Two sided stories blog

Sacked for telling the truth about a pathetic government policy of ignoring the science and bowing to the tabloid scare mongers...
and in the thick of all this hoo ha (nice saying: hoo ha)
they are only talking about whether he was wrong to point out that the Labour ministers overruled the science.
No one is mentioning the fact - totally un-denied by anyone in government - that dope and ecstasy are less harmful than tobacco and alcohol (because the business and tax issues of the latter are government no go areas...)

Its enough to drive you nutts...

Hundreds of very strange people, in anoraks, carrying tripods, binoculars, cameras, sandwiches, thermos flasks, and several infectious diseases - are all descending on Tyneside - not the area with the beautiful bridges and art galleries, a dull rural bit.

The reason is one which this group will have grown used to defending, from casual questioning of those who also question why mountaineers risk freezing and falling deaths...(yup, I feel, probably, these are also human beings who have missed the best path in life).

This little bird has a label - does it matter what that label is?
no, of course not - though to the Autistic spectrum-climbers of this group I suspect the answer would be
OF COURSE IT DOES!

"Seeing... is forgetting the name of what you are looking at" I would retort, and I can see this little bird as nothing more than a ball of feathers that is quite attractive - but its back story is irrelevant to me.

I used to be quite into bird watching, the fascination was not with rarity but the wonder of their flight, songs and movement - it came shortly after train-spotting - when I was 12 - 14, then, finally, interest in the human female kind took over...
First just the surprise of realising I was staring at Sybilla Jennings' legs as she cycled into school, then gradually, female beauty became something living and interactive, requiring social skills and involving the dangers of relationships - but definitely the joys of sex and possibly love...

I feel sure that these sad people, in their anoraks this Saturday morning, would rather browse a catalogue of bird boxes than the Tantra of sexual love. Instead of being caressed, touching the soft skin, in bed with a loving partner, sipping a postprandial cup of coffee, they prefer to be in the grim-up-north rain, vainly trying to spot this little ball of feathers amongst the tree branches on run down, back of the estate, scrubland...

I suppose I should be sympathetic, given the nature of Autism Spectrum Disorder and how it inhibits life chances, particularly in the social sphere - and I have members of my own family who have suffered from this aspect, but the sheer weight of Twitcher numbers, the fact they have made this Oddie hobby into TV primetime, and their convinced belief in what they do, makes them feel like fair game to me...

Mountain climbing seems quite sensible and sexy by comparison.

It's happening again...
Sir Bob convinced you that your aid might prevent it
but it is...happening now

Not many ever realised the way that war influenced, and influences the effects of famine in sub Saharan Africa... the starvation keeps happening partly because war disrupts people's lives and prevents the aid measures designed to increase sustainability from working.

Comic Relief and Band Aid personalities tended not to mention the war - because the fact of its man made nature tends to put off those who would otherwise give the much needed food aid...

Ethiopian armament investing bankers meanwhile are celebrating a return to success and record bonuses thanks to our government's financial support that far exceeds the total raised by,
Live Aid,
Band Aid,
Live 8,
Comic Relief,
Oxfam,
Christian Aid,
and a few hundred other charities,
all put together.

One wonders what a country has to be, how many have to die, before it becomes too big to fail.

"There were some mistakes. There were some instances of fraud, but the nation as a whole was clean, and the result was clear. I decided for peace... to hold a run off," - President dirty Khazi.
..he went on - with the implicit line - "because, with the help of those who aided me last time, I am very likely to win this anyway..."

Never mind that the UK, USA and its allies are losing soldiers lives and spending billions of pounds/dollars trying to do in Afghanistan something that is harder there than "winning" in Vietnam was back in that ancient forgotten historic time, the 1970s...

Never mind that democracy of a supposedly whole nation, previously and artificially created by Imperialist Britain, is not something you can ever impose upon a region of tribal areas with no sense of nationhood to speak of...

Never mind that it is well proven that asymmetric wars are, for the invading power, almost by definition, unwinnable...

