Risk!

People have long pondered what makes us different from other animals. Most people think that empathy is what separates humans from animals, but I disagree.

If you have read my previous blog about elephants, you will know how I witnessed a cow elephant try in vain to save calves of the herd, even though they weren't her offspring! Elephants have been seen stopping at the bones of long-dead elephants to fondle and caress them as if they were paying their respects to long lost family and friends: this is surely empathy.

I think the thing that makes us so different from other animals is risk. We are the only species that will take a risk just for fun. We are willing to put our lives and the lives of others that we love and care about at risk, just for a thrill! How many cars full of passengers have you seen hurtling down a road at full speed in bad weather? No other animal would climb a mountain in atrocious weather conditions, risking their life just to reach the top, with no gain, no,food, not for safety, but just for the hell of it.

I know people who claim that they like to play it safe, with no risk, just a quiet life. These people smoke and drink far to much, they eat food that puts lots of weight on them and they sit around with as little exercise as possible. I think I would rather take my chances with a mountain! They know the health risks involved with their lifestyle but they still pursue the lifestyle.

I know people that will bet their whole belongings on the turn of a card, while others will risk the love and respect of their families just for a chance of a quick sexual encounter with someone they don't even care about. Humans are driven by risk. We love to gamble, whereas animals don't do this. Some animals will take a risk, but only when they are starving, or when they have no other option, take a chance or certain death!

Maybe I have got this all wrong, maybe it's not the risk we like, but the boredom that we hate? What if it's actually boredom that makes people take the chances that they take? I have to admit that potholing or mountain climbing doesn't appeal to me - it's too slow and arduous. I do like speed though, but I find roller-coasters quite boring, because I feel the risk has been removed. I have multiple scars and broken bones to show for my love of stupid risks. I thought that I would grow out of it but no, I still like taking a chance on something that could go wrong. I need the thrill, and I get bored easy. I have written before how my wife claims that I'm a ten year old boy trapped in a middle aged body. But this is not true. I would do absolutely anything for a dare when I was ten. I don't do dares now!

I think my main problem is the total disregard for health and safety issues. When I worked on the building sites many years ago, health and safety wasn't practised as it is nowadays. I remember putting a roof on a house, while balancing on four milk crates on top of a scaffolding board thirty feet in the air. I still had to stand on my tiptoes to reach the ridge. The only reason I didn't add another milk crate was because I couldn't find one. But I wouldn't call this a risk (though I would call it stupid) because I didn't feel that it was unsafe or that I would come to any harm if I fell because there was so many things that would have broken my fall.

It was quite common for me to jump from a roof into piles of sand at the time. And in those days you just accepted that things went wrong on the sites and sometimes people got hurt. I think you can only claim that someone is taking a risk if they are aware of the dangers, or if they feel there is a danger.

But bravery is another matter all together. I'm not very brave at all. I have worked with lots of young people who have suffered relentless bullying, and some have decided to make a stand: this is very brave.

To face up to a problem and meet it head on even, though every fibre of your body tells you to run, is very brave. I have never been bullied, I'm too stupid to bully mentally and too big and aggressive to bully physically. I like fighting, it's my sport - not in the street, but in a ring. So I have never had to endure the fear that these people have endured on a daily basis. To decide that enough is enough and change their situation takes courage, and sometimes a risk as well.

I think the only risk that I shall take tomorrow is to go out without a coat. In Britain, this is very risky indeed!

Grammar Is Not Married To Granddad!

While visiting a school in Greater London recently, I found myself in a strange conversation with a young man who was fifteen years old. He seemed to have a total lack of understanding of the English language, even though he was born and bred here, and so were his parents and their parents etc.

"You is foreign or summat?” he asked adding, “yous sound if yous from Korea innit?” I understood "Korea"

I know that lots of people have problems with my Yorkshire accent in London. It's a city that is very multi-cultural, with people from around the globe, but they have problems knowing where Yorkshire is. I asked him if he thought that I was Korean (even though my heritage is Irish/Italian) He replied, “Yeh”. I then asked him why he thought this, and he replied, “Cos yous is talking odd innit?” We had further conversations about just where my home county is and why "I is talking odd innit", then I asked him why he spoke like he did.

This really threw him, because he said, “I is English (not British) we all talk like dis”. I explained that he wasn't talking English but a type of slang or pidgin English. 

