Si vis pacem, para bellum

“If you want peace, prepare for war”

In these frenetic days, when news runs and broadcasts on a 24-hour basis, where updates are available, from of course the viewpoint of the broadcaster concerned, as fast as you can change channels, it is sometimes difficult to remember what, exactly, were last week’s headlines, and how did the stories turn out. We are deluged, over the past fortnight, with reports of how Ed Milliband FORGOT to mention the economy, the huge deficit between actual income and expenditure, as well as Labour’s plans to keep the deficit growing. Following from Labour, we heard how the Tory conference was shanghaied by the defection of yet another MP to UKIP, as well as the strange and twisted story of a Minister who sent explicit photos of himself to a complete stranger. We are told, again and again, that our only hope for an EU in-or-out referendum is to vote for the Tories, but strangely enough, we are not told what comprises the famous ‘package of demands’ which Cameron will present to a grumbling EU as his price for us staying in!

But amidst all the chatter, and the penis images, along with all the other fluff, lies and concealed bribes so prevalent in the political parties jamboree sessions, not much notice is taken of the headlines of less than three weeks previously; headlines which presage a conflict far deadlier and more relevant to us here in the United Kingdom than in some Arabic religious conflict in lands where we, literally, have no real reason to be. We should be reading of the shells raining down on tanks and armoured vehicles in places where a cease-fire is supposed to rule, we should be reading of hidden troop movements, of manoeuvres designed to bring pressure to bear by a ruthless Russia against a poorly-equipped and badly-defended Ukraine.

The commentators write of the real result of the break-up of UK Armed Forces, and where we had thirty squadrons in 1991, today we only have seven, and two of those squadrons were only rescued from dismemberment because they came in pretty handy when we bombed Libya. We should be sending jets and supporting NATO in Lithuania, and in Poland, but instead we are frittering away fuel and time flying over the Islamic State barbarians, without even dropping any bombs, because the intelligence isn’t what it used to be either!

The Ukraine is being dismantled piecemeal, with a weak Government grasping at the straws of ‘compromise’ offered by a cynical Putin, backed up by a competent military and a ruthless KGB, and we here in the West do literally f**k-all about it.

 

An old problem returns.

I have often felt that the old adage ‘There is no fool like an old fool’, and the name ‘Jack Profumo’ought to be cast in bronze, in letters approximately two feet high, and positioned above the desk of every male Member of Parliament within the House of Ccommons.

Times without number, we read of ‘stings’ perpetrated upon gullible clowns in Westminster, with monetary gain usually at the core for Labour, and sexual favours, of one sort or another, for the Tories. If it isn’t homosexual perverts trawling the bars (Tories), its the fools who wish to be consultants for (disguised) newspaper reporters acting as shills for companies supposedly wishing to gain ‘influence’ within Whitehall (Labour & LibDim)

But when an allegedly nubile young woman sends a balding middle-aged man a photo of herself, virtually unclothed; and asking in return for a ‘sexy’ photo, did the same balding, middle aged Minister not think it just a tiny bit strange that he was being targeted by this young Tory supporter whom he had never even met!

And, as I have maybe asked before, whats with this strange compulsion to send explicit photos of yourself to a perfect stranger?

Are they all thick, or is it that they all reckon that ‘It couldn’t happen to me’?

 

So I asked, “Who is the clown in the advert?

Initially I was reading my Sunday newspaper, and I came across an item which spoke of Victoria Beckham, the ex-alleged-pop-singer, owner of the world’s most photographed pout; wife of the seventh most-famous man in the world; and also mother to four children. She was reported as giving a speech all about curing or beating AIDs in front of the United Nations, and how it was all so wonderful that a ‘fashion icon’ had associated herself with such a worthy cause. Now I am probably going to be called all sorts of reactionary this, and that; but I just do not see the point of some woman, who, incidentally, is probably perfectly nice, and sincere, and is also a good mother; pushing herself forward to speak about some dread disease which has no cure, and has only palliative care available to treat its many and varied symptoms. Especially when the mass of HIV and AIDs sufferers have no one to blame but themselves for their condition.

