101 Things #23 - Britain by Foot

My ongoing series 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die, is mainly things I could do if I chose but refuse so to do. Sometimes it is necessary to dispose of typical bucket-list ideas on simpler grounds. If you were to ask me why I will not, ever,

Walk or cycle from Lands End to John O'Groats

the answer is easy: I do not have the stamina.

There have been great books about this long walk. John Hillaby's Journey Through Britain, which I bought soon after it was published in 1968, was one I read and reread. Even then Hillaby was warning about the steady encroachment of the urban and industrial onto the rural; things can hardly have improved since. Britain nonetheless has plenty of wonderful open spaces and I can only regret that advancing years and some difficulties with my feet rule me out of such a trip.

 Even if I were fully fit, I think it would remain a pipe-dream [Do we still have pipe dreams. Should that read vape-dream? Ed]. Much of the trip is unrelenting slog. At the end you can wearily tick it off your bucket list, sure, but all you have really done is walked (or cycled) quite a lot. I walk and cycle a bit anyway. Coming home knackered after 8 miles traipsing through the local woods around beautiful Ruislip is a sufficient achievement.

I have to admit that this is one bucket list item I would have been proud to have done in the past but right now it is one to be binned.

101 Things #22 - Voting Against

We continue to add more bile-laden pieces to this set of anti-bucket list material that comprises 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die   and this piece was started during the final few days before Boris Johnson's absolute, die-in-a-ditch, cast-iron guarantee that Britain would leave the EU on 31 October. For the benefit of historians let us note that Britain did not leave on that date, Parliament having prevented the Government from stupidly going ahead without a deal and without proper scrutiny of the "deal" Mr Johnson claimed to have negotiated.

Instead of leaving, Britain must now undergo a General Election which could well return a hung Parliament and pave the way for months more of chaos and flailing around at Westminster. Perhaps I should restate that: Instead of remaining in the EU, or at least having a straight referendum so that the people can decide if the deal negotiated on their behalf by a minority government is acceptable, we have the hope that Parliament will continue to represent the broad views of all Britons rather than a sect of believers in something they have failed to deliver.

I have commented a number of times on the politics behind the Referendum of 2016 and will keep today's polemic to a minimum. In the light of the way that campaign was conducted, the strategy of the Leavers since and their failure to realise that the peace and prosperity of all of Europe matter deeply to this country, it is easy for me to declare that I will not

Vote for a Brexiteer

Politics tends to be one side stating its case and then refusing to hear or engage with the other side and Brexit has been poisonously dividing the country for way too long. I guess we will have to go through with it. That does not mean I can give forgive the lies or the lack of vision of those whose childish view of the world is that we can only go up if someone else goes down.

By "Vote" I do not mean just in General Elections. I mean local elections, Mayoral elections, elections to the pub darts team and to the football club sub-committee that organises the annual pro-celebrity charity tiddlywinks tournament and pie-eating contest. Right across the board. This will not, of course, have the slightest impact on the Brexit decision or anything else, probably, but it will certainly make me feel a tiny bit happier.

Election 2019 - Boris opens the scoring

The first election leaflet to drop gracefully through our letter box came yesterday.  It was a short one, featuring our well-known MP and occasional Prime Minister, Johnson, B. He appeared in some fifteen pictures inside featuring various locations around the constituency, including one taken outside the very chemist that Mrs C. and I frequent.

Boris made just three simple pledges

1. To respect the views of his constituents: a sort of meta-pledge this, a promise to make promises but, given that this is the man who was going to lie down in front of the bulldozers should Heathrow be expanded, and who then ensured he was out of the country when Parliament voted on it, it is hard to give this one the slightest credence.
2. To put more police on the streets.
3. To get Hillingdon Hospital rebuilt.

Not a single mention of Brexit or any aspect of Conservative party policy.

I shall await the offerings of the other candidates.

Your next service is due at 20mb

I was a little surprised to receive an email from BT today announcing some sort of training scheme, as my learning days are long past me and they really ought to know that, but I let my eyes slip down the first paragraph until they stopped, inevitably at the bit marked in bold.

We've launched Skills for Tomorrow, a free digital skills programme to help you and 10 million people across the UK go beyond limits and reach their full potential. We've teamed up with amazing partners, like LinkedIn Learning and Google Digital Garage...

 There was quite a lot more but I am afraid I was unable to proceed any further.


Scene: The Ruislip Digital Garage, in the back alley near Abattoir Road. A young woman, clutching a printout, enters nervously. A man in overalls emerges from the office, tucking his fag behind his ear.

Man: "Morning, darling, what can I do for you?"
Woman: "It's this code. There's something wrong, it doesn't run at all smoothly. Can you take a look at it?"
M: "Let's see here." sucks teeth "Umm, yeah, cor, who wrote this subroutine then? See that incomplete tag? And that function's been deprecated, yeah, must be version 2.4 and you should be on 3.9 by now."
W:  " Oh dear, that doesn't sound too good, but it normally works fine. "
M:  "Have your code regularly checked, do you, love?"
W:  "My husband usually has a look but he's been too busy lately. I did try putting in a recurring do-while loop here but it throws out an exception error in line 220"
M:  "Yeah, bound to do that, this is one of the problems with version 2.4 you see, cor, we get loads of them in here. Don't worry, we'll knock up a few quick algorithms, swap out the reference library for a new one and clean up those REMs while we're at it. Should have it working by next Tuesday"
W:  " That's wonderful. Will be it very expensive?"
M:  "Well, let's see, update version, new lib, algo swap out, a few test runs on the sandbox ... about a hundred and fifty, alright?"
W:   "Thank you so much. I'll leave it with you then"
M:   "Yeah, ta, see you later." She goes.  He has a draw on his fag and chucks the printout into the pending tray "Another one. Money for old rope, this lark"

101 Things #21 - Of Ends and Endings

My list of 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die is not just about places to avoid or activities to shun. There are also cultural trends to deplore and resist. One of them, much used in "discussions" on social media irritates me so much I firmly intend never to

Use the phrase "End of"

One of the current uses for this conversation stopper is in the endless debate over Brexit and its most frequent form goes along these lines:

"The people voted for Brexit. Get on with it. End of"

"End of" does not just signify the completion of the comment. It is an intensely arrogant statement. The words are meant to say there is nothing more to be discussed, my argument is utterly infallible and nothing you say is of the slightest relevance. There is no need for me to add anything because, as Rik Mayall used to say - "A - I said it and everything I say is interesting per se; and B - well there's no need for B because the A was so great"

In the case of Brexit any questions over, say, the border in Ireland or the political rights of Britons living in the EU are swept aside as unimportant. If you query the many statements made during the referendum about how easy it would be get a trade deal there is a sullen silence. The magic phrase "End of" can be invoked at any time to shut down dissent much as the medieval church could end any awkward questions with the accusation of heresy.

Of course it is not just key political questions that are stifled at birth in this way.
"I think that winger was offside"
"Yeah? No, he wasn't. End of"

You can't talk properly to people who respond in this way. Sadly, you have already had to listen to their viewpoint before they hit you with their knock-out blow; if you had known they were going to be such total dorks then you could have walked away at the start.

Perhaps one could reopen a shutdown argument thusly

"Climate change is caused by too many polar bears melting the ice. End of"
"No, you are utterly wrong and moronic to boot. Beginning of"

but I doubt if this will catch on. The only solution is to ignore them. At least they have stymied themselves because, once they declare a subject closed, then they cannot reopen it. That's about it for this topic. End of.