The man that we have heard described as "showing great leadership" is the one who bribes the favoured. This Western backed great hope is a corrupt crook. (a great American tradition, well rehearsed in Latin America)

We are busy praising and supporting the very man who arranged the fixing of the last election, the man who feeds the bribery and corruption that existed before the Taliban and which is a classic part of US foreign policy wherever it sees its interests as lying...
The irony of how they bought the Mujahadeen millions of dollars worth of weapons to help defeat the Russians, the same victorious Mujahadeen who then mutated into the Taliban who now use these weapons against them, still seems to have escaped the expert spokespeople...

The British and Russians were defeated by this land - only the arrogant Americans, fueled by blind rage, medium-term memory loss and ignorance of world politics and geography, could have arranged and powered through this blood and money wasting exercise.

As long as we persist in believing that Karzai - or for that matter Abdullah Abdullah - can somehow force through a western style democracy in that sense-forsaken set of lands we are deluding ourselves in a most naive and childish manner.

In a few years - the great powers will feel defeated, the people will say "No More... bring our boys home" (they already are, just not in sufficient numbers to drown out the noisy deaf-blind hawks).

and then it will be, "Welcome back Taliban!"
...you may persecute women and be more backward than a barrel full of medieval Popes, but at least you are not corrupt
- or American...

I don't need to link to any learned articles or the DPP's speech last night to point out the idiotic pandering to the Daily Wail ignorance that Cameron's proposal to get rid of the Human rights act represents...

The myths of the Human rights act's interactions with our constitution that he has swallowed are the Bus stop Racist's usual ignorant ramblings. The Act is ensconced in our law because otherwise we would constantly have to refer to the European courts (as used to be the case) at great expense and waste of time. It does also, as the DPP suggested, make us look shamefully backward if we decide to take this retrograde step.

The fact that in reality the Human rights act prevents injustice on ordinary people, and denies the oppressive law makers the ability to run roughshod over the lives of the least able in society - that is something David Cameron wants to remove...

The unbelievable truth is that Cameron is much thicker than he sounds.

He can't help looking like an angry little piggy,
Nick Griffin...
the answer to the question, "How low can a man get?"


it was not his fault that his parents abused him when they were children.
He only wants to go on Question Time to represent the other most abused and IQ challenged who managed to get it together to put a cross on a ballot paper supporting his poor little bigot boy stance...
All he ever really wanted was to be able to hit someone who looked different to him with his stick, like so many other half-formed humans that crawl across the earth...
and now he, and they, are going to be exposed to Question time (which will need some skilled policing to prevent the angry mob dominance his supporters crave).

Generals, leaders of all parties, newspaper editors, the intellectual classes, the half way intelligent classes, doctors, lawyers, in fact all those who have glimpsed the real world without bigottunnelvision glasses have all queued up to scorn his attempt to wrap himself in the flag and use the image of the Spitfire.

It's too obvious for me to say... almost - but in his flag wrapping at his bigot tent conference, his party used the image of a Polish pilot in the famed aircraft. My father flew alongside these Polish pilots - and Dutch (as in his number two, shot down by our own anti-aircraft guns by mistake).
The world order that Spitfire pilots were fighting for included the right to free speech, but they would have filled this little piggy full of Browning machine gun fire if he had stood up where his ideals place him, atop a Panzer tank back in 1944...

The idea that Churchill might support this Hitler-idolising group in any way is so pathetic that I say - let him have his free speech, his shouting devious say, on BBC's Question Time -
give him enough rope and we will see just how ridiculous he will appear...
more so than Oswald Moseley who, behind his Fascist delusions, had good fortune and education as well as a dash of charisma.
This little piggy has none.

* * * *
As for questions he should be asked on Question Time - how about this list from the Guardian bloggers' compilation:

1. Which parts of Hitler's book Mein Kampf does Nick Griffin agree with, considering that he is on record as stating that he has "learned a lot" from it?

2. Specifically which policies and ideology of the historical German Nazi party does the BNP as a whole renounce or support, considering the confirmed admiration for Hitler and his organisation among several senior members of the BNP?

3. What is the BNP's official position on the Holocaust, given Griffin's claim that "I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades." Does he not believe the 6 million figure?

