Lest We Forget!

More revelations about the scumbag Savile have come to light this week.

If you are reading this and are not from Britain, Savile or "So Vile" as he has become known, was supposed to be a DJ back in the sixties and seventies. He was also a fundraiser for many charities, and worked on a famous children's TV show called Jim'll Fix It!

He was an all-round good guy, except for the fact that he was a predatory paedophile who had free access to hospital wards and mortuaries, where he regularly raped and abused helpless children and, if the stories are to be believed, also practised necrophilia. Honest, no one tried to stop him even though he was reported many times for being a 'sex pest'. He was a pervert, let's not gloss over it, but unfortunately, he's dead and cannot be brought to justice. But the people in charge of the hospitals can, they knew about the rumours but did nothing to stop him. Who the hell has a free pass without challenge in a hospital? He even had his own flat in one of the hospital grounds: why?

Innocent children were left in the care of those hospitals, so whoever ignored the complaints about him is, as far as I'm concerned, as guilty as him. By their neglect, they inflicted untold damage to young children.

I'm writing a horror story at the moment, (Death's Door) and I'm having to think about gruesome things, but even I couldn't come up with the story about him entering a child's bedroom alone late at night, again unchallenged. The child was paralysed from the neck down and unable to move, so Savile started to kiss and fondle the poor child. The fact that it was said he used his tongue when kissing the child revolted me the most. A sixty-year-old man with a paralysed child, there's a thing of nightmares!

But having said this, we have also heard this week about Cliff Richard, and that he, too, is under investigation. I remember seeing the circus of the police raiding his house and going through his belongings. His name has been put out there and the accusations have been announced for all to hear and pronounce him guilty. Remember, these are only accusations; he has not been to court and, as we have seen of late, there have been lots of false claims against people in the public eye.

I don't know if he is guilty or not, but we had best let the courts decide that. Remember that thing we like to boast about in a democracy, innocent until proven guilty?

All this brings me to the real reason for this blog. In a week of claims and accusations about who raped who, and who had sex with who, why has the accusation about Prince Andrew disappeared? If Cliff Richard had his house and his life turned upside down, then why hasn't he? A paedophile is a paedophile, and any accusations should be checked out thoroughly. Though I don't think names should be released until they are proven guilty. There was an allegation against him for having sex with an under-aged girl, then the palace sent him away on 'Royal Duties' and no more has been said about it! If this country is a true democracy, if we are all equal, then he should have his house invaded by police as the cameras stand outside and film it. That is what has happened to everyone else who has been accused lately. I personally think the theatre around these cases does nothing for the victims or for the justice system. But with Prince Andrew as with Savile, it does smack of the powers that be closing ranks and hiding facts. Remember, it wasn't long ago when information about MP's abusing children was 'lost'. We seem to have forgotten this. This is institutional paedophilia, It seems you can get away with anything in this country if you are born into the right family, or have the right connections.

Stop the theatre and the spectator sport of who is guilty. Stop releasing names of people who have not yet been found guilty. And investigate all accusations thoroughly, and bring the perpetrators to justice no matter who or what they are. There is no place in a civilised society for people who abuse the young and the frail, irrespective of their title!

What a Load of Stupid *ankers!

I have spent my life trying to keep my nose out of other people's business. I have no interest in who is doing what to who on a personal level. But when it comes to public affairs, things are quite different. I'm very vocal about the injustice that I see in the world.

The same has to be said about business. I know lots of people that have done well in business and good luck to them. I have no wish to know what they are worth or what they do with their money; this is their business. No doubt, from time to time in business, these people will have to make decisions which, shall we say, are in a slightly grey area, such is the nature of business. Having said this, I have friends who are quite successful and they have done it by incredibly hard work and total fairness and honesty.

So what the hell is wrong with the banking industry? Why does this industry seem to be staffed by greedy, selfish halfwits? I'm not talking about the people that work in your local branches, as they are just cogs in a wheel, although they are programmed to sell you what you don't want or need. (If you don't agree with this statement. three little letters for you, PPI!)

