SO WHERE EXACTLY IS ALL THIS POVERTY?

                                      

                                    SO WHERE EXACTLY IS ALL THIS POVERTY?

Poverty is a very subjective issue. It is an aspect of life that can so readily be used for political gain.  The Left dish out so-called 'Hunger' as bait for the government and a sop to voters, particularly those in the north of the country who 'betrayed' their socialist roots and voted Tory at the last election.

I recall Jamie Oliver leading the march against unhealthy school meals some years ago now, can't remember what happened exactly, but if something did change it certainly wasn't long lasting.  We are where we are, chefs on TV seem in general to be white so enter Sir Marcus of Manchester who leads the latest charge for nutritional change.  That's not forgetting quality, value and volume of course. 

This is everything the BBC's publicity machine could dream of, a famous footballer who shows his caring side, his concern for the welfare of others and with all his wealth still remembers his roots and his upbringing.  But best of all, and this must have had the Beeb's executives salivating in their several course lunches, he's black!  I have nothing against the fellow, he seems like a nice lad who cares for his mum, but where is this poverty?  I am aware he lives in the north and the constant rain and over exposure of Lowry is enough to cloud even the strongest of souls' minds but not everyone up there is feckless... surely? Jumping on the 'They shall eat cake - and everything else that's free' bandwagon is a veritable army of chefs all very concerned with school meals, welfare and personal exposure. 

What I would like to see published is an honest assessment of who exactly it is we are providing free meals for?  Who is collecting handouts from food banks? Y ou can bet your bottom hard-earned penny that if the opportunity for free food wasn't available there still not be one person certified as having died of starvation.  This assessment report would have several sections under various headings.  There would be the usual questions, ie Name, Address, Age, Sex (Two choices only!), Colour, Place of Birth, Religion, Number of children, Homeowner or rented? and Working or unemployed?  This last heading's answers would contribute greatly to any handout that followed - if any.  I have no problem with genuine hardship being supported through state welfare assistance.  What I object to is the long-term freeloaders who exploit every nook and cranny of the system in order to get the most for the least. Unfortunately the social conscience has over-ridden the desire for many to work, it's all too easy not to sadly. 

The cries of those pleading poverty and calling for free everything should be met with the question as to why they feel the need to sponge off the taxpayer when they have three or four children with another on the way!  If you can't afford them, don't have them!

Last summer when foreign labour was in short demand for varying reasons, UK farmers encouraged applications from Brits who need work.  Our fruit and vegetables requires picking.  It is hard work, it is repetitive  and physically taxing.  How sad then to read that so many farmers were let down by lame ducks who lasted a week, some a day and basically couldn't hack it.  Hard work you see, not in their mindset. Wonder just how hungry their families were at the end of their non-working day?

As a footnote, a couple of years ago I was very kindly invited to give a talk to a ladies' group in a Hampshire coastal town.  The club concerned  had hired a community centre for their meetings and shared the hall space with a group collecting for a food bank.  A member of their team was present that day and I enquired as to the genuine need of those who had partaken... or probably just taken... Anyway, she defended their course of action and its need but interestingly commented that several people collecting their un-worked-for loot rummaged through to check the contents before leaving and in many cases asked to swap items in their pack for an item in another.   She also remembered one lady swopping a jar of coffee for another as 'She preferred Waitrose coffee to the Tesco she had inherited'!  Bloody cheek, bloody unnecessary!

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO STOICISM?

                                                

                                           WHATEVER HAPPENED TO STOICISM?

Much of the past years news has been taken up by the NHS and its ability to manage the pandemic along with all the other responsibilities and services it has to deal with on a daily basis.  Credit goes to all that serve in the Good Ship NHS, but why oh why do we witness such weakness of mind and spirit.  Might I suggest that media in general and the BBC in particular has done a ruddy good job of spreading gloom and despondency over so long a period that no-one has any metaphorical balls left anymore.  There are those who have 'stepped up to the plate', but the burnout rate is phenomenal.

