View From The Window

The last day of home alone, the washing's done, the ironing is done a bit of a food shop today and we are ready for Mrs A's arrival tomorrow, then it is a short week before we head off into the wilds of Scotland just in case the wall is rebuilt and I take an English passport, naturally it will be Poles building it if it does happen. We are heading for John O'Groats and a trip along the coast back to Skye for the last couple of days, I am not one for the great outdoors, I know it is there but am happy to stay here. It is not that I dislike travel but I need stuff to see, battlefields, museums, restaurants, palaces, forts etc. apart from palaces the North probably has some of the rest but surrounded by vast swathes of empty, very pretty empty but there you go. Anyway, Mrs A likes it and she deserves it for her birthday road trip, she is spoiling me with the accommodation mind you. And being honest it will be great to get away for a wee while. The sun is shining again, that's two days in a row which makes me fear for summer, houses are being bought in the village but Washington House is still empty and forlorn, I must have been wrong about potential buyers.

OK, I'll go.

The big news of course is the General Election, where do I stand now that Nigel has delivered Brexit, I don't know to be sure, I was happy enough with Theresa but her decision not to sort out our Foreign Aid madness has disappointed me, 0.7% of our cash goes abroad and here at home we are a basket case on so many issues desperately needing funding. Aid goes hand in hand with benefits, politicians are more than happy to throw other people's cash at many undeserving cases as it supposedly lets them take the moral high ground but in reality it is easier than having the backbone to sort the mess out.

I see the latest box to tick on your way to celebrity is mental health, and now it has the Royal Seal of approval thanks to Diana's kids. Can you remember when it started with having a bad mum, a horrendous woman who pushed their son but mainly daughter to become rich and famous against their will, although usually the parent in question was dead and couldn't speak for themselves. Then 'abuse' was added to the resume, not sexual abuse, that would come later, but physical abuse, again said perpetrators were dead. Then of course the sex thing, suddenly hordes of the 'famous for fifteen minuters' had had a hellish upbringing thanks to dead people. And now it is mental health that is popular, if you have a full set you are at the top of your game. I like to call this the Spartacus effect as in the movie with the famous 'I'm Spartacus' scene. I also think it drowns out people who do seriously suffer because they are not newsworthy.

No, really, he's Spartacus.

But there is hope on the horizon, that most intelligent of film stars, Gwyneth Paltrow, after passing on the benefits of hot stones, crystals etc. has found that walking barefoot on the ground cures depression, no it is not just going for a walk without shoes it is 'Earthing'. I'm heading out sans footware this afternoon after three weeks in the PO.

Earthing, grow your own dope.

The real scientific community is not kicking its heels either, a middle aged professor has released a video, as, after 40+ years he has now mastered the art of tying his shoe laces and wanted to pass it on to the rest of us who have been tripping up for decades, buying slip ons and have got it wrong. I don't know about you but I double tie my laces, I have done this since day one because one tie is not enough I find, but that wasn't good enough for the prof so he investigated and bingo, no doubt you will already be benefitting from this breakthrough as I type. Why are we doing it wrong, you have to loop the opposite way, I gave up at this point.

Continuing with the science lesson, I was told when they discovered I was diabetic that I had to stop drinking real fruit juice as it was worse than a fizzy drink, which it wasn't, but anyway I gave up the occassional glass of pink grapegruit I enjoyed. It now transpires that the sugar in fruit juice is good sugar as opposed to bad sugar, no I don't get it either, but I am happy that a team of overpaid white coats has been beavering away for years to inform me of this breakthrough.

I see that the Equality and Diversity Unit at Oxford is also beavering away justifying their existence, it transpires that if you do not make eye contact with the person you are speaking to or enquire as to where they are from you are a racist, I wonder if that should be a capital, Racist, or even RACIST! I have known a handful of people in my life, all white, who avoid eye contact when speaking, it's just a thing, like a twitch or biting your nails thought I, and surely one of the most natural things in the world when you meet someone is to ask where they are from? Why don't we just admit that everyone is Racist and leave it at that, what, only white people, err OK.

Staying with further education, I picked this beauty up, people are being asked at some student meetings not to clap but to use 'jazz hands', now I had no idea what that was until I looked it up, it is when you lift up your arms, spread your fingers and shake your hands. This act is silent and therefore will not cause anxiety and is not threatening in any way, like say, clapping. Can you imagine summoning up the one police officer in your county and informing him you had just been clapped at and you wanted the perpetrator dealt with. On a secondary note, wouldn't using 'jazz hands' be considered a racial slur?

And if you think that is infantile then you are going to love the new therapy being considered by the NHS, some nut, sorry, respected phsyciatrist or whatever is pushing the idea that if you have mental issues regressing to a state of 'babyhood' can aleviate these symptoms and bring harmony and peace, nappies will be provided.

My granddaughter in Chorleywood will grow up without ever having passed through a ritual which, up until now, almost every little girl in the country would have spent time enjoying or not enjoying as the case may be, I am talking about that rite of passage for British children male or female, the Brownies, the Rainbows, Beavers, the Cubs or whatever they are called these days. There are 50,000 children waiting for a place to go and be children and enjoy themselves with their peers. You could lay the blame at the door of immigration but far more insidious is the hidden claim that unless you are checked and approved (and hand over some cash) you might be a danger to those children. So organisations countrywide which at one time were open to all now have an entry age of 18 or volunteers are not willing to pay money or be put in a position where they can be pointed at or targetted at the drop of a hat. My own wargame club has a limit of 18 now, to play with toy soldiers! Red tape insists that if one of us brings his son along he has to clear it with our Child Protection Officer first, the age limit is easier than tying ourselves up in knots with paperwork, can you imagine the madness of a seventeen year old bringing along his Roman Army with his mum in the background as the responsible adult.

What's love got to do about it. Well if your boyfriend has just come out of jail, screws you down to a wooden board and plugs you into the mains through your private parts not a lot I would guess for one of you. She then has the gall to take him to court, what happened to 'just say NO!' or head for the nearest door.

Who loves ya baby?