Keep your glow on, There’s a show on you know

I was wondering if anyone out there can help me understand the logic of some so called free sites? I mean they claim to be free but you have to buy credits or else you can’t do anything on them. It makes sense to me that they want to keep running but why offer themselves as free if they are going to charge you, right? I know that there are some sites like WordPress who offer a free site but they also offer embellishments if you pay to join the elite and that makes sense to me. After all they are free but you can join a premium service if you want to pay for this and this offers you a unique web site as well.

There are other sites which claim to be free but you post your initial article and then if you want to post anything else you have to pay for a bundle. Why? I thought free meant free without payment so why not just tell people that it is free to join and post your initial statement but after that you have to pay. I mean it’s false advertising isn’t it?

I have noticed a lot of people in my home town driving around and never using indicators to tell people where they are going. Again, why? If you let people know you will be going past them they will be less likely to pull out in front of you and this will cut down on accidents. Or is that just me being stupid? I feel that when someone drives past me after turning into the street I am walking on without using their indicators they must be doing something which is taking their minds off their driving (like talking on a mobile) which means they are not using due care and attention.

I know it is a criminal offence to use a mobile when driving but there are hands-free kits you can buy to get around this. This doesn’t make it any less dangerous to be having a conversation while driving. I think there should be an outright ban on people having telephone conversations while driving as it takes the focus away from the road and leaves people open to driving erratically.

On a brighter note, my song choice for this post is a little known song by Melanie Safka, who went by the name Melanie long before the Spice Girls came on the scene with Melanie B and Melanie C. I love this song and hearing it the other day reminded me of happier times when I had a lot less responsibility and baggage than I currently carry. Please give it a listen and broaden your horizons, there is a whole lot of music out there that rarely gets played on the radio and can still make you feel better. As always the copyright isn’t owned by me and the link is from YouTube.

FOWC with Fandango — Euphemism

via FOWC with Fandango — Euphemism

Rode around the town with a rattlesnake whip

Just got back from a few days in Blackpool and what a mixed bag it is now compared to the last time I was there. I always found good places to eat but this time there was nowhere near in between the rain apart from Pablo’s and the food there had to be tried to be believed. I kid you not, I paid over £13 for food unfit to be given to an animal, the fish was hot but undercooked and dry. The chips were hard and tasteless, totally inedible. This following an afternoon meal at Bella Italia which was excellent, no fault at all as it was ordered and came quickly (the starter within 10 minutes and the main within 10 minutes of finishing the starter.

The next day we decided to try a new diner we had noticed called Viva Vegas. We arrived just before 12 and were asked if we wanted breakfast or lunch so we were given the breakfast menu. When we ordered from this the waitress initially said that breakfast had finished then was called away by the Maitre D’ who had shown us to our seats and came back to say we could have breakfast after all. We ordered and waited for our food with trepidation as the restaurant was quiet. However, the food arrived with missing hash browns quite quickly and we were enjoying it immensely but when the waitress came over my wife asked what had happened to the hash browns. The waitress had to go and find out as she didn’t think it should have had hash browns.

We finished our meal and she came back to advise there were no hash browns left and we had been given a 10% reduction because of this. After we had finished the restaurant was beginning to fill up and we paid and left. That evening we decided to return and try the burgers and it was the best choice we had made since giving Pablo’s our money the evening before. The service was exemplary and the food was amazing. The chicken melted in the mouth as the ads said it would, this was because of their trick of soaking it in buttermilk before frying.

We also made some stunning finds on our two days in Blackpool, it isn’t as busy as it used to be but there are still enough people around to justify it as a venue for hen and stag nights. There are some places who will rip you off by providing less than adequate food but if you look around there are places springing up that offer good service and good food at reasonable prices.

Viva Vegas is definitely worth visiting Blackpool for, and if you have the luck to be served by Keira from Athens, Greece you will remember your visit for a long time to come.

Music today is a song made famous by Juicy Lucy but the version here is by The Doors. Link is for YouTube.

