Cognitive Dissonance

 Is a psychological state of discomfort that occurs when someone holds conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or values. It can also refer to the tension that arises when someone's actions don't align with their beliefs. 

I point you to our present (and who knows for how long) PM.  Rather than tackle things directly he misses the point and prattles on about something which is entirely connected or in fact a direct result of his policies.  Blaming the previous party or indeed Elon Musk or going off on some complete tangent, there's something quite strange about him (and his cronies).

He's looking to Europe but they are in a mighty mess with Germany and it's economy collapsing under the weight of net zero madness coupled with higher energy prices from sanctions imposed.  In fact most of Europe is suffering.  Look at Austria and France too.  

It's as if he's blinded by his ideology and has no cognizance of the mess he and his party have caused nor the damage they've inflicted on every one of us, the voting public.  I don't think that there is an area of the population that has escaped these draconian rules whilst they rake in the expenses and privileges heaping jobs for the boys among their supporters and wondering why we are upset about it.  The latest "green" fuel duties on aircraft will impose a further burden on families who just want a two week summer break.  Car tax increases, fuel duty up, NI up, heating allowance taken away whilst giving big pay rises to their mates in the public sector.

I do think that there is an awakening of sorts albeit a slow one, perhaps in a few months the voice will rise to a crescendo and they might wake up and realise that there's not a boost in the economy, that all our money is being taken in tax and given to people who've neither worked for it or deserve it.  I like that people are getting very angry with these idiots and that they are also uncomfortable choosing carefully where to be interviewed lest a difficult question be posed.

I certainly hope they implode and that they are all seen for the incompetent, lowlife, corrupt and loathsome bunch that they really are.  

Old Friends & Who Will Die First?

 A touchy subject this one.  I've had a few close friends pass away and back in 2020 was probably one of the most shocking but last year we lost an old school friend.  I only saw him once in the 50 years as he'd emigrated to Canada and it was pretty shocking that he died quite suddenly after being diagnosed with cancer.

It suddenly occurred to me that our little group of friends have been together since school days so we've known each other for 55+ years some longer.  Here's the thing, last year two of of them had quite major surgery, heart surgery as well as hip replacement and a shoulder operation.  Another had DVT and couldn't fly away on holiday.  Of course I'm a Bladder Cancer survivor and here we are still all together but it was a bit strange that my mind should think of this today.  How would we feel if one of us were to depart this mortal realm now or soon?  It would hit home at our mortality I think.  

I lost a friend when I was in my early 20s.  I'm surprisingly back in touch with is widow who lives in NZ now after all these years.  She and I were great mates when we were just starting out in business life and we used to meet up in London at her digs or in the local for a few beers.  A lovely girl/lady and it was platonic although, she had a lovely smile and personality but we were just friends.  He husband (this is a few years later) had a congenital heart condition and went off to play Squash one evening and that was it.  I think we were 23 or 24 then.  That was absolutely shocking to us all.  OF course you get over it but I think when one of us goes it will be a big shock and we will all be thinking about our own mortality.

The Great Rip Off

 I saw a video on Rachel Reeves (Chancellor of the Exchequer) yesterday and it's around 35 minutes long.  It was pretty painful watching and called out not only her qualifications for the job but also the plagiarism ( his words not mine :-) ) and it was actually quite concerning that what we have here is an ideologically based financial blueprint that appears as if it based on a US Treasury approach under Biden that was muted at Davos and so we have something that would, with the might of the US Dollar and the size of that country struggle to work copied on tracing paper and attempted to be implemented here.   

The obvious and glaring problem being that we are no longer a power house (only in our minds) and we have politicians who cannot think strategically (or for themselves) and have no idea how to coalesce this into a whole state wide, fit into the world economy system.  From the explanations of the various parts of the budget it's pained us all into a corner and burdened as we are with the highest taxes since the end of WW2 we are probably going to be asked for more and more but if we are no longer able to work and get paid more then we will not have the money to pay for these horrendous impositions on us. 

When you then start to look at these taxes and strategies you quickly see that there is indeed no real incentive to employ people, set up a business, carry on your business, go out and find work or cooperate in society that has been built that way.  Bit by bit we see people losing their jobs or natural wastage of people in business not being replaced.  Costs imposed are passed on to the workers and consumers alike.  The Government heaps pay rises onto public sector workers who have gold plated pensions and excellent working conditions and tells the rest of us to pay up for those pay rises.  The Public Sector may be necessary albeit in a much smaller way than now but what does it do in terms of bringing money into the country?

