The Dwarf breathes so loud, we could have shot him in the dark.

 So it was in the Lord of The Rings Film:

Gimli : "Well, here's one Dwarf she won't ensnare so easily. I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox." Haldir : "The Dwarf breathes so loud, we could have shot him in the dark." 

Last night, we could hear someone talking loudly outside, "Yea Bro." this and "Yea Bro." that prattling on for about 20 minutes.  So much so that I actually went out of the house and to the field gate to see a young male with his motor scooter, leaning against the gate and fence.  I didn't say anything just gave him a hard stare as if to say "STFU Bro.!" 

He left a short while afterwards but he's in a private no through road and using his phone in that speaker mode they do these days holding the phone flat and extended out in the hand!  

I suppose at least he wasn't using it whilst driving his scooter as we saw in Taormina, Sicily, a few years ago, a young lady on her red scooter on the mountain road happily talking into her phone!  I'm surprised more people aren't killed, I've certainly had to emergency stop when people walk out in front of my car without bothering to look other than at their phone screen and also runners and cyclists with headphones on who cannot hear my noisy old Diesel SUV coming down the track at them.   

Funny old world isn't it?  I try not to look at my phone all day long.  Occasionally it distracts me though but the number of parents not looking after their children but rather glued to their phone screens is alarming.  We were at a child playing event on Monday and you are meant to supervise your children (grandchildren in our case).  The use of mobile phones for a photo or a video is fine and you can understand that but one group of women (for there were only two males in the activity rooms) huddled together and were sitting, chatting and using their phones and their children were freewheeling around the area unsupervised.  These are the sorts of people who would scream blue murder if their child was hurt or injured.  So it is outside on the roads and quite how more accidents don't happen I do not know.

I also like the looks you are given as you grind your car to a halt to ensure you don't crush their child under 2 tons of AWD SUV as if I was at fault!

Anyway, I digress.  So I hope this lad doesn't come along regularly.  We have some lads who can be heard but not always seen apart from the wisps of smoke from their joints who sit in a far corner of the field an hour or so before sunset but they aren't that loud or that frequent.  Sound travels in the countryside and some people having a party across the valley can be heard quite clearly by us hundreds of yards away.

There's Always Something For Me To Moan About

 It seems that, the older I get, the more people p1ss me off.  Honestly, if it isn't people tailgating me in a 20 mph zone, God only knows what their closing speed was when they arrived at my bumper and then waving their arms about FFS.  It's 20 mph for a reason it's the school holidays and perhaps it was only me that noticed the prams, mums and children either side of the narrow street with parked cars all over the place (despite there being plenty of off road parking).

The crazy roadworks, the above inflation pay rise for 6 million public sector workers.  How now 1 in 20 people in the country work for the NHS!  The 4th largest employer in the world!  Look it up I think it is the Chinese Red Army, Indian National Railways, Walmart and then the NHS!  

Then there's sending out money, just the £11 BN of it to fight climate change and lower the earth's temperature by 0.00000001 Degrees.  Tossers the lot of them and spunking what is it another £6 BN to the Ukraine War and then to stop using our own resources thereby becoming reliant on imports of fuel (because you still need the stuff) just as those producers are either embargoed or are about to have their own war sending prices up and holding us hostage to global price hikes and so on.  

Their actions have already doubled the prices of our gas, oil and electricity and then the crowning glory is to remove the fuel supplement for pensioners after you've doubled their costs.  Muppets!

This is the current state of our "leadership", they cannot work out how to balance the books, they currently have a £20 BN "Black Hole" in the finances and yet if they had a moratorium for just one year, they'd clear that down.  But they won't and don't get me started on the use of back-handers.  Sorry, I meant "Foreign Aid".  We joyfully spunk another huge amount to poor countries like Mexico, India and China, two of which have their own space race and are nuclear countries.  

What ever happened to sensible policies and sensible people?  The current lot are certainly losing the narrative and beginning to be exposed for the truly imbecilic people they are.  What happens now if you ask sensible questions is that you get called "Far Right" or "Bigots" or "Deniers" or even "Racists" none of which are exactly meant to enable discourse and grown up discussion and yet, I have seen grown people and friends of mine use these very words.  I was not allowed to have an opinion on Covid, Liz Truss, Brexit, Immigration, Ukraine and so on.  My stance on scientific data and analysis is, apparently, wrong.  The science "is settled", it cannot be tested or poked with a stick it cannot be proven or otherwise with experiment and if you dare suggest it can you come across raised voices and are actually shouted down or mobbed down.

Don't believe me?  Try and "discuss" in a meaningful way whether Lockdown was the correct policy or wow try Brexit especially if you were for it.  You would have thought I was a murderer of Salem Witch the way they behaved.  Yelling right in my face.  Hilariously, on one occasion, I apparently denied that a well known teaching Hospital in London was "overwhelmed" with Covid patients.  they were at 100% capacity in the Covid ward and when I pointed out that the ward in question held 42 patients out of the hundreds of beds actually on other wards I thought they were going to burst a blood vessel.

Where has reasoned argument, logical thinking, data driven analysis, proper scientific procedure and so on gone?  When I was training I could not take anything for granted.  I had to prove by experiment that electricity existed, I had to devise experiments and propose outcomes then test to see if my hypothesis worked or not.  If it didn't work, the hypothesis was incorrect and needed to be revisited.  That's how it works.  If you are just told something, how do you know it to be true?  So we were trained to work it out ourselves, although they didn't let us kill each other with massively high voltages!! LOL

So it is with many other thought processes.  Listen to someone about taxing the rich and the wealthy.  Some see it as a crime to be wealthy without thinking that the wealth may be the result of a huge business risk and that the wealth may generate other benefits like employment and so on.  They only look at one aspect.  Listen to the simplification of the Brexit argument and the for and against parties.  You can clearly hear that the remain argument centres only on what perceived benefits they see but I very much doubt any of them used these alleged benefits themselves.  I however did and worked in and around Paris and Brussels especially and elsewhere in Europe.  I stayed at a Hotel where parliamentary MEPs and also NATO personnel stayed.  I saw where our money went in terms of ensuring they were well fed, well watered and so on.  Chauffeured cars, expensive suites, there with their families and so on.

You cannot believe the money that was being spent, like water, the privilege, the pensions (do look into it), the other benefits of being in these positions and there I am listening to how we might have lost free movement and all that special trade blah blah.  The opportunities were that Brexit will benefit being a sovereign nation but who would have thought we had spineless, dickless, cowards of politicians who couldn't run a proverbial p1ss up in a brewery.  Surely we deserved some with real backbones not the Eels we have got.  

So something to moan about indeed.  Next we need to look at the Church of England, losing parishioners like the BBC is haemorrhaging licence holders.  Apparently they want to lose the word "Church" - I don't know who on Earth is running their marketing campaign but I'm pretty sure that the Holy Trinity are, like many of us, shaking their heads in disbelief and wondering what they did to deserve the appalling leadership (and I use that word in it widest sense) we now have.  Maybe we ought to change all the Churches to Mosques and have done with it.  

Incompetence - A New Way Of Running Everything

 Absolutely everything these days is run by incompetent people who suffer no punishment for being truly awful at their jobs.  

The trains had staff shortages because they didn't work out that in the summer time, staff go on holiday.  Once again thousands of people had their train journeys disrupted because no one planned for it.  The Port of Dover once again every July and August gets busy but do they add extra staff? No, of course they don't.  They implement a stacking system on the motorway which was hellish to drive through over the weekend.

Yesterday I checked the national roadworks database to see if my journey would be a problem. No, it states quite clearly that the road WILL BE CLOSED between 20:00 and 05:00 every night.  Lying scumbags, when I got there I had to detour down tiny country lanes.  On the way back I tried to follow the diversions but the roads were awful, tiny little roads and then we met a huge truck, luckily I could get into someone's driveway to get past.  Clearly someone was not paying attention because when I got past the truck I could see why.  The only other road you can possibly get to our place by was also closed off.  WHO in their right mind closes not one main road but also the only really wide enough road to take two lanes of traffic.

The Government are taking away £300 fuel allowance from pensioners.  I'm the only pensioner in the house and therefore the only one bringing in any money!  So not only is my income now taxed (oh yes, they increased the pension but not the tax allowances) so now what 10 million have to pay a couple of quid income tax each. Fuel has almost doubled in 4 years since they shut the world down.  Here's the fun part - I get around £12,600 a year. Last year I paid £1680 in electricity costs. £312 in Water costs, £2,000 or so in Heating Oil and Council Tax was £3,100 so around £7,092 went in bills before I look at transport, insurance, food and the like.  Those have to come out of the remaining £5,508  about £460 a month.  If I go anywhere near London's ULEZ zone that's £12.50 a day. It's about £50 a month I have to find for that.