I’m changing trains this little town let me down

Today is 18/08/2018, 15 months until I qualify for my state pension so this is a f**king awful time for me to be out of work. I have been applying for lots of jobs of all kinds, customer service (no sales), IT support and support for systems, servers, and mobile phones/internet as well as jobs in hotels and kitchens. So far everyone who has got back to me has said “Thank you for applying but we won’t be interviewing you as you’re too old” or else they just don’t get back to me at all.

I won’t rant as I’m enjoying the freedom not having a job is affording me at the moment. I cashed in a pension pot so I will have enough to pay the bills for the next few months anyway and then I can ask for a tax rebate since the tax I paid on the pot was at 45% and with no job and no prospects the bulk of it should have only been paid at 25%. I will be asking HMRC to refund the overpayment in April, just in case someone who hasn’t got back to me yet offers me employment before then.

Of course having money in the bank means I don’t claim benefits so no-one is forcing me to do anything, I am not getting into the same rut I did in 2010 and this time around I am keeping the house clean and the meds are helping me to keep focused on what I should be doing every day to keep body and soul together. I am still in a fair amount of pain because of the car knocking me down but that is being helped by pain meds which I have cut down on but am refusing to take less to leave me in excruciating pain. I will keep trying from time to time to lose one a day but will take it again if the pain gets too bad. Having been on pain meds before the accident helped as I could wait until the swelling went down before going to see my GP. That is one reason I’m glad I live in the UK as medical treatment is free or I wouldn’t be able to go. Because there is no provision for dentist’s to provide free treatment I still don’t go there and my teeth are rotten and breaking up all the time, but when you’re poor you do what you can afford to do.

There were 2 birthdays in my family last week, I wished my brother a happy birthday on Wednesday when he turned 61, unfortunately, my daughter still wants nothing to do with me so I was unable to wish her a happy 44th last Sunday. It’s a shame how many of us lose contact with family over something stupid we did (or in my case didn’t) do. It’s been more than 20 years since I last saw her and everytime I have tried to apologise I was told not to contact her again. I still think of her a lot, not as much as my mum and it would have been her 90th this month as well, but at least my daughter is still alive as far as I know.

Anyway, enough of the maudlin tales. I was reminded today of an interview with Sarah Millican from 2011 on Graham Norton’s show where she was flanked by Vince Vaughn and Diddy and the Americans seemed to struggle with her accent although she did have fun with them both. Sarah has really come on since her divorce knocked her for 6 all those years ago. I would love to see more of her but it’s been so difficult getting tickets as they went on sale when I was working before pay day so I didn’t have the money to buy them. When I had the money she hadn’t sold out here for every date but there are only single seats left in the stalls 😦 which is where I would want to see her from. If she adds any more dates then I will get in early and book two seats for me and my wife as we both love her delivery and style of comedy.

Anyway, enough for today and the music this time around is from David Bowie and is linked from YouTube so the copyright isn’t owned by me but please enjoy it.

On Boy Books and Girl Books

Pernille Ripp

I get asked for a lot of book recommendations, I think it comes with the territory when you share the love of books.  And while I love pairing books with potential readers, I have also noticed a pattern that causes me to pause, that should cause all of us to pause.

I get asked for a lot of books featuring male lead characters for male readers.

When I ask why the need for a male lead, I am often told that “they” just don’t think a boy will read a “girl book.”  That a boy will not like a book about feelings.  That a boy only wants books that have action.  That have other boys in it.  That feature characters that look just like them or at the very least think like them.

As if every single boy thinks alike.

When written like this it is easy to see the…

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Coming on strong all the time

Following my rant the other day, dear reader, I think I should take time to write another post as I feel I really came on rather too strong. If we don’t have a rant from time to time then we will end up bottling so much up inside it will do us no good. However, having a rant among friends allows us to let off steam and our friends won’t object as long as you are there when they need to let off some steam.

