Of sheep, shepherds and wolves.

 Sheep, Shepherds and Wolves.

As the years seem to be accelerating towards the finish line that is my sixtieth birthday (where does the time go?) and perhaps the most important General Election since Margaret Thatcher beat James Callaghan in 1979, I thought it an opportune moment to share my thoughts on a subject I have often discussed with my son, John, ever since he was old enough to understand a metaphor.

Sheep.

This is by far the largest group, making up well over 95% of the general population. It doesn’t matter what ethnic group, religious persuasion, social or educational grouping people are, the vast majority will fit into this category.

What are the characteristics of this group? Like their animal namesake, they spend the majority of their non sleeping hours going about the tasks directed to them by the shepherd eg being fattened up for slaughter, moving from field to field as a herd, or lining up to be fleeced.

Unless you physically attack them they will do nothing other then bleat constantly to each other, follow the herd and chew contentedly in the middle of the road looking straight at the car that is bearing down on them, seemingly without a care in the world. Even if they are hurt by the shepherd, for example when the males are castrated to keep them docile and less aggressive, they struggle and cry for a few moments but then quickly go back to chewing once the shepherd distracts them with a nice patch of grass or feed.

Encouraged to breed, simply to increase the shepherd’s wealth, their children can be taken away from them by the shepherd at a whim and sent to live with another flock.

Although they have the illusion of freedom, in reality they are carefully watched and controlled, until such time as they are needed.

Once their usefulness to the shepherd is over they are corralled and led kicking and bleating to the slaughter where, at the end of their short, aimless lives they are killed and their corpses picked over. It is only at the few moments before the knife (in the case of Halal slaughter), electricity or bolt is applied that they finally twig something is up but by then it is far too late to do anything about it.  Once dead they are instantly forgotten

Shepherds.

Few in numbers, they own and keep constant watch over the sheep. Their farms are often handed down through the family or control is purchased with the judicious use of money.

Through the clever use of media they have been portraying themselves for thousands of years as kind and benevolent, going out in all weather to save the least of their flock.

Judicious use of technology now allows them to keep careful watch on the herd from afar, zooming in on individual sheep if they become restless or don’t follow the herd.

Always on the lookout for mavericks, they selectively breed out from their flock the traits they deem useless, quickly culling those that are surplus to requirements or cause trouble.

They only spend on the sheep just enough money to keep them fed and watered, keeping the majority for themselves to be spent in a manner of their choosing.

If ever a sheep manages to escape the confines of the pasture and make its way into the shepherd’s garden, they are rounded up and quickly led back to the flock. The shepherd learns from this escape and improves the field’s security. It’s done incrementally until one day the sheep wake up to find themselves completely hemmed in.

Every once in a while you get a genuinely good shepherd who cares well for his flock and reinvests all of the profits back into their welfare and security. Unfortunately, they all to often go broke and have to sell up as they have not paid enough attention to keeping solvent and the wealthier, cannier shepherds buy up their flock, leaving them to look back on past glories and empty fields.

Wolves.

They truly run free, with no responsibility to anything other then themselves, family or pack. No-one controls or owns them.

Adept at hiding in plain sight and keeping very still for extended periods before pouncing, these apex predators are instinctively cunning.

They watch carefully and will single out weak individuals and when the time if right make themselves known, scattering the flock so that they can zoom in on the weak, sick, old or defenceless that the panicked flock has left to fend for themselves.

Whilst ruthless, they take no pleasure in the kill, only the satisfaction of a full belly for them and their family.

They do however perform a key role in evolutionary terms by weeding out the less able in the flock. With each death the average intelligence of the flock increases slightly as the survivors (hopefully) learn how to better defend themselves.

Whilst shepherds pretend to despise the wolves and try and convince the sheep that they are protecting them, the reality is that the sheep dogs they use to control the flock use exactly the same tactics as the wolves and are just a generation or so removed from wolves themselves. Isn’t it ironic that if it wasn’t for the wolves the sheep would have no fear of the sheep dogs?

