Election fever

Prime Minister David Cameron made the trip to Buckingham Palace yesterday to formally ask the Queen to summon the new parliament to meet on Monday 18 May, and so begins officially the 2015 election process.  Just 24 hours in and already I am bored both with and by the same-old same-old.

There was a time when a voter had - in reality - just three choices; to vote for the candidate representing the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, or the Liberal Party.  Granted, there were always a few wild cards like Screaming Lord Such or the occasional Communist Party candidate, and even a sprinkling of independents.  But none of them ever had a snowball's hope in Hell of ever being elected.  No, it was just the Tories, the Socialists and the Liberals - now the Liberal Democrats through a series of splits and amalgamations.  And of those, it would be either the Tories or the Socialists who formed the government.  How things have changed.

Over time - or so it seemed to me - the Conservatives moved towards the centre, the Labour Party edged in as well - and lo and behold!  there was little to tell the difference between them.  The result?  The mish-mash that we have endured for the past five years, a coalition of the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems forming a government.  This has meant that neither party has been able to do much of what it laid out in its manifesto because a coalition required compromise.

This year, things are even worse.  As well as the three "main" parties, we have the UK Independence Party, who want us to leave the EU; the Green Party, who don't seem to know quite what they want or how to achieve it (just look at the mess they have made of running Brighton & Hove); Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalists who have always fielded a few candidates in Welsh constituencies; and - the fly in the ointment - the Scottish Nationalist Party., who are expected to take many of Labour's traditional seats in Scotland.

The whole thing is beginning to resemble those parliamentary farces they have in Italy where the country is so often governed by a coalition of three or more parties.

I wish I could simply hibernate for the next five weeks.

Daylight savings

I really can't imagine why the powers that were saw fit to describe putting the clocks forward an hour in summer as saving daylight.  It doesn't matter a fig how we set our clocks; Old Ma Nature doesn't allow us to put daylight aside, saving it for later.  We are given our however-many-hours each day.  If we decide not to make use of it, tough.  We won't get those hours given to us again.

Putting the clocks forward at an unearthly hour yesterday morning hasn't helped me at all today.  I've still run out of time and I am only now, shortly before the Old Bat serves up tonight's supper (moussaka, in case you're interested), getting round to thinking about blogging.

So that's it; I've thought, I've done.

Who do we think we are?

The English are, without mincing words, a mongrel race.  We have, mixed up in our blood, vestiges of Celts, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes, Vikings, possibly Romans, and definitely French.  Well, Norman - and the Norman blood is basically Viking, Norman being a corruption of Norseman.  That, at any rate, was my thinking.  Of course, all those racial sources are centuries old and there have undoubtedly been more blood-types thrown into the mix during the last couple of hundred years, but I am concerned here with the long ago.

I wouldn't say that my ideas have been blown out of the water exactly, but they have most definitely been subject to - shall I say - modification.  Research published earlier this month shows that there are distinct DNA grouping around the country.  For example, the Cornish DNA is different from the Devon as shown on this map.

The research studied the DNA of "white British people who lived in rural areas and had four grandparents all born within 50 miles (80km) of each other. Since a quarter of our genome comes from each of our grandparents, the scientists were effectively obtaining a snapshot of British genetics at at the beginning of the 20th century."

What is quite surprising is the lack of Norman influence in the DNA, most people being distinctly Anglo-Saxon.

Thoughts on reading the newspaper

Actually, I wasn't so much reading the local freebie yesterday as glancing at the advertising wrap-around.  There, with two photos, one six months before, the other six months after (according to the captions), was a young lady who was quoted as saying, "I'm getting married in six months and i need a brilliant smile".  I was so enraged that I n early smacked the dog over the head with my bowl of muesli.

"No!" I shouted, "you don't NEED a brilliant smile; you would like to have one."

You probably guessed by now that I am on one of my favourite hobbyhorses; the sloppy use of the English language.  I know, I really shouldn't get so worked up about such a little thing as the use of "need" in place of "would like".  but I'm afraid it's just a red rag to a bull as far as I am concerned.

The English language is considered by many to be the richest language in the world.  We have more words to describe a gradation of emotion than any other language, so why do professional copywriters (and a host of others to whom words are a way of making a living) use only the top and tail of that list: love, and hate.  What's wrong with all the words in between, such as like, dislike, abhor, adore and all the others?

