Turning a blind eye is cowardice

Even allowing for tabloid sensationalism, this is a gruesome story**. Nobody comes out of it well: local authority, local police, social services and so on, They all turned a blind eye because of the tyranny of Political Correctness, a wicked mechanism that suppresses freedom of expression and straight dealing. Please resist it whenever you can.

**Rotherham is not the only town where Asian gangs groomed and abused young girls. It was only when the first prosecution was brought in Oxford that other local authorities realised they could no longer sit on inconvenient truths.

Reparations for what?

This mantra about "Reparations" really is a distortion. Apart from the lack of logic, it ignores certain historical realities. When I was in Tanzania, I visit a coastal settlement called Bagamoyo, about 40 Km north of Dar-es-Salaam. I then went inland about a 90-minute journey to the ruins of a settlement called Kaole. Both settlements were built and run by Arab slave traders. They paid Bantu tribesmen to go into the interior and kidnap people from peaceful settlements. The captives were brought first to Kaole for processing and then marched down to Bagamoyo on the coast, from where they were shipped abroad to wherever there was a market for slaves. So, the idea that it's all the white man's fault is inaccurate.
What is particularly sad is the distortion in that child's mind as she raises her fist in anger, convinced that all white people are wicked and must therefore pay her in some way.
My saying this opens me to charges of being racist or fascist or whatever is the latest PC insult. It will not surprise you to know, dear reader, that I don't give a shit.

The Easily-enticed Bell-end Pecker

I am quite pleased with my dick. Over the years it has given me lots and lots of pleasure, and relatively few problems. So what follows are observations rather than criticisms.

Dicks, as every man knows, tend to lead a life of their own. You're with a lovely lady, it's all shaping up fine, but at the critical moment, just as you don your matador's cape to administer the coup de grace, the Imperial Todger goes into a sulk, and hangs there drooping like the last turkey on a butcher's slab. Conversely, you are in a social gathering or at a business meeting, and suddenly for no reason the Knobbly Ape stands to attention, tenting your pants, and throbbing like a blind cobbler's thumb. Mega-embarrassment and frustration in both situations, because there's not a lot you can do with a limp dick, and there's even less you can do with a stiff one if you're in the middle of a meeting of your local Parish Church Council.

I have no explanation for this phenomenon. It's probably the fleshly equivalent of the apparent contrariness of things, what the Germans call “die Tuecke des Objekts”, the sheer bloody-mindedness of inanimate objects.

There is of course a condition known to an older generation as “pizzle-proud”, which can give an old rake the illusion in the early hours of the morning that the Cherry-capped Dangler is experiencing a new lease of life. But before he can nudge the Memsahib into a cooperative experience, it's gone back to its normal happy flaccid state, where, to quote the schoolgirl who asked her grandpa what a penis was, and when he showed her, said: “Oh, I see, it's like a prick, only smaller.”

Is there a female equivalent of this phenomenon? Delicacy prevents me from inquiring further, though any comments from the ladies would be most welcome. But please put your reply in a plain brown envelope: this is a family channel.

How to make the perfect cup of tea

These notes are for my American grandson, Harry. Harry, this is how Grandpa makes a cup of tea.

1 Switch kettle switch to ON.

2 Switch kettle switch to OFF. Fill with water.

3 Repeat Action 1.

4 Wipe spilled water from round the kettle and the teapot.

5 Forget to warm the teapot. Say bad word.

6 Take down tea caddy and put 1.5 teaspoons of tea into the teapot.

7 Put tea caddy back, and wipe up spilled tealeaves from round the pot.

8 When water boils, pour too much over the tealeaves and close lid.

9 Open lid and stir tea. Close lid.

10 Repeat Action 4.

11 Pick up dishcloth from the floor and put it in the sink.

12 Set timer for four minutes.

13 Go to study, check email. Remember tea after 15-20 minutes.

14 Say bad word. Repeat as necessary.

14 Go back to kitchen, pour tea into cup. Forget the strainer. Say bad word.

15 Add milk to taste and stir.

16 Look at tea, then pour it in the sink.

17 Go back to Action 1 and repeat sequence ad lib.

Serenity it is, then

With all the gloom that pervades the media these days, I was beginning to become despondent.

And then my daughter sent me this photograph of my Californian grandchildren, the twins Kiki and Harry, dressed up for some formal occasion.

When I saw it,   "my heart soared like a hawk", as Chief Dan George exclaimed when his grandson reappeared after a long absence.

So, much as I want to be a Grumpy Old Man these days, I realise that there are forces conspiring against me, causing - as in the case of this photograph -  a big smile on my face and a warm glow in my chest.

I know when I am beaten: I will just have to put up with being serene for a while.

Poem

Mary had a little bike,

it was painted red and yellow.

Every where the front wheel went,

the back wheel used to follow.

Oliver Sacks

I am grateful to Mary Colwell for drawing my attention to THIS article from the New York Times. One paragraph in particular resonated with me:

[QUOTE]
I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
 [UNQUOTE]