And then there were none.

"So where have all of those police officers gone?" you might well ask. To be fair, it’s a question that really does need to be more fully addressed. New Labour- whoops, I can already sense facets of my aspiration towards open debate spinning beyond my reach- have done little else other than seek to ‘reassure’ us that the numbers of police officers ‘serving’ ‘our’ country have steadily risen to record highs.



Not working for you. Thanks to adotjdotsmith's photostream

And let’s not forget, whilst alluding to the current chosen mode of political debate, spin that is, that New Labour are only following strict guidelines laid down clearly by their predecessors. Just in case I’ve lost a couple of you here, yes, we did have a change of government back in 1979- blink and you might have missed it- even though it might now seem to have been little more than a long-forgotten illusion of despairing hope. Naturally, hopelessly unachieved!

So why is it then that the streets, about which we are justified in having certain concerns, seem to be so devoid of these appointed officers? Just where exactly are those armour-plated, luminous-yellow and ‘highly-trained’ ‘upholders of the law’?



And again. Thanks to adotjdotsmith's photostream

To be fair, and in the interests of balance, we can’t really blame the police force for the fact that the British love-hate affair with drink has gone tits up, can we? It’s not really their fault that every Friday and Saturday night sees our city streets strewn with alcohol addled 'party-goers', looking to 'share' their lack of social grace with all and sundry, invariably at considerable volume and cost to the poor locals.

Nor, would we be justified in blaming the force for the tribal mentality of some of our football-following males, driven, as they are, to ‘support’ ‘their’ team of multimillionaire Pre-Madonnas through hail, flood and famine. Never mind that any or all of these so-called ‘sporting idols’ might quit the club, without a second’s thought, were a more affluent contract to suddenly materialise.

Any fool knows that these fans will need to be segregated- as lions from zebra- for the duration, for the preservation of surrounding homes and streets and for the preservation of human life. Civilization, with all its little quirks and anomalies, you’ve got to love it.

I accept the sad fact that, as the planet’s dominant species, we can’t even manage to relate to one another during a supposed event of ‘organised entertainment’. This I accept, all be it reluctantly. Yet, even these damning indictments of humankind do not entirely explain where the vast majority of 'our' police force has been secreted. What about Wednesday evenings for example, when the pubs and clubs are relatively quiet? What about Sunday afternoon, maybe, when the local football team has no fixtures? What about these times?



And again! Thanks to adotjdotsmith's photostream

Had we still been living in, say, Tudor times or Medieval times or almost any other period in British history we might expect those charged with enforcing the law to be otherwise engaged. Perhaps they might be ensuring that the then monarch’s day was going to be one of uninterrupted self-indulgence, or they might be ‘helpfully’ clearing away untidy peasants from an area of royal expansionism, or they might be engaged in any number of activities as befits a unit of privately hired enforcers.



Yet again, from adotjdotsmith's photostream

But nowadays things have moved on a pace- ‘democracy’ and all that malarkey. No longer are our police officers there for the private hire of any wealthy company that might wish to expand its interests, bulldoze a particularly beautiful woodland or, heaven forbid rake up a Site of Special Scientific Interest to provide yet another golf course. ‘Democracy’ just doesn’t work like that any more.

My sincere belief is that the good force has been overwhelmed by the amount of Faerie activity that has been afoot. They don’t want you to worry, but I suspect they are far from in control of the situation.

Turn your talent to teaching.

Or, indeed, social work, why not? And don't the prospects appear so ‘idyllic’, when re-enacted upon the TV, ‘rewarding’ in the extreme? But, if things are quite so ‘rosy’ in these professions, as our 'wise' and 'benevolent' leaders would have us believe, why is it that a cash-strapped government, in the depths of a recession, is spending Lord alone knows how much upon recruitment advertising? You might well ask!



A touch of balance perhaps, from kaneda99's photostream

'Valued' workers in the 'forward-thinking' UK, come and join the party?