When I worked out me pension and what I'd get of course I worked out what the £300 would be for. It comes in around the time that the Electricity bills go up.  They are due to go up around 10% in October and it just seems to me that there's something at play or these people truly are incompetent.  If you have a set amount to live on and then you take some of that away, what are you actually thinking?  You're not thinking at all.  The new Government have just made enemies with 10 million or around 15% of the population.  Many of whom are their supporters I feel, although probably not now.

The list of incompetent people and organisations appears to me to be growing daily.  With potential conflict looming in the Middle East we decide not to use our own natural resources but can now be held to ransom by importing them from the Middle East.   We could use Russian but hold on, there's a problem there right?

I have always felt sorry for people who self harm but for a Government to bring harm down on its people by myopic policy decisions in the hope of saving the planet by actions of less than 1% of global impact is self harm and potential suicide in the hope of virtue signalling how stupid they are at the cost of our industries and our personal safety.  

The way people behave, the way we are being governed is turning into a race to the bottom and once they've got there they're going to keeping digging.  

All the good meaning policies are obviously going to harm business and the people of this country and the people can see it but the "politicians" cannot.  I despair that these people are running us into the ground and are a high speed rail crash coming around the next bend.  It feels as if there is a ground swell of anger against these pointless, stupid ideas.  The "ruling class" believe that by calling us names and beating us down they will, like Winston Churchill's famous appeasement speech something along the lines of each appeaser feeds the crocodile in forlorn hope that they will be eaten last!  We shall see what happens, it feels like civil unrest might be coming if they punish the working classes and not only put up their taxes and withdraw their pensions but also raise their bills in the long term.  

Cacophony

 Our quiet, out of the way house, lies down a small private road, bridleway, footpath (that is how it is signposted) and you cannot get out of the other end unless you have a Fireman's key to get through the gate.  That part is more a green lane than a road.  Our lane has passing places only.  In terms of noise and rush hour we have a 7 to 8:20 am and 4 to 6 pm busy time, by that I mean that you can suddenly get three or four cars together going in or out of work for down past us is a farming contractors with tractors, trailers, logging, lawn mowing equipment etc.  During te rest of the day you'll be lucky to see a delivery van or the locals coming and going.  Sure we have some loud pricks, mainly the teenage boys impressing the girls (and not their parents) with the latest noisy exhaust or deafening stereo or whatever they have these days.  An occasional motorbike and that's about your lot.

Every now and then of course you'll hear work being undertaken by gardeners and odd job men but that's about it.  The Sheep are generally a bit bleaty but not overly so.  So why, dear reader am I telling you this?

Well the weekend was chaotic.  Whatever set the sheep off caused them to be bleating for hours at a time and almost non stop.  It happens of course, then the next door neighbour had someone in mowing their paddock, again not a problem but it was quite loud as it was a warm weekend the windows were open and so it just seemed a little more noisy than it has in the past.  However, the prize goes to our Combine Harvester(s) who were harvesting the corn fields at the back and to the side of us.  They don't hang about when the weather is good and the corn is ready and so Saturday and Saturday night, Sunday and Sunday night you could hear the whirr of farm machinery and of course, the dust they kick out deposits itself on the cars and got us all sneezing too.   I was trying to see the Perseids last night gone 10 O'clock and they were still at it, their headlights lighting up the sky a few fields away.  

Today we are back to blissful quiet, everyone has settled down and it is so hot the Sheep are probably just sitting in the shade as we are, I've barely heard them today.  

I imagine it will be the same next year as it was this and last.

I also have to remember that we will hear them when they plough and plant the fields next.  It's nice living here and you too quickly forget how peaceful it can be.  

They're Coming For Us

 I see that the liebor government are now thinking about taking away the elderly bus passes and also talk of charging National Insurance on pensions!  Not content with taking away the winter fuel payment of £300 they are now looking at ways to keep the elderly at home and without fuel.  There's an argument about means testing I guess but after paying in for 50 years to get possibly the worst pension in Europe, the fuel payment which was introduced for a reason and bus passes to assist in transport costs seem to be a petty swipe at us, old people!

Means testing is OK but can you imagine the cost of doing this for 10 million?  We don't get "paid" even the minimum wage, we are around £8K a year short of that and so to my mind, it's pretty much typical of this socialist near communist regime that they'd go for us.

A friend has written to his GP and asked that all of his normally bought over the counter drugs which are prescribed now be added to his prescription so that they can be sourced, free of charge, through that avenue citing, rightly so, that his winter fuel allowance has gone and he needs to find the money from somewhere.  A good call and perhaps something we should all do to buck the system.

Become ungovernable is the way forward.  We are pretty tolerant in the UK but cross us at your great peril.  I used to work for a business that required all purchases over a certain threshold to have three quotes, no matter if the customer had uniquely specified the equipment.  My colleague and I were spitting feathers that it was a huge waste of time and resources and that the other manufacturers quoting would not like wasting their time bidding against a specified item.  It was a lot of money even 35 years ago - around £200K.  A generator set so we came up with a plan.  We order a drum of diesel and then amended the order to include a generator.  That bypassed the system and we got our generator ordered and through "the system".  Sure we got told off for using "the system" but we did use the system!

So it should be from now forward that  we buck the system and make it more difficult to operate.  I like that the system will now have to tax me on my pension (oh yes my pension is taxable as it goes over the threshold).  I will certainly enjoy sending letters to our tax office for the £10 or £15 that may be needed.  Imagine that again 10 million people all start to flood the Tax office with paperwork - I mean we are so stupid we can't use smart phones and PCs can we?

It really is a joke but then again, those of us who have lived through a socialist government before know what an utter mess they made last time.  They do actually look a little scared and they are knee jerking already.  When they start to pick up the angry vibes of the masses I imagine they will become very scared indeed.  Of course, it requires the great unwashed to actually wake up and make themselves a nuisance.  

Add to this that we soon won't be allowed to outline our outrage in the traditional free speech way we are used to, I imagine stuff will go underground and then they really should fear the people.  They aren't frightened enough yet but keep taking away the money that honest people earn and keep giving it away to those who don't work for a living and let's see where that leads them.  If you rob Peter to pay Paul you will always get Paul's vote as the saying goes.  If enough Peter's decide that isn't going to happen well, hold on to your hats folks. 

No Alcohol Progress

 I'm pleasantly surprised that it's been just over a month and I feel fine, I've lost some weight and after the first few days which weren't really a struggle, more of a habit breaking time and a bit of Keto Flu as they call it when you ditch carbs, all is well.

Making sure I drink enough water is the main thing and I know I am as I measure that.  The weight has come off of my neck and face and my sides which is unusual it normally comes off my arms and sides and my face is normally last in the line.  I've lost some of the front muffin top and apart from my aching left hip, all is well.

I think the hip has come about as one of the under mattress slats had failed and sleeping there has just pushed my hip downwards.  I replaced the slat yesterday and whilst I can still feel it, it isn't as bad.

This week will be difficult to not drink as I have paid for Hospitality at a well known airshow and I'm taking the OH away to stay at a Hotel so if I can avoid it I will but there's beers included in my ticket so who knows how it will work out.  I am determined not to drink if at all possible only the odd social tipple.  There are plenty of Alcohol beers around these days - of course they are still carb heavy but if it is only very occasionally it shouldn't disrupt my diet too much.

Anyway, the main thing is it's OK and I estimate around 1 stone lost (around 6 kg).  I'm aiming for a lot more than that but it will take a long time I imagine.  

The Metropolitan Elite

 They try so hard to be knowledgeable about ordinary people's lives, the climate, the countryside and they fail spectacularly to comprehend life outside of their bubble and yet they do not appear to have the capacity or indeed the wit to come and find out for themselves the raw data, the reality if you will of whatever subject they happen to be spouting on about.

They, along with the feeders (bottom feeders in my opinion), will happily tell you how it is and because it is their notoriety their followers, sheep like, take up the mantra and act as if it is true.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I take nothing for the truth.  I was very lucky in that my lecturer when I was young challenged everything.  I worked in a business who's watchword was "Challenge Accepted Thinking" along with "Do The Right Thing".  My job, the more I think about it was not just Programme Management but actually data analysis, making sense of the actual data collected to make decisions on.

