The wisdom of the ancients

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People are always puzzling about things. Like the pyramids. How did they build them? Do they have some links to aliens. And, coming closer to home, the mystery of Stonehenge. Who built it? Why? What is its religious significance?
And before you know it you’ve got a whole industry built around a couple of stone circles.

Well, there’s no mystery. I’ll tell you who built it: a bunch of lads from Amesbury. Why? Because they had nothing else to do: they had no tellies in them days, no iPods, mobile phones, no books, even.

I can imagine a conversation one Friday night, a long, long time ago.

What you doing this weekend, then?
Nothing, as usual. There’s bugger all to do in Amesbury now they’ve demolished the community centre.
Why don’t you come out with me and our Alan, and a few of his mates – we’re going to build a stone circle.
A stone circle? What for?
Well, exercise for one thing. And it gets us out in the fresh air.
No thanks.
There’ll be some maidens coming. Possibly virgins.
What time you startin’?
Depends on our Alan’s leg. It’s been playing up lately – all this fog and damp.
Well if he’s got a bad leg, what’s he want humping bleedin’ great stones around?
He has a vision.
Come to think about it, where are you going to get the stones from?
The old community centre of course.
The council won’t stand for it – you’ll need planning permission.
Ah, our Alan’s sorted all that out. The council’s only too glad to get someone to clear the site, and it fits in with their new initiative: getting the yobs off the streets.
Well, I might come, but no heavy lifting, mind. You know I done my back in with that plough-girl from over Emsley way.

Friday night – one year later.

Comin’ up Stonehenge tomorrow, then?
Another booze up? Nah – the wife won’t let me. And besides, haven’t the council put the block on all that after hours drinking?
Ah, but our Alan’s come up with a brilliant idea. He’s startin’ a new religion?
A new religion?
Yeah, you can get away with murder (literally) if you say it is the name of religion.
So what’s this new religion involve then?
Well, we all meet up at the circle, around closing time, with a few crates.
And then what?
Our god demands that we all take our clothes off (when we’ve finished the beer of course) and dance naked around the circle.
What, the virgins an’ all?
Well, obviously the virgins. They’re an important part in our worship – we have to sacrifice them.
What kill them?
Nah – that was in the bad old days. It’s like… more like their virginity that gets sacrificed.
You’ll never get away with it.
We will. It’s a religion, innit.
And where you gonna get all your virgins from? There’s precious few of them left in Amesbury.
Our Alan’s put flyers out – all over the county.
You’ll be lucky!
Anyway, when we say virgins – we’re prepared to be a bit flexible.
I should think you’ll have to be. Some of them I’ve seen your Alan out with, have been round the block a few times – or should I say circle.
You may mock. We have our faith.
And have you got a name for this religion, then?
We’re going to call ourselves the ‘Fluids’
The council will twig it – from the name – you’re just a load of drunkards.
Ok, so we may have to change the name, slightly.
It’ll never catch on.
You watch. Our Alan says that in centuries to come, tourists will flock to Stonehenge, especially at the solstice (whatever that is) and blokes will write books, full of bullshit about this being a sacred site an’ all that.
In your dreams.


I’m a bit glum tonight. And I’ve got pains in my neck and shoulder. On top of that it’s freezing cold. I hate the cold weather. It’s the only thing that stopped me becoming a lumberjack.
Anyway, I called at the pub on the way back. The Eight Towers – it’s named after a nearby power station that has eight cooling towers. Tonight I had a baked potato with cheese and bacon, plus a couple of pints of lager.
I know how to live

Taking the biscuit

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I don’t really like Hobnobs. Gwen thinks I do. But I prefer Fox’s Butter Crunch. I’m sure I’ve told her. But she goes on buying Hobnobs. I like to have a biscuit – sometimes two – with a cup of tea. I don’t have sugar in my tea – or milk. But I do like a biscuit.
Anyway, I went for my flu jab this morning, and on the way back I bought a packet of Butter Crunch. I also bought myself a packet of Ryvita and two cans of soup

I’m watching my weight. I’m not obese, but I am heavier that I would like to be. I think I need to take some exercise. Apart from anything else I think it would help my glumness (I refuse to use the word ‘depression’). You know, get the old endorphins going. It comes and goes. Like Winston Churchill’s ‘Black Dog’. He would come downstairs in the morning and say to his wife “Black Dog’s here again.”
Of course Winston had a war to take his mind off his depression. I don’t have anything like that. Do you know that the suicide rate drops dramatically in times of war? Of course I am not advocating war – but it makes you think.

Oh, something that cheered me up this morning: a letter from Anastasia. They forwarded it on from Wynorin. Of course it had been steamed open, but at least Norah had the decency to forward it to me.

