On A Mission!

 It was a long day.  My car needed a service and an MOT (an annual road fitness test).  SO I booked and the idea was (I thought) get the service done so they can sort out anything that needs to be done and then test.  I knew it would be a couple of hours to do.  So I duly left the car and went into the local town (about 15 minutes walk) and did a circular walk, had breakfast, looked around some shops, walked up the river past the locks and weir, wandered around and came back, went for a coffee and basically spent 3 hours away before commencing walking back.

So when I get there, I see the car has been turned around facing a different way only to be told that the MOT is done but they haven't started on the service!  FFS, so another hour and a half to wait - to which I expressed my surprise as the email and text I had received didn't say this but had emphasized to be there when I had turned up!  SO I took myself off for a long walk (they did offer to put a film on but I declined) and so I walked the outer ring road and then down past the Mill and the Church and when I felt that I really was getting tired and didn't want to go around the blocks again I popped into one of the very old pubs.  I'm not drinking but they had a list of non-alcoholic beers available and my favourite one is Adnams Ghost Ship and at 0.5% it fits the bill and it's a nice tasting beer.  

I spent an hour having two delicious beers and catching up with the Crypto Market which, after all these years, has taken off again.  It's been an interesting ride and probably still will be - like a roller coaster on steroids! 

Anyway, finally I got a call and went and got my car which seems, for its age, to just need a few tweaks to get it back up and fighting fit.  It passed its emissions tests and that's what is annoying with all the ULEZ and LEZ zones.  If my car passes all the governments tests why should some snotty council clerk make me pay to drive into their area.  Which I don't anyway (except London which I can't avoid).  Well, I say London, it's not really, it's green countryside but that doesn't stop them.

Currently, I'm doing everything in my power to not pay parking, not pay LEZ and so on.  They can all go and sod right off.  If they could, they'd tax the air you're breathing. What I was encouraged by was that the majority of car parks in town (where they've put up prices and increased the time these are payable) were at best half full.  They always used to be packed and so maybe, they will see this loss of revenues.  Big name companies are showing signs of going bust and it appears to me that everyone is hunkering down after the budget and I'm sure that there will be a big fallout soon as prices have to go up and taxes too.  People aren't investing and so that is going to cause some problems further along the line.

I'm just being me and being stubborn and obstinate.  I'm sweeping my chimney later today so I can get my log burner ready for winter.  I hope to get that all functioning nicely ready for next week's cold snap! 

Car Service & Test Day

 Well that came around quickly and I am impressed to note that I have done less than 4000 miles this year.  I really have cut back on driving and I have tried to use the bus and walk where possible.

Super impressed that I found one of my nice shirts and I fit into it.  Losing all this weight (I guess around 2 stone or around 13kg) now means that I can start to fit into old clothes and my exiting ones are now loose and so much more comfortable.   It's quite nice to not have that tightness and also to be able to see my feet LOL!

So that's good. At the weekend and last week I had a glass of wine with my meal and as there was a little left over brought a bottle home and had the two glasses left in there.  I haven't touched any beer for a long time.  I have bought some for Christmas but it remains unpacked in the hall ready for then.  I hope that I will have an indulgent Christmas but again. after that, it's back to the Keto/Carnivore diet.  So far it really does seem to have worked well.  I think that you always want to lose more weight and quicker but as I remind myself, I didn't get fat overnight it took some years.  

Covid was a bad time as we were just sat at home with not much to do and I was just drinking (and enjoying doing so) in the warm hot months we had, sitting on the balcony and watching the world go by!

Hopefully, my car will be OK and they can service it and it can go on for another year.  It's hardly been used and so I'd hope so.  Whilst they are doing that, I am going to have a wander around the town and see if there's anything worth purchasing.  I'm not a great shopper, I have most everything I ever want and so I'll just see if anything takes my fancy.  

Monday Moanday Blues

 Although, to be fair, it isn't that bad a day.  If you have Crypto you'll know what I mean and since Trump won, the markets have been going up which is good as they've been iffy for the last few years. SO I am seeing a good return for my patience.

I made a rule to only put in what I could afford to lose and so far I am doing OK but it is a real roller coaster ride. One of my investments did over 1000% in the first few months but dropped way back again and now is around 100% which is more like it.  Things move fast and they move incredibly in opposite directions, it's not like the stock market which is an oil tanker to these jet boats.

So that's OK but you have to despair at the situation our government are making for themselves and us for that matter.  Then just look over at Germany and see what woes they have.  We are highly likely to have all sorts of financial woes I think and warning bells are going off all over the place.  The EU could do a bit of foot shooting with the gas imports and we of course, just shut our stuff down.  We've had 2 weeks of overcast weather no sun, no wind and finally the sun came out and the skies cleared.  You can probably guess how much wind and solar energy contributed to out power in the past few weeks.

Ignorant gits the lot of them.  They are enough to make you want to let them loose to hurt themselves, give enough rope, watch them run real fast and get jerked back to reality.  They just seem so incompetent at, well, everything they do. They are beginning to run scared as the public are calling them out wherever they go and they don't like the constant jeering and name calling.  

Time will tell I suppose, I've lived through similar before but not quite so many imbeciles as this.  It will be interesting to see what happens as the slow motion car crash occurs.  It's coming apart already and they don't know what to do other than to implode the country and the economy.  Even I can see the numbers don't work!  Oh well, it should make for interesting TV and I've got the Popcorn in!

Still there's probably more to moan about but I'll try not to let it get me down.