Fiscal drag makes us all poorer and will start to pull pensioners into its grasp later this year (probably next financial year) and personal allowances are not going to change until 2028.  What's the incentive to work if personal allowances don't even keep up with published let alone real inflation?  Fuel or should I say energy prices have tripled since just before foot shooting Covid and it's ridiculous lock-downs, such harmful financial and physical nonsense.  Inflation is probably running at 8% I'd guess.  So each year your finances take an 8% hit plus all your bills have gone up by that much and in the case of energy three times or more.  It isn't sustainable and you are trapped if you aren't getting more than 8% on your savings (net) or getting that sort of pay rise per year.  This is over simplifying the problem.  The main thing is that it's a trap and an unpleasant one.  

Now, as a pensioner, I'm pretty much trapped as I get a regular income after having paid into the system for 50 years.  Every 4 weeks it drops into my bank and I do think next year it will attract tax!  My savings, of course if I use those, they'll be taxed (and they are).  If I spend any money on the house I've to pay 20% VAT and on and on it goes.  There's taxes on taxes even (look in depth at fuel duty where they tax the tax) and on and on it goes.

If you invest in something a bit riskier you get taxed if it comes off and makes you money (sure you can offset your losses but if you choose well you can't) If I do well in business they want a lump of that in corporation tax and any money I take out as a reward for setting it up and running it.

There is no real incentive to work, there is no real incentive to get better and to grow the overall wealth of the country.  The government, far from their mantra of economic growth, appear to have done everything possible to stifle that growth and in fact reverse it.  I see people are seriously curtailing spending and the High Street and as I understand it online stores report a slow down in post Christmas sales.  People are hunkering down, they are not sure what is coming next, they can see fragility in the work place, redundancies are incoming and there are many mobile people leaving to go to Dubai and Singapore etc.  Those who can will leave and it's generally the high net worth people who do taking their Tax £s away with them.  Why should you stay here and work hard for someone to take it away from you.  If it was a fair system, if we all benefited and you could see something for your money and it was good value for money, then you'd probably stay.  Gone are the days of good public services, half the staff are down the beach or answering phone calls whilst on holiday or sat in their homes.  Society has become two tier with preference given to non natives over the populace who's taxes pay for these things.  

It is a Huge Rip Off and is hypocritically shoved in your face by the politicians who I am certain loath and hate us and by sections of the people who live here who feel that their "rights" trump all of ours.  That's a two tier society and no one has the balls to tackle the very divisive society we've become or to treat us with some respect.  We, after all, pay for this shower of sh1t to do our bidding, which they don't do.  I do hope that they just keep digging themselves into a bigger and bigger hole and cannot work out how to get out of it.  A pox on their houses. 

Well The Anger Is Getting Greater I Notice

 Our politicians must think that we cannot see or hear them or to realise that they are gas-lighting us.  The latest about turns on "This is what I stand for" is truly abhorrent.  The grooming gangs scandal or rape gangs as I think they should probably be called is yet another about face but this time it's far worse than that, this stuff goes to the very heart of society as it was an ignored problem that got worse because "We didn't want to be accused of being racist!"  and that's the problem now.  The inquiry would of course point directly back to a weak and fallible establishment.

Not that we need an inquiry to see that but we do need those who knowingly let girls be raped in their hundreds perhaps thousands are held to account.  People at the top now were in charge of certain areas that need the investigative conclusions from something like this to be brought to light.  It's a further cover up and right in your face.  These people are lying right to your face all the time, there's no disguising it now, the continually lie on all sorts of things and we can see them.  Toto has pulled back the curtain and commentators who seems to move and steer like gigantic tankers in terms of picking up and acting on these scandals are finally beginning to show signs that there might be a story here.  Hurry up lads, we knew that 15 years ago!!  FFS..

I wonder how long the patience of the people will be tested.  Many politicians are openly heckled and yelled at in the street (rightly so) because they've succeeded in p1ssing everyone off in the country now.  I imagine there are only a few areas of the country that are happy with things and they'd be the metropolitan elite and the enclaves of foreign territories set up in the UK.

The anger on YouTube contributors has ramped up a notch this week and I expect it will get louder as the economy starts to tank and the horror of net zero starts to bite especially as it's very cold now.  Having taken away the £300 heating allowance for pensioners the bright spark of a Heath Secretary suggested that Pensioners really need to put on their heating during this cold spell.  Energy prices have tripled since 2020 and they've taken away a small amount of respite and demand that pensioners put on heating they cannot afford!  That's what we are dealing with.  Their own records show that up to 4,000 could die from the cold this year by taking away the fuel allowance but they did it anyway.

They look like Deer caught in the headlights at the moment not understanding why the economy is shrinking and surely it cannot be because of all the draconian, nasty, spiteful sorts of things they are doing.  Children are being forced out of education because of VAT imposed on private schools, that is blowing up on them "We didn't expect that" spoken in a nerdy train spotter voice.  Farmers are rightly p1ssed off at IHT rules changed for them, employers are likewise going to halt employing people as to do so erodes profit margins the tax on working people (that they said wouldn't happen) is horrendous, so many retailers are now closing down and all because they wouldn't have any adults in charge.  

