Time to Burn Down National Governments

As you know I don't comment on politics too often, they make me unbelievably cross most of the time as they sit on high making decisions that seem to be bereft of benefit to the ordinary person, or indeed as was shown by politicians in America over the last couple of days, refuse to make decisions that they SHOULD MAKE and that could have had an unbelievably ameliorating impact for tens of thousands of voters in passing a bill to ensure relief funds were made available to the victims of hurricane Sandy.  Yes, weeks and months after that devastating natural disaster and Republicans in the House are playing party politics over an issue which has seen non partisan voting in favour of relief on other natural disasters.... and they wonder why we hate them so.

On this side of the Atlantic they are of course, in my opinion, just as bad; with everything the ConDems try and do being soundly reproached by Labour and their followers, whether it has merit or not! And of course if Labour suggests that they are going to do something, or intend to try and do something, if and when they return to power, the Cons or the Dems have to knock it in such derogatory terms, they are at it now, even as I write this piece

Douglas Carswell MP ‏@DouglasCarswell

In Andy Burham's Britain, will government decide what toppings you can have on your pizza. Pepperoni! Anchovies!? Too salty, Sir

Douglas Carswell MP ‏@DouglasCarswellIn Andy Burnham's Britain: Easter egg hunt, kids limited to finding one egg each. #LoopyLabour

Éoin ‏@DrEoinClWhy the Tories are hypocrites for threatening "fat" people.http://www.greenbenchesuk.com/2013/01/why-tories-are-hypocrites-for.html …

What I want to know is how can anyone, politician or follower/ party member , call anyone else in politics  a hypocrite, I mean, they all are, right WE DO KNOW THIS, don't we?  Dr Clark, the last one there is on about the  hypocrites in the Tories and was also recently slating them for the number of Tory supporters who received *honours*  in the new years honours list.  Just who the hell does he thinks gets 'honours' in the New Years list when Labour are in government......

Labour slating the government for not doing enough to bring back social housing, which they, the Tories, destroyed with their 'Right to Buy' scheme, but Labour had ten years in power and did nothing about it then, but sicken us all when they are not in power by harping back to a policy that is 30 years old now and which they could have reversed if they weren't so intent in going to war in Iraq and elsewhere!

Both parties, are on about our obese society, hey now they are talking about me so it's getting personal, but it was successive Labour and Tory governments, reverse the order if you need to, who allowed school sports fields to be sold off and PE to be reduced to a side bar on the schools curriculum ......

I really, really have just had about my fill of these 'people', and sometimes find myself wishing that another Guido would come along and this time manage to blow up the Palace of Westminster, with them all in it, I really do.....

So what is the answer, Lord knows as I don't, it seems to be the inherent nature of the animal of national politics that we revert to snipe and gripe on anything that 'we' haven't done or propose to do so maybe it's time to get rid of national parliaments per say...

Local politicians can be just as bad as their national counterparts in terms of the snipe and snide but let's look to getting rid of the national government and the House of Lords,  if for no other reason than it would get rid of two tiers of highly overpaid and highly over compensated sets of self anointed grandiose windbags who claim a fortune in benefits for little good impact on our lives.  

It could be replaced by a house of representatives who could be drawn on rotation from local government, keep the civil servants in place to administer the country but have these local representatives also run the country.  The law can be changed, as it should be now, to allow constituents to recall their politician, who was not performing as well as he or she should be.  Let's face it,  there is, in terms of Health and Safety Law in this country,  an absolute legal requirement on directors of companies to ensure that the persons and or contractors that they are appointing to do a job, are absolutely capable of doing the job they are appointed to do, yet along comes Tony Blair or Gordon Brown or David Cameron or Nick Clegg and they are running the country without anyone being able to say that they are capable of doing so, and let's face it, none of them have been very good at it, now answer honestly, have they?

I'll admit, I haven't given this much thought, it was brought on this morning as a result of a tweet from a good Twitter friend, @ian_beckett who just happens to be a local labour councillor, although I try not to hold that against him, but I think we should consider dismantling Parliament and going down the local route, with a national house of representatives drawn from their number on a rotational basis, served by and advised by civil servants.  Just think of the money saved by getting rid of the other two lots alone!

What say you, The People?

Gabriel's Revenge (Evan Gabriel Trilogy) Book 3 by Steve Umstead

Look inside Amazon UK
Look inside Amazon US

Book 3 in the trilogy of Commander Evan Gabriel was as fast paced as the previous books.  Written in an easy writing style with pacey action and well described action scenes, both on the surface and out in space.

I am still completely enamoured with the idea of a neuritics implant that allows us to receive messages and files just like a computer, but in our heads and gives us control over electronics such as lights and doors and machines, just with a thought.  Off course HE had to introduce the concept of HACKING and overloading someone else's 'system' and ultimately their life, which would be a bit of a downer, but hey ho, everything has a bit of risk attached to it - still love the idea though.....

