The Things I do to Keep My job

We have a new Managing Director at the company where I work. Now some people take change in their stride and others can't abide it. I personally don't like change for change sake but prefer to wait and see what actually happens before I get my knickers in a twist.
One of the problems within our company was very poor communication between sites and departments. Being a man who leads by example the M.D., who forwith shall be called C.J., decided to start a weekly e-mail. So far I am impressed, this is a man with a slightly warped sense of reality. Last weeks picture for the caption competition was a 5 gallon bucket of white paint and what looked like a giants loo roll. The winner was the only person whose caption was repeatable in front of the Vicar and didn't include the word haemorrhoids.
But! it is not his e-mail, oh no, we are all expected to contribute to it.......which is why I had to fill out a profile and send it back to him. I hate filling those things out, if you are honest people get offended, if you lie you come off sounding like a right toadying creep1). So I did my best to be me without scaring people. One of the questions was 'pet hates'. I filled in my top 3 and thought that's enough but I sent the addendum that as a G.O.W. the list was actually very long.
I received an e-mail back asking for my Top Ten. It was too easy.
Then I got to thinking I'm not really that miserable am I, surely a Top Ten of Pet Loves should be just as easy.
Now don't worry, I have so intention of becoming a Stepford wife but if we only ever concentrate on the things that annoy us then maybe we shouldn't complain if we begin to think life really does suck.
So here are my 2 Top Tens;

Pet Hates
1) People who think you can read their mind so don't bother to indicate whilst driving.
2) The medias' fixation on the cult of vapid celebrity.
3) Tony Blair and his Labour government.
4) People who treat their pets as if they are human. (NO I don't want to give Sharky a kiss goodnight, he's a bloody goldfish)
5) Sticky children
6) People who don't control their children and/ or pets
7) Badly behaved children and /or pets
8) People who think you have nothing better to do with your day but wait on their pleasure. (Doctors please take note I do have a life outside your surgery doors)
9) Lies, whether blatant untruths or lies by omission
10) People who don't use their brains.

Pet Loves
1) Badger Bill the fact we've been married over 20 years
2) Stretch and Chunk and the love, pride and joy they engender
3) The way my dogs great me when I get home from work.
4) Cats
5) People of bravery and courage even when they do seemingly daft things i.e. Ellen McArthur
6) People who are honest enough to admit when they screw up.
7) People who are honest.
8) Courtesy
9) Bacon and mushroom butties with a mug of builders strength tea.
10) Waking up n the morning and realizing I don't have to go to work.

So there you have it, God knows what they say about my psyche, probably that I need more therapy.

Paris Hilton- What's The Point

WARNING - This Blog is being sponsored by the G.O.W. Party - The party that doesn't have a problem with Camilla and will lobby to make random facial hair next seasons 'must have' beauty accessory.

I sometimes think the only reasons my younger son, whom I shall refer to as Stretch, comes over is because a) I cook and b) we have Sky.
Stretch is fond of his food. Stretch is even fonder of our food.
The comic poetess Pam Ayres talking about her sons and revealed that her cupboards are frequently bare. 'The problem is I go out and do a big shop, then they come in and do a big eat and we're back where we started."
I know the feeling, a loaf of bread will last Badger Bill( father of the aforementioned Stretch, his elder brother Chunk and husband for over 20 years) and I a week ,one loaf will barely last breakfast when Stretch is here.
Stretch doesn't have digital or satellite so when he lands in the familial sett an important part of his visit is sitting in front of the telly getting his fix of the music channels.
It is here that I kept seeing adverts for programmes about Paris Hilton.
" Who is Paris Hilton?" I asked
"Some minger" was the response
"What's she famous for?"
"Being a rich slapper"
"Is that it?"
"Pretty much, her Dad has loads of cash and she's got a bunch of rich friends so the telly figures we're interested in her"
"Oh.....and are you?"
"No"
I decided to watch one of these programmes, something I have admitted to no one till now, and find out what all the fuss was about. I stuck it for about 5 minutes. I tried again but again after about 5 minutes I had a roaring headache, probably caused by my soaring blood pressure.
With all that money she should be able to afford clothes that actually cover her. How must her parents feel knowing their daughter is so attention starved that she dresses just short of hanging her fanny out to be noticed. Unless of course I missed that particular peek-a- boo photograph.
Supposedly all that money could have bought the best in private education, so what happened to it? Or is she really as dense as she acts in which case should she be let out in public without a carer?
This is a young woman, supposedly one of the creme de la creme of a American Society, who seems incapable of stringing more than 3 words together in a coherent manner and yet she is followed around by cameras because she is supposedly interesting.
Interesting? Wouldn't it be cheaper to go into any town, English or American, spend a few days following the chavettes who infest our town centres and shopping precincts. They are as seemingly ill educated, vapid, self centered and incapable of coherent speech, sartorially they are on the same level thinking that their physical beauty is so great it is a sin to cover it ( though in the case of chavettes the chances are it is still what they were born with where as with Paris Hilton I'm not sure)
The programme made would be far cheaper, though just as much a waste of film, and the money could be used to find and follow some of the really interesting young people of the world. Young people it might be worth trying to emulate.
What is the point of a life that revolves around the most insignificant and trivial of matters? When Paris Hilton and her peers actually have to cope with real life then it might be worth filming because when the rug gets pulled out from under their feet their fame and fortune will as much use to them as a chocolate fire guard.

