God and Religion

Who, or what, am I?

I  pray to a (probably) non-existent God .. sometimes .. when troubled.

Or do I?

Or is He?

Why do I do this?

It is to do with childhood conditioning, which is why I spent most of my life as a ‘Christian’ for no other reason than my parents had me baptised as a Christian, and when I was old enough to comprehend speech, told me I was a Christian.

I was made to go to Sunday School and to Church Services, and I was taught that God created the world in six days, was everywhere, knew my every thought. I learned that I should say prayers; indeed I didn’t even have to think about what to say, because several hundred years ago someone else had decided what I should be saying and had written it all down in the Book of Common Prayer.

Apparently mankind started with ‘Adam and Eve’ in the ‘Garden of Eden’. They produced a couple of sons, one of which killed the other and also found himself a wife, though no one ever explained how she had materialised!

I learned that I was a ‘sinner’, and that ‘Jesus died for my sins’ (whatever that means), even though this was nearly two thousand years before I existed. I learned that there was somewhere called ‘heaven’ and somewhere else called ‘hell’. ‘Hell’ was where I was going to burn for eternity if I did wrong; and it seemed to me, from my mother’s endless criticism, I was doing wrong for quite a lot of the time!

This is powerful stuff for a child, because all a child knows when he has entered the human amalgam is what he is told by grown-ups; and stuff that is instilled in the first few years tends to become a permanent fixture in our brains, and difficult to break away from even with the help of rational thought and education. (“Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man” – Francis Xavier.)
 

Why are we religious?

So, the reason most Christians are Christians are because they were raised that way from Day One in their lives. And it is for that same reason that most Muslims are Muslims, most Hindus are Hindus, Sikhs are Sikhs, Buddhists are Buddhists, and – dare I say – Atheists are Atheists.

This nonsense is compounded by the various sub-sects of each religion. Are you a Protestant Christian or a Catholic Christian? If you are Protestant, are you an Evangelical or Baptist or Presbyterian, or Methodist, or Anglican, or Quaker, or Plymouth Brethren? (Or are you someone who throws money at some Television Evangelist who has hypnotized you into supporting his personal extravagant lifestyle?!) Are you a Sunni Muslim or a Shia Muslim or Ahmadi, or Sufi or Wahabbi? Are you a Jew or a non-Jew, a Hassidic Jew or a progressive Jew? All of them believe they are possessors of God’s Truth. Each is right, the others are wrong. But they can’t all be right. It is a kind of mental slavery, and inside which branch of mental slavery you are shackled is determined by accident of birth. How stupid is that?

It’s taken me over seventy years to start breaking the chains, by re-examining the beliefs by which I was raised, and by reading books by respected scientists and philosophers with better brains than mine, such as (to name but a few) The God Delusion by Professor Richard Dawkins, God is not Great by the late Christopher Hitchens, Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, and The Language of God by Francis S Collins (this last one arguing on the side of God’s existence, by an eminent scientist involved in the Human Genome Project). They persuaded me to re-examine my battered Bible with an enquiring mind rather than a passive one.

I once wrote a piece about my daughter when she was a little girl in hospital after an appendix-removal operation. She was in terrible pain and begging for relief. She was denied more drugs because the doctor had said she had had the required dose. I went outside and begged God to do something. I went back inside and found her relaxed. The doctor had made a mistake and had corrected it. To me, that was a prayer answered and it sustained my Faith for a considerable period.

But of course that might anyway have happened with or without my appeal to a supernatural being. In all the years before that incident, and in all the years since, there has been no other obvious response to any of my many prayers. I am not a statistician, but I would think that within a 74-year life span there must be a chance that at least one of my prayers would actually coincide with something that was going to happen anyway. In spite of my prayers, and those of millions of others, sick people continued to get sicker and die; famines, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, wars, torture, and religious wars continued (and continue) unabated. Epidemics of killer diseases continued (and continue) – though less so with advances in medical science.

A few years after my daughter was the subject of that earnest prayer, she was killed in a car crash.

The thing about prayer is this: if what you pray for comes about, then God has answered your prayer. If what you pray for doesn’t come about, then it’s “all part of God’s plan” – live with it!

The Word of God

Whether or not God, or a supernatural Creator of the universe, exists is a matter for which my mind remains open, but on the matter of accepting the Bible or the Koran as ‘holy’ books, or ‘the Word of God’, or template for a worthy life, my mind is now pretty much made up: they are not the Word of God. They are the Word of Man. They are an amalgam of history, fiction, poetry, indoctrination, superstition, primitive fear, and power-play – much of it written hundreds of years after the events described. Moreover they have been translated so many times (including various forms of English) that one cannot be certain of the true meaning of the original texts as laid down thousands of years ago by members of primitive and superstitious societies.

For the most part over the centuries organized religion has been a force for evil rather than good. It has been the foundation on which corrupt power has been built, the rationale behind the exploitation and subjugation of women, the genital mutilation of both girls and boys, the excuse for the adoption and maintenance of slavery, and the inspiration for torture and killing on a gargantuan scale.

Having started to re-read the Bible (after many years of ignoring it) I now find most of it to be utterly incredible. It is full of contradictions, hate, vengefulness, and orders by ‘God’ to kill thousands of innocent men, women and children (whatever happened to “Thou shalt not kill”?) Thousands are condemned for the sins of one. We cherry-pick the bits that are suitable to be read in church services. The accounts of the life and death of Jesus do not match up. I am not prepared to accept that any woman can – or did – give birth to a child without sexual intercourse; and even some prominent churchmen have difficulty with this, not to mention the little business of life after death. (And by the way, many other religions refer to weird and impossible methods of birth, often using virgins, for the existence of their “gods”.) There is serious doubt about the use of the word “virgin” instead of, perhaps, a “young maiden”.

The Bible is, to me, a collection of histories and edicts written by priests and/or leaders of primitive tribes of people in order to exercise power. This seems to have been the purpose of religion(s) throughout the centuries. As society develops more knowledge, and accumulates more scientifically provable facts, and makes changes to what is and what is not acceptable to society, it seems that religious leaders are in perpetual disagreement with scientific discoveries and society’s changes until they eventually have to “catch up” and make adjustments to their theological arguments purely in order to make them more acceptable to us as religious leaders. No doubt one day the Catholic Church will subject itself to whatever contortions it finds necessary to endorse the use of condoms, not only as a means of birth control, but as a means of preventing the spread of killer diseases. But by then, religion’s game of catch-up will be too little too late (again).

