The Old Gaffer

My response
Reading the comments in the post below, no one could doubt the quality of thought, the determination of ideal, and the sincerity with which those ideals are held. I have taken a census of relatives and friends who have been senior officers in the army and have served in war situations, and it is interesting to find that in general they have the same outlook. They are not prepared to accept that there could be change; is currently every country must spend a vast sum of money just in case someone decides to invade them, or that nations together will act as policeman on any nation that might have reprehensible intentions

To me, this is the mindset of not only the army and the politicians, it is also that of the population at large. This I believe is where some change must be wrought to overcome this mindset, in the face of such carnage, useless expense, and ultimately in down grading the lives of so many for so long. When you consider the way the advertisers can make people believe, in many cases, boasts that are clearly based on a miniscule of fact and blown up to gigantic proportions in order to sell a product, when one thinks of the cost of advertising, manufacture and distribution, it is evidently a paying proposition. I therefore believe that there should be inaugurated World Wide Web sites in every language, and in many guises, showing the futility of war, in all its facets. In particular the waste that is so unproductive. People Power is sometimes mobilised, but never on more than parochial a scale. What I am proposing is that groups of people in every country should form to persuade their countryman that their leaders must find an alternative to war, and combine with other countries to sustain this theory to a level that even the thought of going to war, when other solutions are eminently possible, would be an anathema. . Surely it is the responsibility of the members of every nation to question the validity of the ideal, the mindset, set out above, and insist that their leaders search every avenue to avoid resorting to war. As I have said in my proposal there are unscrupulous people with their own agenda that conflict could well ensue. It is for this reason that I propose a worldwide police force of military capability, subscribed to, in every sense, nationwide.

I fondly believe that although I shan’t see it, the Internet will have such influence in the long run, that what I suggest not only is a possibility, but so obvious it will become a fact.

On the BBC news I think I heard, although I have not been able to verify it, that this figure quoted, so unbelievable, as the cost of maintaining soldiers in the Middle East, I doubted my hearing but it was repeated at the time. I in no way believe that I have the answer to anything like those in charge of the army, I can only postulate my own views, from a basis of ignorance, tinged with commonsense. Perhaps what I am suggesting is already in place, but it is not being published to the same extent as the military condition.

As I understand it, the infrastructure in Afghanistan and Iraq has suffered considerably as a result of the wars, and the insurgents are consequently hard to riddle out. I gather the population in these places has been suffering from a severe lack of quality or even a basic infrastructure to a point where there is practically none. In any process of renewal one has to start at the most advantageous point, and then work out. I understand that attempts have been made to bring the basic necessities in some areas of the population, as the military clear the way. The only way of winning over the hearts and minds of people in such dire straits is to make their lives at least a little more than bearable. It therefore seems reasonable if we are spending a third of one million per soldier, that amount of money in the eyes of the resident population would be staggering if it was applied to the infrastructure. That also applies in this country. The logistics of carrying this out are immense, but it would seem that if companies that are involved in agrarian and simple manufacturing, were encouraged and financially supported, while being protected, in the way areas were protected in Northern Ireland, thus generating jealousy, greed, or just pure necessity, it would be more persuasive as a tool.

From my own experience in war and local uprisings of a serious nature, it is wrong to speculate because one is never in full awareness of all the facts. I therefore accept that what I have remarked here could be written off as nonsensical rubbish, but one of the advantages of having one’s own blog, is it allows one to make statements like the above, if for no other reason than to generate a debate.

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You will probably have noticed if you are a regular reader, that I am sticking to my promise to only write when I think I have something worth saying, and this applies to the last few days when the news, its reasons and its outcomes, have been predictable.