Why have HSBC this week announced great losses, then given millions of pounds in bonuses to the people who have lost them a great fortune (if they have lost this money?). Why do these people constantly get paid for losing money? I don't understand it! The banks keep on saying that they have to pay these amounts to get the best. Jesus H Christ! Are these the best they can get? Look I'm quite good at the four basics, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, but don't ask me to do algebra! So why don't you hire me to head up your bank? I will make the business a fair business with fair costs. I will get customers to trust the business by not robbing them, and by offering loans that they can pay back. The loans that I do sell will be at reasonable rates. I wont send them letters costing them £30 to tell them that they have no money in the bank, as I will have the sense to know that they will have realised this already. I wont let greedy snotty old school tie types have any power so they can freeload and lose the business money. I will make sure that investments are made not on risk, but on good common sense. 

But, somehow, I don't think my ideas will be appealing to the banks, because as we all know it's about a few people making obscene amounts of money, bringing down economies, overcharging hard working poor people and investing in schemes where millions are lost for others who can't afford to lose, so billions can be made for a few! We should remember that, here in Britain, we, the taxpayers, own a few of these banks and should call them to task more often over their flagrant disregard, and for their lack of respect for the many hands that feed them!

We also this week have Jack straw and Malcolm Rifkind making eyes at lots of dosh! Look, there's nothing wrong with making money, we all would like more of it. But Rifkind is supposed to be head of the intelligence committee, and he couldn't be arsed to check out the phoney companies that the journalists had used to set him up! All he had to do was look them up on the internet and he would soon think it odd that a multi-national company doesn't register anywhere on the planet! Unless, of course, they only exist in the mind of an accountant. If you don't know what I'm talking about here, these two politicians were hawking their meat to companies in return for 'favours', a term that can be used any way you wish.

Here in the frozen northern town of Huddersfield, amongst the hard working types, a favour is something one person does for another for free! A concept that our banks and our politicians don't understand, I'm afraid.

This next sentence is quite shocking, especially coming from me! I know that on the whole, British politicians are quite honest! Now can I quickly withdraw this statement? They are honest in comparison to most politicians in lots of countries around the world. There are politicians here who I wouldn't leave in charge of a dog, never mind the country, but lots start out in politics for all the right reasons. Unfortunately they lose their way along the line.

They called Dennis Skinner a dinosaur - why? In a recent interview he said, “I'm paid to serve the people of my community". Then went on to say about earning money for other jobs as well as being an MP, “I think that £67,000 pounds a year is enough for any person to live off”. I don't know about you, but the Jurassic era seems like a good place to live to me!

The Ali Shuffle

To anyone such as myself that is a fan of boxing, the 'Ali Shuffle' along with the 'Rope-a-Dope' are things of legend.

Born Cassius Clay, but later, having converted to Islam, and changing his name to Mohamed Ali, he  went on to become not only the greatest boxer the world has ever seen, but arguably the greatest sportsman the world has ever seen. His movement in the ring was sublime and, for opponents, frustrating. While the rope-a-dope was the opposite, where he lay against the ropes round after round letting George Foreman punch himself out, only to step away from the ropes to knock Foreman out!

But unfortunately. with the onslaught of Parkinson's disease, his shuffle is now just that.

The reason that I'm telling you this is because, the other evening while I was at a party, a young girl got up on the dance floor and the whole room started to cheer and clap. I had never met this girl before, so I asked the person next to me why people were cheering her onto the dance floor, to which she replied, “That's Sammy!” I still had no idea about who Sammy was, or the relevance of the cheer. The woman next to me, noticing the blank expression on my face (I always have a blank expression on my face it saves time) she added, “You know, of the Sammy shuffle fame?”

I know what you are all thinking: what an idiot not to know about the Sammy shuffle. Or maybe you, too, are not aware that this young woman is famous for having a few drinks then taking to the dance floor only to dance for hours. They say she keeps dancing even when the music stops, as she hears the music in her head. She wasn't on drugs, or particularly drunk, she just loves music and dance. I think this is fantastic! To be able to love something so much and feel free to express yourself is wonderful. And now the shuffle is becoming synonymous with her. The woman sat next to me said, “it must be nice when something is named after you!” But I think the Sammy shuffle has a long way to go before it is more famous than the 'Ali Shuffle', the 'Harlem Shuffle' and many more.

But this got me thinking about people who are actually known for things that they themselves didn't start. I, for one, fall into this category. If you look down the right hand side of this blog you will notice my desperate attempt to sell my wares as a writer this is second nature to me. The poetry books that I write for young people are slightly rude but hopefully funny poems. They are designed to engage young people into the habit of reading. I have now acquired the tag of the 'Godfather of bad taste poetry' (my publisher started that one I think) Then, to my amusement, in the Times Educational Supplement, I noticed that other books in a similar vein as mine (though not as good!) were described as in the genre of Gez Walsh! I don't deserve that, but I'll take it and stick it on my CV, thank you! Of course there have always been rude poems, ever since man started to write. To think that one person started it quite recently is of course nonsense.

