AH, ONE MORE THING. . .

This is more than an excuse to use ‘Columbo’s’ catch phrase. I’ve been thinking about my small group of human beings I actually have seen and I consider pals.
My Mother is an Atheist.
One friend is an Agnostic.
I am a Deist.
And my other pal is a Pantheist.
And we all get on with one another, so we only need someone who adheres to the doctrine of Transcendentalism and we could form our own Universism cell.
(By the way, if you’re interested in Universism, to such an extent you feel the need to discover more, don’t click on the first two links on page I’ve linked to unless you want to get a not found error, at least on Firefox. Try the third link.)

Yes, I know. It’s time for me to start my ‘me’ time, after all the weekend is already several hours old and I’ve hardly brewed my tea and got the first series of ‘Columbo’ DVD ready.

BECAUSE IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT GIVING. . .

In case you’re wondering where I’ve been (that joke ‘where’s the bin?’ only works if it’s told in a Lancastrian setting, but never mind that) I’ve been spending my hours off charging about after various relations and now I’m going to set about just being, instead of doing, as my Believer friend has put it. (Now, my friend is into Spiritualism, and has discovered the New Age doctrine and philosophy and it fits her like the proverbial glove; she is really into the idea of everything being connected up, nature and the lot, in a massive spiritual connection, loves anything that involves feelings and not reasoning, where I’m the opposite, but you can’t hate someone who has done you no harm, and just thinks differently about life’s greats questions and the answers therein.)
Being instead of doing, translated into real talk means instead of charging about or composing stories, just sit back with a drink of tea and take stuff in without having to mess with it in some way. So, I’m going to be instead of do for a while.
Personally, I’ve wanted to just sit back for a while now, but haven’t had the chance. So many calls on my time because when a body wants practical assistance, I’m the one they call on. But not this weekend. I’m having a bit of me time. I’m going to catch up on me reading and watch ‘Columbo’ and even if the earth falls off it’s plinth and the stars alter their circuit and someone rings me up and asks me if I can do anything, cause I’m the only one who can re set the mechanism of the universe, I’m going to say ‘no, cause I deserve a bit of me time.’
I’ve forewarned everyone who might be concerned so they will be prepared to leave me be (I wonder if that ‘leaving be’ means something similar to the ‘be’ in the New Ages terminology? Anyhow)
The weekend starts here. . .

FIRST POST OF THE (BRITISH) SUMMER

Summertime, and the living is easy. . .
So, the clocks have gone forward and British Summer Time is here again.
But the rest of this posting has nothing to do with that.
When you get the chance, have as shufti of this;it’s all video from Google Videos about Ted Bundy from the Brit Channel 4. It’s title is ‘Natural Porn Killer’ and it’s an exploration of why Bundy killed, based on his last interview, for the night prior to them pulling the lever on him, with a Dr James Dobson, and the title comes from his excuse as to why he felt the need to travel about the US hitting girls on the head and strangling them; Hard core pornography and his obsession with it. Very interesting stuff. (NOTE added on 22nd December 2008: By now, the original full length doings has gone, probably forever. For some reason, the clever beggars at Google have chopped the documentary up in several pieces. If you still want to watch it, the first part is here and you’ll have to click on to get the other parts, I assume they’re all there, though I’ve not checked out every part. If they aren’t, it’s not my fault. I honestly cannot understand why this was cut up into bits when a year and nine months back it was available as one full documentary. I’m sure it’s nothing to do with getting around copyright issues, if it was it would be gone all together.)
But why am I presenting you with this rubbish, and it being the first day of summer and all? If you can stand it (nothing really brutal, just a few mild, fuzzy reconstructions, clips of porn films and a few short sections with Bundy’s interview with Dr. Dobson himself) you’ll notice the only female voices heard are that of the narrator and a handful of silly girls Ted groupies interviewed outside the court during Bundy’s Florida murder trial. Apart from the two totally inappropriate adverts the programme provider left in, the best (in a taunting, mocking way) part for me was where a one John Tanner told the interviewer that the Lord (that’s god, or biblegod) informed his wife (who is sat by him in the interview and remains silent) that he would play a big part in Bundy’s life.
It’s just a shame god couldn’t be bothered to warn the young women and little girl Ted victims that this smiling handsome chap hanging around them wanted to kill them. . .

MEMORY JOG

The clocks go forward one hour at one a.m. tomorrow morning.

