21 August 2011

The laptop was even more hopeless today. Not only Dragon but Word was also playing up.. Being a Sunday there was absolutely nothing I could do about it so reconciled myself to watching the cricket ( I didn’t need much persuading).

It was a day of mixed fortunes for England they only got to wickets in the morning session but fared better in the afternoon. The only Indian batsmen to make any real impression was Dravid who eventually ran out of partners having scored 146 not out. At that stage India was 291 behind England so predictably Strauss made them follow on. (Bat on-again) Between tea and close of play England took three wickets for 129 runs including the most valuable of all Dravid’s. That leaves India trailing by 162 runs (although this is rather academic. From India’s point of view it’s a question of hanging on and forcing a draw) and England to get the remaining seven wickets, which the way they have been bowling should not be too difficult.. Once Tendulkar, who is currently 44 not out, ~is removed there is not a lot of batting strength left in the tail. How ironic it would be if 10 daughter scored his 100^th.100 and yet I still lost the match.

In the evening we watched a fascinating documentary about Mallory’s attempt to climb Everest in 1924 wearing, what today, we will consider totally inadequate clothing and footwear. The team actually found Mallory’s body, on their way up, and it was obvious to them that at the time Mallory was on the way down. This then casts doubt as to whether Mallory made the top and was returning. We will never know if this brave man achieved something 30 years before Sir Edmund Hillary who made the historic ascent arriving on the coronation day of our present Queen.

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20 August 2011

I have only received one comment on my latest gadget, my smoking stick and drinking stand (see 13th of August entry) as I believe this to be one of my more ingenious ideas I would have hoped to have elicited more response. In the same vein may I urge my readers to spend a little time and read the articles included on the 18th and 19th of August entries. I know they are rather long but they are well worth while the effort, then let me have your reaction to what the journalists said.

As it is that time of year when are Plum tree is groaning under the weight of large quantities of ripening fruit this seems an apposite time to remind those readers who have not seen it already to read the second of the anecdotes, Jamie Oliver, eat your heart out!
Even if you have read it before it is well worthwhile a reread.

I’m keeping a record of the number of times that Dragon or Word does not respond and the processes I have to go through to get them back. I promised the Dragon people I would keep a record for a week but after three days it is crashing so many times that I think I will probably send them the details today and see if they have sufficient to identify the problem.

Readers will realise how constrained I’ve been in not writing in depth about the final test match between England and India. However, we find ourselves on the third day of a severely rain interrupted match but one nevertheless with the exciting prospect of a possibly close finish. Yesterday was the third day and as it rained shortly before tea England decided to declare at 591 for 6. This was down to Pieterson’s 175 and Bell’s 235. With the declaration at teatime it left about 35 overs to bowl and at the end of the day England had India on its knees at 103 for 5. So, a result is still possible. England just has to continue in its current bowling strain and bowl India out twice in the next two days. The likelihood of India surviving to get a draw or is rather remote but with five wins out of five this whitewash certainly establishes England as the top cricket team in the world

 

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19 August 2011

A quiet day after all the excitement yesterday. I spent most of the morning on the blog answering and sending e-mails thanking for present etc and then most of the afternoon watching the test match.

I am restricting the length of my own entry today as I have a further comment from an American journalist Fred Reed of The Washington Times. This one suggesting the reason for the recent rioting in England. It seems to me that Fred Reed is spot on and I will leave it to the reader to make up his/her own mind and let me know what you think.. May I respectfully suggest that you take some time to read and really digest this article.

Having done so I think you will agree that it is terribly sad but true. If they won’t stay in school, or when they are there, they are disruptive and refuse to participate, this is exactly what can be expected. Somewhere along the line, “Dumbing Down” became “Macho”!

Dismal Racial Premonitions

August 8, 2011

 

Like everyone else, I suppose, I’ve been watching the racial riots that have erupted across England. The newsies of the BBC carefully avoided saying who was rioting, vandalizing, and stealing, and the footage was all fuzzy long shots or of rioters from the back. They were, however, as a reporter for The Independent pointed out, heavily black. The crime stats for London reflect the same pattern.

There was the usual puzzled, or pseudo-puzzled wondering: Why did the “youths”–they are always called “youths- “doing it? Curiously, it was a black conservative on Hardtalk (of the BBC) who said it: the rioters were , criminal, unsocialized to civilized norms and simply wanted to rob stores selling things they liked.