Only yesterday my attention was caught by an item on the BBC's Red Button service regarding those who  are suffering all manner of after-effects.  The story reads : 'Many hospital staff treating the sickest patients during the first wave of the pandemic were left traumatised by the experience, a study suggests. Researchers at Kings College Hospital asked 709 workers at nine intensive care units in England about how they were coping as the first wave eased.  Nearly half reported symptoms of severe anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or drinking problems.  One in seven had thoughts of self-harming or being 'better off dead'. 

As Captain Mainwaring might have commented 'What sort of talk is that Wilson?'.  It's their job, get on with it.  It does make you wonder whether the interviewers skewed their questions so as to obtain a more sensational set of statistics.  Would we today find a group of 19year olds champing at the bit to take to the skies in a Spitfire or Hurricane in order to punish the Hun and defend Dear Old Blighty?  Can you imagine the Health and Safety exams, the Diversity indoctrinations, the Equal Opportunities battering?  Now that WOULD be stressful!  Listening to some Oxbridge educated buffoon with degrees in Pointlessness and Unworldliness blather on about the importance of 'Inclusion' before you're allowed in the cockpit would be enough to consider a life as a mercenary... a white supremacist... though still possessing a model railway for those 'quieter moments', obviously.

Meanwhile, back in A&E, Intensive Care etc, are those serving today really so fragile?  Did Florence Nightingale and her ilk when tending soldiers who had suffered appalling injuries seek counselling for that myriad of cop-outs discussed earlier?  We seem to be breeding a generation that lacks spine, backbone and guts.  Still, they are all medical conditions one way or another,. A case of self-healing possibly...

FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME

                                                   

                                                        FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME

We are living at a time when Covid is rampant  and protection of yourself and others in your proximity is vital.  Does it not become a little irritating when you read, and not for the first or doubtless last time, that some cove considers himself exempt from the same rules as the rest of us?

There is a chap, hailing from Chilwell in Nottinghamshire who is suing Argos because staff at the Long Eaton store that he visited 'Threw him out' for not wearing a mask.  Quite right!  Apparently the sap suffers from 'Anxiety'.  I have to tell you I have no truck with anxiety or any other needy syndrome that costs society and the NHS in particular when hard-pressed resources could be so readily be spent on patients with real illnesses.

Apparently, if you are needy and considered exempt, you are issued with a medical certificate.  So far, so exasperating.  Where the system becomes cloudy is in the large print.  As a holder of one of these certificates - which automatically puts you in the 'To be avoided at all costs as any involvement will rebound on you' category - it is not compulsory to have it about your person.  Why is that?  It should be mandatory so that no-one is placed in an invidious position.   The  offender  then returns in order to serve them with a legal letter as he intends to sue them but then, that is what the needy do!  No thought of being responsible and helping those who are trying to make the store safe for all, oh no, it's me, me, me!

He was told to leave once more and quite rightly so.  His desire for attention is exemplified by his comment that 'My anxiety was so bad because of this that I was almost on the verge of calling an ambulance... '  For goodness sake, an ambulance?  Does he not know that the service is pretty tied up with real patients, you know, those that need immediate help!  The verge is where I'd have left him!

Sadly, and not unexpectedly, Mr. Yannis Athanasiadis has been issued with an apology and offered an unspecified 'Gesture of goodwill' by Sainsbury's - owners of Argos.  I would have banned him from the store for life on the grounds that the last thing we need in our emporium is a disruptive non-conformist. The fact that our irritant had a foreign name made absolutely no difference to the way I felt when reading of this incident - though it didn't help obviously!

IT'S ALL A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES!

                                               

                                             IT'S ALL A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES!

