I Would Rather Be A Gay, Black Jew, Than A Bigot!

There are lots of things that I find difficult to understand about people and their behaviour. Even as a young child, I couldn't work out why Christians hated Jews, because Jesus was a Jew. When I asked a teacher at my junior school why the Jewish people were so persecuted she told me (an eight year old boy) that the Jews killed Jesus. I thought it was the Romans, yet you don't see the Italians getting the same treatment! Even if this were true, which it isn't, even if there was a person called Jesus (Joshua originally) why would you persecute people who were not there for over two thousand years? What makes it even more ludicrous is that the Torah, the holy book of Judaism, is actually the old testament in the Christian bible!

Now before lots of Christians get hot under the collar with me and tell me that they are not all the same and most are quite passive and tolerant (which is not true) I know not all Christians are the same. But the thing about religion is, the less you know about it, the more bigoted you become.

It seems that gay men, though, strangely, not gay women, get the same treatment. I cannot understand why gay men are so hated! It is just a sexual preference, no more no less, that's it? We all have our likes and dislikes when it comes to sex.

Lets get the religious bit out of the way, shall we? I know all about if a man lays with another blah, blah stuff. But why would a God, a being of vastly superior intellect, a being capable of conjuring up billions of galaxies, of creating all life, be bothered who slept with who? And if the Bible is to be taken literally, then Jesus didn't marry, he hung around with twelve disciples (actually many more than twelve, if you read the Bible). He was betrayed by a kiss from another man: think about it.

But it seems that its not just religious bigots that hate gay men. I watched a programme the other evening about gay men in Russia who are beaten and intimidated: why? Is the masculinity of these bullies threatened by a show of love for their fellow men? Do they see something deep inside their own psyche when they are faced with a gay person? The same men seem to be turned on by the thought of lesbian sex. I cannot see why they have so much hatred.

I really don't care what two consenting adults get up to in the privacy of their own homes, or anywhere else, as long as it's in private. I remember years ago when I worked as a carpenter (Jesus would have been so proud) working on building sites. While working on one site and having a lot of light-hearted banter while eating our lunch, one of the bricklayers mentioned that he was gay. At first, the others thought that he was kidding, but when he told them he had a male partner who he loved deeply, the whole mood of the hut where we were eating changed. People became quite hostile to him. Soon, as with all mobs, they had worked themselves into a frenzy over such an innocent irrelevant comment. Then the whole room became quite threatening, so I thought enough was enough and I told the ringleaders of the bigoted bile what I thought of them. Needless to say, they all turned on me then, claiming that I was gay too. They asked me outright if I was gay, and I told them that my sex life was no person's business but mine! For the rest of the time I worked on that site people gave me a wide berth, and I had lots of fun flirting with the gay bricklayer every meal-time, to wind the rest of the imbeciles up! The guy who I had originally defended asked me one day if I was gay, and I told him to mind his own business.

Many years later while having a drink in a well-known gay bar where I live, I met this man again. He was with his partner and I was with my wife and a couple of good friends. The man came over to me looked at my wife and laughed saying, “That answers my question then.” I told him "Can you not tell she is a man in drag?” pointing to my wife ,who then promptly hit me! He sat with us for a while as he also knew the couple that we were with and I was shocked to hear of the abuse he had received because he was so open about being gay. One of our friends (who is gay) said he, too, had received the same treatment. I was shocked and saddened that we, in this age, still treat people in such a way.

I remember a friend of mine telling me years ago that he didn't want to go to a night club in the Lancashire town of Bolton. When I asked him why, he told me that he had been before and had to fight his way out of the club. The reason for this? Was he some sort of pervert? Had he knocked over a table full of drinks? Had he chatted up someone's wife? No, the reason he had to fight for his life was because he's black! I am concerned by people's ideologies, behaviour and fanaticism, but I really don't give a toss about their skin colour! Why the colour of your skin reflects on you as a person is beyond me!

I thought that we had moved on from the dismal bigoted days of the seventies, that was until a trip to the south Yorkshire town of Barnsley a few months ago. On the main street was a group of morons called the National Front. The NF, as they like to be called, are a Neo-Nazi organisation of knob heads (technical term!). As we walked past these thugs they all stopped and stared with menace at my family. The reason for this being that my son's partner is of mixed race (whatever that means) - she is black. What's more my beautiful granddaughter was with us. I told my wife and my son's partner to keep on walking with our granddaughter, while my son and myself stopped behind, just in case of any trouble. I looked at my son who looked back at me and for a split second we were both overcome with rage because of these mindless oafs. Luckily they did nothing but mutter to each other.

It seems that bigotry is part of the psyche of humans!

Remembering the Unmemorable?

It's a strange thing, memory. You can be told a devastating piece of information that will alter your life, and you will find it hard to recall it all in detail, and yet someone tells you an anecdote about the theft of a fruit tart and you remember every word and can retell the story over and over.

I have been talking to a friend recently about family history - theirs, not mine. When I was asked about my family history I had to admit that its all mainly hearsay and conjuncture, and wouldn't stand up in court. I think at best you could describe my family as a group of natural story-tellers and at worst, they're a bunch of lying bastards! No two people tell the same story about any incident in the history of my family. But then I think this is the same for everyone.

I don't remember things that happened to me only weeks ago. Yet I can remember having breakfast with my father in the kitchen of our old house, just before we went to the hospital to collect my new baby sister. I can remember the hideous wallpaper that hung like a depressing mural on the walls of our kitchen at the time. I remember having cornflakes for breakfast that morning - this was over fifty years ago. Yet I can't remember when I heard the news that my father only had a short while to live or who told me this devastating information, and this was only six years ago.

Humans have a knack of remembering the mundane, while forgetting the important. The above story about the fruit tart was told to me by my Grandmother on many occasions. I used to help her bake when I was young and she would tell me stories about when she was a girl. Her brother one day was told to deliver a fruit tart to a sickly neighbour by her mother. In true 'Dennis the Menace' style he snook off and ate the tart. When it was found that the neighbour hadn't received the tart, he was tracked down by his very frightening Italian mother, who could make grown men quake in their boots. Once confronted by my great-grandmother, he invented a story about how a neighbour's dog had attacked him and eaten the pie. Wanting to believe the lying little scamp she marched off to confront the owner of the dog that he had accused. Her anger soon waned when the owner of the dog told her that the dog had died that day, “it ate something poisonous,” he explained. My great-grandmother sheepishly told the owner how sad she was to hear the news, then gave her son a gift of money for saving her from poisoning the neighbour. This was the only story that my Grandmother told me about her brother, Giacomo, as she failed to mention that he was a decorated war hero!

