A few thoughts on why I didn't take up the ice bucket challenge...

Just found this Blog post that I was going to post last year, and thought I'd post it now.

Seems all a bit out-of-date now, but here it is anyway...


So, there's this whole thing going around for charity called the ice bucket challenge. It's a bit like the no-make-up selfie thing that did the rounds last year, except you get wet. And cold. And essentially look like a tit. 

As far as I know, and to the best of my knowledge, no one has nominated me to do it yet, which is good. Because I wouldn't take part even if I was nominated. 

Why? I hear you ask. Is it because I am just a kill joy? 

No, contrary to the opinion of some, that is not the reason. My reasons are far deeper than that, and by the time I finish this post, hopefully a few of you might agree with what I am going to say.

Firstly and foremost, water is PRECIOUS. There are plenty of places in this huge, great big world of ours that don't have any water. Places where people have to walk ten, twenty, thirty miles sometimes further just to find enough water to live; and they do this EVERYDAY. 

I shared a Meme on my Facebook page the other day, and if I remember tonight when I am on the P.C and not my tablet, I will share it on here for all of you. It shows a group of people all participating under the heading: America. (Please note: I am not just singling Americans out here, I know people worldwide are taking part in the challenge, but that IS what the Meme says).

Underneath, a picture is shown of a young joy drinking out of a small, what looks like, bottle top of water, obviously living in some third world country. Below him, the heading reads Africa. 

I'll let you think about that for a minute, give you time to let that sink in. Above, all those people are needlessly wasting water, taking part in a challenge admittedly for a good cause, but not thinking of the bigger picture. Below is a young boy who is lucky to have ANY water, let alone the ice cold refreshing water found in the buckets those people are tipping over their heads in a frivolous, thoughtless gesture. No doubt his small mouthful of water will be warm, tepid, and about as far from cool and refreshing as yiu can get, but don't you worry about him, or even spare him a thought. You do your challenge, then make yourself feel good by donating a small amount of money that is just enough to ease your conscience.

Imagine if that was your child? Too far? Well, consider this: we live in an age where there are too many people on the planet and continually dwindling resources. We live in an era of global warming and drastic climate change. Water is a resource. Is it too much to think that in another hundred years, maybe less, water might become an invaluable resource as it becomes scarcer and scarcer to find? Unlikely. Maybe. But not an implausible scenario by a long shot. Okay, the chances are small right now that that little boy could ever be your own child, because through the sheer element of chance you have been fortunate enough to be born in a land where water is in abundance and not a commodity, but how about this? Maybe he could turn out to be one of your children's children? Or your children's children's children? That is a very real possibility.

But that's okay, right? Because when they are sitting there, desperate for water, dying in the midst of drought, they can sit back and watch the funny video grandma once made of her tipping a bucket of water over her head, and laugh about the time when no one ever thought about there might come a time when there wasn't any water.

There are other reasons why the ice challenge is a foolish one. I could mention the article I read today about how you take the risk of developing very real hypothermia from undertaking this 
challenge if you are not careful, though at the time you might not notice any symptoms. I could tell you how I read that doing this could cause your heart to skip a beat in sudden shock, and in rare cases be the cause of sudden and unexpected death, but all these pale in significance to one simple fact: water is PRECIOUS.

Maybe not to you, living your life of luxury, but to some. 

If you want to donate to a good cause, why do you need an excuse? Donate away, I'm not disputing that. Just please, if yio need to make yourself look like a idiot to do it, find another way.

The argument for this challenge can be made that it is helping raise awareness for A.L.S, but even there I have an issue. Why?

Because although I keep seeing the videos, watching all these celebrities taking part, I so far have seen nobody actually talking 
about what A.L.S actually is. I had to look it up, and when I discovered it is Lou Gehrig's disease, at lest then I had more of an inkling, but nobody seems to be saying a lot about the actual disease, unless it is just me not seeing the posts. How then, is that raising awareness?

Likewise, I have seen very few people providing evidence that they have donated. My friend, Lainy, deserves a mention because following her video the other day, I saw her post a photo of her phone showing she had donated her £5 and the response thanking her, but she is one of only a handful. How many are just jumping on the bandwagon without parting with their money? More than a few, I would estimate. 

I'm not says everyone is doing this, but I'm sure there are a few.

As it is, for obvious reasons, I'd much rather my money went to a Diabetes charity I'm afraid.
Even then, you won't catch me wasting what is one of some countries most precious resource just to look a fool.

I can do that any day of the week, thank you very much!

I now pronounce you ...guilty of all charges, no trial needed!