Own Back Yard

Two things have caught my attention recently. The adverts for Comic Relief and Bill Oddie.
For those who don't know, Comic Relief is an off shoot of Band Aid, the BBC giving over an evenings viewing to Britain's top comedians and entertainers (though this is no guarantee it will be either funny or entertaining) and in between the acts showing us films of people in Africa and at home for whom the money is being raised. Bill Oddie was once a satirical and comedic performer, one third of The Goodies, who now makes his living fronting television programmed while pretending to know something about the countryside.
The other night Bill Oddie was banging on about Grey Squirrels and how we should feed them. He gave us full on descriptions of how cute and cuddly they are and how dexterous their front paws are.(not hands Bill, squirrels don't have hands) What he failed to mention is that the introduction of the North American Grey Squirrel has been an ecological disaster for the native Red Squirrel.
An already dwindling habitat for the Red squirrels, on the endangers species Red List, has been further eroded by the large and ever increasing population of non native Grey Squirrels. Grey Suirrels also pose a threat to bird life by raiding nests for eggs and chicks. What needs to be done is the introduction of Grey Squirell free zones in suitable woodland and an extensive culling programme so that Red Squirrels have a chance to re -establish themselves in areas where they were once numerous.
What has this to do with Comic Relief, well I find it a bit sad that charities and programmes for people in need in Britain are basically an add on to a charity that does so much in Africa. Be clear I do not begrudge the people who recieve this money a single penny of it and I give as freely to Comic Relief as I do to Children In Need but I wonder how much the British charities featured in Comic Relief would get if it was just them and not an add on to the humanitarian aid being sent to Africa.
Just as I wonder if the Red Squirel was an endangered species in Africa or Asia would people like Bill Oddie be so blithely ignoring their plight or would they be raising millions of pounds to help save them in the same way millions of pounds is injected into programmes to save Tigers and Elephants.
They say charity begins at home but I think people prefer to give away from home. It salves the conscience at the same time relieving the giver of any responsibility. To become involved in something local means actually becoming connected to the problem and active in seeking a solution. For many people that is too hard a step to make.

Okay I have a major blogging problem, too much to say and not quite sure where to start. Not so much as Writer's Block as Writer's Overload. For so long I have searched for an outlet for all the stuff running riot inside my head that now I have somewhere for it to go I can't decide what to let lose on the unsuspecting reader first.
The problem I have always had is that although I am a creative person I have never been able to conform to the strictures other people want to put on me in the way I express my creativity.
Hunter S Thompson created 'gonzo journalism' and gave himself an outlet. Would I be capable of creating a new distinctive style or does every writer create their own style simply by modifying what is already outhere? Before Thompson there was Kerouac.
In the end does it matter?
What is more important to me; actually writing and getting what I write out into the wide world or worrying about what others think of what I write.
Am I worried about content or presentation? Are the two totally inseparable?
I keep thinking about the scene from that Robin Williams movies (Captain my captain.......) where Williams has departed and a new literature teacher holds up the graph that shows how to tell if a book is a great novel or not. Does it matter if I write great literature, if it does to whom and are these the sort of people whose opinion matters to me anyway?
Argh so many questions,so tired a brain.
I think it's time to go watch some television.

