Sure, Christmas is
great and all that - but are you really the benevolent character we all take you
for? You certainly have some incredible housebreaking skills and all this
do-goodery is a great cover story for some good old-fashioned burglary or a
multitude of other nefarious activities. Your P.R. skills are also certainly up
there with the best considering we spend so much time and effort these days
telling our children to avoid strangers except in safe environments like
school. Heck we’ve even turned our schools into virtual mini-prisons to keep
out unsafe adults – an example of creating anxiety in our kids where there is
almost no risk - yet we happily tell them that you will come into their
bedrooms at night and leave them presents – if they’ve been good. We even tell
them not to be afraid if they wake up hearing someone in their room and that
they should just pretend to be asleep and not to look at you { that’ll work
very heavily in your favour in any potential ID parade you clever old rascal }
And that disguise? Genius! You’ve made a disguise out of the
most identifiable and high visibility clothing you could possibly wear, making
sure that even CCTV Camera’s won’t be able to pick out any identifying personal
features. With all that bulky clothing you could be anything from the most
obese burglar in history to a complete anorexic with access to industrial
quantities of padding. You’re supposed to be old but you might not be – you
certainly aren’t as old as the stories suggest. What an incredible feat! Way to
go sunshine!
There are some weak points in your strategy though, which
I’m sure you must be aware of; all those mince pies and sherry have to slow you
down a bit { and make me veer towards ‘the most obese burglar in history’
theory } and the getaway vehicle not only isn’t the fastest option you could
have come up with but is also stand out conspicuous in all but the most rural
areas. Despite this, probably due to the laxity of our police and the ineptitude
of air traffic control staff over the holiday period, you’ve managed
consistently to evade detection. Yes we have all seen the photos of Santa being
given a parking ticket or the videos on ‘Youtube’ but these aren’t you are
they? This is yet another genius stroke in the master-plan. You’ve generated –
spawned even – a whole slew of impersonators with which to confuse and convince
society that it’s all a fantasy. Absolute bloomin’ genius mate. Well done
indeed.
Yes, you’ve created a cover story perfect for the most
gullible or sentimental elements of our society, built it up over a significant
period of time { clearly a master of planning and organising } and woven it
around the most fantastical garb that hides you in plain sight. Your transport
appears ridiculous but evades the most elaborate detection systems modern
technology can produce. You telegraph the time of your crime yet create a
perfect alibi by ensuring multitudes of lookalikes may be culpable – some of them
who don’t even get dressed up because they’re in their own homes – and at the
appointed hour you do your stuff and apparently disasppear like you’ve just
gone up the chimney.
Or is the there an even more elusive side to the story? Are
you simply an extra savvy entrepreneur who's moved to the Arctic Circle because
of tax breaks, lower environmental standards and an abundance of cheap elf labour?
Whatever the truth I'm still waiting for the flamethrower
I've been asking for for the last three years. This year Santa, please – get
your act in order. There are so many places I'm planning to visit with my new
toy.
I'm becoming more than a little unhappy with the BBC. It
seems more and more obvious lately that the powers that be within what is
supposedly an independent, objective news organisation are aligning themselves
more and more closely to the established government line, to the detriment of
fair and balanced reporting.
