2011 my final thoughts

Well I know I've not been blogging too much recently due to pressure of work so I thought I'd take some time this evening to look back over 2011 and leave you with a few final thoughts,

Firstly I am really shocked about what I read this morning about the abandonment of Liverpool in the 1980's. I was there in the 80's it was my first University and it was without a doubt the time that formed the person who I am today. I met and debated with both Degsy and Ted Heath alike, Austin Mitchel and Matthew Paris were debating there and it was the only student union that was picketed during the miners strike. It was then and is now an incredible place. One week at Anfield the next at Goodison. Liverpool was the city. Music, sport and comedy all came to banish the pain and misery that Yosser was suffering. And I feel ashamed that our so called leaders would have ever thought seriously about abandoning this wonderful place to managed decline. Yes it was a tough city, yes it was in a sad state but I have never found anywhere to compare to a place where compassion and friendship were offered as being part of the normal currency of life. It still is my spiritual home and my heart will always lie there. Gerry you just don't know how true your words were.

This world that we live in has the ability to be so much better. If the financial meltdown has taught us anything it should have taught us that the person next door needs our hand of support and that love is far better than hate.

I am in two minds about 2011. Personally it has been a difficult time for me on several fronts however professionally it has seen me start to move to the next level, particularly with my public image, having appeared in several media debates and programmes connected with alcohol. I think 2012 has the ability to be a much better year though and I look forward to the challenges that it brings.

Whatever has happened to you over the last twelve months and for whatever you hope to happen over the next twelve months I sincerely wish you all that you desire. Whatever you do though remember that love is what makes the world go round, not hate and remember however you do what you seek to do Do it with passion and live life to the full with hope in your heart. 

Happy New Year to all of you.

A day older a lifetime wiser

Well yesterday was my birthday and that makes me a day and ultimately a year older. Yet from all of that I am a lifetime wiser.

I have learned that happiness comes from inside

I have learned that n matter how much you yearn for love that you must love yourself first before you can share with another person,

I have learned that knowledge is an accumulation of a series of irrelevant opinions based around a common agreement and that ultimately the only thing that really matters is self honesty and integrity.

Are there things that I long for? Yes,

Are there wishes that I want to come true? Yes

Will I work to make it happen? Absolutely with all that I am.

Will I succeed? I don't know but what I do know is that if I do not start my journey with that single step then I can never hope to accomplish my marathon.

In every way, everyday I shall work to make this a better place to live in, to make my children proud of me and seek out the truth of love, life and it's true meaning.

When is a road not a road?

Now this blogger is really upset at what he heard on Friday of this week. Unfortunately due to the nature of being snowed under before Christmas this is the first chance I've had to blog about it.

Bristol Temple Meads Station was Brunel's great auditorium for his great railway. It is now it would appear the centre of a brewing storm between two fundamental arms of the public transport system. in the red corner we have the railway in the shape of First Great Western, in the blue corner we have the hard working hackney cab drivers of the Bristol Area. (blue is appropriate because all Bristol Hackney cabs are now blue in Bristol)

The problem, well First Great Western now want to make all vehicles that enter the station have a permit to drive onto the station front. Is this for security I ask you? No it's for profit. And it includes the Bristol Hackney drivers who operate from a public stand on the station front.

This is plainly ridiculous for several reasons.

1. Bristol Temple Meads is a Public Transport hub, in other words it is a place where you can move from one form of Public Transport to another. It is not a private transport hub and unless the directors of First Great Western have somehow instigated a coup ousting the present government then it will remain a Public Transport system in the United Kingdom. This means First Group are required to provide a service to the public.

2. The taxi rank is a Public taxi rank as defined by the law. This means that Hackney cab drivers have an absolute right to use that rank without hindrance or charge as they pay for their plate via the local council. So First Great Western by trying to charge for this are in fact seeking to break the law.

3. If the taxis are forced away from Temple Meads then they will start to use the A4 or Temple Back to pick up customers causing extra congestion around what is already a very congested part of the city, particularly at rush hour.

4 Customers will be almost forced to use First Bus 8 or 9 from the station, an unreliable service owned by First Group. This is effectively making first Group act as a cartel which in this humble blogger's opinion is contrary to competition and definitely not within the public interest.

5. Should the charge be levied upon the Hackney Drivers then ultimately that charge will be passed on to users who already suffer on of the highest taxi charges anywhere in the United Kingdom because of current legislation.

So essentially First Great Western and First Group are seeking to turn Public Transport into private transport by the back door.

Brunel was a businessman yes, however he was also a visionary and was passionate about allowing the public to move around our great land. However it would seem that the modern day sharks that follow in his path are more concerned about making profit over the commitment to public duty.

We need to support the taxi drivers in their campaign because if not it would be like that Chamberlain moment all over again and we know what happened when he sought appeasement.  

A little flower, with such a powerful meaning

This week is brings us the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month of the 11th year. In terms of Remembrance Days you don't get a more incredible one.

To me Remembrance Day is just that. A time for reflection. It is not a political day of any kind it is a day when we recognise the ultimate sacrifice given by so many, on all sides of a conflict. To go to war is horrific, to not come home to loved ones is worse.

Sure politicians decide upon the wars but soldiers merely act upon their orders. I don't know if I could have coped in going over the top at Ypres, or The Somme. Or how I would have coped when faced with the scene at places such as Buchenwald,Treblinka or Auschwitz. I can only imagine what it must be like right now for troops in Afghanistan as they settle in for another bleak winter. What I do know though is that if we forget what these brave men, women and animals do and have done then we cheapen their sacrifice.

I have listened to many a debate about democracy and political system and believe strongly that the reason we can have this debate in the comfort of our living rooms, pubs or cafes is because somewhere someone stood up and said I will guard you at night.

I do not agree with many of the radical views expressed about our world today on all sides yet I will say this:

I will fight with everything that I have, to my dying breath, to defend those who would speak their views however abhorrent to me they may be,  for that is what true democracy is. A right to freedom of speech and thought.A right to have your voice heard!

And so I wear my poppy with pride and humbleness to honour all those who have fallen to defend what they believe in. I will remember them with pride, I will as the sun goes down think of those who have risen to a place beyond us in the name of us and I will say

I SHALL NOT FORGET

Al Capone's back

Having just watched the ITV program exposure I actually feel like in the words of the famous song suicide is painless and that death is something that may bring relief.

I sit and look at my 10 year old son and I think of all the nasty horrible things that await him on his journey through life. I wonder how we as a so called civilised society can allow people like Mr Boast from Rossendales to have jobs? And I look at the well practiced Bambi eyes of the owner of the company and think to myself are we really taken in by such fawning?

Milgram was right without a doubt, people are compliant with perceived authority to the point of being sheep. In fact so much so that when a war memorial is desecrated, because the thieves want the plaques for metal, the strongest response is a Gaelic shrug of the shoulders.


If we genuinely believe that we are a civilised society then it is about time we grew up and acted like one in helping others before we help ourselves.

All it takes for evil to succeed is for one good man not to stand up!

And by not standing up Al Capone has surely risen.

Dicken's to them all

Bleak House could have been no more bleaker, Scrooge no more meaner and David Copperfield no more naive.

Why talk of these things? Well I am concerned that we are heading back to the Victorian era, The workhouse is likely to be reinvented if the current government is looking at New York's grand welfare plan. And kid yourself not for if the safeguards surrounding employment law are removed allowing employers to sack employees for no reason then we will find ourselves there very quickly.

I know lets just shoot people instead, No I'm not being serious but I am seriously starting to feel like I am in Germany in 1933, not Britain in 2012

A Father's Fear

The last thing any father wants to think of is that one of their children has been injured or even worse.

This week has been very difficult on that front. Firstly I have been suffering from a chest infection that has gone from bad to worse to debilitating. Secondly my youngest son from my marriage whilst with his College in Bulgaria on a cultural visit was attacked by some local on the bus. His tutor was also attacked as were several others.

Tonight I received a telephone call from my daughter who is living in London on her placement year from University and working for the BBC in PR. She and her flatmate were being besieged, yes you read correctly by a drug and alcohol fuelled next door neighbour intent on breaking down the door to their flat and doing God knows what. All I have had is visions of the Vincent Tabac story coming to haunt my own doorstep except this time it wasn't a Portuguese person but an Hungarian named Adam.