As reported in The Guardian and by various other News Agencies, veteran D.J Paul Gambaccini is the latest in a number of names to be connected with Police Investigations launched in the wake of Saville-gate. As of early this week, the Metropolitian Police and the BBC  were refusing to name the 64 year old Presenter but last night his identity was revealed.

My issue with all this is that the Press may now very likely vilify and misrepresent the D.J long before anything has actually been proven. If he is guilty as charged then of course the full weight of the Law and the Justce system should be levied against him. But what if, for example, he is innocent of all charges?

I am not making excuses for anything that happened back then but you have to accept and remember that these were different times and people such as Mr.Gambaccini DID have girls throwing themselves all at them? Did they always ask if they were over the age of consent? Probably not. This does not make it right and, in fact, these 'celebrities' being charged now were very foolish and are now paying the consequences. But how many of them actually set out to do a Saville and actively sought out and targeted young people for under-age sexual practices remains to be seen...

Here in the U.K,  we have recently just had a very high profile Court Case whereby a popular Soap Star was charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse on a young girl. He denied his guilt throughout, despite being largely shamed and vilified in the mainstream Press and it looking for a long time like he did it, only to be finally proved innocent of all charges. Yes, that's right ~ she made it all up. All of it!

In today's modern society where celebrity exposure rules and where every aspect of peoples' lives are put up in front of the camera for all to see (and not just with famous people ~ the increase in popularity of reality shows such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Gogglebox for example have lead to the lives of ordinary people such as you and I now being splayed all over our television sets), I strongly believe we have to be careful not to conduct Trial By Popular Opinion or Trial By Television/ Newspaper.

We have a saying in Britain ~ innocent until proven guilty. 

I just worry that with so many Social Media outlets and Public Broadcasting facilities out there today that this little phrase can be so easily forgotten! I will repeat it again for those who may have missed it: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!

Like I say, I am not defending anyone who has been investigated, charged or arrested in connection with any of these investigations. I am, however, waiting until I have all the facts at my disposal before I make up my mind.

I think the Jimmy Saville case has had a devastating effect on our National, and even Global, consciousness and even I was a bit WTF when that news first broke. It is a proven fact now that Saville was a devious manipulator and a predator of young and often vulnerable people. But please, let us not go too far the other way and forget the necessity of a fair trial. 

Before we publicly accuse anyone else of definitely being a pedophile or a sexual abuser, please think about whether all the facts have yet been made clear. 

Because there is another popular phrase that is relevant right now: mud sticks. What is reported in the Press and what we choose to share on sites like Facebook or Twitter or other Social Networking sites may well end up affecting somebody else's life for their detriment. 

And IF they are innocent, what kind of monster does that make us? 

Paul Gambaccini arrested on suspicion of sexual offences in Operation Yewtree

The veteran presenter was arrested on Tuesday and has been bailed until a date in early January

• Friday 1 November 2013 18.00 GMT

Paul Gambaccini has been arrested and bailed as part of Operation Yewtree. Photograph: David Levene

 

Paul Gambaccini, the veteran BBC TV and radio presenter, has been arrested on suspicion of sexual offences under Operation Yewtree.

Gambaccini, whose broadcasting career spans 40 years at the BBC, was held on Tuesday as part of the inquiry into alleged sexual offences by Jimmy Savile and others.
Scotland Yard has refused to name the 64-year-old, but Gambaccini's identity was confirmed by sources on Friday.

The DJ, who is one of Britain's best known broadcasters and foremost authorities on music, becomes the 15th arrest under Operation Yewtree since it began a year ago.
He was arrested under the "others" strand of the investigation, meaning the allegations are not directly linked to Savile. He was held at an address in south London before being taken into police custody.

Shortly after 6pm on Tuesday Scotland Yard announced that the 64-year-old had been bailed to a date in early January "pending further enquiries".

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We don't give a running commentary on investigations and we don't confirm names [of arrestees before charge]."

Gambaccini and his agent declined to comment.

Operation Yewtree detectives arrested a second man, 74, in south London on suspicion of sexual offences on Tuesday, but his identity has not been confirmed.
New York-born Gambaccini, who has adopted the nickname "Professor of Pop" because of his breadth of knowledge of the genre, began his four-decade BBC career at Radio 1 in October 1973. He is the only person to have been a regular presenter on Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4, and he was also a founding presenter on Classic FM and had stints on breakfast television shows TV-am and GMTV.

His ruby anniversary was celebrated with a four-part BBC Radio 4 series, The Gambaccini Years, broadcast in August, featuring interviews with music luminaries including Elton John and Tim Rice.

