From 2011 to 2012

Well, another year is drawing to its close and we're on the threshold of 2012. The years seem to whiz by, especially in one's later years, and they soon become a blur. Many bad things have happened this year on the international scene, one could hardly imagine a worse year, and some not-so-good things have happened which touch upon my personal life, but on the whole the latter could have been worse although of course it could likewise have been better.

Times come and go, times change, we change as we grow older, and nothing seems the same anymore. People that we once took for granted pass away or pass on and our circle of family, friends and acquaintances takes on a different form and structure. Things that were part of our everyday environment have been discarded and replaced and though we scarcely notice this, a photo of how things once were set against a photo of how things are now will immediately reveal the changes.

All our Yesterdays and all our Tomorrows

We too have changed over the years, both physically and emotionally. The physical changes are of course the most easily noticeable, but the mental changes are no less powerful for being less visible. As I look back on my life, I know that my attitudes and approaches to the people and things around me have evolved and altered as my realities alter and as perhaps my options diminish and the time I have before me becomes markedly less than the time stretching behind me. And if at this point you should be curious to know my age, your curiosity will alas remain unsatisfied! Hehhe...

[BREAK FOR FESTIVITIES] ....

I did not actually have time to complete this post before the New Year caught up with me, so I'm writing the rest of this in 2012! But never mind, it makes no odds, the mood is the same... well, for a few more hours. I've had the cake, I've had the bubbly, and I've had a few nibbles, and in fact I think I've had a little too much to drink,as I'm feeling a bit woozy. But that's mostly affected my locomotion rather than my thought processes... hehhe.... though I rather think I should be horizontal in bed rather than propped up here in front of the computer screen! But, as I want to finish this post before I hit the sack, propped up in front of the computer screen it shall be! 

Out with the Old and in with the New

Now where was I before I was rudely interrupted by... myself? Ah yes, the pros and cons of the outgoing year. Now, as I was saying... ahwwwwwww, I just can't, it's too big a subject for me in my present semi-inebriated state, so I'll have to break off to replenish my batteries and get back to this. So until then, I wish my readers and followers a HAPPY & HEALTHY NEW YEAR 2012!

[off to beddy-byes] ....

It's now the evening of the first day of 2012 and time for me to wind up this post, and there will be no looking back over the past year as I over-ambitiously implied yesterday. I leave this to the mass communication media, who can do it and have already done it much better than I could possibly hope to do. 

As I write this I can still hear fireworks being let off sporadically. It seems every year the letting-off of fireworks goes on for longer and longer. And talking of fireworks, the great fireworks display on the Embankment was as usual spectacular and did not disappoint. With Big Ben and the London Eye as the centre-pieces of the display, it was an impressive extravaganza of light bursts illuminating the night sky. Wonderful!

Big Ben assailed on all sides by fireworks

And so we begin a new year. What will the new year bring? We can guess in many instances and as the year wears on we shall see if we're right. We can be sure of one thing: as always, it will be a mix of the good and the bad. The only question is how good will the good be and how bad will the bad be and how much will our personal life be affected by the events to come. The world now has become a very small place indeed thanks to instant global communications and super-fast travel, and what happens at one end of the planet is already being reported at the other before the dust has settled.  We're all in it together, though some will fare better than others. And the way things are going in the area of social networking and the like, there will less and less privacy of the individual in the year to come.There will simply be no place to run or hide anymore.

Welcome, Brave Virtual World!

Christmas Thoughts III

It’s Christmas Eve 2011, just minutes away from Christmas Day, and things are quiet in the house - there's not even the sound of a mouse, but as we don't have mice in the house that's hardly surprising!


I've just come back home from collecting my daughter from a friend's house and I've now settled down for the night with a pot of tea and am composing this last-minute post. 


My feelings about Xmas have waxed and waned over the years from the nonchalant to the religious, passing through the various gradations in between. I suppose as I've aged I have become more respectful of the institution of Christmas and more circumspect of its significance, while continuing to question its historical factuality.


That aside, there is one Christmas tradition that I have come to dislike with the passing of the years, that of frenzied shopping and perfunctory present-giving, and I suppose these two acts go hand in hand more or less: if we didn't have to give presents as a rule we wouldn't have to do so much shopping. Or would we? Would we then just buy ourselves more presents instead? Hard to know without putting it to the test, but then we're opening a whole new can of worms.

