Mickology

The last retaliator

mickology — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 10:20:36 +0000

The last retaliator looked down at the sleeping humans. These small frail creatures had once ruled the earth, but now they were being hunted to extinction by the alien invaders.

The humans had built millions of retaliators at the beginning of the war, but now Jo was the last of her kind, a bio mechanical humanoid clad in reactive armour.

Series J, model 0. Jo had been the ultimate warrior, there was not a weapon on earth that could penetrate her armour – but the attacking force had not come from earth…

Writing a novel

mickology — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 09:38:40 +0000

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
— W. Somerset Maugham

Do you want to work until you die?

mickology — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 09:35:44 +0000

If there was a vote in the UK, I wonder how many people would agree to an increase in the retirement age?

You work all your life, 50 years or more in some cases, and then just as you are approaching retirement, you are told you have to carry on working.

You may never get to draw the pension you have been paying into all your working life.

And to add insult to injury, you are now ‘old’ and treated like a second class citizen:

“poor things, they can’t afford to keep themselves warm, let us give them a cold weather payment”.

These ‘old’ people are the people who helped the UK to prosperity in the past and yet they are being rewarded by having their pensions manipulated and retirement plans ruined.

Government pensions should be sacrosanct.

The endowment mortgage fiasco demonstrated how NOT to manage long term savings.

Will the pension of every citizen now suffer a similar fate?

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it” - George Santayana.

A good Samaritan

mickology — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:34:15 +0000

A real Good Samaritan

In today’s Magazine

One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he tells the story to inspire troubled young people to help deal with their disrupted lives.

The police called at my student hovel early evening, but I didn’t answer as I thought they’d come to evict me. I hadn’t paid my rent in months.

But then I got to thinking: my mum hadn’t been too good and what if it was something about her?

We had no phone in the hovel and mobiles hadn’t been invented yet, so I had to nip down the phone box.

I rang home to Leeds to find my mother was in hospital and not expected to survive the night. “Get home, son,” my dad said.

I got to the railway station to find I’d missed the last train. A train was going as far as Peterborough, but I would miss the connecting Leeds train by twenty minutes.

“Start Quote

To this day, I won’t hear a bad word said about British Rail”

I bought a ticket home and got on anyway. I was a struggling student and didn’t have the money for a taxi the whole way, but I had a screwdriver in my pocket and my bunch of skeleton keys.

I was so desperate to get home that I planned to nick a car in Peterborough, hitch hike, steal some money, something, anything. I just knew from my dad’s tone of voice that my mother was going to die that night and I intended to get home if it killed me.

“Tickets, please,” I heard, as I stared blankly out of the window at the passing darkness. I fumbled for my ticket and gave it to the guard when he approached. He stamped it, but then just stood there looking at me. I’d been crying, had red eyes and must have looked a fright.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Course I’m okay,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be? And what’s it got to do with you in any case?”

“You look awful,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?”

FIND OUT MORE

The Good Conductor is on BBC Radio 4 at 20.45 GMT on Wednesday 29 December

“You could get lost and mind your own business,” I said. “That’d be a big help.” I wasn’t in the mood for talking.

He was only a little bloke and he must have read the danger signals in my body language and tone of voice, but he sat down opposite me anyway and continued to engage me.

“If there’s a problem, I’m here to help. That’s what I’m paid for.”

I was a big bloke in my prime, so I thought for a second about physically sending him on his way, but somehow it didn’t seem appropriate. He wasn’t really doing much wrong. I was going through all the stages of grief at once: denial, anger, guilt, withdrawal, everything but acceptance. I was a bubbling cauldron of emotion and he had placed himself in my line of fire.

The only other thing I could think of to get rid of him was to tell him my story.

“Look, my mum’s in hospital, dying, she won’t survive the night, I’m going to miss the connection to Leeds at Peterborough, I’m not sure how I’m going to get home.

“It’s tonight or never, I won’t get another chance, I’m a bit upset, I don’t really feel like talking, I’d be grateful if you’d leave me alone. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, finally getting up. “Sorry to hear that, son. I’ll leave you alone then. Hope you make it home in time.” Then he wandered off down the carriage back the way he came.

THE FIRST GOOD SAMARITAN

Parable told by Christ in the Book of Luke
A traveller is beaten and left for dead alongside a road
Passers-by ignore him, but a Samaritan – who would have been regarded by Jews at the time as an enemy – stops to help

I continued to look out of the window at the dark. Ten minutes later, he was back at the side of my table. Oh no, I thought, here we go again. This time I really am going to rag him down the train.

He touched my arm. “Listen, when we get to Peterborough, shoot straight over to Platform One as quick as you like. The Leeds train’ll be there.”

