Olaf the Ogre . . . A fairytale

Olaf the Ogre often wandered into the village to collect his groceries snarling and growling in a menacing way, sending the locals fleeing in all directions screaming and panicking. But the thing is, it was not all as it first appeared because Olaf the Ogre was actually rather a friendly chap (ogre). OK he was an ogre, but you see he worked for the King and the King insisted that Olaf the Ogre acted in a traditional Ogre way, the villagers all liked Olaf the Ogre but were happy to do their bit to look scared and run about and panic when he arrived to stock up on provisions. You see Olaf lived in the enchanted forest, which unfortunately were not very enchanted anymore, which is why the King thought a large scary ogre lurking about might help.

Well all was well and the villagers were happy as they liked Olaf and the King was happy as everyone seems to runaway and looked frightened and Olaf was happy as he was able to make a decent living and only had to pretend to be a bit of a horrid, nasty and somewhat scary Ogre.

Then one day a rather aloof and unpopular Prince arrived in the kingdom in order to win the hand of the King’s daughter. Well traditionally this usually involves killing dragons or slaying terrible monsters or some sort of similar feat of bravery. However there were no real monsters or dragons in the kingdom so the Prince decided that he would fight and kill Olaf the Ogre in the enchanted forest. The Prince informed the King of his intention which was a bit of a shock for the King who said it was not necessary, although he thought he better not tell the prince that he was paying Olaf the Ogre to make the forest seem a bit scarier. After all except for a grumpy hedgehog and a rather aggressive old badger that limped it was generally rather a nice forest. But the Prince insisted he was off to kill the ogre, assuming that the King was worried he would get hurt as he was after all a brave handsome Prince and something of a catch for any Princess. Although the Princess herself thought he was an idiot, so was rather hoping that he would fail in his quest, but she also knew that Olaf the Ogre was a bit of a fake and that he was actually rather a friendly and kind Ogre.

As the Prince rode off on his trusty stead into the forest even the villagers tried to persuade the Prince to reconsider his quest, but to him they were just foolish peasants and did not know of the ways of Princes.  The Prince found Olaf the Ogre very quickly and said . . . . I have come to kill you and win the hand of the Princess in marriage . . . .  Well Olaf looked at the Prince and said . . .  Well I can not fight you with armour that dirty, but I will clean it for you if you wish . . . The Prince thanked the Ogre and took off his armour. . . expecting Olaf the Ogre to clean it, but instead he ran off with it.

An hour later the Prince wearing a full set of very shiny armour arrived at the Kings palace and demanded to marry the Princess straight away. However the next morning at the breakfast table the King was somewhat shocked to find out that his daughter the Princess was now married to Olaf the Ogre and they were very happy, in fact everyone lived happily ever after. . . . well almost everyone?

The Prince it seems was never seen again and folk think maybe the not very enchanted forest is enchanted after all and that is probably very true.

And that is why after much thought I have decided that I will probably vote to leave the EU unless I change my mind. 

One step closer to being a Cat

Well a couple of days ago I happen to say that something very important was going to happen. And as it happens it has now happened. Now when I say important it is important for me but in reality except for my own family it is of no importance to anyone else and even my own family might be inclined to say it is not important, but it is important. You see I am no longer an official IT expert, in fact some would say I am an not an expert in anything of any form what so ever. And the reason is that I resigned this month from my rather part time job and therefore now do nothing, well not nothing I do move about eat food write things on my blog including rather odd poetry, but I do nothing that actually generates income. Which means I actually have an annual income of nothing, which does seem a little extreme but it is better that it might sound at first glance. You see almost my entire working life I have never spent money I don’t have, I have never borrowed money with the one exception of a mortgage for our house. Which due to a very unfortunate incident in 1985 meant I was able to pay in full a long time ago. A classic example of the old saying . . . . Something of a double edged sword . . .   

So for the next two and a half years I now have to survive on an income of nothing and a bit of savings and writing very bad poetry which I will recite outside shops until they pay me to go away. If this fails I do have the back up plan of eating the cats, but I can’t see that keeping me going for more that a week or two at best. It is a bit of a gamble having no income because the world, and in particular western society is very much based on the premise that we all go out working everyday so that we can earn money to live in a home that we don’t live in because we are all out earning money to pay for the home we live in. But I have made my decision and I have leapt out of the rat race and into the fire. Or at least sitting beside the fire keeping my toes warm.

