1097 Limited Day

9.30. am My attempt to study and comprehend the truth of God and the Devil, Good and Evil as forces within and without humankind is stretching me beyond my limits because they are subordinate to project 101 and its component activities and I still attend to the practicalities of life such as shopping for food, occasionally cleaning of the house, washing and washing up, and try an participate in and enjoy real life experiences. My current interest which I thought would last a week and perhaps stimulate a Blog or two now looks as if it will dominate the summer and govern the rest of the present self conscious being.

9.35 The current interest was inspired by a new friend who posted an extraordinary video audio broadcast on the subject of reincarnation and led to resurrecting myself as a former human devil whose life and writings I have to counterbalance by studying the lives of saints. The enquiries have led to beginning a study of Pataphysics which is the antithesis of science and much like the gulf between Freudian based and behavioural based psychologists.

9.45 I always wanted to be an actor and wish I had the courage to become a performance artist in reality beyond the security of the virtual. My study of the Big Brother House experience leads me to think that the programme should be nominated for the Turner Prize. Suggest this to the Tate and Channel Four. Do it now as your creative idea in action for the day. It is time for breakfast and mending a small table which my mother uses in her room. Then vacuuming will be left till Monday, but I must complete by then a study of Friends, although this is unrealistic unless I stop reading their profiles, looking at their pictures, reading their Blogs and listen to their music.

10am I am still at the computer having had another creative idea of holding a party for all my space friends. Alas unless I win the Euro lottery is will have to remain a virtual reality party so I won't post a bulletin or issue invitations. I will research who organises some of the more famous parties just in case I do win. I seem to have been on a lucky streak recently with four wins £80, £10x 2, £8 and £7 over a period of four weeks in which the investment was less than a third but overall the winnings are only a third of the investment. I have therefore adopted a different strategy investing a substantial sum in Premium Bonds where the maximum prize is only £1million, about a third less than would be needed for the kind of party I would like, and the MySpace party would only come after that for the people I know in reality eg, family and the staff of the residential home who care for my mother, but if it does not work after a year, the original sum can be withdrawn and reinvested in something with a fixed interest return.


11.30. Well silly me. I was so intent on all the things I had to do that I put the eggs in a black coated non stick pan, checked that there was water when in fact there was not! Fortunately the pan was rescued but it will mean a shop for more eggs. I purchased a glue gun to re-stick the legs to the table tops (two tables) but forgot to check on the number of glue sticks included and also need to shop for more. Usually a go to the supermarket after visiting my mother but I will now leave at 4 rather than 5 and get back home to watch the TV programmes rather than watch them with her. Gosh I am hungry again so an early lunch. I need to do at least a couple of hours of main project work, as well as some reading.

8.55pm I watch the execution of several hundred Italians in Roman, ten times the number of German soldiers killed in minor uprising ten weeks before the liberation of Italy in World War Two. The film is descriptively called Massacre in Rome. Earlier clergy from Manchester Cathedral express their horror at a million selling shoot em video game using the Cathedral as a setting in one of its level. Gum and knife crime in Manchester and other cities has been increasing. Of course there is no connection or association.

9pm I returned from the visit to my mother in time to watch the whole of the programme on the Best of British dinner at our Embassy in Paris for the best French Chef's, food writers and personalities. The first course was a poached ducks egg, steamed slowly for four hours, with ham and a sorbet; the second course was salmon with sea vegetables and Wheaten Bread. My starter was vegetable Samoses with dry salt and black pepper crackers, their main course was a rabbit pie with crayfish and mixed green vegetables. My main course was two pieces of chicken breasts in a Red Leicester cheese sauce and smoked bacon. Their meal ended with a glorious fruit jelly with inserted summer fruits a central sauce and a plain ice cream. Mine was compote of water melon and fresh pineapple chunks with thin slices of chocolate covered Turkish delight.

9.40 Insert. I decided against Dr Who when after the Dinner there was a programme about the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall. I never liked the original building and during my most recent visits the area had been taken over by cardboard box livers and skateboarders. It was not an area to be on ones own, especially at night. Over £100 million has been sent on upgrading the building and area with the Hall reduced to a shell in an attempt to change the accoustics from bad to very good. The critics are enthusiastic but are cautious saying it will be several years before a new harmony is achieved between performers and the new setting.
9.20pm the rest of the evening will be devoted to making Artman Glitter cards, reading and set making together with a private and confidential analysis of Friends.

1096 Falklands War to be remembered

For the past three days I have channelled my creative energies into a new project which could impact on my day to day future. Thus I wrote yesterday.

The weather has been appalling and the combination of the cold and wet and focussed activity had led to little exercise and comfort eating. Earlier in the evening I was disciplined and did not buy at the supermarket, an additional supply of peanuts, giant size bags for under £1, or cheesy what's its. I did have my glass of red wine, a Chilean wine Les Haminos, which is a coincidence because a Chilean friend was also moaning about the weather on IM last night as we both dreamed of the warm sun on our flesh.

A more recent friend held a contemporary art performance and exhibition in the evening air of a London Square which sounded great fun, involving art on a pillow case and a pillow fight. Locally was the first of free summer concert at the Amphitheatre on the sea front with bands Chris Dilford and Jen Stevens and the Hiccups, but I was not up for them, sorry guys, although as I learnt from last year there is a the covered walkway, a strange sea front development comprising a long wall of glass overlooking the beach with open side to the amphitheatre and, a small water feature and a popular café used by bikers at weekends on the other It is possible to walk on the roof with an attractive over view in all directions. In bad weather both artists and public can huddle under the walkway. Hopefully the weather will be better on Saturday Shake Ya Tailfeathers and Barnstormer although I will be home to watch The British Ambassadors dinner do in Paris and Dr Who.

I had two large rolls with a potato based soup, the rolls going cheaply in packs of four for 18 pence on a brief supermarket trip for some colourful peppers which I eat raw in salads, and some indigestion tables and man size tissues. I can now smell the Italian herb mixture on a baking trout although the there is a hallway and a day room in between here and the kitchen. I think this will not suffice so I do a couple of small packets of frozen fresh veg in the microwave. I have been good and used one packet of corn, peas and runner beans. I have been goodish with one egg for breakfast, a prawn salad with a pear for lunch and three unbuttered Scottish pancakes for tea doused with lemon. The test will be later after some grapes and a banana, around 1 am. Will I be able to resist another roll with cheese or salami or a Philadelphia dip?

I was tempted to take up the invitation to the Trent Polytechnic 2007 fine art degree course show, involving another friend although the appeal was also the live art performance related to Lonely Heart adds. If only the event had been on another weekend.

There has been important local sports news for the day with the sale of shares by the Chairman of Newcastle football club for an estimated sum over £35 million following £55 million for the Hall family holding. The price is reported to have been 101 pence. Four years ago I held 10000 shares acquired when they were very low about £3000 in total so would have made a gain of 300% had they been kept, alas such is life. However the more immediate news was the signing of a 20 goal a season striker from neighbouring Borough, a man in the mould of Alan Shearer and would make the ideal partner for Michael Owen if he stays. Joey Barton is still to sign on and Big Sam who I admired where he played for Sunderland is trying to bringing one of his full backs from Bolton. I am weakening and could find myself with two season tickets and a live match at least once a week for nine months. The decision will be taken over the next week.

The trout and mini vegetable were excellent. I saw some freshish bream at Morrison's earlier in the week and after my treat at the Sunderland Marriott last week, I will try some next week instead of the trout. Despite a decade and half of buying my food I still amaze at the variation in costings. I had my bi weekly whole chicken for £2.50 this weekend and managed a roast dinner on Sunday and two eat till full hotpots subsequently, and with a portion put into the bin, with regret, because I hate wasting food when others are going without. Each main course on three days cost less than the £1.54 paid for a starter of olives, feta cheese and sun dried tomatoes, consumed in one session because it was so delicious. The advert on TV is about a small filled baguette to your specification for £1.99. A Local Pub passed on the way to visit my mother advertises two steak meals and a bottle of wine for £9.99. The main dishes of the meals eaten out last week were around £10-£15.

I have continued to keep one eye on the Big Brother Show where my original assessment of silly young women too full of themselves and requiring high maintenance proved to be wrong. They are far worse. There are exceptions among the house "mates" although mates are also a dubious description of the relationship between the majority. The only male has also proved himself a disappointment succumbing to the need to pair himself off, admittedly with the kind of girl he could take home to mother, but by doing so he has sealed his fate for an early exit and it will be interesting to see how he fares once the males promised for tonight are introduced. However, as George Galloway intimated, one could be gay and the other mature to old leaving the majority to their girlie activities. I was one of many who disliked George Galloway for his links with the former regime in Iraq and his leaving the Labour Party and creating his own faction, that was until his appearance in celebrity Big Brother and his decision to offer and perform as a cat. The man's got bottle and soul and his performances leading the usual inane programme full of sycophants reviewing the day's events revealed a professional competence suggesting a successor to Kilroy-the Silk. The last 24 hours marked a change of gear as one of the silly girls used the N word in an effort to establish street cred with perhaps until then most ugh of the girlies immediately realising what she had done as did the victim but subsequent desperate attempts by both to pass over the incident only made the situation worse. The channel had no option but to evict the young woman, but how it was done only served to emphasise the dodgy programme values with its emphasise that there is no such thing as bad publicity, only no publicity.