'Voltaire's' famous line, 'I don't agree with what you say but I shall defend to the death your right to say it” wasn't said by him, but actually written by his biographer.

St Nicholas didn't ever go to the north pole: he was Turkish.

Sir Walter Raleigh didn't bring tobacco to Britain, though he helped make it popular by smoking it in court.

William the Conqueror was actually known as 'William the Bastard' to his peers, and he will always be known by that title to me.

Gladstone, the Victorian prime minister and noted man of sobriety and good clean family values, was a well known avid visitor to the local prostitutes around Westminster.

Alexander the Great, conqueror of half the then known world at the time, and man of war, was gay.

But the strangest one for me is the famous Scott of the Antarctic! As a British schoolboy I was told this story and was both touched and enthralled by it. But the truth is that the whole mission was a complete failure! Amundsen was the first to reach the pole, but most forget this. He succeeded, and Scott failed, because of their attitudes.

Amundsen lived with the Inuit for a while, learned their ways and took their means of transport and clothing. He had the sense to see that these people had developed a way of living in this environment over generations. While Scott, being a man of his time, in other words a colonialist, in his views about the Inuit being inferior was quite racist. He did this at his own cost! But when hearing the news that Scott and his party had perished, Amundsen was known to have said, “He has beaten me,” even though he had been there and was home and actually having a bath when he heard the news! This, of course, was correct: because of Scott's heroic failure, the struggle to get to the pole will always be synonymous with Scott, and not with the victor, Amundsen.

Anyway, did I mention that I write rude poems?

As A Matter Of Fact, It's A Statistical Coincidence!

I wrote in my last blog that I love a coincidence, or strange fact or statistic.

I'm one of those irritating people who remember things that are of no use to man or beast. I couldn't remember information that would save my life in an emergency, but I could easily tell you the names of the seven dwarves (Sleepy, Grumpy, Dopey, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy and Doc).

Why does my mind remember the useless and forget the important? Although I'm always in great demand when it comes to pub quizzes. So here a few useless facts and stats that I hope you might find as interesting as I do, but don't expect them to change your life, or benefit you in any way.

A yawn usually lasts for about six seconds.

Most heart attacks occur between 8am and 9am.

Pepsi Cola had a slogan, 'Come alive with the Pepsi generation'. But when it was translated into Chinese it read, 'Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave!'

Coca-Cola didn't do much better either, Ke-Kou-ke-la in Chinese means 'bite the wax tadpole'

The religion of the Todas people of southern India forbids them to cross any kind of bridge. (Even one over troubled waters?)

The belief in the existence of vacuums used to be punishable by death under church law. Then the lord god Dyson appeared, and all was forgiven. (They might have been worried about other vacuums, though).

George Martin, the producer of the Beatles was the best man for Spike Milligan. Spock was the best man for Captain Kirk! (William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy).

Believe it or not, more suicides happen in spring, the winter months have the lowest number.

Schizophrenics hardly ever yawn, (Boring!)

The average new-born baby cries 113 minutes a day. Whoever came up with this stat has never sat up for seven hours a night with a screaming shit machine in their arms!

One in every eight boss/secretary relationships ends in marriage. They all end marriages though!

The largest toy distributor in the world is McDonald's. Shit Christmas presents though!

There has never been a sex change operation in Ireland.

James Brown, Louis Armstrong, Chico and Harpo Marx all spent part of their childhood in a brothel, though not the same one, as far as I know.

There's a place in Newfoundland called 'Dildo'.

A few genuine song titles: 'If my nose was full of nickels, then I'd blow it all on you!'

'Mama, get a hammer, (there's a fly on papa's head)'.

Questions that are unanswered.

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

More unusual facts (check them out, don't take my word for it)

Panama hats are made in Ecuador.

A camel hair brush is made from squirrel fur.Where do they get the squirrels? The buggers in the wood where I live are faster than a speeding bullet. But when one bit through our electricity supply we found they weren't quicker than electricity, and now we have a squirrel-shaped blackened stain on our loft wall to prove it!

Catgut, formerly used for stitching wounds, was from sheep and horses.

My wife knows if I have money in my wallet just by the way I walk.

