had, and so triggered the referendum which he knew he would win, which he didn’t.

The Kippers were more successful in gaining entry to the European Parliament thanks to a different voting system, and they devoted their time to frustrating proceedings, led by Nigel who (I felt in a rather un-British way) proceeded to personally insult the people running the European Onion, in particular the President of the Commission; Nigel told him he had the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk and the charisma of a wet dishcloth (or something along those lines) .. i.e., British diplomatic manners at their finest.

Back in Britain, Nigel the Chief Kipper, failed to get himself elected to the British Parliament in spite of having built up a fanatically loyal fan base rather like the one ‘The Donald’ built in the USA. In fact Nigel actually spoke at one of Donald’s rallies. They both have a lot in common.

Where are we now?

As we approach the time when we must depart the shores of the European Onion, there has been much talk about staying within the supermarket. This is understandable because having been inside the supermarket for 40 years we are still unsure about where they’ve put the custard powder this week. I think it is wise to stay inside the supermarket until we find out, but Prime Minister May has accepted that in order to exit the supermarket there is a price to pay on exit (which is known as the ‘Checkout’). She has come up with a plan known as the Checkers Plan allowing us to go past the checkers without too much fuss, and be taken home in a big red bus stuffed with extra money for the NHS.

Nigel wants nothing to do with the supermarket because it’s full of nasty foreign stuff, and you can never find the custard powder or, come to think of it, the Marmite. He wants British Aisles. He also wants less freedom of movement (though to my mind, you couldn’t have much less, what with all those shopping trolleys). Now the one consistent thing about the supermarket is that the fruit and vegetable section is always near the entrance and it tends not to move about too much, but even here the Kippers are complaining that there’s a preponderance of Brussels, and moreover the leeks are being seen to by Polish plumbers. And if you find yourself in front a large beetroot that is, as often as not, just Nigel getting very, very angry.

Now the ‘Three Brexiteers’, Bonkers Boris Johnson, Evil Doctor Fox, and the Honourable Member for the 18^th Century, Jacob Rees Smug, are telling us that life outside both the supermarket and something called the Custard Union is going to be a bowl of cherries, because the Germans are still going to want to sell us their big Aldi cars (and even the Lidl ones), the French will still want to sell us their wine, and the Dutch will still want to sell us their cheese for so long as it takes for us to find the flavour.

The Custard Union is something that causes much consternation because it raises the subject of some Celtic border or other, possibly the Cornish Border? (At least a ‘hard’ border here would deal with those pirates of Penzance). But I digress; I am advised that we are concerned here with the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, across which there is much agricultural trade, and I’m assuming this is the reason for concern about a ‘hard’ border jeopardising the ‘Good Friday Peas Agreement’.

So, all in all, this is turning out to be a bit of a Dog’s Brexit, but I hope I’ve helped to throw some light on the subject, so you can vote sensibly when we have a referendum on the referendum, or possibly a General Election producing a Labour Government which will put the great British sausage into Public Ownership. Pass the ~~custard~~ mustard.

Lionel Beck

September 2018

What a Way to Run a Railway!

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 14:13:00 +0000

Margaret Thatcher’s government privatised everything that moved, with the exception of the railways; this appears to have been a step too far even for Mrs Thatcher who didn’t much like trains. Her dislike of the railways manifested itself in the form of systematic financial starvation of the then nationalised British Rail. This had the effect of eventually making BR so shabby and inefficient that it paved the way for her successor John Major to complete the Conservative portfolio of privatisation by taking the railways out of public control.

And what a dog’s breakfast that was! We had Railtrack - a hotchpotch of companies running the tracks and signalling (which in turn sub-contracted out work to all and sundry with often disastrous results) - and an assortment of train operating companies to run trains as route franchises granted by the government, using rolling stock leased from yet more companies.

In the quarter century that has passed since this mishmash was set up a certain amount of rationalisation has taken place, notably by replacing Railtrack with Network Rail (an arm’s-length branch of the Department of Transport). Train operating companies have come and go; some are reasonable operators and some are truly dreadful. The National Audit Office has just reported to Government (January 2018) that Southern Trains, Thameslink, and Great Northern franchises are providing poor value for money.

Why not re-nationalise the railways?

The Labour Party has pledged to bring the railways back into public ownership, but predictably the Conservative privatisation die-hards ridicule the idea. It appears, however, to be quite a popular idea with the general public and long-suffering train passengers.

I am waiting for these Conservative die-hards to come up with better arguments for their case than the tired old “Don’t people remember the bad old days of the British Rail curly sandwich?”. Oh please, give me a break! As it happens, I was a frequent user of the East Coast main line between York and London during the 1970s and 1980s, and what I do remember is excellent food on those trains; proper food, prepared and cooked in proper kitchens, and served by smartly-uniformed stewards at properly laid-out dining tables. Come to think of it the trains were usually on time, and they completed the journey from York to London in about 1 hour 55 minutes. (In the first few years of privatised train companies the same journey mysteriously slowed to about two and a half hours.)

Here’s another argument trotted out by the Conservatives: “Have people forgotten the decrepit rolling stock, the poor service, the bad time-keeping, the ever-increasing fares?” .. And your point is? .. This seems to me be a pretty accurate description of what we have NOW.

The first company to get the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh and beyond was GNER (Great Northern Eastern Railway). They were, to be fair, a half-decent company that ran smart trains with friendly staff, and continued the practice of serving proper food. But in due course they couldn’t hack it financially and handed the keys back. The franchise then passed to National Express (up to that point just a long-distance bus company). After a new paint job on the trains, some new logos, and a few years’ service they also couldn’t balance the books and handed the keys back.

At this stage (2009) the Labour Government of Gordon Brown took the route back into public ownership and the trains were run by eastcoast.co.uk. Here is the significance of this move: after the inevitable new paint job and logo changes this line actually started producing a profit for the Treasury. The trains ran on time, they were fast, and they had a customer satisfaction rating of 91%.

This must have been so embarrassing for the subsequent Conservative-led Coalition Government: a State-run railway actually doing what it was meant to do, and making a profit into the bargain. Indeed it must have been so traumatic for the Conservative privateers that it wasn’t long before they put it out to franchise again, and this time it was snapped up by Virgin/Stagecoach. Another day, another paint job.

And now, once again, the latest franchise is in trouble. Virgin/Stagecoach paid the government £3.3 billion to run the franchise until 2023, and now they want to cut it short and also reduce their payments to the government. No doubt anxious to avoid the embarrassment of yet another company handing back the keys the Secretary of State for Transport has caved into the company’s wishes.

Other European nations appear to be able to run perfectly good publicly-owned railways, but British Conservatives are unwilling to see this, although – perversely – they appear to be quite sanguine about the fact that these other railways have a significant stake in our own train companies. For example, Grand Central Trains (also using the East Coast Main Line) are part of Deutsche Bahn’s international arm.

International subsidiaries of European State railways have a part interest in the following ..

Greater Anglia .. Dutch

London Overground .. German

Merseyrail .. Dutch

Cross Country .. German

Southern .. French

Arriva Wales .. German

South Eastern .. French

Northern Rail .. Dutch

Docklands Light Railway .. Spanish & French

C2C .. Italian

Govia Thameslink .. French

Scotrail .. Dutch

Eurostar .. French & Belgian

The London Underground (a large network reaching far beyond the confines of Central London) is publicly owned and works well.

It seems that dogmatic Conservatives are dead set against State-owned railways unless they are foreign ones!

What a way to run a railway.

Re-nationalise, and let’s have a single (properly funded) national British railway system that we can be proud of, instead of this ridiculous kaleidoscope of companies which are constantly dropping in and out of franchises or pleading for government hand-outs and concessions.

©Lionel Beck

January 2018

Olympics for the Elderly

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 13:37:00 +0000

We are all getting older, folks, and also living much longer. A friend of mine recently attended a birthday party for a man who is 105 years old. We oldies are the ones who bother to go out and vote. Because we do our civic duty regularly I think we are owed the opportunity to integrate more into society, and what better way would there be than to be able to join the sporting fraternity. Sports of all kinds have a huge following, and I don’t see why we oldies should be reduced to watching them in front of a TV with a glass of beer and a packet of pork scratchings.So I’m proposing an annual Olympics for the Elderly (some of us might not be able to wait for the 4-year cycle to come round). Here are my Event Categories:

Motor Racing
· Spatial Awareness
· Athletics
· Rowing
· Tennis
· Ice Skating
· Cycling
· Fencing
· Boxing
· Climbing
· Table Tennis
· Weightlifting

Motor Racing

The task is to knock down the most pedestrians with a Mobility Scooter along 500 metres of a typical High Street.

Spatial Awareness

The task is to park a car in a really stupid place so that buses can’t get through and pile up behind. The winner is the one who accumulates the largest number of buses.

Athletics

This is a timed event, and the aim is to achieve the fastest time in getting out of a bath.

Rowing

This involves teams of two. Four couples sit in a long narrow boat. The couple that has the most serious row about housework leading to one pushing the other into the river is the winning couple.

Tennis

The person displaying the biggest swelling on a tennis elbow gets the Gold.

Ice Skating

The same High Street used in the Motor Racing Event is covered in hard-packed frozen snow, and contestants have to walk 500 metres carrying two bags of shopping. The winner is the contestant with the largest number of broken bones.

Cycling

Another team event, in which the teams have to separate 500 kg of household waste and place items in the correct re-cycling bin.