As with Mrs. Beckham, so with Angelina Jolie, to whom our former Foreign Secretary seemed to be joined at the hip, or elsewhere in their joint efforts to outlaw mass rape during war or conflict. The fashion, these days, is to have some ‘Celebrity’ front the campaign of the day, or the hour, and then everyone will rally round, and either give the campaign lots and lots of money, or else pressure their Government to ‘do the right thing’ and give more of our money to the appropriate scientists, or charity workers, or aome other hanger-on. We even saw the ghastly apparition of Leonardo DiCaprio lecturing some of the world’s governments on the importance of Climate Change, and helping the poor Marshall Islanders from destitution and flooding by, again, giving them all lots of our cash. Now Mr. DiCaprio might have been acclaimed by some as a serious film actor, but I remain to be convinced that some bloke whose job it is to portray another’s life in a film is really suitable to lecture some, if perhaps not all the world’s leaders on the merits, or not, of Global Warming; especially when nothing seems to have warmed up much in the past fifteen years except the e-mail accounts of Michael Mann.

I also half-watched this advert where this supposed ‘celebrity’ named ‘Peter’ who does some shopping in a Frozen Food Supermarket, and how he is recognised by all the other shoppers, and even when he gets on a bus, he is known immediately. Well, sorry, mate; but I don’t know you from Adam, and neither does my daughter!

A Letter to an M.P.

The following is the contents of an e-mail letter sent this morning to my own MP, Roberta Blackman-Woods, a Shadow Minister in the Labour Party:-

Thursday 25 September 2014

Dear Roberta Blackman-Woods,

I write in connection with the forthcoming proposal of the Prime
Minister, scheduled for debate in the Commons on Friday, to allow him
to add the R.A.F.’s bombers, equipment and personnel to join the action
against Islamic State’s operations in Iraq. I realise that you, as a
Shadow Minister, have undertaken to act in a concerted fashion with
most of your Party Colleagues, and to vote as required, again in
concert with your Party; but I am writing to ask you to consider what
you are being both asked and required to vote upon. It is just about a
year since the scheduled vote, put forward by the Prime Minister, where
Parliament was asked to authorise attacks on the Syrian Regime as they
had allegedly deployed chemical weaponry; and of course, due in a large
part to the considered thoughts and votes of the Labour Party, that
vote was defeated.

You are now being asked to vote, once more, upon this issue, but this
time to act, in concert with a ‘coalition’, in degrading and destroying
the infrastructure of the people who fight under the black flag of
Islamic State. You are being asked to authorise a Western element which
will actively intrude into a religious and civil war in the Middle
East. You, as a Member of Parliament, are being asked to authorise
exactly what was sought just a year ago, but this time, you are being
asked to have our Forces fight in only one part of the conflict area,
namely Iraq, against a Force which is, itself, fighting against the
very people, namely the Syrian Government, you were asked previously to
bomb and attack.

It is not often that I find myself nodding in perfect agreement with a
Guardian writer and journalist, but what Simon Jenkins said when
interviewed on the BBC was perfectly correct; air strikes alone do not
work; you have to defeat an army with another army, and if the Iraqi
Army cannot fight, with all the weaponry at their disposal, maybe it is
about time the Arabs realised they have got to sort out their own
problems. We should not get involved with a religious dispute in
Islamic countries; if the West needs a memory jog, just check out what
happened in Libya. Maybe Gaddafi was a very bad man, but just look at
what that unhappy and terror-torn nation has inherited after we, the
French, the British and the Americans ruled the skies above Tripoli and
allowed the opposition to steamroller the old regime into the ground!

We should not be in that theatre of war; we should not even be thinking
about it. Please use the information available to you, so that you
might advise your colleagues, many of whom still remember what the end
result of our last adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan actually turned
out to be, and then vote down any idea that British jets should once
again strike at the behest of a Prime Minister who might sound as
though he knows what is going to happen, but has not yet considered the
long-term results, which may well turn to be even more disastrous than
the previous follies pursued by your own predecessors!

Yours sincerely,

Mike Cunningham

I would urge all British readers to contact their own MPs, by means of
‘Write to Them’, or by any other means available, because Parliament needs to be aware of the perils of sleep-walking into a disaster area!

An economic system where goods and services are exchanged

When the true Russian revolution occurred, when the Communists, the Soviets, the KGB and all the repressive machinery of the Russian Empire fell apart, for a few months, a very few months, hope sprang to life in a hundred million minds, a hope which declared, ‘the State does not own us, we are individuals, we do not owe anything to the State!’ I do not need to explain the huge repressive machinery, the KGB, the NKVD, the very Russian Armed forces themselves, all part of the Soviet package which kept the Russian people in slavery-conditions for over fifty years; this all fell apart as the Satellite States, themselves governed as tightly as the Russians, began to flex their own muscles, the urge for freedom which was irreversible, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of East Germany and the inevitable collapse of a whole system which was built on a tissue of lies, backed with guns and tanks.