Retrospective

 Bladder Cancer is treatable and curable.  That's great news I think.  It is a bit of a nuisance as it can recur which does worry me and I'm sure other past sufferers. Someone happened to mention it last week and it was strange really because they suggested that I really did look ill and they were all worried about me.

I said that I felt the treatment was actually the worst part as I didn't know I had it until the presentation of the symptoms and the operations and the treatments for Immunotherapy were  actually quite challenging although not all the time.  You could do fine one week and the next it felt like you'd been hit by a truck!  Writing this I do reflect that I was looking quite ill and grey or drawn.  That's the worry too I think as you drag around this pall of grey doom around you.  

Apparently I was brave!  I don't recall being brave at all.  To start with I was sh1t scared and that I was going to die from it.  However as time went by I learned to live with it and deal with it.  A good hypnotherapy session got my head away from the fear of going into the Hospital and I can't say that anyone enjoys all the tests and so on.  I certainly hated them and still do as a matter of fact.  Not brave.  Perhaps stoical and practical might be more likely.

At this present moment I'm reasonably content with my health.  I've been on no booze (or very very little) since July and I am only having the odd glass of wine and odd beer now.  I am looking forward to Christmas so I can have some beers and wine etc and also let myself have a few off Keto meals.  I am more carnivore / keto than I have been previously and I am intermittent fasting.  I'm about 2 stone lighter.  My belt has gone in a notch almost two and I feel OK.  I wished that the fat around my middle would melt a bit quicker but as it took many years to put on, it will take quite a while to lose.  However, a few inches off already and visible signs such as loose clothing and feeling a lot better than I have for a while.

Head space is still a problem but not as bad as last year - I was in a horrible place then.  There's lots of sh1t going on with the business as well as me just trying to get on with things that are on my to-do list.  I wonder whether a short break might assist me?  I don't know, something is needed and of course, now I am on my own with the business, I am committed to getting that sorted out! I am thinking of getting things moving in the business and then taking a short break but we will have to see how things turn out.

Around 25% of my life was taken up with Bladder Cancer but almost all of that time was to do with treatment and follow up procedures.  I was pretty much clear of Cancer in the first 6 months.   Thereafter it was follow up operations and tests that took their toll of me because you are never sure are you?  You never know when they might say "It's Back!!" 

It's survivable and the know how to treat this.  That's great news. 

Control and Manipulation

 As an accused "conspiracy theorist" I find it amusing when things I said some time ago come to fruition or every now and then I get a direct score goal when something I say is proven right.

I was just sitting here and thinking how we are manipulated.  I was watching the TV, The Lord Mayor's Show, and listening to how questions were worded and it just reinforced my firmly held belief that we are being programmed and misled most of the time.  There have been clear lies and disinformation published in the past 3 or 4 months that to me are obvious and a slap in the face to the electorate.  BUT so used to these lies are we that people seem to ignore them.

A Government department stated that National Insurance and VAT would not go up and yet in the budget that's exactly what they did do.  NI has gone on the Employer and VAT on Private Schools.  Right in your face a damnable lie.

We are fed stuff all the time and yet so much isn't quite the truth, it isn't quite there, it certainly isn't enough for you to decide what is going on, these days they have to tell you what to think and so deeply programmed are people that they repeat these half truths and lies as fact.  If you should dare question them about a "Fact" you'd better watch out as you are likely to get called out as a Nazi sympathiser or some sort of denier.  Really.  I've been called all sorts because I dare to question accepted thinking and group think.  It is well worth re-reading 1984 and the ministry of truth stuff in there.  You can hardly believe some of the stuff coming out of their mouths these days.

Example.  Donald Trump.  No matter what you think of him, in the UK you'd have thought we'd released Fred West back into the building trade.  Grown adults accusing our American cousins of voting for something that they didn't understand.  We've got form on this with Brexit and the losing side still go on and on about how they lost a democratic vote because we didn't know what we were voting for as in the 52/48 was somehow made up of 52% who didn't know what they were doing!  The 48% of course did know what they were doing.  And you hear them all being experts on US Politics and EU Law and Middle Eastern conflicts etc.  Rather than having or holding an opinion, these days they actually take side and pursue anyone who doesn't group think their way by yelling and shouting hoping for capitulation rather than by reasoned discussion.  They cannot actually discuss things or provide reasoned argument.  Try it, they fly off the handle and say you don't know what you are talking about - this from somebody who patently doesn't weigh up the arguments on both sides.

Whatever I think about Donald Trump is irrelevant.  I'm not American, it will affect me of course in some way but not enough to say that the Amercian voting public don't know what they are voting for.  The usual social media keyboard warriors are of course out over here and our "celebrities" or persons of notoriety as there's bugger all to celebrate whoever some of these feckless human beings they parade on TV shows are.  SO these beings are melting down and as I often say, an Actor impersonated people for a living.  They have a right to an opinion of course but don't thrust it into my face.  It's your opinion, keep it.  When your opinion gets demolished at the polls don't scream, kick your feet and arms, throw you toys out of the pram because of it.  They act as if someone is going to come over and personally smack the on the nose (shame they don't actually do that eh). 

We have MSM employees needing counselling because Trump won!!!! WHAT, the MSM and their balanced view?  Of course, the place is infested with liberal wet luvvies and they are all going to be claiming PTSD (another thing none of them realise is bloody offensive to our armed services etc).  Poor little luvvies.  I wonder if this is the result of stopping bullying?  Maybe if they had been for being so snowflakey when they were younger they'd have grown a thicker skin and learnt to grow the f**k up.  