“I aint no fucking pigeon!” he snapped. I asked him if he knew what diction or grammar were, “You is a perv, man!” I think he called me this because of the "dic" part of diction. He then told me that he knew what grammar was, “She is married to Granddad innit?” (I doubt his Granny was ever married to his Granddad!) This wasn't a very old feeble joke: he really believed this.

Now please don't think that I'm being a snob here, although I suppose I am a little. But I am faced with this problem time after time. If you have read any of my previous blogs, you will have heard me moan on about this before. I have no problem with the use of slang. I use slang when I'm with my friends, but I also know when not to use it. I know that language changes all the time, but because lots of young people don't understand how to use their language, or how it should sound, they are losing the art of conversation. Rappers spit out words of the street, which I love, because it has form and anger when used in this way, but what if you have to talk to a person who has learned the proper way to speak English, how will you communicate with them? How would you feel if your surgeon turned to you and announced, “Yous as cancer innit?”

The older generation may have had problems with accents etc, but they knew when they weren't speaking properly, hence lots of extra aitches thrown into polite conversations, such as, “Whell hi hask you?” In my recent blog called 'Where Is The North?' I spoke about Londoners becoming more and more insular, which is true. They seem to have problems with regional accents and have developed a way of speaking which is quite alien to people not from an estate in London. They never seem to travel Britain and have no knowledge of places outside of the capital. Most have no knowledge of places outside of where they live!

That is why, as co founder of Relight-Ed, which is a not for profit enterprise, I can announce that we are starting a project called, 'Dare You Tell'. Our aim is to get young people not only here but all around the world to learn the art of story telling. To learn about the rhythm of the language, how to structure a sentence and how to create a way of talking which engages the listener. Street talk is good for the street, it's brilliant when used in a rap, but it limits the ability to communicate with others.

So as they say up north, "is tha interested?"

Ridiculous Royals

Since William the Bastard came over on a booze cruise from Calais a thousand years ago, we here in Britain have been saddled with inbred halfwits who have no clue about real life, but think they know how others should live theirs!

If you read about the history of the royals in this country, you will learn that these people are better suited for the Jeremy Kyle show than they are for adoration from the mindless ones. They have lived their lives being told how wonderful they are, when most of them couldn't tie their own shoe laces. If you take issue with what I'm saying, just read the facts. Those that weren't homicidal maniacs were usually corpulent deviants, while most of them had the IQ of the average grated carrot. Yet they are still worshipped, not only here but around the world. I think this has more to do with the present Queen having the foresight to see that after the last war they might become surplus to requirements, so she has done one hell of a PR job on "royal PLC" to ensure they stay.

Last week, the letters sent by Prince Charles putting pressure on politicians to comply with his wishes were published, They proved for me what I have long believed, which is that the royals still run this country. I know we have lobbyists trying to get views heard in Parliament, and on the whole I have no problem with this. Though it is open to abuse, and is abused by big multi-nationals. The way of lobbying does need to change, but it is still a way of people to have their voices heard by the government. But Charles just expects his wishes to be carried out, and if not...?

If you have read any of my blogs before (thank you) you will know that I am no fan of the two 'R's' Royals and religion. Here in Britain they go together, as old queenie is the head of the church here. These people are given far too much money by the state, and for the life of me I cannot understand why. I don't understand the purpose of them. Don't give me the tourism argument as this, like the religion they are the head of, is an unproven belief, and a very, very feeble reason! When you get people who have no grasp of what real life is like, have never had to pay a bill, have never had any need to work, telling people how to live, it is too much for a rational mind to take.

I know people who have three jobs and still can't make ends meet. I have met some very intelligent young people who can't break away from the cycle of poverty and the mindset that holds them there. Which is the reason for this blog. Son of Charles has had his say on how we should live this week!

Harry wants to bring back national service! Good old Harry! He says the army made a man of him and saved him... BOLLOCKS! He left one of the top schools in the country with a 'C' in art and a 'D' in geography, then went in to the army. Now if I had gone into the army at his age with his qualifications my title would have been 'come here you little shit!' or 'private' as the more gently spoken ones call it. He went in to be one of the highest ranking officers in the army. That must have pissed off real soldiers that have served in some of the worst conditions known and had to work their way up the ladder.

