Don't Watch It!

 A new series of Strictly Come Dancing apparently.  Didn't watch the last one, not watching this one.  Last Night of the Proms and once again, it didn't make it onto my TV again.  It hasn't for many years now since they dumbed down the music, wound up the rhetoric, allowed the audience to display activist's flags and apparel and tried to get classically trained singers to sing modern music - it doesn't work.  Both have become unwatchable.  

Football (Match of the Day - soccer to our US friends) is fronted by someone who isn't sure whether he wants to be a football pundit or a political commentator.  I lost all interest in Football 12 years ago and I barely watch it.  

Awards like the Oscars or BAFTA, The BTA and so on are awful.  Infested with self righteous people of notoriety.  These people (in general I know a few exceptions - documentary etc)  pretend to be someone else and get paid greatly well to entertain us.  Somehow they too think they are some sort of political campaigners, pundits on climate change and any other hang your hat on activism.  Unwatchable trite nonsense by people self congratulating each other over how well someone else thought they did their day job.  What next?  Milkman of the year?  Delivery Driver awards?  It's about as interesting as that luvvies.

It's as if they aren't even bothered anymore.  The awards used to be interesting, what films were made and who made them etc but now it's a lecture on who I should vote for or what I'm doing to the planet.  I love that some of them fly half the world to come to these events, in a private jet and then lecture us about carbon emissions - it's a joke!.  

Yet none of them see it and I cannot change the world but I can change my world.  If everyone changed their world maybe things would improve?  These things need an audience and if they don't get one, then they are going to have to ask why.  But many people have the idiot box on whilst looking deeply into their smart phones and liking posts by randoms.

My stance on new car parking fees is to not go to the places that are charging them in the vain hope that revenues will plummet and they change their minds.  I get a 'free' bus pass so I'll use that and change from paying out to using that paid for by the people who impose the car park charges.  People need to vote with their feet and their cars and spend their money elsewhere not kowtow to these impositions.

There's some cr@p coming down from Government soon that will affect more and more people in this country and at some point, everyone has to say no.  It's got too big for its boots, it openly in your face wastes our money and then blames us for it.  There's a point where it will overstep the mark and it will be interesting to see what everyone does.  

I've always been rebellious and dislike being told what to do by people who think they are my elders and betters but frankly can only tie their own shoelaces with the help of an instruction card and to borrow Blackadder's phrase "I wouldn't trust them to sit the right way up on a toilet."

These people are dangerous and they need to do the admin job we ask of them.  This self appointed 'Ruling Class' need to stop spending our money and fleecing us and realise that they are the servants not the masters of the people.  Better than that, the people need to realise that fact too and once the realisation has hit home, they need to do something about it.  

Silence is Golden

 As the song says, Silence is Golden, and this afternoon was a case in point the sun was just about staying out from behind the odd cloud and it was an autumnal sort of heat, enough to allow you to sit out and just enjoy it.  I put on some music (Troika by Nick D'Virgilio Neal Morse and Ross Jennings), it's quite soothing and very Crosby Stills Nash and Young vibes.  

Then I just sat there and let the sun wash over me and just listened - of course there were planes overhead flying into and out of Gatwick, a lone Spitfire circled around the house and the Sheep at the back were chatting amongst themselves and even after all this time the Lambs seemed to lose their mothers with regularity requiring the shrill bleating and deeper responses from their mothers.

I didn't think about much just thought I'd enjoy the sunshine and take stock.  There's something brewing in my head and I need to spend some time working it through.  It's to do with the old restless me I guess.  Am I happy?  Will I ever be happy?  Should I accept where I am now and all that sort of nonsense? I am prone to this sort of thinking and it's part of the way I am.  It's to do with the time of year and 

This sprung to mind as I write.

The law of unintended consequences

The law of unintended consequences is a frequently-observed phenomenon in which any action has results that are not part of the actor's purpose. The superfluous consequences may or may not be foreseeable or even immediately observable and they may be beneficial, harmful or neutral in their impact.

Not for the first time in history are decisions made, lots of money spent appeasing a certain interest group who were lobbying for it and the unintended consequences come to light.  I suggest that these are common sense really so taking the Welsh decision against all the popular public's opinion to drop speed limits to 20 mph.  Here is the link to the data.

Here is a graph that is telling although I agree that not too much should be read into it at present but here it is nonetheless.

So there is something here stating that it is possible that these collisions would have occurred if it was still 30 mph.  We have 20 mph limits around here, they've taken away the ones on the Trunk Road as that really was a step too far.  I've spouted off about it before too.  I don't like it but neither does my car and so I so 20 mph in second gear and make a lot of noise and I'm sure that the car pollutes more in 2nd gear than 4th but there you are.  People overtake me doing ridiculous speeds way over 40 or 50 on a 20 mph road.  People are frustrated because they've always driven at around 30 and now they are constantly looking at their speedos instead of concentrating on driving.  You can see the frustration.  I think that 20 in the High Street and by Schools, Hospitals is perfectly acceptable preceded by flashing red lights telling you.  What I find unacceptable is restrictive kerbs that push you out into the path of oncoming traffic, loss of road real-estate caused by adding cycle paths that cyclists do not use as they continue to use the narrowed vehicle lanes. 

I am certain the rise in accidents is through distraction (I tend to use cruise control to limit my speed so do not need to constantly check my speed) as they take their eyes off the road to look at the speed and also on manual cars try to change gear to try and maintain what little speed they have.  It is difficult in modern cars to maintain 20 mph in anything other than 2nd or 3rd gear.  My car doesn't like me trying that in 4th gear which is of course more economical.