Fencing

This is a Male/Female team event. The two males stand on opposite sides of a 50 metre fence, at one end. The two females stand similarly at the other end. At the firing of the starting gun (and assuming nobody has a heart attack) the male contestants start creosoting their side of the fence, working in the direction of their female partners. Meanwhile the females gossip over the fence. The winning team is the one where the male has reached the point at which he is creosoting his partner’s elbows AND she has also covered the greatest number of subjects on which to gossip.

Boxing

When the bell rings, the first one to reach the phone wins. (Sadly, after a life time of blows to the head they are both demented).

Climbing

This takes place on the north face of the garden rockery, and the contestant who has removed the most weeds gets an advantage.

There is a second stage involving climbing the stairs to bed, in which the contestant with the advantage from the first stage gets to start half way up the stairs. First into bed wins. (People who live in bungalows are disqualified).

Weightlifting

This event involves two partners watching TV. One asks the other to pass the remote control. One successful lift of the ‘remote’ is all that’s required, though extra points are awarded if the recipient is then able to switch channels. There is an elitist group of seasoned practitioners who go in for an extreme (though some say altruistic) version of the sport, in which one person keeps the ‘remote’ on top his head and his partner lifts it from that position, thus taking a weight off the other’s mind.

Table Tennis

A married couple sits at the table, one at each end. When the bell rings they assume it’s a marketing call and remain seated, after which the man says, “More potatoes please”. The woman asks, “How many?” He replies, “Four love” .. which turns out is the winning score.

Events unlikely to be successful

An assortment of gymnastics have been tried but abandoned because of certain difficulties. They include ..

Parallel Bars

Time-wasters trying to order drinks

Vaulting Horse

Easily confused with Climbing.

Trampoline

See Vaulting Horse

High Bar

See Parallel Bars

Rings

Likely to upset people with tinnitus.

Marathon

Long-term accommodation costs for spectators waiting at the finish line.

High Diving

Uncertainty about the stability of incontinence pads.

So join me now in the slowest-growing ~~bowel~~ mass movement in the history of mankind.

Cogito ergo sum (atheus)

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sun, 27 Aug 2017 17:02:00 +0000

Loosely translated this means I am a pompous git for spouting Latin.

More tightly translated it means I think, therefore I am (atheist).

And so I return to a subject on which I have pontificated before (see God and Religion )

I had better make it clear at the outset that I am not implying that people who believe in God don’t think! Obviously they do but follow different thought patterns to those that lead me to an atheistic position. Since time immemorial Jewish scholars have debated over the meaning and interpretation of the scriptures, obviously involving a good deal of high-powered thinking which, in the end, lead them to maintain their beliefs.

Christians and Muslims have done the same.

I simply find myself unable to accept the existence of either the God of the Bible or the God of the Qu’ran.

Are they two different Gods, or the same God being interpreted in two different ways? What about the multiple Gods of India? Humanity has believed in and worshipped countless numbers of Gods over the millennia. I am sympathetic to the view that rather than humanity being the creation of God (whichever one you believe in), God (whichever one you believe in) has been “created” by humanity.

I subscribe to an online discussion community called Quora and some of the most frequently occurring questions relate to God and Atheism. A common question is something along these lines .. How does an Atheist prove there is no God? Since I don’t believe in anything that cannot be proven beyond doubt it follows that, in my mind, there is no God, and since you cannot prove the non-existence of something I do not feel the need to produce any such proof. More to the point, I believe it is incumbent upon those who believe in the existence of God to provide proof of His (or Its) existence.

The usual come-back to this challenge is the assertion, “I have faith in His existence”. The Encarta English Dictionary defines faith as belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof.

Another common question is along the lines of .. "How do atheists maintain good moral behaviour without religious commandments? This is preposterous. Human beings don't need religion in order to behave properly. A civilized society that has no mutually beneficial rules of behavious is doomed to collapse. Conversely, religious groups demonstrably have no monopoly on good behaviour!

Now I submit that you are perfectly entitled to be endowed with this faith (in the existence of God), but you are not entitled to present it to others as fact. I believe that people have every right to believe in whatever God and teachings that they wish, so long as they: (1) bear no malice towards me, and (2) feel no compunction either to persuade or force me to adopt the same views.

For my part I have no wish to turn Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc., into atheists. Atheism is not a proselytizing condition. Other people can reach that state of mind, as I did, by questioning their own beliefs in their own time, should they wish to do that.

As has been stated by me and other more learned thinkers (such as Richard Dawkins) the reason most of us are Christian/Muslim/Hindu/Catholic/Protestant/Shia/Sunni/Atheist is because from the first time after our birth that we were able to understand anything our parents told us who and what we were; and their parents had done the same to them .. and so on back into the mists of time. As a child we learn first from our parents, and what they tell us is true fact, for we have no way of knowing otherwise, or even thinking we ought to question what we are told. “Give me a child till he is seven, and I will show you the man” (Aristotle).

I was told it was fact that God existed, that he knew my every move, and if I was good I would go to heaven; if I was bad I would go to hell and burn forever. I had a childhood imbued with fear. I was told the Bible was Holy and I was expected to read it .. which I did in my early years without questioning a single thing I read .. talking snakes, talking donkeys, a man inside a fish, slavery, animals in ark, submission of women to husbands, virgin birth, life after death, the psychotic episode that is “Revelations” .. to name but a few oddities. I had no reason to doubt the existence of Heaven or Hell. I was expected to go to church every Sunday, and for the greater part of my life had feelings of guilt if I did not do so.

By the time I was 70 I had re-read large parts of the Bible (and the Qu’ran) with an adult mind, and decided that much of it was patent nonsense. I could also see that religion had caused, and was still causing, much conflict and evil around the world. We are currently suffering the latest manifestations of evil in the activities of fanatical Muslims calling themselves “Islamic State”, who feel compelled to rid the earth of every human being who doesn’t submit to their particular thought process.

I have therefore turned my back on religion. I have Christian friends who accept me for what I am, and for that I am grateful. I offer them reciprocal acceptance and respect. They are good people. I have also been told by others professing to be Christians that I am misguided, mentally unstable, and destined for Hell. I'm not sure they are good people.

I recently listened to a young lady calling into LBC to explain why she had abandoned Christianity for Islam. The general gist of her reasoning was that there was too much flexibility in Christianity, not enough compulsion to understand the Bible in detail, too little firm guidance. What she wanted was a firmness of purpose in her religion, and praised the fact that so many Muslims are expected to learn the Qu’ran by heart. When the presenter suggested to her that over the millennia humanity had evolved, and that what was written thousands of years ago could not be applied rigidly to how things were today, her response was that religion had evolved .. and this is how she explained that evolution: "First there was Moses, then there was Jesus, and then there was Mohammed; and HE was the FINAL MESSENGER". In other words, all that we need to know ended in the 7^th century.

What a gloriously simplistic thought process! And how lacking in proper thought.

Cogito ergo sum atheus.

©Lionel Beck

August 2017

Close Encounter with the NHS

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 13:55:00 +0000

An Appreciation of the NHS in Malton & Scarborough.
For most of my life my heart and I have been on good terms. It has faithfully pumped its way through life’s journey without complaint or incident. A few days before Christmas it ruined its reputation having suddenly realised I’d just had a 79th Birthday. It didn’t like it. Sitting in front of a troublesome computer one day, my heart decided to remind me of my age by starting a hundred-metre sprint all on its own, leaving me feeling light-headed and decidedly unwell. I was thankful at least for the fact that I was experiencing no pain.

I got myself home and my wife got out her faithful blood pressure machine from which we discovered my blood pressure (normally good) was through the roof, and my pulse rate was 135 per minute. That didn’t sound (or feel) like a good scenario.

Malton Hospital
My wife drove me to Malton Hospital – a small local hospital just 8 miles away – where they have a walk-in centre. I was seen immediately by a Nurse Practitioner who started a series of tests. There was a “safety-first” kind of assumption that I had had, or was having, or would have, a heart attack, and with the attendant danger of a stroke. Soluble aspirin and a GTN spray under the tongue were administered.

She decided I should be in a bigger hospital, either York or Scarborough. There had been reports of a serious incident on the main road to York so it was off to the seaside for me, and an ambulance was ordered. It arrived quite soon. I was trundled into the back of it and hitched up to monitors. This was but a short visit to Malton Hospital, but within five minutes of my giving the receptionist my details and reason for being there I had been seen by an attentive Nurse Practitioner, a provisional diagnosis made, early treatment administered, and my next destination organised.

The Ambulance

The three paramedics were caring, good-humoured, and meticulous about what they were doing. I couldn’t have asked for more care and attention. This was my first experience of an emergency ambulance, and whilst the equipment and the medical treatment afforded was beyond reproach, the experience of lying on one’s back, seeing nothing of the outside except the sky through a roof light whilst negotiating corners, roundabouts, speed bumps, stops and starts, provided a less-than-ideal travelling experience. I asked the lady attending to me how many patients they had to treat for travel sickness. She replied, “Quite a lot!”

At some stage on the journey, with my heart still sprinting and my blood pressure high, we pulled off the road so that an injection could be administered. Approaching Scarborough we came up against heavy traffic with little movement. My paramedic looked at the traffic stretching out in front of the ambulance and said to the driver, “Let’s do this properly”. The driver flicked a switch and an electronic voice came from the dashboard .. “999 Mode engaged”. I heard the sirens start, and saw glimpses of flashing blue light reflecting off surfaces. Suddenly we were moving quite fast, and before long we’d arrived outside Scarborough Hospital’s Accident & Emergency Department, and I was being trundled into the corridor leading to the A & E cubicles.

