From Our Weaknesses…

Sometimes, it’s not a whole poem that gets me – a mere line can be enough.

I was reading “She Teaches Lear” by Iain Crichton Smith. It’s not a poem that touches me particularly, but then the third line of the last verse smacked me right in the guts:

“From our weaknesses only are we kind.”

Now there’s a thought…  

Booze, Bets and Sex

Let’s unpack this. A friend is not a smoker, so when he sees someone in a cloud of smoke, although he says nothing – he’s English, dammit! – he concludes the person is a moron and is predisposed to look down on him forever.

Then, the demon drink – not his problem! Just a bit of wine now and then, and rarely spirits. He used to share a flat with a buddy who got regularly “stoshered” – a great Scottish slang word – and who regularly lay on the floor, his mouth agape and smeared with vomit. Reasoning with him was wholly pointless ­– and in time, the poor sod pickled his liver and died in his fifties.

So, booze isn’t my pal’s problem, and he feels free to despise all drunks as morally weak. Nor is he a gambler, so he has no sympathy for losers on either horses or tables. And he’s as thin as a string of spaghetti! He could live on a diet of deep-fried Mars Bars, Big Macs and Hob Nobs without adding an ounce. So, of course, as soon as he sees a barrel of lard waddling towards him, his lips curl in horror at the self-indulgent slob!

Is he faultless? Well, I happen to know that sex is his torment. He told me once that fate appears to have chained him to a gibbering sex lunatic and he has difficulty keeping his flies up. So, when a close friend was caught “sleeping” – a ridiculous euphemism, for sleep’s not the thing you do (so I’m told!) – with a hooker, he was hugely supportive. My friend understands that temptation only too well.  

So, “from our weaknesses only are we kind”. Now you know!

I am sure that most ZANE supporters are perfect, but perhaps one or two of you will recognise this more-or-less universal tendency to condemn others for sins that – by the grace of God – are not ours?

Pascal’s on the Phone

French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–62) wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”. Of course, he was making the point that without entertainment or distractions, humankind must confront the harsh realities of suffering, pain and death. 

Enter the ultimate distraction: smartphones. They’re hugely addictive because whenever the devices are checked, a stimulating substance called “dopamine” is generated, which affects emotions and behaviour. Of course, its effect is transitory and then users suffer from “Nomophobia”, or NO MObile PHOne PhoBIA. This fear of being without is partly responsible, we now know, for loss of self-esteem and acute depression. And it’s total catnip for the bottom line of the smartphone industry.

Glassy eyed phone addicts stagger down the road, and I expect to bump into one anytime soon. And then at my gym, the cardio machines are strewn with teenagers barely exercising and squinting vacantly at their devices.  

How can this new generation, with a paper-thin tolerance of boredom, produce poets, authors, playwrights, thinkers, actors or philosophers? Instead, it would seem their creative juices are draining into the bottomless fog of Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and X.         

Vets

In 2017 I met a veteran in Bulawayo who was more or less destitute. He was living on a meal a day yet had served the UK and Empire all his military career. And he was dying of prostate cancer, and he couldn’t afford treatment. The services charities were more or less skint.  So what to do?

I asked General Lord Richards (David) whether he would assist if I set up a committee to raise money. He agreed. I then asked Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary, if he would act as chair. He agreed.

We had a stroke of fortune in that Penny Mordaunt was Secretary of State for DFID, and when we approached her, she agreed that DFID would fund the operation in partnership with the services’ charities.

So it has come to pass that over 6,000 veterans across the Commonwealth now have two meals a day.

In Zimbabwe, we have established a basic medical programme whereby all the veterans get not only two meals a day but also free pills for diabetes, heart complaints, nervous disorders, and cancer scans.

Three cheers for Richards, Rifkind and Mordaunt.

All is Vanity

Upper-class individuals care a lot about status. Up until the 1980s, they indicated their social standing by owning expensive goods such as a Maserati. However, luxury cars are now more accessible, so proving innate superiority has become much harder. How can they broadcast their high social status to the masses? A clever solution has been found – “luxury beliefs”.

These are today’s new vanity plays, whose sole purpose is to boost the speaker’s reputation in the eyes of listeners. Those who do this know they are insulated from the pernicious effects of the drivel they are touting. 

So, when you hear someone supporting drug legalisation, open borders, defunding the police or permissive sexual norms; or using terms like “white privilege”, they are engaging in status display. “We belong to the upper classes,” they are declaring – but they never face the social consequences of what they are promoting.

For example, when you hear someone bewailing the effects of police “stop and search”, you can be sure they don’t have to worry about their own child being struck with a zombie knife. Another will bad mouth capitalism whilst living on a fat state pension. And I know a young Harrovian who advocates the joys of communism – to be sure, he knows nothing of the reality of the gulags, and I don’t think he’s even read Animal Farm. All he’s doing is demonstrating his luxury belief. Then come the Scottish “hate crime laws”. There is no better example of the consequences of this nonsense, for it won’t be the “progressive” political classes who reap the consequences, but rather the poor souls existing on benefits in the slums of Edinburgh and Glasgow.     

“Luxury beliefs” links naturally with “virtue signalling”. The expression of such views is not to fix a problem but rather to demonstrate how “progressive” the speaker is.

