Remembering a birthday.

Today, as well as being Good Friday (Karfreitag in Germany) would have been my father's 89th birthday. Sadly, he died aged 57, the victim of alcohol, cigarettes and to many nightmares left over from his experiences in World War 2.

I didn't enjoy a close relationship with him, but I do remember him and the many things he taught me in seamanship, dealing with life and much more.

Maundy Thursday

Today being Maundy Thursday, our schedule for the next few days will be busy. There is, as usual, the Maundy Mass this evening and the stripping of the altar. A sharp reminder of the events, told in the Gospel, of the Last Supper and the hours that followed.

Posting may be a little restricted over the next few days!

Tagged ...

Having been tagged by raaniyork here is my response -

Your questions:

1. What’s your favorite color?

Blue - if I'm wearing it. Red - if I'm driving it ...

2. If you get a plane ticket for free to go wherever you’d like – where would your final destination be?

Back home - after a trip to every country I'd still like to visit ...

3. Is there anything in your life you always wanted to do and never had the chance to?

Yes, quite a number of things. But when I look at all the other things I've done, I don't think I'd do it differently if I had to do it again.

4. Which one is your favorite movie classic? (Let’s say: Older than 20 years)

A tricky one, since I'm not a big movie fan. Probably ET, or Flight of the Navigator ... Both were slightly SciFi and a bit wacky!

5. If you were blond – would you mind the blonde-jokes (and of course if you ARE blonde – do you mind them?)

No. I think it's silly to get worked up about jokes and imagined slights. As the saying goes - "Sticks and stones ..."

6. What is it that always and 100% certain makes you laugh?

Oh, oh. I have a rather strange sense of humour. One thing that always gets me going though is when some occasion of great pomp starts to go a bit awry ... Like the Pope falling asleep during a sermon recently. Or my bishop loosing his zucetta (A little skullcap worn under the mitre) into the font while blessing the water in it ...

7. Where do you usually buy your clothes?

Wherever I can find the things I like to wear. Online for quite a lot lately, otherwise Peek and Clappenberg or Karstadt ...

8. Does wind bother you or do you like it?

Ah, now we're back to No. 3. Wind doesn't bother me. I enjoy sailing and that needs wind. Even a full on gale can be revitalising walking along a sea shore, feeling the wind, smelling the salt spray, or just listening to it rattle shutters or whine and moan around the house.

9. What is it that you dislike about high school reunions?

I don't go to many, so I've never really thought about this one. Perhaps, these days, its a sadness for those who showed so much potential and realised so little of it ...

10. Are you a cat or dog person?

I guess I'd have to say 'cat' - they seem to like me and attach themselves. Dogs trust me and seem to like me as well, so a bit of a dichotomy here!

11. Can movies make you cry and if yes – when was the last time you cried in a movie theater or in front of the TV?

I'd have to say yes. That said, I have done it, but can't remember the movie ... It was a while ago!

And now to work out who I'm tagging ...

Here goes - 

The challenge is to answer the same questions ...

Roses @ Ack! Thbbt!

vwbug @ One Happy Dog Speaks

Joan @ Da Goddess

GF @ The Gorse Fox

Josephus - Right Here!

Follow the money ...

Yesterday evening Mausi brought me copies of two articles raising concerns about the lack of a government provided Forensic Science service in the UK. There used to be one, but it has been closed down, its premises and equipment sold off, no doubt at a mega loss to the taxpayer, by that ever incompetent bunch of morons in Whitehall. So now the Police have two choices, pay mega bucks to a private provider whose staff may not have either the depth of experience or knowledge to do the work required and who almost certainly don't know the "rules of evidence" and therefore the strict controls necessary to prevent a miscarriage of justice. Or, they must build up their own "in house" team and service.

Given that the Police budgets are also being slashed by the same bunch of morons infesting Whitehall, and you know just what sort of "forensic service" the justice system can expect in future.

"Officer, was this item examined in a laboratory for DNA?"

"No, your honour, we didn't have a budget for it..."

Even if they did have the "budget" can we be certain the result will be acceptable in court? Probably not. It has emerged that blunders in the storage of sensitive evidence materials in the laboratory of Whitehall's favourite "private" provider, has led to one false arrest in a rape case, and now casts serious doubt on every other case where the evidence has been handled by this company.

The UK stands alone in Europe as the only country that doesn't have a central forensic science service capabale of handling evidence involving all the many different disciplines required. They used to have one of the best, but no; the Whitehall W*nk*rs declared it "made a loss" and must therefore be closed. No one in his right mind expects a Forensic Science Service provided purely for support of the police and the justice system, to make a profit. Only in Whitehall could you find a moron capable of trying to claim it should.

Frankly, if "making a loss" as a government service means it should cease being supplied and must be closed down, then close down every Whitehall Department, many of them lose £2 million a week, never mind a month or a quarter. The closure of the Forensic Science Service will result in miscarriages of justice. It will enrich the clever fellows who lobbied for this and their pals in the back benches and the Whitehall offices who pushed it through.

As I said at the outset, what needs investigating here is this. Who benefits from the closure of the FSS? Follow the money, someone in Westminster and probably several people in Whitehall are rubbing their hands in glee and watching their bank balances grow very nicely. Will they suffer from the blunders and miscarriages their friends in the private laboratories perpetrate? Of course not.

Among European Police forces and Forensic Science Services, the UK is now a laughing stock. Frankly, I can't wait to see the first major miscarriage to be exposed and the "forensic" laboratory get exposed for the blunder. Sadly, no one will, even then, follow the money and expose the charlatans behind this state of affairs.

Once again, who ends up paying? Ah, you do, of course, the dear old Taxpayer. So kind of you, just tell HMRC where the money is and when they can take it off you - those nice chaps in the private field now providing the services that used to cost far less (without the 'profit' element) need it far more than you do. After all, they have to pay off their friends in the Civil Service and Parliament for giving them this golden Master Card to draw on ...