Which led me to think about the US. It ‘s a little more complicated. Imagine a black kid of seventeen in Detroit. He can’t read or, if he can, barely. He has never read a book, and never will. He doesn’t know where England is, or Africa, or the United States. His mental world is small beyond the imagining of the literate. He has no grasp of government, and has never heard of any author. He cannot do simple arithmetic. He has perhaps never seen a checkbook, and will never have one. He doesn’t watch the news. If he did, would not understand what he was seeing. Ideas like prime minister, exchange rate, and United Nations are utterly beyond him. I am not being cruel. I am describing a condition, the normal, usual, unexceptional condition of American blacks of the urban slums. Of history, the kid knows only that blacks were enslaved by whites. He cannot approximate the dates of the Civil War (as neither, astoundingly, can many white college graduates) and cannot name a single country in Africa, but he knows that blacks were stolen from their homes and very badly treated. He has in all likelihood never been out of Detroit, or perhaps his neighborhood. He has no contact with the larger society except through the police and television, where he sees whites leading glamorous lives in a wide world beyond his grasp. He would be very uncomfortable in a small town in white America, having less familiarity with the culture that would an American in a small town in Italy. Further, he speaks something so far from standard English that he would have difficulty talking to most whites.
He doesn’t have a job or, if he does, it will be of a very low level with no future that he can see. There is a reason why cash-register keys in fast-food chutes have pictures of hamburgers and milk shakes instead of words, why the registers make change automatically. The kid in Detroit can’t make change. Little commercial demand exists for the illiterate and innumerate who have very bad attitudes.

Which the kid has. He hates whites, whom he blames for all of his troubles and inadequacies. He hates Asians, who excel in school.

It is an ugly hatred on a hair trigger and explodes readily in savage violence. The media play this down, hard, but what you pretend doesn’t exist still does. The kid from Detroit has no loyalty at all to the United States. Why would he? It is a white country, and he hates whites. He doesn’t know who fought in World War Two, or when it took place, but he knows that whites enslaved blacks, and that he is on the bottom of things. He blames whites. Country is too large an abstraction for him

Now, intellectuals and quasis (?) of the salon classes, few of whom have the slightest familiarity with kids from Detroit, prattle of oppression and opportunity and social this and social that, and blame blacks, or whites, or God, or sunspots, but chiefly, each other. Racial discourse in America usually consists of liberals and conservatives battling each other, neither having much interest in blacks. Both offer solutions of which the kid is perfectly incapable. Liberals believe that with enough federal uplift and warm-and-fuzziness he will have better self-esteem and begin to study and prosper which for a variety of reasons he hasn’t, isn’t, and won’t. Conservatives think that if he only worked hard and read the Founding Fathers, he would rise like Rockefeller, which he can’t and won’t.
 
What we have then in England and the US are large concentrations of people who do not share the values of Caucasian civilization. This matters. A society’s accepted values, not its laws, determine its behavior. When the tidal waves wrecked Japan, how many mobs of looters attacked the unguarded shopping centers? For the mathematically advanced reader, I will offer a hint: It is a non-negative integer less than one. Years back, I wandered the side streets of Tokyo after midnight, without fear, and saw dating couples doing the same thing. The Japanese do not refrain from violent criminality because the police watch them, but because they agree that they do not want a violently criminal society.
 
The blacks of the festering, simmering slums clearly do not share the values of European whites, and will loot when they can get away with it. I might also if I saw the surrounding country as my enemy. The difference between the looting in England and that in the US seems to be that in London it was more a matter of stealing electronics, whereas in the US it involves much more of racial hatred.
 
Where does this lead? What do we do? The approach both tacitly accepted and firmly enforced has been one of bread and circuses, or rather welfare and television, to keep the lid on in the inner city, as we say; this, accompanied by heavy pressure from government and salon not to notice what is happening. It was perhaps the best response best for whites, anyway. It left the slums hopeless, depraved, but quiescent. Affirmative action kept the
pressure down, and smart, ambitious blacks were admitted in small numbers to the
salons and became superstars, like Jessie Jackson. This kept them from becoming real revolutionaries. The blacks of the slums stayed chiefly in the slums and, while welfare produced a terrible dependency, all of these measures ensured a static, artificial calm.

