1097 Limited Day

9.30. am My attempt to study and comprehend the truth of God and the Devil, Good and Evil as forces within and without humankind is stretching me beyond my limits because they are subordinate to project 101 and its component activities and I still attend to the practicalities of life such as shopping for food, occasionally cleaning of the house, washing and washing up, and try an participate in and enjoy real life experiences. My current interest which I thought would last a week and perhaps stimulate a Blog or two now looks as if it will dominate the summer and govern the rest of the present self conscious being.

9.35 The current interest was inspired by a new friend who posted an extraordinary video audio broadcast on the subject of reincarnation and led to resurrecting myself as a former human devil whose life and writings I have to counterbalance by studying the lives of saints. The enquiries have led to beginning a study of Pataphysics which is the antithesis of science and much like the gulf between Freudian based and behavioural based psychologists.

9.45 I always wanted to be an actor and wish I had the courage to become a performance artist in reality beyond the security of the virtual. My study of the Big Brother House experience leads me to think that the programme should be nominated for the Turner Prize. Suggest this to the Tate and Channel Four. Do it now as your creative idea in action for the day. It is time for breakfast and mending a small table which my mother uses in her room. Then vacuuming will be left till Monday, but I must complete by then a study of Friends, although this is unrealistic unless I stop reading their profiles, looking at their pictures, reading their Blogs and listen to their music.

10am I am still at the computer having had another creative idea of holding a party for all my space friends. Alas unless I win the Euro lottery is will have to remain a virtual reality party so I won't post a bulletin or issue invitations. I will research who organises some of the more famous parties just in case I do win. I seem to have been on a lucky streak recently with four wins £80, £10x 2, £8 and £7 over a period of four weeks in which the investment was less than a third but overall the winnings are only a third of the investment. I have therefore adopted a different strategy investing a substantial sum in Premium Bonds where the maximum prize is only £1million, about a third less than would be needed for the kind of party I would like, and the MySpace party would only come after that for the people I know in reality eg, family and the staff of the residential home who care for my mother, but if it does not work after a year, the original sum can be withdrawn and reinvested in something with a fixed interest return.

11.30. Well silly me. I was so intent on all the things I had to do that I put the eggs in a black coated non stick pan, checked that there was water when in fact there was not! Fortunately the pan was rescued but it will mean a shop for more eggs. I purchased a glue gun to re-stick the legs to the table tops (two tables) but forgot to check on the number of glue sticks included and also need to shop for more. Usually a go to the supermarket after visiting my mother but I will now leave at 4 rather than 5 and get back home to watch the TV programmes rather than watch them with her. Gosh I am hungry again so an early lunch. I need to do at least a couple of hours of main project work, as well as some reading.

8.55pm I watch the execution of several hundred Italians in Roman, ten times the number of German soldiers killed in minor uprising ten weeks before the liberation of Italy in World War Two. The film is descriptively called Massacre in Rome. Earlier clergy from Manchester Cathedral express their horror at a million selling shoot em video game using the Cathedral as a setting in one of its level. Gum and knife crime in Manchester and other cities has been increasing. Of course there is no connection or association.

9pm I returned from the visit to my mother in time to watch the whole of the programme on the Best of British dinner at our Embassy in Paris for the best French Chef's, food writers and personalities. The first course was a poached ducks egg, steamed slowly for four hours, with ham and a sorbet; the second course was salmon with sea vegetables and Wheaten Bread. My starter was vegetable Samoses with dry salt and black pepper crackers, their main course was a rabbit pie with crayfish and mixed green vegetables. My main course was two pieces of chicken breasts in a Red Leicester cheese sauce and smoked bacon. Their meal ended with a glorious fruit jelly with inserted summer fruits a central sauce and a plain ice cream. Mine was compote of water melon and fresh pineapple chunks with thin slices of chocolate covered Turkish delight.

9.40 Insert. I decided against Dr Who when after the Dinner there was a programme about the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall. I never liked the original building and during my most recent visits the area had been taken over by cardboard box livers and skateboarders. It was not an area to be on ones own, especially at night. Over £100 million has been sent on upgrading the building and area with the Hall reduced to a shell in an attempt to change the accoustics from bad to very good. The critics are enthusiastic but are cautious saying it will be several years before a new harmony is achieved between performers and the new setting.
9.20pm the rest of the evening will be devoted to making Artman Glitter cards, reading and set making together with a private and confidential analysis of Friends.

1096 Falklands War to be remembered

For the past three days I have channelled my creative energies into a new project which could impact on my day to day future. Thus I wrote yesterday.

The weather has been appalling and the combination of the cold and wet and focussed activity had led to little exercise and comfort eating. Earlier in the evening I was disciplined and did not buy at the supermarket, an additional supply of peanuts, giant size bags for under £1, or cheesy what's its. I did have my glass of red wine, a Chilean wine Les Haminos, which is a coincidence because a Chilean friend was also moaning about the weather on IM last night as we both dreamed of the warm sun on our flesh.

A more recent friend held a contemporary art performance and exhibition in the evening air of a London Square which sounded great fun, involving art on a pillow case and a pillow fight. Locally was the first of free summer concert at the Amphitheatre on the sea front with bands Chris Dilford and Jen Stevens and the Hiccups, but I was not up for them, sorry guys, although as I learnt from last year there is a the covered walkway, a strange sea front development comprising a long wall of glass overlooking the beach with open side to the amphitheatre and, a small water feature and a popular café used by bikers at weekends on the other It is possible to walk on the roof with an attractive over view in all directions. In bad weather both artists and public can huddle under the walkway. Hopefully the weather will be better on Saturday Shake Ya Tailfeathers and Barnstormer although I will be home to watch The British Ambassadors dinner do in Paris and Dr Who.

I had two large rolls with a potato based soup, the rolls going cheaply in packs of four for 18 pence on a brief supermarket trip for some colourful peppers which I eat raw in salads, and some indigestion tables and man size tissues. I can now smell the Italian herb mixture on a baking trout although the there is a hallway and a day room in between here and the kitchen. I think this will not suffice so I do a couple of small packets of frozen fresh veg in the microwave. I have been good and used one packet of corn, peas and runner beans. I have been goodish with one egg for breakfast, a prawn salad with a pear for lunch and three unbuttered Scottish pancakes for tea doused with lemon. The test will be later after some grapes and a banana, around 1 am. Will I be able to resist another roll with cheese or salami or a Philadelphia dip?

I was tempted to take up the invitation to the Trent Polytechnic 2007 fine art degree course show, involving another friend although the appeal was also the live art performance related to Lonely Heart adds. If only the event had been on another weekend.

There has been important local sports news for the day with the sale of shares by the Chairman of Newcastle football club for an estimated sum over £35 million following £55 million for the Hall family holding. The price is reported to have been 101 pence. Four years ago I held 10000 shares acquired when they were very low about £3000 in total so would have made a gain of 300% had they been kept, alas such is life. However the more immediate news was the signing of a 20 goal a season striker from neighbouring Borough, a man in the mould of Alan Shearer and would make the ideal partner for Michael Owen if he stays. Joey Barton is still to sign on and Big Sam who I admired where he played for Sunderland is trying to bringing one of his full backs from Bolton. I am weakening and could find myself with two season tickets and a live match at least once a week for nine months. The decision will be taken over the next week.

The trout and mini vegetable were excellent. I saw some freshish bream at Morrison's earlier in the week and after my treat at the Sunderland Marriott last week, I will try some next week instead of the trout. Despite a decade and half of buying my food I still amaze at the variation in costings. I had my bi weekly whole chicken for £2.50 this weekend and managed a roast dinner on Sunday and two eat till full hotpots subsequently, and with a portion put into the bin, with regret, because I hate wasting food when others are going without. Each main course on three days cost less than the £1.54 paid for a starter of olives, feta cheese and sun dried tomatoes, consumed in one session because it was so delicious. The advert on TV is about a small filled baguette to your specification for £1.99. A Local Pub passed on the way to visit my mother advertises two steak meals and a bottle of wine for £9.99. The main dishes of the meals eaten out last week were around £10-£15.
I have continued to keep one eye on the Big Brother Show where my original assessment of silly young women too full of themselves and requiring high maintenance proved to be wrong. They are far worse. There are exceptions among the house "mates" although mates are also a dubious description of the relationship between the majority. The only male has also proved himself a disappointment succumbing to the need to pair himself off, admittedly with the kind of girl he could take home to mother, but by doing so he has sealed his fate for an early exit and it will be interesting to see how he fares once the males promised for tonight are introduced. However, as George Galloway intimated, one could be gay and the other mature to old leaving the majority to their girlie activities. I was one of many who disliked George Galloway for his links with the former regime in Iraq and his leaving the Labour Party and creating his own faction, that was until his appearance in celebrity Big Brother and his decision to offer and perform as a cat. The man's got bottle and soul and his performances leading the usual inane programme full of sycophants reviewing the day's events revealed a professional competence suggesting a successor to Kilroy-the Silk. The last 24 hours marked a change of gear as one of the silly girls used the N word in an effort to establish street cred with perhaps until then most ugh of the girlies immediately realising what she had done as did the victim but subsequent desperate attempts by both to pass over the incident only made the situation worse. The channel had no option but to evict the young woman, but how it was done only served to emphasise the dodgy programme values with its emphasise that there is no such thing as bad publicity, only no publicity.