The most damaging luxury belief is the notion of sweeping away the very idea of the stable family. Socialist “experts” claim the traditional family is old hat and pretend that children are bound to thrive in all types of care. But this is rubbish – most mandarins and thinkers live in stable relationships, but those at the bottom on the ladder don’t and their families continue to deteriorate. In 2007, when we started the Oxford Community Emergency Foodbank, families were usually a traditional unit. In 2024, it’s rare to see a child raised by two parents.

Those who are focusing on smartphones and devices as the reason for the misery of the young should look instead at the two-plus generations of unmarried parenting. Today, divorce has been normalised and few couples are prepared to “hang on in there” for the sake of the children – the only thing that matters is one’s own happiness.

The result? We are seeing Zoomers in their twenties raised by a single parent – who were also raised by a single parent. The mandarins have snipped the golden thread of stability that links one generation to the next and are instead passing on chronic instability. It’s hard to turn the clock back – and I doubt even Starmer knows where to look for the key.

Poet Philip Larkin wrote:

“Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself”.

Leader of the Free World

The BBC’s John Sopel wrote that it’s a shame Americans speak English because otherwise we would understand that America is a foreign country.

It’s difficult not to notice – despite all the other worries we face, such as the guy with the funny haircut and bombs in North Korea, Putin’s ghastly war and the miseries in Gaza and Iran – that the leader of the free world, his finger poised on the nuclear button, has the intellectual capacity of a pickled gherkin. And another thing – people in the US don’t seem outraged when the Donald announces the legal system has been rigged against him. Why? US judges are elected and have to please voters along party lines. Al Capone would have loved it.

How can the USA, supposedly the greatest democracy in the world, pretend to be a role model to, say, Zimbabwe?  

A watery few days in beautiful scenery.

Some of those who have hosted or walked with us (and they will, of course, remain anonymous) have related tragic stories of the conduct of their children or in-laws behaving cruelly towards them. Our friends are elderly and vulnerable and, in the main,  widows.

In two cases, the children are denying their parents the opportunity to see their grandchildren unless substantial money is paid.

Of course, we have only heard one side of the story, but we do know the people: we are convinced they are telling the horrid truth.

In a short story somewhere, readers are warned that because of escalating costs, the country will be obliged to cull those over seventy-five by obliging them to go to one of a series of houses where they will be given a dry martini, a medal for past services rendered and then a lethal injection! This may be too true to be funny because my spies tell me that the Starmer government will shortly introduce legislation to allow assisted dying with all the unintended consequences this will bring about. Here are a few thoughts.

The law changes will be irreversible and as years go by – as has happened in Canada  – the scope of the permissions will inexorably widen.

And not all of the younger generation are kind. Many bitterly resent, for example, watching their parents’ cash wasted on care home fees and here is an opportunity to do something about it. Inevitably, intolerable pressure will be applied. Relations in many families will change fundamentally and not for the better.

And if you think that the cautionary barriers promised by the government to protect the vulnerable from abuse will prove to be effective, gosh,  look at those rose-coloured pigs flying past my window.

Rebel Women

When I last drove to Scotland, Jane was rude to me. I concede she had good reason. I was pondering the meaning of life (and as supporters will know, I have a beautiful and sensitive mind), only to discover that instead of nearing Manchester, we were hurtling towards Bristol.   

“You,” she said, “are a freshly minted moron!”

Career Path

Today, Jane is a confident and feisty woman with serious career achievements to her name. However, the fact she has turned out this way is not because she was primed to forge a career. Her brother’s future prospects were taken seriously. He went to “good” schools, and thence to Cambridge and off to make a fortune in the city. But she was not offered the same chances.

When Jane was a child, no one said specifically, “Listen Sunshine, you don’t have to trouble your pretty little head with learning how to earn your living because your destiny is to be number two to men.” But, through a process of social osmosis, she picked up the thousands of negative messages floating around intended to destroy the average girl’s ambition for independence. Many young women were persuaded not to go to university or seek jobs that were deemed “unladylike” – such as joining the police (I know of an actual case of this cruel sabotage in my own family).

So, Jane was sent to a girls’ school that pretended to provide education. There the pupils fluttered around with ghastly nicknames such as “Goonie” and “Dunce” (and there were twins called by their father “Thick” and “Thickest”!) Like many of her chums, Jane was hardly taught anything. She then went to a Swiss finishing school where the agenda was cooking and “how to get on in society”.

The young women of Jane’s generation ended up as cooks, chalet girls, secretaries, flower arrangers or junior teachers (like one O-level Princess Di), waiting for broad shoulders to rescue them. Some, teeming with ability and grit, and blessed by forward-looking parents, couldn’t be stopped by such nonsense, and rose high in the few careers then open to women. But the bulk of Jane’s contemporaries had no proper training or confidence-building, so, if they didn’t marry, or were dumped or widowed, they ended up unable to forge an independent life. By then, the sweet bird of youth had flapped off, leaving them middle-aged, disconsolate and vulnerable.

Where did this misogyny come from? I believe St Paul is largely responsible. In Tim 2, 11–12, his message is parodied by comedian Harry Enfield: “Women know your place!”

In these damaging verses, Paul claims that women should not be in leadership roles and that they should be submissive to men. Because Eve fell for the wiles of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, they can only be redeemed by childbearing.     

My vicar friends insist these verses should be read in conjunction with many others that claim that women are loved by God and are equal to men, but this is sophistry. The verses are as clear as “Don’t walk on the grass”! There’s no ambiguity whatsoever, just wishful thinking.    