I am reproducing here – unabridged. I am not included her address because I don’t want any of you perverts out there stalking her

My Dearest Georgie

Hoping this letter finds you as I send your house WYNORIN where we spend such happiness times until spoiled by that bitch – you know who.

Of course you may be domiciled (note big word) in other parts but should not be difficulty for postal services finding you, such is the smallness of your little cramped island.

Things not going too well for your little Anna. This credit crunching with the banking loans not happening have hit hard our Swedish Porn Industry. (Always is essential services suffering in times such as these). Anyway, Anna has been reduced in her circumstances – to working in sweat shop. You have such thing in England? Is little shop selling sweats and chocoletz plus Coke – which is not stuff for sniffing up nose, but American fizzy drink. This also is getting up nose but not having same effect (Little Swedish joke)

Busy times is when little kiddiwinkles coming home from school and buying the MARS BAR and other such shit what is bad for their bodies. And also little buggers looking at Anna’s bottom as she bend down for liquorice torpedo.

Lady what owns shop has dead husband. So is lonely. Sometimes when we shut shop she invite me to flat upstairs for glass of gin, and discuss economic crisis – and other activities.

Anna miss you terrible. How about slipping over on Stenna ferryboat and we make hay while moon shines? I have not had sexual proclivities filled for long time – well, not by male person.

Hoping letter finding you well, as is leaving me. (Little trouble now has cleared up. Thanks I am thinking to the anti-bioptics. Was getting nowhere with live yoghurt although I eat many tubs of this shit.

Thinking of you always as I dish out gob-stoppers.

Your little playmate

Anna


I miss her. I would go over there like a shot, but it is the money – or lack of it! You may ask, what about the money from the house? Well, I was stitched up good and proper by old Sponce; I didn’t get anywhere near its true market value (even allowing for the downturn in the housing market.) And by the time the lesbian had taken her cut, and I had paid legal fees and a few other bills, I had hardly anything left. Which is why I am living in this Bed and Breakfast establishment – subsisting on Gwen’s Hobnobs.

BUT I HAVE A PLAN

Bravely struggling on

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Yesterday, Gwen made me a trifle. It was a trifle unexpected.

I think she did it because she felt sorry for me: I have had a stinking cold for the past week and have been quite depressed, what with one thing and another.

And I had been to the hospital to collect my hearing aid. (Yes, I know: what a sad state of affairs, that one so young should require artificial aids to living. I’m not complaining though; Gwen’s brother has just been fitted with… no, I can’t – it is just too awful.)

As I approached the main entrance, my spirits were briefly lifted as a ray of sunlight broke through a cloud, and glanced off the corrugated iron roof of the consultants’ bike-shed.

The Audiology department is at the end of a long corridor. On the way I passed the various clinics: Orthopaedic, GUM, Dental, Dermatology, Gynaecology, Oncology (and various other sinister sounding ‘…ologies). On past Paediatrics, Podiatry (that’s a posh name for chiropody, isn’t it?)
I never knew it was possible to have so many things wrong with you.
And in the open waiting areas (all seats taken), anxious faces, staring straight ahead or at the floor. No one talking.

People shuffled, hobbled, limped, crutched, wheel-chaired their way past me, many bent and twisted grotesquely. Faces floated by: pale faces, purple faces, scarred and bruised faces, bandaged faces. Faces balanced on top of fearsome neck braces, like an egg in an eggcup. And I thought: we go and build this lovely new hospital, and in no time at all it’s full of sick people.
Does this mean that if you really want to improve the nation’s health you should build fewer hospitals? But seriously folks, I am a real champion of the National Health Service. Perhaps if Mr Obama gets elected you may get one in America

Anyway, if you must have something wrong with you, try and make it in the region of the ‘earoles: the clinic is much smaller, and they have some very pretty young ladies who treat you so nicely.

My hearing aid has cured my paranoia: now I can actually hear people talking about me. No, really it is brilliant. It is like rejoining the world, with the advantage that you can switch of the aid - and therefore the world – when things get too much.

And another strange thing is that I seem to be able to see people more clearly when I am wearing it – no, I really do. Perhaps it’s an illusion but people’s faces seem sharper, more vivid, a bit like those new High Definition tellies – though I haven’t got one myself.

Oh, and this morning Gwen caught me talking to the animals. They’re not real animals, they’re stuffed. There are two bears and two dogs. They really belong to the grandchildren but they have grown too old now to play with them. They just sit there in the bedroom – the animals not the children – and I sort of feel sorry for them. They look so lonely. So I often have a quick word as I am passing.
Gwen said to me “What are you doing?”
“I’m talking to the animals” I replied.
“Well they won’t answer you back.”
“You never know.” I retorted, “One of these mornings… they just might.”
She just looked at me, and left the room.

