Curious, Spurious, Furious!

My wife has left me a note this morning before she went to work. This is a common thing with her. If she is working and I have a day off, I usually have a list of jobs given to me to do. I think that after over thirty years of marriage she would have realised by now that I usually ignore such requests unless they really are of the utmost importance!

This morning I received a shopping list. This list was not for important provisions to see us through the next few days, but for facial creams! I hasten to add that the creams are not for me, as a full hijab is the only way to improve my looks! The new wonder cream she has asked me to buy has been recommended by 87% of the women that tried it (survey of 56 women?) Now, I have to own up and say that maths was never my strong point but surely a survey should be taken with as many participants as possible? Or (now I'm not claiming this to be true, but) could they have surveyed thousands of women who they no doubt told of the miracle qualities of they cream? Then when the results came back as only 9% liked it, could they have reduced the figures to the demographic that showed most interest? Thus giving the 87% reading. Surely they wouldn't be so unscrupulous. I bet even the women that didn't like it in the tests buy it now, thinking it new and improved. Ask any credible dermatologist and they will tell you that the cheapest creams are just as good as the most expensive, the tried and tested Vaseline (other brands available) is as good as any and has many other uses which we won't go into just now! My wife pays £6.99 for this cream. Her friend bought the exact same cream from a shop for £192! Any credible dermatologist will tell you that NO creams will make you look younger!

Humans love spurious claims. They always have. If you can't explain it, then give it a supernatural reason, that will do! But now we seem to have adopted this ideology for our politics. Look at the recent referendum. Both sides made spurious claims about what will happen if we leave the EU. None of them could be backed up, because no one has ever left the EU before. Although it is safe to say that remaining in the EU will result in a movement that will become so big it will be impossible for it to be effective, The more economically powerful countries will prosper and the weaker countries will become even weaker, which has already started to happen. The spurious claims that were made at the time were easy enough to check out, but people didn't want to, they wanted to believe them to back their gut reactions. This is not a good way of living, people!

Now we have people who bang on about democracy and the rights of the people who didn't want to leave the EU. Well as far as I understand it, democracy means that people have a right and a voice to vote for what they believe, they then abide by the decision of the majority vote. So saying we should have more referendums until they get the result they want is just so stupid. This seems to be the problem with the Labour party at the moment. Corbyn has been elected as the leader by the overwhelming majority of the party. Because the Blairites who still infect the party don't like this they have done their utmost to bring him down. He is doing the right thing to stay until the electorate says go!

My problem with him is he is like so many men I knew when I was a teenager, they say the right things, attend the rallies, back all minorities and do bugger all! Give us the beef Jeremy, what are Labour going to do if the right wing press ever give you enough coverage to get into power? What are your policies for the economy and for the improvement of the communities that have been long forgotten in this country? What are your plans to increase trade not only in Europe but around the world? How are you going to give people meaningful employment with proper contracts? I'm not interested in who did what to who years ago I want to know who's going to do what many years from now!

Talking of spurious claims over in the land of Trump-ton we have the same problem. America has fallen for the rhetoric of Donald J Trump, Homer Simpson's less educated brother! Trump has spouted some very worrying bile over his campaign if you could call it that. He claims he will make America great again? Great as in when? During the time they, like us here in Britain, had slaves? Or when it was so great during the time of the great depression of the 'Thirties when people lost their land, livelihoods, and eventually their lives! What about when they were at their most prosperous in the fifties, when they still had apartheid. Or the civil unrest of the sixties, depression of the seventies.

Or is he talking about, as I suspect, the eighties when the rich, such as his family, became more obscenely rich and created a massive chasm between the rich and the poor! Is that his idea of being great? He claims that they are to build a wall between America and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it. He said they don't want the Mexicans coming to America, then listed a series of traits which usually only apply to bankers. He doesn't want undesirables in America. He only wants good honest Nazis that the Americans gave asylum to after the war to work on their space program. He only wants to welcome the Saudi royal family to visit America, even though their human rights are just as appalling as any other middle eastern dictatorship! Again lots of spurious claims with nothing to back them up! He hasn't said anything about how he is going to change things for ordinary Americans. But like all voters the world over, the people are fed up with the system the way it is!