In two and a half years I will actually receive a pension from the state which is not huge, but my out goings are minimal and if all stays as predicted then I can chill and spend the rest of my days annoying folk with slightly odd poetry and pointing at seagulls.  I have always felt society in the west is all a bit wrong as most folk are forced to chase a reasonable income in order to remain fit and healthy in order to work. Cats do not have this problem, a well fed middle class fat cat is to all intense and purposes a lazy fat critter who likes dinner on demand and a warm bed and does very little to justify his over indulgent lazy lifestyle. I am now one of those cats although I am not fat and would like to think I have worked away as best I can to get to this point.      

The Great Unspeakable Monster of the Underworld.

Harry Potter is not Dead he is just Nesting

AHAh ah ahah ah ah ah ah ah ah h ahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha 

ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha ha ha ha 

Yesterday as we all know was Valentines Day and here in the village this means that we all meet in the village hall and have a traditional Sunday lunch, which is grand. Now being a very rural location what this tends to mean is that folk pile their plates up and eat huge amounts of food. In fact the amount of food folk can get on a plate can be a bit scary, but they seem to manage to eat it all. However all that eating of all that food has the slightly undesired effect of many folk needing to take a trip to the village hall toilets. Sadly the village hall toilets are not as efficient as one might like so when they get used on mass then certain masses get stuck in places they should not. This in turn leads to a degree of panic as water levels rise in the toilets rather close to overflowing while folk scream and run about.

Well the thing is as some of you might remember in a moment of madness a while back I said I would sort out the village hall toilets as my good deed for the community. . . . Yes that was very mad indeed. So as I was eating my cheesecake, ice cream covered in cream yesterday a voice whispered in my ears the loos are blocked and it’s horrible. Well there was little I could do yesterday so this morning on what has turned out to be the sunniest day of the year, I set about my task of sorting out the blockage in the pipes. The sun shining down from above and a huge unspeakable black monster of doom peering up at me from below, turning my spot stood in the car park into midway between heaven and hell.

Anyway after a bit I sent the demons of hell back down the forbidden pipes of the underworld and wandered home to tell all of my great ordeal as I fought the great unspeakable monster. The thing is no one wanted me to speak about it and said it would put them of their dinner, but I did point out the great unspeakable monster mainly consisted of yesterdays valentines dinner and it was alright for them but I had, had to fight the beast and encourage it back into the underworld.

I also took a brief trip into the Castle of the Bishop today where I looked at wool and pointed at some other wool.  And I drew a picture of a cursed wizard because I rather liked the image although all I can say is I bet he was not as cursed as I was this morning; that is one monster you will not see on stage (well I hope not. . . . Potter Poo YUCK.)  . . . . . .     

The City of Towers Lighthouse and a Man's Quest to Create Art

The City of Towers Lighthouse

Yesterday I mentioned that I made the City of Towers, they are in fact table numbers and now have the names of all those coming to the Valentines Lunch in the village hall tomorrow upon their roofs . But the thing is sometimes the mind can see an opportunity to expand on a little idea and so today I made the City of Towers Lighthouse. I had no real reason to do so other than that little inner drive that artist folk have to create come what may. My main problem is unlike many I do not have much in the way of finance or resources to do this (Its OK I do have a chilled and comfortable life), so almost all my arty stuff needs to cost as near as damn it nothing to produce, so cardboard and a tube of glue are rather good arty things for me to create with. Sadly not only does this cost little more than my time to produce, but folk will not buy such art, so I remain quietly starving in my artists garret. . . . Only it’s a fairly nice bungalow on the edge of a rather nice little village. This makes it even worse as a middle class artist who is not starving has no street cred what so ever, and I have no plans to die which always works wonders for artists saleability.

Still what can I do I am what I am, and so will continue doing my bit in my own way despite my simple but moderately comfortable middle class-ish lifestyle.  It’s a funny old word is all I can say.

