THE VIEW FROM HEIMBU

MAY 2004

According to the Governments's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, Antarctica is likely to be the only habitable place on Earth at the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked. Well, luckily Norway owns 25% of the landmass, including the South Pole, so maybe it is time to invest in property down there. (EU is considering relaxing emission targets in order to compete economically with the USA)


One of the great, new ideas for the NHS is to shorten the time junior doctors have to spend before becoming registrars and consultants in order to overcome the lack of specialists. To the Government's amazement the junior doctors are not agreeing. While they wouldn't mind the higher salary, they have stated that they actually would prefer to be properly qualified. Politicians, of course, don't have to be qualified in anything before taking on a senior job, so they have problems with understanding the concept.


Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those of us who do.
Steve B.


What will happen in this country if the interest rate goes up, or even if the oil price raises any further? As of now personal debt on mortgages, credit cards and overdrafts in the UK stands at 1 trillion pounds, which is more than the national debt of all countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The mind boggles.


Smokey, the new Heimbu cat, seems to have settled in nicely. We were told at the Cat Rescue Centre to keep him inside the house for 6 weeks in order for him to bond to us and the house, but Smokey had other ideas. A few days into the second week he spied a cat walking in the garden and jumped out of an open window. The other cat took one look at him and panicked, running through a hole in the garden wall. Smokey was too big  to follow, so he cleared the 7 foot wall in one jump and set off in hot pursuit. We were out looking for him all day, but to no awail. Giving up we went home to have our dinner, and Smokey walked out from the library wanting his food. He'd jumped back in again when we were out looking for him.

So now he patrols the garden every morning, comes in when we have lunch, out again in the afternoon and demands dinner spot on at 7 o'clock, and then falls asleep on one of the kitchen chairs. Last Sunday Kiyoko was late feeding him, so he ate my pork bellies instead.


I've been having problems with Arthur. Even after having completely stopped feeding him he's been rapidly gaining weight. So the other day I stayed home all day watching him. Just before noon Smokey sauntered into the garden with a blackbird in his mouth and left it for Arthur to eat.


Maxime Carr, the girl friend of the Soham killer Ian Huntley, was released from prison earlier this month, and has now been given a new identity, and is living at a secret location under police protection, after having received serious death threats. Is the whole country losing all sense of proportions? First Blunkett blocked her early release, but he is a politician, so nothing much can be expected there. Then the tabloids were outraged when the court prohibited them from publishing her whereabouts, but they obviously live in an alternative reality. What did the poor girl actually do? She told a lie. Is this what's upsetting the politicians and the tabloids so much, as surely none of them have ever done the same? Have they, now?


The coming postal European and Local Council Election in the North is rapidly turning into a farce, with misprinted ballot papers, and serious doubts about Royal Mail's ability to actually deliver on time. Be that as it may, but there is a more sinister aspect of postal voting hidden under the media headlines. For the first time the Government will not only know if you voted, but also how you voted. We are one step closer to dictatorship.


The latest survey shows that the Conservatives might come in third after Labour and the UK Independence Party, with the Liberals somewhere behind the Tories. The British National Party is also expected to do well, taking votes from the People's Party. One is starting to notice an amount of panicking in the Establishment.


Erling rang to announce that he was coming home for the bank holiday, so Kiyoko roped me in to drive down to the local super market to stock up on more food. Normally she and her mother do the shopping while I read the weekly periodicals for free, but this time she wanted me to push the trolley. It was a revelation. Miles of shelves with ready-made "food", childrens food, pet food and just pure junk, and then finally tucked away a small section with  ingredients for making proper meals.

I later had a word with a neighbour who works in the food trade, and he explained the situation to me. Basically there is a limit to how much you can charge for a potato, but when you "add value" to it by grating it and puffing it up with additives the sky's the limit. If you can then advertise it as buy one, get one free, the public think they are getting a real bargain. Right.


How difficult would it be to go back to the old concept of cauldron cooking? The super markets and the food industry have managed to convince us that we no longer have time to cook proper meals; it's so much easier to pop some ready made food into the micro-wave oven while we switch on the telly to watch something really important like the Big Brother House.

For those who don't know about cauldron cooking it is simplicity itself. You have a big sauce pan where you chuck anything you have into. Meat, potatoes, vegetables, grain; then you let it simmer, and then you eat it. Any left-over is left in the pot for next day; you just add more ingredients; in fact you can leave the pot simmering for years without ever cleaning it out. If you don't have time to wait when you come home from work, you can give it a quick boil before you leave, and then place it in a haybox; it will be cooked to perfection by the time you return. Tasty, nourishing and cheap.


The growing trend towards obesity in the UK has finally started to worry politicians, mainly because of the expected cost to the NHS. As usual their proposed solutions to the problem have little to do with reality. But reality is where they can't afford to go. The main problem is not that we eat too much, but that we eat the wrong kind of food for our expenditure of energy. As the giant food companies are major contributors to the coffers of all parties, don't look for any laws to force them to provide healthier food. And at the end of the day, it really comes down to ourselves. Most of us have stopped to take any kind of responsibility for our own or our childrens health. And it could all be so simple if we could just be bothered.


Where did it all go wrong? Up until just a few years ago we lived in a reasonably free society, with comparatively few limits to what we could do or not do, as long as we respected other peoples rights. Not anymore. The control freaks are now everywhere. Any hobby or interest you might have is now either prohibited or tightly regulated. (And you of course have to pay for the privelege of being regulated). Close-circuit television is watching you everywhere you go; speed cameras make sure that you either drive far below the speed limit, or become a danger because you are always looking at the speedometre instead of the road; though we are being told that we never have had it so good. I suppose turkeys have the same feeling all the way up to Christmas.


Regarding CCTV, news are just in that as an experiment that will soon go nation-wide, Leeds is to get a camera "ring of steel" to keep watch over who is coming and going. These cameras will be able to read all car registration numbers, and they can zoom in to see who is in the car. Everything will be stored on computers, and the police can evidently zoom in to check who you are months after you drove into town. As usual we are being told that if we have done nothing wrong we have nothing to fear. Only criminals will be targeted. And pigs might fly.


This year we're planning to hold the yearly Stav-thing and Fair at the soccer pitch that we buildt for the local kids. Just to be on the safe side I asked the council if they had any objections as we lease the ground from them. After several month we have now finally got a letter stating that this has nothing to do with them, and that we must contact the Swinemoor Youth project for permission. (We are the the Swinemoor Youth Project). The letter was adressed to Heimbu, Beverley, Selby in North Yorkshire. One would think that the East Riding of Yorkshire Council would know that Beverley is in the East Riding; after all it is the county capital where they are based. Luckily the Royal Mail knew and re-adressed it.   


There's a battle of wills going on between Kiyoko and Smokey. He comes in at dinner-time and falls asleep on a chair in the kitchen. Kiyoko wants him to sleep in the boot-room at night, but he prefers to stay where he is. So every night she tries to tip him out of the chair, and he tries to cling on. In the end I get chased out of bed and down to the kitchen. For some weird reason he listens to me.


Last time I was down at our local hospital I noticed a NHS poster stating that "The first three hours of your life are the most critical." What about the last three hours of your life?


May has been a lovely month at Heimbu. Flowers are out everywhere, though we are  starting to have problems with lack of rain. But with a bit of luck I think we'll get a real bounty this year. The strawberries should start to ripen in a few weeks, and it looks like we might get more apples than ever before. Kiyoko's kitchen garden looks promising, and we're already harvesting herbs for cooking. I'm seriously thinking about getting a few bantams so we can have fresh eggs, and maybe a goose or two to keep the lawn cropped.