Four individuals have been charged under Operation Yewtree, including the Australian entertainer Rolf Harris, celebrity publicist Max Clifford, DJ Dave Lee Travis and David Smith, a former BBC driver. Smith was found dead at his home in Lewisham, south-east London, on Monday on the eve of his trial over allegedly abusing a 12-year-old boy in 1984.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Thursday that it had received a full file of evidence from police in relation to Freddie Starr, the comedian arrested last November on suspicion of sexual offences. Starr was arrested for a second time in April after police received further allegations of sexual offences.

The CPS is also considering whether to bring charges against Gary Glitter after receiving a full file of evidence against him earlier this month.

A CPS spokeswoman said: "We are not prepared to discuss the identities of those involved or the alleged offences in any greater detail before a charging decision has been reached. We are unable to give any timescale for charging decisions, except to say that all cases passed to us for a charging decision will be considered very carefully and thoroughly, and decisions will be made as soon as is practicable."

The Long Weekend.....

Well, just thought I would pop by and tell you about the shitty weekend I just had! Truth is, I really need to vent right now and this is the ideal place to do it and get everything all off my chest!

Basically these last two weeks just gone, I have been in charge whilst Head Chef was on his regular two-week holiday that he always takes at this time of year. He came back last Wednesday, my day off, so Friday was the first time I had worked with him for approximately three weeks.(This was because I had taken a week off just before his holiday.)

Anyway, apparently we had a visit from the Environmental Health Officer and they weren't too happy. This was because of a number of issues that included dirty floor space under and around the wheels on benches, cracked floor tiles and poor maintenance issues and some items incorrectly date-labelled in fridge. For those not aware, all items in Commercial fridges have to be labelled with a day date label that signifies the day items must be used by along with a corresponding date referring to the date said item was made. Now bear in mind that I had not been there two days when the inspection took place and you would think I could not be held fully accountable. Oh no.....

H.C told me that when he came in on Wednesday that he was mostly pleased but that a few issues of cleaning (i.e: the floor around wheels under benches) needed to be addressed. BUT HE DIDN'T GET THEM DONE! Also, when I left on Tuesday, to the best of my knowledge all items in fridges were correctly labelled and dated and even if I had missed some of them, then he had two days to pick up on it and relabel or date! Bearing in mind as well that Wednesday/ Thursday were not particularly busy and he only had a wedding for 20 to serve outside of any other restaurant business he did....

And yet, when I came in on Friday, I got a right rollicking! I took the blame for a couple of date-label issues that I realised I had missed but even my fellow Sous-Chef Alan said later that H.C was out of order and normally them two are as thick and thieves and have each others back no matter whether they are in the right OR the wrong!

Anyway, Saturday he kind of apologised for the way he went off on one (quite rightly so) but then I come in Sunday and he has ANOTHER RIGHT GO ~ this time because Saturday night again, some things were not covered, date-labelled properly and the potato rumbler had not been sufficiently cleaned out or indeed cleaned out at all! This, bearing in mind, that he was there Saturday night also so should possibly have taken the responsibility for ensuring food items were put away correctly rather than instantly blaming me who had little to do with it and was busy cleaning work surfaces!?!

I will quite happily take responsibility and take blame when something is my fault but not if it isn't! I have always stated that I don't care what ppl think of me at work personally but I take issue with ppl questioning my professionalism. I have always said that no one should be able to question how well I do my job and this is a creedo I live by. They can think I am a Prick, a c***, a total arse-hole but I never want it said that I cannot do my job and do it well. It is a source of pride to me. This weekend, I feel that this has been continually questioned and has really totally and utterly wound me up, near to the point of me losing my temper and walking out. If I didn't desperately need the money, I would've walked this weekend ~ no word of a lie, believe! 

I am still mad about it now especially because I find out that H.C has been saying that whilst he was on holiday, standards dropped. Err... no they didn't; I was just more focused on the food going out properly as I had a couple of important weddings to deal with -Big weddings- whilst he was away. The main issues the EHO had were with maintenance problems that she has brought up time and again on previous visits and we though have brought these issues to Management's attention, nothing has been done! The other issues she had just compounded the whole investigation and made things worse! But while H.C has been away, I have just continued the systems HE has put in place so if cleaning jobs got missed, it is because correct systems were obviously NOT in place and that is his responsibility. Leaving aside the fact that he had two days to address these before she came around and he just didn't!

If this all sounds like I am trying to dodge a bullet, then it is not that at all. Like I say, I quite happily accept responsibility where it is relevant but I WILL NOT be made a scrapegoat. Nor will I have my professionalism questioned so brutally when I work facking hard for the Company who own the Hotel!