Yesterday
I have been housebound for nine months and yesterday a new door open for me that let in so much light I was nearly overwhelmed. When I was first handicapped, away back in January, I never knew of the existence of a thing called a Rollator . It is, in effect, a small collapsible truck with four wheels, a seat, handbrakes on two handholds, and one can walk pushing this thing in front of one, so that the body is supported by the arms, not cantilevered, and when one becomes fatigued one can put on the brakes, the thing is now totally rigid, and then one can sit down and rest, and the day is not over. In a while one can get up and go on doing what one wants to do. Yesterday I went shopping the first time in all that time, I was out of the house, mixing with the public, and having a totally new perspective. Those who are handicapped will know what a revelation that was, to those who have never been handicapped, take my word for it, it is the best thing that has happened in all that time, and my life has changed.

A new review of cooking.
I’m not going into a whole spiel like one of these cooking programmes on TV, but I personally believe that while I may not be original, by necessity I have discovered a way of improving the variety of the food that Sophie and I can enjoy, easily and cheaply, because I have a lot of spare time, and we have carers who help us with our meals. We have found that buying ready-made meals is not all it is cracked up to be, because the bulk can often be vegetables with little choice of what they are, and the food is not cooked to our taste, which is mainly circa 1940. I address this not only to the handicapped, but to the impecunious and the busy.

There is a shadowy manufacturer called Auntie Bessie, who provides one with mashed potato that can be readily made in the microwave, and Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, and onion rings that can be heated and a quality that is acceptable even to the critical. So now, we buy large portions of meat, preferably when on offer, such as a leg of lamb, loin of pork and so on. I cook these separately, allow them to cool, and then slice them, make small packages enough for a meal for two, wrap them in foil and freeze them. So periodically, merely by heating a few vegetables, heating the Auntie Bessie products in the oven, and heating our plates in the microwave, along with additional gravy, I can make a very respectable roast dinner. With this level of success we then widened the horizon and included a kilo of mince, a kilo of beef pieces, and a roast chicken, and then we had, the ingredients of Irish stew, boeuf Bourguignon, mince and potatoes and veg, spaghetti Bolognese, and many other versions. I think if you calculate not only the cost savings, the saving in time of the system, you will find it is to your advantage, the quality of the food is better than you will buy, the variety on offer is greater, and coupled with other simple foods that are home-cooked meals, food becomes more than just a source of nourishment. I strongly suspect that I have stumbled upon the way in which restaurants operate, if I have, I now understand why they can offer the variety they do.

Let us have a referendum. Even before the expenses scandal the population was losing its trust in the government and politicians generally. Currently we are being badgered daily by the main parties, including the government, with ideas and policies that seem to be valid for only about a week, before they’re either rejected or changed. And yet we are going to be faced with an election to decide which of these parties is going to rule us for another four years, when they all seem to be much of a muchness. Vast sums of money have been wasted in millions on projects that never came to fruition, and judicial enquiries that never produced a result. So let’s try and change the system. Let’s have a referendum which asks whether we want to maintain the current first past the post system, or whether we would sooner have a Prime Minister whom we trust, to form a coalition government. Perhaps only for the one term, but then it might catch on, with politics you never know.

First of all we would need free publicity, and as ITV seems to be short of advertising, a nationwide publicity stunt, promoted by them would probably please the advertisers. In the initial instance there would be a national probe as to whether people want the first past the post system or not. This would provide an opportunity for the various parties to show their mettle and reason for that system. The alternative is obvious. If it turned out that the survey showed that voting for the PM was the best idea, then it would be up to another survey, in conjunction with a poll taken among the MPs, to select the eight best candidates for election. To prevent gerrymandering, the actual vote would be a postal one, with the main parties delivering the voting paper while they were initially trying to uphold the first past the post system. The referendum would give the public the opportunity to still vote for the first past the post system rather than a PM.

I know that it is totally daft, and will never happen, but I firmly believe that what we need now is a period of two or three years of sensible, considered, government, by people who are not constantly fighting the next election while in government. Put an end to change for the change’s sake, and crazy expenditure, and get down to improving the infrastructure, and considering more about our hopes and requirements, rather than trying to be the world’s policeman, and in the case of prime ministers, world leaders. In effect let us retrench.

I haven’t posted anything from a few days because I’m sticking to my resolve to do that, if I have nothing worth saying, rather than gabbling for its own sake, which is a heinous crime.

