September 2005
September started with Erling and I going up to Scotland to help out on Aki's farm. Predictibly Erling's train going from Liverpool to Hull stopped at Leeds as there was no driver available. He had to re-route to Sheffield and then take a local that stopped at every milkramp in Yorkshire. He arrived in Hull at 11 p.m. instead of 2:49 as he was supposed to do.
Next day we arrived at the little town of Ladybanks just as it was getting dark, only to be told that the last bus had just left. Figuring out that that the farm was only a couple of miles away we decided to walk, something that seemed to shock the locals no end. We arrived in complete darkness and bedded down for the night in the former cowshed.
Aki called on the mobile next morning to tell us that we better not sleep in the cowshed, though we had just found out why, anyway. We had been sharing accomodation with a one and a quarter tonne bull, and while he seemed docile enough, we decided to up sticks and move into the barn, where our food store was promtly raided by a mob of feral cats.
We then set about demolishing 2 wooden sheds by hitching them to Aki's old Land-Rover. There was enough wood there to keep a bonfire going for 2 days and nights, while I knocked down a stone wall with the sledge hammer; all good training I'm sure. All in all, it was an enjoyable trip.
On the way home we nipped into our local Apple store to get some CD blanks and emerged with a new iMac. Erling drove a hard bargain. It didn't save me any money, but he got a 1 gig memory stick and a few other things thrown in for free. At the same time I finally broke down and upgraded to broadband, and I have to admit that I have to spend a lot less time in front of the computer now.
Anyone remembering the Chancellor announcing he was going to cut 84,000 civil servants jobs to save the taxpayers' money? So far there has not been a single redundency in any of the Governments's departments. However, the Department of Health has hired 10 teams of management consultants, at a cost of £608,000, to advise it on how to cut costs, known as the Treasury's "Efficiency Review".
Who said that civil servants lack a sense of humour?
The main problem with having a lot of public sector workers employed in non-jobs is not just that it is costing the poor taxpayers a fair amount of money, but the chances are that some of these people will attempt to justify their excistance with whatever daft scheme enter their heads on a wet afternoon.
Lately we have the local maternity ward banning people from cooing at babies because "it infringes their human rights".
And then it was the a lollipop lady with 20 years experience who was told that she could no longer accompany the children across the road, only press the button on the crossing for the lights to turn red. Why, you may ask. Evidently the Council's School Crossing Patrol Officer (seriously) was concerned that motorist would become confused by seeing both a red light and a lollipop saying STOP and step on the accelerator. He probably remembered his math lessons at school where 2 minuses constituted a plus.
Aki in the meantime are having serious problems with another bunch of so-called Civil servants. The house on her farm is completely derelict with the roof caved in. Therefore, in May this year, she applied for planning permission to knock it down and build a new house on the site. The application was returned in July on the ground that they didn't like the shade of red that her architect had used to outline the border of her property. (Honestly, I kid you not). Last week they indicated that she would not be allowed to build a new house, though they had not yet had time to look at the new application (using a different shade of red).
Aki therefore told them that she couldn't afford to wait any longer, and that she would just repair the old house, only to be told that she would need planning permission because the roof had caved in some time ago and the roofless house was now part of the landscape.
We have instructed our solicitor to take this up with the Secretary of State for Scotland, as it is obvious that we are not going to get any joy from the Council.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed—and thus clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." — H.L. Mencken
Back at Heimbu, Kiyoko was waiting for the garden to be sorted out for winter. I've spent a full week chopping bushes and pruning fruit trees and connifers. The chopping bit is not so bad, but then I had to get rid of the stuff. I have been going in shuttle traffic to the local tip, and so it seems, are just about everyone else in town; the quees to get in have been stretching for miles.
Do you feel any safer now that New Labour has finally become tough on crime? So far this month a retired clergyman and a 73 year old lady have been jailed for the serious crime of withholding part of their council tax on the ground that it has grown way above the rate of inflation (while their pensions have not). I suppose we can all sleep better now that these dangerous criminals are no longer a threat to society.
Hurricane Katrina, and to a lesser degree Rita, has shown how ill prepared both authorities and individuals are in the face of emercencies. As global warming seems to take hold with ever increasing rapidity, one wonders how a populace that has been trained from birth not to cope will indeed do so.
It's the season for party conferences. The Liberal Democrats were first off the starting line, but hardly anyone noticed. But the week after, New Labour finally managed to get people to wake up and smell the coffee. An 82 year old Jewish Labour activist who had escaped from Hitler's brownshirts, was wrestled to the grown and thrown out from the conference hall by by a bunch of burly Party enforcers, stripped of his conference passport, and finally arrested under the terrorist act. His crime? Daring to shout "nonsense"during Jack Straw's speech on Iraq.
So is now even the slightest diagreement with the powers that be regarded as an act of terrorism?
Why is it that every time a a hospital or post office is closed down the reason given is that it will enable the authorities to offer a better service?
One of the early traumas of my life happened when I was six years old. We were moving house, and somehow my teddy bear did not arrive at our new place. But a few days ago I was having a look at a local antique shop, and there he was; a 1920 Steiff bear in almost as new condition. There are times when life is not too bad after all. Bamse has finally come home.
I see that Euan Blair, the 21 year old son of the Dear Leader, has announched that he is contemplating to follow in his father's footsteps, and that he is hoping one day to become Prime Minister. Does this explain why Cherie Blair stated on the telly that she is staying put at No 10 for a long time yet? Maybe Gordon Brown better start looking through the employment pages in whatever paper he takes.
Has anyone else noticed how our Tony looks more and more mephistophelean in appearance every year?
A functioning democracy, or any society for that matter, cannot excist if there is no centre. By this I don't mean that we should have what we have now in this country, a centrist goverment that dictates everything down to the minutest detail; especially on something of which they have little or no knowledge.
If an individual is believing in his or her abilities, his or her family will have a centre. Centered families creates functioning local communities, who again create a proper central government which serves the population, instead of being an elective dictatorship.
Seeing how the rights that our parents' generation fought for during the Second World War having been stripped away in exchange for a perceived sense of security one feels a sense of dispear. It is sympthomatic of the times that of all the delegates at the Labour conference, only an 82 year old who had seen the Nazis at work had the courage to tell the truth.