Sigh.....

I hate going to town for a couple of reasons one of them being I always forget something and then I get annoyed with myself, and so it was today.

It was cold, damp miserable although I do think the Christmas lights are up I've actually never seen the towns Christmas lights on but every year I do see the wires and leads trailing through the sky and I must admit seeing them creates a kind of anticipation what are they like, are there any flashing or moving lights? It doesn't matter where you live Christmas lights definitely look better when its dark and the lights are on.

I didn't do much shopping its Monday several shops were shut and anyway I didn't need much cats and dogs are catered for and the freezer is full I could probably last the week but I rather more probably won't. I forget stuff I never get home but I end up standing in the kitchen hating myself for my latest bout of amnesia.

I mean coleslaw surely to goodness if you buy the reason you want the coleslaw you would remember to buy the actual fucking coleslaw. Not me, gone are the days when I had any even the remotest connection to common sense.

I'm fed up. I don't want to be here and I forgot the pigging coleslaw and, I have now thanks to the UK prime minister and at least one of his little idiosyncrasies got to be very careful how I use a word like 'pigging'. Its a hard, hard life right enough particularly for some unfortunate pigs and anyway very few people are kind and understanding about what he did with a pig

Talking of pigs and what should be done with them: *I don't like that there are people on Twitter who actually believe they can dictate what subject and people a person, me, follows. Of course they could be employees of Twitter and I'm looking forward to the day when if no one else does it first I will out them. In fact my impatience is beginning to show. I'm kind to victims of anything especially anyone who was physically or sexually abused when they were children, but I don't like lies or fraud and this particular group have been visible for some time. 

Naturally I copied the time line and it does read well. I don't want to hear denials and nor when it gets to court will anyone else and its not like one of them hasn't got form for being a lying prat in court.

So not a good day. I should have gone to Castlebar but by the time I got myself organised it was too late, bearing in mind its twilight at 4pm and dark by 5pm. I should have gone if I had it would be done now instead of looming ahead of me like a dentist appointment.

Update 1/12/2015

There appears to have been a bit of a dust up in the dove cot which may or may not be connected to * above

A Tweet too Far

Twitter is full of what they call trolls I believe most of them are either employed by Twitter or in some cases encouraged by Twitter employees, there have been three deaths all suicides by people who got too close to Twitter and thought the behaviour there was allowed everywhere but for all the claims by the professionals the three suicides were amateurs not real trolls at all, such amateurs are the tools of professional trolls and when the amateurs are forced to acknowledge reality so the dread, fear and terrible depression that comes with knowing they have been used descend to evidently terrible effect.

Is Ireland the right place for Twitter I don't think so. Ireland is so very local its easy for those with vested interests to find and get to know employees of Twitter support its even probable that technical employees are allowed to get involved in targeting individuals. Its all publicity right?

There is something very, very wrong with all Social Media sites and its most visible on Twitter

They'll have been waiting for something frothing with rage and that was a mistake I've been enraged it doesn't work unless you deal with the cause. I'm dealing with the cause

Robin

pippakin ‏

9 seconds ago

Robin So bold He struts & swoops Its not for him To wait and stoop Robin Is first and then Come the Crows When the Magpie arrives clever Robin He goes swift 

As an arrow

Free as a bird

Integration

FWIW and it doesn’t mean much to me but I do want to put it out there when the runny stuff hits the fan I don’t want there to be room for excuses.

I did ‘integrate’ I was on a course for almost a year shopping getting to know some of the locals a little and enjoying a nice little town.

I did look for work but in Ireland at that time it was worse than trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack and I felt guilty what was someone of my age and in my circumstances doing trying to get a job someone else, someone younger with family needed more.

What I didn’t and won’t do is go to church I dislike the Catholic Church I happen to be quite probably the only one in Ireland to be thrown out of the local church for being noisy. I was nine years old it was in London and I was not alone, one Sunday evening a whole gang of us decided to go to church. The priest was unimpressed.

I can see that becoming part of the community of church goers would have been useful but I don’t like dishonesty and I wasn’t keen on getting to know the local priest, when my uncle died I left two messages for the priest he didn’t return my call but at the funeral he asked if I was the one who had called.