Getting a grip on the lawyers
I have been absolutely staggered recently by the amount of money the government spends on legal wrangling in the courts. Not only do they go to court to appeal, when that’s turned down it appears they go again. It does no one any good except the barristers. They are talking about tightening the belts of the civil service, which at the upper level would seem to be pretty fair, but at the bottom would be excruciating for those affected. In effect lawyers are as much part of the civil service today as they ever were, because a lot of their work is associated with claims related to government policy. To me, it is logical therefore, like dentists employed by the government in the the National Health, that there should be a scale of charges for legal teams that is reasonable but not excessive.

Voting with our cash
We are told that competition is a good tool to aid the economy. On more than one occasion I have suggested that the government should have a National Bank operating in competition with the current ones, and divorced from the Bank of England. The purpose of which would be to allow us to shift our money from banks that are dependent on the stock exchange profits to keep those senior members in a style to which I would love to become accustomed. First of all the government doesn’t need to make a profit, as long as it pays its way adequately, and as it would be lending at sensible rates of interest, carefully, circumspectly, and with the interests of not only the bank customers, but those in industry, who need the money which they’ are now not getting to expand, and then thus help the economy. I strongly suspect that the rates of interest on loans would drop, providing that the system is run properly and tightly, which would then mean that people like myself who are saving for that awful day when I get booked into a home, will get a better rate of interest. If that happens, there will be two results, firstly, old Gaffer’s like me will shift our cash to the new bank, and as this is in competition, then suddenly, but not surprisingly, the banks who have not been giving loans will see the error of their ways

I propose to use my own experience of the credit crunch to show what has happened to thousands of people and thousands of businesses, because those we trusted, chose to and were allowed to steal our money, hive it off, and not only not be taken to book, the government gave them even more money to play with. When I was in my 70s, Sophie and I calculated what we would need should one or both of us been taken ill and had to go into care. At the current rate we would need £15,000 per annum just for one, and as we wanted to retain our home for the other, we saved on a regular basis for a nest egg to cover the differential, to ensure the government could not steal our house to pay for the incarceration, because we were on an income where this could happen. When the crunch came our investments in many cases were decimated. I recalled this as a microcosm of what is happening throughout the land. Careful people in industry and at home have made decisions on the assumption that any change would be minor. Now we know that that was not possible.

I have always felt from my own experience, that apprenticeship in trades, and articles to the professions produced, in many cases, far more competent people at the end of their training, than either the technical colleges or universities produced. They had hands-on experience, possibly a rough ride, but when they came out of training they were experienced. When people come out of college their experience is virtually limited. I have seen General Foremen who knew more through experience, and what they were doing, than the engineers in charge of them.

The effect of this credit crunch is that first of all the schools and colleges are under extreme financial pressure which will inevitably reduce the variety, and possibly even the quality of the education available. We have already seen that in Belfast the Queen’s University is closing its German department. There is hardly a day that passes but we see on television the cutbacks that are occurring right across the board. What is even worse is that our manufacturing and construction industries are closing down or going on short time, throughout the country. The effect of this is that the educational facilities in industry, such as apprenticeship, will be considerably reduced, and so it is the emerging generations who will suffer, and in consequence the ability and the resource of labour, particularly in industry will suffer, and it is this upon which the viability of the country depends. The future for this country will be bleak unless some strong minded leader, pulls us up by our bootlaces as Churchill did in World War II.

I have said before that I can’t understand how so much money from across the world has been hived off and clearly set aside without anybody knowing who has it and where it is. Clearly it is not being used. It must be obvious that if either some individuals, or some country that has gathered in all this money, starts to use it, and we, the nations who have lost the money, have a monitoring system cannot discover any sudden appearance of wealth, then one must assume that the money is virtually gone, and, if it were replaced purely by printing more, so that the finances of the governments that have been affected were back to where they should be, then surely the crunch would be over, or am I so ignorant I can’t imagine an obvious reason why this has not happened?