I know Harry did two tours of duty out in Afghanistan, but he was surrounded with security at all times and if it looked like the shit was going to hit the fan he would have been moved out of there quicker than lightning. From what the real soldiers say about his time there, he spent most of his time on Facebook etc, and was only seen out and about when the cameras were rolling. I don't know if this is true, but I bet you my house that he did not live out there like the other soldiers had to.

I have no doubt that for the first time in his life he had a chance to bond with others, as royals only really get the chance to meet 'real people when they are serving in the army, but they don't really get to know what real friendship is. I have no doubt that he thought that the army changed the lives of the men serving under him, of this. You cannot face the dangers they faced on a daily basis with men you have to trust your life to without changing as a person, but National Service?

Is he talking about the super-rich being compulsorily taken away from their lives and families to undergo rigorous training and beastings, as the army calls it? Or is he talking about working class youngsters who already live their lives like that, being used as cheap labour? We are already cutting the size of our army because the banks need more tax breaks. We have the poorest and most vulnerable in society being made scape goats for the inadequacies of governments, and having benefits slashed, so where's the money for this coming from? If it is about getting young people to work for nothing, then it's no different to what happens now. Job centres telling people they must work for nothing at supermarkets etc or get their benefits cut.

Why not invest money in education and training, get industry back on its feet and give some dignity back to people? Give them a chance to get out of poverty by their own means. Stop this mindless punishment of people who are just victims of circumstance. Take away the state-given wealth of the royals and lets see how many good ideas they have about how to change society when they have bills to pay and mouths to feed and NO FUCKING MONEY to do it with!

I know that my parents' generation had to do national service and 87% of them thought it was a positive thing to happen to them (the other 13% were probably rich) but that was a different era. Spike Milligan wrote in his memoirs that most of the young working class men looked back on the last big war as a time of excitement and adventure. 'How else would a young working class lad get a chance to travel the world?' which is one way of looking at it I suppose. The fact that lots of those who came back alive, including Milligan, suffered from mental illnesses for the rest of their lives didn't seem to bother him. The world is a different place from the 'forties, but who's to say we have moved on since then?

It is no good forcing people to do National Service, only to send them back to poverty and no hope at the end of it. This will not spur them on to greater things, only piss them off more!

Where Is The North?

The above question was asked of me by a young lad in a school in Croydon a short while ago. At first I thought he was asking me where magnetic north was, as in the north pole. But he then quickly added, “the country that you come from.”

I asked him if he thought that I was from another country and not from the same country that he lives in, to which he replied, “yes”.

I can forgive him for thinking that Yorkshire, the biggest county in Britain, is in another country. He was,after all, only ten years old. Though I can't forgive the suited Etonians in Westminster for thinking the same thing. How else could you explain the lack of investment in the north of Britain? Why, when the wicked witch of Downing Street closed all the coal mines in the eighties, did they not invest money to rebuild all the local economies? Why, when industries such as fishing, textiles, engineering, shipbuilding, and coal mining were decimated, did no government think of the effect it would have on the people that depended on them? I think you will find that all these industries were the mainstay of the north of Britain. The people of the north have become more and more detached from what happens in London, as they are treated as if they are a separate country and forgotten.

The other day, while I was watching the national weather forecast, the forecaster said, “It's good news for us all today with lovely blue skies and sunshine. But there will be rain in the north.” 'Us all?' How does she equate that? But that is the problem with people who live in the south: they think that Britain stops at Watford. We here in the north are slowly becoming a waste land. This is not over-dramatic! Go into lots of former thriving town centres in northern industrial towns and you will find most of the shops closed. Those that are open will be either charity shops or betting shops. That is a sure sign that a town is dying. The suits in power say that towns have to be more competitive, but how? Councils are being asked to cut their budgets not just to the bone, but down to the marrow! How can they rebuild an economy when they can't even afford to open a library?

A friend sent me a piece that he had read online about how there's been a petition raised in Manchester by people calling for the north to become part of Scotland, as we have more in common with them than the people of southern England. I agree, the Scots are lucky enough to have politicians that care about the people and not about what old school tie you wear. Nicola Sturgeon and her MPs are for me true socialists, the type of socialists that I believe in. They have done something that our sorry bunch of inbred political excuses could never do, they have re-ignited a passion for politics in their country. They are offering a real alternative to what the people of Scotland have been forced to endure for years. While we are still stuck with the careerist, self publicising, pocket-lining school bully politicians.

