JUNE 2004
"There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right."
Marcus Tulius Cicero (106-53 BC)
The police is on the look-out for a couple of burglars that has struck repeatedly over the last few months. They target garden sheds, but instead of stealing anything they leave the sheds nice and tidy, stacking shelves and clean dirty garden tools. One might perhaps hope that they will soon graduate to house burglaries.
War has broken out between Kiyoko and Smokey. A few days ago he felt that she was a bit tardy in serving his dinner as she was busy making our meal. So he jumped up on the hob and peed all over it. I have to admit that cat pee adds a rather interesting flavour to food.
The Dear Leader is preparing for the possibility of George Bush losing the coming election. Secret talks have reportedly been held, and ministers are no longer prohibited from contact with the Kerry campaign.
A new human sub-species seems to have developed recently; the fantasy shopper. He or she waste an average of £1,725.- a year on "must-have" gear they will never use because of lack of time. The less leasure time they have, the more leasure goods they buy and store.
It's only the first week of June, and already we're having temperatures in the upper twenties. Arthur is refusing to fly and spends most of his time sitting in a children's paddling pool splashing water all over anyone that comes near.
1) 56 words - The Lord's Prayer
2) 297 words - The 10 Commandments
3) 1,300 words - The American Declaration of Independence
4) 27,000 words - The EU Directive on duck eggs
The local police force has come out bottom of the Government's League Table. Evidently too few crimes are being investigated. The Deputy Chief's comments that not a lot of crimes are being comitted in the area was seen as irrelevant.
In medieval England the serfs had to work their lord's land 2 to 3 times a week, and they could not leave the area without permission. They were prohibited from owning weapons with which to protect themselves against outlaws, and they had to pay for the privilege of grinding their grain at the lord's mill in order to be able to eat.
In the Blairite Brave New World the consumer have to work for the Government for 6 months before they can keep any of their income, and they can not leave their area without permission from the bank that holds their mortgage. They are prohibited from owning weapons with which to protect themselves against burglars and muggers, and they have to pay the Government for the privilege of using a car in order to get to their place of work so they can earn a living.
The other day we were going to prune a quince under which Arthur was sitting. He got terribly upset and displayed threating behaviour which is very unusual for him. Having a closer look we found a pigeon sitting on a nest just behind him, low enough in the tree for Arthur to actually reach her. I know the birds in our garden regard Arthur as a kind old uncle that protects them from the sparrowhawks and cats, but this is going a bit too far. Arthur really seems to think he is going to be a father soon.
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
-Dylan Thomas
According to a survey published by the Joseph Roundtree Foundation parents are contributing an average £17,000 to get their children on the property ladder . More and more it seems that families are having to manage their assets across the generations, not just because of the rising house prices, but to protect their wealth from falling into the hands of the authorities, and to be able to meet the financial demands that increasingly are now falling on the individual - education, health care and age care.
So we got through the election, and as predicted it was pretty much a disaster for the established parties. The received wisdom is now that the voters was protesting against the Iraq war, and that everything will be back to normal soon. They seem to disregard the fact that the Liberal-Democrats didn't pick up any more votes, and that Chirac and Scroeder, who did everything humanly possible to keep Saddam in power, also got a drubbing from their electorate. Could it be instead that people are getting tired of funding the EU gravy train that the politicians so love, but no-one else seems very excited about.
The postal voting in this area did double the voter participation from the last election, though partly because it now seems that quite a few people that have been dead for a considerable time somehow managed to put down their X on the slip. There also seems that quite a few people were shipped in from Pakistan and registered as British citizens without anyone actually checking their credentials. The police are reluctant to investigate, fearing both another riot, and being branded as racists again.
A few months ago Britain's Concul in Romania blew the whistle on a huge immigration scam, condoned by the Government, that saw thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians allowed into the UK. It scuppered the career of Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes, though her boss David Blunkett as usual managed to get out from under. The Consul has now been given a final official warning, a three-year block on promotion, a pay freeze for a year and is banned from returning to Bucharest.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ---Chief Seattle---
According to a treaty signed by David Blankett last year, which was kept secret for several months, and never debated by Parliament, British citizens will now be extradited to the US whenever the Americans ask for it. There is no need for for the US to produce any evidence of wrongdoing to a British court; they only need to state that he or she will not be executed if found guilty. The British have no such rights over US citizens. The Americans tried to get the same deal with the rest of the EU, but were quite rightly told to bugger off.
Tragedy has struck in the garden. Arthur's pigeon girlfriend hatched two chicks, but one night the weather was so bad that I took him inside, and during the hours of darkness something or someone struck and emptied the nest. Both Arthur and the mother pidgeon are visibly distressed.
I spent the last week of the month back home in Norway visiting my mother. As usual I paid my respect to the ancestors at the family tomb, and also had chats with the living, some of whom I hadn't seen for more than forty years. I had an interesting talk with the Grette branch of the Hafskjold family on herbs as they have retained much of the herbal lore. There's always something new to learn in Stav.
Daughter Aki came along with me to Norway which she hadn't visited since she was eight years old. She only stayed one night because of the livestock back home in the UK, but her main impressions of the old country seemed to be that there were no cars in the cities, (because everyone spends the summer in the countryside) everyone walks in the middle of the road, (though that is only in my hometown) that if the distance is within ten miles people walk instead of taking public transport, the shops are all closed on a Sunday and that everyone's conversation centers around elk (that's moose to you Yanks) and trolls. (Real trolls, not the cyber version)
I wish all my readers (all three of you) a nice Summer holiday and hope to see you at the Summer-thing on the 31st of July.