They called the Police who took an age to respond, I could hear the smashing on the door by this lunatic hell bent on entry. I called the police. They took me seriously the first time but it still didn't speed things up. They told him off, they went, he started again as soon as they left. They called the police again, they even did 999 and still it was a good 25 minutes before the boys from the Met turned up. Did they arrest this man, no why? Because there is an external door which he was inside of as it was a block of flats.

Well the TV licence people treat each flat as a separate residence and everyone pays separate Council Tax Bills so why didn't they arrest him?

And when I rang the Metropolitan Police Control room I was met by the corporate speak of Communications Officer Dunn who really didn't seem to appreciate that being over a hundred miles away from my daughter I was more than concerned. I wasn't allowed to speak to her superior in the control room because she has no superior in the control room. And she wouldn't put me through to a desk officer at the nearest Police Station so that I could find out exactly what was going on. When I said to her this was now an official complaint she said someone would be back to me in due course. I asked her would that be after my daughter was dead!

This is an utter joke how the corporate system of supposedly the world's oldest and finest Police Force is now run. Plastic Policing? Not even third rate nylon Policing.

My daughter has the right to enjoy her safety. That right was clearly violated. I have a right to talk to a police officer if I am in distress that right was clearly violated. Have I filled out the complaint form of the Met? Yes. Do I expect anything other than chaff? Well I would like to think I'd get solid answers but my heart feels heavy as I say probably not.

I have to ask seriously are the Metropolitan Police so understaffed or badly equipped or trained that they have to wait for my daughter to end up in hospital, or worse before they will actually do something other than tell someone he's a naughty boy? I demand answers, I deserve answers but more importantly every citizen of the United Kingdom deserves answers as to why the Police are more bothered about corporate communications than real people? 

Inspire Me!

I was watching the Tonight programme about lack of discipline in schools and I found it incredible that the way that Micheal Gove and Co. want to go about schooling children is akin to going back to Victorian standards. Now I know the Education Secretary was keen to point out that there should be no use of force in a method of punishment but some people will just not understand the fine line between restraint in terms of prevention and/or punishment.

I went to a tough school. High in ethnicity it would have been a ghetto school if it had been in Queens or The Bronx. But it was a great school. It was great because of the inspirational teachers that I had. And because of the inspirational teachers we had we learned to work through our differences. Sure there was conflict but at the end of the day the teachers that inspired us needed no discipline because we wanted to learn, the teachers that were just drawing their pay check ended up with nervous breakdowns.

And to be honest that's kind of how it should be. If you go into teaching you do so because you have a desire to influence the next generations and therefor the way in which the world evolves. If you cannot inspire people or hold their attention then you are in the wrong job and to be quite frank and brutal there are a lot of teachers out there that are in the wrong job.

Teaching is tough and therefor you need tough people. I know I have worked with so many people that society has given up on that I have lost count. But I didn't give up on them because I genuinely believe that everybody brings something to the party.

We all have our unique sets of skills and talents that without those this world would be a far duller place!

The trick is to get those people out of their shells. I have successfully taught neurophysiology and advanced psychology to people who can barely read or write but because I have used that psychology I have taught them in a way that they can understand, relate to and reproduce when on their own.

Teaching is an advanced skill which sadly many teachers do not possess. Outrage I hear you say. Nonsense say I. Ask this question:

How many teachers joined the profession because their academic skills were not good enough to get another job elsewhere? And how many really joined because they were drawn to the profession?

And how many will tell the truth!

Teaching is a key skill and not enough teachers have it. Let us train our teachers better and let us seek to educate not seek to brainwash

Feed Me!

So the Care Quality Commission published findings today that showed that care for the elderly in UK hospitals is bordering on the dangerous and is illegal in some places.

Is this surprising?

Are we really going to do anything about it?

No on  both counts. It is not surprising in any shape or form except maybe how long it has taken for people to wake up to this. No we are not really going to do much about it due to an apathy and ambivalence to the needs of the people.

Growing up as a child I was wowed by stories of how my relations had fought for this country against the tyranny and evil that was Adolf Hitler. I was then wowed by how the world changed post war in a radical new plan called the welfare state. I really believed that we in the United Kingdom really were leading the world.

The problem was the politicians forgot to plan for the future and then started playing ping pong with it. We allowed big business to ransack the NHS and Politicians to castrate the desire to succeed. And now there are more chiefs than Indians.

But it's not just hospitals. Care in the home is equally as despicable with care companies putting intolerable pressure on their staff who in turn cut corners for little reward. I know a carer who will travel 20 miles to work for 30 minutes to be paid £3 for doing so at 9pm. The companies make massive profits but the quality of care is questionable.

According to a survey recently we are a polite society. I think that this is nonsense and I wonder if we are even a first world society anymore. I really wonder if we care about anyone if they get in our way or become a problem with our lives.

What will we do when it is our turn to sit in the chair, bed or wheelchair. Will we wish we had done more now!

We give thanks

Right now my ten year old son and I are lucky to be alive.

This morning taking him to school the school bus for another school decided that it would be really bright to stop diagonally across the road just after a blind bend and cutting off the traffic flow both ways. Not that my next door neighbour but one would think as they came screaming round the blind bend narrowly missing our car and two others waiting to move.

Having been in a serious car accident all sorts of things have started flooding through my mind. My flashbacks are firing off like there is no tomorrow and I am finding it difficult to operate today on any kind of rational level. I am lucky though  because I know how to cope with traumatic stress and secondly the car did not hit us.

I really wonder what the universe is trying to tell me right now.

Take care out there today. 

For Harry

My life was short but my love was great
My life was blessed by the love you gave
I sleep now with angels in a peaceful state
And look down from heaven so you had better behave

The fight must go on for those I leave
Don't give up on what was started
Even though some may no longer believe
My soul is here though my body departed

You took me in to all your hearts
You made me smile when times were dark
You all played so many parts
You're never forgotten, my angels Hark

So look out for me on a star filled night
Go think good things of hope and joy
Because I am now in heaven's light
And remember the love from this little boy.

A Father's Love

The time tunnel today on Heart was 1989 a very strange, wonderful yet horrible year for me in this journey in life. It gave me the very best of times it gave me the very worst of times.

Firstly let me deal with the bad, a friend once told me that you eat the bits of the sandwich that you hate first so as to enjoy the best bits last therefor leaving you with a wonderful memory. Very philosophical and very true.

OK the worst of 1989. I got married. It was the wrong thing to do. I don't intend to dwell too much on this but I knew the day that I took my vows that I was lying. How could I not be lying for I was still in love with someone else. Yet still I put duty first. Why duty? Well half of my family are Irish Catholic and I would never have been able to look either my mother or grandmother in the face had I pulled out at the last minute. Not because pulling out at the last minute was considered a bad thing in this culture but because my wife to be was pregnant. And you don't walk away from your responsibilities in my family.

So I didn't and I got married in pomp and circumstance at St Peter's Church in Cirencester. Full penguin suits, the works.

And then to the best of 1989. November 30th to be precise and the best birthday present a father could have ever received, a son, Gareth. I delivered him as the midwife was running between three births, a major flu bug was sweeping around at the time and they were short staffed. She knew that I knew how to deliver a child but even though  protested I had never actually done it she gave me the gown and calmly said "It's about time you had a practice then". What a way to learn, the responsibility of delivering someone else's child is enormous I cannot describe the emotions that I felt whilst delivering my own.

I think this is why I have such a bond with my son. I have a different type of bond with my other children, equally as special but different to the one with Gareth. And that is only right for each of my children are different.

Now Gareth follows in my footsteps at Liverpool, although he is studying engineering as his first degree, and he is building a life of his own. He is strong and thoughtful and emotive. He has grown into fine young man. I am so very proud of what he has become, just as I am proud of all my children.

So why tell you about this today, well I guess it's because I am feeling emotional myself after reading the tweets from Harry Moseley and his family. I have buried 4 children, all still birth's and the pain of losing them was beyond belief but I cannot imagine what is happening in the Moseley household right now and I hope that it never happens to my family. All I know is a father's love is something that is without a doubt, like a mother's love, a binding passion of two souls that can never be taken away. Once a parents love come 's into existence it is the strongest force in the Universe and something that will never die.

I send my blessings and love to the Moseley family, even though they neither know me nor probably never will. I wish them all peace and love with everything that is in my soul and everything that I am. I hope, and although I am not religious pray, that a miracle will happen and that the medics are wrong.

