Was Life Ever Simple?

    My apologies to any reader/follower who has commented on my blog but received no reply. I do not mean to be rude. But I am finding it more and more difficult to do so. You used to merely click and reply. Now I cannot always follow the instructions as to what is required. Is it me or is life getting harder for us 'old uns'?

    What was my introduction to technology? Listening to the 'wireless' after the war I reckon. Vick Oliver, Ted Ray, Al Read and the like. All for sixpence, the price of exchange for a recharged accumulator at the post office. Television in the 1950's, black and white picture 9-12 inches. (Next door, there was noway my mother could have afforded a 'tele'.) Listening to vinyl records (78.s 33's, 45's on a record player. (Again I never owned one of my own.) Then cassettes crept in but I'm not sure when. Mind you juke boxes seem to have been around forever.

    There were no computers around when I was at school. Nor too many computers when I was teaching. Many teachers only half knew what they were doing when they crept in, how long ago was it? Now the technology is everywhere; unavoidable, dominating, frightening. I understand only a tiny fraction of it all. (My four year old grandson is a wonder on these games thingymesgigs they all seem to have.) I find modern life tantalisingly difficult. Again, is it just me, everyone else seems so clever!

    I do not own a mobile phone. I thought for years they were a 'walking aid' without which movement was difficult, nay impossible. I have recently bought a car fitted with a 'Bluetooth system'. What the hell am I supposed to do with it? I see my grandchildren with iPods or is it iPads. I am typing this post on my recently acquired Apple Mac computer. Very very difficult which is why we are going for lessons!

I wrote an ebook concerning my life (A Childhood Revisited available on Kindle/Amazon.) Some people think that proves I am computer literate. Not true at all, I have good friends who help me out. (M

y wife will finish off this post by putting in the 'Labels' etc.)

    My son in law Jeff is a world rated photographer. If you have a moment look him up, his wedding photographs in particular are wonderful. (Jeff Ascough.com) My daughter Sarah is a major part of the business. What shocked me was what a seriously important, time consuming  part of the business Facebook plays. The time involved is phenomenal. I know virtually nothing concerning Facebook but I do realise it is a force to be reckoned with. ( Since I have been incapacitated I have seen much of 'Jeremy Kyle' on the television. What a sad human being I have become!) It is a programme concerning people with problems. It is sinisterly amazing how many times Facebook is mentioned. Facebook has much to answer for.

I have a Twitter account, which someone set me up but I can't really get the hang of it. They tell me blogging is in decline. Evidently Twittering is increasing at blogging's expense. (I reckon Twittering is for people who can write one sentence, often badly but no more!) There are some amazing blogs around. My puny efforts are basic in the extreme. I feel I am hanging on by my fingernails. But then I look back and marvel as to how many 'names', famous in their day are no longer with us. So its onward ever onward whilst ever someone wishes to read my geriatric ramblings. Now I'm going for a lie down!

Jolly Old June. Grumpy's Alternative News.

I sometimes wonder if I live on the same planet as some of those in the news. Those in positions of power often make me shudder and I'm not keen what too much power or money does to people. For instance, Beatrice Bolton, a judge in Rothbury, Northumberland is fined £2,500 after her dogs attack three people in a year. Is she contrite, is she heck. 'It's a f****** travesty' is her dismissive retort. And Deputy High Court Judge James Allen seems to think its OK to assault his wife and then suggest she inflicted the injuries on herself. (He was sentenced to twelve months probation and told to remember he is now the 'servant' rather than the 'master'.)

Dentist Chirag Patel uses a dead man's disability badge to park his Ferrari and then whinges when he's caught. He reckons being charged with fraud is 'irrational and oppressive.' George Davis, founder of Next offers his £100,000 Maserati to two policemen if they will let him off a drink driving charge when he is caught over the limit. Tom Campbell, Boris Johnson's cultural strategy manager brags to an interviewer that he regularly shoplifts from high street shops and then sounds surprised that he gets the sack.
Its not the offences that annoy me the most. It's the undiluted arrogance of these people, they seem to have no conception as to how the majority of ordinary, decent people live and think. (Boris Becker is disputing a gardening bill on his estate on Majorca of almost £267,000. A gardening bill, for goodness sake!) What was it I was taught at school, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth'!

It really is a mad world. Thirty six male and female police officers are to guard the Olympic flame as it tours the country in 2012. And guess what happens after the tour is over. All involved are to receive counselling to help with their 'reintegration back into the Met'. Ye gods, I kid you not! A man has been charged with clamping unmarked police cars during a visit to Portsmouth by the Queen. How awful for the poor police drivers. I bet they went on sick leave after such a stressful experience.

Some more idiots, but at least they made me smile. The young lady in Hamburg who announced her 16th birthday party on Facebook but didn't say it was private. 1500 turned up; mounted police were needed and she ran away. A security guard in Doncaster used a 12-bore Beretta to remove a wart from his middle finger. He removed the wart, also most of his finger and, he hadn't even got a gun licence! And Mark Wilkinson of Birmingham took his 16ft second-hand cabin cruiser to Lyme Bay for it's maiden voyage. Unfortunately a previous repair proved faulty and the boat sank. The boat's name, Titanic II !

Life never ceases to surprise. A man in Warrington is held under water and drowns. This terrible event during an angling competition at the local canal. A 21 year old man in Plymouth breaks up with the mother of his two children. So he bombards her with text messages, 17,000 over a year. (That's an average of 47 a day.) James and Jacqueline Balmer, a couple from Cirencester never flew in the same plane as their daughters for fear of orphaning their two children. Children now grown up, they fly in the same plane over the Mediterranean. The plane came down between Menton and Monaco; sadly both were killed.

No wonder I found myself floating as on high during June. Better than any drugs, this strange world of ours. Even our animal friends provide surreal experiences that test our grip on reality. Firefighters are called out to rescue a sheep from a roof in Pontycymer, South Wales. Another sheep, Shrek evaded those who tried to clip him by hiding in caves at Tarras, South Island, New Zealand. When they eventually caught him he had thirty kilos of wool on him! Still in New Zealand (North Island) a penguin, nicknamed Happy Feet turns up from the Antartic, 2000 miles away. Somewhat bemused, he eats the beach sand, presumably mistaking it for snow. In Australia a kookaburra becomes wedged in the grille of a Mazda 6 car. Twenty five hours and 442 miles later the car arrives in Brisbane and one lucky bird is released, indignant but very much alive. No wonder they are known as the laughing jackass. Not so lucky Trouble, the Maltese dog whose death was annouced recently. Trouble was left £7.3 million by her owner New York hotel mogul Leona Helmsley. Not a cheap dog to maintain, her security guard alone cost $100,000 a year. And they still won't allow its remains to be buried in the family mausoleum!

Finally a bizarre story from the good old US of A and no guns involved for a change. A women goes to the dentist in Oregon. She is American, has never been abroad but now, after the anaesthetic Halcion, speaks with a foreign accent that some describe as British, some South African. Known as Foreign accent syndrome, the condition is rare but certainly not unknown. How strange indeed is this world we live.

So there you have it. Another month gone. Do me a favour, tell me, please, of all these bizarre happenings, which in particular caught your eye.