Have i arrived at the Mad HattersTea party?
That is what living in the UK at the moment feels like.All the Political parties appear to be in a daze not knowing which way to turn.There is in fighting, backstabbing,no leadership from anyone, and one only has to look in on what is laughingly called debates in the house of commons to see what a state the Country is in.

If anyone is listening, there are important domestic issues to be addressed, including, the education system which needs a serious overall and the care system which really is in crisis, not to mention the serious lack of investment in the Police, to name but a few.

And what are the Politicians doing.?
Tearing each other apart over Brexit.
Just over half the Country voted to leave the EU in 2016,and while i am a Remainer, I am also a Democrat and feel we should get on with what just over half the Country voted for. MY MY, where is David Cameron when we need him?
Probably whizzing about giving speeches and “earning”lots of money.
I despair , and can only feel sadness that a great Country like Britain is made to look so terrible to the rest of the World.

I recently enjoyed a wonderful trip to California.
The weather was good,the scenery wonderful,and the people very friendly and helpful,but, despite all the positives why is it that I could never live in America.?

GeorgeBernard Shaw the great 20th century playwright was once asked what he thought of Americans and he said,
I like children.
So do I, but not twenty for hours a day seven days a week.
The Americans have a childlike quality, which in the case of the majority, if the last Presidential election is anything to judge by amounts to gullibility.
From where are in Europe, looking on in amazement, anyone less suited to being President of the USA than the present one would be hard to find.
On the other hand you might say he is very much in tune with modern life. He appears to govern by Twitter,which so many people seem to log on to.No thought or planning,just say it and be done

I am quite surprised that we are all not embroiled in another War,but with Mr Trump, there is still time.

I stood at a Supermarket check out today, and as I waited to be served, it got me thinking.

this is a Supermarket. that, five years ago had about a dozen check outs with Assistants working away serving customers This same shop now has two Assistants and rows of self service tills. The majority of supermarkets and large stores are going exactly the same way.

In effect, machines are taking over tasks that we all used to do, so if we keep being so  terribly clever, we will all end up not being needed.

The great Minds of the World are inventing machines to do the housework, machines to run offices and not very far in the distant future, we are told we will be having cars that will drive themselves.

What is so fascinating is that the Government spends a lot of time and energy telling us  that we are all getting too fat and we must do more, yet  they are encouraging Inventors to come up with ever more clever machines that will ensure that we all do less.

I simply do not understand the logic behind all this.

Everything, it seems has to be quick and easy. Ready prepared is the motto of the twenty first Century.

What are we all going to do with our spare time?

We will not have to go to work, machines will do it all.

We certainly do not seem to talk to each other as we used to, and Television has been replaced by Computers. It looks like you can anything you want on a computer.

I know what everyone will do when they have all the time in the World. Play on their ever more complicated phones. the only asset we will need in the brave new world is a couple of dextrous fingers to work the phone.

Count me out.

I am a rather surprised at the latest trend in smart, or shall we say pseudo smart Restaurants and so called Gastro pubs.

And you may ask, what is this trend? The trend to put food on anything but plates. I have had lunch served over the last few months on bits of slate, wooden boxes tiles and many other oddities.

I blame these television cookery programmes. The latest one has Chefs competing to cook at a banquet to celebrate the reign of the present Queen.

Some of the extraordinary artefacts they use to serve the food on is nothing short of ridiculous.  I cannot imagine how peculiar presentation can make the food taste any better, and  I would have thought that using all these oddities for serving would slow everything down and ensure that the food came to the table cold.

I am also amazed at the plethora of cookery programmes on prime time TV.

We are shown how to bake bread, make cakes, cook  great meals from scratch, yet the sale of ready meals is at an all time high.

There really is no logic in any of this. Perhaps  we like watching cooking, but not actually doing any.

I can well understand David Dimbleby’s  annoyance at the amount of money spent on the Great British Bake Off which is a dazzling hit and so little spent on Question Time.

I am looking forward to the next year or so when every home produces delicious home made bread and a superb array of home made cakes.

Somehow I think I may have a long wait and sales of ghastly so called white bread made in huge  quantities will continue to flourish. And of course, Mr Kipling will continue to grace our tables.

I was reading in the newspapers earlier in the week a story of the Head Master who sent several pupils home because they were not wearing the correct school uniform.

What was surprising was the reaction of the Parents, who were most annoyed because the Headmaster was asking them to  allow their children to abide by the School rules.

This is as bad as the time a few years ago when Jamie Oliver the Chef tried to bring in healthy meals in a school in Rotherham and the parents were smuggling in burgers and crisps for their little darlings. I really am beginning to think that the World has gone mad.