How much of this behaviour is because we tolerate it?  The media manipulates it and then publishes these weak minded idiots melting down because of someone in another country winning a poll.  They aren't so bloody weepy when it comes to other horrific things around the world, in fact these "be kind" brigade are all on the side of aggressors and terrorists when it suits them.  

But who made them think like this in the first place, who feeds their phobias and diseased minds?  Who makes it acceptable to behave like this?  On many occasions when I've seen behaviour like it before they would actually section these people, they are a danger to themselves and others.  Back in the day anyone acting like a cat or just being as weird as some of these people are would have been taken away and evaluated for mental disease.  What person in their real mind acts like a lunatic or a spoilt teenager, screams and records themselves doing it and then posts it on social media.  Are these "sane" acts?

We normalise these things these days and don't deal with it.  We moved care of those mentally ill into the community and yet, surely these people need to be de-programmed and to be calmed down properly.  How can you have people acting like its the end of the world over something that isn't even our control?  

There;s a lot wrong in this world and how it is communicated to us and how people react to it is like some mass hypnosis event or mass hysteria.  The MSM tells us how we should react to events not what the even is, why it happened and two or more views about it.  We no longer get experts on TV we get representatives of pressure groups or NGOs who have a vested interest in one side only of the subject.  Treated like sages these people never give two sides to a story and only the side they represent.  They tell you what to think, how to think, how to act and normalise extremism.  

Wake the f**k up people. 

What Fresh Hell Is This?

 Absolutely useless.  My shares in a major global business have been moved.  I couldn't trade a week or so ago much to my annoyance as something IT was wrong.  So I now et the email saying your shares have now moved to so&so and you can login here and do whatever you've got to do blah, blah EXCEPT.......................................

No, the tens of thousands of shareholders like myself were greeted with a website closed for maintenance from 6pm Friday night to some ungodly hour on Sunday.

WHO THE BLOODY HELL coordinates this huge swicth and then prevents you accessing your shares?

What an absolute shower of sh1t.  These people are so effing stupid they should go and work for our useless Government and (not so) Civil Service where this level of incompetence is not only prevalent it is positively encouraged!  

When Communication Goes Blank

 Could be me I suppose.  I often get emails with queries about family history, long lost relatives want to know stuff and I spend time finding it out, sending them details, connections, links to websites and then that's it, not a thank you or anything back.  Why is that?  Just a thank you would be nice surely?

Similar to another query about some historical aspect and after finding out about the query.  It's all gone quiet again.  

It's a bit disrespectful I suppose but surely it doesn't hurt (especially as google and other apps fill in the response for you these days) to just say thank you for your time and effort?

Oh well, onward and upwards.  

Where Did That Time Go?

 I suppose we all ask these questions when we are reminded of things in the past and we then calculate when that was.  My mind transported me back to a party that I went to when I was around 19 years old.  I was by then quite fit having worked for 3 years on and off on a building site and a very good friend and I started dancing and for a short while it went quite ermm, well, you know, things took their course I suppose.  It was a great evening and night and that was it, we didn't go any further, I have no idea why and it was something that I recalled only today.

She was indeed a very beautiful lady and I remained in touch until just after our first child was born and we all met up and that's it, the Christmas cards dried up and I haven't seen or spoken to her or her husband for 35 years or so.  That's sad.  Her husband and I shared a house together for about 10 months.  We were great buddies and I have some amazing tales about our adventures and the girls got on great and all was well in the world.  I didn't seem to be bothered that she decided to go out with my friend and then marry him.  It didn't matter at all really, we were all school friends and there really was no point in being bothered by these things we were after all, all meeting, going out with, breaking up with people we knew from school and there were lots of parties and getting to know one another and so on.  I did write these down in my biography but I think perhaps it might be worth ripping those pages out. 

Then I thought to myself that was 48 years ago!  It seems like less than that but of course it isn't, I've lived through so much and now a grandparent so it is what it is.

What I have been meaning to say is that these recent flashbacks and relived experiences seem to be connected.  A lot are past partners and situations that arose, lost opportunities and what might have been.  Funnily enough like this one and perhaps another 10 or more I could think of.  Yet, there's more to  it than that.  I think that I am recalling those times in my life when I was happy or perhaps alive is a better way of saying it.  These instances were, looking back on them, amazing times, there was no "agenda" to this, there was no pre-planning, it was just as they say "in the moment" and that moment is when you just let whatever it is happen.  That night, that dance with a friend and I'd call it love, but a sort of melting together perhaps I might try and call it, was a spontaneous thing, no thought, no malice, just two of us.

I've mentioned before that there have been times in my life where I moulded into the surroundings became lost in the sounds, smell, warmth and being-ness of what I was doing.  Perhaps driven by love (let's say) although I think it may be two way there being in and being loved?  I don't know because on other occasions that wasn't always the case.  It is easier to look back and recall these times than to be aware that you were actually part of it there and then.

What I do recall is the touch and strangely the smell and an awareness of sound but it not being overbearing.  Just melting and heady perfume or the wind, colour of the fields, swaying and the smell of the corn and the warmth of the sun.  Things like freshly cut grass or perhaps the smell of flowers, a Privet hedge is bloom, roses, damp woodland.  

A old friend mentioned a few names of girls we used to know the other night so perhaps that's what triggered this memory.  He also reminded me of someone I was close to when I was in my twenties and that brought back thoughts of late night car journeys and buying cigarettes in petrol stations on the way home from work.  Some amazing things to recall all many years ago now.  Where indeed did all that time go?