4. Griffin has been pictured with and rubbed shoulders several times with high-ranking members of the American Ku Klux Klan. Does he agree with their vision of Aryan supremacy? Would he renounce their policies and ideology?

5. Would Griffin, Andrew Brons and all other members of the BNP be willing to submit to multiple independent DNA tests to confirm that none of them have any non-European ancestry?

6. How will a BNP government ensure the safety of Britain's female population, considering that a senior member of the BNP (Nick Eriksen) has been on record as stating that he believes "rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal."

7. Does Griffin agree with the senior member of the BNP who is on record as stating that he supports forced euthanasia of people with disabilities and others deemed to be "a waste of time, money and resources", including the very old and (especially) newborn babies?

8. Griffin said previously that he believed white and black people could not live together. Is he still against mixed-race relationships? How will he stop people from having them?

9. What would be the status of British citizens (both minors and legal adults) who are the children of one white/Caucasian parent and one non-white parent?

10. The BNP's constitution says that it wishes to restore "the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948". Does that still remain his aim?

Funny how life becomes more awake and clear -

...when you lose someone really close.

Today the sun emerged, from a formerly grey drizzly sky, just as we arrived at the woodland burial ground
We said our goodbyes - amid the minimal religious ceremony and I deposited a posy of his home grown parsley, asparagus, spinach, broccoli and rosemary.
Rachel let drop a small rock (for Peter - the rock) from the garden here in Buckland Newton.
Mother, some South African lilies, - to keep the furthest relative contact alive...all onto the cardboard coffin that was an emblem of his committment to green values.

Life is still full of laughs, perhaps even louder than ever, and many more hugs, for longer than usual.
Music can be unbearably poignant.
If you do not know this, have not experienced this, it must be because you are either young or very fortunate in not having someone very close die - but the surprising thing is how one can forget, making it all fresh and raw again,
- and the last time I felt this way was back in 1988.

So, its just the memorial/thanksgiving service to come now and for those who are interested, and haven't seen the notices going out in the various papers - its on Friday the 20th November at 2.30 p.m. in Sherborne Abbey.
The reason its not in either Cerne Abbas or Buckland Newton churches is because we want everyone who wants to come to be able to get in. The estimate is that 400+ seats will be needed.

After that, I hope its a long time before we dig up plot 19, right next to the silver birch tree that is being planted as I write - between the his and hers hedgeside plots...

____________________________________________________________________

'What time is it Si?'
'It's something after midnight Gramps...'

In the pitch black I see you
'LARGER than life'
(a somehow appropriate metaphor these days...)
As I look up through my eyelids at you, gravity tugs hot tears of pain down each cheek & into each ear.
(actually that gets pretty irritating after a while...)

Still,
Staccato as my thoughts are, I remember you with such pride...

I see you playing floodlit croquet with me at age 11(ish)..

I hear you reading Kalhil Gibran with such passion as I hold the trembling hand of my beautiful wife-to-be,

I feel the tender touch of your love, as you hold little Jazzy, delicately caressing her 3 month old skin..

Then I recall your emailed conversations with Zeta..
She:
inviting you (her hero) to come an bounce with her on her new trampoline..
you:
warmly appreciative of her kind invitation, but gently suggesting that mexican dominoes may be slightly more appropriate...

Your ebullient cry force a smile on my face,,
'A WICKET !'
I recall the unrestrained boyish joy we shared during our penultimate day together, when Flintoff's direct hit ousts Ricky Ponting and begins England's charge towards a famous Ashes victory!....

It is still something after midnight...

My devoted Grampy..
A huge inspiration,
Unfailingly committed in your search for truths (spiritual & otherwise)...
Wonderfully unfettered in your love and acceptance of people....

A song drifts into my head, and I welcome another session of music therapy.
This time a song I heard just before my 17th birthday..

The song was poignant to me then and now returns to me, as if you were raising a glass to us all, a little 'farewell soliloquy'

LIGHTS & VIRTUES:

Here's to lights and virtues
Here's to truths yet to be known
Knowledge to light the darkness
The search for things of your own..

Here's to lights and virtues
Here's to reaching higher ground
A life of hope and purpose
Here's to strength yet to be found
Honor, though it goes unrecognized
And truth, though liars abound

The pleasure of love and friendship
The courage to be alone...

