Guy Fawkes night.

The evening when we English Catholics (extremely lapsed in my case) traditionally feel somewhat excluded. Either we can celebrate along with our Proddy fellow-countrymen, by burning poor old Fawkes in effigy, and lighting enough fireworks to fill every A&E unit in the nation, whilst simultaneously secretly wishing that Guy had succeeded and the houses of Parliament had been blown to smithereens, or we can ignore the whole sordid episode.
Notwithstanding global warming, I like bonfires and fireworks. And, actually, am none too proud of my Catholic heritage - most of the time the Church were Fascist murderers anyway*, whether they admit it or not. So might go and light a sparkler or two, deplore the need for violence and torture, and then drink some beer, as I am single and there's no one to complain about it.

Might have to take The Old Man to hospital today. He's not any better really. I've never known him so weak and low. Wish I had some sort of magic wand to wave to make things better. Fingers crossed that it's only temporary.

A singer chum of mine has been on the 'phone pouring out her tales of woe. I will admit it's not just women who treat chaps unfairly, most chaps seem to need a horsewhipping as well. ARgh...other people, as Sartre opined. Whatever happened to honour? (But why does she still emote over the little shit? We do have some tendancy to caress the hand that beats us, but honestly...)
I think I sympathise with Dante's profane lovers: despite their self-dramatising, they at least treated each other with love and courtesy.
I'll take TS Eliot to the hospital and continue trying to get 'Little Gidding' by heart to crown a lifetime's effort, or whatever.

Not enough practice and too many spliffs.
Damn.


* e.g.
The 1st Crusade and the Massacre of Jerusalem
The 2nd Crusade
The 3rd Crusade
The 4th Crusade and the sacking of Constantinople
The Albigensian Crusade and the Cathar Extermination (Which was more complete than the Nazi's final solution - not a single Cathar escaped with their life.)
The Inquisitions (which is a whole set of chapters listing the crimes, not detailing them)
Alexander VI and his ilk
The burning of heretics (which is all Protestants, as well as any other heretics that could be found - old women with warts, for example)
Galileo
etc etc.

No hospital, just doctors.

The Da's not out of bed today. The Quacks have pronounced him better than can be expected, so we shouldn't worry overmuch, however, he might be starting an infection. Antibiotics. Still hope to get him past Christmas, and come the Spring, at least the sun will make him feel a bit better.
Have to speak to non-Einsteinian God about changing set of dice being played with at present. However, all probabilities look grim...and I too shall die, eventually - though would prefer to stay around long enough to watch the odd spiral galaxy or two unwind - which is a long time, but still an instant in the breath of Brahma.
In the end it seems to be about quality of life and freedom from pain. Wish the old thing was less brave and stoical sometimes. He might inform us when he's in pain, and we'll dole out his pain-killers, and the bad bits can be pushed aside, for a short time.
More reading for next never-to-be-published novel. (One done, three to go.)
Still not enough practice.
Too much time on interweb.
Will stop and watch us lose at Rugby to All-Blacks.
Dammit dammit dammit.

Satire? Saw this & wanted to share.

Julius Caesar had Gaul; Bush just has gall


Terry Jones
Sunday November 5, 2006
The Observer


In 59BC, Julius Caesar declared he was so shocked by the incursions of the dangerous Helvetii tribe into Gaul, and the suffering of the Gaulish peoples, that he had himself appointed 'protector of the Gauls'. By the time he'd finished protecting them, a million Gauls were dead, another million enslaved and Julius Caesar owned most of Gaul. Now I'm not suggesting there is any similarity between George W Bush's protection of the Iraqi people and Caesar's protection of the Gauls.
For a start, Julius Caesar, as we all know, was bald, whereas George W Bush has a fine head of hair.

In any case, George W Bush is not personally making huge amounts of money out of it. The money-making is all left in the capable hands of companies like CACI International, Blackwater Security and Haliburton.

It's true that Vice-President Dick Cheney's stock options in his old company, Haliburton, went up from $241,498 in 2004 to $8m in 2005 - that's an increase of 3,281 per cent.

