Author: Editor

HELLO MY ATTACHED ONE
Hi dear, I’m a good woman with a cheerful smile on my face who’s at
the moment trying to find a loving relationship. All i am able to
possibly write regarding myself personally for now is that I adore
sport & needless to say out-of-doors journeys so much, remember to
look at my pix down below and I will be anticipating your answer.
https://yhhjco_joeour.disthandtirardebtzap.tk/Ferhh

Such was the message that greeted me when I opened my phone this morning. We can take what we have when we were born, decide to become a better person working at our full potential or through our actions and thoughts degrade and decline. This free will is built into us and is part of our humanity.

Does the person who wrote this, if indeed it was a person, have any self-respect as they have in effect sold their soul. What sort of deprivation has the writer experienced in order to find such an utterance satisfactory and see it as a way forward. It’s almost beyond moral judgment here. It would help if they could learn to use the English language.

Vineyard Church Special Service

To the Vineyard Church service this morning. I volunteered to be a greeter, outside the church on a blowy rainy morning. I like doing things like this as I enjoy serving food to people. You could tell who was going to come into the church because of the positive way they were walking, not just strolling. I greeted them and shook hands where appropriate, I think the first few seconds of let us say knocking at the door of a property where you’re going to attend a party, especially when you have not been there before and don’t know anybody, can be quite traumatic.

It is vital to be greeted by a real human being because first impressions matter and you are a vital step between being an anonymous person on the street and a valued member of a cohort group. It does not matter too much what you say, so long as you smile and are physically there,  you are doing your job.

A special announcement was read from the safeguarding committee for the Bath area Vineyard that complaints had been made about the behavior of the coordinator and his wife; it was of sufficient seriousness to ask an independent assessor to review the situation. I am suspicious of all ‘complaints’ because very often it is from people who will not accept responsibility for their actions and blame other people.

As you will have recently learnt if you have read my diaries, a priest was sacked because of an anonymous complaint from one of the pupils. However just in case the accusations may be more serious, in this case, it might be a good idea to have a third party in to adjudicate because they are a disinterested parties (as opposed to uninterested parties) and are more likely to come to an objective conclusion.

Tally, one of our leaders, read a particularly important part of the New Testament surrounding the time of the birth of Jesus and the Three Wise Men. I was very struck by the way she read it because she actually embodied what she was reading. She was part of it. She identified with it. And the words came across in majestic fashion. It is a million miles away from someone reading something for the first time.

I feel that this is important for us all to take this into consideration. People who just read something, like so many news readers, are mouthing the words but the carrier wave, the frequency that tells us that they really believe and identify with what they’re saying, that is what makes some people believable and some people not so believable.

A useful piece of advice from scripture

On the Conservative Woman website there is normally a religious piece or two on Sunday and today was no exception. This is an article by Julian Mann, who is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Morecambe, Lancashire.

He discusses a point of general interest about entertaining the words of other people. I’m sorry to say that as a baseline most people do not take seriously the words of others and will that best linger a few moments on them before turning to the next topic.

In its reference to all holy Scriptures, the Collect in church services particularly Holy Communion includes: ‘Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.’

It does take some considerable effort for us to change our mind sets, never mind the mindsets of others. For a start, we need to understand WHY we may need to make a change.

Yesterday I was clever
so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise
so I am changing myself

Hear. How often do I hear people miss quote what has been taught or spoken about. It is necessary to give people your complete and utter attention, to clear the decks, do you understand that they are saying something that may be important. We say, I hear you. This however can contain a conundrum. The person is saying that I hear what you say but I disagree with it, or hear what you say but I’m not going to do anything about it.

Read – this may be a reference to reading about something or it could mean background reading or research. Anyway, seriously to the extent of entertaining it over a span of time.

Mark – make a note of those factors that are particularly relevant to your situation. Other words we are implying that not all the text is equally important to us and we should perhaps focus on that portion that does speak to us directly. We cannot learn everything at the same time.

Learn – what we have learned in one field is applicable to another. We speak of a learned skill or a learned habit. Anything that contains a principle is applicable to other fields. This is all part of developing wisdom.

Inwardly digest – taking in a principle or working rule or fact and incorporating it with other aspects of your life. For example let us say I gave a bad first impression to someone. I have learnt from it and now, to incorporate the lessons learned into my behavior and attitude to everyone I have not met. In technical terms, my behavior has been modified. ‘Digesting’  means letting this information seep into all corners of our mind and that is only possible if there is some repetition in different circumstances.

Most of us do not even reach the end of the ‘hear’ stage. Must be something to do with the ego.  A good start is Socrates ‘all I know is that I know nothing’.  In other words, my mind is open to anything that is said.

Most of my clients on my remote view activities come when their situation is advanced and intolerable. It can take a person to be on the verge of divorce before they ask advice or support. There is something about human nature that is so prideful that you don’t want to lose face through admitting that you are less than perfect. The function of a social group or any community is to give people competence in each other that they can share at a deeper level in a more matter of fact manner. Problems staring you in the face can seem much bigger than they are and very often one or two words of advice can take the millstone from around our neck and deliver us more to words something resembling peace of mind or the ability to cope.

The world is going more towards a division between the very rich and the very poor. The Increasingly rich people simply do not care about those they regard as ‘useless eaters’ and you should not expect any government to suddenly start being compassionate and caring. This will not happen.

There is a harvest of beauty and reward amongst those we call our friends and contacts. It is this that I rejoice in when this afternoon a group of us from the Vineyard Church met in a large farmhouse, that owned by the group leaders for the area, and had some lunch. We had light hearted talk for most of the time. I tell jokes and tease people if I possibly can.

In general I feel it a duty and a privilege to share my pains and my concerns, my delights, and what I am pleased to call my progress. When I ask how people are, I really want to know. To be told by someone ‘ I am fine’ or even worse ‘I am good’ is just a waste of time. I would rather someone tell me that they were having a hard day or had too much on their plate, and I could use my considerable talents to give advice and give the results of my intuition.

For the first 60 or so years of my life I would not have been able to say such things because I was too busy paddling my own canoe but when you get older you come to consider the nature of life after death, if that is something you want to pursue, puts the whole thing into perspective.

Consciousness cannot be destroyed. We live with what we create. Let us create good things. Let us put things out irrespective of the return or recognition we get or do not get. Living for yourself is not really living. Living for others is life itself.

—   VIDEO LIBRARY —-

Plans for World Government by May 2024.  I do not normally trouble people with political stuff but this is world-changing material which will affect all our lives especially the freedom to travel.
The 50 most evil Christians in the World.  No, I am not the sort that swallows what I am told from Evangelists. These are mostly examples from the USA. To me it just shows how much confusion there is across the pond.

Reel People Films – Kilmersdon

One of the things I don’t like about going to modern cinemas is that you have to sit through 20 minutes of percussive advertising for films that you have no intention of seeing and which are inevitably delivering information with machine gun power.

Also, there is a habit among the audience of bringing in giant cardboard containers of popcorn which are noisily crunched during the film. The volume of the films is currently set so high that you can’t even hear yourself think which is perhaps the idea anyway.

There is something about community films shown in a church or community hall that I find very attractive. You can see excellent films which are not regarded as ‘commercial’ i.e. lowest common denominator. That however is only part of the attraction.

Last year, the people of Kilmersdon took local responsibility for such films were organized round a school in Writhlington. They recently decided to give up and offered the franchise to someone else. Five people in Kilmersdon, which is a village so small you would miss it if you blinked,  took them up on their offer and there is now a thriving society which after only three films has attracted a hall full of people, about 100.

It has a large panoramic screen a 5.1 sound system powered by a projector and a personal computer.  Before the film is shown, tea, coffee, canned beer and wine are served. We were offered hot Christmas pies.

We turned up an hour early at seven pm and had a chance to witness the whole hall filling up with people. The room was full by 7:30. A number of people knew each other. I guess they were a combination of locals, those who had heard about it in the local press, and refugees from the original venue in the school.

Last night’s offering was a film called Benediction, 2h 17 minutes, which interwove harrowing scenes from the First World War with the rather decadent social life that prevailed at the time. It was a moving exploration of the turbulent life of the World War 1 poet and war hero, Siegfried Sassoon, and was made by the acclaimed British director, Terrence Davies. Sassoon is buried in Mells, a nearby picturesque village.