THERE’S ALWAYS A REASON TO GO ON

What have all these got in common?
Fritz Haarman.
Dennis Nilsen.
John Gacy.
Well, they are all serial murderers, but not this, they are the only type of murderer who have no female equivalent.
Think about it. Look it up. There are no gay (lesbian) serial sex murderers, no lone women who trawl the bars or railway stations or make social occasions to pick up and kill other women. None. There are lesbians who sex kill other women as part of a male/female couple, but according to my extensive reading, there have been no women murderers who pick up and kill women because it give them a sexual buzz.
I wonder why that is? It’s nothing to do with the outdated, lying notion that women are natually more nuturing and kinder and more likely to care than to kill. Just talk to the surviving victim of someone like Rose West, and read Myra Hindley’s words on the transcript of the tape she and Ian Brady made of one of their victim’s pleading. Women are as perfectly capable of snuffing out a life, and brutally, and sadistically, as men.
So why are there no lesbian serial sex killers? In fact, there are very few lone women serial killers, who travel about looking for people to pick up and kill. (Aileen Wornous is the single one I can think of, roaming the highways and shooting strangers)
Maybe because men are genetically inclined to spread their seed about, (that’s why gay men are traditionally and actually more promiscuous, and why in the West the AIDS virus hasn’t got such a hold on the, separate, lesbian scene. Because there aren’t as many containers willing spread it about.) Men, with their millions of disposal sperm, are the hunters, who go out and collect women, where women, with their single go at making a baby once a month, then having to be a receptacle for the growing life are mostly the home-makers. Again, check it out. Most women killers, through history, have been poisoners, and the victims their nearest and dearest, cooking up meals and giving the ill care, in a deadly parody of their domestic situation. That’s why, even today, most child victims are victims of their primary carer, their mother, in a domestic set-up.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are other, non genetic reasons. I don’t think it’s much to do with the difference in size and strength, after all, men can kill other men, so why can’t a woman, if she is so inclined, loop a rope around another woman’s neck and pull, a la Denis Nilsen?
Women have killed women, generally in fights over men, but there are no lesbian serial sex killers in the mould of someone like Randy Kraft or Jeffrey Dahmer.
Except maybe Elizabeth Bathory.

IT ISN’T GONNA COME OFF!

I dreamed I was in a big bookshop and all the books were Christian books, and all the staff, and customers, were all round me trying to convince me to give my heart to the Lord and repent of my previous sinful life, come back to the Saviour and all would be well.
I don’t know where this dream came from (well, from inside my head, obviously, but ) I can’t understand the reasoning behind what triggered it off, unless it’s coming up to my second Christ-free anniversary after almost twenty-five years in the fold and it’s sort of pressing on the part of my brain where major things happen without my knowledge or consent, labelled the unconscious, and it’s spilling out in the form of dreams, the most passive form of expression possible.

And no, in case you’re wondering. I’m not going back. My unconscious can jump up and down and wave flags and ring bells and flash bright lights at me, in an attempt to make me rethink my decision. Because I walked away due to reading and engaging reason and logic, and going back would just negate everything I’ve learnt. After all, why return to a lifestyle that is a lie.

SONG TO END THE WEEKEND ON ; ‘TACO’ PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ’

At last, the return of a favourite item. (I like it) The Song To End The Weekend On is back.
This weekend’s song is ‘Puttin’ On The Ritz’. If you’re expecting the brilliant but rather cynical version by ace dancer Fred Astaire, you’re in the wrong place, This one is an electronically generated version by ‘Taco’ and it’s from the ’70’s. I like the upbeat tone and the clever use of the Seventies instrument, the synthesizer.
So, no more commentary, just. . .
enjoy,
and. . .the best week possible, no matter how you find it.

(The site where I find most of these songs-without-pictures is owned by an organisation called geocities. This is currently the only web host like it, which hosts free songs to listen to and evaluate, so you can decide whether or not to go out and buy the CD, where you can actually link to the songs. The other places I can think of, angelfire and tripod, do not allow this, you try and link to something on a site hosted by either of these places, and you end up at a warning page saying it’s not allowed. I thought buying up lumps of the Net and fencing it off unless you had the right credentials was illegal, unless it hosted porn or gambling sites or other material unsuitable for those of less mature outlook, but obviously not. It’s just irritating. Now, my point; geocities owned pages are down and unavailable as much as they are there, so the song might not be there. Bloody shame, I know, but it’s nothing I can do about it.)

MOTHER’S DAY GREETINGS

To all Mothers, whether by biology or adoption. . .
All the best from a grateful generation on your day.

GO HANG!