After a lot of thought, but not a great deal of research, I express my views on government leadership. What has become evident is that it doesn’t matter how weak or strong the head of the government is, either the Prime Minister or a President, if those behind him are not cohesive and strong, then the government is weak. By this token, the head of the government must be strong enough and wise enough to hold his own and hence will not make a fool of himself. I think that George Bush had a problem with this, he had a poor memory, and was constantly making gaffes which undermined his authority. A lot of his decisions have been suspect with hindsight. This disruption in Westminster prompted me to start thinking about the role of Prime Ministers and Presidents. There was no shadow of doubt that Churchill during the war, was not only a very strong person with a wide experience, but he had the best team who could possibly be had behind him and one that trusted him. I think the problem in Westminster is that Blair, who himself was strong, persuasive, and egocentric, got rid of a large number of the better and experienced politicians, because they disagreed with him, and replaced them with people more loyal to him in all circumstances but were less experienced. Brown inherited some of these people, and I suspect that some of their loyalties were perhaps then divided.

By all accounts President Bush avoided making decisions where possible, and at times made the wrong ones that caused him to be mistrusted by the public. When he went on world tours of state, one got the impression that it was merely a figurehead doing as he was told. Obama, on the other hand has set off at an alarming pace to introduce himself throughout the world hotspots, and is making elaborate promises clearly intended to change the American outlook in the eyes of the world. The question that immediately comes to mind is how he can keep this up, the amount of boning up that he has to do on a daily basis to fulfil the different circumstances that he will meet as he goes from country to country, or makes speeches in his own country on a variety of subjects. In his case I believe that there are others behind him who are making his agenda, keeping him up to date, because I don’t believe in the short time that he has been in office he could have had the depth of knowledge, and the time in which to absorb all the groundwork that was necessary for him to conduct himself as he does. It will be interesting to see where he is in 12 to 18 months time

I don’t believe the promised change in the whole of our government system will materialise because it is too momentous a task, and at a time when our whole future is going to have to change on practically every level to accommodate the changes created by the credit crunch, there wouldn’t be enough days in the month, budget enough and the people to do it. However if they were ever to do so in the future I think all the parties should ensure that their proposed leader is a man or woman of integrity, strong and determined, and above all experienced in both politics and the world in general. It is not enough to have advisers that are the current commodity, because they inevitably, by their very nature and purpose, will lead.

Do we get what we deserve? At times of political upheaval, there is an old cliche that says the populace gets the government it deserves. Just for once I am not going to talk about the government, but the implications posed by the front page of my broadband. It has a panel of five or six photographs and comments, which are presented, whether you want it or not, mostly depicting celebrities in some guise or another. You have to search elsewhere if you want to find the important things in life’. At the same time, flashing advertisements from all parts of the screen distract your eyes. This seems a totally new approach, and I haven’t the technicality to be able to transform it to just a simple statement of the things that I think are important, such as the weather, worldwide news, domestic news, and perhaps a little humour.

The problem that I see is that we are getting what those who are responsible for our entertainment, our news level, and our general diet on the web and on the TV screen, deem to be most popular, and in consequence the level of our taste. It says more about us than it does about them. It wasn’t as if these celebrities are being portrayed as people to be looked up to. On the contrary every opportunity is taken to denigrate them, and a lot of them leave themselves open to that treatment, and seem to enjoy it, on the principle of any publicity is good publicity. I think it is time that we all decided that if we were going to elevate someone to the status of Celebrity, that person should do something more than just their job, be it a chef with a vocabulary of the gutter, some actress who has a propensity for presenting us a broad view of most of her chest, assuming that is her main attraction, or a notorious husband-and-wife team having a rather messy separation. It seems that quality is no more news-worthy, than the News itself.

This essay was brought about because I met a child of three who had a number of the skills of a five-year-old. It turned out that the child’s grandmother had also been gifted, and early in her school career had found herself in classes two years above her age. This process through giving her serious problems as a child, prompted her to give her views. In the main she discovered that the teaching staff ignored her elevation, and merely reported on her ability related to the rest of the class, with the result that her reports often had ‘could do better’ as a comment, which had the effect of making her feel that she should have done better, when in fact her efforts had been marvellous She also found that because she was ahead of herself, prior to the elevation, she was bored because she had already learned the work that was in the schedule ahead and what was being taught.