Scarborough Hospital

As we have (sadly) come to expect these days, there was a queue of trolley-bound patients along the corridor (though it was good to see the queue was not too long). Nevertheless, after the paramedic had had a word with a staff member I was told we were jumping the queue. I found myself in a cubicle, cannula inserted, drip connected, pads and wires slapped all over my chest, all plugged into a monitor; temperature and blood pressure taken; a junior doctor sitting herself down beside me asking for personal details and the symptoms that had led me to my current position.

Another junior doctor came along and asked me a series of questions clearly designed to see whether there had been any impairment to my brain functions:

“Remember this address .. 42 West Street, then please answer some questions ..”

What’s your date of birth? What’s your name? When did the 2nd World War end? Can you count from 20 down to zero? What’s the name of this hospital? Roughly what time of day do you think it is? What was that address I asked you to remember?

“42 West Street”. Sighs of relief .. especially from me!

After about an hour of monitoring and observation I was transferred to the Coronary Care Unit and placed in a ward of four beds. I was offered a set of pyjamas, but by this time, my wife, who had returned home from Malton and picked up all the stuff I would need, provided the necessary attire. A nurse re-wired me to a monitor by the bed and remarked, “Oh I can see why you’re here” as the heart monitor began registering about 130 beats per minute.

Now, as to the little problem of one’s personal bodily functions and their needs I was quite happy to pull the curtain around my bed and use one of the bottles provided, but for a more serious need – which was beginning to exercise my mind – I would insist on getting out of bed, unplugging myself, and walking a short distance down the corridor. This provided grounds for serious concern for the nurse assigned to my care; she was perfectly charming but adamant that anything could happen in the toilet and there’d be no monitor to say why! She was clearly very worried, and I could see the litigation papers in her eyes, but I had to insist as politely as I could, even offering to sign a disclaimer, that I had my wits about me and knew what I was doing. I reminded her there was a nice big emergency pull-switch in there, and in any case I would rather die in the toilet than use a bed-pan!

I was happy to note that my heart rate eventually slowed down to about 80, but by the time I’d returned from a call of nature and plugged myself back in again, it was back to about 110.

During the periods when I felt well enough I laid there and enjoyed the banter between the three other men in the room. They had more serious conditions than mine but were cheerful and kept themselves entertained with their own little stories. The four of us passed some of the time watching each other’s heart monitors, with their pulse rate displays fluctuating between 55 and 125. It was more exciting than watching TV.

I was seen by a very pleasant Cardiac Consultant who shook my hand and introduced himself. He said I was presenting something of a challenge, because my heart appeared to be beating normally .. just too damned fast! Moreover I had no pain. It soon became clear I was to be there overnight, with further assessments in the morning, after blood tests and a chest x-ray.

A lady came round with a menu sheet so I could choose my evening meal. It was a good selection.
The staff became used to the idea that from time to time I was going to unplug myself from the monitors and take a walk along the corridor, then plug myself back into the mothership on my return to the ward.

After a night’s sleep interrupted several times for injections, blood samples, temperature and blood pressure checks, I was provided with hot water, flannels, soap, towels, toothbrush and toothpaste. Breakfast was brought in later, consisting of cereals, toast, marmalade and other spreads, and a choice of tea or coffee. Strangely, a “Full English” fry-up was not on offer!

After another day, and a second night of tests and observation, a second (equally pleasant) heart Consultant had concluded that I had suffered the symptoms of Angina (something caused through age-related hardening of the arteries, or clogging of same, and not always causing pain) and I would probably be allowed home late afternoon of the third day with appropriate medication, but subject only to my passing a physical test on a treadmill. By this time my heart rate was at a more respectable level.

In due course I was taken to the physio room and I was wired up to two computers and invited on to a treadmill which would put me through three stages of exercise over a period of about nine minutes. I started three minutes of easy strolling on the level, then an inclined walk at a faster rate for another three minutes, concluding with a very fast walk “uphill” for another three minutes. I didn’t fall over and I passed with flying colours. My Consultant came in to check the results, and told me I could go home, armed with a shed load of medication, and he would arrange to see me again in Malton Hospital in a couple of months’ time.
Food

Apart from breakfast, the menu choices were surprisingly extensive. The food was of good quality, tasty, well cooked, and hot. (Well, apart from the salad dishes!) I’ve had much worse in some cafés.

Hygiene
Hygiene was exemplary. There were dispensers of anti-bacterial foam at the end of every bed, and in every doorway. Each morning, two or three very cheerful ladies (one of them singing enthusiastically) completely stripped the beds, disinfected the mattresses (top, underside, sides and ends) then all handrails etc., then re-made the beds with fresh sheets and pillow-cases. (The beds themselves were hi-tech with press-buttons to lower or raise them, raise or lower one end at a time, or indeed convert them into a giant chair.) After all this the floors were cleaned.

The Staff
Where do I start? From Consultants, Junior Doctors, Nurses, Health Care Assistants, to Catering and Cleaning, I encountered nothing but harmonious efficiency, good humour, kindness and compassion.

On my last night they brought in an elderly man who was a severe dementia case. He was constantly distressed, constantly on the move, talking nonsense, and trying to get out of bed. Watching three nurses attend to him was a master-class in good humour and kindness, demonstrated most eloquently by one nurse who was left standing at his bedside for about an hour, holding his hand, talking to him, calming him, and keeping him in the bed rather than out of it. Later another nurse
marched in and cheerily announced to the rest of us that it looked like being a long night, before handing round blindfolds and ear plugs!

I hate applying ethnic labels to people, but sadly it appears to be how the world wants to work. For example, how relevant is it that the nurse calming down the poor old guy with dementia was black? How relevant is it that the two junior doctors who first saw me in A & E appeared to be Chinese? How relevant is it that one of our ward nurses (all of whom appeared to work long shifts) might have been from the Philippines? How relevant is it that one of my heart Consultants might have been a Pakistani or an Indian? How relevant is that other nurses and doctors were just Yorkshire lads and lasses (or to coin a phrase used on survey forms, White British?)

You see, I’m using phrases like “appeared to be”, and “might have been” because really I don’t feel the need to find out. They just made up a brilliant kaleidoscope of multi-ethnicity: colleagues working together with smiles on their faces, and treating their patients like human beings in a manner that human beings normally like being treated.

So, the only relevance of their ethnicity was simply this: what I experienced was a microcosm of the way the World Outside ought to be! Should any members of such prejudiced groups as the British National Party, or Britain First or perhaps the more extreme members of UKIP fall ill and be thrust into the care of somewhere like Scarborough Hospital, they might just stop banging on so much about immigration! Or am I being naïve?

My final thought is in regard to the NHS itself. There are two opposing extreme views: (1) it is the ‘envy of the world’ .. in which case one might be forgiven for wondering why the rest of the world hasn’t copied it .. or (2) it is a bloated, inefficient, badly managed bureaucracy, in need of privatisation. But as usual, nothing is that black or white (except perhaps black and white), and although we all know of examples of some dreadful NHS hospitals, they are a minority. I am just grateful that having paid my taxes throughout my life I have always been able to receive good medical care as and when needed, free at the point of delivery.

So, I’m grateful to Malton Hospital, Yorkshire Ambulance Service, & Scarborough Hospital.

©Lionel Beck
29 Dec 2016

The Insane Politics of 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 12:38:00 +0000

A Year Best Forgotten?

If only it were that simple. We could try to forget, but the downside would be that much of the insanity would just carry on unchecked. We owe it to ourselves and to those who follow us to keep the year’s events in mind, think about them, and endeavour to make 2017 a little less like more of the same.

It was a year of political upheavals, which could be variously described as surprising, scary, unpleasant, incredible, and (for some people with whom I have little understanding) actually exciting.

The values of our democratic social & liberal society in Britain, Europe and the USA were severely strained by an upsurge of extremist politics from both ends of the political spectrum.

Forgive this slight digression, but on the matter of the political spectrum, I don’t like the simplistic view of right and left being represented as a straight line with Socialists and Communists at one end, and Nationalists and Fascists at the other.

In practice, this “straight” line is part of a circle’s circumference; Left & Right bend round in each direction becoming more extreme in each direction, resulting in completion of the circle. Where Left & Right join, we find that the two political credos are almost indistinguishable from each other. These extreme “ends” have things in common: a tendency towards dictatorship, totalitarianism, populism, racism, Media control, loss of individual liberty and the denial of human rights. (Think Joseph Stalin & Adolph Hitler. Think Fidel Castro & General Pinochet. In both pairings, they had so much in common, didn’t they?) This is what I mean ..

The European Union

Nigel Farage

In the UK things began to get nasty when the Conservative Government led by David Cameron promised a referendum on whether or not Britain should remain a member of the European Union. The only reason he did this was to paper over the cracks within his own Party. Some wanted to leave and others wanted to remain, and those that wanted to leave were making a nuisance of themselves. Fuel was poured on to the burning embers of Conservative resentment by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) led by a charismatic, ego-driven popinjay called Nigel Farage. Farage and his cohorts were initially perceived as a threat mainly to the Conservatives, and one or two prominent Conservatives actually jumped ship and joined UKIP. In reality, though UKIP was managing to pick up votes from the “working classes” (ex-Labour voters) across large swathes of the North of England.

