Anyone got a knife?

I need one to cut the air the atmosphere is so thick

Reputation

One other issue we have with the online community is that of powerful gossip. The assumption being, no one on Facebook is actually real so, anything I say about them won’t really cause any harm. Not to forget, I read it on Facebook so it has to be true, no smoke without fire.

Yes, we’re talking here about that sort of person whose on life is so destroyed, so fake, so uneventful that they will sacrifice anyone to appear popular and I do mean ‘anyone’ including their own friends and family.

If there is a juicy bit of gossip to share which ‘bigs them up’ then they will share it even when they know it isn’t true.

Often this isn’t malicious, they mean no harm, they just feel that because this person isn’t that persons friend on Facebook that they’ll never know so it doesn’t matter. Many have totally forgotten there is a real world out there where people might actually talk to each other and  ,,,

You see, it doesn’t matter how good we are, how hard we try to be the right sort of person, it only takes one thoughtless person to start or perpetuate a rumour and we’ve totally lost our reputation. If one bad person makes something up about us and then posts it online that news will spread out so quickly we can’t hope to stop it. In the meantime, the first person to say it apologises and has deleted all evidence but, the damage is done.

Sadly, there is no way to stop this. Those hell bent on destroying others to give their own life meaning or some other personal gain just do not care. All that matters is them and how popular they can make themselves.

If you hear someone tell you they got something from a reliable source that someone else you know did this that or the other, please, tell them to go do one!

This isn’t overly specific by the way, just one of my all too often happening experiences.

Social Destruction

Has Facebook destroyed the current generations ability to form lasting social contacts?

It is often heralded as the social networking tool of this age but, is it really?

I see profiles with over 1000 ‘friends’ and, for all practical purposes, it’s nigh on impossible to follow even a fraction of those and their postings if any. The timeline must be moving so fast anything which could actually benefit the reader has long gone unless they sit staring at the screen hour after hour.

Indeed, perhaps not even just Facebook, let’s move to

To show but a few and good old ‘texting’.

There are now very real arguments caused by users poor ability to adequately communicate the emotions of their text leading to terrible misunderstandings.

In an age where so many of us have so many free minutes on our mobile phones where we could actually talk to someone, we still choose to text. Indeed, why have a 30 second phone call when 20+ texts over 10 minutes will screw the whole process up?

It makes no sense!

This is because a generation has lost the ability to communicate. So concerned are they that they might humiliate themselves during a call they text as though, somehow, this isn’t them, it’s a degree of pseudo anonymity. No one can see them so, it sort of isn’t really them and it’s plain crazy.

Indeed, so used are people now to communicating via Facebook and others that they fail to do it in person, they genuinely don’t have time because they are answering all those messages online. When they are physically with someone else, that message tone sounds and straight off, out comes the phone to answer someone about not very much who may well be with another real person but, they are not actually communicating effectively because of all the uninvited guests sitting their virtually via text message.

I’ve been in rooms where everyone is communicating online, even with each other. They have to as it’s the only way to actually have everyone involved talking even though they are all talking about different things.

Does no one ever get the urge to go out and just leave the phone off? Not on silent or vibrate but, actually off? How many times have we sat there across a table talking to someone and realised they’re barely paying any attention because they are engrossed in their phone.

Some people spend so much time looking for the right person via text that they miss them sitting their at the same table!

Perhaps we should have phone bans in public places? Give everyone the chance to learn or remember what it is like to be with real life people and communicate with them without someone virtually getting involved that wasn’t invited?

Age of Ultron

A very good movie, not that this is much of a shock! I am somewhat confused as to the tie in with the TV series, normally there is a greater connection that was shown which was a shame because it seems to have left Agents of Shield vulnerable to being cancelled.

IMDB Link to Film

Good to see some new developments, new faces (and old).

Things wot make me smile

My new Penguin’s

Me n Matt messing about on GTAV … He’s standing on my Hydra in mid hover above the airport

Saturday 13th June

I did this …

and this ..