A small thing maybe but it pissed me off it still does. A relative I was very fond of had died and I wanted to make sure that the church he had attended almost all his years in Ireland was organised and the priest didn’t return the calls.

Don’t dare talk to me about integrating I speak to some people regularly they may think I’m a bit eccentric but if there’s any honesty in them they won’t think I’m rude or nasty. I just don’t go to church and since I don’t drive travel to and from town is not something I do every day.

I won’t allow gossipy excuses like that to grow into any kind of so called explanation

To Our Very Good Health

All of us that is not just the relatively few who are lucky to always enjoy good health and good spirits

I don't want to go deep delving but I do want to say everyone has bad times and that includes me I've had my share but I don't want to make this about me that's narcissism. I only want to say that its possible very few of us have not been there.

The trick if it is a trick is to know that almost all things pass and those that don't can be made to pay.

I mean that in a general not personal sense. Illness, weakness teach their own lessons and when we recover one of them is maybe that we should be more considerate of the health and weakness of others.

Age also teaches us and one of the first things we should learn and rarely do until its almost too late is that physical age is irrelevant to intelligence, wisdom and empathy. Its even irrelevant to some maybe most experiences. Joy is still joy when we're seventy and grief is no less when we're seven.

There is a part of me that wants to grab someone by the neck and shake like a rag doll until they see sense but there is another part and that part says: first do no harm.

Blessings if you should pass this way may your God/s be with you and may you not stretch yourself too thin in their worship.

Aftermath

First is the sense of shock its overwhelming you look at the page and think that can't be right, but it is and its staring at you right there on the page of a book by a favourite author. Was it deliberate? I think so I've often said how much I liked his books. Note its now past tense.

Then there's anger white hot molten rage. Who would do such a thing and why? Well I know who to within three and I know how but with no explanation I'm unlikely ever to know why unless it goes to court.. The defence if it does go to court would be interesting and maybe enlightening, and it might well become part of one case or have an entire case to itself from which would unquestionably feed all the crimes relating to it. I sincerely hope the author of the latest, most shocking hurtful jibe is unaware of those crimes.

Being me I write about it I don't care if no one reads it that's not why I write and I don't care if those who do read it think its rubbish I don't write for applause. I write because I enjoy it that's all, and not all the outrageous assaults, the horrible accusations have or could change that. I like to write and I won't stop because some think I can't write. Is that what they think its about, if no one likes it give up?

I disagree, they are all outside and other they can't touch the instinct or feeling or whatever it is that make people want to write. I don't even know if there are many people left with such a feeling I suspect there are a lot of people who want to be writers but is that because they want to write or because they want to be famous authors?

Hmm.

Most people maybe all of them seem to think I can't write is that what's important or is it more important and much more satisfying to put what you think on paper or screen just because you can and you want to see and remember the colours you touched, the people you saw and the emotion you felt because if it is then readers are not a necessity although in a perfect world they would be a bonus.

So at the bottom of it all there's bewilderment who cares even to hate who cares enough to mention an unknown unimportant amateur writing the days? Opinionated, argumentative sometimes difficult but very rarely nasty and even then only when pushed to the limit of patience. Too 'talkative'? Is that it? Its probably part of it and I have to say that part is true but for a very long time now it was and still is part of something much bigger.

I don't know why if my writing is so dire so many people care about it I can't imagine why if its so bad its so often copied and I don't care. I feel really sick that cruelty exists in the world and I have been and still am a victim of some of it. Its not as if I haven't given warnings of why a settlement was necessary and now the first proof and it could get worse, much worse.

I have all the evidence I need and I can't now see any way but to use it. If I'm already a laughing stock what difference is there and it would be nice to get the last laugh. 

Pippakin a Critic

I  suppose the truth is I’ve always been a bit of a critic quite an acerbic one but I can also if and when the spirit moves me be constructive. Regrettably I have not felt so moved for the last several years and to be honest I can’t see that changing anytime soon.

I’ve written before both of how much I enjoyed the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett and also of my disappointment in his book The Dodger.

Dodger is a fascinating character and so is Stooge both are survivors any knocks they experience along lifes many strange and inconvenient paths would one has no doubt be brushed aside or possibly walked right over.