Ninety percent of movies released in the US are porn films. The other ten percent are crap!

Tom Cruise's full name is actually Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

The word Sunday is not in the Bible. 'Thou shalt not' is over-used, though, in my opinion!

At the age of three, Elizabeth Taylor danced for King George V. I don't know why, or in what circumstance?

I could fill a book with the rubbish that litters my mind, but I will leave it there for now, though I will no doubt bore you with other strange facts at a later date!

Who's In Your Bed?

I have always loved a good statistic, and a coincidence. Sometimes, they are just as amazing as fiction.

While having my many discussions about religion and gods in the past, one of the facts that was thrown at me time and time again by religious types, the more intelligent ones, not the God will burn you for ever brigade, was that the odds of life forming on earth spontaneously are so incredibly unlikely. This is, of course, true (but far more likely than a God creating it!) One of the statistics I always used to show how improbable odds are quite common was that you are fifty times more likely to crash into the roof of your own house in a commercial jet than you are to win the lottery. But someone wins the lottery each week! Besides, scientists have created life in a laboratory, so I don't need to use that fact now.

But when it comes to coincidence and statistics, I heard a story from someone I know this week which is both incredible and scary.

A young man, who shall now be known as John (not his real name) was having a bad time of things. John was twenty years old and lived in the city of Manchester in north-west England. His mother had died a few years previously and his father had turned to drink to dull the pain of his loss. John had also recently split with his long term girlfriend and was quite down about this. Then, out of the blue, John was invited by a few of his friends to a summer holiday on the Spanish Island of Majorca. This, he thought, was just what he needed. What could be better than a few weeks of sun, sea, and partying?

They arrived on the Island in late June and soon set about drinking and trying to get as much sex as possible. But John couldn't get the thought of his ex-girlfriend from his mind and found that he wasn't up for the night life, so one night he decided to go back to his hotel early. On the way back he noticed the rear end of a woman sticking out of a set of shrubs around his hotel. Thinking the worst, he walked over, put his head in the bushes and saw a woman deep in thought. “Are you OK?” he asked. The woman climbed from the shrubs and explained that she had lost her room key and was trying to find it. John looked at this woman, who was a little older than him. She must have been in her mid thirties, but he couldn't help but think just how attractive she was. They got talking and they both found her key together. The woman's name was Sammy (not her real name). John asked her if she would like to go for a drink with him, to which she agreed. 

They hit it off instantly, having so much in common. He felt as if he had known her for years. Sammy also felt the same. They spent the rest of the holiday together, totally inseparable: if there's such a thing as love at first sight, this was it. They spent their days talking and their nights making love. When it was time to leave and go home, neither could bear to be separated from the other, so they agreed to meet up as soon as they got back to Britain. This was quite a trek for John, as Sammy lived in the seaside town of Paignton in Devon, which was a few hundred miles from where he lived.

They held a long distance relationship for a while, until one day Sammy asked him to move to Devon and live with her. He was over the moon and packed up and moved down the next week. The relationship grew,  and the age difference was irrelevant to John. Sammy had told him that she had had a chequered past and had gone to Majorca to flee a violent relationship, and that she had a dark secret that she dare not tell him. John didn't care. “We all have a past” he said, “and when the time's right, I'm sure that we can sit down and discuss whatever it is that you feel unable to tell me.” After a while of living together, one night after a walk on the beach John went down on one knee and proposed, and Sammy, in a flood of tears, accepted.

They had always been honest with each other. John had told her that he had been adopted at birth and that, because his adoptive mother had died, he would like to find his birth mother and if things worked out invite her to the wedding. Sammy thought this a wonderful idea and helped John with the use of an agency track down his birth mother. They wrote a letter together to this lady, explaining that whatever reason she had for giving him up, it didn't matter now. And that they were soon to be wed so could they meet up and talk? They gave the letter to the agency to post on and set about organising their wedding.

Two weeks later Sammy's dark secret came back to haunt her! While she was getting ready for work, a letter arrived through the door. Thinking it was about the soon-to-be wedding, she opened it, screamed and fainted. The letter was from John, saying that he would like to meet up with her. It was the letter that they had both sent to John's birth mother for the agency to pass on to his mother. Sammy had given him up for adoption twenty years earlier, when she was just fifteen! She was about to marry her own son!

I won't tell you what happened next, only to say that fact can be stranger than fiction sometimes.

