The World’s Most Stupid Hotel Owners
The ruling against hotel owners in Cornwall reported here on the BBC, probably says that some people shouldn’t open certain businesses for their own financial health. I’ve listened to what they have said and they would like to ban any unmarried couples from sharing a room in their hotel. So it’s not just gays, but from what they have said, they wouldn’t allow me, as a widow to share a bed with one of either sex.
Surely, in times of austerity, you want all of the business you can get.
Now here’s an idea! There are a lot of widows out there living as couples. Why not book a night in the hotel? When they say you can’t sleep together, you can supplement your earnings with a little bit of legal chicanery. There are also plenty of lawyers out there who would do it on a no-win no-fee basis.
Why the Fuss About the Coles’ Divorce?
You want to try losing your wife after being together for forty years!
You have a choice about getting divorced, but being widowed is rarely you or your partner’s fault!
I really do object to the amount of time spent on the break-up of the marriage between two complete non-entities! Especially on Radio 5, this morning!
Has Iran Backed Down?
There are reports in The Times and on the BBC, that Iran may have backed down over the stoning of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.
But if you read the reports, Iran would not deny they have substituted hanging, which in Iran is often from a crane in a public square. How barbaric is that?
I have just read the BBC report and find that her husband was murdered. What was she doing in court anyway? Or is that how Iran treats its victims and widows?
Why have we not sent the Iranian ambassador home?
Coalition of all the C’s
Will it work? Perhaps!
A bit of history should be injected here. My father was very much a left-wing Tory and there are quite a few of them still about; Kenneth Clarke for one.
They have always been pro-welfare and the NHS and Cameron has been saying this all along. They are usually for small government with less state control. I don’t think that the Clegg would object to that.
But Cameron is pro-Trident, pro-business, anti-PR, anti-Euro and anti-Shengen.
I voted for my local Tory candidate, but I’m anti-Trident, pro-Euro and pro-Shengen. John Gummer once described me as a classic libertarian, who should read Hayek. I never have. Perhaps I should.
The problem lies with business and the economy. Here they may well have a lot in common, in that one of the real business problems in this country is all of the regulations that envelop small businesses and stop them growing. And where do eighty percent of all private sector jobs come from? The small to medium business sector. Get this right and this would create their place in history.
They may differ on how much to cut the economy, but perhaps two new brains, Osborne and Cable, may well find that the common-ground they must find actually works.
I wish them well! On the other hand anything will be better than NuLabor.
Remember too, that Vince Cable is a widow, although he has now remarried. He understands pain more than most.
My Late Wife
I can’t go on calling her this in this blog, especially as many of you know her real name.
So I’m going to call her C.
Smiling at my Wife
I don’t whether other widows do this, but often as I walk round the house, I smile at the various photographs of my wife that are everywhere. Each photograph is a memory.
Carmichael, Dankworth and Merrick
It sounds like a typical country firm of solicitors, but actually, these three well-loved people have sadly come together in the obituary pages of The Times.
Ian Carmichael made us all laugh, John Dankworth created some of the best music and Gil Merrick was Birmingham City’s loyal goalkeeper who tried his best to turn the tide of the Mighty Magyars for England.
But perhaps John Dankworth’s wife, Cleo Laine, showed how you celebrate death rather than mourn it. Many would have cancelled the show they were going to give that night at the Stables Theatre. But not Cleo!
The show did go on!
She did the right thing!
A Scattering
I’ve never been a great one for poetry, although at school my poetry was better than me prose. But that didn’t mean much.
But I was pleased to see that the Costa Prize has been won by Christopher Reid for his book, A Scattering
It is about the death of his wife, the actress Lucinda Gane.
I heard part of it being read on Radio 5 and I was moved.
It is actually refreshing that a book about such a dark and often untalked about subject should with a prize. Things like this will make life for those left behind easier in some cases.
Nowhere Boy
I went to see the film, Nowhere Boy last night. It is all about John Lennon growing up and was well worth seeing.
Whether Sam Taylor-Wood intended it I don’t know, but I found it an almost claustrophobic film as it was mainly set inside. Only in a few cases were Liverpool’s magnificent buildings and parks shown. Having been in Liverpool just a few years after the period of the film and visited several times lately, there are still a lot of places that have hardly changed since Lennon was growing up. I would have used these settings more.
But it is only a matter of personal taste and the fact that I knew Liverpool at that time and Taylor-Wood did not, as she is too young.
I wasn’t too sure where Lennon was actually brought up, but after looking it up, I found it was within walking distance of our first marital home at Rosehill Court in Woolton. Quarry Bank High School which gave the name to the Quarrymen, the forerunners of the Beatles, where he was educated is now Calderstones School. That wasn’t too far away either. But in those days of 1969, you knew the Beatles were good, but didn’t want to doorstep where they had lived.
I often think I owe a lot to Lennon, the Beatles and Liverpool. I wonder what would have happened to me, if I had gone to say Nottingham, Exeter, Southampton or even Cambridge Universities. I may not have acquired my robust attitude and could have wandered into research, which may have suited me, but then I don’t suffer fools gladly and there are many of them serving time in Universities waiting for their pension. I certainly wouldn’t have acquired my wife, who put up with me for over forty years.
I hope though that I wouldn’t have ended up a nowhere boy. But I know that I could have! Luckily I was rescued by Liverpool and my late wife.
Perhaps, I am frightened of ending up sad and lonely for the rest of my life.
Crash Course Widow
I’ve just added this blog to the Blogs on Widowhood.
I tried to post a comment on the blog and WordPress and Blogger did their usual non-cooperation.
The Anonymous Widower 