There is more hate, conflict, war, and unspeakable terror committed around the world by people of Faith than by people of No Faith. Christians and Muslims not only fight each other, but Christians fight Christians and Moslems fight Moslems because they are not believing the “right” things!

The history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is awash with the blood of innocent men, women and children; moreover it continues to this day. In spite of (or I wonder if that should be because of) our education the superstition, prejudice, fear, and willingness to kill others in pursuit of our beliefs appears as strong as ever.

The stuff we are taught in church

Although passages from the Old Testament are read out as part of regular Christian church services, they are for the most part passages that have been cherry-picked for acceptable consumption. Even when the passive congregation receives the message, they are hearing it rather than listening to it and analyzing it, for to do so is too confusing and uncomfortable. It is just an accepted routine.

For example, how useful would it be for us to receive the following pieces of wisdom from Chapter 8 of Leviticus ..

22 And he presented the other ram, the ram of consecration: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram.

23 And he slew it; and Moses took of the blood thereof, and put it upon the tip of Aaron’s right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot.

24 And he brought Aaron’s sons; and Moses put of the blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot: and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about.

25 And he took the fat, and the fat tail, and all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul of the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right thigh:

 
26 And out of the basket of unleavened bread, that was before Jehovah, he took one unleavened cake, and one cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, and placed them on the fat, and upon the right thigh:

27 And he put the whole upon the hands of Aaron, and upon the hands of his sons, and waved them for a wave-offering before Jehovah.

Here endeth the Lesson.

Fantastic. Laughable. There are pages and pages of this kind of stuff.

By Chapter 16 we are still labouring under instructions about killing, dismembering and burning animals for the glory of God, to atone for sin, as a peace offering, as thanksgiving. Then there are instructions that deformed people, i.e., blind people, people with broken hands or feet, flat-nosed, (!) etc., shall not be deemed fit to make offerings to Jehovah. (I thought God made man in His own image!)

From Chapter 21 .. daughters of priests who act like harlots shall be killed, specifically, burnt with fire.

As I said before, we cherry-pick the bits that are suitable to be read in church services.

I have been looking through sections of the Bible to find examples of God’s morality. It is a tedious business and so I was very grateful for stumbling across a piece of work by Daniel C Dennett (included within Christopher Hitchens’ book, The Portable Atheist).  Dennett is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, University Professor, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies (with Ray Jackendoff) at Tufts University (near Boston, Massachesetts).

I found that Daniel Dennett had done some of the trawling for me ..

Consider first God’s moral character, as revealed in the Bible. He routinely punishes people for the sins of others. He punishes all mothers by condemning them to painful childbirth, for Eve’s sin. He punishes all human beings by condemning them to labor, for Adam’s sin (Gen. 3:16-18). He regrets His creation, and in a fit of pique, commits genocide and ecocide by flooding the earth (Gen. 6:7). He hardens Pharaoh’s heart against freeing the Israelites (Ex. 7:3), so as to provide the occasion for visiting plagues upon the Egyptians, who, as helpless subjects of a tyrant, had no part in Pharaoh’s decision. (So much for respecting free will, the standard justification for the existence of evil in the world.)

He kills all the firstborn sons, even of slave girls who had no part in oppressing the Israelites (Ex. 11:5). He punishes the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great great-grandchildren of those who worship any other god (Ex. 20:3-5). He sets a plague upon the Israelites, killing twenty-four thousand, because some of them had sex with the Baal-worshiping Midianites (Num. 25:1-9). He lays a three-year famine on David’s people for Saul’s slaughter of the Gibeonites (2 Sam. 21:1). He orders David to take a census of his men, and then sends a plague on Israel, killing seventy thousand for David’s sin in taking the census incorrectly (2 Sam. 24:10-15). He sends two bears out of the woods to tear forty-two children to pieces, because they called the prophet Elisha a bald head (2 Kings 2:23-24). He condemns the Samarians, telling them that their children will be “dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open” (Hosea 13:16). This is but a sample of the evils celebrated in the Bible.

Now, how much of this stuff is regularly read in churches these days as our “Lesson” for the day?

And how much of it would you regard as morally defensible?

And on the subject of The Flood, just in passing, how did Noah physically manage to get together all those animals .. especially, for example, kangaroos (existing on an entirely different continent)? And how did he prevent them all from killing each other? And how did he deal with the waste disposal problem?

Creation

I have no problem with evolution. The truth of the evolved and evolving state of our planet and its inhabitants is there for all to see. But who or what set the necessary seeds for evolution?

 “The origins of evolution” are, to me, the true “Creation”. Therefore I am open to the argument that a higher deity may be behind all this, and I am open to the concept of a spiritual relationship with that Deity, but He is not the God of the Bible, or of the Koran.

Morality

I do not deny some of the good aspects of religion, or Christianity in particular: the creation of beautiful buildings, inspiring music, great literature, and charitable works, but I fear they are outweighed by the negatives. In spite of thousands of years of devotion to all sorts of gods (including the “God” of which we now speak) it seems they (or He/She/It) have been indifferent to the millennia of suffering, deprivation, fear, war, torture, tyranny, earthquakes, tsunamis, poverty, genocide, and the interminable prayers offered up. And why did this “Creation” by an omnipotent and omniscient Deity include such things as pathogenic bacteria, killer viruses, and cancers? And why were so many of his creatures destined to be born deformed, or born dead .. take note, “Pro-Lifers”, God also practices abortion on a daily basis.

The enthusiastic adherents of religion suppose that without religion there is no morality. Society falls apart. No, it doesn’t! All civilized societies work within a system of laws designed to maintain law, order and common decency between people, in order to survive. A society that is prepared to condone wanton cruelty, unbridled selfishness, theft, violence, or murder, cannot survive.

Morality is hard-wired into most of us. We know what is right and what is wrong. We know what is good and what is evil. This has nothing to do with religion.

“Ah, but” .. says the religionist, “There is much in the Bible that tells us how to behave well towards one another, especially in the New Testament.”

One cannot argue with this, and I don’t try to .. I acknowledge it. But we have already seen that there is much in the Bible also that we find so morally reprehensible that we forget, ignore, or rapidly pass over those bits. Cherry picking again. The conclusion must be, therefore, that far from shaping our morality, the ‘good’ bits we pick out of the Bible are reflecting our own morality.

Religion itself is no guarantee of a well-behaved society. The United States of America is probably one of the most pious nation in the “Christian” world. Hartford Institute estimates there are roughly 350,000 religious congregations in the United States, and a disturbingly high proportion of American Christians believe in the literal truth of the “Creation Story”. And yet the USA has roughly four times the murder rate than Great Britain which is one of the least religious countries. Not only is the USA a religious country, it also practices Capital Punishment.