Even today, my wonderful, talented ordained daughter is unwelcome to preach in some churches because of these unfortunate verses. And they are why so many women, called by God over the years, were blocked from ordination – and why the Catholic Church still justifies blocking them from leadership.  

Former archbishop Donald Coggan proposed that when he reached heaven, he would ask Paul for an explanation. “Goodness me,” he imagined Paul replying. “Did I actually write that?”

Yes, Paul, I fear you did – and the effect has been profoundly damaging, for these verses have echoed down the ages, allowing men to stymie the careers of generations of capable women.   

Crazy Taxes

The government treats us like idiots.

Tuppence of tax here or there and it’s not what the country needs. For a start, we should be treated as adults.

What the chancellors fiddle about with simply doesn’t help as a political trick and it’s not what we need as a country. Just look at a few features of our tax system that are holding up growth and productivity. 

First are the crazy marginal rates of tax on earnings of £50,000 and above – when child benefit and personal allowances begin to taper, and “free” children’s schemes are lost. Someone earning £99,999.00 with two children under three loses an immediate £20,000 when they earn a penny more! Many studies show how people deliberately cut their hours to avoid marginal rates of tax of 80 per cent or even higher. It makes no sense to earn between £100,000 and £145,000.

Then take the VAT system. If a coffee shop sells £84,000 of coffee, no VAT is payable. At £85,0000, you must charge 20 per cent more on everything so, compared to your competitor next door, you’re no longer competitive! That means tens of thousands of small businesses quite sensibly will do anything to stay under the VAT threshold. For example, they might be reluctant to recruit more staff or a retailer might shut shop in February.

Then why not just scrap National Insurance?  If employers didn’t have to pay 13.5 per cent on wages, people would earn more.   

If Tory chancellors have been hopeless, what can we expect from the new government?

A friend tells me he is about to tell me a funny story. I want to tell him, “Just tell me the story…I ‘ll tell you if I find it funny or not,” but I haven’t the heart to do so.

Victimhood

Politicians of all stripes treat the electorate as babies.

Social security benefits are morphing into a malingerers’ slush fund. There are now millions of adults of working age – excluding students – out of work. Meanwhile, nearly a million vacancies are filled by hard-working immigrants.

Between a fifth and a quarter of the residents of Birmingham, Glasgow and Blackpool are living on out-of-work benefits. The majority, we must presume, are genuine cases, but with human nature being such as it is, of course the system is open to abuse. The malingerers are throwing away their lives, and wasting billions of taxpayers’ cash that could be spent on better things.

Politicians are dodging their duty to tighten the criteria for benefits eligibility for fear of being abused by the media. Anyone who dares to say what he or she thinks risks attracting a cacophony of noise from lobby groups/think tanks/quangos/commissioners/tsars, all poised to scream in self-righteous anger about persecution. Today, victimhood is all.  

Get on Your Bike

Thatcher is of course history and sadly political courage died with her. Her doctrine of “Don’t accept being a victim, pull up your socks and get on with it” is long since forgotten. So too are her messages, “The state can’t solve all your problems, it’s your money they are spending, not theirs” and “Money doesn’t grow on trees”. And what happened to “Taxpayers would spend the cash far more wisely than HMG”?

In 13 years of Tory rule, the Iron Lady’s legacy has gone with the wind. The country is today more or less bankrupt, and self-reliance has become a dirty word. We are all victims now in the sense we are unable to tell the truth to ourselves about ourselves.

Former Tory MP James Daly was flayed when he said that struggling children in his constituency were not victims of insufficient money being spent on them by taxpayers but rather of “crap parenting”. His Labour rival responded by asserting that instead of insulting parenting skills, we would do better to face the fact that children in gangs or carrying knives have nothing to do with poor parenting and everything to do with a “failure to invest in public services”.  

So now the claim is that parents have no real part to play in the crucial narrative of bringing up their own children, and our lives are shaped by forces beyond our control. The focus of shame has moved from the person doing something wrong to the person who has the gall to point it out! All problems, you see, are caused by government, and must be solved by it.

The person “left” teachers most love to hate is “Britain’s strictest headmistress”, Katharine Birbalsingh. Why? Because she is too “judgmental”. Yet intelligent teachers admit privately that poor grades are all too often about crap parenting. in an ordinary comp school, set in one of London’s most deprived areas, Birbalsingh proves it QED. By insisting on firm discipline and manners, she has produced every teacher’s dream – a silent and happy school that achieves top grades. “A school’s problems won’t be fixed by more money,” she claims, but by “better ideas, by tackling bad behaviour and reducing bureaucracy.”   

Will she survive? I doubt it!

Straight to the Point…

Forget small talk. I like a good discussion about sex, money, politics, religion or death. Someone says something, then we discuss it and conclude (or not), possibly modifying our opinions along the way. As Bernard Shaw once said, “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Sadly, a close friend is not open to changing her views. There’s no point discussing anything or introducing new ideas, for her mind is as closed as a clam.

Her prejudices encompass colonial history and empire (a thing of unalloyed beauty, no criticisms to be tolerated); apartheid (acceptable because pornography was banned); the monarchy (totally for); the EU (totally for – Cameron’s a dolt for the referendum, and the fact that all parties – including the LibDems – promised a referendum is conveniently forgotten); abortion and assisted dying (totally for); and gay partnerships (very much against, and this, apparently, is when the CoE moral rot started – once again, the fault of Cameron. That all free-world governments and their political parties support gay partnerships is overlooked).

