Is it me or is the Whole World Going Mad?

    Do you ever see the news on television, or read the papers and conclude that the whole world's going mad; or is it just me. And you're not supposed to say 'mad' any more, it's not politically correct. Can we say barmy instead, you tell me. It all reminds me of my old favourite,  Arthur English. 'Stop the world' he used to say, 'Open the cage.' Well something like that! I know exactly what he meant.

    Here in dear old Derby they had a Punch and Judy show in a big shopping complex. Great, Punch and Judy has been going for three hundred and fifty years. And a good time was had by all. Except that a lady representing  some society or other complained bitterly about the violence; particularly the domestic violence. Granted Punch was evil personified. He threw the baby around and abused his wife. But surely Punch and Judy shows don't glorify domestic violence; and he was after all arrested by the policeman.

    An audience, including children KNOW Punch is Evil. I would doubt children would be influenced negatively by this type of theatre. I'm not going to labour the point, but there were many letters in the local paper, The Derby Telegraph; very few supported the opinion that Punch and Judy shows should be banned. What do you think?

    Derby has been hit by the recession, times have been hard for many and financial cuts seem never ending. The local council is aware of how bad things are, so they tell us. They have decided to find out what the good people of Derby REALLY need. (Are there elections coming up I wonder.) So in their wisdom they have brought in consultants to find out what we REALLY need or want. And the cost, good people of Derby? £400,000! £400,000 that could have been spent on OAP clubs or homes;  on the young, on our decrepit roads or cutting the long grass at the side of our roads. We don't need highly paid consultants to search out what we REALLY need. Less spending on banal surveys for starters would help.

    Yet our problems are tiny when compared globally. The whole world seems to be at war. Syria, Iran, the Ukraine see violence daily; war brings horrors that are almost beyond belief. Starvation, the loss of home, mass killing, all are present, often in the name of religion. Yet I doubt that we think of the world beyond our little existences for long. Most of us are selfish by nature, mores the pity. So we live almost in a bubble, not necessarily all of our making. And its the little things in OUR lives that mainly catch the eye. Little things that reinforce the idea that the world's going mad. For instance I watch QVC on occasion. What a sad person I have become! On QVC they have make things out of cards. Mindbendingly dull but whatever turns you on and all that. And do you know they were making this week? Christmas cards, for goodness sake! and they've been doing them since June!

    All these 'happenings' in the world were starting to get me down and I didn't know what to do about them. Then I went with Paulette to shop at Lidyl, parked up and realised the answer was staring me in the face. The Lidl where we shop is situated in Normanton, reputedly the roughest part of Derby but we love it. I sit in the car whist Paulette shops, not through idleness, honest, but my mobility is not good. 

    I  tend to 'people watch', always entertaining, often educational. Ten paces from my car stood a young man, around thirty years of age; unexceptional, someone who you would not normally give a second glance. He appeared deep in thought; certainly in a world of his own, oblivious of others. He proceeded to extract a 'spliff' from his pocket, studied it, put it in his mouth and lit it. For the next five minutes he smoked contentedly if somewhat vacantly; he was oblivious to passers by, of my gaze, of the world beyond the pavement on which he stood. He produced a second 'spliff' from his pocket, lighting it with the tiny but still lit end of his first, very thin 'spliff'. Finally finishing his second 'smoke' he smiled to himself and he was gone, perhaps never to be seen again.

    Whist finishing off this post my juke box played loudly in the background. The unforgettable Harry Lauder i think accompanied my efforts. And the words of his immortal song rang out loud and clear; 'Keep Right On to the end of the Road'. Now there's a thought!

            .

The Joys of Getting Old.

