Nourishing Obscurity

The week has finished up particularly nicely, with a bit of banter up at my mate’s place, all to play for next week in the RL working world and the re-emergence of The Albion Alliance. What a lovely way to see summer out with this ripping weather too.

The Albion Alliance

I’ve had to reduce my commitment to an avid supporter for now because work commitments are just not letting me do as I wish. The boys have done a great job with the new site and I had a look the other day and thought it very informative and chunky, like a chunky democratic soup.

Apparently you can also access the AA on mobile phone, according to Ian, so that’s good. That URL again [please bookmark, add to blogrolls or update:

http://blog.albionalliance.org.uk/

As you can see, it is more like a thinktank now and I’d imagine that that’s the way it would go, with much to write about, come the post-September crash.

Incidentally, you might like to check this post and this while you’re about it.

It seems we have quite a little music corner going here, thanks to all:

Brandi Carlile
Giuseppe Torelli
Here’s baching at you
Hiawatha Rag
Silencio
Four hands

From JD:

From Dearieme:

From me:

Further to the Beslan/Chechnya question, this Washington Post article must be one of the first western articles to consider that those we side with might sometimes be the wrong ones.

An expert witness for the prosecution testified Tuesday that Islamic charities based in Saudi Arabia, including the one an Oregon tree surgeon is accused of smuggling money for, were regular conduits of funding to Muslim fighters in the volatile Caucasus region.

“A significant portion of the aid from these charities almost certainly does go to good causes – widows, orphans and refugee camps,” Kohlmann said under cross examination by defense attorney Bernie Casey. “Up to a third of the money is skimmed off and diverted to other causes, including paying the salaries of foreign fighters.”

This is an issue which requires more than a Sky News grab along traditionally prejudicial lines.

Beware the pod people

Blair really needs to be seen in context.

If the malaise infesting western society can be characterized as a malignant cancer, then Blair is just a visible melanoma, a growth, a manifestation of that cancer.

If you look at society and politics in the first half of the last century and compare it to the second half, the same forces have been at work.  The roots of the demise in true educational research, for example,  lie in such manifestations as the Lincoln School and this blog has covered that before.  The roots of the breakdown of marriage, promiscuity and Planned Parenthood are not some new golden age but due to silent propaganda stemming from the early C20th.

It is at once socialist and globalist, with all sorts of adherents, from Rockefeller to Piaget, to House, to Warburg to Keynes, Roosevelt, Mandelson, Strong and so on – they are legion and many of the lesser known figures have done the most damage, in their own small way.  Gordon Davidson and Corrine McLaughlin are behind the World Service Initiative and the Valdez Principles which spawned Goreism and everyone knows what damage the climate scam has done.

Returning to Blair, a proven liar, a weak man of limited intellect but overweening ambition, Etienne Davignon answered a journo about Bilderberg nefariousness that they, the Bilderbergers, were “excellent talent spotters”, no more, no less.

He was not wrong.  They identify, just as the excrescent offshoot of the ODPM, Middleton’s Common Purpose do, men and women of a certain type – limited in independent thought, easily pressed to the cause, lured by the promise of really “being someone” when the present cankerous mess is swept away and the new order can finally be put in place.  Have a look inside Chatham House.

It’s so old, so monotonous, it’s never changed.  As this blog has quoted many times, Agatha Christie nailed it when she described this sort of person in NorM [1941]:

You do not know the force of German propaganda. It appeals to something in man, some desire or lust for power. These people were ready to betray their country not for money; but in a kind of megalomaniacal pride in what they – they themselves – were going to achieve for that country. In every land it has always been the same. It is the Cult of Lucifer — Lucifer, Son of the Morning. Pride and a desire for personal glory.

You can see it in this spoof below on Gordon Brown.  If you look beyond Gordo at Cherie Blair and the way she is acting in the clip – the limited mind which is so pleased with itself and look at the woman to her left – that gives some sort of idea.  Look at Toynbee at the Grauniad.  Big players, they think, movers and shakers but actually just useful idiots, pushing the agenda for’ard …

… and always with an eye to ripping off the taxpayer to further their lifestyles. These are the secure ones, part of the oligarchy which runs things, physical and mental wrecks after they’ve done their worst and yet secure in the knowledge that they are valued members of the global push. Except that they are not valued – they are devalued. Svali put it well about them in 2000:

These are NOT nice people and they use and manipulate others viciously. They cut their eye teeth on status, power, and money. I have given all of that up to leave, and am glad to be away from it now, although I do miss some of my friends, and at times I miss the respect of being a leader.