We live in a strange world where mediocre pop stars can be authorities on global climate patterns.  They can tell you all about how wonderful immigration is and how we are enriched from their security gated ivory towers.  These people don't live a life like us, the majority.  They live in a world of make believe, they are, first and foremost, actors and their job is to bring fantasies to life and pretend to be someone they are not.  Pop stars, presenters, narrators, actors and the other "Celebrities" or persons of notoriety as they should rightly be labelled are not scientists and indeed some scientists, historians and the like are not celebrities either.   

The law of unintended consequences is well applied to these people who never suffer the outcomes of their meddling, who don't appear to use their brain before the engaging their mouths.  Actors who think a man can become a woman and vice versa.  It reminds me of the Time Team archaeological programme when they used to dig up a skeleton after thousands of years in the ground.  Did they pronounce which one of the (I've forgotten how many there are now say 167) genders?  NO! Did that know what they identified as? NO! Indeed they'd look at the pelvic bones and say whether it was a man or woman based on the facts presented, both male and female skeletons are different because women can have children and are therefore physically capable of doing so and men cannot are likewise shaped in such a way as to make it impossible.

The animal charities aren't actually doing an awful lot for the countryside at all and certain carrion type birds are protected where they should not be.  Landowners and farmers who actually work the land are ignored and fashionable re-wilding is introduced where it shouldn't be.  Our council are happy not to cut verges and growth on roundabouts but you cannot see roadsigns, speeding traffic especially turning in and out of side roads where verges are growing above the height of the car windows.  Roundabouts with high growth means you cannot see the boy racers coming around until they are almost on you.  

Twenty MPH road speed limits are another crazy idea as my car wont do 20 unless it is in second gear.  It might judder along in third gear if I'm going downhill.  Now, I'm all for speed limits in the right places, controlled by timed lights - School times, Hospitals, perhaps high streets although I've never known one get up to that speed and certain residential roads.  Not trunk roads and main roads though.  I've had people overtake me when I'm following the speed limit and surely my car is spitting out more pollutants and not being efficient at 20?  It's designed to do 30 mph in 4th gear not 20 mph in 2nd.  Oh well.  Now they have the no idling in certain places.  My car has an auto system that turns the engine on and off (apparently).  I don't use it as it's highly likely that starting and stopping the engine spits more fumes out than idling?  I don't know if that is so but of course the other thing is that the cars systems run off the engine especially those like power steering and Air Con, Some cooling and so on.  I don't know what they are trying to achieve here?  

Lack of scientific data, other than that paid for by pressure groups seems to me to also be part of the game.  NOX levels in London for example and the ULEZ zones - it's a joke.  4000 lives will be save a year.  Now if it were true that 4000 people were dying because of NOX you'd have thought it would be well documented?  NO, only one person has died according to a Coroner from traffic fumes in the past 20 years.  It's just another tax on people and these fines, dressed up charges and so on are penalties imposed on ordinary people.  I've said it before that at some point in the future the people will have their say.  They aren't angry enough yet.  They are easily led and they take what the TV and Radio presenters scripts as gospel.  I wonder how they will feel when they find out they've been lied to and everything is found to be a way of making them poorer and the "elite" richer.  

Recent riots in the UK are not the way to go about showing anger at the "elite" for a number of things that are wrong.  Violence isn't how you get stuff done as the perpetrators are finding out.  What is different this time is the tone of the people and I can feel that those that are awake are beginning to get angry.  We just need all the sheep to wake up and think for themselves.   I'd be surprised if there isn't some sort of outcry after the October budget unless the Chancellor wakes up and smells the coffee.  We are already suffering high taxes, payments to pensioners are being withdrawn and energy prices are increasing.  There's talk of more taxation and we are already at levels not seen since WW2!! If that is so, then maybe the sheep will really wake up and get furious.  Energy costs have almost doubled since the scamdemic and with us now importing most of our energy and materials it cannot be long until the veil is pulled back and the wizard exposed for what it is! 

Getting Old

 I still find it hard to believe that I'm 67 and not 37!  I don't feel old in my head but my body, well, that's quite a different matter.  It reminds me all the time and thereby hangs the frustrating thing about getting old.

Recently the backs of my hands have been feeling a little tender not helped by Grandson 1 cracking his head against the back of my right hand!  Jeez did that hurt.  It's where countless cannulas have been inserted over the years (on both hands).  They tended to ask what hand towards the latter period but now the skin shows the scars of these insertions as do my arms. 

I damaged my knees when I was in my 30s playing cricket and they've never been the same since.  I had 6 weeks of barely being able to walk and had to have taxis to and from work!   SO now, if I do any heavy lifting or perhaps I'm working off of steps or ladders, I can really feel it not at the time but next day. If I remember I have knee braces and so that helps.

My back just gives me a bit of jip when I do silly things like lifting grandchildren, leaning out too far, lifting heavy stuff.  I have a back brace if I remember to use it.  At least I don't get the debilitating back pain but I know it is there.

My arms ache if I've done some heavy work so muscle relaxant for those.

My eyes are sensitive in Hay fever season but sometimes they just get weepy. I have heat mask and drops in case I need them albeit its not that often.

Lately my left hip has been giving me some problems - no idea why, perhaps creased bed sheets and lying on them, not sitting properly in my chair, who knows?

I don't get headaches, or very rarely and so that isn't a problem and I've had problems with my ears all my life but I live with that every day.

So there you have it, falling apart although I am pleased that I do not have anything more serious and I'm glad that the Bladder Cancer is behind me and I don't think about it much unless it comes up in conversation or some sort of reminder, normally someone I know who has cancer or knows someone who does.

I think I'm not ready to get old nor do I have the right attitude about it or am I doing things in retirement that I have the opportunity to do.  I'm working on that now.  I must do things and get out of the house more whilst I still have the energy to do so!

That Rare Feeling

That rare feeling is when you are unaware that it is or was a magical feeling.  Somehow you were connected to something much greater, you felt quite different.  It was probably fleeting, it was in my case but it is quite memorable and I can recollect these feelings in vivid recall.

I've probably mentioned the one that was the most powerful.  Eleven years ago I was head over heels in love with my "Angel" as I called her back then, she came in and out of my life in a way that altered much of how I was feeling and changed things around.  It was never to be, sadly for me I guess but the amazing summer of 2013 is vivid and whilst we only me a handful of times those moments were quite magical as were some of the experiences.  

We met at a location where there was a "secret" walled garden with a pond nearby and we sat on a bench and so heightened were my senses that I could smell all the flowers, hear all the insects and we held on to each other in the softest way you could imagine.  Everything was right, the soft afternoon sun, there were very few other people about.  It was just the sun's warmth and the heady smell of the flowers, the buzz of insects and the wonderful person I was with.   I wrote a poem about it, it's in a special place stored away.

Whether or not it was a warm and sunny summer in 2013 I don't know but to me it was always warm and sunny and I spent a lot of time wandering across the fields and woods were I lived and everything was alive.  The wind rustled the Silver Birch trees and danced among the trees in the woods and when I got across into the golden cornfields, the pre-harvest heads were dancing in the breeze and it was like nothing else as I stood there, in the middle of all this corn with no one else around just me, the corn, the sun warming my body and the breeze making it all dance together and it was then that, once again, I was somewhere else, in tune with this landscape, at one with my surroundings and deeply connected to it.

When I was a young man and we had moved to Orpington / Petts Wood area I was walking toward home, from Petts Wood past the suburban houses and I was in Willett Way, I remember it most vividly when the sun again was warm and you could feel your whole body warm up but not humid hot or overly so just warm and comforting and it warmed your bones if you know what I mean?  The Privet Hedges were in bloom and I recall the smell of them as I walked past, the smell of other fragrant garden flowers as all the gardens were so well tended with bedding plants.  Again. it is only a momentary glimpse into something or somewhere else.  Somewhere where we should be more often, connected to out surroundings and at one with it.

There are a few other moments like these but they are few and far between and it's something we are all missing.  The trouble is you cannot find it by inquiring or reading books (although they can point you there I guess).  It's a case of feeling it and letting it take you over.  Being an INTJ does not lend itself to this sort of thing and trying to work out what is going on in a spreadsheet isn't going to help me.  I intend to try and be at one more often but planning to let it happen is not going to cut it.

So here's a little bit of the lost poem:

I walk through countryside and remember the warm summer heat,

I see her now in every whispered zephyr in the trees and branches,

The warmth on my face from the sun’s warming rays, 

The fragrance of a hidden garden and invisible breeze on the corn field dances.