One of the key things everyone needs to know and have a real understanding of is whether they are a sheep, shepherd or wolf.

Now ask yourself, what are you now and what would you rather be?

The death of good reporting and impartiality.

I like reading and watching the news. Keeping abreast with current and foreign affairs so that I can make informed decisions as I go about my life. Understanding the geo-political landscape and history so as better to understand why the world works the way it does and what's likely to happen in the future.

All fine and dandy, but it's becoming harder and harder to do so. Before the Internet revolution, we got our news from just a few sources, namely the newspaper you bought every day, the BBC and mates down the pub. If you were inclined towards the Labour party you bought the Mirror (or if you were posh, the Guardian), Conservatives the Mail or Telegraph, and the Sun for those that didn't care who ran the country as long as she had big tits.

It would be logical to assume that with the advent of global and rolling news channels, Internet and on-line news aggregators such as Google News  etc, obtaining a broad, unbiased picture would be much easier now. Unfortunately not.

The left leaning, politically correct bias of the BBC has gone from being covert to overt. Traditional papers literally froth at the mouth when espousing the political bias of their paymasters, be it left or right. Aggregators are paid to put stories top of the list. Its becoming depressingly hard to find the truth these days from amongst the spin, half truths and downright lies that we are served up with. Its easy to understand why, in the absence of factual, balanced news, increasing numbers of people fall for the conspiracy theories that abound.

So what can be do about it? For me, one of the ways is simply to seek out as many different views as I can. Al-Jezeera, RT, English translations of European newspapers, CCTV, NHK etc. all form part of my daily read and are bookmarked. While each has its own bias reflecting the politics of their region, one can get a much wider picture then from simply trusting one news source.

But the best thing we can do is to hone our critical function, something that seems to be in short supply these days. Never take any news story at face value and always look to follow the money. Who benefits, whose paying, why now, and why us are four simple questions to ask of any story or politician.

As we come up to the General Election in a few weeks time, face Islamic terrorism at home and foreign aggression abroad, its more important then ever that we question what we are being told by the media and don't let others form our opinions for us.

Celebrity Stalking

Following Monday’s unexpected encounter in Pizza Express with David Beckham and family, I got to thinking about some of the “famous” people I’ve met or bumped into over the years. Famous is in inverted commas for a good reason as I don’t include those who are famous for simply being famous.

The biggest name has to be Princess Diana. I bumped into her a few times, once almost literally. Working in and around Knightsbridge for quite a few years gave me the chance to see the glitterati on numerous occasions. The first time with PD was early one morning when she almost mowed me down at a crossing, having run through a red light on her way to the Harbour Club. If I hadn't jumped back onto the pavement maybe both her, and my life would now be quite different. The second time was a year later, this time at the Harbour Club itself, where the Managing Director was showing me around one morning in my capacity as their local bank manager. We walked into a changing room and there was PD, in her skimpies, getting changed. Neither of them batted an eyelid; he apologised and we walked out. Still shocked I said, “was that….?” To which he replied “yes it was”. Tight sods didn't even offer me complimentary membership. And that was the end of that.

Third time was in Montpelier’s, a lovely restaurant close to Harrods. (http://www.montpelianorestaurant.com/default.html) I’d been invited there for lunch by a wealthy customer who was extremely posh but for some reason had taken quite a shine to my East End way of speaking. We were one of the first in the restaurant that day and were seated at a small table, where I spent much of the meal telling my off colour jokes and anecdotes to my host, something she found most amusing. As the place filled out I noticed that people kept looking in our direction. I lent forward and asked if I’d been talking too loud, only to be told that they weren't looking at me but at the person behind me. Not wishing to appear too obvious, I “dropped” my knapkin on he floor and bent down to catch a crafty glimpse of who it was. Well, no prizes for guessing who. She was sitting no more then two foot behind me with a young officer in uniform. I expect she learnt quite a few off colour jokes that afternoon to tell back at the Palace, especially the one about the Irishman and the Prostitute who’d had a curry.

