Respect To The Survivors In Japan!

If the recent events in Japan were the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie, we could all be forgiven for laughing at the lack of credibility in the story and suspecting that the scriptwriters had been sniffing too much apple juice.
 

Sadly, they are reality!

Five days after the initial earthquake and the devastation of the tsunami that followed, the estimated body count keeps rising and over 400,000 people are now homeless. With well over ten thousand officially unaccounted for, it is now claimed to be the largest death toll, ever, from a natural disaster.

I find it, even now, so hard to take in the sheer scale of the carnage. If the sight of ships laying on top of buildings and buildings being moved hundreds of yards from where they were built is not enough, there is still the ongoing possibility of a massive nuclear incident following the explosions at the power plants that we have already witnessed.

One thing, though, has been just as noticeable as all the other sights. It is the reaction of the survivors and their fellow countrymen. 

Despite the unbelievable structural damage, the queues for fuel and the lack of food on the supermarket shelves, I have not heard one report of looting, violence or other opportunistic crime.

I wonder how many other countries in the world would be able to claim the same thing if they had suffered as much as parts of Japan?

Let’s hope we never have to find out!

Respect!

Lib Dems - What A Difference A May Makes!!

"If we have learnt one thing from the economic crisis, it is that you can’t build a future on debt."

The words of the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, on 28th April 2010.

So, how come he is now agreeing to anyone who has aspirations for a better education, leading to a better future, to saddle themselves with debts of up to £40,000 before they even start trying to find a job, in a marketplace where jobs are becoming rarer than hen’s teeth?

What a difference the events of the month of May have made to the credibility of the Liberal Democrats!

Is This Our New Democracy?

On the day that Parliament was re-opened by The Queen and her new coalition government took control of the UK on a promise of a more fair society and the shrinking of a controlling state, it seems somewhat ironic, that long time anti-war campaigner Brian Haw was arrested this morning by the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Haw has been camping in Parliament Square, opposite the Houses of Parliament, for the past nine years and has succeeded in remaining a visible reminder to politicians and tourists alike, despite numerous attempts to have him removed, that not everyone is in agreement about the dubious wars we are fighting.

Today, the police arrested him for obstruction after he objected to their demand to search his tent as part of their security measures preparing for the Queen's arrival.

Director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti said:

"We are very sad to see that on a day that is supposed to celebrate British democracy, peaceful dissent is also shut down."

What more needs to be said?

The Hacker Who Broke Into US Never-Never Land!

"Cyberspace doesn't exist any more than never-never land. I was no more in America than anyone who is on a long-distance telephone call. The fiction of cyberspace should be properly tested in a British court because it is no more real than Santa Claus. They cannot "return" me to a country I wasn't in, yet they continually refer in court to "returning me". If I was being returned to the place where my crime was committed, I would be returned to Crouch End. I am not a fugitive, I was physically in North London and have remained in North London"

The words of Gary McKinnon the man the USA says could be the most dangerous hacker in the world after he broke into their military computers.

He now awaits the decision of a judicial review in the UK on whether he should be extradited to the USA.

Personally, I think he has a very good point and the Americans should admit they failed to protect their computers behind a firewall powerful enough to shield their secrets!

In reality, it is all about politics and a one sided 'special relationship'

Could this be one of the first real tests for our new Foreign Secretary?

Conservative's David Cameron - Suicide or Murder?

Results from several studies of the sleeping habits of over 1.5m people, released by Sleep journal, show that those getting less than six hours sleep a night are at serious risk of a premature death.

David Cameron is said to have been campaigning through the night in an attempt to claim every available floating voter he can find before tomorrow's election.

Could this mean he is committing political suicide? Or, is he guilty of attempted murder in trying to keep us all awake?

The jury is still out!

The Man With Two Faces!

In an operation lasting 24hrs and taking a team of 30 medical staff, a Spanish man has been given a new face in a Barcelona hospital.

Having lost his original features in an accident, he has now been given a complete new face including teeth, nose, cheekbones and skin.

I refrain from imagining what will happen in the event he gets a fit of sneezing, but it has now effectively buried the old 'put down' line "You can't be two faced or you wouldn't wear that one all the time"

Yet another nail goes into the coffin of cheap gags!

