NEW YORK MARIJUANA, A POOR PRINCESS and a FAST DIET

What’s today been like for me in my ivory tower here in the frozen north.   Well, not so frozen after all.    Believe it or not I have been sitting outside on a garden chair in bright sunshine.   Admittedly, I was wearing two cardigans, but it was warm and bright enough in the lovely light of the sun to sit and start my latest small, home project.   That is to try to take-in or make smaller some of my eight pairs of trousers or pants as our American relations call them.   Yes, you see I am getting THINNER.   It is called dropping a dress size, in my case almost two dress sizes.   Whether I shall be successful with this only time will tell – I mean the sewing and the dieting.   So far it has worked quite well.   For five weeks now I have been trying a version of the FAST DIET, a version which includes a few small glasses of wine in the evening, and an attempt to do the half-fast idea nearly every day.   I have lost 10 pounds so far.   But I don’t want to brag too soon, as I know how easy it is to put the lost weight back on.

How’s this for hot news?   Today I read in the Guardian dated 20^th Feb, 15.38 --just now my clock says 15.58, so it’s hot off the press that Mayor Bloomberg of New York has made a small step towards s rational policy towards marijuana.   It seems that people found to be carrying marijuana will no longer have to spend a night in prison.   The article I read states that it is more black people and Hispanics who have suffered from stop and search policy of the New York Police, suggesting that by rights white people are every bit as guilty of smoking the weed.   Although Mayor Bloomberg has admitted publicly to having smoked this stuff, I have to confess that has not been part of my life experience.    Should I be glad or sorry or regretful?    Well, who knows?   You can’t have every virtue or every vice.   That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Great heat on the media, TV and  Radio and the newspapers about the Booker prize-winner, Hilary Mantel’s comments about Kate Middleton.   The papers have gone to town against the author in a big way.   Apparently she has accused the princess of being having a plastic smile and of being without personality.   However I believe the opinion of the columnist of the Guardian who thinks that the comments of Hilary Mantel have been hyped up by the press.   Apparently the speech was made at the British Museum for the London Review of Books.   Although it was a small part of a long speech, four paragraphs out of thirty, and had been made two weeks before the press honed in on it, they have lambasted the author who was in a way largely criticising the media for the way they used the princess as eye-candy for their papers.  

Going to the theatre tonight to see a team of male dancers perform.   I have no idea what to expect.   The programme was chosen by G. hoping to please our house guests – Ruth, Naomi and Nathan.   Hope it will be a successful outing.   Meanwhile, I have to go and make Spaghetti Bolognaise with some baked cherry tomatoes and left-over minced beef.    Also they can have each have a slice of my high calorie white chocolate and cream celebration cake.   Don’t you just wish you were here?   Don’t answer that!   Keep happy!!

DO ESKIMOES HAVE THE MOST FUN?

What a strange country we live in!   We are bombarded with news and opinions.   We can’t get enough of either of these.   The latest cause for discussion and disagreement between different strands of society in the United Kingdom is the meaning of marriage.   What marriage used to mean when I was a girl was it was the state that all normal young people aspired to and sure enough when I reached the grand old age of twenty-one, I got married.   You got married, and usually you tried not to produce any children for as long as possible (no contraception pill in those days).   Well sooner rather later you did have children, and that was what marriage was for, wasn’t it?   I even remember being taken by a playmate to be shown a little girl whose mother was not married.   She was I was told in hushed tones a “bastard”

Changed days!   Nobody wants to get married among the young people in their twenties that I am familiar with.   They don’t want children either.    This is for the same reason as it was for my generation.   They don’t want the wife to stop working and earning money.   They can’t afford it.   The whole set up of engagement and marriage, sixty or seventy years ago was to make sure that there was a father to provide for his family, because usually married women didn’t work.   It was society’s answer to an unavoidable situation.

Of course the churches were involved, and so was the law, and that was that.