There is a television programme called, 'Who Do You Think You Are?" This is where celebrities look back at their families. Like my family stories, they find out lots of untruths that they were led to believe about long dead relatives. The family history that I found most interesting was Ainsley Harriot's. Ainsley is a famous chef here in Britain and is a regular on daytime TV cookery programmes. His family are from the Caribbean island of Jamaica, but he knew very little about his ancestors. For him, it was a roller-coaster ride of emotions when he found out about his family. He had been led to believe that his great-grandmother was part Indian, only to find out that she was the result of an overseer raping women to replenish stock, on the plantation where she was a slave! I don't know what Ainsley thought when he found this out, but I felt physically sick! He then learned that other grandparents had been decorated soldiers and policemen. But the biggest shock was to find out that his ancestors weren't all black, as he had thought, but his great-great-grandfather was a white slave owner! Maybe there are some family stories that are best forgotten?

I do wish now that I had listened more to my family members when I had the chance. Their stories about the past seem to have more meaning to me now I'm older. My grandfather was an enigma though. He never ever spoke of his past, all we know about him comes from other people. We know that his father died when he was quite young and his mother remarried to a man that my granddad didn't like. My granddad snook out of the house late one night only to be confronted by his younger sister. She asked him where he was going, and he told her to go back to bed. She begged him not to leave her with the man that his mother had married, so he took her with him. They walked from Thomas Town in Kilkenny to Dublin, where they somehow managed to catch a boat. He was fifteen she was thirteen, and neither ever went back to Ireland again.

She married, and like lots of Irish immigrants of that period moved to America and settled in Boston. She sent granddad letters on a regular basis, but in the end they lost contact. As a writer, can you imagine the wealth of stories I have within my own family? But I now have no way of accessing them.

So if you're young and think that your granny or granddad are just boring old giffers, listen to what they have to say. You just might uncover a story you will never forget!

Bring Back The Bonzos!

Here in the Walsh Household, the cooking has always been my domain. There is nothing wrong with my wife's cooking, it's just that I was brought up on a Mediterranean diet, and my wife wasn't! So, rather than complain about the type of food that she likes to cook, I decided to do all the cooking. The strange thing is that my wife now prefers the food that I grew up with.

So today my son and his family were coming over for dinner and I decided to go out on a shopping trip to replenish the barren waste-land that was once a fridge. Before I set off to the shops I decided to change the CDs I had in the car, I always have a bag full of CDs in the car because I use them on my radio show (Phoenixfm 96.7 Wednesdays 2-4pm). Today, while looking through my music collection - which is ultra-eclectic - anything from Led Zep to Leonard Cohen, for some reason nothing jumped out and said, “play me!” That was until I came across my collection of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band CDs.

I think it's safe to say that the Bonzo's are a "Marmite" band: you love them, or you hate them. I love them! They are quintessentially British and completely mad. They bought up lots of old records from the twenties that were out of copyright and re-recorded them with new lyrics. Because they were a 'sixties band, they also did mock rock n roll tracks as well. They even started one album with a song called 'The Intro Outro', where they introduce the band then just carried on introducing other people such as Adolf Hitler on vibes, Roy Rogers on Trigger! Then there's a song about the perils of dating agencies, called 'Look Out, There's a Monster Coming!' The list goes on, and gets more sillier as it goes. Such songs as 'Tent' or 'Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?' for instance. The humour is old-style British, and they were the forerunners of the Monty Python: in fact Neil Innes, one of the songwriters of the Bonzo's, wrote the early songs for Monty Python. The other song writer in the band, Viv Stanshall, was as crazy off stage as he was on, and is sadly no longer with us. I don't know what happened to the rest of the band, such as Legs Larry Smith or Roger Ruskin Spear.

Their stage shows were something to behold. From what I've been told, they were like Monty Python on acid! But in the end, as with most bands, it all started to fall apart. It ended in a field in Dublin where an event that they had turned up for had been cancelled. They customarily used explosives on stage (honest) and so, on the day, they had a bagful with them. There was scaffolding in the field, that had started to be erected for the stage, so they took out all the explosives that they had, and blew up the whole thing, then went their separate ways!

I set off on my journey today and played these old songs, and even though I have heard them all hundreds of times before I laughed at each one: they never stop being funny! This has to be a rare phenomenon where a comedy song fails to lose the humour. I have heard lots of comedy songs in the past, including some that I thought were brilliant on the first listen, but became quite tiresome by the fourth. But these Bonzo songs have you singing along with them. But of course if, like my wife, you think they are childish and stupid, you won't agree with me.

But as I listened to the songs I wondered if they would work in other countries. I don't think they ever went to America, though I could be wrong. I think you may have to be British to get the humour, and I don't think even the younger generation of the Brits will get the joke: maybe its a time and a place thing. I recently saw Monty Python getting back together. When I was younger, I found them very funny, but when I watched them back they left me cold. That's the strange thing about humour, it sometimes has a time span. The comedians that packed theatres here in Britain in the 'seventies found it hard to get a gig anywhere in the 'eighties. And the anarchic comedians of the eighties are now the safe face of television, advertising insurance, etc! I don't believe in all that rubbish that people spout about 'selling out'. We all have to make a living, but I think I would prefer to do new and different things rather than live on past glories.

But I'm sure that there are lots of people out there that want singers to sing the same songs and comedians to tell the same jokes. So with this in mind, I do encourage you to try out the Bonzos if you have never heard of them. There are box sets of their complete works to buy. If not try the 'Gorilla' album which is probably one of their best in my opinion. If you get the humour you will never tire of it trust me. If you don't get the humour, well you can blame me for wasting your money, I suppose!

One Man's Megalomaniac Is Another Man's Despot!

