Sad stories

 

A man who'd separated from his wife picked up his 3 little lads for his usual weekend wth them, drove his car into the sea, and used his mobile to let their mother hear their dying cries for help as the sea came in.

Their mother will never recover.

 

A man on holiday had words with his wife in their 3rd Floor hotel room, picked up his two tots and jumped from the balcony killing the 6 year old and breaking the 2 year old's bones.

Their mother will never recover.

 

A man, having lost his custody case, traced his separated wife to the Scottish Island hideaway she'd run to, abducted his 12 year old daughter and took her off abroad to be married to an adult stranger.  The child is now lost to some unknown Pakistani village with strangers who don't even speak her language.

Her mother will never see her again, and will never recover.

 

Who can be surprised if marriage has lost it's 'Happy Ever After' allure for British women?

Doubly sickening

 

An Austrian girl was kidnapped 8 years ago aged 10 and kept in a cellar until her recent escape.  Her kidnapper has committed suicide and she is now safe and back in the family home.  Imagine the massive trauma for this girl and her family. 

 

Imagine how she and they must feel as the police and the world's media press for intimate details of her abuse in captivity.  Listen to the prurience of the newsrooms.

 

Now, can anyone tell me what anyone will gain from hearing about whether and exactly when and how he ripped her knickers off, and what he did then, and what he did again, and again.

 

Imagine why they should feel the need to know.  Can they prosecute him?  Will seeing the details of her abuse spread on front pages and TV screens help her or her parents?

 

Or do you think as I do that the demand to hear the literal ins and outs of the rape of a 10 year old amounts to yet more seriously damaging abuse?

Happy Days :O)

 

Yesterday we went to Barmouth and yes, I know you're enviously thinking that there's nothing quite like the North Wales coast in torrential rain with 3 children and a dog, but hold on there - you forgot the aroma in the car en route back! 

Whatever the weather tho Connie is a gal who knows how to have a good time 

 

Ramblin Jack rules, ok?

I wonder why it is that some people just seem not to understand that DNA contains more than one genetic marker?  On the politics board someone is claiming that because a piece of research has shown that some of the (very) few people whose DNA has actually been tested have a genetic marker in common with the ancient found in the Cheddar Gorge that therefore proves that he, and presumably anyone else who is white and cares to make the same claim, is 100% through and through British.  <soz for the Levinesque sentence there>

 

The whole 'genetic Brit' argument is the argument of dummies who don't know even the first thing about genetics.  Asked about the origin of the many other genes in their DNA they have no answer - obviously as very very few could answer - but still fall back on this old dimndumma argument.  None of us knows for sure who or what nationality or race each and every one of our forebears were - and that's without mentioning the fact that even in today's scientifically au fait world it's a rare man who knows his father.  Of course many men believe they know their father and the vast majority are correct, but even so, a goodly few are calling a man Dad when the milkman has the same eyes <gg>

That so few are able to trace their matrilineal lines simply adds to my point.

 

Someone else on the message board has countered with a claim that being British is nothing to do with genes and everything to do with culture.  I'm left wondering which culture she means.  The Sun readership culture?  The culture of the aristocracy?  The culture of remote Scots fishing villages? My culture? Yours?

You know I think everyone's culture shares just one thing with my culture - all are a mix of subcultures.  For me there's my two professional subcultures, my educational subculture, my family subculture, my women friendship circle subculture and that of the friends I share with my husband which is very different.  Then there's those who share my particular taste in music - so that would be bluegrass fiddler subculture which in turn is a division of Cajun, which is a subculture of American folk music, which is..... etc etc  Not forgetting my WI jam making subculture, my gardening subculture etc etc  - and those of us who surf the net are ourselves an 'umbrella' subcultural group for all the other subdivisions of our surfing subculture of which we may each belong to several; bloggers; videologgers; message board posters; chatroomies; simple surfers; researchers; shoppers; games players; music fans - the lists of the subcultural groups we each pick and choose from is endless.

 

You may think that these are not cultural groups at all - but you'd be wrong.  They all have a specific language and historical references which apply only to them but not to others.  My point is that belonging to a specific set of them says sfa about nationality.

 

What makes someone British is emotional attachment to a land and the national life of the land.  As far as I'm concerned if someone themself says s/he is British - and only British so dual nationalities are excluded here - then they are as British as the next Brit.  And that applies even to crinoids who can't argue a rational case but can only come out with crap about genes.

Domestic Bliss :O))

My day:

 

Wake late, realise I have toothache following Friday's visit to dental hygienist - aka Bloody Mary

 

Listen to Husband's complaints that his plectrums have disappeared, how he knows they're inexpensive but he likes them 'worn in' and now he's got to use a new one. Boo hoo.

 

Face demand that I finish his crossword which already has alterations and which he did in ink.  Discover that he got 2 clues wrong in ink.  Correct them, finish the crossword, am told that once corrections had been made the rest of the answers were obvious.

 

Barrow approx ¼ ton of topsoil to new herbacious bed and rake.  Rake the soil shifted by husband.  Pick up and dump all pieces of rubbish and glass discovered when digging the subsoil. Cut hand in process.  Discover plasters all gone.

 

Make lunch, discover less pie in fridge than last time I looked.  Give husband pie and salad. Make myself a banana sandwich.

 

Put chicken in casserole in oven for dinner.

 

Dismantle compost bin, turn compost.  Catch edge of toe with garden fork.  Still no plasters.  Husband manages to drape rotting plant material on my head.

 

Remove chicken from oven.  Don rubber gloves and dismantle chicken.  Put little bits of decent meat into bowl for later chicken and mushroom pie.  Put nasty boneless scraps into bowl for dog.  Husband gives good meat to dog and nasty scraps in fridge.

 

Seriously consider composting husband  :O))

Die and IT'll get you :O)

Stephen Byers, a man who is ever the bandwagon jumper, has 'called for' the scrapping of Inheritance Tax which apparently is now netting twice the number of estates since 1997 when New Labour gained power in the UK.  The main reason why this tax is so hated is that the bar is set so low at £285K that almost anyone with property is in fear of their descendants gaining nothing from their lifetime of investment and savings.

 

I agree that it's iniquitous that people who have paid taxes - on their lifetime of income and purchases - including not only the earnings used to pay their mortgage but also the equally iniquitous 'stamp duty' on the purchase of their home - should then face having their estate - ie anything left after they die - taxed at 40%.  This tax is without doubt a disincentive to low and average income families to buy property or to save for their old age. 

 

However I don't think that Inheritance Tax should be completely scrapped.  I have the occasional socialist bone left in my body and altho taking IT from the estates of billionaires may not be 'fair' from the individual billionaire's point of view imo it's socially fair that those who are very very substantially richer than most should, once they have left this world, contribute towards the wellbeing not only of their own legatees but of the country which gave them the chance of becoming so rich.  I think that because I believe that no-one becomes rich except at the expense of someone else - and the descendants of all those someone-elses should get a little communal payback.

 

If I were Chancellor I would raise the bar for IT to estates valued at £750K.  That would remove the burden from the majority of average income families but would still continue to bring into the public purse substantially more than was gained through IT when this government came into power.

Say aaaaah bless

9 weeks and 12lbs 4oz, sleeps 5 hours at night and tries to pull himself into a sitting position.

Next week:  Felix's SATs scores revealed :O)