All I see is more noise and pollution than before, more crazy overtakes by frustrated drivers, the road rage type aggression that goes with it is increasing and it's aimed at the drivers who are sticking to the speed limit.  I am probably going to start reporting these from my dash cam soon as it is getting silly out there.  A motorbike overtook me the other day going at unbelievable speed, so much so that I was convinced he was going to come off as he went over the hatched (no overtaking) lines with all the debris!  

I see that there has been no improvement in London's air quality although it is pretty good anyway.  In fact some places it's got worse.  Of course, no one has wondered why that is?  There's no invisible barrier as you drive into the London Boroughs to pay this "tax" of course not and there's nothing stopping the wind blowing stuff into London from somewhere else or blowing it out by the same means.  Such is the bare faced bollocks we are being confronted with by these half-wit con men called politicians. When will the house come crashing down, when will the people say they've had enough?  I hope it is close and that all of this theft comes to an end soon.  I think once the October Budget arrives people will have had enough and we will have to see what happens next. 

Off the booze and weight loss progress

 Being stubborn by nature it wasn't so bad to give up drinking beer and I'm only touching the 0% beers if I go out, or water.  I'm carrying on with the Keto/Carnivore eating it's not a diet in the way people say it is, it's going back and stopping eating highly processed foods and especially carbohydrates.  Complex ultra processed carbohydrates are in most food that comes out of a factory and so I'm avoiding those.

When dining out I've been known to eat a salad or just have a steak without fries, or a mixed grill without fries and that means I can avoid the tempting potatoes and pastas etc. I certainly don not eat those at home anyway.  

I noticed today, doing some work in the garden that I am a lot thinner and I don't have my stomach digging into me when I bend over to do anything.  It was actually a little painful and could make you feel slightly nauseous but not today.  Getting up from a kneeling down position is also a lot easier but I really want to lose a good two or three stones more if I can and then work on sticking to things.  It's OK to have the odd sweet or dessert and it's OK to have the odd drink.  I actually finished off a half a pint of beer my friend didn't want - and we shouldn't waste beer.  

The trouble I had before was that I had beer in the house and I'd happily sit down to listen to music, watch the TV, do some work or read a book and open a beer whilst doing so.  1 beer can easily become 4 beers and before you know it, that's a habit every night.

Now I drink a bit more coffee, sparkling water and  occasionally Bovril which is a beef flavoured drink perhaps with some yeast in (like Marmite although I'm not sure about that).  It's tasty and stops cravings for drinking and also if I'm feeling hungry which is rare.

So far I've definitely lost weight especially around my waist and my face and neck area are noticeably thinner.  I normally notice that my arms lose weight too but this time, whilst there is some loss, my watch isn't coming lose like before but it is beginning to feel that way.  I notice my trousers fit better and my belt is ready to go in a notch already which is good.

The main thing is to keep at this and continue to gradually lose the weight.  As I have said before, it took years to put the weight on and it will take some time to lose it.  In the interim, I just need to keep at it.  

It is infinitely doable. 

How to meet the leader of the free World

 I really don't have a lot of time for Joe Biden but I see our Foreign Secretary today went to visit, no doubt to talk about how he intends to start WWW3.  What amused me was that he was wearing a suit and.... wait for it....wait for it.... Trainers (are the called SNeakers too?).

I'm sure that the President will be impressed.  That's if he actually knows who these two clowns that have come to see him are?  Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister of our wee little island.

In other news it appears that this bunch are still intent on stealing our hard earned so they can give it away to elsewhere in the world.  I suppose we just ought to let them get on and screw everything up - it is after all what they normally do.  Socialists are meant to look after the people but it feels like we are going full on Venezuela!

I'm not dreading the October budget, I'm looking for was to buck the system.  To become ungovernable if at all possible.  I need to think of ways of making a nuisance of myself that keeps me within the law but at the same time limits paying anything out to these clowns who get paid their heating expenses but have stolen mine.

I do hope that Starmer meets Karma as soon as possible.   

Is The Curtain Finally Being Pulled Back? Toto, It's Time To Do Your Duty

 A great scene that in the Wizard of Oz as the Wizard is exposed for what he is by Toto who pulls back the curtains.

Here, in the UK, I think it is finally dawning on the public what some of us have known for years and that is that we are run by incompetent chancers.  Yesterday our Foreign Secretary gave away £3BN and promised that much every year for continuing the war in Ukraine.  They gave £11BN for Net Zero reparations or whatever based on the amazing (if true) possibility that CO2 found at huge quantities of.....wait for it... 400 parts per million in the atmosphere can magically affect the planet's climate. So that's less than 0.04% have I got that right?  So less than 1% forces the remaining 99.96% to heat up.  Anyhow, £11BN and then there's £12BN for foregin aid to places like China and India, yes China and India tiger economies.

Meanwhile here they are attempting to save £1.3BN by taking away the pensioner's £300 winter fuel benefit.  It was there because the pension really doesn't cover enough to properly live on, the living wage being some £8000 a year more that the pensioners get.  On top of that nearly all of us now fall into the tax bracket due to fiscal lag.  The personal allowance hasn't been changed and so pensioners now have to pay tax on their pensions, not a lot but enough to be a nuisance.  They add the money and make a headline of it but of course that isn't how much you'll get.  

