Just a mo …

I was just thinking …

[macjyngs]

Read it and Reap

Read it or Reap Whether you back Remain or Brexit, are you holding your breath about avoiding a mess?

from Der Spiegel

“It was me that got us into this mess, I will get us out of it.”

Theresa May, June 2017, after calling a snap election and losing her party’s Parliamentary majority.

Whether you back Remain or Brexit, are you holding your breath about avoiding a mess? Do we need more and better information?

“Within two years – before negotiation with the EU is likely to be complete and…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

KettleMettle, wake up - shake up (videos)

Let's all put our kettles on, every night at 8:30 pm. Let's send a power surge to our elite. And do it every night until they listen to us, get their act together and reform.

Get the attention of Parliament in a clear, indisputable and easy way.

If you don’t want to read the text, go to the end of this blog.

Let’s get #KettleMettle out there.

Let’s shake up the system, peacefully and firmly, for all our sakes.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

A Country is Known by the People it Keeps … sadly

A Country is Known by the People it Keeps … sadly

Something snapped this morning. Because of that, I share a few thoughts about the utter, and catastrophic, selfishness, stupidity and ineptitude our elected leaders. The UK and USA, that is.

Democracy at … shirk

LEADERSHIP, BUT NOT as we know it. The USA and UK are so alike, both wonderful and stupid. We are led by inept, fraudulent bullies.

In spite of that, citizen factions…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Why don't we stay, for now?

Why don't we stay in the EU, for now? Wait for it … howls of derision and aggression and roars of approval and support burst out with equal energy. ?

guardian.co.uk

WHY DON’T WE stay in the EU, for now? Wait for it … howls of derision and aggression and roars of approval and support burst out with equal energy. 

Oh my, there are interesting positions out there, aren’t there. We have ‘remain’, then there’s ‘brexit’. What about Scottish Independence or ‘remain’ in the Union? All that accompanied by welters of emotion.

What am I saying?

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Planning … best we can do?

Planning … best we can do?

Raven or gorilla?

IMAGINE BREXIT PLANNED by a raven or a great ape. Could it be any worse than what we have now? 

Raven-bright

IN REBORN TREE, ravens play a strong part. If their minds and cultures work in an alternative way to humankind’s, have they something to teach us?

Non-human qualities?

DOES A LACK OF some human qualities diminish other life forms?

THE REBORN TREE is…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Terminal Converation

WHEN I HAVE TIME to kill in my local town, a terminal conversation doesn’t spring to mind. You see, I sometimes pop into the council-run library and read or write. Yesterday was a writing day. 

… the study concluded the scale of the cuts and their lopsided impact on the most disadvantaged were a policy choice, rather than inevitable.

Philip Alston – UN Special Rapporteur

indistinct distress

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Writers' Neuk Begins …

Writers’ Neuk Begins …

This is the poster for our first event. Okay, we’re brand new, keen to engage with fellow and aspiring writers.

If you want to let someone know about this, just send them a link to a similar page on the Writers’ Neuk site.  To share a short link just copy and send the bold text: https://wp.me/pae1nj-1j.

You can get more information here and generally explore our site.

The cartoon is “the Absent…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Angus Whitson - Man With 2 Dogs

Angus Whitson – Man With 2 Dogs

TO BOOK … please use this link.

An informal, unmissable, afternoon exploring the forgotten poetry of Scotland, with Angus Whitson.

As the Man with Two Dogs, Angus is a well loved columnist with the Courier where, for the past 16 years, he has written on Country Matters.

Another of his great passions is Scots poetry in the vernacular (dialects). Join us for an interesting and entertaining…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Fraud and Error … No Need for Austerity Then …

Sort this out Prime Minister, Chancellor, and there's no need for Austerity Fraud and Error … Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two … and no handcuffs … greedy people starve our children and deny them education.

Yup, ‘Fraud and Error’ …

WHAT IF WE could pay for the NHS and cover the cost of the MOD by stopping ‘fraud and error’, interested?

