The friendly blackbird

We have in the garden a blackbird which is so tame, courageous or plain stupid that it hops around the garden if your standing there, right up to your shoe showing no fear at all. Its amazing and quite heart warming to see what is quite a fragile creature so sure of its self, even seemingly interested in this bloke standing there.
We have a side to our nature that softens to animals, dogs and cats are a prime example of how we characterise them with a human conscience, we love them therefore they must love us. We identify with them, we talk to them, we feel their pain and yet this transference of our own personality which we often attempt to do on other humans is clearly illusory. The assumptions we continually make as to our connectivity with the world is severely limited, if for no other reason than our grasp of the world around us, including our pets and other humans, is dependant on us and the way we interpret what we see. We judge everything through the filter of our experience so the question of what is real and what is false is academic since one persons take on the subject will differ greatly from another.
Society can only work if there are laws which govern the generality of conduct and these laws will never please everyone, nor be in keeping with the ongoing changes in society as it copes with a changing world.
Nothing is static and as one gets older one is faced with the fact that the norms we lived our lives upon are far less relevant to the present, which, unless we learn new tricks we will find ourselves in danger of becoming irrelevant.   

100 years on the hubris of a few

Its 100 years since Europe erupted into the First World War, when the nations of Europe fell on one another  destroying the social fabric of the contesting nations and heralding the nationalism that that swallowed Germany in Social Nationalism which became the Nazi Party and gave rise to Adolf Hitler.
Pre World War 1 the structure of the most powerful countries was, at their pinnacle, an elite of interconnected rulers who, through birth were conferred patronage and power.There were the traditional enemies and pacts signed between nations, if one nation invaded another then it would bring into the war the other member of the pact. Germany a powerful country born of the amalgamation of successful but independent states, The Austro-Hugerian Empire sitting in the heart of Europe. France with its Napoleonic past felt its importance under valued. Russia an enormous enigma ruled by an aristocracy that was out of touch with any sort of democratic ideals but able to enlist the what seemed an unending supply of men to put into uniform. And on the sidelines Britain, then the manufacturing centre of world trade, immune to some extent from the day to day issues of Europe feeling secure behind a very large and powerful fleet but significantly also tied to a treaty with Belgium.
Europe then was a continent of powerful and sometimes conflicting interests which was always manoeuvring on the diplomatic front and the Balkans, off stage right, became the catalyst for the war drums to start their roll.  


Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro- Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo on the 28th of June 1914 by a young Serbian student which became the precursor for a war to be sought by the Austro-Hungarians against Serbia. This potential conflict drew in, one after another, of the European Nations and, as Germany invaded the Low Countries on its way to invading France, it brought in Britain. 
The result was 4 years of death and destruction, the hell of trench warfare static for months on end, the machine gun and the tank plus the use of mustard gas brought a horrific toll on young men who had volunteered to the 'Nations Call' with little understanding of what they were letting themselves in for or the low probability of ever getting home again.
Millions of lives lost on the Western Front millions more on the Eastern Front and all because the aristocratic leaders could not foresee the impact of the war machine. It is always the case that around tables, in smoke filled rooms the fate of nation can be gambled away on the hubris of a few                       

