I tend to avoid becoming too interested in day to day news unless it is subject which has immediate personal interest and relates to my work. Similarly I try and resist becoming involved in local community interests but within the space of a week there were two situations, one which I decided not to pursue and the other do so. One occurred when I was driving home after the hospital visit between 10 and 10.30 pm. I had turned a corner into what is a busy main road but quieter at night and immediately noticed a young Asian couple standing on the pavement a few years ahead on my left whose behaviour suggested there was a problem and as I passed by I thought for a moment that the man was about to the hit the young woman so checking no one was following I pulled up sharply as quickly as I could by the roadside and got out my mobile phone. The man immediately looked towards my car and made a gesture as was evidently drawing the attention of the young woman that I had stopped. They appeared in conversation and she then went back to the corner of the road away from him and he went after her, so I continued my journey home and then on impulse turned back at the next roundabout and as were together in the position I had first seen them and it appeared that the young man pointed out to the young woman that I was passing them again. There were three options: To stop and enquire if everything was alright; to contact the police, or to continue home by a different route, which I did, although the fact that I am writing about the event now is an indication that I remain unsure if this was the correct decision.
Last night there was a situation involving group of young people within the grounds of the hospital as I was returning for the evening visit and where I could not avoid making a comment, but also decided to take no further action because I did not want to delay making the visit. My mother was asleep for most of the next two hours so although I watched an interesting subtitled programme, Do you know who you are? I could not help but think further as to whether I should have acted differently. By coincidence the regional police force had distributed their community information booklet earlier in the evening which included the contact information for the police inspector responsible for neighbourhood policing and anti social and community safety issues. I decided to write to him and the hospital with relevant information. I feel better about this than I did following the previous situation.
In the first I was not directly involved other than as a potential witness to an assault but in the second my personal safety and that of others was threatened, The Mail on Sunday had an article about an adviser to the foreign secretary was driving her car when a man ran into the road and stopped her at about 3pm in daylight near her home. He got into the vehicle and ordered her to drive on. She grabbed the keys and run out of the car and the man chased her with a number of people looking on. He then caught up and demanded the keys which she attempted to throw away. However he got these and drove away in her car until crashing into another car and running away on foot. He is believed to have taken part in a burglary. The Mail presented an article as part of a campaign to demonstrate that government policy on rope vent street and other crime was failing, My point is that when faced with a situation directly affect you, you have little time to think let alone react, and help from passers by would be welcome. But silly me that is another New Testament Good Samaritan story everyone is encouraged these days to look the other way.
New Testament stories were on my mind after watching the second part of the DVD. The Greatest Story ever told, and again make comparisons with the Mel Gibson Passion. The Greatest Story is a beautiful made film full of tableaux and an imaginative musical score. The script did not make me cringe, as some Americanised biblical epics, although I did expect Telly Savallas to say to Jesus, Who loves yer baby?. Max von Sydow as Jesus followed on from his spiritual mystic roles in Bergman films, with Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Sydney Poitier, Caroll Baker, Clause Rains, Jose Ferrer, David McCullum, Donald Plesance, Van Heflin, Shelley Winters and the others adding genuine gravitas. It is the kind of film you would wish to show to teenagers who alas would want to go an play their shoot em computer games after five mins. Oddly they are not allowed to watch The Passion although it is likely to be more effective, assuming there is evidence that the drive more slowly and do not smoke horror adverts are having any impact on any of those who need to be influenced.
The Do you know who you are programme watched at the hospital featured a situation where the individual did not find the kind of information they had hoped for. In this instance he and his mother had been told that ancestors had died in a railway accident resulting in their child being adopted. The child had a brother who had also been adopted or gone to live in the USA from where written enquiries were made and new information provided.
The story which unfolded was a sad one and which upset the inquiring individual, and his mother, and which again demonstrated the risks one takes when pursuing matters out of curiosity or general interest. At first the story of the ancestors being killed in a railway accident appeared accurate because the man was found to have worked as an engine driver in goods yards in Liverpool and to have lived in good standard, for its time, railway owned accommodation, near to the work place.
