EASTER SPECIAL REPORT 

1960s Easter Egg

Every year, the tabloid end of our news media publishes tales of outraged gammons protesting the lack of the word "Easter" on the chocolate eggs that have been gracing our supermarket shelves since Boxing Day.

Every year we are treated to mindless rants about not offending Muslims although (as usual) they cannot provide any offended Muslims to say how offended they are,

A simple bit of research will show that most manufacturers have never had the word "Easter" on the box. Unfortunately, this requires some intelligent thought which is why it never happens.

As I pointed out in my previous post on the subject, which you can read here:-https://thethamesmeadgrump.blogspot.com/search?q=easter the only people who are likely to be offended by Easter eggs are Christians, unhappy about how their festival is being celebrated with offerings to the Pagan Fertility Goddes "Eostre".

If you would like to celebrate Easter the old-fashioned way, take a look at this excellent article on the subject. https://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-info/meet-the-goddesses/ostara/ostara-unabridged/

LOCAL ELECTION REPORT Pt 1.

On the 5th of May this year, Londoners will be able to go to the polls and elect their local councillors. Most, of course, won't bother. In the Borough of Bexley, for example, during the 2018 election, only 37% of people who were eligible to vote actually bothered to do so; much lower than the number of people eligible to vote who spent the next four years complaining about the way the council was being run.

So far, I have received three election leaflets and a leaflet advising me how to cast a postal vote: all of them from Labour. None of the three candidate in my ward are white so I suppose I am completely unrepresented by them, or that's what I would be saying if I was black and all the candidates were white.

As it is, the leaflet doesn't really tell me anything useful; they are going to improve things no end, but then, I imagine they will all say that. There is no information at all about the candidates themselves so if I am going to vote for them it will have to be on the strength of the party's fortunes nationally; something I have always tried not to do. Politicians, especially local ones should be chosen for their personal qualities and existing performance. In the past, I have voted for candidates I personally respect even if I'm not so sure about the party in general.

Anyway, let's go through what they call Conservative failures:-

1. Condemned for failing to build enough affordable homes for Bexley families.

Condemned by Whom? And please provide a list of local authorities who have built enough affordable homes for their residents.

2. Council Tax hiked by 21%, parking charges up, stealth taxes up and parking charges up. (They really are milking the parking charge rise).

They are on much firmer ground there. Bexley now has one of the highest rates of council tax in the country. Stealth taxes I suppose to mean charges for bin collection, those parking charges again and the yellow boxes at road junctions that stop the traffic from moving.

3. Tory councillor attended lockdown party and council missed 38,000 bin collections.

I'm not sure what the connection is between those two issues (I assume there must be one, only I can't see it). Taken individually, I don't know who the Tory councillor is, the leaflet doesn't say; it doesn't mention which lockdown party either: an oversight, I'm sure. Missing bin collections is something everyone is experiencing although the shambolic state the way Serco was running ours, I'm surprised it wasn't a lot more.

Anyway, that's all for now. In the spirit of fair play, I will write another blog about the local election when I have received information from the other parties involved.

THEY DO SAY THAT A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, BUT WHAT ABOUT A PICTURE THAT HAS WORDS ON IT.

WHILE YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT THAT, HERE IS A PICTURE WITH WORDS ON IT.

TROWEL

Shopping in the 21st century

I decided I needed a new pointing trowel, (truth is, I've lost my old one). I don't plan to do any pointing, I need it to dig stones and rubble out of the ground when I'm gardening - like they do on Time Team. Wilco does DIY tools, that's the place to go. Did they have one? Of course they bloody didn't, just a big empty space where trowels are meant to be.

This means a trip to B&Q in Belvedere, not an easy journey when you're on the bus. Did they have one? Dream on. 

Eventually I went home and ordered one on line, it arrived the next day.

Shopping in the 21st century (Part 2)

A couple of days later and I'm back in Wilco, this time I needed a padlock. Amazingly enough, they actually had what I wanted. Took it in triumph to the till and tried to find the back of the queue which streched along the entire width of the shop and then some. Everyone packed close together and half of them not wearing masks. 