Ones own set of values

There are few things better than a good old chin-wag (conversation, to those of a younger dispensation) and I have just emerged from one now having spent the last hour chatting to a couple young charity workers collecting for disabled children. Some how the willingness to be open and communicative is sparked by a unseen connection, an assumption that these two people are good people, interesting people who have a story to tell but a story as much about themselves as about the charity they represent. We all should feel the need to find common ground, even if this common ground is based  on quite differing views.
The Seventh Day Adventist is a case in point. Along with people like Mormons they represent a faith based story which they feel is their duty to tell, a story when told to an Atheist like myself means little and could be construed by me as so far fetched that they are indulging in a fairy story. But its not the fairy story that is important its human story behind willingness to spend their day facing rejection and sometimes down right hostility but always with what I presume is understanding. Where do those inner reserves of warmth and humanity come from particularly in a world empty of much care and consideration for others. They act as a contrast to the banal and the crude events we see around us every day. They give one hope that the human capacity for things outside our everyday experience, things which don't immediately impinge on our lifestyle or the god of consumerism, are worthy of our time and that giving a little time, 'we' become the beneficiaries.
The two young people today were doing a job but it seemed to be a job they believed in and so the conversation drifted about between the charities aims and there own aims and background which had drawn them to be sitting on a chair in my house.
From the Ukraine to the Scottish Islands their stories were encouragingly wholesome. One from a society still engaged in venerating the family and generational values, that recognises the importance of experience with its tale to tell. The other brought up, well away from the hurly burly of city life, having to exist in an environment of sparse interconnectivity between people, and yet a people with their feet firmly on the ground, contesting life's daily problems with a good dose of practical common sense in which one had to grow up and evaluate ones own own set of values.

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au          

Shia / Sunni

Who are the Shia, who are the Sunni and why do they hate each other so much that they butcher each other seemingly in the name of the Quran.
Mohamed was a prophet for Islam, much in the way Abraham was to the Jews and Christ was to the Christians.
The problems arose when it came to the succession of Mohamed in 632 AD and the split between Shia, who chose a member of Mohameds blood line, his cousin Ali and the Sunni who chose an elected person according to tribal custom. The term Sunni derives from Ahl-a-Sunnah, meaning people of tradition which denotes the traditional approach to appointing a successor to Mohammed whilst Shia is derived from Shiat Ali, meaning the party of Ali. 
The Sunni Muslims appointed a 'Caliph' as leader who importantly was considered 'just a man' there to maintain law and order, whilst the Shia appointed an 'Imam' who was considered infallible.
In an attempt to unite the two factions Ali was also proclaimed the 4th Caliph bringing both schools of belief together.  On Ali's death, Ali's son, Hussein was not appointed Caliph under the Sunnis, despite being the rightful heir under the Shia and Hussein's death at the hands of the Sunni Umayyad family, in the battle of Karbala, made him a martyr for the Shia cause.
The rest as they say is history but what a bloody history it continues to be. It almost beggars belief that these events 1500 years ago still create the fervour, the passion for so much enmity, such feelings of vengeance.
Its perhaps one of the inherent problems of 'faith', Problems become nearly unresolvable because of the intensity of belief which in its self excludes compromise, there is no right and wrong, only them and us !!!  

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Trial by jury

It has been a corner stone of the justice system that a trial in which a mix of ones fellow citizens decide, after listening to all the argument and seeing all the evidence, whether a person is guilty or innocent, the jury system is deemed the most trustworthy method .
When the jury begins their stint of sitting through a trial, its the end of a process that begins with the police gathering evidence.  Having decided there is a case to answer they submit their findings to the Public Prosecutor who having gone over the evidence in detail calls for a trial date to be set.
Its hard to imagine that professionals, such as the police and the legal experts in the Prosecutors Office can get it wrong. The case is built on evidence, not here-say and one must presume that there is evidence of wrong doing, otherwise no one in their right minds would risk the criticism if they were to get it wrong. Procedure is important,  known criminals have got off on a technicality, perhaps in the charge office in the police station when something that should have been made clear wasn't and the case is thrown out when it comes to court.
The Law is an ass, at least to the ordinary person in the street it is, when clever barristers pick apart the meaning behind the meaning, challenging witnesses to remember what had happened possibly months before and then alight on some tiny discrepancy which they purport to cast doubt on everything the witness has said or observed.
Its a game of semantics in which the skill of casting doubt is the aim, irrespective of the character or the previous convictions of the accused. A good defence barrister is worth his weight in gold and his services are not cheep. No wonder the justice is often tempered when the rich and the powerful have at their resource the best legal team in the land the defence barrister plays the jury, often extracting a 'not guilty' decision when common sense confirms that there is never smoke without fire.
Rebekah Brooks the editor of the News of the World, and her husband Charley Brooks,  have just received not guilty verdicts on all 6 charges brought against them whilst Andy Coulson her deputy has been found guilty. She the darling of Rupert Murdock and he an old school chum of David Cameron and close neighbours of the Prime Minister could call on the best when it came to representation. Andy Coulson was in a different league. Editor and Deputy Editor, cheek by jowl in the business of running the same paper, lovers to boot and yet he knew about the phone hacking (the charge for which they were accused) and she didn't, or so the jury have concluded. As with virtually all things in life money talks loudest !!!                    