I paid into a pension for most of my life, losing not quite half of it through divorce proceedings.  So for my diligence in saving for old age, I get rewarded by that being taxed too!  

The MPs were elected and this is where Twitter and Facebook et al come to our assistance, on protecting the Pensioner's winter fuel payments and so on.  We know exactly which ones agreed with the Government and who did not.  Some MPs are surely going to get a hard ride in the future on this.  Fifty abstained and they should have voted against and lost the whip as only one did.  Brave, MP, principled and that is what we have - cowards, not representing the views of their constituents and slowly the public are beginning to see what these people are like.

There are around 10 million pensioners and of course, some are well off enough to cover the bills etc.  However, lock-down and other world problems have doubled my fuel bill in the last 4 to 5 years.  I cannot run my beloved AGA oven as it chomps through 40 litres of fuel a week which is now close to £32 when it was around £16 it was OK as it also heated the house so the impact on the central heating was minimal.  Electricity and Gas have all but doubled and many people are struggling, the very people these MP charlatans said they'd help and protect. 

I really hope that the people will now get angry and I am glad to see that MPs are getting heckled and yelled at in the street.  I hope that people write into their MPs and tell them what they think about them.  I don't wish it but there looks as if many people will be severely impacted by this and they know that 2 or 3 million pensioners should be on benefits and top ups and they aren't.  Why?  well a bit like the old chap in the bank yesterday, I don't have internet banking a smart phone and I am deaf so I cannot hear what your Indian Call-centre lady or man is saying to me.  They don't have internet banking, the DWP are advertising on Facebook FFS - how may older people use Facebook or even know what it is?  It's pathetic and wrong.  Those in greatest need are the more vulnerable of our population and the MPs have thrown them under a bus.

Of course, they still get their second home allowances and expenses paid, they don't need to go and get means tested just to stay warm this year!  Today is one of the coldest September days I can remember, there's a north west wind from the Arctic and even snow falling on the Scottish mountains and hills!! That's normally a November thing having been up there when it does snow!

I think the anger needs to ratchet up a few notches and this pathetic bunch of liars for that is what everyone can now plainly see are confronted every day with the consequences of their actions.   Taking away something that is seen (rightly so) as an integral part of the pension because they don't pay enough in the first place is like taking sweets or a toy away from a child just after you gave it to them.  It was there for a purpose, it is outdated and hasn't kept up with the costs of fuel doubling and now, when energy costs are going up, it has been taken away so in reality, you have the money you haven't got any more and the impact of the near doubling of fuel costs and they are rising 10% in October and possibly another 5% in January. So the impact isn't the loss of £300 is it probably more like £500 or more that has to be found after losing the £300 anyway.

Everyone needs to stop believing that these imbeciles even know how to govern and they are not our lords and masters, they are our servants.  Why no one seems to realise is beyond me, maybe they just enjoy being pushed around, bullied and being told what to do.  They'll be telling us who our friends are and whether we can leave the house or not next!  To Hell with the lot of them. 

No Sh1t Sherlock

 As I am apt to say on many occasions when some dumb f***wit in high positions does something stupid or suddenly what I've been saying for ages comes to pass.

The Government are realising they have a youth unemployment problem.  Indeed, if it  easier to sit at home and get paid to do so then that sort of thing happens -no sh1r Sherlock.

They voted through the removing of the Pensioner's winter fuel allowance which by their own statements they weren't going to do and opposed as 4,000 could die.  But they voted it through anyway whilst increasing fuel bills so we can pay some sort of green levy that should have meant our bills were cheaper as it was greener, renewable, reliable, cheaper.  People who voted for them can't believe they did it despite hey always have been the politics of envy and whilst saying they represent the working class, they've just sh1t all over them.  People are angry, they didn't keep their word.  No sh1t Sherlock.

Labour Politicians are being yelled at and sworn at in the street, heckled and are finding out that they are truly disliked by their constituents because they have supported the removal of the winter fuel allowance, released prisoners early, and are now openly saying they are coming after more punitive tax raids on our money.  They don't feel safe and they feel intimidated because of the decisions they've made and it comes as a big surprise when you don't keep your word or you punish the people who voted for you.  No sh1t Sherlock.

Oh, the sale of EVs is down and no one can see why.  Well, if you live where I do, you can see why as you'd be hard pushed to run one in a rural environment.  As subsidies disappear and you start to impose road taxing on them they don't look such a good deal.  Given the depreciation figures on them I'm surprised anyone would want one.  I can see that having one in a city might be considered useful but hold on, after 5 years the comparison on the second hand market shows a huge problem.  If you need to replace the battery you quickly see where the black hole of ownership will end up.  People sound surprised that this is a problem.  I just say no sh1t Sherlock.

I see businesses are busy working out how to get the hell out now.  They see changes to the tax regime and CGT, IHT, NI and other things are going to make it difficult to run a business in this country, enabling workers to change working practices, impositions on landlords and things that surely are designed to stifle growth and throttle back productivity make no sense.  Our economy is stagnant now and the shock of these new measures being introduced will potentially divert investment away from this country who's costs are too high, productivity, too low, energy costs are too high and taxes too.  As the country starts to stagnate we could perhaps say no sh1t Sherlock.