After the film we were invited to make comments on it and the comments were pinned to a small notice board. The organizer of the evening stood at the door and thanked us for coming. I don’t think they can quite believe the success of this new venture and I’m reminded of the comment that ‘Nothing is as powerful as an idea that has reached its time’.

I am a great fan of ideas and I do literally mean each and every idea no matter how outlandish. Creativity and innovation is not a tidy process. All ideas have a germ of something within them so it is worse talking to the person who was inspired to talk it through and talk it out. For example an outlandish idea might be that we all originate from the planet Mars and planet Earth is not our natural planet.

This could morph into a group of people who do not feel at home in this physical world. That might turn into a very successful group. You don’t know unless you try. No committee, however wise, is able to predetermine what groups are needed or what group will be successful, so the best thing to do is to announce to all and sundry all the latest ideas and see what works and what does not.

Search for a Christmas Cake

Saturdays before Christmas are normally frenetic. We had a number of small tasks to do so off we went. First to the Swallow cafe in Radstock which is where partially disabled people learn to integrate into society by preparing and serving food and light refreshment. We were on the hunt for some Christmas pudding, previously purchased from the same place but alas the cafe was not open. Interestingly, there was no indication of opening hours.

A Methodist Welcome

We traveled through Westfield and decided to stop at the Methodist Church. They offer tea and coffee from 10 am to midday so although we were late I thought we would pop in and say hello, and glad I did. The one thing Methodists  do well is hospitality, tea and cakes, providing a space for those who need support and companionship. We arrived to find about eight people still there and this in spite of our lateness.

The church adjoined the meeting Hall via a set of glass doors. This opened up both areas and made the whole more friendly. I felt an enormous amount of love had gone into putting the Christmas decorations in the church as indeed there was a lot of love in the community hall. That ‘vibe’ takes time to build up and such an atmosphere cannot be faked.

Although I am normally committed on Sunday morning at the Vineyard Church I am very tempted to come along one Sunday and join in the worship. Someone told me that John Wesley himself preached seven sermons in the area. I really don’t know how he survived going from place to place, somehow warning people in advance, looking after his horse, finding somewhere to stay. We take the internet for granted today indeed we have got used to mobile phones. I also think back to the times of the disciples of Jesus who went from place to place often getting a hostile reception., there, my friends, you need faith. www.radockwestfieldmethodists.co.uk

Off to the farm to buy eggs

Next, went to buy our next supply of eggs. Up until a couple of years ago, they charged £1 for six large ones but now the price has gone up to £1.50 and they do not make any more profit. This seems to be the way of the world that prices are increasing. I have seen in Waitrose six eggs selling for £3.25 so I’m not complaining here.  Dee, the ever chatty owner was not there but people were buying Christmas trees. She normally orders about 300 and sells them all.

Midsomer Quilting

I have written about the Midsomer quilting shop many times. We could not let the season pass without a visit to see the ever welcoming Chris, his hardworking wife, and a very nice volunteer on the door who welcomed us to a special exhibition based on ‘sayings’. For example many hands make light work, don’t count your chickens before they are hatched, a stitching time saves nine. These are homely aphorisms that have been in place over the decades and sanctuaries. They are not particularly well understood by people outside the country and you could say in a way they are ‘local’ or more like it ‘national’ or even ‘traditional’.

There are so many reasons that I love going here and I should add we have been going here for the best part of ten years.

# Chris is extremely hospitable and is in the fortunate position of being able to welcome people from all over the world. It is ironic that most if not all of the goods on display come from America. There are many customers from the USA so the material is exported from America and then imported again.

# The Quilt Center enjoys a very warm and positive relationship with Dorothy House as proceeds from the sale of the images presented below are sent to them.

# The range and quality cannot be so easily found elsewhere. I absolutely love colour and form and you can feast your eyes on something that is calming. It has been voted the UK’s favourite quilting shop.

# they also run courses. These are for smaller number of people and you learn at your own pace. It is very conversational.

So here, in no particular order, are those that caught my eye. You can magnify them on your PC to see some of the detail and of course pinching works on mobiles.

I put in a bid for a couple of examples. I teased Chris and others that there had been no entry for the term ‘bite the bullet’ and they looked at me in a bemused fashion. I get this occasionally. Sometimes my sense of humor does not match with that in the environment to which I travel.

Chris discussed the fact that he had delegated the putting up of this exhibition to others including his wife. I said at the age of 84 he is entitled to become honorary in some of his roles particularly as he started the whole thing over a decade ago. The point is that everyone does not have to be good at everything all the time and it is quite in order to delegate. It is a sensible conservation of energy reserves.

I said that he and indeed myself achieve something just by being who we are and unbeknown to us are an example to others who we teach, share with, write for, or just being the presence of.  ‘No acting ability is required’.

We will only know who has done what when and for why at our instigation when we finally close our eyes.

Someone owes me money

I woke up this morning to a difficult mental situation. Someone had not paid me money that was due when they normally pay straight away and I was concerned that I had upset them in some way or fallen short of their expectations. I phoned up the person concerned and asked how they were in general and we made some arrangements to modify the way we worked together.

I said at the end of the conversation, is there any chance of you settling the bill. She was horrified as she thought she had sent the money and said she would deal with it straight away which she duly did. I often tend to do this, imagining the worst when in fact there was a benign explanation. However, no harm done except to my anxiety levels in the short term.

A thoroughly good person

This cheered me up. Amongst all the psychopaths who run (down) the world there are some in the public eye who maintain their integrity

Actor, film director, film producer and musician Keanu Charles Reeves (Keanu Charles Reeves), missed the first 20 minutes of the party dedicated to the end of filming of his new film in one of the clubs in New York.

A lovely way to start the day. A whole 60 seconds of video about LOVE (not lurve)

is Jesus’ message misunderstood?

As some of you know, I have regular conversations with my friend John who is one of the few people who are on my wavelength and he has been so over the decades. We meet on Skype and between us we generate enough alchemy for me to improve my understanding of what is important, and hopefully the feeling is mutual so far as he is concerned.

John – Modern day Christianity has lost sight of the message that Jesus came to bring. I think they’ve supplanted it with a much more materialistic approach. Jesus’ idea was to get out of this world whereas they’re talking about Christianity being a way of life and how to treat people and being kind. There are lots of good things about Christianity and there are a lot of people who are very good hearted, but….

The problem is that you get the overzealous ones,  the materialists, who will translate spirituality into a methodology. Christians adhere to some of the qualities of real Christianity as intended by Jesus but the majority of impetus in the church is the establishment of a community on earth which is not what he preached.

Then they fill it full of regalia so that for example God is made manifest mainly in churches so the whole thing becomes a really bad parody of what the original message is.

The whole ethic is that as Jesus said ‘yes are gods but know it not’ it means that your path back to Godhead is unique and therefore your methodology will be different to everybody else’s methodology. To make a conglomerate and say we are all Christians, Buddhists or whatever else is really over-collection. You are trying to standardize the conceptual frame in other words you’re taking a moral compass and actually setting it on a group level,and taking it away from the individual and I’m disagree with that.

Brian – Just imagine you were mates with Jesus and he was walking by your side and you were talking. There’s no lack of parity there and I said if he wants you to act like him. He works through you because you have his spirit. That did not go down extraordinarily well.

John – Exactly.  Christians, and indeed all faiths, have a need to have a hierarchy. Hierarchy is what you have in the three dimensions. You have to have a hierarchy because you’ve got time, and you’ve got entropy and therefore one thing is going to precede another. You generate hierarchies naturally and that’s why God is ‘up at the top’ and we are ‘down at the bottom’ but strictly speaking that’s not true, because we are God looking through the bottom and therefore the the whole concept of hierarchy is totally irrelevant.

When you die you are part of a single structure, although it’s got elements which are above and below in terms of vibrational coherence, but that coherence is respected as part of a single wave which is like godhead itself. There is no concept of hierarchy outside of living in the third dimension.

Brian – Why are we so obsessed with hierarchies?

John – Because we have set our consciousness to believe in material continuity over spiritual continuity and that’s why Christianity has got the wrong orientation because we have set our consciousness to believe in material continuity over spiritual continuity and that’s another lesson why Christianity has  got the wrong orientation

Brian: So it should be more Gnostic orientated. Its more a mystic type of thing really because the mysticism has no hierarchy.

