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I apologise to my regular readers for not having posted anything the sometime. There are two reasons, the first is that I and Sophie have been ill on and off from a number of weeks, and over Christmas she was taken into hospital seriously ill, with all that implies for both of us. The second reason is that I believe that I have little to add to the chaos and doom and gloom that has spread across the country since the credit crunch.

I would like to post an edited version of my letter to my MP at Westminster, as averse to my MLA at Stormont, in Belfast. The letter is self-explanatory as to the reason why I feel is worth posting at this time.

The letter to my MP
At the height of the Troubles it was accepted as fact that damage to the environment, and any other ploy which would put a financial strain on the UK Treasury in order to persuade them to dump us, was IRA policy. Recent years have thrown up a number of cases of murders etc, which have cost millions of pounds to research, investigate and take to law, with little to show for them. The rights and wrongs of this policy by Stormont and Westminster are debatable, especially when the criminal acts were perpetrated by both sides of the divide, and the innocent victims have been totally ignored. What caused me to write this letter was a report on the news that either 9 million or 19 million had already been spent trying to discover how someone was murdered, and that the government is proposing to persist with this in the current climate with an estimated final total of 36 million. I am beginning to think the government both here and in Westminster is totally detached from reality. Who, I ask, is going to stop this incredible waste of money, presumably supporting lawyers in a standard the rest of us are losing daily.

Up until recently the public at large was cushioned by a buoyant economy, and hence while some of us were incensed at what was being done in our name, saw little point in complaint, or even the possibility of changing this sort of policy. But now we are in a different era, the government is forcing, not asking, people with savings to contribute materially to philosophies and policies that they, the contributors, have little faith in, especially when some of these proposals seem to be concurrently conflicting, and blatantly of a political rather than a social nature, and the banks who were responsible for this state are not living up to the requirements for which the money that they have been bailed out with was intended. The fact that the main parties are fighting the next election with every soundbite, instead of combining to find an amicable solution that is safe, intelligent and has a hope of success, as was the case in 1939/45, together with words like ‘running around like a chicken with its head cut off’ being banded across the dispatch box, provides little faith and assurance to the very people who are footing the bill.

On a personal note, the situation has changed so much politically that it would take a brave man to comment, when those who are doing the commenting tend to talk at cross purposes, and all we are getting is doom and gloom, which nobody wants to read.

I trust that this letter has not been too long. I have seen such incredible changes in my life, even a chicken with its head cut off running around our compound, in Africa, in 1929, at the behest of the gardener, who, was then called The Garden Boy, probably aged 40,

It seems to me that we are being subjected continuously, verbally, by presentations on TV and in the press, that there is such a diversity in the solution to our problems that only an election could solve them. To me this is rank nonsense, because it is universally accepted that we are living in a unique situation in which there has never been any precedence, and therefore an accepted solution. Equally, an election would disrupt the whole process of parliament for several weeks, just at the time when we need quiet, intelligent analysis, rather than rushed decisions, because those in charge are not only worried about the state of the nation, but of their own futures. An election could give a total change in management, or at the least, a Cabinet reshuffle, neither of which will improve the situation in any way. I strongly suspect that each of the parties is flying by the seat of its pants and is merely guessing at the best way out of our financial problem. This would appear to be confirmed by the fact that the liberal solution, as offered by Mr Clegg on television, is little more than a variation of that offered by the Labour Party. What is happening, and what I believe to be disgraceful, is that political brinkmanship, coupled with opportunism, is ruling, instead of a combined, reasoned, and agreed approach to a problem which is so far reaching and so vital to our future. There is bound to be an element of ‘suck it and see’, which demands that anything that is done, must be done reasonably, and with limitations, so that the way forward can be piloted.

To do virtually nothing, as implied by Mr Cameron’s speech, would seem to amount to sitting on your hands until you know which way the wind is blowing, by which time it might be too late. To paint with a broad brush could place us in a situation beyond which retraction, or change of direction would be difficult if not impossible. This is a time when politicians should bury the hatchet, and apply their joint energies to achieving not only a solution, but one of equable outcome. The Cabinet has enough on its plate without fighting a rearguard action from the opposition, who in turn is criticising but not advising in the spirit one would expect from those we have elected to look after our welfare to operate in a crisis, comparable with Dunkirk.

Am I the only person who thought that when I put my cash card into the slot and typed in the code number, within microseconds money had been transferred from my account to the payee’s? Perhaps not as quickly as that, but if I can send an e-mail and receive an answer within a matter of a few minutes, I would have thought that the whole of the banking system operated on-line. How wrong I was!

I write this as a warning to other folk who might be as simple minded as I am. A bank employee has told me officially that when you use your cash card in a bank, or anywhere else, it takes four days for that transaction to clear through the system. We had lost a credit card account and so arranged with the young lady in a bank to transfer my money from my account to the credit card account belonging to the bank. You can imagine my frustration when I discovered that I was being charged a late charge when in fact the money had been withdrawn from my account on the day intended, but that it was going to take four days to clear. To me this is absolutely crazy, the money was not leaving the banking system, if somebody had made a cock-up, it could easily have been rectified, and there was no possible chance of it going astray. So when they say that they give you a month to pay, they are being economical with the truth, and even if you pay them in the bank, presumably it has to be four days before the account is due, so why not say that instead of 30 days within which to pay, you only have 26.

It is no good pointing out that the credit crunch that we are in, which is losing us money in every way it would be possible, including our shares, was caused because the electronic system of share dealing was instantaneous. How is it that these folk were making instantaneous fortunes, and we simple folk with a small bank account are penalised because the banking system itself while being able to deal instantaneously is not prepared to deal with customers at the same speed?

