Failing to learn

'Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it', the saying goes. In some cases, very recent history, as in a comment on a blog post I read yesterday, advocating internment for Islamic 'jihadis' in the UK. Brilliant, because we all remember how stunningly successful internment was in Northern Ireland - successful, that is, in driving recruitment and fundraising for the various paramilitary organisations involved in 'The Troubles'. If a country wanted to actively encourage the radicalisation of a generation of Muslims​, or any other cultural group, for that matter, throwing them in detention without charge for an indefinite period of time couldn't be bettered, as far as I can see, as a mechanism for doing it. And that's before we begin to discuss 'thin end of the wedge' issues like who gets interned next, at governmental whim.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Five minutes

Just five minutes, that's all I'd ask, alone in a room with this vile excuse for a human being. He'd get more than the so-called 'gay agenda' shoved down his worthless throat.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Is the muse awakening from her slumber?

Over the past few days, I've felt something that has been absent for a disconcertingly​ long time - the urge to write fiction. It started in the shower, of all places, as I was getting ready for work one morning earlier in the week, with an idea for continuing my stalled second long story, probably already half or a little more as long as Alexandrine and nowhere near completion, coming to mind. I hope I can find the perspiration as much as the inspiration to continue, because I think it could really amount to something as a story, although I have no doubt at all that it wouldn't appeal to anything resembling a 'general audience' because of much of its subject matter. Can I do it? Maybe, but, were I a gambling man, I wouldn't put too much money on there ever being a denouement.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

2017

The post as well as the year - this is my 2017th post in this blog. Not, really, that I've got anything much to say - I'm in the throes of yet another motivational dip, fuelled by the knowledge that the things I could write about are more of the same old, same old. The brightest light on the horizon is that K will be back at home in a couple of weeks time, and, as things stand at the moment, she should be around for pretty much the whole summer, but, thereafter, she'll be moving to 'uni-town'​ permanently - until the end of her course, anyway - and I'll be moving out of the flat as well, although where to is decidedly vague at the moment. Alone again, naturally, as the old song goes.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

There's no escape except death

From my benighted situation, that is. My phone rang while I was at work yesterday evening, and although we're not supposed to take personal calls while actually doing the job, when I saw who the caller was, I answered it regardless. Because the call was from my ex, the first time she's rung me for months. My concern was that something had happened to herself or K, but it immediately became clear that she had other fish to fry. In a nutshell, she wants money. A lot of money. As a 'final settlement', in her words. An amount of money I could only generate by cashing my occupational pension in. But to do that, I would have to retire. Which, of course, would leave me with no job, and very little prospect of finding another, given my age and health, and no pension either. To say I wasn't sympathetic is a considerable understatement, but there was an implicit, at least, threat to take the matter to court if she doesn't get what she wants. I knew there was a reason, beyond their being gorgeous, that I should've stuck to boys.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Beyond contemptible

The 'archbigot', my colleague at work whose political views, for want of a better phrase, so often cause me to grit my teeth, may have hit a new low in my estimation this afternoon. He quite openly described yesterday's French presidential election result as 'bad news', before going off on one of his trademark rants about immigrants, people with more melanin in their skin than he has, etc, etc. As far as I'm concerned, the only class of person who would think it a good idea for there to be a neo-Nazi in the Elysee Palace would be another neo-Nazi. In the case of the 'archbigot', such a judgment comes more as confirmation than revelation. The sooner he retires and pisses off the better.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Some encouraging political news, for once

The French electorate have decisively rejected the fascist Le Pen in favour of a pro-EU centrist in Macron in their presidential election. Would that British voters might do the same to May on June 8, but, sadly, the chances of that are infinitesimal to nil - the politics of selfishness, greed, racism and xenophobia are seemingly in the ascendant here at the moment.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another, far-off Saturday

I have written about this before, but the coincidence of another May 6 falling on a Saturday has brought the subject back to my mind over the past day or two. That other Saturday was 45 years ago, when I was the princely age of twelve years and six days, and while I had, at the time, no understanding of the significance of what happened that sunny afternoon on a school cricket ground in my home county, it was the precursor to the issue that has had arguably the most deleterious effect on my life ever since. Because it was the first day that I found myself entranced by a boy. He was my age to within no more than a few months, given that he was playing for his school's age group team against the equivalent team from my school, so the fact that guys his age and a little either way would become my delight, my heartache, my downfall, psychologically if not literally, couldn't have been known at that point. Had I had some implausible 'crystal ball' moment, though, and somehow discerned what my life was going to be like, I'd have gone home that night and found some means of ending it all, there and then.
I have no doubt that he wouldn't remember that day, or me, if I had any way of contacting him, but it's absolutely fixed in my consciousness. Until my dying day, I'll never forget you, G.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wide ranging

After the prefatory stuff I mentioned in the last post, my best birthday present came yesterday, as I spent a good part of the May Day bank holiday with K. We didn't do anything particularly out of the ordinary in terms of activities, spending plenty of time over a very leisurely late lunch, but the scope of our conversation was wide, to say the least, ranging from Schrödinger's Cat via theories of the evolutionary basis of religious belief to the baby clothes section at Primark. I love my girl unconditionally, of course, but I love her all the more for being as bright and interesting as she is. My world is a much better place for it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B