All Quiet Still

 Yesterday was the day that my ex-business partner handed over 10% of the business in shares to his young friend who turned 21.  Now he's done that maybe he will sit back and have a long hard think about what he's done.  Having burnt his bridges and left the business, he has some explaining to do to his friend about what he will do next. He will not know when or if the product will launch or if the business will survive and that's still not a given.  His input is gone and his ability to answer questions on progress too.

I am left to either continue or to shut it all down and walk away.  By this time next week I will probably know what that is to be.  It was immediately stressful and annoying as I have been left to deal with the fallout.  

Of course, now, I'm "in charge" so to speak and can do what I want as sole Director of the business.  I'd run it as if he was an integral part of the business but it was always set up that I'd run this side.  It frees me up from having to accede and play the diplomatic game.  I do not need to step on egg shells when discussing the supplier who is late (horrendously late) delivering nor for all the changes etc.  I should be able to get this to market without feeling that we are never quite going to get there.

The supplier has been warned that this is the last throw of the dice too.  So that's good, I've had to re plan and rework what's going to happen and I've positioned it in such a way as to be able to make a decision next week on where we are.

I feel sorry that my ex-business partner can no longer continue the journey but I am surprised that he decided to burn his bridges and cut off all opportunity of even discussing his decision.  He cited his wishes hadn't been carried out and the letter confirming that his wishes had been carried out but he was not answering the phone to me to clarify the missing information from his instructions.  Obviously he felt that I was ignoring him which he now knows was not the case at all and he decided to send abusive and threatening correspondence, resigning at the same time.  A bit silly but there you go.

An old saying was that he "Snatched defeat from the jaws of victory" is about right here and I've written about this before where it is almost a self fulfilling prophecy and people talk themselves into defeat.  After 10 or even more years of struggling to get here, with the test version actually with us and just a few iterations before delivery, he concocted a walk away event that must be very hard to get to a point to recover.  His problem not mine.

Sure, I'm left with some issues around his leaving but his actions just remove him from the scene entirely and we can soldier on without him.  I just have to hope that he doesn't go around telling people that I stole the business and his idea from him.  As long as it is all run above board and properly that is not the case and his last set of letters can bear witness to this sudden turn in events.

Onward and upwards (maybe).  

Meltdown Continues

 Not mine, contacts on Facebook and other Social Media.  In the UK I am privileged to follow people who appear to know everything.  That's right, there isn't something that happens in the world that they don't know.  Me?  Yes I do know a lot but in general, I tend to be more of a sceptic than someone who espouses opinion, I'd generally come from some sort of proof point, a scientific angle or a position that can be argued or at least debated.

It's amazing how many UK based people don't like Donald Trump and ask "America, what have you done?"  These are the same people who didn't like the Brexit vote and want it overturned.  Democracy sort of states that if the majority voted that way then your minority opinion whilst it was listened to did not convince those who voted against you.  There's a sort of "we lost, it's not fair we want another vote until you think the same way we do." and it doesn't work that way.  If your arguments were valid, then people would have voted for it.  I didn't expect the vote to go that way and speaking with French and Dutch friends I was probably as shocked as most even though I voted to leave.  

I actually worked in Europe for quite a while and more so in Brussels and Paris.  I stayed in the same Hotels as our MEPs and NATO people and they all looked to be having a good time.  Meals, at our expense, were not a snack and a beer let's say.  But, you know, apparently many people think that we no longer trade with the EU, ECC or whatever you want to call it.  A little closer look might fact check.  I know I still get things from Denmark and Holland for sure quite regularly and Poland too.

Anyway, as usual, I digress.  I was struck with the Facebook comments from a specific set of my contacts whom I know have this sort of Remainer, Democrat, Labour type leaning and I can only applaud that after the disappointment of these socialist, let's be kind (they never are) very opinionated commentators, they buy every word the MSM gives them.  Here's a way to find out.  Ask them about something and listen carefully to the answer.  It's normally a headline and perhaps sub headline that you will get on a subject.  They cannot normally go deeper on a subject.  I always rattle on about Climate Change (as it is now called).  Listen to the key points people have about it.  It will be the Arctic is melting, Polar Bears are declining, Methane is being released, Forest Fires and Hurricanes are increasing blah blah.  

Scratch the surface and remove the veneer and it starts to fall apart but not for the headline writers and people who espouse these quite clever information bites.  Ask what an Inter-glacial is, ask why in fact the Polar Bear population is increasing, ask where are the global data (temperature) sensors located across the land and the sea.  At that point, either they are going to start yelling at you that you are a Climate Denier or they are just going to keep quoting you headlines.  There is nothing below that, no in depth knowledge and no research.  Do you research as I reminded the lady who told me about Climate Justice.  What was the outcome of the trial and what exactly does that mean?

So back to our American Cousins.  We in the UK have no idea whatsoever about America other than Hollywood, Westerns, Presidents, Disneyland and a few geography facts.  I hit Seattle once for half an hour and so I've never really been there.  I've been to Canada but of course, they aren't anything like Americans either.  We don't live in a massive country, we don't have the political system or the opportunities that they have.  We laugh at their comedy programmes but that isn't real life either.  The land of Cheers and Frazier, Friends and so on does not exist.  I worked for an American company and the workers that came over were VERY different to us.  Our culture is quaint and also not well understood.  

Working in the City of London was quite an eye opener to my American colleagues, bless them.  I always remember that the lunchtime drinking culture was particular frowned upon.  

