I was never Mother Mary, Mr Furlong was never Joseph

Our Nativity careers at school were pretty crummy.

Only the appealing children got the best parts!

Mr Furlong vaguely remembers possibly being a shepherd once, but never Joseph, or even a King offering myrrh and frankincense to baby Jesus lying in the manger.

I was a scrawny, gangly creature with knobbly knees, pale white blond. Everyone knows Mary had long dark hair and was pretty. And her knees were perfect. I was never Mary.

One would have thought with my white blond looks I could at least have been the Angel Gabriel?

Mr Furlong was lucky to be a shepherd (once) (he thinks). My role was mostly well covered – something to do with the back end of the donkey, or a large chicken with knobbly knees.

I am only remembering this because we are watching the ridiculous movie called ‘Nativity’ on BBC 2. It proves that the Nativity was, contrary to tradition, a heck of a lot of fun.

Mr Furlong and I didn’t know that. It wasn’t fun like that in our day. I think the real Mary and Joseph missed out too. For us, annually, it was a time of disappointment, mortification and humiliation.

I’m glad things seem to be changed.

The best role in the Nativity is to be Baby Jesus. He’s never hurt, disappointed, stage frightened, nor otherwise emotionally blighted for life.

He’s just a plastic doll.

I believe

I have been observing stuff.

To those who believe there’s a world wide take over and reset of society, by the elites. I believe.

To those who believe Covid-19 is a huge hoax for doing the above reset, I believe.

To those who believe some people are making a huge profit from lockdown and encouraging it, I believe.

To those who believe face masks, mass testing, all testing, is a load of bolony, I believe.

To those who believe scientists worldwide advising governments on lockdowns, testing and generating stats, are displaying the symptoms of group insanity, I believe.

To those who believe MSM are guilty of serious collusion to manicure public thinking and they are in gahoots with dark forces, I believe.

To those who believe Trump won the election, and fraud is afoot, I believe.

To those who believe vaccination is the best profit generator yet and vaccines are harmful, I believe.

To those who believe technology has become our enemy, that we should reduce it worldwide because AI will replace us, I believe.

To those who believe ‘experts’ of any kind should be retired immediately they think they are experts, I believe.

To those who believe the rise of sciences, critical theories and academia as a power, is producing a deranged Marxist political culture, I believe.

I believe it all.

I believe everything, all conspiracies of every kind. And more. There might come a point, where I will know why the stuff out there that I’ve been observing is the way it is – very odd.

One, if not all the above, must be correct.

De Press ing

I had a laugh yesterday.

Mr Trump, from the start of his office , has criticised the press. They lie, they publish fake news, they twist facts. Of course, the press have accused him of doing the same thing.

The press do not like Trump.

There is nothing like the press scorned!

Even though the Trump legal team have outlined the evidence of fraud they claim happened in the election, the press repeatedly call the claim ‘baseless’, giving no evidence as to why they think that. They have purposely imposed a black-out of news about Trump, so that us readers might begin to believe Trump is doing nothing rather than being busy trying to drain the swamp.

Or only playing golf.

But yesterday there was an amusing incident.

Trump tweeted to his followers, of which I am one, that he’d completed his scheduled meeting early, and that, now, he was going to play golf. Which he did.

In the UK, the TV announced that Trump was only playing golf, implying he was shirking on the golf course, while all the other world leaders were in conference.

Later, the same station reported what a swine Trump was for refusing to fall in line with the other world leaders at the conference. (Well, they didn’t use the word ‘swine’.) And they reported on things he said at it!

Which shows you what?

It showed me Trump was spot on all the time – The press lie, they  publish fake news, they twist facts.

I have enjoyed Trump. He made politics interesting. It is reported by those more knowledgeable than me, that he’s done some really good things for the USA; one of them being not to simply fall in line with world leader swamp dwellers.

There are constant ways we see that the press lie, publish fake news, and twist facts. They mould our thought by what they publish according to their agenda.

They induce strife, discord, violence, mayhem, make saints out of sinners and sinners out of saints. They are sensation feeders. And we believe them.

Ultimately, they are the power. Offend them, and you will be ruined.

It’s de press ing.

I’m not really dreaming of Christmas 2020

I see the UK Government got challenged as to why they are trying to make Christmas “nice” when Diwali, Hanukkah, Eid were “nasty” because of Covid restrictions.

Well, I would suggest that it’s because White British is the largest group in the UK, with 45.1 million people (80.5 per cent) in it. 59.3% of the population (33.2 million people) identify as Christian. For all those people, the MAJORITY, Christmas is THEIR celebration.

That’s why there are complaints about the Christmas ads from all the big stores. None of them with actual people in them, are white people!

Talk about cultural expropriation! Everyone is having a good old Christmas, except the natives!

It’s called bending over blackwards! Its so obvious it’s embarrassing – for everyone.

It might be a laugh for some.

But it isn’t really funny.

Is it?

