]]>And this : http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8341000/8341162.stm
There is an underclass of young men , and a few young women in Britain who are out of control , and think they have the right to viciously attack , if not murder anyone who challenges them over their behaviour , if not attack or kill anyone just for fun .
And the cautions or absurdly light sentences they get if they are caught are all too often not only unforgiveably insulting to their victims , also laughably undeterrent to them and others .
When I was in my teens , angry young men ( not me ) were more likely to vandalise phone-boxes .
And no I don't want us to regress 100 years into resuming birching ten year olds , but proportionately long , and uncomfortably basic and unpleasantly restrictive deterrent sentences for the worst violent offenders is such an obviously good idea , that no Labour Minister would ever support it .
Although of course most young people are not troublemakers in any way , the phenomenom of vile vicious arrogant sadistic thuggery has to be effectively tackled , including harsh sentences for those who sadistically abuse animals , which is known to usually be a precursor to attacks on other humans .
The £200M a month spent on employing our brave and heroic soldiers to keep fighting a futile , counter-productively losing battle in Afghanistan could be far better spent fighting the currently losing battle against yobs and thugs who are allowed to keep making other peoples lives a misery , at home , not abroad .
I discovered today that there's a glacier named after my family surname .
But I'm not cold , and I know that some violent criminals have had awful upbringings , but that the liberalism of recent years has done nothing to halt the spread of much behaviour that should never be tolerated . By Anyone . Ever .
Understood :Yes , but sometimes all there is to understand is that they will not change unless they are they are appropiately persuaded to , and that some crimes are so shocking that they merit punishment first , understanding later .
And lots of khaki-clad boys , and 'Dad's Army' blokes selling poppies . I've made my annual contribution to the British Legion appeal , but I choose not to wear a poppy , as , I have no military connections ( though my Dad was in the RAF in WW2 ) , and to walk about with one in my button-hole would to me feel like an embarrassing attempt to seem sanctimoniously 'goody goody' .
On the bus on the way home a teenage boy kept loudly manically laughing , and was telling his friends that his Psychiatrist says that he's prone to unpredictable violence . Oh dear . .
I found a woman , on the internet ( not on this site ) who seemed to me interesting and just maybe very compatable with me : I sent her a message , and she replied with her email address , which is either not her email address or she'd blocked my email address that I'd sent her , because my friendly note to her bounced back . . . I know that's only a small thing , and of no real consequence , but , still , how pathetic . . . If she'd ignored me I'd not have contacted her again , or she could have just said ' thanks , but I've already found someone and am no longer looking' . .
]]>I always naively assumed that all Vicars , Priests etc . , and all people who bleat on about being 'spiritual' must be nice , decent , well-meaning folk . ( Which no doubt many of them are ) .
And that all Psychiatrists must be exceedingly mentally healthy , despite Basil Fawlty , in Fawlty Towers , having said they are " all as mad as march hares " ______________________________________________________________
I very much like this post : http://racytracy.blog.co.uk/2009/11/06/encouragement-7291368/
Yes , we all need to hear positive words of encouragement , and it doesn't take much effort to try to nurturingly encourage and praise other people .
]]>I'm following the breaking news of shootings at the Fort Hood army base in Texas .
I tried watching the 2006 movie World Trade Centre , on film4 tonight , which I couldn't get into at all , and for me it doesn't work as a drama or an action film or anything . But director Oliver Stone ( not that I like many if any of his films ) knows what he's doing , and I suspect that's deliberate , as it would no doubt have been considered grossly improper to have tried to turn the terrible events of 9/11/01 into movie-entertainment .
In a way , the public outrage at Sheffield Hallam University student Phil Laing having peed on a war memorial , whilst out of his head on insane amounts of booze , during the professionally orchestrated , profit-making Carnage event a couple of weeks ago , shows the decent side of Britain : How could any decent person not feel outraged by his drunken defilement of a tribute to brave military personnel who died in action ?