I don't do politics but..........

There are 268 hunts in England Wales and they all met yesterday, singly or jointly, to create 170 meets country wide. I attended the joint meet of the Meynell and South Staffs, Staffordshire Moorland, Dove Valley Mink Hounds and the Staffordshire, Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire Beagles.
The Meynall and the Staffs Moorland hunt fox and have mounted fields, the traditional stereotype. the Dove Valley hunt mink, as the name suggest, and are followed on foot, the S.D.&N. hunt hare and are follwed on foot.
I do not hunt. I have been to a few meets and have foot followed fox hounds, mink hounds and beagles on several occasions but not with any regularity or great gusto. So why go to a meet yesterday?
In the last 2 elections Labour has accepted over one and a quarter million pounds from the Political Animal Lobby, a lobby comprised of anti hunting organisations.
Tony Blair has promised that his government will not persue similar courses of action against shooting and angling but his political paymasters in the Animal Liberation Front, the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, International Fund for Animal Welfare etc.( members of P.A.L.) already have campaigns running. Shoot days and angling competitions are disrupted and participants subjected to the same abuse and intimidation that hunt followers and supporters have endured by the same anti fox hunting/ animal rights campaigners whose element include arsonists and grave robbers.
(The bones of Alice Hammond have never been recovered. 72 when she died, this summer just gone her grave was robbed in a bid to stop a farming relative breeding guinea pigs for medical research by animal rights campaigners.)
If a ban on hunting costs just over a million pounds how much will a ban on shooting cost?
The government has already tried to make it more difficult to buy, own or use guns.
Tony Blair promised that any legslation against hunting would be based on evidence not opinion but when his own government enquires concluded that a ban on fox hunting would not be beneficial and in some ways it would actually be detrimental he blithely ignored the findings.
Tony Blair said the work to ban hunting was about animal welfare not class warfare but his own M.P.s have admitted they weren't bothered about foxes just in sticking one to the 'toffs'. One M.P. actually said it was 'one for the miners' to which it is rumoured members of the Banwen Miners Hunt replied 'Oh Thank You very much, first we lose our jobs now you take away our sport'
Tony Blair needed support from the back benches for his war in Iraq. The same backbenchers who opposed him on Iraq also wanted a ban on hunting and Tony Blair got the support he needed.
I went that joint meet yesterday for the same reason I attended the Countryside Rally with 120,000 other people in Hyde Park 10 July 1997. I went for the same reason I marched through London on 18 March, 2001 (220,000) and on 22 September 2002 (477,000)
I went becuase I see the ban on hunting as symptomatic of a government that can be bought, of a government that is willing to sacrifice whoever and whatever it needs to get it's own way. A government that lies and thinks people are too stupid to notice. A government that says it is dedicated to civil liberty (particulalry for minorities but seemingly only those minorities it likes or will win them votes come May), but is slowly eroding basic civil liberties such as trial by jury and no detainment without charge.
I went because it is my way of standing up and saying I can not be fooled and I will not give in.