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/          

More susceptible these days

As I walk along the river bank the air is full of pollen, gad fly's flit across the surface of the water and the duck family paddles up stream.The rivers edge is covered in rich greenery, little nooks and crannies exist for those who live alongside the river bank providing some security from predators. One is always reminded of Wind in the Willows a beautiful humanisation of some of the river folk and how security was as crucial as the worry about the antics of Toad
The worry I have is the pollen, a hidden scourge if you suffer from hay fever as I do. 
I never had a problem when I was overseas perhaps a reflection on how rich the environment is over here in so far as the natural habitat is concerned with so many wild flowers in the hedge row. The antigens that fill the air are annoying causing a host of irritating side effects from excessive mucus to chronic air restriction at night with laboured breathing. It seems as if people are becoming more sensitive to the quality (or lack of) of the air and one wonders why since we have taken huge strides in cleaning the atmosphere generally.
Growing up we were often confronted with pea soup fogs so thick you couldn't see a hand in front of your face, smoking in pubs and on buses, coal fires in the home everywhere antigens galore and yet hay fever was a rarity. Now a days the chemists are full of anti-allergy concoctions for people to swallow and spray each morning along with brushing their teeth to keep the lurgy at bay. Has something happened to weaken our immune system,  perhaps vehicle pollution, mobile phone radiation, stress, who knows but we are different and more susceptible these days.

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/

A path to follow

Its odd as you get older how the perspective of hindsight makes sense. Much of our lives plays out according to chance with very little focused planning to it. One might pursue education as a route to somewhere but few of us have an innate desire to be something specific. The environment we grow up in plays its part, the type of work ones father or mother did or their friends did, influenced us but didn't answer the question, if it was asked 

"what are you going to do when you leave school" ?
This I think was more the case for those growing up in what we would term the 'working class household' than those from a middle class background where the path into a profession was much more on every ones mind. Some of course would follow their father into the family business and their fate was sealed at an early age but for the vast majority what you would choose to do in your life was a lottery and of course the word 'choose' has connotations which were not available to the many.
Work was a 'job', a job was a way to earn a wage and a wage was the passport to doing the things we really enjoyed. Enjoyment then fell outside of the job, there was little satisfaction in doing something over which there were few career opportunities, in fact the concept of a career was alien to us and we simply turned up for work each day with an eye on the clock for us to escape to do the things we enjoyed doing.
Its no wonder that amongst the working class their are few reunions to bind us to that formative period of school and whist as I write I wonder about the class of 1954 (many of them pushing up the daisies) there is no alumni to call on and have dinner with.
This clearly formed in my mind my own exclusiveness a loners protective shield which took events as they were played out and made the best of the hand offered. A lack of direction is a prescription to fail or so my wife often told me but in all honesty a plan never formed in my mind and I was happy to be as successful in my limited concept of what being successful meant. Money or prestige were never my goals, respect yes, friendship yes, loyalty yes but these were seen as humanitarian traits which I expected across the board, a simple contribution, one human being to another.        

