Wednesday 30 September 2015

Booze, religion and light



30 September

And so another months slides away behind us. I wonder how much my readers (and I am thankful to each and every one of you) have manged to achieve during this month, and what their aspirations are for next month. One on Facebook this morning was a pledge to write one page every day. On the face of it I like that one, but as it reads it does seem rather vague to me. I mean, what size page is it aimed at? I’m using an A4 pad to write Arathusia with an average word count of 220, making it 6800 words. But what about the A5 writers? I also have notebooks here that are even smaller. Perhaps the pledge would mean more if it included page size, I don’t know – what say you my readers?

Sometime ago I started a story that include a number of murders of gay men. This is another one that needs to be looked at again. However, I was reading a novel the other day that I really enjoyed where men were being raped; I won’t say more in case any of you might want to read it yourselves. The novel is latest Scott Cullen yarn from Ed James. And it gave me an idea as to where I can go with my story when I get back to it. I have so many stories/novels on the go right now, I’m not sure when, or even if they will all be completed. I have a poster here somewhere that used to live on my wall until we moved here. It shows and man with frazzled hair sitting down with a worried expression on his face; along him are the words, ‘God put me on this world to do certain things; I’m so far behind right now I shall never die.’  

BBC Midlands today story is of a ‘corner shop’ being allowed an alcohol licence. Nothing in that itself of course, but this shop is close to the Bourneville estate in Brum. The Quaker family who built the estate refused to allow and booze to be sold within its 1000 acres, a ban that is still in play even now. The rights or wrong of someone’s religious views are not at issue for this blog today through. What the story has done is to remind me of another corner shop and what happened to it after new owners took it on.

You see, my family and I were fairly regular customers of the shop from when we first moved into our house in Bracebridge Street. So one day as I drove past I stopped to get a few cans of cider for later that evening. That was found out it had been taken over by new owners. Looking around I noticed that there was very little of anything in there, and what there was, was aimed squarely at the Asian population. The man who approached me and if he could help was dressed in the normal day to day dress of a Muslim. I asked if they had stopped selling drink and he said yes. I left at that point.

We still use the pharmacy on the corner of Bracebridge Street and I had to call in there one day with a new ‘script. Because the street is now a one street I had to drive along it to come home, and guess what? That very busy, very happy little shop was now closed and boarded up. In this case it was down to the religious views of the new owners which banned to sale and consumption of all alcohol. Their faith had cost them more than they had expected.

The nearest offie to that one, Asian run again, is about 500 yards off, and I suspect that their taking have gone up a good bit. There’s another one about 500 yards on further that this one, and this one is Muslim run and yet it sells booze. Perhaps there’s a lesson here for some folks.

Today’s photo then … 


A street lamp in the Royal Mews.

And today’s funny …

Ivan Ivanovich, the great Russian scientist decides to do an experiment to know how fast a thermometer falls down. He takes a thermometer and a light, a candle light, to the 3rd floor of a building and recognizes that they are reaching the ground at the same time. Ivan Ivanovich, the great Russian scientist writes in his book: "A thermometer falls with the speed of light."

Tuesday 29 September 2015

Ups and down of the NHS



29 September

Our alarm went off at 9am this morning and I stopped it; but you know what, I just couldn’t move at the time. We ended up finally at 11am. I know, I know, lazy pair of sods. Whatever, I’m still struggling to keep awake. Mind you, right now Jan is Skyping her sister in Bangkok and there’s no chance of dropping off with those yapping on. Who would have thought those colouring books for adults could cause so much yapping. It’ll be another of those crazes that will eventual become a passing fad, just like those little bands thing the kids were crazy over.

Our son Tom asked Jan to phone him and when she finally got through to him he had just left his GP. It seems that over the weekend he’s had two epileptic fits. That has come as a shock to us. He’s also said he’s getting pretty constant migraines too. Now he’s waiting for scans to be done, but no-one knows when they will happen. The NHS in Ulster is horrendously slow. Of course we want the scam to happen now, this very minute, but I have little faith in it happening. Perhaps he may need to be taken to A&E while he’s in one for something to happen. But again, we don’t want him to have any more fits at all, it seems that it might be the only way he will get any treatment in time soon.

Over the years I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people asking, ‘Which would be worse for you, going blind or going deaf?’ I’ve always thought it to be a useless question to begin with; whatever happens there’s nowt you can do about it anyway. It’s seems that things are slowly changing. Hearing implants are restoring sound and now it might be possible to reverse one type of blindness by using stem cells. There’s still a long way to go but if wet macular sight loss and be teared and cured, then in the future other forms might be suitable for treatment. That’s a big hope of help for so many people.