I'm quite happy about sending Xmas cards but it's the buying and giving of gifts that I find comes in the way of a more relaxed and fulfilled Christmas. If we could find some way of doing away with this millstone of a custom and perhaps  just preserving it at the very most for one's children and closest family members we might be able to enjoy this important festive season, as it would automatically remove the stress and strain that it inflicts on our minds and bodies and on our pockets! It also reeks of materialism, as it seems to put the emphasis on material objects rather than spirituality. And the argument that one is giving to others cuts no ice with me, as we're also expecting to receive (except in the case of children) and if we don't get we don't give next time round.


The thing that really rankles with me is where people who make no attempt to see you all the year round and care not a jot about whether you live or die suddenly turn up on your doorstep laden with Xmas gifts, nearly all of which you don't like, don't need and would never miss. They drop the presents off (they always just drop them off, as they're in a terrible hurry and they have someone waiting in the car outside). You then realise that you haven't bought them anything in return, panic sets in and you are faced with rushing out to the shops at the eleventh hour to spend more money and make amends for your terrible oversight.


So, like it or not you're locked into the treadmill of gift-buying, otherwise those who give gifts to you may never forgive you for your failure to reciprocate and may shun you for the rest of the new year. But wait a moment, you think, that's what they've done anyway in the past. I haven't seen them since last Christmas when they deposited a carrier-bag of cheap shoddy prezzies on my doorstep and rushed off mumbling some excuse, not to be seen again until now! So what have I got to lose if I don't reciprocate? OK, so they'll be miffed, badmouth me for awhile and call me a few names behind my back but I'll be free of the drudge and expense of having to buy them Xmas presents every year.

The reality however is that you don't have the guts to do this and you drive yourself mad racing around the shops in an attempt to find suitable last-minute presents for your yuletide tormentors just so they can think well of you for another year. I recall one case where we had a tardy 'delivery' of Xmas gifts and when we failed to reciprocate, mainly because we were caught on the hop and with little time to correct our sin of omission, there were no more presents from that source when next Christmas came. And we didn't see them at all during the year - exactly as for the prior year when we were still in their good books. So no change there!


I find that devout Christians are the worst. They take the exchange of gifts so seriously, cannot forgive a lapse, and their subsequent vengeance is terrible! They seem to think that the spirit of Christmas is embodied in the buying and giving of gifts and cite the biblical Three Kings or Magi who brought gold, frankincense and myrrh for the infant Jesus. I sometimes wish there were special outlets selling these three items at Christmas at knock-down prices so we didn't have to rack our brains about what to get John and Jill. But alas no such luck! So it's the inevitable rush for that after-shave and that deodorant and that tin of biscuits and that set of toiletries and the odd bottle of cheap booze.


Well, anyway, enough said of that. As I mentioned at the start, this is Xmas Eve, all the buying  of gifts is over and any omissions are irreparable and the consequences must be faced up to in the coming months. It's time to turn one's thoughts back to the Christmas fare tomorrow and the abuse of one's body from an excessive intake of food and drink. It's the only way to soothe the pain of money ill spent and an empty purse or wallet. Oh woe is me!


As I write this, I am preparing to watch the midnight mass on the telly so I can once again assume the mantle of piety as befitting the occasion. A few rumbustious carols and hymns and some suitably humble praying and pleas for forgiveness should redress the balance and make me pure again. Well that's the theory. The truth of it is probably more like I'm riven with sin from end to end and irrecuperable! Or is that irreclaimable? Or even irredeemable? But whatever it is, it ain't good. 


Still, I do wish there were less spending and less giving of objects at Christmas and more giving of time. To give of one's time to another is the most precious gift we can give: time cannot be bought, cannot be extended, and is finite. Making time for someone is the giving of ourselves, not the giving of objects, it is the offer of our personal presence and company. Time given cannot be seen but its passage is very noticeable; it cannot be touched but its effects are very palpable. Perhaps people would do well to give more of their time and less of soulless objects which are often deposited in a hurry with the recipient for lack of.... time.

Dialogues with God III

Man:  Lord, are you there?

(silence)

M:  Can you hear me, Lord?

(moments pass)

God: Yes, of course I’m here. You know I'm always here whenever you're ready for me.

M:  Then why were you not answering?

G:  Because you weren't quite ready for me to answer you.

M:  What does that mean?

G:  It means that you were not willing me to answer your call rightaway.

M:  I wasn’t?

G:  No, you weren’t.

M:  Then why was I calling you?

G:  What I mean is that you wanted to do it your way and that’s why I wasn’t able to answer your call straightaway.

M:  Do it my way? I really don’t understand you sometimes. What was my way, anyway?

G:  Your way was to allow a couple of minutes to go by before I made my entrance.

M:  And why would I want that, Your Omniscience?

G:  Let’s just say it was a sort of pregnant pause for dramatic effect.

M:  You say the oddest of things sometimes. It’s almost as if I were controlling you or something and you had no will of your own?

