Tag Archives: General Rambling

Missing

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“…….I miss you and miei pipinelli”

Of course, he was a bit drunk when he sent this.

His words of affection are few. I miss him every time he goes away and regularly tell him. He doesn’t. However, after being away for week in Germany and being out with his friend on the Friday night, he was already quite drunk (so much so that he hardly touched wine all weekend).

I know that he does but, sometimes, it’s just nice to be told, even if it is by sms. Or, perhaps, as it’s in writing, better still by sms?

And, although it doesn’t really fit, I do love this song ……

John Waite – Missing You

An end to the world crisis?

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If you’re working for a company, for example, and you feel something is wrong (or something is wrong), going on strike, on your own, doesn’t actually work very well. In fact, you are likely to be sacked.

That’s why Unions were born. With Unions, all the people go on strike, meaning that it is not good for the owners of the company. Therefore, the idea being that the owners of the company and the Union come to some sort of agreement.

But it doesn’t seem to work in all circumstances and there are risks, of course.

But I was just wondering, if we think of a country as an individual and think of the owners of the company as the banks (and, therefore, the money markets) ……….

What would happen if all the countries got together and said that they had all decided not to pay the debts – i.e. they went on strike?

I mean to say, if one country does it, they have a rough time for a number of years. But if every country did it, all at the same time?

Doesn’t bear thinking about, right?

Or, maybe it should bear thinking about?

Don’t look back ……… except sometimes.

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“That’s why I prefer to have my own place”.

Apparently.

After discussion about Buddhism, brought on by R’s new religion, it developed into something else. As these things do.

For F, this new Buddhism thing was a way of escaping from looking at himself and fixing that.

“You shouldn’t look back”, he says, followed by, “You should look forward”.

We continue talking about various things about R, An explains that she didn’t realise he had lived in Milan. The ‘history’ was explained. He was supposed to be coming to Milan for 3 months to cover maternity leave. F said he could stay with them (F and S) but the problem was that, when R came, already F and S were having a few problems. F said that he found it difficult to cope with sorting S and looking after R. So R only stayed a month, in the end.

And that was why he preferred to have his own place so that, should anything happen between us, he could also go back to his place for ‘a month or two’.

Of course, I wanted to say something like ‘but you should never look back, you said’ but I didn’t. Not least ‘cos he is a little stressed at the moment and also because I like things the way they are and I would, if I was being honest, only say this as a means to play Devil’s advocate – which is not the right reason at all.

There’s time. And I can wait until it is right. Or, if it’s never right then that’s OK too.

Some words beginning with …………..

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The big thing at the moment is the V for Vendetta masks.

Vendetta. Not really a good thing.

Vindictive. Neither is that.

There’s a bit of vindictiveness going on right now. Not to or from me, of course. And I refuse to get involved. But some people have a vindictive nature and it’s not attractive.

The big thing, if it is directed at you, is not to respond, not to feed the flame.

It doesn’t mean it will go away just that the flame will not last so long.

But some people seem to delight in being vindictive. Or, maybe it’s just that they’re scared themselves. Or, maybe, it’s just that the anger that is inside them, means they cannot help themselves. To me it’s one of the last two things and, either way, means that they stop thinking with a cool head.

I’ve rehearsed my response, should I ever be called on – from one of dissolving into fits of laughter to being quiet and listening and empathetic.

In any event, the answer would be ‘no’, of course. How could it be otherwise? And, after all this time?

But the response would only become necessary if there was real desperation and I’m not sure if even then?

Still, the vindictiveness, which although confirming any of my previous decisions, is both saddening and infuriating.

Ah well, not really my problem now.

Breaking news: Christians kill a Christain! Muslims kill a Muslim! Jews kill a Jew!

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In fact, people kill people. Sometimes it is racially motivated, sometimes because of an argument and sometimes by accident. Even, sometimes, it is because the murderer objects to what the other person is saying/doing. Like Road Rage!

So, it beggars belief when I read this story.

Unfortunately, I am unable to check out what he actually says at http://dinoscopus.blogspot.com/ because I can only read it if I am invited and, quite obviously, I wouldn’t ever get the invitation ;-)

However, given that the Guardian might be telling the truth, he has, basically, said that there was this Jew who was killed by Jews about 2000 years ago.

Of course, Christians would like to think that Jesus was a Christian. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He was born and he died a Jew. However, he did have a different view of God and how we should practice our faith in God which did, somewhat, slightly upset the leaders of the Jewish faith at the time (so it is said/written).

But, because we think that Jesus was a Christian, when someone says that the Jews killed Jesus, the Jews get a bit upset since some Christians undoubtedly think that it makes the Jews terrible people.