The Labour party have become a party of the old boys network just like the Tories. They don't represent working people anymore, they just play the political game of one-upmanship with each other. When I was a kid, we had politicians such as Harold Wilson and Ted Heath, and you knew where you stood with these guys - they were different, they were like the people they represented. Harold Wilson, by the way, was a prime minister, and from my home town of Huddersfield. He was accused of being shifty and underhanded in his dealings, but he did it for what he believed in. Now we have people like Peter Mandleson, who always reminds me of a camp bond villain, trying to convince people he is on the side of the working class, while accusing Ed Miliband of being too left wing! If we regard Ed Miliband as being too left wing, then socialism is truly dead and buried in Britain.

It's time we too changed our political system, and our outlook on the people that represent us. We don't have to accept the rubbish that our public servants tell us to be the truth. We need more investment here in the north. We want a system where conglomerates are made to reinvest back into local economies, instead of taking tax breaks then running. We need training and apprenticeships for our young people. We need worthwhile enterprises that help people to build their own businesses. We need to spend money on proper social housing instead of creating the slums that we now have here in the north. We need more grass roots politically minded people that want to work for their community, and we need more power given to local authorities, backed by proper funding. Maybe then the north can once again become the powerhouse of the Britain, as it once was.

What Seems Good Is Bad, What Seems Bad Is Good!

There are several things that I do time after time then wish I hadn't! None of them is life changing, just irritating to me. Fish and chips is one of these things.

Now I have to own up and say that this British meal, of all meals (it's actually a Jewish meal) is not one of my favourite things to eat. I wasn't brought up eating this kind of food, although we were allowed fish cakes from the local fish and chip shop from time to time. But every now and then, usually when I'm very hungry and feeling very lazy, I might be tempted to buy some if I'm lured by the smell while passing a fish and chip shop. The smell of fish and chips is a strange thing, because I find the smell of them repugnant when I'm not hungry, but they do have a siren-type quality if you are hungry, they call to you! Once I have eaten them, I wish that I hadn't. I can quite honestly say that I have never eaten fish and chips without feeling quite queasy afterwards, so why do I buy them? Because it seems like a good idea at the time!

On a far more serious note, unless you have been living in a cave for a week you will know that the Tories have got back into power! I'm not happy about this, but we live in a democracy, so that's the way it goes. They did wage a campaign of fear, as usual, and people fell for it, as usual. By the way if the SNP didn't want to split from Britain they would be a good party to be in power because they make a lot of sense about a lot of things, but I think we are one nation and should stay that way.

One of the first things the Tories have announced on getting back into power is that they are going to abolish the human rights act! What, you're not bothered? Sorry, but you mustn't have heard me properly. The leaders of a free and democratic country are planning to abolish the human rights act! Sorry, it's my mistake: they are doing it because they care so much about you. Those naughty terrorists will blow us all up unless we hand over our rights of freedom to our loving, beloved leaders. Was that too dramatic, do you think? We have covert forces working day and night against the threat of terrorism. By terrorism, do they just mean fundamental Islamic groups, or are the Christian fundamentalists included? Is this so we can ship people out of the country that we don't... sorry, they don't, like. What about non-doms who are wanted for crimes in other countries, or big conglomerates who avoid paying tax, are we shipping them out, too?

This is the ploy that the Tories use every time, they are stripping away people's rights, and masking it with fear! Remember, this is a party that devoted just seven words, that' s 7 words, to welfare reform in their manifesto: 'We will find £12billion from welfare savings'. Whereas on polar bears: 'We will push for full endangered species status for polar bears and a ban on international trade in polar bear skins'. I make that twenty one words on polar bears. Now you should be really scared over that. Why haven't they stated where they will find the 12billion? I think they are about to introduce some old fashioned, Greek-style austerity on us, but don't worry it will serve to strengthen our economy, just like we had in the Victorian times, no rights, no money and no hope!

But also, something that on the face of it looks bad, is in my mind, quite good.

The British Medical Council has announced that it is to recommend that doctors stop prescribing so many drugs. I'm just still trying to work out if this is another Tory ploy to save money, but I do agree that here in Britain people expect a tablet for everything. I'm not talking about people that are seriously ill or have long-term illnesses.