But now bankruptcy looms, and Congress threatens to cut social spending to pay for the wars. There is no longer enough money in a divided nation to buy everyone off. Whites will not revolt, not violently, but blacks will. I don’t think the faculty lounges understand how much anger there is among whites. I’m sorry, Ms. Couric, but it is not just twelve louts in the KKK and a few militias in Idaho that are very pissed at blacks. It is pretty much the blue-collar world, the cops, the firemen, and most (I really think) educated conservatives. Plus a whole lot of journalists who keep their mouths carefully shut. This is not good. Not good at all.

Well, that’s another American journalists view of today’s British youth, I leave it to the reader to decide whether or not he has successfully analysed the reason behind the recent rioting.
 
 

18 August 2011

Today is my 77th birthday. It started well with two laughing jolly girls – Paula and Christine, (they very kindly brought me a birthday card) coming into get me up, give me a shower and dress me.

Miles and Kimberly came down from London and ‘my lovely’ generously took us all out to lunch at The Cricketers. Unfortunately, this extra ordinary summer weather turned against us . No longer where we settled outside and our food had been brought out but the heavens opened and we had to rush to cover. Fortunately by that time I had enjoyed a small cigar and a glass of champagne soaked it was not too bad..We had a lovely lunch together. We came back into the house and shortly after it was time for tea, birthday cards and presents. I did terribly well but it would be invidious on me to mention any one by name.’ My lovely’ produced a delicious chocolate cake with chocolate flowers and fruit decorating the top. Miles and Kimberly went back to London shortly afterwards and I must admit I felt a little weary but warmly content at the kindness shown by all my loved ones.

I was very sorry that my darling daughter clearly and family were not able to be with us but as they are on holiday in Wales and it would be totally unfair to expect them to break into that just in order to come down to lunch but their absence was compensated for by a telephone call in the middle of all our excite with the whole family standing round of the telephone singing Happy Birthday. It really was.

All of this after a somewhat frustrating morning on the laptop. Last evening I spoken to Dave of .Microlink who I thought was going to come here to sort out the problems with Dragon. However, having gone onto ‘ remote assist’ and made some changes to the default menus, he seemed to think that that any further problems will result from the way I am dictating- i.e. giving a command, before the machine has had an opportunity of reproducing all of my dictation. I am very doubtful about this particularly. as I have been using this voice activation system for over 20 years but I shall keep a completely open mind and have agreed that I would give it a week, perhaps slowing down on my commands, and then let him know how I am getting on. I also suggested that he contacted Rueben of Nuance (the makers of Dragon) to see how far he has managed to get with the people in America who wrote the software for this current version. In the meantime I’m keeping a daily record of any problems that I have with Dragon. (So far, I must admit, that whatever tweaking Dave did with the programme yesterday seems to be working-so we will see).

Dealing with far more important matters I ought to bring the reader up-to-date on the global problems. First of all the insurrections occurring in the Middle East. The only one that appears to be really active, at present, is in Libya. The ‘rebels’ or the anti-Gaddafi troops are currently fighting for control of Zawiya, a town 30 miles from Tripoli, which supplies it with oil and gas. I cannot help feeling that if they are successful in capturing this town and therefore controlling the supplies to the capital, it would not take too long before Gaddhafi accepts his defeat and gves up, clears off or commits suicide.

Not directly connected with the Middle East problems, but certainly influenced by them, the world’s stock markets are rising and falling daily like a dolphin or probably more truthfully tumbling with small corrections up and on the whole they are significantly lower than they were two or three weeks ago. As in the past we will just have to ride it out. We really had no option.. The main reason for this sudden loss of confidence in the stock market being the lack of growth, first of all in America, now in France and Germany were these economies are struggling to show any growth at all. As I have said previously, without being a Jonah, I believe the world is still very much on the edge of a precipice of a deep global depression. Pray God I am wrong.

The riots from which we have suffered in this country last week are now completely over and the restitution is being dished out by the British courts. The sentences are far harsher than previously no doubt to fire a warning shot across the bows of other young thugs who are considering ‘the fun’ of rioting. My own view is that in order to correct, what our Prime Minister Cameron calls, the ‘broken society’ is to get stuck in for the long haul and start with the generation of children at primary school. Many of the teenagers today come from such dysfunctional families that the odds of bringing them round to be courteous, polite and considerate to other people, sadly, I believe to be rather remote. It is also very sad when I hear some of these young people saying they have ‘nufimk to do’.