It was therefore heartening this morning while dressing to listen to an intelligent, interesting and moving programme about a Falklands 25 year memorial service held in Wales with two frothy other items. One arose because someone had slated those who come to the door in pyjamas or lounge about for the greater part of the day. One former businesswoman at home with a baby admitted how casual and not bovverred she had become. The other trivia was the breaking or damaging of valuable object and one former Olympic gold medallist told the story how it had been damaged by her baby daughter. It was evident that she had then settled to into motherhood and whatever she had done after her period winning medals, putting the trophies away in some draw until a couple of months ago a son had asked about the medals and mother had explained the cause of the damage. The extraordinary normality of this family emerged when the daughter explained she did not remember or know of the event until raised by her brother, and that had not bothered to examine the particular and other medals. These were all people with commendable values about their everyday lives and what a contrast to those of the Big Brother House. I need a siesta watching the Test Match.

1095 People of Significance

I have not published writing for several days because of a moment of inspiration which I put into immediate practice and which could fundamentally change the rest of my life. I have just completed toileting after going to bed with the dawn and rising four hours later, undertaking an important task and then toileting, listening to Radio Five Live where there were three subjects under discussion, one of great significance which overshadowed what I had been doing and feeling, while the other two were frothy and funny but with serious and interesting aspects, primarily because of the calibre of the public involvement.

At the age of 24 and eighteen months after qualification, one of two nurses on a makeshift hospital ship attached to the Falklands force was advised to make ready to receive fifty casualties with burns from the Sir Galahad Troopship when on June 8th 48 men died, most from the Welsh Guards and where a service was being held at St Mary's Church Swansea attended by 25 members of the South Atlantic Medal Association. The former nurse described the task which she and the other nurse faced at that time and subsequently. She explained that she had been advised by on board psychiatrists how to help the injured cope with their situations and also the likely impact on herself and her colleagues. This was remarkable and moving but did not indicate the story she was to unfold.

She continued to nurse the wounded during the campaign. She told one young man who feared his injuries would affect his marriage planned for two months later, but who was able to walk down the aisle his facial injuries having cleared and subsequently leaving no scars, and she told of others where the physical and emotional scars remained.

She dealt with her experience by getting on with her life as a nurse in the navy and then with the army and where for the past 18 years she has served, often on different tours with her husband of eighteen years. He is now on his second tour in Iraq and she is within days of qualifying as a doctor. What courage, what sense of dedication, what remarkable people? How insignificant becomes my needs and interests?

1094 Project 101 progress review

This day Monday is turning out to be a Bob Geldorf Monday. My intention last night was to complete the set work yesterday while writing something and this created the first problem because I was not in a thinking creative mood. The choice appeared to be between writing up a holiday and meal occasions remembered at the hotel where I first stayed in the autumn of 1973 prior to my interview and appointment as a local authority chief officer and where I had a meal once more, a week ago.

Something, which I cannot remember a couple of hours later, led me to think that I needed to reflect on the fourth anniversary since commencing full time work on project 101 on July 1st 2003 and I quickly realised that I only had a broad recollection of how the work had progressed and that I needed to check records, and then to my horror I discovered that some digital records could not be found, although I had a printed record, but worse still I had become lazy about the keeping of some records which will be important in years to come.

The day was reorganised and after a salad lunch with an unbuttered roll and a mini siesta watching Bargain Hunt, I directed myself to making a summary record. I had spent too much time with one eye of Big Brother House and I must soon decide if this enthusiasm is to be maintained or abandoned. I arranged my travel to London for the Diana concert on July 1st, going by train and return by coach; although on reflection it is such a long journey I may re book by train later this evening.

As previously recorded the 101 project has it seeds in the opening of the Baltic in 2002, the film of the life of Jackson Pollock and the purchase of two books, in particular the last two chapters of the Stangos Edited Concepts of Modern Art. Then after an important break involving three diverse life changing events I had visited the Saatchi and Tate Modern on a Spring Day in 2003 I knew not only what I wanted to do but how to do it. It was after a fourth event which shocked and devastated after a first visit to Gibraltar at the end of May 2003 that the decision was taken to commence full time work on July 1st , having planned to commenced on the 65th birthday in March 2004. July 1st was also the day that I was advised I had won a joint BT Tate competition with prizes which included a state of the art BT phone and the Tate companion to British art. It appeared to be a good omen.

The first decision had been to the test out my concept by anonymously sending a sample set to eight critics, artists, exhibitors and art media interests. There were three reasons for doing this: 1- A commitment to the project; 2- An attempt to find out if anyone else had previously thought, or was working on something similar and 3- to see if there was a reaction or any interest. At the time I was debating if I should attempt to raise funds to maintain the former family home, or start afresh elsewhere.

I decided against acquiring the knowledge and technology to put myself on line but kept a record through a mixture of open access and confidential audio tapes which I continued until 101 90 mins tapes were completed. I commenced to digitally photo each completed set or volume of sets, and these photos comprise the about three quarters of the 350000 photos taken to-date. I also commenced a record of how the work was displayed around the house, of the garden year and of the immediate environment as well as visits to former residential and occupational homes and offices. Some 20 hours of unedited film was also taken in the first two years of the project.

While I can list the main project work activities without reference to records, I need to have a better memory of how the work progressed. My first activity was to work with crayons and then with pastels. I made a visit to Oxford to where I had studied and worked 1961-1967 and to Teddington and Ealing where I had then moved and worked 1967-1970. Later in the year I translated by 1993 completed unpublished novel into creative set work and before the end of the year a list of all published writing. There were also the records of my confidential records of the Department of Health Drug Advisory Service visit to Oxfordshire in 1989. Between July 1st and December 31st 2003 I created 413 sets an average of 68 a month.

During the first quarter of 2004 a major project involved former work and homes and then my diary of events covering a ten year period from 1988. There were field trips to former homes in Yorkshire and Cheshire, and to Manchester and Birmingham where I had undertaken practical work and attended the University and a second visit to Oxford. There was work on the Drug Advisory visit to East Suffolk. The major field trips were to Calne, in Wiltshire and Gibraltar, as I recommenced work on the family history. There was information on financial history from Bills and receipts and systematic work on my creative writings from the early 1960's to the mid 1980's. I remembered that I had lent my only copy of a play which was not returned. In the late 1960 I had written a weekly report on child care social work matters raised in Parliament through Hazard and these had been sold to local authorities, voluntary organisations, training institutions and government departments, as well as writing a loose political column each month for a professional journal. I undertook some work on my support of Football and the great share dealing adventure when I had turned £1000 into £7000 in a matter of weeks and then lost everything when the stock market crashed. In 2004 I produced over 1600 new sets at an average of 135 a month.
The spring of 2005 was devoted to creating a chronicle of events 1939-2004 and to the writing of an autobiographical work 101 in Black and White where 101 copies were privately printed and which are likely to form a work for exhibition, in black and white boxes 9.3.39 together with 101 photos and 101 statements. There was component set making such as the period of involvement with non violent civil disobedience and direct action, some college tutorial work and confrontation with trade union and political extremists. The anniversary year came to end with the sale of the former family home and moving to my present location. There was further work on personal history with my interest in Jazz and the years of adult and further education, and professional work training. In the autumn of 2005 major work was commenced on family history with the development of on line searches of census records and church records before the creation of the national records of births, marriages and deaths in 1837. Despite moving home 2005 has been my most productive work year with just under 2000 sets completed at a monthly average of over 160.

2006 was devoted to family history research and a major visit to Calne to study original church record. This led to an amazing discovery of a Tithe Map of all properties drawn to scale with a register of all owners and renting occupiers and which showed the property where my mother's great grandfather and his extraordinary wife gave birth to seven daughters in succession and then five sons. I walked into the local history centre on the same day that a distant relative who had once lived in the same street as the great grandfather were visiting and being shown a photograph of an ancestor. A family history to 1901 covering information and photos was produced in three versions. This work is basis of a work about my relationship with my mother.

It was after the completion of this part of the project that I decided to create the AOL Blog from May 2006 to April 2007 and which has 900 entries. Each day I made one to three entries chronicling work and other activities, and a review of a cultural experience which had some reference back to life before 2003 when the project was commenced. There was also a back up record of some 50000 photographs, primarily of development work. I was not aware of any readership but the writing was checked to ensure it met the rules of the project and therefore it was not a comprehensive truth because thoughts and feelings related to known living individuals were excluded unless there was prior approval or the issue had been made public. There were also those matters restricted by statute. The writing of the Blog provided a structure for the day although this remained secondary to the main project task recreating my previous self aware life.