It was therefore heartening this morning while dressing to listen to an intelligent, interesting and moving programme about a Falklands 25 year memorial service held in Wales with two frothy other items. One arose because someone had slated those who come to the door in pyjamas or lounge about for the greater part of the day. One former businesswoman at home with a baby admitted how casual and not bovverred she had become. The other trivia was the breaking or damaging of valuable object and one former Olympic gold medallist told the story how it had been damaged by her baby daughter. It was evident that she had then settled to into motherhood and whatever she had done after her period winning medals, putting the trophies away in some draw until a couple of months ago a son had asked about the medals and mother had explained the cause of the damage. The extraordinary normality of this family emerged when the daughter explained she did not remember or know of the event until raised by her brother, and that had not bothered to examine the particular and other medals. These were all people with commendable values about their everyday lives and what a contrast to those of the Big Brother House. I need a siesta watching the Test Match.

1095 People of Significance

I have not published writing for several days because of a moment of inspiration which I put into immediate practice and which could fundamentally change the rest of my life. I have just completed toileting after going to bed with the dawn and rising four hours later, undertaking an important task and then toileting, listening to Radio Five Live where there were three subjects under discussion, one of great significance which overshadowed what I had been doing and feeling, while the other two were frothy and funny but with serious and interesting aspects, primarily because of the calibre of the public involvement.

At the age of 24 and eighteen months after qualification, one of two nurses on a makeshift hospital ship attached to the Falklands force was advised to make ready to receive fifty casualties with burns from the Sir Galahad Troopship when on June 8th 48 men died, most from the Welsh Guards and where a service was being held at St Mary's Church Swansea attended by 25 members of the South Atlantic Medal Association. The former nurse described the task which she and the other nurse faced at that time and subsequently. She explained that she had been advised by on board psychiatrists how to help the injured cope with their situations and also the likely impact on herself and her colleagues. This was remarkable and moving but did not indicate the story she was to unfold.

She continued to nurse the wounded during the campaign. She told one young man who feared his injuries would affect his marriage planned for two months later, but who was able to walk down the aisle his facial injuries having cleared and subsequently leaving no scars, and she told of others where the physical and emotional scars remained.

She dealt with her experience by getting on with her life as a nurse in the navy and then with the army and where for the past 18 years she has served, often on different tours with her husband of eighteen years. He is now on his second tour in Iraq and she is within days of qualifying as a doctor. What courage, what sense of dedication, what remarkable people? How insignificant becomes my needs and interests?

1093 Big Brother Chronicle

Another transition day of no interest to anyone but me.

This morning I am haunted by the person I have been and the person I will never become (Saturday).

This morning (Sunday) I am in judgement about my judgements.

Against my better judgement on Friday evening I pursued what happens at the Big Brother House with the arrival a handsome 26 year old male and 11 females of varying ages, some stupid, a couple psychological and emotionally disturbed. (This may be an accurate observation but what do we do by being brutally honest, except create barriers between ourselves and others and thus commence the process which leads to war)

(I am putting off doing what I need to do.(Sunday)

Big Brother is much more of a controlled and artificial social experiment that the kind of reality voyeurism I prophesied some twenty years ago. However the pattern of their lives is similar to my own with my work conscience in the role of Big Brother but my sleeping and feeding is governed more by need than social convention. The more one watches the kinder one feels and the more rounded the individuals become.

On my Saturday walk I was gripped by the feeling of being on the outside of experience and reminders of previous emotional longings. There was a cold edge to the after lunch sunshine and everyone appeared in a holiday spirit at the sea front and with the parks full of young life. There was a young man in an open bright red sports car who appeared to be on the look out for a friend, existing or to become. There was a young girl with head bowed, dressed in black, sitting on a wall who appeared troubled and alone. There were teenage school girls walking behind me where from snatches of conversation one appeared to be determined not only to want it all, but have it, and did I correctly that she was prepared to work in a brothel abroad? I was tempted to seek clarification but decided against. They all had rights to do what they were doing without the kind of Big Brother Scrutiny I was giving them.

I fancied an ice cream but everywhere there were queues. I was dissatisfied with my impatience. The queues were greater for fish and chips. On return I looked at restaurant menus. I had a siesta of tiredness after lettuce and salami rolls and then after the walk I settled for just a cup of tea. The walk had been a goodish one as my shirt was wet but not drenched and could be worn for the visit to my mother, Afterwards the holiday weekend mood prevailed I gave in to the urge for a Kentucky Fried Chicken Zinger meal, with the chicken sandwich, two wings, coleslaw, fries and diet coke for £3.99 resisting the offer of a max for 30 additional pence. This is not as silly as is sounds showing some restraint.

I was reminded of last autumn when I received a two for one MacDonald's offer and made regular visits into town for brunches over a period of 10 days. This was unrestrained. This review of what was written in a tired condition yesterday evening is making me hungry and I am fighting against a Sunday 9am bacon roll breakfast. I am losing willpower. What a contrast to the Hotel meal of a few days ago, with a memory of visits over three decades, and the Chinese where I had only made one visit perhaps seven years before. The bacon roll reminds me of wolfing a chocolate bar. The roll was defrosted too crispy and the bacon undercooked and I will now drink more which would be OK except I don't fancy water.

I was sent a Clear Channel e mail advertising tracks from the Springsteen concert on Dublin, and then listened to the latest Elton compilation and now the Beach Boys. There is the work of 130 artists to listen to. Next will be Corinne Bailey Rae and James Blunt and then a special Simon Cowell Red Book. I have watched most "This is your life from the days of Eammon Andrews. The Simon Cowell was the most excruciating awful programme on TV in living memory. The expense was horrendous as the presenter was flown over to the final if the American Idol and then everyone flown back to the UK for the programme. The reputation of everyone suffered with the exception of Rickie Gervais.

I have a feeling first experienced in adolescence that at a weekend everyone except me was going out to a party. However I have always regarded parties as artificial pointless events until I held one once for work colleagues and I, and everyone else, thoroughly enjoyed themselves, but subsequently this only made the sense of regret about missing out on parties even greater. Sometimes a little taste of something is worse than going without and bearing the longing.

I will do what I have put off for three days

I have undertaken some of the work catching up tasks but I am lazy. On Big Brother someone went outside to experience the freshness of the morning and I wanted to echo the suggested experience. The bacon roll was a consolation. I want to be on holiday again. I am losing the work drive. New life experience is for others. But I yearn.


Well...I subscribed to your blog and gave it a read. Interesting. Posted by ~ Z ~ on 19:06 - 19:51

1086 Who Guards the Guardians?

Because I have been engaging in physical communication and activity, there has been less time to devote to my work, my writing and Myspace, although the subjects for attention have been piling up as I quickly read the writings of others. I am calling this piece a rambling because it is in response to the Blog of a friend. It is interesting that the majority of those with whom I exchange personal emails are Catholics or who were raised Catholics, with others interested in aspects of religions and beliefs across the spectrum. All these Catholics and ex Catholics have one thing in common, they were all idealists and even the most realist would still like to be, and as with all those who are or were of a fundamentalist faith, we all have healthy distrust of imposed authority. My contacts tend to be passionate people who try to make something of their lives and actively participate in trying to make the world safer and more caring places, primarily for the benefits of others, often others who they have never met and never will.

Fortunately most do not have some of my flaws, and I can compensate for these by contributing something of my experience gained from starting as an abused child, becoming a poacher, then gamekeeper, and then turning into a poacher once more but with the advantage of having been a gamekeeper. On regional TV recently the programme featured three individuals of the age of grandmothers who had already been arrested for a protest against the decision to start the process of replacing the Trident under water weapons of mass destruction delivery. They were planning to do what they felt was necessary, to try and make government take a different approach, I can understand why the Labour and Conservative parties are committed to the replacement programme and I suspect that were I in government and listened to what the service chiefs were advising and privy to genuine state information about the threats, I would play "safe." (Am I really using these words to describe spending money on weapons of mass destruction aimed at non combatants, and which could otherwise make a dent in saving the planet, and or bring required medicines, foods and other resources to Africa and other struggling societies?).

The "did Iraq hold weapons of mass destruction experience". Has made everyone, especially politicians in the USA and UK less trusting of their secret services, and with good cause. although those who employ people who will do anything for a government, also know that they will do anything, for anyone, if it interests them, and provides the lifestyle freedom which they need, and even if the politicians have never been part of some secret net work or club of self and shared interest, they will have quickly learnt how such networks operate and how to monitor and counterbalance.

My experience was with the predominantly non violent peace movement of the early 1960's. My difficulty at the time was that many of the early activists were like me, full of anger, opposition and suspicion, and ignorant of the realities of human behaviour, especially when it becomes collectivised. I once upset a kind and genuine activist who arranged for a small group to undertake voluntary work one evening a week, sending out a publication to subscribers, by declaring that it was difficult for me to convinced when those advocating non violence were so angry and troubled themselves. I have one my space friend who regularly has a rant in print, and those who do not know the individual better, have sometimes through their comments believed this reflects the whole person, rather than just a creative outlet, of a complex multidimensional individual, that we all are. Unfortunately, others channel their frustration, and sense of personal powerlessness, into less constructive, and sometimes harmful ways, to themselves, and to others.

There was also one meeting intended for those prepared to commit civil disobedience at the end of a campaign, where among a room of some fifty people there were only half a dozen who I knew were genuine and trustworthy. The difficulty was working out who was what among the others. There would have been undercover operatives or associates from the various national secret services of the main countries involved i.e. the UK, the USA and Russia which makes a potential of 12 with one for each national government and for each branch of the armed services, and it is possible that there were two for the national government, with one for internal security and the other for overseas, and this excludes any arms length covert groups directly or indirectly employed, especially those directly funded by the main arms making manufacturers and their agents.