Clearly they have wasted their educational opportunities by probably bunking off from school every other day and in all probability find reading and writing a difficulty. I hate to say it and no young person likes to hear people of my age saying it, but, in all honesty, we used to amuse ourselves. Maybe kicking a ball about, playing a bit of cricket, cycling (I was a member of CTC. the cycling tourist club), I was a Scout and spent the odd weekends away, I also read a great deal, I played water polo (not very well) and all this in my middle teams. Most of these activities which cost little or nothing could still be done by today’s youth but frankly gang warfare and rioting is more fun and for that reason I say we are in for the long haul starting off with today’s toddlers and teaching them discipline and respect for others and going from there – or put more succinctly, ‘do as you would be done by’

I hate to finish such a happy day on a sour note but having received a copy of this American journalists view of Britain, it is too apposite not to reproduce it. It is rather long but is so much to the point that it is well worthwhile reading to the end.

ANN COULTER

Democrats (roughly equivalent, I understand, to our Liberal PartyLiberal Party) would be delighted if violent mobs like those in Britain arose here — perhaps in Wisconsin! That would allow them to introduce yet more government programs staffed by unionized public employees, as happened after the 1992 L.A. riots and the 1960s race riots, following the recommendations of the Kerner Commission.

COPYRIGHT 2011 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106

 
 

Oh dear, I’m no better than the looters, reproducing this article without the author’s permission. However, it is set at the site to what I’ve been saying that I could not resist it and must therefore face the consequences. My readers might have to club together to bail me out!
=

17 August 2011

 Afterr another frustrating day trying to sort out my voice activation (Dragon) problems it was a great relief today to go to the golf club the weather wasn’t up to much, dark cloudy sky and even a few spots of rain at one stage. I carried my golfing umbrella with me as I have an attachment on my wheelchair into which the handle will fit. It is flimsy but I imagine it would do the job in an emergency, anyway fortunately I didn’t have to use it

I know the English are always moaning about the weather but really when I look back to my youth and remember the stiflingly hot August days when you could see the shimmering heat rising from the tarmac roads.like a mirage in the desert, and I wonder what happened to those real summer days. I know as one gets older ones memory becomes more blurred but this much I am sure, that the summer is not what it used to be.

Anyway I had a nice buzz around the golf course catching up with my various mates until, waiting in the rough 150 yards or so in front of the ninth tee, I was struck smack in the middle of my chest by a hooked tee shot from Griggsy of all people. I was extremely lucky because I had just turned my wheelchair around otherwise I could have been hit on my vertebrae with heaven knows what consequences. (I have already had one spinal fusion and certainly did not want another, at this stage). I was almost certain that I mentioned the circumstances of this accident somewhere in the last 300 or 400 pages of this blog but after doing a word ,search could only find one passing reference to it. It is such an incredible story that I will share it with you.

I’m sure the readers will recall that I have said, more than once that I used to play polo. Well, I was playing in Aden in a match against the British Army team, when Paul Wilthers – who, if I recall correctly, played off 5 and was the highest handicapped Englishman – came galloping up behind me shouting “On, on”. This meant that I should gallop as fast as I could towards the opponent’s goal,where, hopefully, Paul would land the ball after striking it at full gallop. He did drive it but, unfortunately not ahead of me but right into the back of my neck. It knocked the wind out of me and I galloped about 100 yards from the polo field before I was able to recover and pull up my pony. I did not fall off and after asking if I was okay we carried on. In fact I believe I played another three chukas after that. Apart from a bruise the size of a grapefruit there was nothing to show for the blow that I had received. There was no question of going off to hospital to have myself checked out, one just didn’t bother about such things.

It was some years later when I started getting numb and tingling sensations in my right arm and leg. As a result I was booked into Harley Street for an anagram. In those days I played squash most lunch hours at the Lansdowne club, just around the corner from my office. Anyway, I just finished playing when realised that I was going to be rather late for my x-ray so I ran all the way from Berkeley Square to Harley Street arriving around 15 min after the appointed time. The radiologist was rather cross with me for holding up a small team and I had to actually change in the operating theatre. They strapped me to a tilting table – like something ouy of an Edgar Alan Poe, horror story – in order to x-ray each vertebrae. When they got up to my neck they went backwards and forwards a couple of times and then the three of them got into a huddle. The radiologist then came over to me and said that there was something seriously wrong as it appeared from the x-ray that I had a missing vertebrae. We both agree that this was not possible but there was something that needed some immediate investigation. The first thing they did was to immobilise me by strapping me into a plastic suit and admitting me to hospital. The orthopaedic surgeon, George Bonney, came to see me and said that he would have to operate the following day. I must admit this was a bit of a shock as I had only gone there for an x-ray. However, I clearly had no choice and the following day was wheeled into the operating theatre.

