Aimless Wanderings Of My Mind

What a strange year it has been so far. I really feel a little lost and not sure what I am doing or going to do with myself.  It is not as if I have not got things to do of course but they aren't uppermost in my mind and procrastination seems to halt my need to do things on that list. 

I'm writing my biography for my family history files and I think it is that recording of things past which makes me reflective.  I really shouldn't do "what if?" but I think that you cannot always stop that as you pour out your memories you are bound to get the twang of missed opportunities, lost loves, opportunities that didn't come to fruition and just the amazement that things didn't go in another direction when you analyse what happened to you.  It didn't make the biography but on three or more occasions there were some interesting things that happened that could have panned out differently and on each I dodged advances that I am sure would have led to amatory endings.  I am glad that as I write down these experiences that I did the right thing but you are always left wondering whet might have been?

But is it just that I wonder?  It feels more than that.  A general reset perhaps.  Being retired (or should be) is actually a strange phenomenon to me as I've always been doing things and I suppose I still am a bit but there's that guilt feeling of getting up and saying or wanting to do something and achieving nothing.  Maybe that's what it is like because you don't need to achieve anything?  Perhaps there are other things to be done?  

The business has dragged on for 8 years now and I am getting pretty much annoyed that it hasn't been sorted out yet.  It has certainly exercised my mind recently with the chap leaving and then threatening me for his own actions!  That took it out of me too.  Who threatens legal action over their own mistake?  Then there's the ongoing testing nightmare = it has taken 9 months longer - again to get here.  Considering I had a working version of this in my hands 7 years ago it's been unacceptable but we are where we are.

There's other stuff going on in my head, I think mortality is one of these.  Another friend died yesterday after a long illness and he had gradually gone downhill over the last 2 years or so.  I am trying in some way to get things in order and history is written by the victors comes to mind in writing my biography which is around 60,000 words which is impressive and we are only getting to the middle bit which I left.  That too probably fills me with regret because I look back on the times we had, character building, fun, hard work, triumphs and disasters and realise that I really didn't want that to end the way it did and we go our separate ways.  I feel bad now, worse than I did then which is pretty interesting to note about leaving.  I was the instigator and whilst there were triggers, it had built up over time and I suppose yo wonder whether giving it one more chance (and there had been a number of these) would have really sorted it out?

There's guilt that my ex looked after me through the darkest period of my life with Bladder Cancer and she took me to and from the Hospital and I am grateful to her for nursing me through and looked after me during the dark dark days of treatment which were, I can tell you, or you can read the 2006 and a few years after, unpleasant and challenging.  And yet, I went through all of that and wanted to live to see my children grow up, get married, have children of their own (if they so wanted) and so that has come to pass but what is missing now I don't really know?

Last night I sat outside, gosh it was hot day 30C I would say but the evening was cooler and I grabbed a few glasses of wine and then I felt bad about that!  Sometimes I question why my mind does that. It is quite acceptable to sit out in the garden, a little music playing and drinking a few glasses of wine.  Perhaps I am worried about drinking again, that it is a habit that I should give up?  I don't know.  Maybe today I'll work out what this is all about.  What I do recognize is that when I feel like this often big things happen in my life.  Unfortunately they are things like major job changes or direction changes, illness or separation - I really don't want any of them but that's what worries me when I "go like this" it often means that my mind knows the answer but isn't sharing it with me yet.  

Not Watching TV So Much

 I can only imagine the backlash that's coming for the BBC after Glastonbury this year.  I haven't watched any of it.  In fact it's probably been 10 years or more since I just got fed up with it being a Party Political wankfest and not about the music.  I'm sure the fringe stuff is OK, there's bands we know appearing and let's hope it does their careers, such as a musician can have one, some good but there's something rotten at the core of all of this.  

It was always the case that people who couldn't hold down a real job but managed to make it big in the music or acting world then grew so "popular" that they felt we needed to know their opinions on things and be told which way to vote (that's backfired spectacularly this time with Labour coming to power - the mess made has meant the 'luvvies' have found one of their many reverse gears and accelerated out of the spotlight.  

