Tag: respect

Low worth, litter and hatred.

What’s the trait you value most about yourself?

I’ve always had a very low opinion of my self worth, and that’s not really bothered me through my life. It’s not the best trait though and sometimes little tweaks have to take place to just bolster things a little bit. I manage it ok and it causes me no issues. I guess I don’t like being knocked down, so staying low on the radar allows me to avoid such situations.

The trait I probably value the most is the ability, to arise early, and never be late for work or an appointment, and most of all knowing that others value me for my reliability, I’m always there when I need to be, and I don’t let minor colds or ailments get in my way.

I’ve had it mentioned on a couple of rare occasions that because I was delayed by traffic maybe, and was 5 minutes later than when I normally hand over at work, (even though I’m still not officially handing over for another 30 minutes) that they were worried that I’d driven into a ditch or something! That says something about their combined expectations and my reliability, come rain or shine, plague or pestilence, Dave can always be relied on.

So in a nutshell I value my reliability, and in close second place because I was brought up in an age when we were constantly told not to litter, I don’t litter at all. Every little bit of scrap no matter how small will sit in my pocket until I reach a suitable waste receptacle, that’s just me. It’s really easy and I’d suggest everyone tries it.

And in third place, but maybe it should be higher, I don’t use the word “Hate”. It’s a horrible word and so final and irreversible, whereas “dislike” can be worked on, the word hatred is final.

Have a super day.

The history

Why are we cancelling everything?

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

In respect of my heritage, history has always fascinated me, and now it annoys me in equal measures.

What fascinates me as it always has, since back in my childhood days, is that I love to know how people worked, lived and managed to survive in a period of time when just one random off the cuff comment could have you accused of many a crime. God forbid if you said anything about the establishment as you’d probably be missing your head before too long.

And the annoying part is that we are in a society where groups of individuals are wanting to cancel everything. People are wanting to wipe out history because they disagree with what happened. That’s history folks! The fact that we don’t (in general, good society, anyway) go around inflicting on the populace accusations of “Witchcraft” “Heresy” and whatever, means we have learned something from that history. We generally don’t make the mistakes of the past as we have become better people and learned from that horrific history that pre dates us all.

She’s right….

I can’t get enough of history, it’s potentially my favourite subject and I will gladly overdose on it in either book or film format. I just love it.

I don’t feel the urge to go and lop off someone’s head, or to take part in hanging, drawing and quartering anyone (not today anyway….) and that’s because we have all learnt, and moved on from those terrible times. We learn from the mistakes of the past, and to wipe out history leaves us in the unenviable position of not knowing the difference between right and wrong, we might as well all go and bury our heads in the sand and just imagine it never happened.

I have news for you Sherlock, it did happen, and as long as we learn, develop and make better then we are being taught by our historical misdemeanours, hopefully to never venture back to those dark old days.

Cancelling solves nothing. In the words of the Jamaican activist- Marcus Garvey,

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”

And he isn’t wrong, I used to have a tee shirt with that on it in my teenage years..

History, it shapes our futures. Don’t cancel it.

Have a superb day…

Let’s put the rose tinted glasses on

How would you design the city of the future?

This is an interesting question to comment on, especially as I live on the edge of what is most likely, one of the filthiest and dirty, worst run cities within the Uk, Leicester.

Extreme, but you get my drift?

Like all cities they seem to attract a population of people who really don’t care that much about themselves or anyone else to be fair, and they accept no responsibility for their respective actions. We have a mixing pot of cultures who don’t mix, hence we have a city of micro cities with each respective micro city closing itself off from the other parts of the city, and that’s where we have issues. All cities worldwide seem to have similar issues. Current city structures do not work, unless you are in the minority, super wealthy category, where life is wonderful and there is no issue. What issues? It’s great having a blinkered view of the world.

City centres are normally fine, it’s when you look at the fringes that you find the down trodden, the chancers and criminal fraternities that feed on the citizens like a white blood cell attacking a virus, the virus being the everyday individual just wanting to make a living for themselves and their family. It’s tough.

I speak from experience that the air around the city is foul. The amount of cars are increasing day on day and the air quality is decreasing as a result. In the last 5 years there has been a marked deterioration in air quality, and being an asthmatic who also has bronchial issues I can vouch for this and that is why we are looking at moving out further into the countryside.

