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.