There are a number of people of notoriety (they aren't celebrities whatever anyone states) who are in the public eye and are shall we say, activists, not presenters and they command high fees and just make obnoxious comments on social media and are revered by people etc.  Shock and horror, their employers have just found out the reasons for their programme ratings crashing is because they hold these extreme views, cannot separate their job from their personal views and spout a load of garbage.  Ratings falling, people don't like them, they dislike the content of the programmes and so they switch off and some no longer watch TV and so no longer pay the licence fee and suddenly the pockets are hit and blinking like Rabbits caught in the headlights they have no idea how they got here or what to do to get themselves out of it because they know best but they don't - it's funny to watch them blaming their audience for not thinking the way that they do!!! So ratings plummet, licence uptake is down significantly, and no one saw it coming.  No sh1t Sherlock.

Failure must be a natural part of the day to day experience of these people.  Quite how they f**k up so massively and so regularly and blame us for their failures and shortcomings is beyond me.  They have no common sense and have little strategic long-term thinking.  One wants to save the planet and imposes some sort of green agenda which actually punishes everyone in the country, delivers nothing except costs, has no benefits whatsoever, isn't measured, isn't monitored and is so narrow in outlook that it affects lots of other areas through the knock on effect not considered or even thought about.  They get all upset about it but do not have the ability to scrutinise their own part in their inevitable downfall.  The cognitive dissonance if off the wall.  We didn't epxect that and I just say no sh1t Sherlock.  

COMPUTER SAYS NO

Changing my electric company and I knew this would happen.  The departing one took a DD out of my account despite the fact that I changed a few weeks ago and was over double that amount in credit!  Great that threw my bank into meltdown and now I've got an email saying we will get the credit back to you in 10 days!  10 days, what on earth are they doing in 10 days that cannot be automatically credited back, it's all on computer these days.  So rant over on that one I suppose.

Dentists today first time since 2019.  It kept getting delayed and cancelled but I've found a local one and they all seem quite nice.  I had a chipped tooth so that's been sorted and I will see the hygienist next week so that's good too.  Of course the rant about this is that you have to pay for dentistry it's no longer NHS, our glorious NHS doesn't provide this free at the point of need.  It's been so for years and we've gotten use to it.  However, it was never envisaged as this and you can see the meddling hands of the MPs and administrators writ large on the demise of having your teeth fixed this way.

 It is interesting that my teeth otherwise are in pretty good nick for a 67 year old.  That's good.  I need to make sure that I look after them.  When my Nanny was my age she'd had them all out and was wearing dentures.

  

Spider Senses

 A friend of mine often comes out with "Spider Senses" and what he means is that you know something is wrong but you can't quite put your finger on what it is.

I've a similar sort of Spider Sense and some people set off alarm bells in my head.  Now it could be anything that does this, how they behave generally, their body language and also how they talk.  It's something I think is in built in us, possibly more so as I had to manage people from a young age and being "different" it just sort of means that I am alert to people's behaviour more so than most I guess.  

I dislike the way that people hold grudges, don't like or are outright intolerant of others.  A case in point being that I do not generally hold grudges or anything like that in the way that most people do.  If you've wronged me somehow you will either know about as I told you, or be wondering why certain things are happening to you, as I haven't told you but I'm pulling invisible strings and getting my own back (I know it's childish but it's also very interesting and quite rewarding too).  However, you are more than likely to find that you never get contacted by me again or I totally ignore you.  I don't have a need to be confrontational, once it's happened it's generally over and I move on (these days).  So it is interesting that all of a sudden someone needs something to be done but they've burnt their boats a long time ago.  They need to get something done but it looks like I will have to do it as I didn't go for the option and still remain in touch.

This is circuitous but what I am trying to say is that if there's a good reasons to burn your boats then do so but realise what the potential outcome might be in doing that.  Once it is done, it is difficult to come back from it.  Choose wisely what bridges you burn.  Mine are those where the other party has done something that requires me to break off communication or to "Punish" the infraction in some way.  Very few make it back from that position.  However, I don't do it because I dislike something minor about them as many people take and give offence far to lightly and easily these days.  

Back to Spider Senses.  I can generally feel that something is awry way before it may become obvious.  I find a lot of people aren't genuine, aren't what they make out they are or have some sort of hidden agenda.  My Spider Senses will do things like make the hair on the back of my neck raise, or on my arms, limit my reactions and make almost every interaction guarded and I'm highly alert to what is going on in their whole demeanour.  Something alerts me to this but I couldn't tell you exactly what.

Out with people in a group and watch the interactions and the way the conversation ebbs and flows, who dominates and who is quiet (normally me the first set of times I meet you but after that I'm far more relaxed).  I can pick up on most things except flirting or similar sorts of come on.  That's the INTJ problem they don't always pick up on it unless it is quite obvious or they are initiating it.  I really didn't get the signals on a number of occasions and almost had to told directly what was meant and of course then I got it.  However, if someone is a Ne'er-do-well or not who they make out to be or isn't going to be a team player or some such I can find them out really quickly.  

It's going to be fun to try and do the intermediary job for the burnt bridges scenario.  I wonder if they will learn from that?  It will also be interesting for me to think about the people that I have sent to Coventry and knowing full well that they deserved it consider whether there was any value in not doing so.  Yes, thought about it, they bloody well deserved it and a bit more really. 

Lunch With Friends

 Our Aussie Friends are coming towards the end of their 3 month trip and we had our final lukch with them today.  I mention this as he ordered a second pint and took a few sips and said that his eyes were far too big for his stomach and so would I like to have it as he'd only sipped a bit.

Well, I don't like to see beer go to waste and so I did have it, I suppose about 2/3rds of a pint.  It was very nice and I haven't touched alcohol for about a month now I guess so it was strange what it did to me.