Bewildered Dog

Meg will be 15 in May. If she was my daughter I would probably get lots of sympathy from people for having to share my life with that alarming species...the teenage female. She is not my daughter though, she is my dog. A now decrepit Border Terrier who has long since given up chasing squirrels, hunting rabbits and digging holes just to see if it is true China is on the other side of the earth.
The first thing we noticed was her eyes clouding over. Old dogs get cataracts, it is a fact and we knew her sight wasn't as good as it used to be.
Then she slowed down and started to cough. A horrid body shaking cough that made her fall over it racked her so hard. That was her heart no longer beating as strongly as it once had. As a result she filled with fluids and her belly distended as if she was pregnant. ( A good trick except she had been spade) A week long course of diuretics and the permanent additon of heart tablets to her routine and she was back fighting fit, tormenting Ted the cat and tearing round the fields for the joy of it.
Then she started to not respond when we called her. Anyone who has lived with a terrier will know the are they past masters of ignoring and there is nothing quite so embarrassing as realizing that a small dog is pretending to be completely oblivious to your existance. This was different, she wasn't doing it out of choice, her hearing had started to deteriorate.
Now she has trouble standing, her hind legs wobble and she has to get them still before she can walk. The 4 steps at the front door often prove too much and she needs to be carried up and down and put outside to answer the call of nature.(Unfortunately sometimes she can't keep her hind legs crossed long enough before we understand she needs to go outside)
Worst of all she is confused. Not the day to day confusion that comes with too many demands being made on limited personal resources. This is the confusion of the old, a fog that envelopes the low ground of the present but clears as one climbs to the higher ground of youthful memories. Meg remembers chasing sqirrels out of the garden and watches the other dogs barking at the raiders in the trees but by the time she remebers to bark they are long gone. Meg knows she should be doing something and enters the room you're in, she stands until her legs tell her it is time to return to her bed and have a lie down, whatever she had planned to do will have to wait a while.
Meg lays at my feet a lot, she likes to know she is not alone. Often she will seek out the others who share this house; dogs, people, the cat, she will use the one sense that time does not seem to dwindle and sniff deeply, taking in the scent of the other being. This reassures her that she has not moved totally into a limbo of lost sensation. Reassured she bumbles off, lost in whatever inner world she occupies.
Life does not make sense for Meg the way it used to, too much information is lost, too little sensory input means she no longer has a clear picture of the day to day passing of the world.
My hope is that she will curl up in her basket one day and pass peacefully to the next life. I pray God will spare me having to decide it is time to give her the peace of Dog Paradise.
Old dogs are a blessing and a curse.
Meg has been a part of our family life since the boys were small. Now they are grown men and Meg is a link to our family history. We can remember where we went on holiday the week before we collected her. Family photographs and personal memories all include a chunky, grizzle, monkey faced bitch.
Caring for her and knowing that at some point the most awful of decisions may have to be made is a burden quietly born. You try not to dwell on it and enjoy what you know is the limited time you have.
No one loves you the way a dog will. No one is as glad to see you when you arrive home from work, no one is as happy to share whatever tidbits you have to offer and no one snuggles you quite as warm on a cold night as a dog. Each one has a distinct personality yet each one is the same in their ability to love unconditionally.
I will miss her when the time comes. She will be buried down the wood I think, near San, another of our dogs who lived to a ripe old age. Hopefully when the time comes he will be there to meet her at the canine equivalent of the Pearly Gates and together they will hunt rabbits, chase squirrels, sleep in the warmest sunbeams and enjoy eternity doing all the things dogs love to do.
Meg is my mascot, she is there while I type, she is there when I watch telly, I trip over when I am in the kitchen and I have to look for her when I'm not sure where she is.
Meg is also my reminder that life moves on. We get older whether we want to or not and there is no use worrying about what I should have done. There is no use wondering about might have beens, now is the time to do, to achieve, to try, to strive. For when I am old, decrepit and confused I don't want a small voice nagging in the back of my brain, reminding me of missed opporunities and a failure to at least have a go. I want my dottage to be as peaceful and as happy as Meg's. For there one thing I know, she may only be a dog to some but she had heart and she had grit ,she was the best terrier she could be and she has no regrets about what her life has been.

TOGG Blog

I am a TOGG. For those of you who don't know, a TOGG is one of Terry's Old Geezers and Gals. Terry Wogan is the presenter of the Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 and his main audience is those of us over a certain age who do things like stand in the middle of a room and try to remember if we were coming in or going out; we put the sugar in the fridge, the hammer in the cupboard and carry the butter out to the shed; we go to the shops for a newspaper and come back with a pound of bacon.
For Toggs computers and the internet are a source of alarm and puzzlement, you have to remember we have to hire 6 year olds to come round and set the VCR and mobile phones......don't get me started......
So it is with fear, loathing and trepidation that I have decided to try blogging. It has been reccomended to me by a friend who assures me it is a relatively painless and simple way to get my thoughts,ideas, opinions and writing (oh no not another writer, yes I'm afraid so) out into the wide world.
A final warning, not only am I a Togg I am also a GOW (Grumpy Old Woman) The disadvantage of being both is that I am frequently in an ill temper, I just won't remember why.