Muppet Person Corbyn is on his feet speaking to his under-muppets right now in Brighton at the Labour Party conference. The things is, no matter who had won the leadership election and was now giving his/her first speech as leader, there’s nowt they can do anyway but spend minutes creating more hot air. However, he does seem to be a much more laid-back muppet than some of, well, most of the others. What I’m not sure of is if he’s really good enough to be our Prime Muppet. There are times when that worthy has to be tough and hard, yet can he do that I wonder? Not sure right now.

Guess what? I have actually got some music playing in the back ground here, yes I know; it’s been months since I last played any. Right now I have a Bix Beiderbecke DC on, one a two disc set. I’d actually forgot I had them. Jan is off for shower and she’s come through to see what I’ve put on, she’s surprised too.

Today’s photo then … 

This one is of the three of us at Bempton Cliffs RSPB site. Tom called it, ‘Titch in the Middle’. Don’t know where that comes from though.

Today’s funny …

Newton's First Law of Motion: A body in motion will remain in motion. A body at rest will stay under a down comforter until forced to move.   

Monday 28 September 2015

The power man calleth ...



28 September

For years now we have been getting our energy from Ova Energy. When we first moved in here we had our account transferred over. At some point they fitted a new meter which should have had an ariel on it which would transmit the usage data to Ova and to a little gizmo we have in our living room. The idea of the gizmo is to tell us just how much energy we are using and how much it is costing us. It’s a good idea of course, but the new meter was installed around two years ago, without the ariel. Today the guy came to fit one.

Just as Mr Ova was about to leave, Mr Apollo turned up to do a few electrics survey ready for our new kitchen next month. That job didn’t need doing cos the same guy had done it in May. I don’t understand why they didn’t know that before the job was scheduled, it would have saved at least one house call. Apollo is a council owned company/contractor so I suppose we can’t expect too much in common sense when it come spending tax payers money. Whatever, the sparky has gone now too, but I had made a note of it for the wrong day anyway. I’d got it down for next Monday. At least we are fee now and the rest of the today.

Two new books were begun over the weekend by two new writers too. Song of Treason by Jeremy Duns, is a paperback and is a story of the Cold War set in the 1960s/70s. The main character is a MI6 man who is working for both sides, and he kill the head of 6, and then at the funeral someone tries to kill him too. Instead his new boss gets in the way he is killed. Opps …

The other one is The Synchronicity War by a German writer I can’t remember the name of right now. It’s a good old fashioned space opera of a Sci-Fi, a genre I just love. Not many of them are penned these day I think. Top and bottom of it all is a United Earth Space Navy ship is lost in deep space so a fleet of frigates are sent to look for her. What they find along with the lost frigate is new space fairing race and we have the start of a whole new war. It’s basically Cowboys and Indians in space suites I suppose. Good fun though.

As for my writing, well, I did get two lines done when the sparky said he would be knocking off the power for about an hour. That meant I had to close me desktop, Jan was OK using her lappy of course. I decided that it was an opportunity to get some writing done. After 15 minutes he was gone and I had just got two lines, all of one sentence down on paper. Seeing as I didn’t do my blog yesterday, I wanted a day off see, I thought I’d better get on with doing it today. Once I’m done here and had a look around the ‘net, I shall get back on with it before we go out shopping in the evening.

We are getting more and more disillusioned with Asda, so today we are going to Tesco arena in Coventry and see how get on there. Jan has found out that some of our regular buys are cheaper over there so it’s worth a look. I’ve always thought that the fruit and veg was cheaper at Asda but we can get it even cheaper at Aldi and Lidl, even if the choice is not so great. It’s old shopping two step I suppose.

As you can see I haven’t mentioned any current affairs today. Why is simple, I haven’t seen any news on telly or read a paper, so I have no idea as to what has been happening around the world. I shall find out later when I watch the news at 6pm.

So now I need to find a photo … 

A chunk of concrete of a man and an archway. I’ve not tried to puzzle this one out folks, that’s for you to do. An art historian named Gombrich called it, ‘The beholder’s (viewers) share’.

Today’s funny …
Question:
Upon entering a laboratory, you see an experiment. How do you know which class it belongs to?
Answer:
If it's green and wiggles, it's biology. If it stinks, it's chemistry. If it doesn't work, it's physics.