Energy Costs

 Yesterday I fixed our electricity costs and did quite well with a 1 year fix that was almost the same as I'm paying now and less than the fix from my provider.  This morning OFGEM announced that the price cap will go up 10% on 1st October which is 2% more than I was thinking it would.

I think it adds about £150 to the bill for most average households.  Goodness knows what January's cap will come in at?

So for a Pensioner already losing £300 winter fuel allowance they now have to find that £300 and a further £150 to keep warm.  £450 it's around 3% of their income increase.  No one appears to have noticed that basics have almost doubled in the past 4 years.  Strange things like a pint of beer which will now set you back over £5 and closer to £6 for a pint (although you can find places that are cheaper if you look).  

Well, I hope that the "people" will start to wake up and get angry with all the politicians who've forced high prices on us when they could have actually done the opposite and made the country productive which would have generated their tax monies far more than this.  Who wants to run a business with energy prices so high?  It's like stamping on the brakes of the country doing exactly the opposite of what they need to do.

I hadn't realised that these Muppets were going to destroy the country this quickly.  

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.