So, as is usual, Gabriel gets burned and singed along the way while others around him on his team die, nothing new, but deaths on the team are kept to a minimum on this one as Gabriel heads back to Mars which has effectively had a bloodless coup in it's two main city's after rescuing the main city dome's governors son on Eden [wow that was a mouthful to type, now trying saying it aloud]  after rescuing the main city dome's governors son on Eden, hey ho....

The South Americans have hired some Chinese Mercenaries including fighter space ships but Captain McTeirnan on the Marcinko makes quick work of them with some classy weapons upgrades while at maximum speed and in stealth mode at the same time as he drops Gabriel and his team out the loading bay doors in a shuttle against tremendous g forces, exciting stuff, yes it is actually, but you have to read it for yourself to see.... (And Captain McTiernan, I'm sure he was a character in another syfy novel I read recently, sounds awfully familiar).  Gabriel's lady friend, Lt Renay Gesselli has been taken hostage by the South Americans and he is on a mission to get her back and you can feel his rage, which his team 2nd in command is battling to keep under control.

This book then, wraps up the trilogy nicely, still with lots of action, unanswered questions from the previous books are answered and Gabriel may finally be able to put some of his demons to rest along side the body count .... A good ending.

Editing for Kindle: 5 out 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
No of Pages: 305
Chapters: 39 + an Epilogue

Links to other reviews in the Evan Gabriel trilogy;

Gabriel Zero Point A Prequel
Gabriel's Redemption Book 1
Gabriel's  Return  Book 2

Memories of a guilty past!

I saw this image on my screen this morning and for some inexplicable reason it took me back to my childhood, or at least a guilty little part of growing up, as a boy.....

Home shopping catalogues..... Kays, Grattans, Freemans, Littlewoods, used to be a big thing in the UK where you could buy the unaffordable at 'affordable' prices and not only that, but spread the cost, if only we all had the sense to see that the affordable came with such a high price tag in terms of inflated costs and interest charges, which the peasants who used this medium for shopping back then didn't have a clue about, and largely they still don't today.

But the cost of things wasn't my guilty secret, yes the toy section was a big draw for me as a kid but as I got that little bit older and girls started to figure in my life, the biggest draw for me in the shiny glossy pages of these catalogues was the ladies - underwear section - there it is, it's out there I was a kid who perved over glossy photos of half naked women, I admit it .. and here is the photo that sent me back all those years:

it was taken from this article on the AOL home page entitled 'super-flattering shapewear' and I do have to admit for some unknown reason it took me right back to those days in the 60's when I ogled all those women in their knickers and bras when no one else was about.  Ah memories and go on all you amateur psychologists  start analysis , now ..... but if it makes me look any better I did move on to the likes of

Fiesta, Hustler, Knave, Mayfair (my favourite), OUI *, Penthouse, Playboy, 

and instead of looking at half naked women I was looking at the 'real deal' Ah memories,  in fact although I had a guilty little blush at the memory I do recall a short conversation with Ishbel's mother in the 70's.

We were in Berlin at the time and I was courting Ishbel.  They were heading off to the American Sector to do some shopping in the US PX, the equivalent, but much better than our own forces NAAFI  stores.  Anyway Ishbels mother asked me if there was anything I wanted and I said, 'yes, can you get me an ooie*'. With a look of complete puzzlement she replied, 'what on earth is an ooie?' 

I replied , with no shame, bearing in mind here I am as a 17 year old dating her 15 year old daughter (still an idiot now) asking her to get me an ooie - 'It's a magazine'  I said. ' What kind of magazine' she asked. 'Just a magazine' said I, not thinking that if and when she discovered it she would see exactly what kind of magazine, probably drop the shopping, come home and boot me out of the flat and tell me never to darken their doorstep again...... But and anyway after a few moments she asked, 'how do you spell it'. 'That's easy' says I, 'OUI' 

' We' says she. 'What' says I. 'No, you idiot' says she. 'We, that is how it is pronounced, O U I, it's French for yes, pronounced WE' I remember the look of despair on her face but I can't remember if she actually bought me the damn thing 

Memories........

A Ramble

Well, 2012 is just about over and we, Ishbel and me, are ending it, the way it began,with 6 year olds Charlie and Holly, of course last year they were 5. There cousin, Mollie, 9, going on 10 is still the petite and most gorgeous creature on the planet, as are all of our grand kids. O.K. I'm biased but we were just talking about this recently, Mollie and me.

It was her, she started it,and it was about three weeks ago, the telly was on in the corner but it was just being used for music, music and books that's the big things in our extended family, sure we like certain TV shows and movies, but music and books are the main attention grabbers with all of us.

So, anyway the music was playing through the big box in the corner and after a while the picture of what is playing defaults to a random slide show of the photographs on my computer and comments were being passed to and fro about the various stages of growth when Mollie turned to me and said, "Grand dad, was I a beautiful baby?" We'll, before I can answer grandma chirps in with a, "of course you were darling, all babies are beautiful"

But Mollie knows her granddad and turns back to me with those enormous and beautiful brown eyes and says, "Well granddad, was I" Now what can one say to a 9 year old girl when asked that question, but answer truthfully.

