Solitary Bathroom Pleasures

I've been spending a lot of time in the bathroom lately. Nope, not too many ferret tikka masalas nor even a a new conditioner to try (have you noticed how all the different gunks sold to bung on hair these days are all given the generic term "product"? I find it ridiculous that terms from TV adverts are adopted by intelligent human beings and I want nothing to do with it - simples). Anyway, I'm sure you're all agog vis a vis my solitary toilet moments so I shall endeavour to explain.

This building used to be a riverside inn with the whole first floor being used as overnight accommodation for the itinerant population of sailors, travellers and other sundry ne'er do wells until it eventually languished into disuse. The building was bought by a local estate agent and the first floor converted into one big flat which is now Chez Bassett although I do have a house as well (but that's another story!). Anyway, one of the few drawbacks here is that the windows are all quite small and don't really look over anywhere that has a changing scenery like a garden. Sadly, the river is quite boring and doesn't provide much in the way of photographic opportunity until I go further down the road to the harbour. And that is the key to tonight's offering - photography.

The bathroom window overlooks a flat roof which is ideal for attracting the local bird population and it's the only place where I can leave food for them. I can set up my tripod and click away quite happily hence the plethora of "bird on flat roof" pictures" This is a picture of the set-up which might be considered a bit pervy. However, the only people I can spy on are those waiting at the bus stop over the road and even I haven't quite discovered any perverted pleasure associated with that.

Since I started doing this a week or 2 ago it's been a constant battle of wills with my ornithological opponents. I see them out of the kitchen window, pecking away at the feasts I leave and sidle quietly into the bathroom to capture their souls on my G1. The ringed dove seems to have a built-in sensor system and takes off immediately I move a muscle, the magpies tempt me by posing until the moment I am ready to press the shutter and the seagulls basically don't give a toss! That's all the birdlife there is around here apart from the pigeons. No chaffinches, pied wagtails, starlings or jays and I've seen more tits in a catwalk show changing room.

The magpies, presumably a pair, live in a tree about 20 yards away and spend a lot of time strutting around on the grass and chattering away. They've been christened Max and Madeleine and I have to say I've got quite possessive about them. The gulls of course are everywhere and tend to just barge in and fight each other for every last crumb of bread although the babies seem to rule the roost.

I'm hoping that autumn will see a few more visitors as well as give me more visibility as the leaves tumble. Certainly, the wild bird food seems to be largely ignored and I spent ages in the pet shop trying to decide what to buy. Having just researched what magpies eat however, it seems to range from nuts and berries to small rabbits and mammals! I suppose staking out voles for a good camera shot might not go down too well with the neighbours but it's worth considering - teehee.

It's a real bugger not having a proper garden when you have a long lens and time to spare. Yesterday I got a phone call from my best buddy Jimmy saying come round for a cuppa and he looked on with his usual expression of bemused acceptance at my behaviour as I hurtled round his garden taking photos galore.

It certainly beat the solitary pleasures of the bathroom. Having said that, I think I've found Max & Maddie's nesting area so I'm going to need another tripod at one of the kitchen windows now!

I'm not quite dead yet!

Gosh but it's been a long time since I even dared click on my blog page, let alone attempt to write anything.

The summer is slipping away and today apparently Harrods, Selfridges and Fortnums have opened their Christmas departments complete with Santa, songs and, no doubt, sweaty little elves. Footie season has started and the Reds won 4-0 tonight so life ain't too bad

Still not sure what I am writing but it's good to feel I needed to. Is it good though? Perhaps I need the therapy of writing? Hmmmmm.

After my attempts at photo manipulation ,I started looking at proper grown-up cameras as well as my Sony compact and somehow, one found its way into Bassett Towers! As a consequence, I've been doing a fair bit of photography lately...... well, taking pictures and letting a camera with a brain the size of a planet make all the decisions regarding the arcane arts of exposure, shutter speed etc. For those interested , it's the Panasonic Lumix G1 with both 14-45mm and 45-200mm lenses.


I've always enjoyed taking pictures but have got back into it lately and occasionally get something I am pleased with. Of course, digital cameras have changed things so much with their "throw-away" capability rather than careful harvesting of the roll of Fuji 400 and the associated "I'll worry about the processing cost on payday". These days I can happily take 100+ shots in an hour or 2 with no problem whatsoever.

Mind you, considering it's all "instant" technology, it's all a lot slower these days.

Old days: Buy film, take shots, send off to BonusPrint and then hope there is one that is recognisable. Total time: 7-10 days.

Now:

1. Pack camera bag with lenses, spare camera, spare memory card, spare battery, filters., mini tripod, spare batteries for spare camera etc. Get in car.
2. Get back out of car after realising you forgot the actual camera in amongst all the other stuff.
3. Go to wherever and take pictures.
4. Get home, look for memory card thingy. Find it in cutlery drawer (!)
5. Decide which of the 38 download/viewing choices you want. Windows Photo Player? Adobe Bridge? Photoshop Elements? CS4? Finally click on entirely the wrong one and find you have bluetoothed them to the lady in the shop over the road's mobile phone.
6. Retrieve them and finally get them on the PC.

Then there is the agonising choice of what to do with them?

I start off with Definite Keep and Definite Lose and then find I have kept everything but the totally blurred ones of my finger "just in case". I tell myself to be strong and cull them some more and finally get left with , say, 75%. Then it's a case of selecting those which I feel sure enough about to allow people to see (usually 4 or 5).

Of course it's not just a case of uploading them as I still don't feel they're good enough so I start playing with PhotoShop. Approximately 3 hours later I have totally f*cked the picture so end up just uploading the original. I still keep the rest and have inflicted yet more agonies on myself vis a vis storage. It took me 3 weeks to decide on a format (simple - just keep 'em in date order) but then I started thinking of storage. 3 hard drives on PC so plenty of disk space but what if that particular drive fries? NO probs - I have external drive back-up running permanently. Most people would be content with that but not Loony Lugs, oh no. What if the back-up failed AND the drive failed? There are now several high capacity memory sticks en route from deepest Hong Kong!

Total time taken? Who knows? I still have hundreds of photos to sort! Never, I expect.

So, my faithful old Olympus OM10 sits moribund in a small camera bag whilst the flat is littered with the accoutrements of the new technological age. Photographic gadgets, gizmos and bits everywhere - and there was me thinking I was just buying a camera!

I suppose I really wrote this blog because people have been kind enough to say some nice things about my photos. Some are hobby photographers and some are not but I am still astonished that they take the trouble (oh, and before anybody says anything nice, you know I am shite at accepting compliments and pleasantries so let's just take that as read shall we and move on?). Certainly the offerings of my three photographically-inclined friends on Flickr fill me with awe at their skill in both seeing and executing a shot. If you enjoy photographs, might I recommend www.flickr.com and do a member search for Lily-Wren, Kitty W and Gemo52. It's well worth a browse!