No discussion on any of the above issues can be tolerated, for this lady’s iron-clad opinions are primed to be fired even before she opens her mouth. And if you dare to argue with her, she stomps away, quivering with righteous indignation.     

Why is she so submerged in “confirmation bias” that she rejects any discussion that might conflict with her embalmed views? I suspect her aggression is down to fear – she runs scared that debate would require her to think. Intellectually lazy, she has simply closed her mind. Her fixed views are water wings – without them, she’s terrified she might drown.

Lots of people are like this. Sad really.

.

Boris Johnson’s book about his premiership is published in October. Whatever he writes in his own defence, one thing is clear: he clearly didn’t have the self-awareness to be alert to his own failings. He should have known he was incapable of staff control. If he had been aware, he would have authorised a tough cabinet secretary with the disciplinary authority to ensure that the staff at Downing Street were under proper control.  If he had done this “party gate” would never have happened. It’s not that difficult.  When I was in the Scots Guards, an Adjutant’s job was to ensure discipline. The commanding officer’s job was to command. That’s all it would have taken. Simple. Very sad, really.

Of course, Boris’ failings ran deeper than that. Glad he isn’t my son-in-law. I never liked the idea of a mistress in Downing Street.  Sad that his wife left him for it seems that she left with his moral compass – if he ever had one-  when she kicked him out. Such a golden opportunity wasted.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Many of our friends and ZANE supporters are “of an age”.

Jane and I have friends and loved ones who are suffering in the iron grip of dementia. Richard Restak’s book, How to prevent Dementia, is catnip to me. I learned lots. Common sense tells us that what’s good for your heart is good for the brain – daily exercise, not smoking, moderate booze, plenty of fruit and veg, reasonable sleep and going easy on the junk food.

What else is new? Well, Restak reckons that the more we know, the more tools we can muster to prevent the onset of dementia. He thinks that we concentrate too much on the memory loss aspects of the disease whilst overlooking the need to consider the disturbance and emotional changes that occur. Dementia can “start with speech problems… disorders of emotions and behaviour, unreasonable anxieties, hoarding, impatience, sudden flares of temper, delusions and hallucinations.”  Restack concludes that “there’s a continuum of dementia in us all, and that we will travel through periods of memory loss, disordered thinking and emotional disturbance”. Sometimes these symptoms reverse, often they worsen.

Restak has interviewed many thousands of creative and successful Americans thriving in their eighth and ninth decades to establish the basis of healthy brain functioning. The following are all key: (a) education, (b) curiosity, (c) energy, (d) keeping busy, (e) regular exercise and physical activity, (f) acceptance of unavoidable limitations, (g) the need for diversity and novelty, (h) enjoying our own company, (i) the maintenance of friends and other social networks, and (j) the establishment and fostering of links with younger people.      

Phew! Inevitably, this is a limited exercise because Restak’s research was bound to be constrained by the fact that only those without dementia could be involved. But Restak tells stories of those whose lives have been enriched by learning new tasks, and by having a reason and purpose to live as we age. We need plenty of social connections across the generations.

All these things may – we hope – delay the onset of dementia. At any rate, they’ll certainly make life more rewarding. 

Moderation in All Things

And, oh yes, Restak claims that we shouldn’t get hung up on getting eight hours of sleep per night. What we need is enough to feel refreshed and alert – and to just take a nap when needed. Alcohol may be good for our social lives but is bad for the memory. Moderation is clearly important.

Restak suggests we should drop activities that we don’t really enjoy ­– parish council meeting anyone? – and we should spend time in “green spaces”. And he’s an evangelist for lifelong learning. 

Finally, our attitude of mind is more productive than we think. What do you think of the statement, “The older I get, the more useless I feel”? In a study of cognitive impairment, 65 per cent agreed. Bad news!

Restak claims we should be positive. Here’s his final lifestyle suggestion: “Stop obsessing about whether you may come down with dementia at some time in the future, for life’s to be lived and not constantly fretted about.”

Perhaps this quote from philosopher Kieran Setiya sums things up: “What’s needed to live a good and satisfying life is the courage to hope well.” 

To hope well is to be realistic about probabilities, and not to succumb to wishful thinking or to be cowed by fear. We should “hold possibilities open”.

Cheer up – and if you can find the bottle, have a (mild) gin and tonic!

Obese City

My buddy and I share a friend who’s grossly overweight. Recently, we discussed which of us should tell him we’re concerned about his health.

Thankfully, my buddy volunteered. But then I discovered he’d told our friend, “Tom’s worried about your weight!”

Good having friends you can trust, isn’t it?

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on a bench in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens. As people walked past, I decided to count just how many were overweight. Out of 100 passers-by, 76 looked obese and only five were slim!

Obesity has long posed a threat to public health. It’s a risk factor for a range of chronic illnesses, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver and respiratory diseases and 12 different cancers. NHS statistics for 2022/23 show there were 1.2 million admissions where obesity was a factor, up from 617,000 in 2016/17.

When compared to smoking, obesity is responsible for three times as many hospital admissions.

It’s estimated that last year, the cost of obesity to the NHS was 19 billion so it’s hardly surprising that weight loss drugs are in high demand.