On the other hand , some of the responses ( not anything I've read on this site ) , for example saying he should be hung , beaten up , birched , put in stocks in Sheffield city center and peed on by 'decent' members of the public , etc . demonstrate something of the nasty , vindictive , scapegoating , compassionless side of modern Britain .
If it were proven that Phil Laing pre-meditatedly intended to desecrate the memory of men far braver than he has ever been or is ever likely to be , then his disgusting drunken behaviour would certainly merit at least a community service order , though bearing in mind that he's already presumably suffered significantly through the publicity , and not forgetting the harm that's likely to have been done to his future prospects .
If , as I would tend to imagine , he was so drunk that he barely knew where he was or what he was doing , then he should certainly be fined , and treated much more harshly in the surely unlikely event of him ever doing anything remotely similar again .
It's easy to turn 19 year old Mr Laing into a socialy cohesive common-enemy , or hate-figure , but most people have done things they would'nt want to be made public , quite possibly whilst under the influence of drink and/or drugs , and I feel wary of partaking in the scapegoating of anyone unless we know for sure that they have knowingly and deliberately caused significantly real and lasting harm . ]]>
]]>Which I never saw all of , but , yeah , I sort of love it : Powerful melodrama but which you can't help smiling at , the ultimate character who you can't help but love to hate , and the escapist fantasy of having unlimited money . . .
]]>The televised 'three party leaders' debates ( why bother with the lib-dems ; surely irrelevant until when , in never-never-land , they eventually get their 'holy grail' of a hung-parliment ) seem to promise to be compellingly awful to watch .
For the next six months we seem destined to remain languishing in a 'no mans land' of in-denial Brown's constant craving to be voted back in , and his delusional imagininings that he can keep trying to buy popularity by continuing borrowing money to avoid biting spending cuts , and David Cameron and his old-etonian chums gleefully revelling in the power they seem destined to win .
I expect that Cameron will try to take advantage of the unexpected muddle that Labour find themselves in as regards official advice about legal and illegal drugs , during this weeks PMQ's .
When David Cameron became leader of his party there was a temporary fuss about whether he had ever snorted cocaine .
I suspect that we can expect that to quite possibly rear its head again , in five months time .
And isn't it slightly insulting to the British electorate to assume that only pleasant looking , well dressed , young-ish Blair-Clones can win elections as party leaders ?
I don't know who should take over from G/Brown , but , before labour lose a general election , no one is going to , and in the apparently unlikely event of the Conservative's losing , next year , will their next leader have to be yet another Blair-Clone ?
And Heaven Help Us if Bliar does become President of Europe - A CIA stooge in Brussels as opposed to in Downing Street - And one reason why he wants to be may be that in that position he may have immunity from being prosecuted as the lying war-criminal he undoubtedly is .
]]>And if you love fresh coffee , practice yoga , own dogs , a Toyota Prius car , and an expensive non-mountain-bike style bicycle , eat sushi , collect dvd box-sets and think that 'The Wire' is the best show on television , then , congratulations , hooray ! - You are quintessentially Middle-Class ! !
Extracted from excerpts in yesterday's 'Mail from the book : Stuff white people like : The Definitive Guide to the Unique taste of Millions , by Christan Lander .
Only one or two of those apply to me , which goes to show how 'common as muck' I am !
( Silly generalisations , I know . )
And I've never seen 'The Wire' , and don't know anything about it .
So , How Middle Class are you ?
p.s : I'm not meaning to denigrate the 'middle classes' at all : And , to identify myself with that social grouping is pretty-much what I aspire to , if not quite what I am . I just find articles like the one I wrote about rather silly , and the apparent element of truth in it about some people trying rather too hard to imitate one another .
]]>There are a few sad and shocking incidents , including portrayals of the appalling racism and enforced segregation of that place and time , but it's not a 'preachy' film , and it vividly and beautifully evokes a wonderfully loving and supportive atmosphere in a magical home environment .
Paul Bettany's character is one-dimensionally bitter , twisted , and bullying , but everyone else in it plays their part so sumptuously perceptively and believably .