We will probably never understand our cousins.  They appear to love their country and are patriotic, God faring and they like to win (we like to take part and participate).  They don't have our propensity for having left leaning socialist type Governments.  Europe is possibly the diametric opposite to the USA.  That's probably why we'd never understand the politics and the unique nature of that country.  We are terrible at sitting in our glass house and throwing stones.  We compare everything to our own lived experience and let he who is without sin cast the first stone.  These luvvies have done a good job in tearing down our country to the mess it is in now.  We have a government that cares not a jot about the people it governs.  Net Zero has doubled the cost of our fuel and so we go cold, industry closes down and moves to China and we are all happy as we have saved a few grams of a molecule who's contribution to Earth's atmosphere is 0.04% yes look how clever we are.  These people dance around words as you mustn't be PHOBIC whatever the f**k that is.  You can't say this, you can't say that, don't give offence (which is actually taken not given BTW) and so on.

These useless Oxygen wasters, having made everyone poorer, less well off, miserable and now angry then turn their attention to the USA and have the temerity to state that the people of America didn't know what they were voting for! That they should have done what they, the keyboard warriors of Facebook and TikTok, wanted.  Honestly?!!  Not one of them can tell you why this happened and what the USA means to its people.  Just look and listen and you can find plenty of sources that are not MSM and you will learn a lot.  

Here is a great commentator writing from experience who puts it in layman's terms it makes great reading and may perhaps explain why "we" in the UK don't  "get it".  https://open.substack.com/pub/konstantinkisin/p/10-reasons-you-didnt-see-this-coming?r=4s3fs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email  

You Can't But If You Could, What Would You Do?

 I thought about this during all these flashbacks and whilst I know you cannot actually do these things and what is done is done, I wondered, what if you could go back and change something in your life what would it be and what outcome do you think might be different?

It's all hypothetical anyway of course.  I realise limitations include my personality which is pretty unusual and specific (INTJ look it up).  So I'd have to be something I'm not to have made decisions but here are a few:

Pick Up On Subtly:  I now realise that there were a couple of relationship opportunities not taken. A couple of young ladies in particular were great friends but now I can see that there was far more than that (you tend to replay things and then stuff becomes clear).  The platonic relationship probably wasn't. 

Not Be So Angry:  I was never an aggressive angry person but I hated ineptitude, stupidity and other such traits.  I perhaps should have learned to deal with these better

Don't Smoke:  My word I used to enjoy a smoke and a beer and a smoke and a beer.... I got cancer, apparently it was highly probable to have been all those smokes!! 

You Cannot Fix Regrets:  This blog - it comes from deep inside, lost love, disappointments, the way things turned out, loss of "friends", lost contacts, how you could have done things better.  I used to have the worst head issues you can imagine because I analysed everything and as an INTJ, that's what you do, you never stop scenario building, theories are built in your head, ideas constructed and then torn down by logic and analysis.  Intuition also takes a big place alongside judgemental views and then execution of the idea is normally incisive. That's why we make good Project Managers and so on.  It's all a bit Matrix Film - which strikes well with me.  There can be no other outcome and so on.

Let It Go:  Hardest thing is to let it go after a decision that may have had an affect on my life and as above there may be regrets but letting those go is very difficult but that's because the last years have been chaotic and dramatic for me.  Breaking up, finding your dream love and losing it, cancer, new love, shattered dreams and all those things and fighting those demons.  You never stop fighting them but you can learn to let them go and now I sleep well at night and generally take things as stress free as I can.  Recent business chaos did affect me as it was serious and I was badly let down I felt but it's a week or two on now and all is well.  I can let it go.

The only real thing I think I would have actually changed is meeting my Angel and having been able to build the life we discussed.  It wasn't to be and every now and again my mind sends me a picture of some happy moment or other and for a short while I'm filled with the what did I do wrong, why me blah blah stuff knowing full well that I know the reasons and I think and hope that she is happy.  For a short time I feel that emptiness of soul that comes with a love lost.  In a parallel universe that is not so and we are together I'd like to think.

Let The Meltdown Commence

 Watching the Labour Party win with a reduced vote in July was very disappointing and like many things in this world, those in the know realised that sh1t was coming and it would be bad for these are not people who should be in control of a country and they aren't really the adults in the room.  And so it came to pass that within 4 months they had near enough affected everyone that thought to vote for them and the rest of us too.

They've never been good at big government and they used to be good at local government but they now have career politicians in the ranks who just don't understand that you can't alter the course of the planet's orbit by taxing us all more.  Hard lesson but it will come and bite them and sooner than they realise.

We didn't have the meltdown expected here because, mainly most of us are adults and most of us know what's coming and that they'll make a pigs ear of it and if everyone is like me, they'll get no cooperation.  I like that they are afraid to meet the public now and are getting jeered and heckled everywhere they go.  If you kick your electorate in the teeth then you should expect it.

Looking across the pond and our MSM have started to go into full meltdown about the US election results.  It isn't the first time that they have backed the wrong horse and suddenly their eyes widen and they start screaming for their mummy!  When the Brexit vote was announced the stunned silence and startled looks were hilarious.  These (they like to think they are elite) liberal wet highly paid non neutral opinionated wastes of Oxygen flood the MSM and I just don't watch them anymore.  They come on the TV I turn it off and go and do something useful.

So watching the meltdown here about the US Elections is glorious.  Watching people on Facebook losing their minds is priceless -  what do Brits honestly know about US Politics?  We really do not know that much and what we get is filtered and presented to us homogenized and filtered for us by the above liberal elites.