I think I called this out in 2020 when people were doing their virtue signalling clap for the NHS or turning their profile picture blank for BLM and so on.  The band wagon rolls on and on and there always seems to be the gullible who join in thinking that it matter or that anyone gives a sh1t.  What happens is that we see you for who you are and you are exposed for who you are.  The irony is lost on people who are at a festival condoning people who murdered young people, like themselves, at a festival?  No?  Maybe it's just me that thinks that.  But I didn't watch it because I knew what it would be like.  Of course the BBC and their viewers are "shocked" )switched into sarcasm mode for that).  Really?!!  Really?!! If they had an inkling, all they need do is record it and take out the political bits but it's the BBC and it's actually what they think too despite their hands up protestations and it is all wearing very thin indeed, this tissue thin veil of impartiality has been destroyed over and over and they just ought to call themselves the Socialist Broadcasting Corporation or the Guardian or the Morning Star, something like that.

I have avoided the TV for months now and only come into the living room to watch the odd thing.  Clarkson's Farm for example and Formula One but I tend to play that on my iPad in another room.  I'll pick out some YouTube commentators and dip in and out of some online podcasts but that's it now.  Of course, it is all coming out now that pressure was put on popular programmes to promote vaccination - so if they did that, what else are they pushing? 

I am trying to keep away from the TV, cut my intake of alcohol too, which is doing OK.  I am losing weight but I need to check that my diet is doing that and I'm not ill which I know sounds strange.  I'm losing weight and I am pleased about that and I am consciously eating to lose weight but now that it has accelerated and is quite noticeable.  I suppose it should be as I've been eating like this for 3 or 4 months now and I think that the gradual weight loss is now more visible eight loss and my belt for example is in another notch and clothes are loose on me and yet, I cannot get into the clothes from 3 years ago?  Anyway, it's a "monitor it" and see.  I feel fine if not a little flat and I am noticing that my body and joints all feel good, my skin is also feeling good too so perhaps things are OK and it's just me worrying too much about it.

If I can keep this up for the summer I will be pleased but I need to keep off the Beer (liquid bread) and any carbohydrates too.  

Reflections - Recollections May Vary

 I am writing my biography covering quite a bit of my life and then I noticed that the middle bit was missing, meeting my wife (ex) having the children and all of that good stuff.  I worked on the beginning and the end and missed the middle entirely so I am working my way through that.

It's actually interesting (only I would say that) as it is of course quite personal and it is, even for me, an emotional roller coaster because now, writing and thinking about it, the errors and the wrong turns, the choices and the consequences are plain to see I think.  I don't suppose that hindsight, the exacting science that it is, might have changed any of it because, here we are and there can be no other outcome but it is interesting in a way to look back.

I wasn't expecting the strong emotions that are going with it, or perhaps I should have as I missed out this documenting the 30 to 40 years part.  It's quite interesting to look back though and when I saw that I'd written 50,500 words without the middle bit I was a bit surprised.

So the middle journey part is going to be unfolding over the next few weeks and it will be emotional as there are special moments in there and of course good and bad memories.  I re-read the eulogy I gave for my father at his funeral, now 13 years ago next month.  If I were to be half the man he was, I'd be pleased.  

If Not Now, When?

 Will enough people wake up in the next year or so? I do hope so and I do hope that they work out what is being done to us, the people, in our name.  Let's face it, these ideologues haven't got a scooby on how to do anything, they are joke domestically and goodness knows what the world makes of our "Leaders"?  Surely most people would think that a fair system should exist but these closet Malthusian, Fabian, Marxists can only have read books and never have existed in the real world.  We now have assisted suicide and infanticide nodded through and goodness knows what their next move will be.  Perhaps they'll take us back to Apocalypto or pre-Christian times and we can have blood sacrifice all over again?

They always have been spiteful and their treatment of children's education is surely a case in point that they want everyone to be dumb as f*** and slave to the state.  But here we are in Britain, being very British about it all at the moment.  I think we are possibly one of the most tolerant nations (sorry Canada) in the world and we allow things to go on, being polite, drinking our cups of tea and tutting about things but how far will this stretch?  How often can you poke the bear before it wakes up, slashes out with its claws and eats you in a few mouthfuls?  