UKIP’s principal message was that we should “take back control”. That meant taking back control of our borders and clamping down on immigration, and taking back control of the sovereignty of Parliament, so that instead of being bound by common laws dreamed up in Brussels by unelected bureaucrats (some of whom were of course British) to be rubber-stamped by an ineffectual European Parliament, we would “make our own laws”. There was merit in some of the arguments, but then on the other hand some very useful Europe-wide laws had come out of the EU, e.g., on working time, working conditions, air and water quality, coastal waters quality, food labelling, measures dealing with climate change, common access to health care, freedom of travel, freedom to find work, and so on.

Free movement of people was a cornerstone of the EU credo, which gave us all huge advantages in terms of being able to find work in any European country, and being able travel freely and without hindrance on holidays. On the downside – hugely exploited by UKIP and others – there was an uncontrollable influx of immigrants, some of whom were very useful to us (especially scientists, nurses, doctors, engineers, etc.) but many who were not (unskilled, unemployed, receivers of benefits etc.) This latter group fuelled a feeling of resentment among much of the UK population, encouraged by Farage’s gratuitous comments about hearing foreign languages being spoken on trains being unpleasant.

Unfortunately successive UK governments (in particular Labour ones) had until recently stuck to an ideological belief system that refused to recognise that immigration could ever be a problem and actively encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to come into the country without regard to their skills, their ability to seek work, or even their ability to speak the language. Discussion of any social problems was deemed to be “racist” and was shut down before it could gain traction.

In my opinion, the UK government should have had the courage to stand up to the EU and take whatever measures were necessary in the national interest. (Other countries seemed to have no qualms about bending the rules in the national interest.) I believe the EU would have huffed and puffed and even tried legal action, but it wouldn’t have mattered. They would have caved in to our demands in the interest of maintaining the EU as an ongoing entity.

But no, UKIP were stirring up hatred for the EU, Nigel Farage was insulting people right, left and centre in the European Parliament, and they were putting the wind up the Conservatives, especially when at the last elections for the European Parliament they managed to send a large contingent of UKIP MEPs to Brussels.

David Cameron

And so, David Cameron embarked upon an ill-fated referendum which he was convinced he was going to win, i.e., the British public would vote to remain in the EU. Indeed he was stupid enough to give the Civil Service specific instructions not to prepare a “Plan B”!

The downright lies and pure fantasy that rained down upon us from both the Remain and Leave campaigns swamped anything resembling truly informative dialogue and we were standing up to our knees in stinking controversy. Both sides were taking us all for fools. None of them wanted to ‘confuse us with the facts’.

We had a binary choice, IN or OUT. The appeal to naked nationalism by UKIP and the renegade Tories known as “Brexiteers” had more effect than any positive arguments in favour of European co-operation, free trade, and partnership, and the country voted NO to the EU. But .. only just, and the closeness of the vote meant that bad feeling from one half of the population against the other was rife, and even families were divided (mine included). Paradoxically, whilst I voted to remain in the EU I would have been much happier if the vote to leave had been overwhelming and beyond argument. 52% / 48% is not a good place to be.

Theresa May

David Cameron resigned (he had little other option) and the Tories appointed Theresa May as their new Leader, and hence, Prime Minister. She (a closet “Remainer” we were led to believe) is now left with the unenviable task of taking us out of Europe, for which Cameron had made no contingency plans!

Hate Crimes

The worst aspect of the EU referendum campaign and its result was the subsequent manifestation of something in the British character that, frankly, some of us would prefer to deny exists, namely hate and intolerance. I suppose there has always been plenty of that around but the unwritten rules of society managed to keep it well under wraps until the Internet, and Social Media, provided a ready outlet for sociopaths, racists, anti-semites and various other varieties of swamp life.

The late Jo Cox

In the weeks and months following the referendum there were hundreds of incidents of immigrants being abused. Of course many were not actually immigrants, having been born in this country, but – hey! – if you’ve got a brown or black face and speak with an unusual accent, then you’re an immigrant. At the milder end of the hate spectrum one idiot walked into a Polish food shop and told the owner to “Go home! We’re out of the EU now and you’re not wanted.” At the disgustingly extreme end of the hate spectrum, a widely loved and respected (pro-EU) Labour MP, Jo Cox, was shot and stabbed right outside her constituency office by a man shouting “Britain first!” Jo Cox was murdered in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, and her killer just walked off down the road as if nothing unusual had occurred. It didn’t take the Police long to collar him, and I’m pleased to say that he is now behind bars for life, (and in this instance, life means life).

What have we become? It is totally insane.

Party Fortunes

The Labour Party

Ed Miliband

Nick Clegg

Meanwhile, something else very interesting was happening. In the previous year's General Election the voters kicked out the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, leaving us with a Conservative majority government. The Labour Party performed miserably. This resulted in the resignation of both David Miliband as Labour Leader, and Nick Clegg as Liberal Democrat Leader.

Jeremy Corbyn

The Labour Party MPs put forward four just-about-plausible leadership candidates that one might describe as being on the centre-left or social democratic area of the political spectrum, and then some wag suggested Jeremy Corbyn should be nominated to balance the field. Everyone thought he would be a joke candidate because he was so far “left” that he was nearly falling over the cliff, (or - using my preferred circular analogy – whizzing round that circle towards the totalitarian point) but surprise, surprise, he amassed a huge following amongst thousands of young Socialist, Communist, Trotskyist, and Marxist activists who were signing up as Members of the Labour Party like there was no tomorrow, for the express purpose of voting in the leadership election. Jeremy Corbyn (a decent enough man, it has to be said) was a master of street campaigning and political rallies, and his support grew to such a point that, come the leadership election, he won it by a landslide; and so a man who had devoted about 30 years of his life in Parliament railing against his own Party (even when they were in government) now found himself leading it!

The result was that most of the Parliamentary Party vowed not to work with him, whilst in contrast the support of the Party membership outside of Parliament were placing him on a huge pedestal that might as well have had a brass plaque attached with the somewhat appropriate initials .. JC.

By the time we had entered the insane year of 2016 JC was being subjected to parliamentary pressure to resign, and a couple of Labour MPs challenged him to another leadership contest. Again this meant another vote by the Party Membership outside Parliament, and again the membership defied the Parliamentary Labour Party and elected him for a second time. Even the Labour Party in Parliament was not stupid enough to resist him again. Most of the “big beasts” disappeared from the Shadow Cabinet and were replaced by people nobody had ever heard of. Tony Blair’s social democratic “New Labour” had reverted to pure socialism.

The Liberal Democrats

This Party, which has honourable social reforming roots going back to William Gladstone and David Lloyd-George, had been reduced to 6 MPs at the end of World War II, (when Labour won a landslide victory) and it then spent the rest of the 20^th century and the early part of this century slowly building up its popularity again, to the point where it could boast more than 60 MPs. This put them in a powerful position when, at the 2010 General Election, no single Party got sufficient votes to form a government with a working majority. The outgoing Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown made half-hearted attempts to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats but the arithmetic didn’t really add up. On the other hand if the Conservatives could form such a coalition the figures would add up. And so the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government came into being in 2010. We were in middle of a major financial crisis and some kind of stable government was urgently required.

The Coalition achieved some notable successes, namely bringing back the nation’s finances under control, increasing cash for education, increasing nursery places for pre-school children and assistance for mothers, and most significantly raising the personal tax allowance which helped the middle and low earners.

The Liberal Democrats were a driving force behind many of the reforms of that Coalition, but their leader Nick Clegg had made one huge mistake leading up to the 2010 General Election: he had campaigned vociferously against University tuition fees and vowed to abolish them. No doubt he didn’t expect to be in government when he made that commitment, but on that basis he garnered a huge following. So, when in government his commitment was swallowed by the inevitable gaping hole of coalition compromises, and tuition fees were increased rather than abolished, the Liberal Democrats credibility and popularity stalled and plummeted to earth in an uncontrollable spin.

Consequently the 2015 General Election saw their MPs reduced to a miserable EIGHT. They were almost back to 1945! Their place as a Third Party force to be reckoned with was taken over by about 50 Scottish Nationalists MPs (who, by the way, virtually wiped out the Scottish Labour Party).

Tim Farron

Norman Lamb

The Liberal Democrats also had to elect a new Leader and had the choice of Norman Lamb and Tim Farron. Continuing my penchant for always voting for the losing side, I voted for Normal Lamb and got Tim Farron! Tim Farron is a decent guy, and has one advantage over the Conservative and Labour Leaders .. he has genuine “working class” roots. But I cannot in all honestly describe the Leader of the Party I support as a “political heavyweight”. Norman Lamb, in contrast, is more mature and experienced, and served as a respected Health Minister in the Coalition Government, gaining a good reputation for fighting the corner of those challenged by mental illness. So .. voted for Leader Lamb, got Tiny Tim. I live with it; it’s democracy.

The Conservative Party

There is very little to add about the Party now in government, except to say that they are now faced with delivering the “Brexit” that Britain voted for, using a plan that is either non-existent, or if it does exist is not being shared with the rest of us.

(I say “Britain”, but interestingly most of Scotland voted to remain, thus providing even more opportunity for constitutional crisis. Paradoxically, although Scotland had voted to remain part of the UK a couple of years ago, the Nationalists who had complained about being ruled by a distant London are apparently content to be ruled by an even more distant Brussels!)

UKIP

In 2015, this Party, under Farage’s dynamic leadership, started sucking up millions of votes (many of them from Labour strongholds) but because of the injustices of Britain’s “first past the post” system, the votes, being spread around many constituencies up and down the land, only one MP was elected. They did much better at the European Parliament elections because they are run on a proportional representation system.

Although they produced a manifesto for government, their over-arching reason for existence was to get Britain out of the EU, and in this they succeeded. Ever since the referendum people have been understandably asking, “What is UKIP for now?”