So, the best thing to do is watch and enjoy the self-flagellation of these people, the hysterical screeching and shouting and wonder what ever happened to logic, reasoned debate and the assimilation of evidence and data and a rational, sensible review of what happened.  There's way to much emotional hysterics.  We never used to act like this and it is because I guess no one has ever had to argue their case properly so we can see your point of view.  These days people just yell at you as they don't have the wit to do anything else.   

And Still These Reflections Come

 I don't know if there is a reason for reflective thoughts maybe it is a sign of something. Just now I was sitting here and my grandson has just been for Fireworks and some Supper.  It's nice to see him and we miss him because we used to look after him two days a week and now he's at school so we only get to have time at weekends and when school is on holiday.

It reminded me of seeing my grandfather, my father's father.  He was a really nice man, quite dapper and charming.  A really interesting man but also blessed with "our" sense of  humour and so you were never quite sure when he said things if it was real or not.

When I was an apprentice I worked up in London and I'd occasionally drop in to see them if I was around.  He developed cancer of the throat and had to have a tracheotomy.  He could speak by covering the hole in his throat and I used to try and get to visit him in Hospital mainly taking lunchtime off to go and see him or seeing him at the end of the day.  I was lucky that somehow I could "make time" between site visits.

One particular day he was having a lot of trouble and we were just about managing to communicate as he also had a notepad and pencil but I could see that he was really frustrated and Flash - that's one of my recurring dreams - it's just flashed before my eyes.  It's me leaving the hospital via the other entrance/exit and I see this in my dreams and I've just clocked why!

Back to the story so I said my goodbyes and waved to granddad and he gave me a weak smile and a wave and we were both a little miffed that we hadn't been able to chat like we had before.  Well that was the last time I saw him because he spoke to my parents that weekend and he had arrived at a decision that he didn't want us (my brother and I) to visit anymore and whilst I was disappointed I think I knew that he didn't want us to see the last stages of his life.  My mum and dad pretty much told me that he wanted us to remember him as our grandfather and writing that just shook me a little.  I miss him even now and there were a number of things, as children, that you recall.  The reward for a visit was always a shiny coin of some sort perhaps half a crown which we would thank him for and hold tight or give to mum for safe keeping.  He would occasionally give us a little glass of Ginger Wine which stung and then warmed your throat!  

I like that he made a decision like he did and so I never got to go and say goodbye but I think maybe that's the right decision to remember someone in the best light and not being the last thing you remember about them.

Is The Grass Greener?

 Regrets fuel a fantasy of nostalgia and I found myself daydreaming about the past and of course, I can't change it and the mind is very "clever" as it depicts a world as you'd like it to be and not as it was in reality.  The illusion is that if things had been different, there would have been a different outcome but that's not guaranteed at all.

I find recently that these flash back daydreams are showing me a different path had I not made certain decisions but to balance this, some of these decisions were not mine to be made, it's all a set of different paths that coincide, conflict, align and so on.  I doubt I have any control over these things for they happen in real time at the time.  You can I suppose reflect on these and do a "what if" analysis but the only benefit I can see is to help you learn from your mistakes if they are, in fact, mistakes.  Who knows what would or could have happened.

The mind is a strange thing and these little voices and thoughts are not helpful.  You just have to realise that they are just a distraction and not really anything useful for getting on with your life.

Is the grass greener?  I very much doubt it.  Would things have been any different? Yes of course they would but whether for good or ill, no one can tall and it doesn't matter either way. 

The Ancient Art Of Self-Destruction

 It seems that I have witnessed a number of times people being self-destructive.  The "voice in the head" often talked about by Eckhart Tolle is perhaps something to do with it but so many times either knowingly or unknowingly people have made irrational decisions, have lied or avoided situations and then had destruction wreaked upon them or have just talked themselves into it.

My business partner has just done such a thing and what is worse, burnt all his bridges in doing so.  In 5 days he went from slightly eccentric to full on madness and wrecked his side of the business he had worked hard alongside me to build.

Another person I worked with decided to (as he was the chief shareholder) demote me as we were about to go to a shareholder's meeting, to the scribe for the meeting.  I had worked outhow to save his business as he had bought software that wasn't actually his (the copyright notice for where it had been obtained from was clear for all to see).  He hadn't undertaken a key piece of security to have the data encrypted and he was running out of money.  As a Director I had produced his "get out of jail free" card and had a presentation to achieve this.  The meeting was great as a few knew what I knew, they also knew that I was going to table the answer to the problems.  

The idiot started to lie through his teeth and when the meeting got angry and I do mean angry, he finally turned to me and I reminded him that I was no longer the Ops Director and he had made me scribe.  As he had done that and was now floundering I left him to it.  On the way out he suggested the meeting had gone well.  I called him an Oaf and questioned whether a village somewhere was missing their idiot!  I resigned that night citing a number of reasons.  

Others have talked themselves out of a winning position and ended up in the very place they said they'd been in before - the self fulfilling prophecy. 

It helps to break business & personal stuff apart and it helps to analyse what you've got and I feel sorry for my ex-colleague.  He never wanted me to "get angry" with out supplier and reined me back as he didn't like confrontation (funny that as he's threatened me in writing).  SO now he's gone I read the riot act to our supplier and all of a sudden I have full cooperation and suddenly all of the deliverables are appearing.  Coincidence?  I think not.