The rest of the poem is ours and actually it's painful for me to read it now, gosh it opens me up to the world and not in a way that I'd be comfortable with?  It's private but it is emotionally deep for someone like me who doesn't normally display emotions.  

Old Friend - Reconnecting

 I noticed a post on LinkedIn and there was a name I knew and so I clicked through and realised it was who I thought it was and then checked my email address book and confirmed that it was correct and noticed the last time I wrote was 10 years ago just as I moved to my rented house and left my ex.

Gosh, ten years, where has that gone?  We've just exchanged a few emails and caught up.  Not the greatest of news on their side which is very sad I have to say.  It's been a sad week as my friend who fosters children has had the devastating news that their young charge is now terminal with leukaemia.  He wasn't given long around 9 years ago but he pulled through making what everyone predicted was a full recovery but it is back and he's not at all well.  My friends are wonderful people and no one deserves this.  Likewise my reconnected friend has similar trials and tribulations going on too.

How strange it was that when writing to my reconnected friend I had an ear worm rattling through my head and I recognized it as the first dance tune for their wedding where I was the DJ.  It's a lovely piece of music and I hadn't known of the artist until they requested it.  That was interesting that my connection was like that.  Interestingly I've know the person in question since we met on holiday in .... wait for it ..... 1977.  I went out with their friend, my first serious girlfriend.  

Lovely memories I think....  

Unintended Consequences

I used to argue with my bosses that they often did things without thinking through the consequences of doing them.  They would change their minds like they changed their underpants and you never knew what plan we were on during any given day.

The problems were that they obviously were sitting in the bath the night before and suffered a Eureka moment and then it was policy the next day.   I like a plan but one that is ill thought through or costed or that has no tangible benefit is not going to wash with me and hence I used to have arguments with my bosses quite frequently.

They could not understand that when they made some sort of ruling that there would be impacts elsewhere.  I don't know why but when they attained these high offices on the business, someone obviously sucked out half their brains, I'm sure of it.  If you expect a certain type of behaviour from your staff to, say, earn a bonus or some such then they, generally, are going to do what is wanted to earn said bonus or whatever is available from the boss.  It meant that quickly things got out of control as staff now motivated and targeted to do certain things to secure their bonus or whatever it was acted differently achieving goals that were not putting money into the company or delivering any value whatsoever.  People disappeared from my teams and projects as the bosses did whatever they were doing and I was left to "discuss" the lack of progress with the customer.  Me, being me, would get my boss in front of the customer to explain where my staff had disappeared to.

These things are missed by politicians and they make some edict and wonder why something else happens they weren't expecting.  The tick the box exercises in Government Departments being a case in point.  The process is the problem in so many projects.  It's a bit like quality assurance versus quality control.  Assurance means that you go through all the various stages to assure the quality of the deliverable.  If it is a piece of cr@p to start with it will still be one at the end but with full traceability.  It doesn't make a better deliverable whereas quality control does (is it fit for purpose?).  

When the Government bring in certain things, albeit for the right reasons, they don't see that the consequence of their actions are diametrically opposite of what they thought.  They aren't business people and so don't "get it" that, for example, Landlords don't rent out the houses and flats for the love of it.  They do so to make money and for profit (the great God).  Legislating that Landlords will have less powers to evict etc will lead them to do something else with their properties and why not?  Trying to protect the tenants using the "Sledgehammer to crack a walnut" doesn't work.  If it goes through it will drive behaviour the wrong way and suddenly there'll be a shortage of rental stock and the politician's, too stupid to work it out, will try and do something else which will worsen the situation further. 

Like my old bosses, they just cannot leave things alone, they have to pick and nanny around the edges and rather than improve things, many times they screw things up.  Tell them this and they shoot the messenger.  

We're All Far Right Now

 The level of complete unawareness - cognitive dissonance if you will, of our ruling class borders on complete ignorance.

Let's take the hooligan element out of it as there are other ways to protest, such as the Gandhi style of making yourselves ungovernable.  What's happening is that no one is listening to the population of this country.   They say they are but they just don't get it and they don't understand that their actions (or the lack thereof) has some sort of reaction.  Things have been going bad here for 20 - 25 years or so I guess, certainly since the last Labour Government and no one has tackled any of it.  The stealth taxes, the immigration and the lack of integration of those immigrants.  The rise in sectarianism, the lack of values of these people, the loss of our country's values - if you don't fit in but want to make our country like the sh1t hole you escaped from then you are coming here for the wrong reasons.

The lack of value of human lives, the rise in violent crime and all other forms of crime and not doing anything about it.  Penalising ordinary citizens with ridiculous road and car rules, green taxes rocketing fuel prices, no Plan B for when the wind don't blow or the sun don't shine.  Shutting down our industries and pricing them out and now importing all our goods and services - moving your half-witted green agenda off shore!  Wankers!

The new Government are now myopically trying to work out whey the people are angry and upset.  They have started to have enough, it's beginning to brew up and they don't realise what is causing it and are treating the symptoms and not the cause.  Weak on crime, blaming ordinary citizens, making us pay through the nose for their failings, higher taxes and no improvement in services.  Obvious and outright corruption right in our faces but of course, it's our fault, the great unwashed.  They've forgotten that they were put in place by the people and are there to serve us not vice versa.

They throw our money around the world giving it to countries, some of whom, have their own space race! They promote war(s) and send out money there, they give billions to people who've never done a decent days hard work in their lives who then lose it and plead it was somebody else's fault all the time, the public take the brunt of the f**k ups.  Take the Post Office and all the innocent Post Masters and Mistresses locked up because of a Corporate cover up.  The people at the top get a slap on the wrist other lost their livelihoods, their families, their life savings, their friends and some lost their lives.   Just collateral damage for the corporate good/greed.  

Don't get me wrong. I'm a capitalist and a conservative but all of this corruptions and inability to control money, do the right thing, bring people being paid our money to heel and get them to actually do the job they are paid to do, it's basic sh1t right?

My job back in the day was to get things done.  In my world, someone who was not fit for the job would be reassigned or fired.  Simple as.  My bosses and our shareholders wouldn't allow for anything else.  It didn't matter who you were either.  They were there to do a job for which they were handsomely paid and whilst we all make mistakes, failure to do your job, deliver on time, cost, quality etc. was the fastest way to see the exit doors.

If you stand up and say that these things are so, that immigration is out of control, that people are not assimilating in to our way of life, that the tail wags the dog so to speak, that crime is out of control, that we are being robbed of our money by people who squander and p1ss our money up the wall, well.... you guessed it you are Far Right apparently.  So be it.  I suggested many years ago that there would be a kick back against all of these things.  You can only berate and beat the public unjustly for so long.  Beating up the working class will get you into very hot water.  This Government are just beginning to learn that.  It's a bit late though. 

Interesting. Social Media Leaves Nothing Unrecorded

 So the Government knowing full well that electricity prices are going up 10% in October and that other commodities may be volatile especially oil (so my heating fuel) decide to stop the annual fuel payment to pensioners (me) this year.  That's quite a blow as it covers around 475 Litres of fuel (or about a month and a half of heating oil) that I've now got to find.  With a 10% increase in electric probably going to set me back around £200, it's an unwelcome - but not surprising - move from s Socialist Government.  

The Internet is fun though as it shows last year that the very same people were cautioning the Government NOT to take away the fuel allowance as (you know) it affects the pensioners who actually need fuel and the like to keep warm in the winter because climate change hasn't delivered in the past 50 years the Mediterranean or North African climate we were promised, nothing like it!  The last time these goons were in power they kicked off this cheaper, reliable, renewable electric sh1t.  Guess what?  Our fuel prices have exploded as we pay more to line people's pockets, green though they may be, and not deliver one benefit to us, the people who are paying through the nose for it.

It wouldn't surprise me if the next move is to take away the triple lock that aligns pensions to the cost of living etc.  They also argued for that not to be taken away.  Lying scumbags the lot of them.

My response if going to be that I will now use my lovely log burner more this year.  I'll stockpile a load more logs than usual and f**k the lot of them.  I also intend to claim every benefit I can and make myself a bloody nuisance in the process.  I do feel sorry for those who voted for this bunch of chancers.  They are probably now beginning to see what we've seen for years that they aren't that different from the last lot at all.  They can afford to send £11 BN of our tax money overseas but cannot fund £300 for 10 million pensioners who, in the main, have worked all their lives to earn their pension and had it delayed too.  Some more than others, some women 6 years delay me 1 year.  