It's like an unsupervised kid's party this government.  Absolutely useless, painful to watch their childish shenanigans and the latest one of unitary councils gathering up our borough councils into a big blob is also doomed to failure.  Who wants some useless sod from 50 miles away deciding planning on our backdoor?

I really don't like it but we are in deep sh1t this year and I don't think they can see a way forward as their heads are shoved up their own arseholes!  I really hope that they are so despised that they cannot go anywhere without being heckled and yelled at.  Waste of oxygen the lot of them! 

Grow The F*** Up!

 The Internet has made cowards as brave as you like.  Operating from their mother's under stairs cupboards, the keyboard warriors tackle the problems of the day and report what, in their befuddled minds, annoys them or offends them.  I'm sure that the authorities who have brought this behaviour on their own heads must be fed up with this now but NO it continues to plague us.

TV Programmes aren't all as good as they used to be I suppose but my method of complaint is to turn it off, turn the programme over or just not watch it anyway.  We see daily, enraged and offended people complaining to the BBC or OFCOM, online about something in a programme which, frankly, just using your common sense and taking away the ability for the programme to become commercially realised might be a better strategy?  Surely if the programme is made and had been broadcast and you sat there and watched it and were offended then it's to do with you surely?

I was watching a programme last night episode 2 of a war series and it was dreadful and it was offensive, unrealistic and not believable - quite how someone in war time could get from England to Italy without the benefit of EasyJet or Ryan Air in such a very quick time, establish an identity and so on is not possible.  It was therefore stretching the credibility of the characters and the plot, the main actors weren't exactly likeable (I know you don't have to be) and so 20 minutes into the second episode I turned over and will not see out the next 4 episodes.  However, why would I write to anyone about it let alone complain?  What's the point?  If I don't like something, I don't watch it, If I don't like a product, I don't buy it.  What's the point of taking to the agencies and expecting them to do about it.

Of course, here I am writing and complaining too which is a bit hypocritical I suppose.  It seems a lot of our "culture" these days is to be snitches and tell tales, grassing people up and reporting them to the authorities.  You can't really practice free speech much these days as they'll say you're not allowed to say or do this or that.  Back in the day, if you said what you were thinking and I disagreed with it, I had a choice.  I could tell you I disagreed and why and back then, you could do that and not get into a screaming row or being yelled at.  I could just let them have their say and say nothing, or I could just walk away and ignore it.

I do hate this yelling and screaming nonsense these days.  People almost burst a blood vessel getting so angry about something you might say.  But here is the thing that worries me, have we lost the ability to have an opinion and to voice it.  I do have contrary opinions to many people.  I don't believe a word that any of the MSM say.  A case in point would be the bias of the BBC news.  It's worth getting views from different organisations and contrast and compare.  The illegal invasion by economic migrants is a case in point.  The BBC had someone on from a pressure group stating that these people were coming to a safe country from wherever they were from.  They had already passed through a number of safe countries and some were coming from countries where there were no wars or conflict etc.  So to double down on this they then pulled some library shots of a child being rescued from a boat.  The one thing you don't see that often is children or women among these.

Then the bloke says that we should provide safe channels for refugees as if we don't now.  You can get here via a safe channel if you are claiming asylum but to pay to come over by boat destroying your papers on the way over isn't a safe channel is it?  That's the BBC for you.  Go and have a look at France24 or some other European News station or go and look online and find out about it.  The BBC reporting of the raid on the Gaza Hospital is diametrically different to other news outlets.

Worryingly, people are more interested in complaining about what someone is wearing rather than being fed "facts" that are dressed up propaganda.  We have long lost the ability to deliver the news and let the viewer decide what it is all about.  Now we get to hear what they "think" we should understand from the reports.  Just watch it occasionally and you can pick up the trends in the reporting, the use of NGOs and Pressure Groups disguised as unbiased factual commentators. 

Anyway, off at a tangent but everyone needs to wake up and become an adult again.  Bickering like children and pointing fingers and telling tales is not going to lead us out of this situation.  As I sad at the start, grow the f*** up.  

Internet Sloth

 I am a member of interest groups for areas that I am interested in, obviously! Such as family history, my Drone flying and so on.

So what's got my annoyance factor up is the use of these groups to ask stoooopid questions.

There's a local road group and someone will ask whether the road bridge is clear.  Well, hello, if I don't know when you posted the query and in what direction you are going in and if I haven't actually driven that way in six months how do you expect me to know?  But worse than that, you can go onto Google Maps and just see the information yourself or you can go on the roadworks app and so on.  But no, ask a group of a few thousand people when you could and should just look on line - all the information is there.