I could probably write a book (I'm sure someone would have got there before me) where defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory.  It happens a lot more than you think and I'm a realist rather than the pessimist most people take me for.  I am a lot more optimistic than people know, I have to be as I'm a project manager at heart.

Strange how people destroy themselves especially in business.  It's almost as if they predict their future and then everything aligns in them to make sure that failure is the end goal both planned and actual.

Another Flashback

 It's been a strange year for flashbacks.  My mother is awaiting her results from a scan a few weeks ago now and waiting is horrible, your mind takes over and you then have to go and hear the results.  Later procedures were immediate but waiting really does allow the little voice in your head to pronounce your impending doom.

Then a friend is in Hospital waiting to go home and suddenly I was back in the ward and the discharge lounge just wanting to get home and see my family and fighting back tears because they just delayed and bed blocked and took so long to get anything done and I just remember this feeling of why wont you let me go home.  Then once they did I wasn't allowed to walk home - I mean I could walk home in 10 or 15 minutes so then had to wait for my wife (my ex now) to come and pick me up, bless her.  She did look after me so well and it was no reward that I left (or maybe it was).

Anyway, so that flashed into my head and I just recall the feeling of hating the waiting and hanging around when I could just go home and relax in my chair and let the tension of the days before go away.  

It's All In Your Head

I liked that saying "Just because you are Paranoid, it doesn't mean they're all out to get you!" 

The problem a few weeks ago now must have been brewing inside this chaps head for a long time and it was as if he'd made up his mind that I was diddling him out of money and then that I made him look a fool when I explained that in fairness to the business that wouldn't happen especially as I was just in the process of engaging Accountants to the business.  But it wasn't just that it was obvious that he thought I was not going to do something he expressly asked me to  do.

I was actually going to check with him if it was what he wanted and at the same time explain the implications of the decision to him.  For it actually made me the major shareholder for the business.  He must have stewed and thought I wasn't going to do it and wasn't taking my phone calls which delayed things further as he hadn't provided the correct level of detail I needed to complete his wishes.

It was in writing and quite explicit and so I was seeking clarification but apparently that was enough to imagine that I was going to do something!  Now, here's the thing really.  He then convinced himself that I was going to go against his wishes even though I'd not spoken to him and deep inside I think he knew that I would ask him to think long and hard about his decision.  If he had done this it would reduce his share of the business and so any reward would be less and any control would also be lessened too.

By the time I had researched the information he had omitted he's thrown his toys out of the pram, walked away from the business and disowned me!  I've known him 8 years or maybe 8 now.  I am not to talk to him or anything further - it's a total break.  It's shocking but there you go if you tell me you don't want to know and you want everything to stop so be it.

I can see that he may have a case that I made a fool of him but explaining something that was a misunderstanding was actually what it was.  He had picked up a phrase that I had used (in its correct context) and thought that I was making off with the money - pretty difficult to do as we don't actually have a business that is trading.  I explained the whole process of what the business would do in terms of revenue and expense but he seemed to take that as me taking him for a fool?  Was some worm-tongue giving him this - it wouldn't be the first time that his "Friends" had wound him up about the business after all.

It is a shame that I cannot go talk to him or anything else as it's all so final.   You work hard for years and years and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  It's difficult because what if I go around or try and call and he gets annoyed at me for it, he could easily do something that we'd both regret further.  

Does he regret it now?  I'll never know unless he tells me.  Imagine getting so upset at what you thought might happen to you that you walk away entirely.  Of course, it leaves me in a situation too.  I could walk away too although I'd rather try and make a go of it if possible.

Intentions - Goals I Set Myself

 I have to say that the pathetic politicians we have had in the past 20 or so years aren't worth anything at all.  We are now (or everyone should be) aware that they lie all the time, that they are on the take, that they have no idea when it comes to governing for the very people who give them the power to do so.  They are like the worst managers I have worked for and I've worked for a few but I strongly hope that they've received the due karma that they so richly deserve and are either now reaping a miserable old age or have done the decent thing and departed this life.

There is no real incentive to work hard anymore because these scheming bastards just cream your money off of you.  Ronald Reagan said the most frightening words you can hear are "I'm from the Government and I am here to help you!" 

So my goals are to do everything in my power and within the law to not pay anything more in Taxes and that sort of stuff to this greedy self serving self interest money grabbing corrupt back stabbing venereal snot gobbling whore bags.  I really hope that they are in a car crash and the economy will tank and the people finally work out that it doesn't need to be like this.  It's communism and like all similar systems it will come crashing down and they will be blinking in the sunlight wondering what went wrong.

So I've take steps to not give them any of my money,  Even in death these blood sucking gits want the money you've saved after they've taxed it so they can give it to their mates, hand it out to some geezer half a continent away so he can kill his neighbour.  When do WE say enough is enough?  

The leviathan that comprises the State is not fit for purpose, the answer to every problem isn't to get people to do their jobs properly it is to throw more of my money at it and it never ever gets better.  Having worked as a Consultant during the transition from a Nationalised business to one with shareholders etc I can tell you it was like pulling teeth - the staff couldn't work out that they actually had to start working for a living and showing productivity and accountability for their actions.  It was hilarious watching the facts dawn on them that after all these years, they finally had to justify their jobs and their positions.  The inefficiencies were massive and it was around this time of year that I was there going through their operational procedures.  They thought I was just "A Suit" from the management but I was there because I actually had a background in operational management.  The fortnightly reporting was 22 volumes of reports which I got down to one volume and a two page summary.  I'd save them loads of time and anguish - they hated it.

