Category: General

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph had a headline ‘Death of the traditional family.’ I have been writing about the fact for three years. They were quoting the national statistics, which have recently been published. I won’t bore you with them all, just say that the extended family died in the 70s, and they’re only waking up… Continue reading Read’em and weep

I never watched Big Brother because the whole basic principle of the thing seemed forced, it was putting people, who were stupid enough, and egotistical enough, to put themselves under stress, in the hope of some financial profit. Recently a programme entitled The Apprentices has been shown on a weekly basis on BBC television. This… Continue reading Angst for the sake of angst

I am banging on again about the paucity of quality light entertainment that is also humorous. Light entertainment today is more a matter of hysteria, shouting and waving, and poor quality scripting. From the dawn of the cinema, entertainment has been, right up until the 60s, both here and across the pond, in periods when… Continue reading Music halls, writers, directors, and vicarious pleasure

Currently, there is an upsurge in interest in the two world wars, and hardly a day passes that there is some event celebrating the past. This caused me to think about those generals and their cohorts who planned those incredible massacres, like Ypres and the Somme. With hindsight we can censure their level of personal… Continue reading What a way to fight a war

The problem of wrecking yourself to the point where you are chair bound is that you get progressively bored as time goes and are more thrown back on cerebral problems. Yesterday it was taxation. I was thinking about the cost of fuel, and that the far-reaching effects of the swingeing changing in price for fuel… Continue reading Views on Taxation

What I write here is a cryptic account of what I’ve posted before concerning life in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. I do so because now there is an upsurge of terror yet again, but this time denounced by the greater majority of the Catholics and all of the Protestants. I am an Englishman who… Continue reading Northern Ireland, then and in the future

I am constantly writing that the government makes legislation with a broad brush which affects almost everyone, in circumstances where the need is only with respect to a small minority. What is also evident is that instead of a calm, reasoned approach to matters, they are dancing instead to the media tune, rushing to sound-bites,… Continue reading Responsible selection

What started this train of thought, was the BBC programme, The Politics Show, unusually a complete waste of time, because all the politicians were ducking and weaving. Alistair Darling, at one point, stated that all the major countries were borrowing large quantities of money to plough into the world economy, thus justifying the fact that… Continue reading Let us stop and think.

When reading this, you may disagree with what I say, or you might think I am wired to the moon, but at least I have made you think. Today in politics, when things go very wrong, those responsible no longer resign, they talk their way out of trouble in sound-bites. The press and I, three… Continue reading The fundamentals of banking applied to the credut crunch, Part 1

It seems that every time I get up in the morning some other part of our heritage has been sold off or handed over to people abroad. The merger of Bradford & Bingley into Santander is a case in point, where a perfectly reliable firm is allowed to be taken over to its detriment. According… Continue reading Euroes, Royal Mail sell-out,imports