We are witnessing the terrible scenes of human tragedy being played out in the Mediterranean at the moment. People are fleeing from a tyranny caused by lunatic religious bigots and the foreign policies of the west. We here in the west feel we have a right to tell people how to live their lives, often removing one lunatic who we don't like from power, only to replace them with another lunatic! This time we opened up Pandora's box! We haven't left enough tyrannical lunatics behind to fight against the religious lunatics that are spreading like a cancer not only through the Middle East but soon around the world.

The Middle East is about as stable as nitroglycerine on a rocking horse: you know that sooner or later something is going to blow up! It has been proven time after time that removing one tyrant from an oppressed country usually leaves a vacuum that is quickly fought over by people who make Hannibal Lecter look like a boy scout. This inevitably leads to even more people dying, while the whole region destabilises further!

The sight of desperate people clinging onto over-laden, dilapidated boats in the hope of reaching some safe haven, is something I thought we wouldn't see again in a modern era. There have been more people die in these recent tragedies than on the Titanic, but somehow I don't think people will be talking about this in a hundred years' time. I doubt if most will remember this in just a few years' time. We cannot go on ignoring such suffering: if this was people from Britain doing this in a desperate attempt to survive there would be an outcry of anger by the people of this country. But I'm afraid we seem to have taken the stance of 'It's not our problem' here in the UK. Well I'm sorry it is our problem, we are part of the problem.

Can you imagine what could cause people to take such a terrible risk? Knowing that their chance of survival is so slim? You can bet that by staying where they were, their chances of survival were even slimmer! The propaganda machine of the hate merchants will be working overtime, telling more disaffected youths around the world how we left these people to drown! It is not fair to ask one country to pick up the bill of trying to save the lives of these people. Our government claim that if we help them, more will come. If we don't help them more will still come, but even more will die.

Four women have just set off to row across the Pacific ocean. I wish them good luck. They are doing this, they say, to raise money for charity, which no doubt they are. But the real reason they are doing it, is for adventure. If they go missing, there will be an international effort to find them, quite rightly. This will cost millions of pounds, but we will not spend the same amount on thousands of frightened, starving people fleeing the fear of death!

We can bury our heads in the sand and hope that it all just fades away, but it wont! As the problems in the Middle East escalate, more and more people will become even more desperate and we will end up with a catastrophic loss of human life. The United Nations has a duty to step in and help alleviate this suffering. It's time to stop the useless posturing and threats, and time for action, and I don't mean war. They have to send in forces to protect communities, and they have to see that aid gets to the people who need it and is not siphoned off to feed some despot's army!

We need to stop the Mediterranean from becoming the watery dump for all the poor and desperate that are fleeing in the hope of a better life for themselves and their families!

I would like to get to know you well!

The above title is usually mumbled by a lovelorn individual desperate to start a new relationship. My life is complicated enough without me doing this. I'm actually talking about whole countries not individuals.

I have just been watching a TV programme called 'Wild China'. This program is a fascinating insight not only into the wildlife of this wonderful and diverse country, but also into the people. We in the west are fed lots of propaganda about China. I'm sure that most of it is true, as I have spoken to Chinese people who know nothing about massacres committed by their government on their own people. They only tend to know what has happened in their own region. But this shouldn't reflect on the people themselves. I would hate to be judged as person by the actions of our government! I would love to visit it before it gets too modern and becomes another McDonalds outpost!

The people of China seem to be very industrious, inventive and friendly people. This is of course a generalisation, as, in common with all countries, they will have their quota of 'low lifes'.

China is an old country with a wealth of history and is only just now breaking into the modern world. This country is fast becoming the new superpower of the world. Modern technology means that it is getting harder for governments to keep people in the dark about what is happening. It is one of my bucket list 'to dos' to visit this country. A friend of mine who is a head teacher visited schools there as part of an exchange programme. She said it was both fascinating and frightening the way they teach. She told me that I should work in schools over there, but how? They wouldn't understand my poetry, accent, humour, but I would love the chance to work there. Maybe I will get chance to work in an international school there sometime?

As with China, Russia gets quite a bad press, but I don't think that most of the population of Russia know just what is happening around the world. Russia, like China is an old diverse country with beautiful architecture in many of its cities. We tend to think of Russia as a cold inhospitable place, which it can be in winter, a fact that both Napoleon and Hitler overlooked. Russia, though, is such a big country that it also has areas which are very warm. This is another of my bucket list countries to visit. I'm sure that soon it will start to open up and become easier for westerners such as myself to travel around without too much hassle.

I love travel, it broadens the mind and helps you to see life from many different perspectives. Because of politics, we are led to believe many things about many countries, most of them negative. But I'm sure that the ordinary people of these countries, like those here in Britain, are friendly and welcoming.

A friend of mine has a house in Uruguay and has asked me to visit there on many occasions. I would love to visit there, and also Argentina, but it is a problem to get my wife to travel to such places. I wonder what schools there are there that I could visit? I have written before how much better it is to work in a country than to just be a tourist there. You get to meet the locals and see how everyday life is. South America is a very diverse continent, with breathtaking scenery and wildlife. But as with China and Russia poverty has forced people to live life on the edge, and when you do this to people they become unstable. Lots of these countries suffer from the stupidity of their governments and the west's foreign policies. They are victims forced to survive any way they can. Unfortunately all we ever hear about South America is the drugs trade, which is no doubt the major export for most South American countries. But we should really be more worried about the rain forest that is disappearing at an alarming rate. The rain forests are the lungs of the world, and without them we choke.

I know that America is an English speaking country, but they too are completely different in their ways and the way they speak, compared to here in Britain. It would be interesting to see how my humour goes down over there. I think it will be more appreciated in certain states than in others. I know that in America sarcasm and irony are not as common as as they are here in Britain.

So I hope to visit these countries at some point and meet people and swap ideas and stories. And hopefully I will get to know them well.

What Has the Devil Done Wrong?

No doubt the above title will get lots of people all hot and bothered. But before you start wanting me to burn in hell for eternity, can you please tell me just what evil he is responsible for?

I know he had a falling out with God, who then banished him to eternal damnation in a burning furnace type dwelling (don't piss God off, peeps) but what evil has he done?