We also have the terrible murders in France and Germany this week. We don't really know as yet whether they were terrorist-linked but it makes no difference as the cavemen will claim they were their soldiers that carried out the murders of innocent people. Again we have people believing spurious claims. ALL RELIGIONS are based on spurious claims. If you don't agree then prove me wrong, show me your evidence? I don't want to see your religious books, as this will only force me to become childish and show you a copy of the Lord Of The Rings to prove the existence of Hobbits! 

Show me ANY evidence of a God especially a personal God that listens and acts upon your prayers. I don't want random anecdotal evidence about the time your auntie prayed that your uncle's cancer would go away and it did. I can prove to you that millions of people have prayed for their small children's cancers would go away and were ignored. These spurious claims made by people who give themselves grandiose titles such as his holiness (just what does that mean?) only profit from your devotion. It has been this way for thousands of years. They, like the politicians now, use our lack of understanding and fear against us!

In the past disaffected youths turned to drink and drugs, and they marched and tried to change the system. Now they seem to be turning to the cavemen and their spurious claims. They no longer turn to drink and drugs, they turn to guns and take away innocent lives. They take the lives of people just like them, people who can't make any sense of what is happening in the world, but unlike them they want to make a peaceful world for us all to live in!

Finally I'm curious to know why the banker caught boarding a plane in America this week after being part of a two BILLION pound scam to bring down the pound has not had much news coverage. We all knew the vultures would move in on the markets and the currency when the result of the referendum was announced but these guys bought up as much as possible trying to make the pound worthless (they can safely leave that to the government). They intended then, later, to sell it, when of course as we all know things will settle down and when deals are made the pound will rise and the low life bankers win again! Why has his family not been asked to apologise for his behaviour as this seems to be what increasingly happens to ordinary people when a member of their family does something appalling like claiming extra benefits! I don't condone anyone claiming extra benefits by the way, but as we have a knee jerk reaction to ban things which tend to only affect the innocent this also goes for benefit fraud. A few do it so the majority suffer!

People are quick to hold all Muslims accountable for the behaviour of a few. Why don't we hold all bankers accountable for this greedy bastard's behaviour? Why are we not trying him for treason? I have heard how we are going to try young Muslims that were unfortunate enough to believe the spurious claims of the cavemen and go to Syria to fight for treason. Well this man tried to bring down the whole country so he could make money - surely that's treasonous? To make your country a less secure place to live because of your actions is surely the same as selling off government secrets. Though now all you have to do is sit on a London bus and a civil servant will have no doubt left a dossier on a seat there for you to pick up!

The world is a changing place, of that there is no doubt. Whether this change is for the better only history will tell. For me here in my secure little bubble, politics has become exciting again, we have a true left wing opposition and the ghost of Thatcher has reappeared in number ten! We have become too dependant on banks: they dominate our lives. The use of cash is becoming less each day as the banks put a strangle hold on our way of life. The world will change, of that there is no denying, but lets hope it's for the better.

Now I must go and bow to the spurious claims of the marketing department of a cosmetic company and buy some facial cream at an over-inflated price, but if it makes my wife feel happier about her appearance then who am I to complain. The truth is that she already looks much younger than her years without the use of the cream.

Pokemon Zombies!

There always have been, and always will be, new crazes that will capture a generation of young people the world over. We have had everything from yo-yos to rock and roll, hula hoops to mobile phones, and everything in between! It doesn't matter if it's something simple such as the hula hoop or something as technical as a computer, the young will find it something that they cannot resist, it's the nature of youth.