I feel fine but I really could down a couple of pints as once you've got the flavour you really could have another.  I didn't, I was driving but I did feel like picking up a 4 pack and having them tonight but I've resisted that and the odd slip off the wagon in beer and food isn't so bad as long as it isn't regularly done.  

Had some maniac motorbike overtake me as I was beginning to pull out for a parked car!  It's a good thing that I am aware of motorbikes and was able to brake to let him past or else at the speed he was travelling he would have been pretty seriously injured.  He had no number plate on so not going to be easy to identify him, hopefully someone has better dash-cam of the incident than I do.   

It was interesting that they didn't know that I had been married before - but now they do know :-) It's interesting gauging reactions and seeing people who had made assumptions about you suddenly find out something new and unexpected about me..  

Sunlit Uplands Indeed

 The lies started before the cam to power and continue now.  "Everything is broken" says Dear Leader.  Surely he knew this as he stated it incessantly before his election and now it comes as a total surprise to him.

The "OUR NHS" (glorious health service of no criticism allowed) is broken he says and blow me down, how does he intend to fix it?  Same as always, throw money at it in the hope some, like mud or sh1t will actually stick and achieve something.  No root and branch reform, no, lets throw money at it, it's never worked in the past but it might work now.    “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” -attributed to Albert Einstein, but likely to be apocryphal. 

The chancellor's latest move of adding 20% VAT to public school fees (Private schools in the UK are called this for some obscure reason) has resulted in council suddenly getting an influx of pupils now unable, now, to attend these schools needing to be found places and the councils are squeaking about it, they don't have the places nor the staff etc.  The politics of envy at play thinking they were going to get a great big tax hike now find that it is probably not as big a take and they have to divert money elsewhere to fulfil statutory duties to educated children in the state schools.  Many of these politician's were educated privately themselves but they've always despised the system that they were educated in.

I think it was Churchill who in his "The Few" speech mentioned the sunlit uplands but I doubt we will see them with this bunch of clowns tearing down our country and society.

I wrote earlier on FB that I had a note on my desk at work that stated:

"It is difficult to soar with Eagles when you work with Turkeys!"

How true that was and indeed is.

We are going to hell in a handcart here and the quality of leadership gives hope that our local Village Idiot might aspire to high office in the near future!  

Leave Me Alone! Stop Telling Me What To Do!

 I get pretty fed up and I'm stubborn as you like so if you intend to tell me what to do you will find, very quickly, that you will be being told what to do and depending on how I feel it may be an expletive lined flowery response or just NO as it normally is.  You see, no one tells me what to do and it's been a problem all my life.  I'm an INTJ which is worth looking up and reading about.

If you cannot ask me nicely and back up why you want me to do something then you are doomed to failure.  Why is massively important and if you are just being a authoritarian git you are going to get some sort of comeuppance. 

Our local council have hit the national news as they intend to spend £75 to £100K on ANPR technology on car parks meaning that you'd have to have some sort of smart device or internet to register and use it and if you are a Blue Bade Holder (for disabled people) who normally park free the unintended consequence of this is you get charged to park.

No one asked for this, it used to be free to park and get some country air and enjoy the natural beauty of the lakes and grounds and have a coffee at the cafe but no, sod our well being, we are going to get charged for it and observed by ANPR cameras.  They know that vandalism is a possibility hence they've added £25K to the guesstimate.  FFS leave us alone and stop making our lives harder especially no tech savvy people (around 12 to 20% do not have internet).  Older people have lost their Banks, Post Offices etc and are being asked to do things they have no experience in.  I'm lucky I grew up with Tech and can get my way around it - it's still sh1t and doesn't work properly for every day people.

We pay a substantial amount in taxes with a burden around 70% it's effing ridiculous and this new mob are hell bent on killing us old 'uns off over the coming winter, stopping us driving our cars despite the fact most of us live in rural areas not where the metropolitan "elite" live.

I can feel the anger brewing up against these undemocratic, waste of funds, useless policies aimed at signalling virtue and that don't actually achieve anything other than setting fire to £20 notes - p1ss1ng our money away for the sake of feeling good about themselves and appeasing a very small minority at the detriment and disadvantage of the majority.

I guess it's just something to live with for a little while longer until it all goes pear shaped.  No one seems to be noticing what the BRICS group of countries are doing and how disruptive that will be to our economy as a whole.  We are importing just about everything we used to manufacture ourselves, the only reason GDP looks good is that we also import cheap labour (or let it be imported under the radar).  Productivity is dropping alarmingly and together with low birth rates among the population things look grim.

The car crash energy policies being pursued will possibly lead to the lights going out the way that we bright eyed and optimistically look to wind and solar to power our lives without the strategy to have back up when it's night time and when the wind blows too much or not enough for you need 100% back up for all of them in these situations.  It's OK they say because it will give sustainable, cheaper supplies.  Well, my bills have doubled and there's no way that a windmill lasts 10 years let alone 25 without a lot of maintenance and of course, they are built with things that require traditional technology.  None of it is new.  

I hope that they strands of our Government start to unravel as they realise that they cannot tackle the real problems with money we and they haven't got, we can't tax our way out of it.  If they go after the "rich" then I imagine they will, like quite a few have already, leave or change their status to avoid punitive taxes and also punitive labour laws which will damage their businesses.  Why bother if you get constant envy based penny pinching from politicians.  