G:  Well, have I?

Lord, are you there?

M:  What kind of a question is that?!
G:  Just a question. Don’t take it the wrong way.

M:  You know, there are times when I don’t understand you at all. Anyone would think you’re suggesting you don’t exist in your own right and that you’re a figment of my imagination.

G:  Well do I and aren’t I?

M:  What???

G:  Well, look, have you considered that I might only exist in your mind? I mean, I think I might exist in some form or other but I can't be sure, and it's just as likely that I don't exist at all. 

M:  That’s ridiculous! It doesn’t make any sense, no sense at all.

G:  Well can you actually see me?

M:  Well no, not as such, but…

G:  Can you hear me?

M:  Yes, of course.... in a way.

G:  In what way?

M:  Not of course in the way that I here other people, or as some loud voice booming down from on-high, that’s just in films, but as a voice in my... well... in my mind, let's say.

G:  Well there you are!

M:  Where am I?

G:  I could be just a figment of your imagination, a sensory illusion, another aspect of yourself,

M:  Oh I don’t think so. You’re real alright! And being God, you communicate in your own special way.

G:  Well, okay, if you say so.

M:  What do you mean “if I say so”? Don’t you know?

G:  As I say, I’m not too sure I do.

M:  What does that mean now?

G:  It means quite simply that I seem to exist for some and not to exist for others. It's really confusing.

M:  Oh come off it! You either exist or you don’t, you can’t both exist and not exist! Anyway, what are you saying? That you might not exist and that I’m imagining you now? That all this conversation is just in my head?

G:  Well, yes, I suppose that’s more or less what I’m saying. Sorry about that and all. 

M:  So taking this one step further, you’re saying in effect that you probably don’t really exist as such but that you may appear to exist for some people because they conjure you up in their imagination, is that right?

G:  That’s it in essence. Put bluntly, I only exist for those, such as yourself, who want me to exist and who will me into existence.

M:  But that means that you don’t exist, that I've made you up, as have many others.

G:  I suppose I am saying that, yes. It’s a bit like with dragons and fairies and the like. They exist for those who believe they exist and their effects are seemingly felt by those who believe in them.

M:  And who believes in dragons and fairies nowadays? I don’t know of anyone who really believes all that nonsense.

G:  Well, okay, perhaps there’s not so many who believe in all that anymore, but you take my point.

M:  I take your point, God, but you’re asking me to accept that I’m imagining this dialogue with you now because you don’t really exist except in my head. Is that it?

G:  In a nutshell, yes!

M:  If you weren’t God, I would tell you what you could do with yourself now, Your Omnipotence!

G:  Come, come now.... don't get upset.

M:  How can I not get upset when Your Almightiness is implying that I’m out of my tiny mind, that I’m a complete loon, and that none of this is happening.

Where are you, God?

G:  ………….....………..

M:  That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That  I’m having this conversation with myself because I'm hallucinating or something! In short, that I’m bonkers, stark raving mad, and therefore that I should be locked up in some institution for the mentally insane!!

G:  ………..………….

M:  Well, cat got your tongue, Your Divinity? Lost for words now? Speak up, damn you!!

G:  ………..………….

M:  I said speak up!!! Where’ve you gone now?! Lost the argument and ran off with your tail between your legs???

G: ………...........……………...

M:  Well??? Say something, for God’s sake!!!! No, no, not for God’s sake, for MY sake!!!

G:  ………...........…..........……………


M:  Speak!!!! Why don’t you damn well say something?!? And where in heaven’s name are you now?!! Heyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Warden:  Quiet please in Cell No.13! You’re upsetting the other inmates and stopping them from sleeping.

M:  *&a#p;*^!!+="$!$*!!!*@*&am\;*^!!$%$%£@*&a##p;*$£!!!!!

W:  I said quiet!! If you don’t calm down and shut up you’ll be medicated to shut you up! We’re not putting up with this sort of disruption in this facility. Go back to bed and stop talking to yourself!!

M:  No, please... let me out... please let me out!! I’ve got to get out of here.... I've got to find God!!!!

Armistice Day & Remembrance Sunday 2011

We today who have not known the horrors of all-out war at first hand owe it to the millions of Fallen, to those who made the ultimate sacrifice, to those who fought for their country, for the freedoms we enjoy today, to remember them and to honour their memory. Their sacrifice should make us think how lucky we are.

Many of the Fallen were young men barely out of their teens, who still had the whole of their lives ahead of them, fresh-faced youths who would never mature and age, never rear a family, never know the many pleasures of life lived to the full. Barely out of school or college, they were thrust into the unspeakable brutality and cruelty of bloody armed conflict. They were truly the lost generation. 


