I was very sorry, because this morning, Sunday, December 31, at 3 am I could not sleep. I woke and started to compose, in my head, a happy New Year message, and then realised what an incredible number of people will not have a chance of one, for long to come. So, I started to… Continue reading I Started Being Very Sorry
Month: December 2006
Teaching Navy Style
I have always thought the examination techniques we adopted at the Royal Naval Signal School should have been the norm for the Country’s education system in general. Education is not a case of knowing information, but knowing where to find it and how to apply it. The Leydene examination organisers had obviously taken this theory… Continue reading Teaching Navy Style
About This Blog and Art
About This Blog It will soon be coming to an end, for a number of reasons. Firstly, at 84, I have had only one life and not all of it has been as ridiculous and risky as reported. Secondly I found a fair proportion of you out there are not interested in my political and… Continue reading About This Blog and Art
The Boredom Of The Watch Aboard
The watch aboard on our destroyer consisted of those men who would normally be on watch at sea. In harbour the rigorous discipline was relaxed and there were hours when one could go ashore; the rest being on leave. Most of the time life was very routine and monotonous. In the first week or so… Continue reading The Boredom Of The Watch Aboard
Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2007 to all my readers, especially the large number I assume are on the four to twelve am shift, or like me, need less sleep now. I have been a watch-keeper. I found the trick, after you have settled in, was to find something to do to keep one alert,… Continue reading Happy Christmas
Longevity, Obesity, Pensions, – Just a Question
Rulers are often conjurers; they distract the eye, while performing sleight of hand. For example, the Games of ancient Rome; it has been said that Bush’s precipitate launch into Iraq was to distract from a parlous financial situation – yet how much more it has cost in lives and cash. Some gave the same reason… Continue reading Longevity, Obesity, Pensions, – Just a Question
Fetching The Camera
The most salutary lesson I learned, living in Belfast was to come on the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ of July 1949. By this time I had just about learned that it was referred to as the Glorious Twelfth. An aunt living in Bangor, who had borrowed a camera from our next-door neighbour, had unfortunately been rushed to… Continue reading Fetching The Camera
Crazy Mathematics
I haven’t, a clue where we are headed, I just hope the Government does, but I doubt it. Take this incredible debt that we are servicing, – credit cards, loans, et al. How much of it will inevitably be written off, and who will be the losers in the long run? To answer that, one… Continue reading Crazy Mathematics
Comparison – The 30’s and Now
A little history gives a slant on what people say. We thought we were Middle Class, we had the social graces, the accent, the interests, but not the cash. We, my mother, brother and I, had just returned from Africa under the British Raj, where we had lived and, I suppose, acted like landed gentry,… Continue reading Comparison – The 30’s and Now
Faces Of The Same Coin
In the way that folk accepted the steady bombing of the cities during WW2, as something that if hated, had to be inured, the majority of the Northern Ireland population felt the same way during the 30 odd years until very recently. THE STORY OF THE LUDICROUS GIFT I have referred before to the ‘liberation’… Continue reading Faces Of The Same Coin