Labour's 'Woman Of Substance'

Well, I have finally discovered who is standing for Labour as their chosen candidate to replace Derek Wyatt at the polls on May 6th.

The above info was lying on my doormat yesterday evening.

Apparently, Angela Harrison is a 'Woman of real Substance, real Achievement and NO SPIN'

That seems to be a bit of a tall claim seeing as she represents a party that has relied on spin since Tony Blair became its leader in it's present form.

As for real substance and achievement, I am not sure it is valid when she has not even been elected yet.

Of course, the leaflet spells out the usual things she will be doing to help the local community and of course they are so generalised as not to be held to account should they not happen but what I want to know is: who is Angela Harrison?

Surprisingly, for what amounts to a professional CV there is not one item of information about the woman herself.

Does she like stroking furry animals? Can she eat a doughnut without licking her lips? Has she ever been convicted of skateboarding naked along the High Street? Does she share her predecessor's liking of pork pies and scotch eggs?

These are the things I need to know about my local MP.

The point I am making, is that I am not stupid enough to vote for someone just because they stick a pretty coloured leaflet, making vague promises, through my letterbox. I need to know about the person who will be representing my interests and whether they are qualified to do the job...

Sadly, she has failed to convince me she possesses the qualities she claims to have on her leaflet - it is more interesting for what is not written than for what is....

I await to find out more, although time is running out.

Meanwhile, I am eagerly awaiting the manifesto of The Monster Raving Loonie Party which should be hitting the mat anytime soon!

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Should John Terry Remain England Captain? - Hell No!

Predictably, the papers are full of the alleged marital indiscretion of England and Chelsea captain John Terry and questioning whether he should be allowed to continue as captain of the England squad at this year’s World Cup Finals.

For me, the answer is very simple...No!

I say this not because of what he has done but because of the arrogance demonstrated in the way he has done it.

Whether this is a one-off transgression or whether more stories will surface in the near future, I do not know but so far at least he has not even expressed regret.

Terry did not ‘come clean’ when he became aware he was about to be exposed by the press but, instead, resorted to legal action to gain a complete injunction against the allegation being published in the UK media.

Fortunately, this injunction was lifted last Friday by Mr Justice Tugendhat who made it clear he thought Terry was more interested in protecting his lucrative advertising sponsorship than protecting the privacy of his family. Mr Justice Tugendhat also said:

"Freedom to live as one chooses is one of the most valuable freedoms.

"But so is the freedom to criticise - within the limits of the law - the conduct of other members of society as being socially harmful, or wrong."

Terry chose the girlfriend of a teammate - and a friend of his wife - as the focus of his attention and according to the press, paid for her to have an abortion when she became pregnant with his child.

In reality, he was not just cheating on his wife but cheating the general public and his sponsors by selling his image as that of a responsible role model.

Sadly, in the world of football things like infidelity are not often thought of as being a red card offence; I remember several instances over the last decade - including that of an England coach.

Meanwhile, the general public seem to be more impressed by the amount of money a player earns in a week, or the 'flash' cars they are seen to be driving. Football players have become celebrities and many of them think they can do what they like, when they like and get away with it. They are arrogant.

Whoever captains the England squad should be an ambassador for the whole country and a genuine role model for the young. He should not be someone who behaves as John Terry has done. Respect is something that should be earned and not something that can just be bought.

So, on balance, I think Terry’s behaviour has been less than that we should expect of someone worthy to lead the England team into the Finals.

In the meantime, his betrayed wife has - like all betrayed wives of celebrities seem to do - flown to sunnier climes to concentrate on her tan and her future.

The alleged ex-mistress is said to be negotiating the sale of her story to the media for a sum that most of us will never see in our lifetimes.

Welcome back to the real world!

Unemployment - What Hope For Our Young?

The Office of National Statistics has announced today that the number of people unemployed in the UK has risen by its smallest amount since May 2008.

Before we pop the champagne corks and explode the party poppers, we should remember that the rise was still 30,000 bringing the total number of those out of work to 2.46 million.

Even more sobering is the fact that youth unemployment which covers those between 16 and 24-years-old rose by 15,000 to a total of 943,000.

When you think about it, though, is it really surprising? We have become a country that no longer produces anything of substance. Our manufacturing industries have gone, along with our fisheries. Once, we were the envy of the world in technological advance but we now create very little that is innovative or original.