When I came round a couple of days later all I could see was a forest of bottles and tubes, in fact there were 6 in all, two drips, two drains and two blood transfusions. I felt terrible rather likeFelix, that cartoon cat, who had been run over by a steamroller and completely flattened. When I was able to nail George he told me that they had slit my throat from ear to ear in order to access the spinal cord and when he had investigated he found that there had been four vertebrae smashed, in the polo acciden, three of them had fused but the 4th./5th. cervical had not. Apparently, it was hanging on by a single thin piece of bone, which George said, could have snapped with any sudden movement. Bearing in mind that I have just finished playing squash I realised how lucky I was. Apparently, they scooped out what was left of the vertebrae, in George’s words “like crabmeat” .What George had conveniently forgotten to mention was that he would have to chip some bone from my pelvis in order to make a couple of props between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae and then feed blood vessels into them in the hope that they would bond into the bones above and below. (I’m sure any of my medical readers will say I got it slightly wrong but in effect that’s what I understood happened). It was for this reason that it was not my neck that hurt in any way but the poor old pelvis from which George had chipped the bone that he needed!

I was a one-man band in those days running an office in Chesterfield Hill,, Mayfair and could not afford to be away from the office for any length of time. So a couple of days after the operation I told the hospital people that I would have to go to the office. Although they were horrified they could see I was determined so each day I ordered a taxi and sat bolt upright in the back looking a bit like Frankenstein in my plastic encasement and then returned to the hospital in the late afternoon.

When I was released from hospital I stayed in Pitt St, Kensington with one of Alice’s aunt and uncle. Each morning, dear auntie Pai would carefully remove the plastic casing and give me a bed bath before powdering and then replacing the casing. I stayed with her for five weeks when the casing was removed by the hospital. I arranged to play squash the following day as I was rather concerned that the pieces of bone that they had chipped from my pelvis, and inserted between the vertebrae, might fall out and the sooner I found out whether they had done a good job, the better. As it happened George had quite clearly done a first class job and my neck remained intact. I telephoned him with the good news apart from telling me that I was stark raving mad I think he was secretly quite impressed.

15 August 2011

13 August 2011

 Alice had one of htr girls tea parties this afternoon. Alice No. 2 (Everard)-with her lovely dog Amber-dropped in mid-afternoon together with Di and Ros Zurlinden. The study is comfortably big enough to seat four people, other than myself, so we all sit round in a circle putting the world to rights over a cup of tea…

Predictably, we discussed the recent riots. Now, these guests are all intelligent people with minds of their own and all having opinions about what might be the best way to avoid such problems in the future. We all agreed that the basic problem was discipline, or rather lack of it, in the home and although we did not take a vote I surmise that had we done so there would have been a general agreement that bringing back National Service might well go at least a way to resolving the problem. Interestingly enough I heard on the evening news that some survey or other had come to the same conclusion.

Anyway these short interludes of intelligent discussion stimulates me and neatly break up the routine that would otherwise be relentlessly the same each day.

For another diversion I did, of course, have the fourth day of the third test match between India and England. Whilst my guests were with me I just turned down the sound keeping one eye on the laptop from time to time. The final chapter of this story can be quickly told. India having resumed overnight at 35 for1, lost Gambhir first ball to Anderson. Then, once Tendulkar was out for 40, the writing was on the wall. Despite a spirited finish by Kumar who smashed Swann into the stands three times plus a number of boundaries, the game was soon all over England the victors by an innings and 242 runs. This will automatically took them to the top of the ICC table as world champions. Former captains Michael Vaughan and Alec Stewart both believe that England will dominate test cricket for years to come having achieved the top of the world rankings.

Here is a rather gormless photograph of me taken with Mick’s mobile phone, however it is not me you should be looking at but my wonderful invention for smoking and drinking at the same time. You will see that the smoking stick is now mounted on a base sloping towards me and is secured in place by a magnet. Attached to this base is a removable extension which carries my drinking mug in a preformed hole and cut channel to accommodate the handles, If I am in an environment where I’m not allowed to smoke then the smoking stick can be removed and the base is designed just to house the cup.

