Sunday 3^rd January 2016
Technically Eleven days ago!
I am matching the underlying mood of the period by being seemingly "all over the place". To be in such a state for the full period of Hallowe'en to the 2^nd February would really be pushing things too far. It is amazing how many "new year's" there are across the world. The most famous western tradition has been maintained through Shakespeare's Twelfth Night where the lords of misrule rule for only those few hours, while the whole period is an hotch potch of Christian determinism to crush paganism, through Julius Caesar's new calendar to pope Gregory's. His calendar set the Christian church at odds with its own interpretation of God's Creation and highlighted the accuracy and logic of the pagan solstice. Stonehenge being no more than a chance configuration of landscape, according to modern research, it was the pagans that got the earth's cycle right and the 22^nd of December should be the New Year's first day.
      In my own perverse way on this web, I let December run into January and copy the tail end of December into the new year.   What will finally result I have no idea. We all plough through our lives doing "our thing" and all we can hope for is that in the time on this earth we have been given, we conclude our period doing at least something on which we can look back and say "I'm glad I did that". Inevitably we can look back and also regret the time we wasted and the things we did not do or even attempt, which might include things we did and wish we had not done! Even the negative 'achievements' are a success, we have learned through recognising those failures and owning up to them, even if their confession is only to ourselves, for in recognition we learn more about ourselves and the experience strengthens and matures the soul... for what?
      "The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?" Is that so? Four centuries later we argue the question with greater certainty of the 'authority' to determine for ourselves, for this year sees the quad centenary of Shakespeare's death and death, or more particularly the nature of dying, is a more open subject, helped ironically by the advances made in handling the dreaded "C" word, which is how people used to refer to cancer. There is the classic example of society's maturity, the way during my lifetime, society has grown up to accept medical realities and not allow them to be left to the "experts". We are all involved, have all been touched in some way and death is no different. Religion tried to debase paganism but paganism was right (and respected both sexes) while religion (the Christian religion) betrayed its belief in Creation, choosing to deny Creation's realities and preferring the priestly arrogance of the presumptuous male usurper.
      Is that "bourn" the source of an "undiscover'd country" and have no travellers returned from it? Does not the Bible itself cite appearances of spirits in seemingly human form and is not folklore steeped in such tales? Modern tales do not speak of apparitions but certainly of mediumistic communications through mental sensitivity.
      So, due prudence, or consideration for family and friends leads us to consider our own journey into that good night. Amazingly, two-thirds of British adults do not write a Will! Yet death is the inevitable consequence of being born. Unless the circumstances are complex, persons under the age of consent have no concerns and in principle one need not bother until there is a sound cause, such as engagement or the solo buying of a property, or other acquisition of wealth. Do these statistics relate to people who are single but do not own property? For those two circumstances flag up the immediate need to write a Will. Having written one, it very quickly can become worthless if beneficiaries die, remarry, especially where children are concerned, or one moves properties etc.. So, it is not just a matter of writing a Will but of maintaining its relevance to continually changing circumstances and the fact of death and its absolute finality in this plane of existence is a continuing possibility, however much we may dream of three score years and ten.
      So, having had cause to write a Will several times already, I am preparing my latest version to find I have to cover contingencies for the inadequacies of government, which may well make it necessary to incur the costs of a solicitor, instead of revamping my existing one through my now retired solicitor but by being retired he is not insurance covered, nor is he up-to-date with the possibilities of which way changing legislation, affecting the NHS, local government, social agencies may wander.
      Therein lies another tale. As happens with Sjrögren's Syndrome, a lot of diverse minor irritants arise, causing a great deal of wasted time and effort for both the NHS and me. I will turn to this for a mention, when I am ready and then hyperlink it to my NHS experiences page.  Currently I am waiting St Albans hospital to advise me when I can see an ophthalmology surgeon... for another attempt at cauterising an eyelash currently driving me up the wall as it has grown into my eye instead of away from it. A fault caused by having had shingles in that eye.
     In parallel with that I am waiting an appointment with a consultant dental surgeon at Amersham as my dentist wants a second opinion because of my Sjrögren's problem. While one of course has understanding of the NHS's problems one also should bear in mind my time and effort. Time taken out for medical problems as a patient are just as economically disadvantageous as to anyone else. Age has nothing to do with it, time is just as precious for getting on with something productive.

