Dean's Blog

Well here we are again! The end of another year as we say goodbye to 2008 and hello to 2009 it is time once again to think about changes in my life.

In reflection 2008 has not really been a bad year, I moved house, moved to a new county and whilst work is slow and often difficult I guess that in these financial times of woe I am lucky to have one. I know that 2009 is going to be a VERY DIFFICULT year for the entire world as the financial crisis gets worse, but in the midst of all this I am making ten resolutions to make my life better than it has been.

So here are my resolutions for 2009

1. Stop spending huge amounts of money on nights out with friends and save


2. Learn two new languages


3. Visit Colombia in the Summer :)


4. Finish writing my new book by July


5. Spend more time doing outdoor activities instead of staying in most weekends


6. Not to worry about the pressures of work too much


7. Learn to turn my Blackberry OFF at night


8. Be true to the woman I love and make her life as special as it can be


9. Spend more time visiting family, they are the ones who always remain loyal to us


10. Be happy and healthy and live the dream!

A new year is a new start, a time where hopes and dreams can become a reality. Nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it.

Dreams really can come true. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing.

Happy New Year!

I was rudely awoken in the guest room of my parents house this morning at 11am.

"Dean, are you awake?" asked my mum

"Guess I am now", I replied.

"Good, Nick is coming around to pick the TV up for his gran in ten minutes, can you put it on the hallway for him".

So I casually awoke, got out of bed and lifted the small portable TV to the floor.

"Oh no not that one, the big one, your old TV"

My old TV?....you mean the TV that I left here last year as it was too big to fit in the removal van, the TV that had been with me for five years?.

"Yes that one", pointed my mum.

It turns out that my mum had agreed to give this TV away to her best friends mother who is 89. Not one to begrudge an old lady a TV I sadly looked at the hulking great box and felt a bit heavy hearted. Sure I had since replaced this TV with a 37" LCD Widescreen TV. Sure I now had surround sound and its hooked up to an X-Box 360 but this old TV was like a good friend.

It was the first TV I ever purchased on my own, and back in 2003 even cost more than the newer model I now owned. This TV was the peacemaker when I had an arugment with my ex girlfriend. It was also the perfect excuse to escape to a different world when my ex had her friends around, just plug in and transport yourself to a new world.

This was also the TV I dragged home from Dixons on the tube, in the pouring rain. It was more than a TV it was an old friend.

I hope that this 89 year old lady has just as much enjoyment with it as I did, just don't try and lift it, I still have the scar.

I will miss you old friend.

You are always more than "Just a TV"

Have a wonderful day everyone!

This is womans Dart's World Champion Anastasia Dobromyslova.

This week she took part in the PDC Dart's World Championship. The first time that a female has taken part at this professional level.

During her first round match, which she lost, her opponent's throws were being booed. This is not unusual in Darts. Anyone who has ever been to a darts match would know the crowd often play up to those who are popular and those who are not, it is much like a pantomime.

But this blog is about six times former World Champion Eric Bristowe and his rather sexist comments about Anastasia's participation in the event.

Before this match Bristowe stated in an interview that she had no place in the event.

""There are a lot of top players who are not very happy about it. "They are paying a lot of money to travel around the world and she's just been invited", said Bristowe.

"If Anastasia wants to join the PDC, travel the world earning ranking points and earn her way through then we could have five women in it next year and no-one could complain", he added.

It is this type of sexist comment that irritates me to the core by sportsmen who are still stuck in the past. My opinion is if she is that good then let her play. I was not watching man against woman when I saw her game, I saw darts player against darts player and it was a very close game, which the best player one.

It has done wonders for the sport, it has been a great thing to see and I hope more and more women take part in the future. For Bristowe, a man who is still stuck in the 1980's I feel sorry for his sad opinion.

As another year comes to an end we often reflect about how it has gone, the highs and lows and of course make those resolutions that we will most certainly break.

On the whole, with the exception of yesterday, this year has been a good one, better than 2007 and 2006 but still a lot of room for improvement.

Whilst I see a lot of my friends are off to parties, some if not most are heading home. Now I do not get to see my family a great deal during the year, usually at a Summer gathering or at this time of year. But going home for Christmas is always something of a tonic.

Home made meals, laughter, arguments and silence. It is what makes a Christmas. But no matter what the highs and lows are of spending Christmas with your family I know that there will be years to come when I will no longer be in a position to enjoy them with such anticipation.

So no matter how similar they always seem year after year there is no better way to end a year.

The perfect tonic.

In a world that's filled with darkness

Exists a shining light

She lights the way through life's cold days

And guides me through the night

Her words raise my soul so high

Like it is soaring in the sky

Akin to a phoenix from the flames

Soaring up so high

She must be an angel

As there is nothing more beautiful than she

Each time I see that lovely smile

My heart it fills with glee

At night we waltz into a dream

Where just two people dance devine

The music plays into the dawn

The moment feels just fine

If she is ever feeling down

I will lift her up with love

That to her is my gift of life

That is sent from up above

Today as I boarded the tube from Canary Wharf following a meeting I had the pleasure of bumping into leader of the opposition and Conservative party (and without a doubt the next Prime Minister of the UK) David Cameron. Whilst I admired him for taking public transport, even with a plethora of photographers, it was the paper he was carrying that grabbed my attention.

It is not often a headline makes you stare at someones paper intently, the last time was when actor Christopher Reeve died and the headline read "Superman is Dead!", much to the horror of the young boy sat next to me who began to cry.

But today I read that Bernard Maddof, the former chairman of NASDAQ, has admitted fraud totalling £33 BILLION (£33,000,000,000).  In the time of the credit crunch this means not only putting more of a strain on the ever tightning economy but also the tax payers, once again, will have to front the bill.

Now excuse the language but HOW THE FUCK was this not picked up? Is there no audit process involved when monitoring finances?

One woman quoted today "It will be difficult to see finances return to normal in America for a while £33 billion is a lot of money"....no shit.

This world is falling into economic decline, whilst America maybe celebrating the new President replacing a bumbling buffoon in GW Bush, here in the UK we have a clueless idiot involved, who was never elected Prime Minister, to announce last week that he had "Saved the world"

If he had any decenecy he will call an election tomorrow for the Spring, accept defeat and maybe, just maybe the man I met this morning can put the Great back into Britain.

They are not about me...they are just about things I see in life each day :)

One Christmas party down.....4 to go :)

The Summer days spent on the beach

Laughing with new friends

Those endless nights of happiness

For which my heart depends

Your all caught up in the moment

Yet I am here to stay

You enter my life and leave just as quick

Now your gone away

The sea washes away the footprints

Of the journey that we shared

You have gone to distant shores

I wonder if they cared?

Winter replaces summer

And I here I am alone

The pattern will repeat itself

That much is now known

I hope your feeling happy

And remember each day with bliss

For I am just alone here now

In my isolated abyss

George Bernard Shaw liked the tidy approach

Are we able to think clearly when surrounded by mess because chaos is inherent in all our minds, even those of the great writers and thinkers, asks Clive James.

The great thing about this slot is that I can pontificate. But a wise pontificator should always remember that he won't solve a global problem in 10 minutes, or even do much more than usefully touch on it in 10 hours. There are two main reasons for that. One reason is that the global problems are, by their nature, devilishly complicated. But everyone knows, or should know, that.

The other reason is less obvious, because it lies within the nature of the pontificator. He, or she - in my case he - speaks with a special pontificating voice: integrated, judicious even in its doubts, purporting to contain the distilled wisdom of a lifetime's experience. Almost always, I suspect, this voice is at odds with the personality from which it emerges, and in my case the discrepancy is so glaring that even I can spot it.



(Above is writer Will Selfs Study)

As I prepare this script, tapping away at the keyboard as Socrates might have done if he had owned a PC, it seems to me that my brain is at my fingertips, with all its scope and knowledge. But then, after looking up at the screen and noticing that the last two sentences are all in capitals and include various chemical formulae for substances unknown to science, I bounce my forehead off the desk and make the supreme mistake of looking around my room.