Tax, the way these guys wield it is theft.  Taking more and more to spend on causes that no one agrees with, feeding a state that grows fatter with each devoured fiver.  No, it needs to stop and the "leaders" need to wake up blinking in bright sunlight to how truly hated they are and how totally out of touch too.  They have to use rent-a-crowd to do any TV these days or go to their blinkered strong lands but that cannot last for ever, they will have to face reality.  Their promises are collapsing around their ears and the Emperor's Clothes will be exposed for what they are.  There's only so much that people will take and I wonder at what point it will kick off.  It seems near but not imminent.

The doom and gloom of high prices and only just making ends meet surely must begin to brew up into some sort of action.  Perhaps by October when the figures really start to show the monumental downfall of a once great country and we begin to compare ourselves to Venezuela will it sink in that the politics of envy, spite and tax and spend will play out.  I live in hope.  In the meantime, let's hope that none of them can go to a Restaurant, A Pub or anywhere where they are recognised so that they wake up to how hated they are.

Attending A&E Last Night - Brings It All Back

 I dislike Hospitals quite a bit, I've never liked them and their smell, the haphazardness and herding cats feel to queuing and waiting - the waiting is the worst surely.

I had to take someone in last night and after 3 hours or more possibly more they finally got seen only as they were about to discharge themselves - having had a procedure, they were bleeding and needed to get checked.  Now it brought it all back as it will be 19 years next week since I found myself bleeding and commenced a long journey of Bladder Cancer and all the fall out from that, good, bad and indifferent.  We get there eventually but not how you thought and hey, I'm still here which is a good thing.

So yes the same sort of thing and I went into the A&E and it was packed and I'm sure it doesn't need to be - so much going on and some people were just packing up and going home after waiting so long that they probably felt better by then.  Miraculously from being another three or four hours he got seen straightway when he said he was going to discharge himself as if he'd waited this long following triage it couldn't be that worrying for them?  Seen straight away, I got him home gone 1:30 possibly later and got to bed at 2.

There's a lot of people didn't look like they needed to be in A&E but that's the way it works now.

The radical answer?  We all know the radical answer but no one has the balls to go do it, they just give it more money and boost the non jobs and say they've fixed it.

Anyway, 19 years, it was an awful time that week and in fact the few days afterwards then the wait then the operation in double quick time and you can read the rest at the beginning of this blog!  

Townies

 I used to be a Townie then we moved out of London when I was about 10 years old and generally I've lived on the edge of the countryside and now in it, which is great.

What's p1ssing me off is that all this demonizing of cars is a bit rich when you live, where we live, for example down a private unmade lane.  As you may know I tried to get busses but it doesn't work around here,  I have to walk half a mile (easily that) to a stop.  Anytime between 8 in the morning and about 6 at night all is good, the busses seem reasonably frequent and then today, a Sunday, no busses.  So what exactly are we meant to do?  It's a 45 minute walk to the nearest station and it's about 30 Degrees outside.  So all of this bollocks from the Townies about cycling or using public transport actually doesn't work in about 90% of the rest of the country.  

 I used to like getting home at midnight and seeing a bu that would take me somewhere near my house but now, I'd have to wait until 6 am I guess :-)  We need cars due to the distances and terrain, there aren't always footpaths to walk on along the main roads etc.  No services Sundays and Evenings - bonkers, I drove through town last night and it was dead, hardly anywhere was packed and barely any cars or people.  Oh well, that's my whinge for the day as I will now have to drive everywhere today as usual. It would be nice to get a bus into town, have a few beers or go to an event and get a bus out but it isn't going to happen ever and the townies will complain that we are driving around in our 4 wheel drives.  It would be fun to see them try and cycle down here where I live!  

Is It Me? If So, Is It Only Me?

 I am having some strange thoughts and my attitude to things around me is shifting.  I feel I would rather be anywhere else but where I am right now and I feel a disconnection with stuff going on as well as disbelief at what is happening in our society.

The recent Abortion changes, today's Assisted Dying (suicide) Bill and the horrendous Tax regime which works on taxing you more because the last time you did it, it made things worse!   The present Fabian , Marxist ideologues have learned nothing from their past, not one jot.  There's a disconnect between the people and these supposed servants of the people in as much as they don't service the people, perhaps the diametric opposite.  Then there's the increase in the State, more non jobs, more quangos more jobs for the boys, fat pension, and my personal favourite, that I have fought all my life against which is praise, reward and promotion for those who actively fought against the project (lets call it) you and everyone else failed in everything they did and rather than lose their jobs they were richly rewarded whilst we, who did the right thing, got shat upon!