Anyway, that is enough about that...time to move on. My spleen has been vented. Time to forget and just try and soldier on. As my old man always says, "Don't let the bastards grind you down" and I won't! Fack the lot of them! I know I did a good job these last couple of weeks in H.C's absence and even had that told to me by a couple of third parties (just so you know it's not just me blowing my own trumpet ~ not that I could reach anyway without having a couple of ribs removed...ewwww) so stuff what H.C says. He is angry and I understand that but don't take it out on the guy who tries fracking hard to keep the ship running straight when you're not there and sheds blood, sweat and tears doing it. Take it out on those who don't pull their weight....Wanker!

Sparky out....until next time, Nannoo ~ Nannooo..........

The law of the playpark........

I want to talk to you today, especially those of you who are parents, about a hidden threat that lurks in and around our childrens' play parks. That threat is not dirty needles, nor is it dog poo left behind by lazy owners to lazy to sully their hands with the excrement deposited by their perfect little darlings that are replacements for the children they were unable to or just never got around to having. No, today I want to talk to you about The Weirdies!

I'm not talking about potential Pedos', though they could justifiably fall into that category too but which thankfully I have yet to encounter, but instead the kind of people who hang around childrens' play parks for legitimate reasons and then feel the need or compunction to talk to you about totally random and useless shit! In the past few months, I have had two of these such people approach me so, although they are not necessarily overly prevalent, they do constitute a threat to something I like to call "Sparky's time of Peace and Quiet."

I go to the park to give myself a little break. Emilie can go off and  play by herself, or with friends if there are any over there, and the only time she really needs me is for pushing her on the swing, to which I am more than happy to oblige, or when she wants Daddy to go onto the roundabout until he gets dizzy which she finds most amusing! Other than that, I go over there to get ten minutes Peace and enjoy whatever book I am reading at the time. Not necessarily to talk.....and not about whatever random shit enters that little thing that Weirdies mistakenly call their brain but is instead an extension of their mouth!

First Example: we are at the park, me and Ems, just us enjoying our time out of the house in the fresh, beautiful air. She is happy playing, I am happy reading my latest Deathlands book. Along come two Council guys to empty the nearby bin at which point, the older of the two asks me what I am reading. Nothing wrong with that so I oblige him by explaining it is just a bit of pulp Sci-Fi, some random guilty pleasure that just kills a bit of time but which I nonetheless enjoy. So he then goes on to talk to me about how he enjoys Sci-fi (at which point, warning bells begin to sound...) and how his wife picks him up titles she thinks he will enjoy whenever she goes to CarBoot or the local Charity shops of which there is abundance in Dereham! Still nothing wrong there until he then starts going on about how he likes Sci-fi because "YOU JUST NEVER KNOW....SOME OF IT COULD BE VERY CLOSE TO WHAT'S REAL!!!"

He then goes onto talk to me for ten minutes about the possibility of Extra-terrestial life, visitors from other planets and how it is a big universe out there and surely there must be some intelligent life out there somewhere and who is to say they haven't visited us before, there's all those strange lines in the Aztec desert and that guy Daiken thought that God was an astronaut and then there's those markings on cave walls that look like aliens and.......BORING!

Now I'm all up for a philosophical discussion on the very nature of God and the possibility of alien life on other planets but NOT when I am at the park with my daughter please! There is a time and a place, it's called "down the pub", and I really don't want to be talking about this when I am enjoying some quiet time reading my book and watching my daughter have fun! But of course, I am polite so I just sit there and nod and smile until the weird man goes away to empty something else at which point I tell Emilie we are now going home and that if she really wants to play, we can come back later. Like maybe when the Weirdie has gone away. Worst thing is ~ the guy waves at me as we are leaving as if we are now suddenly acquaintances instead of me just being somebody random that the lonely man decided he wanted to talk to until that person lost the will to live!

I would have dismissed this as just an aberration but then a couple of weeks ago, I was accosted again!

This time it was a granddad who had come over with his wife and their grandchild. He started talking about how he had come down from Manchester or somewhere and how Norfolk was very pretty, very picturesque to which I agreed. He then started on about someone he knows in Holt who claims that the only problems she has in her little cafe is with the young people in the town and the so-called "feral youth!" Cue a lengthy discussion about the recent riots all around the country and how the "feral youth" were supposedly responsible. Except it wasn't just them! He has a friend on the Force down in London, a member of The Met no less, and he tells this guy about how most of the troubles down there were caused by blacks. And of course they get away with it because it is all P.C gone mad! I mean he doesn't mind them coming over here and settling down with our women and taking our jobs (and that, I think, is very considerate of him really don't you?) but why can't they just behave themselves? I mean they are more like animals than men and the "feral youth" don't know any better (because presumably they have never been shown the difference between right and wrong ever and are unable to exhibit any kind of restraint of course) and so get pulled into the whole thing by following by example. Blah blah blah, blah-de-blah blah!

