Date: Saturday 5th September 2020
Location: Northwood
Specifically: Rubbing Germolene onto a sore head caused by bashing it repeatedly against furniture.
Warning! Explosive content! Do not read if you
have a short fuse.
Today is going to be a good day. I can sense it as I gaze into the blue skies outside my window while nursing a nice cup of tea and watching a documentary about murderers. At least I'm awake, if being bleary eyed, weary and dozy to the point of feeling as if my IQ has dropped from *165 to 23 may be described as such, (What?). I'm also feeling relaxed and happy and ready to start the day. It takes a bit of willpower to kick off the duvet but I finally manage it and float out of bed over to the kitchen area. Nothing like a decent breakfast to start the day and since it's the weekend I am going to have the works! 6x rashes of bacon, 2x eggs, fried bread, 3x hash browns, black pudding, tomatoes and several slices of bread (white!) and, for the sake of nutritional balance I will probably also throw in a slice of brown bread (fits in well with the murderer documentary) OR if Rachael is reading this - fruit juice, one slice of melba toast and a grape. But first I need another cup of tea - might just make me feel a bit more awake. I grab a mug, throw in a T Bag, fill the kettle, turn on the gas and .........
..........nothing
No hissing when I turn on the gas
Pilot light on the fridge is flashing red (I know the feeling and it aint a good sign)
Warning Light is flashing on Hymie's control panel
Head banging against inanimate objects (although this is a voluntary action on my part)
Conclusion
NO GAS!
I know! Dumb isn't it? I mean, it's not like I woke up to find that Hymie had abandoned me during the night and left me lying on the grass or anything, we're talking about the very simple action of swapping one gas cylinder for another. I even have the spare cylinder so it's not as if I need to go on a gas hunt. But this is just the way I am. A compulsive procrastinator ("No - that's p.r.o.c.r.a.s.t.i.n.a.t.o.r love not the word you're thinking of"). Most people would just go "hey ho bleeding gas has gone off I'll just nip out to swap the bottles over - it'll only take a second"). But I hate doing anything I don't want to do I'm too old for that sort of thing. So my initial reaction tends to be "Argh bl**dy, bl*****g, f**k, just when I was looking forward to a nice breakfast the b*****g chu****g gas has to run out. Now I will have to physically, put my b****y shoes on and go outside to swap the tw*****g cylinders over. Worra total b*****d!
Back in the bricks and mortar house I would simply have contacted the gas company Specsavers (well you never know these days do you?) . They would have arrived within about three months (and at an unspecified time) and ensured my gas supply was connected and ready to go. Not so with a moho where pretty much everything is DIY. Remember that if you ever decide to be a van-lifer.
Resigned to my fate at the task ahead I nip outside; open the door to the gas cylinder housing, remove the used cylinder and swap it for the full one. I then fasten the pipe to connect the gas, open the valve and .......
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Bugger!!! WTAF!???
I unscrew the pipe and refasten it x3.
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"ooh bloody hell!"
I unscrew the pipe and refasten it x2.
Pssssssssssssss
"£@£$$£@^&*&^"
I unscrew the pipe and refasten it x1.
hissss
("Hmm better but it’s still leaking gas - can't use it like that. Will need to get it looked at")
I entertain a humorous thought about checking it out with a cigarette lighter then think about what I really need to do! Well - I could go and put a match to the hob and hope for the best but something tells me this might not be a good idea. Instead I check the pipe that connects the gas supply. The fault is obvious. My ring piece has dropped off.
Nothing for it. I planned to spend most of the day catching up on my blog posts but sorting out the gas comes first. I arrive at 'Cadstones' only to find the gate is padlocked shut. I assume this was like a previous ocassion where they maybe close for lunch and display the 'Back at 1.30 p.m.' sign. No such luck - they're closed full stop and, worse, they aren't open again until Monday! Extremely b****y hell! why do things always go boobies up over the weekend!?
