Welcome to MY world

Possibly wrong that I, who have no belief in that sort of thing, should steal from The Book for a title. However, I have always hedged my bets and one never knows who might be listening.

Today is my birthday. Thank you for congratulations, best wishes, Mazel tov, whatever. I had never imagined that would sustain for 78 years on this planet - or any other. I had never been terrible solicitous about my health and welfare right from climbing the tree when my father came and told me I had better get down as war had been declared. I was not evacuated - my parents held that if they were dead, I might as well be also.
The Army claimed me and I was able to get to most parts of the world where the Union flag few. Objectors to this threw stones and fired bullets and I walked among this unharmed. My trade involved investigating - not all my finds came quietly when told to get their strides on because they were nicked. I occasionally drove very rorty rally cars with only minor shunts.
At the the beginning of my 40s I moved away from Action Man's world and resorted to using my brain. I was asked for my opinions and people paid me for my advice. I got involved in preparing budgets for millions of pounds, fighting to explain why I wanted all this money and then controlling the expenditure thereof. I drove many miles on busy roads. The stress was something I grasped like a true adrenaline junky.
And then, in due course of time, I retired. The challenges were put beyond my reach; like a steel fire shutter deployed. I took to hill walking - always without human company but often with my dog. All the adrenaline went out of my life. There were no challenges any more. I felt like Teddy thrown in the corner and abandoned.
Then the physical side started to let me down. Glasses, no real teeth. I was at the mercy of minor illnesses and recovery became longer. Breath was in short supply and I had a season ticket to the local GP. All very frustrating; the remedies seemed to be dealing with the symptoms and not the root illness.
Some months back I realised that my memory was failing me. I would be talking about something and a word I wanted would not come out of the files. Then, for no apparent reason, the word would come into my mind unbidden. I walk from one room to another for some purpose only to find myself wondering why I am in that particular room. I sometimes need two attempts to pick something up - I drop it the first time. I knock things over.
I realise that in the scale of some peoples suffering, all of this is a walk in the park. Well, I sympathise with them but this does little for me in my cocoon of advancing mush. I look back at the few occasions when I might have gone out in a blaze of glory and white light and wonder if what I actually did at those times was worth it in the light of my present state.
So, I want no more congratulations. good wishes or Mazel tov. Just a farewell please. "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace"

In general, I have always been a law abiding sort of cove. Knowing just enough of the law to let me go up to the edge of offending, However, today I throw caution to the winds,

What follows comes from today's (8th August) edition of The Times and is hidden behind a pay wall. Well, like a kid scrumping apples, I've scaled the wall and return after filling my pockets. Why? I regard the paper as a document of record and repository of sense. As I understand it, the pay wall idea came from News International. The same NI under command and control of the now discredited Rupert Murdoch. The media use the excuse that when they choose to go crook they do it because a matter is of great public interest. As I see it, their second editorial today deals with a matter of great public interest and thus falls within my purlieu. So, sit back, relax and enjoy.

The real victims of Saturday night’s violence are the innocent local residents

For those residents forced to watch powerless on Saturday night as their high street was set aflame, their shops and businesses looted and their homes devastated, the riots in Tottenham are a great personal tragedy. For the nation as a whole, and London in particular, they raise a number of questions about our police service and the communities in which they operate.

Why are we again seeing violent attacks by young people in our capital city? Why is Tottenham again the setting for such ugly scenes?

What is unquestionable is that the failure of the police to deal effectively with the violence unleashed on Saturday night has meant that the people of Tottenham are paying a high price for disorder on their streets. The community is already one of the capital’s poorest. Many of those who have suffered the most are those who deserve to do so the least: the law-abiding majority in the community. Already the stories are striking: a young Asian father whose apartment was set alight and subsequently gutted as he watched, helpless; an elderly pub landlady, petrified by thugs and forced to barricade herself in.