But then Dick Cheney is bald.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is absolutely no comparison to be made between Julius Caesar's invasion of Gaul in 58-50BC and George Bush's invasion of Iraq.

I mean, Julius Caesar had the nerve to pretend that the Roman state was being threatened by what was going on in Gaul. He claimed he had to carry out a pre-emptive strike against the Helvetii in the interests of homeland security. In reality, his motives were political. He desperately needed a military victory to boost his standing in Rome and give him the necessary popular base to seize power.

George W Bush, on the other hand, was already in power when he invaded Iraq and, in any case, he didn't need to boost his popularity, because the popular vote had nothing to do with his getting into power in the first place. Julius Caesar was also a very adroit propagandist who made damn sure that his version of events prevailed. He even wrote eight books about his wars in Gaul to make sure it did. George W Bush doesn't need to go to such lengths. He has Fox News.

When Julius Caesar claimed his glorious victory over the Helvetii, he made it sound as if he had destroyed a vast army of 'wild and savage men'. Julius Caesar reckoned he had slaughtered more than 250,000 'insurgents'. In fact, documents found in the remains of the Helvetii camp showed that out of 368,000 people, only 92,000 had been capable of bearing arms.

In other words, it wasn't an army that Julius Caesar massacred, but a whole population including women, children, old and sick, which, I suppose, is one thing that George W Bush and Julius Caesar do have in common: pretending civilians are armed insurgents.

But there the similarity ends. One of the most fundamental differences between Julius Caesar and George W Bush is that Julius Caesar counted his dead, whereas George W Bush can't be bothered. It seems that, as commander-in-chief, George W Bush instructed his soldiers not to count the enemy dead. So the fact that he still sticks to an estimate of only 30,000 dead Iraqis, even when a recently published study in the Lancet suggests he's slaughtered at least 655,000, can only be the result of his extraordinary modesty.

Why else would he dismiss the study as pure guesswork or claim it had used a 'methodology [that] is pretty well discredited', even though the US government has been spending millions of dollars a year to train NGOs in this exact same methodology? Julius Caesar would have seized on the figures with alacrity.

And that is the biggest difference of all: Julius Caesar was an ambitious, vainglorious, would-be tyrant. George W Bush is a modest and self-deprecating one.

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Oh god, He's weaker yet. Awaiting call back from GP - it's a Sunday and most Doctors are at home with their families. The Mother (who knows about these things - ended her nursing career teaching, and has kept reasonably up to date) is not as worried as me, but I've never seen him like this. Can't even get bothered about NZ wiping floor with us. He couldn't watch the match. Took ten minutes to get him six yards to his chair - he has to stop from time to time. Lots of involuntary shaking and some confusion. Missed a chum's gig today, but sure Pete will forgive me.
& we have the solicitor coming tomorrow to finalise land settlement, will, etc. Dad may not be up to dealing with it all, so we may have to postpone.
I think he's been hanging on just to make sure everything's sorted, but it might not happen the way he intends, and inheritance tax will then be an issue for us.
Phoned the Brother, just in case of worst possible scenario. M aware and ready to drop everything and fly to Dad's bedside whenever. I'm so fucking lucky in my immediate family - Mike's about the best sort of brother imaginable - wish he lived a bit closer. 200 miles might not seem a lot, but 200 miles + commitments to wife, mortgage, horses and dogs, not to mention job as teacher to kids who from the sound of it need warders, not teachers, make it difficult for him. We've backed him if he wants to leave teaching and retrain (which he does) and Dad's offered to bankroll him in a limited way (mortgage etc), but if Dad's not going to be around to do it (because some of his spare money comes from his pension), Mother and I are going to have to fill in the blanks, and I'm not exactly the richest person around, being self-employed in declining industry.
I always knew I'd have to get a proper job sooner or later.
I hoped it would be later yet, but first I'll see the Old Man to his rest, and try to make the whole thing less horrible (if that's possible).
Break time over, time to hold hands.

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Oh shit.
The ambulance is due in five minutes.
Possible kidney failure.
I'll ride with him.
Here it is, here we go, grace of god.