To avoid a complete wasted journey I drive to Aldi - it's only just down the road. Except I get lost! I know don't say anything I feel like a daft t**t as it is. Half an hour of driving up hill and down dale (poor chap but at least I called an ambulance) and I finally arrive at my favourite grocery store (canny cheap but short on choice). One thing that does frustrate me though is the lack of checkouts or, more to the point, finding one that's actually staffed. I mean - the place has so many checkouts it could pass for a small airport but you try finding one that's open. I swear I've never seen more than two open at a time - you'd think the queues of people stretching all the way through the store and disappearing out the back of the warehouse would give them a clue but no. Still they do at least seem to have the fastest checkout operators I've ever seen.
CRIME WRITING
You may have noticed that I seem to be posting a fair bit of crime related stuff. This is due to watching lots of true crime dramas, movies and documentaries. This is how I am. I tend to get fixated on certain things. It can last for a few days, months or even years - and when it does it influences and informs my creative streak - "hey you - yes you, creative streak, get off yo ass and write something funny about folks getting bumped off!"
So have I learned anything from 15 seasons of 'Forensic Files', four seasons of 'Lady Killers' several You Tube documentaries and watching 'Wolf Creek' (based on the backpack murderer), Monster (Aileen Wuornos) and An American Crime' (Gertrude Baniszewski & the murder of teenager Sylvia Likens) plus others that I've forgotten about over the years.
The following is just my opinion feel free to interact/argue via the forum...
The defendant showed no remorse
One of the things that has always baffled me about the conclusion of a murder trial is where reporters will say something like "Tommy Felonii showed no remorse as he was led away to begin his 25 year prison sentence". Assuming that the most obvious way of recognising remorsefulness is through weeping and crying what exactly are people expected to do? A courtroom is an austere environment in order that both prosecution and defence may put their cases to the jury in an objective manner. In fact it would be fair to say that emotions are actually frowned upon.
Men in particular, are taught from a very early age that showing emotion is unmanly, as John Wayne said frequently in the movie 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon "never apologise, it's a sign of weakness' . So it's hardly surprising that people would be reluctant to display emotion in front of others and especially in an open courtroom.
Status of forensic science
Another thing that bothers me is the way in which forensic science is portrayed as the best thing since cream buns for solving crime. It's hardly surprising given the long standing tradition in Western societies that anything science based must be reliable, accurate and infallible. It's no coincidence, for example, that science is so frequently exploited by the advertising industry 'this product works because it's based on scientific evidence!'.
Now throw in TV shows like Forensic Files, Forensic Investigators and Deadly Women (to name but a few) that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness. The message is 'humans might lie through their teeth but forensic evidence science will always tell the truth' or 'No matter what you do forensic science will always catch up with you in the end' Shows like CSI Miami take things a stage further by creating the illusion that forensics is also a speedy process "You're nicked sunshine we just took one of your fag ends round to forensics this morning and its come back positive. Youre goin down!" This is going to be a real shocker for anyone who enters forensics believing this (and I've met quite a few who do). They'll change their minds when they're going through 15,000 stinking bin bags in January searching for a DNA sample on a pair of stained underpants.
Beware of the 'Experts'
Along the same theme are the oft quoted findings from 'experts'. It's almost impossible to pick up a work of non-fiction, report or watch any sort of documentary without seeing references like "experts agree that ... ", "Dr Dee Generate the worlds leading authority on knicker theft argues that .........., or "top scientists have claimed that aliens will have and so on. Our society teaches us that the comments/findings made by educated persons should not only be regarded as accurate but accepted without question.
It's an assertion thats probably true in most cases but not always. In 1969 Alfred Steinschneider was seeking an explanation for why some babies died unexpectedly within the first year of birth - usually in the cot during sleep. He asserted that this could be explained by some babies having respiratory problems. Many of the infants were found face down in the cot where they had suffocated. SIDS wasn't even a diagnosis in the traditional sense - it was a diagnosis by elimination which effectively meant - 'well we can't find any reasons why the baby died so it must be due to SIDS'. This was all very well but it also created a perfect excuse for mothers (usually ones who were suffering from some type of mental health condition such as post-natal depression, paranoid schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder and the like) to murder their children -and get away with it.