Dangers of religious fanaticism

I believe the biggest threat to our well-being comes from politicians who declare themselves to be driven by God. If these people believe half the clap-trap found in the Bible or the Koran as the literal truth and Word of God, then they are going to cause us nothing but trouble. When Tony Blair was the UK Prime Minister, his press aide once famously declared, “We don’t do God”. Interestingly, Blair later converted to Catholicism once safely out of office. He is now making a personal fortune. (The words “camel” and “eye of a needle” come to mind.)

If the President of the USA failed to end a public speech with “God bless America” he would be crucified (if you’ll excuse the expression). If a British Prime Minister ended a public speech with “God bless Great Britain”, half his audience would be baffled, and the other half would be rolling in the aisles.

In the 2012 American Presidential election campaign one of the contenders is a professed Christian accused by some of his opponents of being a Muslim, and the other is a very rich member of a church running an ancestral database so that dead people can be posthumously baptized into their church. In New York a Sikh who wore a turban in obedience to his religion was assassinated by an idiot who assumed he was an Islamic terrorist because he wore that turban.

In 2002 a group of Islamist fanatics flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the cause of their religion, killing thousands of innocent people (including many of their own Faith). They considered themselves to be martyrs and due to be rewarded by being transported to some great brothel in the sky where they could enjoy the pleasures of the flesh that they so earnestly denied themselves and others whilst on this earth.

A few years later a similar group of religious lunatics blew up London Underground trains and a bus, killing or maiming hundreds.

The problem with people “driven by God” is that if they reach a powerful position and have access to weapons of mass destruction they may find ways and means of hastening their journey to the prophesized “end time”, “apocalypse”, “rapture” – call it what you will – taking us all with them in their crazed belief that believers will be “saved” and non-believers (including those who have never had the chance to even consider belief, for example, babies) will be cast into the fiery cauldron of “Hell” for all eternity.

As I write this I am reading reports from Afghanistan that a group of Taliban came across some people dancing to music and summarily executed them. God’s work has been done again.

It’s difficult to believe that such people have been in receipt of any worthwhile education, and indeed some haven’t, which is part of the problem. There are young children in parts of the Islamic world forced to commit large parts, or all of, the Koran to memory. This process vastly reduces those children’s capacity to think and reason for themselves. Analysis of what they read is out of the question, since it is indisputably the Word of God handed down to Mohammed about 1,300 years ago. It is a dogmatic religion build on shaky foundations lacking in historical evidence. Some will grow up to become “God’s bombs” in pursuit of “Paradise”.

Christianity has also frequently, and relatively recently, been perverted to suit the egotistical, testosterone-charged desires of maniacs like David Koresh and his Branch Davidians.

How do I relate to “believers”?

If I have, somewhat late in life, come to the view that Religion is not only hogwash but dangerous, then I am faced with a personal dilemma regarding all those people with whom I have a sincere and loving relationship who are themselves sincere believers in God, virgin birth, resurrection, and the Bible as the living truth.

But, on second thoughts, there is no dilemma. The only way I am going to be in trouble is by trying to instill into my friends a pressing need for them to come round to my way of thinking. But that is exactly what is wrong with so many religious sects. They take it upon themselves to come knocking on my door with the express view of challenging my logical thought processes, and I take exception to their view that I have some kind of duty to think as they do.

So, the last thing I am going to do is to aggressively chip away at my friends’ core beliefs. Needless to say I consider my friends to be good people, otherwise they would not be my friends, and I have absolutely no desire to “convert” them. I am not so blind that I cannot see they are comforted in their beliefs. (It might well be that they will revise their view about me. I hope not, but there’s little I can do about it.)

Atheists, Humanists, Agnostics, do not go to war with other people or other countries or indulge in torture in order to enforce their way of thinking.

Looking at the remarkable species that is the human race, with its amazing achievements, and looking at (what appears to be, so far) this unique planet in an unfathomable universe, I am even prepared to concede the possibility of a “divine” power beyond our understanding being responsible for it all. But it won’t be the “God” of the Bible or the Koran. It is even possible that I might have some kind of spiritual potential connection with that power, in which case I certainly do not need men (mostly), in ridiculous fancy dress performing staggeringly boring ceremonies and rituals to intercede on my behalf.

So, all I can ask of my believing friends is that they understand and accept me as I understand and accept them.

I made my own choice to read books that persuaded me to re-examine the “Holy scriptures” in a different light. I do not wish to insist that others read them, because, in all honesty, the experience is initially uncomfortable – even scary - for the reasons outlined right at the start of this essay. We are naturally inclined to avoid reading stuff that invades our comfort zones.

I do not fear death, though I admit to be being a bit queasy about the means of getting there.

©Lionel Beck 2012

A Cock-up of Olympic Proportions

The Government announced today that the private security company "G4S" had failed to recruit sufficient staff to meet their obligations towards the provision of effective security at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Apparently they did not even start recruiting until January of this year. What a shambles.

Now the Government is proposing to fill the security gap by sending in the Army to the tune of 3,500 soldiers.

What was it the Conservative Party has been ramming down our throats for several decades now? Oh yes, I remember .. the only way to get things done properly and efficiently is to have them done by private enterprise.

The hackneyed argument has always been, Private Enterprise good, State Control bad. What we have seen in recent years is evidence that Private Enterprise can be both good or bad, and State Control can also be both good or bad. The banking fiascos of recent years knocks further nails into the coffin of the "Private Enterprise is best" philosophy.

UK Local Elections May 2012

Well, it would seem that David Cameron's Conservatives and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats (partners in Coalition Government) received a good drubbing in these elections, losing many hundreds of Council seats and losing control of several major cities.

Ed Milliband's Labour Party made an impressive showing, picking up hundreds of Council seats and gaining control of the cities the other two Parties were busy losing.

Bucking the trend, Conservative Boris Johnson just managed to get re-elected as London's Mayor with "Red Ken" Livingstone snapping at his heels.

As usual we have been regaled with all the usual stories by the Party "spin doctors", and for all they tell us that the Labour Party has regained the trust of the British Electorate, this, and all the other stuff peddled by the winning and losing Parties means not one row of beans, for the most shocking number to come out of all this is that only 32% of the electorate bothered to vote. So when the political parties are trotting out their analysis of whatever votes they managed to pick up, they are indeed just talking about a percentage of a small percentage of the electorate.

You need a massive imagination or mental excursion into fantasy land to pretend that these elections tell you anything much about what the British people are feeling about each Party - except that most of them just don't give a damn! That's what it tells us.