Then of course there was the media, still in its electronic infancy. Some were open about their activities and one leading national paper sent a journalist to cover the three month campaign, at the end of which I was not sure if he had become one of us. Others were also open in their objective. I once accepted an invitation to meet a journalist for another national paper who admitted that he was under instruction to be nice and get me to talk and then write up the interview in as damaging way as he could. Because he liked me and was sympathetic to the cause he told me this in advance, but nevertheless did what he warned he said he would do, and it makes excruciatingly embarrassing reading to this day, although I also have to admit that it was closer to the truth about me than I still like to admit. Some at the meeting were blatant agent provocateurs calling on the campaign to use undercover tactics and to be prepared to use violence in self defence. Some were deranged with no mitigating qualities as anyone undertaken the venture had to be a little deranged don't, you think? I cannot remember if the young woman with four children in care was at this meeting or arrived later without a sleeping bag, inviting herself to share with those of the young men and who on two successive nights announced to the rest of the mixed sleeping on floor group that she would "let you have it tomorrow night because." Just before she transferred her affections to a third male, the police arrived to reunite with her offspring.

Of course we were aware that the more effective we became in gaining public support the more our lives were going to be monitored and some members who were confident in each other organised a dummy demonstration by telephone restricted to themselves and then arranged for someone to monitor the particular situation who was able to confirm that the authorities were much in evidence. These days there are few interested in matters of national security that would not expect anything less of governments and approve of such methods, supported by the technology which can enable monitoring of everything electronic, electronically without prior consent or official approval, and of everything and everyone else when cause can be shown. And because of my experience I also know the limitations of the most sophisticated methods. This in turn leads to calls for even stronger and tighter monitoring, even by those who would be horrified if such monitoring was then turned on them.

The reality is no different from the casualties of friendly fire. In any situation of armed conflict there will be potentially significant human errors of judgement and of simple error leading to the deaths of non combatants and those on the same side, including closest colleagues. These have to be regarded as unplanned sacrifices. There are always planned sacrifices such as in the First World War when tens of thousands were sent to their deaths because the public aroused by the media called for some token advance or theoretically morale boosting venture. And there is always opportunity for the settling of some private scores.

It is boring for anyone who has read what I have already written on the subject but it is worth repeating, the use of violence begets more violence whether it is an individual or collective act and whether sanctioned or organised by the state what ever the nature of the government, whether a form of rule of law overrides and whether there is a superimposed faith or ideology which one believes in or does not. However it is the function of any government, by definition, to protect the interests of the nation and its people, although sometimes it is not possible to achieve both by the same act. It is also essential that a significant number question and challenge everything that the state does, and usually the most effective way of doing this is by and through the media, and therefore the media has to be forgiven when it gets things wrong or goes off along blind alleys, or damages the lives of individuals and their families unintentionally or unfairly.

However as with preventing disease, stopping malnutrition, saving species and the planet, some economically unviable service which works such a local hospital or post office, stopping further slavery, the exploitation of women and the abuse of children, and so on, governments have a major part to play, but can do nothing, especially in democracies, without the support and actions of a significant number of separate and diverse individuals, their families, friends, and local communities banding together in common cause.

This is why all the energy being expended by millions all over the world in the hope that one pre school child is found, hopefully alive is not meaningless gesturing, it proves what I have believed all my life that most human beings, despite their understandable self interest, and cautiousness about getting involved in anything which takes them out of their security space, will respond if they believe in something or someone who is open and honest with them, and treats them with the respect they show to others. I have always believed that there are also a lot of others who if given the right help, including help to move to a different or better environment, will also become creative, giving and sharing human beings like the majority.

It is best to let governments, and their organs of state, to deal with the minority of others who because of biological inheritance or childhood circumstance, or childhood events become capable of acts of evil without remorse, or the capacity to change. It is also important that everyone else learn from an early age how to identify, avoid and where necessary, refer to the authorities such individuals as appropriate to the circumstance. The trouble is we have actually elected some of these individuals into our governments, or stood by in understandable fear while others have set about, and in some instances in history successfully, destroyed the safeguards and imposed their nightmares on everyone else. I remain reluctant to give governments a free hand to deal with such individuals because mistakes have and will continue to be made, but the priority should be to give support and recognition to those who go into the front lines on our behalf, and for everyone else to participate and be vigilant. But who is to guard the guardians?

1088 Scotland Joy

Today, Friday, looked as if it was going to become a perfect day of new and revived experiences. Although I had stayed up late, I awoke early and felt relaxed and refreshed, sitting before a large window looking at the changing landscape as clouds assembled to hide the sun, turning to lashing rain, and then to a brightness sufficient for the owners of the site to start a bonfire.

The situation reminded me of my first experience forty years before when in my first year as a professional child care officer I had been invited to stay at the lake district home of a friend and spent the early morning and part of the evening watching the effects of clouds and changing light upon the water and the hills beyond. Some landscape painters and photographers, poets and gifted writers of prose are able to capture something more than their experience of the moment but nature has never surrendered to me as it has to them. I have a continuous debate about the extent to which anyone should attempt to master the material world, without contributing something of equal measure in return. When individually and collectively we abuse and exploit nature we should not be surprised when nature finds a way of punishing us back.

The weather appeared to settle although the forecast suggested showers, with some heavy, but the inclination was to go out to explore the reality of memory, despite a programme of work requiring attention. I could attempt to make up the latter, but might not have the opportunity to revisit all the places where previous experience merited review. The plan was to head north along to Crief, Aberfeldy, and Loch Tay.

The route to Crief was an unexpected glorious surprise with rhododendrons giving way to long banks of yellow gorse as I entered one of the beautiful glens of Scotland which opened up to a vast panorama of distant hills. Because I frequently stopped to view and digest the wonder, it was almost lunchtime time before arriving at Crief and I found a car park after motoring through the town centre when I eat a prepared salad, a buttered roll and the cream apple turnover left over from yesterday.

I was able to recall previously passing through Crief, but not having stopped, and full of the pleasure of the journey so far, I decided to walk the town and then return repeating my morning journey in reverse, and without travelling north as planned. It is often the situation that having found a good base, explorations are made far and wide without properly finding out what is on one's doorstep. Crief offers several fine restaurants and one using a converted bank had recently offered a night of five courses with appropriately selected wines for £40 a head. The second virtue of note is Gordon and Durward who from 1925 have made sweets on the premises, tablets, Fudge, Macaroon, Snowballs and Sugar Mice. What attracted me were the banks of traditional glass jars filled with a colourful assortment of hard boiled soft centred memories of childhood from chocolate limes and pear drops, to those with liquorice centres and sherbet. A few doors away was one of two stores selling the range of pure Scottish single malts and I decided on a selection of miniatures and one full bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet presented in a leather feel box. It was soon time for a mug of coffee and tea cake and an overheard conversation about the reduction in visitors over recent years and lack of optimism for the coming season with the summer half term holiday of the English next week.

I then stopped at a factory outlet for Scottish and Irish glass and found an attractive Waterford Swan, and purchased a pair together with a rose paperweight. As these were to be gifts I removed the prices and code marks on return, and then in horror found that the seahorse stamp of excellence was missing from the swans although in it what appeared to be original boxes and marked Waterford. They are perhaps seconds rather than fakes but were not marked as such.

I should have been aware that the day had gone too well by what happened on the return journey although having missed the unction turn at a crucial point; the subsequent detour enabled me to pass by the Gleneagles Hotel, golf and activity centre which I had often seen on TV and wondered where it was located. Now I know, but the journey through the valley was a disappointment because vehicles insisted on driving up to my bumper forcing me to drive at their pace and without opportunity to pull to one side.

Fortunately the required early departure means that I can return the glassware and seek an explanation. There is a bonus because although I purchased two lots of five 100 gram selections of the sweets they do not fill the glass display jars purchased to create delight for any recipient, so it is an ill wind. However it could have been a perfect day. It then became worse. What did I say about nature retaliating when we do not make appropriate tribute for its gifts to us?

I returned the following morning to factory glassware shop at Crief and obtained a reluctant refund although the assistant could offer no explanation for the lack of official marking and denied that Waterford issued seconds. I will not let the matter rest and will contact the company and the appropriate Scottish authorities. It was necessary to buy a similar quantity of hard boiled sweets as yesterday in order to fill the jars, but it did result in some for me.

The journey homeward was horrendous although it was my fault. If I had thought more carefully I would have travelled west from Crief to Stirling for the motorway to Edinburgh and missing the two main bridge routes. Instead in a moment of forgetfulness I went east to join the Forth bridge motorway route forgetting the delays of the weekend and that this was a bank holiday. At the last moment I headed west again towards Kincardine thus avoiding a two hour wait. However at Kincardine the queues built up to that after half an hour of crawl I turned back and headed up towards Stirling. It was five before reaching Shields and visiting my mother, and then getting back and unpacking, sorting the post and beginning to catch up on communications. But I had the images of my near perfect day.

1087 Scotland re-experienced

Recreating my experience of holidays in Scotland was the purpose of a visit made to a new location this week, and unexpectedly it immediately brought back memories of my first. Rabbits scampering close up from every window viewpoint and earlier this evening as I went out to the car, although they rushed away at speed, one stayed. At one point there were twelve into two areas. My mother once attempted to breed rabbits in post war rationing, but the pair just became more and more fat, at her expense, and were taken to the butchers, and although we had rabbit stew from time to time, they went to the table of others. After Watership Down, the book, the radio play and the film, I can look back to her enterprise with humour, and pleasure that we need not eat them

In the mid 1970's the first holiday visit to Scotland was to an isolated hillside cottage in the Tay valley, reached by a grassland track from an off road drive and every evening after a meal until dusk, the rabbits feeding and scampering, provided nightly entertainment over a gloriously warm May week. So far the weather this May week has been mixed, as it was some thirty years ago when a second visit was made to a different property on the same estate and there was opportunity to explore further afield beyond the Tummel Valley, north to the Cairngorms where the chair lift was taken to the top, and then along Glen Lyon , and to the Trossachs and Lake Katrine, and Rannoch moor, with regular visits to Aberfeldy, to Kenmore and Killin, There was also a yearn to conquer my fear of heights and attempt the climb of Ben Lawers. A decade later there was a return to the Tay to a lodge and reaching the top of the mountain.