The Drone group makes me laugh as the Administrator is quite good fun.  So someone asks what sort of SD Card goes with their particular Drone model.  Admin states that the same ones advised in the operating manual!  Boom!  

This default asking other people to read the manual for you also extends to cars - my car - I know how it works as I read the driver's manual before I actually got to drive it.  It has a wealth of little gadgets that people ask what they are for and there's a full explanation in the book.

Are people actually this lazy?  By the looks of what I've read today, they surely are.   

Another Lap Of The Sun

 And we're off on another orbit of the Sun, a huge Star at the centre of our tiny solar system.  It certainly makes for an interesting study of quite how amazing this orbit of ours is.  If you haven't studied it, then I'd strongly suggest that you do as it is fascinating in many ways.

I was interested to know that we view the orbit as a circular one and it isn't really we are nearer or further to the sun depending on what time of year it is.  The inclination of our axis (which provides our seasons too) is also of added interest as is the wobble of the planet.  I liked that we see the orbit as a flat picture with planets going around the sun on a horizontal plane and yet in reality is it is more on a vertical plane.  The planets themselves influence each other and their satellites (our moon) add additional complexity.  Much as I dislike Professor Brian Cox his recent series on the planets was very good.

Earth is closest to the sun in its orbit, a point called perihelion, around January 4th of each year. At perihelion, Earth is about 147.1 million kilometers from the sun, which is 5 million kilometers closer than it is at aphelion, its furthest point from the sun.  I'd speculate that this is a good thing as we probably get milder conditions now than if we didn't even though it is our winter.

I often wonder whether anyone thinks about this because the more I listen or watch the "The world's about to burst into flames" brigade the less I think they've thought through their arguments.  The old "denier" accusation is falling a bit thin these days as that's the only counter argument and it's not a logical response to debating scientific data and questioning it.  My mother was told when she was going to marry a Catholic and was attending her lessons with the priest that she would never be a good Catholic as she asked too many questions.  Make of that what you will.  My scientific hero, Richard Feynman, stated that he would "Rather have questions that cannot be answered rather than answers that could not be questioned".

Does anyone see that?  If you cannot challenge "Da Science" you have to ask yourself and whoever tells you that you can't WHY??   Why will you not enter into scientific debate, why is your data not available and so on.  Scientists do not have a "Right to remain silent" if they want their work relied upon.  It depends on who you talk to about this subject but you can destroy the majority of the cult's mantras by just looking at available data and gathering it from various sources.   What has struck me about our politicians is how they've thrown their weight and support behind pretty ropy (let's face it) "facts" and gone all in with solutions to problems that neither exists or that exist in such minuscule ways that the best policy is to adapt rather than destroy the economy and the people in the pursuit of being able to "CONTROL the weather"  you can't do that now and if you have the utter hubris to think you can do that in the future in a chaotic system then you need sectioning fast.  

I also note that around the world our politicians manage to accumulate a lot of wealth from their salaries.  They obviously aren't investing in savings accounts as those don't pay the many thousands of percentage point returns these charlatans seem to attract.  Let's see if any get exposed in this coming year?  I like that some of the climate change ambassadors have purchased beach front residencies whilst telling us that rising ocean waters will drown us all.  It's nice of them to regularly almost daily jet off around the world and say that we cannot go on a once in a year holiday.  Seventy Thousand went to Baku for the latest p1ss up convention on climate change.  They've had close to 30 years to get an accord and in that time you can't see anything happening other than the rhetoric expanding and the demand for rich countries to pay reparations to poor countries as if that will make any difference whatsoever.  

I really hope that it is called out soon but for much of the Western world, the UK and some of Europe the damage is done.  Our rush to reduce the 1% of man-made CO2 to zero has already doubled our energy bills, forced us on journey into woefully unsupported and unplanned electric vehicle use - we neither have the energy capacity, the infrastructure or indeed the willingness to sort this out.  A case in point is an elderly gentleman bought an electric car as he thought he was doing the right thing.  He ran a lead out to the car from his house and it was highlighted as a trip hazard and so he cannot charge his car.  That's it, how does that work? It doesn't. I saw a car plugged into a house in Cambridge with exactly that sort of connection and they'd put a hazard cover and ramp over the cable  - if you'd had a wheelchair I doubt you'd have easily got over it.  Old people and people with pushchairs or prams?  Good luck with that.  

So here we go into 2025, just 5 years until net zero, only electric cars, heat pumps not gas boilers to heat our houses and petrol and diesel what?  Are they just going to switch the stuff off?  It's utter nonsense and I don't know if they are too stupid to see it or if it's Emperor's New Clothes or what is going through (if they've got one) their minds.  An absolute car crash of a policy, based on a cult for their is very little science being done and for what?  So some dimwit can turn a switch and we can have a nice sunny day tomorrow and turn a switch and it will rain for 3 hours on a certain day - maybe only at night if they can manage it?  All our electricity is going to be generated by windmills that work when they turn the wind switch on which it will be needed all the time you can't have any still days now can you.  Maybe they can make the sun shine 24x7 so that the solar panels can provide electricity.  That's how f*****g stupid all of this is.  