To quote her, I think it’s okay to dabble in a school subjects, like reading, maths etc, but through play, not in a formal setting. To me, socialisation and confidence building are the most valuable things a parent can give a child, whether the child is a genius or a dummy, and often the gifted child misses out on the fun things, in my case it was art, as it was deemed much more inferior to Latin. I wasn’t confident enough to argue than 10 years old. Gifted children will thrive on the healthy balanced home environment regardless of whether they are bored in school or not, as they will find ways of amusing themselves either at home or at school. School is a very different place now from when I was there. They play down the competition elements andthere are a lot more social skills taught.’

Today there is an acknowledgement by the government that schools should have at least one teacher competent to guide the gifted children through the learning process. I’m not aware whether this has been implemented across the board, but I suspect it hasn’t.

>Frrom my observation of the boy I felt that he had the facility even at three, of lateral thinking, which enabled him to ask himself questions and find answers, and so progress. The temptation by a parent to teach the child to read, count and possibly use the computer, would be almost irresistible, and it would take a very strong mind to offer the child alternative skills, such as jigsaw puzzles, construction toys of the simplest kind, or just reading books to him or her about aspects of life which are only touched on in the school curriculum, but are written in an interesting manner for children.

Youngsters, excellent at sports, who from an early age are sponsored by their parents, financially and by devoting hours to taking them to and from training, are an extended case, making the gifted child follow in the parents preordained path to success. In the case of sport, there is that mantra, ‘there is no glory in coming second’, and the hardship, the effort, and the loss of a normal life by the child, through a parent’s decision early in life, might indeed be a disaster. The ego of the parents has to be suppressed for the sake of the child.

In my case, and I am not suggesting that I was in any way gifted, the loss of two years education from I was six, by living in Africa, as I have said repeatedly, set me back factually and psychologically, and I did not become aware of my capabilities until I was in my late 20s. This is the converse to the above, and I suspect a condition among a high proportion of school leavers as a result of sociological problems.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from my friend in Holland . Previously I had said that I would like somebody to elucidate. And while I’m not sure that he has done that totally, he has certainly given me yet another slant on the whole sorry business. It is interesting that a quiet and charming, very conservative man, living in a very conservative country, can suddenly have this level revulsion.

This is part of what Jan wrote
It is amazing what is happening at this moment. All the money is simply evaporating, just like boiling water. It disappears but then it returns very slowly to condense in other places. I think that especially the small investors, who wanted to increase their profit a bit because the interest does not compensate for the amount of taxes they have to pay, will be the losers.

Who will be the great winners? One day the buying will exceed the selling, the rates will rise and the grabbing by the very wealthy will start. Money makes money. Also a number of Banks will pull off a big stroke of business, leaving pension funds and small investors with their losses.

In an interview on TV we were told that all the bonuses which were given to the presidents of Banks, companies and concerns in the USA in 2007, were equal to the amount of the 37000 Human help organisations, that are giving their assistance in Africa. That must be many billions.

I don’t know what will happen. For the first time in many years the price of houses is going down, and inflation is rising up to 5%. Why do so many banks become bankrupt? This could be the moment to hide earlier terrible losses or fraud? In time we will learn. We hear alarming messages about the Fortis Bank which I wrote to you about. This Bank is now nationalised.

My final comment
What I’ve found disgusting about this whole business is that once again it is the poor and the innocent who are being made to pay for their naiveté, when what we are really discussing is a form of theft, where those with no shares, very little income, will be taxed, even if, at the end of the day, they have any incomes to tax, to pay for this enormous bill that even the financiers can’t grasp properly. Our governments across the world have let us down, have kowtowed to wealth, instead of being critical of how it was achieved. What worries me is that the new cycle of buying and selling has already started.