Last week I arranged this trip on impulse, somewhere in Scotland, not too far, somewhere like Loch Lomond, North of Glasgow or around the Trossachs, north of Edinburgh. My first choice being unavailable I accepted the suggestion of an alternative, a location which shall remain a secret except to family and trusted friends because of its peaceful location and the quality of the accommodation unit. Purpose designed by its owner there is comfortable seating and dining for six, with an ensuite double, a twin and one with bunks and sufficient clothes hanging and storage for the entire wardrobe of a family should care to bring. The main bathroom has a wall to wall surface and with drawers enabling a parade of every ones toiletries and the kitchen area is better than all my previously owned properties.

Instead of touring I am enjoying working, thinking and being. You can feel isolated in a home in the midst of a city, but with no one occupying any of the other lodges, I am at one with myself and the universe in this isolation.

Since my first holiday to Scotland I have stayed at Lodges and other forms of accommodation at Aviemore at Loch Oich and Loch Lochy and Loch Goil, at Hunters Quay Holy Loch in Christmas New Year snow time, on the west bank of Loch Lomond, near Pitlochry and Loch Earn, in Dumfries and at the top end of Loch Long. I have stayed in a hotel at Oman and camped all over with a week at a Forestry commission site, note sure where, and will have to check when I return home, long tours visiting other lochs and glens, and up and down the peninsular.

I give thanks for these experiences, for being in harmony, and for not feeling guilty.

1084 Car Hiring

The past four days have been a mini adventure of additional experience. I hesitate to say new experience because its substance recaptured aspects of previous experience. It began with going and returning a hired car. There were two reasons for making the investment. I wanted to create a different image as my vehicle is old like me, and designed for the conveyance of the old and those big of limb. Because it is old, there is that element of uncertainty about all long journeys which I wanted to avoid. I decided to collect the vehicle from Newcastle airport rather than locally, or from Newcastle city centre. It is twenty seven stations from my end of one line here to the airport extension and involves one change of train as the line commences in Sunderland at its other end.

Many of the Metro stations have artworks and during the summer I plan to visit all of these with my camera as well as getting off as at many of the other stations and just taking a walk about. There are not 101 stations but if you count in dual line stations there are some eighty stops to make and with return visits where there is more to see than on one half day venture I should be able to make that 101 over time.

The journey began with an interesting event as a couple joined at a early station, in their forties I would guess and very tactile, touching, caressing, a few kisses and obviously engrossed with each other and unconcerned at the reactions of other passengers. It was evident from the conversation that they were on some form of sexual adventure together which may have already commenced, or was in its early stages, as at one point she placed one of her legs over his, deliberately wicked, before correcting herself. She was an attractive well dressed woman without a regional accent while he was confident, local, and appeared to be having the time of his life. What was their story, I wished I could know?

I often react this way when on public transport. Sometimes I look at a figure, usually female, and see them naked. This is not a sexual interest but curiosity about what the person is really like, once you strip away the clothes they are wearing, although you can tell a lot from how people dress, how they stand and hold themselves, how they behave in public and interact with others. As a young man I failed as a salesperson of typewriters for an internationally known Italian company whose machines were better on design that typing effectiveness, and in order to pass the time I would take a three pence ticket on the London underground from one station to another on the circle line but continue for the whole circuit which I think took something like 56 57 minutes. I was never alone in this escapade because by reaching the half way point round point it was evident that three distinct groups of other passengers were doing the same thing. The truanting school children, the old, keeping out of the cold and rain, and salesmen, in those days it was a male enterprise. Our company employed over 100 sales personnel in the area of the underground and it was known that anyone else making the trip could be found in the last compartments of the train making alternate circuits each day. It was thus I commenced the observation and curiosity of other travellers or those who appeared to spend unusual amounts of time in public places, city pubs in winter, and city open spaces in warmer times. Now of course there are cameras everywhere, so individual who lingers and the curiosity observer will be noted and checked if the behaviour is prolonged or unusual.

I mentioned the older couple because on the return I had a cup of coffee and lunchtime chicken with lemon sandwich at the airport Starbucks and sat at a table from a young couple, she hungry excited at whatever venture they were undertaking, having removed her glasses and all touchy feely, and he looking pleased but a little embarrassed. I did not look for more than a moment because to do so with them was an intrusion despite the public nature of the location sitting within the international arrivals and departure reception area, with the café service area to one side and the information tourist centre to the other and the special assistance seating to another. If this had been Paris or Rome there would have been much more of touching and feeling in public by all but the married and the old, but In England we are still embarrassed although it is changing when about five years ago I met a former work colleague who I had not seen for close on a decade previously and I was given a great embrace, when previously our relationship had been formal. At least I was not given a kiss which I still think is inappropriate unless the individual is a long term friend or a new lover.

There is something exciting about airports. That sense of a new adventure, or having a different quality of lifestyle. Of course if you fly enough it becomes just a means of getting from A to B although not necessarily quicker for inland routes, given have now to get there hours before boarding and the location of airports. I prefer first class train travel if I want to work or think, enjoy a meal. There was a period in the early 1980's when British rail trains were reaching the end of their effective lives and trains were breaking down and being taken out of service or drivers were not arriving when expected. I was undertaking work in London during the week, an official enquiry expected the last between four and six weeks which continued for thirteen, and where because of the workload it was necessary to continue until late afternoon Friday and return Sunday afternoon and with constant break downs and delays. I switched to the plane, but quickly longed for the train. You had just about settled in your seat when it was time to refasten seat belts for the descent and the long underground ride into central and East London where I was based was unenjoyable. Today I remembered it was getting on for three years since my last plane trip and how wished I was going to some place new or returning to rediscover somewhere previously visited.

There are three aspects of my car hire experience to be recorded. paid in advance for a full tank of diesel assured this was a good deal but the extent of my travels led to the car telling me that I had to refill on my way back to the airport, so I went to a garage convinced that the petrol cover would be released by the multi opening/locking key. It did not, and a quick check of the controls, more about them tomorrow, did not produce a solution. Another vehicle owner could not help, nor could the two staff at the petrol station, but a young man, checking tyre pressures on his fast car, worked out where the release button was located. I did not feel as much a fool as yesterday however, when I used the vehicle for a town centre shop and on returning to the multi story could I find the vehicle, could I not, up and down each level of floors although I thought I knew, as I did which side and where the vehicle had been parked. In desperation I went to the ground floor to work all the way up with increasing dread that I had not locked and it had been stolen, and I could not remembered the registration number or had the written down papers with me. However there it was, just half a level up from the entrance, and my mother is the one with memory loss! I had gone for some replacement black shirts, amazingly at only £4 at Primax, after finding that other stores did not have any in my collar size. This was doubly fortunate, because in addition to their cheapness, I was able to strip off and use the old one as a mop, as my body was drenched from the sweat of fear that the vehicle had been stolen. It reminds of the instance when going to a football at the Borough some 30 miles away I had not been able to find the vehicle on foot, after the match ended and it was necessary for someone to come out where I was by the phone booth and go in search.

The third aspect is that I ordered the vehicle on the internet without a too close inspection of the small print, marvelling at the inexpensive nature of the contract only to find that that a third extra was required in insurance premiums unless I was willing to gamble on not have a any kind of knock where the surcharge could be as much as £600. The system was a good one because on return having paid for the diesel up front it was just a few seconds before the return procedure was completed. I know you will have expected me to say more. Perhaps tomorrow?

1083 How Many children will die today?

How many children died today that I or you will never know?They were conceived without intention and disposed off without reason, but what reason can there be for ending any life just as it has begun?

How many children died to day that you and I will never know? They were born with a physical condition which limits their span of life, but if we converted our wealth from battles and bombs into research then we might unravel the way to prolong and to repair.
How man children died today from disease, hunger and malnutrition, I do not know?

How many children died today by accident, in the home, playing unaware of a danger, or cut down by a vehicle whose driver was not ready to react more quickly? Do you know?

How many children died to-day in a war or killed by a relative or stranger and recorded in some form of media?

How many children died today?

There is one child missing who may be dead and we all know her name. It will seem wrong to all the parents and family members that so much attention has been devoted to her and not to their grief and pain, but the attention is good because it reminds of all the children who died today and who we do not know.

There is one child, or two, or three and more, who we all hope did not die today.

You have echoed my sentiments exactly. So many children die needlessly, in pain, or live with regret and fear or hatred in a world where they are forgotten, disposed of like trash, or abused to a point of n emotional return. I am only too aware of how precious mothers day really is with us nearly losing Maddison so many times....As I go to sleep i will say a prayer for those children lost to the unknown.
Posted by ANGELICLYNORTE on 12:05 - 12:49

this is good but you forgot one ,how many children died today from abuse and neglect
Posted by john on 01:05 - 01:18

1081 Krishnamurti

Today, Friday, looked as if it was going to become a perfect day of new and revived experiences. Although I had stayed up late, I awoke early and felt relaxed and refreshed, sitting before a large window looking at the changing landscape as clouds assembled to hide the sun, turning to lashing rain, and then to a brightness sufficient for the owners of the site to start a bonfire.