Petronius Arbiter, a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero, wrote:

"We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."

The NHS for example is constantly reorganized but is the same, it just gains more weight, becomes ever more sluggish and inefficient.  The same for all Public businesses.  If any were to compete in my world of the private business they would be bankrupt in a month or two.  They are all insolvent and no one cares.  Then you see these people are "Honoured" in the King's Appointments etc.  Sir this, Dame that and you know damn well that the vast majority of these people fail at every level and get richly rewarded for it.

So what's my point?  Well it's that I've got to the point of not caring what they do any more because, I can't beat them, I can't join them, they make me angry and annoyed and what for?  I'm too old to fight them now and not enough people are awake anyway.  I do think that there is a ground swell at least in terms of the political parties which may shake up the system (well at least until they get in power and taste the rich rewards for the power they wield but maybe not for the people they wield it for).

We seem to be "very British" about all of this. We tend to let it happen and I imagine there comes a breaking point but I have no idea how near that is.  I've fought my fights and to be honest, I now feel old, I found that where 20 years or more ago I'd relish the fight, would be self assured in my own stance and actions, my own abilities but now, with that awful threat of legal action (baseless as it was) it really has knocked me and reminded me how good people can go bad, how illogical and selfish they can be and how downright rude and despicable too.

So I've been spending a lot of "me time" recently, sitting in the garden, thinking and pondering but also trying to get back to just enjoying the surroundings and the birds and animals in the fields around me.  Enjoying the sun, the breeze and the endless rustles in and around our hedgerows.  I think that's where I am drawn to but of course, there's work and I wasn't expecting to be working right now, I was hoping to be retired.  The same old work related problems of course do not help.

So I am trying to switch away from this sordid war mongering, joy grabbing bunch of politicians who are woefully inadequately ready for government and distance myself and break away.  It's probably the wish to leave this present world and go to my new world that I want and yet I am dragged back to the old too often.  Added to that the depression and gloom associated with it, and the booze if I'm honest, and I struggle to pull myself from one place that I know is not good for me to a place where I can escape it all.  I am certain that these moods are top down problems and it isn't just me.  What I do hope it that I can open the door, get to the other side and not have to come back again which possibly accounts for my recent death thoughts too for it's the transition allegory of rebirth.  Anyway, that's what today looks like.  

The Long Metamorphosis

 It struck me that humanity has turned in the past 50 or so years.  Lots of things have conspired to bring us to this point where people are generally brought down by all this crazy impositions on our lives by people who we entrust to do the right thing and actually work for us!  Not vice versa, they are our servants but they've sort of tricked the gullible into a master servant arrangement.  They aren't very good at their jobs, they lie (all the time) and are snake oil salesmen frankly.

Then the people themselves turn on each other and the tension is ramped up as if over winding a main spring and trying to release it without the proper tool.  There's racial tension, there's money tension.  Soon there will be employment problems to add to it too.  All the time the state gets bigger, 4 million public servants, " public sector employment stands at 5.87 million people as of June 2023, representing approximately 17.9% of total employment. This includes jobs in central government, local government, and public corporations. The NHS is a significant component, employing around 2 million people." it costs around £1.1 Trillion and is up around 70% from Covid times.

Someone once told me that we ran the whole British Empire with 40,000 Civil Servants.  No AI, No Internet, Telegraph messages.  Impressive.  

This huge sector doesn't actually do anything to increase GDP (if we are to take any measure) and it takes around 160 days for each person in the UK to work just to cover these costs.

And they don't do a good job, the cult of "World Beating NHS" is long dead and tired only Politicians believe it and the public note that it takes longer to get anything done now even with all the extra staff and money thrown at it.  They don't have the courage to do anything and are in all probability in it for themselves and it doesn't affect them.

So I was wondering whether we will come to a pass here where we stop being nasty to each other, cruel, despicably behaved, fighting and war mongering, unpleasant to each other and will we finally rip apart our Chrysalis and pump up our beautiful wings and be at one with our planet and each other? A great awakening?  Perhaps we need more time, perhaps we aren't ready for it yet.  I think slowly the slumbering giant is waking up but perhaps not in my lifetime?  Maybe it's part of the eternal struggle but to be better than we are is surely a goal we should strive to reach.  Our evolution is probably too early on to achieve it as we are at the moment.  Wake up humanity, arise and be the best you can.  I suppose you all need to wake up and emerge together to make it happen.  

