Posters

Going down to London for a meeting, the M11 motorway signs had a new message: "Freight destined for the EU may require new paperwork after 1 November". Perhaps they know something the rest of the country doesn't yet? Just when I thought it was safe to go back to the news (see Let my People Go!), the courts have decided the government does not have the right to prorogue parliament and start a new session. Perhaps they would like to use the law to choose when we hold an election? Maybe even change the result if they don't like the incoming political party? No doubt the judges would like to make the laws instead of merely interpreting them! The whole system has entered Never-Never Land, and I now live in hope for Peter Pan to fly through the window and lead us by the hand out of this mess. Nothing else can save us but a magic miracle. M-A has sent a lovely picture of a pub-sign that sums it all up.

On the tube in London I saw another poster that gets my vote for the worst advertisement of the year. The heading is completely negative, and takes up so much room there is no room for a strap-line to draw people in, and the descriptive text is so small anyone wanting to read it would have to press against the knees of the person sitting below. I have no idea what the product is, and could not make it out from the width of a tube train. I used to help with writing adverts for pharmaceutical products, and a much better title might be: "This is revolutionary", with a strap line to suggest the target audience or give a hint of what they're selling.

Worst advert of the year?

On a lighter note, at the meeting the big boss has asked me to represent him at a series of bid-defence meetings where three companies are pitching for a multi-million pound contract. His email specified: "Please make your [medical] opinions known to the study team. You have an important voice - don't be shy." At last, someone has recognised I have an important voice - though I had always hoped it would be the voice of my poetry (see Exile Poetry) rather than for pharmaceutical development.

Lost on the A14

Ann has gone to Birmingham with MA and the girls to visit the world's biggest Primark and do some girlie shopping. It did not get off to a good start though when the phone went at 09:00 and MA said "We're outside. Where's mum?" Mum had thought they'd arranged for 10:00 and was still getting ready. Hopefully they will meander the horrific queues of the A14 and have a good day, when finally they arrive.
Update at 10:00pm: Ann has just texted to say the A14 is closed and she's following a diversion through country roads, and likely to be another hour away.

I have just finished the new book by Rod Liddle, The Great British Betrayal. At last I've found a writer who seems to sum up everything we have thought about project fear and the Remainers' anti-leave disinformation war. BBC bias against Brexit is so blatant that we routinely joke about it as we point out the latest piece of propaganda. The latest tonight is the report of Johnson's visit to Wales, which has promoted the new Fear-Smear that there will be civil unrest and tractors blocking the roads if we leave. 

However, Liddle did stop the book at the point of May's ignominious exit, so I have written to complement him on the book, and sent the hope that he might eventually be able to write a sequel, The Great British Comeback, if the new Prime Minister can actually succeed at this Herculean task.

Put this diseased rabbit out of its misery

Lying in the dark, I hear the soft whooshing in my ear of each pulse beat. It is reassuringly in a regular sinus rhythm, not too fast, though probably a harbinger of blood pressure, stenosis or aneurysm, thus does the mind work at this early hour. The incessant tinnitus has eased and it is the only night sound above the gentle snores of Ann, for the birds are not yet singing, nor is Sunday traffic out. I leave my snug bed for the inevitable call of nature, breaking my sleep each night. It is like an alarm clock and the most reliable part of my body. Thus the strident sounds of age do greet the day.

A friend of Edwin's has decided they don't wish to be addressed by either gender, he or she being too restrictive. I am not sure if they wishes to be addressed in the plural as "they", or in the truly gender-neutral of "it". Ann thinks they have a good point, though. She believes gender constructs are purely of human origin, and we'd all be better off if everyone were neutral: just "people", with no differentiation by gender, race or religion. I can see her point, but carried to its logical conclusion, names and modes of dress would equally become neutral. We should meet people as equals, and address them in purely neutral terms. We could make friends without knowing anything of anatomical gender, and if we chose partners, we might not discover their gender until they shared our bed. Books like Men are from Mars, Women from Venus might be retitled Some are from Mars, Others from Venus. It makes for an interesting concept.

I try not to comment on Brexit, but occasionally the anger bubbles up like an erupting volcano. Our government is running in circles like a tormented rabbit infected with the parasitic virus of myxomatosis, screaming with pain. Our only hope now is that the EU will put a gun to its head and take it out of its misery. Now I am angry enough to have joined the new The Brexit Party, the comeback party of Nigel Farage. It will almost certainly lead nowhere and peter out, but I feel impotence in any other protest at the moment. Even the Labour party meetings I have attended refused to discuss it.