I cannot remember ever being interested in any crazes when I was young. I loved my sports and fishing, but other than that I wasn't really interested in anything else. I do remember a craze for something which went by the dubious name of 'Clackers' here in Yorkshire. These were implements that would be rejected by the Ministry of Defence as being too dangerous, if they were to make a comeback. They were two hard plastic balls connected by a string, which made a clicking noise if you could get them to smash against each other. This often resulted in the balls shattering and blinding and maiming children. They would have been safer taking up smoking!

I do remember a brief craze at my school for young men to wear Brut aftershave. The problem was that this craze coincided with the girls wearing Charlie perfume! Young people don't understand the concept of dabbing on a bit of perfume, so if you stood down-wind of the average child you could smell them coming from over two miles away! The girls used to put on so much Charlie (which now has a different meaning), that you could go blind in one eye just standing next to them. If you were foolish enough to try to give a girl a love bite you would end up with Bell's Palsy, where one side of your face is paralysed. But most of these phases soon passed and were quickly forgotten, only to be replaced with another something mind numbingly pointless craze!

But about twenty years ago all this changed when technology went mad and everyone had to have a computer. The problem with this technology is that it moves so fast. I remember playing 'Pong' many years ago. This was a computer game where a small dot flashed across the screen and had to be stopped by a simple little line. This was addictive enough, so can you imagine just what it's like for today's generation with all the technology they have! The problem is that they now have access to this 24 hours a day, because everything is on their phones. We seem to have a generation of zombies that would rather email or text than talk. Sit on any mode of public transport and all the carriages are full of people looking at their phones, no interaction.

But now we have a new craze which, like the sat navs, make people turn their brains off when they turn the device on. I remember people having to be rescued from rivers which they had driven into because their sat nav had told them to! I remember someone once driving around a roundabout for an hour because the sat nav wouldn't load up properly! The new craze is called 'Pokemon Go' where people have to find Pokemon and capture them with their phones. This has resulted in people marching into doctors' surgeries while doctors are consulting patients, and even walking down train lines! This game is not a new concept by the way. I remember a few years ago while working in a school in Luxembourg, being introduced to something called Geo boxes, (I think?). A lovely man that picked me up each morning and took me home each night was obsessed with this concept. You had to look up co-ordinations on your phone then see if you could find a box that had been hidden.

But the worst thing about this craze is that young people seem to be left to play on these games as long as they want. I have been told today by a collogue who had a young man attending a course he was offering. The lad was fifteen years old but seemed to be constantly distracted by his phone. This caused lots of problems for my collogue, who asked the young man to try to pay attention. The lad was so tired that he could not concentrate. When asked if there was a problem, he said, “I was up until five this morning playing Pokemon Go, I'm knackered!” What kind of parents let their child do this when they have college the next morning? Why do certain parents blame teachers for all the problems their children experience when really it's down to lazy-arsed parenting?

The problem with today's crazes is that they are designed by companies who make major profits, and they update the product regularly, so the craze never dies, it just becomes more intense for the user. These games can be as addictive as drugs for some young people. They don't seem to be able to function around other people and become more and more reclusive. The only way to sort out this problem is for parents to become just that, parents! Stop pussy-footing around and take control, even if it means taking their computers away from them!

There will always be crazes, but let's not create a generation of zombies that live in a virtual world!

Storm In A Double'D' Cup!

My wife and I called to pick little Harleigh up from her school the other day. She attends a nursery for a couple of days each week. I have to say that it is so odd seeing her in her little school uniform looking all grown up. It doesn't seem like any time at all since she was a little baby in a pram. The nursery is by the side of a junior school and came highly recommended.

We had arrived early at the school, so we stood at the gates minding our own business when a young woman with a small child joined us. She didn't speak or acknowledge our presence, but proceeded to berate a small child that was unfortunate to have her as a mother. She constantly swore at the poor helpless little child who was desperately trying to cower away from her. I could take no more and turned to ask her to think about the way she was treating a defenceless child when a voice from further down the road screeched, “You've got some nerve turning up here, you bitch!”