So come this winter, let's see how many old people they sacrifice to support foreign aid, equality rights, reparations and all the nice virtue signalling stuff.  There's not a practical one among them.  It makes me laugh when they speak about how wind power powered the whole country once, on a specific day for an hour or two.  They totally miss the point that when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine you need to have the exact same amount of backup generation available at a moments notice to cover that off.   But that's OK because we blew up our old Power Stations!  Utterly useless politicians playing with our lives.  When the lights start going out across the country in rolling blackouts and people can no longer heat their homes, I do hope they'll remember the utopia that they are building for us?  

Me?  I'm going to work out how I can stick one finger up to the lot of them and be a pain in their side.

Really? Bat Sh1t Bonkers

 The new Chancellor has found a £22 Bn hole in the finances. Surprising as she has had privileged access to the accounts all the time she was shadow chancellor!  Suddenly a few weeks into Government she has magicked up these figures when the OBR and other Fiscal Organisations like the ECB etc and the Civil Service have all said everything is as was stated before.  So here we go, lying scumbag time and the first thing they do is take away the Pensioner's fule relief.  I got that once last year it was useful considering their batsh1t bonkers plans to go green doubled my fuel bills.

Pensioners get around £12,600 a year or thereabouts and the £300 (I think it was £500 though) helps with fuel bills which in my case are around £1800 for electricity and £2,000 or so for heating fuel which we pay in advance not monthly like gas or electric. The minimum wage is £11.44 an hour or £85.80 a day for a 7.5 hour day and if you work say 45 weeks a year then you'd see around £19,305 a year so around £7K more than a pensioner has to live on.  You'll hear the well off stating that they're glad that this has happened.  It's just the first slash of the knife and it's a Labour Government, it will get worse.

So let's assume she's lying because a). she's a politician and b). she needs to pay for all the spending she's about to do to pay for her spending spree.  Anyway that's batsh1t part one.

Batsh1t part two has to be the JSO boys and girls who yesterday tried to stop passengers at Gatwick and this morning have done the same at Heathrow.  Another lot tried something in London and let's hope the Judge deals with them the same way the M25 and Dartford protesters were dealt with and they go to prison.  Once again, a minority cult tries to impose it's ideas on others not by rational debate, data and persuasion of argument, oh no, they have to force us to be as stupid as they are because they cannot win and argument when they hold religious zealot like ideas hatched in the shrivelled brains of their low IQ leaders.

At some point we should all get mighty fed up of this.  Hard working families who have saved all year for a family holiday with their children should not have to put up with soap dodging smelly wrinkled hippies trying to stop them.  I know a few likely lads that would enjoy sending these cultists to the land of nod with a carefully aimed suitcase :-)

We really are living through the strangest of times and the backlash, when it comes will be palpable.  I clearly enjoy the thought of these feckless politicians forcing us to drive massively expensive un-affordable EVs and then trying to lumber us with a tax for owning cars of that value - not exactly joined up thinking is it.   

I'm waiting for the next batsh1t bonkers thing to come out of these people's minds.  It's been like the Emperor's new clothes for 10 to 20 years now and no one seems to think that it is absurd or strange that these people are making our lives cr@p through their "leadershop" rather than what we pay them to do.  No one asked for this stuff, it isn't in their Manifesto or the promises they made to get elected, it never is, they lie all the time.  How do you now a politician is lying?  Their lips are moving, that's how.  

When Will The People Wake Up?

It's all a bloody con, all of it.  Heat Pumps, Windmills (17th Century technology re-imagined), Electric Cars, or battery cars (20th Century technology replaced by cheaper reliable ICE cars) look at London of the early 1900s and see the electric cars we had back then.  Solar panels and "CHEAP Renewable" energy that is neither cheap nor renewable.

The bare faced lies about how better our lives would be is not matched by the action nor the will of the politicians.  The bottom line is we cannot afford it.  Estimates of £3 Trillion or more just for the UK to achieve a reduction of 1% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere.  Absolute idiots.  with CO2 at 424 parts per million we really could do with more around 1200 parts per million as that would green the planet and increase yields of crops etc.

But people suck this sh1t up and love it, telling me about Climate Justice and all the wonderful things that will happen when we give up oil and coal.  Where do these people think nearly everything we have relies on these fuels - I won't say fossil fuels as that in itself is another gimmick word like Global Warming, Ice free Arctic, unchecked global sea rise, extreme weather and any other crap adjectives they appear to throw at it.

Some basic questions could be asked about the rise of humans.  They came out of Africa and moved along the coasts and populated most of the world.  They did indeed do this without oil, gas or coal (I guess).  So presumably it was a lot warmer back in those days or you'd have frozen to death without clothes and shelter of some sort?  So today, could you live without clothes and central heating?   Not here in the UK, you would die and it isn't warm enough even in the summer without fire, clothes etc.  So why do people want to go back to a period when without these essential to life sort of items you'd die?  Have you observed the poor homeless on the street?  Would you like to end up there, in a cave or all the things you take for granted?

I see the JSO brigade were out this morning trying to block people from flying using their nylon clothes, oil based trainers, oil based glue - you get the picture.  They all look the same whenever you see them, the sort of Hippy styled never worked a day in their lives sorts who are cult like certain that they are right and the vast majority of us are stupid.  Luckily people were walking over them and dinking their suitcases into them doing so.   

I don't feel the resentment brewing yet, I suppose give the Labour Government - they appear to be lying already about things like the economy and why we must pay more money to them!!!!  It will hopefully end very badly indeed for them too.  Government Money = Our Money....  

Anyway, enough of a rant for today - I just need everyone to wake up, do a little research and get angry that we aren't better off even though the bloke who's in charge of energy told us years ago that we would be.  We are paying the highest taxes already since WW2 - around 70% burden I understand and it's going to get worse.  It's already turning into a sh1t show and this bunch of clowns are so detached from the public and what they think that things could indeed start to turn if not this year then I hope next year...   We wait and see if the pain caused by higher prices and taxes will wake the great unwashed up and they will be heard. 

My MP is probably fed up of me telling him what I think.  Not enough people do this though they just carry on being "RULED" by these incompetents.  

In The Event Of My Death

 trying to get people to talk about death is difficult.  I'm just going through the process of putting in place a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) for finance and health together with what used to be called a Living Will - which is about treatment (or not) and DNR notices etc.

I need to speak to those who will be affected but I can see they really don't want to broach the subject.  But, we have to talk about it.  So I've ordered a little book to write all this stuff down, you will be surprised how much there is.  Just killing off my Social Media footprint and so on is a start and then there's all the other stuff not contained in my Will.

I'm not planning on disappearing in the near term but you never know do you?  Best get all this lot straight so that when I'm not here they can work out what to do and untangle the stuff I've take 60+ years tangling up!!!

Diet, No Alcohol - going alright

 Feeling OK after over a week of doing this now.  Appetite is good, some weight lost - apparently my face looks thinner and definitely some gone off my waist I can see and feel it.  I don't know how much as I'm not measuring this time.

The money I'd spend on beer has gone towards some nice food that I'd not normally buy, Crab, Artichoke, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Olives, Salamis (of all types) and so on.  I've just got to keep away from bread, beer and pasta which isn't too hard so far and I'm drinking plenty of carbonated water too.

I think I might have a beer on Tuesday with some friends or perhaps I'll see if the have the 0% Guinness which is pretty OK.  Has carbs in it for sure but at least I won't be pressurising my Liver too much.

I am looking at living wills today and lasting power of attorney for financial and health reasons.  I'd like to get these into place in case anything happens to me.  I'm an attorney for my business partner and for my mother.  They are legal documents that set out who you would like to make decisions on your behalf.  

It's complicated as I have two daughters and I'm living with my partner and I cannot quite reconcile the health element.  Who decides whether it's time for me to be moved to a home for example if I become incapable and trying to get an answer to that difficult question has delayed the process by 6 months so far as there's no willingness to address that possibility.  Many people don't want to face up to what could be inevitable. I'd rather spark the conversation now and draw up plans for it so they know what my wishes are.  I do not want to be a burden on anyone and I'm not sure the triumvirate are thinking practically at the moment.

I'm sure I can get them all to see the logic and practicality of this at some time in the near future.  I'm also looking at a funeral plan that just involves no real service, just a cremation and that's it.  If anyone wants to do anything else then they can but I don't want any fuss etc. 