Paul Nuttall

The Party descended into a period of infighting and navel gazing, not to mention an outbreak of Tweets between members and officials, the resignation of Nigel Farage (“I want my life back”), a leadership contender who failed to get his papers submitted in time, a fist fight between him and another UKIP Member of the European Parliament, a new leader (Diane James) who completed just 18 days of service before resigning, resulting in a third leadership election in which Paul Nuttall became Leader. He said the Party had become a jig-saw puzzle that had been tipped on to the floor. Under his leadership the UKIP jig-saw would be put back together.

Meanwhile, in the USA ...

As President Barak Obama (Democrat) limped towards the end of his second term, no doubt exhausted by continual criticism and sometimes racist abuse by Republicans about his inability to achieve anything. This was high hypocrisy since the Republican Party had control of both Houses of Congress and thus went out of its way to block anything the President tried to do.

Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton

With Presidential elections coming up in November of 2016, the Republicans and Democrats went about the usual process of selecting their candidate through Primary Elections. The Republicans put a ridiculously high number of candidates forward (most of them carrying little weight), one of which was Donald Trump an egocentric billionaire businessman and TV reality star, regarded by many as a joke candidate. Meanwhile the Democrats settled on only two candidates, one of which was Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders who .. wait for it .. described himself as a Socialist !

Bernie Sanders

I’d always thought the term “American Socialist” was an oxymoron, but I was wrong. Bernie Sanders started accumulating mass support, similar in some ways to what Jeremy Corbyn had done in the UK. Nevertheless, it was not enough to stop Hillary Clinton being adopted as Candidate for President. She was a flawed candidate, not only representing the East Coast/West Coast liberal establishment, but also mired in controversy over the use of a private email server, allegedly putting national security at risk. The Republicans, against all odds, also settled on a flawed candidate, i.e., Donald Trump, who set about insulting and abusing women, the disabled, Mexicans, Muslims, and of course Hillary Clinton (“Crooked Hillary”. “Lock her up.” ) At one rally he also encouraged his supporters to deal with a protester by punching him in the face.

Trump’s businesses were many and varied, as were his bankruptcies, debts and tax evasion schemes. During the campaign a video recording was unearthed in which we watched and heard him boasting to a TV producer that he could grope women in the genital area and get away with it. I think his actual words were “Grab them by the Pussy”. Future presidential material??

Considering the huge size and population of the USA it was somewhat surprising to those of us living on this side of the pond that these two people were the best they could come up with to be leader of the “free world”.

Against all odds Trump actually became President-Elect, and just as the “Brexit” phenomenon in Britain produced all sorts of swamp life, a lot of Americans started getting nasty and abusive with immigrants. Trump claimed he stood for the forgotten unemployed, and the working poor, neglecting to mention that he himself (living in gilded opulence) was a product of, and a beneficiary of the Corporate world of global capitalism that was mainly responsible for the existence of those forgotten poor in the first place.

Having spent the entire campaign that was calculated to cause serious divisions throughout American society, on finally becoming President-Elect, Trump announced, in all seriousness, that he intended to unite the country.

They sucked it all up, and yelled “Make America Great Again”. (By the way, when did America stop being “great”, and what is meant by “great”? Nobody seems to know.)

Self-appointed champions of Blue-collar Workers

He found common cause with our own Nigel Farage, who spoke at a couple of Trump’s rallies. What a jolly picture they made standing together in Trump Tower, two egomaniacs. Trump is going to make America great again, and UKIP’s new leader Paul Nuttall said in his victory speech that he was going to put the “Great” back into Britain again.

All great populist stuff, but totally insane (and dangerous).

Worse still, similar stuff has been stirring in Europe, with far-right Parties in the ascendant in Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy – all exacerbated by waves of Middle Eastern and North African immigrants fleeing civil wars and/or religious persecution, seeking refuge in a Europe starting to collapse under the weight of alien social customs and consequent widespread resentment.

All deeply troubling.

I’m at the fag-end of my life, and I could perhaps say I don’t give a flying f*ck, but I worry about the future my grandson will inherit. So should you.

If this isn’t the time for Liberals to stand up for liberal values, democracy and human decency, I don’t know when is!

©Lionel Beck - 2016

The Results are the Results. Get over it.

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 09:54:00 +0000

By the simple standards of normal democracy, Hillary Clinton won the 2016 Presidential Election (but only just!). But she lost it.

But America (like Britain) doesn't operate by those simple standards. Clinton won the national popular vote, and one would think that this would decide who becomes the national President. But it didn't, because the result of the popular vote in each individual State was translated into a certain number of Electoral College Votes by a formula designed to make some States' votes more powerful than others, according to the population number in each State. And it is the Electoral College votes that decide the winner. (At least, that is how I .. as a foreigner .. understand the system. No doubt some friendly American will correct me if I'm wrong).

Similarly (though not exactly the same) in Britain, electing one MP from a long list of candidates by the "First past the post" system almost guarantees that the winner does not command an overall majority.

So, the results are in, and the result is President-elect Trump. There is absolutely no point in all these anti-Trump demonstrations currently going on in America, with people holding placards saying "Trump is not my President". I'm sorry, but yes he is! The result is the result and you have to live with it. Get over it. That's democracy according to the American system. You should have had demonstrations long before this, campaigning for a different voting system.

Similarly in Britain, it is no use complaining about the results of a General Election that gives you a so-called majority government because one Party returned more MPs than another Party, and most of those MPs didn't actually represent a clear majority in each constituency. For most of my life I have belonged to a Party that espouses the cause of Proportional Representation. Meanwhile, I am obliged to accept the results of an electoral system with which I disagree.

The Trump phenomenon has been compared to the recent "Brexit" phenomenon where there appears to have been a general popular uprising against the status quo, concern over jobs, prejudice and fear over immigration figures, and a dislike of the "ruling elite". I voted to remain in the European Union, as did nearly half the population, but slightly more than half voted the other way. This saddened me, but I have no option but to accept the result with good grace and hope that we can all get on with making the new reality work. Of course, there was no issue here on the democratic process, because it was a national vote on a simple binary choice, IN or OUT. The issue itself was far more complex, but the electoral system itself was straightforward.

In conclusion, then, I am saying that Americans (and the British, and the rest of the world) have to accept the reality of a Trump Presidency, and make the best of it. The system that brought it about, i.e., a strange voting system, cash-rich candidates, and unlimited expenditure on negative TV advertising, is another fight for another day.

Two Women & One Man in a Boat.

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:11:00 +0000

I was the one man in a 70’ long Narrowboat, with my wife and an American lady Marcia with whom we had been friends for some years. On 2nd August 2016 we set out on a short break on the Llangollen (Pronounced THLAN-GOTH-LEN) Canal in the aforesaid boat. You may ask why we had such a stupidly long boat for just three people: fair question. There were going to be two others, but they decided to drop out. Still, it did mean we had plenty of room!

The phrase “plenty of room” has to be taken in the context of a typical canal narrowboat only 6’ wide. So we had plenty of room in a kind of stretched out sort of way. My wife and I were veteran narrow-boaters of many years standing (and floating) so all this extra space was a bit of a luxury. On the other hand, Marcia had to learn what I call the “Narrow Boat Walk”, something quickly learned whilst walking through the boat’s interior from stern to bow, especially if in a hurry.

The technique is to turn the body slightly sideways, so that one shoulder faces the direction in which you are moving and the other shoulder points to where you’ve been, and with your head turned to look where you are going, off you go! This way you avoid smashing your hands and arms against bits of wood, towel rails, radiators and so on.

We had intended to spend Monday to Friday on the boat, but thanks to an inconsiderate burst of bad weather on the far side of the Atlantic, our friend’s series of flights being delayed, missed, and generally messed up, with the added bonus of luggage disappearance courtesy of Air Lingus she arrived a day late, minus her possessions and in dire need of an emergency clothes shopping expedition. So we took over the boat on the Tuesday, meaning our Short Break was now a Miniature Break, but we made the best of it.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men oft gang awry” and this particular mouse did a spot of re-programming of our cruise.

We took over the Black Prince narrowboat “Evie” at Chirk Marina at about 1 o’clock Tuesday afternoon, and a very nice man showed us over the craft and its facilities. After he had explained fifty different ways we might die, (gas explosions, suffocation, falling into locks, being crushed by 20 tons of steel hull, getting the stern of the boat caught on the sill of a lock whilst emptying, leaving the weed hatch open, and so on) I started the engine, took hold of the tiller and we were on our way at a stately 4 mph, secure in the one piece of cheerful knowledge that (excepting locks) if someone fell into the canal, all he or she had to do was stand up, looking slightly ridiculous.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cruising south, in the direction of Ellesmere. The first bit of excitement was encountering the Chirk Tunnel (459 yds long), followed by the Chirk Aqueduct over the river Ceiriog, which ran parallel to the adjacent Chirk Railway viaduct.

When we reached New Marton Locks there was a long queue to get through, so we spent about an hour standing on the towpath, holding on to the centre line, and gradually nudging the boat along towards the lock as each boat in front of us entered the lock, in turn allowing boats coming in the opposite direction also to get through the lock.

At last it was our turn. There were so many people milling around that we got off very lightly in terms of physical labour winding paddles and pushing gate beams, as plenty were volunteering to do most of that. My job was basically getting the boat lined up and aiming for a space only a few inches wider than the boat. The words cork and bottle spring to mind. We descended, left the lock and headed for the queue at the next lock.