Our attitude to democracy is a national disgrace. It is appalling that nearly 70% of the country is content to let a small proportion of its fellow citizens to decide how we are governed.

Paris Notes

We were in Paris for a few days last week with our 9-year old grandson; (York to London, then Eurostar from St Pancras International to Paris Gare du Nord.)


I'd like to thank the weather forecasters for getting their forecast spectacularly wrong. Instead of the promised wind, rain, and thunderstorms, we enjoyed mainly calm and dry days with sunny periods.


The first evening was a bit wet and windy, which accounts for the doubtful quality of this photograph. I should call it "From one tower to another" as I took the picture from the observation deck of the Montparnasse Tower which is a modern skyscraper building set above a shopping mall off the Boulevard Montparnasse (6th Arrondissement). It has 56 floors, allegedly the fastest elevator in Europe, with a restaurant and observation deck at the top.

Two Views of Montparnasse Tower

We couldn't get up the Eiffel Tower because three out of the four lifts were closed for maintenance, causing queues of two hours or more. The Montparnasse Tower made a pretty spectacular substitution!

We only had a couple of full days, so not a lot of time to see much, but we had bought Paris Visite passes which included "beat-the-queues" entry to Le Louvre and a couple of other museums, and also tickets for the Metro system. The Metro tickets proved to be invaluable, for I consider this system to be the only way to get around Paris. If you use buses you are in traffic jams; if you use taxis you are in traffic jams. Of course, thousands of other people know this also, so the Metro trains - it has to be said - are very crowded. But on the other hand, they are frequent and fast, so you don't have to suffer for too long. Line 1 is worth trying just for the experience of riding on very new and classy driver-less trains! The connecting corridors between coaches are open so you can walk through the entire train, and at each end you have a clear view of where you are going (or where you have been). The system is easy to use: just ascertain from the Metro Map where you want to go, note both the Line Number and the name of the terminus at each end of the line (so you catch the train going in the right direction!) There are automatic ticket barriers, and once you are through these you are free to walk the relevant passageways to whichever line you want, and to switch from one line to another at interconnecting stations.


Our hotel was "Le Littre" in Rue Littre just off Rue de Rennes just north of the junction with Boulevard du Montparnasse.

This is a well-appointed hotel, with comfortable rooms and helpful and friendly staff. The English are lazy linguists so another reason I would recommend it is the fact that the staff are multi-lingual.


Typically for French hotels, provision of meals is limited to breakfast, but this is taken in a large and bright dining room, with a good selection of fresh fruit, fruit juices, cereals, cheese, cold meats, and hot food consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages. For other meals of the day there are more cafes, brasseries, restaurants, bistros, etc. in Paris than you can shake a stick at.


If you have young children who want to look at toys, then go to the Passage des Princes just off Boulevard Italien (nearest Metro Richelieu Druot Lines 8 and 9). This is a small shopping arcade given over entirely to toy-shops. Alternatively go to the Galleries Lafayette department store on Boulevard Haussmann (a short walk from the junction of Boulevard Italien and Boulevard Haussmann). Go the 5th floor of this extraordinary building for toys.


Of course, everyone goes to the Musee du Louvre and you could spend an entire week in there, but like many people we only had a few hours to spare, so joined the inevitable crowd heading to Salle No.6 to view the Mona Lisa. Well, you have to do it, don't you? But then there's all that other stuff to look at as well. We managed to have a walk around the Roman, Greek and Egyptian antiquities before having lunch in a nearby cafe and on to the next destination.

Eiffel Tower viewed from a river Seine cruise boat

Although we couldn't get up the Eiffel Tower it was worthwhile just visiting it at night to see it lit up in all its glory (use Metro Line 6, Bir-Hakeim station). On every hour it becomes festooned with flashing white lights from top to bottom. This is a truly amazing structure (the biggest Meccano set I've ever seen!) and it's re-painted every 7 years by 25 painters climbing all over the structure using about 60 tons of brown paint (applied by brush, would you believe?!) over a period of 18 months.


No trip to Paris would be complete without a cruise on the river Seine. If you are sloshing about in lots of money then you can get an evening dinner cruise, but otherwise there are frequent hour-long cruises (with multi-lingual commentaries) run by a number of operators.


We had pre-purchased tickets on-line with Bateaux-Mouches. These boats operate from a jetty just upstream of Pont de l'Alma. (Metro Alma Marceau Line 9). Our on-line purchase actually just produced an email with an invoice number on it. On arrival at the Bateaux-Mouches ticket office you just go to a machine, punch in the number and out come your tickets.

Bateaux-Mouches Departures

On board

Approaching Ile de Cite

Our grandson enjoyed his first trip to France and he was sorry to be leaving Paris. We returned to London with good memories.

A quick note about the Parisiens:

They are popularly believed to be rude and arrogant. We did not experience this. All the people we dealt with were polite, helpful, and in many cases happy to have a go at speaking English if we couldn't make ourselves understood in French. I believe that if you treat people with politeness and respect, then that is what you get back - where ever you happen to be. My theory, for it's worth, is that if you go somewhere expecting hostility then you tend to transmit that expectation and engender a reciprocal response.

Here's another thing .. for the most part, both women and men were smartly dressed (even casually) and evidence of obesity was conspicuous by its absence (in spite of all those wonderful patisseries, boulangeries, cafes and restaurants .. and McDonalds!) It was - in short - a "Slob-free Zone".

I Despair of the Human Race

I am going through one my periods of despair over the kind of world in which my grandson has to grow up.

Although we are now technologically advanced beyond the wildest dreams of our forefathers we appear to have learned  nothing in the matter of how to behave as human beings. We have 21st century methods of communications, information handling, and truly amazing ways of killing each other, driven by a stone age sense of morality.

Was there ever an "age of enlightenment"? How enlightened are we?

Why are some religious basket cases still finding a rationale for killing innocent people?

Why are some religious fruit and nut cases still refusing to accept scientific evidence as to the age of the planet on which we live?

Why does Israel think it has a God-given right to take other people's lands and settle on them? Why does Iran think it has a God-given right to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? Which of these countries is morally right?

When Adolph Hitler and his vile regime were finally obliterated we hoped that would be the end of such tyrants, but they have continued to spring up all over the place, the latest being President Assad of Syria. And when the world (through the UN) try to do something about it, they are thwarted by the wishes of China and Russia looking after their own interest.