Perhaps Wes Streeting might acknowledge that the real crisis facing the NHS isn’t the lack of funding, but obesity. Unless the nation slims down, we’ll bankrupt the NHS.

Last Meal

We have been hosted by wonderfully kind and generous hosts, and we have enjoyed excellent, wide-ranging debates on, you name it, we have discussed it.

Last evening, we chose what we would select as our last meal before we were to be shot!

Here’s mine. First, a well-made Bloody Mary. It’s a sad fact that hardly anyone knows how to make one. It isn’t a drink, it’s an art form!

A glass full of top-class tomato juice, at least a quarter of a squeezed lemon, a decent amount of Worcester sauce to colour the mix light brown, a quarter spoonful of horse radish sauce, a shot of vodka, and crucially, a shot of medium dry sherry, then a sprinkling of pepper. Add ice. Shake it up, and it’s nectar.

Thence to the supper.

A dozen oysters, with Worcester sauce and half a lemon. Two slices of brown bread and butter. Two glasses of white burgundy.

Then, a medium-rare small fillet steak with boiled new potatoes flavoured with mint, hollandaise sauce if available, and fresh peas. A salad with fresh lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, and a light French dressing. Two glasses of red burgundy.

Raspberries and cream. A glass of iced kümmel.

Coffee

A Bendicks bittermint.

I am now ready to be shot.

Tom Benyon’s Schooldays

Such were the joys of being flogged on my 10-year-old bare bum at Edinburgh’s Angusfield House School. I have no recollection of what my offence could possibly have been – though it couldn’t have mattered much, for it didn’t take a lot for “Tud” (the pervert’s nickname) to bend us over his tweedy knees, stare gleefully at our pink buttocks and inflict pain.

Today, this three-flush floater of a headmaster – whose name prudence dictates I should avoid mentioning – would have ended up serving at least six years at His Majesty’s Pleasure. But those were the days, my friends, that’s just how it was. I got off relatively lightly compared to some of my “pretty” friends who dumbly suffered serious abuse – and the prettier they were, the worse the misery. Would our parents – my father was an Edwardian – have known what to do if I had confided in them? Would they, or the police and the courts for that matter, have understood the long-lasting effects that sexual molestation has on children?  I doubt it.  

And the abuse and bullying grew dramatically worse at public school. Christopher Hitchens relates the tale of a friend captured in 1943 and put to work on the infamous Thai-Burma railway.

Five young officers were sitting in a stinking cell waiting to be interrogated. The heat was stifling, the latrine, a hole in the floor. Mosquitoes and bugs had chosen this particular as their Far Eastern rendezvous, for they clustered in swarms. The screams of an officer being beaten and tortured in an adjacent cell grew to a crescendo.

One of the five, Hitchen’s friend, fell asleep, and soon the exhausted man was in the grip of a nightmare. He began to moan, then shriek and writhe.

“Oh, please stop!” he shouted. “Please stop! I can’t bear the pain anymore.”

His neighbour shook him awake. The man glanced round the cell and muttered, “Oh thank God! I dreamed I was back at Tonbridge School.”      

A to B

Cars are for getting from one place to another, no more, no less. I am always astonished at the sums people squander on them. It all boils down to the vanity of, “Hello Sunshine… I’m much richer than you!”  

Yesterday, I noticed a man sitting in his parked car. Without warning, his sidelights began to semaphore, and then his boot beeped loudly, rising and falling like a runaway guillotine. We couldn’t stop laughing as he tried, wholly unsuccessfully, to control the display. But the more he banged on the buttons, the faster the lights seemed to flash – and the boot was having none of it!

On the (admittedly, remote) off-chance that a motor manufacturer ever reads this, please stop adding electronic accessories to new cars! All they ever do (apart from adding to the gaiety of amused onlookers) is to increase the already vast cost of the car – and they always go wrong, wrong, wrong…   

Fortunately in the UK

On July 4, something remarkable happened that we in the UK take for granted: power changed hands from one party to another. No one died, no one even argued about the process, and control changed peacefully…it just happened.

What astonishes me is that at least one-third of the country just shrugged and failed to vote. They can have no appreciation of how lucky they are to live in a country at peace with established democratic processes, a free press, honest courts and free speech. These non-voters must be plain ignorant as to the quantity of blood that has been shed over centuries to elevate our magnificent country to where it is today. Perhaps they think that the way we are is normal, that all that has happened over the centuries is that the tooth fairy just waived her little wand and bingo! The country provides index linked pensions and an NHS, free education, endless football, and free beer all produced by magic. All they have to do is live on benefits   – which are a right not a privilege – eat pizza, deep fried Mars Bars and whine for an even easier life, all without even bothering to vote.

I think that, in time, they are in for quite a shock.

Tobacco Bastards

Neither of my parents lived to see eight of their grandchildren. They were both killed courtesy of British American Tobacco.

Today, we know that smoking is all too often an early death sentence. So, with horror, I’ve watched the antics of the tobacco companies as they try to lure our grandchildren into taking up the habit that killed their grandparents.

These semi-crooks are spending millions of pounds on research to discredit the idea that vaping is harmful to children. Now you can see an eight-year-old slurping on a cherry-flavoured nicotine bomb – while hoping that someone gives her a Snoopy-shaped e-cigarette holder for her birthday.

