2 (44) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XVI.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE.

Though this may go.

If you keep the occasonal eye on these scribblings

you will know that lately I have been droning on

about the many changes to our country since I was born. 

The opportunity to vote whether or not Britain remains in Europe has highlighted certain things that never seem to change: think connivance, class distinction, elitism, jingoism and, lest we forget, hatred. There will always be sociopaths, religious nutters and those nursing grudges who, when their innate evil or progressive insanity takes total control, behave in lethal fashion to others. The latest victim of what seems to be an insane hate crime is the mother of two small children, Jo Cox, who was murdered on the sixteenth of this month, six days before her 42nd birthday. It was a barbaric act. By all accounts, Mrs. Cox was a hard-working and highly respected young MP. Her alleged attacker, a male who is now in police custody, also stabbed an elderly man who tried to defend her. How long legal proceedings will take is anybody's guess, but if the attacker is found guilty he should put away forever. 

Since 1863 we have retained proven offenders at Broadmoor Hospital (above) or (from 1912 and the 1970s respectively), Rampton and Ashworth. This never should and, I hope, never will change.

The vote is on. 

By tomorrow we will know whether we are still in the EU. Our family seems to be divided, half In and half Out. That particularly applies to Maureen and I. 
If every pair in GB votes like us it will be stalemate. 

Good luck to you, however you voted.

Back later in the month, come what may. 

2 (43) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XV.

HERE AND NOW. 

Before your very eyes. Anybody old enough to remember the comedian Arthur Askey (above) will remember that he usually followed the words: "Here and now..." with..."before your very eyes." It was one of his catch phrases. All comics had them in those days. 

It was all some comics did have.

Throughout WW2 a radio comedy show called ITMA (It's That Man Again), which was little more than a succession of catchphrases, was arguably the most popular programme on air. It was fronted by Tommy Handley - an entertainer said to be quick-witted in private life - who appeared as straight man to a succession of catchphrase deliverers.  

Charlady Mrs. Mopp: "Can I do you now, sir?" Colonel Chinstrap (a drinker): "I don't mind if I do." A German spy: "This is Funf speaking." Deepend Dan the Diver: "Don't forget the diver, sir, don't forget the diver..." and so on. 

Like Kenneth Horne (in the later, similar, Around The Horne), old Tommy was an affable conduit for the comedic talent of others. 

Christ knows why we laughed, but we did. 

Television was still around the corner, so we switched on the wireless and, over the years, looked to the likes of Much Binding In The Marsh, Ray's A Laugh, The Goon Show, Take It From Here, Hancock's Half Hour and many others too dire to mention, to keep us amused. 

Stand-Up comedians became known by their catchphrases, too. Sandy Powell (only picture I could find) always opened his act with Can You Hear Me, Mother? It was said to originate from his somewhat deaf mother's pushy showbiz intervention in his early career. Well...maybe...It certainly stood him in good stead for over fifty years.

Other comics came and went with lines like: (1)"I won't take me coat off, I'm not stopping."(2) "Play the music! Open the cage!"(3) "No, stop muckin' about."(4) "What do you think of it so far? Rubbish!"(5) "It's the way I tell 'em."(6) "Shut that door!"(7) "Not like that - like that!"(8) "Titter ye not."(9) "She knows, y'know" and (10) "And there's more..." 

All but the last of those are dead and gone and I can only say "How tickled I am" that Ken Dodd is still with us. Now there's a man who, without recourse to profanity, can keep a packed house in stitches for the entire time he's on - and that can be a very long time. With the possible exception of Peter Kay, few modern comedians can manage it. 

Most of the moderns resort to effin' and blindin' to get a laugh and, presumably, to prove they are grown up. It makes me sad, but perhaps that's just personal pomposity. It's another world now, ain't it. 

I still enjoy a laugh - be a sad world if I didn't - but at my age people like Doddy (below) and the late, great Jimmy James (see You Tube) will forever be what comedy is all about.