I'm sitting back watching it all slowly unravel and like I would do at work many times to my enemies, I will use that old maxim from Sun Tzu: "Never interrupt your opponent while he is in the middle of making a mistake."

You let them take enough rope to hang themselves and watch them run faster and faster to their jolt of awareness and even then most do not realise that they have come to the end of their plan or whatever else they were doing.

Revenge is a dish best served cold they say and so the fun part is letting people do stupid things, letting them fail colossally and smiling on the other side of your face as you pretend to show sympathy to their predicament all the time know that they bloody well deserved that and more.  

Won't all this austerity or downright theft cause more problems?

 Another story of people losing their jobs in the Third Sector as donations start to dry up and there are insufficient funds to employ the people.  A store in Sheffield closes and 30 jobs are lost because people don't go there anymore as they would have to pay a clean air tax type scheme.  You know where you cross an imaginary line and the air is suddenly cleaner because the polluting cars pay to go into the zone?  

The problems arising are a bit like my experience.  I live in rural countryside, few buses and it's 45 to 60 minutes for me to walk to either of my stations.  It takes around 15 minutes to walk to the nearest bus stop and a bus goes past I understand hourly but not after 6 pm!  So I pretty much need a car.  The powers that be all appear to be from cities as they think everyone uses or should use public transport when, in reality only around 10% of the population actually does - they, like me, could look up this sort of statistic, but why let the facts get in the way of taxing the daylights out of the population?

In my view killing off my spending power by taking away my winter fuel allowance and with rising energy costs - the Chancellor once again thinks that we all only run on electricity! means I have to make choices.  By making me pay £12.50 each time in make an incursion into the invisible ULEZ zone, it means I don't go to things I used to thereby saving the money I'd spend there and the imposed tax to do so.  So far not doing so has saved me around £500 and quite a bit as I no longer eat and drink in the establishments I used to go to.

The impact on my social life and on my disposable income is such that I have consciously, in the past month since this silliness arrived, with a further month until the next government budget and with measures already in place, have decided that only essentials will be bought, the remaining money is now going to be used for to clothe, heat and feed ourselves.  I have plans to use my log burner a lot more this year to keep ourselves warm and I no longer plan to go the local town as they've put the car park prices up and you have to pay whenever you go there.

Shops are already closing and saying footfall is down.  It's not fair on them or us but they, at least have some leverage over petty council diktats and surely councils will see that they are destroying they very people they need to encourage for employment and prosperity and to increase rates etc.

But they'll never see it as they aren't business men and women and they don't see that their actions have a reaction (equal and opposite) despite this being well known and understood.  A place I went to this year had a great idea and didn't charge for parking except between 8:00 and 8:30 when it was a large sum of money,  rest of the time, it was free to park which was great, you could spend all day there, see the historic monuments, shop in the town's shops and so on.  They made the rule so as to dissuade those using the station to get to work to not park there but in the allocated station car parks.  That left these car parks for tourists and residents to use.  The result was a vibrant shopping area (thinking back I don't think I saw too many empty or boarded up shops).

Punitive tax regimes often have the effect of not doing what they set out to.  I just wished more people were as bloody stubborn as I am about it.  In my view, there ought to be a Gandhi style non violent resistance where for example acts like not buying petrol from a specific brand for a day or week happens.  Where no one buys from a certain supermarket for a week or similar.  The message about who holds the power would come through but people aren't inclined to put themselves out these days.  

If you remember, I've never gone to MacDonalds again since the incident where they tried to "fine" me for parking over 1 hour at one of their establishments.  My crime was I'd gone and got a second coffee.  It was ridiculous and the "fine" was dropped but the time and cost involved in me to fight it made me take the decision that I'd never spend my money in one again. So what you might say, you're just one person and that, dear reader, is the wholoe point.  If everyone did it, they'd reverse their policy but the Muppets pay these "fines" and they are around £70 or more and so all the time you don't fight it, you invite it. A general level of ignorance as to what these "fines" are would help but no, people pay and don't fight them.

So with all the talked about impositions on people coming down the track in the October budget I think it might start to wake a few people up. I hope so.  The levels of taxation in this country are abhorrent.  I'm dipping into my savings, the ones I've put in all my life, saved for times like this where money is being taken away from me as a pensioner and blow me down but they're taxing that money too!  Shocking behaviour.

I really hope that the people will get angry and organised to actually do something about it.  The societal damage successive governments do is unacceptable and so let's hope everyone realises who actually holds the power here.  However, most people think that these MPs are something special - they aren't, they are our servants, they should do what we say, we put them there, they want the job (we don't) and that's what it boils down to.  The cronyism and greed, squirrelling away of our hard earned money into vanity projects doing the opposite of what they are intended make us all poorer.  We might as well go back and live in caves if this carries on. 

Speed Kills

 Yee Gods, today in a Sainsbury's Car Park I nearly got wiped out by (a fellow Volvo driver) car going so fast that he would have hit me if I hadn't of stopped and he hadn't either.  I was edging out of my space and he must have been doing 20 or a bit more I guess given where he stopped after he saw me.  

It's not the first time that I have witnessed speeding in car parks - surely this is one place where people are manoeuvring and trying to get out of tight spaces and yet people drive like it's a flaming race track!  Our little local Sainsbury's has a one way system car park but no, users have to go the wrong way when they see a space and many is the time that I've come face to face with these people who wave their arms about as if that is going to somehow sort out that they are going the wrong way!