During the second half of 2006 I worked on the records of a child care inquiry when I had accepted an invitation with the approval of my employers in the early 1980's and where because of matters uncovered I drafted the majority report, although it was carefully rewritten and agreed by three of the four panel members of the inquiry. There were important lessons about inquiries within a legal framework there were some fifty lawyers ranging from Queen's Counsel to office assistants involved on behalf of the main interests. Those who had warned and complained, neighbours, foster parents had to rely on panel members to listen to their interests. The inquiry lasted 3 months and the study of the documentation and writing of the published report took a further year, undertaken early morning before commencing my normal managerial responsibilities 1855 new sets were completed in 2006, at an average of over 150 a month. I completed inventories of Books, of audio sounds and visual films in the media format of fifty years. I read and I listen trying to recapture the original experience and re-evaluate from the perspective of subsequent experience.

This year over the first five months the rate of new work has fallen significantly but remains over 100 a month. I have been considering why this has been so, and why I have not pursued some activities where there had been great enthusiasm and a sense of priority.

Yesterday I watched a programme about the life of the Comedian Benny Hill who devised his work and TV programmes and became an internal celebrity because of the visual nature of work. Various friends and admirers mentioned that he liked his own company, overeat and drank when he lost his new work contract, but that he liked to be in company but chose to control when and with whom. This was me but no longer.

It commenced last year with the experience of live theatre, and switching from seeing current cinema in theatre to the study of films and film makers centred on Ingmar Bergman and Almodovar with some 40 viewings todate.

Then there has been the impact of my Space discovered by accident having attended the live performance of X factor finalists and doing some homework on the artists. My interest quickly developed as a means of fulfilling the original intention that the process of my work should open to anyone interested in addition to the open part of the work itself. I also commenced to trawl the profiles of others and their friends to find those whose lives touched on aspects of my previous experience, and then discovered tribute sites to many of those who had significantly influenced my development. However this has had several unexpected consequences. It has led to important real live interactions and experiences where the links with time past has been stretched.
That my mother has reached 100 years also has had its impact, although being able to make almost daily visits, since her move locally approaching three years ago, has been more profound, because we have both had the relationship we never had as a child. Until now I have known what it was like to grow up without a meaningful relationship with one or both biological parents and only guessed at what it would be like to have had that unique relationship with a biological mother and flesh to flesh bonding father. This is not to imply that that all such relationships are good and appropriate, and enable children to grow up as productive and effective members of society and with constructive relationships with subsequent partners and their own children.

Too often when politicians and media comment and moan about the loss of Englishness, they are referring to a narrow sub culture created by heredity and industrial revolution wealth, which dominated and had authority over Victorian society, and which continued until the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The majority culture has always been very different but without power. This has changed significantly over the past two decades. The composition of the British Isles has become European and International. The majority of young people are involved in liberating adult education and our cities and major towns have been given over to their culture and entertainment as well as to their education. The internet digital revolution has not only transformed what we see and hear but how we see and hear, but had rapidily sidelined politicians and the political process. People not only watch but vote in their millions Big Brother, Idol and X Factor. Business has become global with the capacity to switch everything to where goods can be produced most cheaply, and managements and research to where the best can function the most effectively. Meanwhile religions and ideologues murder and create havoc in order to justify their continuation and authority.

I was stuck in a limbo between a vanishing minority but powerful English culture and a new forced from which I felt and was to a certain extent excluded. I suddenly find that I am able to live in the world wide culture of the present. This requires a revaluation of how I am using my time and work priorities.

interesting blog. Posted by ~ Z ~ on 12:06 - 12:44

1093 Big Brother Chronicle

Another transition day of no interest to anyone but me.

This morning I am haunted by the person I have been and the person I will never become (Saturday).

This morning (Sunday) I am in judgement about my judgements.

Against my better judgement on Friday evening I pursued what happens at the Big Brother House with the arrival a handsome 26 year old male and 11 females of varying ages, some stupid, a couple psychological and emotionally disturbed. (This may be an accurate observation but what do we do by being brutally honest, except create barriers between ourselves and others and thus commence the process which leads to war)

(I am putting off doing what I need to do.(Sunday)

Big Brother is much more of a controlled and artificial social experiment that the kind of reality voyeurism I prophesied some twenty years ago. However the pattern of their lives is similar to my own with my work conscience in the role of Big Brother but my sleeping and feeding is governed more by need than social convention. The more one watches the kinder one feels and the more rounded the individuals become.

On my Saturday walk I was gripped by the feeling of being on the outside of experience and reminders of previous emotional longings. There was a cold edge to the after lunch sunshine and everyone appeared in a holiday spirit at the sea front and with the parks full of young life. There was a young man in an open bright red sports car who appeared to be on the look out for a friend, existing or to become. There was a young girl with head bowed, dressed in black, sitting on a wall who appeared troubled and alone. There were teenage school girls walking behind me where from snatches of conversation one appeared to be determined not only to want it all, but have it, and did I correctly that she was prepared to work in a brothel abroad? I was tempted to seek clarification but decided against. They all had rights to do what they were doing without the kind of Big Brother Scrutiny I was giving them.

I fancied an ice cream but everywhere there were queues. I was dissatisfied with my impatience. The queues were greater for fish and chips. On return I looked at restaurant menus. I had a siesta of tiredness after lettuce and salami rolls and then after the walk I settled for just a cup of tea. The walk had been a goodish one as my shirt was wet but not drenched and could be worn for the visit to my mother, Afterwards the holiday weekend mood prevailed I gave in to the urge for a Kentucky Fried Chicken Zinger meal, with the chicken sandwich, two wings, coleslaw, fries and diet coke for £3.99 resisting the offer of a max for 30 additional pence. This is not as silly as is sounds showing some restraint.

I was reminded of last autumn when I received a two for one MacDonald's offer and made regular visits into town for brunches over a period of 10 days. This was unrestrained. This review of what was written in a tired condition yesterday evening is making me hungry and I am fighting against a Sunday 9am bacon roll breakfast. I am losing willpower. What a contrast to the Hotel meal of a few days ago, with a memory of visits over three decades, and the Chinese where I had only made one visit perhaps seven years before. The bacon roll reminds me of wolfing a chocolate bar. The roll was defrosted too crispy and the bacon undercooked and I will now drink more which would be OK except I don't fancy water.

I was sent a Clear Channel e mail advertising tracks from the Springsteen concert on Dublin, and then listened to the latest Elton compilation and now the Beach Boys. There is the work of 130 artists to listen to. Next will be Corinne Bailey Rae and James Blunt and then a special Simon Cowell Red Book. I have watched most "This is your life from the days of Eammon Andrews. The Simon Cowell was the most excruciating awful programme on TV in living memory. The expense was horrendous as the presenter was flown over to the final if the American Idol and then everyone flown back to the UK for the programme. The reputation of everyone suffered with the exception of Rickie Gervais.

I have a feeling first experienced in adolescence that at a weekend everyone except me was going out to a party. However I have always regarded parties as artificial pointless events until I held one once for work colleagues and I, and everyone else, thoroughly enjoyed themselves, but subsequently this only made the sense of regret about missing out on parties even greater. Sometimes a little taste of something is worse than going without and bearing the longing.

I will do what I have put off for three days

I have undertaken some of the work catching up tasks but I am lazy. On Big Brother someone went outside to experience the freshness of the morning and I wanted to echo the suggested experience. The bacon roll was a consolation. I want to be on holiday again. I am losing the work drive. New life experience is for others. But I yearn.


Well...I subscribed to your blog and gave it a read. Interesting. Posted by ~ Z ~ on 19:06 - 19:51

1092 Steel Fleet and Hart's War plus Big Brother

To day the last day of May 2007, summer arrived with a clear blue sky and sufficiently warmth to sit on a bench overlooking the mouth of the river Tyne, wearing a light sleeveless jacket over a shirt. I then walked through the first two parks before taking an oblong route back via Azda where I could not resist three packs of baguettes/rolls for £1.

Having retired to bed at around 1.30-2am I woke before nine feeling very refreshed and relaxed after the excitements of the previous three days, the part week in Scotland, and the disturbed and unsettled experiences of the previous five months. Hopefully there is to be a more balanced working summer although if the pattern of last year is followed the work level will be adjusted for the time given to the outdoors.

Before going out I completed the monster volume on the Dutch experience some 8 card sets in one 100 pocket soft cover of mementos from the 1986 visit of one week to Zeewolde at Flevoland. I consumed the small baguettes divided to make four half slit rolls filled with a little lettuce and prawns, with the fourth some fine cut ham, and without margarine. I watched for the second time within the space of a year the Steel Fleet, a tale of courage and sacrifice as the boss of a shipbuilding yard in Holland appears to first colludes in the hijacking of a completed submarine and then goes down with the next, taking with him the Nazi High Command including the Dutch Administrator played by Valentine Dyall, in the most desperate of circumstances with his wife, played by Googie Withers, believing that he is not only a collaborator but a murderer of a patriot. An uplifting film but with a theme which is explored in every aspect in the TV series, the Secret Army.

The walk and the subsequent lunch, the inevitable siesta set the pattern for the day. I am still digesting two meal experiences. The first was a collective Chinese extravaganza where all the dishes were demolished and the bill was a pleasant surprise around £15 a head including and average of three drinks. The second introduced me to a new fish, a bream, which was a delicious new taste but not worth the doubling of the per head price, especially as the coffee was cold. Tonight I had stuffed red peppers as a starter and a Chinese style microwave concoction with chicken pieces and a pint of lager thus undoing any benefit from the morning exercise.