If love is the overriding power of the universe then let us hope that today love will find a way to heal.  

Silence

I look to the sky to seek eternity
The moon, the stars and the silence in between
I lie here in my bed and sigh
For I know that we all must die

But in the time that our candle burns so bright
That flick'r in the constant sea of time
I know that we can touch a heart
Before silence comes and we must part

Fear not for me I hear you say
For the pain has upped and run away
Leaving me in God's safe hands
For we go on beyond these lands

And when the time comes you too will follow
On the journey we all must make
So do not fear the silence for it is only in your mind
For we are one together, for all time.

If there's a spinner in town, you are going to be bowled over

Firstly with reference to the recent announcement I send my warmest wishes to that greatest of bowlers, most massive of characters and most lovable Australian on the block Mr Shane Warne on sliding into the heart of Liz Hurley and flipping her head over heels with a marriage proposal. Good luck to yer mate may you both be very happy.

Secondly on a far darker note redactors are back in town. Well that's what apparently has happened to the Prime Minister's speech at the Conservative Party Conference. Never have the spin doctors had to work harder giving god knows how many PR executives a third if not fourth ulcer.

Pay off your credit cards!!!!! Who are you kidding David. PPI spring to mind, that little googly has got a lot of people in a spin. Interest rates some 25 percent higher than the Bank of England's base rate and 18 percent plus on the LIBOR rate or LIAR rate as I prefer to call it. How about sorting that one then. A lot of people's minimum payments don't even cover the interest at the moment when base rates have been at their lowest in ....well forever.

Let's face it Prime Minister the whole system is broke, just as Communism failed so too now is Capitalism. We need to start shifting the paradigms (good marketing speak there I hope you noticed). We are not in this together at all and never will be as long as those institutions that have sought to control us are in fact controlled themselves. Yes we need to have a money management system but do we really need to live with the devil for this to be true.

Wake up and realise that the most powerful people in the world, the money machine, have already got you on the back foot scared of wondering if it will be a flipper, a stripper, a dipper, a zipper or a plain old kipper they're going to serve you up.

Spin that to me one more time!

The quality of mercy is not strained

I saw something very disturbing yesterday. Apparently there is now going to be a cost to bringing a case in an employment tribunal of £250 to bring the case and £1000 if the case goes to hearing only to be refunded if you win the case.

I know why don't we just start sending children down the mines again?

A little drastic you may think, well isn't this the logical extension of what this outrageous manipulation of the system brings? Employment tribunals are there to allow individuals to seek some kind of recourse for unfair practices by employers. Without access to this form of justice we are ultimately making the employer/employee relationship untenable.

A charge for this service would preclude so many people who would have previously been able take their cases to tribunal particularly those claiming for constructive dismissal which at the moment is virtually impossible to win. It is adding to the bullying nature of the system.

Magna Carta enshrined the right to a trial in the English legal system. the Human Rights Act confirmed this, Are we about to tear them both up for a measly £1000?

Now there are some of you who would say if the case is strong enough sue and be damned because you'll get the money back but how many of you have been through the process which although supposed to be fair is actually heavily stacked in favour of the employer already. Employment Judges are not minded to follow the rules of fairness at times particularly when it comes to disclosure of evidence.

Take for example a bullying case where the employee claims that they have been forced out of work by constant harassment by the employer including inappropriate telephone calls and unfair working practices. It is unlikely that the Employment Judge will order disclosure of company records that will confirm or deny this.

That would never happen I hear you say. Wrong it happened in one case where I was representing a client, a carer, against a large care company, her ex employer. My client sued for constructive dismissal because they were expected to be in 2 places at once, travel great distances in no time, work 20 hour days without breaks, change schedules at two minutes notice, work on their own when there should have been two people present and a whole raft of other things including being de facto on call 24/7. All this for no doubt wonderful remuneration, not at all, minimum wage and what is called a zero hour contract which they were forced to sign to replace their initial 16 hours per week contract. The employer would telephone the employee in the middle of the night, shout and swear at family members and even threatened a child.

My client was so undermined by their employer that they had no option to leave and claim constructive dismissal even though they knew that this would potentially finish their career as a trainee social worker and leave their family potentially penniless.

In the tribunal the employer basically lied and then disappeared all their witnesses but the Judge refused to order disclosure of records that would confirm these patterns and when an application was made under the Data Protection Act records that were supposed to be kept for 6 years under Inland Revenue regulations suddenly had been destroyed, Why? Well the records not only proved the case against the employer but also showed that the company was defrauding clients including Local Authorities of possibly millions of pounds.

In the end I won the case because of the arguments I put forward over the disappearing witnesses but I have to say it was still luck because the system was so belligerent.

That client already in a traumatised state would never have been able to bring the case if the fee structure was in place and that would have left them potentially psychologically damaged for the rest of their lives and prevented them from being a useful economic resource to this country as well as their family.

So come on stop this stupidity now and stop these proposed fees.

Bring forth fair Portia, and show us the quality of mercy is not strained!

In an Irish barley field

Well what a storm has been served up this week by Rhianna, or should I say the farmer who prevented her form continuing her video shoot.

Alan Graham has been somewhat castigated for his approach to the raunchy musician's way of doing things but is that fair?

Listening to Radio5 this morning whilst on my travels the debate hotted up around the point of morals and sexualisation of children. And it is right that we speak of these things as over the years I have seen this occurring time and time again. It is not Rhianna's fault that the sexualisation of children takes place but she doesn't help things in one way.

Now I'm no prude, I am a psychologist for goodness sake I can't afford to be a prude. And let's face it I like making love like the next hot blooded adult. For those of you who know me well will know that I have been married, divorced and had numerous affairs with both married and single women both when I was married and when I was single. And here's the point at all times was it consenting adults allowing mutual attraction and sexual chemistry to have it's way over my socially developed values. It was at times basic primeval sexuality. Interestingly enough I have been celibate for two years now because I discovered that love is more important than sex. That doesn't mean that I will be permanently celibate I have just changed my thoughts on basic sexuality and I wish to make love now not have sex.

But sex sells, love making doesn't. And although the argument went that socially aware late teenagers can tell the differences between art and pornography my 10 year old son can't and looking at some of the so called television programmes that are being shown for that age group I have serious concerns. These were clearly ratified by something that happened a few weeks ago.

My eldest biological son had come down from university to see me and we went for a walk me, my eldest and my 10 year old on the White Horse at Westbury. Having been chased by mental sheep in the twilight we were returning to my son's car which by now sat lonely in the car park except for another car that had parked right next to it. As we approached the car the internal light came on illuminating quite a scene. My eldest looked at me and we ushered my 10 year old around to the other side of the car and quickly departed sighing with relief until quite matter of factly my 10 year old came out with, " It's okay dad I know what a blow job is ".

Well as you can imagine I was somewhat shocked and after some very gentle and careful questioning I discovered that the sexual education that children are receiving at school is finding a whole new meaning in the playground as children talk about films and videos they have seen without realising the nature or the complexity of the subject.

So I have to say as a concerned parent maybe Alan Graham was justified. 

To Err is to be Human

Today marks the birthday of Ghandi born in 1869.

Without a doubt he is one of the most inspirational people the human race has ever produced.

It is ironic that today the Home Secretary has given an interview, with which the Sunday Telegraph leads, denouncing the Human Rights Act.

The HRA is not perfect, what piece of legislation is, however to just abandon it is ridiculous unless there is proposed better legislation that enshrines the principles of the rights of every human being within the United Kingdom.

Now I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I hate the fact that prisoners can litigate against the state because of some petty squabble and how the HRA protects the rights of predatory peadophiles and dangerous terrorists who would do harm to the most vulnerable in our soceity. Yet I cannot bring myself to abandon legislation, withut proper and adequate replacement, that was designed to protect ordinary people like me.

What it seems to me is the problem is that ultimately we are a Constitutional Monarchy and much as I like the Queen I have great concerns that this is what prevents us from having a true Bill of Rights as you would find in a Republican system.

But here is the crux. Britain prides itself upon the democratic heritage that it has developed over centuries since the signing of Magna Carta in 1215. After all in which country could a German spout insurrection from the workers without being hung drawn and quartered. (For those who don't understand that the reference is to Karl Marx, who lived and preached in London and is buried in Highgate Cemetary) And if we remove the HRA from existance then we run the danger of heading toward a 1984 scenario (Orwellian, for those who still need the reference)

I wonder if Ghandi would be shocked on his 142nd Birthday? I wonder if he would take up the cause of democracy and freedom once again?

