17 April 2012
Last night was the first trial of an 8.30 bed time, as I’ve said before I’m usually ready for bed at that time but was not over anxious and spend any longer in bed than necessary due to the pain in my joints that worsen as the night goes on. I think the experiment was a partial success in that I slept through the early part of the night pretty much as usual but it was from around 3.00 a.m onwards that the pain in my knees and hips and shoulder got steadily worse. I think this would have happened even if I gone to bed at 9.00 or 9.30 so we will give it a try for a couple of weeks and then decide what is the best time to go to bed.
The media today was full of the massacre in Norway, involving the death of 77 people by, what looks like a normal nice young man who, it turned out was fanatically anti-Muslim. He firstly exploded a bomb in the government buildings in the city centre of Oslo and with that diversion then went to a little island where there was a large group of youngsters who were camping under the Labour Government banner (AUF) where he proceeded to shoot 69 of them before giving himself up. Subsequently, when he appeared in court, he pleaded not guilty for reasons of self-defence, defence of the Norwegian way of life. He explained this by saying that by 2050 Norway would have a majority of Muslims who would then be controlling the country and imposing Islamic teaching and perhaps Sharia law. He therefore made this dramatic gesture to draw attention to what he saw as a threat. The authorities are now trying to decide whether he is criminally insane or fit to stand trial.
Talking of miscreants but not, of course, in the same league as this young man, are the 400,000 schoolchildren who play truant daily. That was the number given out yesterday on the news, when they were discussing the possibility of reducing the cash benefits of Child Support for recidivist offenders. Of course, there was an outcry against this from the left-wing. Where are the parents of these 400,000 children who are either condoning the truancy or positively ignoring the strictures against it (for example, by taking them on holiday before the end of the school term because the cost is that much lower). I am certainly in the camp of those people in favour of cutting child benefit from the parent or parents of the regular truant. If it hurts their pocket they are more likely to take a responsible attitude towards their child attending school. These 400,000 children will inevitably end up on the scrapheap with no GCE’s (General Certificates of Education) and would, no doubt, include the 15% of children who leave secondary school scarcely able to read or write and then wonder why they cannot obtain employment, As a result a good number of them spend their entire life on benefits. All of this for want of a caring parent who, unfortunately, in many instances, is no better then the child itself, having been numbered amongst those children who played truant in their day and as such lacked a reasonable education. How to break this circle of deprivation? It would probably take two generations and the mainly down to the school and no longer rely upon the parents of these sort of children to set any good example.
Regular readers will recall the attempted removal of 50 odd travellers from Dale farm, by Basildon Council. The process that the gone on for 10 years and cost the council, just for the removal, over £10 million. We are now threatened with our Dale farm with gypsies having applied for a permanent five acre site on a road linking Arkesden and Wicken Bonhunt – the nearest two villages to ours. After all the fuss in the media about these particular, so-called ‘travellers’, who in the event, it appears, do not want to travel at all, it is not surprising that the locals are taking the’ NIMBY line (Not in My Back Yard).
This leads me neatly to today’s diversion. Click here and see what happened when some travellers turned up at the pearly gates!