I GIVE UP

This morning the BBC reported that Rotherham Borough Council took three children away from their foster home because the foster parents support UKIP.  Their reason?  They said "these children are not UK children" and UKIP is a racist political party.  WHAT!!!  Read their manifesto you idiots.

The children had happily been with this family for several months and even started calling them mum and dad.  What sort of imbicile would have taken that decision.

No, don't answer that, let me.  The same sort of imbiciles that I am dealing with at my local planning office. They don't have a brain between them. Enough said.  It makes me rage.

A GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S RITES OF PASSAGE

From time to time I have mentioned some of the famous people that I have met over the years to my two great granddaughters only to be met with blank faces.  It then became a challenge.  Surely I must have met someone that would impress them.

"I was once introduced to the Prince Andrew, Duke of York and spent an hour in his company" Nothing!

"I am friends with Gilson Lavis, the drummer with Jools Holland" "So what, we know him too!"

"I worked with a guy who was suspected of helping the Great Train Robbers" "The Great who?"

"I went to school with Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones" (This is stretching the truth, he went to the boy's school, I went to the girl's and never the twain shall meet).  "What's a Rolling Stone?".

" I tricked Rick Wakeman (a rock legend) and Francesco Da Mosto (a devastatingly handsome aristocratic Venetian architect) to propose marriage to me IN WRITING at book signings."  "Never heard of them".

"One of my friends was in San Francisco in the "summer of love" with her rock star husband Keith Relf   from the Yardbirds.  She knows Eric Clapton." "Summer of love? What do you mean?"  (Better not go there!)

"My TV Producer friend got your mother a bit part in a TV series featuring Julian Clary." "Did she get paid?"

"Tom Jones laughed at me when I drove past him, recognised him and involuntarily slammed on my brakes." "Lucky you didn't cause an accident".

But last night I believe that I finally cracked it. On TV, Tulisa, one of the X-Factor judges, happened to mention that her father and uncle used to sing with Mungo Jerry.  I knew Ray Dorset from Mungo Jerry because he used to drink in my local pub.  I texted that information to my granddaughter and she texted back "They're impressed!".

BOOM!!!!

BLOGGER OR GOLF - WHICH IS THE MORE FRUSTRATING?

Is it me but has "blogger" got more complicated?  Once upon a time I used to understand what I was doing (ish!), but now I have to belong to a social network site and + share or google + and the new, simplified, (that's a laugh) all singing and dancing design section is totally beyond me. 

And why am I always being accused of being a "robot" just because the stupid word verifier doesn't understand what I type?  And why, when I switch on the audio word verifier does it spout out letters I can't hear or understand? Where has the "follow" button gone and why don't they leave things alone?  Grrrr!

Apart from that I'm OK.  In August I took up golf and last Monday graduated from the baby course to the grown up coarse.  The baby course (known as "The Academy") is a 6 x par 3 hole course.  My best result on that was 29, my worst 42 shots.  Not good.  But onward and upward, my buddies and I decided to graduate.

Hole 1 on the grown up course is a par 5, I did in 17!  After that I stopped counting.  It was a nice sunny day, why not just enjoy the walk? (I know, before you say it, golf is a good way to ruin a good walk!)  My buddies are not experts either so we dropped the element of competition and when another couple came hot on our heals instead of waving them through we just picked up our balls and walked on to the next tee.  Unfortunately the couple could play faster than we could walk, so we basically ended up walking the course. 

At the 19th hole they tried to teach us "golfing etiquette" by explaining that we should have simply stood to one side and waved them through.  They couldn't quite grasp that we are a bunch of idiots who WANTED to pick up our balls. When the truth of this finally dawned on them, they scratched their heads and ordered a double brandy each. 

Next Monday I'm praying for rain.

UMMMM?

Do I write about the evil bastards that have the knowledge of the paedophile rings operating in high places or do I write about the tossers in my local Planning Department.

Well, the current child sexual abuse scandals are far more scary and current - so here goes.

A year after the death of the creepy Jimmy Savile, a TV "personality",  victims who had suffered sexual abuse started telling their stories.  So far they think that he abused in excess of 300 children over a 40 year period and its quite likely that this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

How did he get away with it?  He even had keys to flats at several hospitals where he carried out his sick fantasies. Why was it only after his death that victims to took courage to come forward and tell their tragic stories?   Did he have "friends" in high places of a similar persuasion who protected him?  If so, they should be shamed and exposed to, but here we go again - are  they are so powerful that this will never happen? 

I believe that the BBC has now been skillfully bought into disrepute by reporting the story of a man who claimed that in his youth he was sexually abused by a senior MP whilst in a care home in Wales.  This former MP has vehement denied this but the result has been that BBC Newsnight was taken off air and the Governor General resigned.   A powerful warning to anyone daring to investigate these or any other claims. 

HELP - I'M GOING NUTS HERE!

I have been trying to leave comments on some of my favourite blogs and have either encountered word verificators (is that a made up word?)  convinced that I'm am, indeed, a robot or, alternatively, I appear to be out of the "circle of friends".  What's going on?  Did the world go mad in my few weeks blogging sabatical? Are the Mayan loonies correct in saying that the world going to end on 22nd December?  HELP!

Just in case it is, let's have a laugh.  This was sent to me by a good friend. 

Paraprosdokians (Winston Churchill loved them) are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.


1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

9. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

10. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, Notify:' I put 'DOCTOR'.

11. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

12. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

13. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure..

14. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

15. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

16. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

17. I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

VIEWS FROM AN OUTSIDER

Never one to hold back on my own personal opinions I would like to comment on my feelings towards the Presidential Elections in the USA. But please remember, these are MY OPINIONS. And also please bear in mind that in this Country I have a right to freedom of speech and I’m a crazy old woman.


I would also like to declare that I am a socialist (with a small “s”) and a conservative (with a small “c”). This is not sitting on the fence. One thing that I have never, ever, been accused of is being a sitter on a fence! I have a social conscience and believe that there should be a safety net for the unable, but not for the unwilling.

Unfortunately socialism in government doesn’t seem to work because the nature of the beast is that the more benefits handed out equate to more votes from the vast hoards reliant on them. And that’s pure logic.

So at the risk of pissing off the majority of the blogging community together with my colleagues, family and friends – here goes.

Soon after Obama was elected President four years ago I read his book “Dreams of my Father”. It made for a fascinating read and I have great respect for him as a man. BUT I worried that he appeared to have an apathy toward the British in particular and Europeans in general. “Our special bond” had come to an end and America was in danger of becoming even more insular.

In these times of global economic mayhem this is not good. We need to stand by each other more now than ever before. Instead Obama seems to have tapped into the national belief that there isn’t a world beyond the shores of America. Great patriotism, but mistaken policies. (Again, in my opinion).

As an uneducated novice I believe that globally we are looking at two views of the same vase. One view tells us that to get out of this economic mess we should increase the number of public “servants” (now there’s an oxymoron!) by creating jobs that are not wealth generators and spend more money on public buildings and infrastructure.

The other view tells us that we should encourage wealth generation, reduce spending by slimming down the bloated public sector and reduce both personal and national debt .  You pays your money, and you takes your choice. 

And now for Mitt Romney. From the wealthy, privileged background so reviled by many, he created his own wealth by his own efforts. Admirable. BUT what an idiot. You couldn’t trust the Presidency to a man that engages the mouth before engaging the brain. You would forever be living on a knife edge!

Interesting years ahead.

MY BLOGGING LIFE HAS COME FULL CIRCLE

I started off my blogging career by reading the excellent  Judith O'Reiley's blog www.wifeinthenorth.com. She hooked me into a fascinating way of life and a great circle of friends.  Judith is the author of two books (Wife in the North and A Year of Doing Good) and was the first blog I "followed".  Now she is "following" me.  Welcome to my humble abode Judith. 

Hopefully my writing "mojo" will return because I have, of late, been very remiss with my postings.  Don't you just hate it when that happens?  How can you describe the guilt you feel?

But why did I stop writing? That's quite difficult to anaylise.  My nearest and dearest seem to think that I lost my general joie de vivre when my daughter and son-in-law took two of my grandchildren to live abroad without leaving a forwarding address. This is not something that I care to elaborate on right now, but suffice to say I miss my grandchildren very much. Family has always been my first priority in life.

I don't necessarily agree with this hypothesis.  I believe that the simple explanation is that I'm just too goddamn lazy and most days can't be arsed to do much. 

So...my life over the last 2 months?  I guess one of the most significant things to happen is that one of my beloved grandsons went off to Sheffield University to study History and French. He seems to have settled in very well and says his course work is not giving him too many sleepless nights, he gets on well with his flatmates and now has a new circle of NBF's to add to his already long list of BF's!  He is a very sociable and amiable boy and I love him dearly. Good luck Ali, you deserve the best.

Continuing on the educational theme, my greatgranddaughter Elise and grandson Taylor have both started Senior School.  This is a huge change for both of them, having moved from from a small village school they are now swimming with sharks!  They are coping OK, but I'm terrified.  Such big changes in their young hormonal lives.  Are they able to deal with these new challenges?  Luckily they both have amazing parents who give them understanding, love and support.  Good luck to you both, you also deserve the best.

Vinnie, another of my beloveds, came over from Austrralia for a few weeks and we manage to get a few hours together.  We even meet up with his elusive brother Frazer at a family get together to celebrate Davy's birthday.  Davy hated going out to eat.  He always said "why drink wine when you can have champagne at home?"  He said that about other (nameless) things too! BUT he did like family celebrations and, apart from home, his favourite place to eat was The George at Stamford. After he died it became something of a ritual to meet up there every year on his birthday. 

My big news is that friends I made on the South Pacific cruise invited me to their Australian beach house for the post-christmas period.  Was I tempted or what?  You bet I was!!!  My mind went into overdrive.  If I'm going all that way it would be a pity not to see Western Australia. Travel up to Darwin via Perth and Ayres Rock arriving back in Sydney by 25th February in time to catch the 61 day cruise back to Southampton via the Panama Canal. 

Wooohhhh! Hold on to your horses Ann.  What about the Oz-Bus reunion at my house in January? What about the house build that seems close to being resolved with the Planning Department? Stop!  I calmed down, arranged to take a rain check until next year and booked myself onto a 12 day cruise to Madeira instead.  A good compomise solution!

Anything else?  Apart putting in an Official Complaint against the wretched Planning Office?  Oh yes, last night I went to see Andy Fairweather Low in concert.  That's a blast from the past!  My two young reluctant companions (who had never heard of him) actually enjoyed themselves.  Maybe it gave them an added dimension into how life used to be, proving that there was life before binge drinking and facebook.  Only kidding girls.