Interesting that Blair should write about being a manipulator. These are truly sad, empty people and just the type which Geoff Mulgan’s Common Purpose [via the Marxist driven Demos] targets to train in groupthink – established leaders in society, so their blurb states and what are they being trained in?

“Leadership beyond authority.”

Now you translate that into ordinary English for me please – whatever can it mean? At what stage in proceedings do these people rise and take over the reins? Surprise, surprise – they’re already in there and operating. If it’s a key manager or chief officer, odds are not low that this might be a hideously expensively trained CP graduate – have a close look at Yorkshire Forward.

It’s like those sci-fi films where the discoverer of the plan to take over the world goes to his superior officer, only to find out that the officer is  … [drumroll] … one of Them.

Blair, of course, should be brought to trial but never will. Apoplectic conservatives may dream of such a thing but of course, the establishment is global socialist and protects its own. At all levels of society, from politicians to bloggers, there they are – quietly promoting the agenda.

I meet them each day and say nothing – you never quite know who’s a podperson and who’s a member of the human race.

Sorry, sorry, guests just departed, knackered, musical thingy tomorrow, nigh nigh.

Remember September 1st to 6th

Today, the children go back to school in the Russian influenced areas of Europe.  However, such a joyous day:

… will forever be overshadowed by September 1st in one particular year:

September 1, 2004

The only surviving attacker, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, claimed that attacking a school and targeting mothers and young children was not merely coincidental, but was deliberately designed for maximum outrage with the purpose of igniting a wider war in the Caucasus. According to this theory, the attackers hoped that the mostly Orthodox Christian Ossetians would attack their mostly Muslim Ingush and Chechen neighbours to seek revenge, encouraging ethnic and religious hatred and strife throughout the North Caucasus . North Ossetia and Ingushetia had previously been involved in a brief, but bloody conflict in 1992 over disputed land in the North Ossetian Prigorodny District, leaving an estimated 600 dead and 50,000 displaced.

I didn’t show the later photo of this boy – I can’t bring myself to do it.
Here’s what Basayev claimed it was about:

We can also guarantee a renunciation of armed struggle against RF by all Muslims of Russia for at least 10 to 15 years under condition of freedom of faith. We are not related to the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, but we can take responsibility for this in an acceptable way.

The Duma does not, by definition, have a good reputation in the UK but this sums up many people’s feelings over there:

The head of the State Duma’s security committee Vladimir Vasilyev says Shamil Basayev belonged to the very special breed of terrorists who are hell-bent on creating an Islamic Caliphate in Russia using for this purpose money donated by radical groups abroad.

Politkovskaya’s connection with Basayev was unfortunate and her mediation role in the Moscow theatre siege, by definition, shows she at least had the ear of the terrorist warlords. Of course the prosecutors claim far closer involvement. Putin claimed her murder was designed to stir up waves of anti-Russian feeling, which of course it has done. It’s far easier to believe in the Russian monster than to look elsewhere for the culprits.

Digressing to the Moscow siege a moment, why would a hitman leave behind his calling card anyway:

The gun found near her apartment block in central Moscow was a 9mm Makarov, known as the weapon of choice for Russian hitmen.

At a time when Russia was trying for admission to the WTO and had paid off its Club of Paris debt the last thing they were seeking was world condemnation – not just at that time:

Novaya Gazeta, which is offering a reward of almost a million dollars for information about the shooting, has written that it believes her murder was either revenge by Kadyrov, or an attempt to discredit him.

Conditions inside the gym
A correspondent named Odessafile, writing for Lebanese Forces, put it this way:

The Chechens have been killing Russians, blowing up apartment buildings, opera houses, killing school children by the 1000’s, kidnapping Russians and they along with the Georgians and one other group (the oligarchs) are the keepers of the so called Russian Mafia. Thus, when this lady defended the Chechnians who are Salafi Islamists funded by the Wahabis she had as much credibility with the Russian people as a US journalist would in defending the Taliban and Bin Laden. So to say she had any impact on Putin, or on Russian policy in Chechnia is as far fetched as one could have imagined. To say Putin gave a crap about what she said or even paid much mind to it boggles the imagination. No one else cared in Russia. And the only damage Putin could have gotten because of her is if some one killed her and then blamed it on him. So alas,you see the irony here.