Why are some young people in Britain (and elsewhere) devoid of any kind of conscience and are happy to indulge in drive-by shootings, or random stabbings of others because they don't like their colour? I cannot forget the image from the CCTV footage of the young man caught up in the Tottenham riots last summer, being injured and then apparently helped by a group of other young men, whilst they simultaneously and systematically removed the contents of the injured man's back pack.

Taxi driver Raoul Moat went on a wild shooting spree killing and injuring people in his locality. At one point he went up to a police car parked on the roadside and shot the officer in the head, blinding him. After a period of heroic efforts to come to terms with a new life without sight, the policeman recently ended his own life. When this news item appeared as an online news item, some disgusting idiot took it into his head to post a comment that it served him right for being a member of the Police chasing Raoul Moat.

Politicians lie through their teeth to get elected; criminals use the internet to extract money out of gullible people; paedophiles groom young people for their sick sexual fantasies; some of them are priests! American presidential candidates slag each other off in eye-wateringly expensive ad campaigns, then finish off their pathetic speeches with "God bless America". What do these people know of God?

And so I fear for my grandson's future. But then I look back to when I was his age and remember the bleak outlook and ever-present fear brought about by the threat of World War 3 and the obliteration of civilisation as we knew it by hydrogen bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles. There was probably as much crime around then as there is now; it's just that nowadays we know more about it. We never used to have a "24-7" news service, nor did we have the Internet. I survived the fear; I survived the disillusionment.

It may be, God willing, that my grandson will also survive and be able to live a decent life.

I think it's time I went out into the garden to look at the spring daffodils and crocuses. Well .. I would .. If only the neighbourhood's dogs would stop barking! (Dog owners without a conscience.)

The US Presidential Race

The U.S. Republican Party's attempts to find a candidate to challenge Barak Obama in November is nothing if not entertaining.

It's a shame that American politics is dictated so much by how much wealth you have and/or how much extra cash you can raise, apparently without limit, but that democratic deficit is somewhat offset by the sheer entertainment value of the shenanigans these guys get up to in order to get elected.

They indulge in negative campaigning on radio and television to an extent that British politicians can only dream of. Newt Gingrich (what kind of a name is that?! Nearly as weird as Barak Obama) put out an advert the other week designed to punch out his main rival, Mitt Romney. Added to Romney's many sins, including the fact that he "loves firing people" was the fact that "he speaks French"! I'm struggling to find that a reason for disqualifying the man.

Of course all American politicians have to be openly followers of God. The trouble is, which God? The Evangelicals' God, the Catholics' God, the Baptist's God, the Presbyterians' God, the Mormons' God? Perhaps not the Mormons' God (could be Mitt Romney's undoing), and certainly not the Muslims' God. If you don't like (the avowed Christian) Barak Obama one of the popular insults is to call him a Muslim. This is all very perplexing to us in the UK because our politicians "don't do God", nor would we expect them to.

The election of an openly atheist American to the presidency is about as likely as Greece paying off its debts

.

The front runners for the Republican nomination now appear to be Mitt Romney the Mormon, or Newt Gingrich the "open marriage" advocate. There must be a touch of the Mormon in Gingrich, having had several wives, though to be fair in his case, not all at the same time. But Romney is a rare Republican in having once supported the idea of a health care programme; this might have something to do with God telling Joseph Smith to keep on taking the tablets.

If I were a betting man I'd put money on Barak Obama still being President after November.

Another Mad Year - 2011

I had high hopes for 2011. I thought it was going to be unique. There’d never been a year called ‘2011’ before and the chances of their being another year called ‘2011’ seemed remote. Then I remembered I had high hopes at the beginning of every year and decided to be more rational in the future.

Anyway, this is how it panned out, in no particular order (as they say on the “X-Factor”).

Our Dear Leader, “Call me Dave” Cameron, decided that the National Health Service should be turned upside down, handing financial control to consortia of local GPs. None of this was in the Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifestos, but when were political manifestos ever worth more than a row of beans?

There was so much hostility from the professionals that the Government went away for another think. I think they are still thinking.

I hope they remember that basis of the NHS is that everybody, regardless of income, is entitled to receive hospital acquired infections free at the point of use.

The British Government (a Coalition of the Unwilling) held a referendum on changing the voting system. The Liberal Democrats had been pushing hard for this, and I supported it, being a life-long critic of the undemocratic “first past the post” system (which only works democratically if you have no more than two candidates). Anyway, the “Yes” Campaigners ran such an abysmal show, talking complete rubbish that the country voted for the status quo (which is Latin for rock music).

Some Arab nations protesting and fighting their way towards some kind of democracy, whilst a couple of European nations went in the opposite direction by being coerced into forming governments led by unelected technocrats.

Libya’s deranged Colonel Gaddafi

began losing control of his country after 40 years of dictatorship and farting in public. There was a major uprising in Benghazi (where the people were fed up with the stink) and the curly-headed madman used his Air Force to quell the uprising, declaring he would hunt down his own people like rats. Things were beginning to look so serious that the UN and NATO got involved, resulting in a NATO-controlled No-Fly Zone over the country, to thwart Gaddafi’s murderous activities. In a rare and relatively short display of successful military action involving no “boots on the ground” the Colonel was eventually defeated, meeting an undignified end being hauled out of sewer and shot.

As the flies began to congregate around his corpse I wondered about the efficiency of the no-fly zone.

A British comedian wondered why the self-styled Dictator only gave himself the rank of Colonel, putting himself no higher than someone qualified to sell fried chicken in a bucket.

Tunisia held its first democratic election in history and there was a 90% turnout. Imagine achieving that in Britain!

President Assad

(Arsehead?) of Syria got into a similar game to Gadaffi, slaughtering thousands of his own people who had the bare-faced cheek to protest against his repressive regime, but no sign of the Western Powers intervening in this case.

By the end of year it was reckoned that his forces had killed 5,000 and arrested 15,000 of his people, prompting calls for him to be brought before the International Court for crimes against humanity.

Then there was the “Eurozone” crisis. This was a crisis within a crisis. We already a worldwide economic crisis caused by a poorly regulated banking system either going berserk with other people’s money, or conducting fraudulent operations, or both. Within the European Union, countries like Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain reaped the whirlwind of their profligacy; Greece, in particular, was on the verge of collapse and required gigantic bale-outs from the rest of the “Eurozone”.

(Beware Greeks requiring gifts!)

American special forces located the whereabouts of Osama Bin Liner

(residing comfortably in Pakistan). They stormed the premises and killed him, thus ending a man-hunt that started after the tragic attack on the World Trade Centre.