I was disappointed in Dodger but not surprised. In 2007 Terry Pratchett announced he had a form of Alzheimers and frankly whichever form you have is to me kind of irrelevant. Alzheimers deprives us of our memory but not before its deprived us of our independence, ability and our dignity, and it makes no difference if we are cared for by loved ones except perhaps it makes it harder for the sufferer and almost impossible for the carer.

I have some experience of dementia I cared for someone with the disease and a member of my family had it. You might say I’ve done my research.

Which brings me neatly to someone who didn’t do theirs.

Or did they …Any book by Terry Pratchett was always meticulously researched up to and including Dodger. I didn’t find Dodger hard going because it was poorly researched I found it almost impossible to get through because whoever wrote it lacked the legendary Terry Pratchett talent.

Raising Steam.

I honestly don’t know where to begin. Some of it, the subject matter was well researched and the idea, the introduction of steam to the discworld was brilliant however other significant to me parts were not.

Whoever, lets not call it ghost writing, guided the telling of the story may or may not lack talent. On reading the book it looks as though there is a total absence of the ability to so much as write their own name and address without turning it into something one simply has to bin by the second line.

But that’s unfair. The ability to write as someone else when you so obviously lack their imagination and wild talent is, must be very different to writing in your own style and on your own subject but there are people who apparently make a career of imitating other writing styles I’ve read a few someone even did a Robert Burns style poem to prove a point to say it was piss poor is to ignore the stench.

Maybe in such a situation changing the character and dialogue style of major characters is understandable and impossible to avoid but helpers should try because  changing a successful character had better be because the change is better not because the helper hasn’t a clue.

So, that was me the critic not exactly making excuses for the inexcusable and unforgivable.

By 2012 when The Dodger was published Terry Pratchett had to be suffering prolonged lapses caused by Alzheimers and by 2013 when Raising Steam was published he may well have been in a very serious condition. He died in March 2015 which probably means that for much of The Dodger Terry Pratchett had to rely on his helpers and by the time Raising Steam was ready for publication he must have had to rely on those helpers twenty four hours a day and perhaps been unable to properly supervise their work.

What Pippakin cares about

For the record I’m not one who minds being a laughing stock I’m sixty five years old, is it possible anyone of that age has sailed through life without slipping on one  and probably a dozen or more of lifes notorious banananana skins? I doubt it., even rich and powerful people the kind who have someone sweeping every smallest piece of rubbish including people from their own garlanded paths onto the dung heap laden tracks of the poor, and when it comes to the rich and powerful we are of course talking plurality of paths ,but even so some still occasionally go arse over tit into the noisome mire.

What gets my back so far up it would take a cruise missile to even attempt to bring it down?

Cruelty is the answer. I care about the kind of assault that leaves permanent if invisible scars, I care about those who find the actual pain someone else is suffering amusing, and I care about those who take advantage of an understanding empathic nature to hack and thieve, to take illegal pictures and share them possibly among the entire internet were any helpers among the recipients? If they were it confirms the reason for my style and commitment to stopping all such attacks particularly any further attacks on me. I care so much that in pursuit of them I’m like a dog with a bone I won’t let go and I do bite.

I think in his day Terry Pratchett would have been intrigued, oh he may have laughed may have been angry with me and others but he had a wild imagination and he would have looked for the sub plot.  His imagination would have taken it further would have wanted to know who was the real villain what was the motive and how many variations are there to the ending.

I doubt any research beyond the merest outline of railway history was done by the person or persons who had control of the research, the writing and the publication of Raising Steam.

Oh, and if you can’t ‘do’ original characters? Create new ones.

Feel free to sue I’d like nothing more.

ISIS Shock and Awe in Paris

It was hard to choose a picture the same colours appeared in almost every country. The famous landmarks of each country lit up to represent support for France and if we're not very careful war to every Muslim country.

Holy war

Not seen for centuries but the beginnings of it were visible in France and elsewhere and its maybe something some Islamist's don't fully understand. Western countries look and often behave in a secular even decadent manner because they can and its both fun and liberating. Until disaster strikes and then people light candles and place flowers both symbols of Christianity and if that isn't enough many go to church.

Christianity is old, older than Islam its presence in our lives is taken for granted even ignored most of the time but most people still get married in church, children are Christened in church, people are buried in Christian cemeteries and when tragedy strikes its the church people turn to and that turning has been happening for some time. Its visible in the growing anger at attempts to turn Christmas into 'the holidays'  as if acknowledging and respecting the core of western civilisation is somehow offensive. Christmas is back and we must all hope that the crusades don't return with it.