I am feeling my age! 11.55am and I am just getting going. (At midnight I am usually quite lively.) Well as lively as a seventy three year old can be.Time is enevitably taking its toll. My wife has recently had explorative surgery for a heart condition and is suffering somewhat. She is waiting, apprehensively to have stents fitted. She has also been diagnosed with glaucoma. I am to find out next week if I am to have knee surgery. I am walking like an old man and I don't like it! This week alone the pair of us are at the doctors, the dentists, the hospital and the chiropodists! Mind you, many, many are worse off.
I am just going to buy some 'cheapo' reading glasses. from Costco. I have around six pairs but can find three pairs. One pair has an arm missing. One pair has part of an arm missing. One pair has screws missing. No pair stays on. I have just counted fourteen empty spectacle cases. I have no doubt there are further cases and glasses. No jokes about making a spectacle of myself please.

Charlie went to the doctor.
'Doctor' he said 'I keep seeing this spinning insect.'
'Don't worry' said the doctor, 'it's just a bug going round.'

My friend reckons the bloke next door has a glass eye. I asked him how he knew and he said it just came out when they were talking.

All this reminds me of a very early blog I did.(In April 2008 which would suggest I've been losing it for some time.) Considering I have just done a review for John Godber's play Losing the Plot at Derby Playhouse, all very apt don't you think!

An OAP let loose in the 20th Century

Like a weasel to a rabbit I am transfixed. Hours spent trying to master the technology, mainly unsucessfully yet the urge to continue is overpowering. What was it Albert Einstein said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." My incomprehension is unsurprising when you consider I even find an Idiot's Guide impossible to understand. Please tell me I am not the only one, or am I uniquely stupid when it comes to modern technology. And how strange I find myself posing questions to a screen, a substitite for the real world. An unreal situation akin to making love to a blow up doll or our childhood habit of smoking rolled up walnut leaves in an oakcup pipe. Both unsatisfactory substitutes for the real thing but better than nothing. I hasten to add I am not speaking from experience on the former.
Now I reckon my problems in the main stem from three sources. One, at my age I'm a bit long in the tooth to learn new technologies but I can but try. Two, I have recently been informed I am functioning on half a brain, maybe a bit more to be honest but some missing all the same. More of this at a later date but imagine what I could do it it was all there, so to speak.
And three, I need my eyes testing.
My ninety nine pence glasses from Home Bargains are good value but hardly the result of considered professional examination. But at least you get to try them out. Which is more than can be said for the local Lidl. A fierce gentleman, Croatian I think he is patrols the isles, and can spot from over twenty yards a customer opening the goods. As their glasses are packaged you therefore buy pot luck, so to speak. Their car park is full of wrecked cars or at least it deserves to be. Any day now they'll be selling white sticks.
I've thought my eyes needed testing for some time but a family function in The Devonshire, a posh pub in Baslow, Derbyshire finally made the fact inescapable. After a pint or two, or three, or four the need for the toilet was dire. Not surprising but at least it would suggest the old prostate is still working, if nothing else. Panic over and a might bit relieved so to speak, and, educated by frequent notices exorting us to 'Now wash your hands' I did as ordered and visited the hot air hand blower. Only posh as the pub was, the machine was totally ineffective, pathetic in the extreme. No rush of air, hot or otherwise. As I pondered so useless an apparatus and contemplated my next move I noticed a young man quizzically eyeing me from the urinal. Fearing I was about to be propositioned, I hastily withdrew my still wet hands from the machines orifice. It was only then I made out the wording on the machine, blurred in my case but cringingly embarrassing. The immortal words read 'Contraceptives, all colours and shapes, two pounds for three'.

And What About the Men.

     As promised a post about the male of the species. Remember, I merely collect articles over a period of time, no order, no particular subject bias. Then I analyse them, tongue in cheek, Grumpy style.

I reckon the first thing that caught my eye was how 'macho' men are; perhaps more accurately, how 'macho' men try to be. The 'extreme anglers' for instance near Bempton in East Yorkshire. the cliffs are huge, but fishing from the top, far too tame for 'real' men. So they descend the cliffs using harnesses and ropes, and at the last section, seven aluminium ladders bolted to the cliff face. Certainly not for the faint hearted. And certainly not for German Alexander Donninger. When his seven year old twins wished to fish whilst on holiday in Austria he bought a filleted trout in Lidl and, by extreme slight of hand, reeled it in at a nearby lake. Only he was seen, reported and the authorities don't believe him. (the evidence has been eaten.) Who to believe; you tell me!