Can't remember whose were all those catchphrases? They were: 
1. Ken Platt. 2. Arthur English. 
3.Kenneth Williams. 
4. Morecombe and Wise. 
5. Frank Carson. 
6. Larry Grayson. 
7. Tommy Cooper. 
8. Frankie Howerd. 
9. Hylda Baker and 
10. Jimmy Cricket. 

Keep smiling.

2 (42) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XIV.

JUST ABOUT FULL CIRCLE. 

From 2011 to date. 

So far as national events are concerned, little has affected us since 2010 (not even the 2012 Olympics) and I begin to understand why many elderly people become conservative 'with a small c.' 

My Leader, originally - like me - a 'small w' working class youngster, has over the years become - like me - rather more of a 'small m' middle class adult. It has not been a deliberate or snobbish transformation and, praise be, it has nothing to do with politics. Put it down to age and a changing world. Maureen has good friends in all walks of life now, has long been a member of Newport, Isle of Wight, W.I., is one of the pals in a lovely little quilting and sewing group and - though she seldom mentions it - is a trained counsellor. 

I lunch once a month with a group consisting mainly of retired police and HMRC officers. A good crowd. My individual friends are few and cherished. In my working life I didn't do all that badly for a bloke whose only learning qualifications were an army first class certificate in four subjects (one of them map reading), an ability to read Morse code at quite a high speed and an Oxford GCE in English. Might have done better had I been less outspoken. C'est la vie. 

IN GENERAL:

The world now is worlds away from the world of my youth. 

The education available to working class children in this country in the nineteen thirties was elementary i.e. academically basic and geared to an artisan future. Adult men would usually work for the same firm from apprenticeship to retirement. Women kept house and brought up families. Marriages in poor homes lasted for life, good or bad; divorce was a stigma and there was not the money to pay for one anyway. 

The upper crust talked posh, class distinction was manifest and it was not uncommon for a middle class home to carry a sign saying No Hawkers No Circulars and an arrow directing tradesmen away from the front door to the Tradesman's Entrance. 

We were a narrow, bigoted, insular, irreverently humorous race of people who, with few exceptions, “knew their place.” We were also an empire-building little nation that punched far above its weight. Our 'civilizing' presence burst, like boils of condescension, on countries all over the world. The people of those countries became citizens of the great British Empire (like it or - more often - not) and we...well ...we were Great Britain. Top of the heap. 

Nobody foresaw the future. Empires do not last. In an occupied country the native population understandably resents foreign rulers and cannot wait to drive them out. When they eventually do go, those who collaborated with them (and any children of that collaboration) can expect a bleak future unless they, too, go; or even, sometimes, when they do. But countries (America? China? Russia?) cannot resist building empires , if only by extending their borders. 

Lessons have never and will never be learned. And I really must stop watching Indian Summers on Channel 4. 

ON A HAPPIER NOTE. 

Jean and Ian Dillow. 

It must have been in 1989 that I last saw Ian and Jean. Ian and some of his Wessex RHA colleagues did me the honour of a farewell lunch before I retired my Link magazine typewriter and said goodbye forever to the political ping pong of the NHS. Thanks to this technology lark, Ian and I have kept in touch and a few months ago came to the sensible decision that we should meet up again before infirmity or the Grim Reaper elected otherwise. 

We chose Portsmouth as our location and the 7th of April as the best day. 

Ian wisely sent me the above picture so that Maureen and I would have faces we might recognize when we disembarked at Pompey. 

It worked a treat. We picked them out instantly on an otherwise empty Harbour Station, had lunch at The Gunwharf and spent a pleasant afternoon chatting and getting to know each other (Mo had met neither of them before). We then explored our surroundings, shopped and reminisced. 

All in all, we later reflected, it was a great day and well worth the boat trip. Ian came close to agreeing. It was, he later affirmed, almost worth the train fare from Romsey. 

(I always said he was born to be an editor) 

2 (41) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XIII.

THE LURE OF THAT DESERT ISLAND.

What tunes to take...or not. Ever dream you may one day become so media important that you will be invited by the charming Kirsty Young (above) to choose your eight Desert Island Discs and join her with them on BBC radio 4? 