But I remember seeing a TV progamme about the Eskimo Culture whereby in those harsh snowy conditions, and long distances to be travelled across the freezing country, when arriving at the igloo of a stranger, the traveller was offered immediate hospitality and shelter from the weather.   Also he was offered if he wished, the opportunity to spend the night with the wife of the owner.   I suppose life was so fragile in those circumstances that it didn’t matter who was the father of the child that his wife might produce (and it widens the gene pool. GW).

What I am leading up to, of course is the great discussion and voting going on in parliament about whether two people of the same sex should be allowed to be married.   It seems that this is what gay couples of both sexes wish to be allowed to do.   Many politicians, especially Tory MPs, do not approve.   Great columns are being written in newspapers, notably Polly Toynbe in The Guardian, on the subject.   Some people can’t see what the fuss is about when there are so many other pressing problems for the government and the populace.   I agree.  What about the economy?   The withdrawal of benefits from disabled people?   What about the proposed referendum for staying in or out of the European Union?  If gay people wish to be married, then good luck to them.   It is their business.

Moving on, I heard Al Gore, the American ex-Vice-president, who also ran for the presidency at one time, speaking on television.   He is finished with politics and fears that in the USA democracy is under strain .   This is due to the system of great corporations lobbying in the interests of their business.  The needs of the population the politicians are elected to represent are forgotten, due to greed and self-interest.  As usual it’s all about money.   Al Gore states that not once in the recent presidential election was either Obama or Romney, or any other candidate, asked a question about climate change and what could be done to slow the obvious changes for the worse that  were occurring in weather systems all over the world.   Gore has sold his small TV News Channel to Al Jazeera which, he claimed, had become a very responsible channel.    This up-and-coming company is said to be applying for a license to transmit news in America.   They might even challenge the mighty CNN Company.   What a funny world we live in!

Talking about environment matters, my magazine from Friends of the Earth, states some reasons to be cheerful.   They are:

1)      There is a growing chorus for a ban on pesticides sparked off by the desperate plight of bees which are dying in their millions.   Bees are vital for many of our food crops and people are petitioning the government to put this crisis at the top of the agenda.   Petitions have been signed and handed to David Cameron, while all over Britain thousands are getting involved by planting wild flowers and handing out information for the campaign.

2)      Technology is on our side.   The price of solar panels is plummeting.   Electric cars are selling more and more.   We hope that human ingenuity may solve some of our problems.

3)      The European Union has begun to realise that demanding land for the growing of biofuels is depriving farmers of land to grow food.   Also the British Antarctic Survey has been saved from oblivion, meaning that the early warning system on climate change has not been dismantled.

4)      Last year, the CBI says, green growth was responsible for a third of all UK economic growth showing that green business was good for the economy as well as the environment.

5)      Some thinking politicians of all parties, and some CEOs of large companies are on the side of the Green Party.  So we may take heart.

Gerald has been advising me about what to write in my blog today.   His choice: a) Trouble in parts of the National Health Service – patient neglect and inefficiency, big time in some  hospitals (one hospital in particular). b) The Royal Bank of Scotland being fined millions, and we, the taxpayers being the ones paying for it.   c) Hidden inflation in our economy due to smaller packaging in supermarkets but the same price being charged, and substitution with cheaper ingredients, for example horsemeat (cheaper than beef) found in Ready meals.

Ho! Ho!  As I said what a queer, funny, tricky old world we live in!   The only good thing, I suppose is that our communication and our media systems are so good that now we know all about our mixed-up planet instantaneously.   Is this good or bad?

A consolation:   Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups:  alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat. (Alex Levine)

Second consolation:  Don’t worry about avoiding temptation.   As you grow older, it will  avoid you.(Winston Churchill)

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

HURRAH FOR ACTIVISTS!

What is happening today?   Today there is some warm almost spring sunshine in Inverness.   And so, for the benefit of our health, we two ancients went a-walking down by the very full and fast-flowing River Ness.   We walked for about half-a-mile, just enough for our old bones.   Now Gerald is making wholemeal bread, and yours truly decided to escape from the kitchen, and to write this blog.