The freedom did not last long, the the KGB got itself a new name, the Russian Federation became repressive, now controlled after a short space of time by unreconstructed old-school Communists, but now with many more super-wealthy people at the very top, all supporting the nearly-dictator Putin who has so far invaded Georgia, Ossettia and now the Crimea, but at least the idea that the State is the ‘provider’, and therefore the ‘owner’ of people has disappeared.

Travel West a few thousand kilometres, and you end up in the Republic of Ireland, which for many, many decades was run under a similar system to Soviet Russia, but this Government was not of material things, but of the mind and indeed the very soul of all things Irish. I do not write of the Governments imposed by Great Britain, which ended when Partition was declared and the island was split in two; nor do I write of the Government of the Republic of Ireland, which has governed since Independence was declared. I write of the ‘Invisible Government’, which, to all intents and purposes, was the real ‘Government’, I write of the Bishops, of the Parish Priest, whose very word was akin to Law; and of the enormous bureaucracy and wealth of the Catholic Church, which told people what they should read, or write, or even to think and to behave, in and out of wedlock; all according to the traditions and rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Of a ‘Government’ which routinely connived at the issue of passports and travel documents so that small children, the illegitimate sons and daughters of usually illiterate and certainly ill-educated young women who had committed the grave ‘sin’ of having sex outside of marriage, and therefore had borne the very ‘Spawn of Satan’ could be routinely packaged, and sent off to America as they had literally been sold by the convents and homes where they had been born, in false and fake adoptions to ‘good Catholic Families’ in the United States.

As I recently wrote, I watched the documentary byMartin Sixsmith entitled ‘Ireland’s Lost Babies’, which attempted to discover the routes by which literally thousands of babies and tiny children were routinely trafficked, mainly but not exclusively, to widespread dioceses in the United States, and ‘adopted’ for a large ‘donation’ to that same Church, by Catholic families. I place the word ‘adopted’ in inverted commas, because, in most cases, the convents and homes were neither authorised to act as adoption agencies, nor did they question or otherwise check out the suitability of the prospective family units; the only two questions asked was whether the family were ‘practicing Catholic’, and the second question was whether the donation would be cash or cheque? Meanwhile, the mothers, now forever deprived of their children after ‘signing away’ their rights to hold that child ever again, were forced to work as near-slave labour in the Magdalene-like laundries which made another wonderful profit for that same, beneficent, Catholic Church.

I also watched the fantastic film ‘Philomena’, which was the source for the Sixsmith documentary. Yes, it was a fictionalised account of one of these ‘fallen women’ who, after fifty years of grief and trauma, found the courage to speak of the illegitimate son she had given life to, and to attempt, with Martin Sixsmith’s help, to trace her son in America. She, played by the remarkable Judi Dench, had attempted many times to gain knowledge from the convent where she had lived and slaved. The story went from Sixsmith, played by Steve Coogan, being a cynical unbeliever of Philomena’s story,  to both actually tracing the adoptive parents and finding that that small boy had become a successful lawyer who advised Presidents. They also discovered that Philomena’s son was dead, as he had succumbed to the ravages of AIDs, because he was a homosexual. But the saddest piece of the film was to follow, because the journalist and the grieving mother discovered that her son’s lover had actually taken her son’s remains back to Ireland, and he was buried at the back of the convent where he was born.

There were some remarkably funny moments in that film, but the one piece which shall stay with me for a great many days was when Philomena confronts the aged nun who had not only sent her child away, but also had routinely denied the very fact that the convent knew anything about her son at all. Philomena asks why she had been denied her son, and the old nun shrieked that ‘her child was the result of the grave sin of ‘carnal incontinence’, and what was done; was done!” That, although just a few seconds of a feature fiction film, says it all as far as this commentator is concerned. The Church had ordained that the girls had sinned, they would be punished, and the children, property of the Church, were disposed of as was seen fit. The film may have been made to tell a story, and hopefully make a profit, but it also carried a message, that the Church hasn’t even begun to apologise to those it had routinely abused, betrayed and lied to, and that message grows louder by the day!

The man who ‘Lost it’; or the shades of Chavez!

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things: Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–

Of cabbages–and kings–And why the sea is boiling hot—and whether pigs have wings.