And now to a moan. On the last full day of the Scottish experience I purchased a Waterford Crystal Swan and on return discovered that it lacked the stated mark of excellence, a seahorse. The following morning I returned and insisted on reimbursement having been assured that there were no seconds issued for sale. The detour led to a significant lengthening of the journey after being caught up in the weekend holiday rush. I had difficulty in sorting out a contact point after discovering that Waterford (of Irish origin) was now part of Wedgewood and the internet site, US base, Eventually I found an English customer service contact and today the truth was admitted. The company had abandoned the seahorse, although it was not stated if this was for all items or just for the swans or the series, but not bothered to alter the insert which emphasised that the seahorse is the mark of authenticity and excellence. This is not good enough quite apart from causing me to question the retail outlet.

And back to something different again, another film Hart's War, a film which I think I have watched before while doing something else but this occasion gave it my full attention. This becomes more than the standard World War 2 Prisoner of War film with Bruce Willis in the role of senior officer of the US forces who seizes the opportunity to exploit the arrival of two Black captured flyers to create a situation which leads to tragedy, but why? There are several twists with is a bitter sweet justice in which dubious means appear to become justified by their outcome. Not a great film with plot craters but one meriting attention on a cold and rainy day in summer or when tired or lazy to do anything else more worthwhile.

And now to Big Brother which I avoided after the first nasty experiences of inconsequential people seeking fame by interacting in a competitive situation under some editorial control. Since then selection and direction has moved towards the bizarre and the sensational with a few normal people interested in the challenge or looking for something which their everyday lives cannot produce. The celebrity edition proved of greater interest, but also became a misuse of the time. This time I decided to watch the entry of half ma dozen teenagers, including twins, a couple in their twenties and early thirties and one aged in the 50's and another 60, all female. Tonight Friday the first male is to be introduced. The majority of the young women appear to be wastes of space although several will be fought over by the young and not so young men. There are those who have already contributed something to the rest of humanity but whether this experience will add more is in question. Yet I feel compelled to watch again tonight, the first indications of addiction and what is worse, the thought that I could do better, if I dared. It is 10.30am on a dull first day of June and I have missed out what has been really important because it has to remain confidential.

1091 Travels in Holland

Sister Sophie on US Remembrance week reminded of the poem In Flanders Fields the poppies grow and it was my intention to write of my experience visiting Flanders and seeing the trenches and the acres of crosses. But instead of the notebook of that experience I came across one covering two visits to Holland twenty years ago. Before opening to view the notes and the collection of picture cards, receipts and other mementoes, I tried to recall images which had impact beyond the of the visits in 1985 and 1986. Having then read the notes and looked at the items I am struck by the division between a factual chronicle, a detailed financial record and a jumble of images and emotions of varying significance

The journey south was planned for just a day without a stop over to Harwich for the overnight ferry but where boarding and departure was delayed because of a comprehensive check to ensure that no explosives were taken on aboard. Today we have become conscious of the threat of a terrorist attack after one major incident in the US, one minor, in the UK and one which went wrong and we are in the process of introducing controls on the civilian population which I am not sure will be effective in relation to terrorism but may help in the fight against other forms of crime. It is hoped that someone somewhere has worked out all the positive and negative consequences, and the judgement of necessity has been applied rather than speculative optimism.

I cannot remember being concerned about the check and delay at the time, but being impressed by the thinking that the ferry must be similar to that of a cruiser liner in the number of decks and onboard facilities which included a night club two fifty seat cinemas, a casino and several restaurants. The vessel had just come into service and was the Princess Beatrix Koningin Beatrix with a First Class Boarding pass 004277.

The venture had been arranged in 1985 after my first visits to The Hague and Amsterdam for a conference about the role of Local Authorities and prevention and help in the misuse of substances. I had become familiar with the UK holiday provider of self catering lodges Hoseasons and a family package for four was arranged which included one week at the water and outdoor sports resort of Zeewolde holiday village of the shores of Lake Veluwe 45 mins from Amsterdam in the area of Flevoland, First class travel accommodation and insurances for a total of £391, with Green card £12 and car light beam converters £2, plus £200 travellers cheques and £200 cash. I took an additional leave of half a day on May 15th in order to make a trial pack of the card boot with four cases, overnight bags, some extra self catering items and coats. There was last minute concern about the amount of cash so another £50 was withdrawn from the bank.

There was lunch at an A19 Little Chef for £14.58. A Happy Eater tea stop for £3 where a children's party was in progress. Additional Petrol £15.55. Despite the later hour of boarding a fixed price self service restaurant was selected with a choice of fish, curries, sausages, chips, cold meats and salads at rate of 80g which I worked out was around £22 with American Express. It was not until 11.30 pm that we left port and then made way to the accommodation on the eighth level. I did not sleep much on the overnight crossing. I hate airless confined spaces despite the first class nature of the accommodation. I wonder where that comes from. The womb? The confined spaces of childhood? Prison cell? I was struck by the height of the vessel in proportion to its length. I made a brief tour of the vessel but did not venture to the nightclub or casino. (Note vehicle was the Austin Monetgo C434 OBB)

Anyway we arrived at 7.15 am local time and after disembarking travelled to the city of Utrech and the railway station where a breakfast of coffee with cream oozing chocolate éclairs was the breakfast at the Big Ben Bar, in the colourful shopping complex full of bright oranges, yellows, greens and reds. The old town was then explored, and this included a trip to the top of bell tower of the Cathedral using an external 100 meter vertical lift. I have a Street Map of Utrecht but cannot find the Map of Holland.

After a leisurely lunch there is a leisurely drive to our place of stay arriving at 4pm. This is a comparatively small site, one of several making use of what appears to be a major and popular outdoor sports area. There is a swimming pool and recreation hall which doubles as a cinema, a restaurant bar and a take away, a few shops and a washing clothes facility. The lodge is adequate with accommodation for six with three bedroom areas, one in the roof one downstairs and with bunk beds. By the time of unpacking, a shop and an evening meal Dutch television is discovered where you have a multi channel on screen choice, you can watch about a dozen stations in small screens and then select a main choice. There are English American films dubbed such as Dallas in German and Kojack in Dutch. What I cannot remember is how much of the trip was pre-planned and how much was governed by nightly consideration, the weather condition and mood. The visit to Utrech had led to a decision to return to the city. There was to be one visit to the internationally famous gardens, to cheese making, to windmills and a tour of canal land and to Amsterdam. Hoseasons and provide a help book on their holidays abroad with information on motoring in Holland and a separate booklet on Holland where certain things to see had been noted but were not in the event visited.

Zeewolde provided their own English welcome guide which explained that across the dam there was a beach for sun bathing, swimming, windsurfing and sailing, while there was many walking and cycling tracks through a young forest and surrounding areas with the gigantic windmill the homing beacon. There were 73 chalet bungalows and 14 apartments and after a description of the on site facilities there was information on medical services, police and fire brigade, dentist, bank, post office, mail and messages, telephones church services. Garage service station, sports facilities, parking and traffic rules, currency, markets, departure arrangements and a site map. There was also an events programme in Dutch although it was possible to work out Disco and Rambo First Blood Part 2 and also the opening times and happy hour for the Café Bar, Keuken (Take Away), Snackbar, and Crossanterie.

The decision was taken for a relaxed Sunday morning after two days of travelling and Sunday lunch at the lodge. I had spent a few hours in Amsterdam the previous year having taken luggage to the airport after a conference at The Hague, and then taken the train back to the city where an excellent lunch with wine was taken at hotel near the station, the Hotel De Bijenkorf Prins Hendrikkade. My companions were my employers and therefore although hesitant I guided them through mid afternoon Red light district as requested before finding somewhere for tea, seeing a little more of the city and returning to the airport for the KLM flight home.

That Sunday afternoon the Red Light district was avoided and the main purpose of the visit was a 75 tour of the canals and harbour which included references to the smallest house and boat. The sun shone brightly through the glass roof of the boat and I have an on board photo, long since forgotten but very good and will be scanned into my personal collection. There was high tea at Kentucky Fried Chicken and then a return to the Lodge for an evening of Dutch TV.

Monday my first explore to Edam and the touristy folksy village of Volendam where locals adorn traditional costumes of tourists. After this it is the windmill villages at Zandik where a clog maker is at work. I have a set of clogs in the upstairs work room.

Tuesday was a prior planned day between the Kierhenhoff Internationally recognised flower gardens with glorious fields of tulips and the Maurendam model village and the day ends at the harbour waterfront of Schenvenigan with a supper of chips at a 24 hour café.