John – So we need faith and belief and trust and love, and ‘the greatest of these is love’. These are all cohesive elements of mind, of consciousness. They have no real bearing on the movements of atoms.

Brian – If I look at the Christian Communities that I have been part of  I get on best with the people who are on the on the fringe of the group. Some of them wave their arms at Jesus.

I think that Jesus-like behavior is actually the correct understanding of what’s really going on.

John – That’s why if you read a lot of the parables in the New Testament you get a clear idea of what he was trying to put across as a message, but that message was for individuals.You’ve got the story about the Centurion who said ‘my servant is sick’ to which Jesus replies ‘your faith has healed him‘ He didn’t tell him to stop being a Centurion.

In other words the realisation of where to put the moral compass and how to act upon it is always an individual thing. Christianity’s also got benefits and some of those are that they study the Bible but the biggest problem is the ritualization of it in other words the materializing of the thing. The problem is that you get the overzealous ones,  the materialists who will translate spirituality into a methodology and when you do that, you’re actually detracting from the original message that you’re trying to put across.

Brian: Yes in your efforts to add you are actually subtracting but perhaps not even subtracting but putting in a fog.

John – You cannot translate one function into the other. They’re in opposite directions.

Brian – So do you go with Quakers here?

John -That’s more towards the point. They realise that the path is less rigid than regular Christianity; the real way is much more individual.

Brian – The trouble is that if I go to a Quaker meeting the average age of the people is about 100 and they’re all dying off.

John –  I wasn’t recommending not to go to a Christian meeting but be aware of these these points.  I’ve just had a guy here from America he’s a stalwart Christian and he goes to his church and everything else and yet he listens to some of the theories that I put across and he thinks they are really interesting. It doesn’t stop him being a great church member either as he won’t change his views or change his operation, but he will expand his viewpoint to accommodate others in a better way so once somebody joins one of those groups that you refer to it’s not so much about Jesus it’s about having a community.

Brian – They say we would wish you to bless us. I dont know why the present conditional tense is used. What if Jesus were to say ‘actually I don’t bless people I annoy them, that’s unless I’m asked to stop’

They got the whole idea of Jesus very twisted and it’s horrible and when I’m asked to stand up during these interminable ‘praise Jesus’ songs I do not stand. I sit down. I can’t take it but I listen with respect.

However in the coffee breaks I reckon is where most the benefit takes place. In a wider context I imagine that conferences could consist entirely of coffee breaks and it might be much more productive. I am exaggerating slightly but do you see my point.

I’ve got a theory about word strings given in lectures, these long word strings from people that are so keen on getting everything across that they give out more than the human brain can deal with. If a speaker were to make the best point in the whole world, the brain would be so taken up with analyzing and extrapolating that it would miss the next few points and would thus go into a condition of ‘pond skating’ without noticing it.

John – Jesus as a character is often misrepresented in the churches. There are some people who are like that. These people think of themselves as outspoken and share their thoughts. That’s the way to be. Others think of themselves as sheep and trying to keep away from the wolves whereas in fact you know socially that it’s almost the opposite because it’s the sheep that are now vaccinating us and going on about these things because they’re just going for it. Nobody argues. It’s as much their fault in some way as the people that are taking advantage of them.

Notes on the meeting

Relagia – the emblems, symbols, or paraphernalia indicative of royalty. b. : decorations or insignia indicative of an office or membership.

Hierarchy  1. a system of persons or things arranged in a graded order with a simple uppermost element
2. a body of persons in holy orders organized into graded ranks
3. the collective body of those so organized
I distinguish between order and harmony and the criterion needed to establish harmony is of a different order to the criteria needed to create a hierarchy

My reaction to hierarchies as a genre

I have always distrusted hierarchies and committees because I find myself questioning the motives of those who occupy high positions. It is very seldom I meet someone in charge who has the ability to listen indeed the will to listen to others especially if they are so-called low down on the hierarchy, for example a newly arrived member of staff. Employers who treat all their staff with respect irrespective of their position in a hierarchy get a five-star review from me. People know when they are valued. They feel it instinctively and act accordingly by giving their loyalty to the firm or organization.

I do not find that charities or in America so-called non-profits are any better or worse than those working in Commercial Industries. The ability and desire to listen is a dying art. You need to be in a safe place to listen to people’s criticisms and comments, have any hidden agendas because these agendas trip you up when you least want it or expect it.

I reckon that the best organizations are the smallest. I Watch most of the medical programs, bad skin clinics, accident and emergency departments in hospitals, air Ambulance, police, the lot. The one of the best coverage  I have seen is in the skin clinic near Harley Street, London, where a small number of qualified people, with different specialities, work together as a family. They also ‘play’  together and have fun. When you are in a big organisation, you tend to be treated as a number as in the case of the behemoth seller, Amazon. Employees who work there are as near to slaves who happen to be paid as you can imagine.

Coming back to today’s theme, to see Jesus as he really was involves pulling back a lot of the covering and examining the habits, customs developed over time, and understanding who we really are. David Icke would say that we are infinite beings having an experience in a physical form. Irrespective  of your views of David, he has been spot on right over the decades in prophesying events and trends that have subsequently happened in the world and I think his understanding of the nature of the human being is spot on.

If you can find a comfortable place for ‘yourself’ in the world you will never be lonely, but you may often be alone. Clue, ‘We’ are not of the self, we are of the breath of God.

Bring on Wetherspoons!

I wish this country could be run by Wetherspoons. They are very focused on customer service; I am reminded of the text in the Bible beginning ‘ no man can serve two masters…..’ you can’t have a profit-based power based globalist mind set at the same time as serving John Smith who cannot necessarily speak up for himself and who needs a listening ear. It was a joy to come in to the establishment this morning and see a real live fire. There is no substitute for a home but this makes the place homely and the sort of atmosphere where you can relax even when you are on your own.

Articles I enjoyed reading for various reasons…

The first one is from SPIKED ; Woke books are a flop with readers.
The second one is I was sacked as a school chaplain for my Christian Beliefs

I think the woke movement is largely created by people bought and paid for by the entities that wish to change the nature of society and destroy any semblance of normality. I have learnt through having met woke people that they are both angry and ignorant. We are hardly avant garde around here but I have never had a need to talk to anybody about wokeness. I don’t think people understand what it means and they are not remotely interested. It means nothing to them as they conduct their daily lives

The second article is about a chaplain in a private school who preached basically the sanctity of marriage in a sermon in 2019. Isis of one anonymous email by one pupil, was sacked and reported to the relevant of authorities. This seems to me the most craven and gutless response by those running the school. In theory you could destroy the whole school by a series of anonymous letters by individuals who apparently have no responsibility and ability to deal with themselves, their states of mind, their own unresolved phobias and fears.

I think society is waking up to the fact of the false and evil nature of all these extreme movements. Black Lives Matter. Where did this come from? Who funds the people? Just Stop Oil. Do these people have any brains? Are they trying to bring us back to the Middle Ages? The Burning of oil and gas and coal releases valuable carbon dioxide into the world which delivers that which is necessary for plants to grow. No carbon dioxide, no life.

As Dr. David Bellamy said ‘carbon dioxide is nature’s fertilizer’. If people don’t realize that what is going now is a concerted effort to destroy society and the human being, there is little that can be said or done. It is no good saying ‘ oh they wouldn’t do that would they’ when they are actually doing it hidden in plain sight, non apologetically, for all to see.

On another level entirely, this video warms my heart.  It is a short news item of a man who has walked every street in Bath. He feels involved in his historical town.  It took him 10 years to complete his task.

I continue to be appalled by what is going on in Palestine. Losing 1seventeen members of your own family at the same instant  must be a seismic shock. The sickening hypocrisy of America is that they could by one telephone call stop the whole Israel aggression. They are after all supplying the munitions and the means to carry on the war. It is obvious that this continuing war is intended for whatever twisted reason or reasons. I do not wish to go into this type of matter in this diary.

How we treat people

‘You only get one chance to make the first impression’

In a way we are never off duty. It’s not the impression we think we give, it’s the impression we actually do convey. The excuses we give ourselves are irrelevant. This is a story from a circular newsletter recently received. The point is, if you act inappropriately, it is not interesting to give excuses to yourself. You either did the right thing or the wrong thing and I found this story below very salutary.

