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Moving today - quick update

Packers are here

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A discontented ghost

A rattling poltergeist

Hagar and I have no plans to fly anywhere anytime soon. We feel smug that we don’t care about the ash filled air, and at the moment, our lives are barely impacted. Back at Hagar’s HQ, it’s disruption central. The Chinooks are grounded too, and even worse there are folk trapped in Afghanistan that thought they were short finals to getting out of hell-manned, and this Icelandic ash fest is keeping them there as they can’t get back into the UK.

It’s been a while since Hagar’s been deployed but it’s coming again. I can only speak about how we deal with it, so I can’t speak for others. But I have a coping strategy, which starts with no big goodbyes. Then I break the deployment in half timewise. I then count up to the middle and then down again so I have certain time milestones that help me cope with the prolonged absence. In the final week the countdown becomes intense because you need to re-unite, each day, each step, each minute, each second becomes an agony. Sometimes by the last week my sanity is hanging by thread. The big challenge is a change to my expectation, which often happens at the 11th hour and it’s torture, agony as we are kept apart. It’s makes me feel sick and incomplete, anxious and strained.

For the rest of the blog and a excerpt from Broken – my fiction novel:

Spare a thought for those stuck at the Afghan beach

Good CO has asked that I post an excerpt into the thread with a link for the rest so this shall be my new format for posting. Also I want to apologise to all Chinese people for giving them a Wonathon Woss type speech inpediment. No reason, it just felt right:

Theme Park Britain

England, England by Julian Barnes, when it was released over a decade ago was received with mix reviews. Barnes lived in a golden age of writing when it wasn’t about brand and writers were still allowed to follow their Creative muse, experiment with text, style and content. Barnes is a dexterous writer, with an eclectic collection of novels, which are never the same but always interesting to explore and a pleasure read. Hagar likes to order the same meal at every restaurant. If he stray’s away from his forumula for success – breaded mushrooms or calamari, steak and chips, sticky toffee pudding; (Don’t worry he’s insured! Apparently, you don’t make friends with salad.) then he is often disappointed with his repas, which ruins both our evening. But I don’t have a formula. I like to try a bit of this and a bit of that in the mezze of life. I feel the same about fiction. This is why I have always loved Julian Barnes, as a writer because he is unpredictable in his literary creations and I can handle it. I don’t expect everything to be an exquisite recreation of what I have enjoyed before.

Anyway, I digress. Barnes’ book England, England is about…….

Sir Jack Pitman creates a theme park on the Isle of Wight that duplicates the tourist spots of England. Within easy walking distance are replicas of Big Ben (half size), Princess Di’s grave, Harrods, Stonehenge, and the white cliffs of Dover. Martha Cochrane is hired by Sir Jack as his official cynic. The novel follows her development from childhood to retirement as a nation struggles to retain its cultural identity. One of Barnes’s finest and funniest novels, England, England calls into question the idea of replicas, truth vs. fiction, reality vs. art, nationhood, myth-making, and self-exploration.

http://www.julianbarnes.com/bib/england.html

This book has alway resonated with me, as truly visionary. Most recently, I was working with a client dedicated to rejuvenating tourism in the less obvious tourism spots of Blighty and it dawned on me. British farming is on it’s knees. It is cost prohibitive to manufacture in our green and pleasant land. The stock market economic Las Vegas of London town nearly sunk our battleship.

Theme Park Britain

Did you know that there are 5 generations of British citizens that have lived their entire life on welfare? I mean, 5 generations of one family who have never earnt an honest penny in their life. 5 generations whose lifestyle have been paid for entirely by the taxman.

I believe in the welfare state. I believe in the NHS. They are a gift and until you have lived in a country without these fabulous systems you never appreciate what a gift they are. But they are being exploited and abused.

Gordon ‘the jailer’ Brown wants a nanny state. He is slowly eroding our freedom of choice and repressing our individuality. He is using fear tactic to retain his autocratic position. He is saying;

‘Don’t risk it. Stick with me and you’ll keep your benefits. Get rid of optimism, get rid of ambition, dissolve competition, keep me in charge and stagnate, get fat, don’t move, stay as you are.’

Take charge of your life. Make your own choices. Fight for what you want. Don’t be frightened of the unknown. Is that what Britain has become a nation of lazy, apathetic, resolute people who will just do as we are told. At this rate, I don’t think we should stop immigration because Britain’s don’t want to work. If we stop immigration who will do all the jobs? Are you too proud to scrub a loo? Are you too proud to get your hands dirty?

Take charge of your own life. Any work is better than no work. There is no shame in cleaning toilets. There should be shame in not working but there is more kudos for being on benefit then there is for cleaning toilets. People would rather be on benefit than clean toilets. Let’s celebrate the toilet cleaners!

We need to learn to look after ourselves. If an apocalypse came, there would be those more hardy then the fat, sedantry, do-as-we-told dwellers of Barely Holding Our Head Up Britain that would survive. Then we would be losers and it would matter more than some poxy World Cup because we will all die!!!!!!!

Turkey's don't vote for Christmas - for more crazy ranting click here

This is election is a washout. It’s a complete disaster. The belligerent, socialist autocratic oppressor Gordon Brown is going to retain power because Nick Clegg has quite frankly f*cked it all up. Gordon Brown believes he is the best man for the job because he wants it to be so, not because it is so.

Dick Turpin For Prime Minister

I write this post in haste. Mainly to apologise to my email subscribers, and to ask, please forgive my typos and blogging mistakes. It drives Hagar mad and when he reads my blog, he heckles my errors. It’s a time thing to be frank. Do you mind if I am frank?

To Err Is Human