It's a fine achievement , and a zillion times better than the other 2008 film I reviewed here the day before yesterday .
Why do some people have to hate , bully , persecute and scapegoat , and why do some believe the worst of others without giving them a chance ?
It may take a while but I certainly will get to the bottom of and respond appropiately to what's currently bothering me , not unduly .
At least we can celebrate the majority of USA voters having installed a black President .
Although consider this :
" . . President Obama has authorised more deadly strikes by remote-controlled , pilotless drones in Afghanistan in his first year of office - about one a week - than his predecessor G W Bush did in his last three . They've killed over 500 people - many of them , alas , innocent bystanders , including children .
Operators thousands of miles away watch their victims being blown to pieces by Hellfire missiles .
Counter-insurgency expert David Kilcullen warns : 'Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family , a new revenge fued , and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially . . . "
- From the 'ephraim hardcastle' column in today's 'Mail , and do put me right of you think that's incorrect .
]]>my theme ? : well it's called UFO ( !? ) .
]]>Then I watched the programme about Katie Piper , a model , who became involved with a man who , apparently because she was too tired to have sex with him , subjected her to violence for eight hours then somehow got another man to approach her outdoors , and throw sulphuric acid in her face .
She was lucky to be treated by the brilliant surgeon Dr Jawal , who first removed what was left of her face , then rebuilt it using synthetic skin , then skin grafts from her back , and though , living now with her lovely parents and sister , she's very understandably nervous of strangers , self-conscious in public , and often tearful , and , though she wears a see-through plastic mask over her face for 23 hours a day to help to flatten har facial scars , which are noticeable without make-up , she still looks and is lovely .
Her facially reconstructive surgery is still not complete , she's blind in one eye , and because the acid attack also damaged her throat , it was said in the programme that she has to be fed through a tube going into her stomach , which I hope will not always have to be the case .
She said that she wouldn't necessarily mind going out with a man who has facial scarring or other facial abnormalities , because she's learnt that what matters is the person behind that .
Whatever , I'm sure she will find a lovely , loving and loyal partner , and I wish her all the luck that she deserves in continuing to rebuild her cruelly shattered life .
Of course the prison sentences for her ex-boyfriend and his accomplice , though not insignificant , seem not enough .
In a notebook I was using I happened to unexpectedly find an example of my ex-partner Julie's handwriting , which is much neater , and better joined-up than mine .
After she left me I thought I'd exorcised all traces of her , but , it's okay , I'm more relaxed about it now .
What she'd written was : " the Ring , sort of a horror film really although it was not all " .
Indeed , and I still prefer the Hollywood remake to the Japanese original .
Two 17 year old boys take a day off school , and a few cans of beer , to an abandoned psychiatric hospital .
Chased by a scary dog they end up in an upstairs corridor leading to a locked room containing a naked and apparently dead woman , manacled to a table .
Except she's not dead . Except she is .
The word 'zombie' is never mentioned , but that's pretty-much what she's meant to be , although how she became one is never explained .
So what do they do ? - Run away and dial 911 ? - Unchain her and take to hospital ?
No , they and another friend leave her there and use her for their gratification again and again , despite the reluctance of one of them .
So , is the film trying to explore complex and 'taboo' moral issues ?
If it had a 'message' it would be that all or most white american teenaged boys are so desperate to gratify their lustful urges that they don't care if it's with the decaying living dead .
No , it's just a low-grade , tacky attempt to be comercially controversial , with all the artful direction of a 1980's Wham! pop-video .
The 1982 film of Dennis Potter's 'banned' BBC play 'Brimstone and Treacle' deals with not entirely dissimilar issues , far more intelligently and coherently .
Back to reality , and how appalling that one of the torturers of 'Baby P' , Jason Owen , has been deemed 'no significant risk' and will be released in just two years time .
