A bit of spit and polish for Sheep No More

Having had the best part of two years to mull over my book Sheep No More and take on-board the comments / constructive criticisms of some of those who've read it and whose opinions I respect, I've come to the conclusion that a few quite minor alterations could improve it a lot. The bulk of the text will remain exactly as it is because I'm still happy with it and stand by every word. The alterations to be made are regarding the cover, introduction, and ideally the insertion of a foreword written by someone who gets what this project is about and can see the potential it has.

Two people said pretty much the same thing about the cover which currently depicts a gravestone carrying text that laments what we've lost; democracy, industriousness and even handedness etc. 'Just two readers and you're altering the book as a result you may be thinking; can the bloke be that easily persuaded?' I agree with them which is why I'm biting the bullet on this particular issue. Both said the present cover is clever, but the gravestone gives off a negative vibe, which was not my intention and so must be addressed. When I asked others to be honest about it, opinions were split about 50/50. That set me thinking about an image that couldn't be mistaken as anything other than positive and after much mulling over, a pretty neat idea has come to mind that I'm set to get worked up by a professional book cover artist.

A new Introduction has been written that if I say so myself, is the dogs dangly bits and will replace the current one.

The first version only has a bit of musing on my part where a proper foreword ought to be, so now I'm going to address that issue and seek to gain the endorsement of a person with clout I've a great deal of respect for. The man I'd love to write it has been approached and all I can do is wait and see if he responds. A paragraph or two, or ideally a whole page would do it! The person concerned is a personal hero of mine and played a part sparking this whole project off, so to gain his approval would be a dream come true.

We're in a shocking mess as a country, with no genuine or even window dressing effort being applied towards the task of allowing generations to come a worthwhile future. My book has a lot to say on that account and could only do good if I can get it into circulation and make people aware of what we could, and should, be doing about it. It's about fighting our own and our kids corner at the end of the day.

The new intro is ready, the artwork is clear in my minds eye and just needs to be drawn up properly, and I'm pretty certain the foreword writer I'd love to do it will get where I'm coming from if I can just get his attention. I really need to crack on with this and will be placing small adds in carefully chosen newspapers and magazines to promote it. All it will take is one high profile celebrity, journalist, or businessperson to take an interest and the blue touch-paper will have effectively been lit. There is no reason we shouldn't sort this country out and give our children the future they deserve.

Wasted energy...

Every other Tuesday I get to co-present a phone-in programme on internet radio station www.vectisradio.co.uk  the aim of which is bring a positive mindset to a range of problems and instead of tolerating 'more of the same' and deepening decline, look instead for solutions.

One of the regular callers to the programme is a woman called Clare whose favourite topics are the EU, Immigration, and Islamists/Jihad. The response she gets to her points are about equally split between supporters and opponents which to my way of thinking just goes to show how much energy Brits waste finger pointing and rowing rather than focusing on the issues themselves and dealing with them meaningfully.

Take the EU for instance. For decades the row about continuing membership has gone on whilst politicians stir the pot every now and again and keep it simmering. Why? Is it because powerful vested interests are tickling our senior politicians under the chin, whispering in their ears 'let the peasants row on' because as long as they continue doing so we can carry on business as usual? If we truly did live in the democracy so many sacrifices were made for by our forebears, our politicians would want to lance this energy wasting boil and settle the matter one way or the other. Most of us know of course what the result of such a vote would be, which is why we're not being given the democratic right to have our say and the collective view once made clear, acted on. That said, if the vote did go in favour of keeping the EU straitjacket on and the result was unchallengeable having been transparently fair, as a democrat I'd have to accept it. But that won't happen and the powers that be know it, hence the reason the issue festers on and is set to continue doing so.

Immigration, Islamism and Jihad figured large on Clare's programme as was inevitable and resulted with the expected division of comments via emails and Face Book. All of these seemingly unsolvable problems could be settled in a fair and democratic way but sad to say the hour was gone in a flash and the aimed for constructive approach never had a chance to be aired. I've been thinking about it a lot in the hours since and will make those thoughts the subject of the next programme.

Benefits Street

Benefits Street on C4 has created quite a stir since it first went to air and has become the most commented upon TV programme of our time. People are hopping mad at the on-screen antics and the certain knowledge that each and every taxpayer is footing the bill for it.