A few of the staff from Midland Bank, Knightsbridge c1982

The final time was in Egypt. After our Honeymoon in Turkey, Irene and I wanted to go somewhere hot but archaeologically interesting. OK, I mainly wanted the history and Irene wanted hot, which is why we ended up in Egypt. Hand on heart, I'd never, ever go back. Horrid, horrid place, full of miserable, insulting, grasping tradesmen and surly people. It could be that my views are coloured by us both contracting Amoebic Dysentery after four days and having to spend the next week within running distance of a toilet, something almost impossible as sanitation seemed to be a foreign concept. Anyway, I digress. The second week of our holiday was in Aswan, staying at the Old Cataract Hotel which featured in the film Death on the Nile.

Old Cataract Hotel. Aswan

By now we had to ensure that after drinking or eating anything we were within 10 or at most 20 minutes walk time to a loo, as liquids took 10 minutes to pass through us and food slightly longer. As I said, horrid, horrid place. Virtual prisoners in our hotel room, unless we went without food or water, we noticed that everything was being whitewashed or painted. Jokingly we said that they must be expecting the Queen, only to be told that Princess Di was visiting later that day. Sure enough, she turned up with a motorcade and was ushered through the crowd waiting at reception. Was that a flash of recognition as she turned to look at me? Nah, surely not.

Oh, almost forgot, I also had sunstroke after visiting the Valley of The Kings, despite being tooled up like Lawrence of Arabia and drinking litres of bottled water. As Jim Hawkins says at the end of Treasure Island, “Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed (is)land”.

Of course, we've bumped into quite a few celebs over the years, but they're for another story.

It's better to give?

Christmas is a time for many things; family, faith, quiet contemplation of the year that's almost over, which side of the family will you spend it with, and most important of all, which one one of you will drive so the other can get bladdered, that sort of thing.
It's all of the above for me even though I'm not one for the twinkle, unlike Irene. However, the thought of having such a good time whilst others less fortunate are shivering under an overpass or searching for a pissy cardboard box to sleep in whilst I'm tucking into a three bird roast and necking back a warm Barolo makes me feel somewhat guilty, so when I saw the advert for Crisis at Christmas saying that for £20 they could provide meals and somewhere to sleep over the festive season for one person, I jumped at the chance and flashed the plastic. It's a great charity and one worth supporting.

Normally I don't like Chuggers of any sort, and save my pennies for charities such as the RNLI, Poppy Appeal and the Sally Army, always dropping a few coins into the tins proffered by the brave souls out there looking to help others. However, I was moved by the thought of someone being cold at Christmas and made a donation online, together with my details so they could claim Gift Aid. Feeling suitably righteous I went on to have a lovely Christmas, free of guilt and angst.

Imagine my surprise when, late last night whilst I was watching the endless Qi reruns on Dave, I received a phone call from Crisis, thanking me for my donation. The guy was very chatty and I soon realised why. He wanted me to sign up for a regular direct debit of "only" 75p a week. I warned him, politely, that I wasn't going to sign up nor would I be making regular payments, but he kept on telling me of all the wonderful things my money would do for the homeless. Normally at this point I tell unsolicited callers to go forth (and multiply) but as this one was nice I ended the call without expletives of any sort. I could see Irene was surprised.
This sort of unwanted follow up reminded me why I don't normally give to charities. The hassle afterwards. Thinking back over the years the only charity that hasn't pestered me after making a donation was the Gurkha appeal.
Red Cross, Disaster Emergency, Oxfam etc, all hassled me after I had sent them money. Not only that but I then experienced months of receiving various begging letters through the post from a multiplicity of charities who had no doubt purchased my details from the one I'd contributed to.
So, here's one of my three New Year resolutions. Next time I give online to charity I'll no longer provide my details. Yes, this means that they will miss out on a 20% tax rebate, but I'll be saved hassle and no doubt a few less trees will not be turned into begging letters. Its a real shame but the charities have no one to blame but themselves.