Election fever

What seems to be most evident about election fever 2005 style is that there is none! In previous years that have heralded a general election there has been a tangible feeling of anticipation, excitement or at least the feeling of some important event pending, this year there is apparently none of that.

What there does seem to be however is a complete disinterest. The run up to an election usually elicits much political debate among the population, heated discussions in the workplace, pubs and bars, conversations over dinner and among friends and rivals, but I have witnessed none of that this time around. Not one single conversation have I been party too or overheard!

The lack of interest or care seems to be complete.....or perhaps it is merely the fact that the result would appear to be a foregone conclusion and most of us feel that what we have is what we will continue to be stuck blessed with. The rare mentions I have been privy too regarding tomorrows event, is from those saying that this time around they see no point in placing their vote for it will make little if any difference. A sad state of affairs.

In general elections that have gone before, whatever one's beliefs, leanings or political affiliations, this current apathy and feeling of hopelessness did not seem so readily apparent. Love them or hate them, the likes of of Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson and John Major at least instilled feelings of passion in the electorate and we awaited the outcome of our day of voting with interest.

By contrast election fever 2005 style, seems to be most noticeable in it's absence!

Not to be completely deterred by the apathy, I for one will make the trip to the polling station and whilst I suspect it will mean a disappointing Friday in gemmaks-ville, I can only promise that my little cross will most deffinately not be in support of TB and his 'merry band'!

Chernobyl

I received an email today from a very dear friend, the contents of which I will duplicate here exactly as they were when I opened the mail.

I need add nothing more:

This is one of those things that EVERYONE should see, it's not bloody
or gutty in any way but it will stay with you as a monument of humanity,
and a testimony to human... carelessness? stupidity? hubris?

it's a mostly pictorial site journal of an incredible young russian lady's motorcycle
tour thru the Chernobyl area recently, and stands as one of the most powerful things I've ever seen.

It's been around awhile but has been updated, please share.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/.

Psy-cat-ic

Nope, here will do just fine!
(Click to enlarge)

Well it would seem that whilst the title of 'psychotic' or rather a feline version of it maybe a little over doing it, very little has changed with Ditto since I blogged on her sudden fear of the great outdoors.

Last night we gathered her up in an attempt to take her outside, stay with her and see if a little exposure therapy would do the trick. PG carried her in his arms toward the front door and on first attempt was almost mortally wounded by claws as she beat a rapid retreat. Having let her settle down a little we tried again, this time as we neared the door she tensed noticeably and clung on, more akin to a baby monkey than a three year old cat. We did however get her to the bottom of the stairs, put her down........and watched her race back inside!

Another approach was needed so we left the door open to see if curiosity would get the better of her. After an hour she had made it cautiously to the doorstep, where she remained 'monitoring' the situation and her territory from a-far, until gone midnight when we went to bed...not a step further did she venture.

This evening on arriving home after work, instead of small cat racing past my legs in a bid escape as she usually would, she ran in the opposite direction and back under the bed. This cat needs some heavy duty exposure therapy, Lord knows what has frightened her to quite this extent!

The door is once again 'parked' open as I type, once again small cat has come to a dead halt at the threshold, determined to go no further and once again it seems this will be position for the rest of the evening.

I feel sad for her, she loved 'playing out' and though I'm sure she will eventually get over it, right now she is an extremely jumpy and slightly sad looking cat.

A bank holiday.....

....and spring amazingly sprung!

(Click to enlarge)

Spring sprung!

The decades 'must have'

THIS has to be, without doubt, the absolute 'must have' gadget of the year, if not the decade. My sincerest hope is that it comes complete with a full set of very comprehensive instructions for the male of the species, who appear to be somewhat challenged when it comes to this branch of technology!

Scaredy-cat

Ditto, young cat of small proportions, cat of brave heart, cat of hunting prowess and cat that screams incessantly like a banshee if 'her' door is not opened at the appropriate time for her daily meanderings, seems to have had a sudden and extreme change of heart!

Five days ago you couldn't keep this cat in, well not without the aid of ear defenders at any rate. At any and all opportunity she pottered around the fields staking claim on her patch and finding us the little (normally squealing) treats she so horribly kindly and proudly bestowed at out our feet.....and now, without apparent reason, wild horses wouldn't drag her across the threshold!


First adventure ~ August 2002.
(click to enlarge)

Mid evening five days ago we had allowed her out for slightly longer than usual without checking her whereabouts, none the less she had only been out perhaps an hour and we had heard no usual 'scratch on the door' request for entry. I went to see where she had got too and on opening the door she almost fell through it and appeared to stagger for maybe one or two steps. We checked her over, no sign of anything untoward and forgot the small incident.

The following day she didn't ask to be let out and still we thought nothing of it, by yesterday, four days later, not once had she ventured out! She hasn't accompanied me to the dustbin or on trips to hang washing out as she normally does, she hasn't once asked for an exit and when on a number of occasions we have left the door open, she has cowered under the bed.