Instead of spending billions trying to capture carbon why not plant a few trees and have done with it.  BTW, the last thing you want is zero carbon - look it up.  

General Ignorance

I  was struck with the general level of ignorance I see and read these days.  There's plenty of comments that are Trolling but there are also some very strange people out there.  People commenting on the car crash that is the UK economy appear to be caught in some sort of time loop and think that we are back in the 70s and 80s.  Those who think that other people should pay more taxes whilst they don't have to.  Those who think that after 50 years I'm not entitled to my pension that I've paid for.  They think it is a benefit and it should be removed?  Strange.  They think that ruining children's education is OK as it makes a point about toffs being sent to private schools!  Amazing, some of my friends went with bursaries and some their parents scrimped and saved to pay for their child's education.  Why is that bad?  Having said that, reading the stupidity of the comments, we can guess that they probably played truant if indeed they were educated.

There's a parochial view of the world here and they don't appear to see how things actually are and how the world works and how in our case capitalism benefits us all.  This pathetic outlook on life is alarming and one wonders how they actually get through day to day living at all?  They don't appear to have worked out that all these thumping taxes will increase their own finances when they filter through.  Stuff costs more than the 3 or 4% inflationary figure that our state broadcaster would have us believe.  In 4 years I reckon my bills have doubled, yes doubled, go and check out what you were paying in 2019 and compare.  Who did they think was going tp pay for all the handouts and freeloaders?  They think it is business!  We already know that if you run a business you need to work out how you run it in the face of all these overarching  overburdening government regulations and taxes.  The consumer pays, the consumer always pays.  But no, these Muppets want to continue to pile regulations and taxes, rates etc and think that the business will just absorb it all.

Meanwhile, go and look at the BRICS economies and wonder to yourselves how come they can make something and ship it to me for less than half of the price I can buy it for retail?  I purchased a Magnetron for less than £12 shipped all the way from China (including shipping).  OK they didn't protect the package properly so it arrived in pieces but how can you do that and make a profit at it for £12?  We could barely ship it in the UK for that price.  So how are they doing that?  Well the great and good don't want heavy stuff in out country you know like mining or obtaining the raw materials, making things in factories and so on, really NIBBY types.  We have such high energy prices (some of the highest in the world) that we cannot actually compete that way, nor with people, again a high cost and all the regulations associated with that we cannot do it and to remain green we shift it all and now fully rely on other countries.  I was watching a programme where the costs of goods is so cheap and why it was like that.

These do-gooders have destroyed what economy we had.  We no longer have any leverage in the world and we are no longer "Great" Britain.  It's sad to see that these people seem to think there is a government money tree somewhere.  There is no government money at all, it is OUR money.  People are happy to sling mud around about Brexit, Taxes and Big State and yet they have no idea what that actually means.  Does the Public Sector actually generate income or do they spend our money?  There's no willingness on anyone's behalf to counter this death spiral of economic and societal decline either.  There appears to me to be whole areas of the country that are marginalised where people are trapped in a system that makes them poorer and is difficult to escape from.  Inflation is eroding incomes and prices are going up with little wage growth (excepting public sector and government favourites).  Fiscal drag is applied by not moving tax thresholds, employment is slowing as extra taxes are levied to employ people and many businesses will just close down operations, not hire or do something else and pass on the costs to consumers.  In the words of Monty Python "Is this anyway to run a ****** ballroom?" (or was it Derek and Clyde?). 

I've been looking for the ROI data on plastic straws.  So worrying was it to the environmentalists that it was deemed necessary to do away with them so that we could save the planet.  I'd guess that it would probably save the planet from warming by 0.00000000000000000000000001 degree but no on can tell me.  The increased costs and you now need to often get a second straw as the paper ones (wrapped in plastic and coated in plastic) go soggy very quickly thereby doubling the number of straws required.

Anyway, this rant is really aimed at those who wave their arms around, want to be controlled by the government blob, being told what to do and when they can do it etc.  They really need to do some research before opening their gobs.  Every time they do they show that they are willing to sacrifice their fellow citizens for their own end.  Of course, they unwittingly also end up going down the same plug hole they've created for everyone else. 

What The Hell Were You Thinking

 Uttered by me on many occasions and almost hourly these days.  So they've knighted the London Mayor.  Speechless what on earth were they thinking?  The trouble is I don't think that their ideology allows them to think, it's very catholic and totalitarian, almost dystopian at the moment and this headlong rush to the bottom isn't over by a long way.  Everything that they touch is the opposite of Midas and is rapidly turning into mahogany (soft and brown) stuff.