(Oh and by the way, RJ - I tried that vinegar stuff you recommended. It's horrible. I ate a packet of strong mints and still couldn't get rid of the taste.)

A pilchard is a grown-up sardine

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I woke up this morning feeling like shit. But now, I own a bank – two, actually. Alistair and Gordon bought them for me. And it isn’t even my birthday.
Fancy me, a merchant banker!

Nice to get a comment from Matilde Bonaparte. It’s a bit like that tree falling in a forest: if there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, how do I know if my writing makes a sound unless someone hears it, and tells me.

I haven’t heard from that fellow Adams, although I follow his blog (I still dial www.sparrowchat.blogspot.com) with interest. I guess he is too busy campaigning on behalf of John McCain. Personally I don’t think it matters who gets in – I doubt either of them could measure up to Mr Bush.

I accessed Matilde’s blog: www.thebipolarexpress.blogspot.com and read her post where she talks about the word ‘cunt’. A friend of mine once told me that the test of a really good dictionary is if it gives the origin of that wonderful Anglo-Saxon word as a sheath for a shepherd’s knife.
Well, I have not yet found one that gives this definition – and when I asked a shepherd he told me to fuck off.

I haven’t been well this past week but I am feeling a bit better now, although the weather doesn’t help: rainy, gloomy, miserable – enough to depress anyone – especially someone with a stinking cold.

Recently I sought help from the medical profession, in a couple of areas - one of which I will make the subject of a separate post. I have suffered for some time from the itchy legs; there is no rash, no dry skin, nothing visible that one might think would warrant the attention of a dermatologist. It just comes and goes, for no apparent reason.
I saw my doctor some time ago and he said he thought it could be ‘nerves’. But the doctor I saw last week, after having a good look, said that the itching was caused by very close veins. Well that's what it sounded like. When I realised he meant varicose veins I was astonished. 'What, you mean I have varicose veins?' I said.
'Oh yes' he replied.

Anyway he prescribed some capsules called PAROVEN, which apparently help stop blood leaking into the tissues from faulty one-way valves in the veins. They seem quite successful but I have stopped taking them for the moment; I want to find out exactly how they do this.
Enough for now. It is my lunchtime, and I must rise from where I lie supine in this chair, and open a tin of pilchards.
You’re never alone with a pilchard.

The American Economic Crisis

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A possible solution


$700bn sounds a lot, but it goes nowhere these days. I suggest George Bush appeals to the Third World for help. After all, look at the money America has poured into these countries over the years. Well, it’s pay-back time – that’s what I say. And food parcels are not enough.

Why not organise a mail-shot to the likes of Ethiopia, Rwanda and all those other foreign places that have benefited from American aid. OK, so America does not need a fresh-water supply – or a regime change (perhaps that’s not a good example), but what it does need is money.

A mail-shot then, on the lines of the stuff that drops regularly through my letterbox. Something like this:

Photograph of an emaciated banker –

(Obviously you would have to use some unemployed actor, but there must be plenty of those about).

“Just $50000 would renew this man’s golf-club subscription AND pay his Filipino au pair’s wages for the next 5 years… etc etc”… you get the idea.

Then you would have the usual tear-off strip on the bottom –

“My donation is $10000……. $5000…… or $………

Please return in the enclosed envelope. A stamp is not necessary but it would help us to keep costs down.”

I think this is a brilliant idea and I wonder why George has not thought of it.

It's me, George

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BOO! I'm back folks - long time no blog.

Anyway, I have gotten over being rejected as John’s running mate, in favour of the Alaskan tart.

I’m not bitter, but what’s she all about?

Calls herself a fundamentalist – and her seventeen year old daughter is up the duff, and not even married. Still, give the old bat her due, she did campaign against sex education in Alaskan schools, so I suppose you could say she is sticking to her principles.

But me – now I AM a fundamentalist: I do not believe in sex before marriage – and I am not too sure about after.

I think the result is anybody’s guess. These geezers are millionaires, (In John’s case, though, you wouldn’t think there was so much money in oven-chips, would you?), so from a Calvinist perspective you could say that both of them have (in the immortal words of Bob Dylan) ‘God on their side’.

Incidentally, I thought I heard one of the participants in this circus (I think it was Alaskan Alice) say that the Iraq war was ‘God’s mission’
But I couldn’t have got that right – could I?


I have recovered from my recent attack of piles – more on that story later.