Calm But Still Not Right

 I find that the last few days have been calmer and I feel much better in myself.  However, I'm still not right and realise that I haven't been for years if I think about it.  Something isn't right and deep down in dungeons of my brain and deep inside my body I can feel it.

I really dislike going out anywhere and I would be quite happy to just be around the house and garden but that isn't going to happen and this "business" isn't going to run itself anytime soon and so that also drags at me.  I've just taken a short break from doing social media postings as I just can't think of anything to post - I imagine in a day or two that will change too.

I find people (not all) to be somewhat illogical or no longer feisty and full of character they don't seem to see what I see and they don't have the opinions that I do although they do parrot what they see and hear.  Back in the day we used to get a newspaper every day at one time and at weekends get two on Sunday.  A cup of coffee and a sit down to read cover to cover was something you did and yet still had time to do the massive garden we had, decorate the house and so on and I worked really hard too so coming home from work I'd have some food and then go and do two or three hours decorating work ready to be up at 6 again to go to work!  I can't do that now.  I can barely get the enthusiasm for anything.

Back to being informed - TV was for specific things and when it could be trusted to give you something like the facts and not their opinion was OK.  It was there for a little entertainment a bit of sport and so on.  The newspaper gave you the in-depth look at the world.  We both worked and we worked hard at work and play.

Today there is a stream of information available to you and that's OK but there doesn't appear to be the individual thought or analysis of that data..  There are lots of AI fakes, news but angled in the way that news outlet wants you to hear it and there is very little analysis or questioning going on.  I tend to have a low tolerance level for these things.  We have a government of naive, never run a business or a project types who have little grasp of the bigger picture.  They aren't even detail people and they certainly have no grasp on the need to encourage entrepreneurship.  The magic money tree has long since run out of money and the leanings toward more public sector and public expenditure without the money to pay for it from businesses being taxed so high they squeak is not the way to guide themselves out and "Go for growth" which they say they are doing.  Nasty socialist ideologies go down well with some people and if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always rely on Paul's vote.

The Keynesian socialist approach looks doomed already but no one seems to notice the economic data coming in and realise it isn't the bed of roses painted it's a forest of nettles and Venus fly traps.  Oh well.  That probably doesn't help my mood much either :-) 

P1ssing In The WInd

Sometimes it feels like that when you get absolutely no reaction from the stuff you are doing for other people.  I suppose I shouldn't be shocked about it, just resigned to it.  You publish something of interest and no body is interested, fair enough I suppose.  It just seems like a lot of effort to me that just goes to waste.

I'm going through hundreds of items for the App launch and it's just dragging now.  Well it's been dragging for 7 years but that's another story altogether I suppose.  Where are people's sense of urgency these days it's as if all the stuffing has been knocked out of the populace, everyone appears weary and tired and not bothered.  Perhaps that just me?

So how do we remedy this?  I have no idea but our Chancellor will read our fortune to us today and I'm not sure anyone has got a grasp of how deeply in the brown and smelly stuff this country is in?  The trouble is no one believes a word they say.  To anyone with half a brain, there looks to be something very wrong indeed with the way that they are approaching things and the socialist rule book is being opened at the part where it states that you can now tax your way out of the hole you've dug for yourself.  You cannot go for growth if you are stifling it and just because you have cheques in your cheque book doesn't actually mean you have money in the bank!

The collective sharp intake of breath will potentially be heard around the world.  

Like Many Things In Life You Move On Past It

 The more distance between the nastiness of a few months ago and today, the more I feel less stressed and move on to the next thing on my list of stuff to do.  I'd forgotten how much planning and actually doing these tasks took.  It takes up my day but I am not over doing it like I would have done in the past.  I'm just getting things lined up as infuriatingly I am waiting for the odd little bits of information to complete things.  Like links to websites so I can generate QR Codes and tested links.  Wording for the adverts, I've got all the words and like Eric Morecambe might have said "I've got all the right words but not necessarily in the right order!" 

Those little details will take time and so I am preparing everything ready to go and then I will spend a lot of time posting adverts, uploading directories, making videos and uploading and indexing them etc.  The late changes mean that the work I had already done needs to be redone as the layout has changed.  