Dave the Toff attended a special European Summit meeting in Brussels called to reach an agreement on rules to be followed to save the Euro. This currency had been doomed from its inception because it was set up without considering the political necessity to make participating countries function virtually as a single State for it work, and certain countries (Greece in particular) should never have been allowed to join, but the books were cooked (and the Greeks are not particularly noteworthy for their cooking). The UK had wisely decided to stay out of it. (Sterling work.)

Nevertheless, anything happening in the 17 countries using the Euro affects the UK’s trade with Europe and so it was necessary (along with nine other countries still using their own currency) to attend this Summit.

Instead of negotiating a deal protecting Britain’s interests, Cameron just refused to be party to the agreement signed by all the other 26 countries and took his bat and ball home to the rousing cheers of the Conservative Party’s rabid right-wing Europe-hating back-benchers. He was publicly criticised by his Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister and several others.

Cameron now has one foot on the jetty and other on the boat that is departing. We can only hope he’s good at doing the splits, but in any case there’s still bound to be a big splash!

America’s motley collection of Republican circus clowns called the Tea Party drove their political bus into the presidential circus ring and the doors fell off in time-honoured fashion accompanied by the hooting and honking of mad ideas, political amnesia, suspect intelligence, and sexual scandals.

I had a brief e-mail correspondence with one of these guys and he wrote me long essayson the American Constitution, and the evils of Government. He said the Minimum Wage was a disaster and American healthcare was “the best in the world, and anyone can get access to it” (!) Free-market capitalism was the only way forward. He told me that if he met anyone who “wanted to be

controlled by government” he would “send him to England” and perhaps I would like to “send him anyone I knew who loves freedom”.

One of America’s right-wing backwoodsmen came back into the fray on behalf of the Tea Party Movement: Newt Gingrich. Imagine having an American President with a weird name!

In Italy, Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi raised the tone of political debate by declaring the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to be an “unfuckable lard bucket”.

Japan suffered a horrific tsunami with huge loss of life and fatal damage to a nuclear power plant causing radiation leaks. This reopened the question in Britain of whether we should be building new nuclear power stations to secure our future power supplies. Meanwhile we continued to suffer from the installation of wind turbines – one of the biggest confidence tricks perpetrated on a gullible population (and government). There were now so many of these ineffectual eye-sores blighting the British countryside that if we could run them as propellers we could probably fly the country across the Atlantic.

What wondrous things are wind turbines!

When it’s freezing cold and we all need extra power, we can be without wind for days on end whilst they generate diddly squat. On other days when the wind blows hard they shut the damned things down to avoid damage. In one memorable instance a turbine was working so hard it caught fire. It’s hard to think of anything good to say about them unless you are a rich land owner getting even richer by allowing dozens of the things to sit on your land.

In Britain the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The same thing happened in America but to an even worse extent.

Cambridge lost the Oxford v Cambridge University Boat Race by about 3 lengths – more bad news (unless you happen to be an Oxford supporter).

During the summer London and several other major cities in the UK were treated to an unprecedented outbreak of rioting and looting, sparked off by the Police in London shooting and killing a young man. Businesses were ruined, the Police were ineffectual, and there were many instances of outrageous behaviour. Eventually there were thousands of arrests and cases heard in courts operating all night. Severe sentences were handed out. It was notable that these scenes were not repeated in Scotland or Wales, thus reinforcing my view that the English are in many ways a defective race of people.

Trade Unions objecting to austerity measures that were going to affect their pensions combined and called a one-day strike near the end of the year. That demure and sensitive soul, Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear fame) declared on TV that the strikers should all be taken out and shot in front of their families.

Clarkson also took the opportunity this year of letting us know that people who jumped in front of trains to kill themselves were being very selfish holding up everyone else on the train. The train driver should be replaced and the train re-started, leaving the foxes and crows to deal with whatever bits of the body still remained scattered about the track. Clarkson’s mouth is so big he can get both feet into it, and with a bit of effort (and luck for the rest of us?) might even be able to swallow himself.

Another vile dictator died: Kim Jong-il of North Korea. We watched thousands of North Koreans wailing and gnashing their teeth at this tragedy that had overcome them, demonstrating the degree to which they had all been

brainwashed, or coerced, or both. No doubt this man (who appeared to one of the select few in North Korea who got enough to eat) arranged for his headstone to be engraved, “I told you I was –il”. He was replaced by his son (also well-fed).

Once again we saw that Communism turns its own philosophy upside down and produces an elite dynasty of all-powerful dictators. “Power to the people”? .. bollocks!

Talking of political philosophies, we have now firmly established (except in the eyes of Cuba, North Korea and China) that Communism doesn’t work. We appear also to have firmly established that Capitalism doesn’t work either. What 2012 needs is a new “–ism” that does work. Nobody’s come up with any useful ideas yet.

Britain celebrated the Christmas spirit by having a fatal stabbing in Oxford Street, a knife attack in the same area on the same day, and a fatal shooting in Manchester.

In conclusion, 2011 has been much like any other year in recent times, and 2012 will probably continue much in the same vein.

In other words, plus ça change plus c'est la même chose – which is French for Isn’t this where we came in?

Happy New Year to my six readers.

Caffeine Rush

This morning at breakfast I discovered an efficient way of waking up the body without actually consuming the caffeine.

Here is the method:

1. Put two table-spoons of fresh ground coffee in cafétière.

2. Boil water, let water go off the boil then pour into the cafétière.

3. Leave plunger up (important).

4. Place cafétière on table.
5. Now place slices of bread in the toaster and a bowl of porridge in microwave.

6. Switch on both machines.
7. Return to the table with a toast rack (do this quickly, and ensure right forearm makes contact with coffee pot plunger).


The resulting torrent of hot coffee and grouts over trousers, chair, cupboard doors, kitchen carpet, the rapidly spreading of the dark stain, the pinging of the microwave indicating porridge is ready, the clang of the toaster as toast pops up, (all occurring simultaneously) is a sure-fire way of increasing the heart rate and the flow of adrenalin. If you can also arrange for your wife to be upstairs in bed at the time, so you can look forward to explaining what has happened, you will be surprised as to how much this enhances the adrenalin rush.

The great thing is, you have achieved all this without actually having consumed any coffee.

Try it tomorrow!

Small-minded vindictive "TripAdvisor" Reviewers

I cannot be the only person using "TripAdvisor" to wonder how a hotel or restaurant can accumulated a large list of these ..

.. and then in amongst all those you encounter a couple of these ..

I have been pondering the possibility that these odd 1-star reviews (which are frequently offensive and often written by people having only a fleeting acquaintance with the English language) tell us more about the reviewer than the premises they are reviewing.