It's in chaos. The pontificator with plans for fixing the world can't organise his own desk, and as for what lies beyond the desk, forget about it. The evidence that I've spent years forgetting about it is all out there. Piles of old newspapers and magazines. Stacks of box files containing folders containing memos about the necessity to buy more folders and box files. Hundreds of books uselessly hidden behind hundreds of other books. A small statue of a Sumo wrestler, or else a life-sized statue of a small Sumo wrestler. A bag of random receipts that my accountant might have found quite useful in their year of origin, 1998.

But let's start with the desk. Or rather, let's not. The desk is too much. Little of its surface is visible through piled notebooks and shuffled papers. But observe this vertically striped earthenware mug full of ball-point pens. If the phone rings with information I must take down, I reach for one of these pens and find that it does not work.

Shambolic

In the same vertically striped mug there are 15 other pens that do not work either. Vaguely I remember the day when I planned to sort through these pens and retain only those that did work. But I got distracted. What else is in the same mug? Jelly beans, several of which have grown fur.

And that's just the mug. What about this desk drawer over here on the right? Ah, there's a touch of organisation here. Every year I put a new set of vital names and addresses in the designated section of my appointments diary. But I never get round to transferring vital names and addresses from previous diaries into the current one. So there are 10 years of diaries in this drawer alone, to supplement the line-up of 20 years of diaries standing over there in the corner of the room behind that valuable stack of obsolete phone books. Or, as I have just typed, obsotel nophe kobos.

All over again I count my blessings that I have not been chosen as one of the subjects for Eamonn McCabe's series of photographs called Writer's Rooms. In London, an exhibition of these photographs has just opened. The photographs have been running as a series in one of the upmarket newspapers. When I looked at the early photos in that series I was envious. Would I be chosen? Then I started praying that I wouldn't be, a prayer which has mercifully been answered.

There are some prizes I would like. I would quite like the Nobel Prize, if the money could be delivered tomorrow in a suitcase, clearly marked "Nobel Prize money: bank immediately or it will burst into flames." I would quite like the Booker prize, the Whitbread Prize, the Forward prize and the UNICEF prize for the chronically disorganized. I can hear myself pontificating while accepting any or all of those awards. But what I don't want is to be photographed in this room, because any shred of credibility I had as a pontificator would evaporate instantly.

I noted with shame that even the most shambolic of the writer's rooms in the photographs was better organised than mine, and the majority of them might have been deliberately arranged to remind me that I myself was working in a skip. These paragons had got it all together without it getting on top of them.

Force of nature

You could tell that everything was there for a reason. If a woman writer had the propeller of a Sopwith Camel mounted on the wall, it was because her great-grandfather shot down Baron von Richthofen's second cousin in 1917.

Writers had their books arranged by category, in alphabetical order. I moved into this office 10 years ago, the books came out of their tea chests in any old order, and any old order is still the only order they maintain on my shelves. There are books I know I own but I have to buy them again because I can't find them.

Let me add that everything is well dusted. A cleaner comes in once a week and she does a good job. But she is under instructions not to move anything, in case I need it. So she has learned just to polish the whole lot as if it were an installation at Tate Modern.

Other writers clearly find it easier to get their act together, and no doubt most non-writers do too. But judging from my own admittedly extreme experience, they can only get things under control by striving mightily against a force of nature that wants things to be disorganised rather than not.

Scientists call it entropy. Back in the early 19th Century, Carl von Clausewitz, in his great work about military strategy On War, called it Friction. Clausewitz said that you have to have a plan for the battle but the plan had better include plenty of room for the absolute certainty that the plan will start growing fur from the first moment of its execution.

I have just been checking up in my copy of Clausewitz - I had to buy another copy, because my original copy is somewhere in my bookshelves, which means that it might as well be on Mars - and I can tell from every sentence that he was writing with the insight conferred by self knowledge.

I'll bet all the money in my foreign coin collection - it's over there in the fruit bowl, and some of those hundreds of obsolete francs and deutschmarks are sure to be worth something to collectors a hundred years from now. I'll bet all that money in the fruit bowl - and if you're asking where the fruit is, I gathered up all my powers of organisation and threw it out only a month after I forgot to eat it. I'll bet all that money that Clausewitz, when he was working on his magnum opus in his last years, was sitting at a desk that looked like the morning after the Battle of Waterloo.

His name for the accumulated effect of Friction was the Fog of War. When I read that, I could tell straight away that here was a man who, like me, couldn't toast a slice of bread without filling his apartment with smoke. When his widow prepared his manuscript for posthumous publication, she probably found sandwiches in it.

Dangerous signal

When DVDs came in, I rarely played my VHS tapes again, but the VHS tapes did not move out. There are several hundred of them here, stacked on the floor. My first copy of Clausewitz might be somewhere behind them. I know there is a squash racket behind them because I can see the edge of its frame sticking up.

Will I ever play squash again? Of course not, so why is the racket still there? Perhaps it's trying to remind me that the best equipped pontificator is the one who is aware of his own propensities towards chaos. Unable to organise his own breakfast, he will be less ready to condemn officials who can't organise an efficient system for sending out student grants, or collecting private information onto a CD-ROM that won't be left on a train.

But even the most self-aware pontificator is still likely to expect too much of the world. Rarely will he be sufficiently amazed that society functions at all, considering some of the human material it has to work with. In ancient Greece, the philosopher Diogones, wedded to simplicity, lived in a tub. But he still roamed the streets of Athens by daylight while carrying a lamp. He said that he was looking for an honest man, and everybody wrote it down, saying that Diogones the cynic was a piercing analyst of the human condition. But maybe he just didn't know how to turn the lamp off.

Sitting at this computer, on whose keyboard I have just typed the word "lamp" and actually written the word "lump", I am face to face with an item of technology that Diogones would not have known how to switch on. I barely know how to switch it on either, have often failed to switch it off - why does it ask me "do you wish to report the error" when I don't now what the error is? And yet I do know that its mere presence in the pile of rubble I call my desk is sending me a dangerous signal.

This miracle of machinery is telling me that order can emerge from chaos after all. Well, yes, it can, but only against heavy odds, because chaos is inherent even in the minds of those who make the miracles. And it is certainly inherent within the pontificator. I can pontificate about that with some certainty, even as I type the last words of this sprict, scirpt, script, reach for my mug of coffee and get a mouthful of ball point pens.

Eamonn McCabe's Writers' Rooms exhibition is at the Madison Contemporary Art gallery in London until 17 Januray 2009

Sunshine follows thunder like lightning follows rain
A feeling of such immortal bliss she takes away the pain
She is the bridge across the river, the flame in the night
Her heart shines like a beacon, now everythings allright
A fool can say I love you but the wise will offer their heart
Distance only equals desire now that were apart

I follow you into the sun so please girl take my hand
Two hearts entwine like butterflies across the broken land
If dreams are meant to come real then let this one be true
Every broken promise that has let you down, now they will come true

Each journey begins with one footstep, I guess we should now run
Fate is saying "You can't win", but I guess thats half the fun
Overcoming any goal, thats the will we have to keep
I'll shelter you from harm in life, protect you in our sleep
Now if the world is angry we smile back in its face
We are the hear and now my love we lead the human race

I follow you into the sun so please girl take my hand
Two hearts entwine like butterflies across the broken land
If dreams are meant to come real then let this one be true
Every broken promise that has let you down, now they will come true

Every person has a wish, send yours across the shore
Let my key be the kiss I give that opens up your door
If I could own your heart this life then my soul is one
You are the flower I want to grow in our eternal sun
Everything happens for a reason so lets not tempt fate
Kiss me now upon this night, before it is too late.

Celebrity - 1) noun, a famous person: a show-business celebrity

Well done to Joe Swash who has won the 2008 UK "I'm a celebrity get me out of here", a year of Iceland supermarket ad's await him. Those who know me will tell you I loathe reality shows like this but this year I watched it for one reason, an actual Celebrity was present.

The contestants this year consisted of the winner, Joe Swash, a cheeky cockney actor famous for playing..er a cheeky cockney. Mr Sulu from Star Trek, a man who was in a pop band 23 years ago, a man who was in a boy band 8 years ago, two failed politicians, an old TV presenter, some footballers fiancee, and a girl with a huge false pair of tits.

After three weeks of viewing I'm convinced there were more than just a few tits in the camp and just as false as Nicola's.

But above it all stood a legend, a true icon, in her field the greatest of all time.

