Cor blimey Mrs Jones, how’s your Bert’s lumbago?

Today is Friday, last in August, and another warm one. The weather so far, since the long cold winter, has been very kind. Change from 2012, it seemed to rain all year apart from 4 weeks for the Olympics and Para-lympics. This year reminded me of the summers we used to have in the 60’s and 70’s where you could put up with the rain because there were more dry days than wet ones.

The summer of ’76 sticks in my mind for the wrong reasons, hot sticky, my daughter and I both suffered from heat stroke quite a few times that summer. Rehearsals were held outside and my daughter played nearby. What strikes me as totally remarkable about that summer was the number of people forming bands, rehearsing in back yards, or disused warehouses. Everyone mucked in together, music brought us all joy, if you stopped playing you could listen to someone else play.

Everyone was listening to the music for free, none of the bands playing around that area of London had been signed and gigs were hard to get for part time musicians. Plenty of pubs offered evening gigs during the week but to get somewhere at the weekend, especially for us unknowns, was prohibitive.

Any road up, as the actress said to the bishop, we were having fun, playing music and listening to others playing music was the best. I think a few of those bands did get signed, some by majors. The Dogs never did get signed. We could’ve been The Dogs Of War, or The Dogs Bollox even, but that’s why we left it as The Dogs so people could add anything they liked or nothing at all. I haven’t kept in touch with anyone from those heady days, mainly down to moving, apparently the average Brit moves 8 times in their lifetime, so far I’ve moved 22 times in my lifetime.

If anyone reading this remembers The Dogs, The, or The Are Soles please get in touch. Especially Ian, Dave, John or Jules.

Have you heard the word?

The word is love, such a small thing love. Yet it comes in many different forms, there is the unrequited love, unconditional love and love which has strings attached. The strongest form of love is unconditional love, such as the love a parent has for a child (sadly not all parents have this). Love is a strong emotion and it can form lasting bonds between people, it can also destroy. I hear you ask how can it destroy, dear reader, so I will explain. Hate is another strong emotion, however, in the face of hatred how many can say why do you hate me when I love you? In this instance where Hate is born out of ignorance (as it mainly is) how many would respond harshly to this love? Not many.

I know there are a few lessons from our (mankind) past which have not taught us. The terrorist and the zealot will hate for their religion, why? Hatred is always born out of ignorance. I think it’s safe to assume that all religious texts (I’ve not studied every religion there is so have to make an assumption here) preach the same thing, which is LOVE.

We should take time to learn, how many of us still live in a secular community? None of us do anymore. Perhaps we should speak to our neighbours, our community, and find out about them, their culture and their beliefs? I’m not saying we should change to accommodate them, they have chosen to live here and just because they have different beliefs should not mean we have to confront them. It also does not give them the right to say that our beliefs are wrong and should not be followed by those of us born here.

After all, had we gone to live in their country would we have been able, or even wanted, to impose our beliefs on them? If we can accept that we are all different, each one of us has something unique to offer, and we can all get along with LOVE guiding our actions then the biggest beneficiary will be our society.

Believing he listened

This blog started as an exercise, an outlet for me so that I would get into the habit of writing every day, in that I’ve failed my dear reader. Quite often I know what I want to say but words fail me, at other times I forget to take my anti depressants and can’t be bothered to do anything. Tethered is a tale I’d like to tell, a brief history, if you will, of friendship, debauchery, drunkenness and sobriety, marriage, divorce, children and animals. Friends come and go, people move around, lose touch then find each other again.

Of course finding people has never been easier, there are lots of social network sites, the Internet has made the world smaller, it’s difficult to hide these days. In so many ways we’re living through George Orwell’s apocalyptic tale, 1984, yet we could not be further removed from that tale, or could we?

This is becoming garbled, just like my book of poetry which I couldn’t get published, I’d called it Mercurial Anagoge, those of my readers who are also philologists may realise it as fluid rubbish. Unfortunately I think the publishers I tried realised that was indeed the title and didn’t get round to reading any of the poetry inside.

Before I completely lose it, I’m going to publish and be damned this time around!

In the beginning was the word

And the word is love, it’s in the good and the bad books that I have read, if you believe in a God, Jehovah, Jah, Allah or the Father of the Christ, does it not follow that you are opposed to death, corruption and, ultimately war? If you do not believe in a God does that make you lawless? Following a life of pleasure, including fighting, killing and finding new weapons to take as many lives as possible? No, it does not. People who follow Islam have fought against other religions since the Dark Ages. Christians have fought against Jews, Muslims and each other since the beginning of that religion. Romans and Greeks fought holy wars to spread their pagan gods out as far as they could go. Is there any religious people who preach love, non-violence and prayer? Well yes there is, they have been persecuted for being different over the ages, yet they are still around. Zionists apart, they offered no resistance in Russia, Poland, Germany, Austria or even England when seemingly sane and educated people have persecuted them. Yes I’m referring to Jews! Those who speak Hebrew as early Christians spoke Latin, right up until the latter half of the 20th Century Roman Catholics still celebrated in Latin.

Jews have always been peaceful, decent people, yes they are human in spite of the doctrines of fascism, communism, socialism and almost any other ism you can think of. If they are so peaceful why do people take against them so often and with such hatred? I think the answer lies in the occupations these well educated people choose to follow, doctors of medicine, lawyers, goldsmiths, jewellers, dentists, psychiatrists. All necessary professions which pay well, is jealousy the motive then? Possibly.