Hmm … and this

I’m a little crazy me … but I like it

2015 Election … if you vote for …

If you vote for …

You get this …

If you vote for this ..

You this …

  AND

This …. you’re on your own guys, good luck with that

If you vote for this …

you get this …

If you vote for this …

you get this

If you vote for this

you get

(But somebody still will)

If you vote for …

You get …

In the 2015 elections, let’s keep it simple!

Good times

Seems so long ago now. I really want to go back and to Florida and, erm, Gran Canaria and, erm … somewhere I’ve not been and California. Quite fancy Canada, why do I fancy going to Canada?

Stargate SG-1 … 200

I’d forgotten just how amusing the show was. Sure, I know it was good but I’d forgotten just how much it made me laugh and, for a while there, I was a little sad because, they knew at the time the show was near the end of the 10 year run, a huge milestone for any show let alone science fiction.

Who could not laugh at the Star Trek parody

The Wizard of Oz and, of course, the puppets!

With just a dozen or so shows left until the series ended I am pleased to have watched the 9+ seasons over again from the start.

It’s great we have all these super hero movies out these days and, wow, Star Wars but …. where are the science fiction TV series?

‘L’ of a driver

That scary moment watching outside the window when an obviously really inexperienced learner is using my car to practise parallel parking uphill as they keep rolling forward when they think they’re going backward.

The temptation to go move my car is quite strong.

They eventually got to the curb two car lengths back from my car, stopped then started talking to the instructor whilst rolling forward!

Moment over, the instructor has decided the learner might not yet be ready for it!

Phew!

Yay!

5 minutes to sit and do not a lot. I probably should take the time to eat but, it’s really too close to dinner to do lunch.

Been busy here and there all day today, still have a list of things to do, people to call back!

Thought I’d do my daily check of the Facebook but, it isn’t working so, saved from that then!

In work Benefits

During this election campaign there is a lot of talk of hard working people and families. There is a lot of talk too of childcare and in work ‘help’ toward the cost of childcare.

Look, I did my fair share of parenting, I got Child Benefit and got some benefits for the entire family. It wasn’t really a choice and I had my children when I was working so, I feel I made a choice I could afford them. It was circumstances which changed, not my fault and therein is a complication.

Should people have children with the intent on fully funding them or, should they have them and, what the hell, the state will pay if they can’t?

I am concerned that just about every party is encouraging childbirth at the cost of responsibility. It is as though they are saying having children is a right, everyone is entitled to have children and the state will pick up at least part of the tab for that. But, is this the right message to send?

How far really is it from what the Conservatives, back in the 80’s described as single mothers having babies to live off the state?

Is there actually any difference at all between those benefits people receive for being unemployed or disabled and those they receive because their employer doesn’t pay them enough? A single person, no children should be entitled to around £4-800 a year on minimum wage but lose virtually all entitlement once they get £7.60 an hour. That presumed they work 30 hours a week, if they do just 36 hours a week, even on minimum wage they get nothing.

Add a child and the levels rise substantially. That it is call a ‘tax credit’ doesn’t mean that it is any less than a state handout. Everyone is paying for someone who has one or more children to work. True, I think I’d rather subsidise a parent who was working that one who was a lazy arse with no intention of working but, why should we? Surely, if someone is working their employer should enable them to have the lifestyle they are earning? But, this is sort of thing. Parents are deciding to go back to work and allowing the state to pick up a large part of their childcare costs. Sometimes, even if those parents are no better off financially they are both at work leaving paid strangers to raise their children.

This makes me wonder, why have children if you do not intend to do the most important job any parent has? That job is to be their teaching them the ways of the world to your own standards, showing them how to form lasting relationships, to love, play and feel part of something special, a loving family. How can that be achieved if they are off to the day care at dawn and home in time for bed?