Planners need to get involved and stop owners digging up perfectly good grassed driveways so they can concrete them to allow 8 cars to park on them. I kid you not when I say one house near me has 11 cars and vans on its drive, it is a 4 bedroom house and has three families living within, how is that even possible? This is not a rarity, it is more of a norm for this city as landlords are fleecing individuals by renting out sub standard accommodation to those who can barely afford to live within the laws of the land. The curse of the HMO, (Home of multiple occupancy), take a bow UK government, you should hang your head in shame.

To improve a city you have to clean it up, put rules in place that the occupants also have to maintain their spaces, try to inject some self pride and ownership back into people life’s. The last time that ever occurred was after the last world war, and I’m not suggesting in any way that we have another one, but where has the comradeship gone since then? The little independent micro cities need to be addressed and all communities need to be put back into that melting pot and spread wide throughout the city areas, good luck with that one as I don’t ever see that happening. And then the air needs to be cleaned up, it’s vile up here but 5 minutes to the east of the city is a different cleaner environment. It’s the magnet of the city that seems to pull communities in, maybe there needs to be an engine size limit to cars, who knows? It’s been tried in bigger cities but does it really work?

I don’t think you can design a city of the future. Yes wearing the rose tinted glasses we can all say how we want it to be but in the end it’s down to the individuals who live there. If they don’t want to integrate, if they don’t want to commit to take part in caring for their environment, if they don’t give a toss or don’t care for anyone else, then what hope is there of improving any community or instigating plans for a better futuristic city.

People make a city not buildings or big corporate entities. Change people’s mindsets and you might have a chance. But until then it’s business as usual, the rot has already set in, and I don’t see it getting any better, any time soon. It’s a generational issue, I live in hope that future generations will overcome the issues and learn from all the mistakes we have all made in the past. I wish them well. As currently we as a society have failed miserably.

Have a good day.

Love, Anger and Hatred

What would you change about modern society?

Now I’m not going to go on saying what should and shouldn’t be done as I’d only come across as another whingeing old fart. You’d kind of expect in this day and age that everyone would have a sense of what’s good and what’s not, just as we had back in the day. We were mirrors if you like, of the way our parents were brought up and we learned what was good and bad from them. They weren’t always right and sometimes you just had to make minor adjustments to your life to filter out these “not so good” bits of advice and actions.

Anger

See, as you grow you develop your own ideas and definitions of what’s right and wrong. But not everyone is the same, as I’m sure you are all aware.

Everyday the news brings us absolutely awful stories of horror, regarding the way individuals as well as groups treat others, it really is so sad and soul destroying, the depths of depravity fellow humans can sink to. How do they learn this behaviour? Why do they behave in such a way? How do we rid society of this behaviour?

These are questions that have more than likely been asked throughout every generation. It’s always been that way. Horrifying incidents have occurred throughout history and today’s atrocities are no different.

Throughout history it’s been politics and religion, that have been the cause of the majority of issues on this planet, and that is still the case today, but there seems to be no room for bargaining as one side is always right and the other always wrong. That’s how it appears to the outsider looking in.

Now I rarely talk of either, and I’m not going to go into it here, I know that having a discussion regarding either is just like throwing a naked flame into a box of fire crackers and I’m not doing that. I’m just stating the obvious.

I have my views on both and they are private views. I don’t even discuss them with family. I have my faith and that is all that matters.

Modern society seems to have a large vein running through it that often appears to rupture. That vein is anger. You can walk into any town centre and you can just see it, you can feel it, and on some occasions you are subjected to it. Everyone seems so angry.

Mix that together with the two subjects mentioned above and you have a recipe for disaster where large proportions of the population now become targets of extreme hate. Yes the worst word in the world, and one I refuse to use at all has now crept in. Hate. Hate is an awful word, it’s so inflammatory and filled with anger. Please try not to use it, hate is so terminal with no wriggle room. Whereas you can always work with a dislike of something.

My father did awful things to us as a family, that I have touched on in previous posts. I don’t hate him. I dislike and disagree of what he did, but to hate him in my eyes, is just like allowing him to win, and I’m never letting him do that. Even in death he still controls us through what he did to us mentally, but he will never win, I will not allow that.