There's Something Strange Going On

 I don't know about you?  I used to find that things happened and whilst I might have been p1ssed off about it, I moved on and found the next thing that p1ssed me off?  I found that I dwelt on things in my head, I'm an INTJ, that's what we do but some time ago I worked out that these things were very damaging to my well being.  They lived rent free in my head but I didn't go around spouting this stuff off to random people.

There's lots going on out in the weird world.  Today I came across someone who was convinced that people reminiscing about the late Queen's appearance at the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony was all about Brexit.  That happened - I don't know, what six or more years ago?  It's a bit like people who don't like Donald Trump.  He's actually been the elected leader of the USA.  To hear people here in the UK say stuff like he's an idiot or stuff like that is just strange as you don't get to be the President if you are an idiot, oh wait, Joe Biden, OK I'll take that all back LOL.

It's this calling names, yelling vitriol and judgemental world we live in these days.  Social media doesn't really help with everyone jumping in, making absurd comments, unjustified accusations and in many cases perverting the course of justice.  Something happens and the great unwashed become judge and jury, condemning someone based on a 30 second piece of mobile phone (there's always a bloody mobile phone) footage!  

Social media shows its side of the story and everyone jumps and accuses.  They aren't so quick to undo their actions when a little later some more facts come out, the damage is done.  Whilst I'm on the Social Media bandwagon, so much of it is contrived nonsense, no doubt TikTok or whatever is partially to blame but there's never a good deed done that doesn't go un-filmed from many angles?  When was the last time you were out and just happened to stick your phone onto HD Video mode and filmed a random stranger in the remote possibility they may do something nice to someone you don't know?  

The Brexit thing makes me laugh as it has been a long time now and people are still angry about a fully democratic vote that didn't turn out the way they wanted.  I've just felt the same where a new Government has been elected on around 30% of the vote with a huge majority and we now have a socialist party in place.  Now I remember the last one and it was pretty bad and cost me personally tens of thousands of pounds, they destroyed my first business with their taxes (I'm the sort of person who decided that I didn't want to litigate or fight, I just took the money and shut down the business and they had no taxes from me so at a stroke that's my personal tax, company taxes, NI and all of those - I used to pay my way but not after they stole it from me).  They destroyed my retirement savings and my shares were raided, as was my pension and savings and people have very very short memories.

We also forget that we, the people, have the power but we think that our MPs and the like do.  The late Tony Benn  (Labour party) developed five questions to the powerful – “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?”

People are generally ignorant of how they could take back control and how to exercise their power but they are too busy not listening or learning to know how to do it. 

The Weaponisation Of Words In The MSM

I have often found that the language being used today as well as graphics are designed to confuse and obfuscate an ever more stupid populace.  People seem to have gone in to stupid sleepy mode.  No one questions things anymore for fear of being yelled at or worse almost assaulted.  I've had people yell to my face that I'm a racist, an unthinking bigot and so on all the while they are the ones exhibiting the sort of behaviour that is unwarranted in a truly free society! 

Weaponisation - so here there are people erasing or changing words to soften the message or harden it - based on how the think we should feel about it.  Today, removing the word "Illegal" when talking about Illegal Immigration for example.  Heatwave used to be for one or more weeks now it is a day of heat.  Unprecedented when most things have happened before like it.  Weather maps look like the fires of hell when it's 25 Degrees C.  Graphs that only show what they are trying to prove not a proper analysis.

The other one is this propensity to say things like 75% of 65 women agree.  which is something like 48%.  It's all bollocks again and the worst ones are figures for things like ur national grid which almost all of our demand was met by renewables when that's probably no where near possible.  We need every square metre of the country filled with Hydro, Wind and Solar to actually do that.  A look at the National Grid's own website shows that we import quite a lot of energy from the continent - we import our electricity and gas.

Heat Pumps are the way forward?  Well I got quoted close to £30,000 to change from my Oil Boiler to a heat pump  and the major costs were to do with upgrading everything to maybe perhaps get the thing to work properly in the UK!

What else?  How about just dumbing down the way that things are spoken of, The one that is "Interesting" is Islamophobia it's a nonsense what are you frightened of?  Phobias are not hatred, they are for example like my Claustrophobia it doesn't mean that I hate tight closed spaces, it means I'm frightened of them, arachnophobia means you don't like Spiders and most people are too afraid to hate them or even get anywhere near them.  These are lazy words, they are in themselves designed to be misinterpreted and feared.

As I said graphs are even worse, they only show you a little part of the argument  they support.  Climate Change is so hilarious.  It was hotter in the 1930s than it is now so when do you think the graphs start.  When they talk about historical data they never include the Roman or Medieval Warm Periods when it was warm enough to have vineyards right up to Newcastle in the north of England.  When Greenland was in fact a Green Land - so why are they doing this?  It's propaganda pure and simple, keeping you under their thumb and making you do their will.  

I can only fight my little area but fight we must as these people who claim to be in power are only there by our will and are meant to be working on our behalf.  Watching the creep of the Labour Party and what they are up to should send shivers down the spines of all working class people.  They will find out too late that they are the sheep in this equation and that the Shepherd and his Dog might be keeping them safe for now.  

That Was A Good Night

 Out with my school chums - known them all over 50 years.  Drank only 0% Guinness and my friend who had his heart operation too was drinking zero cider.  It's actually quite interesting as I suggested that I'd not been great these past 4 years and they too felt this.  We don't do things as often as we used to.  We stay at home more than go out now and we all sort of agreed that we weren't feeling "quite right" can't put your finger on it but not quite right.

I've planned to limit drinking right down now hence no actual alcohol last night at all.  The newer versions of 0% beer are OK and fill in nicely - you don't actually need to sauce yourself up to enjoy a good time.   

I'll be having a few beers in mid August when we are away but other than that, I am going to essentially go dry and cut out the beers and give my body a rest.  Since lock-down I've been constantly having one or two beers in an evening and frankly it can't be doing me any good.  I haven't had any beers now since last Friday and I only had those as I'd been working on my daughter's house in these high temperatures and came home, bought a six pack, had a shower and sat in the garden, with my neck fan on, enjoying some music and beers.

That's where I'll miss it I guess as that's when I associate one with the other.

I have to say that a long chat about our ailments and our various drinking habits (or not) has made me feel a lot better today, better than I have felt for a while.  That's good, I just need more of the same.  What I certainly don't need is the traffic App saying the road was clear when, in fact, it was totally closed last night Grrr.  I had to drive quite a way out of my way to get there and back!  Oh and pay the bloody ULEZ charge - I was probably only 500 yards into the zone!  

Still in Recovery

 I guess that's possible.  It's traumatic having Cancer no doubt about it.  I think I found the treatment the worst part in it all as that often seemed the harshest bit and the side effects weren't pleasant but I AM STILL HERE. That's important in this thinking.  

There's the physical stuff and the mental stuff, then there's the affect it has on those around you whether they say so or not.

I'm not my old self, not by a long way.  I'm far more emotional and not my good old logical self, although others may tell you otherwise as I still have my INTJ traits and so I'm good at those sorts of business situations that need thought and planning to get out of wherever there are problems.  I still do not suffer fools gladly and I still speak my mind.  I enjoy watching people of modern disposition cringe when they hear my views and they are forthright of course.  I know what I know and I also know what I don't know.  A lot of people are very surprised when I say that I haven't got a view on something.  If I have no interest in it, or I don't know enough about it, I don't comment other than to state that I don't know.  

I am though somewhat out of sorts at the moment.  I don't think the last 18 years or so have been easy for me at all.  My cancer, the loss of a great job, getting involved with a bunch of (I can't say crooks) utter idiots who failed to work out that in order to be millionaires you actually had to do some work for it and not rely on other people. Then the relationship breakdown, the house rental, the divorce, finding someone else and the uncertainty that brings when you've failed in the past how do you work on not screwing up again?  Suddenly you are walking on egg shells and tiptoeing around so as not to end up back where you were?

It's been very strange recently as I have gone back to being a bit of a hermit and not really wanting to go out and do stuff.  Saying that I am venturing out tonight to see some old school chums.  I've found recently that I hate London, I dislike driving, people drive like they are in an F1 Race!  The roads aren't all that nice and of course, like tonight I get £12.50 for driving just into the ULEZ zone - that's probably more than I'll spend on a couple of drinks!

I need to get out more and do more things, I know that but I also have to stop my head doing whatever it is doing at the moment and giving me such a hard time.  I know how to do it and I kind of understand what is going on but it really is hard.  Knowing what is happening is OK because you recognise these changes but dealing with it, well that's another matter entirely.