I mentioned last year that I hadn’t seen or heard from my best friend in some time, I still haven’t, I emailed him to say I was moving and still heard nothing back from him. The last time I saw him was in 2016 and he said he was undergoing some tests to try and find out what medication he should be given to stop his epilepsy getting worse. Since then I have not heard anything further from him. This is not very good as he has quite serious mental health issues and has tried to commit suicide a few times in the past. I don’t know what else I can do as my texts were not being delivered so I stuck to email but don’t know if he is getting them or not. I mean I don’t get an undelivered report or anything but at the same time when I added a read receipt to the last email it didn’t get opened but then it hasn’t been deleted either.

I would have had a receipt back had it been deleted unread or undelivered. Does anyone have any ideas of anything else I can try? I know he was moving in 2016 because the last time I saw him he said he wouldn’t be able to come over for a while as he was going to make sure his mum was settled in her care home and he would be getting his own council place again after that but he said he would keep in touch. Last year I had an email from him telling me that he was going into hospital to try and have his epilepsy medication corrected so he stopped having seizures and I haven’t heard anything since.

Anyway, enough of that tale, on a lighter note I was told at the end of June that I was being released from my probationary contract because I hadn’t managed to get my call handling time below 15 minutes on average for a complete week, having achieved it for 3 days out of my last full week my call handling averages were 15:30 minutes and 16:15 minutes which were not good enough.

I was told that I was being finished that day but would be paid for an additional week in lieu of notice and that would be received at the end of July.

July payroll only paid me up to the last day I was working so I queried this and was told it was an oversight so I would be given another weeks money to cover the notice period. Fortunately I didn’t have to wait until the end of August for this, it was paid into my account yesterday. If the payroll can be run exceptionally for an underpayment when someone has left then why didn’t that happen before when I was underpaid one month? I had to wait until the end of the following month to receive the shortfall.

That’s it for today so I will leave you with a track from the Beatles second last album (recording wise) which was the last album of all new material they will ever release.

Song is from YouTube and, as always, I don’t own the copyright in it. Enjoy and until next time I will just say Shazbat, Nanu nanu.

Until she shook you up Exactly like a firecracker

Forgive me if I ignore the furore surrounding Boris Johnson, I will briefly state why I don’t want to comment on his comments and that is because the guy is as big an idiot as Donald Trump. Everytime he opens his mouth he puts both feet into it. ‘Nuff said.

There is a lot of hatred flying around again, both in the UK and in the USA, this is not doing anyone any good and it makes it nearer for the perpetrators of this hatred to be caught out by their avid followers. I feel no remorse for the perpetrators being caught out in their treason and lies as they brought it on themselves. Anyone who uses a foreign Government to gain power and then tries to cover it up in this day and age is not only an idiot but also guilty of treason when that foreign power is an enemy of the highest order.

Donald Trump knows what he did was against the American Constitution and he weighed up the consequences of using the Russians to gain the White House. Now that this has all come to light he is still trying to deny it was against the American people and therefore treason. The truth is though that he is guilty of colluding with an enemy of the State and should therefore be impeached for his crimes. What he was expecting to happen when the truth came out I don’t know but he has consistently put people in positions of power because they either backed him in colluding with the Russians and Putin or have announced their reluctance to impeach a sitting President.

Putin has been caught illegally providing Russian athletes with prohibited enhancing drugs, killing opponents of his regime no matter where in the world they may have been living. Unfortunately as long as he remains in Russia then he cannot be touched as Russia refuses to hand him over to face trial. He is a criminal and wants to bring down the West, look at his backing of Syria and the regime which will release poison gas on its own citizens to stop them from overthrowing their president. He has bombed hospitals and schools to try and cover up the atrocities he supports openly.

He has marched into countries and annexed the profitable areas to Russia to bolster his wealth and cares not what anyone in the West has to say. He knows that sanctions will not hurt him as he has enough allies abroad to make them ineffective and the people will hurt more than he, and his friends, will. He can use this to rule with an even harsher regime and blame it all on the sanctions imposed by those in the West trying to get him under control and stop the roughshod way he treats those opposed to him.