We have become just a service nation that trades in items that do not exist in a realistic form and where the profits and risk taking are high.

University graduates have spent years studying for qualifications, while accumulating huge debts, to find they have returned to a world of few jobs worthy of their abilities.

There are no longer apprenticeships for those to whom academic achievement was beyond their ability; we have few trades left where skills need to be passed on and taught over time. Many of the jobs requiring such skills are now filled by foreign workers prepared to accept lower daily rates and longer hours.

Of course, we all have to shoulder some personal responsibility for allowing such things to happen. The unions became too strong and past governments were too weak. Our products became too expensive and uncompetitive.

The fact remains, though, that when we gave away our industrial ability we also gave away the sense of hope and value of thousand upon thousands of our young people who are never going to be, or want to be bankers!

For many of them, we only offer the armed forces and war in foreign lands!

Support World Mental Health Day - You Would Be Mad Not To!

Today, is World Mental Health Day.

It has been organised to try to stimulate discussion on what seems to be one of the most stigmatised areas of modern medicine: mental illness.

Most people would rather own up to having a serious sexual disease than admit they suffer from the most common form of mental disorder - depression.

It is a disease that brings a feeling of isolation to the sufferer but then feeds off the darkness of that same isolation. It is so easy to sink into the dark fog of loneliness, but to put it all into perspective, one person in four is likely to suffer from some sort of mental illness in their lifetime - governments have been elected with a smaller percentage than that!

More importantly, the percentage amongst children is growing, so it is even more essential we remove the taboo surrounding mental illness as soon as possible.

Almost as worrying, according to recent surveys, only about 25 percent of employers say they would give work to someone they knew had a mental illness. In most cases that just does not make sense and combined with the negative reporting in the press of people who suffer with extreme mental problems, it seems the quicker we all educate ourselves and tame our fears, the quicker the stigma attached to the disease will die.

I am going to start by admitting to the world that I have suffered from depression and received medication to control the imbalance in the chemicals that make up my thought processes. I feared people knowing about it - even though I have not been in such a bad way ever since I sought out medical advice. I was lucky, I had a superb and understanding GP who supported me throughout the whole slow healing process but I know some people are not so lucky.

Nowadays, when the 'black cloud' starts to descend, I go for a long walk and take action to reduce the stressful parts of my life that I know fuel the fire of my problem. I find it therapeutic to write about the things I used to think about; that is one of the reasons I maintain this blog.

I know it is manageable but I still fear that one day it might not be.

It is for all these reasons, I applaud and support any attempt to make such an illness socially acceptable, for sufferers need to be able to discuss and, thereby, share the burden that is mental illness.

So, please show your support for World Mental Health Day, for if you don't ... you really are mad!!

Red Arrows - Simply The Best!

An article in today's Independent is praising the RAF's Red Arrows display team and it is right to do so.

Although they are officially part of the UK's military forces they represent far more than just military might. They display the very best of training, discipline, bravery, skill, spectacle and engineering.

Wherever they appear - and they fly at airshows all over the world - they are invariably top of the bill and normally leave all other displays looking ordinary, while the crowds cry out for more.

I travelled to see them fly in the Southend Festival Of The Air back in May of this year and I was left spellbound and open mouthed by the show they put on.

The article in the Independent asks why middle England can't get enough of them but it is not a matter of class, for they transcend those barriers.

They are simply the best ambassadors this country could possibly send to demonstrate the very best that the UK has to offer the world!

More pictures of the Red Arrows and others displays at The Southend Festival Of The Air can be viewed here.

Falling In Love - With A Perfect Beauty!

Last Thursday, I fell in love.

It was not with an attractive female and certainly not with a man - although I am not saying there is anything wrong with that (tokenistic PC gesture over!)

It was not even with a racy looking car or any of the thousand things I constantly desire from the Apple store.

It was instead with a word ... and that word is 'Defenestrate'

It sounds so perfect and is a joy to pronounce. It's meaning is just as beautiful as its formation, for it is used to describe the action of throwing something out of a window.

Therein lies another piece of its beauty. Throughout the history of rock music, bands have been idolised not just for their music but for throwing hotel TVs and the like through windows. They never even knew they were performing defenestration.

Our English language is often criticised for being overly complicated and reformers argue to simplify the multitude of words we use to communicate the things we see; we are highly unlikely to ever see words like it included in the dictionary of 'text speak'.