Cat on A Hot Tin Roof

My feet are burning
My heart is churning
My head is spinning
Am I winning?

I want to reach you
I want to hold you
I want to touch you
I want to feel you next to me

I settle down and look around
Yet find myself here on my own
My soul it aches, your love, where's proof?
Until then I am a cat on a hot tin roof

If music be the food of love

A small thought for today.

Listen to your favorite songs, share in the joy they bring you. Think about what they mean and why they have touched your heart. And if it's about the person who is Crazy for You remind them you will always be their Sugar,Sugar.

So if music be the food of love,

Play long, play loud and play from the heart.

Hope

Hope the sunshine is bright tomorrow
Hope the wind is light as well
Hope that dreams become real
Hope I leave this living hell

Hope that hand will hold me tight
Hope that smile will shine on me
Hope that it works out right
Hope that we will forever be

To Thine Own Self Be True

In the dark I stand and search afar
Looking for that shiny shimmering star,
Seeking out the truth in me
So that I'll be able to see
The journey that has been,
And the one that is soon to be

I don't know that I can find the heart
Because the love is far apart
If indeed it was ever so
Which makes me wonder,
And want to go
Far from this place where I am low.

Troubled times and troubled minds
Encouragement from all kinds
If only they could understand
That no more plays the band
If I could only have what my heart always knew
Only then could I to mine own self be true

Would you stand at post?

As you are aware I am twittering like mad and talking to everyone I can about the plight of Ben Parkinson and all those who have served in our forces and have returned home in a different shape to having entered the fray.

It will soon be November, it's only a month away, and the brave stalwarts of the Royal British Legion will be out on the windy and wet streets of Britain selling poppies in aid of those who have served, living or dead. This year more than ever it is important that we all wear our poppies with pride.

Some however will scorn upon this as Britain being warmongers. Politicians are warmongers not soldiers. Soldiers do an amazing job, they stand at post whilst we sleep and say, "We shall keep you safe". Soldiers do not want war, soldiers do not want to kill or be killed. Like everyone else they want to return to their homes, their beds and sleep with loved ones close by in peace.

I hate war, I hate death,my life has always been about preserving life, giving people a better quality of life, physically or psychologically. But if I was asked to do so even if unlikely in my 46th year I would stand at post to protect those things that I hold dear to me. I sometimes sit back and wonder how many others would.

If I were to tell you that one of the best laproscopic camera systems was originally designed by a security agency of a certain nation for spying on people would you not wish for that system to be used on your children if they needed surgery? Thought not. You see here lies a problem. Lots of people have this misguided notion about the nature of the soldier who stands at post yet through that soldier working in a job that people find uncomfortable many breakthroughs have been made. You all love your mobile phones and laptops or PC's well these didn't start life as business tools, all had some form of military application first.

So when those who stand at post are injured we should be grateful to them, we should look after them as they have looked after us and what really upsets me is that after 4 days of almost constant twittering people still seem more interested in Harry Hill's TV Burp than people like Ben Parkinson.

If I were those people I would take a good long look in the mirror and ask myself

Could I do what Ben Parkinson did, could I stand at post?

Traumatised or Trauma on Screen?

It has come to this bloggers attention that 3000 children in Wiltshire are going to be shown graphic videos and listen to harrowing accounts of road traffic incidents to teach them that bad things happen if they don't follow the rules of the road.

Here some stats: 30 million plus drivers in the UK
                          3000-4000 deaths on the UK roads each year
                          400-600 people out of the figure above die because of drink driving

I have an infinite amount of respect for the fire and rescue services and for the trauma teams that work at the hospitals having worked in the field of trauma both physical and psychological for over 25 years. I have experienced first hand both in and out of an operating theatre exactly what this entails. I have seen everything from bomb victims to road traffic casualties, from domestic violence to falls from trees. And as a youngster I was a volunteer in the mountain rescue so I have witnessed some very harrowing scenes. I know what these fine people experience.

The problem is showing it in graphic detail in the classroom just does not work. There is no emotional connection in the same way. Especially in a world where media from all genre shows us violence, death, destruction and trauma. And the irony is that the psychological mechanisms that allow the emergency services to carry on their work professionally are de facto the same ones that anaethetise young people's minds from the impact of such shocking scenes. And if people know they are going to be shocked they prepare for it.

Take the case of Ben Parkinson, Britain's most injured survivor of the Afghan War. His story only made the inside pages of the newspapers on Sunday and Monday of this week yet the picture of Michael Jackson's dead body was on the front of the Sun this morning.

Ben Parkinson like many other veterans suffered horrendous physical trauma and no doubt has suffered or will suffer psychological trauma along with that just as many of his comrades have done, will do or are doing so now. It is a specific type of trauma which for many years was completely removed from the medical world because it was politically sensitive and undermining to morale. It didn't exist. Shell shock saw hundreds of men shot for cowardice in World War 1. In World War 2 they called in LMF (Lack of Moral Fibre). By the time of the Falklands War and after the woeful experience of the Vietnam Veterans in the United States they were calling it PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  We now know it does. I know it does for I suffered very badly and still have difficulties due to a serious road traffic collision that happened to me.

As a result of my own experience and thanks largely to time I spent in sessions, with Professor Gordon Turnbull, to whom I am eternally grateful, I have studied psychology in depth and particular the psychology of trauma.

I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty because as a child I saw a television programme which although a drama was actually very educational. It followed a reporter who wanted to know what it would be like to be on death row. It was arranged that he become a prisoner by being convicted of a capital crime and only the Warden, the newspaper editor, the Chief of Police and the presiding Judge knew the truth. As his execution date drew closer the four people who knew the reality were replaced by four who all insisted that this reporter was lawfully sentenced and execution would take place. On the day of his execution he was led to the electric chair and strapped in and when the switch was thrown instead of the chair sparking to life the lights in the execution chamber came on. Then the original Judge asked the reporter how it felt being on death row after expressing that all the people who you could now see in the shot were opposed to the death penalty. There was no response so the reporters blindfold was removed to show a single tear running down his cheek. He had died of a heart attack brought on by psychological trauma.

And interestingly enough returning to Ben Parkinson here is a young man with great dignity who has now effectively been castigated by those whom he served with passion and pride. Every soldier knows that they may face death on the battlefield but are we prepared for it? Is this why so many ex servicemen and women find it difficult to return to civvy street and have never ending battles with domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drug addiction?

We have a duty to fight for Ben and his colleagues, we have a duty to help them for the service they have given to us yet our moral guardians the media only serve to push him to the inside pages for the lack of shock value. Yet it is shocking the way in which he is being treated and we need to stand up and be counted just as they did.

We must educate our children, we must educate our people. We must give them a positive emotional connection so as to deter negative things from happening. We must be strong and we need to learn how to care in a positive way.

 

Salute the Fallen, Support the Living

It is right that we honor the fallen servicemen and women of this country for they have made the ultimate sacrifice in our name.

It is not right that we treat those who have not died but have been horrendously wounded with less honor.

I read today that Ben Parkinson, the most seriously injured surviving British soldier, will not receive his full compensation package of over £1 million but will have it capped at the £570k he has received already leaving him to rely on NHS services that are over stretched and not suited to dealing with those suffering this kind of battlefield trauma. The reason he will have to rely on the NHS is because he will be discharged from his beloved job on medical grounds.

I seem to remember the RAF doing this a few years ago to a chap called Douglas Bader. And look at what he went on to become.

Ben Parkinson is an inspiration. Just like Simon Weston was, following the Falklands, Ben has shown men with lesser injuries that there is a way forward. We cannot stand by and let the administrative staff in the Army, most of who quite frankly have never ventured outside their cosy little offices, to ruin the treatment programme for rehabilitation that has been devised for Ben.

The closure of the dedicated military hospitals and the reliance on Headley Court and  medical wings of NHS hospitals was never going to compensate for places such as RAF Wroughton, Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot and RN Hospital Haslar. It was always short sighted of the bureaucrats and politicians to close specialist military hospitals and although we shouted loud in the 1980's and 90's no one wanted to know.