Philip Morris International is funding a company that runs pro-vaping “cessation sessions” for hundreds of UK doctors. They are trying to get children hooked on vapes in the hope they will get addicted to nicotine – and then after shelling out hard-earned cash on full-blown ciggies, just shut up and die like the smokers of previous generations! These are the bastards who are selling kids cheap and disposable fruity flavoured vapes with twee names like “Gummy Bear”, “Cotton Candy” or “Strawberry Milkshake” to entice them onto the hard stuff.

Top Your Day with Marlboro!

That’s a slogan from 1968. And indeed, before cigarette advertising was illegal, our fathers were persuaded that smoking would turn them into rugged cowboys or airline pilots, and ordinary women were conned into believing they would morph into hot chicks with a chance to lay “real men”. 

These tobacco conmen pretended that ciggies were a cure for cancer, asthma and other respiratory ailments, and they used their vast profits to promote plain vanilla lies like, “More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette,” and “You’re never alone with a Strand”. And then they did all they could to bribe doctors to hide the links to cancer, heart disease, strokes, birth defects and all the other unspeakable horrors we now know are caused by tobacco. These creeps are still with us, as are the fat-arsed accountants, lawyers and advertising folk who support them.

My parents must have believed the lies. I recall clearly, when I was 14 – not a good age to lose a father – seeing my handsome Dad, who had fought in both world wars, dying by nicotine-stained degrees of heart disease. He realised too late that smoking was a death sentence and tried to dissuade us from ever taking up the habit. My mother was a courageous and talented scriptwriter who had endured a lot of hardship. Forty years on, I can still see her coughing up her guts against a backdrop of the ghastly paraphernalia of the dying.  By then, she had shrunk to six stone and was addicted to morphine.

Countless others have suffered the same misery, their beloved family members poisoned by these mega-crooks. Direct advertising may have been banned, but this doesn’t stop the conmen from weaselling out loopholes in the legislation with the hope they can add our grandchildren’s names to their tar-blackened butcher’s list. 

A Little List

ZANE supporters know that the chattering classes are routinely disparaging about our empire. A recent book about Churchill describes how India was removed from the “clutches” of Britain. I suppose “clutches” is one way of describing our contribution. Why are we daft enough to expect gratitude for what Britain has done for so many countries? Recall the bleak saying, “If you want gratitude in Washington, get a dog,” and then the Spanish, “Why do you dislike me so much, what favours have I ever done you?” Just watch how they work out today.

In the 1979 film The Life of Brian, John Cleese asks, “What did the Romans ever do for us?” – only to be told, “Education, medicines, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, fresh water and public health!”

It’s a forlorn hope, but before cosying up to the Russians, India might recall a little list of what Britain brought to them: Railways, mass education, irrigation projects, law and order, English as its first lingua franca, democracy, universities, newspapers, standard units of exchange, telegraphic communications, an incorruptible legal system, medical advances and the widespread abolition of the practice of burning widows alive on their husband’s funeral pyres. 

Today’s walk was the worst by far: a boring landscape, overgrown paths, and we often walked beside the river that stank like a monkey’s latrine. The management of those responsible for this disaster should be made to pay for the damage they have done and the disposal of the sewage they have poured in the river.

What do you make of Keir Starmer? He has a bland, featureless face and looks more or less the same as he did when he was six. He has all the charisma of a Mormon actuary. He claims not to have a favourite novel or a poem that makes him cry, nor does he dream. He has no religious beliefs, and he is not long on self-deprecatory humour. He is a Pharisee who loves the law. I wonder what he will be like when several wheels fall off at the same time. In recent times, Gordon Brown was faced with the collapse of the world economies, May faced the meltdown of the Commons, Boris had to deal with Brexit, Covid and Putin. We presently face Gaza, Iran,  N Korea … Just  what will explode next?

I suspect Starmer doesn’t know what he will be like himself until he is faced with having to sort out a series of hog-whimpering and unsolvable disasters.

Poor Rishi Sunak was underestimated. He was balanced, talented, very hardworking, disciplined, and in my view a good Prime Minister, more or less destroyed by the cartoonists who continually sought to portray him as a childish dwarf.

I think he will be delighted to get back to money-making in California.

Those Were the Days

LP Hartley told us that the past is a foreign country, and they do things differently there. And this has never been truer than in the steamy-sex-before-marriage/co-habitation debate.

Jane and I are blessed with clergy children and a good many grandchildren. We “big talk” all sorts of stuff. Often sex.   

Adrift at Sea

Nowadays, it’s about “My truth”, “Who are you to tell me anything?” and so-called “freedom”.  ZANE supporters of a certain age will remember that when we were young, the Christian ethos was a good deal stronger than it is today and social pressure more vivid.

Today’s parents have lost confidence in whether they have the “right” to say how their children should lead their lives and whether their relationships are “wise” or not. Who dares say, “Monica darling, when you are off your smartphone, please listen. Is that man with the delightful ponytail, covered in NAZI tattoos, yes dear, the one with a dog on a rope, is he the very best you can do?”