God, of course, has been very busy. He has been the cause of countless wars and suffering and pain and misery. He punishes you here in this life and then burns you for eternity in the next if you're not good boys and girls. But as of yet, I haven't heard anything about the devil. He might tempt you to be really naughty and have sex with the wrong person or make you have fun, but I haven't seen anything really bad attributed to him/her.

Of course there is a theory that God and old Lucifer are one and the same person, sort of ying and yang. So that God is responsible for all the good things in the world like... you know, all that good stuff that happens? And the Devil is really responsible for all the wars and decease and famine and rape, and child abuse, and poverty. It's a shame that God is not all powerful, otherwise he would be able to over ride the devil's work and make the world a happy place!

Does God let all the animals that have very short brutal lives go to heaven? I know they don't pray to him and only have sex with the animals he tells them to. I know that they also eat what they can and eat it on what ever day they can so this will of course upset God, but they are animals and his creatures, so he knew this when he made them.

Some say that children are born with the original sin. God has found them guilty of being born! The original sin by the way was created by God because someone ate an apple. It wasn't me! What is it again the Devil punishes you for, I can't remember? It is God that sends you for eternal damnation, not the Devil.

If you are not one of the stupid people that believes the world is only five thousand years old (man had domesticated animals ten thousand years ago) you will know that man, in one form or another, has been around for about two hundred thousand years. For one hundred and ninety eight thousand of those years, God or the Devil did nothing. All those wars famine and suffering and God turned a blind eye. Then one day, if you believe the Bible, he decided enough was enough. I'll help them out, he thought. So he sent his son down to be a human sacrifice. I don't think he thought it through, do you? But guess what? We still have the wars, famine and suffering, but now they are mostly caused by him in his name.

Do you think the Devil has become very lazy? He doesn't seem to be arsed to do anything bad. The people who say that they worship him tend to wear strange clothing and have sex parties - it's hardly genocide is it? Do you think that the Devil set up all these religions to disagree with each other and kill each other for not believing in God in the same way? Is God really religious, if so which one does he favour? Must be the Jews, as they are the chosen people, the ones he has had persecuted throughout history. But he did tell them to paint their doors once while he killed the other opposing mob. Why didn't the Devil think of this evil little plan? He's too busy getting people to wear to much eye liner and have sex I suppose.

Isis have said that they are waging a Jihad, a holy war. Some scholars claim that Jihad doesn't actually mean a holy war. This is irrelevant, because they believe this and they are waging it! Men, women and children have been killed and mutilated by their blind hatred. Not one of these people claim to be a follower of the Devil, they all kill in the name of their God.

Lots of people who believe in God don't now believe in religions. I don't know how they can equate this, when all they know about God comes from religious text. But what is their God then? Did he make the world? If so, how? They say the big bang is rubbish, that something can't come from nothing, but isn't that the same as God has done, something from nothing? Can they really believe that there is a being that has powers to create billions of stars and galaxies and still retains the power to listen to their individual pleas to him, pleas which he always ignores, by the way.

Of course not all religions have the Devil. Some have demons, but like the Devil, these guys don't seem to do bad things, they just try to get you to turn against a deity. Maybe I'm a demon but I don't realise it yet. But then I don't care what you believe, as long as you don't let it effect my life. I don't want to hate or kill anyone in the name of anything either.

I have just worked out what the devil is responsible for, the evil bastard! Salad cream! Was there ever a more evil substance known to man?

Inaccurate Histories: Lies!

Professor Noah Ideas from North Dewsbury University has been awarded a PHD (protective house detention) this week, for his work with small mammals. The small mammals have now been removed by the RSPCA and are undergoing a long spell of therapy.

The professor has pointed out this week that people are quite willing to accept things they are told without questioning the facts, and he aims to give the world the true facts.

“Firstly”, says the professor (who is now sporting a goatee beard and spectacles to make him look more intelligent: he says that the bigger the spectacles, the larger the intellect, so he now looks like Diedrie Barlow on steroids) "the woman that people call 'Joan of Arc' never had an 'Ark': that was owned by a guy called Noah, who once had a wet summer. The same goes for 'William of Orange' he wasn't from Orange, he was Dutch!” says the professor, adding, “There's no such place as Orange!”.

The professor also says that some people have embellished their titles to look better. He says, “Take the American story of the gun fight at the OK corral. First there are no reviews on trip advisor to say if it was OK or not, so this is a presumption for a start off, and there is no sea in that area and coral can only grow in the sea, so the whole thing is a lie!”

Russia has also not escaped the professor's vigorous investigations, “There is no such thing as a Moss Cow” says the professor. Unless this city was named after a mythical beast which the professor has never heard of, then it is all just a lie to fool people.

“There are also people who didn't exist” says the professor. “In Germany they were supposed to have someone called 'Bismark' but I ask you, who would call themselves after a stain in your undies? Then there's Nero who is supposed to have fiddled as Rome burnt down, well I've been to Rome and its not burnt at all!”

Other people with titles that are lies are also pointed out by professor Ideas.

Catherine the Great, wasn't! neither is Great Britain!

Napoleon was named after a brandy!

Henry the V wasn't called V!

Limerick in Ireland doesn't do Limericks!

The Boston strangler never strangled Boston!

Greece prefers oil!

Alaska has never been baked!

The professor has long been an advocate of people not listening to what the academics and scholars of the world have to say. “Just because someone has spent a lifetime studying a subject and has undeniable proof to back up their theories, this doesn't make what they have to say true! Don't ever be afraid to believe in something just because you want to.”

The professor has now embarked on a new theory he is hoping to prove correct, “I have long held a belief that the Vulcans were one of the superior intellects in the galaxy so it is my belief that Spock not Kirk was the real captain of the Enterprise.” The professor knows it won't be long before he proves this theory to be correct, “It's all there on the internet” says the professor.

One Little Gesture.

Life is full of little gestures, from a meaningful look where the eyes say, 'I want you', to a finger flipped to another motorist to inform them that you are a perfect driver! We all know and understand these gestures the world over. Some countries have their own particular gestures such as the Maori Haka, where a strange dance coupled with gurning (face pulling) is designed to intimidate. I don't think this is very intimidating by itself but when you have an eighteen-stone rugby player doing it to you, it is quite scary.

