Wednesday 20 March 2013

The Mark of the Euro



Years ago, when still in my teens, a ragged-trousered prophet educated me on the meaning of The Book of Revelation. Looking wild, with his long hair and sagely stroking his beard, he confided that the number of the beast, that number without which you could not buy or sell, being 666, was in truth, alive in the guise of the European Economic Community. This he told me, forty years ago. He also told me that the Antichrist was to be revealed as the Pope. I was assured of this, and that the prophesies of this last book in the Bible would be fulfilled as sure as day follows night.

Well, the Pope, I fear, is far too busy defending the Catholic Church against the scourge of simple logic and the actions of certain priests and leaders whose sexual deviance have exploded onto the public arena. The many priests – for they are legion- have, like so many today, been exposed to the light due in great part to the technology revolution and the transmission of knowledge at the speed of light.

But back to that other prophecy, the one about the European Community. We are fast approaching the point in this technology revolution when it will become possible (or already is possible) to have our identity and bank details implanted under our skin. A simple device will scan the relevant part and deduct the cost of any transaction we should make. Some years ago a futurologist may have predicted that we might have a bar code tattoo, but even that may not be necessary. Still, it would have fitted well with my “mark of the beast” analogy.
The fact is, we do very little without the blessing of the EU, who decides that we shall be forever be bathed in dim energy-saving light. The same EU who determine the size and type of practically everything that is bought and sold.

This entity is not democratic. The main decisions are not made by democratically elected people. Instead the EU is run by a group of commissioners and other bureaucrats, who in turn are manipulated by a small number of world leaders. I have to ask myself, seriously, if they pose a threat to freedom and democracy. Is the EU the “beast”? Are we subservient to the point where we cannot go about our daily lives for fear of their awesome power?

In Cyprus, this week, I think we began to see the answer.

Saturday 2 March 2013

A moving experience

Not a pretty sight; a tired, defeated Weasel sitting on the floor in a heap. Weeping.
Moving? Yes. Into a better place, but not one that did not need a lot of pain, frustration and almost overwhelming fatigue. The hire van was wrong. Instead of a decent Long Wheel Base job, big enough to get the sofa in, we were allocated something that looked like a large hoover. No alternative available, and I had flown young weasel from London and hired a mate especially. At least the hire firm admitted their fault and rang around and got us a larger van. Of course, the son and his mate were full of glee but not much application or fortitude. (A late-nighter in Glasgow and about two hours' sleep put paid to any determined effort to load the furniture.) I had better explain; I had a double hernia op last year, then I had another double hernia op to put right the first one, so I am in no state to move oak furniture. BT were booked to activate a line and were given 4 weeks notice. They turned up and declared that they would have to dig up the road and contact Barak Obama and that this would take some time. I am writing this in the forlorn hope that we may one day have a phone and broadband, having suffered, to date, Dickensian levels of internet access and a fag-paper's width of band-with, courtesy of something called Wi-Fi with Fon. BT's customer services are wonderful. They do everything but actually influence the activity of the various engineers who have appeared, shaken their heads, sucked in some air and declared our junction box a disaster.

Dickensian levels of internet? "But there was no internet in Dickens' time" I hear you cry. Exactly.

I have consoled myself with a Hi-Fi upgrade and for those who care, I now have a pair of Monitor Audio Bronze BX2s and a Marantz CD6004 to go with my old NAD C350 Amp.

******

David Cameron. Eastleigh by-election.
As Max Hastings put it, the result

"should alarm everybody who cares about the future of Britain.
It suggests that unless Cameron can raise his game dramatically, he is heading for a place in history somewhere between John Major and Ethelred the Unready."

Cameron, for all the stupid flak he gets for going to a school near Slough, is still just another patrician smoothie arsehole who thinks he knows what is good for us. He just does not get it. He does not understand or respond to the real concerns of ordinary people.

However, the real danger is not Cameron. The real danger is the number of people who still voted Liberal Democrat in Eastleigh, despite the Lib Dems being a party which largely consists of lechers, perjurors, perverts and alcoholics. Somehow, we are being taken for a ride in this country and sadly, most of us are paying our penny and stepping on board the bus.

****

Getting to know the lie of the land.
I have a log man. A man who delivers logs. He is about two years older than me and looks, at a conservative estimate, about 20 years older than me. He's called Jimmy. I call him Wee Jimmy. Jimmy is wonderful. He is a mine of local knowledge, having lived in the locale all his life, apart from an aberrant few years spent in the next settlement, which did not agree with him. The trouble with Jimmy is that he does not understand my lack of local knowledge. When ever I ask him where someone or a place is, he gives very precise directions followed by the line, "You can't miss it". Well, I can and do. What Jimmy does not realise is that he has gone to school with Old Jock and that Old Jock has lived in the same house for 40 years and of course, Wee Jimmy has gone past that house, also for 40 years, and accordingly has not missed it since about 1962. We Jimmy has been waiting for a hear-lung transplant for several years, but still fells trees and delivers trucks of logs. You cannot buy true grit.

Today we walked for five miles along a disused railway track - a valley surrounded by sweeping mountains and burbling burns. It's a good walk, one which has a requisite pub at both ends, though you do have to have two cars in order to do it. And to think, people pay to go on holiday here!!!