Sod that! Put it back and gave up. Ordered one on line, it arrived the next day.

Shopping in the 21st century (Part 3)

So as not to waste the journey, I thought I would drop into Morrisons to do a bit of shopping. No trollies. Just a few small ones dotted about where people had abandoned them because the wheel was locked after trying to steal them. A few adventurous customers were wandering around the car park in the blistering heat trying to find one. Good luck with that.

Never mind, I'll just grab a basket and get a few things. Of course, there aren't any baskets either so I am reduced to grabbing what I can in my hands and make my way to the tills. Most of the tills are shut as usual. The couple that are open have queues the length of the shop in front of them. Well, it is the middle of Sunday afternoon, who would expect there to be any shoppers out.

Went to the self-service tills. I am confronted with a sea of red flashing lights, a hopelessly long queue with one lonely, stressed and overworked staff member trying to sort out the shambles.

Gave up and went home.

Now before anyone accuses me of having a go at the staff, I'm not. It isn't their fault that the shop won't hire enough people and don't tell me it's because of Covid either. I realise that it will be having some effect but all of these stores have provided a totally inadequate service for years.

It isn't any surprise that people are abandoning the high street and doing their shopping online.

Oh Dear! Katie

Our special Peace Envoy, champion of free speech and darling of Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins has got herself in trouble with the Australian authorities after threatening to infect hotel staff with Covid and claiming it's all a big hoax anyway. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-57883692

The Australians are rightly proud of their record on Covid and were none too pleased with her latest outburst.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with Katie Hopkins going to Australia; in fact, I welcome it; and in truth, I'm sorry to see her back so soon.

The real question is, "why did they let her in in the first place?"

She has a long history of visiting other countries and making a nuisance of herself and this was no exception. What did they think she would do?

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

Or - how to succeed in World Domination without really trying.

As most of you will already know, the World is largely controlled by a secret society of very powerful individuals who interfere in every aspect of our lives. The plan is that a small group of very wealthy capitalists will bring about a Socialist World government. (Yes, you are reading that right).

The New World Order created Covid-19 in their secret Chinese laboratory with the intention of reducing the human population to smaller, manageable levels. Unfortunately for them, their plan went somewhat awry with the swifter than expected response by some governments and the development of effective vaccines. 

To counter this, they have been using a large number of paid shills to warn people that the vaccines are not safe and that they should ignore lockdown rules. It's no surprise that the United States finished up with the highest death toll of any country  after one of the NWO members, Donald Trump delayed taking action to protect his people while President.

Finally however, their plan is back on track with their successful infiltration of the UK Government causing it to abandon all safety protocols just as the pandemic is reaching a peak. 

"Don't wear face masks" they say. "Ignore social distancing, you're completely safe". Well, they don't fool me for a moment. I have no plans to do what the government says and I will continue to wear a face mask in public places anyway.

No doubt, the slaves of the New World Order will now attack me but I don't care.

 Against my better judgement, I watched the first half of the England v Scotland match the other day. The excitement of watching the grass growing was rather spoiled by a group of players standing around on it and spoiling the view.

Speaking of which. When England finally get their arses kicked out of the European Championships, we can still comfort ourselves with the knowledge that we are not completely crap at everything.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-57671715

 The Day I Met Prince Philip

On a cold, Winter's day back in 1967, I was driven by bus through the gates of RAF Swinderby to begin my six weeks of basic training; there I was taught how to march about, salute officers and other useful stuff deemed necessary to fight off the Red Army.

Fast forward eighteen months; it's 1969, the Summer of peace, love and Woodstock, and I am now stationed at RAF Wyton, (situated between the towns of Huntingdon and St Ives, Cambridgeshire), as a fully qualified Air Photography Operator. The bit of air photography I was operating was called a Type 11 film processor, manufactured by company whose name I forget. 

There isn't any picture of me on the day
but I would have looked something
like this.

