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
A Boy’s Introduction To Killing
Home from school at midday in Livingstone, most likely with no homework, I had a long afternoon to put in. On several occasions a few friends and I would go outside the limits placed by our parents, out through the tall grasses of the Veldt, along the wide deep drainage ditches waiting in their dusty… Continue reading A Boy’s Introduction To Killing
Leydene On The First Occasion
From the IOM we were sent to Petersfield, in Hampshire, to the Naval Signal school called Leydene. We were only to be in Leydene for about ten days and in that time we had to learn the workings of some ten transmitters and receivers together with all the ancillary equipment, so it is unsurprising that… Continue reading Leydene On The First Occasion
Smoke Tests
Smoke Test No 1. Today inspection and testing has become remote, highly technical, and mostly computer driven. In my Dark Ages every thing was hands on, mucky and tediously prolonged. Pipes are now checked with robots and cameras. I have always found it strange that smoke really does issue from a sewer up through the… Continue reading Smoke Tests
A Minor Diversion and the TOPO
During the 50’s we owned a series of cars but the most idiosyncratic was, without doubt, the Morris Minor 1000. Sitting with the driving seat fully back I found my knees were somewhere near my chin, so the matter of using the clutch caused my knee to make the little signal arm come out and… Continue reading A Minor Diversion and the TOPO