Dean's Blog

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.