If  we are to be the best then we must act like the best and if that means spending some money on our injured veterans then so be it. I would rather that than some of the potty projects governments come up with.

And as the sun goes down I say that we should honor the living as well as remember the dead.

Dreaming of Wonderland

I feel no more pain
I feel no more sorrow
It will not be the same
For I shall not wake tomorrow

I sleep in the sky
I move in the air
For now I am free
Of the bully bear

Stand strong in your thought
Feel joy in your heart
For though I'm not here
We shall never part

But for me my dear friend
The bell it will toll
I am always with you
Deep in your soul

Don't think it a crime
Don't think it a sin
Stand up to the bully
Never give in

I dream every moment
In this place where there's peace
Because now I am free
And my sleep will not cease

Of passing of the guard

Pain brings Hope
Hope brings Desire
Desire brings Change
Change brings Pain

Our destiny is circular
Our lives are so short
The hour glass runs
And we are no more

We look to the sky
We search all the heavens
We imagine the peace
That lies in forever

And when the guard has passed
The baton held aloft
We know for certain
That we were truly loved

Of memories, of heroic deeds, of life

Wow now there's a title. Well I though I'd better have something catchy as this blog is designed to coincide with my 5000th tweet on twitter and I can't say in 140 letters what I want to say here.

I have shared many things with you over the past year or so. Thoughts, memories, sadness, laughter and opinion have all been there and the writing of my several blogs has been a cathartic experience, hopefully one that will continue for a good while yet. So when I look back at this last week I have to say that it has been an eye opener even for someone as long in the tooth as me.

Last night following the canal barge trip I sat with some of my family and my son's friends at his and his partner's house. We ate, drank beer and wine,we laughed and we watched TV. Quite normal you would think? Well bearing in mind that this has not been a normal week it was a wonderful distraction.

Today as I woke up it was a normal day, the car breaking down, again,chores to be done and work to be planned. And then I saw something on the TV which brought me to tears again, the death of Ginger 'Mr Grand National' McCain. And it set me to thinking once again about those things that have shaped my life and made me who I am today.

I have learned so many things and I still keep on learning every day, it is a lifelong experience, yet the thing that keeps coming back to me is the raw emotion of the power of love. I have spoken about hope and love before and I am no one trick pony however the reality of life is that love and hope are so important. I know that I love my children for instance, and I hope that I have done a good job as their father or adopted father. I know that I love sport and I hope that one day I will again be able to take some kind of part in sport from a participants view. I know I have the capacity to love, for I am human, and I hope I use that gift wisely, it's all anyone can do.

I hope that you enjoy this little thought process and I hope that Ginger has bee reunited with his Rummy in the vastness of the time and space of the universe.

I know my spiritual home has always been Liverpool, and maybe that is why the passing of the man has made me think back about all that I have known, learned and experienced. As he joins with his loved ones I hope that I shall never be separated from mine in any time or space.

I would truly love it if that were the case...

Tears in a childs eye

Last night the father of two of my children died.

To watch them go through the same pain that I have suffered, the same pain that we all ultimately suffer is horrible. I have seen many dead bodies in my life, been at the deaths of loved ones but the total feeling of uselessness that I had last night will live with me forever.

In many ways it is easier to deal with the pain if you are suffering it yourself. I would gladly have taken that pain on board if I could have but the reality is that it doesn't work that way.

I am here when they need someone to talk to, and I shall hold them if they need comforting. I will do all that I can.

As I head off to another funeral this morning with the thought that another is just around the corner it reminds me that we have but a short time on this planet and what we have been given we should use wisely.

So whatever you are doing today go with grace, humility, love and above all passion 

Humanity, what does it really mean?

This has been a difficult week for many people around the world. It has been a difficult week for me and in particular my children. And all of this got me to thinking about humanity.

What is humanity?

Wiser people than me have tried to define it. Why therefor should I have a better take on things? Well I can't say that I have a better take on things just my own personal perspective.

Humbly I would argue that humanity is about human beings showing acts of selflessness not selfishness towards each other on not a monthly or quartely basis but on a second by second timescale. It is about random acts of kindness and love given without thought of compensation being offered. It is about helping up those who have fallen, even if they be your mortal enemy. It is about generosity of spirit and of thought.

Many in the world would have us believe in a dog eat dog culture, survival of the fittest. I can understand that as I have lived in that world but take this thought for one moment.

If the fittest survives then there can be only one fittest by definition and when all others are gone then the fittest is left as a lonely, isolated being as described so well in the novelette by Matheson, I am Legend.

However as all who have read the book or seen the excellent film starring Will Smith the one thing that the main character yearns for is company and that is the reality of humanity. We seek the comfort and nurturing of others. And if others do not provide that then we have indeed lost everything.

Deep, well maybe. Insightful, I don't think so. Yet I still have an infinite belief that man is his own worst enemy and that violence, greed, corruption and self centredness will ultimately lead to our destruction.

So in the words of the immortal.......

Try a little tenderness  

In Memorium

Today I have received very sad news indeed. A close work colleague who I have known for over 14 years has died.

She was always around and always had a kind word and she will be missed.

Janet Harry go sleep with your beloved husband in eternal peace.

All I want for Christmas

As you can tell from my last blog post I am somewhat upset at the way people are around my neighbourhood.

Let's take out the negatives and be positive. Everyone brings something to the party, it has been my motto for many years, however people need to realise that this party called the human race is a big one where we all co-exist.

People need to learn that others will get upset if there is continual negativity towards them so people need to be aware of this and start acting as a giant community. There is too much of an I'm all right Jack attitude going on and that is not good.

How can you make the difference?

Look at your neighbour and walk in their shoes for just a few steps.

Reach out a hand to pull them up if they fall.

Tell them that they are welcome.

It is possible that we can make this world a better place. So let us start today!

Looking through a single eye

Last week was wonderful being spent in the friendliest of places, Cornwall.

The return to Wiltshire has been a return to reality, to sullen, sulky and darn right rude people. I have to say that the native people of West Wiltshire are by far the most insular, arrogant and generally most self righteous group that I have ever met. Not everyone is like that and there are some truly decent people amongst the plethora of bottom feeders but the overall the impression is a negative one.

Now I am generally open minded about most things but quite frankly I have had enough.

I am convinced that there is no way that the natives of West Wiltshire are in fact human, I suspect that crop circles are real and that aliens have in fact already invaded coming down to Earth in a rural site so that no one would notice. It can be the only explanation for the way that these people are so vastly removed from any other group of people I have ever met whilst travelling this planet.

I was happily enjoying a joke with my 10 year old son to be confronted by an irate local who clearly had psychotic tendencies believing that we were laughing about him when nothing could be further than the truth. Shop assistants instead of helping you feel the need to control everything you do and should you dare to ask for something that isn't there you would think that you were asking them to remove their arms and legs.

People talk to you outside of West Wiltshire, I know it is a shock but that is the way it is, you see inside West Wiltshire you have to talk alien to be able to communicate with the natives and just like a scene from invasion of the body snatchers people will look and stare at you if you are not native.

And the really sad thing about it is that they think that this is normal. Stonehenge, well Quatermass may have been right........

The most important thing!

Britain has given two world class achievements to the world, the first is the Royal Navy. Why do I say this , well because without the Royal Navy much of the world would never have been discovered as quickly as it has been, and the British Empire would never have survived. In fact Britain would never have survived as the Royal Navy has been responsible for centuries for the protection of our shores.

The second thing that Britain has given to the world is the National Heath Service.

I am a passionate supporter of the NHS because it is a basic human right to have access to free point of contact health care. If we are not careful we will lose that.

Governments have to take a long term view, something that was forgotten the day the NHS was unveiled and since them both left and right have used it as a ping pong ball to appease voters and fool the public.

We have allowed it to be open to abuse of poor management, poor purchasing and poor investment. We forgot that the prevention is better than cure and that education is the key to change.

This present administration has to make a long term commitment to the NHS rather than thinking about the next election. I would be surprised if this happens yet I still believe that it is possible to make the NHS great again.

Gobsmcked by Google

I have to say that I'm at a bit of a loss as to understand why the Head of Google, Eric Schmidt, would want Britain to return to a Victorian era of education.