Years ago, a very dear friend, whom I love, came to an event we held as she was interested in working with us and we needed our CEO’s approval.

Canapés were being past around and, to speed up the distribution, our CEO had a plate and was handing them around too. I was talking to my friend and saw our CEO approaching and was about to introduce them both when she waved her hand at him as though to say “go away” and was very dismissive. I was alarmed at the way she treated ‘this person’. I asked her why she was so rude to him and she said “I don’t want any canapés and he was interrupting our conversation”, and I said, “That is such a shame, as that is our CEO”.

She was mortified, not about how she treated the ‘person’ but that she missed him.

I asked our CEO to come back and meet her, and he said “no way, I have seen the way she is with people, and I would never do business with her”.

Responding to broadcast emails – is it worth it?

Anyway, on a brighter note I’ve decided to devote today’s homily on the topic of responding to circular letters. A person of note running an organization will write to members or associates telling them how they are getting on.  How many people will read the document, never mind comment on it, is difficult to determine.  I do know that Mailchimp allows you to see the ‘opens’ but it does not tell you the duration of the reading time  or how seriously they took it.

This message is from the coal face and could apply to many executives and indeed ordinary working people so I would like to expand on this circular letter from this colleague who was given a three-week break by someone who considered that they were in need of it.

The excerpts are from their letter.

Certainly, over the past 25 years, we have never gone a day without checking our emails and keeping in touch with clients.

I do check my email not just once a day but many times. Because there are ongoing projects that I like to be part of and always respond immediately. There is no synaptic delay. I also like to keep in touch with the latest developments and this is particularly apposite when it comes to my cov**id material on my other site. Developments happen by the hour and I want to be on the ball and on top of my game when it times to understanding.

I do not have weekends off as such. I may give myself Sunday morning off but basically my default mode is that when I am awake I am on duty. It is this way because I like it this way.

I have never hidden the fact that our life has had some serious bumps and bruises, (as well as the amazing joys we have had). I never share to gain sympathy, in fact sympathy is a very low energy form of communication.

Amen to that. Anyone can show sympathy but how about talking to the person, getting to know their situation and helping them through it. I had a case last night of a couple whose son had had unfortunate liaison with a woman who was completely neurotic and has accused him of abusing or mistreating the son that they produced together.

She has a very dishonest lawyer who will make up anything to cast the blame on anybody but her and is causing great distress to the couple and the son. In this case, showing sympathy is a complete waste of time. I had about an hour’s chat including talk of their next court appearance, what say, what not to say, and why. I am on their case. I have known them for 20 years Plus, they friends, not let them down

I share for one clear reason, to ensure that no one else feels alone in their roller coaster of life. Being open and real has always been my choice, but I feel it has become more and more essential over the past 15 years since social media has devoured many.

I’m not sure what the writer means by devoured. It is our choice to be sucked in to a system whatever it is and be concerned about what other people, usually uninformed, think about what you have said. Social media is not obligatory. Social media should not form the entire basis for ones social life if so there is something seriously remiss.

Many people cannot help but compare and feel like they are the only person struggling financially, having painful relationships, feeling lonely, or mental health pain such as anxiety or overwhelm.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you are the only one and that is why support groups are so important. People fall into mental health difficulties because they are too ashamed to admit their condition or more likely do not know who they can trust. Having been in this situation myself in the past I can well understand the alienation and its effect on every aspect of our lives.

The reality is that we would not be experiencing a human existence if we did not have some major challenges in life. The sad thing is, we don’t always surround ourselves with people that are open and show their true experiences.

This is about getting out there and doing something. Virtual conferences and meetings only go part of the way. Sometimes we have to take a big risk and expose ourselves to the danger of being misunderstood. We may find however that we are understood and although people may not exactly understand what caused our problem they will be willing to listen to us and perhaps talk through certain aspects or what we have said. I think the term above ‘ surrounding us ourselves’ is a bit optimistic. Rather say find two or three people who understand what you are about and are prepared to listen to you.

When seeking help, don’t expect to get it right the first time. I have sought advice from people who were particularly useless and to add salt to the wounds I had to pay them for their time. I did however learn what sort of help to avoid in the future. It is called ‘learning by experience’. There is nothing to say that we have been granted exemption from this rule.

There is within the human psyche the feeling that we should do everything on our own and this is naive. Wisdom lies in knowing when to ask for help when you need it. I believe that we should if at all possible find a supporter who although they may not understand what is going on but will be with you physically when we go through our traumas. If you need to go to the doctor or to the hospital, there is no reason why you shouldn’t take a supporter. The phrase comes to me, ‘united we stand, divided we fall’. This is true not only of society in general but of individuals striving to move forward and find some meaning in life.

In general, and particularly if you know the writer, it is worth taking the time to write back to them telling them what you feel about their work and what was valuable. This is helpful, encouraging and IMO* professionally polite.
* In my opinion

I’m going to ponder today on the ways that I have been served. In more informal terms I could say, being looked after. I must first of all admit that I had been very cynical about expecting to be served in anything more than a mechanical way. When people do recognise me as a person  and treat me accordingly that does make my day.

I like going round to my local shop, Brookes newsagents, because while I’m there I can always have a chat with  whoever is behind the counter. I have got to know them over the years and will always use the opportunity to exchange a bit of gossip or ask how things are. Recently next door a fish and chip shop was sold and bought by some Indian people who wanted to offer a variety of food. I hope they do well because their menu is ambitious. So in those two shops there is a little community plus the bus stop is outside which is where we wait for the bus to Bath. We have a chat with whoever is there.

The same cannot be said when I go to Lidl.   The staff there are typically overworked and dealing with large volumes of people and many hundreds of repetitive actions. I do not think I could be at the till for many hours at a stretch without being driven mad. There is some conversation and banter between the people queuing up, and I like it when if I’ve only got one or two items I’m invited to jump the queue. Having said that, you can’t jump a queue if you are invited.

As Christmas approaches and the pressure increases, people’s shopping carts get bigger and bigger so the pressure grows and there is little time for chatting to people who have industrial size loads. They are paying typically over 100 pounds plus the distraction of two children demanding attention at the same time.

As for buses, the local drivers are pleasant enough and it is the custom here to say thank you when you leave the bus. This is not true in London where buses are designed in such a way that you can walk out of doors at the front, center and rear so the habit of thanking the driver has declined.  There is no reason to make contact with the driver when you enter the bus because everyone has a card and just swipes their card so they are very much just driving the bus. I remember the old days when there was a conductor who used to  issued to get and he used to  look after us, ring the bell when the bus was ready to go and generally be a jolly personality.

As for trains,  you hardly see any staff these days. They were even thinking of closing all the ticket offices until there was a national outcry.  At smaller stations you have to hang around a windy platform  watching the indicator board having  purchased your ticket from a machine.  I find a smaller stations desolate and unwelcoming. Is there is a ticket office it’s only open between 8 am and 2:00 p.m. or something like that.

For Londoners, I can briefly mention the subway which I find quick and effective periods are frequent, normally overcrowded, but you know how long it is going to take you to get from A to B<

As for buying insurance or any form of service, my pet hate is waiting  and having to listen to dreadful music for 20 minutes or more.  No repeated message is comforting after the 12th time.  When I finally get through I do not find the average telephone operator to be sympathetic or human thought there are glorious exceptions. They are just working to numbers,  ticking boxes, probably under great pressure to deliver and may well get a fair amount of abuse themselves. With regard to buying insurance for my house or my car I tend to avoid telephone contact and prefer to search the internet and do what I need to do on line.

I find after one year of being with an insurance company they inevitably put up the rates and you can inevitably find another company that offers a better rate. I suppose they think that once you have been with them for a year you have some sort of loyalty and you will not quibble too much if there is an increase in price. I do quibble and I do look elsewhere.

As for service in shops I try to look for someone with experience. Of this is especially true when I am buying shoes or items that need to be exactly right in order to be comfortable.

My experience of dealing with people on the phone, especially with banks, is getting more horrendous. I don’t know what motivates the people at the other end but I would like to feel that they have some empathy  for my position.  I hate being fogged off and being told that I should write come up or fill in a form, and when I hear an uninterested voice I feel like giving up.

