The Millennium Falcon

I am annoyed.  This year, my son gave me his Millennium Falcon.He said that I was not allowed to play with it and that it was for the children at my work.  It came with BB-8 and Chewbacca.  Kids have loved it and have played with it and the characters.  A few weekends ago, when walking in the town centre with my son, me came across a new shop selling figures and I bought Rey, and even they were to a different scale, Iron Man and Black Widow.  But this week BB-8, Chewbacca and Iron Man went missing.  

It isn’t just that the children stole the characters, it is that the parents have not returned what the children stole. I think I know who took them, but I have no proof and therefore the selfish actions of a minority have made things worse for others.

Honda JAZZ Tyre Repair Kit

Monday was an interesting day.

My car was noted to have a nail in the tyre last week.  The tyre was stable and I was not able to get it changed on Saturday, and it drove well.  My aim was to take it to a garage on Monday, but I had forgotten about a meeting at work and a home visit which was a bit out of the way as well.  And with a member of the practice team being away on holiday with another away on compassionate leave, the day was a tight one.

I drove to a nursing home as part of my morning and as I was blocked in, I drove over a kerb to get out of the tight space I was in.  I have done this loads of times, but I had forgotten about the nail.  I remembered when my flat tyre warning light came on and as I drove into the car-park, the car was not handling well and on getting out, I saw that it was completely flat with no nail.

After seeing the patients, I found the repair kit, and tried to use YouTube to work it.  Earlier in the day, there was an issue with the 4G signal, but by the time I had left there, it was fixed, which meant I was able to inflate the tyre using the kit in my boot.

I learned a few things.  Try to have the leak at the bottom, and be prepared to move the car once it is being repaired.  Pay attention to find out what pressure the tyre is to be inflated to, I had not.  And also, once inflated, wait ten minutes afterwards for the seal to set, which I did not.

I did make it to Kiwk Fit who were very prompt at changing the tyre.  I may remember to use the place next to them next time, but being stressed at the time and trying to get my tyre changed, my brain was not working as well as I would like.  And hopefully, there will not be a next time for a very long time indeed. 

Saying that, I did look for the nail when I got back to work, and while I did not file the culprit that ruined by day, I found two screws ready to cause havoc on others!

London in September

It was a busy weekend.

One of the good friends of my wife celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary on the weekend and we went down to London for the event.  The kids are old enough to look after themselves but, they do have a tendency to bicker and we had an option to leave them at my in-laws, and then stay the night there afterwards, or stay in London close to where the event was being held.

With my wife having to complete her dissertation for her masters, we opted for the least stressful, but more expensive option.  On the way into London, we visited my mother who is to travel to India for a month.  I had meant to call my youngest brother to let him know we were going, but forgot.  That was a shame as I do not see him enough and he and his partner love to see the kids.

After that, we went to central London where my wife had her eyelashes improved and while she was doing that, I took the kids to Foyles.  They love books, and the promise that I would buy them books was greatly appreciated by them.  It was a bit of a walk for them and on the way to Foyles, we came across a Jazz festival in the street and in Soho Square, a Trans Rights protest.

Afterwards it was to the hotel.  My wife and I had stayed there before, during the life before children, and it was a different, but pleasant experience to take the children there.  They loved it, my daughter falling in love with the bath, almost as much as I did with the shower.

The night with Mariel and Robin was great as well.  We got to catch up with my wife’s old school friends who we had not seen since the birthday celebration of my wife.  Back then I was too busy to spend lots of time talking, but this time, as a guest that was different.

In the morning, while my wife slept, the kids and I went for an early morning walk.  They got on so well, I started to have doubts that they were my actual children.  We had fun in a playground and they had fun with some squirrels.

Once at home though, it was back to reality with a visit to work, where I tried to catch up with some paperwork and then later, swore while doing it while listening to the Arsenal match.  I will try to post more about that after watching the highlights!

Invasion Colchester

Yesterday we all went to Dedham in the morning.  It was brunch for my wife and son, but my daughter and I had already eaten.  So while they had a proper breakfast at the Hall Farm Cafe my daughter and I shared a bagel.  We tried the cakes there, but they were not up to the usual standards according to my wife.  The breakfast was amazing though and I would definitely go back there for that.  After food, my daughter and I went on the farm trail, fed some animals and put her in the stocks.