Well, Robert Mugabe has answered the UN’s criticism using a succinct two word reply;
“Go hang!”
This man runs (rules) a country where, according to the BBC website, opposition is beaten to the ground, 80% of the people are living in dire need and any foreigner who refuses to tow the line is risking being expelled. He is trying to cut Zimbabwe off from the rest of the planet and continue carving it up in the same uninterrupted way he has been engaged in for over a quarter of a century. When he was questioned he used the contemptuous words already quoted.
Well, when I’d finished laughing and wiped the tears from my eyes, (nasty sense of humour, I know) I started to wonder, and my mental meanderings got me to the point of;
What in reason took the rest of the world so long to actually protest about this man’s dictatorship?
Twenty-seven years flagrantly violating human rights, in full view of everyone, should not be so easily brushed off. And his response ‘go hang!’, well, what if, on being challenged as to explain the human rights record, someone like Tony Blair, or President Bush, or Australia’s John Howard, or Angela Merkel of Germany, or Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, turned around and told everyone to ‘go hang.’ There would be a total uproar, a hue and cry that would end in the destruction of the present incumbent government.
Even the Middle Eastern leaders, Ehud Olmert, and Mahoud Abbas of Israel and Palestine respectively, would be on the receiving end of international protest if they treated any questioning with such a remark. And Iran’s President Ahmadinejad faced an international backlash with his remarks on Israel and his refusal to bow down to the UN’s pressure.
So why is Mugabe allowed to get away with it? Has the white man’s burden become the white man’s guilt to such an extent that even now, with other African countries stirring and speaking up (before, they lined up alongside Mr Mugabe and declared any European protest as void through being racist) the Western white skinned Human Rights people are afraid to condemn him? (Even myself I feel a bit uncomfortable speaking up against an African leader, a black man, despite being a descendent of Scots and Irish, and with family members who have been on the receiving end of English racism.) Why would it be all right to rightly protest against such behaviour if it was a Western or Middle Eastern leader saying it, yet it has taken over a quarter of a century for an effort to rally against this man to actually take off?
The African nations are never going to be respected on the international stage if the white man’s guilt had not seen them being offered aid but not being treated equally,patronisingly allowed to run about rather like children in a playpen, and not treated like the grown ups they are.
“Take these toffees, and be grateful. Aw, listen them, aren’t they sweet? We can’t smack them ’cause of what we’ve put been through. So long as they stay in the pen and don’t try and get out, they’ll be all right.”
As soon as we give the Africans the right to trade, and to treat their leaders with the same respect and challenging attitude we treat non-African nations, the sooner they will stop being described as ‘Third World’ or inferior and be able to stand on the world stage and be listened to and taken notice of.
Mr Mugabe will probably have to fall, but if it shows the rest of the world that there is to be no special treatment, the sooner that Africans will see their complaints about their leaders are taken seriously as those of the ‘First World’ nations.

A DECISION

Today, we must all celebrate the birth and 80 years after, the subsequent, inevitable demise of the greatest writer of all time, professor Sir William Wordbender, (1845 – 1925) who was professor emiterius of Chester Schools Very Hard Words Department from 1873 – 1925.
The original Mr Chips (because that was his favourite food) not only was Prof. Wordbender the most popular teacher in the history of ever, he also did his own knitting and wrote all the school plays (except the one in 1918, after a disagreement with the present headmaster that saw him (the headmaster) giving up his position and running away to war, where he arrived the week it ended and came home, shamefaced where, because he’d lost his key, no one would let him in, so he had to go home to Mother. And a good thing too. But back to Prof. Wordbender,) the Professor was also the writer of several important works such as;
The World of Flies : Why They Like Decomposing Bodies Better than Sergeant Bertrand and including They Don’t Go Anywhere In Winter.
Pick Your Own Nose : A Guide To Prosthetic Appendages.
Paraphiliacs : The Human Experience.
Tally-Ho : Creating A Permanent Open Season On Fox Hunters.
Upper-Case Letters : Why Start Each Word Of Each Title Of Every Book With Them.
Food : You’d Be Dead Without It
The Last Will Be First : A Personal Guide To Surreptitious Queue Breaking.
And perhaps his masterpiece;
Spending Your Life In Service Of God : Why?
He finally achieved his lifelong ambition to be like his older brother (more of which soon) by dying, and was buried and then cremated in the grounds of Chester School (the chapel caught fire) and today is remembered by a plaque on the remains of the school inscribed with his motto, which he always used at the end of term assembly;
DON’T WORRY, I’VE GOT IT.
The inspiration for these words, was Sir William’s older brother. Timothy, (1833 – 1865) who was a Home Office hangman, and won the Home Office Prize for Worst Hangman of All Time when, on his first assignment, testing the rope, he got caught in the noose and managed to pull on the lever and was dead before the officials got to him. The words which Sir William quoted were supposed to be Timothy’s final words.
Neither brother married, because like all good products of the British Public School system, they never met any women, apart from their Mother and she was never really around, with all the charity work, and were afraid of them anyway, so the final Wordbender went gently into the good night with the demise of Sir William, which is a pity as now there are no Wordbenders left anywhere, on the planet.
So that’s why, on this day, yearly, I always think of Sir William and being a first born myself, Timothy, as the final and greatest representatives of the Wordbender family.

