The Boy and The Coconut Tree

The BBC is awash with commemorations of the legalizing or rather he decriminalizing of gay sex and rightly so, this 50 year commemoration is coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele a bloody battle that lasted almost 4 months and was yet another pointless battle that led to the deaths of over 400,000 men and boys fooled into fighting for leaders who cared more for the land on which the fighting took place than they did about their soldiers. I watched the BBC drama ‘Man in an Orange Shirt’ the story of two public school boys who were in the army during WW2 and fell in love.   One went on to marry his high school sweetheart (in reality his best female friend) and the other went to prison and on release went to live in France. The married one sobbed when he realized what he had thrown away.   The 2 nd part of the drama has yet to be broadcast so I cannot say what happened to them but despite the setting of the 1940s and 1950s and their clas...

Yesterday was the last day of school for most British children until September.  For many, like one of my nephews, it was his last day in primary school and that is a significant day in a child's life.  I don't quite remember by last day in primary (junior school) but I know that my first day in secondary school was very very scary, everyone seemed so big compared to us and quite mean compared to the relative niceness of primary school. I hope my nephew's experience is a good once. So today is the first day of the school holidays aka the 6 weeks holiday. My memories of the school holidays are good ones, as most of them were spent at my grandparents house, playing out, exploring, playing with my LEGO and being spoilt rotten.  A perfect summer. Today it is raining, it rained all last night and it doesn't feel very summery to me. I want 6 weeks off to relax, get my head together and escape from the world of grown ups, deadlines, reports, meetings and irritating work situa...

Today is probably the hottest day of the year so far and my skin is as pink as these flip-flops and I was only out in the sun for 45 minutes or so and I was wearing SPF30. So it is going to be a scorcher.  Yesterday was pretty close so I decided to cool my feet off by wearing flip-flops for my commute to work, not much walking really, less than 1km to my local station and then from London Bridge to my office but I didn't foresee the cobble stones of Hays Galleria, the streets between the buildings are partly cobbled.  All I can say is, flip-flops are not really designed for anything but sand, they are more instruments of torture than fashion accessory and if they are the Brazilian/Australian contribution to global fashion well Paris has not much to worry about right now. I was meant to visit a theme-park today, LegoLand Windsor but when the weather was predicted to be over 30C today, high UV, high pollen count that combined with the high screaming child count, high...

A political blog from me. After the events of last night in London and recent events in Manchester the right wing in the UK (and USA) are blaming everyone but themselves!  Today, Jeremy Corbyn had this to say!  Y ou cannot protect the public on the cheap . The police and security services must get the resources they need, not 20,000 police cuts. Theresa May was warned by the Police Federation but she accused them of “crying wolf”.  We will recruit another 10,000 new police officers, including more armed police, as well as 1,000 more security services staff to support our communities and help keep us safe. And today our PM is campaigning and spreading the fear in order to win an election, don't let that happen!  The UK and USA also arm Saudi Arabia, it is a theocracy that supports ISIS. S audi Arabia stirs sectarian violence across the middle-east.  The UK did the same in Ireland and we moved on. It is time we stopped supporting states that support terrorist...

As politicians on the right make profit from the terrorism in Manchester last week (but do deals with the spreaders of hate in Saudi Arabia) I wanted to say why they don't speak for me, a British man, not a flag waving patriot but someone who likes what this country is despite its flaws (flaws which have nothing to do with migrants or religions), flaws that politicians could fix if they were not simply interested in feathering their own nests and profiting from the suffering of others. Last night I was drinking with one of my friends who was born in Spain, raised in the UK, for me that is a typical weekend. He is straight, the rest of us were gay, again a normal night out in London.  Next week I will be having dinner with my American friend married to an Indian man, his best friend and his sister, again, a normal event in modern Britain. This morning I was served coffee by Simona from Italy and later today I had my eyes tested by Sanya, a British Muslim and was served in ...

This is just a run of the mill e ntry , no drama etc. So May is almost over, not Theresa May , I would love her to be over, I am talking about the month, a funny month, changes galore and it is hard to believe that 4 weeks ago I was in Montreal and Quebec eating gravy and chips and not feeling guilty about it. I changed jobs in May, not because I wanted to but my contract was coming to an end and was fortunate enough to find another job with a similar title, well instead of Professional Standards Manager I became Head of Professional Standards. A big leap and as my new boss said, I've become a big fish in a small pond after being a small fish in a big pond for a long time and it is scary, I feel like I've jumped over a big wall and whilst trying to enjoy that success I am now in a big garden or rather a safari park and there are bigger beasts to deal with. I am neither a real pessimist or a Pollyanna optimist so it is too soon to measure my success or failure. All I know right...