Abnormal disparity has become the norm

The sight of Mrs Rooney passing through Brazilian Customs with 15 huge suitcases as she joins her husband in soccer's  World Cup Tournament for at best a fortnights stay, as it has turned out, less than a week, as England head home for an early bath one is struck by the horrendous disparity between we the ordinary people and the 'celebratory'.  Gross is the word we used to describe the over the top show of wealth, Mrs Marcos' and her thousands of shoes, come to mind and its this showee extravagance we seem enthralled by.
You have to turn to the none domestic stations, (the local domestic brand whose job it seems is to pacify the populous at large), to see the protests in many European countries. The decades old collaboration the media have with the Establishment prevents us from seeing much of the fight back the peoples of Spain and Greece are waging against the bloated disparity that has occurred in those countries because of the collapse of the banking system and the need to punish, not the banks but the ordinary person in the street.
When Wayne Rooney pockets £300.000 per week we have to put this in context. A person on an average wage £24.960 would have to work 12 years to earn one weeks pay in the Rooney household. If you earned the minimum wage, which many do you would have to work for 20 years to earn what Rooney earns in a week.
I won't venture into the 'no pay', to gain job experience scandal or the bedroom tax applied to people on Benefits, the continual outcry in the media about Benefit scroungers, the TV programs highlighting the fat, loud, unhealthy, multiple children owning families with their aggressive .This is the ongoing media trend to denigrate the poor, under educated, ill equipped beneficiaries of a bloated Welfare State, a concept hijacked by the middle class do gooders who would rather give handouts than insist on proper governance to educate everyone to play their part in a properly financed business investment culture, where proper export led jobs are the objective.        

To reason for ourselves

"I am" is a statement of fact, but then one has to ask the question, is the 'I' a true reflection of me as an individual ?
We are fashioned out of the genetic soup that started at the moment of conception, we were effected by the experience we had in the womb and even perhaps during the shock of child birth. Our environment when growing up was important but more important was our mental capacity to absorb what there was to learn. Whether we were susceptible or whether we were withdrawn from the effects of so much information, we were creating our own self image of who we were in relation the people around us.
The fabric of western society, or any society which is an artificially manipulated, will become part of our own manipulated sense of how we see life and how we try to position ourselves in terms of the artefact we call life and the living we do within it.
By far the majority of people unwaveringly accept life and the events that form their existence without much question. How can one complain about who we have become without first attempting to recognise who we are as an individual.
If we see ourselves as a crowd, one of many, its no wonder we absorb the values of the crowd. Our innate ability to reason and find our own platform to cope with events is damaged if we don't take the time or make the effort to reason for ourselves.            

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/

Multiculturalism / Islamic Jihad

As ISIS the Islamic Jihad movement progress through Iraq and America tries to come to terms with what it can do and what it can afford to do, we have to start to question whether the aim of exporting democracy throughout the world is in any way viable in certain regions.
World peace is not really sustained by intervention and only creates enmity. Of course there is the powerful lobby of financial interest in certain areas of the world as well as resource issues and much of the interventionist motivation comes from this lobby, (Halliburton and their ilk).
What would happen if we drew back within our range of genuine influence and allowed the parts that have very divergent views to ours to go their own way. It would mean that within these boarders dictatorships would form. Vastly differing concepts of right and wrong and the punishments meted out to minorities will have to be ignored and placed under the banner of culture. Perhaps we will have to avert our eyes and minimise reporting from these areas, much as it was in the past, before 24 hour tv, when the evils in the world were someone else's business.
Homogenising people and wishing for everyone to be Politically Correct and Risk Averse is crazy and we should limit our grievances to what we can achieve.
If areas such as the Middle East and Pakistan wish to be left alone then perhaps we should do so but then, it is incumbent on all people from those regions whether they claim to be British or not that they must fall in line with our English based culture and if not, forgo any right to live here. They have a choice and it is not one of being say, a  person from Pakistan living in England but importing every cultural norm into their life here, they must become fully assimilated will all aspects of being British including dropping any pretension to importing their own culture and laws (Shari).
There should be no place for extremism dressed in cultural clothing.
If I wish to live in China I have to accept their laws and norms, if I live in Russia the same, the Islamic States the same and yet we seem to think we can absorb every ones culture and somehow the result will be a strengthening of our own culture.
The only result of this dream has been "resentment" by virtually everyone as people see their own values superseded usually by a minority view in an effort to 'placate', 'appease', and 'pacify'.
As in education, the concept that rubbing people together to produce a better person has been shown to largely have failed as our position on the worlds league table indicates. The average outcome has been a lowering of standards as we placate the under achievers with poor expectations and bring down the concept of high achievement in an attempt to square the circle.
If we can't decide what "we" stand for (ignoring the liberal clammer to explain who the "we" is.) then we are lost. Our leaders are safe in their Establishment Silos, their Public Schools, their Old Boy network, their fenced and guarded properties whilst we have been left to bear the brunt of the grand experiment - Multiculturalism.              