My worst frustration, especially with a love of macro photography is a pair of unsteady hands. I've always had a tremor but it had got to such a stage recently that I couldn't even carry a mug of tea so photography was a bit iffy to say the least. Fortunately it transpires that some tablets I was taking were mostly responsible although I have the delights of an MRI scan shortly, just to make sure. It's still a bugger though, especially with a long lense and I have a plethora of almost perfectly sharp photos to prove it. However, tripods and remote shutters are handy for some stuff so all is not lost.

To paraphrase Robert Brault, I take amateur photographs of Nature and Nature makes my photographs look professional. I see my surroundings in a different way now I am actually looking at everything and the thrill of capturing a moment forever is one of the sweetest there is.

Art and Crafty

'Ello me dearios. Gosh, that was Rambling Sid Rumpo from the days of steam wireless and Round the Horne. Oh the bliss of Sunday lunchtimes - roast cow, huuuuuge Yorkshire puddings, perhaps a soupcon of Blue Nun if my parents allowed me and then an hour of comedy; The Navy Lark, Round the Horne, The Clitheroe Kid, Educating Archie with Peter Brough as radio's only ventriloquist (!!) and of course, the inimitable Goon Show.

As usual, I digress so will march onward with an update on the events of the last couple of weeks.

I've been ploughing on with my PhotoShop bits and am thoroughly enjoying my first faltering attempts at art. I seem to be hung up on changing the scale of things and distorting size (OMG, what would Freud say?). I've got a stream on Flickr should anybody wish to waste a few moments - here's the link.

I have to say, as a beginner to the joys of Flickr, it's a truly marvellous place to search for photos and I found a wonderful selection from a group set up in my local area. It's cost me many an hour just browsing Flickr. It seems that whatever search words you enter brings forth beautiful pictures and it makes my own efforts look truly amateur. Still, it's made me start taking my camera out with me so this (apparently scorching) summer should see me adjusting my exposure with monotonous regularity!


I've also another admission to make - I am now a student once more (pauses to drink cider, eat a tin of cold baked beans and find duffel coat). I've now got 10 weeks to become a web wizard via the Open University so hopefully, in the relatively near future, I shall be posting from my own website. I've had it for several years although never done anything about it until now and it presently displays very little. You could be one of the very first to visit it and be entered into a free draw to win a holiday for 2 in Bermuda (closing date 30 April 2009). Just visit www.papermoneyworld.co.uk and leave a £25 donation to cover admin costs and I'll announce the winner sometime or other.

I got 3 loads of bumph from the OU today and I really hope the course is easier than the admin - none of it makes any sense whatsoever.

Nothing much else to write about at the moment although the urge to get back to my flying is becoming stronger by the day. If you recall, I had reached Karachi and there I am marooned. I watched a documentary on Discovery the other day about a WW1 flier called Major James McCudden who rose from air mechanic to Major and became one of the top aces with 57 kills. Apparently, it was forbidden to keep any sort of journal in those days but he did and this was eventually published in the form of a book entitled "Flying Fury". I am reading it at the moment and am stunned at the simplicity of aerial warfare at the time and the nonchalance of his narrative. It could be said that it was "doctored" to make it more readable but tragically, he died in 1918 and was thus unable to change one word. The irony was that his death was caused by engine failure of his SE5A and not in combat. Major McCudden VC, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar, MM, Croix de Guerre survived his 2 brothers who were both also pilots and killed in battle - he was only 23.


We talk of our soldiers coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq as heroes - they chose their career and undoubtedly are consummate professionals. Reading of the privations, the desperate conditions and the appalling decisions of their leaders puts the soldiers, sailors and airmen of WW1 in a toally different league to the fighting men of today. I salute them both - but have no difficulty in choosing which era in which I would prefer to serve.

The Man from Del Monté says Wii

I've got yet another new toy!

Due to the combination of 9 month's non-smoking, laziness, boredom and sheer gluttony my body has taken on the appearance of Buddha as viewed by one of those distorting mirrors you used to get on all the best seaside piers. Oh those were the days - a penny in the What the Butler Saw (with a delicious frisson of guilt as you saw those knee-length drawers), the glass animal man, a few machines and all the stalls. Nowadays, it's the mega-decibel clatter of mindless machines and a cornucopeia of ways to relieve you of as much money in as short a time as possible.


I digress as usual so back to the toy: it's a Wii, complete with Wii Fit and it's going to turn me into the god-like figure that I know is hidden (fairly deeply) inside the layers of muscle cunningly disguised as fat. My GP said he has one so it was justified as a medical need and I was quite excited as it told me it would keep track of progress and help me turn into the new Wii Mii. It asked my age, height, weight and got me to do a few tests and told me my physical age was actually 5 years younger than the bitter reality. Result!! All one apparently has to do is leap on the thing and do a few balance tests and the years drop off. At this rate, I thought, in a week or two I'd be 21 again.

I started a few exercises. 2 minutes virtual hula-hooping was a bit interesting and I suddenly realised the room was getting hotter, then it got me to do a short jog and I realised that, whilst it was a great piece of kit, a sports bra should have been included. Anyway, cutting a long story short, 60 minutes later I was a sodden wreck but I had tightrope walked, tried step aerobics, totally failed at yoga and become rated as "professional" at skiing.

Next day, I took my aching body to check how many years as well as stone I had lost. It welcomed me back and got me to do another Wii Fit age test. Seventy frigging nine!!! Stupid, STUPID machine. I took solace in some 10 pin bowling and was starting to feel a bit better about life until my son arrived and proceeded to get 7 strikes in a row. Anyway, the challenge is now on and, if nothing else, the Wii has succeeded in me seeing much more of Master Bassett as he seeks to avenge the many years of playing second fiddle to the alpha Bassett. So far, I am baseball and golf champion as well as whuppin' his ass at advanced hula hooping - we'll conveniently forget all the other disciplines!


If you are listening to the music on here it's the title track to the new Neil Young album, Fork in the Road (the cover is rubbish so here's a picture I prepared earlier!). Mr Young's album output has been prodiguous to say the least during his career with, I understand, 48 released thus far.Add to that his Buffalo Springfield, CSNY and other occasional get-together albums and it's about 80 altogether. This latest album was typical Young insofar as it was written and thrown together in 2 recording sessions in the middle of a long tour. Why the hurry? Because NY had a bee in his bonnet about the motor car industry and needed to express his protest.