I have checked out that my wife is not my long-lost sister (you can never tell with my family). It's ok, we are not related by blood, only by law. But when both my wife and I decided to marry, we had a night out with both sets of parents giving them a chance to get to know each other. So you can imagine how surprised we were when we found out that my father and my wife's mother knew each other. They used to go swimming together, and hung around in a gang together when they were young! Strange old world isn't it?

Empathy Not Sympathy!

It's that time of year again when people are forced to show some sort of emotion and compassion for one another. Valentine's day is really a card industry invention along with Mothers' Day, etc. I don't really care much about being told that I must buy the one I love a card or gift to show how much I love them! But it does seem that people that behave quite appallingly all year round to their loved ones, are then forgiven for a one off show of generosity and compliance.

Last August, my lovely sister, Theresa, lost her long and horrendous suffering against cancer. She spent the last few months of her life in a local hospice. My wife and I visited her each night, to chat and just to be there, I suppose. In the room next to her was a woman who was also in the late stages of cancer and, as the days went by, she slowly faded, until she lay there unable to communicate to the outside world. Her husband/partner sat by her side every minute of every day and held her hand, and chatted to her, even when she could no longer reply. He showed her old photographs and laughed at stories he told her, and left the room briefly, to break down and cry. He didn't need a card to show how much he loved that woman.

The world seems to be losing the ability to empathise with each other of late. Just drive down a motorway and see the people who purposely try to cut and force their way in, not caring what the consequences are to others on the roads. Watch TV and see how many programs there are where people throw back others' kindness, and the voice over gloats about this dog-eat-dog programme. I can't watch them, as they are populated by needy, greedy wannabes.

When ever I get drunk, I turn into one of those huggy, kissy types that want to put the world to rights. I witnessed, at a party the other evening, a moron who developed a Nazi strut and sneer after a couple of drinks. He slowly started to dominate the event, spoiling a special evening for the person whose party it was. He even started to menace people who tried to ask him in a nice manner to chill out and relax. I found it necessary to have a word with him alone for his own good, and we thought it best that he left the party before he tripped or banged himself and ended up hurt.

But all this pales into insignificance when I heard of the utterly barbaric acts of the mindless troglodytes ISIS or what ever these mindless thugs call themselves. War is a dirty business, of that there is no doubt. But even in warfare there are acts of empathy that change the course of things. The famous football match between the Allies and the Germans in the First World War is one. If you have not heard the story, on the front line one Christmas a temporary truce was called between the two warring factions. They played football in no man's land and swapped stories and photos of each others lives. They shared what meagre rations they could and when it was time to go back to killing each other they couldn't, they knew that they were all in the same predicament, they had made friends they had empathised with each other.

I cannot ever forget the dreadful image of the young girl running down the road in Vietnam, after suffering horrendous burns from napalm. This image had more effect on the American public than any other. So when I heard that ISIS had burned the Jordanian pilot alive this week, I felt quite ill. With this repulsive act, as with their beheading of innocent people, I thought that this would bring about a massive cry throughout the world to put a stop to these murders. Then I heard that the film of the torching of a human being is one of the most viewed films on the net this week. What the hell is wrong with people? I cannot think of anything worse than watching another human scream in agony as they burn alive. Just the thought makes me feel ill!

But even though we have heard all this bad news and no doubt witnessed for ourselves the selfishness of others, which becomes quite tedious after a while, there are things that give me a fresh hope for man and womankind. Here in Britain, there was a case recently where a pensioner was mugged for just a few pounds on his own doorstep. He was thrown to the ground and broke his collar bone. If you have seen the images of this man you know that he had no defence against any assailant. He was a small, very slight, man who obviously had health issues. When I saw a photo of him for the first time I was so outraged that it set me off swearing and ranting, that anyone could think of attacking such a defenceless person. But my anger soon subsided when I heard that a wonderful young woman who had never met this poor unfortunate man set up a Facebook page to raise money for him. The last time I looked, over £300,000 had been raised! 

I do need to remember, that there are also lots of good people out there, who don't need a card to show them that they care!

Rules Of Engagement!

Ever since I was a small child, rules and I have always had problems with each other! This is not to say that I'm an anarchist - on the contrary, I do value society.

When I was much younger, and even today if I'm honest, a sign that started with the words, 'Do Not...' always read to me as, 'I dare you to!' I have always had a problem with being told what to do. If I'm asked, I'm fine. This must be some deep-seated arrogance in my psyche, and the reason that I'm self-employed!