So if there was one thing I could change in modern society it would probably be getting a hold on Anger somehow. There’s a lot of it about and it is a cancer living amongst us that needs to be eradicated as soon as possible. How? I don’t know, that’s way above my pay grade, but we can all make a start by removing hatred from our own lives. We just don’t need it.

Have a superb day. Stay safe.

1986

What were your parents doing at your age?

When my parents were at my current age it would have been 1986. They were probably doing their best to just get by, and they both had multiple jobs. I remember a few details from this period as there were some significant goings on around this time.

My mother would have been a shop worker in a local store as well as a cleaner at the company i worked for. I would have been in the photographic industry about four years at this time, i would have had a darkroom in the spare bedroom and would have probably been on my third computer at this point. I’d have ditched the Sinclair ZX81 and the Commodore Vic 20 and I’d probably be trying to master the Amstrad CPC464. I loved the start of the computer era, as did a lot of my friends at the time.

I had my first SLR camera around this time and that would have probably been a Praktika. I was saving as much as i could, to try and purchase my all time favourite camera at the time, and in fact it is still my favourite of all time to this very day. A jet black Canon A1.

I know that i was heavily into photography at This time, as i took one of the most iconic photos i have ever taken in my family history, of my father. I have it to this day. He was leaning on a coal bunker in the garden, it was a beautiful sunny day and i took it, and processed the film and enlarged the photos in my little darkroom in the spare bedroom, on a Gnome enlarger. It was a black and white photo and it represented a turning point in all of our lives.

He had just had a heart attack, and he suffered a deep immersive depression that he never really came out of. Please don’t misunderstand me he lived for another 21 years with no other medical issues, however he had changed and became highly abusive to my mum, my little sister and me. He was heavily into alcohol at this stage, and we were paying the price. I had to grow up quick as i became the protector of my Mother and sister, it was hard and i was not prepared. We were the only ones at home at the time as my two elder brothers and elder sister had all left at that point, and boy how we suffered big time. Our lives were changed the very day his heart attack occurred.

He was a very good electrician, he had been an aircraft electrician but was now working for a local building company, he was also a part time baker.

In the next few years my mother would lose all her brothers and sisters as time took its toll. Father would lose his mother and sister and the family began to dwindle in size.

But thats enough of the bad as its all in the past and though i never forget what happened, i have to move on with my own life for purposes of maintaining sanity.

I loved the 80”s as the world was opening up and starting to develop technologically, however i do believe the older generations did struggle. It’s strange really as it is a mirror image for us older generations today, with some of the things that are going on around us currently. Perhaps all generations have their own Groundhog Day periods.

Here are some points of interest that also occurred back in 1986

  • Plans were announced between the UK and France to build the channel tunnel
  • The space shuttle Challenger exploded just after its launch
  • Halley’s Comet makes a show
  • The Soviet Mir space station is launched
  • Microsoft goes on the stock market
  • The Chernobyl nuclear plant explodes
  • Argentina wins the World Cup
  • The M25 motorway – The UK’s biggest car park opens officially

A lot happened that year and these are just a small selection of them. However the dynamics of my family changed that year and what occurred from that point on will never be forgotten . WordPress really couldn’t have chosen a worse time line to talk about for me than this one I’m afraid, but then, it’s good to get it out there.

However, time moves on, wounds heal and we all learn. This is why it is important that we don’t erase our past, otherwise how will we ever learn to be better people and treat others with the mutual respect and belonging they all so rightly deserve.

Have a lovely day, everyone.

Thanks

It means a lot. It’s just numbers but at least people are having a browse 🙏

Thank you.

Many thanks

Peace to you all.

Pinch Pottery Pt:2

Back in September 2024 I wrote this post about pinch Pottery: Pinch pottery

It’s been a few months and I’ve just decided to finish it off and give it some bright colouring and a sealant coat or two. I want it to represent a bright sun if I can, but when I get to actually paint it, it could well turn out looking totally different. Here we go.