Wednesday was a relaxed day on site, although I did some jogging and watch general election results which I assume were those for Holland. Thursday was divided between Utrect for a second visit to the tower. Some shopping, a leisurely meals, and then a train ride was arranged, while I took the car. Despite rain Thursday morning was a visit to Aalkamar cheese sale which appears organised for tourists and the antique shops which were of greater interest. After lunch a long grand tour along flat Dykeland from Den Dever Waddenzeet, Fzluitdike, and Breezeeanddike to Lorentzesluizen

The following day there was an exceptionally early start to catch the day ferry where the day was enjoyed drinking lots of coffee and soft dinks with packed lunches. And watching the Jewel of the Nile and Back to the Future. There was an overnight stop at Cambridge stopping at the Post House. In the morning the decision was take to enjoy a Little Chef breakfast rather than that offered at the Hotel and then completed the rest of the journey home to watch Sports Aid.

The most memorable experience was going to a local chemist for toothpaste or some such commonplace item and finding that the young girl behind the counter who was thrilled to be able to practice her fluent school learnt English for the first time, so I stayed for several minutes recounting the week's experiences. During the conference at The Hague the previous year I had opportunity to speak to several English speaking Dutch people which confirmed the impression of a serious, religious, moral older generation who remembered the occupation of their country and its liberation wrestling with their younger generation who already regarded the war as history.

1090 TV Watching while in Scotland

Today was six days ago when I had an odd assortment of experiences with much unplanned television viewing.

I decided on a morning excursion to .Stirling, but the traffic was a nuisance, with Lorries heading for the Kincardine Bridge, and then, a slow, to stop, build up of traffic, as the outskirts of the town was reached. There had also been several showers, some heavy, so I decided to visit what appeared to be a recently built and opened 24 hour Azda for some shopping at Alloa, but made a mistake, and found myself in a retail park with a Morrison's, so decided it would do. It was here I could not resist buying two cream apple turnovers, eating one in the car park before setting off, and having recently taken to eating fresh pineapple mixed with chunks of watermelon I bought two pineapples for £1.50 whereas back home the cheapest at Azda over the past couple of weeks has been £1.68,and a watermelon. However one reason for the visit was to buy pens which I forgot, so I decided to call in at the Azda as well where I also purchased what was advertised as a single movement travel chair which folds into an over the shoulder bag, much like a shooting or fishing bag. Last summer if I did not arrive early enough for the July concerts in the park, I had to make do with the grass. This could be an ideal solution.

I became unusually tired after a prawn salad lunch and made little progress with my work so turned to television of Morse and Midsummer murders both previously seen, to turned to two programmes which were new to me. One is a games show in two phases were it is theoretically possible to achieve a monthly cash sum for life totalling close to £700,000. For this one has to uncover white as opposed to red lights. The amount of the monthly sum is determined in the first phase and then length of payments in the second with the additional twist that your partner is in a booth with the ability to watch the progress of the game and all a halt if they think the luck of the other is about to run out. This has the advantage that if they are right you take away the amount gained when the partner calls halt but if they do and you continue successfully then you lose any further winning period. It is therefore essential that the couple has agreement on what to do beforehand otherwise it is likely that any winnings will go to paying the lawyers.

The second diversion was of more lasting interest, I had bracketed Castaway along with a number of other heavily edited competitive reality adventures but was impressed by the plea statements by the remaining competitors to continue as the final approached. Each individual appeared to have genuinely expanded themselves by living as a group in primitive and challenging situations. The programme reminded of a series when a group of men participated in the life of a monastic order, and of others where one group of participants attempted to recreate medieval living and another Victorian household experience. Although he was not an immediately likeable character I had a hunch about who would win castaway and for once I was right.

I usually shy away from programmes about cooking, even those featuring personalities, because they always make me feel more inadequate than usual. In this instance seven chefs were competing to prepare a sweet pudding for a banquet to be held in Paris by the British Ambassador to promote the excellence of our culinary art. The judges made Simon Cowell into a gentle sympathiser and I would have loved to have tried even those puddings which they slated. It is time to tackle being a fatty with greater seriousness though.

I seemed to be having more naps than usual and less and less inclined to attend to work so it was unsurprising that my attention then focussed on programme about the rise and fall of the red guards in China. I was already familiar with the subject and previously studied the rise of Communism. What I had hoped for was some indication of how the switch to a mixed economy, based on significant help from international capitalism, had been achieved since the deaths of Chairman Mao and the Prime Minister, and the deposing of the hated wife of the Chairman. There and something like 1000 new cities to be created involving a controlled shift from countryside into an industrial revolution like no other and with the consequence of China leading the world economy before the end of this century.

The only obstacles to this new revolutionary March of the Chinese people appears to be international terrorism and if we succeed in destroying the planet at a faster rate than presently prophesied. Both subjects were covered during the day.

The first was an alarming programme which purported to reveal that the CIA/USA security services were torturing suspects at secret camps in Europe and elsewhere. The programme appeared to prove that secret rendition flights had operated into Poland adjacent to a secret camp and in a stop over rest and recreation centre on Majorca. The film centred on what is alleged to have happened to three terrorist suspects, adducted. moved to different locations where they were tortured, with one former English resident, but not a British subject now moved to Cuba, a German subsequently dumped in a forest in a mid European country and a Canadian whose story appears to have been accepted by the Canadian authorities as authentic. The programme concluded with the information of a series of lawsuits and the intention to bring war crimes charges against senior US government figures as well as those who are said to have undertaken the physical and mental torturing of individuals.

The subject was also aired on Question Time with former Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine talking sense about the balance that is needed between the roles of the state to protect against terrorism and ensuring that measures taken do not create the kind of society which the terrorists seek to force upon everyone. I have always liked Michael Heseltine, despite his politics, from the time as politician terrible when he seized and swung the Mace into his new role as a charitable elder statesman. Despite my understanding of the nature of power and government, I find it difficult to believe that senior politicians authorised let alone have been aware of the use of torture which cannot then be used to bring individuals to justice outside of the USA arrangements for those in Cuba, and presumably held elsewhere. It is understandable that the movement and location of captured terrorist will be kept secret from concern of organised break outs and terrorist reprisals on supporting governments. It is the responsibility of those who live in democratic societies to set the limits on the measures to be taken to stop terrorist activity.

The impact of the development of the Chinese economy on global energy supply, and its consequence for the environment are mind bending especially as it means that China will eventually have the financial means to explore beyond our solar system, and may become the first people to visit other communicating species, if such species have not already been in contact with human life on our planet before now.

It all makes the latest decision by the British Government, with support from local authority representative bodies to plan reducing the weekly collection of non recyclable waste, to bi- weekly more suspect. The presented argument is that this will force the public to give more attention to recycling as much as possible in the alternate weeks and reduce the quantity going to land fill sites. However the likelihood is that this will only increase the number of private cars taken household waste to the specialist council centres where the present emphasis is on recycling, and the disposal of white goods, batteries, tyres, metals and building materials. The suspicion is that this is yet another switch from a general local tax to pay as you go, but at least the scheme does not appear dependent on yet another computer system. Another fiddling while Rome burns?

1089 Almodovar's The Law of Desire and Moulin Rouge

In contrast to the tranquillity of my mini break in Scotland I viewed the Law of Desire shortly before departure, an Almodovar film which engaged me more than anticipated. Having recently described how my prejudice against all things German had been forged by my childhood experience of rocket bombs, until individual encounters, spread over several decades, led me to understand the universality of human behaviour, it has taken just as many decades to discard the simplistic Freudian view of homosexuality, in part because of difficulties in understanding the development of my own sexual orientation, and need for celibacy. These are subjects for another occasion.

That the Law of Desire is a film about a selfish, creative, promiscuous, homosexual, Eusebio Poncela who juggles relationships, and does not understand until it is too late, the influence his behaviour has on a young man, played by a young Antonio Banderas, is an reflection of Almodovar's preoccupations. The specific sexual orientation is irrelevant because this is a film about the consequences of giving free reign to our instinctive passion to possess other human beings, and the destructive nature of jealousy when the object of that desire does not respond in the way we want of them. In the film the obsession leads to the murder of a rival and to suicide. Being Almodovar there are also stock diversions where the police are portrayed as corrupt incompetent fascists, and with the Catholic Church being predominated by paedophile priests. We also learn that the sister, Carmen Maura, was in fact a brother with the corrupting adults, a Father and a father. He has a sex change operation after their father dumps him for a new lover.

Usually I find Almodovar's wilder excesses, unnecessary to the point of irritating. and his work became for me that of an adolescent given too much fame and fortune for their own good, although most artists cannot resist the temptation to reproduce their successful work in continuous variation. On this occasion I was caught up and held by the performances of the main characters, in much the same way as I had on experiencing Carmen Jones again a few weeks before. During my stay in Scotland on a cold, windy and damp morning I viewed the DVD of Moulin Rouge. A film which I did not enjoy at first viewing in theatre because of the running commentary by two educated moronic youths attempting to impress their school girl friends, and because I had not read advance material about the nature of this interpretation of the Moulin Rouge as a can-can bordello turned into musical theatre where the first production is created by existentialist bohemians who believe in idealistic love and that the star courtesan can become a reborn virgin who meets a heroic end as in the best of operas. I then enjoyed a second viewing in theatre and have played the DVD and an additional material several times since purchase. I suspect just as I rate Tony Blair as a great Prime Minister, I am alone in having some sympathy for the Duke in Moulin Rouge, who has the means to buy the exclusive use of the star turn only to find that she has given her heart to a penniless poet and he like Banderas in the Law of Desire is driven to murder in order to eliminate his rival. I cannot condone the violence but I understand his feelings. Being a Hollywood movie for teenagers, he loses her body and her soul, and poet is destined to exploit his experience into a best seller. It is a good ending because in real life the poet would have sent out his conquest whoring to pay for their life style while he squandered his talent drinking with his companions and trying out the latest drugs. The Duke would have made the whore into a Duchess.