Educationalists and historians would have us believe that schools were revered in Victorian times as a way of educating the poor so that they could benefit society. Utter nonsense, schools were revered as a way of the ruling classes being able to indoctrinate children from an early age with the right ideas and not those of revolutionaries such as Marx or Engels. They were a way of effectively preventing social unrest through programing and thus preventing potential revolution.

Schmidt claims in his MacTaggart lecture that we are simply behind in our thinking and we should combine art and science again as many of the past theorists had done.

Reading comments across the web it would appear that people are concerned that our children are only learning answers. Well that is true.

Let us look at this calmly and in particularly at mathematics. When I did my A Levels in maths I learned how to do differential calculus and integral calculus from what is called first principles. Calculus gives us the tools we need to perform theoretical physics and therefore is vital. It is not a science purely though because mathematics is without a doubt an art at a higher level. There is great beauty about it just as there is in a classical opera or painting or poem. Yet my son, who is undertaking an engineering degree did not learn these things until he was at university even though he took A Level maths.

Today's teaching is aimed at one thing, results, The schools with the best results get the plaudits and ultimately more money.

The schools with the best results do not necessarily have the best educators but they do have the best people at teaching children how to pass a test!

And that Herr Schmidt is quintessentially the challenge.

I was blessed by wonderful educators, free thinkers educated themselves by the post war thinkers, the new generation dedicated to improvement of our knowledge and understanding. Many of today's teachers are cattle fodder churned out by a system that is only interested in passing exams rather than opening young minds to possibilities of expansion.

If we have no inspiration from our educators then is it surprising that children will look elsewhere for their impetus such as rap music or TV reality shows.

The human mind is always searching how to evolve, it is its' destiny. If we do not show our children how to do this then nature will take it's course and chaos will ensue. Let our teachers become educators again and let us fall in love with learning and inspire our children to grow rather than to reach false benchmarks.

So Herr Schmidt is that really described best by Victorian schooling or is it better described elsewhere in history by people such as Da Vinci?

How quick it's forgotten!

Well Britain is getting back to normal, a bank holiday awaits, the sun is sort of in the sky and life is plodding on as normal.

I showered this morning walked out of the shower and all was as it should be. Everything that has happened over the last few weeks has been a dream.

And Dallas is back too!

My prediction was that the rioting and discontent would be yesterday's news, well now that the X Factor and Big Brother are back it is. After all it is far more interesting to chat about some wannabe or some has been than it is to deal with the nitty gritty stuff of life. Oh how the media distracts us.

Will we ever learn? Will we ever understand that we have a responsibility to our fellow man, woman and child? Will we ever change?

I doubt it, so until the next time.





Here I go again on my own, walking down the only road I've ever known......

Something rotten in the State of Denmark

What is the job of the British Prime Minister?

To run the country? To be a leader? What?

The job of the British Prime Minister is simple it is about making sure that his, or her party remain in power. In other words the job of the British Prime Minister is to keep their job!

Now some may say that is a little harsh but history tells us that as soon as the Prime Minister becomes so unpopular that they cannot win a General Election then the babies eat the mummy or daddy!

Thatcher, Blair, Brown,Wilson, Callaghan, Heath and even the great Winston Churchill all suffered the same fate in one way or another.

The problem with politics is that it has become so self obsessed that the system has forgotten that it is not the next five years that matters but the next fifty generations. Sound bites have taken over from sound ideas.

We have real challenges in this country, challenges that can be solved by working together, by unifying.

However with politicians playing games with our future is that likely to happen. Stop thinking about the polls and start doing what is right!

And I don't believe that they have the balls to do it!

Democracy may die this week!

A strong statement, an emotive statement, a statement of possible reality.

The rioting that took place was neither justifiable or righteous. It was not protest it was lawlessness. Of that most people are agreed. We are agreed we do not want to see it on our streets, our city centres or near our homes. The problem is that the knee jerk reactions have already started.

My grandfather told me stories of the German bombing raids, he told me about the fear of invasion and of how Britain stood alone in the dark nights of 1939 and 1940. He told me stories of the few. The few who stood up have left the legacy that I am allowed to write this today. They left me with my freedom of speech.

And if we start own a road of censorship then we kill that immediately. We destroy all that those brave men and women fought for, we blight their memory, forever.

If social networks are responsible for the spread of this riot then the telephone is responsible for the coordination of the flying pickets in the 1980's. There was no call to ban the telephone but there are calls to suspend social networking.

The argument that the authorities cannot monitor these communications and act upon them is nonsense. The phone hacking scandal has shown how easy it is to break into communications networks. If you really believe that communications are not monitored then you are living in cloud cuckoo land. It is an art as old as communication and it is something that will not go away. And for the sake of national security it is in many ways vital. Does it infringe my civil liberties, absolutely, am I prepared to put up with it, well to a certain extent. However for those who know me know that I will speak my mind as is my right. I am not going to commit acts of anarchy, I love my country, so I have nothing to fear. Others though who would commit these acts should fear it.

With power comes responsibility and there should be strict rules which if broken carry the penalties that are suitable. No one person should be damaged by the state or any individual who is want on pursuing anything that is outside of the law. We have a judiciary that has separate powers to make sure that this doesn't happen.

I do not want to be told what I can or cannot wear, I am no thug but I have hoodies in my wardrobe. I wear a scarf over my face in winter, will I be told to remove it when I go to work in St Paul's because it was a scene of trouble? OK that may be scaremongering but there are people who would do this because it is a little power trip. There are already shops that refuse to allow people in if they are wearing hoodies, even if the hood is down.

Must we look at the root causes of these problems, absolutely. But we have to stop playing politics. Let's face it politicians are not the best role models.

Democracy must not be allowed to die because the Police Chiefs were poor at their jobs, Politicians preferred their holidays to being leaders and Parents devoid themselves of responsibility.

Because if it does then we might as well cancel Remembrance Day because we have given up on all those who died for our freedom, for our democracy.

I will not give up on that though and I will go door to door if I have to defend our democracy and I will win the hearts and minds of the people so that we cherish our freedoms and respect our democracy.

28 Days Later?

OK you've seen the film, and now we have witnessed some of the reality of widespread civil unrest but need we really worry. After all surely this will all calm down, the police will restore order and arrests and convictions will see the guilty punished.

In the short term that will happen, but what about the long term?

I was listening to Radio 5 Live this morning whilst going about my daily business and sat next to me was my 10 year old son listening attentively. There was the usual hogwash spouted but two callers took my attention for very different reasons.

The first, an elderly sounding Caribbean gentleman spoke about the fact that there were no role models out there for our youth and when he had the temerity to stand up for his argument by suggesting that corruption was rife in power brokers he was rudely shut down by the presenter who clearly was showing personal bias. Oh no I hear you shout the BBC would never do that well that they did because when Valerie the deputy head came on he was very pally because Valerie was upstanding on discipline and moralising.

Now why is my 10 year old hoody wearing son so interested in all this.

Well he was home educated until last year because of a system that closed ranks on him when he needed help and understanding not discipline and berating.

Like the good middle class family does at the age of 4 a school was chosen for him. But he suffered terribly from nerves. He was so bad that he suffered from heart palpitations, endless sleepless nights, bed wetting, clingyness way beyond normal, and a terrifying fear of being away from his close family.

And what was the schools response? He was attacked in front of his mother by a teaching assistant who was then defended by her award winning Headmistress who made up a wonderful story of lies that was believed by her moronic Governors. When we took this to the LEA they basically said we can't do anything and because we were being threatened with legal action over keeping him away from school there became no other option to withdraw him and home educate.

Now that was something we were not really keen on for a whole raft of reasons so although he was given the best education we could we ultimately looked for other schools.

At the two following schools both were not about understanding the needs of the child but about puttng the needs of the teachers first, discipline was what was needed. So for years he was kept at home whilst we tried to do the most difficult of jobs and that was home educate a young person and work.

It blasted holes in the family relationship and in reality the family fell apart. The strain was terrible.

Then a school was finally found that actually understood that children are different and have different needs. The headmaster is a kind and wonderful man who has a passion for his students and his staff, a true leader. As a result my 10 year old son has completed his first year at school and is flying now with confidence and ability.

I was badly beaten as a child because I had a mother who although loved me had no idea what my needs were. I swore that I would never discipline a child with violence. I swore that I would be understanding and caring and although there are times when my children and I have had major challenges I believe that we have worked together to overcome them. I have done the best job that I could do in supporting them and whilst the mistakes made have been many they have turned out pretty good kids and now young adults.