The City of Towers

    

Harry Potter, the Cursed Child and the City of Towers

Well it appears my old Mate Harry Potter, well not quite mate, but lets not split hares (YUCK) is sneaking back into the limelight with a new high profile play in the West End. I think its the West End although I am not sure what it is the end of. Anyway as you might expect I know absolutely nothing about this Play because of several things. For a start off I think Mrs JK Rowling thinks I am some sort of mad loony who is best ignored hoping I might get bored and runaway again . . . Actually I am only slightly annoying because she is a bit left wing politically and tends to tell it as she sees it and I like that in a chap. . . . OK she is not a chap.  Harry himself has long thought I am a mad bloke who gets stuff wrong all the time, OK so I accept he did not get to Hogwarts through the back of a wardrobe, but it is a easy mistake to make. Trains, wardrobes they are very similar and he did insist in hiding under the stairs a lot.  Add to this the rather disturbing news that the established writing fraternity have got it into their heads that I am the worst writer in the world and that I should be avoided at all costs. Which is why you sometimes see folk wearing paper bags on their heads in Pie Shops (sorry I mean Book Shops) . . . .  it generally means I am not far away.

The one thing I do know about this new play is that it is set nineteen years later from the end of the last book or film if you took the easy route. And it appears that Harry Potter has been working hard in the Ministry of Magic all this time. WHAT that does not seem like Harry to me, OK he was turning into a bit of a grump bag as time passed but then he did have that Gandalf trying to do him in all the time. But nineteen years as a bureaucratic administrator well that is terrible, even I feel a bit sorry for him. It just goes to show how fickle life is and it might explain the name of the play . . . . Harry Potter and the Cursed Child . . . . . I suspect deep down Harry wanted to be an Astronaut or an explorer or a wild mad Professor, and I can see that at some point all that administration was going to make him crack up. And all that responsibility of a young family to look after.  So the wizard’s world of magic might not be all it is cracked up to be. 

The one thing above all others that I am curious about though is not Harry Potter or the curse, but the flying Birds Nest . . . . . . . . . .Now that is COOL, I plan to draw one of them.

OOooooooo in readiness for the village hall valentine’s lunch on Sunday today I made the City of Towers out of cardboard. . . . . . .      

Trump v Sanders . . . A view on the state of World Politics

Every now and again I do a quick post on the prickly subject of politics. I say prickly because in general everyone thinks they are right and everyone else who thinks differently is wrong or an idiot, clearly I am the only one who is in fact right. Now today to put the cat among the pigeons so to speak where I am the cat and the good people of the United States of America are the pigeons (plainly only metaphorically speaking) I plan to discuss the Politics of the USA.  You see I woke up this morning here in the UK to the news that both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders had won their respective parties votes in the latest State.  This was not a surprise and there is a long way to go yet in the process but one thing that this latest result shows quite clearly is just how polarized peoples views are becoming. It is not just the USA; this is increasingly happening in Europe and even other parts of the world.  But the present situation where the USA could end up with a Trump v Sanders vote for President shows just how polarized and fractured people of the same nation can become.  It would be difficult to think of two politicians with such opposing views within American politics so why are they the two front runners. 

It seems one of the great universal issues globally is a mistrust in established career politicians by the public. And people are keen for change; they are fed up with the pre-election promises of many turning to dust once they are in power.  Both in the USA and Europe the great days of affluence and plenty are well behind us.  Well they are for the masses anyway as some folk still manage to amass huge personal fortunes. But the great battle between the haves and have not’s rages on, unfortunately most career politicians are seen as members of the haves and this is what has led to the rise in the support of Bernie Sanders in the USA and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain. However humans are also paranoid and the likes of Donald Trump and David Cameron give speeches that appeal to the darker side of human nature and our need to put ourselves and our families first when times are hard.  Which is why we are told of immigrants arriving on mass stealing jobs and destabilizing the economy as well as extremists hiding in their midst.            

I suspect as the pressure on Earth's resources increase, and the very visible differences between the rich and poor increase as well as increasing global economic pressures it is likely that the world will become a far more polarized place. I don’t think this is good, which tends to suggest that  Trump v Sanders may seem like democracy in progress, but is it a good sign for the future of the planet.     