For several months I have been annoyed by the political
discussion show "Question Time" chaired by David Dimbleby. The panels
are increasingly weighted on the side of government argument with one Cabinet
minister, one Tory MP, one LibDem MP and as often as not a celebrity supporter
of Conservative policy with a token Labour voice or independent panellist. On
top of that I feel that Mr Dimbleby's chairing leaves much to be desired
when it comes to objectivity and the ability to provide a fair and open
discussion. Often he will question the antiestablishment voice on the panel
again and again in supposed "clarification" when he rarely does this
to other panel members and he's much more likely to interrupt any
non-government speaker or curtail the time allotted to them to answer a
question. I've also found him irritatingly dismissive of clear and sensible
questions from the audience pertinent to the discussion at hand for no
explicable reason. He also allows Tory and Lib-Dem {or is that Con-Dem} to veer off piste, usually prefaced by the "Of course, we inherited this terrible position from the previous govt who failed to......" or "What the previous govt failed to do was ...." before waffling on about some twaddle which clearly the party want on the agenda but certainly isn't a direct answer to any question put to the panel. And OK, to be fair ALL politicians are prone to this nonsense - but it's the role of a good chairman to keep the panellists in line and stop this infuriating and insulting rubbish out of it. The question is usually "What are you going to do about" something or "Do you feel this is the right way to deal with" something. When asked this, all we want to know is what you are doing about it and why - not what the other party have failed to do or what they have done that's "made things so very much worse than they first appeared". To be honest if you didn't know exactly what was going on then your a bloody poor opposition - and if you couldn't find these things out then you can bet your doing just as much you want to keep hidden too.
I'm beginning to wonder why I watch the damned program.
Even the main evening news on BBC1 the other evening
contained what I consider to be biased reporting and subliminal messages
elevating the position of the government both in national and international
issues regardless of other relevant points of view. For example; a news item
showed the three main party leaders visiting a factory together in support of a
jobs initiative. The first shot showed the three leaders entering the factory
floor together while a voice-over explained that David Cameron and the other
two party leaders had visited the factory. The narrative continued explaining
that "Mr Cameron" was leading an initiative to improve jobs and
apprenticeships in British industry. The next 3 min went to great lengths to
explain "Mr Cameron's" visit and each shot showed only the Prime
Minister and not any of the other party leaders. David Cameron was heard to ask
questions of workers on the shopfloor and was shown posed in statesmanlike
poses amongst the workers as he listened attentively to them. The voice-over
continually referred to him as Mr Cameron, something I don't remember happening
before when the previous prime minister was referred to as "Gordon
Brown" or simply "the Prime Minister". It seemed obvious to me
that the whole tone of the article was designed to increase David Cameron's
stature in the public eye and though he was visiting with the other party
leaders in this instance, to focus on him as being the only relevant person.
Almost the next item in the news was about "Mr
Cameron's" position on the euro financial crisis. As the newsreader read
the article a photograph was displayed behind her – a compilation of two images
– one of Angela Merkel the German Chancellor, the other of the Prime Minister,
but in this instance these head and shoulder portraits had been manipulated so
that her figure appeared slightly below that of Mr Cameron and his arm appeared
to be wagging a finger at her. It seemed to me that this was designed to give
the impression that he was on the higher moral ground and was reprovingly
warning her off. Interestingly, when you looked closely at the picture it was
clear that this hand was in fact not David Cameron's but hers.
It may be a sign of modern times or it may just be a sign
that I'm a grumpy old so-and-so but I'm really disappointed when at almost
every news program I can pick out something that is being emphasised in a
particular direction with no balancing point of view. I'm no intellectual but
I'm no idiot either and I resent being treated in a manner that offends my
sense of justice and appears to assume that I haven't the ability to smell
bullshit when it's propped directly beneath my nose.
The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight - an Excellent Film
A poem for Remembrance Day.
LIE IN THE DARK AND LISTEN by Noel Coward.
Lie in the dark and listen,
It's clear tonight so they're flying high
Hundreds of them, thousands perhaps,
Riding the icy, moonlight sky.
Men, materials, bombs and maps
Altimeters and guns and charts
Coffee, sandwiches, fleece-lined boots
Bones and muscles and minds and hearts
English saplings with English roots
Deep in the earth they've left below
Lie in the dark and let them go
Lie in the dark and listen.
Lie in the dark and listen
They're going over in waves and waves
High above villages, hills and streams
Country churches and little graves
And little citizen's worried dreams.
Very soon they'll have reached the sea
And far below them will lie the bays
And coves and sands where they used to be
Taken for summer holidays.