People who shout about anarchy are usually ill-educated idiots who know nothing about the world out there. The whole world runs on a set of rules: the earth spins by the rules of gravity, and all plants and animals are governed by rules. This is not to say that rules can't, and shouldn't, be broken, but I would leave the gravity one alone, if I were you. I watched a wonderful programme about Meerkats the other day . It seems that they don't all sell insurance after all, but instead have a highly-defined order for each troupe. The alpha male and female are the only ones allowed to mate and have children. But this doesn't stop young females from running off with a passing rogue male for a bit of secret 'rumpy pumpy', only to return to the group as if nothing had happened, does this sound familiar? All pack animals have order. They have to, this is the only way a group can work.

I have in the past, when I was young and impressionable, met older men who spoke words that resonated with me. I thought these clever men were the answer to my disaffected view of life in seventies Britain. Little did I know that hormones were the reason for my view on life. These men seemed to know how I felt and had the answers: anarchy! break down the system! I have written before how it didn't take me long to realise that these guys were just idiots who had heard the same crap when they were younger. They were so anarchic that they drew the dole each week and visited the doctors. They used public transport, and more than their fair share of the welfare state. True anarchy is a world where the strong rule, and laws don't apply. Without order, nothing works, society as we know it breaks down, and only a very few will profit from it.

That doesn't mean that we should all be robots who obey and accept what we are told. If you have read any of my previous blogs, you will know that, for me, freedom of speech is of the utmost importance. I'm a writer, I need to say what I feel, and if that upsets people, then that's unfortunate, but that's life. Without the freedom of speech and expression we cannot move on as a species. We need to question, enquire and define, This is the nature of all animals, but we just do it on a grander scale. I have heard of old laws that now sound so stupid, but I suppose in their day they made sense. I don't know how true this is, but I was told that it is still illegal to play badminton in the streets of Sheffield. Actually, this makes sense even today: what if some idiots set up nets on a main road and started a game? There would surely be a death as a result of 'car meets halfwit'! In a state in America it is illegal to wear a false moustache to church! Why was this law even necessary in the first place? But churches are private buildings and, like the natural history museum, they are free to have a dress code. In South Africa and in America they had a stupid law called apartheid, if there ever was a law to be broken, this my friends, was it! We in Britain have had taxes on noses (anti-Semitic) and laws against witches. Starving people were hung for poaching a few rabbits off the lands of in-bred Aristocrats. Surely all these laws were wrong and needed breaking?

The problem with laws are that they are usually made by people who have their own agenda. Most reasonable-minded people wouldn't argue that laws preventing murder, rape, theft etc. are all rules that shouldn't be broken? But we have wars where we kill, and we have laws where the state kills. Is theft to keep people alive wrong? Who stole what, and who owns what? There can never be any justification for rape. But there are people who argue that there are grey areas, even here.

The reason that I'm telling you all this is because I have been looking at safeguarding this week, and
we do have a new problem when it comes to breaking rules: the internet!

The internet, when used as a force for good, is a marvellous thing. Knowledge, not all of it true, though, can be passed quickly, and people can promote themselves. Families can keep in touch, no matter where they are in the world, and information can be given to those that it has previously been denied to. But When used as a force for bad, it is a lonely, bleak and desolate place, where trolls exist, paedophiles can practice their grim perversions, and thieves and puppet-masters can manipulate the lonely and desperate, all with anonymity. This is becoming a major problem. Even the rules of engagement when it comes to war are changing. There are now platoons of computer hackers in the army, honest!

We need to have rules on the internet, otherwise this will become a true haven for anarchy. All civilised societies have rules, sensible rules based on protecting and enriching the lives of the people, not on protecting someone's money or a god. The one thing about trolls that I don't understand is when they hide behind anonymity. If I feel the need to criticize someone for whatever reason, I always wish I had the chance to talk to them face to face to tell them how I feel. I know that this is not always possible, but I always put my name to whatever I write. These creepy little cowards, who are usually nothing more than playground bullies, destroy people's lives. They seem to have a need to attack people for no reason. The puppet-masters are the most dangerous, though: they have access to our children at the most vulnerable and impressionable times of their lives. They, like the paedophiles, befriend and groom them, manipulating their young minds for their own aims. It is impossible to keep young people away from a device that enables them to access the internet,  but this does not mean that we have to have a knee-jerk reaction of banning, stopping, and restricting freedom!