The woman who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Women's double titles, and 10 mixed doubles. In total 177 championship wins. She is head and shoulders the greatest tennis player of all time.

Rubbing shoulders with a page 3 model and TV presenters whose claim to fame is shouting "BLAAAAAH" must have been daunting for Martina. After all her skill and tennis prowess have made her one of the greatest sports women in history.

The others will milk the 15 minutes of fame for as long as they can, Mr Swash will be on telly as much as he can.

Martina, your legacy is immortal. Thank you for defining the word legend.

Staring bewilderingly into space the mother of missing nine year old Shannon Matthews looks drawn, haggard and gaunt. It should be down to the countless hours of worrying, the sleepless nights wondering where the daughter that she loved so much was.

Yet in reality for twenty four days Karen Matthews not only knew where here 'missing' daughter was yet she orchestrated the whole story. Drugged, tied up and held hostage nine year old Shannon Matthews was kept in a small divan bed, not big enough to turn over in whilst her mother and goggle eyed porn addict of a boyfriend played the hearts of millions hoping to gain the reward that The Sun newspaper had placed, £50,000.

The plan was to release Shannon into a market where her Uncle, also in on the act, would find her and then claim the reward. But thanks to the more than observant scrutiny of the local police force and detectives they not only saw through the whole lie but more importantly found Shannon alive.

Karen and the uncle were yesterday found guilty of Kidnapping, Imprisonement and Abduction and face "lengthy jail terms". All for £50,000.

They will no doubt be the target of much abuse, they will never see Shannon again. Shannon has been in care since, and the worst crime of all is that she will now grow up without a mother. The price of stupidity, £50,ooo. The price of love, that is priceless.

She stared deep into the cataclysmic abyss that gazed back with beckoning eyes.As the rain lashed against her face like shards of broken glass, sharp enough to hurt but not enough to cut she gently began to sway. Like a rag doll playing in the wind her body moved in random directions, undeceive in which way to go, a euphoric feeling of being out of control.

Silhouetted figures moved slowly in the distance, up and down they bobbed they were animated yet made no sound. Maybe the noise they were emitting was being drowned by the banshee screams that echoed through her ears. The wind howled violently, seemingly humming to her to "Jump". She was out of control; fate was out of her hands only certain death awaited her if the next step forward was to be her last.

The only thoughts that ran through her mind were how she had arrived at this point, the events, the promises and broken dreams of the last year all seemingly pushing her forward towards the point of no return. As the raindrops dripped down her face masquerading her tears into a path of drowned emotions the pain suddenly snapped her back to reality.

Where was she? Had she abandoned her child again? The daughter that she had bought into this world yet abandoned time after time as her own selfish addictions took over her body snapping her desire and murdering any last ounce of willpower she possessed. How many more times will the social services give her a final warning, she had lost count. Vicki was the saviour of her life, the only thing that had stopped her from engulfing herself in the darkened cataclysm that offered her such a tempting invitation.

Was it fate that had led her here? How can a soul become so decayed in such a short space of time? The willingness to feel wanted and accepted was the cause, that much she knew, but what she still could not fathom was why she had let herself be abused by those she trusted. There was no element of friendship in her life anymore, family were there to protect her but they had abandoned ship a long time ago.

The racism portrayed when she invited Joel into her house by her family were inexcusable, the blunt outburst was unforgivable. But her kin turning their back on her had to be the straw that not only broke the camel’s back but crushed the poor bastard. Alone and frightened the year ahead saw a path of self destruction she would not have wished on her worst enemy.

The silhouetted figures were getting distant, the sun had replaced the rain and was etching pain upon her blistered skin, and it was all too much to bear. There was nothing left to live for, nothing to hold her back ending it all. The wind picked up pace and pushed her further to the edge, leaning over she looked down into the infinite hole that waited for her choice...a choice that would change everything.

The make-up hides my pain so good

I masquerade my smile

The tears of this clown have all dried up

If only for a while

An act to entertain you

I am your ringside toy

You are lion tamer

Whipping me for joy

I dance the jolly jig for you

A prisoner, your daily muse

Yet underneath the painted face

Spent up anger lights my fuse

Suddenly I'm free from you

The enlarged shoes are of my feet

Now I fly on my trapeze

The air it feels so sweet

I enjoy the air as it rushes past my head

But I will soon come crashing down

You shoot the cannon to my head

Life is just a circus

I am the painted man

One day I will be free from this

Once I have the master plan

Well I just watched the final episode after seven years. Without any doubt the most emotional and fantastic episode of any TV show I will ever watch. I even cried. Walton Goggins was amazing.

No Spoilers. Just tears.

Farewell to The Shield. There will never be a TV show like it again.

It is not everyday that I am frantically avoiding all entertainment related news websites. Today is one of those days.

I can personally count four shows which I would categorically say I am a genuine "Fan", Twin Peaks (1990), Carnivale (2004), Afterlife (2005) and The Shield.

To call The Shield a "Cop Show" is like calling The Simpsons a cartoon. Its a fast moving, hard hitting gritty drama that leaves even the most hardened of fan guessing which way the tale will turn.

It was back in 2001 where I first watched The Shield, I came back from the pub and turned in to see if the reviews that I had read matched the hype. They did and since then I have watched it religiously. There are many questions that any other show ending its seventh and final season a fan could answer.

Not The Shield.

Will Vic Mackey die, will he survive. Will Shane and Vic's friendship/fued pay the ultimate price. What about Aceveda/Ronnie/Claudette and Dutchboy?

Its all too exciting for me to watch. It is not on in the UK anymore so I will have to rely on watching it online to accompany my six season DVD collection.

One thing I do know is that when the final trigger has been pulled, the final words are spoken Police shows will never be the same.

Knowing that your still with us fills my heart with joy
Reaching for the stars tonight to hold my little boy
In the moments that we shared on earth, each one is to true
Sharing life and love we did turned the sky so blue
Time will heal the pain I know but your always on my mind
Instant memories take me back you are one of a kind
A loving brother, son, a father full of pride
Never one for being sad yet so much pain to hide
Memories they come and go and I know life does go on
Inside my heart your are my sun, your glow it really shone
Kids grow into men yet you went so soon, never had the time
Hearing your churchbell laughter as the clock begins to chime
Always you are in my heart every night and every day
I will live your life through childrens eyes even though you are away
Lay your head back down to sleep, whisper into the night
Always I will listen to you, my eternal guiding light
Now I carry on with life I do the best I can
Destiny may have taken you too soon, but you are a man
Each year the time it passes, grows into another new
Rest in peace my loving son, we are here with you
Seasons turn into new dawns, your name will never die
Eternally Kristian we think of you, we will always try
Now go to sleep and dream of me as I dream of you, my son you are my shining light, no words are more true.

Whilst I was going to write an entry on the current pirate situation off the Somalian coast I today have found the most difficult thing on earth that I want to blog about.

Fitted sheets.

Not just any fitted sheet but fitted sheets that have shrunk by around 5% in the tumble dryer. I don't usually use them but the rest of my laundry is dirty so a clean sheet was required.

So it began.

One corner, then another. So far so good. Then stretching the sheet to its fullest I managed to get the third corner on! Why is all bedding not like this?!

Oh no my joy was short lived.

The fourth corner went on but the opposite corner pinged off. So that corner went on only for the other two to come off. After I managed to get three on I spread myself across the bed like a starfish pinning two of the top ones down only for the other to come off.

I don't think even Einstein could solve this one. After 45 minutes I manged to get all four corners on, it looked uneven so I pulled it down only for it to ping off one corner.

I did eventually succeed but it was a disaster from start to finish.

Never again.

This was an interesting topic I read in todays Independent. Since 2001 the number of patients waiting for major transplants has risen from 5,500 to nearly 8,000. This was an alarming statistic as I remember at school we would be almost forced to sign a donor card when reaching 16.

Yesterday the Government accepted a report from a group of expert medical advisers which recommended against Britain adopting an "opt-out" system of organ donation, to boost transplant rates. Although widely trailed in advance, the decision is a surprise because an opt-out system has received vigorous backing from the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and the Chief Medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, as well as other organisations such as the British Medical Association.