I also had some old chap tell me that my car had hit his!  I showed him my CitySafe camera and radar thingy system wotsit and told him that it doesn't allow me to drive into things as it slams the brakes on (very hard indeed).  What he had heard was the car stopping for sure but I was about 6 inches from his car and asked him to show me where the damage was and surely there must be paint work or scratches?  Of course there weren't. I bade him good day and suggested that he take photos of his and my car and send them off to his Insurance Company!  Daft bugger.

Yep driving standards are pretty bad and some of the tailgating and overtaking I've recently witnessed on blind bends, double white lines and so on is breath taking.  How the guy didn't have a head on collision is beyond me and the lorry in front of me he overtook on a blind bend, double white lines and a bit of a blind crest too.  Another who didn't like me doing the speed limit, to be fair I was slightly over but got fed up of the tailgating and so reverted to the 20mph overtook me doing around 50 I'd suggest and nearly piled into a car turning from a side road. I dislike 20 mph it is difficult not to have to drive in third gear so I leave it loudly complaining and polluting in 2nd gear.  Cars are not designed to sit in low gears like that surely?  Anyway, tailgaters get my full Captain Slow approach,  Another overtook in a 30 doing 70 or more I'd suggest at around 11 at night.  On the wrong side of a traffic island.  I now have a dashcam for such instances.

Anyway, what was so desperate that this bloke was speeding in a car park?  At least he had to emergency stop his car. 

Right Wing or Left Wing

 So as far as I remember the Nazi Party were National Socialists but now they are also Fascists and Far Right.  It's all a bit confusing really as anything right of centre is Far Right these days.

I'm far right according to toady's description and so are most of my friends.  Our socialist Government are, well, far left in that case I suppose, they certainly aren't middle ground and their current trajectory appears to show an authoritarian rule, with any criticism appearing to be so bad that you can spend time in the gulag for it.

I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answer that can't be questioned.  Not sure who said that but it's not common that you cannot question what Dear Leader has proclaimed and you cannot have rationale argument nor can there be any discussion about decisions taken.

We shall see where this leads us.  It looks like we've lost in a very short space of time, our glorious democracy.

Blast It! Diet Good - Teeth Not So Much LOL

 The keeping off the booze is doing well, I'm a stubborn SOB and once I've made up my mind, I normally stick to it.  It had a few days away where I treated myself to some beers but other than that it's been around 2 months without any beers.  That's a big thing as perhaps the one thing I enjoy a lot is sitting outside (or inside) or standing or.... Oh you get the picture and having a nice beer listening to music, or not, or just watching the world go by.

So, I've gone far more LCHF almost carnivore and I'm starting to do a little intermittent fasting now, mainly missing out on lunch although perhaps I should miss the evening meal but I have to cook for two so that's difficult.  I am not going to say that the weight has dropped off me but I feel noticeably thinner and I feel better than I have for quite a while.  My belt and trousers do not cut into my middle and I seem to have lost weight in different places - my sides, face and neck to start with and not my arms this time.  

The downside is that I chipped a tooth last night.  I do like a bit of Belly Pork and crisped up the crackling nicely but slightly too hard for my NHS butchered 1960/70s teeth. I don't suppose that the dangers of sweets and sugar were known about then, a bit like smoking wasn't really all that frowned upon back then.

The upshot is that I am seeing the Dentist next week and hope to get it fixed.  It isn't too bad and it isn't cutting into my mouth or tongue as sometimes these things do.

So, yes, that's annoying but just one of those things.  I have to say this carnivore diet seems to be doing the right things and despite the naysayers warnings, I actually feel a lot better, a lot lighter and I am beginning to feel better in my head too.  It's not all gone but I am feeling much more positive and I hope soon that I'll be breaking this quite long period of procrastination too.

Right In Your Face

 How annoying is it that politicians lie?  Now they don't even do it so you can't see it.  Straight in your face.  Three months ago they weren't going to do anything that would affect the vast majority of people but now, they are doing bat sh1t crazy stuff.  They want o ban smoking in public and yet can't stop the illegals coming over in their rubber dinghies!  They want to save money by taking it off of Pensioners.  

There's this blind spot which is just amazing.  They rattle on about how bad everything is but don't actually do anything about it.  No plan, no vision, no ideas!  I've had to lead some bloody awful projects and do loads of Project Red jobs and you don't get to lead your team by telling them everything is sh1t and oh y God what have we walked into (even if deep down you think or know that).  No, it's a challenge to get your team on side, work on how you are going to deliver and then set a plan and go for it.  Sure, every now and then it's too difficult to deliver but you never start off by suggesting that you aren't going to be able to deliver and that it's a disaster.  Our PM and his cohorts obviously don't look at it this way.  It's as if they've stepped into dog poo the faces they pull, the hand wringing, the blaming anyone but themselves, their inability to actually talk it up and lead the country or give us some hope.  

It's not at all surprising that their ratings are negative, they've plummeted and rightly so.  Impacting 10 million pensioners by taking away their heating payment and then upping fuel costs by 10%!  People can see the waste and inability of these people to actually take tough decisions and tell the truth.  Spunking the money away in billions of pounds and blaming us!  They are meant to be looking after things but the level of incompetence is breath taking. It's as if they've rounded up all the Village Idiots and made them Members of Parliament.  

They lie right to your face and you can see it, they are creepy and that is what I think will be their undoing.  

Good Grief

Sorry, we've somewhat deviated from Bladder Cancer so let's get back on track a bit.