It has long since been recognised the placebo effect is very powerful. That's why faith healers and homoeopaths are so successful. Well that and the fact that people who use them usually are having conventional medical treatment at the same time.

When people get a little bit of an ache in this country they run for the medicine cabinet and take a pill for it. They have lost the tolerance to pain. I do not take pain killers, and on the whole I don't ever have any pain. I know you're a martyr to your back, leg, arm, or headaches. I know without these pills that are advertised everyday on TV you couldn't function. I know its OK for me to spout off about this, but I'm lucky because I don't have any pains. But I do get aches and pains, I just deal with them in a different way and they go, just like most illnesses do! Do not underestimate the body's ability to heal itself. You do not need antibiotics for viruses, they will clear up without them, trust me. Have a word with your doctor, he/she will explain it to you. Do without your tablets for a month or so and you will find that the pain will subside: the tablets are usually the problem in the first place.

Lifestyle is also a big factor in your health. We are in the grips of a diabetes epidemic. I'm not being over dramatic here: type two diabetes is becoming one of the biggest drains on the health service. In most cases this is down to lifestyle, but people are not willing to change their lifestyle, they want a pill instead. I know people who have been told they may lose a leg if they don't change their lives, but they still carry on regardless!

So even though it seems like doctors not giving out pills is a bad thing, trust me, in the long run, it's a good thing. Viruses are becoming immune to antibiotics because of our over-use of them. When you get a cold, you don't need paracetamol - that's a painkiller. Wrap up, make some soup and chill out, it will pass.

But if I were you, I would try to keep away from those fish and chips!

I Saw A Mouse, Where?

It had to happen sooner or later. When we moved into the house thirty years ago, it was one of the first things that I asked the previous owners. With the house being situated in the middle of a wood, I suppose we have been very lucky to go so long without encountering one, but now, as Lord Rockingham so eloquently put it, 'There's a Moose Loose Aboot this Hoose!'

It was my wife who first noticed the droppings. Well, it would be her, really. We could have a rogue rhino wondering the house late at night and I wouldn't notice the droppings! It has found a way in to where our waste bin is situated in the kitchen. My wife's OCD means that everything has since been bleached beyond the call of duty! I don't want to kill the little blighter, so I have set a humane trap for it. The problem is I think we have a mouse with the intellect of a particle physicist and the cunning of a second hand car salesman in Kabul! No matter what I bait the trap with, it blatantly ignores it as if to tease me. I have tried all types of food stuff but it just isn't bothered. We have now baited the trap with chocolate as we have been told that mice have the same tastes as pubescent girls!

This tiny little beast has outsmarted me at every turn so far. I'm one step away from building a small mouse bar with neon lights saying 'this way' and hiring a female mouse in stockings and lipstick to entice him with, “Hello big boy, love you long time!” But I have a sneaky feeling that he will be the only gay mouse on the planet, just to piss me off!

I know sooner or later we will have a showdown, our OK Corral so to speak. But I suspect I won't be one of the Earp brothers. I reckon he will get the drop on me and then probably take the rest of my family out. I'm happy to share my home and food with him but he has to realise that I answer to a higher force, my wife! He should wise up and come out quietly with his hands up because if she decides to take matters into her own hands, there will only be one winner, and it won't be him!

I know why we have him though; we invited him in a way. We started to put bird seed out for the birds so Harleigh my Granddaughter can see all the wild life, She loves the squirrels, the badgers, and all the birds. She's not keen on spiders, or 'piders' as she calls them, or 'ARGH kill it!' as my wife calls them.

I don't know how she will react if she accidentally bumps into our new lodger. She's strange about certain animals, while she loves others. She will run from a small spider, but happily hold a lizard or a snake. I know if my wife bumps into it, it will be a case of mouse meets pan!

I have tried to placate my wife by telling her that we are lucky only to have little mice and foxes going through our bins. In other countries, they have venomous snakes, polar bears, black bears, raccoons and monkeys invading their living spaces, but hopefully not all at the same house! She told me she doesn't give a toss, that's their problem not hers! I told you, this mouse has met its nemesis in my wife. During the day she's a gentle, caring pillar of society, but by night she's a pan-wielding vermin killer. She wants me to set traps that will kill my little nightly intruder, but I just want to relocate him to somewhere he will be more appreciated. My argument is that there's space for us all and he's just trying to get by, just like us. Only he seems to be better at it than me!