Lots of cultures rub noses together as a greeting, while in the Mediterranean countries, a kiss on the cheeks is both a formal and a friendly way of greeting. Here in Britain, a handshake will suffice, thank you very much! I know that on both sides of my family, the Italians and the Irish tend to want to feed you when you enter their house, while here in Britain, you are instantly offered a cup of tea. These are all small gestures, but they add up to one big thing: civilisation! I'm not talking about the so-called civilised world (which is often anything but) I'm talking about people understanding others. To reach out and shake hands, kiss, or rub noses shows we mean no harm. It is better to flip a finger to another motorist than to jump from your car and beat him senseless. These are rules that we have set to show both our pleasure and displeasure with others. But can you do the same thing on a grander scale? Can these rules apply to international politics?

The sight of Obama shaking hands with Castro is one example of how one simple little gesture says a lot. This one act shows that they have their differences, but now its time to talk. But you do have to be careful - remember, salesmen have some of the most impressive handshakes known to man, and some of the most deceitful lovers are the best kissers!

Here in Britain at the moment we are going through a general election, which is where lots of politicians who all look, sound and behave the same, with all the same ideas, spend a few weeks calling other politicians, who look, sound and behave the same as themselves. This is all very tedious. Rather than implementing new bright ideas, they rehash old ones while sneering at the other side for having the same ideas as them. They behave like unfaithful lovers caught for the last time: they promise you the world if you will just take them back one more time, only to renege on their flimsy promises at a later date when you have committed to them. I do believe that grass root politicians, councillors, get into politics for all the right reasons: they care about their community and the people they work for. But the further up the greasy pole you slither, the further you have to fall, so it becomes more about self survival than selfless serving. It would be good to see one politician stand up and say, "You have made mistakes, we have made mistakes, this system is crap, let's change it."

Of course, there have been gestures in the past which have caught world attention. Who can forget the young man in Tienanmen square who stood in front of a tank, refusing to let it past! This one gesture spoke a thousand words, although I wouldn't regard this as a little gesture. I have since met someone who was there on that day, in fact her husband was one of the young men that ran out to pull tank man back into the crowd. They all knew they had to move quickly to get away, but most of them didn't!

One little gesture that really moved me personally was something that I have written about before.

Many years ago my wife, my son and I visited my wife's parents who lived in the city of York. This city is very ancient and attracts millions of tourists from all over the world each year, though I see it as a big theme park. It was near Christmas, so my son and I decided to go into the city centre to buy a few last-minute Christmas presents for my wife. I am, unfortunately, forced to become a social Christian at this time of year as it means a lot to my wife. My son had gone into a shop to buy a present, so I stood outside to watch the world go by. 

The weather was typical for Yorkshire at this time of the year: cold, sleet and wind. People rushed by with their coats wrapped tight against the weather. The floor was wet and cold and I noticed sitting on a wet blanket was a homeless person, shivering against the cold. His head was held low and he had seemed to have given up on life. He wasn't begging, he was just trying to stave off the winter weather. I have to admit to my shame that I did nothing to help this young man who had fallen on hard times through life and probably through the policies of the above mentioned suits. As I watched, another young man with his very young son walked down the street. He held his child proudly on his shoulders and they laughed and giggled all the way down the road, as the father tickled his son who in turn hugged his Dad. 

The two walked past the young man huddled on the floor in a dirty, wet, and no doubt freezing blanket. The man with the child stopped as he passed the man on the floor and looked at the child in his arms who was beaming the biggest most excited smile in the world back at his father. The young man then hugged his child tightly then reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He then walked over to where the homeless young man sat and gave him a twenty pound note saying, “Merry Christmas my friend.” 

Then he walked away, holding on to his precious little bundle of happiness in his arms. The man looked at the money in his hand. First he was stunned to receive anything, then even more stunned to see how much it was. He jumped to his feet and ran after the man who had given him the money, shouting, “Thank you!” at the top of his voice, adding, “Merry Christmas!” This one little gesture, where one person was able to empathise with another, moved me so much. He, on seeing another less fortunate, had realised just how fortunate he was. This may seem like a small gesture, but to the person on the receiving end, I think it was a huge gesture of hope.

Super Dad!

There's often a lot written about bad parents: lazy, selfish, no-good types who care more about themselves than about the many children they seem to have. But what about good parents? Why don't we ever acknowledge just how difficult it is to be a parent?

Mothers often get most of the praise when it comes to parenting. In lots of cases this is deserved, but there are lots of fathers out there who give over their whole life to help their children have a full and happy existence. I can only talk about my own life and experiences.

My father devoted his whole life to his children and his grandchildren: to him, family was everything. When I was a young boy, I thought my father was the cleverest, biggest, toughest man in the world. I always felt safe when he was around, and he was gentle and fun. Which was good, because he was a Catholic, which meant there were an awful lot of kids in our house. When I became a teenager, I realised one day something that shocked me. My father was just an ordinary man, he wasn't the superman I had always believed. He hadn't done anything out of the ordinary for me to come to this conclusion, it just happened. All teenagers go through this, we feel let down in some strange way when we find out that out parents are just ordinary people who, like all ordinary people, have faults and make mistakes.

But my father wasn't just an ordinary man. He was a superman! He worked fifteen hours a day, often seven days a week, to put food on the table. He kept a small amount of money back for himself each week to do what all working men did in those days, to go for a pint. But he used to go to the pub, have two bottles of Guinness, and then buy nuts and crisps for us all back home. With the rest of the money he had free, he used to buy sweets for us all after church on a Sunday (Yes, I went to church!) 

When he had free time, rather than go to the pub or sit in a chair for a well-earned rest, he would take my older brother John and me swimming. We went on a very rare holiday to the small Yorkshire seaside town of Bridlington when I was young. Every morning, my brother and I used to badger my father to take us both to the large roller-coaster ride on the sea front. We would be there every morning waiting for it to open. The man operating it was so used to seeing us each morning, he let us have lots of rides all for free. Later in life, when I myself was a parent, I chatted to my father about this holiday and the fond memories I had. When I spoke about the roller-coaster, Dad told me that he hated that ride. It made him so ill, and it took him ages to stop himself from being sick after riding it. He even went as far as doing without his breakfast so he would be able to ride it with us. Just writing this fills me with tears. All this just so we could have a little happiness.

