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.

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?

Growing old resentfully

HAVE you ever been in a public place with a large gathering of people and thought for a minute: “If every person here under a certain age (choose your cut-off age) were to be suddently made to disappear, I could be the only one left!”? Well it's happened to me and it's tending to happen more and more frequently now. Indeed, you know you're getting on (not to say 'old') when you can say this quite often and you know you may be over the hill (not to say 'past it') when it becomes commonplace! Admittedly, using a cut-off age of 30, as I'm doing, is perhaps a bit on the low side, but I can't help being a young buck! Hehhe...

THEY say that “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”. And this is, I suppose, true, up to a limit (everything has a limit), and similarly that age is a question of mentality, that is to if you think young you ARE young. Well, that too may be true... up to a limit, and a much more uncompromising limit than the former, because age catches up with us sooner or later no matter how young-thinking we are or how young we believe ourselves to be.

Two well-known old fogies

HOWEVER, whether we think young or think ourselves to be younger than our years, as most of us tend to do nowadays - in keeping with the notion of never really growing up or maturing – we can never turn back the clock or the march of the years except perhaps in a very superficial way with something like cosmetic surgery, currently very much in vogue. Yet even disguising our age by such surgical means, we ourselves know how old we are and we know that our internal biological clock is still ticking away and has not slowed down by one iota because of the surgeon's knife.

BUT there's nothing like being in a roomful of people and noting that you're probably the oldest person there, and I’m not just talking about being at a kids' party! I’m talking about grown-ups' places. You're at work, at the cinema, in a restaurant, bar, party, family gathering, even in church, or in any other number of places with other people and they all look disconcertingly young and fresh-faced.

I SUPPOSE the ultimate recognition of one's advancing years is when the sort of people who were always older than you (and so they should be!) are now YOUNGER than you. People such as teachers in general and the head teacher in particular, high-ranking police officers, your family doctor, your local MP, hospital consultants and registrars, and the worst and scariest one of all: the Prime Minister himself (and the President of the United States!), not to mention the Dalai Lama! When all these types of people are younger than you, you know you're old, however young in spirit you might be or however immaturely you might behave. There's just no getting away from it. Once all these people were figures of professional, legal or religious authority who were ALWAYS older than you, now many of them appear to be fresh rosy-cheeked youths and here you are a dried-up old codger or matron visibly withering away!

Age piggy-back!

THE simple fact is that because old age or senility represents a state of being close to the end of life, few if any of us can entertain that thought without a certain amount of trepidation and anxiety, so we prefer not to acknowledge such a state. And who can blame us? Except in a few extreme cases, none of us can contemplate their own extinction with equanimity. Self-preservation and a strong desire to cling to life are natural instincts.

SO I suppose when we look around us and see lots of young people, or at least people younger than ourselves, we feel a tinge of envy of their youth and the many years still left to them. We may sometimes even resent their moving in on territory we considered our own, as we gradually get nudged out to a more peripheral role in society. But it is of course all part of the process of renewal which governs all forms of life and dynamic process.

SO I have no choice but to face up to the fact that my GP receiving me in his surgery is younger than me; that my local MP chairing a meeting of residents is younger than me; that the head teacher I may go and see about my child is younger than me; that the police sergeant I speak to at the local police station is younger than me; that the doctor on duty in accident and emergency is younger than me; that my neighbourhood vicar taking the service is younger than me; and finally, indignity of indignities, that the prime minister or president of my country is younger than me... MUCH younger!

There's a video game for everyone!

OF course, none of this applies to the real me, you understand... ahem... I’m still a fresh and feisty fellow of tender years. I’m using myself, 30 years hence, as a hypothetical example to make a point. But maybe it applies to YOU, or, if not to you, to people you know. Maybe it's something that just applies to other people, who seem to grow old before our very eyes while we stay forever youthful.

Let's have a moan!

The most challenging thing about this blogging lark is to come up with a new topic each time that's worth writing about and, more to the point, that's worth reading. This is of course a subjective issue, as what is of interest to one person may be grindingly boring to another. As an example, you may have already decided this post is going to be mind-numbingly tedious and are exiting as you read this sentence!