So, if anyone has any ideas, that don't involved decapitating my little adversary, on how to get rid of him, I shall be more than interested to hear them. I have taken to cleaning up his droppings so my wife thinks he's gone. See what I mean? See how clever he is? The little bugger now has me cleaning up his crap for him!

Elephants!

For nearly all my life I've had an interest in all things pachyderm. I even know when I first became interested in elephants, it was at a very early age.

I have written before about memories, and how we seem to remember strange unimportant events in our lives while forgetting the important. I don't know just how old I was, but I know I can't have been any more than three years old when I first encountered an elephant. I wasn't walking across the Serengeti or in an Asian jungle, I was standing at the side of the road in Huddersfield, a northern town in England. I think it was a circus that had come to town and with this being in the early 'sixties they paraded through the town to drum up business. 

I was standing at the side of the road with my father and my brother John, who is a little older than me. As the parade passed, I cowered behind my father, until I saw an elephant approaching. I have no idea why, but I was totally fascinated with the beast as it slowly but purposefully made its way across what, for it, must have been an alien landscape. I remember as it passed looking at the size of its feet, with me being so young and small it looked like a walking house. I stepped forward to get a better look and the elephant brought down its mighty foot, only just missing crushing me. My father pulled me back to safety, and I yelped as he pulled me by the hood of my coat. It was then that the strangest of things happened, the elephant stopped and turned to look. I swear that it was checking to make sure that it hadn't trod on me. I remember the look on its face, I waved and smiled back at this magnificent beast, which in turn seemed nod its head in acknowledgement. I was so happy, I couldn't remove the smile from my face for over a week, and this wouldn't be the last time that the look on an elephant's face would have such an emotional effect on me.

About ten years ago my wife and I were having a break in the welsh coastal town of Conway. One day we decided to have a drive out to the welsh seaside town of Rhyl. We drove down the coast as the sun lit up the road in front of us - this is not a common occurrence in Wales, sunlight. As we drove on down towards the fading resort we passed a group of large fields. I turned, and out of the corner of my eye saw something that took me back with shock. I refused to mention to my wife what I had just seen, as we mercilessly mock each other when one makes a statement the other thinks is stupid. If I was to say what I had just seen, this would surely happen. We carried on driving for a few miles when my wife turned to me and said, “Right: don't start taking the piss out of me, but I have just seen an elephant at the side of the road back there!” I sighed with relief and replied, “I'm glad you said that, because I saw it as well, but thought I was going insane!” I have no idea why that elephant was walking up the side of a road in North Wales, and there are some things that are better left alone.

Many years ago when I was an unruly teenager I had another connection with an elephant. At the time, I was a nightmare to be around. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and listened to no one. I was surly, aggressive and ignorant. There are lots of people who would say that I haven't changed one iota!

One afternoon, while watching TV instead of being at school getting an education, a wild life programme came on. People who know me will tell you that I have had a lifetime fascination not only with elephants but with reptiles. I love all reptiles, but snakes have always been my favourites. I have kept many snakes in the past they are easier to keep in a council house in Huddersfield than the average elephant! I have handled venomous snakes and and constrictors and have a few scars to prove it.

This particular afternoon I watched the wild life program in hope that it would be about snakes, wild life programmes rarely are. Instead it was about elephants, so I sat and watched it. Towards the end of the program something happened that moved me so much it changed my outlook on life.

There was a herd of elephants. I'm not sure if they were poached or culled. I don't know who took the film or why this happened. But the whole herd was systematically shot, one by one. The whole herd ran in circles around the calves to try and protect them from the carnage that was taking place. This for me was a show of intellect and empathy. Other animals, including humans, run when faced with such danger, but the herd stood firm together as one. In the end there was only one female elephant running in vain around a few young calves. As it turned to the camera it looked on at who ever was doing the shooting as if to plead for mercy for its young. As long as I live I shall never forget the look on the face of that magnificent brave creature, I really thought that I could see it crying! It, like all the rest, was finally shot. As it fell, it reached out with its trunk to touch the young it had tried to protect in vain. The shot hadn't killed it outright so it tried again to get back to its feet to protect the young, another shot finally dispatched it. The young were also shot!