The situation reminded me of my first experience forty years before when in my first year as a professional child care officer I had been invited to stay at the lake district home of a friend and spent the early morning and part of the evening watching the effects of clouds and changing light upon the water and the hills beyond. Some landscape painters and photographers, poets and gifted writers of prose are able to capture something more than their experience of the moment but nature has never surrendered to me as it has to them. I have a continuous debate about the extent to which anyone should attempt to master the material world, without contributing something of equal measure in return. When individually and collectively we abuse and exploit nature we should not be surprised when nature finds a way of punishing us back.

The weather appeared to settle although the forecast suggested showers, with some heavy, but the inclination was to go out to explore the reality of memory, despite a programme of work requiring attention. I could attempt to make up the latter, but might not have the opportunity to revisit all the places where previous experience merited review. The plan was to head north along to Crief, Aberfeldy, and Loch Tay.

The route to Crief was an unexpected glorious surprise with rhododendrons giving way to long banks of yellow gorse as I entered one of the beautiful glens of Scotland which opened up to a vast panorama of distant hills. Because I frequently stopped to view and digest the wonder, it was almost lunchtime time before arriving at Crief and I found a car park after motoring through the town centre when I eat a prepared salad, a buttered roll and the cream apple turnover left over from yesterday.

I was able to recall previously passing through Crief, but not having stopped, and full of the pleasure of the journey so far, I decided to walk the town and then return repeating my morning journey in reverse, and without travelling north as planned. It is often the situation that having found a good base, explorations are made far and wide without properly finding out what is on one's doorstep. Crief offers several fine restaurants and one using a converted bank had recently offered a night of five courses with appropriately selected wines for £40 a head. The second virtue of note is Gordon and Durward who from 1925 have made sweets on the premises, tablets, Fudge, Macaroon, Snowballs and Sugar Mice. What attracted me were the banks of traditional glass jars filled with a colourful assortment of hard boiled soft centred memories of childhood from chocolate limes and pear drops, to those with liquorice centres and sherbet. A few doors away was one of two stores selling the range of pure Scottish single malts and I decided on a selection of miniatures and one full bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet presented in a leather feel box. It was soon time for a mug of coffee and tea cake and an overheard conversation about the reduction in visitors over recent years and lack of optimism for the coming season with the summer half term holiday of the English next week.

I then stopped at a factory outlet for Scottish and Irish glass and found an attractive Waterford Swan, and purchased a pair together with a rose paperweight. As these were to be gifts I removed the prices and code marks on return, and then in horror found that the seahorse stamp of excellence was missing from the swans although in it what appeared to be original boxes and marked Waterford. They are perhaps seconds rather than fakes but were not marked as such.

I should have been aware that the day had gone too well by what happened on the return journey although having missed the unction turn at a crucial point; the subsequent detour enabled me to pass by the Gleneagles Hotel, golf and activity centre which I had often seen on TV and wondered where it was located. Now I know, but the journey through the valley was a disappointment because vehicles insisted on driving up to my bumper forcing me to drive at their pace and without opportunity to pull to one side.

Fortunately the required early departure means that I can return the glassware and seek an explanation. There is a bonus because although I purchased two lots of five 100 gram selections of the sweets they do not fill the glass display jars purchased to create delight for any recipient, so it is an ill wind. However it could have been a perfect day. It then became worse. What did I say about nature retaliating when we do not make appropriate tribute for its gifts to us?

I returned the following morning to factory glassware shop at Crief and obtained a reluctant refund although the assistant could offer no explanation for the lack of official marking and denied that Waterford issued seconds. I will not let the matter rest and will contact the company and the appropriate Scottish authorities. It was necessary to buy a similar quantity of hard boiled sweets as yesterday in order to fill the jars, but it did result in some for me.

The journey homeward was horrendous although it was my fault. If I had thought more carefully I would have travelled west from Crief to Stirling for the motorway to Edinburgh and missing the two main bridge routes. Instead in a moment of forgetfulness I went east to join the Forth bridge motorway route forgetting the delays of the weekend and that this was a bank holiday. At the last moment I headed west again towards Kincardine thus avoiding a two hour wait. However at Kincardine the queues built up to that after half an hour of crawl I turned back and headed up towards Stirling. It was five before reaching Shields and visiting my mother, and then getting back and unpacking, sorting the post and beginning to catch up on communications. But I had the images of my near perfect day.

1650 The political legacy of Ivan Cameron

I was still puzzling over an original dream experience yesterday morning when I switched on the TV for the first time in the day just before 11.30 am to watch the talk leading to Prime Minister’s Question Time when the programme announced the death of the son of the Opposition leader, the Conservative politician David Cameron. Ivan was six years of age and suffered from a rare form of cerebral palsy which involved minor and life threatening epileptic fits throughout the day and night. Sadly his death did not come to his parents as a shock as it was something they had expected since the disability was diagnosed shortly after his birth, and there had been several life threatening moments beforehand.

Fortunately, the condition is a rare one although the number of children with the more severe forms off cerebral palsy is not. It is estimated that there are only about 100 children in the world with the added problem of constant and sometimes severe epileptic fits which is called Ohtahara Syndrome and where half are known to die within the first two years.

Little is known about the cause of a disease which is a form of brain damage and therefore the rest of the body does not receive the signals required for normal development. The disease is detected within the first days and one impact on the individual life is the failure to grow and develop normal functioning.

The Cameron’s son, Ivan was completely dependent and was unable to speak although he could communicate with his eyes and could smile. The Cameron’s were fortunate in having the means to afford the best level of help and physical adaptations within the home and to effectively lead “normal” lives with their two children. However anyone who has had contact with those who decide to directly care for a disabled child, adult or aged parent know how it impacts on the lives of everyone in the home, on relationships between couples, between couples and their children and affecting anyone else living in the household.

In the instances of the Cameron’s there is his work as a party political leader and potentially the next Prime Minister and there are also the social roles expected of the wife of a the leader of a political party, and potentially that of a Prime Minister.

One of my earliest experiences as a child care officer in training was to be sent to spend just an afternoon to a hospital catering for severely disabled children and I was asked to sit with a boy who had no mobility and no communication but who I found responded with his eyes to my presence after he became aware that I was there and staying there for what became two hours. I was the only person, other than staff, that the boy had seen since his admission to the hospital several years before. The experience affected my deeply. I am no good at visual memory but I remember him and the emotions experienced that day and the joy I experienced when I knew he was aware of my presence and was responding. I did not experience the same feelings again until forty years later and visiting my care mother in hospital after she had, as it developed, only temporarily recovered, from an infection contracted at a hospital where she did not want to be, and had said so prior to admission. Then in 2007 it was my privilege to send time with my birth mother who aged 100 and not very different from Ivan in that she was completely dependent on others, had no speech, was unable to digest food or drink, was at peace and ahs the priest who attended in ehr last week observed, as ha also the parish priest when visiting her earlier at the hopme comments, you could see the faith and the acceptance fo what was happening in her eyes.

The difference between the experience of all parents and relatives with a severely disabled child and Mr and Mrs Cameron, and all those who also are the parents of children with a similar condition, is the uncertainty and the knowledge that there is a one in two chance that the child will not reach its second birthday and that every day after that is a bonus.

It is understood that it has been necessary for the child to receive medical care in hospital on several occasions and that the outcome was always uncertain and therefore when it was necessary for him to attend again during the early of Wednesday morning they would have hoped to have brought him home again. This was not to be.

It would have been possible for Prime Minister’s Question Time to have continued as planned with former Party Leader William Hague briefed for the six questions that Mr Cameron would have posed. It was clear from what Mr Hague said that it was the suggestion of the Prime Minister that in the circumstances, the half an hour period should be cancelled, only the second time this has happened, the first with the sudden death of the Labour Leader of the Opposition, John Smith in 1994 and which led to the election of Tony Blair

I thought what the Prime Minister had to say was moving and effective and would have helped Mr Cameron and his wife as well as their two children if they were able to watch. I felt it was the real Mr Brown speaking rather than Mr Brown playing the role of Prime Minister under fire from the Opposition at Question Time. This says more about the value of P.M.Q’s than about the ability of Mr Brown and for which Mr Cameron in particular must take responsibility for having stated he wanted to end Punch and Judy politics he has become its leading and most effective exponent, and indeed he has scored many telling points over recent months, so I understand why he has persisted. The problem is that Mr Brown has responded with increasing confidence and the exchanges have only served to create a divide when what the nation needs is unity of purpose and in approach. As Mr Hague and the Liberal Social Democrat deputy Vince Cable adopted the approach of the statesmen they both are, I am sure I was not alone in thinking that if only the weekly exchange could be conducted in a similar fashion in the future or abolished.

Mr Brown in particular and the British media subsequently, also emphasised the more general significance of death of a child to any parent who has found themselves in a similar situation, and the younger the age of the child the more tragic does everyone who learns of the event feel. All the TV news media were able to speak on camera to parents of such children and to doctors and help networks, so that out of this one tragedy it is to be hoped there will be greater public attention and support for those in similar situations. The following day I watched part of a TV phone in programme where bereaved parents expressed their grief and others in similar position explained some of the issues in their lives, with one in particular mentioning that an able bodied child had asked that dreaded question, “does this mean my brother or sister was likely to die as well.”

Andrew Neil mentioned in the late night Politics’ show that members of the public had asked why there was not a similar response in the House of Commons to the deaths of British servicemen reported killed in Afghanistan this week and in most week’s now. I have previously mentioned that I wrote to the Three Political Parties and the Speaker of the House of the House of Commons that it had become incongruous for the three Party leaders to express their sorrow at the passing of lives of the service personnel and the immediately move on to knockabout party politics trying to make a media catching headline. In fact there has been a sense of ritual about such announcements over recent months. My suggestion was that the Speaker of the House should announce the deaths and expressed the sympathy of the House and then there should be a pause of one minute or two.