What else is new?   Yesterday I read a great long blog by Laurie Penny which I found on the New Statesman Magazine website – www.newstatesman.com/blogs.   It was all about a book called ‘Vagina’ by Naomi Wolf.   She sleights the author for using her immediate social milieu - mostly upper middle-class New York smart women, discussing their experiences of love with men in the same class, that is with money to buy flowers etc., etc., whereas ordinary, usually poorer-off women, perhaps in Africa, but who are to be found all over the world, have a harder and more difficult experience.   According to Laurie Penny this book is letting women and the fight for women’s rights down.   It is titillating to men, and she cites an example of such writing in the highly successful erotic publication known to all as ‘50 Shades of Grey’.  Laurie Perry is a wonderful writer.   I see that this week in the same magazine her subject is the glass ceiling as she describes a meeting with the 82-year-old activist for women’s rights, and founder of the “wages for housework” campaign, Selma James.   I’d never heard of her.  She was born in Brooklyn and now lives in London.   She seems to be a remarkable woman who has always fought for the underdog.   There is such an active world going on out there, especially in London.   I never considered myself a feminist, but perhaps I was wrong not to take up the cause.   Too late now!   But I wish I could be paid for sixty years of housework!

Other things to bug me:   My daughter’s neighbour’s son has lost one of his university classmates in the “insurgent” attacks in Mali where the French are now fighting.   Six British boys lost their lives. Sad day for some poor parents.

David Cameron is sounding off about what Britain can get to its advantage from the European Union by renegotiating the terms of the treaty signed in Maastrich long ago.   How will it go?  He says he wants the country to stay in Europe (don’t all sane people?) but we must get a better deal, he says.   And who will lose out so we in Britain can gain new advantages?  This is the trouble with democracy.   You have to go with the flow or take up another hobby away from politics.   I have decided we must do as Jesus told us to do, in order to stop ourselves from going crazy – “Consider the lilies of the field.   They neither reap nor do they sow, yet have I provided for them.”   Except lilies don’t grow in Scotland.   At least not in the winter.

I will finish with a quotation from Robert Burns, our beloved Scottish Poet whose commemorative day it was on the 25^th, yesterday.

“Oh would what power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us!”!

Translated it means (the ‘giftie’ being God)   Oh, would God only give the gift to see ourselves as others see us.

How would people like David Cameron, George Osborne, or Alex Salmond like to see themselves as others see them or hear what people say about them?  I have to say I don’t think I could stand to have that gift given to me either. No way! 

I wish you sunshine such as we had today in Inverness – but just a good bit warmer, please God!   And Good Luck ANDY MURRAY, TOMORROW!!

TAKE A GAMBLE ON THE GAY BALLS

Sunday in the highlands of Scotland, and it is not too cold.   Yesterday was so cold and yet beautiful to look out on as all grass and trees were covered in thick white frost.   In the post came a postcard from striver-granddaughter, Laura, who at this time during her back-packing year is working on a farm, a few hundred miles north of Sydney.   She works in above 100 degrees Fahrenheit conditions picking fruit and such like work.   Anyhow it was how this New Year greeting was addressed.   To Margaret and Gerald.   Our second name was almost too small to be on the postcard.   But then she has called our house “The Gambles”.    It made me laugh.   Take a gamble and visit “The Gambles”.   It does say “The Gables” on the front wall.   However perhaps the sun has affected her memory - and we loved her communication just the same.   If you read this Laura, you are a star, and we will love seeing you and Lauren in June.   Keep on Keeping on!

Not that this was the first time we have had a strange version of our house name.   Some typist once sent us a brown envelope with information enclosed, and she had addressed the package to “The Gay Balls”.   Images of ladies in ball gowns sweeping round a ballroom in the arms of handsomely–dressed men occurred to me.   Or if you like you could think of the new connotation of ‘gay’, the mind boggles.   I suppose it must have been down to my pronunciation of the ‘gables’ over the ‘phone’ that was at fault.   Oh well! I think everything is my fault anyway.   It’s due to my strict education I tell myself.