    I suspect that much of man's behaviour is designed to impress; its what they think is expected.

President Putin is always charging around, Rambo style on a horse. (Is the man, like me, below average height by any chance?) And when he's standing still he's showing us one of his collection of watches.

he's got at least six, value £435,000 plus. (income supposedly less than one fifth of this figure.)

    Talking of Rambo, there is a possibility that a new Rambo film might be made, Rambo versus the

Mexican drug dealers evidently. Mind you, they had better do it soon, Sylvester Stallone is sixty five years of age; good luck old fella!

    Most of us, male or female are just happy being 'me' if you know what I mean.

But some, for whatever reason try that little bit harder to be noticed, to be different. The chap in Wales for instance, father of six, divorced who lives as an Apache. He gets a mention from me; mind you, only one line. And the man in court in Cannock who, sent out for wearing shorts, returned wearing a woman's skirt amused me but affronts my idea of basic decorum.

    Some are plain sad, like the town crier in Skipton who, sacked for drinking on duty, insists on carrying on as an independent 'crier'. Talk about liking the sound of your own voice, that certainly takes the proverbial biscuit.

    I smiled at the case of the man in New Zealand who threw an egg at his wife (Ladies, I know I shouldn't) when her pet pig ran amok and damaged his power saw; what a pair. But it wasn't really funny, especially as the egg was an ostrich egg!

    Not funny was the driver, Dutch, who was filming out of his lorry window with his iphone on the M20 in Kent because he liked the 'nice countryside.'

    But certainly daft the burglars who raided a bar at Solway Holiday Village in Silloth. They took the cash machine, emptied it of £615 in pound coins, took them to a local Asda at 5.25 in the morning and tried to change them. 

    There's no 'best' I suppose concerning male and female, just different. though I profoundly disagree with the treatment often meted out to females in some countries in the name of religion. My posts are seldom serious but ignorance never makes anything right. Which in my opinion makes Cecil Chao as daft as they come. Mr Chao is a Hong Kong billionaire playboy with a lesbian daughter in a civil partnership. He claims to have slept with 10,000 women but is not happy concerning his daughter's relationship. 

So much so that he has offered £40 million for any man who will woo his openly gay daughter away from her partner. (Mr Chao has never married but has fathered three children by three different partners.) Not exactly a good advert for the male section of the human race I would have thought.

     I would have also thought Arthur Reid aged ninety of Warmley is more to my taste. He has visited the same pub for seventy two years since turning eighteen. He was a council worker who left school at fourteen and never married. He has drunk an estimated 30,000 pints and has been honoured with a plaque and his own chair. He sounds more contented than Mr Chao!

    So there you have it; just one final thought. According to a Norwegian study, 'Equality in the home' couples who SHARE housework equally have a divorce rate 50% higher than those where the women do most of the work. Perhaps, just perhaps we are put on the earth for different purposes. (Only joking!)

Blast from the Past no 3 (see blog dated 1st March)

Reasons for Choice

I notice Gordon Brown recently lost a contact lense down the plughole. Like me he has one good eye. Like my wife he wears a contact lense. Unlike either of us, when he loses a contact lense someone else searches for it. Oh to be powerful and important. But let me show you the fun he misses!

'Eye, eye' dated Wednesday 18th June 2008. Yet another blog that elicited no respnse!