NEW YEAR'S DAY 2016
Technically Eleven days ago!
I'm momentarily panicking I'm going nuts! I recognise those "odd" moments I've seen in elderly members of my own family, that momentary forgetfulness. I have just mislaid my spectacles. Friends of my own age have occasionally posted on Facebook that they have just caught themselves in a "mad" moment, The reassurance derives from having the awareness of noting what one has done wrong and being unashamed of the incident let alone panicked by it.
      I have to confess to being totally thrown over this holiday period and have got confused over which day I am actually in. That is not unusual! When working in a factory it is easy to get confused with production coming forward, anticipating the bank holiday, while production itself is for publications necessarily variously advance dated. In production mode for a moment I suddenly realise I am advance booked for the next twelve weeks ahead, which brings us to Easter when I will be joining the Camroux's, by which time I should have a clearer idea as to how my year is planning out. Pressure is suddenly on and the next month is clearly going to be very busy... and I am retired! Technically, by government decree of age but as we all know that has nothing whatever to do with the work to be done due to the inclination of those who persist in remaining alive! As a young man I never understood this preoccupation for being retired. It was perceived by those who had reached that age as an achievement and by those still on their way as something to be achieved! For me, it is ill health that is slowing me up, not age and I am gambling on a minimum of another ten years before I am ready to relax... fingers crossed!

NEW YEAR'S EVE
Technically Eleven days ago!
Sydney,  Australia kicks off with some excellent visual effects but the accompanying music was simply atrocious. It is astounding that someone who clearly has excellent visual perception can be so cloth eared when it comes to auditory sensitivity.
      Mercifully, I am able to face the new year with optimism. Having experienced complete chaos during the past year, as a result of several minor matters colliding with a major 'prepared for eventuality' and compounded by a family incident which threw my financial planning into chaos I said to one of my nephews earlier in the year, "However abreast you may think yourself to be, you still need provision for the unexpected emergency".  I was not prepared to incur debt, other than an over-ride on my credit card and simply delayed buying what had been scheduled. I determined the discipline would not do me any harm and I perversely linked my condition with the the traumas of the hordes of migrants trying to get into the country, for whom my irritations undoubtedly would be a joy for them to experience.
      Now, of course, my heart goes out to those who have been flooded... then there are those who have been flooded twice... or three times... and may yet be flooded again! As Corbyn rightly pointed out in a press interview today (BBC News), this is where money should have been spent, not cut back. Interestingly, Corbyn failed to mention the state of debt we are in was massively enriched by Labour's past profligacy, why on earth was this not mentioned?
      In accepting accountability we must all face the fact that we must cut back, be more efficient with our expenditure but also be prepared to accept increased taxes. This may be where Chancellor Osborne has failed, he based his budget on political considerations, matters of complete irrelevance to sound management, especially at the start of a five year term, instead of acting with due prudence and ensuring money was available where it was clearly needed. The cost of repair is likely to be considerably more than the cost of ensuring it didn't happen, on top of the cost of doing what should have already been done!
      Then we have the stupid arrangement whereby the EU declares its benevolence in spending money in our country, failing to advise equally loudly that it is our money in the first place coming back to us. Being so much in debt due to unrealistic socialist monetary policies, it would be more rational for us to spend that £12million a year we pay the EU, to fund our own needs, including paying back some of the debt that is crippling us through interest charges.
      At the same time, we have not only to sort out the rationality of our social security system, as Osborne is working on but have to address the world's problems which are climate change and social need. We literally are "all in this together" on all four fronts: world resource, demand, the ability to pay and the responsibility to share (and bear accountability)—on a global base, for no other reason than it is for our own long term protection. 
     This Daesh 'IS' lot have to be confronted playing their game in their own territory. The reality is that they are nothing, just a bunch of common criminals masquerading under contrived names like little boys playing kings of their castles wholly lacking in any rational substance. That is all they are, common criminals and the UN needs to be rational in meeting the situation head on in a co-ordinated manner. This is where the entire concept falls apart. Even educated, rational human beings play the ego card, arguably making themselves even more ridiculous that the Daesh lot make themselves look.
      As for the BBC, its idea that it must be "fair" to criminals declaring themselves is as ridiculous as the EU claiming to be rational. Nothing of the EU is remotely rational and it is most certainly not the BBC's job to worry over duly about criminal identities. Having written that, we of course need to be aware of the various factions but only with sufficcient detail as to seprate one fruit cake from another.