The Type 11 was a remarkable piece of kit, capable of processing the 70mm film off the Vinton F95 photographic reconnaissance camera at a blistering 120 feet per minute. It was a pig to operate and only the top people were given the responsibility of doing so. (That's me, by the way).

This item plus several other machines of a similar type were housed in what was known to everyone as “The Factory”, a building across the road from the main station and from which, hopefully, all the amazing photographic reconnaissance imagery produced inside would emerge.

One day, we were informed that His Royal Highness, Prince Philip was going to be making an informal visit and everyone went into a total state of panic as we prepared for this auspicious occasion. Everything you have ever heard about involving Royal visits is absolutely true, Every item of equipment had to be polished to within a inch of its life and what couldn't be polished was painted. And yes, they actually did have people on their hands and knees with paintbrushes, smoothing the soil down in the flower beds.

Anyway, all was proceeding in its usual efficient military fashion until the fateful day when the officer in charge of polishing and shining things paid us a visit.

Now to understand what happened next, you need to know a bit about my Type 11 and its sister machines, the Type 12s whose job it was to process the much larger film that came of the F49, F52 and F96 cameras. To save you all getting bored, I won't go into the details, suffice it to say all the machines were constructed from a resin based composite material; highly suited to the job it was given to do, but (and this is important) not terribly shiny.

The Officer I/C (Polishing & Shining Things) decided that our dull and frankly, not at all shiny Type 11 and 12s wouldn't do at all and ordered them painted. It was (respectfully) pointed out to him that if we did this, the paint would flake off due to it reacting to the chemicals we were using and that the said paint would then fall into the machines when we took the front panels off (which we had to do from time to time) and render our film processing machines useless as the paint now floating inside would stick to the precious photographic reconnaissance film.

So, did we leave our film processing machines as they were or did we paint them and thus render them unusable? There is no prize for guessing. (I'll tell you a bit more about this story later).

Me, in the fuzzy background with my old friend
Ron Bevan, operating a Type 11 somewhere in West 
Germany during the Cold War.

His Royal Highnesses visit included a tour of the Factory and it was decided that he would want to see all our lovely (and now very shiny but useless) machines running. The Type 11, as I have already mentioned, was tricky to operate and in order that nothing could go wrong (the phrase “nothing can go wrong” is a military term meaning “everything will go totally tits-up at the first opportunity”), it was decided that I would put a film that had already been through the machine once already through again. This bit of bizarre logic had been worked out by someone who had no idea how a Type 11 worked. If they had asked me, I could have told them that doing this made it far more likely that something would go wrong as the physical characteristics of the film changed once it had got wet and been dried out again. Did they listen to me? Guess again.

Anyway, came the day of the visit. There I was, standing to attention next to my designated machine; my hair had been inspected by at least half the senior ranks of the RAF; my freshly issued white coat made me look like a villain's minion and my shoes wouldn't have looked out of place on God's butler. My Type 11 was running at about one tenth speed, (no lightning fast display today) and I was hoping to God that the film didn't break.

Prince Philip, looking very regal and attired as a Marshal of the Royal Air Force swept into the room and strode round at a pace until he stopped at me. He looked at me, looked at my Type 11, looked back at me again and said “going all right then?” which I thought was very gracious. I managed to stammer a “yes Sir” before remembering I was suppose to say “yes, Your Highness” but by that time he had already found something else to look at and had moved on and I didn't think I should chase after him to correct my faux-pas. The Station Commander who was in the following train winked at me as he went past so I suppose I did all right. I imagine he was hoping to God the film didn't break as well.

Many, many years later, I was visiting the Muckleburgh Military Collection in Norfolk and they had a selection of photographic reconnaissance equipment from the Cold War. Included in the collection were various air cameras such as the ones I had mentioned above and also a Type 11 processing machine. This machine was of the Mk.2 variety, identified by the fact that it had a speedometer rated at 240 feet per minute, but the front panels were coated with the nasty shellac paint that had been used on the Mk. 1 machines in the Factory all those years ago. They must have assembled it out of various spare parts. I was also really surprised at all the safety warnings stuck on it. When I was operating one, I knew not to drink the Exprol.