Yes? 

Well, it may be no more likely to happen to you than to me, but it doesn't hurt to dream. 

I dreamt my earliest Desert Island selection way back in the nineteen forties when Roy Plomley (who had the original idea) was presenting the programme. I think the discs I chose then - it's a long time ago after all - included Bing Crosby (Moonlight Becomes You), Jo Stafford (You Belong To Me), Richard Crooks (Ah Sweet Mystery of Life), Kathleen Ferrier (Blow The Wind Southerly), Beniamino Gigli (Che Gelida Mamina) and the pianist Dame Moura Lympany playing Litolff's Scherzo (from Concerto Symphonique No.4). 

I believe Paul Robeson and Richard Tauber were also in the running. Every one of them is of that era and, surprisingly, can still be found on the net. (What a marvellous invention utube is.)

(Do get off the bed, cat!)

Some seventy years on I am truly relieved that I have never been - and am never going to be - even slightly media important. It would be far too hard for me to choose eight definitive discs now, let alone talk about why I had chosen them. Oh, I still keep a list in my head, but only so that I may subjectively compare it to most of the selections made by today's persons of media importance. 

My choices now could well be: Ethel Merman (There's No Business Like Show Business). Richard Tauber (Bird Songs At Eventide). Michael Bolton (If I Could). Barry Douglas (Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2). Nigel Kennedy (Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto). Michael Crawford (Put On Your Sunday Clothes). John Williams' Harry Potter Theme Song (music used in first three films) and David Whitfield (Maria). 

Some of those could be jettisoned according to my mood of the moment and any of the following could find their way in: 

Ray Alan with Lord Charles (above) (World's Greatest Ventriloquist).

Jake Bugg (Trouble Town), Jimmy Durante (Make Someone Happy), George Guitary (I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise), Dame Joan Hammond (One Fine Day), The Hollies (The Air That I Breathe), Red Ingle & Jo Stafford (Tim-Tay-Shun), Anne Lennox (Every Time We Say Goodbye), Dean Martin (Just In Time), Al Martino (Here In My Heart), Harry Nilsson (Somewhere Over the Rainbow), Callum Smart (Mendelssohn Violin Concerto), Lars Vogt (Schumann Piano Concerto), Barbra Streisand (Don't rain On My Parade), The Who (Who Are You?) and Yes (Heart Of The Sunrise).

Try utube if you would like to hear any of them: none may appeal of course, but it would be a dull world if we all liked the same music, wouldn't it? 

That's it for now. Humour me if this post is little more than a music list. I just needed to get away for once from a tele scene packed with Brexit, bloody Boris, cooks, bomb-happy headcases, desperate safety seekers, cooks, puerile politicians, crap competitions, cooks, junk (antiques) dealers, dumbed down quiz shows, cooks, property crooks and thrillers where villains with imitation British accents head terrorist cells all over the good old paranoid USA. 

Happy viewing.

And a final thought for the month:

2 (40) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XII.

NOT THE BEST OF STARTS. 

The noughties. 

From Ventnor we moved on in 2001 to Newport, I.W. (above), where we bought the three-storey terraced town house that became our beloved home until last year. 

The decade was to be dominated by events emanating from the portentous 9/11 attacks on US targets by suicidal terrorists flying hijacked passenger planes. 

In 2003 our government, persuaded by Tony Blair's contention that there were available (apparently at the forty five minute drop of a hat) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, joined forces with the US to forcibly enter that country. The action was not sanctioned by the UN and proved to be a massive cock-up that cost thousands of lives.

No WMD was found and shortly afterwards British scientist and leading weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly (above) - taken to task (and subjected to aggressive questioning by parliament's foreign affairs select committee) for rightly exposing the forty five minutes malarkey as a load of bullshit - was found dead in woods near his home. The Hutton Inquiry, hurriedly set up by a whitewash-seeking government, concluded that he committed suicide. I still think that highly unlikely. 