Education is being destroyed and for no good reason other than spite.  Maybe, finally, people will wake up to what and how these people are?  It is no longer education it is indoctrination and still, no one is angry.  The answer will be more tax and more fines and so on until there is nothing of any value left.  It's already happening and 2025 looks to be the year that the economy collapses alongside some of our European neighbours.  

De-industrializing in the name of a cult (that of Climate Change) does absolutely nothing except show how f*****g stupid you are.  Destroying your own country to appease fanatics is not exactly a grown up approach to this and it will end in tears and more damage to us.  Already people are paying substantial energy bills and the time will come soon when we will only be subsistence living.  There wont be any money to spend other than on food and fuel.

It worries me that there may soon be a large snap against all of this and no one can see it coming.  If you tax the cr@p out of people and they don't see anything for it, then why should they cooperate?  I'm trying to find ways of just not obeying and not cooperating.  It would be nice that everyone in the country started not complying and stating that they no longer wish to be "governed" by these people who think they have some sort of authority over us.  But then I expect too much of "the people"  when I was in business we used to have a saying that 98% of people want to be told what to do and the other 2% were project managers!

Oh well, let's see how it goes.  The list of wasted stuff goes on and on, the oppression of the people continues and at some point someone has to say no, enough is enough.  Let it come sooner rather than later and let's hope that the damage can be undone.  You can imagine that they having spunked all the money away will have to try and work out how to pay to put it all right again.  

That's A Bit Better

 I was in a very dark mood yesterday.  I'd woken a few times during the night and the last time around 5:30 I decided enough was enough and went downstairs to try and get to somewhere bigger.  Claustrophobia is a strange thing it isn't really logical but I've had it most of my life since being squashed into a confined space at school and a few similar things.  To this day I dislike trains and the underground especially, I hate crowded rooms and theatres too are difficult spaces for me.  I calm myself in planes and try and mitigate where I sit and so on.

My hypnotist friend has moved away and he was able to do a number of things including stopping me smoking and to get me OK with going into hospital and facing the operations etc.  I taught myself to be less angry about how long things took in the hospital but that's another thing.

I came downstairs and sat quietly and a series of things happened that just seemed to make me more angry and the black dog descended.  I got the right (moved) bin day but had put out the wrong bins so they weren't collected!  That really made me annoyed as did catching the bin on my car and the contents spilt out!

I was brewing up in my mind how it "always seemed to be me" and all that ego / pain body stuff and whilst I realised that was what it was it didn't make my humour any better at all.  As I often say it's best to leave me alone at times like that.  There are genuine concerns though and stuff that I have to address this year.  I think I've left these long enough.  Stuff that is not in my control and that need to be sorted.  Stupid stuff to some but to me with my tidy mind and practical approach to things it's getting oppressive and the claustrophobia is caused in some measure by these things.  Inability to get to things as other things are in the way.  Rooms full of possessions rendering the room unusable.  Access to areas in the house impeded by boxes and items that make it difficult to walk past without going sideways.

Yes, I need to sort this out, it's gone on for too long and I'm sure this is what is making me be more introverted than I am normally and also bring on the moods too.

Something's Not Quite Right

 Tinnitus off the scale yesterday and today.  Not sleeping particularly well and feeling very hot when in bed and not generally tickety boo.  Actually feeling quite dark inside and the weather - it's foggy again and oppressive out there - isn't helping lift my mood.  Yes, dark, foreboding perhaps?

I think that a lot of this is to do with suddenly changing my diet to a "Christmas" diet too many carbs, alcohol, sweets and so on.  I don't normally eat these things and as you are aware I've stopped drinking beer and only have a very small amount of alcohol so my body is probably wondering what on earth I am doing stuffing the left over Christmas food and drinking beer again plus all the other things like dates, figs and so on.

Add to that I'm beginning to feel disconnected from the house too.  It isn't "home" at all and there's no space to live in, it's limited and at time claustrophobic.  So I'm feeling dark about that and not happy with things as they are.

I always do get depressed at this time of year anyway and it normally picks up when I get involved in something or other.  The trouble is, lots of this stuff is out of my direct control. 

So How Was It For You?

 Nice to see my daughters and grandchildren but cut short which was a little annoying so really didn't get to speak to them much.

New Year's Resolution incoming I think is to do my own thing now and just go and see them and have done with it.  I've been trying too hard to care for everyone and I felt a bit like the House Elf on Christmas Day I have to say.  

I'd worked my butt off and everyone else was tired?!  Exactly.

Think that it might be an interesting year to be sure.  I hope you enjoyed yourselves anyway.  I kind of did but I am feeling a bit like the servant at the moment.  Let's say it's not a cooperative and mutually inclusive time.  

