Vote for Change!

The Westminster Election cometh!

I have not blogged for an eternity, have been so busy living life to the full.

I found this wonderful quote from Lord Macaulay on a friend's facebook page:

There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustine, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendancy extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s.
-Lord Macaulay

Now, given the current problems affecting the Holy Roman Church today in relation to child abuse and how badly it has been handled globally, one wonders how close we are to witnessing a traveller from New Zealand taking his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. One thing which I do know is that if the residents of the United Kingdom remain apathetic towards politics we will get closer to such a ruinous situation. I do not intend to tell anyone how they should vote. In this blog you may arrive at a fairly certain conclusion of my voting intentions, however all I will say to you dear readers is 'Go out and vote'.

From now until May 6th we will hear soundbites, read propaganda from all of the political parties and be inundated with information from every form of media imaginable. Five years ago we were not blogging, facebooking or using twitter. This is the first UK election in history that has such a vast array of media available to communicate with the electorate. Another first is the live television debates between the leaders of the three main UK parties.

I have lived in Scotland for less than two years and I now realise how the political parties in Westminster are so centred on English issues, they appear to forget that Health, Justice, Education and many other important parts of their brief are now exclusive to England, having devolved these responsibilities from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly. I now realise that during this election campaign Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish residents are simply not interested in what Westminster politicians have to say on these matters.

A note to the political party leaders, think very carefully about what you have to offer the residents of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I know in depth what the current administration is doing about education, health and justice. Give us a message that informs us what your party is offering those not resident in England.

We must also remember that the right to vote is privlege which was fought for and cost some their lives, particularly women who were first given the right to vote in 1918.

I would like to see a change of administration in this election, we have seen many changes since LAbour came to power in 1997, some good, some not so good and some extremely bad. Today, the Leader of the Labour party promised a referendum on reform of the House of Lords and on voting reforms (including a fixed term parliament). Leaders of political parties only propose reform on voting if the current system appears to threaten them. First past the post has been the status quo in Westminster and is always pushed to the bottom of the list of reforms when a party has a decent working majority. Last time around Labour promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, that promise was not fulfilled.

Now kind reader, I rest my case for today and leave you with one thought - 'please go out and vote on May 6th'.

Normal Service Resumes!

Hey ho good people.

After my last post, a serious rant, I am in a much more calm state as I write this blog. I still frimyl believe that everything in my previous rant is valid but maybe could have been articulated more eloquently. I hope this light hearted sojourn is more acceptable to you all.

first of all lets think about Rush, my whippet. He has gone through some difficult times of late. It all started before Chrstmas when he was constantly scratching his face. He managed to wear away the hair around his eyes and had part of his snout bleeding. First visit to the vet resulted in piritn and steroids. I had visions of my whippet becoming a bulldog, especially as he started lifting dumb bells! Anyway, this did no good. He has since been sedated on two occasions and had scrapes and incisions, I still await the final results. He is a brave wee soul and does not make much fuss, additionally he does not shy away from visits to the vet. When a definitive result is known I will share it.

A few weeks ago I went to the cinema to see Nine with my dear friend Jan. Wew both enjoyed the movie. I am currently looking forward to seeing 'The boys are Back' which has had rave reviews. Avatar is also on the list but i need to organise myself properly to fit it in.

Last week a dear frriend of mine died, his funeral is on Thursday and I will go down to Sunderland for it. His illness has been quite public on facebook, which is quite a good thing in many ways. Unfortunately some tasteless posts regarding after funeral drinks and partying have soured things slightly with some people trying to score points against each other. The only good thing is that Colin would probably find the whole thing hilarious - requiem in pace.

I had a good weekend in Newcastle with some good friends and enjoyed a good lunch in Switch my usual Sunday lunch venue in Newcastle. This week has been quite full with trips to Glasgow, Fife, Lanarkshire and Forth Valley already. Tomorrow going south and Friday in Dumfries.

Politically things are hotting up on the British scene with all three major party's making every effort to gain headlines. More to follow. The Chilcott enquiry is peaking at the moment with Blair last Friday and Claire Short today, interesting stuff but what will we gain from it? After all, its an enquiry not a court room no-one will be prosecuted. Hopefully, our political masters will learn from it - I have my doubts.

Around the time of Burns night I attended dinner parties two nights in a row. On both evening I met two different ladies who had experienced in-patient hospital care in the same hospital ward for similar procedures. Their accounts of their experiences were so stark it was impossible they had experienced health care in the same country let alone the same hospital, it only goes to prove that expectation is a great influence on experience.