The somewhat pampered youth of today who want everything and want it instantly, with all their electronic  gadgetry and fashion accessories, would do well to ponder in moments such as these the fate of those millions of other youths who never even had the chance of a real life. Never has a generation of young people been so privileged, so spoilt and so well-off as the present one, with parents who bend over backwards to satisfy their every whim and wish.

Though we may live in a world of plenty and lack for nothing - with some glaring exceptions in Africa and Asia -  our insatiable appetite for ever more material acquisitions is never quenched. Today's youth in particular, unlike their peers in earlier times when little could be taken for granted, are strong on their rights and privileges and quick to claim what they believe to be theirs for the taking, but are reluctant and diffident when it comes to assuming their responsibilities and obligations towards society. 

As we pay tribute to those legions of brave men who put themselves in direct harm's way in foreign lands, who faced the spectre of sudden death on the battlefield and who did not live to see their loved ones back home and to tell the tale, we would all do well to get things into perspective and count our blessings. For there but for the grace of God go we. 

I salute the many thousands of brave soldiers who responded to the call of duty regardless of the cost and I pay homage to both those that came back and those that did not. They were heroes and as such amply deserve to be commemorated and remembered as a shining example of self-sacrifice to all men and women everywhere.


This coming Sunday is what we call Remembrance Sunday, when there will be a formal ceremony of commemoration at the memorial erected to the memory of the victims of war, known as the Cenotaph, which will be attended by the Queen and other members of the royal family and by the prime minster, the leaders of the other political parties, war veterans and by dignitaries from many other countries. It will be, as always, a very solemn occasion but also a very moving one, an appropriate homage to the Fallen.

Back soon??? Yes!!!

This is just to let my hundreds of avid readers and fans everywhere know that despite my protracted absence I've not abandoned my blog and that I'll be back soon with more hard-hitting no-punches-pulled exposés of the burning issues of the day or meandering trips down memory lane (for the more nostalgic).

Je reviens bientot!

At the moment I'm on some sun-drenched beach somewhere half way round the world in the tropics staring out to sea or ogling some gorgeous chick's natural assets and I can't concentrate on serious stuff. Lamentable, I know, but nonetheless true... sometimes.

My attention span is on tourist mode, which means that I'm only using about 20% of my brain, which is more than enough for leisure purposes until I get back to the real world, or at least what passes for the real world for me. Everyone has their own reality.

When I get back to base I will most likely breathe new life into this blog of mine and revamp it, as I've noticed that there are some new so-called 'dynamic views' on offer in Blogger now, but I need more brain-power for this so as to make the right choices and not cock things up!

So there you have it, devotees and acolytes.... sit tight, watch this space and your patience will be rewarded with more intellectual stimulation and spiritual nourishment on my return. To those that wait, it shall be given in abundance.To those that believe, it shall... well, you get the idea, I think.

Bye for now.

Children rule, ok?

Have you noticed lately how everyone seems to be getting younger while you're getting older with every passing day if not minute? Well, when I say everyone, I’m really referring here to all those in positions of authority or responsibility, some of them in the highest offices of state.

Some of the worst 'culprits' are teachers and police officers, members of parliament and local councillors, doctors, lawyers, heads of corporations, tv newsreaders and weather people, celebrity scientists and historians, company managers and directors, and even pensioners, and the list just goes on and on.

On comes someone on the television who has 'doctor' or 'professor' in front of his name, talking knowledgeably and authoritatively about a subject, and you can’t believe your ears and eyes. Is this fresh-faced spring chicken of a youth old enough to be a doctor or professor?, you ask yourself. Apparently yes. After all, he’s on the telly spouting off about scientific phenomena or historical events and seems to know what he’s talking about. And yet when you were already entering middle age, with a nagging wife and a bevy of hell-raising sprogs, he was still in short trousers sucking on lollipops! And now he’s a doctor of science, a professor of everything, and disseminating his wisdom to you, me and the rest of the world.

Similarly, this girlie-whirlie comes on and holds forth about matters geological and anthropological and other such ologicals and, lo and behold, just as you’re thinking she’s too young to be out of school at that time of day, you discover she’s… you guessed it, another doctor or professor! Well, I never! When did she have the time to graduate, let alone postgraduate? Or has she been using some miraculous anti-ageing cream?

Experts are invited onto night-time discussion programmes to enlighten and pontificate on this matter or that, this weighty issue or that, and you wonder if their mothers know they’re out so late. You listen enthralled at the amount of knowledge they have accumulated and can’t understand why you didn’t know one quarter of that when you were their age? But what is their age in fact? Are they out of their teens? Must be in their twenties at least, or even thirties. Surely? And they seem to know what they’re talking about, if anyone can in these days of limitless information.