The 'Breaking News' this morning is that the Oxford Zeneca vaccine has been approved for distribution and our government has ordered 100 million doses, which should be good for everyone.  It now emerges that there is to be a twelve week gap between the first jab and the follow-up.  Presumably this is to allow more people to obtain some initial protection.  I only mention this as I was under the impression that the two injections were much closer together.  It matters not to me, I'm just thankful that a potential life and society saver has been developed. (bloody Chinese!)

I fully understand the priorities in terms of age, but I do ponder as to whether it is as simple as this.  For instance, shouldn't priority be arranged by class, breeding and social standing?  I mean, it's all right starting with the elderly, but you can have two seventy year olds, one who smokes, drinks heavily and/or gorges the night away, while the other leads a healthy life looking after him or herself thus saving the NHS millions.   The saved millions doubtless being spent on kidney dialysis machines or lung and heart transplants!  And of course it's not just 'The North' that suffers from the former wastrel, I understand we have estates in parts of the south as well...I know, I couldn't believe it myself at first, but that's modern Britain for you.

My priorities would be those that could trace their lineage back to the reign of Henry VIII as that is not only a reasonable time to be able to describe oneself  as English through and through, but it marks the end of Catholicism as the ruling religion, which is fairly significant in itself! Good old Henry I say...

So, having brought together the first to be inoculated, in what order should it be?.... let's see... Those who work, or have worked - the longer the number of years, the further up the queue you are - that's easy. Those who voted to leave the EU, work with animals or in conservation go first, naturally, followed by anyone contributing to the making of pork pies, Branston Pickle or  Evostik.  There may well be foreign workers  involved in these processes, but we are talking of  'reserved occupations' after all and thus qualifies them for temporary 'British' status - NOT to be confused with the issuing of a UK passport.  As we say in Surrey, any fool can be be British, but it takes breeding to be English!

I think we can swiftly say that all those fulfilling useful work and lives will be entitled to a welcome at the vaccine clinic. those at the back of the queue will be the unemployed, smokers, alcoholics, druggies, cyclists, all staff at The Guardian, all paid-up members of the Lib-Dems, those who voted to Remain, teachers - on the basis that I've never witnessed such a whinging group of so-called professionals in all my life, Elton John - on the basis that he makes my skin crawl, and any Covid protester who feels they should hedge their bet and have a shot anyway!

The devil is in the detail as they say, but the devil in this case is north of the border, so what rotten luck that there isn't enough to go round and Scotland misses out!   But life's not fair, if it was Nigel Farage would be given a knighthood for services to his country and Piers Morgan would have taken over from Dominic Cummings!

 

OF ARROGANT RED COATED TICKS AND OTHER KILLERS

                               

                       OF ARROGANT  RED COATED TICKS AND OTHER KILLERS

Well, Boxing Day is over and fortunately there has been very little in the news concerning those imbeciles who consider killing an animal for pleasure to be their 'Rite of Passage'.  The sight of the uniformed hunter and their like-minded but horseless followers gathering in a village square prior to their 'Excellent Adventure' is as sickening a scene as watching Jimmy Savile discussing his good work at Leeds General Infirmary.  Thinking about it, fox hunters and animal murderers in general have a lot in common with Remainers!  They are both from an age past but still believe their time will come again, public opinion meaning not a jot in their lack-of reasoning, but then they are, to a man and woman, arrogant bastards!

Anyone who knows me or has read any of my books will be aware just how much I abhor cruelty to animals.  I read with dismay that Yorkshire has the highest number of recorded deaths to birds of prey in the country, what an embarrassment that should be to the county.  If only those who put so much time and effort into promoting black, transgender, trans-sexual, non-binary and LBGT etc rights and wrongs stood back and looked at really worthwhile crusades such as the slaughter of all creatures great and small and not those of the needy and over-promoted we would be a genuinely more caring society.