Channel 4's TV documentary last night, entitled "Attack of the Trip Advisors", pretty much confirmed this to be the case. The film makers followed the antics of a number of people "addicted" to providing in-depth critiques of hotels and restaurants, mistakenly believing that they were doing the rest of us a service.

We saw hoteleliers and restaurateurs reduced to tears by petty and vindictive reviews that potentially had the power to destroy their businesses.

Whilst I am keen as the next man to expose shoddy and over-priced services, I believe this documentary showed these reviewers to be operating on another level altogether. There is not a hotel or restaurant anywhere that can be 100% perfect and if you set out to nit-pick every conceivable fault then this destroys the whole purpose of "TripAdvisor".

One guy admitted to having been bullied at school, and this was his way now of asserting himself.

One man follows a slavish routine when visiting hotels. This includes getting out his ball-point pen and making a small blue dot at the end of one of the bed sheets so he can see if the sheets get changed before his second night in bed. Apparently he has a skin condition, causing flaking whilst in bed and his sheets need to be changed daily. Because the hotel staff did not do this he slated them, conveniently ignoring the fact that he failed to advise the hotel of his special requirement. His theory is that it is up to the hotel to ask him if he has any special requirements regarding bed linen.

He then stuffs a handful of the free tea and coffee sachets into his pocket to check whether the supplies have been replenished when he returns to his room at the end of the day. Because supplies were not replenished that was another black mark! You and I might simply phone Reception for more sachets, but in our case we probably would have actually used ours to make drinks with rather than stuff them in our pockets. Room staff would not doubt have noticed that although some sachets had been taken, there was no evidence of dirty cups or empty sachets dropped in the waste bin.

Another asks for a gin & lemonade in the bar and when the waitress brings him a gin & tonic instead, this goes down as another black on his 1-star review, even though his drink was replaced by the requested one in double-quick time.

All these people were no doubt glad to be filmed for this documentary, being full of their own importance, but they probably are completely unaware of the fact that they came over as sad, petty-minded, vindictive little idiots. The documentary did a great service in exposing them for what they are.

My advice, what what it is worth, is that every time you are looking down a list of reviews for a hotel or restaurant in which you are interested, if you come across a 1-star rating tucked in amongst a host of 4-star and 5-star ratings treat it with the utmost suspicion. They are only worth serious consideration if the place gets nothing else but 1-star and 2-star ratings.

I am an enthusiastic "reviewer" on "TripAdvisor" but I do my utmost to write a fair review. On the few occasions I find things to be worth complaining about then I ensure that I complain at the time of my dissatisfaction. Then, how well my complaint is dealt with determines what kind of rating and review I give the place.

Another Tyrant Down

The final demise of Colonel Gaddafi was welcome news, and I take heart from realising that many such tyrants eventually meet a sticky end. Sadly, it often takes a very long time.

I am disappointed that the Libyan opposition forces decided to finish him off, as I believe that he should have stood trial in the full glare of world publicity, and made to answer for his many crimes.

The greatest tyrant of them all in modern times was of course Adolph Hitler, (with Joseph Stalin as a close runner-up). Hitler got his just desserts, but it took 6 long and bloody years.

Then, with the downfall of Communism in the USSR and eastern Europe, Ceacescu of Romania eventually faced summary execution. Good-bye also to Milosevic of Serbia, and his vile henchmen.

Then farewell and good riddance to Saddam Hussein, and now it's Gaddafi's turn after his 40 years of torture and terrorism.

Hitler, Saddam and Gaddafi have one thing in common .. they met their end underground. Hitler in his Berlin bunker, Saddam in a less sophisticated version of the same, and Gaddaffi in a sewer (that seems an appropriate place for him).

Unfortunately Mugabe of Zimbabwe is still with us, but we must live in hope, and trust also that some Arab nations currently suffering oppression under tyrannical governments will soon enjoy a Libyan-style liberation.

The Internet - A Civilising Influence?

I read in today's on-line edition of the New York Times that some rural communities in the USA are suffering an outbreak of malicious gossip using on-line forums and social networking sites. People are revealing themselves as being unpleasant, disgusting and downright evil; they are able to do this because they can hide behind the cloak of anonymity.

Although the World Wide Web has much to commend it - free exchange of information, educational sites, the arts, the making of Internet friends and so on - like much of life it also reflects a darker side of humanity. And it has become so easy to reveal that darker side.

In Britain the other day, a number of coal miners in Wales died in a mining accident. It wasn't long before some idiots (that word is too kind for them) started posting callous and racist comments on Facebook. Some were saying it was a good thing because they were Welsh. Others said it was a pity more didn't die. This kind of thing is almost unbelievable, and yet we must believe that this depraved behaviour does exist, and it is too our collective shame that it does. In this particular case, many complaints were made to the Police and they have launched an investigation with a view to closing down those offensive pages.

I find all this hugely depressing.

University Education - What are the Scots up to?

I didn't go to University. When I was at school I never felt the need, nor did I perform well enough to make the grade anyway. I put things right after I'd left school and finished up with a professional qualification which, I was happy to hear, was described as a "Degree Equivalent".

Notwithstanding my teenage antipathy towards University Education I soon learned to appreciate that if our Country is to keep its head above water it needs well educated young people, especially in mathematics, engineering and science.

I am therefore greatly annoyed by the decision of both this government and its predecessors in deciding to make university students in England pay up to £9,000 per year for their university tuition. Education is so important that any half-civilized country should pay for it out of taxes. No-one should begrudge paying the tax because we all benefit from a well-educated society and a vibrant economy.

The fact that young people now have to start their lives with debts of up to £27,000 (or £36,000 in the case of four-year courses) round their necks is a disgrace. I have been, therefore, heartened by the fact that the devolved government of Scotland (currently led by the Scottish National Party) has maintained the principle of education free at the point of use.

But recently my admiration has turned to anger as they have now decided that English students attending Scottish Universities will have to pay for their tuition, whereas (in an act of breathtaking stupidity) they permit European students to attend free of charge. They mutter something about this being because they are members of the European Union.

Last time I looked, England (as part of the United Kingdom) was also a member of the European Union. I understand a group of students are going to Law to challenge the Scottish administration over this. I wish them all the luck in the world.

Complimenting Gas & Oil Companies

For the past 33 years we've had oil-fired central heating in our house. The other week our 2700-litre oil tank sprung a leak. We had no trouble in getting our Shell oil distributor (EMO Oil) to come out and recover the contents of the tank. They recovered 2400 litres of oil, deducted the cost of the operation from the value of the oil and paid the difference straight into my bank account.