The worst offender of all is of course the Prime Minister or President of your country. Once upon a time a national leader looked the part and had the years behind him to lend him some gravitas. Now they look so boyish (or girlish) that you ask yourself when they had the time to rise to such a high office so early in life. Did they take some sort of short-cut to the top? Or have they drunk from some fountain of youth? Or made a Faustian pact with the devil? It hardly seems that it was so long ago that they were still at school and yet here they are now running a country and bossing everyone around, including those who remember them as snotty-nosed schoolboys. Where was Barack Obama when I was losing my sexual virginity? Nowhere! Yet now he is president of Uncle Sam and presumes to command the world from his Oval Office. And where am I now? Nowhere!

The other week I opened the door to two policewomen (advising on home security) who looked as though they had played truant from their school and donned fancy-dress! But no, they were the real thing apparently, and I tried concentrating on what they were saying whilst thinking I had children of their age or even older than them! Two rosy-cheeked damsels, with skin as smooth as a baby’s bottom, and here they were in front of me in police uniform representing law and order. How much younger can they get before we demand to see proof of adulthood?

You see teachers at secondary school and you can only distinguish them from a lot of their pupils and students by the fact they’re stood at the front of the class behaving like teachers are expected to. As soon as they mingle with their charges in the corridors or the playground you have difficulty in picking them out from the real youngsters! No wonder their pupils are so familiar and laid-back with them and give them lip. The age gap between the pupil and teacher has narrowed so much that it's eaten away at any air of authority they might have had and this is often reflected in the way the pupils interact with the baby-faced teacher.

And so the years pass by and you’re showing unmistakable signs of ageing, but not so with the aforementioned persons in authority who just go on getting younger and younger, a bit like Brad Pitt in the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, who is born old but after “growing up” begins to regress, getting younger and younger until he finally reverts to babyhood and dies! Can this be happening in real life with people in authority? Will our Premier or President one day parade in a romper suit before us, drooling at the mouth and gurgling incoherently? Is it possible? Or will a law finally come out forbidding anyone under 10 years of age to become Prime Minister or a High Court Judge? I rather hope so.

I recall a time when the average MP looked as though he was on his last legs, such was the burden of his advanced years. Old and frail and wizened by time, he shuffled about like a true wrinkly not long for this world. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at some 1940s/1950s footage of MPs debating in the House of Commons and see if you can spot anyone there who does not look like a geriatric case! And why do you think that august body, the Senate, which still exists in the USA, is called the 'Senate'? From the Latin ‘senex’, meaning ‘old’, it was an organ of government composed of grand old men, many of them bearded and moustachioed and pot-bellied looking just about ready to be shipped off to the knackers’ yard! Now their modern counterparts look like a band of delinquent students indulging in schoolboy antics.

Well, I suppose I may have betrayed my age with all this ranting and raging against the reign of the young and the youthful. In fact, it may be that the said people in authority and on the goggle-box are not so young after all, but rather that we’re so old! And the older we get, the younger they and everyone else looks. That may be the terrible truth and the word that dare not speak its name: s*n*l*t*!

Now where’s that blesséd  rejuvenating cream of mine?

They were such times...

It was such a time, such a world, with such places, sights and things, and we were such people as once knew and moved through such a world.

It was also a world deep-scarred by the cruel hand of war.

But was it really as we are now pleased to remember it? Were those places and things as we recall them so many years long past? Were we those people, those fresh young faces? Did it happen as our memory has fixed it in our mind’s eye? Was it in this same world, in these same places and spaces where it all went on? Was it here that we lived a life that was of that time and of that world, never to be so again?

Does this happen anymore?

Was it for these times that we strove and for these things that we longed and for this state of being that we dreamed? Could we have imagined how it would be, how we would fare, and how our lives would run their course far into the future? That future is now this present, and this present is also our future and... our future end. The hopes and dreams of years to come are the memories and souvenirs of years now gone. The fresh waters of the fast-flowing river have slowed to the stagnant water of a turgid lake and we did not see when one became the other.

They were such times whose rich promise matched and stoked our desires, such days as stretched out to infinity. The world was always as we had come to know it and would forever be so. Family and friends too continued seemingly unchanging since first we knew them and would always be such. Our universe was stable, predictable, constant, slow and knowable, and we had it in our hand and under our control. So we thought.

Were we the last generation that would feel the undiluted promise of the future? Were we the last of the innocents, the dreamers, the hopefuls? Was the world we knew breathing its last while we opened the doors of experience that loomed limitless before us? In a time when the instantaneous and the global promised more than they delivered, could we have imagined our existence otherwise? We the hopeful, the gullible, the naïve, the children of the war generation scarred by savage conflict and full of terrible memories.