The pretext for the street violence which caused such havoc was anger sparked by the death of a local man, Mark Duggan, shot last week by the police in controversial circumstances. An investigation has been launched into the killing. Initially it seemed that there had been an exchange of fire when the police were in pursuit of Mr Duggan, but details emerged last night to suggest that Mr Duggan was carrying only a replica weapon and that the only shots fired were by the police. For a force already under pressure for failures in other areas, the reports hardly bolster confidence. They underline the need for new, and effective, leadership at the top of the Metropolitan Police. For all the disconcerting elements in the Duggan case, it is nevertheless important to maintain a sense of perspective. There is a clear distinction between legitimate, peaceful protest and the shocking images of destruction and looting. It is right that the grieving relatives of Mr Duggan should be provided with clear answers; but that desire for justice does not confer a free pass on the thugs, some apparently from outside the area, who caused the subsequent chaos. As David Lammy, the local MP, writes in The Times today (see page 20), this “was an attack on the whole of the Tottenham community”.

Mr Lammy says that relations between the police and local people on the Broadwater Farm estate have improved immeasurably since the infamous riots of 1985. So why was communication from both sides seemingly absent in this case? Why too did the police struggle yet again to handle a potentially incendiary situation? All this makes the imminent appointment of Sir Paul Stephenson’s successor as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police a most pressing matter for the Home Secretary. Applications for this vitally important role close on Friday; a successor is expected to be in place by September.

Names in the frame include Bernard HoganHowe, former Chief Constable of Merseyside Police (currently acting Deputy Commissioner), and Sara Thornton, an impressive Chief Constable at Thames Valley Police. Whoever gets the job will quickly need to show leadership, common sense and a real appetite for justice.

I was doing a Cameron in the sun outside our local (posh) coffee shop when an old lady I've "good morning-ed" on a number of occasions asked if she might share my table. I think she was more needing a gossip than needing a coffee and a bake; as soon as she sat down and planted her bag she started to chat. The shop fronts onto the town square so there are many passing pedestrians. My new found companion seemed to know quite a number of these people; some stopped to talk briefly to her before moving on, Dolce Vita in Duns.
Two or three times she launched into chapter and verse regarding those who had stopped or passed by with a nod. Whilst discreet in her choice of words, it was clear that she was of a moralising bent. I was left in two minds; a little embarrassed at what I was hearing but still enough of a detective to appreciate that I was gaining information.
Her final communique concerned a young couple. The girl, aged I suppose around 18, very neat and tidy and just beginning to show the rising diaphragm of pregnancy. Her obviously boyfriend escort was just about everything she was not. Scruffy, stained and torn jeans and unkempt appearance. More of a slouch than a walk. Mrs Local Paper nodded her head to draw my attention to the couple.
The girl had gained high grades at her university qualifying examinations. Her parents were able to support their only child in whatever training path she chose. Her future was brighter than a summer sunrise. That is, until she met up with the lad. She was totally besotted and took him home to meet her mum and dad. Rightly or wrongly they formed the opinion that the friendship could only end in disaster where her further education was concerned. They tried reasoning which moved on to coercion and thence to banning. Their brainy high flyer daughter crashed like Icarus, moved in to some awful digs with her lover and terminated all contact with her parents.
My informant suggested that the young woman had become pregnant almost immediately. She had abandoned plans for university and was working in the local super-market to supplement the lad's dole money. A bright future lay in ashes. My table companion had to hurry to get all this information transferred before depositing her payment and scuttling off. I thought back to see what tit bit she might have gained from me but was comforted by the fact that she had been the one doing all and more of the talking.
After she had gone I mused on this latter-day version of the Rakes Progress. I wondered what it was that seemed to have perverted her ambitions. Given the ferocity of those who demonstrate regarding any threat to education, how can the desire to do well be, seemingly, destroyed so easily?
When one reads the statistics of single motherhood, one fears for the life style she appears to have chosen. Would her lover stay when surrounded by nappies and young baby in their marginal accommodation?
After some old man's cogitation I settled for a scenario where she had her child, the scruff dropped the pair of them and she regained her broken path whilst Granddad and Grandma took up parenting for the second time. If someone had come around with a collecting box for single mothers, I would have dropped a few bob in.