OCCUPIED COUNTRY

I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top.....

When I first started this blog back in 2003 (sheesh....), within a matter of days Tony Blair and Dubya unleashed shock and awe on the inhabitants of Iraq.  Now I've just started re-blogging and the latest New Labour acolyte Cameron is on the verge of sending the in jets to 'protect'  the opponents of Ghaffadi.  Now, I'm not an advocate of doing bog all, he's a twat; but he's always been a twat and, furthermore, a twat that we've had no problems cosying up to when it suited.  We've sold him arms and turned a blind eye to the abuses he inflicted on his people.  Sure he was branded a fully fledged member of the 'axis of evil' post 9/11 but he always held that lucrative trump card: oil.  Just like Saddam in the days before he became too unruly for even the neo-cons on Capital Hill.

So the waiting game has been played.  Like the other Arab states Tunisia and Egypt, it was assumed by the current Government that the opposition would take control after a brief and relatively bloodless struggle.  William Hague the all-seeing and all-knowing confidently regurgitated a rumour that the Colonel was on a plane to Venezuela, giving ill-informed and ill-conceived journalistic speculation a leg up the credibility ladder.  Mind you he was probably too over-eager to smear Chavez to check the veracity of his sources.

And then we find that 'Diplomats and members of the SAS' have been detained by Rebel forces after entering the country illegally armed with numerous fake IDs and passports.  Buffoonery of the highest order if you ask me.  So now the waiting game has proved pointless and the moment that Ghaffadi mobilised his goons and started to look like he'd still be here at Christmas it became apparent that some form of intervention would be inevitable. 

I've heard people saying they are weary of the situation in Japan being constantly broadcast on our channels.  It's too depressing now, we've had enough.  Misery overload and all that.  Let us just donate some cash and switch over.  The images are too distressing - even on the sanitised stations of the Western media empires.

There are also heart-breaking and heart-warming examples of the basic resilience and common humanity that the vast majority of ordinary folk on this planet have deep, deep reservoirs of.

But, yes, all the bad news certainly makes it difficult to be one's usual cheery self.

The nearest ATMs to our house are at a monolithic Tesco Extra.  Three of 'em all next to each other at the entrance to the store.  The other evening, on my way home from work I parked up and ambled over.  There were queues at all three.  I took my place and for once I felt quite happy waiting my turn with the other ten or so needers of cash.

The next thing a lady in her later years joined the queue next to mine humming and half remembering the words to 'Que Sera Sera' - the fatalistic Doris Day hit from way back when.  She (the lady not Doris Day) carried on until she came to the 'Here's What She Said to me....' lead in to the chorus.

I joined in.  'Que Sera Sera...Whatever will be wil be...the future's not ours to see.......'  God knows why.  I don't normally do that sort of thing.  But y'know what?  Pretty much everyone else joined in too!  How good is that?  Three queues of us singing Que Sera Sera smiling, unprompted and probably quietly gleeful.  I know I was.  I thought it was absolutely wonderful, a moment to be savoured.

It didn't take long for the magic to move on after the chorus when words were harder to remember and the 'ooops what ARE we doing' embarrassed Englishness reasserted itself and the grim reality of the World around us kicked Doris into the long grass.

Serendipity that's what it was.  Serendipity, my favourite word.

A memory asserted itself unbidden the other day as I gazed over the sprawling North Cheshire plain, chewing a flaccid baguette containing long wilted lettuce and the meat of something mammalian yet unfamiliar.  Turkey?  Beef?  Ham?  Who knows?  Anyway, for some reason, my brain has a habit of retaining information about when I've looked a bit of a prick in glorious Technicolour whereas my triumphs are rendered in scratchy super-8.

As I folded the rest of my lunch back into the bag it came in and stuck it in the bin I remembered sorting out a PC problem for a very girly girly-girl who used to be a secretary at my previous place of work.  I've always thought of it as a technicolour moment but, looking back who knows?

Everything about her was girly pink.  Nails, bag, shoes.  She LOVED pink.  Her hair was always immaculate.  She was pristine.

She was pleasant enough but came across as a bit of a Celeb-obsessed, Heat-magazine reading one dimensional creature who would phone in sick if she broke a nail.

She was going for lunch when I arrived to fix her PC but, against all procedures gave me her userid and password in case I needed to log on as her to check whether the fix worked.  Her password was 'Mimsy'.

"Aaah" said I, completely re-assessing my erstwhile lowly opinion of her cultural world, "Beware The Jabberwock my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch........."  She looked bemused and, frankly, a little pitying.  "The Jabberwock," I said "y'know from the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky?"

"I've never heard of it," she said.

"But......your password.....

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

All 'MIMSY' were the borogroves....Mimsy.  That's your password.  I've never heard the word anywhere else so where would you get it from if not Jabberwocky?"

"It's my dog's name."

Turns out she had a little, arsey, scrap of dog, a Pomeranian or somesuch that was probably carried everywhere by 'Mummy' in it's bright pink collar with matching coat.

I've been out in the garden today.  Mowing the lawn and generally tidying up.  The Spring sunshine was welcome I can tell you.  Hopefully we'll be getting a bit more sun next week as me,  Dearest, Youngest, Mrs Youngest and Littlest nip over to Majorca for 5 days R 'n' R.

I've charged my Kindle, my iPod has been replenished and my camera lenses polished.  I'm looking forward to it and also the Summer to come.

We had the garden's drainage problem sorted last year and really enjoyed using it to the full again.  One evening at about 9-o-clock as a gentle Mancunian rain pattered and brought relief from the humid weather we had been experiencing, I stood on the patio and took this snap.  It reminds me of a perfect moment.  Let's hope the poor buggers at the mercy of events unfolding find some perfect moments of their own again after time has healed.