Postage

When I bought some first class stamps a few weeks ago, I was astonished to find that 12 stamps cost more than 5 pounds. Before I got round to blogging about that, I learnt that there is to be further price increase, this time to 60p.

When I worked in Lincolnshire an occasional treat was the five course dinner at the Grand Hotel in Lincoln; it cost 12/6, only slightly higher than today's first class stamp.

In those days a modest cheap and cheerful three course 'business lunch' could be had for less than 4 shillings.

Even allowing for inflation, sending a letter is becoming a serious expense, and one that can usually be avoided by sending email or telephoning.

Had I not largely abandoned Christmas cards last year, I should have resolved to do so now.

I wonder how long we shall have a Post Office ?

After the Arab Spring, the Arab Winter.

Various Arab states seem to have disposed of one set of obnoxious rulers only to get another set not conspicuously more virtuous than the first lot, and less capable of maintaining order.

We are urged to intervene in Syria to help bring about a similar change there, so that a new government can set about the popular task of persecuting minorities.

I very much hope our Government will not intervene.

For once I'm glad of the Russian veto in the UN Security Council. That it is self interested does not prevent its being useful.

A Cheerful Pensioner Refuses to Sulk

Some politicians discussing the budget tell me I ought to be discontented because my personal income tax allowance has not been increased while other people's allowances have been.

Yet I have lost nothing. My personal allowance has not been reduced. I just had an increase a few years earlier than other people; now they are being allowed to catch up.

There are several consolations for being a pensioner. One need not work, one doesn't make National Insurance contributions, and bus travel is free.

I refuse to feel aggrieved just to feed the ambitions of unscrupulous politicians.

In the Service of God.

I've just seen this in the Daily Telegraph:

"The Dutch government has promised to investigate "very serious and shocking" allegations that hundreds of teenage boys and young men were castrated while in the care of the Dutch Roman Catholic Church as a treatment for homosexuality in the 1950s."

there's more at:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7j495ge

Apparently there were cases of young boys being castrated after complaining of sexual abuse at the hands (or should I say penises ?) of priests.

Now that they are on the defensive Priests confine their homophobia to whining about the meaning of the word 'marriage", so it is instructive to recall what they were capable of when intoxicated by the servile adulation of a gullible flock.

Human employers are held responsible for the misconduct of their employees, yet theologians never apply that rule to God.

The Right Man for a Bad Job

John Yates, formerly of the Metropolitan police, was interviewed recently about the phone tapping affair. It was he who decided that no further investigations were justified even though the police held voluminous records of profligate wrong doing.

I noticed that Yates was speaking from Bahrain, where he now works with the local police.

Given the recent record of the Bahraini police, he seems the right man for the job !