Neil Young has always been a man of conscience espousing such things as Farm Aid, anti-war protest and the environment. Sadly, the age of protest singers is perceived to belong to the bygone era era of Joan Baez, Dylan, Lennon, Seeger etc - a spin-off of the hippy '60s. There are undoubtedly still songs expressing protest with REM, Springsteen, Green Day, Eminem and Pearl Jam all contributing but Young still seems to carry the conscience of a nation upon his shoulders at times. The new album may be a bit raw and a tad crude around the edges but I think it's back to Young at his stirred-up best. I admire the man but I can't say I enjoy all of his music. More often than not, the whimsical country stuff is not for me.The fact remains though that he is still exploring his talent and his craft. Hearing him with his old simple rock style once more, is superb. Feeling the passion in his work is a privilege.

I'm still trying to improve my PhotoShop skills and thoroughly enjoying the creativity it gives me. Speaking as someone who can't draw a straight line, it allows me a freedom to play without the skill of an artist. Prawn Cocktail is very Daliesque although I didn't consciously make it so and God alone knows from where The Glorious Twelfth came? The Taj Mahal as a cake was just a play - nothing more.

I decided I would try and express in Photoshop what I have previously done in my writings i.e. my thoughts, fears influences etc. I had no idea just what would come out but below is the result - it hasn't got a title. Maybe one day I will feel my thoughts deserve one.

March Musings and April Aspirations

As usual, it's been far too long since I last wrote anything - a combination of lethargy, laziness and general lack of inspiration.

I was however raised to the point of incandescent rage by that advert which has the precocious little brat who wants a poo at his friend's because they have infinitely superior air freshener . Leaving aside the smacked arse and potential early death he would get if he were mine, do the ad agency really think that it's going to make me rush out and buy the product? "Ooh, that must be so good if the kid wants to leg it over to his mate's for a crap. Must try some!" No, as far as I'm concerned he can go and pee all over their carpets and do a number 2 on the hamster's head - I care not one jot.

Whilst we're on the subject of adverts, what's all this Tena lark? It's only relatively recently that the subject of female incontinence has become high on the marketing list so does this mean that evolution has only just created the problem? Is it only in the last couple of years that (if the ads are to believed) a 40 something female laughing heartily creates an inundation similar to the Severn bore? I've spent ages telling my best jokes to middle-aged ladies and peering furtively at their lower regions for tell-tale signs of dampness - all in the cause of research, you understand. What about pre-Tena? The mind boggles at the urological mayhem that was going on a short thickness of material away from us mere males' gaze.

Just one final whinge advert-wise: why does it appear that every beauty product seems to have been voted "Best" in some poll/magazine or other? Call me pretentious (moi?) but I wouldn't buy anything that's been recommended by people that fill in such questionnares anyway. Have you noticed the small print that appears for 3 attoseconds (yes, it IS a word) at the bottom of the screen during such adverts? L'Oreal CreviceFilla - voted best product 2009 (small print = As voted by a survey of 17 readers of Surgical Appliance Modelling Monthly).

Other matters now: I expect you are all agog as to how the PhotoShop tuition is going? Well, it's starting to come together a bit more now and I've moved on a step or two. I'm still enjoying the 21st century version of colouring books and here are a couple of before and afters. The first is merely a picture of an Edwardian lady taken from the 'net. As usual, double click on a photo to enlarge it.

The second attempt is a photo of Ma and Pa. There is a date of 1943 on the back of the original which makes them 22 and 21 respectively. I think they look a lot older - how think you?

As you can see, there was not way I was going to colour the original background so I merely removed this and chose a new one - If only real life were that easy!

The next one sort of pulled a lot of threads together; working with linked layers, dodging, burning, masking, histograms, filters, hue and saturation etc etc. All pretty basic for a pro but to little old me it was a quite satisfying experience. I had a photo of Shoreham Airport I took last autumn so decided that was as good a place as ever to start. This is it - pretty boring and colour/contrast was not great.


I needed to change the blue of the sky and the grass so used the wonderfully easy quick mask mode and also decided that the final composition would be better if the photo was reversed. This, of course, mirrored the registration letters of the blue aircraft so I had to do a nifty bit of cutting, pasting and resizing to correct the problem. Some final tone adjustments, removal of a few extraneous bits and a quick tweak with the histogram and sharpening mask and it became this:


Incidentally, the building behind is part of Lancing College and very beautiful it is too.

Right, foreground subject time and I had chosen a Spitfire - specifically this one:


OK, off with the background and then it's merely a case of masking piece by piece, colouring, tweaking and Bob's your parent's brother. There's loads more I could play with on it but, by and large, I'm quite pleased. Sorry if it's boring for you, dear reader, but for me, who longs for achievement in even small ways, it's been well worth it. Welcome to "Spitfire on a Summer's Day"


The only other achievement of note (for me anyway!) is composing some educational worksheets for Newhaven Fort which will be available as PDF downloads for school visits and a commitment to evolve and construct a couple of exhibitions. One concerning the 1923 inflation crisis in Germany and the Weimar Republic which will enable me to show dozens of the issued notes and the other, a display of pre-decimal coinage and banknotes for younger people to appreciate our old coins. Part of it will be a pile of pre-decimal coins required to buy a packet of crisps at 2009 prices - I'll leave you to work out how big that pile could potentially be!

Red No Day

(this is NOT me)

Before I wax lyrical can I just say one thing: It has come to my notice that certain people have been casting aspersions on, and questioning my sanity. I find this quite hurtful and would like to state categorically that there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that I am sane.

Right, Friday 13th. Some people get really uptight about this although there seem to be no valid reasons as to why, apart from Friday and 13 both being unlucky. I have sympathy with all paraskevidekatriaphobians but the day actually heralds fear and dread in my heart for another reason - it's that time of the year again. That day when normally staid professional and rational people get coerced , blackmailed or shamed into turning themselves into total dicks and people pay money to them out of sheer embarrassment or a desire to end the ritual humiliation as soon as possible. Red Nose Day dawns once more.

I have absolutely no problem with the reasons or the rationale but I'm afraid that it's past its sell-by date as far as I'm concerned. Kids doing silly things at school - fine. Teachers dressing as Peter the frigging Pixie or whatever they do in a bid to try and prove that discipline is totally dead these day, I'm not so keen on. As far as I'm concerned, teachers (or "masters" in my day) should still be wearing suits and gowns, not jeans and I heart Edukayshun teeshirts.