The Berezovsky/Litvinenko/Politskaya/Basayev/Kadyrov connection is not all that popular in Russia and Politkovskaya’s alleged lack of objectivity is also not so popular.  Many Brits have formed opinions of her based on other issues but perhaps they should also be looking at her in terms of Beslan and her connection with the warlords.

Basayev and one of his child killers

So the questions still remain: Who wanted Ossetia in turmoil with its citizens killing one another? How could these monsters have acted so inhumanely at Beslan? Who stood to gain by Russia being refused admission to the WTO and other western bodies? Who stands to gain by Russia being an international pariah? Answering these questions would surely move us closer to the real truth.  The British viewpoint on all this is coloured by “news” services such as Sky TV and of course, they found this footage, blaming Putin for the massacre.
Sky might certainly have a point that the rescue was botched, that the first explosion was outside the building and that the Russian forces then replied with maximum force, which triggered the bombs inside the gym where the children were.
This might be so and let’s concede that.  However, it does not alter in any way the fact that there were booby trapped bombs wired up right across the gymnasium, for one purpose only – to kill children and gain maximum publicity and overreaction, for political purposes:

In the end, the people below in the narrow picture [click to zoom] are all now dead – and for what?

Just look at this headline:

Professional makeover Lindsay Lohan: I want respect Hollywood’s bad girl is determined to rehabilitate her career.

Now, where do we start on women and respect?   Oh I couldn’t be bothered any more.

… and a fun amateur version.

You’ve probably seen this but here it is again, courtesy of Mad Piper:

Nelson: “Order the signal, Hardy.”

Hardy: “Aye, aye sir.”

Nelson: “Hold on, that’s not what I dictated to Flags. What’s the meaning of this?”

Hardy: “Sorry sir?”

Nelson (reading aloud): “‘ England expects every person to do his or her duty, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious persuasion or disability.’ – What gobbledygook is this?”

Hardy: “Admiralty policy, I’m afraid, sir. We’re equal opportunities employer now. We had the devil’s own job getting ‘England’ past the censors, lest it be considered racist.”

Nelson: “Gadzooks, Hardy. Hand me my pipe and tobacco.”

Hardy: “Sorry sir. All naval vessels have now been designated smoke-free working environments.”

Nelson: “In that case, break open the rum ration. Let us splice the main brace to steel the men before battle.”

Hardy: “The rum ration has been abolished, Admiral. Its part of the Government’s policy on binge drinking.”

Nelson: “Good heavens, Hardy. I suppose we’d better get on with it ………. Full speed ahead.”

Hardy: “I think you’ll find that there’s a 4 knot speed limit in this stretch of water.”

Nelson: “Damn it man! We are on the eve of the greatest sea battle in history. We must advance with all dispatch. Report from the crow’s nest please.”

Hardy: “That won’t be possible, sir.”

Nelson: “What?”

Hardy: “Health and Safety have closed the crow’s nest, sir. No harness; and they said that rope ladders don’t meet regulations. They won’t let anyone up there until a proper scaffolding can be erected.”

Nelson: “Then get me the ship’s carpenter without delay, Hardy.”

Hardy: “He’s busy knocking up a wheelchair access to the foredeck Admiral.”

Nelson: “Wheelchair access? I’ve never heard anything so absurd.”

Hardy: “Health and safety again, sir. We have to provide a barrier-free environment for the differently abled.”

Nelson: “Differently abled? I’ve only one arm and one eye and I refuse even to hear mention of the word. I didn’t rise to the rank of admiral by playing the disability card.”

Hardy: “Actually, sir, you did. The Royal Navy is under represented in the areas of visual impairment and limb deficiency.”

Nelson: “Whatever next? Give me full sail. The salt spray beckons.”

Hardy: “A couple of problems there too, sir. Health and safety won’t let the crew up the rigging without hard hats. And they don’t want anyone breathing in too much salt – haven’t you seen the adverts?”

