Politics, bees and the innocence of childhood!

A strange week has passed, with the world passing by in its own peculiar way.  The British general election turned up a result that nobody was in the least bit surprised by, and whilst this particular election was the first since 1997 to stir up some interest in my skeptical attitude towards all things involving British politics, nevertheless the boredom with it all is back.  I thank god that British elections only run for about a month, whilst the American elections for president last around 18 months or so.  As for the hung parliament that resulted from the 'I prefer to sit on the fence, than actually do something radical' British electorate, and consequently no political party ended up with a majority, that could form a government, well the British have ended up with exactly the very things they complained about.  I find it unsurprising that the British character remains stuck in its world of serfdom and servility.

Anyway, enough of the politics and on to more pleasing news!  I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have visited this blog, over the past month I've seen an increase of over 300% in visitors, which I find amazing and somewhat humbling.  This in turn has led to more people downloading the free sample of my book, 'Nick & Jenny', along with a small increase in those who've bought a copy.  And on top of that, more people have begun to look at my webpage for 'English Support Services', which has seen visitor traffic increase by 800%.  Of course I can't rest on my laurels, as it were, and so the hard, but pleasurable, work continues apace.  So, again, a very BIG THANK YOU for all your support in making my 'dreams' come true.

Whilst I'm on the subject of my novel, 'Nick & Jenny' I've been asked about the paperback version of the book.  All I can say at the moment is that it will be published in paperback form in the future, but that's sometime off as I've another novel, 'Danny's Navel Adventure' due to be published in June/July time, in addition to other projects I'm working on, which doesn't leave me with the time to do everything I'd like.

One of the big pluses' of this week is that I've finally started working on my film about the trip to the USA during Dec. '09 to Jan. '10.  The downside to it all was my realisation that I'd taken more film and photos than I'd thought, and there's going to be lots left out of the final film, which at this early stage is running at 35 minutes long with a long way to go before it's finished.  The good thing is that the beginning and end of the film is almost done, in terms of film content and titles, but the music tracks have to be added and I'm still arguing with myself about whether I should add a voice over; the worry is that the voice will start to argue with me.

Finally, after spending far too long locked up in the hovel, I decided to escape.  Well it was a very pleasant late afternoon, or appeared to be.  Walking to my intended destination, the local graveyard, where I wanted to contemplate my navel and do some wildlife filming, the cheerful fluffy bits above my head became more threatening.  As I was in my normal mood of cheery glee and endless useless thoughts, I ignored the brewing storm.  Fifteen minutes later I'm sheltering under a tree, but fortunately I discovered a bees nest in the surrounding earth.  Not one to give up a missed opportunity, and the dense foliage of the tree protecting me and my camcorder, I set the camera up on the sturdy tripod.  I was totally engrossed in watching the few bees enter the entrance to the nest, they clearly far more intelligent than I due to them going home and I staying put.  After ten minutes or so the rain eased off enough for people to start wandering through the park, and a young girl, she must have been about seven or so, heavily blessed with the joys of innocent ignorance and driven by unending amounts of childish curiosity, inched her way ever closer to me.  Clearly, a raving lunatic of decaying years, wearing an open necked shirt and wearing a cord jacket, pointing his camcorder at some spot of muck was too much for her.  In her delightfully charming way, she slipped slightly on the damp grass above the nest and to steady herself placed her foot, heavily, on the nest entrance.  All I could do was smile and pack up as no further filming was possible.  The moral of the story is that whilst a bee is a fascinating insect to watch, it's hard to compare with the innocence of childhood and a child's uncanny ability to screw up an adult pleasure with the slip of a foot.

Graveyards, gimp and the decline into senility!

As we move towards the joys of spring, you know all those lovely, brave, flowers poking their head above the trench tops, birds noisily arguing and sorting territories out whilst chirping incessantly 'location, location, location, the mind naturally welcomes the thought of longer days.  If nothing else, this past winter, now finally buggering off into a receding memory, matching the ever hastening receding hairline, it's been a very long one and never ending.  But we can look back on it with some affection and a careless smile, which lasts all of 2 minutes on my ugly mug, knowing that it'll be back before Jack Frost can say 'I saw Santa Claus coming down the central heating flue, chimneys being a distant memory.

It's a happy time for there's the good weather ahead, the rain, the blue grey hues of fluffy clouds, prancing about in the azure sky.  Then there's the stroll along the river to one of my more favoured spots, the graveyard where I can hang about with a lot of people who don't mind listening to you moaning about the state of the economy, and patiently let you prattle on about this or that.  As a passing thought at this moment in time, perhaps if I was to become an actor I'd love to perform Hamlet there, at least the audience would have some real appreciation of the 'Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well' speech, as I hold his skull in my hand.  Graveyards and renditions of Shakespeare are vastly underrated as natural bedfellows in my opinion.

Be that as it may, I'm slowly plodding through the 4,000 odd photos I took in the US, both trying to put them into categories for a slideshow and do the necessary improvements using GIMP, a wonderful photo editing programme that can be found at www.gimp.org for those so inclined.  There are versions for mac, windows etc and best of all it's free.  As with everything concerned with new software and my mental faculties, or lack of them as I head towards a doddering autumnal season in life, it's a steep learning curve only slightly softened by its immensely forgiving nature and the ability to let me do numerous 'undo' actions due to my lack of technical knowledge being far greater than my boyish enthusiasm for playing silly buggers. But then if it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble, who cares?

Thankfully my life remains absolutely boring, apart from the occasional delight thrown in to keep me on my toes and ones causing enough of a bodily movement to remind me that I'm still breathing, although remembering most things seems to be more troublesome than forgetting them.  That I guess is due to the same problems that King Canute had, more often than not the things we want to hold back we are powerless to do so.