Which it certainly does not.

After all, if Jesus hadn’t died, would the Christian faith exist at all? I mean, his death and the supposed events afterwards (like rising and going to heaven) are pretty central to the Christian faith, aren’t they? And if he had died of some disease or old age at, say 68, I doubt it would have started the worldwide craze known now as Christianity.

So, rather than Christians being all aggrieved about some Jews from 2000 years ago who killed (or forced the Romans to kill) one of their own for having some different thoughts, they should be very happy and be thanking the Jews for making it all happen!

Well, that’s my thoughts on it. Not that it will make any difference.

Four things

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I have to tell you that the weekend away was fabulous.

No, better than fabulous.

But more on that later (or, even, another post).

The four important things were:

1. “Why should you cut your hair?”
2. “What is that perfume? I like it.”
3. “If we moved in together …….”
4. He bought me a present and, as last year, I didn’t buy him one.

1. I was saying that I really should do something with my hair and pick a style or cut it. His response made me think that he quite likes it.

2. I told him that it’s one of my favourites and that I had worn it before and he replied that he knew that but he really liked the smell. I told him that they didn’t make it any more, which is a shame. I also said that I thought it suited me and he agreed. With his sense of smell, it’s nice that he likes it.

3. It was a ‘what if….’ thing that came up, instigated by him, obviously. But, I got the impression that, as time goes on, he is seriously considering it. We shall see. Nothing can possibly happen for a year, anyway. But he did say that it seemed quite stupid to have a flat and not actually use it and that if we got together, for the same amount as we are paying now, we could get quite a large place.

4. Yesterday was our anniversary. I can hardly believe that it has only been 2 years. It feels like much longer. But it has been a fabulous couple of years and I do hope for many, many more. I don’t know why I don’t get him a present. However, I had paid for the weekend away, as he pointed out. So, I suppose it was something.

Look what they’ve done to my cigs, ma!

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Funnily enough, I had thought of writing a post about this last week or the week before.

You see, a week or two ago, I noticed there seemed something strange about my cigarettes. No longer, if I left them in the ashtray, did the cremated corpse of the cigarette with the shape perfectly preserved serve to remind me that, really, I should have put it out or not bothered to light it up in the first place. At which point, I would immediately light up another one, of course.

No, now it went out. This was good and bad. Good in as much as I didn’t waste a whole cigarette for, once relit, it was fine. It was bad in that I was concerned they had, somehow, changed the composition and wondered if they were going to be bad for me. Of course, that’s a relative statement since they are bad for me. I meant, they had put something in that made them more dangerous.

I meant to ask F if his were the same. But I didn’t.

I meant to mention it to others but, to be honest, forgot about it. I thought, maybe, it was just that one batch until …….

Well, until I saw this from the BBC.

So now you know. No longer will I waste about 10% of my cigarettes but, thanks to some new law, I will just have to relight them. So a good thing after all :-) (depending on your point of view, of course).

And, I don’t know why I thought of Melanie’s song as the title (more or less) but she is one of my favourites and so here it is:

The 1000th Post

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It’s a lot, really. OK, so some of my previously published posts haven’t been earth shattering but it doesn’t really matter. I got to 1000.

I wanted to do something a bit special for this post. Gail suggested I talk about God. No one else suggested anything.

So, let’s talk about God or, rather, let me talk about God.

The first thing that comes to mind is, why?

I mean, why did we make up God. Of course, there are stories in the Bible about people having a direct relationship with God. If they said such a thing now, we would lock them away.

I believe it’s our need for two things. 1. We need some way of explaining the inexplicable and 2. We need someone to blame/call on when things go bad. We need that feeling that there’s someone more powerful than us who can help us or whose fault it is.

That’s it.

Now, we need a name for him/her. Let’s call him/her God. For that matter, why should it be a him or a her? Why not an ‘it’? Well, we don’t know how to depict an ‘it’. In the olden times, before God became God, humans worshipped gods. The gods could be trees or animals – the things around. When we became sophisticated we made God in our image and someone wrote a book about him where we were the image of him. That was very convenient. It makes us more special than anything else. But he may not be a he or a she or, even, an it. Maybe God, should such a being exist, is nothing comprehensible to us but if that were to be so then he would be too difficult to handle.

So we made him like us. And then, until recently, we made him a him. Now we say he could be a her.

It’s a bit like death. We make up stuff about a heaven and, just so we make sure that all the nasty people we don’t like can’t be with us in this heaven (‘cos they don’t deserve it), we make a hell too. And whilst we’re at it we’ll have a bad guy against God because, well, all the best stories have a good and a bad guy. Let’s call him Satan or the Devil.