Under an opt-out system, there would be a presumption that a person's organs would be available for transplant after their death, unless they had registered an objection while still alive, or their relatives objected. Under the current "opt-in" system, the public are encouraged to indicate their willingness to donate their organs after death by adding their names to the UK Transplant donor register, and to tell their relatives of their wishes. But only 25 per cent of adults have done so whereas 65 per cent say (in surveys) they would be prepared to donate their organs.

I feel that as long as we live a fairly healthy life then there is no reason why hospitals should not have the rights to use our organs provided there is no religious or potential issues revolving around this. How many more healthy organs will be buried or cremated when they can go towards helping the lives of those who need them most.

Spain is always cited as a success in organ donation because its donor rates are almost three times higher than the UK (34.4 per million population in 2007 compared with 13.4). But while the law introducing presumed consent – an opt-out system – was passed in Spain in 1979, donor rates did not begin to rise until a decade later in 1989 when the Spanish National Transplant Organisation was founded, which boosted the number of transplant co-ordinators and other measures.

Dr Rafael Matesanz, the organisation's president, told the taskforce that Spain's success had nothing to do with the change in the law. "The families are always approached. They always have the last decision and there are great variations from region to region," he said. When Britons living in Spain were approached, their families refused in 9 per cent of cases, compared with 43 per cent in the UK, he said.

Can we not just learn from Spain?

When we make a decision in life we sometimes think of the decisions or consequences in depth before we move on to implementing them.

It can be a decision so trivial others will ponder why you are making it, it could be so life changing others will try and talk you out of it. But as long as you go with the heart and make that choice then only fate can determine if it is right or wrong?

Life in my eyes is all about changes, if we stay still for too long we get caught up in a stagnant mess and if we don't adapt with the times then we will never grow or learn, akin to growing up really. But when do we reach full maturity? When we are eighteen says the law, or when we die says fate.

To me life is always going to be a learning curve and we take the rough with the smooth and do the right thing :)
At least I hope.

I ran a million miles for you

A lead weight around my neck

Stood on pins and broken glass

My heart was not in check

Can you see the pain that leaked from my eyes?

When I tired so hard to please

Desire to feel loved was mine to give

Yet you did nothing to appease

A feeling of pure loneliness's

In a heart I called desire

You cast me off into the wind

But set my soul on fire

A man cast into a chasm

A place to think and plan

Released back into the wild

A bright and soaring man

You will not recognise me

Both in your eyes and soul

Can you feel the power I possess?

Destiny is my control

Guarded against rejection

Shielded from pain and fear

Love is now withing my grasp

Approaching a brighter year

I was chatting to a friend of mine on facebook and we both approached the subject of moving home. She mentioned that the majority of her belongings, like mine, are clothes. This got em thinking, do we keep possessions in life as a reminder and discard them when we discard people or are they treasures to keep forever? Does an item we own become so attached to a person that may have left our lives that when they go it goes too?

I look around as I type this and see treasures that I have collected from Africa, Australia, Thailand, Scotland, Sweden, China etc.

But in all the traveling I have done, in all the places I have been I could store all my items in a warehouse and still need space for more, so where have they all gone?

Between 2001-2008 I moved house seven times and did downsize each time, it also did not help that my ex girlfriend was a shopaholic and would always buy me clothes I never needed. When we broke up I went through a phase, as I always do, of destroying anything associated to her, out went the photo's the birthday cards (ok I did draw the line at the PSP and 32" LCD TV!). So I think in future I may just have to be a little less hasty when thinking of destroying possessions. I have always been a light traveler and can fit all my life in a van.

But I now know in haste that I can never replace those posessions that I have discarded along the way.

On Monday I attended a meeting in London. It was held in the same place where I lived for five years, The Docklands. As the tedious meeting came to an end I decided that I would have a quick lunchtime pint of beer in my favourite local pub.

These pubs were places that hold many fond memories for me, parties, stories, emotions and love all hidden behind the doors of these once regular haunts of mine. I made life changing decisions in these bars, and of course it would be nice to see some of the old faces behind the bar.

It was raining very hard that day so I ran down the road towards my favourite bar, The Heron.



Only to find that The Heron, that beautiful riverside bar has now been turned into an OFFICE BLOCK! NO!!! I was SO thrown back by this, how could this be? The Summer BBQ's spent there, the drunken howling games of pool, the laughs and loves.

So I thought I would pop into the Anchor, the oldest pub in the area, to see Lynn and catch up on old times....



At first I thought, my god a broken window, nothing new for the Anchor :) But to my dismay there was a For Sale sign and all the furnishings had been removed. My heart now sank, my two favourite pubs were closed.

Soaking wet and saturated I decided to drown my sorrows in the Puzzle, which was another great haunt of mine and also the pub just around the corner from where I used to live.



You guessed it...they had gone into administration.

There was only one more pub in the area, the rather run down "Plough" so I went there to take a breather and think how this could be.

As I walked into the Plough (yes it was open) I noticed that it had had a rather serious make over, gone was the dart board, the pool table and the sticky carpet and instead had gone through a transition that Extreme Makeover would have been proud of, it smelt of fresh paint, the doors were new, there was art for sale on the wall. Was this the same pub? I ordered a pint of beer and almost choked on the price £3.40 for a pint of Smiths. I did not want to take out a bank loan for another pint so I decided to go to the toilets and leave. Upon entering the toilets I wondered if the old broken hand dryer that used to spit hot air upwards rather than downwards was still there....oh no it had been replaced.



By a small man offering me a "Hot Towel"

Fuck me the past has changed. So no more! I demand that this government stop shutting down pubs, hiking up the price of beer and let's reclaim our locals!

Ninety years ago today the most brutal, bloody and horrific war ended.

Of the millions who died, those brave young men that laid their lives down to protect and provide us with the freedom and lives we have today.

We are forever in your debt.

Thank you.

 As the days rapidly approach towards Christmas I once again get to see and read in the newspaper about the X-Factor. This is a show where singers get the chance to win a talent show and then become a “star”.

 

I find the whole format of the show just so tedious and tiresome and, like a gone off Chicken, is well past it’s sell by date. Every year singer’s dreams are left in tattered ruins by the panel of “experts” that can make or break their dreams in an instant.

 

Of all the judges I only really have respect for Simon Cowell. The others I questions their credibility:-

 

• Louis Walsh – A man who gave us Boyzone & Westlife (Enough Said), he still thinks that boy bands are the thing of the future.


• Cheryl Cole – A member of the band Girls Aloud. Surely she should be concentrating on her own career and not wasting time on a show like this.


• Danni Minouge – She advises on a person’s talent. This is a woman whose best selling album in the UK peaked at number 42, whose follow up album failed to make the top 50. Being advised by Danni Minouge on singing is like being advised on acting talent by Paris Hilton.

 

It also seems that every contestant has some sort of sob story, raining from an incurable illness to a pet passing away, all in the name of drumming up more votes. Then just before Christmas the winner is announced and the UK public are forced to hear the song every time the radio is turned on.

 

If the format of this show is going to work then why not have a show for bands rather than individual singers. There are some great bands out there, unsigned, who with the right backing and management can provide us with the music that the majority want to listen to, not the solitary warbling cover versions that we have been subjected to.

Once again the world is waiting to see who the new president elect of the United States will be. Whoever takes the role history will be made. Either the first ethnic president or the eldest.

 

Over the past few months the presidential elections have dominated the front pages of all the papers I have read. The heated debates, the vice candidate selections and of course the constant touring and posing with the press. Whilst the USA expects the whole world to sit up and take notice I question myself “Do I really care?”

 

One paper today described the job as “the most important and powerful job on earth”, but is that really the case? Is America the superpower it once was? Whilst they and Russia played chess with the world during the cold war the likes of Japan have soared ahead in both financial and technological markets. Europe has become a much tighter community with only the UK playing isolation. I feel that America is not the country it once was or thinks it is. Don’t get me wrong, I love the USA and have been there on many occasions but they are not as powerful as they believe.

 

I am under no illusions that this job is of great importance and indeed power but the world will not change due to a new US president.  As with any election time after time the promises turn to lies and the lies turn into problems for the very people that had the opportunity to vote.

 

McCain promises to return the USA to a country of wealth and opportunity, Obama says “We can change the world”

 

I don’t offer congratulations to the new president, I just offer my sympathy. Whoever wins will have inherited one of the biggest quagmires of failure on record.