Rules are there for a reason, but that doesn't mean that they are reasonable or just. They should always be open to discussion. But some rules are there to protect those less able to protect themselves, and those rules should be upheld. I know you can't pick and chose which laws to obey, but it depends on who made the rule, and for what reason.

Children in Need World Record 2014

Here's a link to the Children in Need world record for the most performances in a school day, featuring Gez Walsh and Joel Duncan, November 2014

http://youtu.be/Q0C_VN7vljU

Shut Your Mouth!

It never ceases to amaze me just what offends people. I can watch the evening news and be appalled at the injustice and intolerance that we as human beings are capable of. We destroy environments, we murder, rape, lie and cheat. We do all these things under one banner or another; it doesn't matter what reason we give, it's always the innocent that suffer.

I have marched against, protested against, spoken out against and ridiculed all the above offences at sometime in my life. I have been moved to tears by the suffering caused to others by mankind's neglect. But I have never yet found it necessary to write a letter of complaint to anyone because I read the word 'fart' in a book! I have had complaints about my use of this word in one of my books, by one or two people who can't get outraged by any of the above subjects! I do like to point out to the morally indignant that the Bible has stories where a man is nailed to a piece of wood after being tortured, a woman does a striptease so that she can get a man decapitated, and another man takes his son up a mountain to kill him and offer his body as a human sacrifice, yet it causes them no offence. Mind you, to be fair to them, they don't use the word 'fart' anywhere in the Bible, as far as I know.

This week a couple were refused admission to the Natural History Museum because they were wearing onesies. I, personally, don't understand why fully grown adults enjoy wearing romper suits, but what people wear is up to them. Why should this have any bearing on people who want to visit a place, which is funded by us, the tax payers, to look on in wonder and improve their understanding of the world, if not their dress sense? Would they refuse the Pope entry? He wears a onesie, of sorts. I wasn't aware that the Natural History Museum had a dress code. When I was younger, you couldn't get into the local night clubs unless you had a suit jacket and trousers and shoes on. Trainers, jeans and t shirts were not allowed. All the guys who wore suits when I was younger were called Mods, and lots that I knew carried weapons and had psychotic tendencies. The guys in trainers and jeans were quite chilled out: who would you rather have drunk in your club?

I have heard this week that the government are looking to expel children as young as four from school for the use of the word 'gay', used as a derogatory term in school. Firstly, a child of four won't know what a derogatory term is, and won't know what gay is - they will have heard it from their parents! Words change over time. My grandparents told me that when they were younger, they were quite free and gay, and this from a couple of Catholic heterosexuals! Of course, words have different meanings and what was once a word for happiness has now become a word to define a sexuality. Words such as, "bad", "sad", and "wicked" all have different connotations now, although "fart" still means the same thing, as far as I know!

This is just a thought: to the ban it all, punish it all brigade, why not try and educate? The more people know about subjects, the more tolerant they become. When I was younger, sexist, racist and homophobic language was used on prime time TV, and even the most conservative of sitcoms was full of such talk. People of my age who claim to be so right-on that they didn't use any of this type of language back then are liars, we all did! Now most of us have moved away from our pure white heterosexual, bigoted lives and learned so much more that we no longer tolerate such ideology or language - knowledge is power.

But, having said all this, my wife recently told me of a woman who she knows who has a one-track mind. Unfortunately the track is self, self, self! She is by far one of the most selfish, intolerant people you could wish to meet. She has never worked in her life, but criticises people who have recently moved here and are working day and night to make ends meet. She bemoans the fact that she is over twenty stones in weight and blames the government for this! And she claims that HIV is a punishment from God for the wicked gay community, even though more heterosexuals have the illness now. When I told my wife that this woman was a fat, lazy bigot, my wife complained, not at the lazy or bigot, but at the word fat!

I have had this problem before. When I worked as a social worker I once said that a girl had lots of health problems because she was vastly overweight having put on six stones (84 pounds) in as many months. Another social worker from another authority pulled me up saying, “we prefer to describe her as an obesomorph! I would rather be called a fat bastard than an obesomorph! When did it become wrong to describe a fat person as fat? If you call them by another name that, no doubt, will became offensive in time, and they will still be fat!