With my electricity company, about six months before the prices were going up, they removed all telephone numbers from the website. I wonder why.  They probably appreciated an avalanche of complaints.  I have a blessing in that I am with E.ON  and they do specialize in not treating people like idiots and speaking in plain English and telling the customer exactly what they need to do.

Chatbots –  I hate them with a passion  because they never  answer the question that I have. If it was a simple straightforward question I would find it on the website. If it is not a straightforward question the chat bot will not have a clue.   They give you a list of possibilities that bear no relationship to what you wanted to know.

I enjoy going to buy eggs at our local farm. Dee,  who is the main person, always has time for a chat, a comment about the weather, and she does care for her produce which consists of at this time of year Christmas trees, eggs, various vegetables, logs, kindling and whatever else is in season.

I like Wetherspoon’s service.   It is mainly because that I know that what ever branch I go into I’ll always got the same thing at about the same price with basically quite well trained if overworked staff. The food is mass produced and I know a fair amount of pressure is put on the staff to deliver quickly.

You can tell from my list that I do not visit various fancy shops. It is mostly utility shopping. I have almost forgotten that I enjoy going to Wickes and B&Q.  These are staffed by people who are passionate about what they sell and actually know something about the products. I can explain to them even if I don’t know exactly what I want and they will try and be helpful.

What I enormously admire is people who go the extra mile and going to some depth and explain the product whatever it is. They probably have the wisdom to see who is a genuine inquirer and who is a time waster.  When I myself receive a call for the services that I offer, I have quickly learned to tell from the tone of voice whether they are just curious or whether they have reached these stage when they really want to make a purchase and get on with it.

I tried to be a good customer. I always greet the person who I hope will give me the service, perhaps make a couple of pleasantries along the way, and say that I loved what I saw but I just have one or two questions. I don’t want them to feel I am interviewing  them about goods that they are just selling, not goods they have made and are responsible for.

Primark  is an example of mass marketing of  items at the bargain end of the scale. There are no sales assistance that I can see, and you take your choice, stand in a long line, and pay. It helps if your expectations are in accord with what is offered.

As to service in hotels. I have lost track of the number of hotels I have stayed in, large and small.  I stayed in one in Milton Keynes and you can read all about that by searching on the name of the town. The worst experience I had in the last few months was a hotel run by a woman who clearly was not suited for the job and had no experience.<

There were four of us staying, two couples, and she clearly did not see the need to have two tables so we were sat at one small table, the four of us, with no choice. Towards the end of the meal, she announced that  she will be in the garden if we needed her.  Thanks for making us feel important.

Money spent on giving good service is not money wasted. I have not had calls to deal with Trailfinders for some years now but I know that if I ring them up they will see who is calling because my telephone number has been identified and it starts the conversation of on the right note.

Restaurants almost deserve a separate article.  We are lucky round here because there are half a dozen restaurants I can go to where people care about their food and about their customers. Even the Radstock working Men’s Club –  not exactly a restaurant that it does serve some food – looks after us in a rough and ready way and it is normal to make some sort of joke or what we call mickey taking.  This is common among workers and I quite like the tradition.

The worst restaurants are those where you have to wait a long time and you run out of things to say. I think it is within convention to ask if you are in a hurry how long the meal will be. If he says 10 minutes that probably means 20 minutes, and if  they say 20 minutes, it probably means  30 minutes.  As for complaining about the quality of food, this should be really done at the latest after the first mouthful so that they can do something about it, not leave it until the end and then grumble when you come to pay.

I could write a whole article on the art of complaining but that will have to wait another time.

The lesson I draw from looking at the above is it you should try and be a good customer, definitely not being bad tempered, abrupt, or complaining otherwise you will put the back up of the service agent and you will only get minimum service. If you say something like ‘ I need some help on this one’  you get them on your side  and whatever you need will be more easily supplied.    I have developed this knack over the years that I approach someone as if I knew them and speak accordingly. You have to be careful with your tone of voice that it is not too familiar but with practice you’ll get it right each and every time.

If no one got on with anyone else, society would not function so let us play our part.  We have so much to engage our minds and make us stressed so let’s try and find one area where harmony can prevail even if our efforts do not end in a sale.

One last thing, when I try to sell my own products  and the person is not interested I end the conversation by saying, ‘it’s been a pleasure to talk to you’ or ‘it’s always worth chatting with someone’ or ‘here is my card, if you feel you want to get in touch with us we will be here’

Let’s respond to these statements together

#  I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, life (that) others expected of me
#  I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
#  I wish that had the courage to express my feelings
#  I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
# I wish that I had let myself be happier

You can read the article here

I have decided to see these as quiz questions and without reading the article  I’ve decided to answer them as honestly as I can and I will not be self-censoring.  Seat belts fastened. Off we go.

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, a life that others expected of me

My problem with my early years was that I did not know who I was and had no separate identity. My parents who were my main role models expected certain things of me and this was reinforced by telling me off or reprimanding me and very occasionally by receiving praise. Thinking about it, the main form of praise was silence. In other words, if I did something and there was no comment it means that I had done the right thing.

This is not the greatest way of motivating someone but at least it kept me on the straight and narrow behavior wise. I was a son of a vicar of the Church of England and in the 1950s and 1960s that meant something in terms of status and differences. To be a ‘vicars son’ was a significant label whereas now it is meaningless. People will say, so what?

My father and mother were not social people and to have visitors was very unusual. The only outings we had together were for post Sunday lunch walks in the Rookery which is a cultivated area at the top of Streatham Common in London. I had to learn from other people what it was to have a social life. I went to university, actually the university of Durham, between 1964 and 1967 but had very little social life and preferred to spend my time in my room on my own reading and listening to the radio. I became a great fan of classical music and I am so grateful for that to this day.

So to summarize, the first part of my life I had no idea what Society expected of me

I wish I hadn’t worked so hard

To me, work is something you perform in order to earn a living in other words you exchange your time and energy for a wage. I briefly worked for the National Coal board which was 18 Albert Embankment London SE1 and the Purchasing and Stores department. This was overseen by the formidable D C Chaplain who have a huge office and a flourishing signature to match. I was very junior indeed and ran around doing menial tasks. I knew nothing else. Being bought up in a Christian environment the idea of competition and aggression was foreign.

Did I perform work at university? I was actually quite a lazy student or should I say unmotivated. I did enough work to scrape through and earned at the second attempt a bachelor of Arts grade three in other words a pass. I suppose deep down I did not know what I was doing on the planet and certainly did not understand the idea of a career.

In my late 20s I started a social network group called London Village. Unbeknown to me, this was an idea that had reached its time and it was a great success having at its peak three and a half thousand members who met four a variety of social and cultural activities. Was this work? Not really, it was the fulfillment of a vision which I undertook voluntarily. Paradoxically, I was not very good socially but enjoyed the challenge of each day. I was one of the first to introduce computers as a means of identifying and listing people with similar interests. Was that work? Again, no.

From then on I developed Kirlian photography which was about photographing the energy fields around the human being especially the hands. I became self-employed and went around various public exhibitions and shows and gave what I called readings and this went on for a number of years. Was that work? I cannot honestly say yes. It was fun, and very satisfying.

I also started a career in gardening which I continued to this day and yes, that was work. I am employed a small team of people when I was working in London and we did quite large jobs up to £15,000 which is quite small by today’s standards but two or three decades ago it was a reasonable sum.. Was that work? Yes and no. I only took as much work as I needed and as I was the boss, I worked to suit. I did not have to go in on a Monday morning.

So what is it mean to work hard? It means to apply yourself diligently. I suppose if the work is under duress or if there is no one else to do it than that sounds to me like a bad deal and for most of my life I have not performed this sort of work, let’s call it work work.

Hundreds of what I call psychic readings based on my inherent sensitivity and the use of dowsing with a pendulum and again I ask, would I consider this as work. The answer is no. It’s very much like breathing. It is part of me.

What I really don’t like about work is you are working for someone else to help them to achieve their goals and you get a small cut of the action if you are lucky. For those reason, I cannot say community work is work as such but rather activity together with other people so everyone’s goals are the same. What I’m saying is that I don’t like hierarchies I believe that people should work together in groups.

So yes, I have worked hard but under my own terms and in my own time.