The other area where these people excel is their education, that is obvious because you no longer see a poor Jew anywhere. That is because they have their own teachers for academic subjects, they also teach the Old Testament to their children from an early age. I was taught by Nuns, Monks and priests the meaning to the holy bible but had lay educators to teach me academic subjects. Because of this I had a different person teaching me every subject. No chance of building up a relationship with most of my teachers. Questions were frowned upon, until entering further education. If you don’t understand something why shouldn’t you ask why?

That is the way we learn, we ask questions until we grasp the basics and can then use that knowledge to solve more complicated problems. We do not need to fight, there is no need to fight, surely if we educate our oppressor in areas we agree and agree to differ on everything else that would benefit, not only mankind, but also this planet we call home?

She’s just a woman

How often that phrase gets misused! We’ve all heard it, can’t expect her to know she’s just a woman. Is that the sign of a misguided man? Too right it is, women know more than they will sometimes let on, modern women can do anything a man can do, and then some. I’ve seen women driving trucks, buses (well now there aren’t any clippies, what else would they do) even tanks. Women take an active part in all aspects, of what used to be called men’s work. And sometimes they even do it as well as a man, if not better.

This goes back to my last blog as put downs are never called for, and even constitute bullying if repeated. Why do people use put downs? Do they really have an extremely low self-esteem or self-worth view?

Anyway that’s all I wanted to say at the moment, go with your God, in love and peace.

$20 in my hand

Here I am back from the brink, once again I’ve faced my demons and sent them away. A little victory is all I can hope for just now as I’m too weak to fight battles so I have to win the skirmishes, after all subterfuge and sabotage helps the war effort. Keep your friends close and your enema’s closer (or something like that).

I was told something yesterday which made sense to me, unfortunately I can’t remember it all. No doubt those who have Facebook accounts will know the letter to which I refer. I don’t have Facebook as it was becoming more and more unrestricted and unmoderated so that the cyber bullies out there could pick on someone and see how long they could survive. I don’t have an ask account for that same reason. I am on twitter but if I find out anyone I’m following is bullying someone on twitter I immediately unfollow them, if every decent person did the same, blocking them if necessary, we could take back the Internet and keep vulnerable people safe.

I digress, however, the letter was written by a Canadian woman and is aimed directly at the terrorists within the Muslim community who hide behind religion and the Koran (or Quran, or Qoran) and from safety target our troops, by our I mean all the troops trying to find and make safe Afghanistan, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East, not to conquer but to allow their natives to live without fear. The Taliban insurgents want to remain anonymous to commit terrorist acts against our boys AND natives where the fighting is taking place. These people are cowards, nothing more and nothing less. Anyway, there is a lot to the letter and it is circulating. Can I ask please, if you my, dear reader, know anyone who doesn’t have a Facebook account, and you agree with the sentiments expressed, please copy into an email and send it out to those who would not otherwise have access to it. In this way it can spread and maybe, just maybe, get to someone who can convince the Taliban and Al Qaeda to give up their terrorist activities and to join the people of the Middle East to build a safe, secure, peaceful future for the children.

Thank you for reading, may your God go with you.

Waiting for the man to come

Gosh, it’s been over a week since I last posted anything on here! Have I really been that manic, or depressed, for that long? The answer is yes I can, and yes I have been. But enough of me, I don’t want to continually talk about my mental health so today I’m gonna talk about someone else’s mental health issues! Just for a change, not really.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping in the heat wave we’ve (some of us anyway) have been enjoying over the last few weeks. I love the sun and do try to spend time out doors to enjoy nature and the natural world. I also enjoy “people-watching” as it fascinates me how many of us actually do it. I’ve seen some really pretty women struggling to avoid wardrobe malfunctions with a skirt or dress, only to look around and see how many are watching her and most hoping the wardrobe is going to malfunction revealing more flesh than the woman is comfortable with.

I also notice how frustrated parents seem to be with their offspring these days. I saw one dad grab his son and drag him away from the bin he (the child) was trying to put his litter in. What lesson are you teaching your son, brother? You’re teaching him that only idiots use the bins that’s what. Children are, initially at any rate, taught by example, so the next time you’re walking the dog with the kids present pick up its mess and don’t leave it for others to tread in.

Skipping back to the wardrobe malfunction, the opposite is true, if a woman isn’t bothered about the wind whipping her skirt away to reveal more flesh than intended then hardly anybody is watching her. My ex-sister-in-law told me a tale of the time she went to Jamaica to meet her in-laws and the first day on a beach she noticed most of the women looked stunning but were all topless. Then she noticed every male on the beach was staring at her and the other women who were still wearing bikini tops. Her husband told her if she took her top off then men wouldn’t bother staring. Although she felt nervous she did take it off and noticed, to a man, there was no one staring at her any longer. When she returned to England she told my ex and I that she had tanned evenly all over apart from the white bits at the tops of her legs and stomach and back where the bottoms had been.

In this country we seem to have a mixture of weather, not always very good, but as John Lennon observed in 1968, if the sun don’t shine you get your tan standing in the English rain. So sad that he is no longer with us, and George has followed him to the supergroup in the heavens. Both were proponents of peace and love, John never carried a gun to anyone’s knowledge and George was attacked with a knife at home. Both have gone, John died by bullets and George to Cancer. Those of us who survived the 60’s were saddened, the two main UK groups in that decade had been The Beatles and The Stones. I never really rated The Beatles as a live band, The Stones were better live than their studio output suggested. Of course over the last 50 years The Stones have improved and now their studio output is a lot stronger and a Bigger Bang is the best album they’ve ever released.