However although the programme revealed that over 1000 people a year were being killed in railway accidents just before the turn of the century, there was no trace of this happening to either of the couple, although evidence was found that they had moved out of the accommodation into inferior property in the area. Had he lost his job? The solution was to search for death certificates and there were four options, two of which were shown to have died by self poisoning, an amazing coincidence on its own, but the ancestor was shown to have been killed by someone subsequently convicted of manslaughter, within yards of the records office in which the descendent searched local newspaper for public reference to the incident. It transpired that the ancestor was living with his brother who ran a pub and that according to the trial reports both men had been the worse for drink when the fight in the street took place. The judge at the trial passed a general judgement about the evils of drink and the role of pubs in general and we have the situation of 100 years later a Labour government passing legislation extending the hours of access to such facilities. We never learn do we? Because of he impact of the smoking ban on the pub and club trade this is one misguided liberalization Blair measures that Gordon will not be immediately able to reverse.
Then disaster upon disaster happened to Do you know who you are ancestors, because there is public reference to a request for the widow seeking help for her four children with the suggestion that she should enter the workhouse as an alternative. What then happened is that ancestor was adopted by one family But two other children were found to have entered correction education establishments called industrial schools. The response of the descendent was one of great sadness but he was also affected by the generalizations made by researchers and historians that far from being victims the parents may have brought what happen to them and their children upon themselves. This may have been the case but to suggest that this made them worse than anyone else would be a travesty of extrapolation from the general to the particular. Would anyone have reacted differently in the same set of circumstances? Another beef for me about Old labour attitudes carried over to into the New is just how censorious working class people can be about their neighbours when they fall on hard times, whether of their own making or not. Local Labour politicians were just as likely to send an unmarried mother to be locked up for life in a mental institution as the traditional Tory squire, I know I have seen some of the record and it is no surprise that under a Labour Government so many labour magistrates are pointlessly sending their neighbours to prison. Pointless because it raises taxes, does not reduce crime and costs so much to provide financial support for their partners and children and then to keep them afterwards as employers prefer to pay less to use economic migrants from the former Soviet Union.
The news on Sunday was divided between two major stories. The queues of depositors confirming that the establishment is no longer believed by the majority of the population. The Tory and Liberal Democratic politicians are desperately trying to find a reason for blaming Gordon Brown, giving his continuing strength in the polls, while back bench Members of Parliament are scalp hunting, now it is no longer legal to hunt down animals such as foxes for sport, the head of the Bank of England and his Deputy. The present consensus is that the Deputy is the more vulnerable.
The problem is the way the banks are continuing to fuel the economy and house prices by giving easy and comparatively cheap loans so when one group of profit making lenders goes over the top and some banks overstretch, panic sets in and everyone looks to close the stable door. The Bank of England admitted they tried to solve the problem on the quiet but were legally advised they could not do so and in typical English fashion middle aged and older folk prepared their thermos flasks and folding chairs to play safe. Most people now know that the present general guarantee is for the first £2000 to be totally safe and then 90% of up to the next £33000 and that even the government's your funds are safe, subsequent statement, did not say when you would get your money. Some of remember War Bonds!
The most significant data from the Sunday press was contained in the Daily Mail because the day my mother first went into hospital, was the day that the credit market began to implode. This reminds of the occasion when I went to watch a Test match at the Oval at a point when I had been making so much money on penny shares that my Bank Manager gave me a great overdraft to gamble more. I was significantly over stretched using the buy and selling of shares within a 14 day trading period to avoid having to put up actual money. I did not understand why everyone was on their mobile phones until I saw the headline in the evening paper and all the money I had made, some £7000 based on an initial stake of £1000 was wiped out together with substantially more and it took ten years and Thatcher's selling off public assets to balance the books, especially if account is taken of the interest paid out on the overdraft.
