Cildren in Need

 Now I support CIN whole heartedly. Mainly for the kids that have no choices in life. Those with MS or Autism etc.. Anything to make their lives a life is worth the effort, and their parents and guardians need help too. But some, well.

It's a funny thing poverty. There seems to be a sliding scale. Now poverty in my mind is; darkest Africa, the slums of India or South America. They have absolutely nothing. The idea that they can own anything is beyond their understanding.

I grew up on a smallholding. We didn't have electricity. We didn't (and still don't) have mains water. No mains anything at that time. No TV, and the radio only picked up long wave. My Dad worked as a panel beater ad a garage 30 miles from home, my Mum ran the farm. To be honest, sometimes the animals had more to eat than we did. But that wasn't poverty. We were better off than some of my friends. Their water supply would pack up if there was no rain for a couple of weeks. They didn't live in poverty either. We had roofs over our heads and beds and clothing that wasn't made of lice...

Oh, and we were not living on state handouts either.

There's another thing, have you noticed, the 'poorer' a family is, the bigger the TV and the dog? The more they smoke and drink? (er, not the dog, well, other than secondary smoking) And I bet they have Sky Sports too. And broad band, which out in the sticks is more elastic band..

I think many  parents are lazy, leaving education to the schools, who cannot educate their unruly offspring because the parents leave education to the schools.. Mine encouraged me to read, then complained that I always had my nose in a book, when there was work to be done... ;-)

The end?

I hate religions. All religions. Without favour. For example; what happens to you when you die? Well, the really honest answer is: Nobody knows. Not a priest or shaman, not a medium or necromancer. No one.
I admit I like the idea of reincarnation, but I am sure it doesn't happen. I suspect, as far as the mind goes, at death, you just stop. Whether you are aware of it or not is irrelevant, because you will not remember it. Some people may say "What about the people who report 'near death' experiences." Well, I have. And to be honest I have had better and, bar far, more realistic dreams too. Anything to do with the human mind is fraught with miss-interpretation, or deliberate manipulation to suit someone's current theory.
In the past anyone could claim to have singular access to a supreme being. All they needed to do was to spout some incomprehensible gobbledygook, convince the gullible and uneducated ( and made to stay gullible and uneducated ) masses, and they gain control. For millennia. Feudal lords loved this, they may not have been the strongest, but hand in hand with their 'church' they stayed on top, and allowed the their clerics all the choirboys they wanted. Their justification;- It is written in a book. Well blow me down, anyone with half a brain cell wouldn't believe what is written in the 'Sun' (other tabloid pap is, unfortunately, available) yesterday. Let alone something that was passed down by word of mouth, mistranslated (accidentally, but mostly, deliberately to suit the 'author's' belief), over many hundred years.

Pot of gold

Another week passes. Not necessarily a bad one from my perspective. I mean, though thoroughly bunged up with a cold I soldiered on. If it wasn't for promises made, I would cheerfully have stayed in bed. Well, not cheerfully, obviously. I am a Bloke. I would have whinged at every opportunity. As it is, I have been all over the place, sharing my bugs. Am I not considerate? Do I not care for my public? It's a funny thing, but it does make me wonder if, by possibly spreading my cold about, I have been a bit selfish. After all, if I have made others ill, I may have ruined the country's chance of financial recovery, but if I had stayed in bed, I may have spoiled my boss's accounts. He pays me to fix things, not to make our customers poorly. But on the other hand, if I don't attempt to fix things, our customers may go elsewhere. So all in all, it's a lose lose situation. On the plus side I have nearly got rid of my cold, so, to those I may have infected: Enjoy next week!

Sunset

Sunset in autumn. Soon be winter. The girls were having a discussion the other day about what animal super powers they would like to have. You know, to be able to turn into a tiger, or change colour like a chameleon ( I did point out that cuttlefish do it better, but was treated with girly scorn). They asked me what super power I would have. I said that I would choose the power of a dormouse.
"Dormouse?" They cried, 
"that's not very powerful."
"It is, it can sleep for months, wake me up in spring...."

Sick in a bucket

One has to wonder what the all powerful, omniscient creator is doing this week? A bunch of layabout wasters, most of whom rely on the tax paying workers have prevented access to His house. Now doesn't it strike you as odd, either the protesters are correct, or the god botherers are. So either; He doesn't give a stuff for the botherers, or he couldn't care about the protesters. Or more likely, he doesn't exist. And never did.
Still and all, I suppose those of us who work can have the warm glow knowing, that not only do we pay for our politicians, we pay for the protester's benefits too.
Now for one, I am absolutely pig sick of spongers. Ok, there are many that have no choice but to live on benefits. The genuinely disabled for a start. However, there are many that are more able bodied than me, and probably more mentally stable too. They know more about the welfare system than they know about working. In a conversation today, we realised that none of us knew how to claim anything. We have all worked and paid taxes all our lives, and we have no idea how to make a basic claim if we suddenly found ourselves jobless. It makes me wonder how many OAPs don't get things they deserve because they don't know what they are entitled to. And yet people, who's first language isn't English, come here with a deep knowledge of what they can claim!Then they wander around the town pissed swearing (probably, I don't speak Polish, and they know it (other scum, including home grown, are available)) And when I say pissed, I mean urinating wherever they like. I would like to see benefits paid in non transferable scrip, only valid for; food, accommodation, power and the like. Not beer or fags.