Did Someone Say "Stuck Farmer"?

My hearing is not what it used to be.  Actually I now have some hearing aids to see if they can combat a problem I have in crowded rooms where I can't clearly filter out the hubbub and  so cannot clearly hear someone speaking to me.  So let's give these a go.

I like a bit of word play and yesterday the Farmers came out and protested at this new government (led by Starmer) who have messed around with inheritance tax that will potentially break up our farms in the future.  There's a general sympathy towards farmers we live in and around farms and they are hard working and out in all weathers no matter what.  The metropolitan "elite" (they are anything but of course) are forcing their ideology onto this country and as not one of them has held down a real job even if their CVs may state they do, their decisions, not thought through, untested, not considering real ROI and certainly not prepared with joined up thinking are harming the economy and damaging the very people this party has always said they represent.

I am going to keep trying these hearing aids as I'm certain I misheard Stuck Farmer!

In other mildly interesting things, I am feeling a lot thinner this morning and I tried on a tee shirt that I haven't worn for some time as  it was too tight and it fitted with room to spare which is great and I am almost on another notch on my trouser belt.  My trousers actually fall off me without a belt now and I can wrap a good couple of inches past the top button.  So the diet (perhaps I shouldn't call it that) is working.

What am I doing?  Well the first thing is no beer.  Liquid bread they call it and it has made quite a difference to me.  I absolutely love a beer but it is loaded with easily absorbed carbohydrates and the body just converts it effortlessly into fat!  Secondly, a Keto/Carnivore diet and intermittent fasting appear to be working really well.  I've been doing the intermittent fasting for a good two or three weeks I guess and the weight is coming off nicely and in a controlled manner.  I try and do intermittent for 5 days a week if possible but it often depends on what is going on.  

I feel healthy and overall I feel less exhausted doing things, I feel satiated when I do eat, I interestingly only feel hungry just as I break the intermittent fasting and it isn't pangs it's more anticipation that food is on its way.  My head is clearer and my anxiety is less.  We had a maintenance engineer over yesterday and I'd normally be on edge about it but it was fine and I felt OK.  I knew that there'd be work to be done which they will quote me for.  I am kicking myself for not having it done regularly but there you go.

Anyway, I am tackling my hearing, losing weight and feeling good about it, my stomach is going away now nicely and it's noticeable that my arms are now losing their fatty bits as are my legs.  I can see parts of my body that I wasn't able to just 3 or 4 months ago.  It's taken a while to lose this weight but I need to remind myself that it was only July that I started a short 4 months ago and whilst I have been strict on not drinking I have had a weekend away and had some zero alcohol beers a couple of times.  I don't eat much Vegetables and I steer away from potatoes, pasta, rice and all that sort of stuff so my diet is nearly all meat or fish.

I am really pleased with progress and now I have lost at least two stone the weight is noticeably coming off as clothes now fit loosely, my other clothes are beginning to fit again and I feel so much better for not carrying that around - it's 14 bags of sugar to give you an idea that are not being carried on my body it is noticeable for sure.

Anyway, let's see how these protests are going and what this pathetic government are going to do.  If reports are to be believed there's major impacts coming from business.  It's cold and the pensioners (of which I am one) will be trying to work out how to heat their houses and keep warm.  It's like watching a very slow motion car crash.  You can see the wheels wobbling and about to fall off, you can see that the car will hit a brick wall but the driver still has their foot to the floor accelerating.  Thousand of people are watching and muttering under their breath quietly in a whisper almost "watch out" and "stuck farmer".  They like me, watch in curiosity rather than horror at the unfolding frame by frame scene even though we know the outcome, the watch is enjoyable in some sort of evil delicious way..... 

Not MY Job!

 Computer says NO, Not MY Job!  Needed some advice on a light fitting that is quite new and has started to flash occasionally.  So dutifully take videos and stills and ask advice from the manufacturer - you know the people that actually make the thing and who's name is plastered all over the instructions.

It's a pain in as much as it is in the apex of the vaulted ceiling in our dining room - 10 tread steps aren't tall enough to reach the control box!  So, a simple query was met with.  Ask the people where you bought it from who, after all are just a retailer of the light fitting manufactured and supplied by the company with their name emblazoned on the instructions.

So, we have to go back to a retailer who apparently has this company's specialists as part of their team?  My arse they do.  