Christmas Hearing Issues

 I managed to wear my hearing aids for most of Christmas Day but into the early evening I got tired of them and took them out.  It's amazing how effective these tiny little aids are.  The only issues I have is getting the setting right.  I have 80% hearing in my damaged right ear and about 95% in my left but, of course, it's more about the various frequency problems and this awful Tinnitus which I thought I had got rid of about 6 or 8 months ago.  I'm going to retry the exercises and see if I can reduce it at least.  

The aids do somehow mask it but you still know it is there.  The noise of things like breathing or rustling paper, a switch being turned off and so on are quite loud and noticeable now so they seem to be doing a good job.  I'm hoping that this company in the USA will ship to the UK, I've got an inquiry out with them about getting some tinnitus relief hearing aids.  Someone in the UK has them and they swear by them but when I went to their site they do not ship to the UK!!!!  When I asked them they said there are no agents in the UK - Didn't really answer my query but hey!

So off to my daughter's to see her, my other daughter and my grandchildren which will be great.  Really pleased to be able to get to see them, it will lift my spirits I hope.  Just loaded the car with stuff - it looks as if I am on a humanitarian mission with red cross parcels!  

Arghh Tinnitus Back Loud As Hell

 So is it that I had a few beers last night?  I was on my feet all day yesterday cooking and looking after energetic and Christmas hyped 5 year old?  I don't know but this morning it is very loud indeed.   am downloading a background noise file and so hopefully I can pump that through my headphones and see if that helps.

In other news, here we are again, Christmas Eve.  I can't say I'm particularly Christmassy about it.  Albeit that the making Mince Pies and the like was fun yesterday I'm not really feeling up for it this year.  Maybe the first decoration going up today might make it different.  SO far the house has only got some Mistletoe and a Door Wreath and my outside lights :-(

Must go and try and get rid of this tinnitus, it's totally the wrong sort of bell ringing for this time (or any) time of year!. 

Better Today - Tinnitus Much Quieter

 Thank goodness and I've been up early to greet grandson and we had him today.  So it was a day of cooking with him as "Junior Chef" Mince Pies, Sausage Rolls and he'd lost interest by the time I did the Gammon and there's still two lots of pastry to use up.  I have ideas for that tomorrow when he isn't with us.

He's a lovely lad and not bad for a five year old really.  He is quite adept at reading the cooking instructions which was great for him to practice on.

I now just have a few things left to do and I can relax I think.  Everything that "I" need is here, not sure about anyone else's needs but I'm OK Jack! 

I am going to go get some rest as I've been on my feet since 6 this morning and I'm not getting any younger!

As I often say, Christmas Dinner is only a slightly bigger Sunday Roast - I enjoy cooking it more than I enjoy eating it strangely enough.  So a few presents to wrap, a beer has been poured and I can get on with pottering around in the kitchen tomorrow and doing last minute fussing ready for the big day.

How Fast Is This Trip?

 Good morning, it's 22nd December, Christmas has arrived in its box all ready to throw in the oven, Turkey, Gammon, Vegetables, Stuffing, Pudding the works.  So that's a weight off my mind and it's early so that is even better.  The Tinnitus is bad again and I am trying to play some white noise in the background to see if this will help.

I looked at a Facebook group and an old friend dropped me a line.  I then realised that it was just over 50 years ago she and I were regularly meeting up and seeing each other - platonically - we were school chums and hung out together.  She's now in New Zealand and keep in touch irregularly.

It made me think how fast those 50 years have gone.  Blink and you miss it is often said but it kind of feels like that and yet I can recollect things that must have seemed interminable at the time.  Bladder Cancer for one took around 17 years or so to not "be a thing" in a day-to-day way.

I had the pleasure of No.1 Grandson being here yesterday and he is very young but also very bright he reads and writes extremely well and yesterday he was reading even cursive writing to me and suddenly he decided to write a list of things he'd like for Christmas none of which, of course, were what he'd ever asked for before.  Thank goodness that Amazon Prime was there and I could sort that out.  

I'm going to get into "The Christmas Spirit" today I think.  It should be an interesting Christmas if nothing else and I need to shake myself out of my despondency.  I need to lift my spirits and be thankful as time marches on and the wake up call is that I now have time to do anything I want but I am squandering it on minutiae which is a proper waste.

How fast is this trip?  It is very fast indeed when you look back and yet it felt like it was interminable at the time. 

Very Bad Tinnitus Again

 Well this is strange as I can normally get rid of Tinnitus or at least make it a lot quieter.  It seems to have come back again with vengeance today.  I've tried some white noise perhaps I'll try with headphones when my uninvited company goes home.  

As usual I'm doing some sorting out for people, searching for parts and solutions to problems.  It's a difficult thing isn't it when you get asked to do something for someone.  I'm a bit of a sucker and I am quite happy to do something like this because 1) I can 2) it interests me 3) it also annoys me a bit too.  I actually don't have to do this for my kids because they've learned (from the master LOL) how to go about things like researching, getting the best value for money and things like that.