Many people said many things in the long run up to the Scots Referendum. ‘First Minister’ Alec Salmond pronounced his usual inflammatory sentences, toned down just a little from his Marxist youth, when he and his ‘comrades were committed to the establishment of a ‘Socialist and Republican Scotland; just a little bit less of the bully in his tone as he knew that he had to speak not only to the Scots, but also to the hated English who have so languidly and so long held the financial reins of the Scots Exchequer. But his was not the voice who, in the end, lost the campaign for that illusory ‘Independence’, he may be a revolutionary but he is no fool. That distinction is held by one man, the former deputy leader of the SNP, Jim Sillars.

Jim Sillars claimed there is talk of a “boycott” of John Lewis, banks to be split up, and new law to force Ryder Cup sponsor Standard Life to explain to unions its reasons for moving outside Scotland.
He said: “This referendum is about power, and when we get a Yes majority, we will use that power for a day of reckoning with BP and the banks.
“The heads of these companies are rich men, in cahoots with a rich English Tory Prime Minister, to keep Scotland’s poor, poorer through lies and distortions. The power they have now to subvert our democracy will come to an end with a Yes.”

He added: “BP, in an independent Scotland, will need to learn the meaning of nationalisation, in part or in whole, as it has in other countries who have not been as soft as we have forced to be. We will be the masters of the oil fields, not BP or any other of the majors.”
Mr Sillars said that under an independent Scotland, Standard Life would be required by new employment laws to give two years warning of any redundancies – and reveal to the trade unions its financial reasons for relocation to any country outside of Scotland.

Earlier this week, a number of banks, including Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, said they would look to move their headquarters south of the border in the event of a Yes vote. “What kind of people do these companies think we are? They will find out,” he added.

“In each and every election to an independent Parliament, parties and individuals can put forward a manifesto of their choosing and the people will decide. The role of Yes is to achieve a Yes vote, so that the people of Scotland will always get the governments we vote for – and never again Westminster-imposed Tory governments.”

That is the tone which scared the living daylights out of the Tory & Labour parties, as well as the multitude of steady Scots who were considering, or even swinging, towards the ‘Yes’ campaign. So, a big ‘Thank You Jimmy’, from the United Kingdom to the fool who just could not keep his big Communist trap shut!

Some really good news from Huntsville

Lisa Coleman is dead.

She was legally and judicially executed on Wednesday evening at 6.24 p.m. Central time. No one knows what the substance used to kill her, was called, or its component parts, but it did the job, and she was pronounced dead twelve minutes after the lethal dose commenced.

The terrible injuries sustained by this little boy, most of which were still apparent on his tortured body, did not end his life; that trophy was accomplished by a combination of malnutrition and pneumonia. His body, which weighed about half that of a normal boy his age, had been subject to 250 separate injuries, including cigarette burns and the result of blows from a golf club.

Strangely enough, though I thoroughly approve of her execution, I totally disagree with the State of Texas in its method of judicial execution. To allow this evil woman to quietly expire over a twelve-minute period, in deep sedation and presumably with a minimum of pain; after the torture and trauma suffered by her small victim, her lover’s child and son; is just not right! I, and probably many, many others, would have thought a more appropriate punishment would have been to beat and to starve this creature, just as she did this small boy, until she suffered the same death as her small victim. But, hey, thats just a father, a grandfather and an Englishman thinking out loud.

I note that the Guardian, from which I take this report, is more concerned with the method and efficacy of the compounds used for these executions, than concern about the victims callously erased by these killers, on the grounds that Texas has continually refused to declare what the substances are, and whether they are ‘out of date’. Bit like not eating strawberries because they are ‘pas their sell-by date’, but just a bit more lethal, really.

Well done Texas, and the United States of America, for keeping up the good work, and cleansing Society of just a few of the living bacteria which really needed killing.

 

Now’s the day, and now’s the hour

George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, presumably believes he is correct, whilst writing on the mainstream media’s coverage of the Scots Referendum on Independence. But I believe he is totally and absurdly wrong.

In all of Mr. Monbiot’s elegant phrasing; along with his condescension towards a Scots electorate which assumes they are just not capable of discerning when political bullshit is spread in their general direction: there does not appear the one truth which has been carefully and completely removed from the debate. That ‘truth’ is the simple fact that the Scots are not being offered a chance at an amorphous ‘Independence’, they are being offered a choice between one bunch of politicians and a vast civil service which governs undemocratically now, and government by another bunch of politicians and a smaller civil service which will also govern undemocratically in the future.