I decided to get the shopping done this afternoon so toddled off to Sainsbury. "Sainsbury?" I hear you ask, "What's happened to the wondrous delights of Scummerfield, that halcyon Nirvana of which you normally wax so lyrical?" Well, apart from actually wanting to buy something rather than gazing at empty shelves and the occasional retarded shelf stacker gazing in puzzlement at his pallet of foie gras and puy lentils, I happened to notice that they were having an "event" today. Scummies are very good at dressing up. One mature lady called V*l enters into things wholeheartedly and dresses as a Christmas Elf from November right through to February whilst the Area Manager has (allegedly) been known to dress himself as a blonde in a small black cocktail number (mind you, not many people know that). Apparently, 2 of the staff are going to be waxed with the vast hairiness of their legs being removed in the name of charity. I idly wondered which of the ladies were involved but then read that it was actually a couple of the guys.

Finding a problem reconciling gaiety and fun with shopping at Scummies, I climbed into the car and zoomed off to Sainsbury. The first thing I saw was a big set of stocks and an exhortation to throw sponges for Red Nose Day! Too late, I realised that they were heavily involved in the whole thing. The foyer had people trying to sell tickets for a raffle to New York (fair enough) whilst this poor sod was to be seen sitting disconsolately in a corner wearing an old fashioned swimming costume and a strange pattern to his legs. Hurrying past, I filled my little trolley with the staples of life; microwave popcorn, strawberry laces, banoffee pie and Tassimo tea then remembered the list of boring stuff I'd been given and went round again. Staff were wearing teeshirts explaining how the company was supporting Red Nose day and I almost felt quite guilty when it occurred to me that there might be a marketing advantage to them. Wonder if that had occurred to them? Perish the thought.

Forcing my way through café staff all dressed in pyjamas.........see what I mean, what on earth is funny about spending the day wearing pyjamas? They do it all the time in hospitals but do you see people falling about laughing and giving money to pay for a skateboard park in the Gobi Desert? Where was I? Oh yes, forcing my way through café staff, I was just calming down and there was suddenly this almighty ringing behind me. I climbed ruefully out of the freezer chest where my jump had taken me and realised, to my horror, they had a fucking* Town Crier! Assuming that people might not realise that it was Red Nose Day (if they were deaf and blind that is) this tricorned plonker was screaming the fact at the top of his voice. He also solved the puzzle of the bloke in the swimsuit as it transpired that this was,in fact ,the manager and he was yet another waxee. Apparently he was being done at 1 hour intervals throughout the day - more fool him.

Tonight, of course, we have a collection of saddoes desperately trying to resurrect their failing careers by making total tits of themselves. Oh how the great British public must long for assorted newsreaders recreating the chariot race from Ben Hur or the cast of Eastenders playing hopscotch in a Gaza minefield. Can we handle the excitement of who will be sacked from The Apprentice when none of them actually want a job? No doubt there will be a few bits that will be amusing but I'm afraid I will live without those and we'll be watching other channels.

As I said at the beginning, I have no problem about the concept. I get a little disturbed however about the rationale behind this and other "events" like Live Aid etc. We are subjected to harrowing shots of those far less fortunate than ourselves and exhorted to ring and make a donation as we sit in our comfortable homes, drinking our drinks and eating our food. We ring and pledge and can thus feel good. We've done our bit and can get that warm feeling that we helped .......... then we forget all about it until next year. Something there doesn't seem to add up.

Oh, and just in case you think I have always been a miserable git, I seem to recall a certain branch of a building society who decided to turn the place into a desert island for the first Red Nose Day. All the young ladies were attired in bikini tops and grass skirts whilst the Manager was deputed to be their Man Friday! Recognise him at all?

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, the boxer shorts are adorned with parachuting crocodiles!

* Please don't think I meant that there was a Town Crier performing an act of fornication in Sainsbury. They have standards, dontcha know.

Phones and Bones

I was in the opticians the other day queueing patiently behind a bloke who was busy explaining to a poster that he was there for an eye test. I waited with my normal patient manner as he was eventually sorted out and, just as we were about to be served, the telephone rang whereupon the optician smiled sweetly and asked us to excuse him whilst he answered the call. WHY, in the name of all that's holy? Why should a telephone take precedence over a person? Have we reached the point in evolution when the insistent "answer me" of a phone's ring is more important than the person who has actually taken the trouble to get off their butt and actually come in? Is it the mystery of "who could it be?" That eternal hope that it might be someone interesting at the other end which inevitably ends in disappointment. As regular readers will know, I do seem to be eligible for the Grumpy Old Men's club but this is really one of my pet hates. Sadly, as Mrs B was just about to spend Swaziland's national debt on some new specs I felt it prudent to not make a fuss but contented myself with putting sticky thumbprints over the lenses of all the glasses on display.

It got me thinking about telephones and those halcyon days of my youth when my only involvement with them was the hopeful pressing of button B in the hope of getting some coins out of the local phone boxes. Since then, of course, we have had the mobile phone revolution and the effect it's had on lives. I noticed the other day that the phone box outside the flat had disappeared and my first thought was admiration at the ingenuity of the local scallies but apparently it was removed by BT some months before as it was no longer cost effective and there was already a public convenience around the corner.


I got a phone call the other day from BT. I knew it was goimg to be a bad one when he asked how I was? - another thing that really pees me off. Resisting the temptation to take him through all the ailments Mrs B and I have had in the last few months I answered that I was jolly well and expressed the wish that he also was similarly chipper. He went quiet for a while and then asked me if I had considered taking my call package back to BT and could I tell him with whom I had my account at the moment? As luck would have it, I had been sent a bill only that morning and the conversation then went something like this:

I currently have my account with Pipex but use my mobile predominantly.

Ah, I'm sure we can save you money so can you tell me how much your last bill was?

(Gotcha!) By all means, £1.38

pause............But we can offer you free evening and weekend calls

I have those with my mobile

Erm, well there are lots of other things we can offer you.

Really? Like what?

Well, we have a package that gives you free evening and weekend calls which costs nothing.

Yes, you mentioned that just now but you seem to be missing a vital point here.

What's that?

You charge for all the other calls don't you, so tell me how I can save money?

Thank you for your time, sir. Have a nice day.

I'm afraid I don't see BT as part of British life any more. My own personal feeling is that they started going downhill when they withdrew the Trimphone and its wonderfully evocative ringtone (of which, incidentally, I can do an excellent imitation). Right, rant over. What other exciting things have happened in the Bassett household recently? The sojourn down in Zummerzet last week was great and will be the subject of a separate blog and the only other excitement was an MRI scan last Monday.