Does anyone use a modicum of sense these days?  How about they forward the query on the team that they haven't given me contact details for?  |Far too difficult just some old blurb about how we have to jump through sh1t loads of hoops to get stuff done thereby complicating and confusing the customer journey and not solving my problem at all.  Knobs and Muppets the lot of them.  

So another round of going round in circles will ensue and they wonder why customers get irritable and upset being pushed from pillar to post.  It's not a cheap item, it was a nightmare to fit as it is so high up and a simple look at the video and a bit of advice would be fine but Oh no....  Computer says no!  

So How's That No Alcohol Going Then?

 Surprising well and thanks for asking.  I've done OK with this and whilst I have all my Christmas beer in the house, I haven't felt like touching it at all.  With a more strict Keto / Carnivore approach plus some intermittent fasting too I'm down 2 stone in 4 months which is great.  I feel good and I can certainly tell how much lighter I am and how much fitter too.

I had some beer the other day but it was 0.5% as I was waiting for my car to be completed.  It was nice to have a beer whilst not actually having a beer.  A sort of Schrodinger's Beer if you will.

I've also just got some decent hearing aids that I am testing out.  They arrived this afternoon and now they are charged up I am experimenting with them.  I have to say they certainly amplified everything including my breath :-)  I think they are too loud so an adjustment session plus getting the right setting as my main problem is listening to people when there are others in the room and the hubbub is the problem as I cannot concentrate on what is being said to me.  I don't need these all the time but it will be good to have them and to be able to clearly have a conversation especially in a noisy place.

Put Simply Half The People You Know Are Below Average

 I say that because it is one of those strange things - are half your friends average below or above average?  Mmmmm???

It's a bit like these bandied about words these days "Right Wing" and "Far Right Wing" as well as "Denier" and so on.  I'm apparently a far right bigot and a supremacist using my tendencies to oppress others.

So, if you know me, you'll probably recognize that I am certainly not a socialist nor am I beholden to that style of collectivism they practice.  But, that is not to say that I do not sympathise with the plights of people and want to be able to help.  In fact, I find the injustice of the modern day wokerati difficult to fathom.  These "be nice" brigade people are anything but and by disagreeing with them, it certainly means that I am far-right, of course it does, in their keyboard warrior basement lifestyle.

I wonder if this means that half of the people I know are angels and the other devils or perhaps some are nice and the others are evil?  Is that really so?  I know some dreadfully wet liberal types and some dyed in the wool socialists and as long as we don't talk politics they seem nice enough to have a beer with.  I find them misinformed, not particularly gifted at debate and also a bit loose when it comes to delivering factual information and applying logic and reasoning to matters of the day.

But, I don't call them far left or bigots or anything else.  I feel a little bit sorry for them and I certainly dislike them when they argue very loudly and shout at me.  It is totally unnecessary - that's not debate, that's shutting down debate.  These people feel that it is acceptable that people who hold different opinions to them should be banned from say, X (formerly Twitter) and yet they are advocates of free speech!  Well, free if you think like them.  They cannot be challenged on their views but they can challenge you as long as you don't answer back. I say challenge they are likely to launch a pile on attack with streams of abuse but no substance.

It's the very thing they despise, bullying.  They hate it but enjoy participating in it against others.  There doesn't seem to be any cognisance that they are behaving like this at all.  It's worrying that they do not have that built in switch that warns their brains that they are behaving in exactly the way that they themselves hate. 

So perhaps there are people below average out there?  It would be great if they could grow up and we could all be human again.  I really don't know what has gotten into people these days. 

TV - Does Anyone Still Watch It?

 I ask as this year I have steered clear of the TV if at all possible.  I happened to bump into a 30 second clip of Strictly Come Dancing.  It took me that long to realise what it was, grab the controller and blip away to the TV Channels timetable.  There was nothing on.  It was a Saturday night filled with trite!  Awful selection of programmes and so I went over to Prime and now suffering adverts despite paying for the service (OK I know they have to subsidise it somehow) watched a few more episodes of a post WW2 documentary about Sea Power and the various ships, U-Boats etc.  Entertaining in a strange way - the use of dramatic music and that clipped 1940s American information film accent made it almost unwatchable.  