There are 1.6 Million people in the NHS - the 4th largest employer of people in the world!  Around 60% are not medical staff.  Sure you need admin and so on but do we need Climate Change Officers, Equality Officers and so on for each area that they operate in?  These are just high paid jobs for the boys. It swallows around half a billion a day probably more than that now.  You still can't get an appointment to see your GP and they prefer people to go to A&E who are now overloaded.  Fifty or 60 years ago the GP came to you.

It's not the only thing that's wrong but all of this state stuff isn't actually growing GDP now is it?  It's an overhead to running the country and whilst some of it is necessity most of it is waste.  They try and fix things that aren't broken to justify their existence.  They p1ss off people like me all the time because when I was in that area of planning and programme management (which is quite different to project management) none of this stuff would have seen the light of day as their were NO BENEFITS!!  

So my goals now are to let them get on with it, protect my own interests and hope other people also don't let them have their money either and watch the bastards sink below the waves in the storm of their own creation.  Not one of these people have been in positions of power in a real business and they have hardly worked a day in their life.  They cannot answer a well worded and researched question because they are too thick to understand what they are being asked or indeed why they made a certain policy decision.  It was telling that the Chancellor didn't go on any popular programmes on TV yesterday and those that she did go on I felt tore her to shreds and rightly so.

They have inflicted pain on our older people, have only told half truths about pensioner's increases next year, have abandoned the working class and penalised those of us who decided to save for our retirement.   F*** the lot of them, a Pox on their houses and may they feel the wrath of the populace quickly.  

Conflict - I Hate It (Now)

Finally got to talk sense to the supplier but it was fraught but I got my point across and we compromised - that's what was needed but it is still a big problem that hasn't really gone away entirely.

In the old days, I liked a battle and playing commercial chess.  These days?  I just want a quiet life, not that anyone else seems to!  Anyway, it's done and over for two weeks and let's see what happens then.  I hate the way these days it knots up my stomach and causes stress and headaches when it really shouldn't.  

So trying to avoid conflict these days is difficult as everyone acts like a knob I reckon.  It's a definite "Don't talk to me about politicians and public sector workers" that really winds me up and pushes my buttons.  "Computer says no!" sums them up and there doesn't seem to be anyone with any common sense.  So many cock ups happening and the trouble is it is our money they use to make mistake after mistake!   There's no punishment for screwing up these days either.  They should be sacked or demoted but no.... They always seem to promote failure and demote hard work and innovation!

They put up car parking charges and extend the hours for parking and blink incredulously when local businesses pack up and leave the high streets.  A well known seaside two made parking eye wateringly expensive and lo and behold no one came and parked there = they went further down the coast where parking was cheap and reasonable.  They then spent their money in those local businesses.  Voila!  

I went to one place where they only restricted parking for about an hour in the morning, the rest of the time was free (you might have needed to move car park on a 24 hour stop which we did).  That meant that people visiting the City could park for free and walk to the attractions, spend their money with the local shops and so on.  It stopped the Train users commuting in the morning making them park in the train car park and it meant that they could welcome more people.  I mentioned this to a few councillors I know for them to look into it.  My local town IS a tourist area albeit a small one but it has enough attractions I'd say for a good half a day to a day to come and visit.  I'd probably baulk at the charges though they seem excessive to me.  

I now use the bus or park far enough out to not pay and walk in - it's simple really and I'm protecting in my own way LOL!  

Anyway, I've segwayed off enough for this post now.  

Through A Child's Eyes

 The weekend party with the grandchildren was great.  I am not known for my empathy or emotional responses but you know, what was good was to see how they all got on together and how they worked things out, got frustrated, upset and quickly it was forgotten.  Working things out was interesting as they had to free a load of plastic bugs from a block of ice.   Progressively things were experimented with until dropping it on the patio was tried.  Then dad had to get his club hammer out and assist them with smashing the ice up.

It took me back to other moments where I did actually get to feel my emotions - being an INTJ that is pretty difficult as it's all logic and so on with me.  We went to Disneyland (we actually went three times eventually) but the first time was the one for me.  The children were young and of course they were smallish too.  I remember stopping and realising that everything that they saw and experienced was new and most probably magical to them.  It felt magical to me as their reactions and obvious joy was what it was all about and I was just there to enable it to happen along with the Disney people of course.

A similar thing happened when I "rewarded" the children with a trip to Lapland, it was all planned with a letter dropping down the chimney and tickets and all sorts of things.  It was a wonderful experience with all sorts going on, Reindeer, Husky Rides, snow, magical candlelit trails into the woods and so on.  It was moving when they met the big man and it was great that they had a few lovely presents to bring home with them.

We have our grandson with us at the moment and finally I realise how precious these times are.  He is quite young but my goodness can he read and write.  He's not bad at maths either and when we went to a restaurant the other day, apart from a couple of words he read it all.  The thing is of course to encourage and just rejoice in his achievements.  I said he'd counted up to 100 this morning whereupon he corrected me - 110 he said.  Someone said don't you mind getting up early to look after him?  Well of course not because soon he won't be here and he won't want to come that often, he'll be with his friends and so its best to enjoy it all and see it through his eyes.

Everything is new and bright and interesting, that's good to ground us adults and remind us, despite all the rubbish things that exists in our world, there are amazing things to be seen and to do.  A new bird feeder today being a prime example and suddenly lots of birds were flcoking to the garden and we could try to identify them.

I have to stop myself being Mr. Pedant and Mr. INTJ and having these little people around certainly does that for me.