Praise where praise is due

I know we don’t talk about the Dark Side here, but you could have knocked me down with a feather!

The other day I posted there to tell Kate Day about a significant bug in the Disqus routines.   Today, to my great surprise, she came back to tell me that Disqus had found the fault and issued a fix; she added her thanks.

Wonders will never cease! 😆

I wonder if the fix will actually work?
Later: I checked – it does, but it also introduces further faults.   Doh!   I’ve e-mailed Kate. 😕

A Quote

“This life is what you make it. Not matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends – they’ll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything – they’re your true best friends. Don’t let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they’ll come and go too. And babe, I hate to say it, most of them – actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can’t give up because if you give up, you’ll never find your soul mate. You’ll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don’t, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life’s a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.”

Marilyn Monroe

An Urgent Appeal to Pseu

This really, really, really matters.

We’ve got four friends coming round for Sunday lunch. Not a problem, because I’m doing the main courses and they are all under control. Possibly.

In truth, there may still a reasonable chance that those courses will be coming close to being under control by the time that said lunch is running an hour late. I’m doing an Indian banquet and I’m just having this slight worry that I may have slightly overstretched myself with only about 75 hours to go. Continue reading “An Urgent Appeal to Pseu”

Blasphemy – For and Against

Firstly, I’ll declare my own stance – I’m all for it! But as a Douglas Adams card holding athiest, I would be!

I was driving all the way to Peterborough this morning, not something that inspires Godly thoughts on the best of days, when I listened to a debate on Radio 5 Live that nearly had me apoplectic with rage. It was a serious debate caused by the assasination of a christian minister in Pakistan. If I was technically adept I would insert a nice BBC news hyperlink here, maybe Bearsy can oblige?

A serious issue of course, and my thoughts go to his family. But really, what did he expect in such a medieval country? I thought Christians grew out of being martyrs a couple of centuries ago, when common sense kicked in. Did he really think he’s made a difference? It would certainly stop me wanting to be one! Continue reading “Blasphemy – For and Against”

March Creative Writing Competition

THE SECRET
There were not many newly installed world leaders who, when told the secret, ended up with a smile on their face, in fact, non did. Some of them aged almost overnight while others took it on the chin and just got on with things. A few, a very few, ignored the warnings given at the first briefing and paid for it with their lives. The first was Gandhi who was assassinated in 1948, two years after his first briefing and, having decided to ignore the prime directive, was snuffed out.

The next was John Fitzgerald Kennedy who battled long and hard against disclosure and the instructions given to him on a regular basis but in the end, he had to go, and he died.

The last was also the quickest in terms of being elected and then killed. Pope John 1st was elected by the College of Cardinals on August 26th 1978 and was found dead in the Papal bed 33 days later. To date these are the only leaders who have dared to disobey the prime directive since its inception in 1945, this says more about them than those who came after. Continue reading “March Creative Writing Competition”

Identity – where is one from and where does one belong

Firstly, my apologies for taking so long in making my debut blog. You are all so impressive and deal with this phenomenon of internet communication so easily that I am a little scared of looking silly, stupid, naive and not worthy. But, you are a kind lot too so I shall try!

I have always been fascinated by national identity and migration – it one of the few things I actually studied with interest at QMW in the early 90’s. I have often asked myself the same question and the answer seems to differ as to the context and timing and where I am at the time.

In the Chariot we have a wonderful collection of well travelled and well educated people, including many who no longer reside in the same country as their birth.

I am also a ‘typical’ man in my love of sport this passion often links in when people who know me ask “for whom did you cheer in last night’s game?”

The Norman Tebbit test doesn’t seem to apply to me which I find odd as I was born in England, live in England and have one of the hideous purple EU UK (EUSSR for Bearsy!) passports.  I have a wonderful home counties accent, a grammar school education and work for Her Majesty (I crossed my fingers behind my back when I started – I revel in being a hypocrite!)

Does that still make me English? It should but it doesn’t seem to. I don’t feel English, and I dislike an awful lot about this country and would love to live elsewhere, which I would were it not for my children. I’m certainly not a European, although I adore so much of it as I was lucky enough as a child to be shown so much of it.

Another useful and interesting debate I often use in conversations concerns human nature. I, living in the East Midlands, would naturally support a fellow east midlander in a theoretical debate that was location based against another part of England, say Manchester. However, I would be on the side of the Mancunian in a debate with a Scot. Then, I’d support a Scot over a Frenchman (or woman), then any European over an American. What is it about our psyche that causes this?

So I ask all of you ex-pats and succesfully mobile people here in the Chariot – is where from now more important as to what your identity is? Do you still introduce yourself as your birth identity?

I’d be fascinated in your thoughts as to who we all are!

Two Political Quizzes

Click above to take the worlds smallest political quiz

Clicking on the above takes you to worlds smallest political quiz (10 questions).  This a site run by The Advocates for Self Government .  It’s a reasonable conclusion that these advocates are ‘libertarians’ and yet there is little evidence that any political administration is capable of being anything but ‘authoritarian’.

Clicking on either of the two graphics below takes you to a more detailed test devised by  The Political Compass .  In theory both tests should produce the same result.

The problem that I have with such tests is what I see as a naïve transposition of views into contemporary society, when they were not even valid in the historic context claimed for them.

Continue reading “Two Political Quizzes”