I think that it was the way that the information was delivered that did it for me and so after two episodes I had to do something else.  So I did some work for the business.

So dire has terrestrial TV become that it is all but unwatchable and it does not inform, entertain or anything else.  I'll cite two other things that should tell me / us all about the problem.

I don't think I saw a single channel that presented President Trump in anything other than a bad light, showed that he was going to lose big time and so on.  Then yesterday we were treated on the news (I normally don't watch it but was to lazy to get off my arse and wander away in to the cold Snug area) to a Climate Change piece in Pakistan where glacier melt burst and washed away a village.   

I watch alternative media and I could have told you that Trump was ahead in the polls in all the swing states by 4% or more at least a few months before the election.  It was pretty much assured after Joe Rogan's three hour marathon with Donald Trump.  I saw bits of it and it was like the old TV back again.  I understand that too many conditions were sought for the opposition to go on there.  The vast majority of people know that the TV  and sadly radio are left leaning and give you the news as they see it, not as it is.

So my old bang the drum on climate change.  Here's the thing, I watched a lot of key parts of COP29 and once again, there was nothing in it.  It's an ineffective talking shop.  I said 50,000 people went, I now find out that is closer to 75,000 and they were handed their arsses to them on a plate by the President of Azerbaijan who rightly explained what natural resources are about.

So the BBC are in Pakistan and the first thing was that global climate change was warming the glaciers of which there were thousands but incredibly only in this area so it wasn't global it was local and there was no mention of what the word inter-glacial means.  People build close to rivers and when they flood there are consequences.  Where these houses were washed away was almost precipitous building on what looked like shale it didn't look solid rock at all.

So at COP29 (they've had 29 years to do something haven't they) what plans did they have to stop this sort of thing?  Well nothing for if they stopped it they'd have to stop these junkets for 75,000 people.  They were putting forward the insane view that the western world should bankrupt itself for the planet and at the same time redistribute their wealth to the third world.  Ideally, let the third world use their resources to build their own economies not withhold their ability to do so and call it progress.

There's so much stuff that they now provide that is not balanced reporting, that you can find more reliable data for.  Just dig a little deeper behind the lipstick and makeup and you'll find it but not in radio and TV anymore.  Documentaries are all but unwatchable as are many "fact based" programmes as they go whirling off about local weather and call it climate change.  Just look at what they are saying.  COP29 stating devastating fires in Australia.  Remember when that was?  Five years ago, so it is an occurrence but there's the lead chairman making this statement which the Aussie, all blinking at each other said, No, that hasn't happened this year.  Floods in Spain, Climate Change not mismanagement of river courses and - floods happen and they've happened before and guess what, if you pay a few more dollars on top of the trillions (yes trillions so far) you'll stop it - of course you wont, we live on a planet that's spinning around a huge gravity contained nuclear explosion and the hubris of man to believe they can control the climate is laughable.

TV and radio has made people not think for themselves, not rationalise the arguments, not get to the the data they need to analyse to make a decision based on fact and logic.  Instead of giving me the tools to make up my own mind, I am treated as too stupid to do that, they fire their soundbites of information at you to convince you that these things are happening.  

There are lots of things that aren't "quite right" going on at the moment.  I don't know if things are covered up or deliberately obfuscated but people know that this is happening and what's interesting is that the room isn't being read by the establishment, not at all.  Those who have started to make the escape from the Matrix can see it and are asking questions.  We are being lied to constantly, fed some "truth" which can now be seen to be completely different.  The Trump victor was met with meltdowns of TV commentators and "the public" are starting to wake up to the fact that for months and months we were told that Kamala Harris would comfortably win the election and everyone is surprised she didn't.  Our government have been caught lying to us on a number of key issues and slowly, for it takes a while, anger is building. There are other things which are subject to so sort of - I'll call it a cover up for now.

If your national institutions are becoming untrustworthy and they weren't really.  Perhaps for a brief period in the 80s and 70s but now, they cover stuff up, look the other way and don't "do their job" and that's because we, as Plebs, aren't allowed to know.  It's interesting that this disconnect between the establishment and the general public is happening right under our noses.  At what point does the hypocrisy and the lies come out.  When they do, what will the public actually do?  They are programmed to do nothing as long as the TV and Radio tells them that that is the right thing to do.  