I still have a concern that there'll be some sort of crazy stuff go on from this bloke.  The worry is that he's angry and irrational and is in denial I think about his own actions.  It's like me crashing my car and blaming the wall and not letting the facts get in the way of a great story "This wall came out of nowhere and stepped into the path of my car!" And, strangely, that is the sort of twisted logic I am dealing with here.  It's my fault that he lost his mind and threw all his toys out of the pram.  You cannot mitigate for the irrational and bizarre but there you go.

So, I am getting on with it for now and just having to navigate through all the work that is coming up in the next few months.  Hopefully I will be able to keep up with the workload.  

Second Guessing What Someone Else Is Going To Do

 There is only so much planning and risk management, identification and mitigation one can do.  I have this worry that I've not covered all the bases and that something else is going to crawl it's way out and deliver more grief.  Grief that I don't want nor deserve.

Worrying about it doesn't really assist either and I know that and my mind knows that but will it just stop and draw a line under it?  No, the little voice is giving it large and I really do need to switch it off now.  I can do no more, I have examined everything that I can and mitigated what I can.  I cannot mitigate the unmitigated!  Second guessing isn't going to cut it and so I just need to run on and counter whatever (if) might be thrown next.

But it is getting to the point that there isn't really that much that can be done about it really.  I'll just have to carry on and see what happens.  Everything else is covered I think.  

It Doesn't Take Much To Knock You Off Normal

 And by that I mean how I currently feel.  I am trying to get the business back on the straight and narrow and with all the threats and unpleasantness that has gone on, even though none of it is of my making, I feel the breathe of condemnation about the decisions I am making to keep the company going and to recover from the desertion and then subsequent attacks about how I run the business.  

It's in my mind really, that the attacks weren't really justified and weren't based on reality but it is still unerring double checking everything and wondering what someone else, who no longer has any connection to the business thinks about it!  It's nonsensical really.  Why should I care about what someone who has deserted the business, thrown their toys out of the pram and then accused me of (well) all sorts of stuff thinks.  

Such is the way my brain works that I actually need to play all these scenarios out and makes sure I've covered all the bases I can possibly think about.  It's tiresome and probably overkill but just in case I think I need to do that.  

I have to take certain actions if I am to launch and run the business and I don't care what he thinks - I actually don't think he thinks and just reacts and digs his hole deeper and deeper until there is no way out.  He doesn't really have a say in the business at all so what am I worried about?  Well you know what they say about cornered wild animals.  That is what I am worried about and it isn't logical or planned it's primeval.

Oh well, most things are thought through and so I hope that perhaps we can make progress and leave this nastiness behind us now.  

Visit A Brewery? What's Not To Like?

 Apart from I'm driving so no or very little beer for me.  It was too expensive to stay locally and so I am driving and wouldn't you know it, it's raining in June!  Oh well, we are indoors most of the time so hopefully it will be OK.

It's the Harveys Brewery in Lewes so it is a bit of a trek but better than last  year's outing to Amberley Museum which saw us stuck in traffic for hours both there and back :-)  As I used to work in the industry it will be like visiting an old friend and Harvey's beers are lovely.  I'll have to wait until we get home to have a beer except I don't have any in the house.  That's following a good few weeks of drinking beer most days which really isn't that good for me.  That's one of my biggest problems really, I'd have a beer every evening if I could but it is no good for your health and is "Liquid Bread" in terms of weight gain.   Tastes great though :-(

Anyway, a day out and a break which I seriously need.  The last few months have been really bad for me and I'm just getting out of the dumps that I was put in.  Looking forward to a break in proceedings that's for sure.

Getting Over It - Just What The Doctor Ordered

 If you know how I work and how I function, then it will come as no surprise to find that I am now in a position of true power and by that I mean, I now know what I need to do to get on with things and press on with getting the business back on an even keel after the stormy waters of the past 8 months and especially the last 3 months. 

The first attack was all in and pretty nasty I have to say and he may come back again for a bit more but he should be licking his wounds and wondering what the hell just happened to his strategy.  Me?  I've now gone though hell and back in my own head because I fully doubted myself and have had to break it all down and rebuild piece by piece what just happened, why it happened and what it means.  But here is the thing, it is a huge wall of noise but as it was so all encompassing but utterly disjointed at the same time, a pack of lies and half truths and a blunderbuss rather than a sniper's bullet.