The Beatles will forever be identified with the 1960s

But either way it did not matter. It did not depend on us. The clock ticked on, patiently marking the passage of time, the days altered in colour and meaning, our certainties grew less certain, our values and beliefs grew dimmer and less reassuring, and our lives became imbued with a sense of apprehension we could not understand. But we were young and simple and confident and brash, and we had the wind in our sails and the sun on the horizon. We had youth and strength and energy and resolve, and we would not be told.

Yet even as we had youth in our bones and hope in our hearts, our era, our world, was nearing its end and it was not the world that our fathers had fought and died for or even imagined. As the old generations passed out of this realm and we took up the baton of life, stepping diffidently into the breach, we could not know we would be the first generation that would be shaken to the core by a tide of change that would sweep away all certainty, stability, conviction and self-assurance and leave a void in our hearts and anxiety in our souls.

They were such times as shall never again be seen and we were such folk as could glimpse the limitless possibilities of a world that was on the move, set in motion by the past and driven forward by the future.  Glimpse them we might but understand them we could not. The fast-flowing but tame river of life was turning into a raging torrent that would burst its banks and hurls us all into an unknown landscape where nothing was as it seemed, where the transient would replace the constant and the fast and furious would dislodge the slow and steady.  

Those unmistakable bell-bottoms of the 1970s!

The past was ours, the present is everybody's, and the future is out of our hands. So it is and so it has always been. The world we came into was black and white and grey and grim; the world we leave behind is a kaleidoscope of colours and a confusion of sights and sounds. We lived and we died and were reborn and must die again. We are you and you are us. You lived in us and now we will live in you. You are our future and we are your past.

In us you see yourselves and our hopes will be your hopes, our laughter and tears will be your laughter and tears, our joys and fears will be your joys and fears, our dreams will be your dreams. We once gave you life as you yourselves now give life, and some day to come you may say to those that follow: “It was such a time, such a world, with such places, sights and things, and we were such people as once knew and moved through such a world."

(Dedicated to my beloved mother who passed away so many years ago and whose passing changed me forever. She has lived in me as I may hope to live in my children. God bless her!)

A brief ramble through disconnected ideas...

Well now, I didn't realise at the time of my last post in March, fresh from my hols, that it would be so long before I got round to posting again. I suppose it's been a combination of a heavy work schedule and just plain laziness that has prevented me from writing anything. It can't be indifference to what's happening in the world around me - I'm passionate about a lot of issues - so it has to be work, laziness, and indecisiveness, or should that be indecision? I know not. Many is the time when I've started writing something and then left it, never to return to it. I honestly don't know how those bloggers who blog nearly every day manage it. They always seem to have something to blog about and the time to do it in.

So, anyway, what's my topic for this post? Frankly, I don't have a clue! And with that, you will doubtless have guessed that this is all improvised and made up as I go along (now there's tautology for you!), hence the title. It could instead have been called a 'waffle' or a 'rabbit' but 'ramble' won the day, it's more lyrical or poetical or something of that sort. Some things are just right and others, well, not so right, more to the left of right... hehhe... oh dear, this is getting to sound like pure drivel now, which is worse than a ramble or a waffle or even a rabbit!



Pretty Colours

Perhaps the spectrum of pretty colours opposite will hold your attention for awhile if my reflections are failing to grip you. I see myself passing through it from darkness into the light - night into day, despair into hope - or, for the more ghoulish of us, the other way around, from light into darkness, day into night, something along the lines of Edgar Allan Poe's macabre tale, the Masque of the Red Death! There, the progression is through a series of rooms, from light to dark, culminating in a room wholly draped in black and with blood-red windows. And that's where Prince Prospero, played by the charismatic Vincent Price in the movie of that name, meets his ignominious end. The picture below shows the various incarnations of the Grim Reaper as they go forth into the world to spread plague and pestilence wherever they pass - a nice bunch, wouldn't you say? As if mankind weren't already doing enough to fuck up the world, they step in with a helping hand to add to the general misery and wretchedness. Oh the good life!

And talking of ignominious ends... are we now witnessing the end of Europe as we know it? Besieged on all sides by constant waves of impoverished migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, ravaged by economic recession, riven by social unrest, targeted by international Islamic terrorism, disrupted by strikes and demos, adrift in a sea of uncertainties and shifting moral values, threatened by new developing world powers, Europe seems to be faltering and failing in its economic, social and strategic aspirations. As the so-called BRIC countries and the rest of the developing world awaken from centuries of slumber, during which they underwent considerable exploitation, mainly by Europeans, it is now their turn to exploit Europe which seems to have lost its way and is slowly sinking into the mire of confusion and disorientation. Either that or I've misread the signs! 