 

I wish them well.

As I pour myself a cup of coffee this morning I read with despair the crisis in Congo is getting worse. Over 250,000 people have been driven from their homes by rebels, looting and killing whatever stands in their way.

Yesterday as I was checking my finances I thought "Damn I need to watch the money this month", but when you read something akin to the plight of the Congolese it makes my fiscal problem seem something meaningless. Imagine the despair of these poor people not knowing if today could possibly be their last alive.

As the news report ended I was then greeted with something that really made my stomach churn.

Cricket.



Yesterday the Professional (and highly paid) English cricket team took part in a match against The Stanford Superstars. A limited 20 over game, and the prize? The winners recieve $20,000,000.

The winners who are highly paid, sponsored and famous sportsmen playing for more money than they need? Are they not rich enough? Do they not know that their is a global credit crunch on, and as with Congo, their are countries on the brink of civil war.

The result was meaningless, though England were thoroughly beaten. The fact remains that highly paid sportsmen pocketed even more money for doing their job.

Why not hand the winnings over to those who need it more? Why not give it to charity.

The Greedy bastards.

In the past few days the rather talented comic Andrew Sachs (who those outside the UK may know as Manuel from the 1970's world famous comedy Fawlty Towers) was due to appear on the Russel Brand BBC2 radio talk show. He was meant to appear alongside the most famous current UK Chat Show host Jonathan Ross.

Unfortunately the rather immature 33 year old Brand and the more immature Ross, aged 46, decided to insult Mr Sachs with taunts that Brand slept with Sachs grand daughter. The videos are below but since the show last weekend over 30,000 complaints have been received. Brand has since resigned and Ross has been suspended for 3 months with no pay, hardly a punishment for one who is already a millionaire.

I hope that I never get to see Brand or the untalented and unfunny Ross on TV again as there are far more talented presenters out there.

Meanwhile I want to leave you with a video of Pele and Maradona, who during thier lives, have criticised each other but got together a few years ago to raise a serious amount of money for charity.

It just goes to show that two men who are the legends of their game can put hostilities aside and raise a lot of money for charity and I am now glad to read are close friends. Whilst it is sad to see two other untalented tossers who I feel should be kicked off the TV and Radio for life.

Idiots

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=U7IHJ66wj9g]

Legends

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uVk5o6k9wJ0&feature=related]

I had to gasp and also chuckle this weekend.

Whilst visiting my parents I noticed the wall opposite my parents house was demolished. This house belongs to a man in his 80's called John, who has lived in that house most of his life. Whilst most of the residents of the street my parents live in have long gone he must be the eldest resident.

My parents have never had a very expensive car, like me they only see cars of a means of getting from A to B and not an icon or status symbol.

My parents both own a car each in order to get to work and back and usually buy a second hand car in order that when it starts to go wrong they just scrap it and buy another. My dad's latest acquisition was a 1990's red Peugeot 206 and it was on it's way out and my dad told me a week ago he was going to get rid of it that weekend and get a new one.

On the other hand my neighbour, who whilst being a very nice guy, has always had this complex about boasting about how big his car is and how much it cost. His latest purchase was a Rover, leather heated seats, Sat nav and all that jazz.

Anyway last Saturday as my neighbour started his car he realised that he had the handbrake off, not wanting to hit my fathers car he swerved to the other side of the road, hitting the neighbours wall but not stopping there he managed to crash into two Black Audi's then carrying on he crashed into a garage, hitting a VW camper van before finally crushing a motorbike.

The total damage was over £25,000. One crushed wall, two very badly damaged Audi's, one written off VW camper van and motorbike. The total value of my fathers car? Around £250.

One very costly mistake.

In a world where money is so precious

People protect it like it's gold

In a far away place under scorching sun

A story shall unfold

A boy walks eleven miles each day

To carry water in a can

Water so filthy and rancid in taste

It is poisonous to man

As the modern world sell stocks and shares

To balance up the books

He sits under sun, covered in flies

Receiving filthy looks

The West ignore this imagery

"Not another famine again"

How many have there been since 85?

One? Two? no ten

As you debate another holiday

Sitting in the sun

He cannot escape its fiery wrath

The torture has only just begun

So as Friday night approaches

And you dance into the night so wild

Take a second to think of me

The poor forgotten child

Over the past several months the UK tabloids have become somewhat obsessed with filling the sheets with ever increasing stories about 'UFO' sightings. Ranging from lights hovering over the outskirts of the English countryside to the full abduction of people. Also made more popular by the obsession of the ever so eccentric music star Robbie Williams, it has somewhat grabbed the attention of many a friend of mine.

I have viewed a lot of footage on Youtube and me being the sceptic always like to keep an open mind. The positive argument is that in the vast space that we live in we are but a mere speck of dust in the overall complexity of the universe. So the remote possibility that we are alone is very small indeed, almost microscopic.

Yet, to me, the evidence that life forms outside of our own existence exist are not really enough to convert me into believing. Why is is that all of these sightings only seem to happen around small village towns? In the USA it is always some remote farm in the middle of nowhere and in the UK it's the same. Are these aliens just after corn? Or do they have some kind of fascination with cows and horses? Also they travel across several thousand light years in ships so far advanced that even the latest machines created by man are thousands of years behind, and to do what?...to hover around and then bugger off back again. What a waste of space petrol.

Also crop circles, what the hell are they all about? The creators travel across the galaxies and when the world is at sleep they create the most unique and fascinating patterns, so complex that even the most intelligent of scientists are baffled by the mysterious symbols. What's the matter? Cannot the just spell "Oi! Earthlings, contact us..if you get a message leave your name and number", much easier.

So Robbie Williams et all, please keep being bizarre and contacting the aliens that one day we may see, but I will not hold my breath. For now I leave you with a small teaser.

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=X80Gd80X40s&feature=related]

As I skipped breakfast this morning (I did not rise out of bed until 3pm) I decided to skip the chores of cooking a meal and head out to my my local pub for a late afternoon lunch. When I say local pub I only have been there a handful of times but it is the closest and most affordable.

As I ordered a pint of mouth watering casked local ale and scanned my eyes over the menu I noticed that the bar was somewhat quiet. In fact there was hardly a soul in the place, albeit for the husband and wide couple that are always there yet never seem to talk to one another. I ordered a Swiss Burger with extra salad and took my place on the comfortable leather seats that are usually so popular there is a waiting list.

As my food was waiting I picked up the paper to read about the latest in the US Presidential elections and the credit crunch that seems to dominate our lives these days, my concentration was shattered by something that I can only be described as a rant. I looked casually to my right and saw a rather well dressed English gentleman, must have been in his late 60's, very dapper, green tweed jacket, flat peaked cloth cap, shiny shoes and a walking stick. As I tried to ignore his conversation it became apparent that in the emptiness of the pub there was no background noise to latch on to except the dull tones of his voice.

To the left of him were two rather attractive oriental girls, I am guessing they were from Malaysia or Singapore, they are definately not Japanese or Chinese. One of them kept nodding like one of those dogs that you see in the back of car windows and the other just listened to this old English gent intently.

Oblivious to my intent listening the gent began to rant about the state of the world but then he said something that made my food wait, I was having none of it. He started ranting about how great the British Empire was and that the world would not be any kind of place without us, but ended with "And if it were not for us you two would still be picking rice in fields!", I casually moved closer, putting my empty change in the fruit machine listening more intently than before. After a few minutes I realised that he was not aiming for a racist torrent of abuse but rather just he was a sad old man stuck in his ways. After returning to my seat he then began to go on about how the world is a better place with old fashioned techniques.

As he and his two oriental companions were ready to leave he came over to me and whispered in my ear "I paid for them".

I was somewhat stunned but then realised you cannot educate the opinionated

I read a very sad story today that tugged on the old heart strings a little. It was about the last living survior of The Titanic who has had to sell her remaining posessions of that tragic day in order to pay for her hospital fees.

Now 96, Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank in the North Atlantic in 1912.

She hopes to raise £3,000 by selling items including a suitcase full of clothes given to her by the people of New York after her rescue.

The auction in Wiltshire will also feature compensation letters sent to her mother by the Titanic Relief Fund.

They explained that she would be awarded one pound, seven shillings and six pence per week.