I had an uncle who had one of the earliest cataract operations in the country, not many years after the war. I only remember him having one contact lens. It was the size of a ten pence piece with one part raised and always reminded me of a sea shell. But best remembered was the fact that he used to clean it with Brasso, unbelievable but true. It must have surely affected the capability of the lens and how his eye never became infected is beyond comprehension. Though I do remember his eye was often bloodshot in the extreme.
I have one good eye, the left has very limited vision and has evidently been so probably since birth. Only I never realised until undergoing an army medical in the late fifties. (The proper army, honest, not the Salvation.) But it would explain why, having no three dimensional vision I was such a lousy batsman at cricket. The ball was often past me before I picked up its flight. (Plus being hit round the ribs frequently does little for your confidence; neither does a low pain threshold help.)
I was fitted, after tests involving space age equipment with a single (left eye)) contact lens by a knowledgeable optician. Eyes at the ready I thanked him profusely and marched out confidently, promptly colliding with the door frame, suffering mild concussion and one hell of an headache.
I persevered for many a month but eventually admitted defeat, having, I fear nearly put several cyclists on the nearside of my car into the nearest available ditches. What happened eventually to the lens I have no idea, it will probably turn up as the loft contents diminish.
Neither is my wife immune from eye problems. She was a young and attractive young lady when we first met, the owner of large round spectacles so befitting of the era. (In case she reads this, you are still attractive, my dear in spite of the passing years.) Self conscious, fashion conscious too, Paulette was talked into being fitted with contact lenses. Then the fun really started.
I often got the impression my wife peered into the distance rather than merely looked, like ordinary mortals. They, the lenses had to be found and inserted before any excursion, however small and even then you were never sure if they were in or out, so to speak. And if they ever did 'pop out' what followed could be stressful, pandemic and sometimes even entertaining.
The earliest search I remember was going on honeymoon. The car full of confetti, thousands of coloured pieces of paper versus one dropped lens. Result, confetti, five thousand; lens nil. One one eyed bride; one one eyed bridegroom.
One once went missing on a sand slide from the sand hills next to the beach near Cromer. "Stop, stand still" once again came the plaintive cry, "I've lost a lens." Again ten minutes of entertainment for all, including the children, bystanders and the dog. The latter incidentally particularly enjoyed the digging, spraying sand in all directions. I reckon he thought we were hiding it, not burying it. Result, ten million, million, million particles of sand, lens nil.
I did once recover a lens after yet another of my wife's mishaps. She lost it, in of all places the shower. At least we knew where it had gone, obviously down the plughole. From the drain outside I collected in the region of a dozen jam jars full of foul smelling, black, oozing, putrefying semi liquid filth. I patiently filtered the oozing substance. Every handful contained at least one beetle carcass that felt to the touch unbelievably like a contact lens. And, after an hours patient searching I got the little blighter. Triumphantly I returned my prize to my wife. Only she wouldn't reinsert it in her eye, not now, not ever. Rather a waste of my efforts, I thought, but in retrospect who could blame her after where it had been, though not in the same league as Brasso.
Contact lenses, at least the early ones often had the knack of adhering to clothes after they had fallen out. Walk around and you could redistribute them anywhere. The trick was to strip off completely, the wearer not the searcher and place your clothes in a neat pile. Then you could search diligently, the pile of clothes first and then the rest of the room. For under thirties it became a very interesting few minutes that could be stretched somewhat if you spotted the elusive lens but didn't let on, so to speak. If you happened to be in Woolworth's shopping definitely a good time was had by all.
We are older now and neither my wife nor I wear contact lenses. I normally make do, for reading at least, with pairs from Lidl, Aldi or Home Bargains, priced from ninety nine pence per pair. Prescription number 2.5 0r 3.0. You need to know this, Lidl's glasses are sealed and woe betide you if you open a packet to try them on. The Croation employee patrolling the isles of our nearest store has had lessons and can hear the rustle of a packet being opened from all of a hundred feet. I own never less than seven pairs at any one time and can nearly always find a pair when I need them. Strangely enough they are seldom less fragile than the ultra expensive pairs of driving glasses I buy from the opticians. For the arms fall off them all, they don't like you sitting on them and I seldom have both bridge pieces after a week or so.
So life goes on and we go along with it. But just occasionally I miss those searches for the elusive lens! There again we were young and foolish. Perhaps we had better stay with spectacles. What do you think.

Blast from the Past no 1. (See blog dated 23rd Jan.)

Reasons For Choice.