I just can't help thinking that the world, as we have fashioned it to-date, is a mixed-up crazy place, with little if any rhyme or reason to it. Never has it been so hard to perceive the purpose of our own existence and our role and place in the scheme of things than today, I think. In cave-man times, things must have been a lot clearer, and as their time was wholly taken up with the struggle to survive and reproduce, there was little room left for cogitating on their place in the grand scheme of things even if they had the brain-power at the time to engage in such an elevated pursuit. Everything must have made complete sense in those days. Look at this little fellow below... he's evidently been on some hunting foray and by the looks of it the tables have been turned on him and he's running for his life now!

Today the world is an utterly confusing place, and it's all our fault of course, because the natural world continues in the same way it always has, with the occasional earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, drought, hurricane, tsunami, and stuff like that, but essentially everything goes on in the same way it always has. And then we come along, the joker in the pack, throw a spanner in the works and start to complicate the way things are, with our so-called culture, religion and politics stirred in with technology and scientific invention, and... bingo!... the world turns into a confusing maelstrom of conflicting needs, demands and ambitions which completely screw us up and send us running to a shrink (who's just as screwed-up as we are) to try and make sense of things in general and of our own existence in particular. A quest doomed to failure from the outset!

Well, there it is, folks, all human analytical thought and logical deduction served up to you in the space of one blog post! And it's all free. What you do with it now is up to you. You can give it your consideration and become even more confused and fucked-up then you already are - no disrespect intended - or you can forget you ever read it and carry on regardless, by far the saner option. Getting on with life is always better than thinking about it. Too much reflection is bad for you, it allows you to perceive the laughable tragedy and lunacy of human existence and... well... sows the seeds of... confusion! Just take a look at the mad expression on the face of this modern-day troglodyte - he's probably located some porn online and thinks all his birthdays have come at once!

I will be back with more food for thought, sooner rather than later, I hope, and with more seering observations on the human psyche and its social ramifications - fascinating stuff and not to be missed! 

Back to Reality

I’m back! What? No-one noticed I was gone? Damn and blast!!

Anyway, I’ve been away from my blog for some while now, partly due to not having anything much to say about anything but mainly to my being away in foreign shores, soaking up the sun and staring out to sea whilst ingesting copious amounts of soft drinks, oysters and cashew nuts, none of which is calculated to do the waistline any good!

Not your typical beach pic but more 'scenic'

Still, gluttony and excess will have their way, but now it’s time to try and shed those extra pounds by a diet of carrots and lettuce leaves. Not for nothing is it called the ‘Rabbit Diet’. Munch, munch.

There was also the carnival, a time of enforced revelry and legitimised lunacy when all other life came to a standstill. I too was swept up in the general mood of merriment and mayhem but managed to get away with the minimum participation.


When I got back on home ground it was cold and grey, as usual, and the sun and the heat were already but a distant memory. It was back to warm woolly socks, jumpers and jackets. But that was then and this is now. It’s warmed up again and now we’re on 18ºC! Still, can’t really compare with night-time 28ºC and daytime 38ºC at my holiday destination. But at least I’m comfortable in clothes now and have no desire to run around butt-naked to relieve my discomfort.

Back to the routine also means back to reality, and reality is nearly all bad. The world has gone mad and everyone seems to be up in arms in the Arab countries in a chain reaction to oust the oligarchic regimes that reign there, Japan is on the brink of national collapse after suffering earthquakes, tsunamis and radiation leaks, and the European economies are sinking ever deeper into the murky waters of austerity and teetering on the edge of national bankruptcy. We’re all worse off - it's official - with some much more than others. Man-made tragedies vie with natural disasters for the top position in destructiveness. It’s got too scary to even look out of the window, let alone go outside!

Crikey, it's too fuckin' scary out there!

Indoors is the safest place in a world where no place is safe. Vicarious experience through the telly and the internet and the cellphone are the best options. The real world is a scary place and getting scarier every day. Suddenly the sofa and one’s bed offer infinite attractions at little or no effort and zero cost.

Still, mustn’t grumble, I’m still alive and in one piece and millions of people out there are in a much worse condition. As I write this piece, the sun is shining, the birds singing, the trees budding, there’s a blue sky above, some food in the fridge, I’ve got money in my pocket, and life still seems worth living. Well, let’s face it, it takes a lot to make death more attractive than life, don’t you think? When all’s said and done, death doesn’t have a lot going for it unless of course life has been dumping on you since you were a baby!