"Off course you were my darling, you were one of the most beautiful babies ever born, well at least for the first couple of weeks, but then like most babies you turned into an ugly pumpkin, in fact one of the ugliest" Mollies reaction to this was, "Oh grandad!" And her 6 year old sister Shannon sniggered and laughed until I told her that she was even uglier and truth be told she was, she really was.....

Then of course there is Charlie and Holly separated from Shannon by a couple of weeks, they weren't too ugly when they were born and I think the fact that Holly had to be placed in an incubator with all those wires and attachments seemed to make her look so beautiful, but once again they older they got the uglier they became but as with all four of them, somewhere between pre school and school, they seemed to blossom turning into beautiful little people. People with personalities, people with thoughts of their own, able to converse and read and take on things that are happening around them.

Last Sunday, Holly and I were in the car on our own on our way to pick up grandma and as usual the gramophone needle she has been infected with just keeps going and going and she was telling me all sorts of things when suddenly she started telling me about the children who were the same age as her who had been shot in America! What! She is 6 and she wants to talk about Sandy Hook.

I have to admit I was thrown and stuttered, I don't stutter, ever. But this made me miss a beat. So I asked what she knew. She replied that her and Charlie had been in the car with mummy when it came on the news that a bad man had broken into a school like theirs and shot a lot of the children! I asked her how that made her feel. She said it made her "feel sad as Santa would probably already have their presents in his sack and they won't get them and their mummies and daddies will be sad too. Once again I have to admit to being a little thrown by the turn the in the conversation and just as I was preparing to give a profound reply, we had arrived outside the department store grandma works in and Holly says, "Where is she?"

Ah the sweet refrain, in this case, for me at least, of safety. I don't know what I would have said to Holly on that subject as I certainly couldn't repeat what I and others had been saying in the office about the person who did this and the stupidity of the laws in America that allow you to buy a gun with very little background checks, or of a country that has so many guns that even if you are not allowed to buy one, you seemingly can easily obtain one along with super magazines to hold extra bullets to allow you to kill more people or children with one squeeze of the finger, but you can't buy a kinder egg as it has been deemed unsafe and a child may choke on the small toy inside the chocolate egg! Merry Christmas to the NRA then for their continued obstinacy on gun ownership.

We had a visit in September from Julia R Barrett and Oscar from California. Friends we made on Twitter, it was a fleeting visit but highly enjoyable and cemented our friendship or at least Ishbel and I hope it did. Oscar has promised that if we ever manage to get out there to visit that he will be taking me to watch the San Francisco Giants Baseball team in action, their home team. Julia and another Twitter friend Tim, TWDitmer, seem to have a bit of a grudge fight going on over their respective teams and the conversations are funny to observe as they discuss live, the merits of their respective teams as they play bat and ball..... Bless

Twitter has brought so many people into our lives this year, far to many to mention but a few special ones are;

JWManus
PenelopeRomance
Wee Mickey, Michael Hicks
Julian Stockwin
ChefJohn Malik

and so many more and Marylin Warner who is not on Twitter but always has a kind word, even for an old fart like me, through the medium of her blog which can be found at:  Things I want to tell my Mother

Oh, we went up to Inverness at the beginning of December (I know, still no blog..... There is a draft in here some where) for our niece Sarah's wedding to young Mark Surherland. David and Jill, Sarah's mum and dad gave them and us, a perfect day, weather wasn't great but then it was December, but it did stay dry for the occasion and the reception and party after, just hit the right note. We wish them many happy years together as a married couple to add to the seven they have already been together.

I hit a bit of a hiatus in September too after Julia and Oscar left, nothing to do with them, work related and it can be seen in the number of blog posts I had been writing prior to that, in double figures every month up to then, and then barely in single figures. Still recovering from that but really hoping that 2013, as we do for every year, turns out to be better than the last, for all of us.

Politicians and politics have been getting right up my nose this year but I haven't really even been able to find the where with all to even berate them on my blog. In many respects I think it has been a case of, 'well, you ignore us and do what the hell you are going to do anyway, regardless of what the majority thinks, so I have been ignoring them, which is not good. But even political commentators on twitter are largely as bad as the politicians themselves bad mouthing the other party for things that they do ignoring the fact that the party they support, do the same things, but it's OK when they do, cos we support you. One guy this week was whingeing on about the number of Conservative party donors who were awarded honours in the New Years list, but what about the number of Labour Party donors who get the same honours when Labour is in power; hypocritical dick heads, all of them and they wonder why we are sickened by them all! Even one of my favs in the Labour Party Diane Abbot was having a go this week about biscuits of all things - give it a bloody rest will you ....

Oh, Got a surprise comment on one of my recent blogs from Rob McMeekin, a name from my past who hopefully will be in touch again soon.  One of the Nicest, Most Helpful, Well Mannered Men on the planet and my good fortune to have been acquainted with and I suspect the good fortune of everyone he comes into contact with #TOPMAN

So, anyway this has just been a wee ramble and I hope not too depressing and all it remains is for Ishbel and me to wish you all;

A Happy New Year