Once, when many of us kept a paper diary, it was more of a spontaneous act and we did not much care what we wrote in it or even how we wrote. We scribbled away secure in the almost certain knowledge that it would end up in some dusty attic corner to be consumed by moths long after we had turned to dust ourselves! We never showed it to anyone, didn't think it would be of interest to anybody, and it was often so untidily written that it was doubtful if it could be deciphered by anyone who came by it even if they could be bothered to make the effort.

Well, all that changed with the advent of online blogging. Now when we keep a blog, which is I suppose a sort of electronic journal or diary, one's posts are likely to be read within minutes or hours of having been published, and many of those reading them are likely to be complete and utter strangers. And some of them will want, and will normally be able, to comment on our posts.  (In this respect, I count myself lucky as there is no danger of this happening to my blog which seems to be the best-kept secret on the Internet ... hehhe... so no-one will read this post either! But never mind, I will pretend I'm only doing it for myself.).

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how may bloggers out there find the time to do what they do. They not only post every week and often more than once, they also tweet every day, they respond to comments from their many followers, they're on Facebook and other social networking websites, and they're into God knows how many other Internet activities! And some of these bloggers have hundreds or thousands of followers! Just as on FB where there are individuals with thousands of 'friends'! How do they do it? How do they manage to keep all these online sites of theirs updated, interact with visitors and still have some sort of a 'real' life? Beats me. Many bloggers are debating the issue of whether they should continue with an open-to-all blog or restrict it to just a few. To my mind, 'privatising' a blog in this way doesn't make much sense. The whole point of writing a journal online instead of keeping a paper diary, I venture to suggest, is to reach a wide audience, and not just in our own country, and to communicate one's ideas, opinions and convictions to such an audience. If our blog is only made accessible to a select few, it rather defeats the empowering and liberating purpose of the blogging ethos, I would have thought.

When you think about it, one could quite easily get involved in so many online pursuits, Blogger and Facebook being just two of the best-known ones, that there are not enough hours in a day or a week to keep them going and to see to everything else that makes up one's life. It helps of course if one does not have a job and can while away the daylight hours (in addition to the night-time ones!) in all these online activities. And, judging by many people who are continually posting things on Facebook throughout the day (often announcing their progress or achivement in some FB application), there are many idle souls about.

But it's not just online applications that are taking up so much of people's time, it's also all the weird and wonderful hand-held electronic gadgets that are must-haves for everyone today, especially the young. In my case, I’m still getting the hang of the mobile phone! Yet the youth of today take to all this gadgetry so easily and so seamlessly. They have their MP4 player (or whatever version it is now) and their i-phone, and i-pad, and i-tunes, and the rest of it. Somehow it all gels together and makes sense to them, whereas to us 'older folk' it just adds to the confusion in our lives. Thus, when you're out and about and unable to use your computer, the cellphone doubles up as one! Never mind about taking photos, that's old hat now. Today's mobile phone can take you onto the Internet and you can browse around, send and receive e-mails, network, and do many other things that you would do on your desktop or laptop.

Coming back, however, to the 'original' function of the phone, it's become such a common sight nowadays to see people speaking on their mobile phone in the street, in shops, banks, on the bus and the train, and in the park, to name but a few places. Have you noticed how loudly people seem to talk when on the phone in any queue? When I’m in a bank or post office queue (which I try and avoid like the plague), anyone speaking on their mobile seems to feel the need to talk at the top of their voice, much more loudly than they would in a face-to-face conversation. Now why is that, I wonder? They don't appear to care that everyone can hear them or that they might be inconveniencing others around them and so they witter on and on about nothing in particular. You find yourself fighting off the urge to grab hold of the confounded device and throw it as far as you can until it shatters into a thousand pieces.