The hypocrisy of the titled and untitled landed gentry who witter on about conservation of the moors by making fortunes out of paying punters/hunters who stalk deer, shoot 'game' and generally have a 'jolly good time' is breathtaking.  From eagle to kestrel, nothing is left un-baited in the name of profit.  What an irony it is that these 'people' - I use the word very advisedly - with an ever eager eye to  profit whilst at such great cost to the natural world, command such standing in society and leverage in politics.  Sadly, the idea of 'conservation' and the hunters' contribution to it is not confined to those with power and influence within our shores.   Oh no, throughout  Asia, Africa, America, Russia and sadly Europe this barbarity is rife.   Rhino, elephant, tiger et al... either in the name of conservation or filthy lucre - horns, skins, trophies... it is disgusting.   And oh,  how the EU has turned a blind eye to animal welfare from within its 28 (now 27!!!) states, particularly those from the east whose idea of kindness appears to be on a par with that practised in medieval times.  How can bullfighting still be considered a legally acceptable sport... unbelievable!

Mind you, is it surprising the animal murderers are so cocky, confident and either protected in some measure by the law or certainly given a sympathetic ear by those with power?   It required a Labour government to abolish fox hunting, the Tories wouldn't have risked it, might lessen the swelling of the coffers - people in high places equals money in Conservative funds, and you don't get much higher than a saddle.

If only those who kill animals for fun were given proper leadership in just how obscene their activities are, if only we had a Royal Family, ie those who head this country giving true leadership in this area.  Hunting is indeed a practice handed down from king to king to queen to.... Charles? And so it goes on, even with the Royals in Waiting.  

There is a book by  Norman  Baker, entitled "... And What Do You Do".  In the chapter  "Killer Wales" (good play on words!) it is noted that on one day in 1913, King George V and his party shot and killed 3,937 birds, the King accounting for 1,000 pheasants in six hours, which equals three a minute.   They were shot for fun not food.   This desire to kill is definitely in the inbred genes, my guess is the German ones! In 1876, the future Edward VII shot dead 23 tigers in two weeks, plus one elephant.   George VI, on one of his little jollies, killed oryx, giant gazelles, antelopes and a bull elephant.   This particular chapter is extremely enlightening as to the crass stupidity and blood-thirsty taste within the Royals.   It mentions the fact that Prince Philip can "make the dubious claim of having killed more living creatures than any other Royal alive.   One estimate in 1996 reckoned that in the previous 30 years he had shot at least 30,000 pheasants.   On top of that, he was known to have shot at least one tiger and 2 crocodiles, not to mention wild boar, stags, rabbits and ducks too numerous to count".   It doesn't go unnoticed, of course, that Prince Philip was a founder member of the World Wildlife Fund in 1961.   It was in that same year that as a guest of the Maharaja of Jaipur some 200 beaters drove a tiger into a clearing so that 'Phil the Kill' (As I think of him) could shoot the animal.   How brave he must have felt. If I ever met a member of the Royal Family I would have to bring up this subject and ask them how they can square what, for me, are their disgusting activities and still describe themselves as being committed to conservation.

This book is a very well researched insight into the life and lives of the Royal Family and its history within our society.   By God, have we paid through the nose and just as a waiver, I do not know the author, have nothing to gain from recommending the book, other than the desire for others to understand what total  hypocrites we have as our heads of state and what a price we pay for them to remain in such isolated grandeur and privilege. 

Right, I'm off out with the dog for a walk, just hope there's not a trigger-happy Royal with a rifle beating the bounds.. or a servant...