Watching the games

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Not writing about myself has given me time to watch television. It appears the Olympic Games have started. Did you see the opening ceremony?
All those fireworks! Just think of the money that must have cost. But where was the bonfire? And the ‘Guy’? Talk about spoiling the ship for a ha’porth o’ tar.

Of course I understand why all the ‘world leaders’ had to be there: every last one of them a former athlete of international standard. And at the party afterwards, Vladimir Putin gave a spirited rendition of that old jazz classic Georgia on my mind.

I’m so glad the security people managed to prevent any unpleasantness from those malcontents who threatened to disrupt the games. Just because some people are starving, being oppressed, imprisoned, blown up, or whatever – that doesn’t mean you can’t have an athletics meeting, does it?

Oh, I have just heard Doris Day assert that they’ve “…got more life in Deadwood City than the whole of Illinois”. Can that really be true, Mr Adams?

above the yardarm

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I said I wasn't going to write any more but have just seen RJ's comment.

I was of course, referring to the submarine service, where the tradition is reversed.

A brief glance at "When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse There's the Devil to Pay" does confirm that the expression refers to the officers' custom aboard ORDINARY SHIPS sailing in the north Atlanticto have a sort of 'happy hour' when the sun rose above the upper yards, around 11 a.m. Since this coincided with the forenoon 'stand easy,' officers would take advantage of the break to go below for their first tot of spirits for the day.

But, as I say, I was talking about submarines.

Untitled

I suddenly thought, this morning, how self indulgent to be forever writing about yourself: what you are doing, what you think, what you feel.

So I'll shut up.

Seriously, though...

I don’t think I am taken seriously.

I said as much to Gwen. ‘I don’t think I am taken seriously.’ I said.
‘I’d just like to be taken – seriously, frivolously, casually…whatever’ she replied.
‘See what I mean?’ I cried, frustratedly.

I think that one of the reasons I don’t get many comments is that there is no political content on this blog. When I look at other people’s blogs (which I do, Mr Adams!), I find that they deal with serious issues. Issues that affect us all.

It is not that I do not ponder these issues myself. In fact I have, in the seventies and eighties, written several political pamphlets. (Sometimes being referred to as ‘the 20th century John Paine’.) Perhaps my best known is: What happened to Kier Hardie’s cap? In which I address the question: why, a century after the birth of the Labour Party, wealth and power in Great Britain is still in the hands of the same elite?

The psychology of politics was a brief synopsis of my thesis that political affiliation – just like religious ‘persuasion’ – comes down to what I call ‘psychological type’.

The American Republican Party, I would suggest, is made up of a different psychological type to the Democratic Party. Yes, of course there is some overlap, just as in our Conservative and Labour Parties. (Although, being British, and masters of the art of compromise, we have a third party: the Liberal Democrats, who are a bit of both – and yet, neither)

In religion, you have the Roman Catholics and the Protestants (each with their left and right wings), and in between, a whole spread of … well… ‘in betweens’.

It would be nice to think that we choose our religion, after a careful appraisal and analysis of what is on offer – but of course we don’t. It is a fact that most of us follow the religion of one or both parents, in the same way that the majority will vote for the same party of our father (or mother). There are exceptions – which only prove the rule.

Sociologists explain this as having to do with some sense of class or family solidarity; I think they are missing the point. Yes it does have something to do with family but it is genetic rather then any indoctrination (by family or community).

Sometimes a son or daughter will take a diametrically opposed view to parents in the matter of politics or religion. This is often seen as ‘rebellion’ against parental pressure, or having ‘seen the light’. In my view it is because they have inherited a slightly different mix of genes, leading to a different personality. Yes, I know that ‘nurture’ is important but not nearly as much as we would like to think.

Arguing religion or politics rarely converts anyone. You are not just challenging a set of beliefs, upon which a person may have built their life; you are threatening their sense of self. And that is why they may be prepared to kill: to preserve their self, rather than their beliefs.

The Buddhists say two things should be avoided at all costs: fear and hope.

Fear is at the base of all conflict, personal or global. Fear that your next- door neighbour might steal two inches of your garden when he erects that new fence. Fear that some country that you have barely heard of, let alone know where it is, intends to wipe you off the face of the earth.
Politicians understand fear, and they use it: ‘Weapons of mass destruction’ is only a rather crude, clumsy example; it is the subtler, insidious fears of which we need constantly to be aware.

Anyway, if you want to know more, read my pamphlet. It’s almost time for my tea (I know this is a B&B but I get special privileges). Gwen is making ‘toad in the hole’ – with real toads! Only joking; it’s one of our quaint English dishes, involving sausages.
Incidentally, in parts of the West Country you may find some folk who still follow this traditional meal with the medieval game of ‘Hide the Sausage’.
But that is the subject of another of my pamphlets.