The question I would also ask is that do I work to live, or do I live to work. Am I only at home when I am part of the chain of productivity or do I have enough individuality within me to enjoy living for the sake of it

I wish that I’d had the courage to express my feelings

That’s a big one for me. Like most British people and especially men I wasn’t sure what to do with my own feelings such as they were and it took me many years to realize that I was not the only person to feel in a particular way and that information could be shared with others. Even to this day, I hesitate but much less than I used to when I was a ball of embarrassment. I think courage has to do with conviction. I made very few demands on others because I prided myself on being self-sufficient, so what is the incentive to share feelings?

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends

This has looked after itself. I do not think that all friends are friends for life and as we change, we change our friends and this is something that is done for the most part by mutual understanding and without acrimony. We can so-called ‘lose’ friends when during an argument we discover  irreconcilable differences and there is a violent parting of the ways. More often, this can happen with people who move away physically, and that includes members of our family. It is easier to stay in touch now because of technology but the telephone and the email is a poor substitute for seeing, hearing, feeling, touching, hugging the person who you care for.

At my age friends have had the habit of dying or become victims of diseases of various sorts and more recently dying of the covid fake vaccine. As you will know by now, I am very extroverted when it comes to talking to people in public and I do my best to seek out those who have even a spark of life and engage them in what I could call a ‘5 minute marriage’. The local friends I have, where I am now in Somerset,  are few. As a couple, we need to find other couples that are sufficiently aware to know what is going on in the world and also wanting to entertain it. I’m afraid such people are few and far between but they do exist.

I wish that I had let myself be happier

This is where the famous British stiff up a lip and self-depreciation comes into its own. It’s also got a lot to do with guilt, more specifically the guilt of a Catholic who has been told that they were born with original sin and are inherently sinful and this is a heavy burden to bear. I can relate to the wish because I tend to focus too much on the subject in hand and do not allow myself time for ‘me’ – pampering and all that. I think somewhere that I have regarded this as a waste of time and perhaps a little bit self-indulgent but now I am learning just to relax for the sake of it and enjoy myself.

What would I do differently?

I can now turn to the implied question – do I have any regrets about my life so far?

If I could live my life over again, would I do anything different? I think this is a false question in a way because maybe I had to ‘make mistakes’  to learn the hard way. I may have looked a gift horse in the mouth by not doing something that I could have done and thus missed out on an opportunity. I wish I had listened to others more before making decisions that proved disadvantageous.

I wish other people had spoken up more when they must have seen that I was doing something not in my best interest. In those days I guess  people did not want to ‘give offense’. In retrospect I would rather they had given offense because I realized that I needed to hear what they might have had to say. I wish I had learned to ask for advice when I needed it instead of stumbling along on my own. The trouble was that I did not know enough people to trust enough to share any confidence because I was not sure how much they cared.

However, I have been very fortunate to meet a number of people who guided me on my way and had a basic impact on my life. They did so through their example not through any conscious intention on their part. They were who they were no more no less.

If you could ask me how I have managed to get through my life financially when at times I had nothing I cannot answer coherently. I remember at the age of about 40 sleeping in my office because I had nowhere to go and I did not know about signing on, income supplement, or anything of that nature so I must be a classic late developer.

However I have been blessed with meeting the right partner which I did around the age of 60 and for the past 20 years have been in a stable relationship where we own our own home. I don’t think there’s any point in learning how to catch up but I think there is a point in living a quality life and using whatever years are left to me in a productive way, helping others along their own path and passing on my experience as and when I am permitted.

So, from my perspective as I sit here on a Sunday afternoon still enjoying the memories of the holiday that I have recently had.

We have the following world situation:

# Israel is using the excuse or ‘code’ of getting rid of Hamas to destroy and displace Palestinians. Prematurely, Israel have sold oil and gas rights for drilling including one sold to the father in law of our UK Prime Minister for $ 1.5 billion.
# Three years to the day, another virus has appeared which according to …no testing at all …specializes in infecting children. Where did it come from? China. Surprise surprise. How long before we get another lock down?
# Governments have just agreed to increase the effort for net zero for this  dreadful trace element called carbon dioxide without which we would die  because no plants would grow and we would cease to exist.
# we have a threat for the world-wide introduction of a digital currency connected to a central database where a tight control will be in existence over our spending habits.
# We shall be asked to live in 15 minute cities where travel restrictions will prevail
# We are mandated to in future only use battery powered cars to save the planet. The joke is that if we were to replace all the cars in the United Kingdom with EV’s, the amount of lithium required would be twice the total world supply.
# The church and morality is being systematically destroyed and children’s minds are being turned against their parents and all traditional views

Remember the warning of Klaus  Schwab. ‘you will own nothing and be happy’

I don’t think I need to make any more points. It is easy to feel helpless and paralyzed with fear. What we need is a bigger picture.

From where I sit, all these ideas are without scientific basis and are doomed to fail at great cost to us all. What should our reaction be? Should we carry on as if nothing had happened? The problem is that doing nothing when you are consciously aware that all is not right is to sacrifice your sovereignty as a human being and you become a robot, thus letting down those of your fellow human beings who have an independent life.

Let us say we choose to do something. What can we do?

First we need the courage to call this out for what it is – EVIL

Everyone can talk to their friends and business associates but the problem is that most people have been so thoroughly brainwashed that they will marginalize you rather than admit that they themselves were hoodwinked and fooled into believing something that was not right.

The government is fond of saying that the science has been settled. This is another way of saying that all opposition has been crushed. The opposition consists of independent scientists who are not afraid to speak up.

The problem with writing to our MP is that the MPs themselves have been compromised either by bribery or blackmail or peer pressure and with the glorious exception of MPs like Andrew Bridgen, they do not stand up for what they know to be the truth. Although it is never a complete waste of time to write to one’s MP I do question the value in this case, or should I say the value is only to the writer.

We can consider direct action through marches and so on but these have been anticipated by the powers that be and will be dismissed as hate crimers or extremists. The mainstream media will a obediently follow this and most of the public will be none the wiser.

Another way of dealing with the whole thing is not to cooperate with the powers that be. There are far fewer of ‘them’  than they are of Us. We are the 99%. What they are trying to do therefore is to frighten us into compliance not only through the Nudge Unit but to threaten us , frighten us, imprison us, for actions that we might do. I suppose it is a little bit like corralling sheep.

What happens inside our minds is as important as anything else. As we most easily can be controlled by fear, it is vital to be well informed so that you can more or less imagine what they are going to do and therefore we are inoculated against fear even by serious sounding news bulletins. The next fear attack will surely be a new pandemic against which the body has ‘no protection’. This conveniently forgets that we have an immune system which has served us very well and as time progresses, the immune system becomes more and more wise and experienced and knows what to expect. The body is the ultimate self-healing and self-protective wonderful mechanism.

Peace of mind, knowledge, faith, the ability and the willingness to improvise when all our needs are not being met, the storing of good food, the understanding of the human body so we can keep ourselves well by natural means, are all things that are necessary.
Head in the sand will not work.
I read that there is an enormous increase in the number of people affected by mental problems. By its nature we do not see these people who are suffering. The resources to help them are being stretched to busting point. It is here where friends, acquaintances, relatives, are so vital in our need to maintain faith and vitality.

In my own case, every day for me is a challenge to see how many people I can affect, influence or benefit in some way or another. I do this on a daily basis with no exceptions. Every stranger I see is a friend that I have not yet met and I welcome them into my life even though I do not even know their names. It works each and every time. In the rare cases that someone does not so anything I know that I have maybe planted a seed.

Before I speak with any stranger, I check out their body language to make sure they are receptive. That is why I have to be careful in places like Bath and Wells where there are people that I can only describe as upper class and a little snobby in some cases. These people are quite fixed in their own identity and will not have anybody tell them anything but they don’t want to hear so I leave them alone.

So here you are, in a family. When you disagree on certain matters for example whether to have a certain clinical intervention. I have known cases where disagreements have ended in divorce and this includes disfranchisement from the family. People pay a terrible price for standing up for things. Medical people, professors, researchers, who speak against the recent trend of giving untested vaccines are dismissed and dishonored. They had done nothing other than stand up for their principles so it is nothing to do with ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ never mind ‘science’.

