Happy New Year

Thank you for looking at my website, I hope you find some of the content interesting and inspiring.
I wish you, your family, and all those you love, a happy and healthy 2012.
My next articles will appear on Tuesday 3rd January 2012.

Nowhere To Call Home

We live in a world which seems nonchalant about the growing gap between rich and poor, in which more and more people have been gulled into thinking that fame, money, bling and a personalised number plate represent the summit of human striving.
In a world in which nearly a million homes stand empty in Britain, while hundreds of thousands have nowhere to call home.

I Was A Blitz Baby

Birth is a happy, dangerous, emotional mystery, and celebrating is an irresistible impulse.
(Libby Purves)

For years, I played the role of the perfect child – until the teenage years arrived.
Then it was very different.
Mum is one of the most respectful and diplomatic human beings one could dream of.
(Poppy Floyd)

I was a blitz baby.
My brother was sent to the country as an evacuee, but I was in the house with my mother getting bombed.
The irony is that here we are, the world has changed, and the Germans want to run Europe.
They failed to do it by war, twice.
What is it?
Is this the Fourth Reich?
I’m only reflecting what’s been going on in the country for some time.
We have more and more rules coming out of Europe telling us what to do, and I think people are getting a bit fed up with it.
This was supposed to be a common market.
I don’t remember them ever saying we would be governed by Brussels and become a satellite of Europe.
But there you are.
At least we’re not throwing bombs at each other.
(David Jason)

Words Of Jesus Christ

Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.

What will a man be profited if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

I Always Wanted To Be Bond

Next year I’ll work on me.
It’s a new chapter.
I’ve got a new journey I’m going on.
(Nicole Scherzinger)

For the last 12 months I’ve been having singing lessons.
My grandma used to sing in pubs in the 1940s for a few bob.
(Dean Andrews)

I always wanted to be Bond, as in a spy for the secret service, not the fictional character.
(Josh Bolt)

My dad is one of 11 children and there are more than 40 of us grandchildren.
(Rooney Mara)

I was engaged to a beautiful woman.
I managed to screw that up very quickly.
(Marlon Roudette)

I was in the computer business back when apples and blackberries were things you put in pies.
(Lord Alan Sugar)

Princess Victoria And ‘Boy Jones’

When 18-year-old Princess Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, she found herself on the receiving end of some decidedly creepy attention.
Lonely men wrote offering to marry her.
Creepiest of all, though, was Edward Jones, a teenage street urchin who made a habit of breaking into Buckingham Palace and wandering around for days at a time in the hope of meeting the Queen.
‘Supposing he had come into the bedroom, how frightened I should have been’, wrote Victoria in her journal after Jones had been discovered lurking in her dressing room after stealing some of her underwear.
What makes the Jones case so fascinating is the way the Establishment responded to the threat posed by one persistent street urchin.
For a start, there was embarrassment at the way Jones had exposed lax Royal security.
Ageing flunkies dozed half-sozzled through the night while the nearest police station was over a mile away.
When he claimed at his trial to have been living in the Palace for more than a year, having slid down a chimney, no one was quite sure whether to believe him.
Amid such confusion, there was no option but for the magistrate to acquit Jones of breaking in with the intention of theft – it was, he said, just a daring folly.
Despite being decidedly ugly, Jones became a folk hero.
If the ‘Boy Jones’, as he became known, had left it at that, then his might have been a jolly tale.
The problem was the young man was clearly in the grip of a compulsion, because he kept on returning to the palace to perch on the throne or rifle through Victoria’s letters.
Alarmed by his persistence, the authorities first kidnapped the lad and handed him over to the Navy for a long spell at sea.
When that didn’t work, he was charged with theft and sent to Australia.
But Jones turned up again in England years later like a bad penny.
By this time, though, both the ‘Boy’ and the object of his obsession were middle-aged, and Victoria was no longer anyone’s idea of a romantic princess.
There were no more attempts to break in.

Surround Yourself With People Who Care

Live your life, face your fears, follow your heart, and wipe away your tears.

Things we don’t consider important at the time often become great memories.

Science is knowledge, it is not wisdom or understanding.

It’s not where we stand in this life, it’s in what direction we are moving.

Imagination and what we cannot see is more important than what we can see.

We may be confident, but we all need a little support.

Surround yourself with people who care for you, and stay away from those who don’t.

The Rich Stole The Common Off The Goose

They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common.
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common off the goose.
(A 17th Century Protest Rhyme)

How far back do we have to go to reach a point where land in Britain was held in common?
The builder of the first fence was effectively the first squatter.
Only by force of might, and the complicity of other fencers, would their enclosures come to be regarded as personal property.
In April 1649, a group of dispossessed Roundhead soldiers set up camp on common land at St. Georges Hill, Weybridge, Surrey.
It was their belief that the Earth was a common treasury for all to share, and they worked towards the foundation of a self-sufficient community.
Within five months, and after repeated mob attacks, soldiers forcibly evicted the camp by order of the courts.
The common land, designated as such to provide for the many, had become the preserve of the wealthy few.
At St. George’s Hill more than 360 years on, property averages £3 million, and the government still seeks to outlaw those too impoverished to be landowners or tenants.
How can the need for shelter be a criminal act?
In 2009 there were more than 725,000 empty homes in England.

Merry Christmas

Thank you for visiting my website.
I hope you find some of the content interesting and inspiring.
The next articles will be posted on Wednesday, 28th December 2011.
You can follow me on Twitter – new postings every day.
I wish you a wonderful Christmas and may God bless you.

Bless Everyone This Christmas

What do you want for Christmas?
And what are you going to give for Christmas?

Christmas is the time we are blessed with that engages the whole world in love and kindness.

Christmas is the time when we surround ourselves with family and friends we love and care about.

Give your love to a friend at Christmas, and your forgiveness to your enemy.

“There has been only one Christmas, the rest are anniversaries.”
(W J Cameron)

“The spirit of Christmas is annual, the spirit of Christ is eternal.”
(Stuart Briscoe)

Dear Lord, bless everyone this Christmas.
Teach them to be patient, loving, and kind.