And yet she is in otherwise excellent form, still eating like a horse, still running round the walls, still tormenting Poppy and not a single sign of a scratch, a bruise, or an illness is there.

I have absolutely no idea what has turned her, overnight, into a scaredy-cat. She has in the past had one or two 'run-ins' with a very big, bad, black cat and on those occasions has arrived home post haste sporting a battle scar and proceeded to 'rest' for maybe a day.... but never once has she been in for five whole days since sh

Peke out!

Rarely have I been so amused as I was this afternoon. Whatever your affections for dogs this has to be one of the funniest and most unbelievable sights I have had the fortune to see for a while.

The store in which I work sells many very heavy items and as a consequence we offer a 'carry to car' service. This is not always as straight forward as it would seem, we frequently don't have a suitably strong member of staff available and it is amazing just how many apparently young, able bodied men will happily let a woman of my diminutive stature lug massive items to their car while they look on. .....did I forget to tell you that shop staff are generally considered to be a lower form of life by many? It is usual for our annoyance amusement to be centered around these types of incidents but today's hilarity came from a very different kind of customer.

The customer in question was a very nice and proper middle ages lady who entered the store carrying a Pekenese dog. We don't allow dogs to comply with health and safety law but it is not unusual for customers to think that by carrying the creature, they somehow circumnavigate the rules....it does not but we tend to turn a blind eye.

Anyhow, said dog carrying customer made a bee line for me and having attended to her purchases asked could I possibly carry them to her car for her. They were not heavy items but with her arms full of a dog so fluffy the back couldn't be distinguished from the front, she required help.

I duly complied and followed her to her car (parked at about the furthest possible point from the store) and was firstly slightly surprised to see this very proper lady driving a massive SUV. I loaded her purchases into the back of the vehicle and then went around the side to put one or two other items on the rear seat as I was asked. It was here that I became almost completely helpless with laughter, I tried, I honestly tried not to laugh but I failed dismally.....and what caused this hilarity? In the rear seat of the car was a baby seat, the full hit, the keep your baby completely and utterly strapped in safe kind of seat. Nothing too strange there perhaps.....but for the fact that snuggled down nice and safely in said seat was the dog! Thankfully my customer knew it was funny and laughed with me.....she explained the seat was theoretically for her grandchild though in reality it was the dogs seat! Well, she reasoned, the car sides are very high, he cannot see outside on his frequent journeys from the normal 'adult seating position'!

Maybe you had to see it, it was just such a funny sight.....I so wish I'd had my camera with me, or at least my phone, but sadly I didn't so you will just have to try and imagine the scene! :o)

Heavens above.......

.....it really isn't a natural state of affairs to be up and off to work at 05.40, happy Saturday........

Ugh!

Friday's feast (45)

Appetizer
Which keys do you have on your key chain?
House key, my parents house key, car key, 'stop lock' key and two that I have no idea what they are for any longer!

Soup
What is the most spontaneous thing you've ever done?
Moving to Scotland.

Salad
Who is the best cook in your family?
My mother.

Main Course
If you were to write a "how-to" book, what would the title be?
'How to give Liz Taylor a run for her money'!

Dessert
Name a recent fad you've tried.
The 'Crazy Frog' debacle. Gah!

A taste of things to come?

It is suggested, by those who forecast our weather, that we in the UK are in for a warm and sun filled Bank holiday weekend. Given this picture, taken at dusk yesterday evening, may I add a very large question mark to that for this little patch?

(Click to enlarge)

Dusk ~ 28.04.05

A small, spooky world!

A few weeks back I blogged on how late one evening I decided to search for other bloggers in my area. My search came up with just one result, a guy called John who lives just a few miles away, and from that point on he and I began mailing and visiting one another's blogs.

John's blog was private but he kindly gave me the URL, more recently it became not private and I added him to my blogroll....yup, it's 'John's web journal', down there on the right, which incidentally if you haven't done so already, is worth a read.

Anyways all that aside, we have been mailing since I first landed uninvited in his inbox but we have never met. This morning for no real reason, as I drove into work I considered that one day, surely we must run into one another or at the very least drive past one another, navigational options in this small corner of Scotland are not many.

Imagine my amazement then this afternoon on my drive home when I came up upon the rear of a vehicle that I knew to be the same model as his. Closer inspection revealed it to be the correct year of registration, what I thought was the correct colour, it carried inhabitants fitting his and his wife's descriptions. Everything matched, even down to the appropriate breed of dog peering out from the back! Nah....surely not I thought, too spooky, I continued on his tail trying to get a better look and then overtook....still I was not sure.

Immediately I got home I mailed him with the "were you on this road at this time and what colour is your car" questions, "yes" came his reply...."woman in a blue car"? Yes, I said!!!