I've had them before so no worries there and I duly set off for the hospital with my iPod primed, book in hand and a supply of emergency Caramac bars in case of a really long wait. RSCH X-Ray Dept has a nice, comfy waiting room and I arrived about 25 minutes early as you need to allow several hours to find a parking place within a radius of 5 miles. I was pleasantly surprised to find my name called withing 2 minutes and was instructed to go into a cubicle and put on one of those lovely gowns that haute couture specialists have spent ages designing to be as unflattering as possible.


Having spent several minutes trying to tie the stupid thing so that my bum wasn't hanging out I duly took a seat in a corridor as instructed. Now, call me paranoid but I'm sure they saw me coming and I was set up to provide entertainment for the passing throng. I sat there, feeling extremely silly, for 35 sodding minutes! Talk about feeling embarrassed as the sniggers echoed down the corridor. I was wondering why passers-by kept standing behind me and grinning when I suddenly realised what was happening. You know at Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and the like, they take your photo as you plummet, screaming, down some ride or other and then flog it to you for several quid? The hospital had obviously decidied to supplement it's income by selling photos posing with the begowned loony with the knobbly knees and the bored expression! I had just started signing autographs for a load of Japanese tourists when I was called in for the scan thus ending a truly lovely experience.

Oh, and incidentally, when you're slid into the scanner rather like the hotdog into a roll and told not to move otherwise the scan is ruined, getting cramp in one's back is not advisable. The radiographer, once it had finished, said she'd heard me humming along to the music on the headphones and my ego wouldn't let me admit to it actually being me whimpering in agony as I tried to keep still.

Bertie's Travelogue Part 7 - Kasulu to Durban

After Kasulu I looked forward to the excitement of a destination which actually had some life. Now, I don't want to cause offence to the vast numbers of Kasuluans reading this blog but the place was deader than a fish finger in a Chernobyl aquarium so I wasn't too unhappy to wave farewell. Air traffic control were quite excited as it's a busy time for them because another aircraft is due within a few months.

It was a nice simple flight south, following the shore of Lake Tanganyika and I eventually entered Zambia and landed at Mbala, the largest town in the north of the country. "Largest" is relative, of course, and suffice to say there is only one road to the border with Tanzania and this is only passable in the dry season. The area shows evidence of human activity going back some 300,000 years although the first European to reach there was Livingstone in the 1860's. In colonial times, the British Consul was based there and the town prospered as well as being re-named Abercorn. Its heyday was in the '50s and '60s although the area has declined since Zambia achieved independence in 1964 and the name Mbala was once more adopted.

There is one hotel and it was to this that I took my weary body before my next flight to Blantyre in Malawi.

Nice gentle take-off into a beautiful dawn and yet another lake to follow - this time it's Lake Nyasa. Considering the proximity of water, the software doesn't really do this justice insofar as the ground below is of a uniformly light sandy colour Maybe that's how the real thing is? Hang on, GoogleEarth time! ........................................ Hmmm, it's actually very green around there but I suppose realism can only go so far. I've even put in extra software which purports to enhance African terrain and scenery; oh well.

Now Blantyre is named after the birthplace of..........yes, you've guessed it...........Dr Livingstone. He certainly got around, didn't he? By all accounts, it's rather nice there and it boasts an influential expat community of some 25,000 souls from Britain and Europe. It houses the Supreme Court as well as Malawi's one channel television station. If you are reading this in Burton-on-Trent, did you know your town is twinned with Blantyre? Malawi itself used to be called Nyasaland before independence in 1964. It's among the world's least developed and most densely populated countries with its economy based mostly on agriculture and a largely rural population. Sadly there is low-life expectancy and high infant mortality along with an above average incidence of HIV/Aids although signs are that progress is being made.

Football is their national sport and, whilst there is not much evidence to support them as contenders at the 2010 World Cup, they did beat Djibouti 8-1 last May. Mind you, the Penge Women's Institute 2nd XI allegedly beat Djibouti so don't get too excited.

Finally, I am on my most southerly leg as I fly off to Durban in the Republic of South Africa. I've done all of my flying during daylight until now but I've decided that I want to do a predominantly instrument-based flight and a night landing. It's quite weird if one does this with all the lights off and the headphones on so all you can see is the occasional light far below and hear the occasional radio voice. I made sure I was at a reasonable altitude just in case some pillock stuck a mountain in the way but I finally got confirmation from Durban that I was 64 miles out and vectoring me in to my final pattern. Seeing the myriad lights stretched out below me as I started descending over the the outskirts of Durban was truly a relief but nothing compared to seeing the runway lights more or less where they should be.

It's a totally different ballgame trying to land without the ground to orientate one - especially when one realises in the nick of time that the altimeter needs to be reset. In the end though, It all came together and I touched down with real adrenalin pumping - great fun!

The history of South Africa is a fiery and interesting one. Stopover on voyages to the Orient, and originally dominated by the Dutch East India Company and their Boer offspring, it all kicked off when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand reef and a certain Erasmus Jacobs found a pebble which turned out to be a 21 carat diamond. Strangely enough (and I'm sure it's coincidence), Britain started to take a lot more interest in the area at this point which culminated in the Boer Wars. South Africa became a Republic in 1961 and after a long and difficult birth is now one of the world's more stable countries. The sad part is that many other African countries have mineral wealth but politics, tribalism and the greed and expansionism of the West have all contributed to their present predicament.

Right, sermon over - back to Durban. The busiest port in Africa with beaches to die for, it's the third biggest city in the Republic. Little is known of the history of the first residents, as there is no written history of the area before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who came to the KwaZulu-Natal coast while searching for a route from Europe to India. He landed at Christmas 1497, and thus named the area "Natal", or Christmas in Portuguese.

After the journey south, it's so nice to feel the vibrance of a modern city, committed to sport, fun and life. I think I might stay here for a bit of R & R; diving, cricket, football, surfing. Yep, think I can fit them into my busy schedule before I head off to Madagascar. Waiter, a bottle of Tusker if you please! I'll pay for it with this.

What a Load of Rubbish!

To be honest, I'm a bit screwed up at the moment. The confidence has gone, I don't like myself, I'm a nervous wreck and I can't even put the facade in place. All a bit pathetic really. I can't seem to write a blog whilst all this shit is in my head so I guess I need to get a bit out and then I can move on.

I'm getting there , I think. I'm facing things and I'm even allowing myself to accept that I can be less than the perceived standard of perfection to which I feel I must aspire. I'm not sure really why I can't allow myself to be less than perfect? I suppose because I know that I am so far from perfection that it gives me the ideal excuse to punish myself for failing. Why do I need to punish myself? Ah, now there's the €50,829.9 question (dollar conversion rate correct at time of writing).