Or who has the courage to observe, “Henry, your nice girl has told me she wants to become a ‘pole dancer’. Darling, what on earth does she do?” for fear of being labelled an old fart. The concept of “family” is today blurred, leaving the young adrift in a choppy sea without a compass or a map – and all because parents fear giving offence. They want to be “nice” and to have their children as “friends”. But our children aren’t meant to be our friends…

In my day, when we tiptoed down the corridor with our shoes in our hands at 2am, at least we knew that what we were about to do would not be approved of by family, our schoolteachers or the church. It made illicit sex even more fun – or so I was told! 

That’s mostly gone now. My own view is that I’m all for change – provided it’s for the better.

Anything is better than today’s confusion, though. Of course, there was a good deal of hypocrisy and cruelty in Victorian times, but we have long since hurled the baby out with the bath water. There has to be a middle way, a compromise. Think of the words today that have lost meaning: chastity, virginity, purity. Of course, girls are more vulnerable than boys, although this flies in the face of the bollocks bleated by today’s tawdry media.

Within a short time of meeting a possible romantic partner, our grandfathers would have been asked by the woman’s father or brother, “Please may I ask your intentions?” And if a man didn’t pass muster, he would be booted out and not always politely. And if he didn’t play by the rules, he’d be told, “You’re a bounder taking advantage, Sir!  My Gad, you need a horsewhipping!”

Those were the days.   

Sew Gifted

Jane is amazed that I enjoy sewing. I tell her that anyone who has spent time in the army can sew – and to tell you the truth, I find it rather relaxing.

She is also impressed that I can thread a needle. And now I come to think about it, given my age, so am I!  

We are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Requiem for an Admiral

We passed a memorial to Admiral Hopwood. No one has ever heard of him but now you know that he risked his life for his country through all the naval engagements of WW1. He is one of the twelve million servicemen who ran real risks of their lives for future generations. And the reality is that today very few of the “future generations” know anything about history and don’t appear to care a fig!

All honour to Admiral Hopwood.

The State We Are In

“We live in a time of a terrible inflation of words, and it’s worse than the inflation of money.” Eduardo Galeano

For years, schools (and some parents) have awarded prizes to children irrespective of whether they were deserved or not – and now universities are issuing First Class degrees like smarties. These degrees used to be precious and a matter of great pride, but a recent report reveals that a quarter of students with three “D”s at A-level have attained a “First”. Bosses are finding that some of the “achievers” they’ve employed can’t even write a letter in clear English, so they no longer value this nonsense – and that, of course, makes a mockery of the first-class accomplishments of the brightest students.

So, the currency of exams has been devalued… Who’d have guessed the inscrutable workings of the iron law of unintended consequences?

Mad, Mad World

Now the term “bullying” has been inflated beyond recognition. I went to private schools. I was a private in the army and attended RMA Sandhurst, and was a businessman and an MP. I really do know about hardcore bullying. Thankfully, the world has changed and folk are now protected from some of the worst rantings of tyrannical NCOs and bosses.

However, in the workplace, things like eyerolling, mere “glances” and “micro-aggressions” –whatever the hell this last means – can now be described as “bullying”. Has this made people any happier or more contented? The result is that the word “bullying” has lost its true meaning. Hypersensitivity has been legitimised and forthright communications are now almost impossible.

And look what’s happened to the rules around sexual behaviour. We’ve all witnessed the nasty stuff, and of course, it can be hugely distressing. However, one of my senior friends described how, at a party, he dared to tell a female friend how nice she looked in her new dress – he was promptly traduced by a beak-nosed harpy who informed him his words were “highly improper and likely to be misunderstood”! Such acute sensitivity over the small stuff devalues the big – for example, gruesome Alex Salmond’s drunken groping, streams of vile sexual innuendos and vicious harassment.

And suffering from stress is now fashionable – and I don’t mean clinical depression and real illness, for which I have every sympathy. Stress is the illness of the moment, and its victims are everywhere (bar the self-employed). I once asked a bunch of workmen if they’d ever been off with “stress?” Of course, not,” they laughed. “If we don’t work, we don’t eat!”

One theory is that the only people who can afford to stop working because of stress are those who know they’ll be paid anyway – for example, those who work for large charities, nationalised corporations or as civil servants. I know this is a tad cynical, but I’ve been around a long time and know something about human nature. The self-employed do not take time off work lightly.

Today, we live in a marshmallow society, where we are as soft as snowflakes and likely to be blown sideways by every zephyr that passes. During the Battle of Britain, can you imagine the reaction from Bomber Harris if his pilots had requested time off due to stress or insisted on taking paternity leave? We’d all be speaking German today. 

Of course, all sympathy to the mentally ill – whilst recognising the inflationary spiral that classifies mere emotions and even bereavement today as “illness”. Trauma was once an event that indicated grave injury, threat of death or sexual violence. Involvement in a serious accident would qualify. But then, as is the usual pattern, the definition started to inflate so it embraced not only one’s own experiences of harm but those of our “loved ones” (and how I dislike that expression!) too. I suspect this expansion is due, in large part, to pharma companies hoping to prescribe pills to an ever-widening audience of “victims”.

Years ago, when I ran a health authority – Milton Keynes since you ask – I was told that many of my employees were off with “stress” because they were fearful there might be a war, and their children “might” be involved! So, would we provide a free counselling service?

ZANE donors, please be proud, for I blankly refused. For heaven’s sake, most of our parents went through a world war, and then there were no counsellors of any kind. They just had to get on with it. And we’ve all had ghastly stuff in our lives, from our own sicknesses and failures to the deaths of those we love, job losses and all sorts of betrayal… And we just bloody well get on with it, don’t we?  And what we can see coming down the track doesn’t look like a barrel of laughs either. 