This is one of those things I think my wife dislikes but she knows it means a lot to me, even though it is a poor quality and there are probably kids of 5 or 6 years of age that could produce something a lot better. But I made it, it was made at a time when I was grieving and gave me a lot of pleasure. It still does and this will probably remain in my workshop when I eventually get it up and running. It makes me smile when I look at it and i love it. It’s simple, it’s how life should be.

This is how it originally looked:

Alf
Reminder

I started painting the base Yellow, and the inside Orange, with the dog done in white with a black outline. This is what I have so far.

Just started to paint.

I’m using acrylic paints here. I’m going to put a line of vine type effects around where the yellow joins the orange. At the moment I’m letting the piece dry for the next 24hrs and then I will try some touching up and repainting what I have already done. The yellow coat is quite dull as it is being absorbed quite literally into the clay base. I’m kind of hoping that the next coat will not be absorbed so much, fingers crossed.

Multicoloured madness

I’ve gone with a yellow scheme for the underneath and a red – orange on the inside. I’ve tried the same type of painting that you find on narrowboats on Uk Canals, when they paint the buckets and metalwork with flowers. I’ve used this effect around the rim and from one angle it looks like he is looking over a hedgerow. It’s exceptionally basic, but it’s brightened up a piece of pottery that would otherwise sit in the corner unnoticed, discarded and unloved. You can’t miss this now, it just stands out.

First coat of lacquer
Fast drying enamel clear coat lacquer

The final task is to give a nice coat of lacquer to protect the acrylic paint. I’m going to use some fast drying lacquer that I have sitting in the shed at home. About two coats will be sufficient.

Before and after
Side decorations

I’m pleased with the outcome, it’s made me happy, and I smile whenever I see it. It’s kept me occupied and busy, It’s special to me and that is all that matters. It’s adult pottering and nonsense at its best. But it’s my nonsense.

Thanks for stopping by.

Just have a calm and peaceful day

Ok, I’m not going to be around on the 25th as I have a number of hungry mouths and inquiring minds to keep occupied, as we have the wife’s side of the family here for dinner.

It’s been a tough year but for one day I think we can put all bad to rest and hopefully look forward to whatever new challenges the new year can bring. Today we can let bygones be bygones and celebrate being together, our health and wellbeing.

I know everyone does not celebrate Christmas and I fully accept that, so hopefully I can attempt to wish you all the most peaceful of days , I apologise in advance for any words lost in translation, no offence intended.

Have a wonderful peaceful and happy day.


  • आपका दिन अद्भुत, शांतिपूर्ण और मंगलमय हो

  • તમારો દિવસ અદ્ભુત શાંતિપૂર્ણ અને આનંદમય રહે
  • Magkaroon ng isang magandang mapayapa at masayang araw

  • أتمنى لك يومًا هادئًا وسعيدًا رائعًا

  • একটি চমৎকার শান্তিপূর্ণ এবং সুখী দিন

  • 祝你有個美好嘅和平同快樂嘅日子

  • Que tingueu un meravellós dia tranquil i feliç

  • Passez une merveilleuse journée paisible et heureuse

  • Να έχετε μια υπέροχη ήρεμη και χαρούμενη μέρα
  • Semoga harimu indah, damai, dan bahagia
  • Selamat menjalani hari yang damai dan bahagia

  • Ich wünsche Ihnen einen wunderschönen, friedlichen und glücklichen Tag

I know there are probably about another 140 languages I have failed to address. But to you all my message remains the same.

Peace, love & happiness.

A few, and a profession.

Who are the biggest influences in your life?

Personally my biggest influences amount to no more than a few people and one profession. Let me explain.

