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Blog posts : "General"
Budgeting from Bankruptcy
The annual budget has been delivered, decried, denounced and damned. 'Twas ever thus.
It's a very long time since we had an empire to plunder. The British Empire was the nation's bank of Mum and Dad. Mum and Dad are long deceased and we have to stand on our own two feet. And we're finding it a bi…
Balloons blown out of proportion?
Today the internet is awash with comment of the balloon disaster in Egypt. Much blame is attributed to Egyptian lack of Health & Safety. This seems unfair. The balloon operators I observed in Egypt did not appear any less competent than the ones in England except in their command of the English lang…
Caution Runners
Salisbury racecourse is flanked by large warning notices which state:
CAUTION
RUNNERS
Presumably this is because we have eaten all the horses.
Political Philosophy
O has switched political allegiance. Communism has been abandoned in favour of Free Market Anarchy. Amazon are delivering daily instalments of Nozick and Rawls.
‘Why Rawls?’ I asked as he would have no time for Free Market Anarchy.
‘I’ve got no time for Rawls. I don’t agree with anything he …
Free Eco Friendly Wrapping Paper
Have at long last taken first step in direction of Christmas. Late but not too late.
En route to chuck out the box of ancient newspaper from the shed, it dawned that I have wrapping paper on the shopping list. No longer. Chopped an ancient car sponge destined for the bin into a Christmas tree and a…
Slaw, Slow, Sloff, Sluff, Slou, Sluh, or Sloo?
The evolution of language is fascinating. However, it would be so much easier for English natives to learn other languages if English had evolved a little less. I'm thinking specifically of me here; me attempting to learn Italian. Not so long ago, English had the same formal versions of 'you' that m…
An admirable way to get fired
At last! Glorious News about K’s wicked employers at the deli. They have gotten a small portion of their just desserts. They arrived at the deli one morning last week to find their dessert counter a desert. B had eaten the lot. B had worked at the deli for 18 months. He had worked his socks off alon…
GiffGaff or RiffRaff? Eternal Telephone Hell
Telephone Hell continues. Today is Day Ten. And I still have no functioning mobile service.
The Registered Office of GiffGaff - at the headquarters of O2 in Slough - claims to have no telephone contact number for GiffGaff and continues to deny any knowledge of owning GG. The telephone number displ…
Telephone Hell: Vodafone v GiffGaff
There is nothing quite as infuriating as Technology That Does Not Work. After two years of Vodafone hell, I switched to GiffGaff. It took six weeks of intermittent chunks of wasted time to escape from the Vodafone contract. This was time AFTER the expiry date of the contract. But contracts with Voda…
PEOPLE DROWNING: On Amazon Kindle NOW!
PEOPLE DROWNING is now out there on Amazon Kindle for you to read, and there's more here on this website.
As I wrote People Drowning, the characters came to life and took over mine. They took turns at popping up from behind my laptop screen and they demanded to be heard. They danced around the rim…
CONSEQUENCES
'How am I meant to get home?' sobbed a teenage girl stranded late this evening with two of her friends at Tescos petrol station. This part of rural England has run out of diesel and the petrol supplies are about to expire.
Drove home wondering what hitch hiking might be like at age of 51. The last…
TRAWLING FOR LIFEBOATS
A lifeboat has just landed on my doorstep. Which means it's National Life Boat collection week again, and time to trawl the village. Last year I could have been arrested for being Drunk In Charge Of A Life Boat. Click here to read about one extraordinarily entertaining evening with some crazy charac…
Faces of Philosophy
For a quirky view of a few philosophers click here. A purely decorative byproduct of my son having attained the great age of seventeen.
Alternatively, take a dip into the rural England of my childhood - long before I'd even heard of philosophy. It's a version of rural England that has long since …
Twittering
Twittering or Living? Choices have to be made. Twittering burns up life. Today it was living that won. The sun was shining and the call of the hills too strong to resist. Ran 5 miles up hill and down dale. Glorious hour without people or phones or computers.
Spring
Either a heron has thrown up in my pond or the fish have spent the winter months copulating under the ice.