I wonder what the outcome would be if you worked as a Cook and turned up for work in your gardening clothes? Would you be annoyed and go to the Press demanding to be allowed to wear whatever took your fancy in spite of knowing that your job required that you wear a certain uniform?

How are young people ever going to learn respect for others if the Parents behave in the way these parents have done?

I was in a chain Restaurant recently, and a family came in. there were three children, the youngest of whom was about six .

This child was an absolute menace, screaming at the top of his voice, running riot in the Restaurant, and all the while the parents did not say a word to try and reprimand his behaviour.. I am amazed that the Management did not ask them to leave. I suppose they dare not in case they were accused of abusing his human rights.

While I  do not believe that those in authority of young people should behave like Dictators, I can see no harm in asking  young people to abide by rules which will hopefully stand them I good stead in  their working life.

Or am I being far too old fashioned?

Compared to many continental Countries, we Brits, while having many skills, do not appear to be adept at learning new languages, but, since technology took such a strong hold on us, we are all forced to learn a new language, the language of technology, or, live in a World where everything is incomprehensible.

Sadly, many older people live in this incomprehensible World, and even more sadly many Companies and Businesses do not cater to the needs of those who have difficulty with technology, and as we are all living longer, it is about time that business gave us a little consideration..

We are told to conduct business “On line”, but what about those who do not have a computer?

Is there anything more infuriating than making a phone call only to be met with a bewildering array of options and then being told  that there is a long queue in front of you and it would be better if you conducted your business on line?

I recently made a phone call to my local Council. As usual there was a very long wait interrupted by a very irritating voice assuring me that my call was important and would be answered shortly. When I got through to a human voice, after a wait of twenty minutes, I was told that the person I wanted to speak to was away from their desk.

is it any wonder that we all give up and become complacent? It is simply too difficult to get anything done, unless you possess superhuman tenacity.

I am quite sure that business could be conducted much more efficiently and promptly if we could get to talk to each other, either on the phone or in person, and what really infuriates me is that the telecommunications industry is booming, but it appears that the last thing we can do is talk to each other on the telephone.

When you cannot text, send emails, browse the net, you really are at a loss, and the last thing we appear to be doing with so called smart phones is make a phone call.

I have a horrible vison of a World where we never leave the house or speak to anyone, we simply sit  with a smart phone and all business and socialising is conducted on a piece of electronic equipment.

Learn the new language of technology, or you could end up being terribly lonely.

It is, in one respect great to think that everyone is living longer these days, in the West, that is, but, and it is a big but, age has it’s down side.

Take simple things like household cleaning products. These products appear to be packaged only for those who have the strength of Hercules in their hands.

I bought a bottle of household cleaner the other day, and it took me all of ten minutes to open the bottle.  I twisted and turned the top, squeezed the sides and eventually after much annoyance ,I managed to open the wretched thing, by which time I had lost all interest in wiping down the table top and had a cup of coffee instead.

What really baffles me is that as the population is living longer, one would have thought that those who want to sell us stuff would give due consideration to our frailties.

In this Brave and bewildering new World, passwords appear to be of vital importance to enable us to access so many things from bank accounts to phone bills.

Our memories are getting worse so it is  not always easy to remember the different codes and passwords, particularly as we are warned not to write the numbers down, anyway we would probably lose the paper we had written on.

We can send a man into Space, but we cannot come up with a simple way to assist a growing and important section of the population.

Yes, we Are important. We keep the Doctors surgeries busy, usually overflowing, we keep the pill manufacturers working overtime, and many of the ‘Bus companies would be out of business if it were not for the free ‘bus passes for the retired.

For the more able amongst us, we keep many a local restaurant full at lunchtimes  with Special Pensioners Lunches, often frozen Plaice, frozen Chips and frozen peas, which I suppose is what many Restauranteurs think would be a special treat for us poor old Buffers.

I think we deserve more consideration and we should all start lobbying to make life a bit easier for us Oldies.

We need bottles and jars that are easier to open, another method for security other than forgettable passwords, computers which do not baffle us and  generally more consideration for a large section of the Population.

Is anyone listening?

I am having to get used to a completely different way of living.

Like many others of my generation technology is taking over our lives, and if we do not learn, at least the basics, were are going to find modern living very difficult.

Socialising, for the young, at least appears to take place mainly on a mobile device, either a phone or a tablet, and it is becoming quite unusual to walk down the street and not see people with phones glued to their ear. I was in a restaurant one evening recently and their was a couple at the next table, who, after ordering the food and drink, proceeded to get out their mobile phones and either send or receive messages, and during the time they were in the restaurant, very little conversation ensued. Perhaps they were communicating with each other by text?

No one appears to notice what is going on around them, which brings me on to the state of many towns and cities in the U.K.  Looking around me at the decay and desolation of the Town centres brings me to the conclusion that either people do not look at the environment in which they live, as they are so busy on their mobile devices, or they do not care.

