Friday? Fishy!

I was just casting around for Friday's topic when The Beloved thoughtfully landed this on the dinner table:

Or, as the wonderful BeFunky would have it (hat tip to the even more wonderful Mandy Allen at ChateauMoorhen):

I see the light!! (Spooky, eh?)

What would I do without her?

So for Friday, our topic is: the Family. We draw on it's support through the week. Now it's the weekend. Time for some payback. 

Thursday? T Time

Thanks to prolific Bulgarian Christian G+ Blogger Martin Stoimenov for these words of wisdom.

And to Jack Buchanan for his take



Just sipping my Lapsang Souchong (milk, no sugar, thanks) and readying myself for the day ahead. Have a good one, everyone...

Avaunt!

Waterman

This morning the papers are, conveniently, full of the actor Dennis Waterman.He has spent a lifetime playing soft centred bruisers. Now he has admitted to a weakness that fits his public persona so perfectly that the blogosphere has flocked to the obvious conclusion.

Bastard!

He lashed out at his wife.

And, 14 years later, (and this is what we find utterly inexcusable) had the effrontery to try and explain. Because, of course, "explanation" is just another word for "excuse".

"Twitter" is exactly the right name. Airspace where members of the flock can each chirrup their atom of identity to one another: "I'm here";"I'm with you"; "Me too". Each linking in their blog, each chipping in their boilerplate outrage at a miserable, commonplace tragedy in someone else's private life.

Although there have been surprisingly sensitive discussions in the comments to the (rather predictable) post in the feminist blog "the f word". And I'm coming round to the Daily Mail.

My take?

Marriage is hard. And two perfectly decent people who love each other can still develop an abusive relationship. Over the years, the conversations that you have again and again wear paths in your brain that bypass your rational defences and strike straight at your deepest, darkest triggers. Knowing that your reaction was unacceptable just makes it impossible for you to relate to it. If you're lucky, you learn when to drop whatever you're holding and leave the room. It seems that neither Lenska nor Waterman could do that every time.

The other sadness is that he and his ex wife are still trapped in a world of blame. The only way that they can live with themselves is by wrapping the other in a scab of blame and forgetting about them. But I suspect that each feels that they have been wronged in a way that can never really be put right. And they will carry this nagging pain to their graves. If they could acknowledge their own contributions (if only to themselves), it becomes a shared mistake which they went through together and survived. Part of what they are now: sadder, perhaps, but wiser.

But that's a lot to ask. Like I said, marriage is hard.

Toothache on Tuesday

Oh!
Ow!!
OUCH!
Ow! Ow! Ow! Ouchie Ouch!
Ouch! Ouchie McOuch!
Grooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaan!
Mmmmm (is it over, or did I just flood myself with a wave of brain made painkiller?)


Oh!
Ow!!
OUCH!
Ow! Ow! Ow! Ouchie Ouch!
Ouch! Ouchie McOuch!
Grooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaan!

A Murder for Monday

It was a hot summers day in the Highlands. Our patrol, the Snipes, had set up camp next to a bog. That week we were forming a lasting and intimate relationship with the Highland Midge, and many of his little friends. It was a relief to be getting away for a hike up into the hills.

During a rest, a rather handsome striped fly lit on the back of my hand. Seized by a treacherous, self conscious attack of the Gerald Durrells, I watched it. Yowch!! A nasty little nip, swelling into a stinging itch that stayed with me for days.

That was 40 years ago, but ever since that day I have loathed and distrusted the bumptious clegg.

British readers will know where I’m going with this.

The loathsome Clegg, Grymer Wormtongue to David Cameron’s fallen Saruman, asks us to believe that he has saved the National Health Service. That his wise woman and her coven have scried out all that is evil in the NHS Bill. That they have woven a web of counterspells that will protect this jewel at the heart of the matter of modern Britain. I fear that all too late we will see this for the fairy tale that it is.

But he speaks the truth when he admits that he erred in not setting out clearly what problem this bill is trying to fix.

So it is difficult to judge by anything other than the likely effect on delivery. Roy Lilley has put it much better than I can. Please, please read this intelligent, punchy analysis. Eight key intentions for the bill, none delivered.

I don’t particularly care about the politics. If some creative, hard working entrepreneurs earn their honest crusts providing a world class service, that’s fine with me. I might even be ready to make modest payments for some non-essential services.

But this is looking like a train wreck. Anyone with eyes and a brain will see disturbing parallels, appropriately enough, to the other massive, artificial, false market of the last 30 years: the privatisation of British Rail.

The Green Benches: Announcing 23 local demonstrations against the NHS...

Time to stand up and be counted: be there!

The Green Benches: Announcing 23 local demonstrations against the NHS...: Tweet I have been bombarded for a week with requests by people to hold a demonstration to register opposition to the NHS Bill. Many people...

How rude!

I've been dipping my toe into fundamentalist atheism over the last few days. We appear to be very cross indeed about fundamentalist religion. I rather fear that we are tarring all religious people with one messy brush. 

In the UK, children are generally taught a number of the major religions under the standard religious education syllabus: most of us believe that all religions express important truths. This does not mean that they are identical, or that any of them is 100% right in every utterance. All human knowledge is imperfect. 


And the imperfections can be exploited by "organisation men" to justify crusades, fatwas, jihads and pogroms. Jerry Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy notes that the organisers always end up in control and the true believers always get outsmarted in the corridors of power. 

Clearly, there is a genuine problem: intolerance. Not just caused by "god" or religion (whatever that is: one thing makes this tricky is that we don't seem to be able to agree on a definition of religion (I'm no expert, but this article from our chums at Harvard seems to cover the ground in width if not depth)), but by any system of organised belief. There is an obvious and amusing fallacy in attempting to fight intolerance by refusing to tolerate it. This seems to be the general fundamentalist approach on all sides.

It is always fun to point at one another and prove how stupid they are. But if we want to move on and make the world a better place, we need to start with understanding. It's about growing up: moving on out of the playground and into the negotiating chamber. 

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.