Factor in the likelihood of honest government representation, as conveyed through these advertisements- remember that adverts, by their very nature, are  at best subjective, almost always highly selective and frequently extremely misleading- and you’re possibly beginning to get a clearer picture of the situation. As a general rule professions that pay well and offer a great deal of spiritual reward, where the workforce is highly regarded, tend not to need a great deal of expensive advertising. Are they also still offering some sort of bribe to new entrants to the teaching profession?

Reading between the lines, I would say that this situation is more indicative of professions that are haemorrhaging their workforces, rather than those (government 'infomercials') that are ‘represented’ upon our TV screens almost every night of the week.



After the Offlower visit maybe, by Hamed Saber's photostream

But let’s be fair to Mr Woodhead and others of his ilk, before we draw the obvious conclusion where teaching is concerned; the one that is screaming to be drawn. He, and they, would not have been able to vent such effective distain upon the teaching profession if they hadn’t been appointed to do just that by a number of almost equally spiteful Education Secretaries, would they?

At least, when the Faerie race chooses to act out their unfortunate games upon the unsuspecting youth of today, it can almost certainly be assumed that spite is not high on the agenda. These actions are more like those of an ‘ignorant’ child pulling the wings from a crane fly, just to discover how it will react.

Be cruel to be kind.

Coffee mornings, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re a growing phenomenon in our society. Old people, you see; these days we generally live to well beyond our useful expiry date. What’s more most of us have ceased making those ‘useful contributions’ to our ‘egalitarian’ state, or so I’d thought.

We were wondering, at our last gathering, when this government (any government) might venture to ‘suggest’ that we should, like the sick and disabled, be ‘encouraged’ back into the workplace, if only to force down the wages of the already low paid. Market forces, you’ve got to ‘love’ them, haven’t you?

Bizarrely, most of us (we oldies) still seem to take ‘comfort’ in the words of the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Express, papers with their ‘eyes on the ball’, the 'voice' of the man and woman on the street. God preserve us! Thanks to these ‘quality’ tabloids our radars have been finely tuned to spot and home in on the divide and rule ‘stories’- I say ‘stories’- that these sort of rags like to excrete on a daily basis. Go on, give us somebody new to hate, someone to blame, someone worse off, anyone different will do! No wonder we all seem so eager to cut any ties with Europe and slink off into a miasma of racist, sexist (and any other ist you’ve got) putrefying fug.

Are you insane, no, of course we don’t rant like this, not outside of our coffee mornings anyway. When was the last time you actually spoke to a member of the older generation? Daffodils, the weather, the cost of groceries, that’s what we actually talk about.

So I was naturally more than a little surprised when Mavis- usually so quiet and content in ‘her’ corner, until the biscuits start to run out- started to list people that she personally didn’t much care for. Just between you and me, I think she’s still secretly fuming over MPs expenses. Just sort of started to mumble, she did, more to herself than anyone else, we thought, but before too long she’d captured the imagination of the whole group. Time to bite my tongue, I thought. They’re all, more or less, within my friendship circle so obviously I didn’t want to offend anyone- get me going and, well, best not even go there…

The surprise was really how much of the list- and, my God, it was a long one- I found myself nodding along with. No-one present had any time for the car racing youths that have come to blight Aylsham, or the police apologist that ‘leads’ the ‘Safer’ Neighbourhood meetings. Those of us that had ever bothered to attend were in agreement that honesty was not his strongest point. A number of regional characters were earmarked for particular distain, but I’d prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt for the present.

I’d thought the subject might soon peter out- they usually do, especially if one of those, ‘let's reignite the property market,’ programmes starts- but the list just went on and on. If nothing else, I was forced to concede, life under New Labour has herded the population into more camps than I ever thought possible. Fractured doesn’t even begin to say it!