My Paludarium

I found a strange piece of moss in an orchid someone gave me for rescucitation. It had been planted in a glass bowl of ‘green stuff’. Orchids don’t grow well in ‘green stuff’ slopping around in water so I presumed the ‘green stuuf’ was decorative. So I repotted the orchid and kept the ‘green stuff’.

The green stuff turned out to be Java moss. It’s great fun. It enjoys growing. In fact it likes growing so much, it grows in water and on land. It grows without oxygen. It has no roots. It’s so happy growing, it will grow on anything as long as you hold it down somehow. Otherwise it simply floats around just ‘being’ in water. In air, it needs a bog to attach to. Water, bog, marsh, high humidity is what it likes. I made a moss garden with it. I made it in an enclosed bowl. It is still in the inidentifiable black marsh that it came in from the florist who first planted an orchid in it.

But now my adventures proceed.

I have made a paludarium. Paludarium

Well, I think of it as such.

In the base of my bottle is slate, water and a piece of florist ‘green stuff’ growing in my water area. Then, I picked some tiny dead branches on my walk with lichens, moss and ‘things’ growing on them and planted them in my slate bog. And lastly, I threw over a branchlet, a tiny shawl of Java moss. This little shawl of ‘green stuff’ hanging in the air, might not work because it is not in water, nor in bog, but just in super humidified air.

I hope my happymoss will grow there too.

Here’s a very bad photo taken with my very cheap phone. The happymoss is dangling over the lowest branch to the front, the other moss is just, well, moss!

Einstein is back – and, boy, has he grown!

The rat that figured out how to get out of our humane trap, and did so regularly, disappeared when we stopped feeding our birds.

But so many birds are back here after reaping the autumn harvest in the countryside around here, that we have put out food again.

Simultaneously, the council mowed down the thick undergrowth all along the canal path. The inhabitants have had to move house.

One of them, Einstein, I think, had a brilliant idea. He thought to himself ,

“I remember the fine repasts I used to partake of night after night at the house along the road there. Ill just take a gander, and see if the doddery old mugs are still there. (Sniff sniff) They have such a stupid dog, I’ll be quite safe eating in their caged restaurant. (Sniff sniff) Mmmm, that smells familiar! Ah, yes look! Nice grub, I’ll just scramble up this old dead creeper, and I can nosh all those yummy fatballs while the mugs and their stupid dog are sleeping. (Sniff sniff) Ah, YUMMY!”

Well, the mugs have been watching through the window.

They are appalled at how large Einstein has grown. And he’s not welcome here.

So

there are two options.

We set the trap in the hope that Einstein has become so obese, he’ll never make it out again, or has forgotten the escape code. And then, we take a drive somewhere during lockdown (for a very valid reason, and not just for fun you understand), and release him somewhere in the Lakes. ( Lake District Tourist’s delight, not for drowning rats!)

Or

we phone the Council and ask them to retrieve their lost property!

Election Special

I can’t sleep. It’s been so exciting!

I’ve been interested in politics since I was nine years old (about) when I watched police brutality happening next door through a peephole in our fence, and my Mother said “We can’t stop it. It’s the ‘Government’ “

It seemed to me then, the ‘Government’ must be a really terrible thing if it could do that to people. My opinion hasn’t changed. What governments do to people is the thing. The leader of a government seems immaterial. Government POLICY is the thing.

In the Furlong family we have political disagreement. I’m wrong it seems. I thought Trump should be allowed to finish another four years of Republicanism. But evidently, I didn’t know Trump was ‘evil incarnate’, a liar, a fake christian, full of cruelty and hatred, who had split the country apart. I just thought he was a badly behaved narcissist being a temporary leader of the Republican Party. I thought Republicans were Conservatives and the Democrats were Socialists.

In the USA, Democrats want a sort of Green New Deal, upping the minimum wage, universal basic income, free public colleges and universities, state supported abortion, Obamacare, taxation on the wealthy. It’s soft on immigration, keen on legislation, favours internet control, censorship. It’s “left” whatever that means nowdays. Kamala Harris is a hot shit leftie. She will be the first female acting president if Biden snuffs it.

The Republicans want lower taxes, free market capitalism, gun rights, restriction on abortions, deregulation in general, less laws, restrictions on labour unions, increased military spending. They oppose drug legalisation, want to eliminate government run welfare and promote personal responsibilty and traditional values. It favours Medicaid. Trump is the first President not to wage any war. He is rated the worst President ever. He probably is, but he’s been very entertaining.

Republicans have won 24 of the last 40 presidential elections. They couldn’t be so bad. As an old person, I think personal responsibility, the work ethic, entrepreneurial reward, meritocracy, traditional values, spirituality, true grit and the least amount of intrusion into our lives by legislation is a good thing.

So really, if I lived in the USA, I would have voted Trump. I favour free speech however daft. And I forsee all the politically correct nonsense getting really powerful under a woman acting president. Kamala Harris is the Democrats’ Trojan Horse!