Trump thinks he is some kind of god the way he helped him to take the White House and use it to bolster his interests and those of his companies. If you look at the nations he has boycotted they have some of the best anti-terror results around but he is unable to do business there. The regimes who welcomed his companies and harbour terrorists are the ones America is still friendly with and has not boycotted. How long before he showed his true colours after coming to the White House? He praises White Supremacists and is trying to take the USA back to the time of segregation, what is he afraid of? The gun lobby has been proven to have used foreign money to back his campaign with most of these funds coming directly from Putin.

Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie and yet some idiots are still blindly following him even after it has been proven time and again that he is a shyster and lies about everything, the man is unwilling to tell the truth and is occupying the office of POTUS so what does that make America? A laughing stock amongst its allies and neighbours. He is set on building a wall to stop Mexicans moving into the US, the ones who have been heading North have been the hard working, honest people trying to escape the cartels power in Mexico. He wants to stop them because they are not white, they don’t speak English and a lot of them don’t vote.

He is using the position he holds to bolster his wealth and stop his companies from going bankrupt again. He watched as Putin did the same thing in Russia and how long will it be until he decides to outlaw free speech when it is against him? I may not agree with the things he (or Boris Johnson) say but I will defend his right to say them. Any road up (as the actress said to the bishop) rant over for another week, and maybe next week he will have crawled into a hole and kept quiet (I doubt it).

Music this week is from a Birmingham England group courtesy of YouTube, I don’t own the copyright but please enjoy it.

Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble

Hello again, I thought it was about time I wrote another missive with a nod to another of the Fabs (after all there were 4 of them) and they were the ones who helped to change attitudes all around the world. For those of you who don’t understand French the heading is translated further on in the lyrics and it reads “These are words which go together well”.

The Fabs (when they were fab (gear)) told us that it is better to love than hate, we all have the capability of loving inside us and we should let that out more. I think some people didn’t pay attention to that and that is why there are still those around who hate everyone (including themselves) and spout their bile everywhere.

However, we don’t have to listen to them and it’s better if we ignore them and go about our day with love in our hearts and a smile on our face. Should we have to meet them then it is better not to fall into the trap of trying conversation, they talk but don’t listen. These are the people it is better to stand up to and let them know you are not intimidated by them (even if you are). They thrive on fear and feed off it to promote their hatred of everyone.

I was reading an interview with someone who toured the US in 1964 with the afore mentioned Beatles and she said that often they were subjected to racism and racist comments but never from the others on the tour. This was not always in the Southern States but never in the most Northern States along the Canadian Border. This shows how little stock the Fabs put in following the normal behaviour patterns. They taught us that, as human beings, we are all equal and equally important.

If we only take one thing away from the past then it should be Love. When you love yourself you can love another, when you are able to love another you can share the love around and love more. I don’t care what the colour of your heart is you can still learn to love and begin with learning to love yourself. Every change has to start with the man in the mirror (a nod to Michael Jackson) if you don’t start with yourself then how can you hope to change anyone else’s attitude?

I love you, my dear reader, whether we have met or you stumbled across this post doesn’t matter, whether you are LGBTQ+, black or white, yellow, brown or red with purple spots you are worthy of love. If you don’t love me that’s fine I don’t expect everyone to love me because that would take a miracle and they don’t come along often. I couldn’t care what you do for a living, whether you are fat or thin, if you believe me or not but this blog is a safe haven for everyone, anyone spouting garbage on here does get blocked and also reported to the site admin team to be removed. If you want to contact me then please do so, I will respond to your comments (even if only to like them) as often as I can.

Todays music, as mentioned above, is a tribute to the penmanship of John Lennon and Paul McCartney (although credited to both I think it was Paul without very much help) as covered by Diana Ross and The Supremes. I don’t own the copyright to this clip but found it on YouTube so please enjoy the music and have a wonderful weekend.