I need to sign off now - hope to get back to you all soon.

Bye for now.

Jimbo

Lunatics take over the asylum

I apologise to anyone with mental health problems if they find the title of this post offensive. I am absolutely irate this evening after a visit to Tesco Extra on Great Junction Street. It is not the first time I have visited this store and witnessed a small number of children aged circa 8 - 12 yrs causing havoc. A few months ago someone was riding a bicycle around the store. I asked the security guard why he had not removed the person. apparently he is not allowed to, he can only instruct them to leave and is not allowed to physically remove them from the store, if he does they can accuse him of physically attacking them. This evening two people were sitting in the two piles of baskets inside the entrance to the store, genuine customers were unable to get baskets and the security man could only ask them to move.

Members of the public in the store appear to prefer to be ambivolent towards this situation rather than challenge it head on. I believe that the police, tesco security staff and all of their customers have a responsibility to help maintain a safe environment when we shop. To ignore this small number of people who behave in an anti-social manner is to condone their behaviour. We need to challenge it, otherwise it will only get worse.

I understand that these young people live in a block of flats between Great Junction Street and The Shore, many people say it would be a good thing if the block of flats was blown up. i can only add that when they are blown up we should ensure that the majority of the current residents are still in them.

Now, people of Edinburgh, of Scotland, of Great Britain we all need to take up some responsibility for challenging anti social behaviour, additionally we need to etition our politicians to have the current law changed to enable and empower security staff to be able to use reasonable force to remove people from private premises when they are causing a nuisance. If we all sit back and do nothing it will get worse and we will only be able to blame ourselves for doing nothing. In short, the management of the asylum needs to regain control, otherwise anarchy will rule forever.

I hope to get back to you soon with a more down to earth update on how life continues for me in Edinburgh.

Back again

Sorry its been a full month since my last posting. A lot has happened and life has been busy, fun and hectic.

Work wise I expect to meet myself coming back sometime next week as I seem to be travelling all over the place. Shouldn't complain as I would find it intolerable to go into the same office every single day. Today we have our Christmas party - what larks? Going to Le Monde on Gearge Street to overeat, overdrink and make a fool of myself - no change there. I have also done a couple of training courses which have been quite challenging, enjoyable and have also motivated me - which is obviously giving my employer a return on the investment, a win - win situation there.

I have also spent some time travelling between Edinburgh and Newcastle for social reasons, its always nice to go home. I had a fabulous night out in the Powerhouse in Newcastle when John and Edward Grimes (of X Factor fame) were on. I didn't go out until 10.30 in the evening and was still going at 4 am, a real triumph for an oldie like me. The atmosphere was electric and it proved to be one of the most enjoyable nights out in 2009.

As we approach Christmas I find myself getting annoyed at what I describe as 'political correctness gone mad', I firmly believe in respect for the dignity of every human person no matter what there race, colour or creed, but... I get rather annoyed when I see signs saying 'Happy Holidays' this is rather funny really because in attempting to deny the Christian nature of the primary celebration at this time of year in Western Europe they use an adaptation of another Christian phrase 'Holy Day!' (That's one for the advertisers to think about). An article by Yasmin Alibi-Brown (hope I got the spelling right) picked up on the same subject last week and put some of the blame quite firmly back into the hands of those doing the most complaining and to an extent I agree with her. We can have winter lights in our town centres and share them with our friends and colleagues who celebrate other religious festivals at this time of year, they don't need to be exclusively Christmas lights - fair point. However, if you want to send a greeting card because you are celebrating on 25 December at least have the decency to acknowledge the fact that you are celebrating Christmas. Enough of a rant on that subject.

The credit crunch seems to be hitting harder in national terms, we are seeing predicted cuts in expenditure in public services here in Britain. I am thankful that we are not part of the European currency. I have friends in Ireland who work in the public sector and some of them are taking pay cuts of up to 14%. Ireland, like all other members of the European currency does not have the same fiscal flexibility as Britain and they are feeling the pain of the recession in a very direct way. I am unsure as to whether we will be able to avoid that situation or if we are simply delaying it. Last week's pre-budget report was a real disappointment to me. It certainly had pre-election written all over it and does not appear to me to address the current financial situation at all. I don't approve of borrowing our way out of recession, in the end we have to pay for it.

Yesterday was rather enjoyable, a team day at work where we all got together to take stock - where are we now and what about the future - I really did enjoy the interaction with a range of colleagues. It snowed most of the day here in Edinburgh, fortunately it did not lie on the streets but Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park looked rather splendid with a dusting of snow over it. It kind of put me in the right mood for our works do today.