I am thinking more and more that we need to educate our children that, if they have children that THEY are the parents. Do not have children unless they are raised by someone who loves them, ideally a parent but certainly family and, do not have children unless you as a family can fund those children. Leave the benefits system for those most in need, those who need support through no fault of their own. The current way of thinking doesn’t allow individuals to strive for more, it allows them to feel that they’ll be supported financially no matter what. It allows employers to get off the hook of paying a living wage.

A couple with children needs around £15 an hour at 36 hours a week to fully support their family with the cost of things as they stand, that figure includes child benefit, that’s a take home salary of just £20,000 a year. But, we cannot discriminate, what needs to happen is that employers need to be looking at that sort of cost for everyone over 25 regardless of their intent to have children or not.

Bottom line is, the state should stop subsidising employers to pay low wages to their staff whilst giving the bosses 30% pay rises and £million salaries and the state should stop saying that having children will be subsides too. Having children is, for most, a choice. Because someone can do something, does it follow that they should?

Trade Unions came to the fore when ordinary citizens felt paralysed, when they realised that only together could they change their standard of living. They got no other support from the state, if they didn’t work, they didn’t get anything and that very face empowered the masses to rise up and make their lives better. Successive governments have made people soft, made people feel they no longer need to be together, that every man and women for themselves will work. It won’t. Being on benefits sucks and benefits are just that, working or not. When you get them ‘they’ own you. At a stroke of a pen your life can be changed, the money cut off. You lose everything you worked for so, they own you. Only when we do not rely on benefits and have proper paying jobs are we free to plan, to make our own choices in life.

But, as far as I can, no party is going to reverse the Conservative 1980’s laws against unions which made them a force to be reckoned with. For now and until we start growing a pair, we are owned by the State. If they own our income, they control us.

None of us should strive to be on benefits or any kind, leave them to those poor buggers, like me, who find that making a contrary choice is way too risky. I am seriously starting to think I am in last chance saloon, I may never get out the benefits trap.

Election Plan

Listening to Cameron & Miliband going on and on about the SNP I am starting to conjure up a workable plan should Labour not get a majority and, on the off chance, the Conservatives don’t either. I think, if they get enough seats Labour should call for an immediate repeat of the election making it clear that if voters wish to vote SNP that they seriously risk eventually creating enough seats to allow the Conservatives to form a government. In short, vote with Labour to remove the Conservatives and not a nationalist party that no other party will work with.

That phone!

All day today I’ve been stopped from everything I’ve tried to do by my phone. Nothing very important and I don’t mind but at the same time… I might turn it off soon and tomorrow just so I can chill. 😀

Sent from Samsung Mobile

Looks lovely out there

But it’s also rather cold!

Went out earlier for a BBQ with the extendeds and it was too cold for my shirt so I had to wear a jacket and there was me thinking spring had sprung and we’re on the way to summer! (brrr)

Managed to sold the PA for Zoey issue thanks very much to someone who should have taken the job a few years back  😉

Getting an increasing amount of spam messages for this blog, sort of annoying that.

Have been using Facebook a bit more recently, been reminded why I stopped using it.

Most certainly having a holiday this year … when and how, not sure about that but I am having one!

My meal at TGIF

That was the desert, a lovely sticky toffee pudding with Jack Daniels and pecan sauce.

My appetiser was prawns with JD sauce and my main was 8oz NY strip steak (rare) with fries, veg & JD sauce … can you sense a theme here?

Was all rather yummy, I am most definitely stuffed

Treating myself

One thing about being single is not going out and having a treat. No anniversary to celebrate, no romantic times just me. So, I figure if I can travel the world alone then I can go grab a meal on my own.

I’ve been wanting to go back to TGI Friday for ages so that’s where I am.

Looking forward to some good grub even if the service is a little inattentive.

Would love to see then cope with a John Taffer stress test!