So there's to be a 'gay pride' ( homosexual male pride ) march in Norwich , and a 67 year old Christian lady who wrote to Norwich Council expressing her objections to it , in which she referred to male homosexuals as 'sodomites' , and claimed that their 'perverted practices' have led to 'the downfall of every empire' , has been visited by police , and threatened with prosecution for having commited a 'hate crime' . . .
It was a private letter , to the council who she pays taxes to . . .
Her eccentrically antiquated views may be understandably offensive to gay men , but , all the council had to do was to send her a tersely polite reply , assuring her that her comments had been noted .
If she turned up at the event and started swiping at the proud to be gay Norfolkers with her walking stick she would , of course , quite rightly be arrested and charged .
How come I suspect that if a Muslim had written to the council objecting on religious grounds to the planned gay march , they would have been dealt with more sensitively ?
]]>My dictionary's definition of that is 'able to solve or dissolve ; able to pay all debts ; a substance that dissolves another ; that component of a solution which is present in excess , or whose physical state is the same as that of the solution ; something which provides a solution' .
One can understand women hesitating to become too involved with a man who is insolvent , i.e bankrupt , in debt , and unable to pay those debts .
I'm sure there are relationships which are trade-offs between young women who know they are youthfully nice looking , and who may or may not be intelligent , witty , charming and 'classy' , and men who may not possess all of those attributes but who are 'comfortably off' financially .
My friend also pointed out that 'older' people are almost certainly going to carry 'emotional baggage' , from past relationships into future ones .
In a perfect world , all serious 'relationships' would begin on the basis of content of character , and compatability of interests and personality . . . ( Or would they ? )
I still don't think myself to be afflicted with aspergers syndrome , as after all I can be very empathic and intuitive , however plenty of things confuse me , including some people's sometime responses to me , and , though I know that the clocks went back an hour last night , 'giving' us an extra hour , I still can't figure out if the time now , 23-30-ish , is an hour before or after what it would have been this time last night .( Perhaps I'm in need of a Conservative Government , made up of intellectually superior Old-Etonians , to de-confuse me ).
]]>My Dad said he thought that when people become angrily fanatical in favour of a belief it can be a way of overcompensating for a part of themself , which they don't want to acknowledge , that actually doubts their chosen mindset .
To my knowledge Herr Steiner ( 1861 - 1925 ) said little if anything about sexual matters . It's a well-known psychological axiom that people who intensely dislike homosexuals are often hating a homosexually inclined part of themselves which they can't bear to acknowledge .
A more modern variant of that is that those who ostensibly see homosexuality as an equally valid alternative to heterosexuality , whose chosen value-system is governed by left-wing 'political correctness' and who become enraged by anyone they perceive as speaking or writing in a 'homophobic' manner may be externalisingly rebelling against part of themselves which feels uncomfortable about homosexuality .
The Daily Mail's Jan Moir , in her defence of her at least badly timed and insensitive piece about Stephen Gately , revealed that since its publication , the friday before last , her home-address has repeatedly been published on the internet . . . The intention presumably having been to cowardly try to incite people to attack or harrass her and her family at their home , to avenge her unkind , unpleasant and ill-timed remarks about the late Stephen Gately , and her apparently assuming his sexuality to have played a part in his sad and untimely death .
No I'm not gay and yes I can partly understand why some people find the notion of gay male sex distasteful ( hardly anyone , nowadays , apart from lesbian and bisexual women , cares much one way or the other about lesbianism ) , but , as I've said before , and probably will again : Aren't there thousands of more apt things to worry about than what we imagine that some other adults legally and consensually do in private .
The only part of last thursday's BBC1 'Question Time' in which a few audience members became seriously , loudly angry with Herr Fuhrer Griffin was when he , in response to a question , said he finds it creepy to see men kissing in public . For a number of years , before he was married , NG lived with the openly gay National Front/BNP organiser Martin Webster .
]]>Why our Government's continued open-borders policy , whilst maintaining their pretence of cracking down on immigration ?
I'm proud to be a citizen of this still very largely welcoming and tolerant Nation , and yet pragmatically it makes no sense to keep , incrementally , putting such a strain on publically funded services , by allowing more and more immigrants to settle in London and other already overcrowded cities and towns .