Some people self-harm but I'm far too much of a coward so I do it mentally. I guess it stems from never being quite good enough in my parent's eyes. The reasons are immaterial but this mental masochism is just sooooo easy. Take tonight for example:

I have several friends on the internet and all seem to have problems of one sort or another, whether it be health, employment, money or supporting Newcastle United . Hopefully, they will all be resolved in time but things seem pretty serious in several cases. Yours truly has (I think) reasonable health, no job worries, no real financial worries but I still moan to them and they offer nothing but care, understanding and support. It's a perfect lose:lose situation for me as not only can I beat myself up for not appreciating what I have but also I can suffer the discomfort of people being nice to me.

Perhaps I need to realise that the people who like me or love me do so for what I am and not what I feel I ought to be? The trouble is; how in God's name do I do that? I know that I won't ever find an answer because, by finding that answer, I'll be unable to feed the problem and I can't imagine being allowed to live a life where my head isn't worrying about 3 million things at any one moment. Still, my friends, thank you sincerely for being my friends.

Moving on, I discovered a great new game the other day.

Every Wednesday, the Council send a nice big yellow bin lorry to take my sacks of rubbish to wherever it goes. I don't have a dustbin as I have no garden so I dutifully place my sacks outside ready for collection (actually, to tell the truth, I wake about 5 am and lay there worrying that I might miss the bin lorry which doesn't actually turn up until 11.30ish). Dimwit, I hear you cry, put it out the night before! Well, actually, I had thought of that but the foxes and seagulls have a competition to see how far they can spread the contents. It can be quite embarrassing seeing my used Tassimo pods scattered across the highway not to mention the catalogues which keep being sent to me. "Wincyette for the Old and Fat" was completely unasked for but it appears regularly through the letterbox. The worst part of having one's rubbish scattered, however, is the fear that there is something there that should have been recycled!

You can almost feel the glares of disapproval as an aluminium ring-pull is spotted among the detritus of Bassett Towers. I shamefacedly shuffle out into the road and pick it up whilst the local drunks seem to get away with lobbing everything from empty Tennants cans to regurgitated McDonalds Winter Specials..........oh, that's not regurgitated? You mean they're meant to look like that? Blimey!


Anyway, as I was saying, I put my sacks out last Wednesday at about 6am (just in case they were a bit early - neurotic? Wassat?). When I peered out at 10, I saw that the seagulls had done their usual trick and a bag had been pecked open although I had inadvertently foiled their little game as I had chucked out some old herbs and spices and they'd had a go at some paprika! Ha, revenge is sweet. The upshot of all this was that after the binmen had gone, I noticed a small plastic bag of stale oregano (which I had also thrown out) left lying on the pavement which I kicked into the gutter as I went out. Later, I found it placed on my step so I once again kicked it into the gutter. After it happened a second time, I suddenly twigged......people were thinking it was a dropped stash! After picking it up and seeing it had a small label annotated 'oregano' in small letters, they had just dropped it again.


I'm afraid I was a bit naughty. I peeled off the label and left the bag prominently in the centre of the pavement when I took my daughter home that evening. Sure enough, 20 minutes later, when I got back, it had gone. Some local lads, wandering homewards after an evening of worship and self-enlightenment at the altar of the great god, Heineken, presumably pounced on it and I had wonderful visions of them desperately trying to get a hit with a Rizla full of stale oregano. Who knows, it might even have worked? Herbie Rides Again (given thyme)?

Demons

"In order to beat the demon, you have to say his name" - so said Sir Terry Pratchett when facing up to the cruelly insidious effects of Alzheimer's Disease. I've always been very good at letting demons whizz around having marked the X for no publicity box and so, I suppose, this is my attempt to shame them and subsequently myself into a bit more direct action.

Last October I offered my services to a large historical military establishment nearby as they were after volunteers. Their website states that volunteers were needed for the following:

Administration
General Record Keeping, Visitor Surveys, Volunteer Records, Volunteer Development,

Curatorial
Archiving, Research, Preservation

Education
Guiding, Working with Children, Translation, Helping Special Needs Visitors

Buildings and Grounds
Cleaning, Repairs, Maintenance

Displays and Exhibitions
Interpretation, Setting up, Repair, Maintenance

Front of House
Shop, Retail, Reception, Hospitality, Guiding, Stewarding Special Events

Promotion
Publicity, Events

It all seemed perfect for me; a purpose in life and no pressure to perform whilst hopefully spending some time out in the fresh air, interacting with people, playing with computers and, best of all, gaining knowledge and using my brain for something useful. I rang and was cordially invited down for a chat with the curator and we parted on good terms. A week later there had been no contact. The following week I emailed and there was no reply. I have to say it had a considerable effect on me as I felt that, given I had the expertise and knowledge (and can even clean and paint), it must have been my personality which had prompted my perceived rejection.

Christmas came and went and I realised that I was gradually withdrawing from social interaction. The gregarious entertainer was turning into an introvert who actually felt awkward when talking to people and, worst of all, was comfortable with that premise. A few swift calculations made me realise that I was spending approximately 14 hours in front of my PC on days when we didn't go out and, because of the pain of Mrs B's knee, this was usually no more than twice a week. I was aware that I was heading towards a place I hadn't been for a good few years so I decided to face at least one demon and duly toddled off to the doctor. Of course, I beat around the bush but he knew me enough to start asking the questions (the violent trembling in my right hand was also a bit of a giveaway!) and I have to say I felt better having spoken to him. He prescribed me some tablets; a course of action which I had always steadfastly refused before as a) they never seemed to work and b) it seemed like giving in, and they had an amazing effect.

I took one tablet and slept for about 18 of the next 24 hours. The next day I took half a tablet and slept for about 14 hours. That was the end of those!! There was no way I was going to turn into a chemically-induced vegetable. I am now on a different medication and it seems to be doing the trick a bit more although I find now that I am unable to get worked up into my usual state of frustration, anger etc and write blogs accordingly. This particular one is, in fact, really quite hard to do and I'm conscious that there is little fluency in it. I had to really force myself to write it but at least, by so doing, I am kicking another small demon in the butt.

Talking of demons, I also decided this week that I must do something about my withdrawal from Society as well as getting my increasingly ample frame out of this chair so I telephoned my friend The Curator once more. He was most apologetic and used the excuse of totally forgetting about me......hmmmmm! Anyway, I am now awaiting some stuff to research on their behalf so I might soon be able to say that I am not totally surplus to requirements. That isn't supposed to sound as if I'm feeling sorry for myself but, let's face it, if I didn't get up, it would hardly have a great effect on anybody's life.