Creatives like priests should be celibate and if they must gratify sexual appetites they should restrict themselves to the occasional whore, or better still, and less expensive, to cream cakes. Today, none of my writing came easy and the rain lashing prevented the rabbits from coming above ground until hunger forced some to venture for a nibble. Fortunately the weather improved for an hour to enable me to purchase a cream apple turnover for elevenses, and a stack of Scottish pancakes, three of which I have just had for tea. They never taste the same as when I would buy what I could afford for two old pence a time, for breakfast, along with a mug of tea, on an early morning ferry between Dunoon and Gourock in the early sixties and which also seemed to take the long way round calling at Helensburgh and Killgregan, and having camped by the water in the grounds of the Youth Hostel at Strone point. In my case the wages of desire means that I stay fat

1088 Scotland Joy

Today, Friday, looked as if it was going to become a perfect day of new and revived experiences. Although I had stayed up late, I awoke early and felt relaxed and refreshed, sitting before a large window looking at the changing landscape as clouds assembled to hide the sun, turning to lashing rain, and then to a brightness sufficient for the owners of the site to start a bonfire.

The situation reminded me of my first experience forty years before when in my first year as a professional child care officer I had been invited to stay at the lake district home of a friend and spent the early morning and part of the evening watching the effects of clouds and changing light upon the water and the hills beyond. Some landscape painters and photographers, poets and gifted writers of prose are able to capture something more than their experience of the moment but nature has never surrendered to me as it has to them. I have a continuous debate about the extent to which anyone should attempt to master the material world, without contributing something of equal measure in return. When individually and collectively we abuse and exploit nature we should not be surprised when nature finds a way of punishing us back.

The weather appeared to settle although the forecast suggested showers, with some heavy, but the inclination was to go out to explore the reality of memory, despite a programme of work requiring attention. I could attempt to make up the latter, but might not have the opportunity to revisit all the places where previous experience merited review. The plan was to head north along to Crief, Aberfeldy, and Loch Tay.

The route to Crief was an unexpected glorious surprise with rhododendrons giving way to long banks of yellow gorse as I entered one of the beautiful glens of Scotland which opened up to a vast panorama of distant hills. Because I frequently stopped to view and digest the wonder, it was almost lunchtime time before arriving at Crief and I found a car park after motoring through the town centre when I eat a prepared salad, a buttered roll and the cream apple turnover left over from yesterday.

I was able to recall previously passing through Crief, but not having stopped, and full of the pleasure of the journey so far, I decided to walk the town and then return repeating my morning journey in reverse, and without travelling north as planned. It is often the situation that having found a good base, explorations are made far and wide without properly finding out what is on one's doorstep. Crief offers several fine restaurants and one using a converted bank had recently offered a night of five courses with appropriately selected wines for £40 a head. The second virtue of note is Gordon and Durward who from 1925 have made sweets on the premises, tablets, Fudge, Macaroon, Snowballs and Sugar Mice. What attracted me were the banks of traditional glass jars filled with a colourful assortment of hard boiled soft centred memories of childhood from chocolate limes and pear drops, to those with liquorice centres and sherbet. A few doors away was one of two stores selling the range of pure Scottish single malts and I decided on a selection of miniatures and one full bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet presented in a leather feel box. It was soon time for a mug of coffee and tea cake and an overheard conversation about the reduction in visitors over recent years and lack of optimism for the coming season with the summer half term holiday of the English next week.

I then stopped at a factory outlet for Scottish and Irish glass and found an attractive Waterford Swan, and purchased a pair together with a rose paperweight. As these were to be gifts I removed the prices and code marks on return, and then in horror found that the seahorse stamp of excellence was missing from the swans although in it what appeared to be original boxes and marked Waterford. They are perhaps seconds rather than fakes but were not marked as such.

I should have been aware that the day had gone too well by what happened on the return journey although having missed the unction turn at a crucial point; the subsequent detour enabled me to pass by the Gleneagles Hotel, golf and activity centre which I had often seen on TV and wondered where it was located. Now I know, but the journey through the valley was a disappointment because vehicles insisted on driving up to my bumper forcing me to drive at their pace and without opportunity to pull to one side.

Fortunately the required early departure means that I can return the glassware and seek an explanation. There is a bonus because although I purchased two lots of five 100 gram selections of the sweets they do not fill the glass display jars purchased to create delight for any recipient, so it is an ill wind. However it could have been a perfect day. It then became worse. What did I say about nature retaliating when we do not make appropriate tribute for its gifts to us?

I returned the following morning to factory glassware shop at Crief and obtained a reluctant refund although the assistant could offer no explanation for the lack of official marking and denied that Waterford issued seconds. I will not let the matter rest and will contact the company and the appropriate Scottish authorities. It was necessary to buy a similar quantity of hard boiled sweets as yesterday in order to fill the jars, but it did result in some for me.

The journey homeward was horrendous although it was my fault. If I had thought more carefully I would have travelled west from Crief to Stirling for the motorway to Edinburgh and missing the two main bridge routes. Instead in a moment of forgetfulness I went east to join the Forth bridge motorway route forgetting the delays of the weekend and that this was a bank holiday. At the last moment I headed west again towards Kincardine thus avoiding a two hour wait. However at Kincardine the queues built up to that after half an hour of crawl I turned back and headed up towards Stirling. It was five before reaching Shields and visiting my mother, and then getting back and unpacking, sorting the post and beginning to catch up on communications. But I had the images of my near perfect day.

1087 Scotland re-experienced

Recreating my experience of holidays in Scotland was the purpose of a visit made to a new location this week, and unexpectedly it immediately brought back memories of my first. Rabbits scampering close up from every window viewpoint and earlier this evening as I went out to the car, although they rushed away at speed, one stayed. At one point there were twelve into two areas. My mother once attempted to breed rabbits in post war rationing, but the pair just became more and more fat, at her expense, and were taken to the butchers, and although we had rabbit stew from time to time, they went to the table of others. After Watership Down, the book, the radio play and the film, I can look back to her enterprise with humour, and pleasure that we need not eat them

In the mid 1970's the first holiday visit to Scotland was to an isolated hillside cottage in the Tay valley, reached by a grassland track from an off road drive and every evening after a meal until dusk, the rabbits feeding and scampering, provided nightly entertainment over a gloriously warm May week. So far the weather this May week has been mixed, as it was some thirty years ago when a second visit was made to a different property on the same estate and there was opportunity to explore further afield beyond the Tummel Valley, north to the Cairngorms where the chair lift was taken to the top, and then along Glen Lyon , and to the Trossachs and Lake Katrine, and Rannoch moor, with regular visits to Aberfeldy, to Kenmore and Killin, There was also a yearn to conquer my fear of heights and attempt the climb of Ben Lawers. A decade later there was a return to the Tay to a lodge and reaching the top of the mountain.

Last week I arranged this trip on impulse, somewhere in Scotland, not too far, somewhere like Loch Lomond, North of Glasgow or around the Trossachs, north of Edinburgh. My first choice being unavailable I accepted the suggestion of an alternative, a location which shall remain a secret except to family and trusted friends because of its peaceful location and the quality of the accommodation unit. Purpose designed by its owner there is comfortable seating and dining for six, with an ensuite double, a twin and one with bunks and sufficient clothes hanging and storage for the entire wardrobe of a family should care to bring. The main bathroom has a wall to wall surface and with drawers enabling a parade of every ones toiletries and the kitchen area is better than all my previously owned properties.

Instead of touring I am enjoying working, thinking and being. You can feel isolated in a home in the midst of a city, but with no one occupying any of the other lodges, I am at one with myself and the universe in this isolation.

Since my first holiday to Scotland I have stayed at Lodges and other forms of accommodation at Aviemore at Loch Oich and Loch Lochy and Loch Goil, at Hunters Quay Holy Loch in Christmas New Year snow time, on the west bank of Loch Lomond, near Pitlochry and Loch Earn, in Dumfries and at the top end of Loch Long. I have stayed in a hotel at Oman and camped all over with a week at a Forestry commission site, note sure where, and will have to check when I return home, long tours visiting other lochs and glens, and up and down the peninsular.

I give thanks for these experiences, for being in harmony, and for not feeling guilty.