How can we blame the Government or the local Councils if we are all prepared to accept closed down town centre shops, run down buildings and charity shops as the only places left to visit in town  c entres?

Surely if we all made enough fuss, attended council meetings, wrote to M.Ps and Councillors on a regular basis the Powers that Be would start and pay attention?

A business woman, a very successful one at that, once said to me,

“if you expect nothing, nothing is what you will get”

Surely the least we can expect is Town and City centres that are alive and interesting and look as if someone cares? Do we all really want out of town shopping Malls, all looking identical whatever town you are in?  In a Country as successful as the United Kingdom, there has to be a few local people up and down the Country who can do something to keep town and city centres alive?

Or are we all quite content to let our environment decay while we sit in front of a computer screen and conduct our lives on line?

No one can change the situation but yourself, but it actually take a little effort. Ideas and complaints are no good without action.

I have had a rather pleasant summer..

In June I travelled through Spain and France, seeing lovely places, meeting interesting people and eating some wonderful food.

In July I travelled, with a very good friend, from Lands End to John O Groats, and we tried not to use any motorways, and it was a most interesting trip. Our final destination was a terrible let down and if  Nicola Sturgeon want to put Scotland on the International map, I suggests she gets someone with a bit of imagination to tidy up John O Groats, which could be a huge tourist asset, despite the weather, but at the moment is, to put it mildly, a dump.

Should you decide to make the trip I suggest that you go and see John O  Groats, but stay somewhere else, as the only Hotel in the place leaves a lot to be desired.

Judging by the political situation at the moment, it would appear, that Politicians of all hues do not have much to offer us all at the moment, and they too leave a lot to be desired.

the infighting  among the Parties is quite bewildering and while we all watch  in amazement, those who have been elected to govern us  do not appear to be fit to run a jumble sale let alone a Country.

I am the first to admit that it cannot be easy to manage the Country, it is hard enough to run a home, but if it is so difficult why are so many Politicians so desperate to get the top job?

They say that the onlooker sees the most of the game, and from where I am standing the game of politics is a pretty awful one at the moment, and the losers are us, the voters.

I would have thought that in Great Britain, with a population of sixty four million there would have bee a couple of dozen brilliant people who could run the Country efficiently.

On the whole, the British are a very moderate race of people, we do not like extremes, whether left or right, but there does not seem to be any moderate intelligent people with the ability to lead the country anywhere on the political scene at the moment.

Mrs May could be our only hope as she appears to be sensible and moderate, but sadly , for the sake of Democracy, we need a good opposition, and that is something that the Labour Party, is not able to provide at the moment.

Mr Corbyn is, I am sure a man of integrity, but as those he leads do not want him to lead them, he is, sadly leading a once great Party into oblivion.

As I said, politics are awful  at the moment, interesting for the onlooker, but not so good for those of us who want good governance.

What with the  uncertainty in our Country, and the terrible prospect of Donald Trump being elected in  America ,together with Mr  Putin’s clever policy of divide and rule the future looks, to put it mildly, uncertain.

Shall we be in or shall we come out? That is the question.

Of course I am talking about the referendum. Are you as confused as I am?

For once, and for a change, I believe that Politicians of all hues  really have the Country’s best interests at heart.

the problem is they do not know what the best interests are.

It might be an idea for them all to make two lists. On one side you have the advantages. On the other the disadvantages. For example how much do we pay into the EU and how much do we get out?

Does it make travel to EU countries easier?  Do the Farmers get EU subsidies?

Does the European Court advantage or disadvantage us? And so on.

My problem is with the people whom we elect to represent our Country in Europe. I have not got a clue as to who any of them are. In the area where I live I have never seen or heard of my MEP and on talking with friends of mine, they are in the same situation.

those on the Brexit side  tend to blame the EU for everything that goes wrong in Great Britain, but we do have a good number of MEP’s representing us, so, apart from drawing their salaries, what are they doing? Like a great many other people, I haven’t a clue.

Just like everything else in life, there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and we have to weigh up on balance, which side will we go for, it will never be perfect.

On balance I think that any side that Mr Boris,(I’m in it for me) Johnson is on, I will not be. The thought of him in charge of government, tends to fill me with trepidation.

I am also annoyed about the Referendum itself. it was not called for the benefit of the British people, my understanding is that it was called because |Mr Cameron had to appease Mr Nigel Farage.

We elect a government to represent us for five years, and during that time it is the Government, or more accurately our MEPs who  should be fighting for a better deal for us.

Who expects to keep a dog and bark yourself?

All over the World, the British are considered to be a an intelligent and well educated nation, so why are there so few intelligent and well educated people leading us?

We must have a few, but I cannot name any.