I hope to get back before the end of the year, unfortunately I am not that reliable with this blog just now so I am taking this opportunity to offer you all the compliments of the season. May you all have a very Happy Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010. For those of you who will not be offended let us rejoice: 'Christus Natus Est!'

Number 4

Hello good folks. Sorry it has been such a long time since my last blog.

I had a few days of flu like symptoms before heading off on vacation. Was it swine flu - you may well ask - I don't really know but I did feel awful for a few days.

I did some travelling at the end of September into early October, went off to Lourdes to do my annual voluntary stint. I worked at the airport for ten days helping people who are sick or have disabilities on and off the aircraft. This involved physically carrying some wheelchair users and giving an arm of support to others. As usual it was good fun working with an international team of volunteers my dear friends Paul and Aine from Waterford, Felice from Italy and a range of other Italian, Spanish, Australian and French friends. It did my French a lot of good and helped to develop my basic knowledge of Italian. I worked with a new friend Marco who is a forensics officer in the police in Rome, he and I worked well together.

In addition to the work there is lots of time for socialising. Some of my Italian Priest friends, Don Pietro, Don Enzo and Don Stephano had brought lots of interesting food for sharing. We visit a small community of Italian Nuns who we have all known since we were in Seminary and take gifts of food and wine to them. The first evening we had a real banquet as Pietro had brought a suckling pig from Sardinia. We ate Bruschetta, Mushroom Risotto, suckling pig with roasted veg, pears in chocolate sauce and then some very nice Italian cheeses followed by a liqueur from Sardinia called Mirto.

A considerable amount of time was spent eating. My Dutch friend Marietta who lives in Lourdes invited me for lunch one day and she really is a very good cook. Lunch lasted from about 1 pm through till about 6 pm. i then had to go on to meet some other friends for dinner, this resulted in me grazing from lunchtime right through till 10 pm - quite a good day!

I got back and returned to work fully refreshed and have travelled arounf Scotland doing my stuff. Boy does time fly. Last week I attended a training course on project management here in Edinburgh. It was a tough week and I will find out in about six weeks if I passed the exam at the end of the course.

For the first time I have been taking an interest in the X Factor - whatever next?

Sorry this is short and sweet. I did pick up a quote from Abraham Lincoln recently, here goes: 'It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than it is to open one's mouth and remove all doubt'.

Till next time.

No. 3

Well here I am at the end of a really lazy weekend in Edinburgh. What exactly have I done over this weekend? Not much to be truthful. On Saturday I spent much of the morning in the flat and then went off to the gym full of good intentions, had a bit of a work out and spent more time in the jacuzzi and sauna than anywhere else. In the afternoon I did some boring shopping. Did you know that it is now possible to buy lo-energy spotlight bulbs, they are slightly more expensive than other lo-energy bulbs. I replaced the three 100 watt bulbs in the kitchen with these 100 w equivalent which use about 12 w each, on my reckoning a saving of 274 watts against the old ones. I can proudly tell you that every light bulb except my desk lamp (which is a small halogen model) is now lo-energy.



Sunday has been slightly less exciting than Saturday. The only thing I bought today was a newspaper. I have just finished reading it and have also completed the sudoku and godoku in the magazine.



News wise our political masters in Westminster continue to dig themselves into deeper holes, have they never heard of the expresssion 'throw the shovel away'?



I did some preparatory cooking this evening and prepared a salad and fruit salad for lunch tomorrow, trying to follow the principles of economy gastronomy and to stick to something like a decent diet. I am working on the basis of 'failing to prepare is preparing to fail', if I make good healthy meals to take with me I usually don't pig out on unhealthy rubbish during the day. Sticking to the subject of food, I can tell you that we have a bumper harvest of English plums this year. I know because I heard all about it on farming today earlier in the week. The farmers are having problems shifting them because last year a late frost spoilt them and the supermarkets all placed their orders with Spanish farmers because they were let down last year. Now we really need to get a grip and accept that nature is sometimes unkind to us. Anyway I made the effort to look out some English plums (which incidentally here in Scotland are labelled British - I don't know if plums grow this far north). I managed to buy a punnet in Morrisons for only £1. They were Victoria Plums, they taste absolutely delicious and are far superior to the Spanish plums that are for sale along side them. So go on get yourself out there and buy some beautiful English plums, support British farmers. If we let these supermarkets dictate what we can have these beautiful plums will disappear forever, the simple economic principle of no demand = no supply will lead to farmers growing something else instead. Enough about my plums for now.