The same bunch of thieving clowns, albeit with different accents, will occupy all the leading roles in public life; the same, but smaller civil service will cling to their ‘rule books’ and deny a troubled Scots family a life-giving operation or treatment as they do now, the same, faceless bunch of thieving clowns will continue to pillage the national wallet, all in the course of making everyone equal, but not telling those same people that, in Orwell’s immortal words, ‘some are more equal that others’.

I would happily vote for a Party which would contend for my vote if they promised, graven in stone, to implement, for example, a system whereby a true ‘Recall’ would be made available not only for Members of a Scottish or indeed a Westminster Parliament, but also for all people in Public Life: a ‘recall’ with teeth, which would strip anyone ‘recalled’, of their ill-gotten riches, pensions and status, before condemning them to a life-long job as a ‘Deep-fried Mars-Bar’ taster, or the equivalent in England, which would probably be a sewage channel cleaner, or an apologist for a British politician.

The Germans would have a word for it.

When the Great Fire of 1666 razed much of inner London to the ground, Sir Christopher Wren piloted a Bill through Parliament which banned wooden-framed buildings from being built in London, and this Act remained in force for over three hundred years, A plan to by-pass this Act, partly because, if the buildings used wood, they would help combat ‘CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL WARMING‘, backed heavily by the UK Timber Frame association, sellers of, so help me, Wooden Framed Buildings got through, partly because there was a test burn, in a large hangar, of a test-built six-storey buiding, which was easily extinguished by firemen. What was not mentioned, in the building report, was the fact that the fire arose again in the smouldering timbers, and the whole building was consumed by fire!

Councils throughout England have no idea of the numbers of wooden-framed buildings erected since the Act was by-passed!

 

Fast forward to September 15th, when the nearly-complete Nottingham University Carbon Neutral Laboratory for Sustainable Chemistry burned to the ground in a huge fire, which unfortunately proved, once more, that Sir Christopher Wren was right all along. The entire building, funded by a donation from GlaxoSmithKline, costing some £15 million  had been erected according to the most rigorous environmental principles, made with a wooden frame and other “sustainable” materials, and powered with “renewable” energy, so that the structure could remain “carbon neutral” throughout its lifetime. Unfortunately, the fire-prevention and alarm systems were either still being installed, or not; instead of being the first systems to be enforced on site, especially as it was a WOODEN BUILDING;  and as WOOD CATCHES FIRE RATHER EASILY, any Engineer would have told them that their first priority would be to protect a building, finished or not, which, being entirely of wood, would always BE A RISK!

 

 

 

 

The German word?

 

Schadenfreude!

 

Not one bullet; not one bomb!

We are informed that the UK Government are actively considering direct air strikes, and even infantry action, against the Muslim terrorists  of Islamic State. We are told that, partly because of the murders of two Americans, and now two British hostages, military coalitions are being formed to fight and to destroy Islamic State. Now as to the motives, stated or otherwise, of the politicians who are pushing or discussing this bombing campaign, we are only informed that such matters are ‘under consideration’. Whether the UK Government would like to be involved, despite all the ‘hawkish’ war-talk about the ‘evil’ men who killed in the name of their religion, is one question. Whether Parliament, who fortunately enough now holds the ultimate power to send our Armed Forces to war or not, will assent to yet another Arabic adventure which has the capacity to turn into Libya (squared) is yet another question.

But we shall leave the geo-politics to one side, and concentrate on the two British individuals for whom, if we surmise correctly, this nation is preparing to go to war. First we hear of Mr. Haines as a man who was ‘helping resolve conflict’ in Croatia, and then in Africa, Libya and the Middle-east. We are also told that he was an independent ‘consultant’ working with a French NGO. We are also told that he worked for a civilian outfit named Non-violent Peaceforce in the Sudan, before leaving for ‘greater freedom’ in yet another job. Now, if we ‘read between the lines’ as it were, he comes across as an idealistic fool of the first calibre, always wanting to ‘help others’ where there was suffering; but a slightly more cynical mind might even find him heading out in a series of ever-more well-paid positions, and ‘helping himself’ more that the people he was supposedly protecting or helping. Then we hear of the second hostage, who travelled out in a ‘mercy convoy’ to Syria because he ‘wanted to help’, and hope was expressed that he would be freed because he was a volunteer. How daft can you actually get? Just examine, if you would, the track record of the fools who ‘help’. Have they succeeded in Libya, or Sudan, or Syria, or  Afghanistan, or Iraq? Of course they haven’t; but they keep on going out, because they just ‘know’ that they will succeed, because they ‘know best’!