Several rare prints of the Titanic - including one of it leaving the White Star dock in Southampton - will also go under the hammer.

Miss Dean moved into a private nursing home in Ashurst, Hampshire, two years ago.

She told the Southern Daily Echo: "I was hoping to be here for two weeks after breaking my hip, but I developed an infection and have been here for two years. I am not able to live in my home any more.

"I am selling it all now because I have to pay these nursing home fees and am selling anything that I think might fetch some money."

The Dean family were emigrating to Kansas when the Titanic went down.

Miss Dean was placed in a sack and carried to safety along with her mother and brother.

But her father Bertram was one of more than 1,500 people who died.

The auction will take place at Henry Aldridge and Son auctioneers in Devizes, Wilts, on Saturday.

Andrew Aldridge said: "The suitcase is a very emotive and unusual item and epitomises what the people of New York did for the Titanic survivors.

"It also highlights what state the survivors were in when they got to New York. Many people lost everything down to the clothes they were standing in."

Miss Dean is the last survivor of the Titanic after Barbara Dainton, from Cornwall, died last year aged 96.

When all she needs is £3,000 and the movie about the Titanic grossed $1.8 BILLION, surely there is some injustice here?

So after eight years the marriage of Madonna and and UK director Guy Ritchie is over. An impending divorce announcement is due.

Whilst there is no doubt that Madonna is the most successful female singer of recent times I am more of a fan of Guy Ritchie. She is the queen of re-invention and he is the king of UK mob movies. When the announcement that they were going to get wed hit the press I had an initial thought that 'I wonder how this will effect Guys movies'

Let's face it marrying Madonna would be like marrying into a circus, Kaballah, a hundred paparazzi outside your front door and the fact that your married to one of the worlds most famous women is all part of the wedding vow's..maybe the  church bells were ringing to loud when the vicar announced "Do you Guy Ritchie take Madonna and the insane lifestyle that she leads to be your lawful wedded wife?"

Over the years I witnessed Guy's life change, the converting to the Kaballah belief, the constant scrutiny of being in the public eye 24/7, and yes as I initially thought, his movies became poor. Over the last year there has been intense media speculation that the break up was inevitable and rumours of Madonna's affairs flew over both sides of The Atlantic. Whilst Madonna churns out yet another similar sounding album Ritchie returns to form with the spectacular RocknRolla.

Whilst I have no gripes about Madonna's music (Though I did not like her last album) I do feel sorry for Guy. He has had to endure living in the shadow of Madonna whilst in his own right he is the best in his field. I wish them both well for the future and it leaves me with the question, can any superstar larger than life be happy in love?

None of my friends are into Medieval things or anything related to the period but from the 27-31 December this year the Tower of London is running 'Medieval Christmas' where you can learn and even sit with, albeit an actor, of Edward I and enjoy Christmas like it was 1284 and be entertained by court jesters and harlequins.

Then step outside into the cold and Iceskate in the tower ice rink. Anybody fancy joining me?

So I read in the newspaper today that the no strings holiday romance is becoming a thing of the past, because when people get home, lovelorn singletons immediately track down their fling on Facebook. 20% of British people who had a holiday romance this summer were later contacted by the other person through a social networking site.

I have only been on holiday with my two ex girlfriends so have never had a no strings attached holiday romance but it does ponder the question would you accept a friendship request from someone that you shagged on holiday?

Also would people tell the truth or lie about who they are in order to boast to the opposite sex just to get laid? Would their identity be blown if they gave them access to their facebook profile?

Anyone actually had this happen to them?

I sat in a bar this evening in Reykjavik, whilst sipping another beer contemplating my previous trips to Brazil and Bristol I was suddenly interrupted by a strange voice.

"Is anyone sitting here?", enquired a husky female voice

"No, please sit if you require", I replied. As the woman sat opposite me I took time to notice her strange appearance, long wispy hair that looked like it had been soaked in a cold morning dew, her eyes a dull blue that could be distinguished for grey in a darker light. Her facial features were distinctive but weathered with time.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yes I am, just thinking aloud in thought", I quickly replied

"About life?", she quizzed me without any haste

"Yes, life and it's direction" I stated with an air of comical authority and how perceptive this woman was.

The next 20 minutes were spent engaged in a conversation both heavy and also inquisitive on both parts, was she trying to chat me up or just helping another lost soul in her native island? Did I come to Iceland to seek refuge, trying to find an answer to my own heart that has since fallen down into a realm of despair? She seemed willing to ask me questions that those who have known me for decades would not dare, yet in her bravado and straight forward direction I knew that this woman would unlock the answer to the question.

"When were you last happy?" she said as she looked me deep in the eye

"1999" I replied in honesty, to which her reply was "When you were someone else?", she got me now.

Not someone else as in another personality, nor alter-ego but I remember when I was happy in life, the days when my friends would call me DS, which simply stood for Dark Soul. Maybe that was the Gothic phase of my life, but back then I would be the life and soul of any party, the comical attitude, the recklessness abandonment for authority and laws, the swagger that I carried was somewhat famous back 'In the day'

I felt a sudden ease with this woman akin to knowing her all her life yet she stoked something within me that I realised must change.

In the years when my friends would call me DS I was not so accommodating and hasty as I am now, I was more rebellious. These days people just use me and have no care at all for my feelings.

So to Suvi I say thank you for igniting the old DS fire within me.

Life suddenly just got a whole lot better.

The man who searched the world for peace

The man that could not die

The man whose soul was ripped apart

Yet never questioned why

The man who rose back from the flames

He soared towards the sun

The man who returned from whence he came

To live a life that had just begun

The man who hid within the shadows

Seeking retribution on those that left him for dead

The man whose eyes once green as grass

Now a vengeful blood filled red

The man whose karma is already sealed

By the actions erupting from his volcanic heart

The man who embraces his fate this eve

The man whose peace has yet to start

For the past several weeks, ever since the major bank collapse in the USA, the BBC news website has been dominated by stories of more fallen banks, solid financial businesses that are on there way out, mergers and of course it is all labeled as 'The Credit Crunch', that label in itself is another way of saying "Yes were in the mother fucking shit", but lately people have been comparing this to the great depression of 1929.

Now I was born a long time after this period but when I see footage and read newspaper clips about this time I seriously hope that the imbeciles that we vote in power can avoid this. We are some 70 years from those dark depressing days and surely we are now more worldly to avoid this. As I read the fact that the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is not followwng the Irish and German pattern of guranteeing savings from banks are we really heading for those dark days again?

Lets look at the Depression, unlike this time it was not deemed to be a surprise. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below the peak of September 1929. Together, government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the northern summer of 1930.

Debt was the cause of the depression in 1929 and businesses were hit hard, unemployment went from 4.5 to 25% in 1933. Banks which had financed this debt began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en masse, triggering multiple bank runs Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used. Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets. Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. After the panic of 1929, and during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 US banks failed. (In all, 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s). By 1933, depositors had lost $140 billion in deposits.

This echos what is happening but the fact is that the world was a far different place back then. The USA was not a dominant superpower, Europe still held the mantle of being the financial leader of the world and the far east were nothing more than mere trading ports. Bank failures snowballed as desperate bankers called in loans which the borrowers did not have time or money to repay. With future profits looking poor, capital investment  and construction slowed or completely ceased. In the face of bad loans and worsening future prospects, the surviving banks became even more conservative in their lending. Banks built up their capital reserves and made fewer loans, which intensified deflationary pressures. A cycle developed and the downward spiral accelerated. This kind of self-aggravating process may have tuned a 1930 recession into a 1933 great depression. We are now at that point again. it must be avoided at all costs.

Shortly after President Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933, drought and erosion combined to cause the Dust Bowl , shifting hundreds of thousands of people off their farms in the midwest. From his inauguration onward, Roosevelt argued that restructuring of the economy would be needed to prevent another depression or avoid prolonging the current one. New Deal programs sought to stimulate demand and provide work and relief for the impoverished through increased government spending and institute financial reforms.

But these new deals did not just end here, another recession followed in 1937 so the effect was not overnight. Only the arrival of WWII really put an end to such dramatic endings financially.

he massive rearmament policies to counter the threat from Hitler helped stimulate the economies of Europe in 1937-39. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 finally ended unemployment.