And now we have a reason why everyone can’t be nice and perfect. ‘Cos they got in with Satan. So, although we have already given God all powers – we create someone who also has a (nearly) matching power.

The logic problem with that is that, if God is all-powerful, then there can’t be a Satan, can there?

I could stop there, I suppose. Because the problem with all this is that, if you get rid of Satan because of his impossibility to exist (God being all-powerful and all that), then what about the bad people? I mean, if God made us in his (very convenient) image and Satan doesn’t exist, then why the bad people? Or are we saying God can be good AND bad?

Of course, if God is both good and bad and he made us in his image, then we, too, would be good and bad. And that’s not good, is it? Since that gives him ‘whims’ since being bad is not a Christian thing to be.

So, I guess I’m saying we’re stuffed. Since there can’t be a Satan and, since, without Satan, that would make God both good and bad, then all the stuff in the Bible that there is like ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘love your enemies’ is flawed. And if that bit is flawed and if Satan doesn’t exist then, to be honest, neither does God.

But if God doesn’t exist then neither does heaven. And if heaven doesn’t exist then that’s just too scary because what happens to you when you die? Other than you die, of course. What I meant was, what’s the point?

And the point is not 42.

But, of course, if there is no God, then there isn’t necessarily any point. Why does there have to be a point? Why isn’t there just life? Because we are always striving for something. A goal. If your goal is to get to heaven to be with God, then there is a reason for life and a reason to be good (or try to be). We can’t be ‘goal-less’, can we? Or, can we?

I mean to say, why should we have a goal, even just the one? What if we live everyday like it will be our last day? What if the ‘heaven’ that everyone wants to get to is really just a thought – I mean, a thought by others? What if heaven is really that we shall be remembered?

I.e. heaven is not a ‘place’ (was it ever?), but a memory, by others.

When you’re dead, then you’re dead. Why do we want to live forever? We don’t think that animals do (well, generally, we don’t think that animals do). We think that, when they’re dead, they’re dead. We even eat some of them (or, rather, a lot of them). There are even (or maybe that’s ‘were’?) tribes of cannibals. So, even we are eaten. And then? When there’s nothing left?

We talk about soul. As if it’s real. We even describe it as not being able to be seen. Like the Holy Ghost. It’s the get-out clause of all time. Something that exists but doesn’t.

We laugh at those people who believed in gods. We think they are slightly crazy. But, surely, they are no crazier than us? They believed in things they could not see; tried to make images of these things they couldn’t see – images that were like themselves or things around them; there were gods that couldn’t be seen.

We have a need to have these things that are higher than us, more supreme. We make up stories to ‘fit’ the things that happen, the things that exist.

We do it, too, with science. We ‘prove’ things. We look in incredible detail. We theorise about how it all started. Is this any better? The bible, one great fairy tale, was written to explain about God and the things that had happened. Are science books that different? If we, as a race of beings, survive for another couple of thousand years, are our ancestors going to look back and laugh at our beliefs (both of God and in science), since they have found a better story around which to fit everything?

Don’t get me wrong. I call on ‘him’ in times of strife or worry. I have my beliefs. I have the things that I believe in. They are the things that I’ve picked up over the years that suit me. They are the things that make sense to me. Even if some of them are as stupid as believing in astrology. I pick and choose the things I believe in. I don’t quite ‘fit in’ to the single belief. That’s OK. Why not? I’m making my own bible. It does for me.

Do I believe in heaven, even if I have some belief in God? No, that’s where I can’t go. I want to make an impact on this world in the (vain?) hope that there will be people who remember me. That is my heaven. I try to be nice, not because I am a Christian but because I feel more comfortable living like that.

I try to do what my Grandfather said. I am trying to be content. It works for me.

Unusually for me, I have decided I might edit this post after the event. So I may do that. Just so you know.

Musings from the beach

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They disliked or maybe, even, despised jewellery on a man. I wonder, then, what they would have thought of the old man at the umbrella before me, wearing his log gold chain with a square of gold dangling from the middle. Hardly a medalion but, then, he’s hardly a medalion man – being, as he is, about mid-70s, where everything is already on its way South and his small breasts in need of some support. I wonder if it all heads South as that is where the ground is and where he will lie sometime (soon?) – almost as if it points the way to his destination?

And then I thought about my parents disliking jewellery on a man and thought that, perhaps, they disliked me as much as I did them. I disliked them for their values – and mine are opposite, to the extreme. Did I get my ‘opposite values’ because I disliked them and theirs or did I get mine first and disliked them (my parents) because their values were not mine.

All this is lost in time. Never to be known. Such is life.