Still on the subject of the cellphone, the other day I was strolling in a small park near my house and saw a woman doing one of these fast walks around the park. When I spotted her she was already on the phone. She did one lap round the park and continued talking on the phone. She did another and was still yapping on her mobile. And, as I left the park, she was still with her hand raised holding the phone to her ear, prattling on as she continued fast-walking round the park. What on earth did she have to say that needed such a long phone conversation and in the middle of what was supposed to be a serious exercise session? She was seriously addicted to the damn thing!

How about when you get on the bus or in the tube and someone has earphones on as they listen to invariably ear-splittingly loud music. And of course you can hear it even though it's usually quite muted. Nevertheless it's annoying, to say the least, but you put up with it. To object would doubtless make things worse, as the culprit, almost certainly a 'yoof', will give you a mouthful and then carry on regardless. So you either put up or shut up, or ship out! That is you move to another seat. There's really no other sensible way.

I think that as a society we have become coarser in our manners, boorish and churlish in our ways. We are too ready to be rude to strangers, to use bad language in public, and to be a nuisance to others around us. We are more confrontational now, more vociferous, and more demanding. The inconsiderate way we use our mobile phone in public is just one example (but a good one) of the couldn't-care-less attitude we have adopted towards others. “I will talk loudly and endlessly on the phone even if I'm in a queue in a public place, because that's what I want to do!”  "I will wear headphones in crowded places and live in my own little world of blaring pop music as if no-one else exists, because that's what i want to do!"

For my final moan to round things off... I often see in my local park (yes, we're back in the park) an elderly person with a young person by their side (who looks to be in their late teens or early twenties).  The youth is obviously a sort of minder charged (probably by Social Services) with taking the elderly person out for a walk and looking after them in general. But what do I often see? I see the young minder with a mobile phone glued to their ear, busy nattering away. Just the other day I saw a flagrant example of this. Whilst I was doing several rounds of the park, the minder spent the whole time chatting on his mobile, totally oblivious to his charge who, poor old dear, just sat there looking around and looking lost. There was no attempt by the minder to engage her in conversation or to give her the slightest bit of attention. He was much too absorbed in his phone call. And this is not an isolated instance, as I have witnessed this sort of thing on a number of occasions - a clear example of where a praiseworthy act is done but in a half-hearted manner.

Well, that's enough griping from me - for the time-being. It seems I’m getting to be a right moaning minnie, or, in my case (for reasons of gender), a moaning manny! But what can I do? It's an age thing... I think.

At my desk

That's me in the picture at my desk, working on my computer, and pausing to look out of the window in front of me. Well, not quite. I'm not that young, nor that slim, nor that cute... except in my mind, of course...hehhe... And when I was the same age as the youth in the picture there was no such thing as a desktop or laptop computer, or many other things, come to that. But I do pause from time to time from my work at my computer to look out of the window ahead of me. That much is true. Though i don't stuff my hands in my pockets!

This morning when I paused from my work to look out of my study window it was grey and gloomy outside, and I knew it was cold too, the scattered patches of frost testified to that. But it was also snowing. A light sprinkling of snowflakes that were falling sideways blown by the breeze. But it didn’t last very long. In fact it wasn't really proper snow, it was more like sleet. In less than an hour it had come to an end and there was just a light dusting here and there which I knew was not going to be there for long. And by late afternoon there was no evidence that it had been there. The grey sky was still there though. And the wind. And the cold.

...........

It's on dark days like this that I often find myself daydreaming. Funnily enough I seldom daydream when the weather is fine and the sun is out - that's a sure turnoff. But when it's dull and dreary like today or, even better, when it's raining or sleeting or snowing, my mind begins to wander as I stare out of the window at the wintry scene outside. There's nothing like grey and grim weather to get the creative juices welling up, assuming one has any, of course. So here I sit at my desk on just such a day and waiting for inspiration to flow into me and creativity to flow out... I only hope it won't be a long wait!

The above pic was taken in a more clement season some while back and gives a more faithful image of the view from my study-cum-office window. Below is the garden and beyond that is a park. Not a bad view, eh? It has a calming effect on me and helps me work. It also helps me write this blog when I can spare a moment. It is my window on the world, you might say.