In the United States, the massive war spending doubled the GNP, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending the Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of large government contracts. Productivity soared: most people worked overtime and gave up leisure activities to make money after so many hard years. People accepted rationing and price controls for the first time as a way of expressing their support for the war. Cost Increases in munitions contracts guaranteed businesses a profit no matter how many mediocre workers they employed or how inefficient the techniques they used. The demand was for a vast quantity of war supplies as soon as possible, regardless of cost. Businesses hired every person in sight, even driving sound trucks up and down city streets begging people to apply for jobs. New workers were needed to replace the 11 million working-age men serving in the military. These events magnified the role of the federal government in the national economy. In 1929, federal expenditures accounted for only 3% of GNP. Between 1933 and 1939, federal expenditure tripled, and Roosevelt's critics charged that he was turning America into a socialist state.

Surely we do not need another war to bail us out?!

Yesterday I had a interesting, and rather unusual, talk with a friend of mine about love. He was boasting about his latest conquest and how after 3 weeks of 'shagging her to death' he just dumped her by text. Before you all begin saying "Why have a friend like that", he does have his qualities but just not in love. Anyway...

He started saying that women to him were great to have sex with, he has had over 100 FB's (Or Fuck Buddies as he calls them). Women who, like him, just want a night of hard sex before leaving the next day. I've never had a FB nor do I ever want one.

The conversation continued until he turned to me and said "But what about you, you a fool in love aren't you?", that kind of stopped me in my tracks. He then carried on that this was the 21st century and women no longer liked being surprised with presents of flowers (something which I like to do a lot). He called me a 'helpless romantic' which is not the first time.

But the way I see it and this is purely open for discussion with anyone who reads this, is are his words true? Maybe the mists of time have clouded my judgement a little? Just like everyone else I too have a 'naughty and dark side' to my lovelife but I would rather keep that between the woman I love and myself, not share it as my friend does with 100 'FBs'.

I have a very unique imagination and the love life is never dull! Far from it!!! I look at my friend and think that in 60 years from now what will he be left with? A lifetime full of memories of all the wonderful FB's he had (and quite possibly a few STD's along the way), as for me I want to look at the person whom I love in the eyes and say "Happy 50th Anniversary darling" and yes the flowers and poems will continue.

Is the art of being romantic dead? What would you ladies have in life a romantic guy with a heart of gold or a man who treats you like dirt?

Over to you....

Eighties pop singer Rick Astley has become the surprise contender for best act ever at this year's MTV Europe Music Awards in Liverpool.

The star, who has never been nominated in the history of the event, is up against U2, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Green Day and Tokio Hotel.

The winner, chosen by fans online, will be unveiled at the show on 6 November.

Astley returned to prominence this year when internet users were "tricked" into watching the video of his biggest hit.

Sole nomination

A craze called "Rickrolling" saw web users unwittingly follow links to Astley's videos. It led to millions of plays of Astley's song Never Gonna Give You Up, which reached number one in the UK in 1987.

It went on to become a number one hit in 15 other countries.

"Rick's fans have obviously decided that he deserves recognition as a pop icon and no doubt they are determined to make sure he wins on the night," said the award show's producer Richard Godfrey.

So what are you waiting for? VOTE RICK!!!!

Lance Corporal Gyanendra Rai served more than 13 years with the 7th Gurkha Rifles and was seriously wounded in the Falklands conflict. Today, lawyers for L/Cpl Rai and other Gurkhas will again be in the High Court challenging the refusal of the British Government to let them settle automatically in this country.

In some cases, they have even been refused entry; others face deportation. Every country needs an immigration policy and we have argued that Labour's has been too lax. But there comes a point where a debt of honour must be paid.

When foreign criminals are allowed to stay here because their human rights preclude their removal and we are not only unable to eject terrorist suspects but even pay them benefits, the idea that men who have fought bravely for this country should have to beg for entry is grotesque.

In 2004, a concession was offered to foreign soldiers who have served at least four years, and for that the Government should be applauded.

However, the Gurkhas were uniquely badly treated. For them, the concession applies only to those discharged from the Army after the handover in 1997 to China of Hong Kong, where the brigade used to be based. Those discharged earlier can be admitted under a discretionary scheme but must have demonstrated strong ties to the UK.

How much stronger must they be than wearing the Queen's uniform and putting their lives on the line?

Once we walked under skies of blue

A time where love seemed pure and true

Deceit I could not see buried in your eyes

The truth masqueraded within your lies

One year on you still laugh at me

You only view what you want to see

A drifting man cast away to drown

Your wicked smirk thy show no frown

But I found land and built myself to be strong

The feeling of revenge cannot be wrong

Blue skies we shared now a charcoal black

Reap the whirlwind feel my attack

Your only as strong as the wind you blow

I felt its harshness yet I did not go

So feel the pain as the lightning hits

I aim to shatter your heart into broken bits

Some say its cruel but my revenge has just begun

May my darken storm engulf your sun

What can you say about Paul Newman that has not already been said over the past few days? Amongst the stories of celebrities falling out of taxis drunk, or flashing their bits to the press it seems that the defenition of the words 'icon' or 'legend' have all but been lost yet Paul Newman was much more than this.

The iconic actor starred in some 60 films in a career that spanned five decades.

He was nominated for an Academy Award 10 times - but it took him 33 years to win one, picking up the best actor trophy for The Color Of Money in 1987.

In May 2007, Newman said he was giving up acting because he could no longer perform to the best of his ability.

"I'm not able to work any more... at the level that I would want to," he told US broadcaster ABC.

"You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention.

"So I think that's pretty much a closed book for me."

Earlier this year, he pulled out of directing a stage production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in Connecticut because of unspecified health problems.

Film star George Clooney said: "He set the bar too high for the rest of us. Not just actors, but all of us."

Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey added: "Paul Newman was a great, humble giant.

Although his handsome looks and piercing blue eyes made him an ideal romantic lead, Newman often played rebels, tough guys and losers.

"I was always a character actor," he once said. "I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

His movies included Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, The Sting and Hud.

Along the way, he worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood - including Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks.

He also appeared with his wife, Joanne Woodward, in several films including Long Hot Summer and Paris Blues. The star later directed his wife in movies such as Rachel, Rachel and The Glass Menagerie.

But his most famous screen partner was undoubtedly Robert Redford, his sidekick in both Butch Cassidy and The Sting.

In addition to his Academy Award for best actor, he was given an honorary Oscar in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft".

In 1994, he picked up a third Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for his charitable work.

His philanthropic efforts included the establishment of summer camps for children who suffered from life-threatening illnesses.

He also donated profits from his Newman's Own food range to a number of charitable organisations.

Newman's last film role was as the voice of Doc Hudson, one of the most famous racing cars in history, in the Pixar animation Cars.

It was perhaps a fitting epitaph for the actor, who had a lifelong fascination with the sport - and put his film career on hold in the 1970s to become a professional racing driver.

He is survived by his wife, five children, two grandsons and his older brother Arthur.

RIP Paul Newman, the last of the living legends.

So here I am at the end of my three week journey of self discovery. A journey that began when I departed the shores of London to travel to Brazil via America. I have been to and seen some wonderful places, I have also exhausted every emotion a person can. As I read about the sad death of Paul Newman I am immediately transported back into reality. The heat from my expensive and rather distasteful latte brings me crashing down to Earth from the heights of happiness that I experienced this past few weeks.

When I say I was not happy in my private life that would have been an understatement. Week after week I began feeling lower, worse than ever before, a lack of self esteem and forgetting just everything that had ever happened in my life, I was concentrating on the here and now.

I had to go to a place where I had never been before, a place to where I knew nobody, a place where my footseps were new and fresh. That place was South Brazil, there were many reasons I went there, friends reccomendations, tales from an old housemate and a desire to see zest in life.

Through the people that I met, and I will never forget any of them, to the bars I drank in and the beaches I pondering lifes mysteries on I finally came to a realisation that the past is something that we have to learn from and also put to rest. The future is what will shape our destiny, the past is something that we not only learn from but it makes us who we are.

Becoming wrapped up in a time where I was not myself, a time where beating up ones self over things that had gone wrong was the fundamental mistake.