Anyone that hasn't seen the programme I would urge to force themselves to sit through an episode, but look beyond the people to the surroundings and circumstances they exist with. It's not hard to imagine what that very same street would have looked like a generation or two ago when it unquestioningly would have been clean, tidy and respectable. The area of Birmingham in question is, or was, mixed residential/industrial/commercial and this street just as the others close by, would have housed the labour force for what had been an industrial powerhouse of a city.

When MG/Rover collapsed in 2005 six thousand workers lost their jobs. At its peek that company alone employed at least ten times as many, and these were all 'head of household' standard jobs. Not minimum wage in need of tax credits to subsidise lousy wages jobs, but proper self-supporting ones. Some will no doubt argue the company was over-manned and bound to go bust eventually. To counter that I'd say, how come the Germans can employ vast workforces and make their enterprises profitable, despite the cost of labour in their country being the most expensive in Europe? The difference is one of attitude. German leadership has a can do and must attitude, whereas Britain has been for three to four decades at least, blighted by the standard of leadership in command with the inevitable consequence that we are now up to our necks in the mess of their creation.

MG /Rover was just one company amongst a multitude of others that residential roads such as James Turner Street, Birmingham, B18 housed the workforces for. Now the majority of those industries are gone, replaced by minimum wage shelf stacking jobs, or benefits paid out for no return of labour at all; and we wonder why society has gone so wrong?

We are all guilty of allowing ourselves to lead by the nose and encouraged to snigger and sneer at the feckless whilst shaking our heads in disgust at their goings on. The national news follows close behind the program, which is where the real villains of our time can be viewed. Politicians and senior businessmen who like to lead the head shaking and display mock disgust, when they are the ones responsible for letting the country get into such a state in the first place!

All those who feature on Benefits Street are victims. They are for the most part simple folk who need the stability only proper leadership can provide, but which is entirely absent and has been for many years. Saddest of all are the children who really don't stand a chance and they remember; are the future. 

Potholes, apt metaphor for the state of Britain in general.

Not that many years ago, driving a car or riding a motorcycle / pushbike around the roads of Britain could be, and for most of us was, a pleasurable experience. Now we have to contend with highways in a shocking state of disrepair as a result of little if any maintenance for a decade at least.

Driving today has ceased to be a pleasure because we must be permanently alert for holes and ruts which is an unnecessary hassle no motorist or cyclist ought to have to worry about. My own driving style has changed and adapted because of the new circumstances and now includes swerving to avoid holes some of which resemble small craters. Its a common technique to be seen wherever a line of traffic is attempting to cover ground without damaging their pride and joy and without getting hurt. Fail to spot a pothole in time on an unfamiliar stretch or road, or in the face of an oncoming vehicle making avoidance impossible, we slam in. A wrecked tyre, buckled wheel, broken spring may result and in the worst scenario, a motorist or rider may be thrown out of control with perhaps serious consequences.

As a matter of interest, the snap above was taken in June 2013 on the B3330 Calthorpe Road, Isle of Wight close by my house. Someone had marked the damage with white paint presumably for repair purposes. All this while later in January 2014, no one has been near it with a bucket of tar but on the contrary, months or torrential rain and one or two freezes have reduced the road to a moonscape for a quarter of a mile either side of the spot. Its a 'road' that is quite frankly now suited to donkey carts and little else, and still there is no sign of the repair men attending.

Quite a metaphor for the country isn't it? Our roads are broken because this part of our infrastructure has been starved of cash. Such irresponsible governance was always going to catch up with us and now it has. Don't invest enough into education / health / social services / defence etc and watch the whole system grind to a halt and go down the tubes. Ultimately don't invest in the up and coming generation and unless that matter is addressed and put right, the generation we're all expecting to take over responsibility for the country in due course will inherit what exactly?

Address this mess we must, and to do so will require an entirely new set of attitudes especially where the mind-set of leadership is concerned.      


    

Former US defence secretary Robert Gates's comment.

Viewed through the mist from close by my home on the Isle of Wight, this was the day in May 2013 when HMS Ark Royal was dragged by tugs out of Portsmouth and hauled away to be scrapped in Turkey. She still had at least a decade of good service in her but once reduced to razor blades, of no use at all to the defence of Britain.

 

Yesterday former United States defence secretary Robert Gates made clear his concerns at the decimation of Britain's defence capability which is leaving us vulnerable and will make us incapable of operating as a partner in world policing operations. He is of course right. Mr Cameron meanwhile dismissed what had been said and claimed all is hunky-dory. It just goes to show how handicapped we are by our own self-deluding politicians.     



2014... drifting towards ever deeper chaos, or making the effort to get a grip?

