Some first impressions. I flew here on the national airline, Tarom, which was fine; modern aircraft, good service and the light meal – it’s only a couple of hour hop from Cyprus – was reasonable, for airline food. A couple of vignettes from my first week should give you the – flavour>

And just to let you know that I am plotting to take over this place – according to whacko jako, that is:

Don’t ignore Bravo; or do so at your peril. The guy is a bag of deceit [good grief, in a few months from the head of a large American International Tobacco Company in Moscow, to having his own Team on a Security Contract when the bomb went off and “his contract” ended, a promise of a new contract in Bulgaria but now sitting at the pool in Cyprus where his whole extended family of dozens and dozens of cousins have suddenly been domiciled for generations and taking care of his new found library]; he runs The Club; the others are just his minions.

It may be convenient for him to let you think that it is the other guy because he is struggling in his battle to take the Chariot when Boadicea goes. People have latched onto the real guy; he now gets three to five comments per Post at the Chariot and not a single one in his personal WordPress Site.

That is why he has moved back into MyT, to rebuild his reputation and because he is a useless Blogger on open forums.

So, now you know.

Heard of Flashmobs? Cop a load of this 🙂

After Tom KC’s post the other day, I was reading another blog* I visit regularly, and I found this . Well worth 6 1/2 minutes of your time.

Also puts in perspective the pretensions of all those whackos who claim that some mythical being worries about whether you wear a black sack, or eat a biscuit every Sunday, or about anything else that happens on this one insignificant little planet amongst all those trillions.

* Jerry Pournelle

I found some old photos, all in pretty poor condition, and I’m doing what I can to recover them.  This was one of them.  I have no idea where this is, except central Nairobi somewhere.  Recognise the building on the left, rear, Zen?

My younger daughter is having a mid-life crisis. She has thrown over her job as a (very successful) head hunter and has taken off for a month’s trip around the US – she has lots of friends there and will be travelling all over the country to meet them. She is in England at the moment for a couple of days in London and then a few days in Exeter with one of her best friends.

She is a talented singer and has always been interested in the theatre and has decided that it is time to have a crack at doing something she is really interested in, rather than just working for a wage, so the plan is that, after the road trip around the States, she will return to London, rather than Cyprus and try to break into a career in the theatre, either as a performer or backstage.

She is writing a blog about the whole experience which can be found here. You might find it interesting, (Or not,) to pop in for a look every now and then to see what is happening.

Told you it was an advertisement 🙂

It’s hot. I have been awol for the past week through force of circumstance, and grandchildren. I pass my mornings in the swimming pool with my two grandchildren and another little girl who has adopted me because her own granddad is in the US. It’s interesting to see the differences in the three children’s attitudes. My surrogate granddaughter, Vivi, is a confident swimmer already, at five years old. My granddaughter, Tina, is a determined little devil. When I show her an exercise, she gets her game face on, a determined little grimace and gritted teeth, and really has a go at it. My grandson, George, is definitely not the physical type. Before this week, he was afraid to get water on his face, but patience – and peer pressure from the two girls, especially since he is the oldest of the three children – has brought him to the stage where he can now limbo under a foam floaty thingy on the surface of the pool and he is now almost there with the doggy paddle, only needing a hand under his belly where, at the start of the week, he was clinging on to my arms with the death grip of a drowning man. Continue reading “Cyprus”

I know it’s unsporting to shoot a sitting bird, but this has to qualify for a Whacko award. Step into the limelight the Nut from the NUT* who said, regarding the possible establishment of a Primary School by Cambridge University:

“If the school was run by the university’s department of education, surely they should be sharing their knowledge with all schools?

“I reckon they would not be able to resist offering places to university lecturers – we could end up with a selective catchment.

“The local education authority should deliver equality of provision in a coordinated way, and we think having a patchwork of providers is going to damage that.”

The spokesman** failed to consider that Local Education Authorities are already acting is a patchwork of providers and are nowhere near delivering equality of provision – postcode lotteries? Actual places lotteries?

Simple solution. Make all schools independent. Give parents vouchers. Shut down all of the LEA’s. Save money and improve schools at one and the same time.

Whackos.

* An apt name, some would say. Oh, alright then, I would say.

** Yes, I know, but let’s not do the PC mangle-the-language thing.