You can’t trust young women in politics nowadays. Many modern women have gone soft in the head.

The Ides of March are upon us.

Why you can’t be anything you want.

In the old days, very old days, people knew their place.

Dick Whittington might have gone off to seek his fortune and become a mayor, but that was a rare thing – very rare – so rare that it became a legend.

We do a cruel thing nowadays to my mind. We tell our children they can do, and be anything they want – to dream the impossible dream.

We lie.

Let me tell you, that as a disabled person (though I have never thought of myself as such), I know there are things I cannot do. Tough shit for me. I don’t expect the rest of the world to accomodate me because it is my ‘right’.

Many years ago, I taught in Africa. I taught adults in factories, high school kids trying to get matriculation, and also a group of teenagers from the township nearby who wanted to improve their matriculation English.

They were a mottley bunch of boys, those kids. One Saturday morning, as we all sat around the table, we were discussing dreams of the future. Most of the boys had modest, achievable dreams. They wanted to be soccer stars, or train in IT, or become teachers.

In that group, there was one boy who stood out. He was very slow, mentally. He had no humour when there were jokes. He wore the thickest coke bottle bottom glasses I have ever seen and was sight disabled. But he was neatly dressed and wore an expensive watch so he must have presumably come from a good home.

When the question came round to him of what he wanted to be when he left school, he said

“I am going to become a surgeon.”

No ifs or buts, no limitations.

“I am going to become a surgeon”

“Why are you inspired to become a surgeon?” I asked noticing the boys were not sniggering, but looking at him with serious attention. The chap was deadly serious.

“My parents say I can do it. I can be anything I want. I’m going to medical school, university, to become a surgeon”

At that moment, I realised what parental cruelty is. It is telling your child that they can achieve something impossible.

What happened to that lad? I don’t know.

But I fear he was wounded emotionally by deep disappointment.

You can be anything you want to become in life, according to your life circumstances. Assessing those things is a really important step in discovering happiness.

I think.

Frost and frogs

In Africa, the Furlong family lived in a large house on a smallholding next to virgin bush. Looking back, the Furlong children had the most nutritious upbringing there. I say nutritious because they grew up with the experiences of freedom, animals, adventure and nature. The house was 1910 Freestyle architecture, delapidated but beautiful. The people who built it must have had money, for it had a swimming pool and it originally had a garage for a tiny Ford.

At the pool, were two large cement frogs circa 1910, keeping guard. I brought the frogs to the UK. I have always liked frogs. In Africa, after rain, the frogs sang us to sleep and woke us in the morning. There are plenty of frogs in Africa. There was never frost where we lived.

This morning, here, in Cumbria, we have had our first frost. The large African frogs still guard our garden. They are covered with mosses and lichen now. And frost – probably.

Over the years, we have had ornamental plastic frogs too. In the summer, one of them used to move around the garden all by itself. It was a mystery that was solved when the dog Bass came bounding into the house with it in his mouth one day and proceeded to gnaw off the green plastic eyebrow on our cream sofa.

That frog now lives on a shelf in the shed.

The cement frogs will survive the winter as they have now for over twenty years. In twenty years I have only seen one real live frog in our last garden. It was an ‘event’ of great magnitude!

Our African frogs are very reliable. They never move about. They have developed camouflage that makes them even more beautiful to my eyes and they will survive the frost.

And I might find one in the undergrowth of dying weeds that have taken over the Furlong garden when I get round to attending to the mess.

Damn doors.

The Furlongs live in a ground floor flat that was built in the early 1950’s. Everything about it has been constructed with the idea (presumably) that WW11 was possibly not over and that a stray bomber might target this building in the future.

It is what one might call well built. Every wall is real. There is no fake anything anywhere. Someone must have replaced the windows at some time, and in our flat, all the doors are special for people with disabilities to be able to open, and get through. The bathroom is both a bathroom and a wetroom. This is very convenient if one has grandchildren to stay, if any grandchildren could stay, that is. You can make a good old water mess in our bathroom. No probs.

I like our flat because it is already prepared for us as we slide into decrepancy. And I already have a disability.

On the other hand, my sister lives in a really posh place. It’s an upstairs flat with a lift. Mmm fancy that? It looks good. Its roomy. It has wonderful views of the river. And unlike our place, it’s clean!

I visit my sister twice a week. I’m her only visitor, apart from the carer, the cleaner, the hairdresser, the chiropodist, etc. We have deep and wonderful discussions. Its all very satisfactory, except for one thing.

HER place is modern. It’s made of paper and cardboard. Every door in her place is a fire door. As I get increasingly weak and feeble, I have to hurl my shoulder at the firedoor in the passage between the lift and her front door to get through it. By the time I have recovered from the effort of that, I hardly have any strength to hang my coat up through the firedoor that leads to her hall bathroom. If I lived there, I’d be all collapsed by ten in the morning, if I could get out of bed at all.

Anyway, my shoulder injury from Saturday’s visit should be feeling better by Wednesday.