As an aside, I wouldn't like to be the person who has made recent decisions to bury pertinent information from the public.  When the truth comes out which it eventually will (although quite how long that may take is part of the plan) we will know that those who knew lied and they then purposely kept the truth from us.  I wouldn't like to be in their shoes. 

A Year Ago

 I was reminded that a year ago I was in a particularly dark place.  It happens occasionally that I get depressed and it can be for many reasons.  I think it is a bit of not being where aspirationally I thought I'd be, over thinking stuff, not getting where I wanted to be, getting old, getting fat, eating the wrong stuff, drinking too much and so on.

I can also trace some of it back to good old survivor syndrome and I was talking to someone who was ill and passed away shortly after Christmas and so there were lots of things going on.

I've come through that but there are still things that I need to change in myself and one of those is procrastination.  I still have the devil's own job getting motivated to do things.  I can and often do just go and do things but I can sit here and just do nothing and that's a problem too.  Feeling bad about doing nothing is a problem.  Sometimes doing nothing is OK I think.

Maybe it's all tied into the old work ethic, being busy all the time and not having time to myself.  Now I have time to myself I don't know what to do with it and I feel guilty for not working every moment of the day!  I can't win LOL.

Anyway, given up drinking the middle of this year was good.  I tend to only drink very occasionally now and not all the time, going Keto on my diet and also intermittent fasting is doing me good and I am around 2 stone lighter.  I'd like to lose another 2 or more stone over the coming year.

I also have this urge to get my affairs in order.  I'm feeling THAT OLD that I think it needs to be done.  I am putting that off but there is no need to as it is just being well organised and should help after I'm gone!   

I am so much better than I was this time last year and I feel quite well too.  Long may that continue...

I Wonder If They Know What They Do?

 Often you'll see me moving my head from side to side in disbelief at the things I see or hear that happen in our country and indeed abroad.  The latest in a line of ridiculous things include people being offended by something they saw and then making a formal complaint about it.  I just shake my head and get on and remember not to engage with whoever it was not because I'm offended because I rarely get offended but because the idiot posting or saying is obviously mentally deranged LOL.

Really though, have you heard these clowns?  I was watching delegates from COP29 being interviewed and after 29 years of this, they still come out with utter nonsense and unrealistic things.  This young lady suggested that the answer was to divert all defence spending and invest in climate change mitigation.  When asked what exactly that would take the form of, the usual spouting of batteries and windmills, solar panels etc were spouted as the saviours of the world.  When questioned further, she really struggled to explain how these were actually going to change the climate (what's the link) and what it would achieve?  Lower temperatures, less hurricanes etc.  This is where it all starts to collapse and she wasn't the only one.  They've had close to thirty years to come up with something that doesn't involve bankrupting the world to fix a problem that is easier to mitigate than try and control.  Fifty Thousand of them at the conference (haven't they heard of Zoom?) and you could see that many were head in the clouds fantasists.

Then we have our government and their disjointed and not properly joined up budget.  Farmers are going on strike next week and the PM yesterday had an opportunity to meet some of them but no, he's getting heckled everywhere he goes as his ideology and not his common sense or representation of the people are destroying things right in front of us but he cannot see it and neither can his cabinet colleagues (or maybe they can).  All we see is incompetence, form over function, complete lack of brain power and disconnection from the very people they are meant to represent.

Then there's the potential that one of the senior government ministers may not have been straightforward about the jobs they had and may not be what they said they were.  Interestingly a lot of people have been calling this out for a long time and there's only so much deniability you can do.  They aren't facing tough questions because they really do not understand the situation they've got themselves into.  Some of their decisions look to be backfiring now and it will be a joy to see them but I am slightly concerned that the country is about to suffer a massive series of financial blows.  I wonder how many businesses will fail in the early New Year as all the stealth tax comes in and affects the bottom line?  

There are very few people who actually appear to know what they are talking about and understand the overall picture both here at home and the wider world.  The BRICS alliance is building outside of our own bubble and no one appears to see that the opposing market is larger than our own.  Look to see where sales of goods are outside of the US and Europe and understand that these countries no longer need out market to sell to, it's easier for them to get millions more customers in these BRICS countries than the small market share we present to them.  Why is no one looking at this?  Because they are too concerned with policing hurty word tweets and navel gazing than actually getting on and running a country that needs to pull its socks up and start being productive again.  Higher energy costs, punitive taxation and damaging nonsense on transport policy (sure we are all going to ride bikes like they "used to" in China, Korea and Taiwan).  