IT SEEMS there’s a crock of sh*t that could be turned into a crock of gold, with a little diligence, and a political will.

YOU COULD SAY, Benefits fraud and error won’t cover sucha  huge cost, and you’d be right. That’s what this blog is about.

Hard times

TIMES ARE…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Pardon Seems to be the Smartest Word

Pardon Seems to be the Smartest Word

Pardon?

‘Pardon.’

‘Why pardon?’

‘It’s a handy word.’

‘Give me some examples.’

‘It can be presidential and royal.’

‘You mean like when naughty politicians and criminals are forgiven?’

‘Yup.’

‘But I’m thinking a little bit lower than that…’

A windy pardon

‘You at the back, stop snickering.’ …

‘Why would anyone snicker about someone getting a pardon?’

‘Probably because they’re thinking about a…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Why go on?

Why go on? Can we stop the foolishness?

This morning a person asked a ‘why go on?’ … ‘get-over-it’ poke in the eye sort of question in social media :

… surely a democratic referendum vote is as set in stone as any vote would be. leave won the vote, right or wrong, they still won. how is it democratic to not accept the result?”

Hmm, you see, if we’re not careful, we’re going to wind up where we’re…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

A Terminal Conversation

Terminal conversation

‘TERMINAL CONVERSATION’ sounds fearsome. Surprisingly, it’s not a thriller in the making, and no, I haven’t caught a killer illness—as far as I know.

Still, chats between granddads and grandkids happen constantly. Like the time the darts hit the TV and a thoughtful moment.

Out of the mouths … (of babes and sucklings)

MY TERMINAL CONVERSATION happened in a chat between me and…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Tough Questions? Need Answers

Tough Questions? Need Answers …

Tough questions

WHAT’S THIS all about? Where did you go? Maybe these aren’t tough questions but answering them will take time. Think of this as an index for coming-up blogs.

SOMETIMES, WHEN you’ve been travelling all over the place, meeting family, old friends and new, and seeing exciting places, you should get tired.

IF YOU ASK ME, tiredness comes when you are simply a spectator in an unfamiliar…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

How things work … or do they?

How things work … or do they?

Things work … or do they?

Do things ever change? Nearly twenty years ago, I started learning how things work (or not) from the inside. As a result, the experiences taught, scared and saddened me. Let me share the complex tomfoolery of government from personal experience.

a Times cartoon

This blog offers a line of thought about why key government decision-making processes are undermined by…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Flaccid and Flat and Short of Wind

Flaccid and Flat and Short of Wind

Falccid and flat

Flaccid and flat, it lay in a bucket.  Yet, it made a siren, let’s-play-a-game, call to our souls.

You see, even a diminutive American football may sing a siren-song. Nope, I didn’t play Grid-Iron apart from a few skirmishes when I was a boy in the USA.

Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing. Oliver Wendell Holmes

Okay, okay, I…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Two Years Ago … a Baby Came

Two Years Ago … a Baby Came

Two Years …

Two years ago I had the drive of my life. My third granddaughter is responsible, she is two today. This is a revisit – from the man-side.

When your first baby drops her dummy, you sterilize it. When your second baby drops her dummy, you tell the dog: ‘Fetch!’. Bruce Lansky

Daddy phones on the edge of arrival

Two years ago, time flies and all that. Imagine an older man wallowing in…

View On WordPress

[macjyngs]

Save the Cat

Would you sauté, roast or boil a cat? I confess it crossed my mind the other day. Shocking or what?

Save the cat, why?

Save the cat because it’s cuddly if nothing else. Would you sauté, roast or boil a cat? I confess it crossed my mind the other day. Shocking or what?

In this case, I know why, and, it might get worse unless I do something. You see, I’ve restarted the 2:5 way of eating.

The complete omnivore

As a result, following the two days of partial-fasting per week, items beyond normal…

View On WordPress