If we were less decent people the BNP , the only political party who dares to make an issue out of immigration , which threatens to increase our population to 70M within most of our lifetimes , would be in the frontline of British politics , not languishing on the loony sidelines .
Nick Griffin : A juvenile , lying , smirking hateful prat , who calls himself a Christian ( ! )
And why doesn't The Archbishop Of Canterbury , Dr Rowan Williams , have anything to say about the terrifyingly increasing incidence of often random , unprovoked , sadistic violent crime in Britain ?
Maybe he does , but I can't find it on his website :
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/
The AOC often waffles on about global warming , but what about some compassionate Christian moral-leadership on some of the issues that affect and blight the lives of ordinairy Britons , not in some unspecified time in the future , but , right now ?
On Question-Time , the only times I agreed with N/Griffin were when he savagely criticised the 'Iraq War' , and when he condemned Islam as being opressive of women .
Not that all Muslims are neanderthalically backward bigots , and all the muslims I've ever met have been lovely people , but I make no apology for having some concerns about that faith .
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]]>The very best of Alan Price ( who's featured in my favourite British film 'O Lucky Man' ) . ( c ) Castle / Sanctuary . .
From which this is Tickle Me ( oh no ! - anything but 'tickle torture' ! )
]]>Misunderstandings of me , and weird responses I can't figure out , as well as my not irregularly becoming drawn into conflicts I've never sought seem to plague me , through life offline as well as online , not that I don't have brilliant blog-friends here who I appreciate a lot .
I may have an undiagnosed , possibly partially treatable condition , but I once heard that single 'older' men with mental or neurological conditions are given low-priority by the NHS , and private appointments , including transport to and from them , would obviously be expensive .
I know I'm an essentially very decent person who has a lot to give .
]]>When a drama , or 'melodrama' is done really well it can be as tense as any action movie , and as shocking as any horror-film .
One film I'd like to see again is KIngs Row ( 1942 ) , starring Ann Sheridan , and Ronald Reagan , which I saw a couple of times on bbc-tv many years ago , but I'm not aware of it having been on tv for a long time .
It's only available on region one dvd .
I googled it and got seduced into paying $34.95 for a years access to , what is it , movies.com , or vuze or something : I downloaded and installed all the s/ware , and followed all the instructions but have found it impossible to download anything .
I don't usually watch BBC1's Question Time , but won't be able to resist this weeks offering starring Bonnie Greer , Sayeeda Warsi , Jack Straw , and BNP leader Nick Griffin .
The BNP , not the conservatives , as most people know , ARE 'The Nasty Party' . Very Nasty .
However I vehmently disapproved of whoever cowardly published the names and addresses of BNP members online some months ago , the implicit implication being : They are scum , why not go and give them a good kicking .
To think like that is to be a nazi/fascist . The BNP , as obnoxiously reprehensible as some of their public and private statements certainly are , are a legal minor political party , and , though I would never touch them with a 100ft long bargepole , I can at least partly imagine how some working-class white Britons living in highly immigrated into areas become seduced by their playing to their insecurities and fears to win their support .
If the anti-fascist brigade surround BBC Shepherds-Bush studios looking for confrontations with police on the pretext of opposing our would-be Herr Fuhrer Griffin , and if members of the Question-Time audience attempt to shout him down whenever he speaks they will only suceed in ( a ) aggrandising him into being the potential British Hitler which in his dreams he is but in reality he is not , and ( b ) making him look like a martyr in the eyes of those inclined to sympathise with his stated policies .
Humour him , let him speak , then counter his arguments by quoting some of his and his colleague's vile statements , and reminding him of his all too predictable 'holocaust denial' , and that he he's shared a platform with a leader of the 'ku klux klan' .
And , if you can , Laugh at his nonsense and his pathetic delusions of fascistic grandeur .
