At the last count, our generous government has offered £14m flood relief for tens of thousands of people who have effictively lost their homes in the north of England. The insurance valuation of the damage stands at a hundred times as much as that.

We, the people and government representatives of the U.K., kicked up such a fuss when GW Bush and his cronies left the people of New Orleans in the lurch not long ago, that it seems unbelievable that this. our new government, is doing the same thing to our own people. What hypocrisy! There is talk of plans to spend billions of pounds on a submarine based nuclear deterrent but we can't spend the money on recovering the normal lives of thousands of our citizens. It's sickening.

Seems that I've been away for a while, Been ill, got better, must now be careful. Older, no wiser. Still drink too much, eat too much chocolate, don't work enough. Got hooked onto Return to Castle Wolfenstein, film-making and selling books on Amazon.co.uk. I think that my blogs are going to be more random and less political. I've given up on saving the world. America and China seem to get in the way all the time. Suffer from Social Anxiety, Paranoia, memory loss, had a heart attack and a stroke at the same time. Only mildly affected but burst into tears from time to time and wonder if it's worth all the effort.

There are two reasons for bolgs, it seems. One is to interest and entertain readers and the other is to get it (whatever it is) off one's chest. My purpose is the latter but if it achieves the former then well and good.

I publish a local free paper and I am going to extend its concept to include social comment, add a website (http://www.newsandtrader.co.uk) and offer JPEG, MPEG and MP3 facilities for the readers to add their ha-penny worth in whatever form they choose. Because I am not very web literate, this will take some time but I have been dropped in the cart by the person who set up the site in the first place and he's left me out of my depth but with an unchanged desire to get it done. I am buying loads of books to learn how to do it. if there are any web geniuses out there who are willing to help, please email me, as it is costing me a fortune.



As well as this worthy cause, I attend college two days a week studying film-making. Very involving and absorbing and I shall, obviously, become a well-known and well-respected late-comer to the film industry.

I'm getting bored, now, so I shall stop. However, there is nothing to stop me blathering on in the future.

So the Guardian's in trouble for taking an interest in American politics. It may have gone a strange way about it, but it certainly reflected many countries' fears of what would happen to the rest of the world if America if we had a warlord for another four years. First Iraq, then where?

The most sensible thing to do with Iraq, if you were going to invade, was to clean up after you. As you enter the country and tear up roads and fields and destroy crops and buildings, you should follow up with a rebuilding programme and a crop replacement programme. Set up schools and hospitals as you go. Seems straightforward to me. So, Bush if you get back in and you invade another country, try putting it right just as soon as you can. Think of it: 10:15 a.m. destroy village. 13:45 start rebuilding it. Easy!

Well, I can see that my previous optimism for http://uk-voice.org.uk/ was a little misplaced. I feel sorry for the poor bloke who's spent all his time setting it up in the hope that thinking people would look at it as a way of airing their views and maybe getting to grips with the problems that the country's going through, themselves, instead of leaving it to a Government (does it deserve the capital letter?) that is more interested in governing than serving the people, which is what democracy is all about. I think we need a modern version of Oliver Cromwell, but without the prejudices. Someone who can tell Parliament what they can and can't do to the people and on behalf of the people without consulting them first. Why is it that parties in opposition offer so much and, when they get into office, they change. They can't be so stupid as to think that what they offer is workable, if it isn't and that we will believe them, which we don't and that we won't notice the change, which we do. But, surely, we can't go on like this, can we? Each different party promises all these well laid out offers, like a cheap shop, and then once we've bought their line, the guarantee runs out. It happens every time, haven't we got wise to it yet?

Up until recently, I ran a weekly column in a local newspaper. Now that the editor has changed the paper's format, I am free to transfer to this Blog. We are coming up to a general election in the UK and we have to make our voices heard, nationally as well as locally. So here I am. I have just joined http://uk-voice.org.uk/ and there are the beginnings of some lively discussions going on there. See you there, I hope.