I hope that I learned from my father and gave my son a happy life. Like my father, though, I will have no doubt made a lot of mistakes on the way. This is inevitable and just part of life. My son is a proud father himself now, and he too works long hours away from home, often not returning for a few weeks. When he does return home, he is often very tired, but little Harleigh runs to him and gives him a hug and all his batteries are recharged. He spends all his time with her and his partner Kim. There is no handbook to being a father, we can only do what we think is right. I still have a close relationship with my son, but of course his family now have priority in his life and that's the way it should be.

Lots of fathers can be seen with their children at the weekend, giving their children the most important thing they can give, their love and their time. I have thousands of happy memories of my father sledging with me on the super sledge that he made for both my brother and myself. He taught me to ride a bike. Gave me my first boxing lesson. We used to have races, and he would sometimes let me win. He helped me to make go-carts, showed me how to make bows and arrows, the list just goes on.

So, when we hear all the negative comments about feckless fathers who shirk their responsibilities when it comes to their children, think of all the supermen, who give their all to their children. Being a parent is a selfless task. You give up your freedom, friends and interests to give your children a happy life. Mothers are lucky in one way: they have a natural bond with their children, where us dads have to work at it. But I have to say that I loved my son from the very first moment that I saw him, I was there the night Harleigh was born. My son came out of the birthing room to talk to me and the look on his face told me that he too had just fallen madly in love with his little bundle of happiness.

After my awful teen years when I made not only my parents' lives but everyone's lives miserable, I got to know my father again. We became not only father and son, but also friends. He found me work with him as an apprentice joiner and we became quite close. When I think back to my childhood and the time I spent with my father as an adult I realise he wasn't an ordinary man, he didn't make any mistakes when it came to being a man and a father. I was right in the first place. My father was a superman!

Lucky Genes?

I don't really believe in luck as such. I suppose chance and luck are the same thing, but it's knowing when to take a chance.

Now, it could be said that in one way we are all incredibly lucky. Forget about all the God nonsense, and just consider how lucky you are to be here. How many eggs does a woman produce in her lifetime. Then what are the chances of one of those eggs being fertilised and developing the full term. The odds of you just being born are phenomenal! Then think about the chances of where you are born. If you are born in a first world environment to loving parents, this means you are one little lucky bunny. The rest of your luck is up to you!

The reason for the above title is because I know some people that seem to win more than their fair share of luck-based games. My wife's sister plays bingo once a week and wins far more than the odds would dictate. I think this lucky gene may have been passed on to my granddaughter.

I have been away for a few days on the East coast of Yorkshire. We hired a caravan and had a lovely relaxing time. While we were there my son and his family came over to visit and stay a night as it was my wife's birthday. Little Harleigh was in her element, running around the caravan and exploring somewhere new. Now, all of the above applies to Harleigh. She is already lucky to be born where she has been born and into families that adore her. Not only that, but she is incredibly beautiful. This is not a besotted Babo saying this, people often stop us in the street to say how beautiful she is! So she is loved and beautiful. This would be enough for anyone, but she also seems to be very lucky.

While we were away, my son, Harleigh and I were waiting for my son's partner, Kim, and my wife to finish trying to buy the complete stock of a national clothing outlet. We entered a small amusement arcade with all its lights flashing out their "look at me" signals. We were looking for a small ride to put Harleigh on, to keep her amused while we waited. There were no small rides to be found, so my son changed 50p into 2p's to play on one of those "shove ha-penny" machines. You know the machines I mean, the ones that look like the pennies are about to fall off the side but are weighted in such a way that hardly any ever fall. The thing I have noticed is that here in Britain, small change is so worthless no one wants it. So the idea was to let Harleigh put the 50p in this machine to keep her quiet, as we thought she would use it all in about five minutes . How wrong we were! Every time she put a 2p in the slot, more money dropped out. We even moved to another machine that looked like it had been rigged to take your money just to get rid of the unwanted 2 pences that were now mounting up. At first our plan worked, but then against all odds she won £2. By now, she was quite bored so we took her winnings (£3.40 in total!) and changed it for proper money.

There was still no sign of either of our partners so we let Harleigh sit an a motor bike that was part of a computer game. As we talked, I noticed that Harleigh was trying to put something into the start slot. When I looked, she had a fifty pence piece in her hand. I asked where she had got it from, and she pointed to a ledge where she had found the money.

This is not an isolated incident. She has displayed this talent for luck all through her life and she isn't yet three years old! While playing a grab-a-teddy machine, my son let her have a go at using the grab lever. She didn't know or care what she was supposed to do, so she just wiggled it about a bit, the grab picked up not one but two little teddy bears and deposited them safely in the out tray! A man that had watched this incident told us that he had been trying to win one of those teddies for six months for his granddaughter, without success! We gave him one of the teddies.

I am very lucky in life, but I don't ever win anything by luck, EVER! If it's a game of chance I'm a Jonah, have me on your team and you won't win anything, this I promise you. But it seems that little Harleigh will sail through life not knowing just how lucky she is!

Eavesdropper shockers!

We have all, from time to time, listened in on other people's conversations. Some people talk so loud that it is impossible not to overhear just what they are saying to each other.

My wife and I have just spent a few days on the East coast of Yorkshire. While sitting in a pub by the sea after a long day walking, we were both communing quietly with our own thoughts. At the table across from where we were sitting were a woman and two men. One of the men had a dog with him and after finishing his drink he turned to the woman, who turned out to be his wife, and said, “I'll take the dog home and meet you two up at the pub up the road.” He then promptly stood up and left the pub with his faithful hound at his side. He had no sooner left the pub when the other man turned to the woman and said, “I miss you so much, can we not drug him again so we spend the night together?” The woman told him to behave himself and to be patient, then they both left the pub! Both my wife and I turned to each other not believing what we had just heard. 

“Did he say what I thought he said?” asked my wife, more than a little concerned. 