Nonetheless, in May of 2005 Blair's New Labour was elected for a third term with a much reduced majority.

A couple of months later London transport was hit by suicide bomb lunatics who presumably thought they could paralyse the city with fear. The IRA didn't manage it in the1930s with bombs in letter boxes and the Luftwaffe didn't manage it in the 1940s with over eight weeks of nightly blitzkrieg, so the noughties nutters might have known; Londoners don't cave in to intimidation: nor, for that matter, does the rest of Britain. 

It's a shame we've given so many in the Middle East that much cause to hate us, though. 

By 2007 there was at least hope of an end to conflict in Iraq and Ireland. In the middle of that year Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as prime minister. New Labour was in rapid decline. 

In 2008 the tatty-haired Tory, Boris Johnson, became Mayor of London. 

Banks fell apart through greed and over-confidence and in 2009 there was uproar when it was found that far too many MPs had been robbing the country blind with their (apparently legal) expenses claims. 

By the end of the decade the Conservatives were back - in coalition power with the Liberal Democrats - and David Cameron was PM. 

My mother died nine days before 31 December, 2010, when she would have been 103. It seems such a long time ago now. 

And that, for this family, was the end of the noughties. Not the best of starts, but being around to experience it was better than the alternative. 

Mind how you go. 

2 (39) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY XI.

THE END OF AN ERA.

The nineties. The decade started with the departure of the largely disliked poll tax and the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. 

Within a week John Major became prime minister. (Whoever chose him, apart from his spouse and Edwina Curry, is a mystery to me. I always thought he looked and sounded like a serial train spotter.)  

It was around this time that I became part-time (five mornings a week) secretary of Age Concern, Isle of Wight. The office was in the seaside town of Ryde (one room at the top of a steep flight of stairs) and the honorarium barely covered the cost of parking my car in the nearest council car park. 

I gave it three years before advising on future local expansion (which included moving - lock, stock and barrel - to the county town, Newport). I then got out. Truth to tell, the last contact I had with it was to buy (just after we moved here) a rather nice bed-settee, at a very good price, from its Newport shop. 

Nationally, Age Concern later joined forces with Help the Aged to become Age UK. The merger was a sensible one. How many old folks' groups do you need in a small country? I was, however, in no way surprised at recent allegations that it has been advising the elderly to purchase overpriced products from firms who are paying it commission for the favour. From experience I wouldn't touch Age UK insurance with a barge pole, but that's very much a personal thing. It is, like every solvent charity, a business. Say no more. 

In 1992 the Conservatives headed by John Major won the general election, the Channel Tunnel was opened and sterling was withdrawn from the ERM. In 1994 the Church of England (to the gnashing of reactionary teeth) ordained its first women priests. There was then little of import until 1997 when New Labour, led by Tony Blair, gained a majority of 179 seats in the general election: it was the end of socialism as we, who remember the likes of Ernie Bevin and Manny Shinwell, knew it. In the same year, Britain handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese and Diana, Princess of Wales, a loose cannon much loved by the populace (if not by older royals and her ex husband), was killed in a car crash in Paris.

National empathy with Diana soon became apparent. Flowers were piled five feet deep in front of Kensington Palace (proof, if it were needed, that there are more out than in) and the royal family, forced to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, the warmth of public feeling for the princess, returned from Scotland to attend her funeral. An estimated one million people lined the route: no more than a handful of them would ever have met her. 

Finally that year, almost as an afterthought, Scotland and Wales voted for devolution. A profoundly sensible move. 

In 1998, Mo Mowlam moved the whole of Ireland towards civilized government (and hopefully an end to violence) with the Good Friday Agreement. Her reward was a typically political one. She was shunted out of the Northern Ireland job by PM Blair and his Machiavellian sidekick Peter Mandelson. 

Poor old Mo really should have known: it doesn't pay to become too popular in politics. 

Maybe the urge to move was in the air, for we were living in a pleasant bungalow in Wootton Bridge (where we should have remained to this day) when family voices enticed us to examine the joys of sea views from a flat in Ventnor. 