Please let's get some adults in the room together with some senior industrialists, economists and strategic thinkers and maybe, we can actually see what's coming and do something about it.  It appears to me the best places to do business are going to be the BRICS countries but we are destroying our ability to compete in our own country let alone globally.

I am of course most impressed that my local parochial council have given extensive thought to the impact of climate change on our little hamlet.  Rather than looking after planning matters and keeping the place tidy and their other duties they now have the weight of the planet's CO2 emissions on their shoulders.  It must weigh heavy on them!  Sarcasm Off! 

Stepping Up The Business Input

 I guess that this was always my part of the deal, along with getting the product to market and that was/is to get everything ready in terms of advertising and all the relevant things like Accountants, Insurances and so on.

It's quite a feat I think that I've got two websites working, email systems, a developer and accounts ready to launch the product.

Even without the partner now, I would have still been head down at my desk doing all of this.  It's a relief in some ways that I don't have someone looking over my shoulder as I don't particularly work well with criticism (constructive or not) especially when there's been no input to the thing I am working on.  It's OK to contribute but I don't like having holes poked in stuff that I've produced and against my plans.  Most of the time. they wouldn't have even have known let alone understood what I was doing anyway.  

There's a fair amount of work then to get things ship shape and ready for social media and other marketing avenues.  It's not the sort of thing that you need to have traditional adverting for although, who knows, once it gets some traction, perhaps it might be.

Right now it has as much chance as anything out in the market I guess and my instinct tells me that if it gets traction, it should do well.  If it fails, well then we can shut it all down I suppose.

Our competition isn't great - there are some massive empires out there and they charge a lot of money for their Apps but we aren't really competing with them.  We are much smaller fish but also we are agile and better able to respond to the market we are in.

The strangest thing is that I am now on my own in this endeavour and I was only ever there to assist someone achieve their dreams.  I am just running the business and they were providing the ideas.  At the 11th hour they've fallen by the wayside and I suppose, so be it, I juts need to get on and complete this now.  At least I've been able to call the shots over the last month or so.  Looking, yes it's been about a month since this all kicked off. 

I do feel sorry for him that he's come this far and then backed out of it but another part of me thinks that the way he did it was particularly unethical and nasty too.  Maybe he is ill. I may never know as he doesn't want to talk to me.  He's also found out the hard way that the developer cannot talk to him either as they are contracted to the business.

I suppose the only thing to do is to work my way through it. 

Back on subject - maybe

I was horrified to hear that my mother, who had a scan about a month ago still has not received her results.  They were testing for Cancer.  They say it could take up to 12 weeks as they are short of (I think) radiologists!  Now call me old fashioned but with a staff of 1.6 million people you'd have thought that they'd be able to muster some health professionals in there rather than equality and climate change managers now wouldn't you?

Well, I am sure that the Government's answer to this will be to lob a few more billion into the system and show how well they are funding it and stating that "Lessons Will Be Learned" and all that old guff.

Honestly, no one believes them anymore about the "World Class NHS", "Our NHS" etc.  It's a cult, as are many things these days.  The doers and the workers have to make the best of it whilst the managers and the hangers-on get to take home huge salaries for work they are under qualified and do not get monitored for.  They were cr@p 30 or 40 years ago when I worked in the system.  Utter waste of time and resources.  They were still recently and the waste beggars belief it really does.  

Add to all this the ineptitude, the tribal rivalries, the lottery of treatment and the non accountability of these people and you have a right royal mess.  Of course, like just about everything else in this country these days, you'll be told you are a health service denier or something like that.  All of these things are cults, they have tales and stories woven around them to big them up but just look at the effectiveness and the stories everyday folk tell you and is it any wonder that it's all falling down in front of your eyes.  It's the Emperor's New Clothes - the vast majority can see it but the small minority keep up the pretence.

With an inept government (small g) and politicians who don't seem to have done a day's work in real life in "charge" we are living through the Nero period and you can make all the noise you want but the best thing is surely to let it crash to the ground whilst all those in charge stand mouths wide open, agog, incredulous as their empires burn and collapse.

Retirement - Are We There Yet?

