Do It in God’s Name
I’ve just watched the Channel 4 programme, Dispatches about the attacks in Mumbai.
It’s chilling and it shows the callousness of those that controlled the gunmen from Pakistan. Is it alright for them to send young men to their deaths, when they are sitting comfortably at home? The title of this post is what a controller said to a gunman.
They said they did it in God’s name! Whose God? Not mine as I have none but life itself. And any religion that preaches death is some nihilistic cult that goes against all I believe in!
They were not even doing it in the good name of Islam. Much of Islam is now a bastardised version of a religion that looked after our science and made women equal. I’ve read enough history to know that.
But why do I feel so affected by the Mumbai attacks?
I wasn’t there, but I was in the Taj Mahal hotel two weeks previously. How many of those wonderful and kind people that we met in the hotel, died in the attacks?
Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai
I shall return to the hotel to show that terrorism will never get the better of me.
The True Cost of Gun Ownership
There is a small article in The Times about the gun lobby wanting to revive the law of the Wild west saloon.
The chilling statistic is that in the US, 30,000 Americans die by gunshot, of which at least 10,000 are murder. In England and Wales it is just 50, or about 300, if we had the same population.
No wonder I don’t allow guns on my land!
The Aston Cygnet
So Aston Martin are to produce a small car based on the Toyota iQ.
Didn’t years ago, Austin produce luxurious versions of the 1100 under the name Vanden Plas? Nothing is new!
For IVF go to Europe
This article about IVF in The Times caught my attention.
Whatever your views on the subject and I don’t have particular ones either way, this is a subject we should take seriously, as it seems being childless is for some a disaster. I can’t comment, as I am the father of three and didn’t have to make the decision.
But we have to bear in mind that everyone’s pregnancy is a cost to the NHS. This is not a problem with a single birth, but who pays for multiple births, which often have complications.
I would also throw in the fact that as a coeliac, if I was a woman I might have problems in conceiving. I know of women who on being diagnosed have quite quickly got pregnant and successfully had a child. I also know that no women in the coeliac line of my family have given birth in over a hundred years. I’m no doctor, but could it be that if your vitamin-B12 and folates are low, you’re not going to conceive a healthy baby.
This is yet another reason for everybody to be checked for coeliac disease.
Universal Phone Chargers
I’ve got boxes of chargers and they’re all different.
But now they’ll all be the same.
This must be a good idea. But then I don’t agree with their choice!
Madoff with the Money
So Madoff has got away with life in jail and no remission.
Now I have no sympathy for the crook at all, but doing this doesn’t really do anything for those who he defrauded like the Miriam Siegman, who is reduced to food stamps and collecting things from skips.
Madoff’s wife has been allowed to keep $2.5 million and I have to ask is this right. She claims that she knew nothing, but if she did, then she was pretty stupid, as I don’t believe you can live with someone without getting an inkling of what is going on.
I don’t think I’m stupid, but where did all the money he got in go? And how did he hide the fraud from everybody who worked for him?
It all just beggars belief.
Years ago, I met a guy who worked for an organisation that was going pear-shaped. He was the guy who programmed the computer system and knew what was happening. There was no fraud, just incompetence! So he got out early. Perhaps what he did wasn’t ethical, but at least he saved himself.
Didn’t anybody in Madoff’s organisation spot that?
He must have been one clever guy!
There is also the point that these days, I believe that there is a tendency to use nothing but Excel to analyse companies accounts. Accountants and regulators don’t dig as deep as they should, as they know that certain bosses might ruin their careers and perks.
There is a large overhaul needed in the methods and management of a lot of companies, so that we don’t get another Madoff, HBOS, RBS or Northern Rock.
It’s Not the Size of the Dog
Ask a postman and he’ll tell you that he’s more likely to get bitten by a irate dachshund than a large brute of a German shepherd. And if there’s a serious dog fight, they’ll usually be something like a Jack Russell involved. It’s just that small dogs seem to have more fight.
Now I’m 60 kilos (9 st. 6 lb.) or thereabouts wet through. Not that that I usually get wet outside of a bath or shower. And I’m just 1.71 metres (5 ft. 7 in. and a bit). Which means I’m somewhere in size between a flat and a jump jockey or about the size of a lightweight boxer. I’m also 62 in August.
I was probably being stupid by wearing a watch in Naples, but then I’d done it before and hadn’t had a problem. But thinking about it, when I had done it before, it had been cold and I’d been wearing my elderly Gieves and Hawkes jacket. The jacket is the sort that British gentleman wore all over the Empire, as it’s capable of dealing with knives and small arms fire.