I would also challenge you to find another language that has bothered to incorporate a word that was originally formed from Latin and include it as a dedicated word for such a ridiculous action.

But, that is the beauty of English. Unlike the languages of those who live across the waters, we have always been thorough. While they have been brewing and drinking wine and beer or inventing gastronomic delights, we have been sitting around increasing the quality of our vocabulary.

I hope our relationship with words will continue forever and we never get divorced from such perfect beauty!!

Thank you to the guys at tmesolutions in Maidstone for introducing me to the word - I never knew a meeting about a possible website could turn out to be so interesting.

What A Clever Advert - A message For All

I thought I would give us all a day off and share what I think is the very best of clever advertising.

How could anyone fail to fall in love with Evian after this?

Doctor Drills Into Boy's Brain Using A DeWalt!

It would be very easy to bore the bum off you with another story of greed and deception in Parliament, but to be honest there are only so many expletives one can use to describe those greedy, arrogant shits.

Tonight then I am going to give you the night off and focus on someone who is worth talking about, a man called Dr Rob Carson.

Doctor Carson, is a GP who practices in a small town in Australia.

Last week, the mother of a 12 year old boy brought her son to his surgery. The boy had been complaining about a severe headache following a bad fall from his bicycle, earlier in the day.

Dr Carson realised immediately the boy had bleeding on the brain and he would need to do something fast or he could die.

He had no specialised neurological instruments in his surgery so without wasting a second he said to an assistant "Get the Black and Decker". The assistant ran to the maintenance room where he retrieved a De Walt drill usually used on operations of a more mundane type.

The boy was placed under anaesthetic and the good doctor duly operated under the guidance of a specialist neurosurgeon via phone.

His anaesthetist said afterwards:

"It was pretty scary. You obviously worry, are you pushing hard enough or pushing too hard, but then when some blood came out after we'd gone through the skull, we realised we'd made the right decision"

The boy was subsequently airlifted to a bigger town, with proper facilities, where he made a full recovery. Dr Carson went back to his normal work in the community but said modestly:

"If you are in that situation, you just do those things. It is just part of the job and I had a very good team of people helping me."

Isn't it heartening to know there are still good, honest, professional people in the world, who are not obsessed with claiming back the cost of a pork pie or justifying the purchase of the biggest plasma telly?

If only we could persuade him to enter the world of UK politics!

Twitter - Long May It Last!

No-one can doubt that Twitter has been an unqualified success story. It came from no-where to being one of the most mentioned - and used - websites on the internet.

Celebrities are not considered A-Listers unless they are known to be posting their (often vacant) thoughts, using less than 140 characters. Their popularity is judged by the number of followers they attract while their posts become ever more banal.

Even the ultra conservative and ever serious BBC ends several of its news reports, by giving out a Twitter address for its reporters.

Marketing experts, have wasted no time in tapping into the potential of the medium. They are able to instantly sort and target relevant groups of people, based on searched keywords associated with the on-going live conversational threads.

When I started Twittering I did not really get it. Within a week, though, I was happily Twittering away and posting pics from my mobile. I was addicted.

It has, today, even been blamed for spreading panic over the predicted pandemic from Swine Flu. That seems a bit unfair to us Twitterers, as we are only discussing what we are being told by the media - or are we?

Media 'experts' are now predicting the slow decline of Twitter and are claiming we will get bored and move on to something else.

Personally, I disagree and think its potential has not even begun to be realised, Third party developers are thinking up a multitude of new ways to hold our attention.

Whatever the end result may be, it is certainly a fun way, to go about talking to yourself. The day does not end unless I can post...."goodnight world!!"

London Marathon - Life's Lesson To All!

The London Marathon is the ideal example of what human nature is really about. It should be absorbed by everyone, but especially politicians, teaching professionals, life advisers and anyone with an 'ology' at the end of their profession.

Not only is it a vast spectacle, run through the most beautiful city in the world, by people of all abilities and all having a common aim and coming from differing backgrounds, it is a reminder that life is really just a simple thing.

It is proof that whatever our ability, social standing, disability or academic achievement we can all be successful and share a common dream.

We just achieve it at different times and by feeling different levels of hardship and pain.

See? The meaning of life...it's simple really!!