Not only did I learn in Brazil who I was and where I came from I once again found the notion that everything happens for a reason. I left the shores I am about to return to a forgotten man, I return a king of my own life.

What is it with people calling you by an incorrect title? Maybe it is just one of those trivial things that bug me and nobody else?

"Excuse me Sir..." - I am not a Sir, that title is bestowed on those who have been knighted by the Queen

"Hey Boss" - No..I am not your boss and you are not my employee

"Alright mate?" - Unless we have been frequented before then let's get to know each other before we are "Mates"

Now lets hark back to the Victorian times when a cheeky youth would say "Excuse me Mister", now that is more like it, Mr is my title so why call me something I am not?!

As I gear myself up to return from Brazil I realise that today is an important day for Pagans. It is Mea'n Fo'mhair or in English the start of the Autumn Equinox. The end of summer and the beginning of the new season.

Each time this day occurs I feel a shift within within me, as we pay respects to The Green Man I feel something that only really occurs once a year, the strength within me grows. It is akin to losing all hope and strength and then feeling an overwhelming return to power, all in one day.

But in these times there is always the interest in Stonehenge that resurfaces. What is it? Where did it come from? Is it fake or real? Please just leave it alone! There is a thin line between respect and obsession. The laws that be have already stripped us of the opportunity to pay respects and get close.

Now I hear that a new archaeological dig has found that carbon-dated the stones to 2300 bc, some 300 years older than originally thought of. Some are questioning that is a place for healing, others say it a burial place of ancestors, some say it is just a place to worship. Great, whatever, argue just LEAVE IT ALONE.

How would others like it if they started digging up and poking around with important religious artefact's? I think that we Pagans are just laughed at at times, the interest is there but the respect never is. Despite the fact that we are one of the oldest beliefs around and still going strong today.

As the Equinox begins, leave us be and let us respect in peace.

Blessed be.

One of my most favourite sportsman and icons retired through injury this week.

Graeme Hick's cricket career came to an abrupt end Wednesday as his final season before retirement was cut short by injury.

The Worcestershire faithful will miss the chance to say one last goodbye to their favourite adopted son after the 42-year-old Zimbabwe-born Hick confirmed he would not appear in the Midlands county's final two matches this season after the recurrence of an elbow injury during a one-day match against Middlesex last weekend

The former England batsman, missing from the team team for the four-day County Championship clash, also against Middlesex, which started on Wednesday, said he would not be fit either for Sunday's Pro40 play-off away to Glamorgan.

"Unfortunately with my elbow not being right, I didn't really enjoy the fielding side of it," Hick told Setanta Sports News. "I don't feel like I did my job properly on Sunday.

"I'm not 100 percent. I made my decision as if it were mid-season and whether or not I felt I would do myself, and the rest of the guys, justice on the field," he added.

"The decision was made without the added emotion of it being my last game."

A prolific performer at county level, Hick's tally of 136 first-class centuries puts him eighth on the all-time list and is unlikely to be exceeded by any current player. Only former England captain Graham Gooch has scored more than Hick's 64,372 runs in all senior cricket.

Born in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), Hick had to serve a seven-year qualification period before making his England debut in 1991, during which time he was repeatedly touted as the saviour of the team.

Had he gone into the side in his early 20s, when expectations were not so high, he might have been treated more kindly by selectors and supporters alike.

Hick, who endured a stop-start 65 Test career which yielded 3,383 runs at a modest average of 31.32 - compared to a first-class figure of 52.23 - with six hundreds, admitted: "If I have anything that I'd like to change, it would to have been more consistent for England and to actually have a period in the side when I wasn't dropped.

"In the end I was in and out of the side every year."

However, something Hick said he wouldn't miss was modern warm-up routines. "They need to be done but they're an absolute bind.

"Damian D'Oliveira and I used to walk out, he'd have a fag, and we'd have a few throw downs, have a few slip catches and walk back in. That was it.

"Nowadays it's all laps and cones."

Hick, who 20 years ago compiled Worcestershire's first-class record score of 405 not out, against Somerset at Taunton, was witheringly branded a "flat-track bully" by former New Zealand coach John Bracewell.

His placid nature led to one of celebrated umpire Dickie Bird's more famous rebukes when the batsman was on the receiving end of a volley of verbal abuse from Merv Hughes.

"What's that nice Mr Hick ever done to you?", a bemused Bird asked the Australia quick.

Perhaps the truth about Hick was that rather than being unfulfilled, his career went as far as his talent and mentality allowed, only the distance wasn't as far as both his supporters and detractors would have liked.

"My kids watched my retirement being announced on the news and my son just said, 'That's my dad!'" Hick told Tuesday's Guardian newspaper. "And he came over and sat next to me and he held me.

"I sat there thinking, 'Of course I would have liked to have scored 30 Test hundreds but I might not be the person I am if I'd done that.' And, looking down at my boy, I just felt very proud and very happy."

Every four years a few days after the conclusion of the Olympic Games the Paralympics begin. These athletes train just as hard and are just as dedicated as able bodied athletes in their chosen events. After the overwhelming success of 'Team GB' at the Olympic Games I am slightly disappointed to see the level of press coverage of our Paralympic team.

I was proud as a Briton with the success of the performance of our team in the Olympics, finishing fourth overall was a fantastic achievement. The amazing performances in the pool, rowing and cycling captured the imagination of the nation for the weeks the Games were on. I also congratulate the Chinese organisers for putting on possibly the greatest games ever seen. Also the headliners of Usain Bolt and of course the amazing eight golds won by Phelps ensured that these games would be remembered for on the track rather than the off the track protests.

Yet I was slighlty miffed to read just a small review of the Paralympic achievements in the paper today. The team, finishing second overall, winning 42 golds to finish second behind China.

Cyclist Darren Kenny takes home four gold medals and a silver, while swimmer Dave Roberts also won four golds, taking him to a career total of 11 Paralympic medals. Lee Pearson won three equestrian golds, and GB's youngest team member, 13-year-old swimmer Eleanor Simmonds, claimed an astonishing two gold medals to become Britain's youngest ever individual champion.  It has been a great success.

I just hope that as we are hosting the event in 2012 we give just as much media exposure to these great athletes as we do our able bodied stars.

I read in the newspapers today that Lehman Brothers have collapsed after filing for Bankruptcy. Whilst it is sad that a 150 year old business has ended I have little sympathy for the one or two people I knew that worked in the offices in London. Having lived in Canary Wharf, the home of Lehman Brothers UK office, from 2002-2007 I was often berated and verbally abused by the two people I rather unfortunately met on several occasions who worked there.

 

I am not a suit and tie man, I like to dress casually and in Canary Wharf that was akin to being a Scottish fan in the home enclosure at Wembley, isolated, alone and rather unwelcome. The area had a plethora of bars that I would like to meet friends in that travelled from other parts of London but these bars always populated by men in expensive suits with wallets the size of a hippo’s testicle and no matter what time of the day the conversation would always be around work.

 

Sometimes these ,wanuits’ (Wankers in suits) would look down at you like a piece of shit on their shoe and utter the immortal line “And what do you do?”, when you tell them they would snigger and then would follow with “How much do you earn?”, like what the fuck does it matter?

 

These people have been in a business for years where money and fat corporate bonuses were the only thing that mattered, they often portrayed themselves as being the most important people in society, interested in assisting those who were financially worse off but in reality they were just using that as an excuse to step up the corporate ladder and status means everything to some.

 

Some of these people worked for organisations where people’s finances and savings were at stake. People whose money these wanuits were gambling with day after day. Forget the money that these people had set aside for retirement, forget their daily struggle day to day in this financial quagmire we are slowly sinking into but as long as the bonus purchased another Armani suit then all is well ? Time after time reading these CEO’s of companies awarding themselves six figure bonuses when there are so many people hitting the breadline. Maybe its because I come from a working class background, may parents have worked all their lives and still do. I am careful with money, I like to know that all the little luxuries I have in life have been purchased through hard work and sweat.

 

As I see these people crying into their empty champagne glasses, their cardboard boxes full of their Lehman possessions I have little sympathy. I have lost a job through redundancy and just dusted myself down to find another one, it’s not the end of the world. Now that these wanuits have been knocked off their high horse, maybe just maybe they will understand what it feels like to be a rat in the race we call life.