I forgot to mention a novelty idea I came across in Holyrood Park at the beginning of the Edinburgh Festival which has ended this evening with a wonderful fireworks display, most of which I could observe from the comfort of my front room. Anyway, it was the Lure Coursing weekend mentioned in the my first post. I went to buy a sandwich and a coffee. The majority of the catering vans were from the same firm selling burgers etc, except for two. One was selling fish and chips and the other was selling steak sandwiches. I opted for a steak sandwich from the aptly named 'well hung and tender beef' company. Now this company really has got its marketing spot on, the name does grab the attention of most people simply for the novelty factor. They also sold teas and coffees. I opted for a coffee which was presented in a decent quality plastic mug and cost £2. All refills for £1. Well, the mug has the company name emblazoned on both sides so I now have a real attention grabbing mug for use at work.



Well I shall sign off now, leaving you with the 'Irish Blessing' on my coffee mug here at home; 'As you slide down the bannister of life may the splinters never point in the wrong direction'.

Second post

Hello people, its been some time since my last post, which incidentally was my first post. So this one is called second post - how original! We need to worry when I start one off called the last post, maybe some of you will give a sigh of relief.

Since I last wrote the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie air disaster has been released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds and sent back to Libya. The kerfuffle continues as accusations about trade deals fly about and politicians attempt to score points against each other. I offer you my humble opinion. The Scottish justice secretary took a brave decision to release this dying man on the grounds of compassion. Compassionate release is an integral part of the justice system within the UK and there are a number of precedents for such release. The fact that there would be both a national and international reaction to the release obviously made the decision all the more difficult. I listened to the justice secretary's speech announcing the release and was impressed with his rational approach to the situation. I did send him an email offering my support. The only error of judgement in his speach was to say that the prisoner is now being judged by a 'higher order', this implies that his prostate cancer is a punishment and therefore implies that cancer is a punishment to anyone from a higher order. Notwithstanding this one error in the speech, he made a decision and has acknowledged sole responsibility for making it. I hope that we were told the truth, if we were I fully support this release.

I celebrated my 44th birthday last week. The highlight of the day was receiving hand made cards from my nieces in Australia one was five yesterday and the other will be seven in November. The time and effort they put into it and the 'I love you' is so moving from those so young. My sister also used a painting by the youngest one to wrap my present which was a really nice touch. At the weekend I returned to my native and beloved North East of England for a long weekend. The original plan was to go camping in the lake district. The weather forecast put an end to that plan, and they were spot on the lakes experienced torrential rain for the whole weekend. Instead I went off to Beamish open air museum to finish off my visit which I started last Easter. I visited the manor house, the old engine works and walked through the victorian park. Beamish is really good value as you buy your ticket and if you gift aid the payment it becomes a one year pass which you can use as many times as you like. The Royal yacht Brittania has a similar deal at Ocean Terminal in Edinburgh.

I did some long dog walks. For the first time ever I went down to Crimdon Dene, which is a really beautiful stretch of coast near Peterlee in County Durham. Near the Dene itself are a couple of caravan parks, the Dene is a well kept nature reserve and then you have the beach. It was quiet and peaceful giving lots of time to think, I find the crashing of the waves both soothing and inspiring. Its strange but my best thoughts and ideas are usually generated near water, either when walking or in the shower! Enough said about the shower....

On Monday evening I met up with some friends in Whickham who I last saw on New Years eve. We had an Indian meal in a restaurant and shared stories from our summer holidays. There were eight of us out and six people had been on a cruise over the summer, two of us had been camping in Scotland. I believe we had the better time in Scotland. I got back to Edinburgh on Tuesday about lunchtime and hit my domestic chores. I did not make much of an impression as this weekend is also set aside for domesticity.

About two weeks ago I was driving through Edinburgh listening to Radio Scotland, it was a a Saturday morning. The female presenter from the BBC2 programme Economy Gastronomy was being interviewed. This was my first knowledge of Economy Gastronomy and I set the digi box to record the series. I have now seen two editions. One involved a family of seven spending in excess of £400 per week on food shopping. The presenters gave then some tips, recipe ideas and a budget of £160 for the week. The family managed on this. The next edition involved a group of five students from Cambridge, this produced a good saving too. I wonder how they would sort me out. I guess saving a single person about £20 per week does not make good tv. I have enjoyed these programmes so far and have picked up some good ideas from them both as money saving tips and new recipes. You might find it worth watching.

I said I would end these blogs with an inspiring phrase from someone, so here goes: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.— Maya Angelou

Until next time.