So as I was walking around the city with a lady friend, a thief struck and tried to take my Rolex. Now it is not just any Rolex, but one my late wife gave me as a Christmas present two weeks after she died. It is inscribed with something personal and it is very precious to me.
Subconsciously, I gripped my hands together and as one would expect from a watch like a Rolex, the strap held, giving me some bruises on the wrist. We ended up rolling on the floor, with nobody giving me any assistance. I chided my friend afterwards for not doing what women should do in these sort of circumstances and that is scream and scream loudly. She just tried to kick him in the balls.
As we rolled, I was able to grab his index finger with my right hand and still I think keeping my left locked tight to my right wrist. Something snapped and it wasn’t anything of mine and my assailant was up on his feet and jumping on to his accomplice’s scooter. Did I just wrench his finger or break it? The doctor I saw in the UK, who was built like a prop forward, said it was an easy thing to do.
So it was a win on points to the terrier. Especially as the thief was perhaps well under half my age and perhaps fifty percent heavier. Hopefully, he’s a good bit wiser and will think twice about attacking small Englishmen.
I didn’t come out unscathed in that I had a large cut on the back of my head and I was bleeding quite badly.
No-one helped or came forward, so we eventually ventured into a pharmacy, where the pharmacist patched me up and called an ambulance. Only then did some of the local women come forward to say how sorry they were. But not a man said a thing. Is this silence because of the fear that people have for the local thugs and the Mafia?
At the hospital, everything went well and I left an hour later with seven stitches in my head and a clean CAT scan, which checked that nothing more was broken.
As to the Rolex, it cost just £2 to have the strap straightened at Wigg’s in Newmarket.
Now would I go back to Naples?
Of course. It’s a wonderful city with marvellous museums, Roman sites galore and lots of good food. I had a glorious gluten-free pizza in the Umberto restaurant. And that’s just the city itself.
Advantage Murray?
Andy Murray didn’t seem too pleased about being made to play under the roof and lights at Wimbledon last night. After all it could be argued that he hadn’t had enough time to prepare and that things like his rackets were all strung to the wrong tension.
Perhaps!
But now he is the only person, who’s won a full five set match under the roof and lights. So perhaps he knows more about it than anyone else?
In that case he has an advantage!
The Dangers of Gas
I don’t like gas and for that reason I keep my propane tank twenty metres or so from my house. And the boiler is in an out-house. I also intend to go to some electric heat-pump system in the next few years. They have just got to get better.
So I was saddened to see this accident in Italy that has killed at least 15 and injured 50.
And people are recommending putting LPG into road vehicles. We worry about bombers, but more disruption is caused by transporting this explosive gas by road and rail.
Dr. Egerton White
I am fairly unique amongst people these days in that I was delivered by my GP; Dr. Egerton White.
He was your classic GP of the time in North London. He had the Rover 90 or 110, the corporation, waistcoat and watch-chain, the kindly face and warm hands, and everything else that went with the job.
But why did he come all of the way from Winchmore Hill to my parent’s home in Cockfosters?
It was a drive of about five or six kilometres and all of my friends and neighbours used doctors who were much closer. My father always said that it was because his was one of the first houses built in the area and there weren’t any doctors. He may also have been a client of my father’s printing business. But then that wouldn’t add up, as the house was built in 1936 and I don’t think my father was working there at the time.
It has always been a puzzle.
I can still see Dr. White’s face in my mind, as he came many times to see me at home. I should say, that I also went to see him and his partner, Dr. Curley, at Winchmore Hill just as many times too. It was an unusual face in that it was round and covered in dark pigmented spots.
Only now, do I know what the problem is with my health. I am a coeliac, which means I’m allergic to the gluten found in wheat, barley and rye. But in those far off days of the late 1940s and early 1950s, no-one knew how to diagnose my problem. He thought I may have had an egg allergy, but try as he could, he missed the diagnosis. Incidentally, go through my medical notes and you’ll see all sorts of symptoms that now I put down to being a coeliac.
Note that I don’t use coeliac disease. I suffer from a diet-controlled non-illness.
One incident stands out. At about seven, I caught scarlet fever. Or did I?
I had all the symptoms and was placed in isolation at home. But according to Dr. White, I was the only case in London. So was it some weird manifestation of my allergy. I don’t know and I suppose I could find out if I had a test for the antibodies. But does it really matter? No! In the grand scheme of things.
About seven years ago, I bought a new car. The salesman had the same skin colour with the pigmented spots as Dr. White. And the salesman was black or of mixed-race!
So does this partly explain the reason how the good Dr. Egerton White came to be my family’s doctor in North London?
The Anonymous Widower 