It was only the sixth blog I ever did. I have chosen it because it epitomises so much of my blogging 'career' to date. I came into blogging completely ignorant with no preconceived ideas, and little prior knowledge, just the desire to write; a lifetime ambition mainly on hold due to other commitments that life inevitably thrusts upon us. At sixty eight ( sixty nine now) years of age I realise time is no longer on my side.

I had no real idea as to what I was about. I have no desire to become a 'sage' or to show others how clever I am. I suppose in a way I see it as 'thinking out loud' and if it amuses or entertains, so be it.

I have few technical skills. Thus my early efforts were unparagraphed, until others put me right. Indeed I still find much of the technical side frustrating and virtually impossible to fathom. I am not helped by TGA (see blog 18th May, Hooray for the NHS) and I suspect increasing senility. I still do not know how attracting new readers really works. (This was yet another blog from my early days that gleaned no response whatsoever.) In other words I am still not too far removed from the clueless geriatric of nine months ago. All this I hope is reflected in this early blog. What is not reflected is the generosity of spirit, encouragement and kind help of many I meet along the way. I have plans for the future, God willing. The words that come to mind are long time favourites but drive my youngest daughter to the point of distraction. I shall still aspire to gradual mastery of this blogging phenomenon, but it's 'Softly, softly, catchee monkey'.

(By coincidence my last blog was my 100th blog.)

Sunday 27th April 2008

An OAP let loose in the 21st century

Like a weasel to a rabbit I am transfixed. Hours spent trying to master the technology, mainly unsucessfully yet the urge to continue is overpowering. What was it Albert Einstein said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." My incomprehension is unsurprising when you consider I even find an Idiot's Guide impossible to understand. Please tell me I am not the only one, or am I uniquely stupid when it comes to modern technology. And how strange I find myself posing questions to a screen, a substitite for the real world. An unreal situation akin to making love to a blow up doll or our childhood habit of smoking rolled up walnut leaves in an oakcup pipe. Both unsatisfactory substitutes for the real thing but better than nothing. I hasten to add I am not speaking from experience on the former. Now I reckon my problems in the main stem from three sources. One, at my age I'm a bit long in the tooth to learn new technologies but I can but try. Two, I have recently been informed I am functioning on half a brain, maybe a bit more to be honest but some missing all the same. More of this at a later date but imagine what I could do if it was all there, so to speak. And three, I need my eyes testing. My ninety nine pence glasses from Home Bargains are good value but hardly the result of considered professional examination. But at least you get to try them out. Which is more than can be said for the local Lidl. A fierce gentleman, Croatian I think he is patrols the isles, and can spot from over twenty yards a customer opening the goods. As their glasses are packaged you therefore buy pot luck, so to speak. Their car park is full of wrecked cars or at least it deserves to be. Any day now they'll be selling white sticks. I've thought my eyes needed testing for some time but a family function in The Devonshire, a posh pub in Baslow, Derbyshire finally made the fact inescapable. After a pint or two, or three, or four the need for the toilet was dire. Not surprising but at least it would suggest the old prostate is still working, if nothing else. Panic over and a might bit relieved so to speak, and, educated by frequent notices exorting us to 'Now wash your hands' I did as ordered and visited the hot air hand blower. Only posh as the pub was, the machine was totally ineffective, pathetic in the extreme. No rush of air, hot or otherwise. As I pondered so useless an apparatus and contemplated my next move I noticed a young man quizzically eyeing me from the urinal. Fearing I was about to be propositioned, I hastily withdrew my still wet hands from the machines orifice. It was only then I made out the wording on the machine, blurred in my case but cringingly embarrassing. The immortal words read 'Contraceptives, all colours and shapes, two pounds for three.'

