WISHING YOU ALL A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

I’ve now been at this blogging lark for five years and have just about run out of steam.

I’ve flogged the nostalgia to death .. I’ve ridiculed the bloody ‘royals’ whenever possible .. I’ve despaired at our dodgy government .. I’ve criticised the media, the arts and just about everything else .. I’ve ranted over religion .. I’ve tried to raise a few smiles .. and I’ve probably bored the pants off many of you.

I’ve enjoyed blogging on a regular basis and have derived a lot of pleasure from making contact with friendly people all over the world, but now I’m going to give it a rest for awhile. 

General MacArthur famously promised .. “I shall return” and old Arnie always says .. “I’ll be back” .. and so probably will I .. but for now  … 

“Fings is bad and times is ‘ard”.

The other day I visited a giant ‘Staples’ superstore, and apart from the three or four staff chatting at the checkouts I was the only person to be seen within it’s walls. It was the same story when I later called in at ‘PC World’, and yesterday when I made one of my rare visits to a large shopping mall I found many of the shops to be empty of customers.

The newspapers are full of ads ’shouting’ .. 50%  Off ! .. No VAT ! .. Half Price Sale ! .. and in the case of ‘MFI’, 80% Off – Closing Down Sale ! .. Even the mighty Marks and Spencer’s has been forced to have a 25% Off sale.

Poor old ‘Woolies’ has gone ‘tits up’, and despite the ridiculous 2½% cut in the rate of VAT handed out by our gormless Chancellor I’m sure that many more leading retailers will soon ‘bite the dust’ accumulating on their well stocked shelves.

Still, “It’s an ill wind as they say”, and if you have the cash, now is certainly the time to do a bit of shopping. The only problem is that my old brain is getting a bit confused with all the special offers around at the moment. There are just so many. There are ’sale prices’ .. further discounts off ’sale prices’ .. ‘buy any three for two’ (or is it two for three ?) .. ‘Nothing to pay for a year’ .. ‘Extra discounts on marked items !’ .. etc. etc., but I couldn’t believe the deal I got when I bought a couple of items at ‘Boots The Chemist’ yesterday, and was told by the lad at the checkout to go back in the store and select another item, for if I purchased three things instead of two I would get the cheapest of those three items .. “for free” ! … What a nice lad !

…   I just hope that he keeps his job.

The return of ‘Frisby’.

Those of you who have been regular readers of ‘bigjohn’ will know that I first got started blogging getting on for five years ago when my daughter set me up with a blog at ‘blog-city’.

Before her retirement from the ‘blogosphere’ Frisby (No, I didn’t name her that) was herself a prolific blogger, so I am pleased to announce that she has returned and can be found … HERE !

Why not look in on her …

… One day she may be as good as me.

Veterans all.

Today is Veterans’ Day (something new in this country), and although I have been awarded my Veteran’s Badge I do feel a bit of a fraud, for I was a reluctant conscript back in the 1950’s who never saw any action, and in fact never left these shores.

I served during ’The Cold War’ and spent most of my time ‘as safe as houses’ working in an underground ‘bomb proof’ bunker.

So as one who had a ‘cushy’ time in the RAF I would like to salute my fellow veterans who did not have it so easy and who saw action and faced death in many far off places.

Today we are very aware of what it means to ‘join the colours’ as the reality of war is shown every night on the TV news, where we see so many pictures of the flag draped coffins of those young people who were never destined …

…    to become ‘veterans’.

 

Spells in the cells.

I see that there are around 300 Pagans serving sentences in British prisons at the moment who, according to the rules, have the same rights as the followers of other religions. They are allowed to have in their cells hoodless robes, rune stones and twigs to be used as magic wands. Pagan chaplains (No I’m not making this up) can offer bedside healing rituals, meditation and special prayers to sick prisoners and may also bring in healing stones and small statues of gods and goddesses to place beside the prisoners’ beds. 

This latest example of religious tolerance reminds me of when I was training at an RAF camp in the late 50’s where it was the rule that all recruits attended church parade every Sunday. That is if you were a Christian and a member of one of the main churches in this country. Everyone else was classed as an ‘OD’ or ‘other denomination’ and did not have to parade.

Now in those days Muslims and Hindus were ‘a bit thin on the ground’ in the UK, and Buddhists were almost non-existent, except for one lad in my billet who shaved his head, sat cross-legged on his bed and claimed that he followed some old geezer called ‘Zen’. He was excused church parade (and eventually taken away) as were some others who claimed to be followers of various exotic eastern religions. There were also worshippers of Odin and Mithras and of course a few genuine agnostics and atheists.

Of course the NCO’s in charge of our training knew that most of the ‘OD’s’ were just ’taking the piss’ in the hope that they would be able to spend Sunday morning in bed while everyone else was being marched off to church. Sadly this was not to be, and the alternative day of military ‘meditation’ arranged for them caused most of them to undergo a miraculous conversion to Christianity the following Sunday.

Now I’m sure that there are a few genuine wand wavers in jail, but I bet most are like those ‘OD’s’ and are  …

…      just piss taking ‘Pagans’.

Well he was Deputy PIEminister.

Eating disorders are no joke, but I had to laugh when I read that John Prescott had said that he suffered from bulimia, when only recently it was revealed that he claimed £4,000 for food on his expenses as an MP.

Now this self obsessed and self serving politician has come up with this load of old cobblers as a clever way of publicising his memoirs.

I hate to say it, but I did have a sneaking admiration for ’Prezza’, for not many people can come from such humble beginnings and reach one of the highest offices in the land. Unfortunately he seemed to have lost sight of his ‘grass roots’ somewhere along the way to becoming Deputy Prime Minister, and ended up as a much ridiculed member of ‘the establishment’.

Let us hope that all this publicity will help people who suffer from such eating disorders, but I think that old ‘Two Jags’ has got confused between having his head over the toilet bowl and …

…   having his ’snout in the trough’ .

… and still it goes on …

 ’The General’ by Siegfried Sassoon.

Now that the tide has turned.

During the night of 31st January 1953 a huge tidal surge devastated large areas of the east coast of Britain with the loss of around 300 lives.

One town badly hit by flooding was the place where I now live, Whitstable on the north east coast of Kent.

Well last night we were warned to expect a tidal surge of up to three metres coinciding with peak high tides, which would be comparable to the conditions of 1953. 

Luckily the forecasters were wrong … but only just …

… This is a photograph of the beach a few hundred yards from my home, taken at high tide at mid-day today. Not the place to hang around with an ‘Arctic’ wind blowing off the North Sea.

It would seem that there was localised flooding in some areas, but nothing too serious.

I’m just waiting for some prat to … 

…     blame it all on ’global warming’.