2013 was a funny old year that seemed to race past in a flash and didn't allow me the time I've enjoyed and made the most of in previous years to write and compile material for this project. During the summer period the decision was made to take on some premises and utilise them as 'dual purpose' both to work from at my conventional job and as a base from which to promote SNM. Fitting the place out and getting it up and running, pretty much wiped out the second half of the year but at least that task is done now. Signage was completed in mid December which just leaves the grotty peeling paintwork to tidy up and make the place look respectable. I'm pleased with the stencilling on the windows but it needs some dark fabric or mesh behind it to make it stand out and be readable for motorists sat at a red traffic light directly outside and that I'll attend to this week.

2014; what will it hold? Our borders have just been thrown open to Romanians and Bulgarians and caused a frenzy both in the media and amongst the citizenry. Watching the left and the right jumping up and down has been quite frankly, and will continue to be no doubt, really quite depressing. The right are very predictable but more interesting are the overly idealistic left, always on a hair-trigger to point the finger and scream 'racists and bigots' at anyone daring to complain at the destructive ridiculousness of open borders, they operating from the false belief that they occupy the moral high ground, which they don't. My own view is straightforward, I believe membership of the EU long ago ceased to benefit Britain's best interests but serves those of a powerful minority determined to have their way, and that majority rule and interests should apply which must lead ultimately to escape. Lets have a vote on it, it's called DEMOCRACY. An independent nation has the right and duty to control its own borders, which would lance this nasty festering boil and allow stability to return. I don't object to foreign born citizens living and working in Britain but they should be thoroughly vetted before entering and be subject to work visas. If you've got a criminal record or cannot prove a healthy work ethic you don't get in. And should you come to the attention of the law or expect to claim undeserved benefits whilst here, your leave to remain is questioned and you can expect to be asked to leave.

In September Scots will vote on so called 'Independence' that is in reality nothing of the sort because Alex Salmond will be fully and firmly under the thumb of the EU. We're just nine months away from the UK being potentially torn apart whilst still, even now at the eleventh hour, the powerful argument against fragmentation based around the concept of 'divide and rule' isn't being fired up but must be.

We're just 18 months away from another General Election which means 2014 will be vital in determining what will happen. Presently Cameron and Osborne think they're going to win and probably will unless the British wake up to reality. They're claiming to have sorted the economy out, which is fantasy. Millions working for peanuts, millions more abandoned with no hope existing on sink estates and attending sink schools, a trade deficit that tells the truth about our broken and non-creative economy, the entire economy run according to the demands of the very same financiers who pinned Britannia down over a barrel and have been shafting her since Thatcher's monetarism took hold a third of a century ago, our civilisation dismantled, the cost of servicing the vast debt Thatcher is ultimately responsible for; success? Cameron and Osborne deserving another five years? They deserve the boot as do the whole political establishment all of which handicaps us and a fresh outlook on politics be empowered.

I've a gut feeling that by the end of 2014 our national decline and acceptance of failure may be at last have started to be arrested and some common sense on these and other vital issues will be in the air. Mine is just one voice in the wilderness at present but there are plenty more like me, and if we can begin to sing from the same song sheet we will become capable of being heard and ultimately make one hell of a noise.  It must happen!

Combining work and 'leisure'.

Crikey; have just realised how long it is since I updated this blog but I do have a good excuse.
Without the support of a publisher to help promote the idea that it really is time to take matters in hand and stop the rot (understatement of the millennium) I made up my mind back in August to take on a small shop in my home town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight, and combine work and pleasure under one roof. I work as a Hand Engraver to the Silversmith's Industry by trade, which is an interesting job but when all is said and done, is merely the way I earn a crust and pay my way. Pleasure/passion/duty comes from writing and is way more important to my way of thinking because of the topic. Britain, its condition, and what future generations stand to inherit drives this project and I guess many will agree that subject matter is pretty damned important!

So anyway; alongside working normally in order to pay the mortgage etc, I have also been grafting away to sort the shop out. Only a sign above the door and some stencilled wording on the windows remains to be done and will be by this time next week. A very nice man is coming to measure up on Tuesday and once done, the new 'work and pleasure premises' will be up and running. I am pleasantly surprised at the amount of people already aware of the place before signage is even up, and before any advertising has been published. Come on in and pick up a copy of Sheep No More for goodness sake or get it as an eBook from Amazon!! Income from sales will earn credibility and this will ultimately allow the project to begin developing towards realising its true potential. Working towards saving the inheritance of our own children and their children; could there be anything more vital?