Conservatives Avoiding Questions

<iframe width=”400″ height=”500″ frameborder=”0″ src=”http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02p474q/player”></iframe>

The above might not work as I’ve not tried it before

Listening to Theresa May earlier stumbling over one soundbite after another in an effort to avoid answering any direct questions. As is a recurring question at the moment she was asked about the £8bn promised by them for the NHS and where they’re going to find the money … the closest she got to an answer seemed to be that this sort of money just sort of turns up under a Conservative government so they shall use that. She said that this is how they’ve managed to find such amounts before, they’ve just done such a wonderful job of managing the economy that the billions just magic themselves into existing. Asked if they were sure this would be the case she stumbled again, she wasn’t going to comment on what or would not happen as far ahead as 2020, no one could know that she seemed t be saying. So, she was asked whether or not the money had specifically been budgeted, that she could say with absolute certainty it would be found and she repeated her assertion that they’d done it before. The question, the one she kept avoiding was, if you’re so sure the money is going to be there, how can you not say where or when it’s going to happen? The reality is, they have no clue. They are hoping there is a good following wind and that they get lucky during the next 5 years. Perhaps they are hoping for another coalition so that this sort of promise can be explained away as a coalition compromise. If it is so important to them, this £8bn, would they not be wise to say now that it would not be up for negotiation in the event of a hung parliament? The Liberal Democrats have been making similar such promises on certain policy commitments they mentioned, not that anyone believes they wouldn’t sell their own mothers to keep the power.

I just don’t like any party avoiding questions, it says to me that the answers are either not what they want us to know or that the answer is, the promise isn’t worth anything to them, it’s just an election bribe. If I hear Labour doing it, I’ll post about them too.

The “Right to Buy”. From the inception of the modern Conservative Party this has been a policy designed to promote the Conservative party. Margaret Thatcher knew this and she made a big thing about it. Right back when the Conservative as we know them now were invented they knew that a nation of tenants would not vote for them, their voters needed a stake in the country, a reason to ensure they looked after their own self interested as opposed to what was best for the country. Home Ownership was the key to that. Ensure that it mattered to these new home owners what interest rates were doing. Make sure they had a financial burden so they effectively gave up their right to strike because it meant losing their home. Home owners, and I don’t blame them, have little choice but to seriously consider voting Conservative. As Owners they are better placed for the sort of bribes a Conservative government would offer with regard to tax breaks and so on. As Home owners, they are not going to want to do anything which would risk their home. The Conservatives are so convincing that we should all aspire to ownership that they positively encourage a feeling of shame which those who do not own should feel, that ‘they’ are not fully part of society, that tenants are ‘less’.

What we need to remember is that we are all equal regardless of wealth or ownership, we all own this country and have an obligation to it and to each other.

When the clouds are in the sky …

It is said that each and every cloud has a silver lining and, I’m really being honest here when I say that, well, it’s not true, sometimes the sky is so dark, so full of clouds we wonder if the sun will ever shine again.

It’s always worth remembering that behind even the darkest of clouds the sun still shines bright and, sometimes, every now and then, through all those clouds it pokes through to remind us that the light is always there, it will always come back.

Remember that and, you have to take my word for this perhaps but, it keeps me going knowing that and when I see that sun, oh boy.

Oh, by the way

Went over to see Jermaine earlier.

He wasn’t in such a good mood today, told me to ‘Get out’, well, shouted at me actually. I ignored him and after half an hour managed to get a hug. I love him to bits but, at the same time, and I know this comes across as selfish, it’s really distressing seeing him like this and there is totally nothing I can do about it. I can’t communicate in any meaningful way and neither can he. As a parent, and knowing it’s not true, I still feel like I am letting him down … the joys of parenting, knowing one thing and feeling another.

I might just take 2015 Off

You know, just not make any life changing decisions, don’t even date anyone, don’t even talk to someone with a view to dating them.

It would seem that I keep making the same sort of mistakes with people. You know, I trust them, I open up, lay myself vulnerable and then get stabbed in the back.

Certainly I need to stop being so stupid as to think I could have a long distance relationship! Hell, I’ve been lied to and cheated on by those in my own town, I must increase the chances of that happening many times over by adding distance into the equation!