We moved. Once a day the mail boat to the Channel Islands could be seen through our patio doors and once a year the Round the Island Yacht Race straggled by in a few sail-powered hours. There was little else. 

We liked Ventnor; but by early 2000 we were ready to move on.

2 (38) SOME START TO A YEAR (Pt. 2)

SADLY EARLY FAREWELLS. 

Michael Mann (1 July 1934 - 3 January, 2016). Mr. Mann was an Island resident and the father of our daughter Jac's friend from childhood, Rachel, who lives in Australia. His death from a heart attack at his home on St. Lawrence was sudden and unexpected. Rachel journeyed here to be at the funeral and to present the eulogy with her brother, Steve, who came down from Wales. We met Michael only on social and formal occasions, but he and his wife were good friends to those of our kin who have kept in touch with Rachel. By all accounts he had a wacky sense of humour and his amiable presence will be much missed. 

Alan Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016).

 In Post 5 of this blog (27th September 2006) I wrote: A few random thoughts about some people I have never met but who have constantly entertained me over the years. For a start there is the actor Alan Rickman, a wonderfully hateful Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. How can anyone help but admire a man who, in 1988, had Bruce Willis running barefoot through broken glass and in 1991 cancelled Christmas. What a worthwhile chap. If he'd never done anything else I'd still like him. 

The news that he had died, at the same age (69) and from the same illness (cancer) as David Bowie a few days earlier, was a shock to his millions of fans around the world. Like Bowie, he never gave a poor performance in his life and his Severus Snape was, to my mind, one of the best antihero portrayals of all time. 

Commiserations to his lifetime (from their teens) partner, Rima Horton. 

RIP Alan Rickman. 

Then the news, yesterday, of the death from cancer of broadcaster Terry Wogan at the age of 77. 

For years I laughed my way to work listening to Wake Up to Wogan in the car. Remember the TOG (Terry's Old Geezer) who wanted to fly around the world by balloon but only if he could keep one foot on the ground and go home every night for tea? Remember the 'silent' fireworks parties on the 5th of November which were specifically designed not to frighten children and pets? Remember the weekly reports on television dramas like Brideshead Revisited? 
“Lady Marchmain fell down the stairs, killing the butler. Lord Marchmain died of the Chinese wallpaper.” 

We shall not see his like again. 

RIP Sir Tel, broadcasting genius.

And this list would not be complete were I not to mention that my one time editor Ian Dillow's family cat, sixteen year old Rosie, “finally went to meet her maker” on 11th of January. Her health had been in decline for some time. 

Ian wrote: “We keep imagining her in the house. It's silly really but they do become part if the family, don't they?” 

They do, old friend, they certainly do.

A FEW MORE CHANGES. 

Mo and I managed to move my desk and computer into the back room looking down the garden. Somerset Maugham would not have approved. No matter. Nice spot. 
Token exercise equipment to my left and bed settee behind me. I have draped Ellis's Super Mario duvet over the settee to give a splash of colour and added matching pillows as cushions. 

The cat Shadow is now in semi-permanent repose there. He opened one eye as I went by just now. 

“I've copped a look at the blog post,” he said. “Some start to a year, eh?” 

I smiled ruefully. “Yeah. They were all younger than me, too.” 

“Don't think about it, buddy,” he said. “In cat years I'm older than you are. You keep scribbling, I'll keep sleeping.” 

And in an instant he was gently snoring again.

Guess I'll keep scribbling.

2 (37) SOME START TO A YEAR (Pt. 1)

HOME. 

Daughter Roz, still awaiting a left knee replacement, slipped on the new flooring in her kitchen, broke her left elbow and tore the ligaments in her right leg. Arm in a sling. Crutch to walk. Could we look after grandson Ellis for a few days? 

We could. We did. 

On the following Monday my Leader, who does all the driving nowadays, took him the four miles to school and then drove over to see how Roz was coping. At around midday she telephoned me from the local hospital. It seems she was only doing a routine task in Roz's kitchen when she slipped. She had cracked a bone in her left wrist and could not drive home (insurance risk): could I come and drive her? 

