Blood on their hands

Sooner rather than later, I fear. The American electorate has written the death warrants of so many women, non-white people, LGBTQ+ people, Ukrainians, Palestinians, the poor and/or dispossessed, and more. And it gets worse, at least potentially - if (when?)Trump dies/comes incapacitated, the proverbial 'heartbeat away from the presidency' adage would fall to Vance, who is an outright theocratic fascist. As ever, the main problem of democracy is that any moron can vote. Well, America, you've made your bed, now lie in it. 

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A very sad day for the whole world

I woke up to the biggest news item in years this morning, but it was a desperately disappointing result. A golden opportunity to rid the world of one of the most dangerous and toxic people in living memory, wasted. So depressing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Compare and contrast

It's a nice day today, weather-wise, so far (yes, we do get user-friendly days here, even in this predominantly grey and damp part of the world), and I was, rather vacantly, looking out of my sitting room window earlier on. My attention was drawn to one of the local cats, an animal I've seen regularly ever since I moved here. The cat was doing what domestic cats do best in similar situations, luxuriating in a patch of warm sunshine, before languorously washing itself. What a life, I couldn't but help reflecting, all wants and needs requited, food, shelter, affection, comfort. As opposed to my lifestyle, yes, I have got food and shelter, but apart from that, my circumstances aren't that great - no friends or acquaintances, apart from my daughter, who lives 250-odd miles away, indifferent health, even on a good day, a bad knee that makes even walking upstairs to the bathroom painful, and the coup de grace, my aphasia after my stroke, which hampers me so frustratingly in terms of speaking and writing, robbing me of what was one of my few strengths. I know this post probably sounds like self-pity, and maybe it is, but quality of life is a worthwhile aspiration, an aspiration I'm sorely lacking at the moment.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A bigot's charter

The current iteration of the Conservative Party has been a race to the bottom for years now, most notably during Boris Johnson's tenure, but with a General Election looming in a few months time, there's space for plenty of barrel scraping, seemingly. The next target is school sex education, from what I've been seeing today, the subject will be gutted, particularly in primary schools, but older pupils won't be immune, either - all 'children' are going to be banned from being taught about gender identity. It's not a 'Don't Say Gay' scenario - yet - but it's a patent grab for the Tories in terms of winning the bigot vote, the right wingnuts, especially the religious right, will love it. And if some young people get killed, by their own hands, or through bullying or even outright murder, well sobeit. Frankly, that wouldn't be a bug, but a feature for those scumbags. 

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

An utter surprise

For some reason, my largely moribund blog has been 'flavour of the week' - there have been more than 3000 views in the last four or five days. I'm sure it's just web crawlers crawling, but it has helped to push the blog, after 13-odd years, beyond 100000 views overall. Thank you for reading - even the crawlers!

Love & best wishes to all 

Sammy B

Risk and reward

Before last weekend, the BBC Weather website was promising us snow, albeit light snow, and freezing temperatures for today and tomorrow, so I stocked up with groceries on Friday with a view to staying at home until at least Wednesday - I hate snow and ice these days, given my somewhat fragile health, and my propensity to fall on my backside as soon as slippery conditions prevail. But this morning, the snow has been conspicuous by its absence, and it's been largely sunny so far, although it's pretty cold (by UK standards). So I've spent a good hour trying to decide whether to go out, without much success. I almost never see anyone when I stay here at the flat, and I do like to feel that I'm part of the human race occasionally, but, overall, I would only go to the pub, so the balance of probability is that I'll stick to Plan A and skulk in my man cave instead - isolation is preferable to breaking my neck, ultimately.

There's a longer term conundrum in my life, as well, although the potential risk in this case will almost certainly prevent me from being tempted with the slight chance of what would be a substantial reward - there's a new(-ish) family living in the building where my flat is, and there's a passably cute boy in the scenario. I don't see him very often, despite the fact that he lives about 30 feet away from me - they're on the ground floor, while I'm four flights of stairs above - but he has given me a smile and wave a couple of times, and we have had a very brief chat, just once. I can't lie, the prospect of having a 'young friend' would be beyond awesome, even if we didn't do anything other than talk, but the pitfalls seem unsurmountable - he's pretty young, even by the standards of my 'reviled by society's' AoA, and his English seems to be rather minimal (I'm fairly sure that the family is Eastern European, although what exact nationality, I don't know). So it's really little more than a daydream, in all honesty. But what if....?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Just another day

 And tomorrow will be the same, too - me on my own, bumping along the bottom, no-one to talk to, no-one to see. New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, February 25, May 11, whatever random date you like, it's all the same to me. To be fair, most of it is self-inflicted, given my borderline social phobia and my aphasic speech, but it's hard to drag myself out of that rut. K will probably ring me tomorrow (hangover permitting, she's not her father's daughter for nothing!), but that's about the only likely patch of blue sky I'll see to welcome in 2023.

Still, there's no reason for anyone to be as negative as me, and I hope everyone has a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B