What has sparked this?

Well, you’ll recall I got quite attached to a guy called Randy. He’s been quite lovely, saying all the right things, giving the real impression that he had hopes for something special between us, even just a couple of days ago he said this face to face across Skype and yet … I got a message from someone else in the UK telling me they’ve declared unending love for each other and they are going to live happily ever after. I was a little shocked but then, it also made sense, you know, one of those light bulb moments. Turns out it’s all true of course, Randy was keeping his options open, probably not just with me but, clearly waiting to see which guy would come up with the very real promise of money and Randy’s shipment to the UK!

So, I got made to look totally and utterly stupid again, a recurring theme of late.

Really it is, I just need not to trust anyone. It’s not serving any purpose, no one benefits from it and I end up the victim. So, time to toughen up and join the very real world where we assume we’re being lied to unless we get proof otherwise, assume someone is playing an angle at each opportunity. Had I done that previously I’d not been made such a fool of in the past. I’d have straight away suspected something and told those concerned to go do one!

So, time to take stock and just spend time with those who have not shit on me previously from now on. Thankfully I do still know plenty of people like that. Time to create some stability in my life. Not quite sure how I am going to do that but, I got to try at least. (When I think of something)

Just because you’re paranoid …

… Doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

A statement I wish were not too often true.

A Day of ‘Not a Lot’

Still waiting for this cough and chest infection to clear and now I have what feels like a cold on top of it, could just be the first bug coming to the surface but I feel really crap.

One of those days when staying in bed might have been a better idea seeing as there was nothing particular I was committed to.

Looks like another OK day so it’s a shame to waste it stuck indoors but, at the same time, my energy levels are really low so going out not such a good idea.

Time to give in for a bit and just let this ‘ere body sort itself out.

Busy day

Out for breakfast with Robin …

 

Then over to Billing Aquadrome with Daisy, Josh & Danny.

 

Yes, that’s me doing the classic selfie

Ah yes, more from the selfie album

   

We stopped by the garden centre for lunch. The food was OK, the wait was way too long

Finally

Tying up the loose ends of 2014. I delved deep into Facebook earlier and believe I have got rid of any significant trace of Joseph, I hadn’t even realised we were still linked in any way but we’re not now so, that’s good.

Another little bug from that era was the DWP and the way they handled my vacation like I was a damned criminal! Today I got confirmation that my claim against them has been totally upheld with huge evidence of maladministration on their part, way beyond simple human error. They now acknowledge that I did nothing wrong and they had no right to take the action they did. The amount they fined me has been returned and a written apology is in the post, the least they can do.

Other parts of my life are coming together too though many rely on pure faith to follow through all the way as I’d like. Yes, that’s deliberately cryptic as it’s not good to tell the devil your business.

I’m having some lovely dreams these days, makes a change for me does that.

Chest infection is still not gone.

I have this need for chocolate, this is not good but I’ve just about avoided it so, all good.

Lovely Day for it

Yep, today is a good day I think.

Last night, albeit with a little stress, we got through GTA Heist number 4 OK. This may not sound like much, you know, what with it being just a game and all that but, at the same time it is quality time with family and I think we all learn a little about each other from it and, yes, even perhaps grow a little as people because we all have rather strong personalities and we’ve got to learn to get along and get things done so, yes, it’s great fun blowing seven kinds of poo out of the bad guys, it’s also lovely to spend fun times with good people.

Now, today, bright and sunny and, warm! OK, we’re not talking about sunbathing weather here, oh Lord no, but 17°C is perfectly acceptable at any time of year and certainly for April with the promise of more to come.

I visited Robin, had a phone chat with my Dad and with my sister and highlight of day, had a long Skype with Randy. It’s almost frustrating, annoying, lovely and … I don’t know, several other things how I seem to consider Randy part of my present and future. It’s like something kicked in and just said to stop looking until I at least explore the possibility. This year, at some point, that will happen I can feel it in my bones, water or where ever we feel these things like it’s sort of just meant to be. Then again, I’ve got things totally wrong before but, before, I always had my doubts and this time, the doubts are normal doubts, the sort we’d have with someone living around the corner so, who knows?