I could. I did. 

I'll be so glad when the plaster cast comes off her arm, though. My friendly motorist's language is getting worse by the day. 

The good news is that Roz is driving again now and went back to work yesterday. She is a LSA at a local high school and loves the job.
TELEVISION. 

Various television series have popped in and out (some of them almost unnoticed). Longmire, Luther, Ripper Street, Grimm, The Great British Bake Off and, if you can stand it, All Star Mr. and Mrs. are noticeable examples. Episodes of Father Brown are still appearing (most of them repeats) and you can still see dear old John Nettles in ancient offerings of Midsomer Murders, while his successor, Neil Dudgeon (above), is currently appearing in the latest of that ilk. I mostly give the old 'uns a miss. Always liked Nettles, but have to draw the line at repeat repeats; even Miss Marple can pall when it reaches the fourth time around. Long ago gave up on Jonathan Creek, Frost, Poirot, Wycliffe, Dad's Army and Only Fools and Horses. Crikey, I still have the entire last series of Ripper Street to watch.

 On a brighter note, my Leader and I have enjoyed the early career yarns featuring Montalbano (The Young Montalbano) and Morse (Endeavour). 

We also liked series 3 of the Danish/Swedish TV series The Bridge (which I always think of as the Saga saga). Be a shame if it is discontinued. 

READING.

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett (Corgi) combines a glorious send-up of the peerage and all things noblesse with a dire warning that robot workers should not be taken for granted. Loved it. 

Quips, quotes and retorts for Oldies (Parragon Books) was one of my Christmas presents as was Authorisms by Paul Dickson (Bloomsbury): both make good reading if you are of that turn of mind. 

I have also started Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin. It's Rebus. Think I may have read it way back. I'll know around page 200. 

Which brings me to end of Part 1. Part 2 will be along later today or tomorrow. It is written, but Google can be a bit cranky if I go too mad with the wordage on a single post.

Anyway, if Warner Bros. can divide Deathly Hallows in two, surely I can do the same with a bloody blog post. Back anon. 

2 (36) ANOTHER YEAR GONE.

PEACE FOR OUR TIME? 

How wrong could they be? According to Wiki (an organization, along with Google, which I resolutely try to appreciate) the phrase “peace for our time” has been quoted by two British politicians, Benjamin Disraeli in 1878 and Neville Chamberlain in 1938: both were speaking of a peace agreement with Germany. 
How wrong could they be? 

There followed war with Germany from 1914 to 1918 and again from 1939 to 1945. The former was initially described as the war to end all wars. There must have been at least one major conflict somewhere in the world ever since. 

Now, as we drop bombs on 'selected targets' in the Middle East and send ground forces - but only in an 'advisory capacity'(?) - into areas where military support has been sought, how can we be sure that we are doing the right thing? 

Parliament voted for it? Well...yes...it did. 

So why not impose military conscription on all those MPs who voted in favour and tell them they will be the advance party for our next 'friendly' invasion force out there? Like to bet the buggers wouldn't change their minds then? 

Meanwhile...

CLIMATE CHANGE? 

Or lousy maintenance? To those of us who live in an area that has so far avoided flooding, the thought of homes awash with effluent-littered water is wholly abhorrent. 

The heartbreak, fury and helplessness besetting those actually hit by the floods we can only imagine. 

How do you cope when your home is unfit to be lived in for months on end and never again insurable or saleable? 

And in an era when somebody or something has to be blamed for the slightest mishap, who or what do you blame for something so enormous? 

Do you blame climate change? I'm sure the government and all the local councils concerned would like to. 

Or do you blame the lack of drainage caused by modern farming? 

The neglect of waterways? 

The lousy maintenance of current flood defences? 

Even those conspiracy theorists who hold that climate change is just a massive con must be having their doubts. 

Whatever the cause, it can no longer simply be put on hold. One way or another the powers-that-be are going to have to spend money - lots of money - to tackle it, even if that eventually means the removal (with compensation) of entire communities to flood free locations. Daft idea? Well, if they can do it in wartime when they want training grounds...

