Not (yet) drowning, waving

Holy somewhere a long way from Toledo, Batman. The excitable man on the radio is talking about catastrophic flooding down the east coast, taking in Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent.

Have a good look at the map and see if you can spot the rather big and in parts quite heavily populated problem with this.

Hint? It is there, between Suffolk and Kent. It has three rather largish rivers either forming a boundary or passing through it.

We live on one of these flaming rivers. Some of the more vulnerable folk of Yarmouth are being evacuated, those left behind are fighting over the last few sandbags in town. Sandbags?

We haven't been evacuated. We haven't seen a delivery of sandbags. If I'm not here tomorrow you will know why - I'm a corpse bobbing up and down in the North Sea, tossed hither and thither at the whim of tide, current and wind.

Must do more words.

Sorry

why is a person from a council flat less intelligent

Someone landed here after asking the above question. I haven't got the answer. Do you? Intriguing premise lies behind it and one I'd never considered which is, of course, not the only reason why I don't have the answer. I'm also not quite sure why I felt I needed to start with an apology for answering this rather distasteful little question. The search came from a Glasgow academic source. Which actually doesn't make the whole thing feel better, though perhaps that does give the entire situation a bleakly comic overtone.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

I'm not particularly well equipped for wading through complex moral and philosophical mires but what the hell I'm going to have my while this is still a reasonably free-speech medium: the decision not to even countenance a review of the current legal maximum term at which an abortion can be performed strikes me as simple criminal irresponsibility particularly as the grounds for this seem to be that there's no reason to consider lowering the age from 24 weeks when the survival rate for babies born at 23 weeks isn't showing a significant improvement.

I guess I'm just becoming increasingly sensitive to this as my chances of having another baby gallop off towards the distant hills beyond which they'll be out of sight and irretrieveable.

There are unquestionably circumstances in which a woman can get to 24 weeks without being aware she's pregnant. Yes, there are.

But when that unborn is not just 'potentially' viable but where its chances of surviving and even thriving are very real what possible just cause can there be for killing him or her.

I've sympathy with the woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant; realising that plans however trivial or important are about to be overturned by what ever cause is a potential cause of distress. But a lot worse things can happen. Some of them probably will, and if you can't cope with this, how will you cope with them?

If you're that much of a loss when it comes to dealing the shit life can dish up, perhaps its you who should be terminated, and not your unwanted child.

Would a tightening of the abortion law lead to an increase in 'back street' abortions? Well, maybe. After all a law proscribing homicide pretty consistently in place down through the ages hasn't got in the way of people killing one another, but no rational or credible individual to my knowledge has ever argued for the abolition.

I'm not a pro-life fruit cake. Abortion happens, always will and I think on balance it better to facilitate this in safe (sanitary, skilled) conditions than otherwise. I also happen to feel increasingly powerfully the necessity for clear blue water between the shortest viable term based on current reliable medical evidence and the maximum termination term and absolutely not an overlap between the two.

Morally ambiguous? Yes. Pragmatic and workable. Yes. Painful. That's life.

Observation

Since I took to buffing and filing my toe nails (I was that bored) my tootsies have taken to looking splendid. Odd or what?

More stuff that's wrong with Blogger

First of all there's all the German (or Foreign, as Yoda calls it). What's with that?

Then there's the fact that my astrological sign has changed. I'm no longer an aries I'm a widder, whatever the hell that is. Surely it isn't German for aries, when aries derives directly from the classical? How odd. I shall investigate and report.

You will notice that I'm ruling out my date of birth slipping (much as I'd like it to, by a good few years or so). That's the sort of thing that happens when you sober up.

What else

Reasons to be cheerful, part ... where am I up to? Oh, ONE.

Got on the scales for the first time in a few weeks, expecting to have piled weight on during the 'summer' holiday, through being so inactive (so little gardening) and miserable. But no, I haven't.

Why.

If only I were a hypocondriac I could up with some really, truly unpleasant illness to explain my failure to put on loads of weight while essentially eating and living exactly as I had done for the previous seven months.

But I'm not. Which probably has some bitterly ironic twist to it in that I'm actually silently suffering from some deadly disease that won't manifest itself until moments before I drop dead.

So Cute

Unless my ears deceive me 'They' have named the big hurricane bearing down on Hawaii and threatening catastrophe: Flossie. How Cute is that?

The Acid Test

What to do with the Royal Family? Let's burn them all ... but in the mean time...

My meandering mind drifted down a slightly peculiar path a few days ago that started with a day dream involving an Ak-Tor I rather fancy would cheerfully crawl across hot coals to slaver over.

In my day dream we were stranded alone in a jungle (hot and steamy). The day dream was rather successful (pleasing) and has been filed away to be drawn upon another day when the mood takes me.

In the mean time and still slightly ruffled by William's stupid little outburst of stupidity I've got to wondering if there were any members of the royal familiy I'd not be totally horrified to be stranded anywhere with in a situation of mutual co-dependency.

To make it fair I've taken them at the height of their powers rather than as the necessarily are now.

Her Maj. - well she knows how to do what's necessary, but how flexible and
adaptable can she be? FAIL

Prince Phil. - war service suggests certain
physical and personal attributes that would be useful. PASS

Chas - a
jungle would be quite wet enough already. FAIL

Camilly - we might be on
the way out. Someone needs to know how to organise the party. PASS

Willy
- moron! FAIL

Harry - mililtary training AND up for a laugh. PASS

Andrew - we'll have to travel light. FAIL

Beatrice/Eugenie - we
won't need any additional dead wood. FAIL

Neddy - the marine drop out?
you've got to be fucking joking. FAIL

Neddy's wife and kid - who? FAIL

Anne - someone will have to keep us in order. A shoe in. PASS

Anne's Hubby - semi-detatched. Can't count. FAIL

Peter - brawn. PASS

Zara - too much of a distraction for any men, thereby too much of an
annoyance for any woman. Reluctant FAIL

Madge's Son - practical skills.
PASS

Madge's Daughter - window dressing. FAIL

The REST - they
DON'T COUNT. Collective FAIL

Now. The real problem is this. If you applied the same test to YOUR extended family, what proportion would you PASS? Hmmm?