1086 Who Guards the Guardians?

Because I have been engaging in physical communication and activity, there has been less time to devote to my work, my writing and Myspace, although the subjects for attention have been piling up as I quickly read the writings of others. I am calling this piece a rambling because it is in response to the Blog of a friend. It is interesting that the majority of those with whom I exchange personal emails are Catholics or who were raised Catholics, with others interested in aspects of religions and beliefs across the spectrum. All these Catholics and ex Catholics have one thing in common, they were all idealists and even the most realist would still like to be, and as with all those who are or were of a fundamentalist faith, we all have healthy distrust of imposed authority. My contacts tend to be passionate people who try to make something of their lives and actively participate in trying to make the world safer and more caring places, primarily for the benefits of others, often others who they have never met and never will.

Fortunately most do not have some of my flaws, and I can compensate for these by contributing something of my experience gained from starting as an abused child, becoming a poacher, then gamekeeper, and then turning into a poacher once more but with the advantage of having been a gamekeeper. On regional TV recently the programme featured three individuals of the age of grandmothers who had already been arrested for a protest against the decision to start the process of replacing the Trident under water weapons of mass destruction delivery. They were planning to do what they felt was necessary, to try and make government take a different approach, I can understand why the Labour and Conservative parties are committed to the replacement programme and I suspect that were I in government and listened to what the service chiefs were advising and privy to genuine state information about the threats, I would play "safe." (Am I really using these words to describe spending money on weapons of mass destruction aimed at non combatants, and which could otherwise make a dent in saving the planet, and or bring required medicines, foods and other resources to Africa and other struggling societies?).

The "did Iraq hold weapons of mass destruction experience". Has made everyone, especially politicians in the USA and UK less trusting of their secret services, and with good cause. although those who employ people who will do anything for a government, also know that they will do anything, for anyone, if it interests them, and provides the lifestyle freedom which they need, and even if the politicians have never been part of some secret net work or club of self and shared interest, they will have quickly learnt how such networks operate and how to monitor and counterbalance.

My experience was with the predominantly non violent peace movement of the early 1960's. My difficulty at the time was that many of the early activists were like me, full of anger, opposition and suspicion, and ignorant of the realities of human behaviour, especially when it becomes collectivised. I once upset a kind and genuine activist who arranged for a small group to undertake voluntary work one evening a week, sending out a publication to subscribers, by declaring that it was difficult for me to convinced when those advocating non violence were so angry and troubled themselves. I have one my space friend who regularly has a rant in print, and those who do not know the individual better, have sometimes through their comments believed this reflects the whole person, rather than just a creative outlet, of a complex multidimensional individual, that we all are. Unfortunately, others channel their frustration, and sense of personal powerlessness, into less constructive, and sometimes harmful ways, to themselves, and to others.

There was also one meeting intended for those prepared to commit civil disobedience at the end of a campaign, where among a room of some fifty people there were only half a dozen who I knew were genuine and trustworthy. The difficulty was working out who was what among the others. There would have been undercover operatives or associates from the various national secret services of the main countries involved i.e. the UK, the USA and Russia which makes a potential of 12 with one for each national government and for each branch of the armed services, and it is possible that there were two for the national government, with one for internal security and the other for overseas, and this excludes any arms length covert groups directly or indirectly employed, especially those directly funded by the main arms making manufacturers and their agents.

Then of course there was the media, still in its electronic infancy. Some were open about their activities and one leading national paper sent a journalist to cover the three month campaign, at the end of which I was not sure if he had become one of us. Others were also open in their objective. I once accepted an invitation to meet a journalist for another national paper who admitted that he was under instruction to be nice and get me to talk and then write up the interview in as damaging way as he could. Because he liked me and was sympathetic to the cause he told me this in advance, but nevertheless did what he warned he said he would do, and it makes excruciatingly embarrassing reading to this day, although I also have to admit that it was closer to the truth about me than I still like to admit. Some at the meeting were blatant agent provocateurs calling on the campaign to use undercover tactics and to be prepared to use violence in self defence. Some were deranged with no mitigating qualities as anyone undertaken the venture had to be a little deranged don't, you think? I cannot remember if the young woman with four children in care was at this meeting or arrived later without a sleeping bag, inviting herself to share with those of the young men and who on two successive nights announced to the rest of the mixed sleeping on floor group that she would "let you have it tomorrow night because." Just before she transferred her affections to a third male, the police arrived to reunite with her offspring.

Of course we were aware that the more effective we became in gaining public support the more our lives were going to be monitored and some members who were confident in each other organised a dummy demonstration by telephone restricted to themselves and then arranged for someone to monitor the particular situation who was able to confirm that the authorities were much in evidence. These days there are few interested in matters of national security that would not expect anything less of governments and approve of such methods, supported by the technology which can enable monitoring of everything electronic, electronically without prior consent or official approval, and of everything and everyone else when cause can be shown. And because of my experience I also know the limitations of the most sophisticated methods. This in turn leads to calls for even stronger and tighter monitoring, even by those who would be horrified if such monitoring was then turned on them.

The reality is no different from the casualties of friendly fire. In any situation of armed conflict there will be potentially significant human errors of judgement and of simple error leading to the deaths of non combatants and those on the same side, including closest colleagues. These have to be regarded as unplanned sacrifices. There are always planned sacrifices such as in the First World War when tens of thousands were sent to their deaths because the public aroused by the media called for some token advance or theoretically morale boosting venture. And there is always opportunity for the settling of some private scores.

It is boring for anyone who has read what I have already written on the subject but it is worth repeating, the use of violence begets more violence whether it is an individual or collective act and whether sanctioned or organised by the state what ever the nature of the government, whether a form of rule of law overrides and whether there is a superimposed faith or ideology which one believes in or does not. However it is the function of any government, by definition, to protect the interests of the nation and its people, although sometimes it is not possible to achieve both by the same act. It is also essential that a significant number question and challenge everything that the state does, and usually the most effective way of doing this is by and through the media, and therefore the media has to be forgiven when it gets things wrong or goes off along blind alleys, or damages the lives of individuals and their families unintentionally or unfairly.

However as with preventing disease, stopping malnutrition, saving species and the planet, some economically unviable service which works such a local hospital or post office, stopping further slavery, the exploitation of women and the abuse of children, and so on, governments have a major part to play, but can do nothing, especially in democracies, without the support and actions of a significant number of separate and diverse individuals, their families, friends, and local communities banding together in common cause.

This is why all the energy being expended by millions all over the world in the hope that one pre school child is found, hopefully alive is not meaningless gesturing, it proves what I have believed all my life that most human beings, despite their understandable self interest, and cautiousness about getting involved in anything which takes them out of their security space, will respond if they believe in something or someone who is open and honest with them, and treats them with the respect they show to others. I have always believed that there are also a lot of others who if given the right help, including help to move to a different or better environment, will also become creative, giving and sharing human beings like the majority.

It is best to let governments, and their organs of state, to deal with the minority of others who because of biological inheritance or childhood circumstance, or childhood events become capable of acts of evil without remorse, or the capacity to change. It is also important that everyone else learn from an early age how to identify, avoid and where necessary, refer to the authorities such individuals as appropriate to the circumstance. The trouble is we have actually elected some of these individuals into our governments, or stood by in understandable fear while others have set about, and in some instances in history successfully, destroyed the safeguards and imposed their nightmares on everyone else. I remain reluctant to give governments a free hand to deal with such individuals because mistakes have and will continue to be made, but the priority should be to give support and recognition to those who go into the front lines on our behalf, and for everyone else to participate and be vigilant. But who is to guard the guardians?

1085 Bergman's The Serpent's Egg and Berlin

Preliminary sketch notes about my knowledge of Berlin, my experience of Germany, the rise of Fascism, Bergman and the Serpent's Egg, together with the Christopher Isherwood viewpoint

My knowledge of Germany developed through my childhood as my aunts prayed in our garden air raid shelter, and then looking at the crater of the demolished house after a rocket bomb fell in a nearby road. A relative who returned from a Prison camp liberated by the Russians said they were worse than the Germans. An uncle and his wife returned from serving five years as part as the allied forces reconstructing West Germany into a prosperous democracy, marvelling at the motorway net work and whispering to adults about the reality of a black market and politically and emotionally divided nation

And then I read the official reports of the war crimes tribunal on Belsen and Auschwitz and thought I understood what the whispers had been about. A couple of years later I saw Laurence Harvey, Julie Harris and Shelley Winters in a recreation of Christopher Isherwood's story "I am a Camera" from Goodbye to Berlin, made into a play and then the film released in 1955 when I was sixteen and four years away from trying to be a writer on one of the two portable Olivetti typewriters I managed to sell during my ignoble half year as the training course star pupil and subsequent failure as a sales person.

Laurence Harvey was not my idea of being a writer, but I was instantly attracted by the nightclub sleaze world in inhabited by Sally Bowles, although at the time having no idea that the central character was a homosexual like his creator. I did understand something of the juxtaposition between the existentialist lives of the central characters and the rise of Hitler and the fascists, but it was more the emotional recreation of a time than the historical factual reality. This came later

It was not until 1964 that I acquired a Pan edition of William L Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for twelve and sixpence, a good buy for a 1400 unabridged academic history. I valued everything Allan Bullock had to say and his recommendation that this was the one book to place in the hands of anyone who wanted to know what happened in Germany 1930-1945 remains even more valid today.