Picking through all of the stuff from the accusatory and vexatious nature of it, to the shaking my head disbelief that someone I've known for close to 10 years could actually turn on me in such a horrific way.  The trouble is, it's business but not to him it isn't.  

Anyway, I have concluded that if they are going to go for another bite then it is going to have to be something technical and I have raised the drawbridge but offered to parlez but not heard back.  His threats to legal action will not be looked on kindly if he tries to take court action without first having attempted to settle this directly.  I have made that offer, to speak directly or through a mediator but herein lies the problem.  In all the accusations and bluster, the banging of shields and personal slurs, there's not one point of contention shown that either hasn't been answered or are the direct results of his own actions.

So here I am now, getting over this set back and with a strategy to move on and to put this in to the past.  It's like having a good friend just ignore you and then bad mouth you to everyone for no cause but their own inexplicable actions.  I think he is ill but he never wants to see or talk to me again so it kind of precludes me from even asking about him via people I know who know him.

It's a mess alright and one that I still look at blinking and wondering what on earth brought this on and why the volcanic eruption to it as well?

Now, Please, Can I Get On With My Life?

 I don't get why people want to interfere in what I do.  More so if they have extracted themselves and practically divorced themselves from me and burnt their boats, bridges, roads, paths and everything as they went.  They don't quite understand that after me being concerned over their well-being and then to have them launch the most horrendous ad hominem attack on me, I have now arrived at the position of:

"YOU ARE DEAD TO ME!"

I can think of no other way to put it after everything you put me through after years of what looks like them using me.  Yes, they could be ill I suppose, that's what I told myself but it still doesn't excuse unacceptable behaviour.

So yes, I fully expect to hear from this individual again and I will once again treat it with respect but robust responses.  If I never hear from him again, it will be too soon!  They've torched their way off and let's hope they stay there.

Gosh That Knocked Me Sideways

 The shock of the letter, the ferocity and vexatious nature of it, out of the blue has given me three months of stress and anxiety that I did not need, mild panic attacks and seriously doubting my sanity and myself.

Yesterday I felt a lot better and not so paralysed about it all and today I feel lighter and the weight has lifted somewhat.  I've done loads of research, tested theories and checked my working, my knowledge of commercial and contract law and finally, I have explored all the possible avenues I can think of for any comeback or further action towards me.  What was clear in the letter was that it was written in anger and in a revenge fuelled way.  Doing so opens emotional arguments and not fact based ones.  Facts take a back seat.

What is annoying to me is that it even got this far.  It should never have seen the light of day and it should have been stopped by those who purport to know better.  It was devised to give me maximum stress and doubt and it did that because that's what it is intentionally written to do.

 I like that I took those days off to think about it and to not think about it too.  The problem I have encountered is my drinking has gone through the roof and that stops tomorrow, I need to walk away from that stuff and whilst it is summer and a beer is nice, out there by the sunset seat and fire pit, it cannot be 4 to 6 cans of beer per night every night!  That's not sustainable either from my body's point of view nor financially.  It is so easy to do, to go at the end of the day and drown your sorrows and reflect on what's going on but this isn't the way.  

I now have a clear action plan to follow and have an idea in my head what I need to do, action plans are also written down, ready to implement.  The only worry is now will he come back for a second bite at the cherry?  There's little or no room for that and almost everything I can think of has been documented and mitigation is ready to be implemented.

Three months it's taken, goodness knows what this has done to me through all the stress and uncertainty and I imagine he will be going through the same now.  A good thing to do is to get all the anger out and I have some wild notes that I wrote at the time to get it out of my brain and on to paper which I can destroy shortly.  It clears your mind of the emotional stuff and focuses in on the facts, figures and reality of the situation.  It also reinforces your analysis of the contents and nonsensical parts of his argument, the distortion of facts, facts that have now been copied and returned to counter his untruths and finally, the coup de grâce written in his own hand which destroys all the arguments put forward.  

A good thing that I keep and reference this stuff and there are a few more items I have too should it ever come to it.  That letter should make the whole thing go away.  But on top of that, offering for talks and mediation as a way forward to defuse all of this provides a way forward, should they want it but if they aren't thinking straight still, perhaps not.