It feels to me that these sorts of things either aren't taught or things are too easy these days, until that is, they prove to be too hard or difficult.

Anyway, it is keeping me occupied when I should be doing other things. It isn't distracting enough to send this ringing screeching noise away from my ears though.

   

Hearing Aid Trial

 These are expensive hearing aids but not the exorbitant cost of the shop bought ones.  I have had them in for about an hour now and I can say that the Tinnitus is a little less but it is still there.  They are really loud on the lowest setting but as I read they will be as you aren't used to them.  They are set for indoor and on the lowest volume and I can hear myself breathing, the PC fans whirring and the noise off of this keyboard is surprisingly loud too.

Things going on outside are also more noticeable too.  The whole experience is quite strange as either I was really deaf or these are really loud :-) I will try and wear them for a good few hours to see if I can get used to them.  The last few times, in loud places they were too much and I had to ditch them quickly as I could hear quite a bit of what the table behind me was saying but hardly anything my table was saying.  I think it is practice at the end of the day.

Onward, onward....

Tinnitus - Wow It's Bad Today

I got this years ago when I got really ill just over and after Christmas and got both ears infected.  Gosh I was so ill but I had to attend a meeting a give a talk - it was in 2009 and I was a few years into treatment and I'm guessing I probably picked the cold up at the Hospital.  I don't know, whatever it was the Doctor (you could actually go and see them back then) was horrified and prescribed me the biggest dose of Antibiotics he could.  It did the trick but ever since I've had this blasted Tinnitus.

I can normally get on and work through it but today it is so loud I can hardly concentrate on anything at all.  I'll try some exercises I found that worked in a minute to see if that fixes it.  

So that has decreased the volume which is good, the screeching high pitched noise is still there but quieter.  I think I might try my hearing aids and see if that fixes it by making me concentrate on other things.

Ho hum.  You just have to live with this and oftentimes I can just blot it out or ignore it.  

People Are Getting Sick To Death Of All These Lies Surely

 The Internet is interesting in that you can go and research what people said but a few years ago and then listen to what they say now.

I used to say that I rarely lied in business as I couldn't remember what lie I might have told and I'd get found out and I'm not very good at it.  Instead people found my direct approach threatening which is funny.  I say funny, perhaps disarming is correct.

I once went to a customer because his supplier was messing me around and could not finish on time.  I knew what to do about it and I knew that he wouldn't be happy but, go armed with a way out and don't lie.  What actually happened was interesting because once the anger had subsided mere seconds in reality that his job wasn't going to be finished and that it was his side letting it down I told him how I could sort it out and gave him a way out of his embarrassment and a way we could both "win".  Shortly afterwards, the sales managed heard about what had happened and went to the customer and rather than check with me what was going on, spun some cock and bull story about what he'd put in place, blah, blah, blah.  The customer, rightly so sent him away with a flea in his ear and explained that everything was under control and that he might like to talk to the person that was actually running the job, me.

Lies get you no where at all and when you tell the truth you don't have to remember what you said as it was the truth and not some fabrication.

Our politicians are getting caught out time and again by having said one thing and now doing the total opposite.  It's obvious they are lying, they are way way out of their depth.  They don't understand their briefs and they certainly don't understand much about politics, world stage stuff, people and communication.  Their approval rating is on the floor as they p1ss off more and more sectors of the public.  It's unbelievable that they didn't see that inflation would rise, unemployment go up, business move or close down and so on.  It was blindingly obvious to all but an ideological zealot that if you messed with these things something would happen elsewhere.  So now we have them going back on pensioner's heating allowance, WASPI women compensation (that they were going to redress) and many other things and all in the space of a few months their ratings are down, they have zero credibility and I am certain that they will soon find it difficult to go anywhere without being heckled and abused in public.  Deservedly so.

It is rotten to the core but some of us have known that for years but now, right in your face, they are lying, misrepresenting, misinforming and using some sort of propaganda style tactics more at home in the period of the Berlin Wall and the Communist East.  It is horrific and you can watch as the car crashes and the ship sinks and they rearrange the deck chairs and stare at the headlights wondering what is coming next.

The Chancellor's plans are falling apart and I am surprised she and the PM are still in office.  I think many thought they'd be out by Christmas but then there were other things that wold all be over by Christmas that didn't turn out that way I suppose.

It would be nice to find some sort of civil disobedience tactic that would impact these utter lying charlatans.  The very worst people I have ever seen, no experiences, no honour whatsoever and certainly not a clue when it comes to Governing.  At the moment, every thing they do is aimed at giving money to non participants in this country's wealth and taking that money from us and p1ssing it up the wall.  They need to be gone, the lot of them.