My second thought is not a rant, merely a "wonder why".  It concerns the crash of the German plane that, it transpires, was the result of the co-pilot suffering from depression and committing suicide, at the same time killing all the passengers and the rest of the crew.

Why have the European authorities not adopted the American rule that if the pilot or co-pilot leaves the cockpit, another member of the crew moves in so that there is never just one person in the cockpit at any one time?

And why did nobody notice that the co-pilot was ill?

A load of Blarney

Skip mentioned that he is planning a holiday - alright, he calls it a vacation, which sounds a bit like doing Number 2s - in Ireland.

I think that perhaps my vast experience of the Emerald Isle might be of some use to him in his planning so as a matter of civic courtesy I propose to warn him tell him of some of the delights to be found.

It was way back in 1965 that i first visited what Skip might think of as The Ould Country.  The Old Bat and I flew into Dublin, where we picked up a hire car.  We spent just the one night in Molly Malone's fair city - and what a flea bag it was.  We couldn't wait to get out and head south for Wicklow and Waterford.  They make very nice crystal there, not that we could afford to buy any given our impecunious fairly-newly-married status.  From here we headed westwards, towards the rougher part of the country.

Firs stop (or it might have been the second; it happened so long ago that I've forgotten most of the details) Blarney castle for to kiss the jolly old Blarney Stone.  Yes, you doubting Thomases, it really does exist!

You have to lean backwards and reach across the gap to kiss the stone while being held safely by the local guide - always assuming you have tipped him sufficiently.  And no, that's not me in the picture, though I'm sure I had a photo somewhere.  there are, naturally - this is Ireland after all - several legends surrounding this stone, which, on being kissed, bestows eloquence on the kisser.

Some say it was Jacob’s Pillow, brought to Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah.  It was also said to be the deathbed pillow of St Columba on the island of Iona. Legend says it was then removed to mainland Scotland, where it served as the prophetic power of royal succession, the Stone of Destiny.  When Cormac MacCarthy, King of Munster, sent five thousand men to support Robert the Bruce in his defeat of the English at Bannockburn in 1314, a portion of the historic Stone was given by the Scots in gratitude – and returned to Ireland.  A witch saved from drowning later revealed its power to the MacCarthys.

Both the Old Bat and I survived the experience and carried on the the far south-west of the island.  It was here, for the first and last time in my life, that I was persuaded to mount a real horse!

You will notice that scant regard was shown for health and safety.  But I much preferred the dogs at a farm we stayed at.

We booked into a hotel in Killarney for a couple of nights, allowing us to take a day trip round the Ring of Kerry.  It seems to have been developed into a much more popular tourist attraction than is was back in 1965.

Part way round, we stopped at a cottage advertising morning coffee.  The lady asked us where we were staying and we told her we were in Killarney.  She promptly exclaimed that everybody in that wicked city was a thief - and then proceeded to charge me at least twice what I would normally have paid for two coffees!  I was too gob-smacked to say anything!

We then headed north along the western coastline into Galway and Connemara.  I suppose it could have been considered scenic, but to me it was desolate and lonely.  The fields were littered with large rocks, the houses little more than thatched hovels.

Anyway, Skip, I'm sure you will enjoy your holiday, though I confess I have never been back again.

Hmm

So I took a leaf out of Skip's book, who had taken a leaf out of...  Well, never mind.  What it comes down to is that I tried out that thingy where you type in your name and the computer tells you what a wonderful person you are.  Guess what?

You are full of energy. You are spirited and boisterous.
You are bold and daring. You are willing to do some pretty outrageous things.
Your high energy sometimes gets you in trouble. You can have a pretty bad temper at times.

You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something.
You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense.
You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.
You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.
You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection.
You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive.
You have the classic "Type A" personality.

You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.
You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.
You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals. 

As I say, hmm.

Perseverance

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) 

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will; and the other from a strong won't.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887)

I have never been quite sure if the Old Bat is obstinate or persevering; perhaps the answer is both - in equal measure.  However, this past week  she has demonstrated her perseverance.  When we came back from France at the beginning of last week, she was well into developing a cold.  Today, she has finally succeeded in passing it on to me!

Actually, she must be feeling pretty rough because she has asked me to cook dinner.  ME!  COOK!  This calls for my version of penne a la matriciana.

And the cold calls for my favourite cure: fresh air and scotch.  I've had the fresh air - a couple of hours out with the dog - and I have promised myself a scotch this evening.