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Squaring the circle

The cause of history is not well served by events that happen when we are not looking. Iraq is a case in point.
After the deposing of Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical hold over his people we started the experiment of democratising the country by initially disbanding the Bathe Party and the internal security forces to create a new untainted political arrangement in which the ballot box would chose the political dispensation. Unfortunately the society was not a balanced mature collection of voices but rather a religiously bias, between the majority Shia and the previous Hussein controlling minority Sunni group. With over 50% of the population being Shia and having been, sometimes brutally oppressed by the Sunni it is no wonder that on assuming democratic power the Shia had some scores to settle. The government of President Maliki backed by the Americans were sowing the seed for today's bitter civil war highlighted by the atrocity of the executions carried out yesterday by ISIS the extreme Islamic Jahidist Group. 

So now we wake up to another crisis, of an extremest Islamic State right in the centre of a fundamentally unstable area with, on its potential success, a draw card for many disenfranchised people to become affiliated with spreading the gospel, as it were, right to our own shores when young people go, from here to fight to ensure their religious bias and come home radicalised with a taste for blood.
Democracy is an ideal, as is 'minority rights' and whilst we in the West work ever harder to square the circle some older regimes prefer the circle to remain a circle.        

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/

Common values

As always, a source of mental liberation 'The Big Question' merits another mention.
The thorny problem of the indoctrination of our children at school was a topic drawn from the revelation that a number of Muslim schools in Birmingham had moved away from the national curriculum to preach values more in line with Muslim values. The question arises should the State allow any sort of deviance in what we teach, or should we all be singing from the same hymn book, (sorry for the pun).
There has been a sea change in our society over the last 20 years as we have tried to absorb people from many cultures and different opinions. Liberal to a fault we bend over backwards in acknowledging the 'others' point of view and have, in the interim become confused about our own values and whether we have the right to offer a view point if it might clash with someone else. We are the acknowledged worlds leaders in obfuscation and have lost our way in standing for specific values in fear of upsetting someone.
Our society is based on the Magna Carta, which its self was based on law and the importance of yielding to law in our everyday affairs. The law of the land was supposed to pertain to everyone and was the constituency for us all to be identified as a nation of people with common values.  
We have now  entered a period where we are asked to bend our concept of of what we feel intrinsically to be right or wrong and to try to accommodate cultural variances as if they were are own, when clearly they are not.
Multiculturalism is a political concept drawn from a need to bend and formulate structures to obtain a political end irrespective of local dissatisfaction. Politicians have ridden roughshod over the 'general consensus' for generations in the 'we know best' syndrome and the financial incentive which lies behind most of the decisions.
Much like the disastrous attempt by the Establishment of the day to draw arbitrary boundaries, particularly in the Middle East, without consulting the people who's lives were effected by the new but wholly 'contrived' nationalities, we have now in our attempt to impose another liberal concept, 'democracy' on these people awakened their dislike of the straight jacket a national boundary brings especially the trumped up concept of nationhood if founded on anything other than common values.

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Two nations

We are strange nation. On the one hand we have this obsession with football, well at least a fairly large section of the public do whilst, on the other we collect to watch the Trooping of the Colour in which the pomp and circumstance of another era are on display. Two worlds, far apart each with there adherents who probably have little in common and wish to keep it so. As a child I was brought up on the pageantry it meant something special something symbolic about our nationhood and we were proud watching the Guards Regiments in their fine tunics and outrageous hats, parade about the ground doing complicated drill movements to the orders of the Regimental Sargent Major, a man on whom the Regiment pivoted in terms of discipline. 