Nelson: “I’ve never heard such infamy. Break out the cannon and tell the men to stand by to engage the enemy.”

Hardy: “The men are a bit worried about shooting at anyone, Admiral.”

Nelson: “What? This is mutiny!”

Hardy: “It’s not that, sir. It’s just that they’re afraid of being charged with murder if they actually kill anyone There’s a couple of legal-aid lawyers on board, watching everyone like hawks.”

Nelson: “Then how are we to sink the French and the Spanish?”

Hardy: “Actually, sir, we’re not.”

Nelson: “We’re not?”

Hardy: “No, sir. The French and the Spanish are our European partners now. According to the Common Fisheries Policy, we shouldn’t even be in this stretch of water. We could get hit with a claim for compensation.”

Nelson: “But you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.”

Hardy: “I wouldn’t let the ship’s diversity co-ordinator hear you saying that sir. You’ll be up on disciplinary report.”

Nelson: “You must consider every man an enemy, who speaks ill of your King.”

Hardy: “Not any more, sir. We must be inclusive in this multicultural age. Now put on your Kevlar vest; it’s the rules. It could save your life”

Nelson: “Don’t tell me – health and safety. Whatever happened to rum, sodomy, and the lash?”

Hardy: As I explained, sir, rum is off the menu! And there’s a ban on corporal punishment.”

Nelson: “What about sodomy?”

Hardy: “I believe that is now legal, sir.”

Nelson: “In that case……………………… Kiss me, Hardy.”

The Iranians are the last ones to talk about morality and yet:

… if the cap fits.   In the words of others:

“I fail to see how this could hurt Sarkozy since everyone in Europe already knows Carla is a slut and the press has printed lots of her nude photos.”

Taken to task for using the S word, another commenter stepped in and said:

“Well, she spent many years stealing husbands, sleeping with rock stars/businessmen/politicians and posing nude.”

You be the judge.  Her songs reach heights of subtlety and profundity:

“You are my junk. More deadly than Afghan heroin. More dangerous than Colombian white (powder).  My guy, I roll him up and smoke him.  I am a child. Despite my forty years. Despite my thirty lovers. A child.”

Which makes Sarko a paedo, of course.

1. Which Bond movie ended on a train?
2. Who wrote The Railway Children?
3. What’s the largest railway station in the world?
4. What year was Strangers on a Train?
5. Which train features in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, ending in Paris?

Answers: Live and Let Die, Edith Nesbit, Grand Central, 1951, Orient Express

Just got in from work.

Memo – don’t allow any Russians to visit again because they tend to leave vodka, tomato juice, whisky, apple cider, borodinski bread, mushrooms and pickled cucumbers, which need to be polished off.

Sometimes I think I’m a right bstd.

I reached the junction station and the electronic board said that to get to my terminus, I had to get on the train back to where I’d come from and then change trains.  This necessitated a trip to the ticket office, where they cheerfully told me to ignore that but to follow the destination on the front of the train, as it came in.

Fine.

The next train came in and three other chaps and I were eagerly awaiting any indication that this might be our train chuffing towards us.  The railway had to have its little joke though because there was NOTHING, nada, nicht, zilch on the front, to tell us the destination.

Cunningly [I thought], I told the others that if it was a train back to my place, it would probably be 3 carriages and this one gave every indication that it was 6 – most certainly an intercity.

We gave it a shot and boarded, the doors closed and we sat … and sat … and sat.  Nothing was showing on the texty thingy which whizzes across.  The tannoy informed us that it was an offence to ride a bicycle on the platform and that we could be prosecuted for it. Also that there was a range of hot and cold food at the shop, which I’ve previously exposed, on this blog, as a wicked lie.

The doors opened again.

A bell went and the doors closed.  We sat … and sat … and sat.

Then the train shuffled slowly from the station.

.o0o.

This evening, boarding the return train was pretty straightforward until we reached the junction station.  The board was showing trains only back to where I’d just come from, not home.  This necessitated a trip to the ticket office, where they cheerfully told me to ignore that but to follow the destination on the front of the train, as it came in.

I laughed at the joke and told them about the midday incidents [mentioned above].  “I know how I can tell it will be our train,” I exclaimed.  “It all depends on the number of carriages.  Oh, I do love this game.”