'Eye, eye'

I had an uncle who had one of the earliest cataract operations in the country, not many years after the war. I only remember him having one contbut act lens. It was the size of a ten pence piece with one part raised and always reminded me of a sea shell. But best remembered was the fact that he used to clean it with Brasso, unbelievable true. It must have surely affected the capability of the lens and how his eye never became infected is beyond comprehension. Though I do remember his eye was often bloodshot in the extreme.
I have one good eye, the left has very limited vision and has evidently been so probably since birth. Only I never realised until undergoing an army medical in the late fifties. (The proper army, honest, not the Salvation.) But it would explain why, having no three dimensional vision I was such a lousy batsman at cricket. The ball was often past me before I picked up its flight. (Plus being hit round the ribs frequently does little for your confidence; neither does a low pain threshold help.)
I was fitted, after tests involving space age equipment with a single (left eye)) contact lens by a knowledgeable optician. Eyes at the ready I thanked him profusely and marched out confidently, promptly colliding with the door frame, suffering mild concussion and one hell of an headache.
I persevered for many a month but eventually admitted defeat, having, I fear nearly put several cyclists on the nearside of my car into the nearest available ditches. What happened eventually to the lens I have no idea, it will probably turn up as the loft contents diminish.
Neither is my wife immune from eye problems. She was a young and attractive young lady when we first met, the owner of large round spectacles so befitting of the era. (In case she reads this, you are still attractive, my dear in spite of the passing years.) Self conscious, fashion conscious too, Paulette was talked into being fitted with contact lenses. Then the fun really started.
I often got the impression my wife peered into the distance rather than merely looked, like ordinary mortals. They, the lenses had to be found and inserted before any excursion, however small and even then you were never sure if they were in or out, so to speak. And if they ever did 'pop out' what followed could be stressful, pandemic and sometimes even entertaining.
The earliest search I remember was going on honeymoon. The car full of confetti, thousands of coloured pieces of paper versus one dropped lens. Result, confetti, five thousand; lens nil. One one eyed bride; one one eyed bridegroom.
One once went missing on a sand slide from the sand hills to the beach near Cromer. "Stop, stand still" once again came the plaintive cry, "I've lost a lens." Again ten minutes of entertainment for all, including the children, bystanders and the dog. The latter incidentally particularly enjoyed the digging, spraying sand in all directions. I reckon he thought we were hiding it, not burying it. Result, ten million, million, million particles of sand, lens nil.
I did once recover a lens after yet another of my wife's mishaps. She lost it, in of all places the shower. At least we knew where it had gone, obviously down the plughole. From the drain outside I collected in the region of a dozen jam jars full of foul smelling, black, oozing, putrefying semi liquid filth. I patiently filtered the oozing substance. Every handful contained at least one beetle carcass that felt to the touch unbelievably like a contact lens. And, after an hours patient searching I got the little blighter. Triumphantly I returned my prize to my wife. Only she wouldn't reinsert it in her eye, not now, not never. Rather a waste of my efforts, I thought, but in retrospect who could blame her after where it had been, though not in the same league as Brasso.
Contact lenses, at least the early ones often had the knack of adhering to clothes after they had fallen out. Walk around and you could redistribute them anywhere. The trick was to strip off completely, the wearer not the searcher and place your clothes in a neat pile. Then you could search diligently, the pile of clothes first and then the rest of the room. For under thirties it became a very interesting few minutes that could be stretched somewhat if you spotted the elusive lens but didn't let on, so to speak. If you happened to be in Woolworth's shopping definitely a good time was had by all.
We are older now and neither my wife nor I wear contact lenses. I normally make do, for reading at least, with pairs from Lidl, Aldi or Home Bargains, priced from ninety nine pence per pair. Prescription number 2.5 0r 3.0. You need to know this, Lidl's glasses are sealed and woe betide you if you open a packet to try them on. The Croation employee patrolling the isles of our nearest store has had lessons and can hear the rustle of a packet being opened from all of a hundred feet. I own never less than seven pairs at any one time and can nearly always find a pair when I need them. Strangely enough they are seldom less fragile than the ultra expensive pairs of driving glasses I buy from the opticians. For the arms fall off them all, they don't like you sitting on them and I seldom have both bridge pieces after a week or so.
So life goes on and we go along with it. But just occasionally I miss those searches for the elusive lens! There again we were young and foolish. Perhaps we had better stay with spectacles. What do you think.