Fortunately most of us are not in the firing line but unfortunately some of us are even afraid to give opinions in case we are laughed at or dismissed. I’m afraid this goes with the territory. In the bible study that I did this morning with my Vineyard group we were reminded that Jesus said ‘you will be hated of all men for my name’s sake but he that endures to the end shall be saved’. The point is that if someone has allowed themselves to be vaccinated and realizes later that they made a mistake, they are not going to be willing to admit their foolishness to other people. It is a matter of basic pride. Of course they are not going to thank you. This is why when mentioning this, it is wiser to ask questions or say that you have read somewhere that…., such an interesting thing happened.

Confronting people is not a good idea.

Yes, someone turns out for something will lose friends. I reckon for every five you lose you will gain one new genuine friend who will stand with you and that is in my view a price worth paying.

We may be reduced to saying nothing and just loving people who have taken a medical intervention and find themselves with a cancerous or heart infection,  which has produced a permanent weakness in their system. We may have to watch them suffer plus the knowledge that they may become separated from their partner and children. We can only pray for them.

Unfortunately we can’t take responsible for the actions of other people. The body is inviolate and we have body autonomy  over what may be done to our body without permission. The way I can most easily survive in this dreadful carnage and I do include thoughts of the poor Palestinians who are being killed by the hundred as I speak is to understand what is going on, to pray for the afflicted and the dying, to pray for the souls of the departed especially the children, and to pray that our friends and associates who do not have faith will find somewhere solace for their condition.

On putting your head above the parapet: It is also difficult when speaking up about something when that would cause you to lose your job. This means your house and your family and your livelihood will be at risk. I’m thinking of the thousands of people particularly nurses and pilots, who had to have the covid vaccination as a condition of remaining in their job. It is interesting that employers are now inviting unvaccinated people back as a tacit acknowledgement that the vaccine was a mistake in the first place.

If you think I’m just rambling on please look at my website, covid-unmasked.net which has as I write 3,132 links to evidence-based medicine showing that harm has been caused.

I hope I am not being seen as taking an elitist high ground. I am just trying to find my way through the morass of this hell that is called human life. Ultimately, the soul is not the body. My body is a temporary suit of clothes that I will cast off when I have finished with it. ‘I’ will continue in another form going who knows where. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world so maybe we end up somewhere else.  We may end up in a no time no space ‘heaven’ if we deserve it.

With regard to the stars,  no I am not exaggerating. I believe the figure is 2 to the power of 22 which is a big number. It does restore in me some sense of proportion when I think that human kind only came to the planet at 5 minutes to midnight when compared with the total age of the earth. Nature has been with us for most of this time and when we have destroyed ourselves nature will still be around. A human life is the blink of an eyelid.

My three guidelines are:

# acting naturally, which means respecting nature, it’s remedies for our condition, it’s cycles, and then

# following nature in all its ways and learning from it

# respecting the words of He who came to save us from this condition, Jesus, or in anyone else’s language the other distinguished visitors let us call them, emissaries from on high who have called us to overcome evil and lead a radiant life.

Further, when Jesus was on this earth he made certain promises to us such as ‘I will always be with you’. He gave us the gift of eternal life in his spirit which can dwell in us if we so wish. This spirit will guide us where we need to go and will introduce us to the people we need to meet to fulfill our destiny but also theirs. I can think of no better way of spending my life.

I like the idea of Jesus as ‘my celestial buddy’.

Our Men’s Group breakfast meeting in Frome

Once every couple of months or so I go along to the nearest men’s group I can find. We meet either for breakfast,  curry evenings or Zoom meetings.    About a dozen of us met this morning  in Holy Trinity Church braving the semi-darkness, the frost and the fog.   We had a splendid fried breakfast cooked by a very obliging volunteer which included my favourite fried bread,   I know it’s not the healthiest food in the world but I love the crunch and the flavour.

It is very nice meeting with a group of people who are on the same wavelength, more specifically those with the same faith. I much prefer meeting with those who recognize the need to give to society as a reflection of the example of Jesus Christ who lived over 2,000 years ago in physical form as a messenger from God so to speak.

Today’s talk was from Mike Adams,  who from his accent I gathered that he is from the USA. He and his wife have worked as missionaries with Far East Broadcasting Company for 36 years and for the last 20 years specialised in setting up portable radio stations in times of dire need, where all  electricity-based communications have failed.   He was able to serve for example in the great storm  ‘Haiyan’ of 2013 that almost leveled the Philippines with flooding up to the second floor of buildings.

Almost 10,000 people were killed.  The good thing is that they can be there  on the ground with their equipment within days and the benefit of being a  small organization is that they can move quickly. In this case they arrived five days after the event.

Radio stations create a community within a community and play an invaluable part even after the catastrophic event has passed. It must be difficult to imagine for some life without this once temporary facility. This type of local radio station is different from a read broadcasting of national news which lacks the local micro examination of what is happening. True local radio is broadcast by the community for the community. After the immediate shock of the community, it is important for victims to find and attach themselves points of reliability and reasons to hope.

For a local radio station to appear within five days would be seen by the locals at something of a miracle. It is a service not only for information about physical things, such as the supply of food, but for mental distress. Such activities as playing music, giving encouragement, giving reassurance, is of inestimable value.

You can find out about the technical side of the organization on this website and you can also hear about First Response Radio which is the website relating to his work.

A Different Way of Doing Radio

A First Response Radio Team has a different role from the traditional media/reporting role.  The aim is not to relay information about the disaster to the rest of the world, but to meet the information and recovery needs of the affected community.  This is a new role for radio and it is often confused with traditional media reporting.

Local teams are trained and established in disaster prone countries, to respond within 72 hours to a disaster in their local area or country. Once trained, they can set up a radio station within an hour of arriving even in areas with no infrastructure remaining. They provide critical information to the affected community, and give the affected community a local voice. The aim is  to stay on the air through to the end of the Acute Emergency Phase  (around 30 days).

Faith and working things through

He was talking to us today particularly about the coincidences or so-called coincidences that have enabled him to be where he needed to be for example setting up an organization for another purpose which just happened to be situated near a disaster that was about to happen for example the Philippines typhoon.

He talked about the need for balance between work and play and said in a very moving comment – for me anyway – that “you should do things that give you joy”.

I can resonate to that because I’m so busy working most of the time for the good of mankind but at the same time tended to neglect my own physical and mental welfare.   This last week was an example of me taking time off away from the computer, not needing to take part in the cooking or washing up process, just having fun with a group of similarly minded people and going to new places.

He has often wondered what he should be doing next and he says that if you take one step forward, God will provide the inspiration and you will then know that He is with you.  I liken it to my GPS on my car where – if you stand still – it will not know which direction you are going and cannot perform as a GPS, but if you move forward it will then trigger you to going the right direction.  I believe that stepping forward in faith fires up the powers above and we if we wish can be continually guided.

Mike finds that his wife often gets the first intimation that they should be ‘on the move’ geographically. This is the challenge of faith in an organization which by its nature must expect the unexpected. Nature does not play by the rule book, not our rule book anyway, so we need a special type of faith driven resonance.

This reminds me of the group Médecins Sans Frontières  where medical teams go wherever they are needed in times of emergency where lives are at risk

He spoke of in times of need  that ‘the wind blew’ in response to prayer, equipment turned up just when it was needed. He gave an example of cables that they had been waiting for for six years and on that very day of need they received a phone call saying that ‘funding has been received so we are sending off the equipment today’.

Mike spoke of the possibility of retiring in two to three years time but I retorted that I have never seen a person who is more unlikely to retire. He said that he would be free of the restrictions placed on him by an organization and would be free to use his skill sets in other ways.

Again, I can relate to that because although I am officially retired, I’ve got so many projects on the go I’m more busy than when I did what I call normal work, whatever the word ‘normal’ means.

Where are the younger people?

It is a pity that more local men were there to hear this excellent address. I am refreshed by listening to people who have walked their talk and speak from first-hand experience. They have the power to encourage everyone including myself who was inspired to write this article. The average age of our group is probably about retiring age, 65 or so and I wonder what it takes to get younger people involved.

As my acupuncturist once remarked, people don’t start to think about the important factors of life such as health until they retire. This certainly in my observation includes matters of faith. I suppose unless you’ve been bought up by Godly parents you would not have much interest in spirituality and religion because you are still in the world of consumerism and living life on this physical plain.