A year before I had travelled by train through Germany to Stockholm but my experience was travelling at night and being a little spooked by my memories of what I had read. In prison in 1961, we had been allowed to have sent in Teach Yourself German, as we had this idea of going Munich and to Berlin and committing some non violent civil disobedience action at the boarder between East and West just to make the point that we opposed the worker's and the capitalist bomb. In 1965 as part of a grand European Tour, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France in three weeks in my mini estate, my male work colleague and I camped by the Rhine and entered a large beer tent where Germans made spaces for us to sit with them a drink enormous pints of beer singing songs we did not understand. We then did not find the municipal camp in Munich and motored on until we found one in the Black Forest and then entered an Inn where we were looked at closely and we felt we were the subject of everyone's conversation as we gambled at menu items but had a good inexpensive hot meal. Later we stayed with a German young woman and her mother at their flat in Geneva, who I knew from college days, and that is the extent of my reality experience about Germany and its people for over a decade.

I went to Munich in my imagination in 1980 through Time Life and where the frontispiece is of beer tankard upon beer tankard followed by an evocative mixture of pictures and words got the measure of the city and its people. There have been few, if any, films about life in Germany before and after the two world wars that I have not seen, and since the birth of Sky TV, on its history and documentary channels.

Another dimension of early Sky was that you were able to pick up German TV channels and these were more interesting to watch late at night and sometimes during the day when they had their Parades and Festivals, but still I hankered to be a carefree artist in Berlin, especially after finding that most people took off all their clothes in the main public park and that something of the twenties night life continued. I had seen the work of Kurt Weil recreated on stage and on TV and then Lisa Minnelli and Noel Gray had brought us Cabaret to the screen, in 1972, a work which remains vivid a portrait, and which I watch on DVD at least once a year.

But only last midweek did I view Bergman's the Serpents Egg made in 1976, the most odd and disappointing of his score of films experienced over the past year. The main language of the film is English with an unconvincing David Carradine as an alcoholic Jewish Trapeze artist who drinks himself into stupor for some inexplicable reason and Liv Ullmann as a failed circus performer trying her hand at being an oversize Sally Bowles. The film follows the same path as I am a Camera, Cabaret and others, people being decadent oblivious at first and then pretending not to notice, until shortages, and mounting street violence forces then to appraise what is happening to their neighbours, I like Carradine from his TV series mystic searches for enlightenment but he and this film is a mess. The last segment attempts to knit everything together with a kind of pre Joseph Mengele experimental doctor who both Ullmann and Carradine encounter. It is perhaps the darkest and bleak portrait of the time but it added nothing to my knowledge and experience.

I have one other brief experience of the German people, a party of local authority bigwigs from a twin town who I took on a coach trip to the largest in door shopping centre in Europe to meet its creator Sir John Hall who tried to convince them about the merits of his development despite my alerting beforehand that right and left had united to ban such a development from their city. I then had a drink with his son and son in law while the party went off to shop. Some came back early with their purchases for a drink and it was only then that I realised that if you excluded the language difference they were just same as any group of politicians representing the extremes of opinion and interests.

I still hope to go to Berlin and sit in the sun among others without any clothes and chat up a bird in a nite club hoping she is not a male transvestite!

1084 Car Hiring

The past four days have been a mini adventure of additional experience. I hesitate to say new experience because its substance recaptured aspects of previous experience. It began with going and returning a hired car. There were two reasons for making the investment. I wanted to create a different image as my vehicle is old like me, and designed for the conveyance of the old and those big of limb. Because it is old, there is that element of uncertainty about all long journeys which I wanted to avoid. I decided to collect the vehicle from Newcastle airport rather than locally, or from Newcastle city centre. It is twenty seven stations from my end of one line here to the airport extension and involves one change of train as the line commences in Sunderland at its other end.

Many of the Metro stations have artworks and during the summer I plan to visit all of these with my camera as well as getting off as at many of the other stations and just taking a walk about. There are not 101 stations but if you count in dual line stations there are some eighty stops to make and with return visits where there is more to see than on one half day venture I should be able to make that 101 over time.

The journey began with an interesting event as a couple joined at a early station, in their forties I would guess and very tactile, touching, caressing, a few kisses and obviously engrossed with each other and unconcerned at the reactions of other passengers. It was evident from the conversation that they were on some form of sexual adventure together which may have already commenced, or was in its early stages, as at one point she placed one of her legs over his, deliberately wicked, before correcting herself. She was an attractive well dressed woman without a regional accent while he was confident, local, and appeared to be having the time of his life. What was their story, I wished I could know?

I often react this way when on public transport. Sometimes I look at a figure, usually female, and see them naked. This is not a sexual interest but curiosity about what the person is really like, once you strip away the clothes they are wearing, although you can tell a lot from how people dress, how they stand and hold themselves, how they behave in public and interact with others. As a young man I failed as a salesperson of typewriters for an internationally known Italian company whose machines were better on design that typing effectiveness, and in order to pass the time I would take a three pence ticket on the London underground from one station to another on the circle line but continue for the whole circuit which I think took something like 56 57 minutes. I was never alone in this escapade because by reaching the half way point round point it was evident that three distinct groups of other passengers were doing the same thing. The truanting school children, the old, keeping out of the cold and rain, and salesmen, in those days it was a male enterprise. Our company employed over 100 sales personnel in the area of the underground and it was known that anyone else making the trip could be found in the last compartments of the train making alternate circuits each day. It was thus I commenced the observation and curiosity of other travellers or those who appeared to spend unusual amounts of time in public places, city pubs in winter, and city open spaces in warmer times. Now of course there are cameras everywhere, so individual who lingers and the curiosity observer will be noted and checked if the behaviour is prolonged or unusual.

I mentioned the older couple because on the return I had a cup of coffee and lunchtime chicken with lemon sandwich at the airport Starbucks and sat at a table from a young couple, she hungry excited at whatever venture they were undertaking, having removed her glasses and all touchy feely, and he looking pleased but a little embarrassed. I did not look for more than a moment because to do so with them was an intrusion despite the public nature of the location sitting within the international arrivals and departure reception area, with the café service area to one side and the information tourist centre to the other and the special assistance seating to another. If this had been Paris or Rome there would have been much more of touching and feeling in public by all but the married and the old, but In England we are still embarrassed although it is changing when about five years ago I met a former work colleague who I had not seen for close on a decade previously and I was given a great embrace, when previously our relationship had been formal. At least I was not given a kiss which I still think is inappropriate unless the individual is a long term friend or a new lover.

There is something exciting about airports. That sense of a new adventure, or having a different quality of lifestyle. Of course if you fly enough it becomes just a means of getting from A to B although not necessarily quicker for inland routes, given have now to get there hours before boarding and the location of airports. I prefer first class train travel if I want to work or think, enjoy a meal. There was a period in the early 1980's when British rail trains were reaching the end of their effective lives and trains were breaking down and being taken out of service or drivers were not arriving when expected. I was undertaking work in London during the week, an official enquiry expected the last between four and six weeks which continued for thirteen, and where because of the workload it was necessary to continue until late afternoon Friday and return Sunday afternoon and with constant break downs and delays. I switched to the plane, but quickly longed for the train. You had just about settled in your seat when it was time to refasten seat belts for the descent and the long underground ride into central and East London where I was based was unenjoyable. Today I remembered it was getting on for three years since my last plane trip and how wished I was going to some place new or returning to rediscover somewhere previously visited.

There are three aspects of my car hire experience to be recorded. paid in advance for a full tank of diesel assured this was a good deal but the extent of my travels led to the car telling me that I had to refill on my way back to the airport, so I went to a garage convinced that the petrol cover would be released by the multi opening/locking key. It did not, and a quick check of the controls, more about them tomorrow, did not produce a solution. Another vehicle owner could not help, nor could the two staff at the petrol station, but a young man, checking tyre pressures on his fast car, worked out where the release button was located. I did not feel as much a fool as yesterday however, when I used the vehicle for a town centre shop and on returning to the multi story could I find the vehicle, could I not, up and down each level of floors although I thought I knew, as I did which side and where the vehicle had been parked. In desperation I went to the ground floor to work all the way up with increasing dread that I had not locked and it had been stolen, and I could not remembered the registration number or had the written down papers with me. However there it was, just half a level up from the entrance, and my mother is the one with memory loss! I had gone for some replacement black shirts, amazingly at only £4 at Primax, after finding that other stores did not have any in my collar size. This was doubly fortunate, because in addition to their cheapness, I was able to strip off and use the old one as a mop, as my body was drenched from the sweat of fear that the vehicle had been stolen. It reminds of the instance when going to a football at the Borough some 30 miles away I had not been able to find the vehicle on foot, after the match ended and it was necessary for someone to come out where I was by the phone booth and go in search.


The third aspect is that I ordered the vehicle on the internet without a too close inspection of the small print, marvelling at the inexpensive nature of the contract only to find that that a third extra was required in insurance premiums unless I was willing to gamble on not have a any kind of knock where the surcharge could be as much as £600. The system was a good one because on return having paid for the diesel up front it was just a few seconds before the return procedure was completed. I know you will have expected me to say more. Perhaps tomorrow?