He's no Hitler or Stalin : Extremist parties do not win mass support in Britain . He's an on the sidelines cowardly thug , who happens to genuinely believe that he is right and that there's an establishment-conspiracy against him and his his nasty little minority party .
His two moronic colleagues who recently were generously given a platform on RadioOne stated that footballer Ashley Cole is not British , and that he 'came to' this country .
His mum is white , his dad is black , and he was born in London .
In the early 90's a mixed race young man who I faintly knew delivered BNP , or was it then still National Front leaflets .
In the 1992 election campaign I offered to deliver Conservative leaflets , but heard nothing from them . Also at that time I , a couple of times , visited the bar of the ( Norwich ) Labour Club with someone I knew .
A junior psychiatrist who I was seeing once a month at that time got it into his head that I was campaigning for both labour and conservative at the same time , which would indeed have been entertainingly funny , except that I was doing nothing for either .
You may be white , but don't think that would necessarilly be good enough for the nasty BNP in the impossible for anything like the forseeable future event of their being able to form a government .
I am 12.5 % Jewish , which I doubt that they'd consider 'racially pure' enough .
I also hope that this week's 'Question Time' will not degenerate into being all about Griffin .
]]>If U.S spy-satellites monitor and record everything on the planet every day , then many crimes and disappearences could be solved , and maybe they even have the technology to see through walls . . .
Even if that is so , if they wanted to solve the mystery of Madeleine's disappearance , they'd have done so by now .
Without credible evidence of Madeleine still being alive , with respect to her parents , who of course had no involvement in her disappearence , I'm at the moment more concerned about the former computer-hacker Gary McKinnon , a vulnerable man who meant no harm , quite possibly having to be deported to the U.S anytime soon to be put on trial for hacking into pentagon computers whilst at home in Britain , searching for evidence of UFO's .
]]>Why is football ( and , to a leser extent , some other sport ) considered more important than anything else that's going on in this country or on this planet , and why is rap-crap considered more important than any other popular music ?
Talk about 'dumbing down' . . . . . And I know there's good old Radio4 , so frightfully English middle-class , and Radio3 : Much of whose output is ghastly screeching opera , and insufferable contemporary 'classical music' . Why not two new BBC radio stations : Radio4 pompous-psuedo-intellectual-Extra , and Radio3 tenth-rate-horror-movie-music-dressed-up-as-contemporary-equivalents- to -Mozart , Beethoven , Brahms , Bruckner and Bartok-Extra ?
So now all bloggers on this site unite against demented harrasive blog-stalkers because number-one-top-dog on this site has experienced one .
]]>The only problems are that some people seemingly only know how to think with their emotions , all women and most men will believe whatever any woman says , and some people will label anyone who politely disagrees with them , or who well-meaningly says anything they don't like as a bullying blog-stalker .
Such people certainly exist , and I've all too often been on the receiving end of one of them . And not allowing their comments , and not rising to the bait of their mischeviously malicious provocations is an extremely good idea .
As for the partly genuine , partly phoney outrage about Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir having written , to say the least insensitively about the death of Stephen Gately : She did the same thing about Jade Goody after she died , before she was buried .
When Jan Moir's D/Mail column first appeared , several months ago , I thought I liked her journalistic style , and I laughed at her comment that of course Scots aren't stupid : It's just that , like the Welsh , Irish , Australians and the Pitcairn Islanders they just seem that way because they are drunk most of the time .
Jan Moir is Scottish . And no I would not have felt personally offended if she'd included the English in that .
She is capable of writing entertainingly and perceptively , but unfortunately her column , and articles soon degenerated into boringly , bitchily whingeing about celebrities most of the time .
I read her piece about Stephen Gately this morning and did sigh at the unnecessary distastefulness of it , especially at this time , before he's even been buried .
Also , she said that apparently healthy young men never suddenly die for no immediately obvious reason , which is simply not true .
And as for same sex civil-partnerships : I have no problem with them , they are a matter for those who choose to enter into them , and there do seem to be homophobic undercurrents running through JM's 'A strange , lonely and troubling death' piece today .