I know, that is silly and made up but I’m always like this when I’ve been composing. Takes me a while to come back down to everyday life.

By the way, the only way I’m going to have any chance of enjoying any kind of genuine choice as to having a remove to anywhere that fulfils all my criteria ; It accepts cats, is all on one floor and is fairly clean, is by doing a bit of purposeful saving up, so I’ll get enough together for a deposit, to give me a bit more much needed leverage in the house-renting market. Which means I’m going to have to put more money aside and not spend as much on books and stuff of that ilk. Bloody shame, but once I’ve got the money, I’ll have more choice and more chance of getting what I want from the lettings folk.

TAX (A SARCASTIC TAKE ON IT)

I got my yearly council tax bill today, and (I don’t really have to say this, do I?) it makes last years bill look like a rat compared to a shark. (You know, a lot bigger.)
I’m meant to be in the lowest band for tax, and if that’s true, I’d hate to be lumbered with being in the highest band.
To show where my money goes, the local authority have provided me with a helpful shiny coloured sheet of paper, with various charts, pie etc (can’t remember the name for the others, you know, the one like buildings stuck out sideways from a line, and that one that looks like jagged lines with dots every so often on the peaks, and can’t be arsed to look it up.)
Anyhow, these are some of the items that the council use our tax money up on last year and plan to spend it on this coming year;
This year, my personal contribution will be;

Rubbish collecting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50p

Law and order. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .£1:25p

Maintaining the roads and byways. . . .75p

Street cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37p

Social Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £3:60p

Young people(including education). £8:20p

The elderly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..£2:00p

The disabled(including general health)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £4:40p

Everybody else (aka The poor ordinary sods)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25p

Forcing people off benefits and into work
even they can’t get work or even manage to
work to make us look good in the eyes of
Tony Blair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .£93:00p

Compensating councillors who can’t be arsed
to turn up for meetings. . . . . . . . . £95:00p

Council workers holiday fund. . . . .£200:00p
(If you include traditional holidays,
Christmas, Easter, Sundays,
I-partied-dead-hard-last-night-and-I’d-
rather-stop-in-bed-than-come
-into-work-today). . . . . . . . . . . . . .£100:00p

Council workers tea fund. . . . . . . £190:00p

Toilet paper and soap for
the council officers toilets. . . . . . . .£75:00p

Sheets of shiny paper telling put through
your door to tell you all how important and
excellent your council is. . . . . . . £320:12p

Sheets of shiny paper with coloured
writing and pie charts to tell you what
we spend the money on. . . . . . . £300:00p

Contributions to turn Tony Blair into
some kind of activity deity. . . . . £75:00

To see to it that no matter what
intrusive decisions we make to
limit you freedom as an adult,
we reasonably compel you to see
that ‘it’s for your own good’
. . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . £639:19

To stop anyone having a say
on anything unless it’s an
enthusiastic repeating of
council policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . .£400:12p

This is sarcasm, of course. But, you know, sarcasm is reality exaggerated. The sooner we vote this lot of nanny state Blairite obsessed fake-Labour it’s-for-your-own good bad parodies of the real Labour party out of power and out of existence, the flaming better.

BISEXUAL CAT

I’ve got a bisexual cat.
My little girl Domino has been very close to Jessica for an age, but ever since a man came into her life (Oliver) she also takes time off to get close to him. Even though all three have had the operation to cut the connection to stop life being formed.
It’s like the last days of Ancient Rome some evenings in here.
The only one who refuses to party is my Hayley because she is a poorly girl.

By the way, the flat I was looking at wasn’t suitable. If I wanted a place less than eleven by nine foot that smelled of urine I would move into the men’s toilets on the market place in my present town.
That is the number one problem with dealing with the Buy To Let experience. If the landlord doesn’t insist on large amounts of money and a dozen conditions before even looking at your application, then you can guarantee it isn’t really suitable for anyone who legally wants to settle in somewhere. Terrible, but true.
I should have realised, though, when the only place it’s advertised is in the local free paper, you can be sure it isn’t an ante room to Buckingham Palace.