However the decision of the Prime Minister to curtail Question time was the right one in the particular circumstances and because of the timing and does not involve a precedent.

A different issues raised beforehand was the decision of the Party Leader to talk about his son and children, to show them without he family home on television and talk about the family experience of using the NHS at his Party’s annual political conference. In general it is important to separate the public and the private and I have made this one aspect of my work project. First there is the issue of parental power and authority and whether children will regret the publicity in the future even if they give their consent in the present. There is the problem that having given consent once the danger is that that it will be regarded as licence by some sections of the media, especially those from other countries who do not have the same restraints as in the UK, to trail the youngsters subsequently, especially when they become adolescents. There is the inevitable accusation of using the children as props for political posturing.

However, given that I support a different political party, I can say with conviction that having heard the Desert Island Discs programme, the home interview ans heard the whole of the speech to Party Conference as well as other news media, Mr Cameron has demonstrated that for any rule, principle or approach in general there are always exceptions and which also emphasises that it is often not what you do but how you do it. For me the most revealing truth si that of the photograph of Mr Cameron holding his son, kissing him on the cheek. For a child whose must have found life frightening and frustrating, especially with a brother and sister who could move, talk and sing the picture communicates security, comfort and love. Something which could not be posed and which can only reflect something deeper and ongoing. That it was expressed with a father reveals the nature of the man, It also speaks volumes for the mother of the child

Nick Robinson of the BBC made the point, as he often has before, that because of their different backgrounds and personalities Mr Cameron and the Prime Minister have little in common and it is said that Mr Brown does not like Mr Cameron. Certainly Mr Cameron has appeared passionate about his view that the country would do better with a different Prime Minister that goes beyond normal political ambitions of an opposition leader. Yet the extraordinary fact is that the Prime Minister, and in particular his wife will be among the few at Westminster with first hand experience of such as situation as the couple lost their first child after only ten days.

Some people are better than others at not allowing the realities of human life to intrude in their occupational life and certainly a cool head and steady hand in required at times of crisis or when facing difficult decisions where doing what is right for the country, or just doing what is right will conflict with the interests of the Political Party or personal interests.

However the track record suggests that the Prime Minister is more able to cope and adjust to such a situation than Mr Cameron. What has worried me, until yesterday, is that far from communication a mood of shock, horror, anger, concern and worry over the unfolding financial and economic situation, Gordon Brown has appeared buoyant as clearly his approach and efforts to reverse the rapid descent into economic depression has struck a chord with politicians in Europe, in the USA and around the world, and his position as Labour Party appeared to become unchallenged and his prospect of remaining Prime Minister after the next General Election appeared significantly improved. The worse the situation became, the more confident and happier Mr Brown appeared to be and he even appeared to thrive at the succession of clever and damaging attacks Mr Cameron was making at Prime Minister’s Question Time. My hunch is that Mr Cameron will be more affected by the death of his son that even he can appreciate at this time.

If it were to become a straight choice between voting for a man who always hid or tried to hide what he felt when before the camera and the media or a person who sometimes lets their emotions get the better of them, then my vote will go to Mr Cameron.

However, although we have moved into the era of Presidential election for the UK General Election, the Prime Minister leads a government of individuals within a political party with a manifesto and planned programme as well as a history. It is wise to vote for or against the total package rather than one individual however appealing.
How both Prime Minister and Mr Cameron respond to this death, and to the media and public response, is likely to govern the outcome of the General Election than most events, including the perilous economic situation. However whatever I think now, subsequent events over the time until the General Election could changes things dramatically either way. My hunch is that the life and death of Ivan Cameron will have a profound effect on the future of British Politics and that the effect will be a positive one. I hope so.

1078 Perception and Pain

Like Sophie Calle I have been fascinated how the same object, the same experience, can appear from the different perspectives of space, time and people. I studied perception both when taking Psychology as part of a Public and Social Administration Diploma at Oxford and then while studying to become a child care officer. I still have a yellowing copy of the Pelican paperback edition of Professor Vernon's Psychology of Perception. I remain fascinated by the interaction between what we believe we see, what the brain tells us we are looking at and experiencing, and how our memory recreates that experience for us, and how it is possible to write about the same experience from different viewpoints.

Even when we have some memento, a photograph, a film, a sound, do we remember the objective reality, our response to it, our feelings, the colours, the smells, how things felt when we touched them, and how does our experience correspond to others who were there at the time or who come to the object, or reported experience, some time later. My interest has increased following the gradual grip of the illness of severe memory loss on my mother, with the consequential slipping in and out of time and place periods without any evident relationship to the present stimuli.
Recently I was asked for my memories of my first school. I have one photograph of myself with six other boys in white and three girls in their brides dresses after we had made our first communion and returned to school for our special breakfast in the school hall. I never went back inside the building, although it continued for another decade or so before being rebuilt as part of a then horrendous housing development on the former Croydon airport for inner London overspill, and heralded the end of the home town as peaceful surrey suburb for those who could afford to live there. I did go on special mission, but the building was closed for the summer. After in had become a children's day nursery. I took a couple of photos and decided not to return, remembering the fear.

Ever since, I have been unsure about the inside of the main building which was more a hall with an entrance, classrooms to one side and possibly at the back. The inside of the hall is a memory, but not if there was a stage at one end. I remember the corridor, the side class rooms, and the semi detached house which the school acquired during my period there from 1944 to 1951, a longer time that usual because I was kept down having to repeat a year at the age of ten, losing all my former class mates and having to get used to new ones. The decision was humiliating and proved a double disaster because I still failed the eleven plus.

I have memories, some already written about in 101 in Black and White, the printed but unpublished work which is to be exhibited as a contemporary art work, one day, in black and white boxes grouped according to the day month and year of birth, and others where I hesitate, do I really want to parade the details of the fear?

It was long time before I understood some of the origins of the fear. There was the normal healthy fear from not wanting to be blown to bits and dying in agony, from some German bomb, dropped by someone ordered to do so, or with enthusiasm because the pilot and crew identified with the concept of the supremacy of one race upon others. One of my many contradictions is that I continue to believe that only through non violent action can violence be defeated, but I also believe it is the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens from the threat of all those prepared to kill indiscriminately and part of me does not care how the state decides to do that.

Some of the fear was psychologically transferred because my very existence had to be a secret. What if i was asked who my mother was? Worse still who was my father? When I first went to school I had no idea what part a father played in the creation of ones being. It was only an awareness that other children lived with a mother and a father. When you have a weird childhood upbringing you tend to make assumptions about everyone else being normal.

Then there was fear of hell and the devil created, primarily by the devout Catholic head of school. Once I had what can only be described as a waking dream, when I was in bed in daytime during one of my many childhood illnesses. I still retain the feeling and something of the image which has been captured by others in their description of the devil, in their writing and on film, but then I thought the experience was unique.

Because my childhood was weird it did not mean that I was unhappy, or that I dreaded going to school. I was just afraid.

It seems to me that we do ourselves and our children wrong by pretending that we are not afraid of much of what happens to us in life. What we should do is on focussing on the ability to be afraid and to cope, and do what we know to be right regardless of consequence. And his includes facing the reality of death.

Most of my life I lived experience intensely, understanding that life as it was known to me could end at any second. It was not that I was afraid of death although I did not and do not want life to end.
I am not sure how I will cope with prolonged physical pain. I managed to stifle tears when I was given the strap at school by a French Teacher who lost it and lashed out on a dozen of us, and who disappeared immediately afterwards. Today we would have sued for what was unjustified criminal assault. Then I was more afraid of what the aunties would say, so I said nothing.

When I entered the school boxing competition I was hit hard in the face several times, as in those days head helmets were not worn, and was unhappy about the decision to call the fight off as I was able to prove to myself I could take a beating, and was subsequently upset when the aunties refused to let me join the boxing club. I was once thrown repeatedly in the air and fell down on others and the roadway but do not remember feeling pain as such.

I have also known emotional pain, I say emotional rather than mental because it is a feeling condition, but unlike that of a physical experience, which I have known through the usual knocks and falls.

It is impossible to feel the pain of others but one can experience an agony of mind at the emotional horror which others experience. The agony arises because of helplessness at having failed to prevent, even more so when the event is unrelated to you, and you cannot provide direct comfort and support. You also know something of what is to be endured.

In my work it is easy to recreate the good and happy times, but recreating and reporting ones stupidity and humiliation is a challenge I am just beginning to face.

1077 An old man visits Newcastle at Night

Yesterday evening, Thursday, the regional TV announced that one of seven bridges which cross the river Tyne at Newcastle was to commence fifteen years of a subtle light show artwork experience, so having worked out that there was nothing which could not be left I ventured into the dusk and took the opportunity to investigate something of the city night life.

I have never been a night life person, going out to clubs and pubs, and the like, although as a teenager when working in the centre of London, I was introduced to the world of traditional jazz played mainly in Soho, but where one of the most famous clubs was at 100 Oxford Street. The most memorable escapade was to attend the Cy Laurie Club which was in the same street as the famous Windmill theatre and adjacent to sandwich milk bar used by ladies of the night, I and my companion then moved on to the Skiffle Cellar, for a succession of bands though the rest of the night until 6am, going out at 2 am to get a first edition of a Sunday paper, and to see what happening in Soho at that hour; then returning to the hotel for wash and breakfast before going to the embankment for a day long Riverboat shuffle along the Thames to Margate and back, and where the playing of When the Saints Come In, by Sandy Brown and his sidemen for about half an hour while we docked on return, blew the mind of Howard McGhee and Sonny Terry who had come from the USA with their style of authentic Blues.