When does it get better I wonder?  I need to be relaxing and enjoying my retirement which I am not doing right now.   

A Vertigo Morning

 An occasional rough morning.  Quite groggy still (it's early afternoon). It felt like I hadn't eaten for a few days that sort of slight sickness of an empty stomach and then the dizziness hit me.  Yuck, I don't like the feeling at all, I had to entertain the grandson from quite early in the morning until after breakfast and then just went and sat down in my chair and dozed a little to try and work it off.

Sort of OK now, still a little heady and my right ear (for which I've had trouble all my life) is certainly misbehaving.  Probably it's that causing the dizzy spells.

Other than that, I have started to try and settle myself down a bit and to try some relaxing techniques.  I am not sure the CBD oil has actually helped me at all.  I thought I'd give it one more try and the jury's out on its effectiveness with me.

Do let's see how I get on, I'm due out tonight to see some friends.  I think I'll not actually drink anything and in fact I'm erring on the side of keeping away from alcohol for a while.  I like a beer at the end of a day but I think I need to give it a rest for a while and see what happens.

Fighting the pain body still although not as bad as it was last week and the vivid dreams are no longer with me and I'm hoping that these give me a rest too.  It's difficult when you are fighting your own brain FFS.  It's certainly no use looking back at what might have been as nothing can be done about that no matter how much you wish for things to be different.

I've now got to tackle expectations too really as I had plans for a future that haven't materialized and those too, are totally out of my control and whilst you might like to think you are in control, I doubt that any of us truly are.  

Nothing Doing - Tired & Emotional

 Bloody hell!  I'm not my usual self and haven't been for a couple of years possibly 4 years - I'm sure that the lock-down sh1t didn't help my well being at all.  The way so many people just let a bunch of bureaucrats dictate what they could and couldn't do showed me another side of humanity and the collective sheep like reaction of most people.

I said it before that the Top Bloke Whitty had already been at his College explaining all about it and it wasn't dangerous to the vast majority of people.  Once I'd seen the video and digested all the facts he laid out the only people I felt worried for was those who were outlined as vulnerable and that wasn't me or about 95% of the population.

So that's one thing.  Then there's the amazing vaccine - developed for a Coronavirus (a cold) in 10 days and magically a number of companies all came up with it around the same time!  No one questioned it - some people I know are 6 shots down and without irony tell me they've caught Covid again?

What else is getting me down?  General nastiness and this current selfish attitude it goes from everything from how people treat each other whether driving, in the shops, online (it's disgraceful), forcing their views on others, doing things that they wouldn't like done to them and this victim culture is so bad at the moment.  We have people of notoriety saying they have PTSD because they were treated bad on a TV show for which they were paid handsomely and seemed to me to want to be competitive but suddenly, when they didn't get what they want, they are the victim of some one using "hurty words" or perhaps something equally awful.  I mean PTSD.  I know soldiers who have witnessed stuff that we, as civvies, could never understand or imagine.  They actually do have PTSD.  Getting shouted at because you are stupid does not qualify you for that.

I mentioned some years back that I had a sort of PTSD - not knowing quite how to describe surviving Cancer and more so the treatments, perhaps I can claim that it is something  like that.  The shock to your system, the "survivor" syndrome, the impact of Immunotherapy on your body and the worry about whether you will live or die (I had two young girls at the time - now grown up) was also uppermost in my mind.  

So that is just ridiculous and it really shouldn't worry me but I despair for humanity the way they act and behave these days. The lack of empathy for people and the taking sides in conflicts is another thing.  Listen to the arguments made for any conflict in the world and these days no one talks about peace, they take sides and fight proxy wars with our money and other people's lives.

I should like to stop thinking about these things and should do so.  Too many things are occupying my thoughts and I'm not just getting on doing what I'm doing.  

Sunday, a day of rest.

 I appear to be doing a lot of resting - having said that I spent a day at my daughter's helping her husband doing odd jobs on their new house.  Bless them, I remember well having to try and sort out major DIY work whilst working out what to do with the children.  Once I sent them away on holiday whilst I installed the kitchen - I did remarkably well, installing it all, including the tiling and making good, I then set off at 3 am the following Sunday morning and arrived by 9 to grab breakfast with them all.

It was a great drive to Wales - with very little traffic and in the darkness I could go at reasonable speeds through to where we were staying.

I'm still getting these flash back memories of things and I'm not sure why that's happening.  I grabbed some CBD bits but I don't think they help me at all in fact I think they make me worse really. 

You shouldn't regret things I think.  They just happened and that's it.  I found myself thinking, not obsessively, about the lady I met all too briefly 11 years ago and it couldn't have been, I think I knew that.  Circumstances were such that it couldn't have worked out for her.  I'd have given it all up but that's life as they say.  So my mind is playing tricks on me and I never truly forget about her - it may be months between these flash backs and I know it's just my ego / pain body trying to get attention.  I suppose I have to content myself with knowing that in another parallel universe we are together and we are happy.   

When I move on from that, other things occupy my mind and this battle is going on constantly and whilst I understand what's going on, I find it tiresome and a little annoying that I can't get out of the rut I'm in and move on doing something.

Retirement has sort of left a hole in life.  Circumstances too, in a way, do not help.  I've gone in on myself again and the thought of going to London for example fills me with dread.  The city I loved working in is a mess now.  I again recall how amazing it felt.  Late night London, perhaps raining, the lights in the houses observed from my train home. Taking the slow train as it wouldn't be too crowded, wondering what was behind each lit window and house, how they were warm and watching TV or listening to music and I was on the late train after a late evening at work a few beers with the team.  Things felt so different, quite alive back then.  I don't get those alive feelings much these days.  

By that I mean that there are certain times in life (maybe you can recollect them) where you were suddenly at one with your surroundings.  As a young man recently moved from London I recall walking on a summers afternoon towards home past houses on a typical suburban road and noticing the smell of the Privet Hedging, in bloom, the sun just felt right, warming the whole of my body, I could hear the bees and insects buzzing about, the sky was blue, and the air was warm to breathe.  Everything connected.  It happens less these days.  I struggle to find the peace and beauty that are there and then I try too hard to make those moments happen, concentrating on the wrong thing trying to focus too much, you just have to let these things happen.

The last time I truly felt alive was 11 years ago with the lady I mentioned at the beginning of this blog.  Maybe that's what I miss, how she made me feel?  How glorious was that summer?  The feelings were amazing, very real, magical and very special to me.  I wonder if you need love to make you feel that way or whether it is just to reconnect with nature and switch your brain off for a while.

Those who know me probably understand that switching my brain off would be very difficult for me.  Anyway, there you are, it's a lazy ish Sunday but I need to work on unplugging my brain for a while and to  stop regretting things for it shouldn't be a regret, it was wonderful, glorious, amazing and special.  Thinking of it that way cheapens the rest of my life and achievements though. 

A Neck Fan

Honestly, who'd have thought you'd want or need such a strange device?  Well, I saw someone with one and heard them saying how good it was and as luck would have it, on Amazon Prime day, for less than a tenner they delivered these amazing neck fan thingies.

They last about 6 hours on low - you probably don't need it up too high as it's like being out in a gale.  They lightly blow air up across you neck.  The only downside is that the air moving past your ears means you are aware of them sound-wise.  However, in the recent few days heat and humidity they are really rather good.  It's nice to have a small flow of air up your neck and the sides of your face.  They take about 2 hours to charge up off of a USB.

So there you go, another thing you never thought you'd want or indeed need turns out to be really useful especially in my little pokey office which can get a bit on the warm side.  

At Last, British Justice System

Sometimes I despair at the light "sentences" given out to wrong doers.  Some people steal thousands, get to pay back a £1 and get a slapped wrist.  That sort of thing.  It looks as if you can go steal anything you want up to the value of £200 and get a caution if indeed they find you.   

Just Stop Oil protesters have been given sentences of 4 and 5 years for bringing the M25 London Orbital Motorway to a standstill for about 4 days on and off.  The wet liberals protest this saying that they are exercising their right to free speech?????  Huh, free speech is exactly that, your right to say what's on your mind and generally, in these cases, make a bloody fool of yourself when challenged.  However, making people late for funerals, delaying an ambulance and the patient dying, thousands and thousands of wasted car journeys as people were stuck on the motorway, people missed flights home and missed Hospital Appointments, Cancer Treatments and so on.  How is that free speech?