Still have this chest infection, antibiotics were always too weak to really tackle it and my GP should know better so when they run out on Wednesday I suspect I shall have to ask for some stronger ones, oh sometimes I wish we could get them over the counter here like we can in other countries! But then, we’re the stupid damn country which dictates how much paracetamol we’re allowed to buy at any one time on the basis that we are bound to be wanting to kill ourselves if we buy more than 32! In context, that’s just 4 days supply so if someone has bad cold or flu, they cannot get them as soon as they start feeling rough to see them through the illness, they have to drag themselves out to go get some more! What a wonderful country we live in which restricts pain relief and tax’s cigarettes which someone can smoke every minute of the day until they get cancer! Surely if someone is going to kill themselves then better to let them do it quick and cheap than slow and unpleasant and great cost to the country?

No idea why I got on that subject, I don’t even need pain relief at the moment so, anyway …

Dinner smells nice, bangers and mash with carve it gravy.

I was listening to the Archers earlier (it was on) and they did an Easter thing, a religious bit, prayers and stuff and, I don’t think all that ‘thou art wonderful and should be blessed’ ever really works with me. I mean, if I created everything, I mean, you know, there was nothing and then there was everything, all the giving thanks and so on would really be grating about now, well, probably several thousand years back actually. I can’t imagine any God doing all that creation for the glory, power and adulation of it all. So, I’d rather carry on with my own belief structure which is far more ordinary and basic and makes a lot more sense. We are born, we live our life doing whatever we think is right and we’re judged at the end of it and what happens then is either because we screwed up (possibly again) or not or we still have more to learn … that sort of thing and that, somewhere out there someone does some monitoring and might, in some small but significant way, be able to affect some outcomes and, to be honest with you, I don’t think they’re much different from us because I know some of the answers I’ve got have been the right answers but with a cunning twist as if to say, you for what you asked for but, you should have been more specific. I imagine a lot of laughter on that higher level of existing  🙂

Mini Site

I created this Mini Site just for fun and, in the hope that (and failing a lottery win), someone might actually think it would be OK to say hello

Dallington Grange

Well, it looks as though the plans are in again for the new housing development at the end of our road. Where we live is going to get a whole lot busier as it becomes one of three access points for the new estate which is to incorporate two new schools, various shops, community centre and pub. None of this particularly bothers me, people have to live somewhere after all. If I have a concern it is as petty as petty get … how will the cats survive? They barely make it across the road outside to the allotments as it is with minimal traffic, no doubt they’ll be in big trouble as we start to get construction and later increased residents traffic. On the plus side, doing my NIMBY bit, we won’t be getting dog walkers cars parked in our parking spaces as they’ll have nowhere to take their dogs!

Practically speaking, it might be worth Sean & Daisy holding fire on moving out any time soon as this promises to offer a lot of quality housing in the right area for them if they’re prepared to hang it out. It’s even slightly closer to where Sean works and, with the new schools, it could be a good option for them.

From my own perspective, I think if the Council are in bargaining mode, with a huge house here I might push for a swap with a three bedroom place over there. Better they lose a 3 bedroom and gain a 6 bedroom in my opinion. If they don’t agree I shall just get lodgers in and get an income from the place. Yes, I know that seems terribly unfair but, you work with what you have in this life.

My chest, changing the subject slightly, seems a little better today. I got some antibiotics yesterday. I have only noticed a slight improvement with regard to the allergy rashes I keep getting so I guess that’s a case of keep taking the tablets … new meds these which are some of the strongest available and yes, GP was right, they do make me drowsy … even more than usual!

Is it bed time yet … Another website!

Photography Site is created now and it took way longer than I expected it to. That said, for those who say that over 50 is past it, I think the amount of websites I’ve churned out the past week proves you’re never too old to learn!