I think I might actually have dropped off at one point- easily done in a sun-warmed lounge, with an endless supply of sweet tea- but the old bladder had other ideas. In the time it took me to wander along the corridor and back the subject had moved on a pace. I re-entered to a far more heated debate on the state of the Education System- full circle, I think, stemming from the earlier ‘boy racers’ comments- and how seriously it had been undermined by a long line of Education Secretaries. I was more than a little surprised that not a single member of our group was prepared to offer a counter argument. Lining up, they were, to condemn 'sweet-talking' Ed Balls. Even I almost felt sorry for him at one point. But obviously that wasn’t going to last long.

Then the name Chris Woodhead came up. Woodhead, I thought, do they mean the Chris Woodhead, the one that ate, breathed and slept hatred for his ‘fellow’ human beings? Aparently he’s ill; I’d thought- hoped really- that he was somewhat beyond that.



Thank you to kevindooley's photostream

Apparently he’s got motor neurone disease. I believe that he’s even been quoted as having said, 'I'd rather die than live.' ‘I am clear in my own mind that it is better to end it than continue a life that is extremely frustrating for me and onerous to others who are living with me,’ is what one paper quoted. Full circle, Chris, full circle! What goes around comes around!

At this point the conversation took a bit of a dip and we spend ten minutes or so discussing at what point in our old age we would rather just slip into that long final ‘sleep’ from which there is no return. My God, ‘count me out of any ensuing suicide pact,’ I was thinking.

I gather, from what I was able to unearth about the odious Mr Woodhead, that he is seriously thinking of ending his days when his memory really starts to fail. Now, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be- somewhat worrying at times- but I think Chris’s memory is already somewhat suspect. As ever, the issue remains very clouded; even before the motor neurone kicked in he was never given to moments of open-minded contemplation. Minds don’t come much more shuttered than that, I seem to remember thinking.



kevindooley's photostream

Well Chris, if you’ve really made up your mind, so long and good riddance, I say! You were never one for listening to a second opinion anyway. Just one thing though, before you go- and I do think it’s important that ‘dear’ ol’ Chris is made aware of this historical fact- it won’t be the first suicide that you’ll have caused, will it?

Was it ever documented, how many teachers were driven to suicide thanks to the sort of hateful regime with which Mr Chris Woodhead shackled the Educational System? I could be wrong but I don’t recall the ol’ so-and-so ever showing any great remorse over those deaths. Collateral damage, maybe Chris, eh? You’ve got to be cruel to be kind? A blinkered view of the 'wider' picture, no doubt.



kevindooley's photostream

We may be the older generation, the soft and cuddly, the worldly wise, too old to bother with all of those grudges and stuff. But, it occurred to one or two minds if there shouldn't be just cause for celebration, some time in the not too distant future, a jolly old knees-up! It was Mavis again who brought us all back down to earth- kept us true to the more acceptable face of pensioners- 'We may live in an angry and divided country,' she said, 'thanks, in part, to people like Mr Woodhead, but we're better than him, and I, for one, will not be celebrating the ol' sod's passing.' Made us all feel a little uncomfortable, it did.

Then she went on to tell us that she'd seen Faeries at the bottom of her garden.

Great minds at work?

Was I imagining it, or did it really happen? Surely someone with a sense of humour has created this one, carefully crafted its form, revised its potential to be taken seriously and pushed it out there to be considered, laughed at, and more sensibly dismissed as a pointless hoax. What do you think?

I could be wrong, I haven't actually got the time to devote to such nonsense. I really am fully committed to my own, far more pertinent, avenues of investigation. All the same, did I read that the tyres of vehicles upon Europe's roads are to be produced to a quieter overall standard, thus reducing the hiss of passing traffic? Tell me, please, that I imagined it!



Shh! Thanks to Cadigan's photostream

Am I the only person thinking, 'Oh, for the sound of hissing tyres to occasionally grace my ears, I might sell my very soul'? For these gently rounded creations to murmur more loudly than the gun-like-salvo of the speeding heavy goods vehicle, as it careers dangerously towards its next near miss or accident, whisper above the challenge of souped-up shrine-seeking youths, susurrate more clearly than the whining mosquito-engined toy-moped as it seeks out the next exclusive gathering of its kind, where the incessant revving of screaming engines might compete to cause the very ground to tremble. How on Earth will we recognise the passing of this world-changing event, so swamped will its meagre offering be?