Conviction

Last night we watched a fascinating programme on the demise of the former Communist East German State. The makers of the programme interviewed quite a number of those who had lived in it, those who had governed it, and people from the West German state who had a hand in the final collapse and then the reunification. One of those interviewed was Mrs. Honecker, the widow of the late Erich Honecker. For those too young to remember him, he was the Head of the East German state. The title of it, the "German Democratic Republic" was something of a joke, it was a one party state so the only democracy was that its populace were allowed to vote for the single party.

What was very interesting last night, was the fact that Mrs. Honecker still firmly believes that all the restrictions on travel, on being permitted to leave the borders of the GDR and on individual freedom of choice was necessary to "defend the people" from "Fascism" and the evil "Capitalists." She made it clear that the "people" couldn't be expected to know what dangers these presented and had to be "protected" by means of the Berlin Wall, a huge military machine, the StaSi and all the restrictions. Nor was she alone, several former members of that government all parroted the same things, with varying degrees of conviction. Listening to them, the former GDR was a "paradise" they had created for their "children" and, if only they had not been "betrayed" by Gorbachev and then "tricked" into opening the borders (conveniently ignoring it was one of their own ministers who flapped his gums and basically shot them in the foot over the opening) the GDR would still be there as a "model workers state" for the world to admire.

I suppose it depends on how you view this, and from which side you're viewing. I dare say that from her plush government office (She was the Minister for Education 1973 - 1989) it was a "workers paradise." She and her husband enjoyed luxury homes, luxury limousines, private holiday resorts only for the top members of the party, private hunting lodges and even a private "hunting park" reserved only for the top echelons of the Party. Everyone else had to wait for the Party to decide when, where and how they could work, live, holiday or travel. Say anything against the system, and the StaSi knew about it.

There was a waiting list for the only car available to "ordinary" people of 15 years. Some people waited 30 years for a telephone, then only got one because the StaSi had decided they should be watched more closely. Over 200 people were shot, blown up or beaten to death trying to escape this "paradise" Mrs. Honecker still believes was a "workers paradise."And so, it must be said, do almost all the former Communist Party members now calling themselves "Die Linke" (The Left).

I confess I find it very difficult to believe that they do truly believe that the evil state they presided over, the human rights abuses they perpetrated and the trampling on the legitimate abilities and ambitions of the people under their power, was for anyone's benefit but their own. I find it even more unbelievable that there are so many supposedly intelligent people living in the UK and other free societies who think the same way. People like the Fabian Society who think a "socialist" paradise can be created by imposing state control over every aspect of the citizens lives.

These are the same people usually who will accuse anyone of "faith" of being bigoted, blinkered and unreasonable. Of course, their "political" vision isn't religious - though one could be excused for thinking it has the same level of fundamentalist conviction!

Writing

Some readers will have realised that I enjoy writing. It can be very rewarding, the research on some topics is quite time consuming, but it is also one of the 'rewards' of writing as you learn a great deal in the process of creating somethingfor others. This is probably why I enjoy the writing of authors like Terry Pratchett, Douglas Reeman/Alexander Kent, C S Forrester and Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein and Arthur C Clark. They all do, or did, a lot of background research (Clark and Asimov were actually scientists who wrote as a sideline), and use facts to weave a fantasy. Pratchett is particularly good at creating a fantasy around real events and people, yet set in their own fantasy world where they don't become either obvious or tortured into something else.

My pet hate is the kind of story where "facts" are invented, mangled, shifted and then presented as "proven" with the usual PR reportage that the story is "based on true events and facts" which the gullible who don't have the desire to check, will swallow them whole. A lot of this has gone on and one frequently now finds, when researching something, references being cited which, when checked, make reference to earlier work, which in turn ... and then you find that the source, far from being either accurate or reliable, has been discredited or even utterly refuted. But, because its now been "quoted" in later works, it has become "fact."

This is, of course, the art of the spin doctor or, to give it its proper name, the propagandist. This is where the modern author has to be extremely careful. Of course my views, my attitudes and a lot of my likes and dislikes are going to enter my writing. However, if I want to make use of "facts" to support any of it, I MUST make sure the facts are accurate and not taken from a decidedly "iffy" source originally. And there are plenty of those around. There were some very "creative" scientific and philosophical writers around in the late 19th and early 20th Century and quite a lot of their writing draws on sources that are neither reliable or even what they purport to be. Even those that are, have been frequently misrepresented, with bits used and other, qualifying sections, hidden or dismissed as "not relevant."

Believe it or not, some of the biggest names in the field are guilty of this on occasion. The trouble is, because they wrote something, quoting an earlier source, it isn't challenged - even though many of those "sources" are now known as forgeries or pure invention.

Pratchett once wrote that "writing is the most fun anyone can have on their own." He is, in my view, right. But check my reference - it comes from the author profile in one of his books - and you'll find I haven't actually quoted him accurately. It's close, but not accurate. And that is the problem for any writer who wants to build a story around some factual matter or some piece of known history - it is all too easy to introduce a subtle but possibly misleading change to the truth, sometimes with unforseeable consequences for the future.

Making the most of the weather ...

Mausi and the Monk have spent the last two days getting our garden restarted. The winter certainly took its toll, we have a number of 'hardy' shrubs and plants have not survived the minus 20*C temperatures we had for three plus weeks...

So far, we've replaced our fountain tub and one of our rain water butts which burst when the contents froze. To our surprise, the other two survived despite deforming rather badly. Now, at last, we have some green shoots and buds starting. I give it another week or so and I'll have to get the mower out.

One could say, "Here beginneth the Spring ..."