Category: General

Over five thousand years ago Moses said to the children of Israel “pick up your shovel, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the promised land.”

Nearly 50 years ago, Harold Wilson said, “Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a camel, this is the promised land.”

Then Gordon Brown stole your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of camels, and mortgaged the promised land.

Now David Cameron has loaned my shovel to a third World country, (he hasn’t realised yet that WE are now a third World country), raised my fuel bills, lent my money to a crowd of incompetent, greedy “merchant bankers” and increased Vat to 20%.

I am so depressed last night I called the Samaritans, they diverted my call to a call centre in Pakistan . I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

In my opinion, this is one of the better singers of her generation. Pleasant voice, not ostentatious. Someone who will probably live for some time yet and probably have a career for many years to come.

I have just received an email from you, as one of a distribution list.

I have deleted it without opening. You might want to check, but it appears that your account may have been compromised.

If you acknowledge receipt of this message soonest, I will delete it. If I am not still on line perhaps one of the admins would do so.

Thank you.

I’ve been gone a fair amount this summer, twice within the USA and once to China. It’s been interesting, to say the least. Surprisingly the USA, outside of the parentheses (The North East coast and the Pacific Coast states), is a wonderful place to be. My first journey, to Minnesota/Iowa/South Dakota, was an unexpected joy. Completely out of character, I was rendered unable to make a single sarcastic comment the entire time there. The people are warm, welcoming, down to earth, honest, and blessed with a dry sense of humour which makes life go by much more easily. This was a welcome change from California where life is, to say the least, at times a bit frustrating and the people irksome. There is something to the old cliché about the freedom of the road, the ability to tear down a highway at 90 miles an hour with the music playing in the background, nothing but empty fields and blue skies all around. By the first evening, despite being notoriously prickly and difficult to approach in California, I was sitting around the grill drinking beers with the other men telling jokes and exchanging stories. Continue reading “Where I’ve been.”

I  don’t understand this item:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14245568

Why would Australia want to accept 4,000 uninvited guests in exchange for getting rid of 800?  And why would such a deal give Gilliard a “boost”?

Bewildered of Bratislava.

Bearsy’s photo  of the English lock with pub reminded me how well the English make use of their river and canal banks. After Dinant on the Meuse, we expected Heidelberg on the Neckar to have the same attractive restaurants and cafes along the water front. We were disappointed.

Heidelberg is the oldest German university town and was the setting for the play “Alt Heidelberg” which later became the operetta and film “The Student Prince”. Our journey into the town centre was slightly disrupted by the fact that the heat had softened the tarmac bedding in the tramrails with the result that the tarmac had started to wind itself round the tram wheels and everything had come to a standstill.  We never had this trouble with the tramrails in Aberdeen!  The Old Town is basically a long street, now full of cafes, restaurants and tourist shops. The Old Bridge is very attractive, but difficult to reach because of the traffic racing along between the old town and the river.

The old bridge over the Neckar

  Continue reading “Heidelberg and its river”

Let me put a different slant on all this hacking nonsense.

If you go out tomorrow and leave your back door open and the house gets burgled who is to blame? Is it you for being so stupid as to leave your back door open, or is it the police for not being there when the robbery happened? To my mind it is your fault for not securing your property.

Now using the same analogy you have a mobile phone with voice mail, the voice mail is accessed from any other phone by dialling your number then entering a default password (1234 or 0000) because you haven’t had the gumption to change it to a secure number. Thus you have left your back door wide open. Now to me if anyone wants to listen to my voice mail all they will get is “I’ll be late” or “ring me back” etc. but to celebrities they leave an entire story on the phone.

This does not condone what has occurred any more than I forgive the burglar, but people must take responsibility for their own actions or stupidity. But since the last government came to power we have lived in a society of blame.