 "Are we there yet!?" as I recall was often heard from the back of my car when transporting my children.  They used to do it as a joke which was good although occasionally tiresome we all thought it was very amusing.

I often ask myself the same question as I should be retired but I am involved in this business / project that should have finished some years ago and should be being tested on the great public at large.  The fact that it is six years late is a matter for debate but with being abandoned to finish it alone now, it adds extra pressure on me to either make a go of it or close it down.  The easiest would be to close it down but the Gauntlet picked up has for all my life been where I am at.  

I can almost touch the final product - almost and even after all this time, still not fully.  Half of the project delivered may just give me the opportunity to actually make some money from my close to 8 or 9 years investment.

My own stupid fault for getting involved I suppose.  I'm waiting for the inevitable, "you stole this business from him" and other such trite, non-knowledgeable guff that you often get when friends hear one side of the story but do not take the time to investigate the other.  I like that some will say that I caused a rift, forced out the guy and so on.  Nothing could be further from the truth of the matter.  In fact, it was because I spoke about the way the business functions and the need for professionalism to come to the fore that suddenly and without any explanation, I got a disgusting letter and that was it a complete burning of bridges, no way back and here I am left with a problem.

Oh well, at least I shall endeavour to make a go of it and see where we get to.  If it doesn't work, it doesn't work and I can shut it all down without too much to worry about.  Like a lot of people though, I imagine he's ruminating on what he's done and is possibly too proud to mend things.  I'll provide opportunities in the New Year that he can take if he wants to.  After the disappointment and all the work I've put in to make his dreams reality, I felt I probably deserved better.  No matter, I kind of hope that it does well and then I can enjoy my own satisfaction of a job well done and who knows, there might even be some reward for it.  There's been bugger all in the last 8 or 9 years!

So I'm not there yet.  Much as I'd like to be, I'm not retired and I'm somewhere I had no idea I'd be in and in many ways, I was expecting to have built this, handed it over to a business person to run and be sat back getting occasional rewards.  Now I have to run it myself but hey ho, that's where we are.  At least I have done all of the work I need to do to get it up and running.

I feel sorry for the other chap though, he's thrown his toys out of his pram and I think it is dawning on him that he's walked away from everything.  He attempted to chat to our sub-contractor who rightly explained that he doesn't actually work for him he worked for the business to whom he is contracted.  I think that must have rocked him and I understand he got angry about the situation but if you walk away and resign, you have no further input.  It is now my call and I've made commercial decisions (to stay in business mainly) that he would not like.  It's kind of tough but it was either do that or shut it down.

Onward and Upwards - who knows maybe I'll get this bit finished soon and can actually start to run the business and finally get something out of it!

Pathetic Stupid Imbeciles

 Our Prime Minister and the Energy Secretary have gone over to COP xx and committed to a further 81% cut to CO2 emissions. Now here's the thing.  If you were to wipe our little country off of the map entirely and it were to sink below the sea what would that do to global emissions?  Any ideas?  Answer below:

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL.  

Yes, it is minuscule almost un-measurable. Asia has increased emissions so much that ours (now less than 1% of world emissions) will be swallowed up in the next months.  The pain we are suffering now, about 25% of our energy bills are green tariff, although who trousers all that money is unknown does nothing whatsoever for emissions even if, and no one can actually demonstrate this, CO2 is the bogey man.  It just costs us money and prevents people being comfortable and industry to work.  The higher this goes the less competitive we are.  Simple mathematics and we are run by a ruling class who can't use a calculator.  They could ask AI but are too stupid to know how to turn on a computer let alone actually use one!  

The massive self harm these idiots inflict on us through ignorance and stupidity makes you wonder who they are working for.  It isn't us.  This is not discussed or negotiated or agreed with the public, it's just inflicted.  It feels as if there will be a concerted roar from the public soon.  It will get louder next year when the massive self inflicted damage done to our economy filters through.  It would not surprise me if we get a 2008 type reaction to the current situation.

I look at my little business and wonder whether it is all wroth it.  You work hard for someone to just come and take a great lump out of it.  They didn't put any money in, no effort, no assistance and in fact huge barriers to success but when you succeed they want their pound of flesh.  What do you get in return? Inflation, bloated public services, woke ideology and the square root of sweet Fanny Adams.

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).