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Please send a comment if you have opinions about the new Brexit Party, or wish to join the gender-neutral debate.

Mail comments to: grandad.john@2from.com

Work - too much and a lack of

The employment market is very deceptive. My own job is winding down, and may finish soon, but new work seems in short supply. Ann says I can start to do all the jobs round the house that need fixing.

Two of Edwin's friends, both with MAs and experience in a number of jobs, are unable to get work. Northern Alice lives near Nottingham in a job where she is unhappy, but cannot move. She even applied for a job in Leeds, but they refused to interview her, saying she was "out of the area", though she had told them she wished to move. Another friend in Ashford could not get a job even in retail over Christmas. Low paid jobs in London would not cover the price of his rail fare, so they too are out. Are the political statistics deliberately deceptive? We do wonder.

Since Ann's cataract was removed, she is suddenly seeing all sorts of things she was blind to before. Especially dirt and dust. "Why didn't you do it?" she wonders, but I seem to have an inbuilt blindness to it. Now Ann sees it everywhere and has gone about in a frenzy of cleaning every floor and surface she can find. She says when friends come now, they'll think they are in the wrong house, and will ask "Where's Miss Havisham gone with all her cobwebs?"

Brexit drags on, with Nigel Farage haranguing the BBC for their bias against Brexit. Even though the BBC is supposed to be neutral, and even with more than 50% of the country in favour of Brexit, their bias is obvious. Their news items are always slanted against Brexit; their discussion panels are heavily weighted with remainers, and they ignore worthy news items that are pro Brexit, such as Nigel Farage's impressive rant against Juncker and Barnier. Yet for all this bias, and the lack of political will in parliament, a majority of the people still wish to leave the EU. For me, the reason is simple: I hate being told what to do, and rebel against it. Just the fact of the EU dictocrat stating we are foolish to want to leave makes me harden against them.

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Please send a comment if you've experienced a lack of work opportunities, despite the hype to the contrary.

Mail comments to: grandad.john@2from.com

Death is in the air

Dead Flowers to mark the solstice

Yesterday, 21/22 December 2018, was the turning of the year, usually marked in our family with a small celebration. I always believe, marking as it does the ending of the year, that the winter solstice be of greater importance than its summer cousin. And believe me, 2018 has been a right bad year. So, despite knowing Ann always thinks of cut flowers as 'dead things' (see: pacifying-pilot), today I bought a bouquet to celebrate the death of the year, complete with Lilies-of-the Valley, white roses, and gypsophila to mark the passing of the year. I told Ann, "I know you don't like dead things, but I've bought you some flowers," and explained their symbolism in this case, but she didn't seem to believe me, saying "Only you could buy me something I don't like!"

It really has been a stunningly bad year for so many of us. Now we hear the announcement that Paddy Ashdown has died from bladder cancer. It was only one month ago that I wrote to welcome him to the BCB (Bladder Cancer Brigade, see: paddy-ashdown-joins-BCB). He was one year older than me, but he must have had stage 4 - that's the stage where they just say, "go home and keep warm."

Yesterday, too, Ann's friend Sylvia fell and damaged her wrist sufficiently for me to agree she should get it X-rayed and may need to visit A and E over Christmas! Her son-in-law is now so ill and debilitated with pain from the cancer of his face and DXT that he is wishing he were dead. Now, to add to catastrophe, comes in the report of a tsunami in Indonesia with hundreds dead. Another poor Christmas for so many.

Friendship

We are suffering here

while other lives go on,

we welcome not New Year

to pin our hopes upon,

instead, we live each day,

with friends we hold most dear

who offer their support

to share this pain we bear.

 Annie Elliott

This year has almost seen the death of Brexit as well. A satisfying article by Julie-Burchill in The Telegraph today, "Not even a Christmas miracle can save the sanctimonious, obsolete and Orwellian BBC". So many of us who voted 'out' are derided by the powers that be as intellectually lacking. The great campaign of fear that drove the remainers was one of the convincing arguments for me voting for Brexit. I hate being told what to do, and the more people try to scare me into something, the more I wish to rebel and oppose. To be coerced into remaining in Europe is the opposite of freedom - we heard not one word of all that is good in unity; there was no plea to higher causes or to the harmony of peaceful coexistence, or the sharing of historical ideals. If I had pleaded the Brixit cause, it would have gone very differently. Thank you Julie-Burchill.

Please add any comments if 2018 has been bad for you too

Mail to: Grandad.John@2from.com