And here is a picture of me using a smoking stick outside the Cricketers.

12 August 2011

The rioting and looting seems to be over, now for the inquest. No doubt a Commission of Enquiry will be set up and then in a year or so will report back to the government. I can predict that their findings will be: youngsters from deprived homes having nothing to do; no jobs for the young (and we know that not to be entirely true-see my 8 August entry) criminal gangs being opportunistic having nothing to do with the original reaction to the person shot by the police;the failure of families to instil discipline into their children; the failure of the police to get stuck in at the early stages instead of just standing by and letting them get on with it; in some instances an element of racism, and so on. What is far more important is what can be put into place now to try to avoid this form of anarchy occurring in the future. First of all forget all that about the miscreants coming from deprived homes. The first person to be prosecuted was a lecturer in primary school and there are other examples of well healed middle-class teenagers acting in the same appalling fashion as children from deprived homes. Yes, to the lack of parental control and role models. One father said that once he had gone to bed how can he possibly control his 13-year-old. It was no good locking him in as he would find some way out, so he effectively he washed its hands of the whole affair. Parents of such children should certainly be made personally liable for any damage caused and if that were so I’m sure this father would find some way of controlling his 13-year-old. I believe the task of educating the next generation will be a long and painful one but had the government taken up my proposal for national mentoring, engaging the services of the millions of retired people, I believe that would at least be a step in the right direction.

Still no resolution or my Dragon-voice activation problems-despite this now being under the eagle eye of the most senior technician. I rang again this morning to be told that the matter was being looked into and they would revert to me when they have a solution. Bearing in mind that I could be totally reliant on voice activation, if it were not for my one splintered finger, for all they know I could have been virtually incommunicado these past few weeks. Which does not say much for the Nauance organisation.

I only had a short while watching cricket this morning as my friend and solicitor Dr James Barnett came to see m e – driven by our mutual friend MC (MC Patel) – with the contract for my next book and then onto lunch at the Cricketers. MC excelled himself on the caring front including feeding me’ to the manor born.

As to the third test, England soldiered on batting on for the best part of the day waiting until Cook reached 300. Sadly he was caught at 294 when England declared, 710/7, then being 486 ahead. India were put in for the last 13 overs or so and lost Shewag on the second ball. With no further dramas the day ended with India 35/1 giving England 2 days to bowl them out and claim the prize of being number one in the world

For today’s light relief, this video is well worthwhile looking at. It is a first time, to my knowledge, that anyone-in this case the Germans-have made a machine that can simulate a bird

http://www.flixxy.com/airplane-flies-like-a-bird.htm

11 August 2011

The rioting and looting continued last night. A special magistrates Court was set up to deal with those who have been arrested, most were remanded in custody to be tried in the Crown Courts where the sentences will be more severe. One of the biggest problems is what to do with the nine and 10-year-olds. They cannot be remanded in custody and if they are bailed out there is nothing to stop them continuing their illegal activities-they are you simply not scared of the consequences. To kids in this age it is probably the most exciting time of their life. Wii games will feel very tame by comparison!

Predictably, the opposition, the Labour Party, are squeezing as much political advantage as they can out of the situation, calling for the government to reverse its plans to cut the police budget, in line with every other public service body in the country. The Conservatives retort to that is that there are substantial savings to be made in the administration and ‘back office’ without a reduction in the front line police force.

We all have examples of where we observe money being wasted. I can give you two such examples from my own personal experience. About a year ago I asked the NHS to remove the expensive remote control equipment they had fitted into my office as I can no longer get there. Months later I rang again to remind them and they said they were trying to find an alternative alarm system to carry about my person – at present I have a button on my wrist which will alarm a monitor carried about by the carer, but with my hands getting weaker all the time I’m finding it increasingly difficult to press sufficiently hard to set it off. Again nothing has happened and I shall have to ring them for the third time today. In the meantime I suspect the NHS are paying a substantial amount of money to lease this equipment, all of which is being wasted.

Another area of waste concerns the annual checks on the equipment loaned to us by the NHS. I can understand that electrical equipment must be checked regularly but why do we have to have a different engineer for each and every one of them. I know if I raise this with the powers of the I will be told that they all come from different subcontractors however, it is not beyond the wit of man to enter into a contract for one person to do the annual check and maintenance on all the equipment on one visit. We even have an engineer coming today to check over the manual wheelchair! Multiply my experience by 1 million and there must be some very substantial savings that could be made in this area alone

Closer to home, two of Alice’s friends, Christine Alexander and Beatrice Goldie, came to tea and spent ise little time chatting to me in the study. They are both intelligent and amusing ladies with strong views about most things so it was a welcome break as I too could be called opinionated!