I looked at him dumbfounded. It wasn’t really registering. “Come again,” I said, stupidly. “What do you mean? Is it late, or something?”

“No, it isn’t late,” he said, defensively, as if he really cared whether trains were late or not. “No, I’ve just radioed Peterborough. They’re going to hold the train up for you. As soon as you get on, it goes.

“Everyone will be complaining about how late it is, but let’s not worry about that on this occasion. You’ll get home and that’s the main thing. Good luck and God bless.”

Then he was off down the train again. “Tickets, please. Any more tickets now?”

I suddenly realised what a top-class, fully-fledged doilem I was and chased him down the train. I wanted to give him all the money from my wallet, my driver’s licence, my keys, but I knew he would be offended.

I caught him up and grabbed his arm. “Oh, er, I just wanted to…” I was suddenly speechless. “I, erm…”

Bernard was desperate to see his mother, Joyce

“It’s okay,” he said. “Not a problem.” He had a warm smile on his face and true compassion in his eyes. He was a good man for its own sake and required nothing in return.

“I wish I had some way to thank you,” I said. “I appreciate what you’ve done.”

“Not a problem,” he said again. “If you feel the need to thank me, the next time you see someone in trouble, you help them out. That will pay me back amply.

“Tell them to pay you back the same way and soon the world will be a better place.”

I was at my mother’s side when she died in the early hours of the morning. Even now, I can’t think of her without remembering the Good Conductor on that late-night train to Peterborough and, to this day, I won’t hear a bad word said about British Rail.

My meeting with the Good Conductor changed me from a selfish, potentially violent hedonist into a decent human being, but it took time.

“I’ve paid him back a thousand times since then,” I tell the young people I work with, “and I’ll keep on doing so till the day I die. You don’t owe me nothing. Nothing at all.”

“And if you think you do, I’d give you the same advice the Good Conductor gave me. Pass it down the line.”

Finches and Nyjer seed

mickology — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:56:36 +0000

I have installed a bird feeder in the tree at the end of the garden. It accepts Nyjer seed, and attracts finches. The feeding hole is tiny, as is the seed itself and it seems that only finches can feed from it.

The visitors are mainly goldfinches, and these colourful red black and gold birds are delightful.

I had thought that nyger was a type of thistle, but apparently not. Nyger information:

http://www.ebirdseed.com/nyjer_niger_thistle_birdseed.html

Holiday in Biarritz

mickology — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:20:56 +0000

My 14 year old niece left for a holiday in Biarritz today with her school friend, they are travelling in a private executive jet.

The friends mother races yachts at international level.

When I was that age, my parents didn’t even have a ‘phone, let alone a car, a yacht or a jet. How times change.

http://www.biarritz.fr/Website/site/tourisme_en.php

I did get to go to Noli in Italy on a school trip though, so I don’t feel too ‘hard done by’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noli

It’s baby seagull time again

mickology — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:04:24 +0000

The baby seagulls leave the nest and land on the ground. Once they are down, many do not have the strength to take off again, and spend days wandering around. The adults attack anything that goes near the baby, but can not protect it from cars if it wanders into the road. Very sad.

On a different seagull topic, we have a family gathering every Wednesday, and after the meal, I put the meat/fat leftovers on the garage roof. The seagulls appear in seconds.

How do they do that? Is it smell, vision, ESP, or have the learnt that we put food out every Wednesday?

At first I couldn’t find any links about seagulls that didn’t talk about pest control and how to kill them. Why do we think that everything must bend to our will? Are we moving too far away from nature, from reality even?

Will it be “pride comes before a fall”

Finally I found this heart warming story about gulls saving Salt lake city from a plague of insects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_Monument

We should remember that we are part of the system, not the master of it.

Hedgehog in daylight

mickology — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:46:25 +0000

There has been a hedgehog asleep on the lawn all afternoon, I thought they only came out at night.

Hedgehog facts, http://www.wildlife-web.org.uk/hedgehog/

Bees are struggling

mickology — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:45:40 +0000

I saw a report recently where it was suggested that fewer people were keeping beehives, and bees were declining.

When I was at school, the headmaster kept bees, and kids were always getting stung.

Keeping bees in this ‘health and safety’ based society is perhaps too much of a liability. With the possibility of being taken to court if one of your bees were to sting someone!

So why not adopt a beehive instead?

http://www.saga.co.uk/homeandlifestyle/gardening/wildlife-watch/adopt-a-beehive.asp

More information from the British bee keepers association,

http://www.britishbee.org.uk/

Beehives in the Whitehouse!

http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2009.03.22.11.15.archive.html

I was young once

mickology — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:00:35 +0000

“I was young once, but now my sons tell me I am an old fossil who knows nothing”