As a Daily Mail reader about three times a week I'm not demanding that they dispense with Jan Moir , although I find most of her , and her colleague Richard Littlejohn's output to be unreadable irritating rubbish .
However , to be fair , people who don't read but love to hate the 'Mail should accept that the paper isn't attacking homosexuals , it's just that Jan Moir has taken tasteless , ignorant insensitivity to a slightly new level .
Apparently the vile rag 'The Star' headlined today with 'three in a bed' allegations concerning the night that Stephen Gately died .
Then there's the partly real , partly manufactured outrage about the Sheffield student photographed urinating over a war memorial , after having been drinking for several hours , and according to him not having eaten since lunchtime .
If he'd set out to insult servicemen who've died in combat that would certainly be despicable , but it seems to me that he was so stupidly drunk that he barely knew what he was doing ( there's another photo of him , asleep on the pavement ) , and the organisers of the 'Carnage' pub-crawl should bear some responsibility .
As has often been said , if alcohol were a newly discovered drug it would surely be banned .
Taken responsibly , it's great , but those who blatently , cynically encourage young people to excessively indulge it should , to my mind , be banned from doing so .
I may not live a long life , but I'll be here for 'a good few years yet' , which is what my Mum reassuringly told me ( of herself ) the day my Dad died .
In the news today : How despicable of some bastard punching the lovely Leona Lewis in her head , then laughing about it , then claiming insanity . . . I have every sympathy for people sadly afflicted with mental delusions and distress , but , under the circumstances , I doubt that there's many legitimate grounds for mitigation in that case .
On the itn news earlier : British Catholics queueing for hours to touch the glass casing around a coffin said to contain the bones of a Saint Therasa , who died over 100 years ago . . I know , I know : Entirely harmless , and if it brings them comfort , etc . . . But If Catholics , like other Christians , believe in life eternal in spirit after death , what's the point of going gaga over a pile of bones ?
I love Robbie William's new single 'Bodies' , which concludes that 'Jesus didn't die for you - What are you on ?' . And aren't Christians so much more tolerant than Muslims ?
I do believe that Jesus was a very special person , and that prayers can be answered .
]]>Late sixties to mid-seventies youth-culture , Swinging-London , and parties etc . , is a long ago , not so long ago world I barely knew .
At the Kings Langley Rudolf Steiner School the handful of pupils who'd stayed on to Class Twelve were a sort of 'elite' whether they meant to be or not , and they all have tales to tell of that time which by a long way eclipse any tales of my late-teens , or , probably , any other time in my life .
One summer day Stuart drove me to Hampstead to visit his pleasantly plump ex-classmate Sapphire , and her friend , who was offering ambre-solaire sun protection when we went to Hampstead Heath , and said hello to Barry Cryer , the television comedian-personality , who was passing through .
In my teens I had no money unless my parents approved it for specific reasons . Another day that summer I had the chance to go to Sapphire's with Stuart and stay the night , I only needed a couple of pounds , but my Mum vetoed it , because she thought I might have been introduced to sex there .
Which I doubt that I would have , and , so what if I had been . In my opinion , teenage boys who go to the police after having been seduced by women in their late teens , or twenties or thirties are only after criminal injuries compensation , and appeasing their parents .
There was once a chance of a girl , in the class below mine , boarding at our house but of course not , and , supposing I'd had - which I did not have , or want to have - gay experiences with any boys or men who'd boarded with us .
Sorry if I sound resentful about that now - I barely think of it , and , I love my mum very much , and my ( late ) Dad , and they meant well , which I didn't always repay them well for .
Maybe there'll always be part of me wanting to revisit the seventies , and wishing I could pick up where I left off , before I went wrong .
]]>( c ) Sony .
]]>I'm welcome to have another go anytime that Al or Bill are on the air , and , I'm not desperate to , but probably will .
So if you listen in online during the daytime , one of these days you just might hear me .
]]>The O'Jays :
And : Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes . . .
]]>