Missing in Action.

Hello. I haven't been around much lately. Here's why, written mainly for my benefit to look back on later, but for your reading as well should you wish.

After a long fight we finally lost the flat. Having spent 5 days packing with only 8 hours sleep during those days we are now in a new flat which Linda hates with a vengence.

During those days and up to and including today I have seen little of Marj which is putting stress on that relationship.

I am extremely depressed. Probably even more so than when I first started blogging. It was my mates breakdown that caused that depression, not the blogging!

I can no longer look after Linda single handedly and will see my doctor to get some help though Linda is fighting tooth and nail against that idea. She also wants to move as fast as possible.

I need to have a quiet time but don't see how I can get it. There are days when Linda talked of suicide and I would have helped her. There are days when I have thought about it but I couldn't do that to my mum. I worry if the strain keeps building that I might find a way to "help" Linda commit suicide. I am hopeful of seeing my own doctor tomorrow and hope she can be of some help. though in reality I don't know what she can do. Mental Health care in West London is very poor.

I feel trapped, mainly by my emotions. The stark truth is there will probably have to be a choice.

1) Leave Linda and be with Marj so I can live a normal life but find some way to deal with the tremendous guilt I will feel as she has no family of friends to support her.

2) Lose Marj and stay with Linda. I will be left getting worse myself to the point where I probably will take some conclusive action to stop the emotional pain.

3) Try to juggle both as I have for the last two years but with the move that has become unrealistic and was probably so long term anyway.

If someone has a magic wand could they lend it to me please.

Talent, What Talent?

So, todays excuse of why Lewis Hamilton is winning is because the new tyres help him!

Yes, Mark Webber, the well known well down the field Australian Formula 1 driver has revealed how everyone but Lewis has been neld back because the make of tyre has changed. Well, isn't it lucky that Lewis Hamilton had never driven a formula 1 car before. He must have just got in on the first day of racing this year and with his complete lack of skill, training and practice has been swept to the top of the drivers championship, breaking various records on the way, by the new tyres.

That's of course when McLaren aren't giving him a much bigger hand than they give Alonso. According to Alonso.

From Lewis's point of view though this must be good news. If the opposition are scraping the barrel to explain his runaway success this year they must be worried.

Twenty Twenty Vision

I got somewhat confused when lietening to a radio report this morning.

It went like this;

"The EWCB have extended Allan Donalds contract to coach Englands fast bowlers until the 2020 World Cup....."

Blimey, I though, that's some extention. It continued,

"in September"

Ah, that would be the Twenty20 World Cup then.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

We have a by-election coming up as our local MP has shuffled off to the great debating chamber in the sky. We are starting to get election literature through. Today, the Liberals show a previous election result that shows them as the only credible alternative to Labout and the Tories have a graphic which shows a previous result where they are the only serious opposition.

Sort it out guys. No-ones going to vote for parties who massage the message. That's why we have Labour.

Some Young Beat Combo

I seem to be particularly obsessed with listening to Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. I must find out whether the rest of their stuff is as good as that.

Shutter Shuttle

I don't often get to travel very far with work. Most of my customers are within an hours drive, which in London means about 10 miles! But I've had two enquiries in the last 48 hours, one in Cardiff and the other in Edinburgh.

I'll probably drive to Cardiff but it's up in the air for the Edinburgh trip.

Gosh, International stardom!

Worth more dead then alive?

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Pub Review

Yesterday I had a day in Brighton and decided to come back via some back roads. Needing refreshment we stopped at The Fox, in Small Dole near Henfield. It looks like it's been updated recently and has "kerbside appeal" as estate agents like to put it.

As I was driving it was soft drinks only, but they have a good supply. But it is the food which is to recommend it.

There is nothing out of the ordinary on the menu other perhaps than Gammon with Cheese and Mango so expect only standard pub fare. The delight comes in the size of the portions. I had gammon with egg and pineapple and it was about twice the size you normally get served. Marj had two pork loin steaks with new potatoes and 43 vegetables and was tender and another hearty portion. For dessert I couldn't miss my old favourite, Chocolate Fudge Cake with ice cream. Again, it was a double size to miost places with a thick layer of melting chocolate. Could have done with more ice cream but that was more to do with the size of the cake than a shortage of ice cream. Marj had the days special which was summer fruit pudding with cream.

Prices? The main courses cost us £6.95 each! A bargain. Puddings were £3.95 so pretty standard pricing but good value against portion size.

Will definitely be eating there again when I'm in the area.