I just wonder what the Russian, Chinese and Arab Sheiks thought of all those people taking out their funds out from The Northern Rock and are they looking elsewhere to place their billions. One suggestion is that they start buying Northern Rock Shares. The hard working staff are the same as before as once the storm blows out there are some good profit for them to make. Of course is easy to comment because I have never understood high finance
It is less easy to comment on the other story which, filled several pages in both Sunday papers. What happened to Madeleine McCann and where is her body? I have just one observation that the behaviour of the parents has been extraordinarily odd. I have three, if you have to go to Portugal don't get involved with their police and legal system. The third is never leave your children alone, or with anyone unless you can trust them implicitly to cope in a crisis. I suspect this is the problem. The McCanns will be feeling guilty about having had that meal on their own, and guilt people always behave as if they are guilty. They should have said no to any publicity, to the campaign, and they should have come home to their family and friends and they should have shown their grief. However because they have appeared abnormal in this respect does not mean they are guilty of anything other than feel guilty. I just hope Richard Branson and co are donating similar amounts of money to all the hundreds of thousands of parents whose children are dying of hunger, maimed in accidents or suffering from disease. Come on Richard you are appearing irresponsible. The explanation was given last night by Andrew Neil in this week. Apparently the hot topic of conversation at the political social dinner gatherings in the capital at the moment is did they do it?
Obviously this is preferable for them instead of thinking about Darfur and the impending assault on their present way of life, not because the masses will rise up, they are too busy getting stoned and having sex after nights out in the clubs and bars, but because the politicians having whipped up a frenzy about climate change and environmental action, they have to do something, and not just be heard to say they will be doing something. Other stories last Sunday included a new purchase tax on 'gas guzzlers' and Prince Charles doing an environmental Charles Gore film, melting ice opens up fabled route; nurses to lead MRSA fight and a new Pop video about Darfur, do they know its genocide?, Brave Cameron sets a Brown a green tax dare he can't ignore, How a 12 inch miracle tube could halve heating bills, and Anita Rodick's unfair Trade.
My problem is that when I read the newspapers I just feel guilty and pessimistic and I am too old for going out to clubs and bars. However this brings me to what happened when I went to buy one of the Sunday papers and found an old man, i.e. older than me, chatting up the young sales girl. He turned to me and said she wants to give me her phone number. I wished him luck but suggested he get on with it because I was on my way to something more important. I admired his style. His hair was as grey as mine but permed. He had one of those I have lived faces which women of all ages adore. He wore a soft thigh length jacket with tassels and he had obviously kept himself fit. The interesting aspect of the incident is that far from being upset the shop assistant appeared flattered and engaged in a conversation with him which led a queue to form behind me. When I tried to sympathise about old geezers who should no better she reminded that life is not a rehearsal. I was put in place and had the impression that if he had not bragged about the matter she would have slipped him her telephone number.
Last night there was a situation involving group of young people within the grounds of the hospital as I was returning for the evening visit and where I could not avoid making a comment, but also decided to take no further action because I did not want to delay making the visit. My mother was asleep for most of the next two hours so although I watched an interesting subtitled programme, Do you know who you are? I could not help but think further as to whether I should have acted differently. By coincidence the regional police force had distributed their community information booklet earlier in the evening which included the contact information for the police inspector responsible for neighbourhood policing and anti social and community safety issues. I decided to write to him and the hospital with relevant information. I feel better about this than I did following the previous situation.
In the first I was not directly involved other than as a potential witness to an assault but in the second my personal safety and that of others was threatened, The Mail on Sunday had an article about an adviser to the foreign secretary was driving her car when a man ran into the road and stopped her at about 3pm in daylight near her home. He got into the vehicle and ordered her to drive on. She grabbed the keys and run out of the car and the man chased her with a number of people looking on. He then caught up and demanded the keys which she attempted to throw away. However he got these and drove away in her car until crashing into another car and running away on foot. He is believed to have taken part in a burglary. The Mail presented an article as part of a campaign to demonstrate that government policy on rope vent street and other crime was failing, My point is that when faced with a situation directly affect you, you have little time to think let alone react, and help from passers by would be welcome. But silly me that is another New Testament Good Samaritan story everyone is encouraged these days to look the other way.