Sunday 27^th December 2015 [evening post]
REFLECTION
May be it is the season, it is so unseasonal but I thought that as one aged the more "stuck" one became in one's ways and resisted change. In my case it seems I welcome new ideas with an increased fervour.  Why? Is it that poem's sentiment, "... I will wear purple... and run my stick along the public railings..." syndrome? [Jenny Joseph "When I am Old"]. The more obviously I age and become more affected by the diverse (so far "light") exigencies of my health, the more I seem to revel in change. However, changes to routine matters are a bore and maybe there is an undercover compatibility: I have always been perverse, not provocatively so, just seemingly in contradiction to the majority opinion as a natural proclivity and perhaps my health intrusions are seen as wilful challenges to my will and so must be challenged.
     Christmas was easy, a good family gathering, if noticeably diminished when the toast "absent friends" was proposed and we each, silently in our minds, went through the names of those that used to join us. I had no fears of icy roads or fog or snow but obviously compassion for those up north, contending with flooded homes inevitably jolts one's cosiness of all going right.
      Compassion for those facing natural disasters not of their own making is unquestionable; but one then questions the wisdom of those in governance as to why precautions were still not adequate, despite all the money spent in supposed preparation. Government at least should be in possession of the more absolute facts of climate change. I don't have the time to ascertain "authority" of those writing on these issues and the counter arguments as to what and how much must be done and at what speed.
      My mind then dwells on the Calais and other migrants. Many are Christians for whom Christmas is as important as it is to me, possibly more so, as my preoccupation owes more to cultural tradition than religion. After all, the Christmas tree was introduced by Prince Albert from his Germanic traditions and arguably the Christmas tradition itself is in defiance of God's exaltation, having been promoted by early Christian "authorities" caught up in their enthusiasm to abolish existing pagan cults and dominate them with Christian concepts. Hence the perverseness of 25^th celebrations against 21^stcelebrations. Certainly, this year, I have been mentally attuned to receiving spring from the 22^nd onwards and already have a March mentality, despite a potential three months of snow and ice—not impossible.
      Then my mind turns to those in Calais and unlawful immigrants elsewhere. Where lies personal accountability? In these islands we have had to fight for the rights we take arguably too casually these days, assuming no one would dare try and take them from us... but that same casual acceptance can degenerate into a "don't care, won't care" who, as the rhyme tells us, "was made to care".  Yes, we could lose our inheritance if we do not vigorously, consciously and proactively argue their essence. Why will the parents of these immigrant children not likewise defend or claim their own rights as our previous generations did for us, perhaps losing their children in their fight for rights, just as our own forebears did?
      Is our involvement paternalistic, Christian... or the self-interest of oil? To what extent is climate change being resisted by those so deeply invested in oil and other natural resources promotion that they will not change for reasons of personal greed? We have recently been asked in certain areas to switch off Christmas lights to save power where it has been made critical due to flooding. This morning, a chance visitation on a USA TV channel caught a programme where there is apparently a competition for the most exciting family Christmas light show.  A house was shown so overloaded with lights in every room and all over the house that it spoke of wilful squandering of resource, both in the family’s capital expenditure and their wilful consumption of electric power. This is abuse. It is no different in principle to the people who abuse their own bodies and then abuse our collective costs in maintaining national health by wilfully making demands on our too few resources. Thoughts like these encourage an overall view of the way we rich nations abuse our power, albeit power acquired through initial diligence.I wish my downstairs neighbours would think on these things as they sit outside thir front door right next to mine smoking cigarettes. At least they do not do itinside where they have a very young child but why should I smell their smokey detritis at my front door?
     The news advises that the young are catching on with ideas of fitness, that cigarette smoking is seriously decreasing and concern for fitness increasing. It takes time to implement change of attitudes. The Roman church will not accept women priests, the CofE took far too long making its own adjustments and is still having difficulties. In other cultures, perversely, women have pre-eminence and then wilfully abuse through their own sense of ego and control. This was shown the other night in the docu-bio of Princess Diana, claimed to be based solely upon gossip but arguably sufficiently researched (as determined from my own understanding of such cultures) as to imply that had it not been for the entrenched attitudes or matriarchy, the Pakistani doctor with whom Diana had an affair might have resulted in a permanent relationship that could have saved Diana's life, from which might have stemmed an interesting personal, yet inevitably public but positive interaction with Islam.
      On the other hand, Dr Hasnat Khan has chosen to make full forceful denial that the film is no more than ill-informed gossip about their relationship but nonetheless it reminds us that there are just as many and similar problems where there is a reversal of the patriarchal society but arguably not so in religious terms, where males still dominate. The IS (Deash fruit cakes) give Islam prominence, associating it with all that it is not but highlighting that it too is divided similarly to Christianity in its Sunni and Shia interpretations.
      So, in these twelve days of Christmas we have time to pause and reflect. Where to in 2016 and in what manner, with what thoughts and intentions should we progress? A momentary pause to count our blessings, even for those whose lives have already been devastated by three floodings in the same month! In terms of support they are better off than most of the Calais camp and others elsewhere. In the light of both communities' problems we have a duty to raise the issue of the wilfully drunk taking away resources from the seriously sick through no accountability of themselves but the natural order of life. This is the time to take a full account of all our accountabilities and responsibilities in the overall state of world society.