THIS YEAR. 

The phrase I can most do without: 

Lessons will be learned. No they bloody won't.

That having been said: 

A HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

To anybody who still reads, or has lately taken to reading, this blog. It will be ten years old on the 26th of next July and any kind soul who has read all 235 outpourings prior to this one has not only braved an awful lot of words but possesses the patience of Job. 

I hope, whoever you are, that your Festive Season went well and that 2016 will be happy and healthy for you. 

And I do rather like the following as a cautionary thought for the year.

2 (35) NO? AH WELL...

THE MIDDLE EAST.

 Ever wonder? Seen those television shots of underground tunnels housing ISIL - ISIS - Daesh (whatever) fighters - terrorists - nutters (whatever)? 

Seen those bombed to buggery buildings wherein lived women - children - collateral damage (whatever)? 

Ever wonder whether, every bit as much as twisted religious teaching, big power bullying has done nothing but escalate fanatical hatred over there? 

Ever question whether raining bombs down willy-nilly can possibly bring an end to it all? 

Ever ask why the hell we keep sticking our noses in? 

No? Ah well...

HOME. 

Promises promises. So a government that was not going to allow fracking below protected sites has now agreed to said fracking. 

Another U-turn? Another promise broken? 

Well, no, the drilling will have to begin outside the sites and can then insidiously encroach below them. 

Does that sound like political flimflam to you? 

No? Ah well...  

What flood defences? Here we go again.

God knows how much is supposed to have been spent on improving flood defences in Cumbria over the last six years but it hasn't had much effect, has it? 

Right now the poor devils suffering from that disastrous flooding of the past few weeks must be asking: what flood defences? 

It might take a ludicrously simplistic mindset, but wouldn't we be better served pouring money into flood-proofing places like Cockermouth than in pouring bombs down on foreign countries with whom we are not officially at war? 

No? Ah well...

BOOKS. 

Finished reading No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (my thanks go to Viv, for putting me onto it) and was inordinately pleased when I again guessed, very early on, who the 'surprise' villain was. 

Also read Hogfather, Terry Pratchett's 20^th Discworld novel and a glorious send up on the subject of Christmas. I chose to read it, quite by chance, at exactly the right time of year, which was an added bonus. HO.HO.HO. 

TELEVISION. 

Clear out time again. 

Nurse Jackie, played by lovely Edie Falco (above), was a drug addict, two-timer, liar, thief and, at her best, a superb nurse. Her story, sad to say, has just ended in the only permissible way a story like hers could end. Presumably she won't be back. 

Dr. Who, played by Peter Capaldi (who I like), has taken his leave again. I did not much enjoy the last series, have no idea where he might land next time and, sad to say, no longer care. 

But he will be back. 

Grimm, played by David Giuntoli, has shoved off on half term holiday taking the rest of the likeable cast and their make-up artists with him. 

They'll be back. 

The Walking Dead, headed by Andrew Lincoln, also tend to disappear for short breaks, usually when a mainline character has fallen prey to lurching scriptwriters dressed in rags. 

Occasionally this viewer disappears, too, but that is only when he loses patience with the strangulated cacophony of approaching zombies. 

Who made that bloody soundtrack? 

What? 

Oh, they'll be back (in one form or another). 

THE FESTIVE SEASON. 

Lor, don't it come round quick!

Half our Festive gear is still unpacked. 

But a week away from Christmas Eve. 

My Leader has done what she can in the card writing and present wrapping line.

I have contributed only by taking it to the local post office, which is now in the Spar shop up the road. 

I'm sure many nice people will have been missed in the controlled panic that inevitably surrounds us every Yuletide, so I take this opportunity to bid 

A HAPPY AND PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS 

from Mo and I and the cat Shadow to all who read these words, be they: Google Staff, Government Snoopers, Net Browsing Insomniacs - or simply 

Cheerful Regulars. 

GODBLESSYERWUNANALL!