Again and Again and Again.

I seldom plan ahead concerning the writing of posts. Not surprising in view of the fact that I'm not even sure as to why I blog. On a good day, a fairly easy task, on a bad day a blank canvas awaiting my limited efforts. Are you the same, dear friends. I've never particularly been one for topicality or the 'world scene', others do it better. Then, occasionally, something in the news catches my eye and off we go.

The Tibetan people are having it rough, rougher than normal at the hands of their Chinese oppressors, particularly in the Sichuan districts. (16 Tibetans have set fire to themselves since March of last year.) The Chinese Government of course deny any brutality in Tibet, or anywhere else for that matter. Truth is just as easy to suppress as people. Which suggests a 'deja vu' post yet again.

In the 1950's I was a wide-eyed schoolboy growing up in a village in Derbyshire. I was brought up in a Moravian household purely and simply because there happened to be a Moravian congregation where I lived. (A very old Protestant religion, similar to Methodists, established in Ockbrook in 1750.)

The Moravian Church happens to be a missionary church, so treats for us children would be visiting missionaries from far away places on 'furlow', speaking in the chapel concerning their important work delivering the word of God' to 'ignorant savages overseas'. (I did have a cousin who became a missionary but it had no appeal for me. Though I was fascinated by pictures of Eskimo children sucking seals eyes in the same way as we village boys sucked our gobstoppers.)

One day there appeared in church a small robed man, playing a musical instrument and singing/chanting; way beyond a village boys comprehension or experience. Evidently he was Tibetan, a Buddist converted to the Christian faith by Moravian missionaries. (Shortly to be expelled from Tibet by, you've guessed it,  the Chinese rulers in Tibet. All this in the 1950's, not 2012.)

The Moravians in Ockbrook arranged for a Derby engineering firm to make a typewriter that typed in the Tibetan language. Brilliant, They couldn't have been too many of them around! Then the little man returned to Tibet to a life full of danger and uncertainty, for his life had already been threatened because of his conversion to Christianity; he was a brave little man indeed and I salute him.

Over fifty years on the Chinese militia are still brutally suppressing the indigenous people of Tibet, presumably on the orders of their masters in Bejing.

At times I despair. Nothing changes. I have no answers and that at times worries me. Some religious adherents can be exceedingly self satisfied as to their beliefs. I make no point as to the rights or otherwise of religions converting others to their viewpoint. (I remember vividly feeling rather smug as a ten year old that I was lucky enough to be going eventually to an 'afterlife', others, apparantly were not to be so lucky. This of course I had been 'taught' as a child.) But as an adult I am non too impressed by many pious individuals of many different religions who seem convinced they and their ilk alone are assured of eternal salvation. (Though not all, many are sympathetic and understanding of other religions/beliefs.) Fanatics cum zealots are both frightening and dangerous. But this is not the main point of this post. The point that struck me most was how short is life. How repetative are mankinds mistakes. And so it will presumably be, for ever and ever. Deja-vu indeed. What say ye? .

Its All in the Mind; Why I've no Idea.

So I do this post, Sunday Roast at the invitation of Eddie Bluelights. (A confession. When Eddie first arrived on the blogging scene, not very long ago, I thought he was something of an upstart. Full of enthusiasm; so keen, so new, so early. I was so jealous; and oh so wrong.) Excellent blogger and prolific with it. Well done my friend. And from this 'invitation blog' came a 'tagging' request from LiZZie' in the form of eight personal facts (of no importance whatsoever.) Which solved the problem of this weeks blog. (Not long ago I thought a 'tag' was something mother stitched into the back of your coat when you were at school.)

Now at the risk of repeating myself, I honestly believe that everything we have experienced in life is stored somewhere in the brain. its all a matter of retrieval. And nobody has yet answered satisfactorily as to where it all goes when the lights finally go out. So before this gets too deep, eight little observations.

1 I have always been absent minded, dilatory, hopeless, even as a child. Why else would I go to town on my bike and come home on the bus. (The bike was still there next day.)

2 But if my memory is so bad how come I can still remember two questions from my 11+ exam of fifty nine years ago.

Question. Yesterday, today was tomorrow. True or false.

Question. George Washington was born, married and died in the house he built himself. Which one is obviously incorrect.

3 On my first day at Woolworth's, seventeen years of age I had no dinner. No-one told me when my dinner hour was. It never happened again.

4 When I was about twelve the chapel I attended (Moravian) presented a Tibetan Buddhist monk convert to Christianity with a typewriter that typed in Tibetan (Made in Derby). I remember thinking, blimey, I bet they don't sell many of those in Derby.

5 I have often been mistaken for Lord Bath. (See blog dated 22nd September 2009.) Funnily enough my parentage is obscure and it was once suggested that my father was 'someone who visited the big house' where my mother was a 'skivvy'.

6 When teaching in the large comprehensive I once told a young man loitering on the stairs to 'clear off' back to his classroom,' and be quick about it Sad really, as he was a 'youngish' workman painting the stairs for the council and was just having a rest.

7 The Berlin Wall came down on my birthday. (November 9th.)

8 The first record on my jukebox is Old Rivers by Walter Brennan. The last is 'Cavatina' from The Deer Hunter, guitar played by John Williams. (And if you take nothing else away from this blog, treat yourself and play Old Rivers.)

I know, I know, what a lot of old cobblers. But perhaps blogging should not be tense, serious and deeply philosophic all of the time. And why should I be the only one to suffer. LiZZie suggests I 'tag' other bloggers. So would any of the following like to have a go. Its not compulsory of course and I shan't be offended if its not your scene. You have been chosen simply because you are new to my blog. And more than likely much more interesting than this foolish geriatric. Anyone else wishing to join in, be my guest.

Gramme's Blog. Mr London Street. Gaston Studio. Molly Potter. A Heron's View.