It may not be too unlikely that eventually we would come across one another in such a small and unpopulated area eventually... but on the very same day I was thinking of it??

Spooky, very spooky!

'The Kiss'

It's odd how a small train of events can suddenly catapult one back in time, ok, so in this case only maybe 15-20 years but the unexpected sighting of a picture in the sidebar of Toasted Crumpet reminded me of a news item I heard yesterday and the two things together took me back those years.

There was a time, when I did a 'real' job, a job I loved and with responsibility, a job where I was able to make my own decisions and success or failure was in my own hands. Unfortunately the job didn't like me and after a number of years I had to leave, but that is another story.

The business I worked for retailed prints, both modern and fine art and was closely involved with publishers and in publication. One picture that we published at the time was 'The kiss', a Robert Doisneau picture taken many years before in 1950 in Paris. It had been published before but it's republish was a great success and tens of thousands of copies were sold. This image came to represent the essence of love and romance for at least one generation, many years after it was photographed.

Yesterday it was reported in the news that the female subject in the image had sold her original copy for a sum far in excess of what was expected, £105,000. What was disappointing was to learn that this picture, that had been such a representation of romance for so many was infact staged. Yes, she and her boyfriend of the time were a real couple and yes, Mr Doisneau came upon them by chance in the street but the actual shot used was staged......What's more, the couple only remained in each others company for a few months!

All that said, it remains one of my favourite images, reminds me of a good time in my life and given 105k, just how much would I love to own the original?!

Enjoy.

(Click to enlarge)

'The Kiss' ~ Robert Doisneau.

Counting the days

I am already counting the days until this damnable general election is history, over with, gone! The whole performance, for that is precisely what it seems to be, is driving me demented!

There was a time I would have classed myself as a political animal, in the heady days of Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn, Margaret Thatcher and the like, when I was young and naive enough to think I could actually make a difference, that if I voted, understood and persevered things might change......oh the idiocy of youth!

Every form of media is currently obsessed with the upcoming election, the TV constantly rings to the sound of Tony Blairs babble, the newspapers show pointless pictures of one or other politician 'playing the election game' and radio is bogged down by various political commentators saying his or her piece.

Good God! I could perhaps tolerate it all if just one of them uttered anything other than opposition mud-slinging, has anyone actually heard anything constructive from the mouths of these individuals yet, some of whom will ultimately hold our collective purse strings and decide how we live our lives....... thus far I sure as hell haven't.

So we tolerate these dire goings on, we trudge faithfully to the local school or community centre on the appointed day to place our cross in the box, like a flock of sheep...... and what for?

Five years more, a lifetime more of things remaining much the same, there is barely any distinction between those we can cast our vote for nowadays, they have all blended into one great grey mass, nothing will change worth a jot.

We will still pay our income tax at high rates to support those who can't be bothered to work. We will carry on supporting those who chose to give birth on at least three occasions, prior to the age of 16. We will still house them, give them beer money by the bucket load and provide them with grotesquely large plasma televisions, so they may be entertained while they plan their next Burberry purchase!

We will continue to allow all and sundry to enter the UK, regardless of their entitlement to do so, whilst making political points by removing one or two families, normally those who would appear to be model citizens, back to the country they fled in fear of their lives. I ask you, how many other countries would firstly allow 'everyone and his aunt' across their borders and then support them, provide them with medical care, a home and most other necessities of life as reward for illegally entering! But no....we must not say that for fear of being thought racist. Piffle, I am one of the least racist people you might imagine but it still gauls me that those who enter the UK legally get hauled over the coals and pulled from pillar to post and yet those that hang under trucks to get here are treated like kings.

Fuel will remain some of the most expensive in the Western world, consumer goods likewise, house prices will continue to soar, along with community tax, our police officers will carry on struggling against ever increasingly violent crime and farmers will continue to be paid vast sums, to produce precisely nothing at all!

I love my country, I honestly do, in many respects I feel lucky to live here but just sometimes, when I listen to the current political carryings of our merry band aiming for the top spot, I have to allow myself a little 'knee jerk' anger and frustration. In reality I know all these issues are more complicated than I paint them, nothing is straight forward and there are myriad reasons behind every situation..... but, just now and again I can't help but feel antagonism.

I will cast my vote, not too do so, particularly as a woman, is bordering on the criminal in my mind but there are times when I wonder why.

Gone!

It's gone....the template that caused pain in the eyes to some, was problematical for those opening it at work for others and had some straining their vision and physiology in an attempt to work it out, has been replaced by a nice safe cat!

You will also be pleased to hear that you may get a chance to get used to this one....I am working for the next six days (pffttt) so CSS fiddling time will be at a minimum, it will be all I can do to manage to post.

Incidentally, for those of you, (would I mention names?) making the attempts to see what was being kissed, you can download the complete pic here.