By the time we had passed through New Marton Locks it was clear that we would have to abandon any thoughts of reaching Ellesmere, and settled instead for mooring outside the Jack Mytton Inn at Hindford. This would be both our overnight mooring place and our place to get an evening meal. The name of the pub derives from an eccentric 19^th century squire known locally as “Mad Jack”. The pub restaurant was pleasant, most of our food was good, some bad, and the service was abysmally slow. My good lady complained about her fish being tough, and for this she was provided with the most expensive dessert free of charge. The other two meals were quite acceptable. Later we settled down for our first night’s sleep on board. When we woke up the next morning we hadn’t sunk, so all was good.

Wednesday

My intention now was to cruise back to where we’d started, and then beyond, continuing to Llangollen by late afternoon. There was one small problem: we could have turned around at Ellesmere, but we didn’t have time to get there. However, according to our canal handbook there was a 70’ turning point about two miles further on from Hindford. (These turning points are known as winding points .. as in “wind”, because in the days of horse-drawn narrowboats, they were turned into the bank on the widened section, and in theory the wind did the rest. Of course that assumes there was a wind in the first place, and blowing in the right direction!)

Sure enough, after a couple of miles we found a point where the canal had been widened into a kind of V shape on one side and I duly pointed our bow into the V and swung the tiller right over. It was at this point that I realised the handbook’s use of the term 70’ was a touch optimistic! It may have been a 70’ turning point at some time or other, but because of silting and vegetation growth, it was now more accurately described as a point at which one could completely block the canal with a narrowboat straddled across it. With the nose hard in I only had about one inch between the stern and the canal bank behind me. The propeller was turning this part of the canal into a frothing brown gravy as I tried to get the stern swinging round. I walked up to the sharp end armed with the boat’s pole, found our American friend sitting there enjoying life in general, and narrowly avoided decapitating her with my pole as I swung it into use against the unyielding bank. I managed to manoeuvre the bow a few inches to the left, finding a bit of extra wiggle room. I returned to the stern, swung the tiller again with the engine screaming on full throttle and the stern slowly began to move towards the centre of the canal, at which point I could reverse out of the V and resume our journey in the opposite direction.

By the time we had reached New Marton Locks again (this time we were going “uphill”) the queues were shorter. There was a hell of a wind blowing and as soon as I brought the boat into the side to disembark it was blown out again. Eventually the ladies managed to jump off, grab the ropes and hold the boat into the side against the raging wind. Anyway, that was their workout for the day!

We went through the tunnel again, cruised past Chirk Marina and onwards through the Whitehouses Tunnel (191 yards) then on to Froncysyllte. (Welsh names are difficult to get your mouth round, suffering from a surfeit of consonants and vowels that have no resemblance to English. Why would they? They’re Welsh. This one is pronounced Fron-ker-sulth-tee.)

It was now lunch time, and having negotiated our first lift-bridge, our plan was to moor for lunch at the Aqueduct Inn, until we discovered it was looking down on us from the top of a steep hill. As the combined age of me and my crew added up to a rather large number and one of us had creaky knees, we chickened out and had a snack on board our boat.

Setting off again mid-afternoon our next exciting experience lay just around the next bend .. the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. (Pronounced Pont-ker-sulth-tee) This is an 18^th century testament to the imagination and expertise of Thomas Telford and associates: faced with the problem of a steep-sided valley and the river Dee, their solution was to “fly” across the top of it using a cast-iron trough, just over 6’ wide, supported by stone piers just shy of 130’ in height. Completed in 1805, it’s just under ¼ mile long, the longest, highest aqueduct in the UK, a Grade I Listed Building and World Heritage Site.

Those of a nervous disposition retreat into their cabins, but if the man on the tiller feels that way he needs to look firmly ahead, because if he looks down on the side where there is no walkway, all he sees is a 2-inch wide trough edge and then .. empty space.

We had to wait about half an hour to get on to the aqueduct because of the volume of craft coming the other way. As you can see from the picture it is clearly a one-way working operation! Because of the difficulty in seeing what is happening at the far end of the aqueduct, as each narrowboat came off the aqueduct we had to ask, “How many boats behind you.” The response, “About eight” seemed to be the recurring answer for some considerable time!

We eventually got on and enjoyed (I think) the exhilarating experience before reaching a place called Trevor on the other side, at which point it's necessary to make a right-angled left-turn and pass under a bridge right on the corner. I should explain that canal bridge “holes” are only just wider than the boat, because most of them accommodate the towpath as well for the benefit of the horses pulling the original commercial boats. So each bridge is a choke point. Combine that with a sharp bend and a 70’ long boat that clearly doesn’t bend, then you have a somewhat challenging mix of circumstances! Some discreet bumping along the way is unavoidable, and one is grateful for the strong steel hulls of these boats.

From this point onwards the scenery became even more beautiful as we gently glided on towards Llangollen (the end of the canal .. or the start, depending on your point of view). The increasing impact of the scenery was matched by increasing challenges in the shape of two long stretches of narrow channels requiring one-way working (as with the aqueduct).

The Captain’s wife volunteered to walk ahead to check for oncoming craft, and depending upon how far we had travelled, would then either give us an appropriate signal or persuade some other hapless soul coming the other way to back up. The system worked well, and by tea time were inching our way into Llangollen, and the relatively wide open space of the Llangollen Marina (where we would be charge £6 for an overnight stay).

The beauty of man-made canals is that they defy normal expectations; one example is the ability to go up and down hill (and even through hills) whilst on water. Another is being on water and viewing a town that is below you rather than beside or above you.

Our revised plan was working out well, and we had arrived in Llangollen on the intended day and at the right time.

We would spend Wednesday night moored in the marina, then spend Thursday morning browsing around the town, and taking a trip on the Llangollen Steam Railway in the afternoon.

A word about communications: the boatyard had naturally given us a phone number to call in the event of an emergency or problem with the boat. This was fine, but for the fact that for almost the entire trip, we were unable to get a mobile phone signal.

At the one point I managed to get a signal we did get some good news .. a text from Aer Lingus that the missing baggage had been found and despatched to my house.

After we had moored in the marina I volunteered to take the 12-minute walk into town (via a steep hill) to check out the restaurants for our evening meal. I found a nice looking Italian café bar (Fouzi’s) and asked if I’d need to make a reservation. They said I should, but I couldn’t make one there and then without reporting back to the ladies on what I had found. I couldn’t phone them, so had to walk back to the boat. They agreed to my choice, but of course I couldn’t phone the café bar so had to walk back to it again to make the reservation in person, after which I walked back to the boat again to freshen up for dinner. By the time we were ready to walk into town I felt able to do it with my eyes closed. Still, with the steep hill, it was all good exercise! (And the café bar didn’t disappoint. I’d recommend it.)

Thursday

We walked around Llangollen in the morning peering into many shops, and our American friend was able to buy a selection of gifts to take home. Then it was back to the boat for a midday snack.

Thursday afternoon saw two of us returning to town for a trip on the Llangollen heritage railway for a delightful ride through the spectacular scenery of the Dee valley. Half-way through the return journey we had a pleasant refreshment stop at Carrog Station where we sat in the sunshine at picnic tables on the platform drinking coffee and eating delicious sponge cake.

At about 4.30 pm we said goodbye to Llangollen Marina and began our journey back, encountering no difficulties on the two one-way working sections and getting straight on to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, through the lift bridge (keep on turning, girls!) to find an idyllic mooring spot for our final night on the canal.

We had a meal of Lasagne & chips on the boat and we sat on our folding chairs at the side of the canal basking in the early evening sunshine, drinking wine.

This was the point at which I told Marcia I did believe in Heaven, and this was it!

Behind our boat there was another similar craft moored up, and the occupants were trying to start a barbecue. The ensuing smoke and the rays of sunshine through the trees conjured up the ideal atmospheric photo opportunity, so I got the camera to work.

Friday

We were up with the birds to make an early move (without breakfast) in the direction of Chirk, back through Chirk Tunnel, reaching the Marina at about 8.30 am.

The man who had told us how not to die was there on the canal side waiting for us so he could jump on board and help us get the boat through the somewhat difficult entrance to the marina.

We were looking forward to breakfast in the Boat House Restaurant behind the Marina which was advertised in the boat’s handbook as offering food all day, including breakfasts.

Which was why, of course, we were told on our return that the Boat House Restaurant didn’t open for breakfast!! The marina guys were duly embarrassed and I suggested they consider the simple solution of removing the advert from their handbook! But they did, however, recommend a “greasy spoon” about a mile down the road, so that’s where we went .. the Limekiln Café at which we got a substantial breakfast in decent surroundings for an insubstantial amount of money, so we were satisfied.

Then it was back to the motorways and 70 mph instead of 4 mph. I think I preferred the latter!

Notes

The UK canal network totals about 2,000 miles. They date back to 1750 and were the answer to moving large tonnages of commercial goods around the country for which the roads were totally unsuitable. It wasn’t long before the railways came along, and so the canals’ profitability was relatively short-lived, and indeed many were bought up by the new railway companies for the express purpose of allowing them to run down to the benefit of the railways. Thanks to a bunch of enthusiasts in the mid-20^th century most of the network became fully restored as a valuable contribution to the leisure industry.

(This is from a BBC website) .. Llangollen Canal - formerly called Ellesmere Canal - was first mooted in 1791 at a public meeting in Ellesmere on the Wrexham-Shropshire border to plan a canal linking three rivers: the Mersey, the Dee and the Severn - helping industry and linking into the Denbighshire coalfields.