Sunday 27^th December 2015 [midmorning post] I discover this was supposed to have been posted Friday 4^th December 2015 [later evening post]. The port must have got in the way!
RE-THINKING—2
Discovered a Facebook post: "Out of my way! There's a house on fire there!"
"But... that's petrol in the bucket! Don't throw that! It needs water!"
"It'd take ages to go and fetch some water and we've got to do something. Don't you know how awful a fire is?"
"Yes, but..."
"It's a senseless destructive thing..."
"Well yes, of course, but..."
"...which can cause dreadful harm to..."
"Look, of course I know that fire is bad. You don't have to tell me. That doesn't mean you should be throwing petrol on it."
"Why are you trying to stop me taking action on this? Are you some kind of fire sympathiser?"
"What? Don't be ridiculous! I'm trying to stop you making it worse"
"Look at how much damage that fire's doing. It's already started spreading to our neighbour's house. If we don't take firm and decisive action now, it could be our house next! Just think about that!"
"Just put the petrol down. We'll work out where we can get some water from and then we can... Hey, stop! Stop! No, don't throw the.... Oh bloody hell!"
     I'm still uncertain but we are right to be involved provided we persist in seeing the collective whole towards a certain and determined end with those who will live there. We have to be there with them to be allowed to do what we do.
     Then a friend shared an excerpt from the EU on our own realities: http s://www.facebook.com/jennie.gilbert.31/posts/10207783961134947?notif_t=close_friend_activity. Apart from the Daesh fruit cakes (IS the irresponsible States of Islam) we are running parallel to Syria and Iraq!
     There is no question that the British press does burble an arrant load of twaddle but to abuse its power to the point of systemic destruction is bordering upon infantile rage. What emerged, some time back, which the press seem not to have taken into account was that the Labour party has been run for years by university twits unrepresentative of the industrial working class, Labour's raison d' être, of which these twits were always proud to show their complete ignorance. That's why Blair said "Please EU, you're even more daft than we are, so please run our country for us then we won't look half so daft as now." Corbyn questions the whole principle of the EU, although he seems to be keeping rather quiet about that at the moment and his heart is in the right place but he hasn't yet got the hang of being himself and being a party leader. They are two different personalities and often act and think in contrary directions: that is par for the job. Neither Corbyn nor the press have got the hang of that yet.