Tyrannosaurus Rex, A Goat, A Dog and Pizza and Pancakes

After yesterdays rain and grey skies today started well with sun and lots of it. . . It was to put it bluntly, Jolly nice. Yes that is what being a quiet middle class chap is all about, just being a nice sort of chap and saying Jolly Nice not ****** ******* ******* ** nice. Anyway after much smiling and pointing at the big fiery beast in the sky and using my Ache Build Your own Sacrifice to the Gods kit to sacrifice the 3D cardboard Goat on the supplied Sun God Alter I leapt about a bit. We then collected one of our cars from the garage as the bonnet (hood to those in the USA. . . I think) refused to open and the screen washers were a bit broken. It is not a good time of year to not have screen washers as folk in trucks tend to kick mud in your face (OK on your windscreen) and it can get tricky driving if you can’t see a damn thing.  Now I could have fixed these minor issues myself, but those garage chaps are good, even if one of them is a bit mancky.  NO he really is, he is only young and his family make him sleep in a caravan in the garden and refuse to let him in the house as stuff falls off him. This might sound a bit unfair but he is happy and he is a rather good (if mancky) mechanic.

However after having a Pizza for lunch, apparently it is Pizza Day although none of us knew this until a short time ago so PHEW, it started to rain again and got all grey like yesterday.  This was not right I had even used the Ache Build Your own Sacrifice to the Gods Kit to sacrifice the 3D goat, but it has been suggested to me that I should have sacrificed the 3D cardboard Tyrannosaurus Rex not the goat and that I used the wrong Alter. . . This is quite frankly rather embarrassing because The Ache Build Your own Sacrifice to the Gods Kit is a product of my own design and I was planning to pitch it at that Dragons Den lot on the television.  But I now feel I need to refine it a bit or I will be laughed at and ridiculed if I make it rain instead of being sunny, I mean this is Britain we seldom need more rain than we presently get and I don’t see any of that Dragons Den lot keen on investing in a way to make the weather even more rubbish than it presently is. No they look like they need some sun and warm weather to me.

Yes its another one of those quiet days again.  Or as Laika the first day in space would say. . . Hey this is cool. OOOooooo by the way how did you say I am getting back home?

OOooooooooooo yes I have not long eaten some pancakes. . . . YUM, that’s me not Laika I don’t think she was given pancakes she got special space gel . . . YUCK. 

The Classic Rituals of a British Wet Sunday.

It is Sunday and I have just had a roast dinner of belly pork with roast potatoes, roast parsnip, roast carrots,  cabbage and some pigs in blankets (that’s sausages wrapped in Bacon for those outside the UK) and a couple of Yorkshire Puddings. This was followed by a nice cup of tea and a Mr Kipling French Fancy (pink). It was lovely and I have now sat down for a quick break in front of the PC.  Of course in the old days I would settle down in front of a good Gary Cooper Western in glorious black and white while the rain attacked the windows.  OK I don’t watch old movies on the TV these days and I can’t remember the last time I noticed Gary Cooper on the box, but it is still raining as it did in the old days.

Anyway this has made me ponder the ritualistic behaviour of us human beings (OK yes I have done this before), you see we all tend to have routines and rituals that we do on an almost daily basis.  Take today. I got up staggered about for a bit until I found the bathroom and was frightened by some terrible beast in the mirror peering back at me. I managed to make a cup of tea feed the cats and stagger back to bed for a while, then got up again staggered about again until I found clothing got washed and grunted and pointed at stuff. I then as I do either on a Saturday or Sunday drove into the Castle of the Bishop and bought some croissants from the Spar Shop. . . they are remarkably good and freshly made and worth the trip.  On returning home I ate the croissants having heated them up a bit first, with more tea and grunting a lot and pointing at things like the cats or squirrels or pheasants that are all watching and waiting for food. I then feed all these critters who devour the food in seconds. They do not realize just how expensive all that food is, luckily they spend a lot of time chasing each other in a game of tactics to see who can get the most food.  After cleaning my teeth and scaring myself in the mirror again I sort out the wood burner so that it can be lit later today, that also meant getting some logs and coal in and sorting out some kindling and emptying the ash. I have also put all the recycling in the car ready to get rid of the lot tomorrow, one of the newer rituals of modern life. In the old days it all went in the big trusty metal bin and was thrown by men into a huge bottomless pit. Sadly they can see the bottom of the pit now so we recycle instead, and normally the men come and take it, but due to the constant windy weather of late it is easier to get rid of it all myself rather than see it all blowing up the road.

I then had more tea pointed at stuff (again) and gave the cats more food, the cats eat a lot of food, but they are now sleeping. As for me, this afternoon is going to be lazy I did my good deed yesterday and so I have few plans other than drinking more tea and annoying folk on the internet a bit. . . Only because Gary Cooper has run off somewhere. I might do a bit of drawing if I feel in the mood but it is a damp slightly chilly Sunday in the rolling hills of Shropshire so being lazy seems the best option.