I love you Grampy
Si..xxx..
____________________________________________________________________

I took to your father the moment I met him at your wedding, and would love to have met him much earlier, and indeed sought his counsel. He was in every way a model of what a fine and honourable man should be. I especially valued and admired the fact that he was still fully ready to revise and rethink.

Yours most sincerely, with love and sympathy, needless to say, from Fay as well. Do not of course think of replying at this burdened time.

Dafydd and Fay
Wales

____________________________________________________________________

Thank You so much for informing of this sad occasion, Peter came into my life from extensive research on my 1st cousin once removed who was a dutch aviator who flew his last mission with Peter, when he was reported lost, and crashed near Dover on Auust 17th 1944. Peter had his picture of Rijklof "Charlie" Van Goens in his book "Skypilot" he so graciously signed and send to me. We e-mailed on several occasions, and my partner in research Rob Philips went to visit Peter, and they spoke extensively.
Thanks to Peter the record was set straight that my cousin was shot down by friendly fire (AA guns) and not that he ran out of gas as reported by RAF records.

Peter and Rijklof Van Goens set out that fateful day to battle incoming doodlebugs (V1 German selfguided bombs) but the weather was really bad and they could not get any visuals, they aborted the mission and returned to another base. Somehow Rijklof passed above the anti aircraft guns as they were shooting at the Doodlebug and was hit. Peter told us of my cousins last frantic messages in dutch, which he did not understand.

It was a great honour for me to have met such a great person as Peter, he was a link to a past that absorbed me, even when I never met my cousin, he made me understand the person he was. I wish to convey my condolences to the whole family, Peter will be sorely missed.

Thank You, God Bless

Peter Huender
Holland

____________________________________________________________________

I only got in contact with your father very recently, namely in August this year. One month before I had co-led the excavation by our Belgian aviation archaeology team of a Spitfire of 41 Squadron that had been shot down over West Flanders on 19 September 1943. On that day your father had been in action with 41 Squadron as well and he was so kind to answer my questions I had asked him via e-mail.
His reply as well as his photo were and still are intended to be taken up in our next year's exhibition about this excavation and the events of 19 September 1943.

I will also appreciate his prompt and kind enthusiasm to help me in my research. I must admit that I did not expect him to pass away so suddenly. A unique husband and (great grand)father can never be replaced but I am sure he will keep inspiring your family and so many friends and acquaintances.

I wish your family courage.

Sincerely Yours,

Dirk Decuypere
Belgium

____________________________________________________________________

I met Peter earlier this year at Bolt Head and had a most interesting conversation with him about 41 Squadron as my father was also a pilot who flew spitfires in 41 Squadron - but earlier in the Battle of Britain. I was struck by his sense of humour and his vivid recollections of the conflict and period of captivity. Although the conversation was brief, after dinner at the hotel, I count it as a treasured moment - his warmth and kindness shone through to me - a complete stranger. It was an honour to meet him and I feel privileged that I had the opportunity to have a conversation with him. I am sure he is flying once again.
Sincere wishes
John Shipman
Bedfordshire

___________________________________________________________________

I am very sorry to hear of the passing of your father Peter....he was a neat guy and I enjoyed meeting and renewing our friendships from the 80s when he was priest at St. Ambrose, here in Claremont, California, I bet he has friends from all over the globe! ( certainly does - PG)
Thank you for including me in the mailing.
Love, Marcy
____________________________________________________________________

My late husband, Herb Wagner, who died 4 years ago of kidney failure, and your father served together in the RAF (Herb was one of the few Americans on the squadron),and they kept up via email for many years. We saw your father at a reunion many years ago. Herb always spoke so highly of your father and told me many wonderful RAF stories about him.