Guily M'Lud

The Proceedings of The Old Bailey 1674-1834 are available online.

Rather a lot of people with my family surname manage to make an appearance!

Hypocrisy Lives

It is impossible to avoid stroies of Big Brother even if you don't watch it. Therefore I know that Emily? was kicked out by the powers that be for using the "N" word. On monday evening as part of the Three Minute Wonder series there was a film shown of a coloured person which was littered throughout with the "N" word. Channel 4 neither chose to blank our the word and obviously decided that this should be an included film of the series.

So as far as channel 4 are concerned white people cannot use the word nigger but black people can. Emily was using it, I gather, in a context that young people would and not in a nasty agressive way. The coloured gut in the film was talking about how he taunted other black guys.

If I was Emily I would consider taking Channel 4 to court as they have effectively discriminated against her and stopped the chance of her winning whatever financial prize there is.

My answer as always is to be a litigious Kennamatic.

Blackpool 25

My trip to Blackpool later this year is booked. I haven't been for a couple of years but couldn't miss this one as my mate JC, whom I go with, is celebrating his 25th annual visit.

Tremendous staying power. And quite a lot of beer money too.

Snobbishness

How do you decide whether you are a snob or not? Certainly nobody wishes to be thought one but can you ever tell whether you are.

Last weekend we went to a birthday party on Saturday for the mother of someone we know but we had not previously met the rest of them. They are workling class, would probably be described these days as chavs, swore every other word and we had few points of reference to hold conversations. I got on well with the lads that were there because we played pool and it gave us some commonality. I realised after the event, what I didn't like was the amount of swearing from the women. Now this was the first time we'd met, there was no shortage of alcohol. they did make us welcome.

On sunday we had lunch at a vicarage with a group of people who I don't know well, or in some cases not at all, but we talked throughout lunch as we had shared interests and were, I suppose of the same social grouping as ourselves.

Was I looking down on the Saturday group as they were "common, vulgar people" or just not in a situation that I could relate to.

If I was snobbish I surely wouldn't have gone into business with Kev who is "council house" through and through. I have also been in a similar situation the other way where I have been with people I felt uncomfortable with, not I suspect because they were richer than me, but because their lifestyle was dramatically different and again we had few points of commonality between us.

It seems only to come out in social situations as I have had customers from both ends of the social scale and I have never treated nor thought of my customers as anything differently to each other.

So, were my reactions snobbishness or was there just too much of a social divide and shared experience for me to feel emotionally part of their group?

Things move on.

I am driving again, as of 00.01a.m. this morning my insurance was in place. As of yet I haven't been caught by a speed camera or stopped by the police.

Also, I sold my flat yesterday. This will mark me leaving Linda, though still in daily contact, and living with Marj, albeit temporarily until I get my own flat and then we'll flit between the two.

Next on the list will probably be "getting a proper job"!

The root of the problem.

Reading an interview given by Frank Lampard about the upcoming match in Estonia he says,

"Do we need to win? Who knows. Should we try to win, well, we've got to start putting a run of wins together at some point so we might as well start now."

Well that's very gracious of him and the rest of the team. But that shows exactly the way they think. They obviously decide they should try to win when it becomes necessary. Surely if you are going to play for your country you need to have an attitude that you are going to win or at least try your damned hardest to make sure you do, every match you play, regardless of the opposition.

England play with the three lions on their chest. Lions would not be Kings of the Jungle if they went around with the attitude that they needed to be frightening every now and then but they'd save themselvers until necessary. That wasn't the attitude that won the cup in 1966 and that attitude will make certain we will never win it again.

Crouch is expected to be recalled and one of his advantages is that just because he is playing against a less talented team and might be winning, you still have to keep going and put more goals past them.

According to our local bookies Englamnd are listed at 1/9 to win. If I could get 9/1 on Estonia to win it might be worth a little punt.

MIssing You Already

The week after the opera is finished is always a flat time. I didn't sing for a good 30 years and now if I aren't singing every week I miss it. The shower is ringing with my dulcet tones at every opportunity!

Education, education, education.

I know it's 33 years since I left school and I think probably the only grammar schools left are fee paying but I still do not understand what is wrong in principal with them.

When I was 11 I took my 11 plus exam. Everyone in the borough did. Depending on how well you did you either went to a grammar school or a secondary modern school. Within those two classifications were higher or lower levels school.