I have noticed over the last seven or eight years that the number of people owning dogs has reduced, and that every year the size of the dogs seems to reduce also, presumably because there are no parks for the large ones to romp on, that the regulations concerning dogs on a lead have become more stringent and more enforced, and the little ones only need a short walk, have a lot less fur and cost less to feed. I wonder if the small dogs are as much fun, as highly manipulative, as intelligent as their big counterparts, like the Border Collies and the Golden Retrievers. My daughter has a very manipulative, charming and almost human Border Collie. Whether the dog will approve of being referred to as ‘almost human’ is a debatable point. Just for a bit of fun I wrote doggerel as if written by my daughter’s sheepdog, a bitch, would you believe called Charlie?

Doggerel From A Dog

Charlie’s View

I have some pals of the canine kind,
Who think the humans an awful bind
By the things they do and the things they say;
They leave me speechless, in dismay
Of ever understanding them.

Take my name just as a sample,
Not for a bloke! But an armful
Of furry friendship, love and joy?
Absurd, an idiotic ploy.
There is no understanding

O f course we know we’ve got them taped
Our silly grin they think we’ve aped
>From them, when we’re really focused
On food, a walk, not hocus-pocus.
How can they be so stupid?

Doesn’t do a bit of harm
To rub your ear along their arm.
They think it’s love, not just an itch.
The jokes on them and ain’t it rich?
I suppose they are born stupid.

Their baby talk I cannot stand,
I’m 90 years old in doggy land
Treating me as if only born
To all that awful verbal corn,
I’ll be stupid next!

Still, it’s not a life to be changed
One meal a day, and all arranged
The way I like it, I could do worse
Perhaps by complaining in verse.
Maybe it’s me that is stupid!

The old saying, ‘big fleas have little fleas… ad infinitum’, is virtually saying there is no equality in nature. Similarly, the old adage that ‘with socialism all are equal, but some are more equal than others’, gives confirmation that in relationships there is no such thing as equality. I’m not writing about inequality per se, as it is inevitable, but rather the absurd levels to which inequality has risen inside the last decade. I have a hang-up about how much money is enough for anyone person or any one family. Those who have read this blog will be aware that I have been penniless for long periods, and comfortable for the whole of my life, because friends and relatives have helped out in the bad times. I can understand people wishing to better their lives, their situations and their outlooks, but to earn in a year and expect to earn every year, what amounts to the budget of a small African country, to me is absurd, even accepting that 40% of it will go in taxes. It would seem that salaries have become a status symbol, when bank directors can vote themselves vast sums for doing their job, and the only reason they are looking for higher salaries is to show the other bank directors that they are better than the others are and are a more desirable commodity. There is no way they will ever be able to spend that level of cash, and this philosophy, if one can call it that, rather than display, has seeped insidiously into the entertainment industry in all compartments, from football, to film stars, film directors, television presenters and a host of other fields. The people who really matter to the man in the street, who really look after his welfare, are based in the health and the services that he needs, and will never be in that bracket of remuneration.

The idiocy of this development, which now seems so widespread, and to encompass so many aspects, is inevitably draining the resources of the individuals whom these people with their large salaries are serving. All of them are being paid from revenues obtained by selling services of the banks, the radio and TV companies, football clubs, cinemas, theatres, the list is endless. So many of the individuals who are supplying the wherewithal to feed this financial frenzy, are at the bottom of the financial scale.

In thinking about our problems today, I started looking back over the centuries at the horrendous mistakes that have been made, not only by this country but by the whole of Western Europe since the Middle Ages. The worst of them all I believe was the slave trade. This, like most of the other mistakes, was to do with greed. In retrospect I am convinced that the building of national empires, the religious indoctrination of the indigenous populations, and the boundless commercial greed at the same time, brought us to where we are today – international chaos.

It was the exhortations concerning global warming that we are now receiving, which started the thought process. For the first time I realised that those who, in the past, had charge of our national assets, such as coal and iron, were hell-bent on selling it abroad for their own aggrandisement, enabling them to build monumental houses on vast estates. In fact they were giving away the heritage of those assets for future generations. One example is that we’re now arriving at the situation where the quality of the coal being mined, and sold to households, is so inferior it is a hazard to life as a result of the inclusion of slate.

The aspect I find most serious is that we are still handing over to foreigners control of aspects of our lives that are vital to us, for example, our labour-force is providing the muscle and the local supervision of some of our utilities, while the ownership of those utilities and the profit base is abroad. Once upon a time we could rely upon our banks being British owned and British run, that is no longer the case. It’s hard to find a British manufactured car on our roads, and the majority of our electronic equipment is sourced abroad. What I think the government fails to understand is that apprenticeship, in its broadest sense, as a matter of starting at the bottom and fighting your way up the ladder, is the only route to a high quality workmanship, and it can only be achieved in a manufacturing environment. The quality of the majority of tradesmen that we have today cannot compare with those who were earning a pittance in the 20s and 30s. This is not their fault, it is the responsibility of the government and industry, who are not prepared to finance the old apprenticeship system. It is also to some extent the fault of the nation as a whole, who have this conception that a university degree is the very least that their children should achieve, and that working with their hands is beneath them. The fact that 20% fail to finish the course and thousands are finding a job of their choice is unavailable, doesn’t appear to come into the equation. It seems that our finances are now based more on intellectual properties, financial dealing than manufacture and export, where this will ultimately lead I have no idea, and will not be here to find out – once again I am wringing my hands at the future that I see for our young people.