Well, that’s enough of that, I need to get back to work now and earn a few bob to re-stock the fridge, otherwise life won’t be worth living!

The River of Life

ALL living creatures have their day and all things come to an end. Nothing stays the same and nothing lasts forever. As we move through life, we pass through a number of stages and we undergo a series of changes that continue till the day we pass out of it. We have our beginning and our end, our zenith and our nadir, and the journey in between. After the end comes the nothing and the nothing has no beginning and no end. It is always there by default. It is where we came from and where we go back to. It has no mass or volume and yet it has infinite capacity. It undergoes no change as there’s nothing there to change. We cannot see it but we know it’s there. We call this nothing, this other realm, ‘death’.



The River of Life

AS we embark upon life’s journey, we go through a series of experiences and we are constantly adapting to new situations. Our introduction to the formal outside world usually occurs when we enter the educational system. Some of us leave as soon as we're legally able while others pursue their education to a higher level. With some qualification under our belt, we go into employment and it takes up a huge slice of our lives. We strike up relationships, make friends. and find a personal partner to share our life with.  Most of us go on to have children. Many of us become grandparents. Some of us break up with our partner and take up with another. Many of us change jobs, some of us lose our job and then struggle to find another. And some of us are visited by misfortune and pass out of this world before our time. We may have a number of life partners, many children, or we may stick with one partner and produce no offspring. Some of us live a long and fulfilled life whilst others have a short and tortured existence. None of us, not one, knows what the future holds, and none of us can foresee what turn our life will take and where we’ll end up – short of the final definitive exit, of course... that much is certain.

LIFE is a dynamic, constantly changing state. It is not a static stagnant lake but a fast flowing river, and, like a river, it may cradle us and carry us along gently for awhile, but also like a river it may at certain points along its length turn into a raging torrent and toss us about until we feel all is lost. We will go through ups and downs, calm and torment, and some fellow travellers may be swept down into its swirling waters whilst others are recovered and resume their journey. We may lose possessions on the way and we may be worn and weary from the buffeting, but the river’s flow will carry us relentless on and on mile after mile. The options are few and the choices stark. We can follow the current as far as it will take us or cut our journey short by allowing ourselves to sink forever into its dark depths. What we cannot do is get off the ride completely, or turn back or alter our set course, for, unlike a river of water, the river of life has no sides, no banks and no overhangs to grab hold of and haul ourselves out. It’s either onward or downward.

THE great majority of us hang on for dear life and stay the course, enduring everything, endeavouring to make the most of what we have and what comes our way. We pass through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, maturity, elderliness and senility before we are inexorably swept out into the vast ocean of eternity. And so the journey comes to its inevitable end. We knew it would all along though we preferred to lead our lives as if we were immortal, without end, as if the show would go on forever. And for some of us ever-hopeful individuals, life in our physical body is just a preparation for an eternal spiritual existence. For some of us, the ride never comes to an end, it just changes... or so we choose to think.

Life's rapids

BUT whether we believe that we have a finite end or that we merely pass from a mortal physical state to an immortal spiritual state, we must all travel the same road, see the same sights, experience the same changes, and undergo physical extinction. The itinerary is essentially the same, though the timing and quality of the journey may be different. Perhaps if we were reminded of our mortality and if our physical demise were not a taboo subject, we would all be better human beings, more giving and sharing, less acquisitive, less selfish, less vain and conceited. Perhaps, in accepting our inescapable physical (if not spiritual) end, we would learn to prize what is really of value, what cannot be bought and sold, what has no financial worth but is priceless for our physical and psychological well-being. If we lived in a society that was more in harmony with Nature and its rhythms, with all the natural world around us and its manifold phenomena and with the various stages of life, the journey down that River of Life might be more comfortable, pleasurable, understandable, and ultimately bearable till the end.

But, my friends, that is not likely to happen, is it? Less now than ever before. For the river that conveys us on our life's journey is today a very different one from the one Mother Nature provided for our voyage from the cradle to the grave. Though with its roots in Nature, it has undergone an immense transformation process, a radical facelift, and it continues to take on new forms. Today's river of life has no defined course, no familiar features, no consistency, and no discernible beginning or end. It comes out of nowhere and proceeds into nowhere. It is invisible and unknowable. We cannot see ahead of us or to the side of us and there is no itinerary. We are aboard the virtual cyber-craft of our techno-world and more souls come aboard every day. Its progress is swift and silent and unstoppable. Whether it is the arterial route of a ‘brave new world’ or the Stygian ferry to a ‘cruel new hell’ remains to be seen. Enjoy the ride!