A year later work started on its meandering route starting west from Nantwich, Cheshire, to Whitchurch and Ellesmere in Shropshire, and ending in Cefn Mawr and Llangollen, on the Wrexham-Denbighshire border.

It made it no further. The planned route through the Denbighshire coalfield, past Wrexham and on to Chester, was too expensive.

In 1801 William Jessop the canal engineer recommended abandoning the canal. Chester and Shrewsbury had found cheaper, closer supplies than Denbighshire coal. Jessop, instead, focused on developing a tramway system to connect local industry to the canal basin at Trevor, Wrexham.

Despite the failure to build the canal to Chester, the completion of the now famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct by Thomas Telford, an agent to the canal company, proved to be a major success for the local economy. Industries in the Ceiriog Valley used the Glyn Valley Tramway to carry freight to the canal.

"BREXIT" - Forward to the Past!!

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 07:02:00 +0000

The "Brexiteer" desire to leave the EU is a largely ENGLISH phenomenon, not shared by Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The glory days to which they aspire to return were BRITISH glory days, not ENGLISH glory days. But were they glory days? After we had defeated NAZI Germany which, as I recall, we didn't do alone, we became the "Sick Man of Europe". And the British Empire? That ended well, didn't it?! Now we are apparently the fifth largest economy in the world (and we achieved that as part of the EU).

When (if) we leave the EU, it's likely that Scotland will want to break away, and how long before Wales wants to follow suit? And across the Irish Sea, we will have once again returned to a controlled border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, reversing a major feature of the Northern Ireland Peace Process.

Then, when major international companies have removed themselves, or no longer wish to set up shop here, you'll be so proud of your new pathetic little country, won't you?! And how glad you will be that it is now ruled by a realigned hard-right Conservative government under new management who will still have another four years to ruin the NHS, exploit working people, whilst pretending that ENGLAND on its own has huge influence, before you can wake up and think about getting rid of them (that in itself not being in any way guaranteed).

"But", say the Brexiteers, "At least you can throw out your own politicians if you don't like them". Ah, yes .. under a system by which the Government of the day is normally supported by about one third of the voters.

"But", say the Brexiteers, "We can trade with the rest of the world." Well, I'm sorry, but I had the distinct impression we did that anyway. Half the stuff in my house is Chinese for God's sake! And if I shop in Marks & Spencers for underwear or Christmas presents I find they are made in Egypt or India. We drive Fords and Chevrolets and Hyundais and Kias. Some of us stuff our faces with Swiss chocolate, and if I'm eating more healthily I'm eating vegetables from Kenya.

This whole Referendum thing is in itself alien to the way we govern ourselves anyway. The Prime Minister was running scared of UKIP and that nice Mr Farage, and so promised us we would be allowed to decide for ourselves this matter of great national importance. I thought that is what we elected our Government to do, backed by a professional Civil Service. Why don't we extend it to other importance stuff? How many aircraft carriers should we have? Oh, I don't know, I'll have a word with my hairdresser; he'll know. Should we allow unqualified teachers in our schools? Oh, I don't know, let's have a word with those guys hurling bricks at the French Police; they'll have an idea. And what should be our policy on the fishing industry? Oh, I don't know, but there's a guy down the pub who failed all his GCSEs, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the science of sustainable fish stocks.

But since we do have this Referendum, there are only a few days left for Brexiteers with suicidal thoughts to use their heads instead of their gut feelings, and step back from the edge of the cliff.

The EU is deeply flawed in many respects, but we should be in there, leading from the front, making things better. I'm proud of my country, and I want it to have influence, both outside of the EU and within the EU.

PAIN

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 16:43:00 +0000

Note: I wrote this a few years ago, but this is the first time it has been released into “Cyberspace”. I don’t think the passage of time has reduced its relevance.

You know how women are prone to the opinion that men have no idea what pain is because they have never experienced labour and childbirth?

My aim here is to dispel that notion.

According to American medical sources, 80% of kidney stone sufferers are men between the age of 20 and 50. I can confidently tell you, from personal experience, that the pain caused by the passage of kidney stones (crystals) is one of the most excruciating, and this is widely acknowledged.

One Christmas, during the early 1970s, I was suddenly doubled up with a kind of pain I had never before experienced. I am resisting the temptation to say it was indescribable because here I am actually trying to describe it. What about a well-aimed kick with a steel toe-capped boot to the testicles? Yes, I think that does it, and worse still the kicking doesn’t stop, with the pain spreading
across the lower abdomen.

After about an hour of this I was reduced to a whimpering wreck begging for a doctor. This was the day after Christmas - Boxing Day - a public holiday. We were in London at the time, staying with my wife’s mother. She rang the number for her GP’s surgery, and within half an hour I was being visited by an on-call doctor (for which I was both grateful and impressed in equal measure).

It didn’t take him long to conclude that I had stones or “gravel” in my urinary tract and dosed me with pethidine, soon after which I sailed away to another planet somewhere. On my return to semi-consciousness (and the bathroom) I found myself passing a fine collection of little jagged particles. The relief of being free from that pain was unbelievable, almost orgasmic.

On our return to our Yorkshire home I went to see my own GP who organised an immediate x-ray at Scarborough Hospital. There I was laid on an x-ray trolley, injected with a red dye, and strapped down so tightly that I could hardly breathe. The nurse was called away for something and I was stuck there, gasping for breath for what seemed an eternity. In the end I called out to a passing maintenance man to get help, soon after which an apologetic radiographer appeared and got the overhead gear working for my special portrait. At the end of the session it was established that my personal plumbing was now clear of obstructions.

But a few weeks later the pain returned. It was as bad, but less scary because I recognised it for what it was. I still had a few pethidine left and self-administered the correct dose and enjoyed another inter-galactic round trip, followed by a visit to the bathroom with predictable results. A second x-ray (this time without the torture session beforehand) established I was clear again. After that I made a conscious effort to increase my fluids intake and was not troubled again.

And so my message to those women who regale us about the pain of labour and childbirth is this: at least for your pain you get a living, breathing bundle of joy at the end of it.

All I got was a little pile of grit!

I'm Starting a New Religion

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 13:35:00 +0000

Let me run a few ideas past you. Why don’t I start a new Religion? How easy would it be? Would it help if I grew a beard and looked a bit more imposing? OK – I’ve grown the beard. Now I’ve got to tell you about the dream I had the other night when I was visited by an Angel who declared himself to be a messenger; from God, no less. I bet you’ve never been visited by an Angel, so listen up!

He told me that I was to be the Apostle of God and he would be passing me messages about how we should all be running our lives. Right, now you are listening, aren’t you?! I mean, that’s impressive that I’m receiving messages from God the Creator. There can be little doubt that you are going to be believe me and start listening to what I have to say.

Apparently I don’t have to write any of these messages down; I can dictate them to someone else, and they can be passed by word of mouth from one generation to another, but it would be preferable if they could be finalised by not later than, say, 2321 or thereabouts, by which time a number of people will have had the time to expound some ideas on how they should be interpreted, after which the messages (and interpretations and traditions associated with them) will be committed to digital media, and accepted as the final Word of God for all eternity.

That sounds OK doesn’t it?

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that I have a penchant for small girls and I intend to see to it that some of God’s messages make it clear that this is acceptable, even to the extent of marrying one and having sexual intercourse with her. I’m sure this is something you can quickly skate over in order to appreciate the greater good in everything else I have to say. In fact, to make it easier for those of you who are men, I’m giving you permission to have up to four wives, provided you accept that I can have as many as I want (because God said I can). Moreover, you’ll be effectively in complete charge of your wives, and if they misbehave, please feel free to beat them.

This seems a good time to mention that women, generally, are inferior to men, and in case of any disputes or wrongdoing, a woman’s word is worth only half that of a man.

In the unlikely event, gentlemen, that you are still feeling sexually frustrated, you have special dispensation to have sex with female slaves, or the wives of other nationalities you fight and conquer. I’m sorry, I had forgotten to mention that it’s OK to own slaves, and on the question of going to war against other people I’d also forgotten to mention that this is a useful way of ensuring that everyone else in the world accepts everything I’m being told by God.

I’m sorry this sounds a bit dictatorial, but I also insist that if you speak not only against God, but against me as the receiver of His messages, this is Blasphemy in either or both cases.

Some of you may be wondering about rape, but this shouldn’t worry you unduly (unless you are a woman) since God gives you permission to insist on sexual relations with your wife (or wives) so, inside marriage, rape doesn’t really exist, does it? If she refuses you, she can consider herself cursed.

This isn’t to say that rape doesn’t exist outside marriage, because really you men are only entitled to sexual intercourse with however many wives you have, your female slaves, and the wives of those you conquer. Outside of those categories, however, you are in trouble, though not as much as might at first be thought since the woman’s accusatory words are only half the worth of your own words; so – enjoy!

One of God’s messages to me made it clear that there can be no compulsion in the acceptance of this Religion I’m giving you, and I expect that in the future a lot of people of other Faiths who achieve political power will feel obliged to keep on repeating that the Religion I’m giving you is a “Religion of Peace”, and it is a good idea for you to let them go on believing that. The thing is, some of those politicians will have neglected to read a message that appears much later on in the Series that states clearly you should fight all the unbelievers until or unless they accept the truths that I’m giving you.

As everyone knows, you should always obey the latest commandment, even if it contradicts an earlier one. This is called the Law of Abrogation.

I think it would help you in your compulsory duty to spread the word by force, to think of these unbelievers as pigs, dogs and apes. However, it’s OK to appear friendly towards them before you slaughter them, since much of war (and this is a holy war) is all about lies and deceit.