So what were my 10 year old's comments about Valerie. Well he said that he would not like to go to her school because she sounded like Cruella. He was glad that he went to the school he did. He was angry at the rioters for being stupid idiots, his words, not mine, and that they know it's wrong to steal.

So am I blaming the teachers, no not really, well not those at the coal face. I am blaming those who play politics with children's lives though for their own gain in a system that is designed for the adult not the child.

A child is not born evil but learns those concepts from those around them. The Caribbean gentleman was right we need positive role models who can interact with young people and work with them.

Young people need to show understanding of their interdependent place in society and society should not write off a young person because they don't fit in nicely and do what they are told.

Non of this excuses what has gone on in the rioting and the looting. It was wrong. Long term though if we do not start radically rethinking and changing our strategies then it is likely that this sort of thing will continue.

And the Saints go Marching In

No this is not a reference to Southampton Football Club or the transfer of yet another player of talent from the South Coast to London. This blog is about the saints that are sent to save us.

Well maybe not saints I guess but there were calls for them to be brought into the field of battle, along with the army, the police, the vigilantes and the Women's Institute. I think I heard all of that on twitter last night as the hysteria got worse and the rumour mill heightened.

People were and are scared. I am among them as my daughter lives just outside Ealing and my son just down from Grove Street and Upper Parliament Street in Liverpool. But the hysteria that is surrounding all of this is merely sharpening the swords of the extremists. And I'm not talking about disaffected groups I'm talking about the extremists in power.

A few years ago I watched a double episode of Spooks, and an interactive TV programme about dealing with national emergencies. They say fact is stranger than fiction but what if? The more hysteria that is generated means that out of fear we naturally move to what seems like good solutions in the heat of the moment but in reality and the cold hard light of day it just plays into the extremists hands.

World War 2 came about because Germany under massive pressure economically and politically was allowed by honest decent Germans to become an experiment in fascism. Stalin was allowed to rule for so long because ordinary decent Russians were fooled into thinking that his idea of Communism would deliver them from the evils of the capitalist West. Are we going to allow that to happen here in Britain.

Putting the Army on the streets turns us immediately into Syria, or Egypt or Libya, all places that we condemn for their use of violence against their own people. People did not die in defence of this country to allow this to happen. We didn't do it when 7/7 took place, we didn't do it in the 80's or during the G8 demonstrations, the miners strike, the Poll Tax riots or the student demonstrations so we should not do it now.

If the Police can't handle 3 or 400 kids throwing stones then you have to ask why?

And that is the real debate here. Policing ain't what it used to be. Is that the fault of the Police? No, it is the fault of the policy makers of my generation and the last 40 years who have slowly but steadily turned the Police into tools of the state and political pawns to show that they are tougher on crime than previous generations.

Once upon a time the police lived within our communities, they were known by name, they knew you by name. Now they are led by savage political animals who are interested in power and politics not the streets on which we live. Inspectors are fast tracked, political correctness takes precedent over real policing, and those bullied at school join up to hide behind a uniform so that they can bully back even if ever so subtly at times.

Real policing would have stopped this before it all started, they would know their communities so well that they would be able to identify the ringleaders and the trouble stirrers and could cut off the head before the body could trundle behind flattening everyone.

The police are not to blame for that is like blaming the dog for wagging it's tail, the real culprits are my peers who have allowed this occur. We took apprenticeships out of manufacturing and our manufacturing industry failed, we did the same with the Police and we have civil unrest.

It is time for parents to stand up and take responsibility for their children's actions. It is the time for calm heads not knee jerk reactions. It is the time for people to say what can I do to make this better not worse.

For if this does not happen then for some people St Peter probably will be waiting and that is a thought that is too scary to contemplate.

A Horse, My Kingdom for a Horse

So London burns and memories run deep.

Back to the 80's to Brixton, St Pauls and Toxteth, to Orgreave,to the mines of England and Scotland and Wales, to the streets of Belfast, to the Poll Tax riots. I've witnessed them all man and boy. Toxteth is my spiritual home, in Liverpool, and my son has a job there whilst following in my footsteps at the greatest of Red Brick Institutions. I work often in St Pauls and I lived on the edge of Brixton. I have walked with a heavy heart at the closures of communities following the power politics of the 80's. I know many a Yosser Hughes.

It was greed then, it is greed now. Will we ever learn.

Back then though the disaffected were genuinely disaffected. We didn't bury our dead because the cemeteries were closed. Back then there was a genuine fear that we could not go on if the mines closed and the ghetto's became unruly and untenable. I say ghetto's because that's what it was like in some places.

I was privileged, the middle class white boy from the top of the hill. I was so privileged that I went to a school that was 90 percent non white, that had more races than there are colours of the rainbow. A school where distrust and dislike simmered under the surface. I went to a school that epitomised England in the late 70's, early 80's. It was tough, it was dangerous, there were drugs and there were knives and even the odd gun or two yet through all that it was beautiful.

I was privileged because instead of going to Millfield, where I could have gone, I chose to stay, to have the best teachers and the best friends a person could have. Our teachers taught us how to fight, not with the weapons or our fists as most had been used to, but with our minds and our hearts and our thoughts and our words. With the sword of humanity and the shield of humility.

They taught us to open our minds, break down the walls and believe that by hard work and application we could build something better without losing sight of our basic human nature.

My maternal grandfather was a Union man, strong and proud, an engineer for 40 years till his death in 76, the worst year of my life. My father, strong and proud too, a Thatcherite till his dying day when his body could recover no more from the plague of the whisky and the vodka that brought the cancer, that brought the stroke that killed him. Opposing ideas but united in one love, me.

I think neither of the left or the right or the centre. I am independent in thought as my teachers inspired me to be and today I am shamed to be English.

I am shamed because it is my generation who lost their way. With greed and I'm all right Jack overcoming everything. If ever there was a Merchant of Venice scenario it is today. The Banks, will obviously play Shylock, the Politicians, Morocco and Arragon, the media Gratiano, the moral majority, Antonio but who out of this whole mess will play Portia. Who will have the wisdom to sort it all out.

Because this rioting is wrong, poverty is wrong, greed is not good! Put down your bricks and stones and build, not destroy, with the tools you carry. Be united in humanity and work within your communities to stop the rot.

We need to stop all this hysteria now or indeed it will be the winter of our discontent.

An Eye for and Eye? Really you think so!

It has come to this bloggers understanding that the MP's of our great nation will once again be called on to debate the ultimate sanction - the death penalty. Let me be loud and clear about this, any society purporting to be civilised cannot enter any rational notion that the death penalty is acceptable.

TIMOTHY JOHN EVANS

DEREK BENTLEY

These are names that are forever etched on my mind and should be yours. Two innocent people who were wrongly hanged in a world that believed the killing of children and police officers to be abhorrent. Today there are calls from the far right in British Politics to bring back those days for it will stop murder.

Wrong! There is no overwhelming evidence that even suggests that the death penalty will prevent murder. If someone sets out to commit murder by any means then there is nothing except their own mind that will prevent that from happening. Unless of course we have just moved into the world of Minority Report and pre-crime has been established!

The Death Penalty is just a social revenge, no more, no less. I do not want the state or any other person to carry it out in my name. I have worked all my life to preserve and to save life. I have worked to give people a better quality of life and I cannot defend any system that will allow the sanitised murder of another human being.

You may think I am being naive, possibly. You may think that I am being soft on crime, nonsense. I do not think the way we treat our most heinous criminals as good. I think it is wrong that these criminals of the worst possible inclination are allowed to litigate against the state because of a few cuts and bruises they sustained, but I cannot for the life in me do anything but wonder at those who would have the trap door swinging again.

For those of you who saw the execution of Saddam Hussein on the web, and I confess I watched it like many others, it was no better than leading a lamb to slaughter. I have seen many programmes with the execution scene being acted but I felt that I had to know what the real thing looked liked so that I could confirm my absolute hatred of Capital Punishment. It confirmed to me once and for all that we must not allow the zealots the opportunity to bring this back.

People say to me what if it were my child that had been murdered wouldn't you want revenge? Of course that would be my primary emotion following sadness and then anger. But in the cold hard world of reality I seek to improve the human race not to send it back to the dark ages. And in return to those who ask me the above question I ask the question, what if your child was innocent but falsely condemned and executed? Would you shout large for hanging et al then?