Friday 4^th December 2015 [early evening post]
RE-THINKING
Domesticity overwhelms: Christmas cards bought and written up. One advantage of "over" early starts, they were available and I made an impulse decision. A week or two later I discovered other better cards and wished... but by then I had sorted out their insides, printed and pasted them in with one or two additional personal letters, which fortunately had not added to the postal price weight. Posted today, bought my own tree, arrived home and found postman delivering three Christmas cards for me, someone has moved even faster!

Wednesday 2^nd December 2015 [3^rd early after-noon post]
STILL THINKING
Still hovering but Margaret Beckett made an excellent concise and cogent argument for action. However, some half hour later Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull) emphasised the lack of "what then?" which seemed to reinvigorate my bias against action. Yet he concluded with sound arguments for action. Arguments for "what then?" he accepted remain unanswered but his reasons for not being able to encapsulate following action were well listed.
      We are clearly hearing the nature of the debate within the Labour party whether or not within the PLP. I now retract my criticism of Corbyn for giving a free vote. He was probably right. This is about the validity of argument and therefore down to individual conscience, in no way anything to do with party political line up.

Wednesday 2^nd December 2015 [2^nd early after-noon post]
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
The Conservative rabble follows the appalling behaviour of the head boy who failed to apologise. He chose to hide in the locker room and the locker room has always been where the rowdies gang up against those who will insist in thinking for themselves. The Tories clearly are panicking that they are losing the argument!

Wednesday 2^nd December 2015 [early after-noon post]
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
Only great men possess the ability to show humility, one of them was called Jesus Christ who had no need to apologise for anything. Is Cameron even a Christian?
     The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived. -Ann Patchett, writer (b. 2 Dec 1963)
      At the same time one should ensure one ruffles the surface for sound reason and not the simple expression of ego. -Peter Such, writer (b. 1943).

Wednesday 2^nd December 2015 [High Noon post]
ONE PROVEN PM FAILS THE TEST OF STATURE AND ONE WOULD-BE PM SHOWS HE HASN'T GOT IT EITHER: SUCH ARE THE HURDLES OF BEING MORE THAN YOU ARE
Cameron fluffed it. He had the opportunity to properly apologise for his unacceptable remark about "terrorist sympathisers". He has shown himself to be a small time little fag hiding in the locker room instead of the head boy he is supposed to be.

Wednesday 2^nd December 2015 [morning post]
ONE PROVEN PM FAILS THE TEST OF STATURE AND ONE WOULD-BE PM SHOWS HE HASN'T GOT IT EITHER: SUCH ARE THE HURDLES OF BEING MORE THAN YOU ARE
The "terrorist sympathisers" slur is not of itself a problem, it is the context and people so referred to that determines its unacceptability. It is the statement of a man who has placed himself in the position of promising action to our allies when he knows their reasons lack the stature required for British standards of public opinion—the "what happens after" planning. We need also to remember that one of these allies, through incompetence or wilful misrepresentation, led us into Iraq on a false premise. Caution must over-ride.