As I have maybe stated before, how is it that these clowns, and I do consider them all as true clowns, think that they know better by going against all sane advice into the most dangerous territories on this Earth? Just remember that the Islamic State bunch are, first and foremost, fundamentalist Muslim, and therefore enemies of all that is Western. They hate us because we have free speech, they hate us because we believe in the rules of Law, and they hate us because we are not Muslim. So why do these lunatics, idealistic or otherwise, think that they know better than people who have lived with these problems for a very long time? Ignore the newspapers, ignore the television commentators and pundits; concentrate on reality.

and they, too; passed by on the other side!

Over the years since I returned, along with my wife and family to these sometimes green and pleasant lands, I have become immune to the constant nudges, shouts, demands and instructions from the Health Nazi Brigades seemingly permanently employed by various Government  departments to keep on telling  us that we are too fat, too idle, too lazy, too unhealthy; that we should, or alternatively should not, eat various substances, foods which are ‘in favour’ of the particular science, or medical, or indeed paranormal, beliefs of the moment. First we have to keep drinking red wine, because it staves off heart disease. Then a year later, another wild-eyed scientific prophet comes out with a study which ‘proves’ beyond all reasonable doubt that red wine is a killer, and thus to be avoided at all costs. Then we have the vegetarian and vegan people calling for red meat to be banned, because that is the prime push for an early death.

Now I do know, and accept, that my mate David is a vegan, but I also know that he is far too well-mannered to push his beliefs, regarding eating or anything else, on to any of the rest of us. Which is the whole point of my writing. If these people believe so fervently in the truth of their cause, why do they not simply state that they will be adopting/abjuring the particular food/drink/substance which is the subject of their cause/derision, and then ask; repeat ‘ask’ if those of us who give their research credence, to join them, and then see if the rest of the population suffers the early death they have predicted?

Readers will understand, now, the real reason for my writing today, was the sighting, in our local Tesco last Friday, of a young woman who was literally stick thin. She looked exactly the same, from her stick-like legs, through her painfully-thin lower body and torso, to her gaunt and ravaged face; as the victims who emerged from the Japanese and Nazi-German death-camps of Dachau and Changi. Now I may be many things, but daft is not one of them; so I did not move forward and intervene, as maybe a well-meaning fool would have done, with this young woman who was obviously intent on killing herself; mainly from a well-developed sense of self-preservation. I did not ask a perfect stranger if she knew how ill she actually was! Many other fellow shoppers looked askance at this walking skeleton, but none spoke to her, and so neither did I. Cowardly? Possibly, but there is the curse of modern life, in Great Britain at least. Should I have spoken out? I do not know, but, having hesitated, I remained silent.

I recall, some years ago, standing in the local butchers shop on a Saturday morning. In front was this young boy, who was finishing paying for his purchases. He carried the meat back towards the entrance, and then attempted, struggling with the load; to pick up some seven other well-laden shopping bags, as he, and he alone, was doing all the family shopping! Now the thought which passed through not only my mind, but also at least two other people behind me in the queue, was to offer a hand to get his load back to where he was headed; but, strangely, I hesitated, because just at that time was a particularly nasty case of paedophilic child abuse in the headlines: and the lady behind the counter must have read our collective minds; because she gave a very distinct negative headshake and nod to all of us in the queue. So, we all minded our own business, and this young boy struggled away down Silver Street, and away to where his no doubt strangely-uncaring family lived.

Are we our brothers’ keeper? We should be, but, somehow, the fear of being mistaken; of being regarded as something rather nasty and semi-evil, prevents us from taking action or speaking out. It is, indeed, a funny old world!

So why didn’t the dog bark in the night?

I write about a strange and almost inexplicable trait present in many British people , a trait which I certainly do not share, nor do I even attempt to either comprehend or  even understand. It is the singular foolishness of risking one’s own life to ‘rescue’ an animal which is perceived to be in danger of dying; either through accident or human action; it is the whole idea that an animal is worthy of the possibility of losing or hazarding the rescuer’s own life to aid that same animal.

Time and again, we watch or read, or hear of some futile rescue attempt of a dog, usually a dog, possibly because they are more singularly stupid than the merest of cats and moggies in general, who seem to have a much higher degree of self-preservation built into their natural DNA; when the dog has either fallen through an iced-up pond or lake, or fallen off a cliff, or else some equally hazardous or extremely silly happening. The rescuer, if still alive, but more often than not is now dead, is referred to as a hero, or a brave and fast-thinking man or woman of moral steadfastness; worthy of the tributes of lesser mortals.