The stationmaster glared at me.

Do you know this man in the photo? He’s Tony Windsor, not related to the Queen but might as well be because he might still decide who governs Australia.

With the concession of the last seat, Brisbane, to the Lib-Nationals [Conservatives], they now are evenly poised with Labor.  Hence the independent in the photo taking until next weekend to decide whom he likes more.

It will be interesting to see how much each side is prepared to concede.

A little bit of research reveals that if you take the antecedents of the six who will decide the issue – four independents, a National Party member and a Green, it would run 3-1 among the independents for the LCP, one of the independents would go Green, i.e. Labor and the Green is Green.  Therefore, it would be 4-2 to the LCP.

One interesting article on three of the four independents says:

Across regional Australia, a brace of electorates profoundly rejected Labor and the Greens at this election. When you add the combined votes of the ALP and the Greens, the four seats where these parties polled the lowest combined totals were: New England (11.4 per cent), Lyne (17.2 per cent), Kennedy (24.7 per cent) and O’Connor (25.7 per cent).

And who are the four MPS who hold these seats? None other than Tony Windsor (New England), Bob Oakeshott (Lyne), Bob Katter (Kennedy) and Tony Crook (O’Connor), who was elected as a West Australian National but says he considers himself separate from the Liberal-National coalition.

Therefore, were they to support Labor, then they are flying in the face of the electorates.

If they supported the LCP, they would then be able to ensure promises were kept or hold the government to ransom, whichever way you’d like to see it.  So if Abbott was favoured with government, then he’d actually have to honour his promises – an invidious position for any pollie.

The sun has broken out on this Bank Holiday Monday [I'm working today] and I do not wish to rain on anyone’s parade but here is the state of play:

Economics

Firstly via Jesse:

As the renewed tumbling in the U.S. economy throws off statistics suggestive of a continuing collapse in business activity, as a looming contraction in third-quarter GDP becomes increasingly evident to all except Wall Street and Administration hypesters, who professionally never admit to such news, it would be quite surprising if the financial markets did not react violently, with a massive sell-off in the U.S. dollar contributing to and coincident with massive sell-declines in both the U.S. equity and credit markets.

Naturally, the money men in New York and the City cannot admit to this, which brings me to Broad Oak:

If this is intended as a tease, looking sideways at my first blog which started three years ago and forewarned of the credit crunch*, banking collapse etc, then it’s worked. Not that I claim any wisdom, but a strong gut feeling got me looking around for sources of information other than the useless Press.

And he was right too.  Now, regarding gold, most people have ignored the warnings of Xxxl who wrote for a long time on the fraud, as did other pundits across the net and people in the game such as Janet Tavakoli.  There has been massive fraud and disregard for regulations, there is a political appointee running the Fed, a puppet for Them and thus we have the bailouts, the hedge fund crime and the diluting of gold bars, let alone the fraudulent claims of how much is being held.

The money men have an interest, as mentioned in the first quote, to professionally never admit to such news. The job situation is not improving in the least. I still get multiple feeds to my email of all the major job sites and though there are jobs, there are also closed shops to so many when they try for these supposed jobs plus these jobs are geographically concentrated – many in some places and a dearth in others. I’m also in the running for a position right now and it’s an eye-opener how many desperate people there are out there.

Politics

This opinion piece in the MSM is just the latest, pointing to what is going on and the way mainstream pundits are now finally tumbling to it.   Plus the impossibility of getting anything done because the game is tied up and has been locked into a two party circus in the U.S. and a two and a half party circus over here for a very long time, protected by sedition and treason laws.

Even more worrying is the way the government, through the MSM, is indulging in disruptive bully tactics on the street to promote unrest and shut down dissent.  A crashing dollar and pound, the collapse of the fraudulent pack of cards at the right moment and the labelling of “the bankers”, whoever they be, as the betes-noir, coupled with all the social ills, from radical Islam to child sex and drugs and the breakdown of marriage, along with the command and control tightening of the oligarchy, together with the bloating of the new benefits underclass, rampant immigration – all of these things point to a new order when a white knight rides in and promises the people he’ll solve all this.

More than a few know who that will be, irrespective of who he is by name.