Lie in the dark and let them go
Lie in the dark and listen.
Lie in the dark and listen
City magnates and steel contractors,
Factory workers and politicians
Soft hysterical little actors Ballet dancers, 'reserved' musicians,
Safe in your warm civilian beds
Count your profits and count your sheep
Life is flying above your heads
Just turn over and try to sleep.
Lie in the dark and let them go
Theirs is a world you'll never know
Lie in the dark and listen.
In loving memory. Sam Robertson - Bomber Command, 1944-1945 Thomas Hughes - Royal Flying Corps France, 1914 -1918 Sam Robertson - Royal Scots Fusiliers, Gallipoli and Ypres 1914 -1918
Having worked for a company for 32 years I was made redundant in 2009. Hurt and angry at the time I proved they failed to fairly apply company selection procedures during the process and won damages from them. At the time I was confident about the future. We had good insurance cover to protect us financially and I had many years of experience working for one of the UK's most respected companies in an area which was both high pressured and had many transferable applications for the skills I used. Things were getting tough in the job market but I was convinced I would be back in a job in a fairly short time. I had bags of experience, bags of drive and lots of technical skills. I wanted to work. I wasn't one of those workshy wasters who would live off benefits. The next few months carefully removed all of my conceits. Not only didn't I get a job, I didn't get any interviews either despite applying for hundreds of jobs.
The introduction to benefits through jobseekers allowance
and the joys of JobCentre plus and its institutional bureaucracy, while giving
me the occasional chance to post a rant or make fun of the ludicrous side of the
situation, soon took its toll of my good humour and tolerance. The lack of any
improvement in my situation and the absence of any hint of potential jobs soon
began to erode my self-confidence. The absence of interviews or indeed
responses to applications across that winter though made me even more
determined. Surely something would come my way?
For the last few years of my employment I had volunteered in
the children's hearing system and my employer had been given an award for their
support of my participation. I found this role really rewarding and realised
that ideally I wanted to take my career away from big business towards this
direction but unfortunately, I also realised that financially I couldn't afford
to do this because of the commitments of mortgage and modern life. Now, with a
redundancy package and solid insurance protection behind me, I wanted to make
that move so much of my efforts went in that direction.. Despite my best
efforts this continued to bear no fruit so I was forced to combine job applications
back into my previous employment arena. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of
applications elicited no response, not even the acknowledgement that they had
been received. Those who did respond listed lack of formal qualifications,
failure to meet specific criteria and worryingly, lack of recent employment
history. This final comment more than any other caused me some real despair and
certainly many sleepless nights. Despite that, I rewrote and rewrote my CV
numerous times, tailored each application to the specifics of the job
advert and continued hammering home application after application,
sometimes eight or 10 a day, week after week, month after month.
When I started applying for jobs I looked for salaries
around the earnings I'd been making. By the end of the year I'd reduced my
expectations by 20%. As time went on and more and more applications disappeared
into the void those expectations reduced and reduced 25%, 30%, 40% and finally
50% but still there was no sign of any takers.
Finally, a week ago I had an interview. This, in the area of
social services that I so desperately wanted to get into, was for part-time
work, but by this time all insurance cover had ended and I have never been
entitled to any financial benefits beyond 26 weeks of unemployment benefit long
since ended. The interview seemed to go well but as is the way with these
things, you can never tell.
Last night, I got a phone call from my interviewer offering
me a job. Not just the part-time job had applied for, but a full-time job in
recognition that I have the kind of potential they are looking for. I was
stunned, in fact I still am. Finally, someone other than family and friends, believes in
me. Two bloody years of Purgatory but finally somebody believes in me.
At last.
Once all the checks have been done to allow me to work with
vulnerable groups and once my references have been received I will be back in
the land of the working and finally my working life will be moving in the
direction and in the kind of area I want. I will be working with people suffering from autistic spectrum disorders.