This is a 'word'(discipline) almost unknown on the football field where the testosterone filled ranks of horrendously overpaid young men are are in action. They, also drilled to perform but who, when things go wrong display the worst sort of petulance and gutter language to the Sargent Major, better known as the referee. Tonight is the first match that England play and one hopes they have a little more luck than their rugby counterparts who came within a single point of matching mighty New Zealand. 
Worlds apart in virtually every aspect society shows how diverse we are and reminds one of the folly of issuing opinions regarding some imaginary collective when describing a nation.         

I knew you'd come

I boarded the aircraft. The call had come two days before. He's died, the funeral will be on Wednesday. Such are the perfunctory actions that herald the end of a persons life, a person who had been as large as life its self but who had succumbed to alzheimer's two years before.  A big man in every sense of the word particularly in his environment, a person who carried some weight amongst his family and friends. A smoker and a man who enjoyed a beer in his own home we had come together by chance as I hitch hiked back in 1962. I was 22 and for what ever reason his family and I struck a cord and we became friends for 50 years.
Now his wife made the call to me and I caught a flight to Amsterdam to attend the funeral. Schiphol airport is not far from the crematorium where the service was due to be held and I caught a taxi. Arriving a little before the others one was struck by the conformity of these places, the crematorium through which we pass on our final journey. Neat and tidy they are functional like a station, the train now leaving from platform 7 is Kees Schlagheck hurry along we don't have time to dawdle since there is another function in three-quarters of an hour !
Lilly his wife looked tired, her grey hair accentuating her age as she arrived with their only child, their daughter a strong opinionated young woman who I had always liked and enjoyed her company. They saw me standing there and the emotions welled up as we hugged are hello's. "I knew you'd come", she said "I knew you'd come".
And so the service passed much as in England, the hymn, the eulogy and then it was done our friend now only a memory, was passed to another's care for a a function on which we would rather not dwell.  We climbed into cars to head off for the short journey to the house for food, drink and a conversation that was more about the future than the passing of a friend. The Dutch are a lovely straightforward people, able in a number of languages to make this tongue tide Englishman feel at home and then, after more farewells ensured I was back at the Schiphol in plenty of time for my flight home.        

A murky world

The murky world of Northern Island politics is revealed in an examination by a committee of Westminster and Irish politicians examining the amazing issue of letters, to people on the run from the police for serious crimes committed during the time of "the troubles", (as the virtual civil war which occurred between Sinn Fain and the British Government was termed). Letters were sent to these men, many of who were fugitives from the law giving them release from prosecution. There had been many victims (cold blooded murders) and the people who were responsible, largely from Sinn Fain who had negotiated their position both through the barrel of a gun/explosive devices/ blowing the knee caps off from people who were seen as the enemy and a reign of terror that shrunk Northern Island into a Kafkaesque state.
The rule of Law was bent to such an extent that violent criminals were let off from crimes because of the political need to find a solution to the "troubles" where Sinn Fain were to be an important member of any future government.
Of course initially the hand of Tony Blair and his government in Westminster were all over the issue, as has David Cameron since and one has to ask how many more instances to history, will Tony Blair be involved in underhand dealings which would, in normal circumstances be argued, outside normal parliamentary business, particularly the question of the ethics one suggests should attach to a Head of State. The Impeachment of 'Tricky Dicky', Richard Nixon for lying to Congress about the Watergate break in was pale in comparison to the misuse of power not only in the above Northern Island case but also, famously in our entry into the Iraq War and the false presentation of 'security information' to the British Parliament.
Much as he flaunted his duty as Prime Minister he flaunts his charisma all over the world, its measure of our collective inability to use our own judgement when people queue up to pay large donations to listen to more lies !!  