But I don’t think I am at fault for any of the following:

a)     The coalition government in the United Kingdom are introducing a form of poll tax    in April this year.   This will inform poorer people who do not pay local council tax due to their circumstances that they will now have to pay something, perhaps 20%.   And it seems that it is almost certain that they won’t be able to pay this.   Even unemployed people will have to pay when they have never paid before, even though they can hardly make ends meet.   I got this story from George Eaton’s column in the New Statesman.  I quote here from the article in this week’s magazine “The parallels with the greatest policy misjudgement by any modern Conservative government are so striking that one is inclined to conclude that the coalition has a death wish,”   He goes on to say that “this regressive levy is likely to be met with mass non-payment.”

b)     It seems that Silvio Berlosconi is trying to regain power in Italy by promising a relaxation of austerity.   Let’s hope that the Italians don’t give in to his wild behaviour, in spite of their financial distress.

c)     I read that the architect Kenneth Powell referred to the Shard as a 'behemoth'.  The Shard is the new tall building - the tallest in Europe - on the south bank of the Thames by London Bridge designed by Renzo Piano. It opens on the 1st of February and you can see round on the 68^th, 69^th and 72^nd floors - but beware, it's expensive.  'Behemoth’ is a puzzling word.  A medieval word meaning “a great monster”.   The building has its critics as it just seemed to appear among 19^th century streets.

d)     A quote from “The Observer” magazine today talking about the attempt of scientists in Eindhoven University in Holland to make artificial steaks and hamburgers.   There’s energy behind the projects because of the certainty that 9 billion human beings cannot possibly go on eating food (at the present rate), especially meat produced in the traditional way.   The planet can’t take it.”   It’s is a good interesting article, if a bit scary.

Last of all a joke:   A woman journalist heard a story about this Jewish man who has been going to the Wailing Wall in Jersualem for forty years.   Each day he prayed for an hour.   He never failed to turn up to pray.   The journalist decided to get the story and arrived one day to visit this religious man.   “Who do you pray for each day?” she asked.   The old man replied, “I pray for my wife, for my family, and for my health.   Also I pray the Christians, the Jews, and the Moslems will agree with one another and find peace together.”   Said the journalist:   “How do you feel about doing this for so long?”   He replied, “I feel as if I am talking to a wall.”

“MONEY TALKS FOR YOU A LOAN”

We still haven’t cleared up after Christmas.   Presents to stash away or hang in the wardrobe, dishes and plates brought for special visitors have to be re-stored, and leftovers still hanging around have to be eaten or binned tout-de-suite!   So much money is spent at this time of year that it is best not to think about it.   Still a great time was had by all.

Everything seems to be about money in one way or another these days.   Shops are desperate for money to be spent, students need money to live, to party and celebrate the holidays, and if you want to rent or buy a flat you sure must have money.  When I was a child I had an uncle who owned a Pawn Shop (Really!  No kidding!)   Outside his shop was a big sign which said “Money Talks for You a Loan” and at the end of the sign was a big finger pointing to the door of the shop.   It was funny and it was clever   And lots of people used his pawnshop in those distant hard-up days.   Come to think of it, I heard that pawnshops are being much more used again these days.

In the USA they are absorbed in something called the Fiscal Cliff.   It appears most of the Democrats want to save the serious financial situation by putting up taxes for the people who earn most money.   Some say that should be for people earning above $250,000 while others suggest to tax earnings above $500,000.   Then again the Republicans say no to all tax rises.   They want the government to reduce the country’s deficit by CUTTING SPENDING.   Presumably this would be on WELFARE and STATE PENSIONS ETC.   It is a familiar story for countries all over the world – two opposing arguments – two opposite political ideologies.   Watch and listen and hope and pray for sanity and workable solutions to arrive.

Snippets of news:

1.      There is a petition going around in the USA requesting the deporting of Piers Morgan because he has spoken out against the gun laws in America.   Lots of people do not like to be criticised about their culture.   They say Brits are jealous of their American dream.