THE DAY OF THE SULLIED MAT

 

                                                THE DAY OF THE SULLIED MAT

I am still getting over the shock, the shock of being the recipient of the most hideous flyer that anyone could find landing on their doormat - a mat now totally sullied by this incursion into my privacy.   If only the flyer had been generated by a team of local paedophiles, murderers or, dare I say it, even worse, a local cycling club, but nothing could compare with what I found.   Yes, it was a leaflet from the Guildford Liberal Democrats.   On one side there is a photograph of a local church, taken from across the road, without a car in sight - in fact, as  sylvan scenes go, this could be part of the footage from an episode of Midsomer Murders!   The background to the church tower is pure sky and trees.   It shows not the new housing development taking place within a 100 or so yards, nor the developments that have taken place over the last fifty years and have totally annihilated the fields that prevailed prior to the continued rape of our landscape.   Pride of place in this photograph goes to the Liberal Democrat County Council candidate for Ash and Ash Vale.   A very pleasant looking lady sporting a black and white striped top, black cardigan complimented and finished off with a yellow scarf around her neck.   I assume the choice of colour is to cement the Lib-Dem connection within the reader's psyche?   'There's clever', as they say on Barry Island! She is leaning on rustic fencing and is looking to all the world like a proper person.  I've mentioned it before, but how on earth could she represent a party whose name, Liberal Democrat, represents the most undemocratic of all parties.   That any political party in this country could openly go against the majority of people who voted in a Referendum to leave the European Union because they didn't like the result is staggering.  It is with relish I recall that their policy to overturn and ignore the wishes of that majority culminated in political suicide at the last election.

I have in times past voted for the Liberal Democrats (local elections only),  but it is not an action I would ever take again.   The flyer starts in a friendly manner, in fact, it starts "Dear Friend" before saying in bold, "I just wanted to wish you a happy and prosperous 2021".   The candidate goes on to say, "As always the local Lib Dem team and I will spend this year working hard on local issues that matter to you.   I've included the local party's details, along with some other important numbers and a useful 2021 calendar on the reverse".   It then goes on about getting in touch if you have problems and is signed by the Liberal Democrat candidate.   There is a little sticker thanking you for your support - that anyone would give it is beyond belief, but I understand people still read the Guardian and wear sandals....

Turning over and looking below the calendar, amongst the useful local numbers, ie police, NHS, street repairs, bins and recycling, there is one for Childline.   That's a bit rich coming from a party whose founding fathers include David Steel, a leader who appears to have turned a very blind eye to the inappropriate actions over many years by Cyril Smith.   However, what goes round comes round.   There is also a telephone number for the Farnham Food Bank.   I wonder just how much poverty there really is in Farnham?   Still, where you have an estate you will find alleged poverty.   It beggars belief that in this day and age we have food banks.   Real poverty was in the 1920's and 30's, the Victorian times when we had workhouses.   A more overworked and mis-used word would be hard to find.  Poverty now seems to be when your children do not have the latest IPhone. 

The last words on the flyer read:- 'Liberal Democrats - working hard all year round'.  Perhaps if they tried listening a bit harder they wouldn't need to work quite so hard!  Just another thought...

A LITTLE MATTER OF BLACK LIVES MATTERING

                                 

                                  A LITTLE MATTER OF BLACK LIVES MATTERING 

Black lives matter enormously, though for some reason white lives do not appear to matter quite so much. Certainly, you'd think that way by watching the BBC.   I smiled wryly when hearing Harry Kane, the Spurs and England footballer, extolling the need to continue going down on one knee at the start of every football match in support of a perceived black awareness and needs.  Well, you are certainly aware both of them and their needs.   It would be bad enough and pointless enough if footballers knelt on the basis that "all lives matter", but they don't.   It's divisive, singular and it dismisses an awful lot of the world's population.  It certainly doesn't engender good race relations, what it does do is hack white people off! (Oxbridge dons, teachers, Guardian readers and other like-minded misguided fools apart - obviously!)

And, oh ... oh how they go on about slavery.   As if it was banned only last month.   It wasn't, it was before any of us were born, it was before our parents were born and thinking about it, our grandparents.  We weren't involved.   I know of nobody in my family who bought or sold slaves and if I did and they had, it wouldn't matter.   I would feel no more guilt on a personal level than I do on a national level.   I watched with gob aghast at the scenes in Bristol earlier this year, when the statue of that very generous Mr. Colston was brought down by a baying mob of black and white anarchists, hell bent on having a good day out and destroying our history to boot.   Who the hell do these oiks think they are?  What gives them the right to destroy, vandalise, and create mayhem whist attempting to re-write history, a very dangerous game... And where were the police when this act of vandalism took place?   Well, they stood by, of course, as no-one wants to stand up to organised thuggery at the best of times, let alone when there are racial overtones and undertones involving those who are... well.... well toned!