Today the definition of SIDS refers to death in a seemingly healthy infant younger than 1 year of age whose death remains unexplained after a thorough case investigation including a complete autopsy, review of medical and clinical history. In other words 'if you suffocated your baby or tried to shorten it's life by some other nefarious means we will know about it'.
Then theres the case of Harold Shipman. No one knows how many elderly people he murdered because he took the cowards way out and took his own life in prison, But one of the reasons he was left to carry on unchecked for so long was due to his status in the community. 'What!? that nice Dr Shipman - guilty of murder, never'.
During the 1950's a German pharmaceutical company began marketing a drug to treat morning sickness in pregnant women. The drug was called thalidomide and was responsible for 1000's of babies being born with horrific birth defects.
Back to forensics and the view that forensic evidence is always accurate. My view is that this a dangerous way to think. Mistakes happen all the time, evidence may be accurate but the results misinterpreted, evidence is sent to private forensic labs around the country which can often lead to incorrect explanations. In 1999 a Canadian doctor John Schneeberger was accused of using sedatives to sexually assault patients. A sample of his DNA was taken and to everyones amazement it did not match the DNA found at the crime scene. It turned out that he had inserted tubes of someone else's blood in his arms to try to cover up the sexual assaults. Had this case been based solely on the DNA obtained form Dr Cheesburger or whatever he's called he would have been found not guilty.
'But I didn't do it!'
Theres a joke often heard in prisons that 90% of inmates are innocent. I'm guessing it's the opposite thats actually true but I continue to be baffled by the number of people who claim "I didn't do it!" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I'm sure it's true in some cases, in fact we know it is judging by the number of miscarriages of justice we read about in the papers and see on the news. Prisoners who have been given early release following the discovery of new evidence or changes in the law. But what about the ones who are actually guilty?
If I might refer to my experience in secondary school teaching. I can pretty much count on one hand the people who would behave inappropriately right in front of your face yet when challenged swear they did absolutely nothing wrong. OK chewing gum, play-fighting in the corridor and talking in class are hardly on a parr with murder but it's worrying that from such a young age people are failing to take responsibility. Who's to say they won't grow up and adopt the same attitude.
We seem to live in a world where people no longer feel any need to restrain their emotions. An attitude personified in modern day sayings like *YOLO, 'Go for it', 'Just do it'. They're meant to be positive - 'carpe diem' and all that but instead those messages get interpreted as 'do whatever you want, wherever and whenever you want and the hell with the consequences. In fact I believe that, for many people, not only do they not care or think about the consequences of their actions they don't feel they should have to face any consequences at all - and that includes murder.
Remember the case of Garry Newlove? In 2007 this loving husband and father of three girls was kicked to death outside his home for trying to reprimand a gang of about 15 boys who were causing a disturbance. He was greeted with abuse from the youths, who’d chanted: ‘Yeah, yeah. What you gonna do?’ Then they’d knocked him to the ground and repeatedly kicked him like a football inflicting 14 blows to the head and causing over 40 internal injuries. All this took place in front of his daughters.
*You Only Live Once
The attackers were given life sentences for Garry Newlove's murder
In August of the same year that Garry Newlove was murdered Sophie Lancaster a 20 year old goth girl and her boyfriend Robert Maltby were walking home though Stubbylee Park in Lancashire when they were set upon by a group of teenage thugs for no other reason than they followed the goth culture. One witness describing the attack said the thugs"were running over and just kicking her ................ and jumping up and down on her head". But for me the most utterly sickening comment came when it was reported that "the killers celebrated their attack on the goths – or "moshers" – by telling friends afterwards that they had "done summat [something] good," and claiming: "There's two moshers nearly dead up Bacup park – you wanna see them – they're a right mess". Indeed they were - both Sophie and Robert were so badly beaten they were unrecognisable yet the pieces of shit responsible acted like excitable teenagers who just got new bikes for Christmas.
