THE VIEW FROM HEIMBU
JANUARY 2005
Some of you have queried my support for fox hunting on moral ground. Let me state right away that I like foxes. I enjoy watching them quartering a field for mice or just playing outside their den, and some of my happiest moment have been sitting down for a rest and then having a fox sit down beside me, something that has happened several times. So why then do I support fox hunting? Like most people who has grown up in the countryside I tend to look at species, not individuals. There is a balance in nature between the preditors and the prey, in fact not only a balance, but an interdependence. One cannot survive properly without the other. The preditor weeds out the old and the genetically weak from the prey species, and the resulting fitness of the prey species do the same for the preditor. One need only look at the mangy and deseased city foxes compared to country foxes to understand the value of the hunt for the fox as a specie, not to mention that the hound is one of the few genetically sound dogs left in Britain today. Disregarding the class warriors who have absolutely no regard for animals, I believe that any true animal lover need to make this choice; do you care for the individual and harm the specie, or do you care for the specie by accepting that death is the price for survival.
The Lakes National Park has had to cancel its popular guided walks.. It seems that most of the people taking part were white and middle class. As not enough people from the working class and ethnic minorities were interested the Park was in breach of Government guidelines.
The People's Party's assault on the contryside continues without any let off. The latest wheeze targets the country shows which for many farmers are the highlights of their year. Most of these shows struggle to break even financially, but new rules are now being proposed that would impose a levy of between £5,000 and £50,000 depending on how many people come through the gates.
The Conservatives have failed in introducing a Private Member's bill that would make it legal to defend yourself against a burglar inside your own home without having to be afraid of prosecution or being sued for damages. Statistics show that 54% of burglaries in the UK are "hot", meaning that the householder or members of his family are in the house when the burglar enters; in the US only 3% are "hot". Can any of you guess why?
Anyway, the Dear Leader has stated that there is no need for a change in the law as the householder already has the right to defend him or herself. Yes, Tony, in theory, apart from the fact that he or she is denied the tools to do so. If some-one kicks in your door and start helping himself to your possessions you are supposed to call the coppers who will give you a crime number. If you try to stop the culprit in any way you are now the agressor, and he has the right to defend himself. However, if you follow the official line and do nothing, and the villain decides that he would like to beat you to a pulp just for fun you can now hit him back if you are still able to. However, if you get hold of a kitchen knife and threathen him, you have now escalated the situation and he can legally cut you to ribbons in self-defence. You on the other side, can only legally use a knife after you have been stabbed, in which case its probably pretty academical anyway.
More than 200 years ago an emminent British lawyer stated that (quote) "As the State can not guarantee to protect its citizens at all time, no citizen should be denied the right and tools to defend himself." (unquote)
The key word here I think, is "citizen". Subjects don't have any rights.
The stormy weather has returned in the New Year. Another of the big Leylandii at Heimbu has come down, and I have been out there with the saw and axe again. The green houses were smashed up quite badly, too, and I think they are beyond repair this time.
Aki called this morning to tell us that she has finally bought a smallholding 30 miles out of Edinburgh. The farmhouse doesn't have any roof, but the stables and the barn are sound. She's got 6 acres of paddock land with an option to buy or rent a further 90 acres if or when she goes into sheep farming. As an aside she also asked if we could transfer £10,000.- into her bank account in order for her to get a roof over her head.
I have seen the future, and I'm worried. When we lived in Japan the size of the average family were 4.2 people, meaning husband, wife and 2.2 children. Ten years ago this fell to 2.8, and the latest statistics show that the average household now consists of 1.9 people. As single mothers are relatively unheard of in Japan the trend is for people not to marry and not to have children. Japan expects to have to use 130% of its GNP on pensions within 10 years. Something is wrong here, and we are surely going down the same way here in the UK.
On the subject of family size there was an interesting study out this month. It showed that a husband and wife, both in work making £25,000.- a year, and with 2 children were just £4.85 a month better off financially than a single mother not working and with the same 2 children. Only if the single mother had gone out and got herself a job would there be a big difference, as her income would then have dropped significantly.
Did anyone notice that the Conservative Party has just lost the coming General Election? By announcing that they would cut taxes, but keep the current spending on the NHS and education by trimming the bloated Civil Service, they obviously thought they were on to a winner. Nobody likes to pay taxes, but what they seem to have overlooked is the fact that with the enormous expansion of Government workers under New Labour, more than half of the middle class, that would normally be the Tories' natural constituency, now are dependent on Labour for their livelihood. The only real opposition now are provided by different factions within the People's Party.
Since Labour came to power, total public spending has risen from £316billion to a planned £580billion by 2007, the equivalent of £10,000.- for every household
In an interview last year, Dennis McShane, Minister for Europe, stated that the British people has a dark streak of xenophobia and racism in their mentality and nature.
Given that the same British people have lead the world in donating a massive 200 million pounds to the tsunami victims, can they now expect a very public apology from him?
The Government of which he is a member, stated that it would match the public's generosity, though it seems to have bottled out after the sum went beyond 50 million punds.
But of course,the ministers are not spending any of their own money, though they make it sound like they are. Like their pensions, it all comes out of the taxpayers' pockets.
The present bunch in power is surely the most illiberal Government since Cromwell's. Their right to imprison any foreigner and keep him or her without access to justice, will now be extended to cover UK citizens as well after the Law Lords found that the present situation is equal to racial discrimination.
I find it rather sickening to hear the Dear Leader and his henchmen admonishing us that we must never forget what happened at Auschwitz when they have more or less have put in place exactly the same laws that allowed Hitler's Final Solution to happen.
While most people seem to believe that it could never happen here in a democratic country, the German thought exactly the same in the 1930's.
The recent tsunami, where the death toll now stands at more than 300,000, has put the terrorist threat into perspective. What is freedom worth? Are we so afraid that we are willing to give up our hard fought rights in exchange for a little perceived security?
The recent study that shows that more than 140,000 people have died from heart attacks after being prescribed painkillers for their arthritis is sobering reading. Nor is it the first time that a big pharmaseutical company has had to take their medication off the market after the side effects are found to be too serious to ignore.
As a result more and more people are turning to herbal medicine which often has a track record spanning thousands of years of use with little or no problem.
So from August this year herbal medicine and supplements can no longer be sold in the EU except by the big, profit driven pharmaseutical companies.
This will include the Stav tonic which has been used by my family for hundreds of years. But at least, as I understand the new rules and regulations, there is nothing to stop me from giving the stuff away for free. Cheers.
A serious source of pollution in the house are the synthetic cleaning agents that we are being told is a neccessity of modern life. In fact many of them are less effecient than the safer traditional ones. So, unless you actually get a kick out of listening to the wheezing of your asthmatic child, maybe it is time to follow my mother's advice on keeping your house spotless.
Vinegar is acidic, which means it can neutralise limescale. It is also an effective disinfectant, anti-fungal agent and degreaser. It will also make your windows sparkle.
Baking powder can be used for gentle, non-abrasive cleaning and deodorising.
Washing soda is alkaline and cuts through grease. It can be used to soften water, clean bathroom tiles and remove stains.
Borax can be used for cleaning, softening water, stain removal, disinfecting and deodorising.
Lemon juice is a natural bleach and fabric whitener. It's an effective deodoriser, degreaser and disinfectant
Out of these 5 ingredients you can create just about any household-cleaning product safely and cheaply.
"We all dream of sunshine happiness and peace. Half of us think it sounds like a wonderful place to live. The other half think it sounds like a wonderful place to pillage. "We all dream of sunshine happiness and peace. Half of us think it sounds like a wonderful place to live. The other half think it sounds like a wonderful place to pillage."