Later in the day, I had to drop her off in town and then I went walking about to have a look at Invasion Colchester.  I have enjoyed it in previous years, but this was the first year that I visited it without my son.  It is great to see so many people meeting superheroes.  And it is all for a good cause.

And today I took my son out cycling.  We needed to practice him getting to and from school by bike and he is improving a lot.

Back to school

The kids are back at school. For my daughter, it is a new year and a new group of peers, the form that she is in being mixed up after two years.  For my son, it is a new school which means much more of a change for him.

He was meant to cycle to school today, but with the pouring rain, he opted to be dropped off by car.  I was both pleased and disappointed as I had been hoping cycle in with him, but this way, his mother was able to be there for it as well.  I cycled to work and got back home in time to pick him up.  He appeared to have had a great day, and on getting home, I found that my daughter appeared to have a great day as well.

Hopefully this will continue for both for a long time to come.

Teaching other nations how to ignore democracy

Our nation may not be able to lecture others about democracy soon.

I object to the drive by Momentum to purge the Labour Party of MP’s who do not share enough values with them.  I consider any plans to do so to be against the broad church ethos of the party.  And the media have called such actions Stalinist (though this would actually be entrism and an act of democracy).

But we have a Prime Minister who has threatened to sack any dissenting MP’s, forcing them out of parliament come the next election.  Corbyn has not done so, and while the media would be right to publicise this story, had they done so, the media seems to be less vocal about far worse actions by BoJo now.

And there is the small matter of the forced closure of Parliament.  If this happened as a result of the loss of control of Parliament in Russia, Zimbabwe, Iran or the like, the UK government would be chastising them.  Instead, our Prime Minister is in effect to impose direct rule, at least on Brexit, to get what he wants.

Just imagine what would happen if Jeremy Corbyn did this!

Anyway, if the suspension of Parliament does go ahead, this government will have no moral right to complain about the lack of democratic rights in Russia, Hong Kong, Iran, Venezuela, Zimbabwe etc.

Brexit and racism

I have had two interesting discussions this week on social media about Brexit and racism.

On one, after being insulted for my views on Brexit, I was told that all remoaners like me called those who decided to Vote Leave racist (an issue that was hinted at one the other, but by someone else).  I would like to point out a few things on this.  I have friends and colleagues who decided to vote leave, and I do not consider them racist for doing so.  While I consider them to be misguided, that was because of the lies that they had been sold as well as well as the failure of people like myself to counter the Social Media campaign part funded by Russia.

However, I do stand by my view that almost all racists would have decided to Vote Leave in the EU referendum.

I do not think that being against too much immigration makes someone racist.  The question arises as to what too much immigration is.  In the past, the Rivers Of Blood speech occurred due to immigration from the Caribbean and Asia, in the 2010 general election a big issue was immigration from Eastern Europe, and in the EU referendum, the issues that seemed to swing it were fears of millions of refugees coming to the UK as well as a Muslim invasion from Turkey.  It is all too easy to prey on such fears, and doing so has won votes and support.  But when people have been shown the benefits of immigration, most of the time, they become less hostile.  And in addition to this, many forget how our great nation is built on immigration, a big example of this being our Royal Family.  For those who doubt this, just Google Phil the Greek.  And there is the latest addition of course, from the USA, though it appears that some are less forgiving of her because of her skin colour.

A big fear is that immigrants are coming here to simultaneously steal our benefits and our jobs at the same time.  Where I work, I have only come across one immigrant family that appeared to be milking the benefit system, almost all the others that I have seen are here to work.

Which brings me onto benefits (I will return to working afterwards).  At a party this summer, the topic of Brexit and immigration came up.  During this discussion, the person who said that British workers are lazy later said that immigrants come here as the benefits system here is the best in Europe.  Ignoring how that in Germany and Sweden have a better system which was the reason that so many refugees from Syria opted to seek sanctuary there.  And he has ignored how thanks to the improvements in the benefit system, homelessness has increased along with in work poverty.

But when it comes to working here, yes, some UK workers are lazy.  Most are not where I work, we have two immigrants, everyone else being born in the UK and everyone works hard.  Every nation has slackers, and they tend not to leave the nations that they are from.  There are lazy Poles, lazy Brits, lazy Australians etc.  Those who make a choice to come here to work want to work and in general have a good work ethic.  We can get immigrants to leave, it will not be good.  And many of those who are against immigration forget that.

Yes, we can force British born workers to work, but I would rather work with someone who wants to work, rather than someone who is forced to do so ‘or else.’