I watched the cricket on and off during the day. England had a splendid start in that Strauss and Cook batted through the morning session taking the lunchtime score to 157/0. This must be some sort of record, with the openers batting through two sessions unscathed. These two carried on after lunch until Strauss was out for 87. A fine partnership of 186, just 38 runs short of Indians first innings total. England ended the day 456/ 3 a lead of 232. Cook who started batting the day before yesterday ended the day 182 not out, leaving England in a very strong position,

Talent and grace comes in many forms. This is video is an excellent example of that. Not only is the performance excellent—you’ll want to watch it to the end–, the video is very well (professionally) done.

Ah, to just be this agile again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Cj6ho1-G6tw&vq=medium

10 August 2011

Last night was the fourth of the current riots which have now spread to the North-West and the Midlands. Hundreds of youths rampaged in Salford and Manchester overnight looting and burning shops which led to over 100 arrests. In Birmingham the police are investigating the death of three youths to see if they are connected with the riots. Over 200 young people rioted and looted in Toxteth, Liverpool all of this outside of London where the shooting of the gangster started. To date there have been over 700 arrests but heaven knows where they’re putting them,, as our prisons are already full to bursting. (Someone suggested some sort of Alcatraz or Boot Camp subjecting these young people to 6 months or so hard discipline-not such a bad idea. Alternatively we could reintroduce compulsory national service which I’m sure would go part way to resolving the problem)

It seems that, for the time being, bringing the Army and has been ruled out, instead there will be something in the order of 16,000 more police involved in London over the next day or two. This begs the question as to whether or not the areas from which these additional police are drawn will be at greater risk. I discussed this with a number of people at the golf club yesterday and most were in favour of bringing in the Army and certainly employing water cannon and, if necessary, tear gas and even rubber bullets. People overseas simply cannot believe this is happening in the UK and will undoubtedly have some effect on our tourist trade which is particularly unfortunate as this time next year we will be in the middle of the Olympic games

As if we do not have enough trouble already with anti-government riots in Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East pockets. Add to that the precarious situation that the whole world finds itself in economicly, and this becomes a very worrying period to be living in.

Going back to the riots in England when some of these youths have been interviewed their excuses range from ‘there being nothing to do ‘or ‘we are bored’ to the problems of unemployment. Well we all know about that. There are plenty of jobs out there if the young people were prepared to work for the minimum wage, which they are not.

.What on earth are the parents of these young people thinking about when some as young as 9 and 10 are out in the street throwing rocks at the police and looting the shops. Surely as a parent you would want to know where your youngster is and might be slightly suspicious if they came home with brand new 40 inch television and one arm.!

Obviously the first thing is to get these riots under control but then after that what can the government do to prevent such occurrences in the future. Probably very little if these organised criminal gangs are determined to formalise looting. Maybe something drastic like suggested boot camps need to be set up to give these youngsters a good dose of discipline for at least six months. Instead I suspect a large majority of them will be cautioned which will be about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

The other problem for the government is the electorate’s perception of their inability to control such situations. Even Churchill came unstuck on one occasion and riots have been responsible for bringing down governments in the past. No doubt the Labour Party will make much of the Conservatives inability to control these hooligans and for a while Prime Minister Cameron ‘will be on the back foot.’ This cricketing term reminds me that the first test match between England and India started today in Birmingham. If that had been cancelled then we will all have known that matters are really serious! Stiff upper lip and all that. (It’s a bit like the entry on the Club Championship board, at my golf club. The entry for 1940.- 1944 says,” ‘interrupted by hostilities’.)

The match went ahead without any interruption. It was a great day for England who won the toss and put in the into bat. At one stage India were 107 for seven wickets and it looked as though they could be all out for as little as 120 or 130. However, Dravid had other ideas and in scoring 77 with the rest of the tail took the score to 224 for eight. The last two batsmen were out without scoring. England came in with around one and a half hours play left in the day. Strauss and Cook started very tentatively, more intent on staying there than scoring runs but once they have gone past the first half-dozen nervous overs they scored steadily until stumps were drawn at 84 for no loss, putting England in a very strong position and well on the way to that world number one spot.