We made a snap decision to switch from oil to gas, spurred on by the knowledge that our boiler was 33 years old and might soon need replacing, a new oil storage tank would have to be purchased, and during the past couple of years or so we have paying about £1,000 a year for oil.

I went on-line to the British Gas Website and booked an appointment for a Heating Advisor to visit us within two days. He turned up with a colleague and surveyed the house and its existing heating and plumbing system. Without going into the details, suffice to say that our house was equipped with an unorthodox and somewhat mad system. After a couple of hours of investigation and discussion they came up with a scheme for ripping out the old oil burner, installing a new gas-fired condensing boiler in a new location, re-organisation of the pipework, draining down and flushing the system, dosing with anti-corrosive chemical, fitting thermostatic radiator valves, and fitting a magnetic particle filter. They give us a fixed-price quote, guaranteed not to be exceeded irrespective of any extra work that might eventually be deemed necessary.

So far so good, but then we had the first and the last glitch in the process. We were given an installation date (in a week) but then we had a phone call asking if we would mind extending this by a few days. We said that was OK. But then the installer turned up anyway on the original date and we had to send him away as we had arranged to be elsewhere on that day. Then the process went into a black hole for a couple of weeks, and we had no idea when work would start.

I than found myself testing the British Gas Complaints Department (bear in mind the company had recently been fined millions of pounds for failing to comply with minimum standards of customer service). I spoke to a lady who couldn't have been more helpful, giving me her name and her contact number, and she promised she would get a senior engineer to phone me by tea time.

Did he phone? No.

He turned up in person on the doorstep. He gave us an installation date - 28th July - and the job would take two days.

On 28th July two British Gas vans turned up outside the house at 8 am, and a team of two men and a woman laid out dust sheets all over the place, and then worked like demented beavers until 6 pm without a taking a lunch break. Having turned the house upside down and inside out by the time they left that night the place had been cleaned up, dust sheets removed and carpets replaced.

On Day Two the woman turned up on her own at 8.15 am to complete everything that needed doing to bring the job to a conclusion. There was also a visit by a British Gas electrician to do the necessary wiring. She worked tirelessly, again without a lunch break; by the time she had commissioned the system and explained to us how everything worked, it was 8 pm.

Again, everything was cleaned up again, by the time she had gone there was no sign that anyone had been here (except of course the sight of some new pipes and a new boiler!)

Throughout the two days, these people were a joy to be with, watching them work efficiently and in good humour for longer hours than I would have thought reasonable.

We all have reason to complain about utility companies from time to time, but I think it is important to acknowledge freely when they get things right and to compliment them accordingly.

So thank you, British Gas, and thank you Emo Oil.

The Murky World of Murdoch

I shall not be buying a News of the World tomorrow, even though it would have some historical interest as the final one of a 168-year history. I have never in my life purchased a copy of this newspaper, and currently I am studiously avoiding the purchase of any newspaper belonging to Rupert Murdoch’s stinking stable.

This paper has sunk to new and unbelievable depths in its bid for sales. The hacking of mobile phones belonging to celebrities and politicians was the first we heard of the Murdoch empire’s depravity, and to be honest, perhaps we were not too bothered by the fact that we were getting salacious gossip about film stars, entertainment personalities, and politicians.

But now that it has transpired that for years they have been hacking into the phones of families who have been the victims of abductions and murders it is impossible for us to avoid the nausea. Not only have they been feeding their stories from this illegal and immoral activity by accessing the phones and voice-mail messages of parents who have had their children kidnapped and/or murdered, in the case of Milly Dowler a murdered schoolgirl, they tapped into Milly’s own phone when the police were investigating her disappearance, and even deleted messages from her full-to-capacity voice mailbox so that her distraught parents could continue to leave their desperate messages on their daughter’s phone.

Rupert Murdoch’s reaction to all this was to give a few days’ notice that the News of the World would be closed down, thus throwing 500 people out of work (most of whom had not been tied up with these criminal practices). To add insult to injury, he has retained Rebekah Brooks in her job as News International’s Chief Executive, even though she was Editor of the News of the World when much of this sordid activity was taking place.

Prime Minister David Cameron comes out of this with egg all over his smug face as well, since he employed Andy Coulson (another previous editor who had resigned over earlier cases of phone hacking) as his Media Consultant, in spite of having been warned by the Editor of the Guardian newspaper that he had problems.

I hope that if nothing else comes out of this, we shall at last see the end of the decades-long love affair between our political leaders and the Murdoch empire. Please, no more parties, with Murdoch, his son, or his red-topped chief executive of ‘red-top’ papers. No more special access to 10 Downing Street. If our politicians can’t get themselves elected to positions of high office without cuddling up to Murdoch, then they don’t deserve our support.

David Cameron claims to have come to this understanding. Time will tell. Watch this space.

I also hope that Murdoch’s bid to buy up the remaining shares of BskyB TV and thus be in complete ownership of that enterprise will be successfully thwarted by the competent authorities on the basis that he is not a fit and proper person to be in such a monopolistic position with a major media empire.

Dreams

I never cease to be astonished by the machinations of the human brain whilst one is asleep.

Just in the past two days (or should I say nights?) I have invented both a new organisation and a new word.

Has anyone heard of the Mahogany Royal Specialist Group?

No? My brain just made it up then.

I also got on a train, sat next to the driver (wow - that's cool!) and as he pulled out of the station I advised him in some panic that this was where I was meant to get off. (Bear in mind, I'd only just got on!) To which he replied, "Don't worry - I've switched off the PROCTO so you'll be at the next station sooner than expected!"

Any of you heard of a PROCTO? No, I didn't think so.

Looking forward to my next burst of creativity.

Northern Ireland

I see the wild animals of east Belfast have returned to the Dark Ages again.

When will we be rid of these idiots with their religious prejudices and predeliction for violence?

I have visited the Irish Republic, but I have vowed never to set foot on the soil of Northern Ireland whilst it remains so embedded in the past. Stones, bricks, bottles, petrol bombs and bullets have no place in a civilized society.

Does Northern Ireland really have to be part of the UK?!

Sarah Palin and soul of the Republican Party

Dissension in the Republican ranks!

Now that Mitt Romney of Boston, Massachusetts has declared his intention of running for the Republican nomination as Presidential Candidate for the next US Presidential Election, the disturbingly attractive but totally goofy "Tea Party" Republican Sarah Palin has stated that Mitt Romney is a traitor to the Party because when he was Governer of Massachesetts he gave health care to the poor.

Shock, horror!

I think that tells us something we need to know about the mind set of Mitt Romney, and it tells us all we need to know about Sarah Palin.