The Outsider

The sun is out again today, I should have left the home to go out and explore the highways and byways but, instead I still sit and stare out of the window, which explains how I came about the information.
The world outside used to be a place I wanted to be part of, particularly, to be amongst people to talk to and discuss whatever comes up between people. I was as far from being a recluse as was possible and even now when I force myself to get out I usually enjoy myself particularly in a conversation with like minded folk.
But there has been a sea change over the last few years. Perhaps its an ageing thing since people, as they get old have a propensity to begin to feel outside the ring, as it were, since we are no longer part of the economically active society with its active agenda and its sense of the importance of tomorrow. When one gets older and move outside the close circle of relatives and friends one becomes concious of the surroundings and the casual nature of ones conversational event which,  unlike the communication we were previously used to in the office and home is a somewhat lonely event. The moment is enjoyable but like a ride on the funfair it is soon over and requires more effort to reconstruct another high.
The backgrounds or the opinions of these casual interactions lead one to be fleet footed if not a little chameleon as one contends the discussion and banter that flows around the group. The effort is fun if you enjoy debate but one knows that your presence is inconsequential and one that has no substance.
Colin Wilson wrote a book about the 'Outsider' and examined a list of famous writers Kafka, Camus, Hemingway,Nietzsche, Dostoevsky all of whom were Outsiders, people who thrust themselves to the outside of the ring to look in to consider society and their position relative to the society they lived in.
To be introspective has its dangers of course, one can become lost in asking questions that are best left unanswered or at least confused about ones own personality but then for anything worth having, one has to put in the work to pose the question and find answers about ourselves that can be enriching and rewarding.
Sitting indoors and not bothering to engage in a social entertainment is a wholly different but equally rewarding 'passage of time' since that is what we do when we are no longer engaged in the engine of commerce.                 

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/          

D day

The day was bright the cloudless sky brought out the sharp contrast between the rememberers and the remembered, the young and the old, the people who had benefited from 70 years of peace and the old solderers who had helped make that peace possible. Truly on their last legs these late 80 early 90 year old men were probably celebrating and commiserating their last rally with their comrades before their own personal last post is played.
Its hard for us who have never known the threat of war on our doorstep to imagine the emotions of that time. The German war machine was thought to be too powerful for any other European nation and it was only the devastating events on the Russian front and the incoming freshly equipped Americans that sealed the Germans fate.
The people on this island were in poor shape even leading up to the outbreak of the war and in this the leadership of Churchill, his rhetoric, broadcast to the nation, a nation of people who were more inclined to accept leadership and believe what their leaders said was important.
The bombing including thousands of V1 and V11 rocket powered missiles on targeted cities, brought death and destruction to ordinary men women and children, the equal of that experienced by the solderers and of course there were the terrible casualties amongst civilians on the Eastern Front running into many, many millions. Sadly we have no memorial to them.            

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/          

'Untold Stories'

I'm often banging on about books and the rich incisive effect they can have on us.
It might be the subject matter, something or somewhere we have been, the writers style is important, not too flowery but sufficiently brisk  to keep the story flowing and, most of all, written in a way that is believable.
Fiction, as the name implies draws us in to a made up world of character development. We become engrossed in what happens next, the reality links such as where the action is taking place, being real and known, it enhances our belief in the plot.   
Autobiographical books lean on the subtle connections we make with the authors life of his/her revelations about events in their lives which in some way mirror ones own. I have been rereading Alan Bennett's 'Untold Stories'. The book is a delight. Coming from Yorkshire I love the droll way he uses colloquialisms that are engrained in my memory and which give so much grounding to his description of people and places. The CDs,  his soliloquy of characters and situations which ordinary people come up against in  life's journey are brilliant and for me are enhanced by the slow unfurling of the story told in the rather sad flat vowel accent which is his genuine way of speaking. The stories have a basis, the authors past and it is in this book 'Untold Stories' that we explore his childhood, his relationships and most of all the effect his family, his mother and father had on him. His parents shy and withdrawn when outside the comfort zone of their home lived a constrained existences unable to come to terms with society at large as it mutated away from the values they thought proper, his mother becomes fixated and paranoid suffering long bouts of depression taking turns in various mental hospitals in an attempt  to bring her back on an even keel. His father diligent to a fault in his duty, unable to make any headway with his wife but resolute in his love and affection. Bennett tells the story from the position of a son who has nurtured the same demons, of feeling out of kilter with society at large when a boy but had had great success in London's theatre land and was at a loss to cope in any meaningful way with the real life drama being played out by his Mom and Dad in Yorkshire.
Books are a mirror to our own lives and we see so much of ourselves in the writings of others !!                