The point of all this though, is to point out that us humans like our routine and rituals and we are not at our best when we are forced out of them, which for me today is not the case . . .PHEW

And OK this is not one of my more exciting days, but remember what I said about Neil Armstrong. . . . . . . . . . . its not all moon rock and rockets.    

Another Ordinary Day in the Life of an Old and Grumpy Bad Poet

I have started to de-clutter the room I keep all the clutter in. It has been useful clutter, but time is catching up on my clutter and most of it is now obsolete clutter that is of no use to man or machine. But some of it might just be useful clutter that I should hang onto for a bit longer, until it too becomes obsolete clutter and can be thrown away. This makes de-cluttering the clutter much harder as I need to check what is what and then think . . . OOoooooo is this useful, or is it clutter, before being ruthless and putting in the possible clutter pile.

As it happens there is a lot of stuff that really is clutter so I have several bags of things to go, and as an added bonus I found a small bag of money. Now don’t get all excited it was not a lot of money but it was just over £10.00 in small change and that will buy me a bag of chips tomorrow when I am out in the predicted rain and wind doing my good deed. I am getting good at doing this good deed thing.  It would be good to think the concept catches on and before you know it we are all out there doing stuff to help others and the like.  Sadly the world does not always work like that, I suspect one of the reasons is that folk have rooms full of unwanted clutter that they are finding it difficult to get rid of, and they are angry and frustrated that a sizeable percentage of their home is redundant and full of stuff they don’t need.

OK I’m off to watch a bit of TV now but I will be back.

I’m back, you see that took no time. Right I am off to bed in a bit so this in one of the less exciting diary entries of recent times involving no poetry or even anything remotely exciting in any way. This is fairly normal for almost everyone, even that Neil Armstrong did not do exciting stuff every day sometimes he would get up have breakfast read a bit chill in the sun all day and then nod in a knowing way at the moon before going back to bed in the evening to sleep. That is the sort of day I have had although I did go to the local market this morning where I saw a badgers skull, but I did not see the moon.  

. A Scientific theory for the unobserved universe . . . The Universal Theory of Voids

We all know the universe is a large place as in a WOW that is big sort of way. And we all know that it is far more complex that even the best scientists and mathematicians have worked out to date.  And so I would like to add my own observations to the continuing debate about exactly what is the universe all about and how does it work.  To do this I would like everyone to consider some very simple and what a first glance may appear silly logic and thoughts, but there is reason in my madness.

I'm sure if I was to say hands up all those who have lost a pen or pencil in their life and never ever found it again almost everyone would put at least one hand up or more. This observation was even used in the book The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe so it is a common problem.  Now consider how often you find stuff down behind the cushions of chairs and sofas that may have been there for years. . . If you don’t believe me and you have an old sofa go and look, it could be something mancky or something valuable but it will be there.

We are often told 80% of the human body is water and recently I heard that something like half a human being is in fact bacteria and other organisms and not in fact us. Well where is all this water and stuff inside us, plainly not somewhere it can be seen with ease. We are also told by science that something like 90 to 95% of the universe can not be seen and no one knows what it is and some of it is know as Dark Matter. Note I say some because much of it is stuff that has yet to be even given a name.

And this brings me to my new theory called . . . The Universal Theory of Voids. As we know the Universe looks linear but as we also know from Einstein time and space are curved, distorted by the gravitational forces of large objects such as stars Black holes and planets.  But what if space is more distorted than we think creating hidden voids in its fabric, much like those spaces in the back of the sofa. Well then hidden within these will be all that missing material, probably all covered in dust and mancky things. It might be that the universe is so wrinkled that most of the universe could easily be hidden from view within its infinite voids. Or which to me seems a bit worse, we might be in a void and our vision of the universe is only the stuff that has slipped behind a cushion of the universal sofa.

So there you have it my theory . . . The Universal Theory of Voids. . .  I could get all scientific about this but this is not the place for that . . . . But I hope when Science thinks Hey that Rob Z Tobor has a point they do not rip off my theory and rename it something like . . .  The Sofa Paradox . . .  and say they thought of it. I will tweet that Professor Brian Cox.  Now he is a clever man and will give this some thought.