You will have a myriad of views on this emotive subject I know however for once stand back and silently remember that we are civilised and should know better.

It does not mean give those convicted a cushy life, far from it but we cannot revert to something that is inhuman.

Is there really any truth out there?

I sat here at my computer yesterday wondering what I could write, in fact wondering if I could be bothered to write particularly with the way I've been feeling over the last few weeks. Then it kind of struck me, you know one of those Eureka moments, so I thought I'd better jot it down, You know for posterity and all that.

We have forgotten the nature of truth, we have forgotten how to believe and we have forgotten how to hope.

Now today whilst I write this on my bed my young son is writing out his Santa list. Yes I know it is July but he's ten years old and has just finished school for the summer holidays so by nature he is already bored, and of course Christmas starts in about two weeks. He's not put a lot on it but he's written this wonderful heart wrenching piece about how he's been bullied this year, and how he doesn't want a lot but these things will help him feel better.

Now how does that fit in with what is in bold type?

As a ten year old he is now learning about disappointment and how frail the human psyche can be. People whom he thought were his friends are clearly not his friends, As an adult it is easy for me to spot these parasites, for that is what they really are using his good nature so that they may abuse what he has then move on, but for my son well that is not quite the case.

Yet it his is absolute belief in Santa that made me realise that hope is what we are missing in our lives.

This whole murky world that has been dragged up before our eyes in the News of the World hacking scandal is something that in reality we have known about for years. If it's not the State spying on us it is business and if it's not business it's the press. So where is the hope?

I watched a television programme recently about the Bader-Meinhoff Gang and something that was called the Red Army Faction and it reminded me to look to history. Throughout civilisation there has been a constant desire for a few to dominate many and from time to time that backfires and some anti-establishment group pops it's head above the water only to be shot down. Ultimately though the system comes along and everything is normalised again.

This is sheer nonsense. We are all involved in a game that ultimately means there will be winners and losers. We live in so called civilisation but we play games because as Orwell so deftly put it "All pigs are equal but some pigs are more equal than others". Sure we need structure just look at what happens to bees if they lose their hive structure, but maybe that is the point.

Is the reason that bees have started to die out because they have given up hope and belief?

I can hear you laughing already, Trace the madman is back again. Bees? have hope? have belief ? those are human qualities stop talking hippy nonsense and stop taking the LSD.

I can assure you that I am no more sane or insane than the next person in line for if I have swallowed the pill that is one far more potent than LSD, it is the pill of mediocrity. Average Joe's like myself are the simple workers in the hive whilst the Murdoch's are the Queen's and they must survive.

If we give up on this system for it is all we really know then like the bees that suffer from colony disorder our civilisation is bound to fail.

Our civilisation will only fail if we give up hope and belief.

And so we must weed out the truth, however unpleasant it is, we must burn out the rot that has taken hold at the top to allow for new growth at the roots. And before anyone says it I am not talking armed insurrection. We have to give our children back what so clearly we have lost. We have to give them back Santa, we have to give them back something to believe in and something to hope for.

Heroic deeds come in all shapes and sizes

So Andy lost and Rafa won. There is no shame being Hector when Achilles is around however Hector must become Paris and find the heel! Just a few points separated these two great players in a match that yet again should have been a final not a semi. Well Andy's efforts were heroic and you could see how much the match had taken out of him but I say to him now of his heroic deeds, your day will come and you shall be crowned champion.

Turning to other heroic deeds I recently visited the Underground Tunnels at Dover Castle that were used to plan the evacuation at Dunkirk. These people were heroes of a different kind and it is very much worth a visit to pay tribute and memory of those people who made sure that I can write this blog today.

But at the end of the day the only reason for being heroic is because of love. Love for a sport, for a country for an ideal for a person. It's all the same because without that love ordinary people would not find the passion and the courage to do extraordinary things.

So my thought from the edge for today is simple.

Put love in your heart, fire in your belly and whatever you are doing, DO IT WITH PASSION!

Balls and More Balls

What a title for this section? Intrigued? Me too. What will it be about?

Well lets start with decadence in the form of the White Tie Ball from Sir Elton John. Now here's a man who gets a lot of bad press fro being a grumpy bad tempered diva. So what if he is, he has worked hard throughout his life and if he wants to be like that so be it. But I think there must be another side to Sir Elton for if there wasn't how would he have found his true love. And that's the thing to remember. We all wear masks but when we are alone in the dark, as Shakespeare once said, "To thine own self be true". Remember the only person who has power in your life is you. You decide who you love, you decide how you life goes and you have the power to change things, no one else, just you!

And that brings me to the second set of balls, or should I say new balls please.

Now I will admit that when I first saw Andy Murray I was not his biggest fan. Why? well he wasn't Timbo was he? However as I have watched him grow he has shown his true nature a steely determination and a strength of character that few people have. The challenge is he is up against a mammoth of a task today when he takes on Rafa, the man every father would like their daughter to marry. But in reality the truth is that both these two young men are good decent people who have triumphed to reach the top of their chosen profession. If Andy wins today the whole nation will get a boost, if Rafa wins today then people will not jeer nor curse because we love him too. Today tennis will win, and that is what sport is about, for tomorrow Andy and Rafa will play play station together again for they are friends that have rivalry in a thing that they love. Yet they know at the end of the day it is just a game.

It's all about the balls!

Why being nice always beats being nasty

Some people think that I have to be crazy if I believe that being nice beats bing nasty but at the end of the day there are far too many nasty things in this world and why should I be one of them.

Now some would say I am grumpy and true sometimes I can be but if you cannot improve the quality of someone's life by being around the then you have wasted an opportunity.

Love simply does make the world go round and the more you give it the more you get in return

Am I a Thetan?

Sometimes as you walk through this life and it throws you some challenges you have to question why we exist. Now some in our world would suggest that we descend from an Alien race called the Thetans.

Well yesterday I felt a bit like an Alien. I was subject to abuse by individuals who are supposed to help and ignored by those who are supposed to be friends. I have never possibly felt more alone in this life.

And then I picked up my 10 year old son from a party to be given the most wonderful hug going and it made me think again.

We exist to bring love and happiness to those around us and in our very mixed up world we forget the innocence of childhood and the very raw unabated love they give to us, the old gnarled parent.

So no I am not a Thetan, I am a loving, caring individual who has the power to spread joy and happiness wherever I go.

Maybe it is time more people thought this way.

Teachers need more pay!

Well it was my son's 10th birthday party at the weekend and like the muppet I am I said ok to a paintballing party. Mmm well it seemed like a good idea at the time. 10, ten year olds running around splatting each other was a great way of wearing them out and as someone else would be doing it I could sit back and enjoy the sun.

No such luck 2 of the children cried off sick so yours truly had to pitch in. Walking is difficult enough for me most of the time so I decided to be a sniper, lie down cover myself in foilage and pick my targets. I was doing quite well building a reputation but eventaully I got shot. Now heres he bit that gets me.

When you get shot you put your hand in the air and walk to the dead zone. And no one is allowed to shoot you.

But these were 10 year old kids so the minute I stood up put my hand in the air and turned to walk away...you've guessed it full on assault.

High spirited yes, brutal yes but as the marshall said who's the adult so don't retalliate.

The motto of the story:

Teachers just don't get enough pay !

Lifes a Beach

Well it is today because me and my loved ones are going down to the Beach!

It's hot, sunny and wonderfully un springlike in Wiltshire so you have to take advantage of the conditions. And as it's been a tough time for me personally recently I intend to spend the day acting like a beached whale.

It would be nice to think that all the people I love could be with me today but that is sadly not possible.

So my thought for the day

Hope springs eternal

For without hope there can be no future.

May your road be long and plentiful , may your days be happy and your heart filled with joy and may I learn to stop writing this blog as if it were for a birthday card.

Back Again

After a break for a while (I have been concentrating on other projects) I have returned to blogging. I think it's the fact that I've suddenly discovered how twitter works that has made the difference. So I'm putting my best foot forward, or in this case finger, and I am going to revive this thoughts from the edge blog.

So today's thought:

Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all must have been someone who had never loved.

Love is the most beautiful, wonderful and insanely painful thing that you will ever experience.

Sometimes you just have to be big enough to admit that love really does make the world go round and if it is absent from your life then get some of it now.

Remember whatever you do in life, Do it With Passion.