What is it with these people that makes them think I actually give a shit? They see me with my daughter, think "oh look, there's a captive audience" and just start unloading. If you see me at the park with my daughter, don't start talking to me unless you have something to say worth listening to and just because I have a little girl, don't presume you can talk to me. If you're a Yummy Mummy or a Milf then I will quite happily talk about our children, what they get up to at school etc etc. Even if you are a fellow Dad, we can talk about our kids, exchange child-rearing tips whatever. But don't come up to me and start puking out random shit that I have no interest in whatsoever! I never had this when I used to go out on my own but now, not even just at the park, I have the most random people stopping and talking to me just because I am a dad. Frak off!! I am not the most social of people and really, there are days when I really could not give a shit what you think! So do one!

Jeez honestly what IS it with these people? Am I the only one? Surely not....surely some of you other mums and dads must have experienced this out there? It can't be just me who has encountered theseWeirdies who feel the need to start such mundane and pointless exercises in conversation can it?

Maybe it is just me, I don't know...all I really know is that when I am at the Park, it's my time alright? So just think before you approach me and do me a favour, if I'm reading ~ just let me be okay?

Thanx 

lots of love...Sparky xxxxx

It's only a game......

Why are some people soooo obssessed with their Gamer scores on Xbox Live? True, it is nice to have lots of G Points but who REALLY cares if you have a lower score? Not me! I get just as much enjoyment if not more out of just playing a game rather than trying to get all the achievments.

For those who are unitiated in the ways of the Xbox360, when you play a game on your console you can earn up to 1000 points per game for performing certain achievments. These can be anything from completing individual levels of a game to rolling your car 5 times or achieving a certain amount of head-shots. For every game the maximum amount of points you can get is 1000 but often some of these achievments can only be done by playing multi-player games online or completing a game on Hard mode! Sometimes a game only has 5 achievments, such as completing every successive level in a game, but these still have to add up to 1000 points so you can see sometimes it is easier to get all the achievments on a game than on others.

One of the women at work, call her Bea, has a husband who requested to be my Xbox friend; this means we can see when each other is Online and what game we are each playing and also can look at each other's Gamer Cards which record our scores. Lately she has become obsessed because my score was only like 3000-something. She and her husband lent me this game where you only had to play 5 minutes and press  one button to get all achievments and an easy 1000 points. Fair enough. But they also lent me Terminator:Salvation and told me it was easy and that their kid completed it in like 3 hours or something. Both games were lent me so that I could "get my score up!"

So okay, I load it in and yes, it is fairly easy but it is slow to load and you can't skip the cut-scenes between playing so that every time you die and reload your last save, you have to sit through them all again! Boring!! I like played it for an hour, got a bit bored and went back to Batman:Arkham Asylum which I had nearly finished and was enjoying more instead!


Anyway, I bump into her today and Bea is like "So what's taking you so long with Terminator?" and I'm like "Well, like....I've not played it since Tuesday night because I was trying to get to the end of Batman!" and so she's like "Well I'm going to get my own Profile and I'm going to like thrash your score really quickly and beat you!" and so I'm like "Big Fracking deal!"

{Aparently, her and her husband were watching my Profile the other night to see how many Achievments I got on the games they lent me. Errr...like...hello? Sad much?}


I mean this woman is older than me and always bitching about her husband playing like loads of Xbox but still is giving me shit because my Gamerscore is a little low. And I'm like thinking "Jeez girl...back off and get a life!" I mean I like Xbox as much as the next guy but I want to enjoy my games not just play them to build up points on my profile! And maybe it's just me but as much as it might be nice to have a high score, I have a life you know and cannot be arsed obsessing about how I can get more bragging points which is basically all G-points are! They are no good for anything else!


Well, I know you are all bored now with my geeky Xbox talk so I'll wrap this up but honestly....when you start getting that obsessed with G-points, and not just your own or your husbands but someone elses, then you really need to have a harsh word with yourself! I mean there are other things I like doing too, yeah? Like spending time with my wife and daughter or reading...I mean it's not like I've got two ton of books to get through or anything? Friends from RISI will know all about that little obsession, I'm sure!


Anyway, until later......wah wah wah wah wah.....Game Over!


C U Next Time Blog Pals xxxx NarkyMarky