Anyway, the good news is that I am feeling that much better about things now and finally I am over the cycle you go through with this stuff (Kubler Ross) and whilst my INTJ brain is good for this stuff in a business sense, in a personal sense it doesn't function as well as it should.  I actually knew the answer straight away though but had to work through all the angles and scenarios to prove it to myself.

So, onward I hope and upward I'd like to think too.  

Progress - Actually Doing Some Work For A Change

 Quite pleased with the last few days as I have been cracking on with setting the business up and implementing some risk management strategies, some corporate  paperwork and getting on with the sales and marketing side of things.  

There's always plenty to do and I have been balancing out the work, breaking it into chunks and getting on with it.  AI is great for thinking or discussing things and most useful to assist in closing loop holes and assist in document formation and things like agendas - its all starting to get real.  After 7 bloody years it should do too.  How can you deliver something that late and not be severely embarrassed by it I just don't know.  

Anyway, that's where we are, I am actually doing things, taking breaks and not staring at my screen doing nothing so that's a start.

Flash Back Time Again

 I was sitting here working away and suddenly I was back to when I was 18 driving through Wandsworth going to college in my (not so) trusty 1963 Ford Cortina.  Those were the days, you could drive all around London, the City everywhere and park and at weekends I always used to drive up there to go to work then on to see my first serious girlfriend driving back on a Sunday night through the Blackwall tunnel as fast as my poor little car could go - which was all of 60 with a tail wind downhill! She lived in Chingford, I lived in Orpington, both our grand parents lived in the Chelsea area so we would go and see them too.

Lovely days now I look back on them and these little flashbacks are "interesting" as suddenly there I am in a situation I recall with people I haven't met in - well - fifty years or so.  I can picture them and hear them talk to me too.  Names drop out of my head and I wonder whatever happened to them?  

I don't hold on to many friends, I have a few people I still keep in touch with and a small handful of friends and even then those relationships aren't the same since I got divorced and went my own way.

Not to worry though eh?  I was also just reminding myself how many people I have met have treated me like a statue to their pigeon and generally shat on me from a great height.  Too many people treat you like that don't they?  I suppose if you are nice to people that's the reward you get. 

There's A Huge Lack Of Scientific Thinking These Days

I know that I've always stood out as being cold and calculating normally (95% of the time) applying logic and some sort of process to analysing what I see, developing ideas, working out different strategies and outcomes, that sort of thing.  

I know it infuriates some people I know as they tell me something I don't immediately react.  I am not great at seeing that someone wants some reassurance or comfort or that they are telling me something that I need to act human to!  So if I hear things I rarely react in a way other than gathering information mode and that really sets some people off.

It matter not what it is but let's take politics and the actions of the Chancellor and the way that they are trying to tax their way out of problems.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out, take the Laffer curve or industry data to get you started on working out what is going on.  The Laffer curve sort of says the more you tax the less return you will get and high net worth people who are able are leaving for other sunnier climes to avoid the crippling taxes foisted on them from people who don't understand how business works or indeed how increasing taxes and the like proves to de-incentivise people.  

The regime launched last October that punishes entrepreneurship, working, taking on employees and so on is bound to work its way through and figures recently for example the huge return of company vehicles to the leaseholder and the huge drop in new car and an sales should ring alarm bells surely?  These are huge increases in returns and decreases in sales and no one is adding 2+2 to work out why?  They say that we are doing well?  Really?  Highest energy prices in the world for some wet dream of zero CO2 to which as a country we probably generate 1% of the world's total.  The Steel works priced out by the huge costs of energy and the inability to source locally but that's OK we ship it in from around the world instead.

The incomprehensible attack on Farmers, Fishermen and the absolute base of our food and well being.  They don't get that either.  Why are they so blind to facts and figures?  Could it be that none of them know how to manage anything (it is it's rhetorical).  This ultra slow train crash government have no idea what they are doing.  Because they write it on paper or learned it from a book they think it's policy and it magically happens, no one has to work for it!   

I just stare on incredulously at them and wonder why they are so cretinous, so stupid and given all the information I can gather about them, so blind to cause and effect.  It's beyond belief, it really is.  I know it's not just the UK but we must take Gold Medal for stoopid!