“If you thought he was talking about drugging the other guy so he could play hide the sausage with his wife, then yes!” I replied, also a little concerned. 

My wife then smiled, shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don't think they were serious, I think they were just messing.” We then did the very British thing of not getting involved.

Many years ago, I was on a bus minding my own business while two old ladies chatted away to each other behind where I was sitting. Then one of the old dears turned to the other and whispered, “He wont tell me where he's buried her.” They both then fell silent. This drove me mad, thinking that I had stumbled upon a murder plot!

Once, while sitting in a cafe, trying to write a piece of work that was supposed to have been written a month before (story of my life) a young woman at a table across from me spoke to someone on her mobile phone.

“I've never seen one that big before. He begged me to sit on it last night and it just made my legs go funny!” is what she said to the person on the other end of the phone, then added, “I know, he gets so excited about things that he can't control himself!” I stopped writing then, and instead, started listening at this point. I soon realised that this wasn't a piece of salacious gossip but just a mundane conversation when the woman added, “I told him that I hate those vibrating chairs, so why he bought one I just don't know!”.

That is the problem with eavesdropping, most of what is being said is quite boring and mundane: it just depends when you tune in to the conversation to make it interesting. Like this one. A woman talking to another woman in a doctor's surgery, just out of the line of vision of my wife, said, "I can't put up with it any more, he keeps biting my nipples, they have started to bleed now.” My wife told me that when she turned her head very slowly to see who was having this conversation, it turned out to be a young mother with her baby in her arms, hence the nipple biting.

A friend of mine, while walking through a graveyard in Glasgow in Scotland, found himself behind two elderly ladies in deep conversation. One turned to the other while pointing to the far end of the cemetery and said, in a broad Glaswegian accent, 

“You know old Martha Connelly?” 

“Aye” replied the other old lady.

“Well they buried her Fanny over there!”

No, she hadn't had an operation to have a body part removed, it turned out to be the woman's sister.

Another friend of mine told me that many years ago while at a motor bike race meeting, two young women were queuing at the burger bar in front of where he was standing. One turned to the other and said, “I only did it as a favour for him, when I put it in my mouth it made me feel sick!” My friend said he tried not to listen to the rest of the conversation as he didn't want to hear anything that would make him feel sick, before his precious burger. But it's like having a spot on your nose: people can't help but look at it, and gossip has the same effect  - you can't help but listen to it. She carried on with the story.

“As soon as I started sucking it I knew it was a big mistake, but I was shocked just how fast it came! The taste of it made me fell sick, now I can't get rid of the taste in my mouth!” Both women then fell about laughing.

A little later that day my friend saw the woman who had had this conversation, with an old friend of his. He felt a little awkward, knowing what this woman had said earlier when his friend came over to talk to him with her in tow. They had a brief chat then, this guy turned and introduced his girlfriend to my friend adding, “She's not friends with me at the moment, I got her to siphon some petrol out of a tank earlier on and she swallowed a mouthful of it!”

So you see the most risqué of conversations can be actually nothing more than mundane when you have the full facts!

Mistakes

Show me a man/woman who hasn't made a mistake, and I'll show you someone who has never done anything!

We have all made them: from the minor choices, such as picking the worst meal on the menu, to the one big drunken night! One leaves you spending a night on the toilet, while the other leaves you with a lifetime of regret! But are all mistakes really mistakes? If you have made an informed decision based on the evidence that you have in front of you at the time, is that then a mistake if things go wrong?

A friend of mine, many years ago, fell in love with a very attractive young woman who seemed to be the answer to all his dreams. He decided that he would whisk her away for a romantic weekend and pop the question (will you marry me, not phone a friend). This was before the rise of the internet, so he had to go on recommendations and reading up on on places to visit. He knew that she was fond of long walks in the country side so he chose the Peak District, which is a beautiful part of Britain to walk in. He chose a very expensive hotel, well more than he would normally pay. He also hired a car because his was old and prone to heart failure. 

He had spent all the money he had in the world to make this event one that the young lady in question would remember for the rest of her life. The engagement ring alone cost him £150, which in the 'seventies was quite a lot of money! He had all the bases covered, and he had thought about every aspect of the weekend to ensure it would go to plan, except for one thing, his bride to be. The night he was to announce to her that he had booked them a weekend away, she informed him that she was bored in their relationship and was leaving him for a man she had met at work, then promptly walked out of his life for ever. 

At the time he told everyone that falling in love with her was the biggest mistake of his life. He had lost face (everyone except him knew about her affair) he had lost all the money he had in the world, which he couldn't claim back. But he had also lost the ability to trust someone again, which is what he told me at the time. But it wasn't a mistake! He had done all those things for the right reason, that he loved someone! And also this woman went on to take lots of wealthy men for all they were worth, only to end up with a drink problem herself. He, on the other hand, is happily married with three wonderful grown-up children and two lovely grand children.

Sometimes, making decisions for the right reason is the wrong thing to do. When you make a decision because you love someone, or because you don't want to upset someone, it is usually a bad move. We have all done this: we have all lent money, or recommended someone for a job who is untrustworthy, only to pay the consequences for their actions ourselves. It is always far better to let your head make decisions and leave your heart to pump blood around your body! Decisions made with the heart are all made without thought. They don't need thought; you need trust for these. But all decisions are half-chances. We don't know what little variants life is going to throw at us when we make these choices.

One of the problems about our life choices is that they may not comply to other people's choices, and this will cause conflict, which is unfortunate but inevitable. You cannot make decisions on whether others may or may not be upset. Sometimes the best decisions are the ones made for selfish reasons. Especially when it comes to business. I tend to use trust and loyalty when it comes to business which is why I'm not sitting in a penthouse suite in Manhattan New York, with a twenty year old PR called 'She Moon' who sees to my every whim at the moment. But I genuinely couldn't think of a worse existence than that. Well, working down a mine or living in the third world would probably be far worse, but you get my drift. I have what I need, I have family and friends who I love and care about. I can pay my bills and have a nice house and food to eat. But there have been times in my life where I have had to make choices. You could say that some would have led me to becoming quite wealthy while others would have surely seen my demise. For me, the choices I made at the time were the right choice, because I'm here and I'm happy!