New Testament stories were on my mind after watching the second part of the DVD. The Greatest Story ever told, and again make comparisons with the Mel Gibson Passion. The Greatest Story is a beautiful made film full of tableaux and an imaginative musical score. The script did not make me cringe, as some Americanised biblical epics, although I did expect Telly Savallas to say to Jesus, Who loves yer baby?. Max von Sydow as Jesus followed on from his spiritual mystic roles in Bergman films, with Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Sydney Poitier, Caroll Baker, Clause Rains, Jose Ferrer, David McCullum, Donald Plesance, Van Heflin, Shelley Winters and the others adding genuine gravitas. It is the kind of film you would wish to show to teenagers who alas would want to go an play their shoot em computer games after five mins. Oddly they are not allowed to watch The Passion although it is likely to be more effective, assuming there is evidence that the drive more slowly and do not smoke horror adverts are having any impact on any of those who need to be influenced.
The Do you know who you are programme watched at the hospital featured a situation where the individual did not find the kind of information they had hoped for. In this instance he and his mother had been told that ancestors had died in a railway accident resulting in their child being adopted. The child had a brother who had also been adopted or gone to live in the USA from where written enquiries were made and new information provided.
The story which unfolded was a sad one and which upset the inquiring individual, and his mother, and which again demonstrated the risks one takes when pursuing matters out of curiosity or general interest. At first the story of the ancestors being killed in a railway accident appeared accurate because the man was found to have worked as an engine driver in goods yards in Liverpool and to have lived in good standard, for its time, railway owned accommodation, near to the work place.
However although the programme revealed that over 1000 people a year were being killed in railway accidents just before the turn of the century, there was no trace of this happening to either of the couple, although evidence was found that they had moved out of the accommodation into inferior property in the area. Had he lost his job? The solution was to search for death certificates and there were four options, two of which were shown to have died by self poisoning, an amazing coincidence on its own, but the ancestor was shown to have been killed by someone subsequently convicted of manslaughter, within yards of the records office in which the descendent searched local newspaper for public reference to the incident. It transpired that the ancestor was living with his brother who ran a pub and that according to the trial reports both men had been the worse for drink when the fight in the street took place. The judge at the trial passed a general judgement about the evils of drink and the role of pubs in general and we have the situation of 100 years later a Labour government passing legislation extending the hours of access to such facilities. We never learn do we? Because of he impact of the smoking ban on the pub and club trade this is one misguided liberalization Blair measures that Gordon will not be immediately able to reverse.
Then disaster upon disaster happened to Do you know who you are ancestors, because there is public reference to a request for the widow seeking help for her four children with the suggestion that she should enter the workhouse as an alternative. What then happened is that ancestor was adopted by one family But two other children were found to have entered correction education establishments called industrial schools. The response of the descendent was one of great sadness but he was also affected by the generalizations made by researchers and historians that far from being victims the parents may have brought what happen to them and their children upon themselves. This may have been the case but to suggest that this made them worse than anyone else would be a travesty of extrapolation from the general to the particular. Would anyone have reacted differently in the same set of circumstances? Another beef for me about Old labour attitudes carried over to into the New is just how censorious working class people can be about their neighbours when they fall on hard times, whether of their own making or not. Local Labour politicians were just as likely to send an unmarried mother to be locked up for life in a mental institution as the traditional Tory squire, I know I have seen some of the record and it is no surprise that under a Labour Government so many labour magistrates are pointlessly sending their neighbours to prison. Pointless because it raises taxes, does not reduce crime and costs so much to provide financial support for their partners and children and then to keep them afterwards as employers prefer to pay less to use economic migrants from the former Soviet Union.
The news on Sunday was divided between two major stories. The queues of depositors confirming that the establishment is no longer believed by the majority of the population. The Tory and Liberal Democratic politicians are desperately trying to find a reason for blaming Gordon Brown, giving his continuing strength in the polls, while back bench Members of Parliament are scalp hunting, now it is no longer legal to hunt down animals such as foxes for sport, the head of the Bank of England and his Deputy. The present consensus is that the Deputy is the more vulnerable.