Next, I'll be reading that the sales of exhausts with a diameter large enough to house a muscle-builder's leg have ceased, that the manufacture of cars that might easily treble the legal speed-limit is no longer permitted, or that Jeremy Clarkson has achieved gainful employment, working commitedly towards a more egalitarian and sustainable planet. Or, far more likely, it was all a dream and we are all sailing up said creek without said paddles- and that nobody thought to mention that ruddy great waterfall!



Silent night exemplified by doommeer's photostream

Distractions, who needs them? Or so I thought, but then isn't it funny how often, if you follow a false trail for long enough, it brings you back to the one true path? And what might all this have to do with Faeries, you're probably thinking.

N.B. The European Union has agreed a target of five years time, for the fitting of 'whispering tyres' to all (with the usual exemptions) European vehicles, thus reducing traffic noise by as much as two decibels per vehicle. I can barely contain myself.

We're all in this together.

And, of course, we are, deep in it! Facing the near-global crisis is something we might best tackle together. After all we did together dip our snouts deeply into the trough of plenty, during all of those ‘boom’ years, didn’t we?



Me, me, me... Thanks to Rose Davies' photostream

Then again- and I’m prepared to accept that this might be an ageing memory thing- did we? Did we really face those times in quite such a spirit of togetherness? Were we all mutual beneficiaries of the ‘good times’?

The nurses at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, to whom I owe much, the hard-working teachers and assistants at my grandson’s school, the millions of every-day workers whose wages have hovered on or about the minimum wage, the hundreds of thousands to whom purchasing a house was little more than an expensive pipe-dream, the unfortunate thousands who were mortgaged up to the hilt and beyond, who now expect to have their cherished homes repossessed, indeed the vast majority of the country’s population, did they all really share equally in the ‘boom’ years?



Boom times from peasap's photostream

What about those who have been relying entirely upon the state pension, having devoted perhaps more than fifty years to ‘the company’, or those who were never paid well enough to accrue a private pension, or those who did and were left with nothing, after the then Chancellor’s slight of hand? Did all of these people also bathe so lavishly in the ‘good times’?

'Kindly' Uncle George is eager to open up some ‘clear blue water’ between the parties. If he manages somehow to achieve this, I would urge you to be most suspicious of his choice of hue. Enchantment, I would imagine, illusions, smoke and mirrors, oh, and a tabloid press that have long since sold their black and corrupted souls. Uncle George, don't you forget, has quite an arsenal of the conjuror’s tools hidden away, up his expensively tailored sleeves.

You’ll, no doubt, recall the total absence of this ‘clear blue water’ during The ‘Blessed’ Tony’s 'Glorious' Reign. Couldn’t slot a proverbial cigarette paper between the two parties, could we? Oracle Rupert had decreed that it should be so, and thus it was. Not really democracy as such, is it? Saint Tony might (very, very rarely) have ‘heard’ what we were saying but, well, we all know, he wasn’t about to start listening to the silly old electorate, was he?

Yes, I know that the old adversaries continued to act out the same tired, overused scenario, time after time, in the old boys’ club but were we honestly taken in by all of that? There’s a reason, you know, why you can’t watch ‘Today in Parliament’ in high definition; it’s because, if your screen is huge enough, and you concentrate upon the eyes of the individuals present you might just be able to notice that the sparkle, that point of crystal reflected light, is not really a point at all; it’s actually a very tiny yet perfectly delineated dollar sign. If the Faeries are going to lavish their riches upon the ‘faithful’ they will still insist upon leaving that tiny mark of ownership upon the 'victim'. Not even a British pound sign, what does this tell us?



Thank you to PhotoGraham's photostream

I could use the expenses debacle to illustrate my point regarding which side of the dividing line the MPs have chosen to reside, but you’ve heard it all before, ‘I was acting entirely within the rules!’ 'Rules' I'm sure we’d all love to have a stab at!