2.      Mrs. Thatcher was unsure of what to do about the Falklands invasion in 1982 – so it has been revealed today.   Also information has come out today that she discussed ways to dismantle the Welfare State.   Well, there you go!

3.      It will soon be Hogmanay and we will all have to start celebrating and partying again.   OMG will it never end?   I think old Gerald and old Margaret will get into their nightgowns and snuggle under the duvet and dream of how to have fun in 2013.     Grandson Calum and his mother, youngest daughter Maggie called today.   We discussed Christchurch, New Zealand and wondered if it was bigger or smaller than Inverness.   I said NO.   I was wrong as Calum could tell from his smart phone.   Christchurch is much bigger, having a population of 350,000   Mention anything preceded by ‘I wonder’ and young ones will produce their phones to tell you the answer.   What a funny world!

4.      Bought Gerald a weighty tome for his Christmas.   It is a book called ‘Spillover’ written by David Quammen, an American writer.   It is about viruses which can spread from, for example, bats to horses, and even from animals to humans.   I thought he might be interested, him being an animal breeding research scientist.   However, I think he finds the present a bit daunting and perhaps harrowing.    He tells me he also finds it to be intriguing.    Nevertheless I feel quite cruel to be burdening him.   Also he was given a calendar of gorgeous pin-up girls.   Poor soul!   He is after all 86 years old.

5.      Do have a wonderful New Year’s celebration.   And sing Auld Lang Syne to your heart’s content.   Maybe we will look again at “Dinner for  One” on YouTube like Germany and Austria do every New Year’s Eve.   The drunken butler is so funny!  We need all the laughs we can get.   Happy 2013 to all my friends, enemies and relations.

“IT’S EVENTS, DEAR BOY, EVENTS!   THAT’S WHAT’S THE TROUBLE.”   SAID HAROLD MCMILLAN

Today I have weighed out the fruit and nuts for three Christmas cakes.   This I have done every December for as long as I can remember.   Why three?   I rather stupidly keep up the habit of helping out my two daughters at this busy time of year.   Especially busy as we all know for housewives and working mothers.   So I have weighed out the dried fruit and added a little brandy to each bowl.   I’m doing this year’s baking in stages.   First stage:  concentrate on the task until you’re fed up, or until you wish to make the lunch for two, do the ironing (much needed task) or go on line and write a topical blog!   Well it will be short this time, I promise.

Talking about teachers, I heard briefly on the radio that Michael Gove is prodding and provoking teachers in England about their proposed work-to-rule because of a deterioration in their working conditions.   He has suggested that head teachers should dock the pay of their teachers if they consider they have not stayed clear of any such disruptive action in school.   One pundit on the page I was reading suggested that Gove’s plan was to provoke an all-out strike of teachers, in order to divert attention away from the government and all the things going wrong for David Cameron and his friends.   It was suggested that the newspapers would love such an event as a school strike.   They could get their teeth into that.

Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph seems to be getting its teeth into the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, who it has been revealed had some claims for alleged expenses for housing.  Ninety thousand pounds is the sum I read about.   We shall await the result of the enquiry proposed.   She is the person in the government who has deal with the newspaper editors after the report of the Leveson Inquiry into ‘phone-hacking and the rest.   How will she cope?   Is this for Cameron, a case of “Another one bites the dust”?

We have got used to the accusations for the government of their Minishambolic governing methods.   But how about the new phrase of some politicians, imported from the USA, about their ‘shovel-ready’ projects which would encourage growth in our country.   And David Osborne who is keen on helping ‘strivers’ and loves ‘hard-working’ families.   Out of my sight you ‘medium-working’ families!   And as for you non-employed idiots – I despair of you!”   At least, I think that’s what some of our ‘leaders’ think.