Two decades later as still a comparatively young man, or so I thought, I went on an after evening meal walkabout in a Spanish holiday resort famed for its nightlife, and was amazed to find dozens of scantily dressed young men and women handing out invitations to bars, clubs and disco's to most passers bar, but none was offered to me and my partner. It was one of those holiday packages where you are assigned a meal table shared with another couple, and who were barely in their twenties and regarded us as ancients from another planet. Conversation was difficult so I mentioned the experience of the previous evening and they enjoyed saying they had collected forty.

Although I enjoyed many evening walks in Mediterranean lands since and regularly passed through part of Newcastle's nightlife districts on the way to and from evening football, I have never ventured to exploring the scene again until last night.

Yesterday I worked out that the best route was to take the metro train to Newcastle Station and then make my way down to the Quayside and view the event from the swing bridge and through the pillars of a bridge where although the railway line continues the lower road part has been closed for extensive repairs. The route I took went by a pub advertising a rock band and a Spanish restaurant both which merited closer inspection. The route then joins the main street to the quayside full of bars and eateries including a vegetarian pub. As mentioned in the previous writing, the men on the doors all qualified for parts in Get Carter.

As no one else was preparing for the light show on the swing bridge and a few souls were making their way along the bank towards the metro train bridge, I followed, after taking some amazing pictures of Newcastle buildings reflected in the bulbous glass structure of the Sage music centre, with was framed by the High Level and Millennium Bridges.

The undistinguished modern barn of a building on the bank walkway had become a fairyland night club and across the road in the terrace of ancient dwellings the first floor disco bar was offering double and trebles at ridiculously low prices and attracting some trade just before 9 pm. I made my way to another modern building directly on the river bank, the Quayside, which has been brilliantly designed, furnished and decorated inside to create a dozen separate spaces to meet with friends or for a private tete-a-tete, the outside spaces to front and side were also crowded with those who like to smoke with their drink and chat. I remembered how to find the toilet from a previous visit when if you go early enough you can park and then climb up the hill for the match. What had not been appreciated that one can walk along the bank for at least a mile as the area has been relit, repaved and the bank cultivated with seating here and there. Outside the modern Copthorne Hotel there was an assembly of suits and invited ladies from the Passenger Travel Company, Nexus, the artist and artwork sponsors and others connected with the creation of the biggest public art work in the United Kingdom.

I break off momentarily to greet Barry, a new friend request from Bristol whose photos include a deep clean brain appearance restorer, and whose own appearance suggests the kind of person who will enjoy Newcastle after dark.

The QE II Metro Bridge was built from 1976 to 1979 to carry Metro trains between Newcastle and Gateshead.

The through-truss steel girder construction was built out from each bank, with the two sections meeting on August 1, 1978. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II when Her Majesty officially opened Metro in November 1981. The span between the concrete piers is 168 metres, at the time of construction the longest of its kind in Europe. The full length of the bridge is 360 metres.

Because the light artwork covers the full length of the bridge it can claim to be the largest public art work. The creator of the work, chosen from twenty applicants is Nayan Kulkarni; a graduate of London's Slade School of Art and who is renowned for his work using art as a means to transform public spaces. He is involved in architectural and design collaborations which exploit engineering design and technologically advanced materials, through his studio NKProjects. NKProjects is currently involved in large-scale public art projects Sky Mirror & Constellations (Birmingham), Glazed Roof Design (Bristol Broadmead Development), Parkland Gateway (Corby), and Breaking Boundaries (Ashford). I look forward to hearing Brian's views of the Broadmead development.

My arrival at the main vantage point was timely because there was a bang and burst of fireworks high into the night sky on both banks at the precise announced time of 9.15pm. This startled two school age young women who had cycled down after completing homework, but they were disappointed by the show, having expected a blaze off coloured lights, The work comprises a constantly array of lighting changes and colours in sequence around both sides of the bridge, sometimes momentarily covering its whole length, sometimes just a couple of struts. Although multicolouring is possible, the intention is for display to be an integral part of the structure and its environment, and the sequencing and colouring can be changed by the public uploading a colour photograph, which makes the performance interactive with anyone, anywhere, anytime with the technology, now where have I seen that written before!

I left the crowd and walked on along the bank path to the second railway bridge and the comparatively new west end road crossing bridge, the sixth, and which caused an identity crisis for the Five Bridges Hotel, which is also said to have reported to considered jumping off its nearest bridge when the seventh was assembled in 1999 for the Millennium. Is there anywhere else in the world with so many crossing in such a compact distance? It was a pleasant night but I decided to leave walking further on and return to an exploration of the city night life which confirmed that Thursdays is a bad night when at times there appeared to be more nights spots than punters. I did encounter two party's of lads, unusual not because they were a mixture of ages from twenty to mid fifties, but because they were lads whereas normally the parties of young and not so young women on the rampage. My last encounter with such a party was in Shields the night before driving back from my mothers, when a dozen or so ladies dressed in black headed towards the nightlife district, accompanying one bride to be also in black, wearing her veil and a Learner sign. I stayed for a while listening to the rockband whose music could be heard at a distance, and also noting that the Spanish restaurant provided full meals, was well patronised, but then returned to South Shields, and feeling still energetic took the long way home into the town centre where the music and lighting roared at you for customers who apart from those already inside, and me, appeared to consist for a disparate couple in the their forties at the end of the station platform complete with bags of cans, looking for somewhere to party and perhaps a bed for the night, I say this disparate aspect because I was given the once over by the woman, and an inviting smile which suggested desperateness (I look in the mirror), and further on where six establishments were in adjoining competition there were two women in their thirties also in black who also gave me the once over but no smile, but although I smiled at them. Then I understood what the bouncers were for. They were not for keeping aged folk like me out, but for keeping in those who had already crossed the threshold.

1076 Newcastle City of Culture 0 Liverpool 1

I had only been once to Newcastle before 1974, representing Cheshire County Council at a meeting of local authority councillors in the Northern Region concerned with the welfare of either the blind or the deaf. Cheshire did not nominate Councillors so as an officer I was there as an observer. I cannot remember if I travelled by car or train, if and where I stayed and my only memory is that meeting was held at an old building which involved a climb of stairs between levels of the city. I should be able to find the documentation and remember more in a box of memorabilia from when I worked for the County Council, 1971-1973.

Nor can I remember when I first viewed the Michael Caine 1971 Gangster film Get Carter, based on situations in Newcastle, Gateshead and Tyneside and where Michael Brady has created an internet site which includes about 80 stills from the film and his own photographs of the present day locations.

http://www.aouq09.dsl.pipex.com/getcarter/list.htm

From 1974 I had direct contact with councillors and officers who were active during the dark days of the Dan Smith John Poulson corruption scandal, and I also met Dan after his release from prison when he worked for ex offenders and I was to my knowledge the only local authority chief officer who had been to prison before his or her appointment. What has to be said is that Dan did transform Newcastle, although those of us who prefer the sight of old buildings and detest the concrete still shudder. But he meant well and those who worked with him retained the highest regard.

The most important portrayal of life on Tyneside and its criminal and political post war past is the TV series, Our Friends in the North, set between the sixties and nineties, and those wanting to savour the authentic flavour of 1920's Tyneside, there is the James Bolam staring series of When the Boat Comes In.

All this is Newcastle past, and if you look up T Dan Smith on the internet he comes after Art prints, a comedian and a jet set bachelor. Newcastle has and is being regenerated with three buildings acting as beacons. The first is the Sage on Gateshead, externally far short of the Sydney Opera House, but this is a building to experience on the inside and look out, and its second auditorium is the most wondrous place, a modern day Globe for individual musician singer or small group, although my first experience was in the audience for a genuinely impressed Jonathan Dimbleby's Any Questions. The second building is the European world wide quality stadium of St James Park, alas the football does not match, and I know, I was there, echoes, of Max Boyce, in the old stadium and in the era of Kevin Keegan when it was in the process of rebuilding. The third is its Millennium Bridge linking the comparatively new law courts, and the Quayside world of bars and restaurants which attract the more mature and sophisticated nightlight party goer, along which those which you will expect on any weekend night you in any town and city, with the developing south bank of the Baltic Contemporary Art Centre, the Sage and other developments in the making.

There are ghosts of time past all over the city with the most spectacular the stretch of John Dobson architecture from Grey's monument down to the quayside and which rivals Georgian Edinburgh and Regency London. There is the Castle, and the Wall, the coal carrying tunnel and several marvellous individual buildings, and quaint nooks and crannies, for me there are three areas which sum up what Newcastle has become, for better and worse. There is the Bigg Market extending up to St James where on your back to a car park from an evening match you may be challenged to pick up from the gutter a scantily dressed drunk sixteen year old lass, or later still bundled the same child into a taxi the worse from whatever concoction of drugs and alcohol she has embraced, while the city army of bouncers look on gleefully while trying to look like something from Get Carter or Our Friends. Then there are the newer developments with the refurbished China Town, the less well known haunts for homosexuals and lesbians, and the Gate, the new complex of cinema, international restaurants and sports bars, with Casino. Spread now throughout the city but concentrated on both side of the Civic Centre are the two universities of Newcastle and Northumberland with a combined student population of some 30000 (number to verified) and with the new Northumbria complex for over 9000 to be opened this autumn and the students are adopting some pubs and restaurants as their own.