Why do black people have such a chip on their shoulders.  You would think they were the only slaves on earth.  There is no exclusivity to slavery.  From the 16th to the 19th century Barbary pirates or Corsairs played havoc along the south-west coasts of England and Ireland.  Thousands of locals, from gentry to yokels,  (rhyming unintentional) were forcibly taken from their villages and loaded into ships bound for modern day Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria.  The perpetrators were African Arabs residing within the Ottoman Empire.  They were not concerned with race or religion.  The slaves they captured were a commodity - white, brown, black, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim.  Wealth ruled - so no change from today, huh!  Out of interest, the closest my family history runs to this subject, is the purchase in 1971, not of a slave but a Ford Corsair.  It was two-tone green and cream.  Bloody thing was a bugger to start!  Too much choke, the carburettor flooded and the car stayed on the drive all day, only fired up when you didn't want to go anywhere.

Thought  -  Should protestors be flocking to the gates of the Ford Motor Company and commence protestations over the decision taken over fifty years ago to name one of their cars 'Corsair'?  

Meanwhile, all these years later do you hear or read of white people demonstrating in any of the aforementioned countries, complaining of bygone atrocities?  Of course you don't.  Mind you, can you imagine demonstrating in Libya?  The others, of course, are now regular tourist destinations.  I doubt if many holiday makers in Morocco or Tunisia are even aware of the white slave trade.  It certainly won't be taught in schools in this country, as all victims in schools and universities are black and all aggressors are white.  On the Barbary Coast women ended up as sex slaves at worst and domestic servants at best.  Men were put to hard labour, beatings, starvation and death were rife.  There were prisons known as bagnios which were hot and overcrowded during the day, a bit like a modern northern nightclub, and cold and overcrowded at night - a bit like the northern tenement the clubbers returned home to!

Not only are these black chaps and chapesses needy and spiky, they are also very prissy.  Black is the new "coloured".  I remember not that long ago when we whites were encouraged, nay re-educated, to refer to them as coloured instead of black.  Well, fair enough the word "coloured" encompasses varying hues. What happens?  Well, only a couple of weeks ago some poor cove in the football racket - sorry, game - had to resign after he used the word "coloured" during a meeting where race was on the agenda, and when isn't it!.  And he's had to resign for that?  Well, it's sackcloth and ashes time for him..  But what was so unacceptable?  Black is not a good word.  It is not all embracing.  In fact, it is very selective.  In short, it refers to those who are genuinely black.  We whites come in varying shades of white, but it is still white, or white-ish.  Anything darker than white becomes half-caste - mixed race or heritage as is - you then move  on to slightly swarthy (Latin), swarthy (Middle Eastern), then varying depths of darkness dependent on the country of origin.  Oh, how disappointed one is, how guilty one feels to be white, with the BBC showing ever more trailers and fillers with hardly a white face in sight, their promotion of black actors, black films, black music and Black Friday.  Is there anything of white origin left to be proud of. if there is you won't hear the BBC crowing about it! MOBO - Music of Black Origin awards but no MOWO's!

I think we'll finish on a appropriately skewed joke. I well remember the morning I arose from my slumber not quite feeling myself. Making my way down to the kitchen I looked in the cupboard under the sink and extracted the black shoe polish before applying it all over my face and neck. I then proceeded to the front room where I took hold of the Tippex and applied it as a female would a lipstick. I felt really strange, luckily a quick chat with the doctor and my relief was palpable. He diagnosed my suffering as 'Pre-Minstrel Tension'.....I know, I know...