It's been 2 or 3 years since I was discharged after some 17 years of treatments and reviews.  So let's review where we are:

1. I'm not dead yet!  Yes, I survived and I lived to tell the tale.  My "I'm Not Dead Tee Shirt" is still around, still fits but is looking a bit faded now.
2. It's mentally and physically debilitating - I doubt that even now I'm fully over it mentally or physically but I am still here, still living life but not my best life.  I need to do that. 
3. I'm getting my weight back down - I ate and drank far too much and lock down didn't help
4.  I am a totally different person than I was.  I'm actually more tolerant than I used to be (that may surprise you reading my posts).  I don't get so worked up about things now, they will be what they will be and I cannot change what is happening.
5. I don't overthink situations anymore and whilst I'll not break out of the way I work and think, at least I'm not in the situation where my mind is buzzing and calculating all the time.
6. I still find myself wasting time at this PC and procrastinating too. 

So I think that clearly it's survivable and you can work your way through it.  It took longer and perhaps 7 years longer to get discharged but they were keeping their eye on me so I suppose it isn't too bad apart from the extra operations (that were not necessary but you never know).

I feel that I am a little ungrateful for the extra life I've been given and that needs to change.  The biggest rut you have to get over is the rut you are in of course.

Leadership

When your "elected" leader tells you it's all doom and gloom and troubled times are ahead after having told you about the bright sunlit uplands in his clamour to be elected you might well feel, like I do, that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark?"

If you wanted someone to lead you into battle or inspire you, this Prime Minister is not the one.  The lies and downright bare faced bollocks that he and his party have started coming out with just a month or so into their tenure bodes badly for our future.  Very badly and some of the things they want to bring in will cripple the country and destroy the will to work or do anything, why should you work for someone else's benefit and not your own?  Why should you pay crippling taxes and see no benefit yourself.  Imagine if you will that they state there is a huge gaping hole in the budget to the tune of £20BN and yet they gave away £11BN so they can save the planet.  Imagine that they haven't even looked at the huge amount spent on vanity projects, millions goes to waste on studies to prove that Shakespeare didn't write for the LQBTQ+-=£$%& community.  I could have told you that for a few quid.

There's no leadership at all, this downtrodden, glass half empty PM has no idea how to inspire us, to say what needs to be done and he appears to have no ideas at all.  Like a Bullrush in the wind he blows hither and thither not knowing which way to point and grow in.  It's all looking grim and the anger is growing, the criticism too is mounting.  What they say and what they do are almost completely the opposite, people can see it for themselves and the trust (if there ever was any) in them is being destroyed one lie at a time.  You don't need to be a Rocket Scientist to know how things are going.  The race to the bottom is almost there and this lot will reach the bottom and then accelerate and dig down even further.

I don't know too many people who take this clown seriously anymore.  We need leadership out of the sh1t storm we are currently in and there's no politician that isn't to blame for the mess we are in.  But we've got Mr Blancmange in charge, woe betides us!

Nanny State

 Already sick to death of these incompetent no nothing politicians.  They haven't a clue and they are absolutely despised and just don't seem to know it yet.  I'd say they probably have no idea what they are up against and they look like animals caught in the rushing headlights of an oncoming vehicle.  They wanted "power" and now they've got i, you can see they don't know what to do with it.

They are spending money like water and want us to pay for it, they are doing really stupid things, LTNs, no smoking outside pubs FFS - and I'm an ex-smoker and find that ridiculous.  They are focusing on jailing people for hurty words and seem to be dealing in different ways with serious crime.  There's photo evidence of the Police, for example, walking past someone doing Nitrous Oxide in plain view.  There's rightly prison time for extremist thugs and violence but again it seems as if it is being handled very badly and the press aren't really helping their cause.

They have spent so much money on continue to do so on vanity projects expecting us to suffer the tax to cover it.  Honestly, when you see the money being pumped into projects that have no good outcome for normal regular people you can see that they've already lost their way and the people just think rightly so that they are a bunch of liars, cheats, chancers (for sure), ignorant, nose in the trough politicians.  They say they have a £20 Bn black hole in the accounts.  They spend half a billion a day on the NHS probably more now so in 40 days we'd get that back!  They pumped £11 Bn into reparations for Climate Change!  The spend on vanity projects is likewise huge and there's no benefit to us at all.

The energy price cap has gone up 10% and due another 3% in January and it's doubled in 4 or 5 years but that's not their fault.  It's our apparently.  There some magic secret force out there called the Far Right.  When you boil it down., there is no such thing, there's concerned citizens who have livelihoods to look after, mouths to feed, mortgages and bills to pay and they are being sold how under control the economy is and yet these inflation busting energy prices, fines to use your car, and food prices increasing alarmingly - they say it's a few percent inflation but they don't truly see the cost in their closeted high castle. 

You can feel the anger and the disappointment in the utterly wet "leadership" this guy brings.  He's already lied to us three or four times and the Internet does not forget and the promises he made just a few months ago are shattered and broken, smashed in our faces.   "I'll look after the Pensioners"  Well he's taken £300 off of them and raised the costs of heating for us all.  

I am not sure how long he will last as he appears to have underestimated what it takes to be PM of this country he brings nothing to the table and all they can do is Nanny us in what you can and can't do.

LEAVE ME ALONE you bastards.  Stop telling me what I can and cannot do.  Run the country for us (which is after all what you were voted in to do).  But no. you just want to interfere and make things worse.

Ronald Reagan said that the most frightening words you could ever hear were "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you!"