The problem is the way the banks are continuing to fuel the economy and house prices by giving easy and comparatively cheap loans so when one group of profit making lenders goes over the top and some banks overstretch, panic sets in and everyone looks to close the stable door. The Bank of England admitted they tried to solve the problem on the quiet but were legally advised they could not do so and in typical English fashion middle aged and older folk prepared their thermos flasks and folding chairs to play safe. Most people now know that the present general guarantee is for the first £2000 to be totally safe and then 90% of up to the next £33000 and that even the government's your funds are safe, subsequent statement, did not say when you would get your money. Some of remember War Bonds!
The most significant data from the Sunday press was contained in the Daily Mail because the day my mother first went into hospital, was the day that the credit market began to implode. This reminds of the occasion when I went to watch a Test match at the Oval at a point when I had been making so much money on penny shares that my Bank Manager gave me a great overdraft to gamble more. I was significantly over stretched using the buy and selling of shares within a 14 day trading period to avoid having to put up actual money. I did not understand why everyone was on their mobile phones until I saw the headline in the evening paper and all the money I had made, some £7000 based on an initial stake of £1000 was wiped out together with substantially more and it took ten years and Thatcher's selling off public assets to balance the books, especially if account is taken of the interest paid out on the overdraft.
I just wonder what the Russian, Chinese and Arab Sheiks thought of all those people taking out their funds out from The Northern Rock and are they looking elsewhere to place their billions. One suggestion is that they start buying Northern Rock Shares. The hard working staff are the same as before as once the storm blows out there are some good profit for them to make. Of course is easy to comment because I have never understood high finance
It is less easy to comment on the other story which, filled several pages in both Sunday papers. What happened to Madeleine McCann and where is her body? I have just one observation that the behaviour of the parents has been extraordinarily odd. I have three, if you have to go to Portugal don't get involved with their police and legal system. The third is never leave your children alone, or with anyone unless you can trust them implicitly to cope in a crisis. I suspect this is the problem. The McCanns will be feeling guilty about having had that meal on their own, and guilt people always behave as if they are guilty. They should have said no to any publicity, to the campaign, and they should have come home to their family and friends and they should have shown their grief. However because they have appeared abnormal in this respect does not mean they are guilty of anything other than feel guilty. I just hope Richard Branson and co are donating similar amounts of money to all the hundreds of thousands of parents whose children are dying of hunger, maimed in accidents or suffering from disease. Come on Richard you are appearing irresponsible. The explanation was given last night by Andrew Neil in this week. Apparently the hot topic of conversation at the political social dinner gatherings in the capital at the moment is did they do it?
Obviously this is preferable for them instead of thinking about Darfur and the impending assault on their present way of life, not because the masses will rise up, they are too busy getting stoned and having sex after nights out in the clubs and bars, but because the politicians having whipped up a frenzy about climate change and environmental action, they have to do something, and not just be heard to say they will be doing something. Other stories last Sunday included a new purchase tax on 'gas guzzlers' and Prince Charles doing an environmental Charles Gore film, melting ice opens up fabled route; nurses to lead MRSA fight and a new Pop video about Darfur, do they know its genocide?, Brave Cameron sets a Brown a green tax dare he can't ignore, How a 12 inch miracle tube could halve heating bills, and Anita Rodick's unfair Trade.
My problem is that when I read the newspapers I just feel guilty and pessimistic and I am too old for going out to clubs and bars. However this brings me to what happened when I went to buy one of the Sunday papers and found an old man, i.e. older than me, chatting up the young sales girl. He turned to me and said she wants to give me her phone number. I wished him luck but suggested he get on with it because I was on my way to something more important. I admired his style. His hair was as grey as mine but permed. He had one of those I have lived faces which women of all ages adore. He wore a soft thigh length jacket with tassels and he had obviously kept himself fit. The interesting aspect of the incident is that far from being upset the shop assistant appeared flattered and engaged in a conversation with him which led a queue to form behind me. When I tried to sympathise about old geezers who should no better she reminded that life is not a rehearsal. I was put in place and had the impression that if he had not bragged about the matter she would have slipped him her telephone number.
No comments:
Post a Comment