Finally I would instruct you to pray five times a day, making sure you wash yourselves first especially (you men) if you have been in contact with a woman (who is by definition unclean, especially during her menses). I admit these praying instructions don’t actually appear in the messages given to me by God, but it’s generally a good idea, don’t you think? So do it, but make sure you do not look upwards as you pray if you don’t want your eyes to pop out.

All earlier laws and scriptures handed down to other Faiths are hereby declared false, redundant or both.

- oOo –

APOLOGY: Soon after I wrote this, I was visited by another angel who whispered in my ear that my ideas are not new, and they had already been implemented about one and half thousand years ago.

Ah well, back to the drawing board.

21st Century Terminology in 20th Century Terms

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 17:19:00 +0000

Android			Mr Droid's wife
Apple			One a day keeps the doctor away
Apple Mackintosh			A raincoat with fruit in the pockets
Browser			Person having a look around
CapsLock			Strap securing headgear in windy weather
Cell Phone			Prison telephone
Chrome Browser			Hard person having a look around
Dashlane			Outside lane of a motorway or expressway
Encrypt			In the space underneath the church
Facebook			Optimum position for reading
Firefox Browser			Red-hot predator having a look around the hen house
Floppy			Male sexual malfunction
Font			See Username
Gay			Vivacious and jolly
Google			The number 1 followed by 100 zeros (Googol)
Hard drive			Uphill in a 1930s Austin 7
Home Key			Key to the front door
Instagram			Formerly known as a telegram
Internet			Location of a football when a goal is scored
Internet Explorer Browser			Someone looking for the football in the goal area
iOS			Isle of Sheppey
Messenger			The guy you shoot when you don't like the message
Microsoft Access			A miniature doorway with a padded frame
Microsoft Excel			Tiny example of being best but only by a whisper
Microsoft Word			A single-syllable word, spoken softly
Mobile Phone			Cell Phone that's been released from prison
Offline			Very windy washday
Online			Washday
OS			Ordance Survey
Paste			Gloopy stuff
PIN			Very small-diameter shaft with a point at one end
Snipping Tool			Scissors
Tweet			Small bird drawing attention to itself
Twitter			Communication between small birds
Username			Given next to the font in church during baptism
Wi-fi			A bit smelly
Windows			Something to let in the daylight
Windows Key			Device for locking a window
World Wide Web			Device for catching flies spun by an extraordinarily large spider
Yahoo			Rude & uncouth characters in Gulliver's Travels

Time for STRAIGHT Talking?

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 17:15:00 +0000

I hate intolerance and blind prejudice. I am therefore worried that what I am writing here might be construed as the ranting of an intolerant, prejudiced fascist. I appreciate that in these “politically correct” times I am tip-toeing around a mine field, and any minute now I might be the victim of an explosion of outrage from one of those people who like to regard different groups of people as potential victims.

I am a heterosexual male. There, I’ve said it! But Heterosexual is a long word for today’s level of education, and it’s deemed preferable to call me “Straight”. If I were homosexual, then I’d have to describe myself as “Gay” which, by the way, used to mean lively, animated, vivacious. To those who know me, therefore, I cannot be regarded as “Gay” in any sense of the word!

Depending upon which set of statistics you are happy to believe, and which country in the world you are looking at, I represent somewhere between 90% and 97% of humanity. So why is that I am beginning to feel like a minority under attack?

We are regularly bombarded by news items, editorials, blogs, and discussions concerning the so-called “LGBT Community” as if they are somehow a special breed of humanity requiring preservation and nurture, like some endangered species of animal.

Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgender people feature in television programs in proportions that far outweigh their actual number. I probably wouldn’t feel driven to even mentioning this but for the fact that they are sometimes thrust into our faces in the most graphical manner; the most recent manifestation of this was in a spy thriller called “London Spy” put out by the BBC recently, featuring two of the main male characters in a no-holds-barred nude scene of frenzied sexual activity, that added absolutely nothing to the story.

If I want to watch pornography (of any sexual persuasion) there are plenty of specialist Websites and subscription TV channels available to me or anyone else who wants to indulge.

I surely cannot be the only “straight male” who – on seeing two men engaged in a full-on kiss – has to say, “Pass the sick bucket”. It does make me cringe. Am I alone? Should I be pilloried? For reasons connected with my male sexuality, seeing two women in a similar situation doesn’t provoke exactly the same response, but it does provoke a feeling of discomfort and embarrassment, and of course it might then be my wife calling for the sick bucket! The reason for the difference in attitude is to do with mentally putting oneself in the position of one of the participants.

Having said all that, I need to assert that we are all human beings of equal worth. I really do not care if someone is gay¸ lesbian¸ trans-gender, bisexual, black, brown, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or atheist so long as they are decent people. What any of them get up to in their own homes, churches, mosques or synagogues is none of my business. All that it is necessary to know about someone is .. what is your real character? Are you good or are you evil? Do you intend to help me or do you intend to harm me?

I defend all these peoples’ right to exist.

You achieve great things (or fail to achieve them) according to your own abilities (or lack of them). There should be no special treatment (with the exception of those who are physically or mentally disabled). Recently there’s been much soul-searching on the failure of the film world to nominate black actors for the OSCARS. Why?

Why is there a Black Police Officers Association?

Why is there not a White Police Officers Association?

Why is there not an Association of Police Officers with Unreasonably Big Noses?

Why is there not an Association for Real Sexual Equality? (ARSE)

My 13-year old grandson was recently given some homework for so-called “Philosopy & Ethics” studies. The task was to design a children’s book, with an appropriate front cover illustration, explaining how to deal with homosexual partnerships, families with two fathers, families with two mothers, and so on. Why?

Would he not be better served by being taught the fundamentals of civilised human relationships without constantly banging on about the “LGBT Community”?

Would he not be better served by being required to learn multiplication tables? That would be a novelty, wouldn’t it!

Finally, returning to the subject of TV programs .. if we are going to get warnings before a program starts that there will be “some strong language” and “scenes of a sexual nature”, then in the spirit of placing everyone into labelled boxes, perhaps they could be more specific and say, “There will be scenes of a homosexual nature”. Then “straight” guys like me could reach for the Remote.

Lionel Beck

Male Heterosexual

Human Being

Humanist

Atheist

Liberal Democrat

Please donate generously in support of this endangered species. Thank you.

- oOo -

American Enigma

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 12:14:00 +0000

I have the pleasure of knowing a few Americans. Some I have met in person, others I've merely corresponded with via the Web.

I have visited Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Washington DC. The experiences were good, the people I met were kind, generous, and friendly.

So I'm not starting an anti-USA rant here, far from it; I'm raising a particular question to which I have no answer.

I'm also aware that my own country (UK) has many peculiarities, and many traits that are undesirable, for example (to mention a few) our tendency to regard ourselves as superior beings, an unwillingness to reform our democratic processes, a belief that something should never be changed because it's "served us well" for generations, our dislike of immigrants, and our inability or unwillingness to learn any language other than English. (Indeed a good many of us cannot even master our own language!)

What makes Americans so different from us is (1) Religion and (2) Guns.

Religion

In 2014, 71% of Americans regarded themselves as Christians. (Pew Research Centre)

In the UK 2011 Census only 59% of the UK population described them as Christians, but various surveys suggest that they are not actually practising it, with between only 7 to 10% being actively involved in the Church(es).

A YouGov poll this year found that nearly 30% of Brits either called themselves Atheists, Anostics or Humanists. The religious beliefs of political leaders in Britain are not considered a big deal. The previous Leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, and the previous leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg were publicly open about having no belief in God.

In the USA the contrast is stark: "In God we trust" is printed on the currency. It is usual for leading US politicians to end their speeches to public gatherings with, "God bless America". If a British Prime Minister ended a speech with "God bless Britain" it would be met either with puzzled silence or laugher (or a mixture of the two).

The pages of Facebook are littered with American postings exhorting people to put their trust in Jesus, accept the Lord, Praise the Lord, Amen, Amen, Amen, and people ask to be placed on Prayer Lists.

Guns

The USA is about 4% of the World's population but Americans own 42% of all the guns on the planet. So far this year there have been 45 school shootings in the USA. The number of gun deaths per million people is 106 in the USA and 7 in the UK. The right to bear arms is vociferously defended in the USA, and one of the most common and trite responses to criticism whenever there is another mass shooting is, "It's not the gun that kills - it's the man behind the gun".

The Enigma

And so my question that nobody has yet managed to answer for me is this : How do we reconcile the American love of guns with the American love of Jesus?

Are the gun lovers and the Jesus lovers the same people, or are they two distinct and separate groups? I'm suspecting there's a significant overlap, but I don't claim to know.

American Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Riverman) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 15:10:00 +0000

Well, it's taken only 13 years for the CIA and the FBI to decide that they have no evidence with which to charge Shaker Aamer. Now he's been returned to the UK.

I despair at the way in which the USA, the self-styled beacon of Democracy for the rest of the world can throw out every tenet of natural justice that they are supposed to espouse, when it is done in the name of National Security.

To my mind, it is not good enough for you to be thrown into prison and subjected to torture (and by the way how does that square with the American Rule of Law?) solely on the grounds that you might have committed a criminal act. There is either evidence to support that, or there isn't. If there isn't then there is no justification for depriving you of your liberty. Once you accept that particular perversion of justice, then all sorts of people can be banged up for any old trumped-up charge and left to rot in prison.

Surely, that was the way of the old Soviet Union. It is the way of all tyrannical regimes. It should not be the way of a so-called civilized democracy.