In our prayer after the talk I prayed for people who needed help but did not know how to ask or whom to ask. It is a big topic but briefly we can fall into the trap of thinking that we are the only person suffering from a particular condition. This can paralyze us. People can also hesitate to ask for help because of pride, or shame. It’s easy to say ‘there is nothing to be ashamed of’ but if the roots of this shame go back to perhaps being helpless as a child and having had your request for help ignored, it is not so easy just to brush off the past.

As our speaker said today, you do not so easily forget certain scenes of violence or death, it’s just that they go to further back in the queue.

I repeat:  with regard to people’s general interest in spirituality, I reckon unless something catastrophic happens  such as a serious accident or a disease such as cancer, they’re probably isn’t enough reason to tempt you away from this three-dimensional world towards another level of reality. I suppose people might have previously asked themselves ‘what’s in it for me then?’

In my own case, I believe in the power of example and showing people perhaps subliminally, that there is more to life than self-interest and it is the benefit of the greater good that we should all be focused on if only as a means of survival.

As the Good Book says, ‘we are members one of another’. You could write a good few books on the wisdom contained in that one verse.

Our last morning

We had to get up for a 7.15 breakfast and from thence to the coach where our baggage was arranged according to the town at which we were going to be dropped off. We left two minutes after the departure time – 8 17 am – and were treated to lovely frost-covered fields, more blue skies and a delightful rising sun. Banks of fog were in the distance.

I have been on a handful of such trips in my life and I feel I have had enough experience to be able to give you the lowdown on the advantages, the disadvantages, the features and what to expect.

Summary of the trip

This is about a five day and four night excursion to Bosworth Hall, which is in Leicestershire. It is situated by the rural town of Market Bosworth,  which has a population of just over 2,000 residents. When I saw an advertisement for the offer in the local journal back in October I jumped at it. You might think that late November is a bad time to do anything when you are preparing for Christmas, and after the heat of the sun has disappeared and the days are shortening but the whole thing is weather dependent so if it is good weather it doesn’t really matter when you go.

And so it proved to be on this occasion. Cloudless skies, no rain, little wind, crisp mornings – fun companions. What is more to want?

We were supposed to be picked up at 12:40 near Green Park, Bath but due to a timetable miscalculation the driver arrived about half an hour later. The coach had started from Penzance, yes Penzance, at 10 minutes past six in the morning so we were the last stop but one, Bristol being the last, before the journey up the M5, across to Birmingham, to our destination.

Is it cheaper to go in a group?

Included in the offer was four nights bed and breakfast and evening meal. 2 day excursions were offered and a third one as it happens to Stratford on Avon for a small extra charge. Between 6 pm and 9:30 pm we were offered drinks at  two for one prices. For this offer we were asked 249 pounds per person making just a little short of 500 pounds between us.

Had we done this off our own bat as independent travellers, the costs would have been as follows:

Petrol – 385 miles – bearing in mind the stopping and starting, it would have been about  100 pounds
Bed breakfast and evening meal is listed at 118 pounds per night for two which makes 472 pounds
Parking – Had we driven to the two centers on the Tuesday and Wednesday plus parking charges at the hotel the parking would have been not less than 60 pounds

Driving is not just a question of petrol consumption. The area around Birmingham is very busy indeed and we had a lot of ‘stop and start’  driving by coach so journey time was increased.  Because the city is so central to the UK and the motorway system there are vast warehouses hundreds of meters long where the major firms have their distribution hubs

Anyway. this is the least interesting part of my account where we have demonstrated that you can save at least 100 pounds through taking the combined offer.

Are you ‘organised?’

I have had examples of some tours that are over-organised and you have to get up at 6 o’clock and move on from your hotel to another place and spend an inordinate amount of time sitting on the coach. You can be taken from place to place for commercial reasons, the receiving a commission on any sales. In this case however we were dropped off and left to our own devices for reasonable lengths of time. All we were able to do was to see the main features and get a feel of the place and whether it was worth a return trip.

No trips are compulsory and if you want to just lounge around the hotel and their extensive grounds then you can. NB not all restaurants offer high quality food especially at lunchtime. The foodstuffs  are kept in the freezer and heated up for the occasion and this can apply to hamburgers, chips, even pizzas and I would not necessarily recommend their quality. These days you can expect to pay upwards of 12 pounds for a main course so if you can possibly survive until the evening meal, just have a coffee and sandwich or just forget about lunch altogether. No one has died of starvation from taking this advice.

Who goes on coach trips?

It must be said that people of a certain age, and that means retired individuals and retired couples, take the opportunity to escape from doing the cooking and washing up and enjoy being treated by being driven round areas that you would not normally think of going to. It is in everyone’s interests to  behave well and nearly everyone rises to the occasion. It is obvious that if you don’t behave, you will be ignored or even ostracized by the group so everyone is on their best behavior.

Everyone that we met bought along a jolly positive mood. The English sense of humour comes to the fore here with its combination of self depreciating humour, situation humour, a little bit of black humor thrown in and a lot of teasing, puns, play on words and so forth.

Even if you don’t like someone you know that you are only going to be with them a few days so you might as well be nice to them and pass the time of day. Observations, humour, and talking about the weather go a long way.

It reminds me of my early days hitchhiking when I was a student many moons ago. Someone would pick you up and they would talk about their personal and professional lives knowing that they were anonymous and you would not meet them again. Something of the same spirit is here.

The driver, Paul, had obviously been doing this for a long time and explained why everyone had to sit in the same seat which was for identification reasons should there be a serious accident. He told us how to get out of the bus and how to pull the various knobs and levers to open the windows or doors. He told us politely to use the onboard toilet appropriately as ‘whatever goes in stays in until the last day’. He told us a little bit about the history of the places we were about to visit. He explained about our calculations on when we should arrive at a particular place using our GPS system. He pointed out that the roads as the coach sees it is different and therefore they perhaps have to take a longer route.

How to comport yourself as a single person

We had one Scottish person from Bath, Andrew, who was on his own. He had a leg problem which meant he had to walk with a stick. Everyone else was in a couple by the way. It could be difficult if you go on your own but there are ways to avoid it. Andrew made a slight mistake of overselling himself to me. I was situated across the aisle from where we were seated and in an attempt to impress me he told me lots of puns, some were good and some which were not so good. I found his manner a little bit clingy and did not over engage him in conversation.

He tended to have meals on his own which was his choice. In the hotel restaurant most of the seating was for two people but there were tables adjacent where you could talk to people next door without invading their space or their privacy.

If anyone is thinking of going on a coach tour on their own my advice is forget about the fact that you are on your own, pretend to be one of the crowd, and talk to anyone. You will find like I did that most people are happy to be approached and don’t really mind if you’re single or with one other person or more. You can ask how people are, did you enjoy the day, or if you like the hotel. In other words come along and put yourself aside and be a good listener and over the period, you will make nodding acquaintances with your companions. Ask them if they had a good day out for example. They do not come on the trip to escape from people, they come to have a good time so just be part of it and forget you are so-called ‘on your own’.

If you are visiting a town on one of the excursions, you don’t have to walk with other people because you will probably bump into them at one feature, museum, or another and it is quite acceptable to open a conversation. You need to have a good memory for faces. Putting it another way, your single status may bother you but I promise you that others are not bothered and frankly couldn’t care less. You might even find they are more solicitous if you are on your own

As for the economics, there may be a single room supplement but I find that these days, hoteliers are becoming more flexible and have a mixture of family rooms, double rooms, twin rooms, and single rooms. They want to engage with as wide a cross section of clients as possible.

However, he did not always present himself in the best light when at one of the visits he turned up 20 minutes late for the return journey and thus kept the coach waiting. The company had to ring him up to discover where he was. When he finally appeared he was jovial but non apologetic which did not go down too well.

Ooops!

There were one or two inconveniences: due to the heating system not fully working, the swimming pool and the spa were also not working and some people had cold rooms. We would have loved to have a swim but the supervisory staff, which they are obliged to have on duty, were not in evidence. I would be philosophical if I were you and know that in large scale organizations not everything can go right all the time.

Nobody got hurt in the making of the movie, as they say, so just take the rough with the smooth.

The evening entertainments was pretty ghastly. There was a female who could not sing in tune and there was a male guitarist who played to a background virtual orchestra so loud that I could not hear myself think. So we just gave up on that one and went and played Scrabble and watched TV.