These idiots, for I know no other word to describe them, are the sort of soap dodging scum who feel that it is right to force the rest of us to join their cult.  For a cult it is.  They all look the bloody same and they all spout bollocks freely like "Climate Justice"  "Stop all oil now" as they wear their oil by product clothes live in heated houses and actually, when you look deeper, run around in mummy and daddy's Range Rover SUV.  F*****g hypocritical slime bags.

You see what I did there?  I used my right to free speech to say what I felt :-)  I felt no need to block the road and stoop everybody going about their own business.  

So the other hilarious thing is my right not to hear or read what they say.  They also don't get that I have a right not to listen to them, not to engage, not to give a flying f**k what their point of view is either.  It drives them wild that you might block them on Social Media - watch the outrage and bed wetting melt downs of these insignificant half wits.  It really is fun to watch them explode with rage, they must have so much pent up aggression, poor dears.  I'm sure it will shorten their worthless petty lives too all that pent up stress, poor luvvies.  

Anyway, they can have a long hard think about things in prison and I imagine that when they are asked what their crime might have been there may be a little retribution.  Who knows one of the inmates might have got caught due to the M25 being blocked?    Perhaps one of their relatives was badly affected by their actions?  At least they'll be given soap and water and nice prison clothes (a by product of oil).  I imagine that they'll be a little disappointed at the Vegan options available and they made need Tarquin to smuggle in some Tofu or some such stuff.  I hope that they will have the decency not to have warm food or use central heating provided and that they will only use horse hair blankets and so on.  

Finally, no slapped wrist, five year (they'll only serve half for good behaviour) something that sends a message to stop pissing us off and affecting us with your inane climate bollocks.  You'll have yourselves a captive audience in Prison to tell your cultist theories to.  Good luck with that though, I imagine they'll shove your solar panels up where the sun don't shine!  

We, the general public, don't like these people ruining our lives and finally it looks as if the Courts agree.  About time I say, about bloody time. 

We Have Delivered Your Parcel

 After looking at the Proof of delivery picture that they now take I can say that emphatically you have delivered my parcel, I can see the logo clearly on the box.  The only problem being that it isn't my house at all. It's someone else's house.  My house is the on a road uniquely the only one of its name in the UK!  

Normally I don't have problems getting stuff but this time it's obviously gone wrong and these things happen and they happen rarely but trying to report it is a nightmare.  It (they have an AI Bot) sends you to a set of web pages that you go around and around in until you end up back where you started from.  What's the point in that? I've had to email my supplier to see if they can help to let them know as I'm blowed if I can.

So - another crap application by customer service and their developers.

This hot on heels of signing up for an online retailed offering discounts and free delivery.  So I have to register, no problem there and I go to search for the stuff I want when this FO intrusive pop up arrives asking me what I think about the experience.  Dear reader, I let them have both barrels - what a bunch of idiots.  Why not wait until after I had completed my very first order and interaction with them?  Then I would have known what the experience was like - I think I said that in a more robust and Anglo Saxon sort of way.

And my lovely neck fan has arrived courtesy Amazon Prime Day.  I don't know if you've seen them, they sit around your neck and blow air on to your head, not your face.  It's great, has three speeds, nice, powerful and a setting like a little tornado :-)  I find that I get quite hot in the office and my big chiller / cooler is located upstairs in the bedroom - it's heavy and so not exactly portable - this is lightweight and very good indeed.  It just takes away the overheating feeling I get quite often (more so since my treatment).

God Help Us All

 State opening of Parliament. King's Speech, good God.  Nationalization - again.  Jeez the cost to us the Tax payer.  Not just that, we aren't going to explore for more oil, why should we we can just import it!  Surely they'll give us a good price for it?  Wait until you see the reserves that Argentina have now discovered, we will be a third world country in no time the way we are heading.  

I've yet to hear that they will probably borrow more money to pay off our debts.  Those are in the trillions of £ss now.  Net Zero add £3.2 Trillion at latest estimates. That is approximately £47,760 per person in the UK.....  

Some of the other stuff is as barmy and head in the clouds as this too.  Oh well, we didn't actually proportionally vote this lot in but we get the leaders we deserve.  There will be a lot of people who thought these guys were the real deal who will end up a lot poorer because of their ill advised policies.  Live and Learn, live and learn.  

What's The Point

Yes, What's The Point of advertising in the local social media outlets and then not responding to an inquiry?

I need some work done to my wall and generally around the house - I can do brick laying and repairs but this is a little larger than I am used to doing.

I had someone quote me and I accepted the quote, they never got back despite following up from me.

Latest, another bricklayer looking for local work and I've sent the spec off.  Not a sausage, nill, nada, niet!

The gates which I ended up doing myself were either going to cost a King's ransom (more than a new car) or no one turned up to price them or they turned up and then didn't quote for them.  

Kinder, Nicer

 Espoused by politicians and "celebrities" (persons of notoriety more like) who tell us we should be nicer (hate that word) and kinder.  Well, they're the very opposite of what they say they are.  I've never seen so much hypocrisy as we see these days.

President (or is it ex President - I don't know the protocol) was almost assassinated and there are people wishing it had been successful!!!!  What planet are these people on?  Politicians had already said bad stuff about what should happen to him.  Then there's Pelosi who if I recall had wished actual bodily harm on him.  Now it's not confined to the US, it's everywhere.  Whether or not you like or dislike someone is your own business.  To spout off about hoping that they are injured or die is horrendous.  In recent years we've had two MPs murdered and the general disregard for people's lives is horrific.

So called celebrities are the same.  Sports people, Actors (who make a living pretending to be something they are not), musicians and TV commentators (the funniest experts have to be those who appeared on Love Island or Made in Chelsea or some such).  These people set themselves up as social commentators and they are full of vitriol and hate.  I'm surprised that with all the bile inside their bodies they don't melt away from all the acid in their bodies.  The spit out hatred and normalise behaviour which is unacceptable in modern society.  

I am making a conscious effort to stay away from Social Media and the TV as it really is poisonous stuff.  No one debates anymore, it's all yelling until you yell loud enough to drown out the opposing view and impose yours on them/us.  It's a bit like these pressure groups representing less than a quarter of 1% of the population who block roads, damage art work and disrupt our lives trying to force their ideals on to us.  Just Stop Oil, why don't they go to Saudi and stop the production?  Perhaps go to India or China and complain.  The trouble is they don't actually know what they are asking and they, when questioned are as thick as sh1t about what stopping oil would mean to their own lifestyle let alone trying to impoverish the rest of us.  Go live on an island with no oil for a year and see how you get on.  The other ones were the Vegans - throwing perfectly good food away and wasting it.  Now I know a couple of Vegans and whilst they are always happy to tell you all about it ad nauseam they realise that I do not subscribe and I realise that without me eating meat, there wouldn't be any vegetables to feed the animals I devour!  

There's nothing stopping an individual being just that, individual,  If you want to live in a cave with rough clothing and just wood for fuel as you don't want oil or oil based products, off you go, I won't stop you, it's your life choice but it is not mine, stop trying to force me to do things that you wont do yourself and then prove to me by discussion and example how good it is for me.  I reserve full rights to do exactly what I want with my life.  Same with Veganism, Vegetarianism, Pescetarianism etc that's fine by me, do whatever you want to do.

There are no limits to what you can and cannot do within the law.  Do it but don't drag me along with your fantasies.  Likewise don't foster hatred and division.  You start to normalise that sort of behaviour and you start to get to the breakdown in civilization and the smashing down of social norms.  It isn't OK to go around inciting or delivering violence.  It isn't normal by any means to force your views on others or try and change the natural law to accommodate your cult, religion, misogyny, cruelty, bizarre fetishes, criminal behaviour and so on.  

I like to think I'm pretty tolerant and nowadays I just isolate myself from all of this nonsense as I know that it poisons my mind and I actually feel uncomfortable with "humans" acting and voicing their opinions which do not in anyway reflect how one ought to behave in civilized society.  Of course, that's my opinion and I'm allowed to have it.  I suppose everyone should have their opinion but when it comes to physical violence and threats, forcing change on people who don't want it and coercive control the line has been stepped over.  Celebrating someone's death or wanting it and saying it out loud?  Well should we accept that or not?

No matter what you think of someone there's often two or more sides to an argument.  Shouting and wishing harm on another person is not exactly a good basis for discussing the bigger picture and shows a lack of compassion, a lack of value of human lives and a closed mind unable to accept that other people too have a mind of their own, their opinions and they too need to be heard.