On a lighter note, I heard in an advertisement on TV that a great CD for Christmas is called something  like “Now that’s what I call Christmas”.   I think I will seek it out.   I need cheering up!   On the home front, last night in bed, I got exasperated with my pyjama trousers as they do not turn with me when I turn in bed.   Gerald riposted that he had the same problem.   “I am going back to nightgowns”, I said.   “Maybe I’ll get one for you, Gerald.   And a little matching nightcap.   That would suit fine!”   So I leave you with that strange image.   “Gerald in a nightgown and still going strong!”   Don’t eat too much Christmas Cake this year, and behave yourselves, just like I always do!   And a very merry Christmas, and a happy NewYear!!!

“I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY (SO LUCKY, SO LUCKY)”

Oh well, it’s November all right.   Here it is raining and cold in Bonnie Scotland.   The leaves are shades of orange and yellow, lots are still on the trees in Lochardil, Inverness, but a good percentage of them are now lying around the paths of the garden, and along the streets.    In some ways Autumn is sad   -----

‘And the Autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,   And I haven’t got time for the waiting game.’

I think it was John Houston that sang September Song in some film or other.  He was finding it melancholy trying to have a love affair and realising it was probably going to be kind of heartbreaking for an aged person.

Really I am lucky,  -----  old as I am.   I mean I am having steak and sausages for my meal tonight.   Me and Gerald.   And we will watch TV and try not to eat too many chocolates.    The freezer if full of waiting meals for my guests tomorrow – sister (Stella) and brother-in-law (Stephen), and sister-in-law (Irene) she, from another era, like the nineteen fifties.   Anyhow, we will laugh, drink, eat and be merry because 23^rd November is my birthday.   So that can’t be bad.

Unlucky is to be in the Gaza Strip, or Israel with rockets and bombs going off, people injured and dying, and whole buildings being smashed up.   Politicians try to help to get some form of compromise going in this latest upheaval in the Middle East.   Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Egypt.   They have a Cease-Fire just yesterday and today, but people don’t believe it will last.  

‘And the days dwindle down to a precious few, September, November, And

these few precious days, I’ll spend with you.   These golden days, I’ll spend with you!’

 That’s what I’ll sing to Gerald tonight, Well maybe, if we can stop  arguing about, you name it, we can make an argument out of it – all in a good cause, of course.

He has been making a flat-pack shelf-unit I bought from a catalogue.   Swearing, of course, as the instructions were incomplete, obscure, and WRONG!   In his dressing-gown as usual, and kneeling in the hallway, he announced to me that the illustrations were wrong, and that the screws DID NOT FIT!.   ‘They’re never wrong, dear’, says I.   But no flies on himself, he goes and looks the catalogue up on the computer, still cursing me, and finds out what?   THE INSTRUCTIONS WERE WRONG!!  Oh well, the unit is completed now and looks as if it had always stood in the kitchen holding Cookery Books.

Reading a library book called  “To Travel Hopefully” by  Christopher Rush.   It is about the author who, after the sudden death of his young wife with undiagnosed breast cancer,  he is devastated and experiencing a tragic time of it, almost a mental breakdown.   Eventually, he decides to make a change in his life, really to get his life back.   He makes up his mind to follow in the footsteps of R. L. Stevenson, and to go walking in France in the Cevennes with a donkey.   You may remember the book is called “Travels with a Donkey”.   I remember reading it in school when I was about thirteen.   It had been translated into French and we had to learn to read it in class in French in school.   The author, Christopher Rush’s experiences are quite fascinating, once you work your way through the devastation of his bereavement in Edinburgh with two young children.   However, I stuck it out and now he has just got his donkey and is getting ready to start alone on his journey through the lonely hills of South West France.   Good luck!   Bad luck!   We all get our share.   Let’s hope good luck holds for me over the weekend, the month even, and maybe until my next birthday.

As they used to say in Scotland in the olden days, when we had coal fires.   “Lang may your lum reek!”   which translated means “Long may your chimney smoke!”   And Christmas is only 32 days away!    Yipee!  Good luck to all my distant relatives and friends who find the time to read this!!