At the time, I was a hard nosed-little scally with had no regard for anyone but myself. After seeing this mother selflessly giving her life for her children, I suddenly realised just what effect my behaviour was having on the people who cared about me. I realised that they, too, went far above the call of duty to try protect and help me. I sat stunned for a while, It was then that I decided that I wasn't as tough or as clever as I thought I was. It was then that I decided that maybe I should change my outlook on life.

So, though that wonderful beast failed in her valiant attempt to save her own children, she did, in a way, save one child, and for that I shall be eternally grateful!

Moron V Moron!

The hatred and violence shown by peace-loving, tolerant religious bigots never fails to amaze me.

I have been watching the shootings in Dallas on the news today and I'm amazed at the stupidity on both sides. Firstly the competition to draw cartoons of the prophet Mohammed was not a show of free speech, but a show of right-wing, bigoted provocation! Most of these imbeciles may have seen it as free speech, but their puppet-masters knew exactly what they were doing, and were hoping for this response. But what idiots would fall for this ploy and give them the satisfaction of claiming to be the victims?

Whoever it was that attacked this show of stupidity missed a wonderful PR opportunity of remaining calm and showing this event up for what it was. But, unfortunately, it seems that the way of the gun and intolerance is the the only way these people have to defend their belief system. I personally wouldn't want to be associated with either side.

People have to start speaking out about right-wing propaganda being forced upon society under the guise of religion. If you are a true believer of God, whatever that is, then you must defend your belief, by not tolerating such shows of prejudice within your community. If you are true believers of peace and tolerance then you must unite together to condemn such acts of stupidity.

What makes this event worse for me is that the Dallas police had a back-up plan, knowing that some, no doubt young, disaffected youths would believe their right-wing hype and attack this retard-fest. Why didn't they just refuse to let the event take place?

This was not the same as Charlie Hebdo, That was a true show of free speech by using satire to send home a political message. Having a competition to see who can draw the best cartoon of Mohammed with a 10,000 dollar prize is just stupid provocation! What political message could this possibly make? This is just playground bullies trying to pick a fight, then complaining when they get a bloody nose. No doubt we shall now see a week of red-necked bible bashers holding up the their books of ambiguity and claiming that they will not back down, just as the puppet-masters had hoped!

If I were any part of either side of these institutions I would be telling others to go to their chapels, churches, mosques and pray that they can see through all this hype and hatred and maybe this way we can stop another major war where people who once lived together in harmony find themselves killing each other over an unproven belief system!

Congratulations!

What fantastic news this week, about the birth of a beautiful little girl. Of course, I send my congratulations to both the mother and the father.

Although the father of the child has not been seen for some time, owing to his drink and drug addiction. The mother, though, has done the best she can, on the limited funds that she has, to make the best of the situation. Once her bundle of joy has been given the all-clear, she will, of course, be referred to social services, because of difficult background issues.

The funding for this child's up bringing will no doubt be provided by us, the taxpayers, only this mother will have her benefits cut, until she is forced to either work long hours, or until she qualifies to go to a food bank or she can turn to petty crime. The child itself will be lucky to get a substandard education because of the situation of her parents. The father will have no part in any of this.

This is not to say that the child is in any way of a substandard intellect, but she will not be expected to shine educationally. This is because she will be forced to spend her formative years in poverty, where education is not a priority. There will be no waving of flags to celebrate her lonely arrival into this world of inequality. There will be no news coverage of how wonderful the mother looks after just giving birth. Money will become more and more scarce as she grows, because of lack of investment in our people.

The government are looking for ways to save more money: austerity is what they call it, so they tax the people who work long hard hours. They cut the benefits of the disabled and the frail and vulnerable of society, While giving banks money for 'quantitative easing' They have created tax havens for non-doms, while ensuring that further education is getting to be just that, further and further out of the reach of the poor.

So if the establishment want me to wave flags and rejoice, please stop funding the outdated and archaic institution of the monarchy. Stop funding the greedy selfish city bankers to bring the country to its knees and start investing in our people, so we abolish the inequality of a world where 95% of the wealth is divided between 2% of the population. Stop punishing people for the circumstances they were born into, and give them a way out of of poverty.

Do all this and maybe, just maybe I might rejoice about about the news of another child being born.