I looked down the road to see a large woman who seemed to think that an egg-stained tee shirt and leggings that were obviously designed for someone ten stone lighter than her was the height of fashion, walking up with a look of hate on her face. The sight of these two neolithic blubber-monsters squaring up to each other set all my snob genes off at once. One of my pet hates is the awful TV programme, the 'Jeremy Vile show' and I now seemed to find myself stuck in the middle of an episode of this loathsome programme. Both of these ladies(?) seemed to have the physique and the dentistry of the average hippo! They both swore at each other then one accused the other of sleeping with someone or other, then the other claimed he loved her...you know how it goes. Then they both launched into a bitch fight. 

This was all in front of their children and in front of the school gates. I can't begin to tell you how angry this made me feel! I had no interest in stopping the fight, I would go as far as to say that I would have been happy to let them beat themselves senseless, but then they started off from the point of being senseless! I was deeply concerned about their children and about the children that were about to leave school. But if I'm really honest I was really angry that little Harleigh would be confronted with these two morons as she left school. We, as a family, have nurtured an environment for Harleigh where she feels safe and free from harm. She is surrounded by love; we all have our arguments with our partners, but we have them when she is not around. This also goes for her parents. It is important for her to have a childhood of fun and make believe as she will have the horrors of life inflicted upon her all too soon when she gets older.

One of the children of the two battling blubber monsters started to cry as both women rolled about on the floor pulling each others hair and scratching and biting. Their clothes were now ripped to reveal bras that were definitely not expected to hold back such a mountain of flesh. My wife picked up the child and comforted her while I went into the school to ask that the children be kept in while these two oafs were outside. Before I reached the doors of the school the fight stopped, mainly because of their love of cigarettes. It's hard to go ten rounds when you have the lung capacity of the average budgerigar! Both women made some more threats to eah other then wiped away the blood that was seeping from the scratches on their faces before walking off back down the street. 

The woman whose child my wife was comforting shouted at her child to come with her. My wife asked the child if she wanted to stay with her. One thing about my wife is that she is only small and slightly built and has never had a fight in her life, but she will stand up to the biggest bully when the time comes. The woman kept on shouting at the child and my wife kept on reassuring the child that she could stay with her if she was scared. Suddenly the woman mellowed and said, “Come on love, I'm sorry, did I scare you?” the child nodded and ran to her mother. They then walked off down the road.

By now there was a crowd outside the school gates all of them ignoring the fight.

“Who is going to pick their children up?” My wife asked a large man in a track suit smoking what looked like a much-needed cigarette.

“Their oldest girls will come up for them now!” He replied taking a long hard drag on his cig. “They do this all the time. Don't worry, they'll be friends tomorrow!”

I can never quite understand why people live such lives, why they make themselves so miserable. Surely as a parent you want the best for your children? You don't need lots of money to make your children happy, you just need to give them your time and love and security. I can't believe that these people can be so selfish as to put their convoluted sex lives before their children.

My son and his partner have taken Harleigh out of the nursery, which is a shame as it was very good, but not if she might have to encounter such behaviour. I hope that the future for the children of these women is much happier than their childhood seems to be!

The Meek Shall Inherit The Hearth

Before you start thinking that the above title is a typo, please let me explain.

I have always had a fascination for people who make off-the-cuff remarks which turn out to be so clever and really quite brilliant. I'm not talking about quotes from people like Churchill where they were written for him and rehearsed. I'm talking about people who have the ability to just say random things off the top of their heads that are really witty.

The above title was uttered by my grandfather. My family are/were devout Catholics, so quotations from the Bible were commonplace as I grew up. 'Get thee behind me, Satan' was one such quotation, often levelled at me, for some reason. As a small child staying at my grandparents' house, for me, the weekends were always manic. As you can imagine an Irish/Italian household tends to have lots of children, aunties, uncles and cousins who would all descend upon the house on a Sunday. The adults were given drinks in the front room while the kids were told to go play in the fields. Yes I know, letting children out of your sight so they could behave like children is a strange concept now. This particular day most of my cousins that turned up were a lot older than me. I was about five years old. They were aged between ten and twelve years old so they were obviously far more worldly-wise and cosmopolitan, as all children in sixties Huddersfield were!

