What If?
You sometimes wonder what would have happened to your life, if just one thing had happened.
I was lying in bed this morning and remembered that when I got my first job at ICI in Runcorn I was paid £1,150 a year. Not a lot you might think but it was 1969. In the end we lived in a rented flat at Rosehill Court in Woolton, but we might have lived in a little cottage in Woolton Village, if only we could have found the mortgage.
The cottage cost just £2,000.
It just shows how time it was for first time buyers in those days.
But what would have happened if we’d stayed in Liverpool? Would I have been the success I have been since, if we’d bought that house?
Live changes on the turn of fate.
The Prisoner
Patrick McGoohan must be turning in his metaphorical grave (He was actually cremated), after reading this piece about the remake of The Prisoner in The Times.
I shall not be watching. But then I rarely watch ITV, as I’m allergic to adverts. When I watch football there, I always turn over to Radio 5 Live for the breaks. I do that on Sky too!
I Like Michael Nyman
I’ve never really heard of Michael Nyman before. But he seems like my sort of man according to The Times.
Last November, Michael Nyman found himself unable to speak, play or compose music. This wasn’t writer’s block or some kind of avant-garde art experiment, but something far more serious. During a routine medical operation, Britain’s most scorned and celebrated contemporary composer suffered a minor stroke.
He’s made a complete recovery, as I hope to.
Some though have been cruel to Michael.
In 2008, Nyman received the CBE at Buckingham Palace. The critic and composer Philip Clark delivered a damning verdict in The Times. “The loneliest man in British contemporary music has finally got the acceptance he craves,” he jeered. “Pity it’s not from anybody interested in music.” Ouch.
I sympathise!
Saudi Arabia’s Got Talent
This headline in The Times caught my eye. The first paragraph describes a hit show on TV throughout the Arab world.
Much of the Middle East will grind to a halt tonight as an audience of more than 20 million gathers round television sets across the Arab world for the final of the hit show Million’s Poet.
But the surprise is that one of the five finalists is a housewife with four children from Saudi Arabia, who appears fully vielled in black.
Three weeks ago, she stormed into the penultimate round with a blistering attack on extremist Muslim clerics. Her poem, The Chaos of Fatwas, denounced those who issue hardline religious decrees, comparing them to suicide bombers as “monsters wearing belts”. She attacked the segregation of the sexes maintained by preachers who “prey like a wolf” on those who seek progress and peace.
Her performance won an ovation from the audience and the highest mark of the round from the judges, who praised her courage and honesty. As the scores were announced, she punched the air.
She has received death threats for what she has said, but it would appear that she has certain backing from the King.
The West may blanch at Saudi Arabia’s human rights record but Hilal is full of praise for King Abdullah’s efforts to drag the country forward in the face of the same opposition and bile that she has endured in recent weeks.
Radical clerics were outraged when the kingdom opened its first mixed-gender university last year. Fatwas have been issued calling for those who promote equality of the sexes in education and the workplace to be put to death. Through it all, the elderly king continues to force the pace of change.
I wish Hilal all the luck in the world in the final of the contest.
The Best Roof in the World
Every time I pass by the British Museum I always pop in. It’s because the place that used to be so fussy and almost dust-ridden has thrown off all that gloom and not vibrates with people.
But the best feature of the museum is the roof.
How many visitors does it attract?
German Practicality
Two women have been arrested at Liverpool Airport trying to smuggle the body a dead 91-year-old German home.
Here’s the first couple of paragraphs from the BBC report.
Police have arrested two women after they tried to take the body of a dead relative onto a plane at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
Staff at the airport became suspicious when the women tried to check the man in for a flight to Berlin on Saturday.
The 91-year-old man from Germany is thought to have died the previous day, and had been put into a wheelchair.
But they should have realised that because we’re not in the Shengen area, that passports would have to be checked.
It reminds of the story of the family in the early 1960s or so, who went on holiday to the South or France with an elderly grandmother. Sadly, she died in somewhere exotic like Cannes and they wondered what to do. They didn’t have any insurance to bring the body home, so they wrapped granny up in a blanket and tied her to the roof-rack.
When they got to Dover, they did what every dutiful Briton would do and reported it all to Immigration. The Officer just looked calmly and said that the roof-rack was empty.
A Lonely Horse
Or perhaps what a silly place for a statue!
As you can see the building could never be described as an architectural gem, but what possible point was there putting the horse so far up in the air.
Perhaps, it can be seen from the Chairman’s office.
Escape to the Country
Just watched the end of this program and the way I feel trapped here with no car and taxis few and far between, I want to escape to the city. And that really means the best of them all; London
A Pen that Signed the Deal
This is one of the Cross pens that was used by Lockheed and ourselves when we sold Metier.
The Cross Pen that Signed the Metier Deal
You can just see the Lockheed logo.
Sealed With a Tie Clip
The picture show the Bullocks Wilshire tie clip that was presented to all of us by Lockheed, when we sold Metier.
Bullocks Wilshire Tie Clip
The Anonymous Widower 