They say the pen is mightier than the sword and the Charlie Hebdo massacre has proven this to be correct. Words can make you laugh, cry and angry! They are our communication, and without them we are no more than hairless apes. Don't be scared of using your language: the use of ignorant language shows the user up to be ignorant. Martin Luther King used words to change the lives of so many, his words are still repeated to this day. Robin Williams used words to make millions of people laugh, but couldn't find the words to ask for help. Hitler used words to cause the destruction of half of the world. Unfortunately words of hate are easier to understand than words of peace for some.

As a writer, words are my building blocks: they are what I use to build a story. They help shape and sculpt a story, and when the story is built the words are all left there in all their glory to enthrall, scare, amuse, disgust, engage, entertain and educate.

So people may want me to shut my mouth, and keep my opinions to myself. They may claim that, as a writer, I should be more eloquent with the use of words, but you cant stop a fart!

Separated By A Common Language.

I think that it's safe to say that, throughout the last three hundred years or so, America and Britain have had their ups and downs with each other. They are like an old married couple, they get on each other's nerves most of the time, but they wouldn't want to be without each other.

Like all marriages, they start off with the same likes and dislikes, then over time they drift apart. The problem with America and Britain is that it's a young bride married to an old, cantankerous git! 

Britain is growing old disgracefully,while America is still trying to keep up appearances.

They started off able to talk to each other, but, over time, they now find that they are both separated by a common language. You would think it was the youthful America, with its many immigrant influences, that has changed and, in the everyday slang, this would be true. But it is actually Britain which has altered. Lots of the words America uses are quite archaic to us here in Britain.

What the Americans would call 'Fall,' we call 'Autumn' They say 'Pantyhose,' we Say 'Tights' They say 'Heavily Built,' we say 'Fat Bastard!'

Americans are often shocked by the service that they receive when they first visit Britain. But we Brits can't do with the “have a nice day” culture. And we like to decide who to tip! I think the people of New York are probably the most like us Brits in their ways. But as with all married couples, one speaks their mind, while the other often apologises for their rudeness!

The reason that I'm telling you all this is because, if you haven't guessed by now from the the books down the right hand side of this page, I'm a writer. Being a writer isn't as straightforward as it seems. Let's not beat about the bush here, if you want to make it big, you have to break America! This means writing things that the American public will identify with and like. None of my books were written with this in mind. They were written for a British market in a style that is, I would say, typically British. I write mostly comedy, but the books in the Twisted Minds series are fast-paced, strange stories for young adults. They say that comedy doesn't travel, and I would agree with this. So can you imagine my surprise when I found that my books have gained a cult status in America?

I can understand the Twisted Minds and the Celtic Chronicles series going down well over there, as they deal with fantasy and friendships. But my children's poetry books have gained the most interest. Again we are separated by a common language and my most popular book is called The Spot On My Bum. Now, in America, a bum is what we would describe as a tramp. The Americans would have called the book The Spot On My Fanny. Any Americans reading this, don't even go there, it's not the same thing over here in Britain. School teachers would ask you to leave the building immediately if you said this. Having said that, my new poetry book is called Great Aunt Fanny's Moustache, but this is in a different context. And to any Americans who are soon to visit Britain, the bag you tie on to your waist like a utility belt, is not a 'Fanny Bag'!

When I first started writing, it was to encourage my then ten-year-old son to read. He's dyslexic and had no interest in books. I used to write him a poem each night, and he would write me one, and we would swap our poems with each other the next day. All the poems in the fist book, mentioned above, were the poems that I wrote for my son, Lee. All the poems are described as slightly rude but have a British rudeness about them, so why are they becoming popular in America? Well I suppose all children like a bit of rudeness, And Benny Hill and Monty Python went down well on the other side of the pond. I also visit schools all over the world, which is strange. The problem is that most people around the world think that us Brits all talk like the Queen! Trust me, only her and her offspring talk like that! We, like the Americans, have a very diverse range of accents in such a small country. I am the proud owner of a Yorkshire accent, which means most people in Britain don't have a clue what I'm saying, So how the hell do people in other countries understand me?!

I have found, over the years, on my travels that children are children the world over. They may all have different problems but they are all basically the same underneath. My school visits are about teachers and parents having fun as well as the students, its easier to learn if you're laughing. Although there will be people who won't agree with this sentiment but, hey, what the hell, I can't please everyone!

So, if you're a teacher in America and I'm due to visit your school, we may have more fun trying to understand the differences. And if I'm not due to visit your school, Why not?! Get in touch and book me now! I'm trying to keep this marriage together, damn you!