They wanted to play at soldiers and the thought of a feeble little five year old playing alongside them didn't go down well. But, as with all these occasions the rest of the kids were told to play nice and don't leave him out, pointing to me and making me feel like some unwanted haemorrhoid (I don't really know of a wanted haemorrhoid). This of course was a problem for the bigger kids until one of my older cousins came up with a solution, he told me to sit in the kitchen in front of the fire and guard it, as this was my territory. “Don't let anyone in here!” he ordered. I agreed, so pleased that I had been given such an important job and stood firm in front of the large metal fire place. The rest of the group then ran off into the fields to play in the sun, leaving me alone in the old dark kitchen.

Because it was a warm summer's day the adults were in the front garden chatting and drinking, so everyone except for me seemed to be having a whale of a time. After half an hour Granddad walked into the kitchen and saw me standing alone in front of the large fireplace, holding my stick (which anyone with any sense could see was really a sniper's rifle) and asked what I was doing.

“This is my land and I'm defending it,” I announced with pride.

Granddad smiled, then walked out of the kitchen saying, “Ah, I see that the meek have inherited the hearth!” I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But one thing about my grandparents was their ability to make you feel loved and important. One thing about Granddad was that he was a master at teaching people a lesson. A few moments later, he walked back in the kitchen with one of my uncles, this man was one of the loveliest people it has ever been my privilege to meet, it was also his son that had come up with the idea to have me stood like an idiot in front of the kitchen fire for half an hour. My uncle had a motor bike and side car and my auntie and him plus two sons travelled everywhere in this. My Granddad told me to get my gun as he had an important mission for me, he told me not to worry he would guard my land for me.

I went out into the garden clutching my stick/ .303 standard issue rifle with modifications and telescopic sight. When my uncle shouted out, “Germans!” (sorry, but this was Britain in the `sixties.) we both then ran.

“Quick!" shouted my uncle, “Get in the side car!” This I did, and he fired up the motor bike and we roared off up the road. When we reached the top of the road he turned around and ordered me to fire at the enemy. We roared back down the road and all of my aunties and uncles plus Nonna were hiding behind the garden wall with sticks in their hands, pretending to shoot at us.

I can't begin to tell you just how excited I was I thought that my head would explode. All my other cousins saw what was happening and ran down to join in But Granddad appeared from the house saying, “back to your games lads, this is not for you!” the looks on their faces as they sat and watched the fun in front of them was also a lesson for me. When we stopped for my family to catch a breath and have refreshments/drinks (things were so much different then) all my cousins kept begging to be part of the game. Granddad told them that they were far too old to be playing with little lads like me. They begged him, saying they really wanted to play soldiers with me. Granddad turned to me and said, “what do you think, can they play?” I felt so important. “Of course they can!” I excitedly shouted.

“You know, I think that's the right decision,” he replied in his quiet voice which had a strong Irish accent. The rest of the afternoon was a time I shall never forget. Where the sun beat down and we all took it in turns to ride in the side car the whole family as one laughed, and ate and told silly jokes.

I, like lots of people, had quite a mixed childhood. There was a lot of sadness, but I was lucky enough to have grandparents who had lived through extraordinary times and had extraordinary lives. They knew the importance of a happy childhood and the importance of inclusion, spending most of their lives as immigrants. I hope that the lessons they taught me have stood me in good stead to give my family the support and love they need. I know my son always claims that he had a fantastic childhood and he wants his daughter to have the same.

So, you see that taking time to change just one life has a knock-on effect. Soon you have lots of people trying to change just one life. But the strangest thing is that I have such a happy memory which involved me and my family pretending to shoot people. 

Did I mention that I come from quite an odd background?!