Perhaps I am now in the ascendant? Perhaps I can now find some other demons to name - God knows, I have enough of them. The scary part is that I'm kind of used to them and therefore, paradoxically, they have become a form of security whose absence would be less comfortable at first than their presence.

Maybe I'll stick to my Round the World blogs, they seem a lot less harmless? I've reached the Seychelles now and the next part of my epic adventures will be published shortly.

On a final note, my son was grabbed in the street yesterday by 2 burly policemen and accused of being somebody they were after. When he protested he wasn't the person named, they insisted on seeing ID. I'd have loved to have seen their faces as he produced his warrant card! Sometimes, Life can be so sweet.

John Martyn 1948-2009

Go Out And Get It

I believe in a minute for every man
When he must take notice of the clock and all its hands
If he sees the road leads straight ahead
Got to run on down, never never be afraid
And it's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

I know a man, six feet tall
Buckskin jacket, velvet stripes and all
From Boston town, educated well
And he keeps his mind within a padded shell
It's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

Behind the curtain, upon the shelf
Lives a man, living with himself
Behind his eyes, behind his smile
What's going on, nobody in the world can tell
It's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

It's yours, go out and get it
Don't get wet, please keep dry
Think about the people that made you cry.

One I would have been, one I am. Sleep in peace John.

Bertie's Travelogue Part 6 - Entebbe to Kasulu

Taking off from Entebbe

Having got Christmas out of the way (as well as a slight case of Lassa Fever or some other tropical ailment), I can now return to my circumnavigation of the globe. You may recall I was lounging in the Entebbe Hilton quaffing an ice-cold Tusker beer and anticipating the trip to Mount Kilimanjaro which (carrying on my tradition of showing the local currency) I paid for with this.

Settling into my trusty Mooney and slipping some Osibisa into the CD player, I took off and headed south-east. A sizeable chunk of the flight is over Lake Victoria which is such a welcome sight after the aridity of some of the previous legs and I soon found myself in sight of Kilimanjaro as I crossed over into Tanzania. Snow-capped all the year round, Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa at 19,330 ft and was first climbed in 1889. For some time it held the distinction of being the highest point in the world that had mobile phone coverage! It's actually an inactive stratovolcano with 3 separate volcanic cones; the widest being Kibo which has a crater diameter of 1.5 miles.


The airport itself is quite small although it can take 747s so landing my little machine was a doddle. Certainly, the view of the mountain is wonderful and I have added that to my list of places to go before I die. I couldn't resist ignoring tower instructions as I started out to Mombasa and flew round the summit before settling down to the 50 minute flight to the coast and my first glimpse of the Indian Ocean.

These days, Mombasa is famed for its wonderful beaches but it has an extremely chequered history. The original Arabic name is Manbasa; in Swahili it is called Kisiwa Cha Mvita (or Mvita for short), which means "Island of War", due to the many changes in its ownership. It actually is an island - with a causeway connecting it to the African mainland. Reputedly visited as early as the early 15th century by the Chine fleet of Zheng Ze, it wasn't until 70 years later that Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach there. Word on the streets was that he was not exactly welcomed with open arms so the Portuguese returned 2 years later and sacked the city - sort of a precursor to Bush diplomacy!

Right, a quick dip in the ocean and, with my Speedos still damp, it was off again once more to fly to Kenya's capital: Nairobi. This leg kind of goes back on itself as Nairobi is to the north of Kilimanjaro but it flies over one of Kenya's many national parks. It's hard to believe that the largest city in East Africa was still only a swamp back in 1899 until Uganda Railways built there and Nairobi (named after the Masai word for "cool waters") grew faster than a fast thing.

Landing at Jomo Kenyatta International, I was careful to only take a minimum of Kenyan shillings with me as Nairobi is renowned for its criminal activity with 1 in 3 residents apparently the victim of crime and, allegedly, a lot of very rich policemen! Mind you, there are few shadowy characters as Nairobi is only 150kms south of the equator (falls over laughing at such wit and fails to notice somebody nicking his aircraft). The city is apparently a testament to high-rise glass and steel with little character although it does boast 4 major football teams and several decent golf courses as well as a National Park on the doorstep.

Now, we come to a brief hiatus in our little trip-ette. Having had my Mooney misappropriated by a local hoodlum (OK, I fancied a change but that sounds much more intrepid, I decided to check out some other aircraft. I toyed with a few others but in the end, I settled for my dear old Mooney once more albeit with a new paint job. Oh, there were faster, glossier aircraft but I'm a creature of habit although, between you and I, I did try a new A380 Airbus which was amusing if nothing else. Can you imagine me responsible for 850 passengers?

Off we go now to Kasulu in Tanzania, flying along the lakes of Victoria and Tanganyika. It's a long boring 2.5 hour flight although the thermals over Tanganyika made it somewhat turbulent - not the time to open one's Thermos! Kasulu is presumably merely a fuel stop on the journey as I've seen more life and culture in a tub of yogurt. I tried Googling "Kasulu" in my usual bid to impart some snippets of fact to my beloved reader and this was the total result:

"Kasulu is one of the 4 districts of the Kigoma_Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by Burundi, to the East by the Kibondo district and to the South by the Kigoma Rural and Kigoma Urban Districts. According to the 2002 Tanzania National Census, the population of the Kasulu District was 628,677."

That is it! Naff all else. No exciting details of wars, gold, diamonds, poaching.....not even a picture of a local cattle herder.

I sit in my cabin, munching on an unspecified indigenous species sossidgeinnabun, hoping against hope a Starbucks will spring up shortly and wondering how things are in dear old Blighty? It's been a while since I left her shores and I think fondly of all the things that mean so much - Woolworths, MFI, the excitement of Celebrity Big Brother ............ the cornerstones of Civilisation that will always be there.



I've actually flown ?24 legs of my journey now and, looking at the route, I don't seem to have travelled that far. Knowing just how many hours I've sat in front of my PC to get as far as I have makes me realise just what a huge planet Earth is. I can only wonder at the trepidation as well as the tedium experienced by the original trans-global pioneers as they flew into the unknown - especially without the infrastructure and communications which we have now. Aircraft held together with string and hope, what must the pilots have felt? Little did they know just how their exploits would shape the future and that, in a few short decades, we would accept air travel as they accepted the motor car.

Click to enlarge

Update

It's been a while so I thought it was time I emptied the crumbs out of the keyboard and did a bit of a catch-up. Actually, when was the last time you tipped up your keyboard? Forget the 5 loaves and the 2 fishes, mine had embarrassing amounts of detritus within. It's a Logitech Wave and whilst I love it, it isn't intelligent enough to cope with the equivalent of several packets of crisps, 3 beef sandwiches and the occasional Ryvita drifting around and, eventually, enveloping its buttons. My compressor I use for model painting was brilliant and, after some high-pressure squirting, my dirty qwerty soon became the pride of Bertie!