Brooke Wagner , USA

(editors note: Herb was the long serving POW mentioned in previous blog entry comments from 41 Sqaudron history compiler, Steve Brew, - they became great friends in Prison camp.)
_____________________________________________________________________

What sad news about Uncle Peter, who holds a very special place in all our hearts. I have such fond memories of him and Sylvia here on the farm, rowing the boat on the river, visiting the people in the compound, joining in with the Christmas spirit at Ngenile, just being himself - no judging ever, even with the Randells, who as you know are not the most devout lot! Baptising Alexandra Barbara Randell at Petra and performing the blessing for Dad and Pam on the very same day, a day never to be forgotten. We still have the candle he gave us, kept specially for Abby as a reminder of that day. We have lovely memories of him on our trip to England, at Charlie's cottage, when they brought us lunch - and we then visited the nearby castle. All the children remember him fondly - as we do.

Rest in peace Uncle Peter, we won't forget you!

Uncle Peter really was a most special and unique person, with charm and compassion, and a smile that I will never forget.

God bless,

Lots of love
Frances, Mark, Katie, Simon, Charlie and Abby

(Southern Africa)
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more - many more, may be added with time...as in the comments - please click on them - for wonderful flying poem written by a fellow WW2 pilot.

I am sitting in my father's chair, tapping on his keyboard, to the sound of my mother and brother exchanging a few practical words in the kitchen downstairs.

The garden looks as wonderful as it always does - now in the fading evening light, tomatoes he grew, and picked on Thursday, are ready on the table to accompany our meal.

I know he is gone - lying lifeless in a hospital bed 12 miles away - but I still would not be surprised to see him totter down the garden path on his two sticks calling, "Sylvia...?".
Today on the ward I stroked his hair, and immediately smelled the bonfire smoke - distinctively holly leaves, that he was busy with only hours before his fall from wakefulness. A most fitting perfume.

Relatives are now generally in the good mode of contact, confident chats and simple sympathy. Friends, a mix of close, not yet informed, and those who have heard from others, are very keen to offer condolences, and some with greetings in overly hushed tones - but the best out there have already said such wonderful things about him - so good it hurts.

The final call from the hospital was a midnight affair

- and my hopes that that call would wait have been dashed...
wait for my sister rushing back from the other side of the world, perhaps her seeing his body still warm and breathing would have been of some comfort to her? - I know as I received a call whilst still ten miles out from the hospital on that first day - I was very keen that it would not be that second call...

So sorry, so sad
The great grandchildren were asking if he is in heaven yet...
he always was.

So what makes him of interest to those outside the immediate family and friends?
Why am I hoping that this might be the basis of some bigger obituary when the time comes?

As a believer in the worth of all people, I might argue that he was no more deserving of wider remembrance than any other - than any other spitfire pilot, any other prisoner of war, any other priest, any other father of four, any other who worked tirelessly on loving those people in his scope who might be the most difficult to love.

I would not offer a hagiography - he had a competitive streak that was wrongly applied to his young children's games and learning, and perhaps not enough to his living and earning...
and he could be remarkably selfish at times whilst utterly selfless at others.
But for all his many faults, the kindness that drove him to excess of love in so much to so many, was his greatest success. The big heart that kept him breathing so long after the doctors said it would, against all the odds, is what is known so very widely and deserves to be known by others...

It was the end of a lovely sunny day - but at 10.00p.m. 8th October that startling meteor, Skypilot, Peter B. G. suddenly faded from our earthly view. As he would have designed it almost - still full of plans and having just planted a new asparagus bed, since the one above was getting past it...

sadness.

"It’s a bit rich frankly (and, yes, I do see the irony in that phrase) for the son of a baronet and the heir to a trendy wallpaper fortune to claim that we’re all in this together" - G Pitcher- telegraph

So the pre-election manifesto from the Bullingdon boys in their conference power move is - "We are all in this together"
- certainly Osborne, Cameron, Johnson and a host of other Eton- crammed and over-privileged numskulls were all in the Bullingdon dining club together -

His speech, however, tried desperately to imply that he was sitting right alongside those public sector workers whose pay he proposes to freeze. He seemed to suggest that we were all welcome in his Bentley or on his holiday yachting trips.

I think not...

When you have a million pounds in loose change in your pocket, to boast that you will equally give up £10,000 a year, just as you demand the same sum from someone on £20,000 net, with a big mortgage...well,
it is transparent bullshit...

and I sincerely hope the voting public will agree -
vote Green - the only equality minded party out there...