  • My Mother, she went through absolute hell in a marriage where she was beaten, abused and used like a carpet. I did my best as a child to protect her and like to think I did that well. She was still being abused well into her Seventies by a horrible jealous man who masqueraded as a husband. I dislike that man, as I have previously stated in a previous post I am unable to hate, I feel sorry for him and I’m sure he received his judgement when he passed over. At least I hope he did. Mother taught me patience and kindness, i absolutely love and adore my mother, and this week was the 20th anniversary of her passing.
  • My wife. She has this year kept the family together, she has saved a friend from harm. She has rescued that friend from the precipice, cared for her, seen she gets helped and spoken with her four or five times on a daily basis until that friend has been repaired, and brought herself back to a place where she is happy. My wife continues to impress me and make me so proud as she is a wonderful, beautiful soul that I believe was put on this earth to help people. She was unable to be a mother, something she would have truly excelled in, but she treats every child as her own and has beautiful relationships with youngsters, she guides and protects, she really should have wings on her back as I’m sure she was put here to serve that purpose. I am so proud of her and I know I have been gifted her presence for a short while, and I so appreciate that, I am a very fortunate person. And I so love her.
  • Anyone who teaches. You are very special and underrated individuals who deserve so much. I was most fortunate to meet the most influential man in my life who was a teacher : My Primary school teacher. Anyone that teaches deserves the utmost praise and respect, it is these unselfish individuals that shape this world and shape individuals into respectable members of society. You make the people who will go forward and shape this world. You make the world a better place. Anyone who just offers good advice and comfort to someone should pat themselves on the back.

We all have a role in society, we can all influence someone.

Have a peaceful day, have a wonderful holiday period no matter what your faith is or where your beliefs lay. Be that better person. Peace.

Anger and hate – Why?

I’m not going to answer today’s daily prompt as WordPress sometimes asks some quite pathetic questions. Who really cares what my 5 favourite foods are or what the last things are that I did for play purposes. If you want to get some good interactions then ask about real life issues, if you want to know what someone has had for dinner then mosey on over to Fakebook or one of its sibling sites.

Today I’m talking Anger and hate, as I’ve experienced it big time in the last few days and I don’t really understand why.

I work hard. Very hard and it’s a thankless task at times. In my job I have to keep transport moving and people safe, however, occasionally one collapses and the other suffers. A young girl with serious issues, had this week presented herself, wandering out onto high speed train lines wearing just pyjamas bringing the system to a halt. I’m one of the first on scene, I arrange protection for everyone ensuring that trains aren’t moving near us and we then go about the task of recovering her and getting her to a place of safety. We achieve this and after a short while she is taken away and given support from a medical team. She is safe, it is all that matters, a life has been saved and it’s about as good as a day gets, but then I meet members of the public who’s travel plans have been ever so slightly disrupted, and it is disturbing and disgusting what I now experience.

“Why didn’t you just let her get hit by the train?”

“She’s ruined my F***ing day as I’m now late”

“People like that deserve to die”

I could go on, and the personal abuse I received questioning my parentage was not much better. It was pure bile and hate and that is why I ask why is there so much anger and hate about today?

What have we become as a society when your lives are arranged in such a way that a small delay brings out the absolute worst in you.

Why is so much anger present in society, even I walked away from this situation and wondered why I had even bothered.

I never use the word “Hate” anyone in my family will tell you that, and I will always pull someone up when they use that word. It’s an awful word, and there is far too much of it in this world. Dislike is a simpler word and can always be worked upon to improve a situation. It’s always easier to turn dislike into something more positive, however hate is a cancerous word that that can rarely be eliminated, it poisons the mind and very quickly kills all manner of rationality.

I work alone, I help get teams together to achieve common goals, the main one being to get transport from point “a” to point “b” safely. Sometimes we are challenged and have to work hard to achieve this goal, but we are always doing our very best. We work in the background and you probably wouldn’t even see us on a daily basis keeping everyone safe, but we are always there, always looking out for issues. Always looking out for you.

But it seems there is (hopefully a minority) an underbelly of society who are so selfish, that they are a danger to their fellow humans, they seem to have lost all reasoning, and common decency and this seems to be eating away at our core values as a social and caring society.

It’s been a tough week and I dare say on the run up to Christmas and just beyond that we will, experience more of these incidents. But guess what?

I will be there, I will do my job, I will put an arm around each of these individuals ( if they allow me) and tell them that I care and that I will be with them whilst they are my responsibility, they need this. I will think about them, no doubt for a long time after the incident and wish them all the very best.

For the irate passenger though I will feel sorrow, for the way they feel and act, and I will dislike that, however they can easily change their ways and become that better person.

Be that better person yourself, don’t hate upon anyone and just try to make life that much better for someone less fortunate, you just don’t know what they are going through.

You will feel a warmth in your body that you may never have felt before. That’s peace and contentment. Spread that feeling, this old world needs a lot more of it.

Have a safe and happy day.