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/

A perilous enterprise

I was listening yesterday to some minor celebrity who had gained the wrath of the feminist church for reminding women that they should focus more on the bodies ability to bear children.  That the fertility clock was ticking against them if they left it too late because of postponing,  for a whole raft of reasons not least the woman's need to put in the years as she attempts to rise in the world of  business. In the subsequent panel discussions there were many women who were quite strident about the importance of their role as careerer people and their right to be respected for their decision. The question of maternal instincts was obviously argued and here somehow the men got a bit of a bashing for not supporting their women in this business of having children whilst at the same time enabling the women to follow their career path.
Of course they had a point and one often hears of of the house husband who takes on the job of looking after the children whilst mummy is out earning the bread. In the ghastly world of equality for equalities sake where structure is torn down on the alter of political correctness and nurture becomes little more than a function which can be carried out by a surrogate, we are asked to believe that there is no difference between the male and the female and either is suited.
The question of marriage and the roles men and women play in the contract has veered a long way from what it was 50 years ago. The confusion this brings to gender identification has been one of the damaging effects that modern society is now struggling with and it seems to me there are no winners in the present set up. Tradition still plays a huge part in our lives and we are largely what are culture teaches us. It is not to say that the traditional view is always right but tradition usually comes about through a process of trial and error where society forms rules of conduct based on the need to modify our actions for the good of the whole. Marriage was just one of these social developments that came into being to protect the participants, the husband as bread winner, the wife as a mother, and the child. The protection given to the mother was particularly important since in her primary role of giving birth and raising the next generation she was vulnerable.
It seems that this concept of motherhood as a gender specific function doesn't sit easily in today's 'have it all' brand of feminism and men whose own concept of gender positioning has been radically altered by the lack of the sort of work which the more powerful sex used to perform, the work in the factories for instance. The blurring of who is the bread winner has cast a shadow over many and we have yet to resolve the issue since civilised society won't accept the law of the jungle. 
Mentioning Law. There is of course a great deal of acrimony in the break up of marriage where tradition seems to take hold again and women are respected for their supposed frailty and, in need of societies protection.
If men were to consider their position when marrying the love of his life, (men marry for love, women for security) in that his home and the children he has come to love (in no less a way than his wife), are at the whim of his wife temper which is often bruised when a marriage comes to an end. He might think twice before engaging virtually the whole of his adult life in such a perilous enterprise.            

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/          

New blood, new ideas

As Black Rod strides down the corridor of the House of Lords into the hall that separates the Lords from the Commons. He pauses at the door of the Commons which is slammed shut in his face as part of the ceremony to remind the crown that they have no regal right to enter the Commons. The style of the clothes that are worn by the officials date back over the centuries which on the one hand seem bright and exuberant, a display of old fashioned pomp to identify the establishment from the ordinary man in the street. As a sceptic of the tiered nature of our society I find it all some -what anachronistic and out of keeping with a modern country but accept that as theatre it has its place and has no equal anywhere else in the world.
From the Queen (88), for whom this ceremony is her 61st and the Duke in his 91st year they are a remarkable couple by any measure. From the moment the royal coach sets off from Buckingham Palace to trot slowly down the Mall to the Houses of Parliament the audience, us the people are held back to show our respect for an historic set up that was never elected by the people but fostered on us by force of arms and century's of intrigue. One has to ask the question is this pageantry with its links to the past appropriate or should we project a more modern image and shift our gaze from our past. Perhaps ditching all this pomp and circumstance would be the first stage to breaking the grip of the establishment on our way of life since the production line of opportunity that begins in the private schools and feeds the civil service and the boardrooms with a certain way of thinking, from an environment closed to new blood, new ideas and wider experience.