By pure chance, I suspect, I ended up at Ealing Grammar and other friends at Walpole Grammar, the next tier down supposedly. We didn't have to pay. It was taken purely on your academic standings. We had pupils from all social classes. Those who weren't particularly good academically went to the secondary moderns where, apart from a good grounding in basic education they did more practical subjects than we did. The idea was that they would become "manual workers". In london this would have been engineers and the trades. The grammar school pupils were meant to go on to university, which I never made, and the secondary modern kids went on to technical college or apprenticeships.

Now of course it is the governments wish that everyone goes to university. So in London you can't get an electrician, plumber or builder for love nor money. That's not true, you can get them for money. Damn large amounts of it and after a long wait. This is why the Eastern Europe immigrant population is flooding in to fill the jobs which no-one here is being trained for.

Why can people not accept that some people are not going to be academically brilliant and it is better to give them a trade they will make money and a career of than making them do something that they are not suited for.

I have the manual dexterity of a retarded wombat but in retrospect, looking back at my life, maybe I would have been better learning how to use my hands and getting a trade than trying to get somewhere academically. On the other hand, I had the intelligence but inate laziness will always overcome that.

Nabucco

Tonight Matthew I am going to be....

A Hebrew Slave, A Babylonian Soldier, A Levite, An Assyrian Courtier and some of those more than once.

Yes, I'm in opera mode again. Fun but tiring.

Manners Maketh Man

A local school, independent I think though I'm not certain, are in trouble with the local education authorities for "irregular" teaching practices.

In the last 25 years I have only been called sir by two school-aged boys and had a door opened for me to pass through before them. Both boys came from that school.

I suspect that it is not in the present educational remit for manners to be allowed, let alone taught. If they are guilty of turning out respectful, well-educated (as their results appear to suggest), pupils then more power to them however they are doing it.

Meanwhile, Marj yesterday had to deal with the class from hell, as she does every Thursday afternoon. Her deputy head came and told her she wasn't teaching properly despite the fact that at the begginging of the year she asked for help as she was struggling with them and every other teacher who has taken them has the same problem.
It is the last few weeks of term for year 6 at that school and they know it. So they don't do what they are told, not that they ever really did. And there's nothing Marj can do. The worst punishment is to lose their playtime but they don't care and of course the teacher also loses thiers whilst they have to look after them. No more standing in the corner with your hands on your head these days! Just asking whether they think they have made "a good choice" with their behaviour. So this lot will probably fail their SATS, the schools statistics will be poor, the teachers will all be in trouble, and the government will no doubt come up with another initiative as to how to make life better for the kids instead of how to make life better for the teachers. No wonder so many leave the profession.

Still Here

Haven't felt much like blogging lately although most days I'm flicking round other peoples sites.

Just had the most disastrous installation ever which I could have done without. Plenty of other negatives too but I can't be bothered with them.

On the plus side I am now entitled to drive once again having served my 12 month ban. Should have the insurance set up tomorrow and then I'm properly mobile again, much to my relief and also to Marj's who is looking forward to being chauffered at every opportunity.

Political Satire still lives.

I received this by email today. Just in case you haven't seen it yet.

A young man named Gordon bought a donkey from an old farmer for £100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day, but when the farmer drove up he said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news... the donkey is on my truck, but unfortunately he's dead.

Gordon replied, "Well then, just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "I can't do that, because I've spent it already.

Gordon said, "OK then, well just unload the donkey anyway.

The farmer asked, "What are you going to do with him?" Gordon answered, "I'm going to raffle him off."

To which the farmer exclaimed, "Surely you can't raffle off a dead donkey!"

But Gordon, with a wicked smile on his face said, "Of course I can, you watch me. I just won't bother to tell anybody that he's dead."

A month later the farmer met up with Gordon and asked, "What happened with that
dead donkey?"

Gordon said, "I raffled him off, sold 500 tickets at two pounds a piece, and made a huge, fat profit!!"

Totally amazed, the farmer asked, "Didn't anyone complain that you had stolen their money because you lied about the donkey being dead?"

To which Gordon replied, "The only guy who found out about the donkey being
dead was the raffle winner when he came to claim his prize. So I gave him
his £2 raffle ticket money back plus an extra £200, which as you know is double the going rate for a donkey, so he thought I was great guy!!

Gordon grew up and eventually became the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and no matter how many times he lied, or how much money he stole from the British voters, as long as he gave them back some of the stolen money, most of them, unfortunately, still thought he was a great guy.

The moral of this story is that, if you think Gordon is about to play fair and do something for the everyday people of the country for once in his miserable, lying life, think again my friend, because you'll be better off flogging a dead donkey!