I think many Muslims are being taught that all they have to do is keep having children in time they will out number Christians, Atheists, Hindus, Buddhists Jews and everyone else. I believe before that happens there will be a bigger more destructive war than ever before lived through.

In many Mosques, ignorant ill educated Imams tell the followers they must not listen to non Muslims, they must not educate their children in the ways of other religions and most important they must obey Sharia law first. In some countries its worked if you look at some Asian countries Pakistan, Bangladesh for eg Islam is the biggest most aggressive religion treating non Muslims as lesser beings, but Islam is no respecter of Muslims either poor Muslims are treated almost as badly and slavery allowed in Islam is more or less normal. Muslims who believe they can take over Christian countries are treading and taking their followers down a very dangerous path.

In every war there have been what used to be called conscientious objectors and there were obviously some who sided with the enemy. All were dealt with ruthlessly in WW2 conscientious objectors were sent to prison or other out of the way places where they could do no harm, Nazi sympathisers either learned fast or were treated as enemy spies. Its not hard those who see an ineffectual politically correct police force and believe that's all there is are gullible fools there's a lot more all of it life threatening and the very beginnings of it are visible today on the streets of Paris.

I make no secret of despising Islam I want it banned. I want the burka and every religious head covering banned with it. I want to know gloves are worn because its cold not because a woman thinks showing her actual hands is a temptation too far for the uncontrollable male and I want every male who dares suggest such a thing thrown behind bars for the safety of all women and children.

But! I don't want the people of Islam hurt I want them to recognise and dispose of Islam the religion almost all of them were born to and had no choice about joining. I believe that in Muslim countries and all over the world women are the first and most tragic of Islams victims. I don't believe women want their daughter of eight or nine married off to a man in his forties and I don't believe women want their sons raised to believe their mother is no more than a slave to male demands.

I do believe that before a hostile Christian population allows Muslims to take over there will be a horrible and deadly confrontation

Paedophile A Victim?

About four years ago a man was recommended to me as a painter, decorator, odd job man. The man always bothered me in some ways he seemed almost child like, silly stuff like loving to flash the cash just to let you see he had some!

He wasn’t a great worker and he was a thief so obviously not one of my better choices even if he was recommended: always trust your instinct.

Gradually I discovered the man had a criminal conviction as far as I know it was and still is just one conviction but its for sexually assaulting young girls and that makes all the difference. If I’d known at the time I would never have given him the job.

It kind of leaks into a matter that’s bothered me for a long while.

What happens in a small town when someone is convicted of child abuse? There have been stories of paedophiles being attacked, driven from their homes and generally isolated. None of those things happened in this case but when I look back at the events I see his vulnerability and from there its possible to see similarities with the infamous cover ups of politician and establishment child abusers and those who protect them.

As soon as a paedophile is known and recognised he/she become vulnerable. I have no time or sympathy for any child abuser but if you think about it as soon as a paedophile is identified he or she is at risk and so as has been pointed out by others the paedophile becomes no more than a slave to his ‘protectors’.

Many paedophiles lose contact with family and few people outside the family will have anything to do with known paedophiles. If the paedophile had friends as soon as the crime is discovered the friends drop them as if they never existed.

Its a double tragedy, first and most important a child is harmed sometimes beyond recovery, a long way behind that is the paedophile, maybe friendless, maybe desperate. Its possible to feel the paedophiles tragedy but I would never, ever support or offer any kind of friendship however remote to a child abuser and that confirms the tragedy.

The last time I saw the painter and decorator he literally and I really mean literally, ran away from me. I found myself feeling sorry for him because I knew that our previous contact, he called me, was at the instigation and in the presence of the ‘friend’ who recommended him to me someone with a sick sense of humour thought it was funny and the poor man felt obliged to obey. How sick is that?

The paedophile has few choices he can move try to start again or he can try to carry on in his home area. I don’t feel sorry for paedophiles there’s no room for that but I can see how vulnerable they are and how easy it must be to manipulate them, and that leads to the reason why some politicians and maybe some sick people find keeping a dirty little secret useful.