The myth of scarcity

There is more than enough food being produced but it is being redirected and withheld wrongly in order to artificially boost prices, keep the underclass in a state of malnutrition and seize control of food supplies through the concessions game in local communities.

At the same time, the very constituent nature of food is being tampered with, having fallen, crop generation after crop generation, into the hands of the conglomerates whose members are tied to the oligarchies behind the visible politicians whom the majority think run things.

Spiritual poverty

This is the factor which allows all the rest to happen so easily – focussed on all the wrong things, with values relativistic and all over the place, James Wilson says:

There is now a spiritual poverty in families of all classes – a sterility, of which I was a part – that is compressed unbearably onto the underclass by the sterile class of good intentions.

“Poverty , aside from breeding crime, also breeds lack of adequate parenting……..”. It is the effect of runaway good intentions that breeds a lack of parents, a lack of parenting, and the great and uncontrollable cruelties of the welfare state.

We cannot “reach children before they run down the slippery slope” when you have placed them already at that end.

Add to that the new heroes of society -the bizarre and twisted, painted and bodily-scarred clowns who prance about, getting it wrong and whom the MSM fetes sycophantically, as if some 16 year old singer is the font of all wisdom and a role model for the young to follow.

Nothing wrong with deviating from the norm – it even helps define the norm but not when it becomes the norm.

Solution

There is one but no one wants to know.  So society will keep floundering around, coming up with every other solution and philosophy with no efficacy, while the one which will actually help is left untouched and vilified.  The truth is that you will never get the elite to do the right thing because they have gone over to the other side but you can hem Them in for a time, as long as:

1.  Society accepts moral absolutes and is generally “moral” again, with a strong, family based foundation, demanding the same from the politicians;

2. Honesty returns in all dealings, from how money is created through to all of us living within our means, with no credit to be seen except in micro situations between two parties.

Further reading

On government proposals for councils to restrict housing “to reward those who had got off welfare and into work”.

Please answer me this – why can’t we get anything right?

My excuse is that I’m aging but all those bright young things out there, pushing envelopes and thinking outside the box, rolling this and that out – surely they are at the peak of their mental powers and should be able to get it right.

The answer, it seems to me, has something to do with the removal of discretionary power from people.  In a life and death situation, such as that plane ride, it is critical to follow procedures blindly until it’s perfectly obvious that something is mightily wrong.

In day to day life though, people get their knickers so far into a twist that they start making errors, sometimes critical ones.   I once worked in a job where the staff were only there because they were professionals in what they did.  There were broad targets but how you got there was up to you.  There was a business ethos to be adhered to and a spokesperson made all the public statements but other than that, no one was too fussed.

Enter a new leader and she couldn’t abide anyone else doing it his or her way.  It was “my way or the highway”. When she was clearly wrong and it was mentioned, this made it worse and we got into the old “criticize the boss only on pain of dismissal” syndrome – the first step to an organization going down because it suppresses healthy incentive to contribute from one’s own experience.  She was so defensive and intense that it cast a pall over operations.

I saw a conference organized once where everyone was so frightened to make any kind of error that they … made errors.  Ridiculous errors too, such as taking away the seat of the key speaker, just as he was about to sit down – this has been mentioned before on this blog.

It’s a combination of not daring to use any discretion or common sense whatever, slavishly following the regulations and procedures to the letter and no one really informing anyone else of how this or that is done which causes the problem.  Whenever you insist that everyone operates as cogs in the machine, then the machine itself must have its operating system debugged and working perfectly.

Frightened people don’t work perfectly – they forget to mention things, fail to put this or that in the right box and then the recriminations and witch-hunting starts.  Combine that with people of a lower intellect or ability level being given preference over mavericks, on the grounds that they’ll comply better and are a fashionable societal group and there is the recipe for disaster – non-professionals desperately pretending to be professional, according to the handbook instructions on being professional.

Add to this the employment situation and ho easy it is to be on the scrapheap these days.  That’s what we have in this country – not exclusively in this country, to be fair, yet quite widespread, nonetheless.

O-ku Nsu-kun No-ko – Yoruban for “The dead are weeping for the dead”. I find the first half of this song thought-provoking and the second half quite uplifting. Below, a sad but haunting song of loss from a most underrated band.

