Keeping up

19 October

That large parcel was collected about an hour after I posted the blog yesterday, so we’re not stuck in again today after all. We did get out for a few hours yesterday and called into the Hinckley Knight on the way home where we had a nice meal. After that we got home just after eight pm to find that we had very little space left for us to park. Jan did well in getting in the space there was but now we have a boot full of shopping we can’t get to; that will be fun in a short while, and all because some selfish toe-rag won’t park properly!

I’ve had an idea buzzing about in my head that I ought to try to see what the battery life of this lappy is. So this morning I have set my stop watch off as I pulled the plug and to get some idea as to how long it will last. The idea is that if I know how long it lasts, I might be able to take it out with me and get some writing done. I could of course take it to the library and plug it in there, which is fine, but for some reason that idea doesn’t grab me as much.

Yesterday I sat reading an article in Writing Magazine and across something that I felt really stupid in not thinking about it myself. Criminals use the internet to commit or help commit crimes. That was something that wasn’t thought about when the US Defence Sec; set up his task force to bring all the various areas of the US armed forces together to use just one system and not the three different ones they were using at the time. That decision was ultimately lead to the setup of the internet and years later to the world wide web.

Lesson learned; I won’t forget that one in a hurry. It might be a tad difficult to work it into my current work though apart from the new Fred Copper which needs a re-write anyway. Which reminds me of something that I have included in there, the Soham murders and the aftermath of them. Copper is a senior Cambridge cop but was on leave when that case came up and he was home too late to get involved in it. Something else I need to consider is the new Police Commissioners that has been created and how they will affect how the police do their jobs. And don’t forget the savage cuts to police budgets over the last few years.

I read a funny on Facebook the other day about an elderly lady on a cruise in a ship who remained on board going back and forth on the same route time after time. It turns out that it was cheaper to do that than to pay for living in a care home. But you know what? It wasn’t all that funny really was it? Like all these types of story there’s an element of truth in them. Care Home costs are really high these days, as we see on the news pretty often when stories come out about care homes going bust, or handing back contracts to councils because they are not paying enough to cover the full fees.

And on it goes my friends, money gets tight and the weakest among us suffer from it. Out in the natural world it’s called ‘survival of the fittest’. But surely we humans are better than that. Surely can come to some sort of system where the weakest among us are looked after when the time comes that they need the help the most. If we can’t, what sort of society are we?

Today’s photo …

Burger, egg, mushroom and cheese bake, my dinner one time …

Today’s funny …

What did Baron Frankenstein do when his monster's head fell off?
He made a bolt for it.