Sadly I could go on and on with stories like these but I'm sure you've heard many of them and reacted with the same amount of revulsion that I have felt. I have never been part of the community who complains about being sick of 'bleeding heart liberalism' but, my attitude is fast changing in the light of events like these. I am firmly of the belief that there are certain people in this world who simply have no right to share breathing space with decent human beings. Rehabilitation? You're pulling my leg do you really think that someone who got such a thrill out of murdering someone in the most brutal and horrible of way is worthy or rehabilitating? and even if they are can you be certain that they wouldn't murder soneone esel in the same way. would not simply take someone's life but actually boast about it get a thrill out of it and do it with the same amount of thought given to kicking a beer can into the gutter take someone s life in such a horrible way is someone you want back in society
The final judgement
I have always taken the view that there isn’t a human being on this planet capable of making a judgement on another human being. We simply do not know enough about the way in which the human mind works - either the brain itself or the way it may be affected by social and environmental factors. Who can honestly stand up and say - yes I listened to both sides of a case in an objective and impartial manner without allowing personal values to affect my judgement? Then there are economic factors - the rich can afford the best lawyers while the poor may have to rely on an appointed solicitor who will probably know little or nothing about the client and vice versa. Then there are other factors which affect judgement social class, ethnicity, gender, religion, level of education. Adding to the confusion is the impact of the mass media - newspapers, TV, social media littered with prejudiced comments, wild claims, accusations, misinterpretation and downright lies. I don't know what the answer is? well as I've typed this much I may as well present an idea.
The legal system should have a conviction category especially for criminals who are deemed 'Unfit for Human Habitation'. As far as I'm concerned these people should be euthanised and turned into dog biscuits or (when technology catches up) sent to another planet to survive as best they can. We should not be wasting time and energy trying to talk some sense into filthy scum who are nothing but a drain on scarce resources and taxpayers money. So there.
WORST EXCUSES MADE BY CRIMINALS
On a lighter note I want everyone who reads my blog to sleep peacefully) so we'll finish on a light note. Convicted criminals are renowned for not taking responsibility and will frequently lie to get out of trouble. But sometimes those lies are downright laughable.....
58-year-old Stephen Snell, of Devon, Cornwall denied committing burglary claiming he was out for a late-night walk and would have knocked on the door and asked the owners if he saw anything he wanted. (Devonlive.com 22 SEP 2018)
Shelly Branson of Lyme Road, Uplyme was questioned by police as to why she was found wandering around inside someones house. She told them she was looking for a bicycle pump to fix a flat tyre.On another occasion she asked the owner if he needed labourers for renovation work and on yet another she told the homeowner that she had lost her dog.(Devonlive.com 22 SEP 2018)
A police officer in Six Mile, South Carolina, USA received a report from a concerned citizen that a woman (Tracy Ellenburg) was riding a horse erratically down the middle of the main street. When the officer located her (not difficult since hers was the only horse tied to a bench outside a convenience store) she tottered out into the road clearly intoxicated and claimed that the horse was drunk, not her, and therefore the horse was at fault for the erratic riding.
Ryan Sullivan was caught with dozens of weapons including knuckle dusters, stun guns, and a set of nunchucks in his luggage at Cardiff Airport. When he was arrested the 24-year-old from Ronald Place in Ely told officers the weapons were “holiday souvenirs”. He was jailed for four years. (Source, Wales Online)
Ryan shows off his holiday souvenirs
Emma Carling sprayed bleach out of her window, onto a three-year-old child.
When interviewed by the police she said that she was cleaning her windows and some of the bleach blew away in the wind. (Source, Wales Online)
I don't know which is the funniest here, the excuse or the photo. Kevin Bray was caught on CCTV robbing a betting shop. As he leaped over the counter his trousers slipped showing his bare arse to the CCTV cameras. When caught he told police he could not remember what happened but "felt bad about it". (Source, Wales Online)they
CRAP HAIRCUTS
No3 The Basin
Parents with absolutely no sense of style, short on cash or just sadistic monsters had a sure fire way of cutting hair that would you keep you looking nicely shorn and save them a few quid into the bargain. The 'style' was known as the basin and involved sticking a pudding bowl over your head and cutting off the excess hair poking out of it. This result may have kept the hair looking reasonably tidy but guaranteed you would be a social outcast, fail all your exams and no girls would go out with you.
There you go son that will keep you going for a while.
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