Just think about the strange, and in fact remarkably effective, campaign by some pressure group or other which strove against the killing of baby seals in the Canadian Arctic. It wasn’t the artful campaign photos of a female model dragging a sealskin coat across the floor, the passage of the coat was of course traced with the alleged blood of the dead seals which was the prime mover of the campaign winning: it was the photos of the head of a baby seal with its two large, seemingly soulful eyes staring reproachfully back out off the pages of the adverts and articles which was the crunch kit of the campaign against the use of furs from those dead baby seals. Most viewers simply looked at those two reproachful pools, staring out of an animal’s head; and immediately transposed the eyes into human eyes, and the fur coat trade died away.

And it is exactly the same transference which rules when some ordinary man is hailed as a HERO, by his actions in saving, or attempting to save, some animal; even at the cost of his own life: a  cost which is felt most severely by his dependants, who now have to struggle along without a breadwinner: but he is, or rather was, a hero!

Which brings me to the main point of my writing today. Readers will no doubt have read and heard of the saving of some 150 dogs from a blazing inferno at a Manchester dogs’ home, while some fifty other animals died. Two of the men who rescued some of the dogs were being interviewed by the BBC pillock on the Today Programme, and they had been retelling how they had seen the flames from their own homes, and had rushed over to try and save the dogs, despite the fierce temperature of the fire and the flames. They were suitably modest about their ‘heroics’, and said that anyone else would have done the same. But the BBC clown then said, “You must have heard that the fund to rebuild the dog’s shelter has already reached over a million pounds. Are you surprised that people have donated so much money to a dog’s home, when OTHER CHARITIES ARE FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO HELP STARVING PEOPLE OVERSEAS?”

Now, if some wet, liberal, lefty BBC clone had asked me, or someone like me, why I had donated cash to some bloody burnt-out dogs’ shelter instead of the starving f***king Ethiopians, or the Sudanese, or the Ebola victims, or any other of the myriad causes placed forward so piously by the multitude of bloody charities which have sprung up like weeds, my answer would have been a tad more robust, and to the effect that “IT IS MY BLOODY MONEY, AND I WILL SPEND IT, OR GIVE IT AWAY, TO WHOM I BLOODY WELL PLEASE!”

 

Now where have I heard that ‘song’ before?

If the varied and various headlines published over the past few days, and indeed weeks are anything to go by, the Scottish Referendum should be viewed as a complete change in British Politics. The ‘Independence’ claims of ‘Freedom’ and ‘self-rule’ are there in plenty, as well as the undertones, always evident from the Celtic fringe, of a release from the servitude of centuries, of a forced bow towards Westminster, of having to be allowed to spend tax-payers money which stems from the wealth stemming from Scots oil and gas. Much more has been written, and spoken, by the Scots ‘Yes’ campaign, but all along the, the same theme emerges from these Scots politicians; ‘Trust us, and we shall deliver you and Scotland towards the Elysian Fields, and it will not cost you anything’!

Much the same thing, but on a much more negative note, comes from the speeches of the ‘No’ campaign; more dire warnings from a bunch of politicians and observers gathered together, for expediency purposes, under their ‘No Thanks’ banner. We hear of the terrible things which may befall the Scots, if they decide to ‘go it alone’, and even of the very voice of the Prime Minister ‘breaking’ with true emotion as he implores the Scottish voters to believe him and his confreres in the ‘No’ camp; whilst at the same time asking those same Scottish voters to forget that he shares the same platform with the Labour leader, a bitter enemy, and the Lib-Dim leader, another bitter enemy, but one wrapped in the colours of a Coalition.

But amidst all the clamour, the many and varied promises of a collective bunch of Politicians whom, we are justly remembering, are the same bunch who promised all those things which never came to pass, because they will never, ever, contemplate changing from the ‘status quo ante’; meaning, literally, the same as was before.

Commentators, and there are many of us, despair of being offered a true change, of a movement away from the deadly boredom of Government by Party politics, of the incessant pleas for this special treatment for a small category, or that ‘exception’ to the rules for the rest of us.