Decades of “welfarism” has created a society in which millions of people choose to hyperventilate with emotional stress, live off their fellow taxpayers and consider themselves entitled to do so.

We are living in a mad, mad world, my masters. Simply mad!

Church Matters

As the number of churchgoers is in steep decline, perhaps those running the churches might appreciate an unvarnished view as to why? They should try to find out whether the vicar and his/her team are liked or merely endured, and whether they’re viewed as competent or lazy. No one has to attend church, people can always go gardening or boating instead – and judging from the figures, that’s exactly what they’re doing!

A couple of years ago and on a walk I banged on about the hordes of miserable looking couples who sit in total silence simply staring at the floor.

Most are vast in bulk and potential incubators of diabetes, heart conditions, cancers and worse. Some are smoking and look as fit as a diesel dumper truck. No politician dares tell the truth and announce that we cannot go on like this: unless the population goes on a diet and the NHS is radically overhauled, the UK is bound to go bust.

One of my friends reading my bleak prognosis told me that I underestimated how many saints are doing wonderful things quietly and I should be ashamed at my lack of charity.

He is of course quite right. But we still face going bust!

Sod Being Nice

“Isn’t she nice? No one ever said a bad word about her, ever…”

Really! Nice? No criticisms at all?

In common with many ZANE donors, I’m sure, I attend a lot of funerals. At the most recent one, someone said that the deceased was a “very nice man” and that he didn’t have any enemies.

I said nothing. That’s fine as far as it goes, but when facing the last trump, is that reallyhow you’d like to be summed up? Remember, Jesus never said, “Blessed be the “nice”!

Shaking Things Up

Those who have achieved much – or strive to do so – can’t be merely “nice”. In fact, they must surely face active dislike from some quarters. When Maggie Thatcher died, some sad souls proclaimed (disgracefully), “Ding, dong, the witch is dead”. That says more about them than her for she changed Britain substantially for the better and she played a part in ending the Cold War. She wasn’t “nice” – instead, she was magnificent. 

Acute dislike and criticism are occupational hazards for anyone who makes waves or dares to shake things up. Perhaps that’s why so many contemporary politicians are relative lightweights. They want to be liked and popular, and most can’t see a parapet without ducking beneath it. Which UK politician is calling out the unemployed millions who would rather draw benefits than work?

The head of Frontex, Dutchman Hans Leijtens – who sounds very “nice” – says, “Nothing I do can stop people crossing the borders”. He doesn’t want to do his job properly for that would involve being “mean”. US President Biden lifted the Donald’s border controls because they were “mean and bad”. US electors are keen to stop illegal immigration, but Kamala Harris wants to be nice and cuddly – and it may cost the Democrats the US election. In whatever way you choose to describe the ghastly Trump, “nice” is not a word that comes to mind. That’s maybe why instead of wearing an orange jumpsuit – to match his face – and living in a Florida nick, the old sod might just win.

That’s why – and this list is at random so please add who you will – Napoleon, Winston Churchill, Ernest Bevin, Margaret Thatcher, Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn, Mary Whitehouse, Peter Tatchell, JK Rowling, Nigel Farage and Douglas Murray are all great people (forget whether you agree with their views or not, just accept they are all mighty consequential). They have stood up for their causes – and possibly failed many times – but in the end they’ve put up with the inevitable abuse and mockery that are an occupational hazard. None of them cared/cares much about being “nice”.  Because if you are an achiever, you are bound to accept that people will tell lies about you, and that you may face lawsuits or even threats to life and limb. And I’ve not heard that any of the great achievers needed counselling, either!

 This poem, “No Enemies” by Charles Mackay is said to have been on Thatcher’s desk:

You have no enemies, you say?

Alas, my friend, the boast is poor.

He who has mingled in the fray

Of duty, that the brave endure

Must have made foes! If you have none,

Small is the work that you have done.

You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,

You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,

You’ve never turned the wrong to right,

You’ve been a coward in the fight.

So, sod being nice. Where’s the next “cup to dash from perjured lip”?

King of the World

I see Tony Blair is on his way to becoming world king. He’s offering consultancy to all emerging countries, teaching them how to govern efficiently. 

His advice should carry a “risk warning” for he was a disastrous British prime minister. With Clinton-style gifts of persuasion and charm, he won elections of course, but we are still paying a high price for his premiership.

Take your pick of his irreversible disasters. He encouraged more young people to go to university instead of training to become plumbers, plasterers and electricians – so now we have semi-educated “graduates” with no jobs. He allowed the buffoon John Prescott to relax the gaming laws resulting in a vast rise in the number of gaming addicts. The UK is now the world centre of gambling. His devolution dreams of a better future for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have morphed into a costly nightmare.

Then, in a fit of apparent absence of mind, he allowed Home Office minister Barbara Roche to reset our immigration rules to far too many people, far too quickly – and guess what? Anyone who objected was deemed to be, you guessed it – “racist”. Today, our attention is being diverted by the “small boat” saga, but this masks the real problem that, legally, the number of immigrants arriving in the UK (every four years) rivals the size of the population of Birmingham. Don’t forget that the genesis of this problem can be traced back to Blair.     

And all that before the Iraq war. Good luck indeed to all Blair’s clients.