Sunday 29 November 2015

Sire, the night is darker now, and the wind blows stronger

Poor Cindeford! Last year their Christmas lights drew the sarcasm of The Daily Mail, with the headline

Are these the worst Christmas lights in Britain? 
 Town forced to wrap fairy lights around lamp-posts after health and safety objected to traditional festive display

It really can't be easy, trying to add some festive spirit to your town centre when you're a cash-scrapped, small town and the only Big Name shop you have to draw in the crowds is the Co-op. But the good folk of Cinderford weren't about to to give up, and so persuaded Gloucester to sell them last year's city lights. For the great Switch On, last night, they laid on a kiddies' fun fair, market stalls and the Forest of Dean's premier Ukulele Group to get things off to a stunning start.

The time appointed for the festivities drew closer, and as it did, the skies grew dark, the wind howled and down came the rain.  Almost devoid of custom, brave market traders did their best to keep smiling.  These two are great, are they not? If you know them, perhaps you could tell them that Angie's trying her best to make them famous!


Thankfully, the Ukes uv Azzard were on hand to lift those dampened spirits, drive away the gloom and herald the imminent arrival of Rudolf and Santa.  Here we are, as recorded on the camera of my ukulele-playing friend Janice...

Believe me, we had to sing and strum vigorously to keep our fingers warm
and a shop across the road did a brisk trade in fingerless gloves!

That's me on the left, pretending to be a reindeer. 

The ladies' section. B (next to me) is playing her kazoo, so we must be
singing They call me Mr Christmas. Should it not have been Mrs Christmas?

Just as we ended our shivering performance, someone turned on the lights. Spirits rose, the streets seemed just a little more populated and a few brave children climbed into giant tea cups, waiting expectantly to be spun into action. Even the rain clouds, sensing that they had met their match, moved on to dump their load elsewhere. I could have stayed to watch, but Gerry's offer of hot chocolate proved far too tempting.




Thursday 26 November 2015

Facebook and Overseas Aid

I'm not a great fan of Facebook. To my mind, there are so many re-posts — depressingly often of Daily Mail-quality opinions — that I wonder whether some folk have an original thought in their heads. However, Facebook is also home to two of my ukulele groups and it's there that they post news and upload songbooks, so I'm there too.  And naturally, as well as reading the uke news, I take a look at some of the stuff posted by the friends I've made.

Some of it is quite funny, some is informative and thought provoking...


...  but there is also quite a lot that saddens me. However, since I personally know all 17 of my FB friends, I've taken to gently challenging views that are not mine; views such as this one...



In an odd way, I'm not ungrateful to receive things like this as it not only makes me stop and think about the issues, but do some research as well.  In this instance, I strongly believe that all developed nations have a moral responsibility to help those less well off than ourselves.  The difference between our standard of living and (say) that in rural Tanzania, is colossal and I applaud the work of organizations such as Tear Fund and Medecins Sans Frontieres.

As a country, we have little of which to be ashamed in our aid to poorer countries.  Only five other countries in the world – Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark and the United Arab Emirates – met or exceeded 0.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2013.  The United States, the largest contributor in monetary terms, gave a paltry 0.17% of it's colossal GDP.

The UK's Department for International Development's priorities for 2015 included helping nine million children into primary school, immunising more than 55 million children against preventable diseases, saving the lives of at least 250,000 newborn babies and encouraging global action on climate change. Not bad, eh?

Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees with me, as the responses to my contribution confirmed.  "Too many foreign leaders are corrupt.  As we give them aid, they spend their money on arms"... etc. But I'm undeterred, and (at the time of writing) I still have my 17 friends.

Finally, the "billions we donate to other countries" is actually a very small proportion of government expenditure.  Courtesy of the Inland Revenue website, I've been looking at how the government spent the £1473.20 of tax that they took from me last year. It makes interesting reading...


So 1.3p in the pound was spend on Overseas Aid.  And look — just 0.6p went into the EU budget. With all the talk of EU bureaucracy and wasted money, who would have believed that?


Monday 23 November 2015

Who do you tell?

A couple of months ago I decided to give up blogging about Angie.  Hitherto, there had been a story to tell, but the story was all but complete. Surely it was time to put the past behind me, spend less time peering upon a computer screen and concentrate on one or two other creative pursuits of mine.

It was, I now admit, the wrong decision. My life cannot easily be divided into distinct chapters. Friends from years ago are still friends; places that I loved are still loved. I am who I am because the experiences of the past 60 or more years have shaped me, and they continue to shape me today. There is still a story that I wish to tell, and it matters not if only few will read it.

I've been married for more than four decades.  At the age of 21 I swapped a mother for a spouse and promised that I would stay that way until death did us part... and it hasn't parted us yet. Sometimes, though, I do permit myself to wonder what life might be like if I lived alone.  I reckon I'd cope quite well with the practical tasks but it's the companionship I'd miss the most.  You see a beautiful sunset, watch a calf being born or hear a good story.  Who are you going to tell?

It's that deep-rooted desire to tell somebody that has kept me blogging.  So here's one must tell story that should have been blogged about weeks ago...

The 2015 Rugby World Cup is past and gone, and I guess that the English would rather not be reminded of it! As a Cornish lass, though, I found it easy enough to transfer my allegiance to Wales and keep cheering for a little longer. Several of the games (though none involving England or Wales) were held in Gloucester, and to aid the festivities the City Fathers invited Friends Ukenited to join in the festivities and entertain the crowds. So here we are, in the centre of Gloucester. I'm on the far right, with my little blue ukulele.

Can you believe it? One year ago I couldn't play a single chord on a ukulele; now here I am, standing alongside seasoned players and singing at the top of my voice:

Scrumpty's our rugby hero, he's pretty good, so they say,
Scrumpty's our rugby hero, he plays it every day,
Ooo ah ooo ah ay,
Ooo ah ooo ah ay.

'Tis quality stuff, my dear. And I've just got to tell someone!