If one of the Parties: now scrambling to attempt to undo the catastrophic decisions which came forth after the totally stupid and cowardly ‘Devolution’ schemes of the early Blair/New Labour years, when the paths towards a Scottish ‘Independence’ were first cast in Legislation: had actually presented any new ideas, any faint traces of a proper ‘Democracy’; of changes which would form a Government which reacted to what the People wanted; instead of ramming through policies based on Party dogma, many would have applauded and made those changes work. But the big problem is that, in order to effect those changes, the Party politicians, together with the bulk of the invisible but powerful ‘Inner Government’ which is actually what the Whitehall Civil Service actually is, would have to give up power, and themselves be subject to the considered ‘whims’ of the people who gave their votes, and allowed the parasites in power to milch the public purse unto the tenth generation!

What is not evident, but still present, are the facts that one bunch of the ‘Old Elite’ are attempting to wrest power from the rest of the ‘Old Elite’; with not a new thought, or idea, or proposal amongst the lot of them! If you mention, even in passing, the Harrogate Solution, all you would probably get would be “Whats Harrogate got to do with it”?

Was he just a ‘fruit-and-nutcase’: or

was he a Muslim fruit-and-nutcase; or was he just a Muslim being a Muslim, acting to Muslim traditional behaviour.?

Freda Odame, 30, a supermarket worker who lives a few doors from the house where the woman was found beheaded, said she looked out of her window and saw the man wielding a machete with a “crazed look” in his eyes.

She said: “He was waving a huge machete around like a madman. He was shouting stuff. It didn’t make sense, it was like he was speaking in tongues.

“His eyes had a fury in them, lots of anger and hate. He was shouting and screaming, thrashing around.

“It was terrifying. I shut the curtains and sat there in fear. Then police banged on my doors shouting for people to come out.”

Discuss!

 

“Smile, and say ‘Cheesy’”

We read again of yet another computer ‘hack’, but this time it is not of diplomatic messages via WikiLeaks, or even NSA files care of some bloke named Snowden, which prove that this American Spy Agency plainly has far too much time on its hands as well as probably too much cash to spend; no ways, this time it is more, way more important than anything revealed previously. This particular crime refers to some very, very intimate photographs and videos of ‘Celebrities’ who have, rather incautiously,  stored them on a ‘cloud server’ belonging to Apple, the computer company.

Now, as to the rights and wrongs of some bloke worming his way through computerised cyber thickets in order to reveal ‘personal’ pix of some ‘celebrities’, I have personally, no opinion either way. The very idea of pervily peeking into someone’s private life, leaves me stone cold, mainly because I just do not see the point. I mean, if your ‘thing’ is to gaze upon forests of penises, or peruse small mountains of photographs of vaginas, either static or in full-colour motion, t’Internet has vast arrays of pornographic websites especially set up for your enjoyment, or so I am reliably informed it does. So why, oh why, delve into the personal files of a few people so that you might mentally masturbate even more often than you normally do?

As with probably millions more, my digital photographic catalogue is carefully and safely stored, complete with hard-drive back-up, on my computer at home, but also is up on the Google Picasa website, shared with family and friends; and, I am more than pleased to state, not a bare breast visible; mine or anyone else’s!

But my main reason for writing these few words is to enquire, and I mean really enquire, as to the motivation which calls for men and women to take nude and revealing photographs of themselves and their ‘partners’ of the moment, and then to store them upon a computer system which is open to anyone at all? What possesses these people, nubile beautiful women and husky men, to photograph themselves, to memorise in digital form some moments which, to people such as myself, are amongst the most private and intimate moments of their lives? They cannot even claim that they couldn’t have known it was possible, because if an autistic genius named Gary McKinnon, operating with two computers bought over the counter at PC World, could have bull-dozed his way into NASA, the Pentagon, the U.S. Navy, and Defence Department computers despite all the fire-walls and protective systems in place whilst searching for ‘U.F.Os’; a dedicated ‘hacker’, with all the time in the world, can infiltrate Apple cloud server systems.

But that still doesn’t answer the basic question, which is why take those pictures in the first place? I can remember the evening when I first met the young woman who is now my wife; my first kiss with her in the days after we met, many months before we married, as I have no doubt multitudes of other men and women can also recall. I remember with clarity the moment we two met, and I can recall with even greater clarity the moment when I held my first-born son in my arms, the product of the passion I felt for my beloved wife.  I need no paper or digital imagery to enhance my memory, so why on this good earth do they?

Just a small reminder…

……..of the days when His Majesty’s Government and Parliament, with calm and, in the end, honesty, set its collective face against Appeasement, and set forth to defeat the German Nazi war machine with a Declaration of War.

A declaration of War, without the knowledge of how great an evil lay behind, and all around, the enemy it now would be fighting to defeat!