Please, when you’ve heard these, pop over for some superb violin from a master at Calum’s here and here. Have a lovely Sunday evening.

There’s an article in the Mail – yes, I know, it’s my equivalent of slumming it – and it’s about a houseguest who came to stay … and stay … and stay …

There’s a certain amount of artistic licence allowed journos on blog-type pieces and if this journo did act as she said she did, then more fool her:

Katy was bored and despondent as she had been refused a visa to re-enter the U.S. I was reluctant as I had only met her twice, and yet there seemed something fraudulent about her.

She said she had been refused a visa because the man at the embassy had formed an irrational dislike for her. She claimed her family, with the exception of her late mother, were unkind to her.

She arrived at my house when I was out and was let in by my cleaning lady. Instead of making her way to the spare room, she decided to make her nest in the master bedroom – my bedroom.

Now if she had done that with me, she’d have been out of the door that day because that comes under the heading “professionally taking the p***”.

I’m unusually sensitive to this issue for the simple reason that, from May 2008 until January 2009, I was down and out and dependent on the largesse of others. Long time readers know that I went south from Russia to Welshcakes and then to Jailhouse Lawyer, in the UK, meeting up with Andrew Allison, then to the northwest for some time and finally into my own flat.

It wasn’t just those people either – there were people in Russia and two in the UK – Uber and Cherie, integrally involved with this thing plus others such as Wolfie, Sackers and Tiberius and one thing I was and still am – is eternally grateful. I flatly refuse to have bad relations with those people … ever.

The very last thing I wanted to do was rock the boat but in Welshcakes’ case, my angst over my continuing dealings with the government and an inability to stay up late, along with salt [don't ask] became an issue. An inability to express my gratitude also played on my mind.

I have to tell you that I’m hypersensitive to imposing on people and squaring that with them is a major priority once I can get firing again. Last weekend I had a chap staying here who has a similar point of view – the dislike of imposing on others and the visit was short.

The trouble for me is that he is an expansive, generous person by nature and that was an issue all on its own – we had a lovely time, no mistake but the unspoken correctness was an undercurrent. My mate up the road also hates to put himself upon others, no matter how close and that’s how things were for me in Russia earlier – my own boss, my own flat and able to give rather than take – a far better position for the soul.

I know I’m saying it as shouldn’t but I was not known for my stinginess back then nor do I believe anyone wants to be known for that.

Gifts

Changing tack, for some time it’s seemed to me that the Japanese system of gift giving and receiving is a good one.  I really do detest gift receiving and giving because the danger is that the outgoing response will be out of proportion to the incoming gesture.

The Japanese understand the fundamentals of this.

It’s all well and fine to just give because you like the person but it creates an obligation in his/her mind.  In general, I believe most people don’t rationalize to the extent I am doing now and fair enough.  They wouldn’t take it as seriously as I but then again, the Japanese take it far more seriously than I do.

For me, there are four issues:

1.  I pride myself on giving gifts that have been thought out and wrapped with care.  A lady I know in Melbourne once complimented me on it and as her taste was exquisite [prior to that, of course], then this was one of the most important accolades ever to me and one to live up to if I can.  I hate doing things shoddily;

2.  Cost.  If I can’t match it or if it seems ungenerous on my part, it creates angst and plays on my mind;

3.  What the gift says.  There’s a lady near where I work and we struck up an ongoing conversation.  I had some ginger biscuits from Costa and gave them to her one day and immediately that skewed the relations;

About a week later, our organization issued a decree to all that no one was to disturb anyone or any other business in that building.  I’m not suggesting that it was all don to my act but it seems to me to have been part of it.

4.  The commercialism of “giving seasons”.  I used to get handmade calendars from one friend and that was all I ever wanted from her.  I hope that what I gave her sufficed.

People are forever misinterpreting what gifts are about and so, given all the above factors, I’d prefer, please, to neither receive nor give.  In the same way that I’m in no current position to afford a woman [and it does cost a certain amount, to do justice to her, no matter what anyone says], then it’s better just to let the whole thing slide.

In Russia, my best mate and I had a deal – we’d have a cost limit, we knew what each needed/wanted, e.g. Gillette deodorant, coffee etc. and we religiously stuck to that formula.  All was well.