So, if you are sitting reading this (you can stand to read it if you wish) now and are riddled with guilt over something you have done or said, sit back and think. You made the decision to do what you did, it's now done, and it can't be changed. I have learned that the things that you think are massive mistakes at the time often seem quite insignificant at a later date. We all make mistakes: the important thing is to learn from them. To make the same mistake twice is quite foolish, but we must trust others, and we have no control over their choices. Your successes and your mistakes are part of the tapestry which makes you, so learn to laugh at the mistakes but learn to embrace your successes: there will probably be many fewer of them than there will be mistakes.

One mistake you should never make is to do things just so you can be part of a crowd. When I was only nine years old, I was obsessed with boxing (I still am). I was at a gym where I used to go and imagine that I was Henry Cooper (big mistake). I noticed that most of the older boys in the gym who I looked up to had very short cropped hair. This was at a time when the skinhead movement was at its height. I wanted to look like them. I wanted that haircut. I thought it would make me look 'hard'. When my mother foolishly gave me some money one day to get my thick luxurious mop of hair cut I eagerly ran to the barber's shop in the village where I lived. This shop was owned by a small rotund Italian man. I told him that I wanted to be a skinhead, so he shaved all my hair off, right down to the bone! I had no hair left at all, only skin on my head. My mother was so angry with me, and the little barber for being so stupid as to listen to me, that she marched me back to the shop. I don't know what she expected: did she want him to put my hair back on? But as with all things with my mother, it simply ended with her hitting him! I wasn't bothered, because now I looked hard. Except when people saw me, they burst into tears. 

Old women hugged me and even hard men's eyes moistened when I approached them. I couldn't work out just why I was having this effect on people, until a friend sat me down one day with tears in his eyes and asked me why I hadn't told him? I spent my life being confused when I was nine and still do to this day, but this really perplexed me. I told him that I didn't know what he was talking about. He then told me that his mother had told him about my illness, and that he must get himself ready because I might die. I was still none the wiser, so I ran home, worried about this information that I was about to die. I asked my mother what this horrible condition that I had was, that everyone except me knew about. She laughed, then explained that, because of the severe hair cut, everyone thought that I was having chemotherapy for some life-threatening cancer!

So you might think the hair cut was a bad mistake, except I made a small fortune by pretending to be the little dying boy! Every cloud, and silver linings, and all that!

Sanctuary!

It may be a room in your house, a church, or just a place with a view, but we all have one: a sanctuary.

It's the retreat you run to when life becomes too intrusive, too overpowering. It's our place of solitude, where we can think and rejuvenate our batteries. A friend of mine has her sanctuary up on the moors. She has a rock that she sits on to meditate and pray. When her mother died, she sat up there alone for nearly two days, with nothing more than a few meagre rations and her thoughts. She was so engulfed with her thoughts and emotions she lost all sense of time. She was shocked to find that the police had been notified about her as a missing person when she returned home.

When I was younger, my friends and I used to spend a lot of time on a small river not far from where I used to live. The sound of the water gently flowing and the wildlife along its banks calmed me. Trust me, there wasn't much that could calm me when I was young. When my grandfather died I sat by this small section of river for hours by myself, to grieve the only way I knew how, alone. The river has since been diverted and what was once my sanctuary has been filled in and houses and a supermarket built over all my memories.

I have been lucky in life and have had the good fortune to travel and see many beautiful and interesting places. But the place where I have felt the most relaxed and at peace is actually a bar. This bar is in a small village on the Algarve in Portugal. I don't want to name the place or the bar as I want it to remain my sanctuary. This bar has no walls, it is just a wooden bar to sell drinks from, with an awning tied above to keep the glaring mid day sun out of your face. My wife and I have sat here sometimes for a few hours, always late in the afternoon. We usually will have no more than a couple of drinks there, but no-one goes there to get drunk - you go there to chill.

To reach the bar you must walk down a steep narrow road which is flanked by small fishermens' cottages which are tightly packed together like the sardines their owners hope to catch. Old ladies dressed in loud floral patterned dresses stand outside of their houses with improvised barbecues made from small tins with wire baskets on top. This is the way they cook their sardines, as the houses are so small you couldn't cook the fish inside - the smell would impregnate everything. As strangers we are still always greeted with a smile and a wave from these old ladies as they chat away to each other as we pass.

The bar overlooks the sea, which is the Atlantic, an ocean that invites you to dive in then freezes you for doing so! In the sea, young Portuguese men ride surf boards like charioteers going into battle while a few pale-skinned foreign girls look on, in a hope that they will catch the eye of one of these young men, I'm certain they will as I look on with a wry smile. At the bottom of the narrow road is the beach and a set of cobbles, where old fishermen pull out their small boats and mend their nets. These men see each other every day but still they chat to each other like long lost friends. At the height of the afternoon, as the sun teeters in the sky ready to fall and set, people walk up pass the bar with the day's catch. An old couple walk up hand in hand not speaking to each other, they don't need to, they have been together so long they probably communicate by telepathy.

The bar is always silent except for a few mumbled voices, people from all walks of life and from many different countries sit and contemplate life or read that book they have been meaning to read for ages. My beer glass has been stored in a chiller, so small trickles of water run down its sides as it nestles my cold beer against the heat. My wife and I also don't talk, we have no need to, we are comfortable with each other's company and both know this is a place and a time to think, to try make sense of life. Here there are no outstanding bills that need paying, no family crises to sort. Work is a distant memory, no one knows us, there is just us the bar and the world slowly moving about us.

I haven't been to this sanctuary for a few years. The last time we visited it was hard to ignore the relentless growth of tourism encroaching the village like a cancer. The locals may see it as progress, but like all the other small villages around that area that have been eaten by mass tourism, they will find that they will end up being pushed out of the homes where they and their families have lived for generations. Their small, family-run bars will be taken over by British pubs and burger bars, leaving nothing but a soulless theme-park-type Disney village, devoid of ambience.

So now, rather than visit my sanctuary, I keep it here in my head, and when life attacks me I sit and release its calm image that leaves me feeling comforted in a warm duvet of memories of Portugal of the past.