For me however, in addition to the football, Newcastle has been a place of culture, and for food, and where you can eat as expensively as in most great cities of the world. My spiritual home is the Playhouse which has combined a broad array of new theatre productions with an annual visit of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and where the main productions of the company are at the refurbished yet again even grander Theatre Royal. Not to be forgotten in terms of traditional theatres is the Tyne Theatre and Opera House, or for popular music concerts, the City Hall. For the big jamboree there is the 10000 or is it 11000 Metro centres and the new 2000 holding pop and rock band venue of the Carling academy. There is the new Dance City and venues for comedy Tyneside and contemporary, and for jazz, salsa, for Goths and for heavy metal.

Then there are the art galleries, art centres and living museums with the Discovery Museum, the Life Centre, the Museum of Antiquities and the Shefton on Greek Art and Archaeology, the centre of children's books, the military vehicle museum, the Stephenson works, the Laing Art Gallery, the University Gallery, the Side Gallery, Vane, Globe City, the Hatton, the Opus, plus the Lime Street and Biscuit Factory centres and Waygood and Harkers due to be opened again in 2008. There are the developing programmes of Public Art, especially Riverside Art with 70 individual projects on the banks of the Tyne and the Sunderland Wear.

And if course there is shopping, although in this respect the one place to visit is the biggest indoor complex of the Gateshead Metro centre and its external sites including for every household and Furniture outlet including the expanded Ikea alongside its Scandinavian rival Ulva. So all in all how did they dare give the 2008 European City of Culture to Liverpool?

1066 South Shiellds Life

An addiction to experience is not the same as an addiction to life. I am sometimes addicted to experience. It feels physiological but it is psychological. This is fortunate because once the dependence is physiological the will breaks down. I have the will but do not always want to exercise. I enjoy the experience of binging on food. I was desperate for a drink recently and being a cheapskate went into a sandwich outlet for a can of diet coke because it was cheaper sitting on a bench in the shopping centre, than at some café seat. This was my downfall because in the short queue, I could not resist the box of two chocolate topped cream doughnuts, and there was no time to talk myself out of the decision before reaching the sales assistant. I sat and wolfed one, using a finger to scrape the chocolate that was stuck to the lid. I wanted the second immediately but it would be a second treat for the tomorrow, or Sunday teatime. I knew this was self deception. On arrival at the car park outside the Home where my mother is resident, I devoured the second, savouring every morsel, knowing that I would try and resist further temptation until after I had reduced my weight below 15 stones.

I used to be thin but unhappiness with myself during the middle decades led to breaking 14 and then 15 stone, but worse was to come when between 2003 and 2006 I galloped passed 16 and 17 and approached 18. I moved here in the summer of 2005 and did not bother about whether I needed to register with another doctor until receiving an invitation from my now former practice to have a once only injection against pneumonia along with the annual shot against influenza. I called in at the reception before visiting the supermarket after a film in the city centre and was advised that I was outside the catchment's area, and after consulting the local health service I was advised to register with a doctor at a health centre about a ten minute walk from where I live.
The centre is located just off one of the most unusual of roads which runs in an almost straight line from the Tyne River to the Beach and the south side long harbour pier. The road used to be a tributary from the Tyne to the sea, making where I live the perfect hill site for what became the largest Roman supply fort in Europe. From the fort the troops would service the whole length of the great wall separating them from the marauding tribes of the borders with Scotland. However the road is not remarkable for this, and the shopping street and market square at one end is only a monument to the war time blitz and post war concrete reconstruction, although if you look up as you walk or look down from the metro train station bridge which traverses, the are several splendid and unique buildings whose enemy is now feathered. At the end of the main shopping street there is an area of clubs and bars and restaurant bars, all anxious about the impact of the ban on smoking in confinedpublic places which comes into force during the summer in England.

A feature of this area is that at night the age range is mixed and not given over only to those under thirty, a reminder that the town was once a major port with its own small red light area.

It is after the entertainment block that the street takes on its distinctive aspect. London, Liverpool, Newcastle have their China Town but in South Shields there is the greatest concentration of restaurants and takeaway's from the Indian sub continent located on one side of this road, together with a couple from Italy and also from the Far East and one glorious fish and chip restaurant to rival the more well known of Yorkshire. On the other side of this section of the road there is between a dozen and a score of small hotels and guest houses. The road, conventionally named Ocean Road, then passes between two of three adjacent parks before hitting the entertainment pleasure park, the sand dunes, and the wide beach sands before the rolling waves of the North sea, and a surfers paradise to rival that of the West Country.

On the other side of the road, behind the row of restaurants is a grim area of public buildings and low cost housing. I was not impressed with the fortress health centre, where you felt in the large waiting area you were likely to catch whatever infections were circulating, and if you arrived feeling poorly, you left dispirited and feeling worse what ever the doctor said. These days before being accepted by a new practice you are given a health once over by a practice nurse and she was not impressed with the condition of my body, especially when I admitted I was also unimpressed and had vowed to tackle the overweight and lack of fitness before another year elapsed. It was several months before I shocked myself into action when I began to find the walk down the hill to the town centre as difficult as the walk up back.

It is at this point in my life that the capacity to eat a half pound chocolate bar and want more, to consume several small packets of crisps and to be constantly on the look out for comfort food fillers throughout the day until the early hours went head to head with my devotion to life. I set off one morning as soon as it was evident the sun was to shine for at least several hours, although the air was crisp, and I crossed over to explore the first of the three parks which commences the headland, breaks out into open grass land and then into a quixotic traditional public park with Chinese arches, a play galleon, bowling greens, flowers beds and a putting course. It is a quiet park throughout the year. Across Ocean Road is the second Park, presently being returned to its Victorian splendour although it already competes with most rivals with its boating lake of a hundred white swans, an circumnavigating puff puff train, its rolling picnic slopes back up another hill and areas for walking, sitting, admiring the flowers and views. One cannot usually walk through the third park as the first area is only opened for major events, especially the month long season of free open air concerts of groups and singers where ten thousand plus locals and holiday makers sit or walk through while taking the air. There is then a secluded from general view caravan and camping area and then a vast area of public football pitches and overflow parking until reaching the start of the leas. A wide area of green topped Cliffs of at least three to four miles before reaching the two beaches areas of Sunderland, and the second great river of the North, the Wear. It is a walk of 8 miles each way, but over that first year I restricted myself to a round trip of four to five, counting each venture as a blessing which I wanted to continue to experience for as long as I could.

However it was evident that the daily walking would not affect my general health without a radical change in what I ate. I wish I could prepare food in the way of the constant reminders on multi channel but I have other priorities, as I tell myself when looking at the day room and kitchen floors earlier in this day. But I have abandoned the frozen fast food meals, but the steamer is being used less once the novelty went away because of having to thoroughly clean each time. I have a light breakfast with tea, followed by a salad lunch although I do sometimes have a couple of bacon rolls, and then main course of fish at least twice. I cook a whole chicken every other Sunday with roasts, and these make for two, sometimes three hot pot meals of whatever veg appeals. There curry with rice one evening and a port or lamb chops, with a beef or gammon joint replacing the chicken alternately. I have a tea snack either some crackers with cheese or smoked salmon, sometimes prawns in the shell. There is a small glass of red wine from a 6 x 2 bottle case selected by the Times which arrives each quarter, or a pint of lager with the curry. And fruit lots and lots of fruit, and carrots to chew on and over. It is not unknown to eat a bowl of cereal at midnight and salami roll at 2 am. I eat when I need and I cannot say the overall quantity of intake has reduced.

But I shed two stones in eight months and kept the weight steady through the winter until the last weeks when I became over confident and ceased the daily weighing. However as I said to the doctor this morning I will loose another stone this summer and hopefully, even more. I had intended to write something else, and indeed it is almost written, but two events changed my mind. The first was amusing.

Several weeks ago I noticed something about an aspect of my body which I then monitored to see if was stress induced and when it was not and I was confident of a physical condition I made my first appointment since arriving with the doc. I nearly cancelled first thing because it was most likely nothing and if it was not, well it would bugger up my plans. But I decided to put the matter to rest as the very cold winds of winter had turned into some pleasantly warm walking hours of the morning, although the sea fret was in a cold depressing mist from the sea which rolls inland sometimes for a few meters sometimes a mile or so.

I arrived to find that I instead of the medical centre there was demolished building site, a great excuse to miss an appointment if ever there is one. I looked around and remembered that a building was going up nearby when I came in the autumn again for the renewal shot. There people going in and out of an entrance to a structure which seems to me to a cross between twenties modernism and challenging contemporary, but once inside it is spacious wow, brilliantly organised and creates an atmosphere which says you are well so why bother coming in here.

I don't think from what the doctor said there is anything for me to worry about or hastily check the disposals in the Will, but the opportunity is being taken to check everything else out and it will all take a couple of weeks of tests and a further consultation. What it has done is to focus my attention on the difference between being addicted in the sense of being under the control of something or someone, whether the activity or interest is legal or not, and being a fanatical enthusiast, wanting to push the boundaries of experience to their limits. For me my interest has changed from a consumer and devourer of luscious cream filled pastries, to sitting in park with gentle breeze watching nature and the next generations make my day.
06:59
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Working in the healthcare industry for a number of years, I know that the best medicine some people have is food. Food is used not only for nourishment, but also as a treatment for depression, an expression of love and affection, to entertain, to tempt, to bribe and even to punish. What is most disconcerting is that food is also responsible for the senseless murder of millions of people every year. Food can be an addiction, a crutch, a tool, and a weapon of mass destruction. However, at it's very root of existence, food is still to nourish and sustain life. I suppose it wouldn't be the first time that something positive was often used with negative consequences. It wouldn't be the first time an experience turned into devotion. It is the nature of the beast unfortunately, to push the limits of something good until it turns into something destructive. The love of luscious cream filled pastries usually isn't the problem........it's spending half of your grocery money on them!!!!!!
Posted by <> on 04:04 - 04:32