The illness within Bassett Towers over Christmas has finally passed and I can begin to get on with some of the tasks I promised myself in 2009. These include:

1) Finish my Round the World flight

I've been sadly lacking in this for a while although it wasn't for lack of desire. I was contacted by another cyber aviator who is also performing the said trip and it's nice to know that there is company out there. Mind you, I'm not saying I'm competitive but I suddenly panicked about being overtaken and have now fitted air-to-air missiles to my Mooney just in case! Chris' blog is well worth a read as he actually appears to know what he is doing a damn sight more than me. I did spend a fraught day sorting out my PC last week as my 2nd 300GB drive, which I use purely for flying, was getting a bit full. I stripped out everything, saved most of the downloads to disc and reinstalled the basic "best bits" to optimise the performance so, hopefully, I shall be flying again next week.


2) Put all the videos of the kids when young onto DVD

This has been a slow and painful process which started several months ago and also stopped several months ago as it was such a pain in the butt. Of course, when I started again this week, I had totally forgotten just how it was done but I am now well over 2/3 of the way through the pile of VHS cassettes. It involves capturing the video and then editing, saving as Mpeg-2 files, converting to a DVD format and then trying to work out how to put more than one VIDEO_TS file onto a DVD. On the good side, it's great to see the kids in their early years once more and also realise that I have enough filmed evidence to tease them for many years. On the down side, I thought I looked so cool some 17/18 years ago, however.....................eek! I really should have gone to SpecSavers: glasses that were so wrong, eyebrows like bloated caterpillars and very little evidence of my distinguished silver threads. I've decided that maturing looks more than compensate for the loss of the astonishingly quite well-honed body of my 30s (if I say it enough times then surely I'll believe it one day?).


3) Address myself to becoming proficient with Photoshop CS4

Master Bassett has paid for a year subscription to PhotoShop Creative magazine as part of Daddy's Christmas pressie and I now have this arriving on my doorstep each month. It has so much in and i really want to buckle down and become as good with PhotoShop as I possibly can. Incidentally, just to prove I am not the only loony in the family, the magazine arrived addressed to: Bertie Bassett, HappyTown, followed by the proper address. You stupid boy, Pike!

4) Do an OU course on web design

When I was of that particular age, my parents never encouraged me to even consider university and I therefore left school at 16 and did as they "suggested" by joining the Civil Service. In later life, the desire to learn has become increasingly attractive and I have considered doing a degree. Part of me knows that I could and would achieve it so there isn't much of a challenge in that respect so really it's down to what degree course I would like to do. Part of me also knows that I get bored easily and therefore do I really want to commit to a long-term project? As I was browsing the OU website, I saw this and I have decided that this is for me as a start. Practical knowledge which I can use on the website I have had for several years and never really used. I'm sure some of it will be things I know fairly well but it will be a good exercise and a solid grounding for future courses.

So, that's a bit of a catch-up on events.

The only other bit of fun I have to mention is something I started before Christmas when I began experimenting with voice recognition software. I show below the actual dictated segment - good luck!

Because it seemed to be writing a lot of blog at the moment, I decide eat that I would try some speech recognition softwarethis is my first attempt at using it and I thought I would committed down as a block so be there for posterity I make no alterations were edits to it all stop paragraph I'm actually dictating this at normal speed just to see how will react but because under in my flying around the world blogs at the moment there is can be a lot of them and also apart from anything else my desk is cluttered up with flight yokes controls throttles keyboards joysticks and various other paraphernalia, I really can do with a method of actually putting words on a screen without having to find space keyboard. You may well find that there are going to be so rude words as I'm watching Liverpool losing at the moment as I'm dictating this and therefore it could be quite fun whether it recognizes new or should I say rude words I'm not quite sure that Will Wilson find out. Anyone just watching what this is doing and it seems to be fairly reasonable considering I just had a couple of minutes serve talking about Sir Alex in Wonderland so they could work out auction it is almost a goal and where was I yes Alice in Wonderland voice recognition purposes am say it is picked up really rather well which is quite good so their way half I forgot all about punctuation are met,:; there are some in register make me try remember why is not intelligent enough to keep within punctuation are not quite sure? Anyway to be lovely talking to you. This merely confirms that when I dictate or when I write it still comes out is total nonsense!

Perhaps I have stumbled on the secret of Professor Stanley Unwin :D

That's it for now. Vaya con Dios

An Elephant's Tale

The elephant had lived for over 80 years. As a young bull, he had towered above his peers and eventually his stature and wisdom were recognised and he took his place as the head of the herd. As they moved through the African land, it was he that guided, it was he that led the way. The elephant sired many calves and they were his legacy to a changing world. His was a world of freedom and he moved wherever he wanted, unconstrained by borders and tirelessly travelling his kingdom. He had no need to be wary for he had few dangers facing him and his natural concern was for the protection of the herd. With his instincts honed to perfection, the herd prospered- their reliance upon him testimony to his leadership.

He was old now. He stood alone - the herd long gone as the young bulls had gradually usurped his position. As he had aged, each attempt to defend his dominant role had tired him more and finally he realised that he no longer had the strength to fight. Useless to the herd and forced away, he had wandered into his own world, his enormous body now shrivelled and the folds of skin hanging loosely in testimony to his growing inability to fend for himself. He was on his final set of molars and these had been worn down by the almost continuous act of feeding required to satisfy his massive frame.

Now, the feeding was difficult. He was only able to eat on the softer leaves and plants and these were far more difficult to find. No more could his massive bulk push down a tree so he could take what he wanted. No more could he take what was his by right of superiority. He knew he was dying. Occasionally, he would smell the scent of a passing herd, a lion or an evocation of his prime. His instincts still reacted although it was becoming harder to understand why they did so. His life now was focused on survival, each minute an exquisite agony with his tired muscles struggling to support the weight of his splendid tusks - once a symbol of his magnificence but now, cruelly, an ironic burden.

He leaned against a tree, his rheumy eyes continually leaking tears which formed obsidian paths through the dust covering his skin. It was a delicious moment of respite and, for an instant, he allowed himself the luxury of relaxation. He never felt the bullet which obliterated his brain. He never felt the clunk of the axes carefully hacking out his tusks. He never heard the gleeful shouts of the hunters as they ignored the great frame in their appreciation of their perceived bravery. His final act was one of charity as the creatures of the land fed on his body. His final memorial not of what he had been but of what others could take from him.

At last, his soul was at peace.

copyright © 2009 Author