Charity Shopping for CD's.

Do you know an English, female, singer called Elkie Brooks?

I ask you because I went to one of her live concerts recently and the concert hall was "sold-out". Every seat was filled. The average age of the members of the audience must have been 63 years old. on stage, Elkie admitted that she is 67 years old and this was a suprise. If you are British and older than 21 years, admitting your age used to be reserved for officials such as the Police, your Bank and Government Agencies. I was taught that to ask a woman her age was very bad manners!

I mention the subject of age because Elkie has been singing since she was a teenager: her work is described on the pages of Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elkie_Brooks where her age is there for all to read. There is also a list of her CD's which have been released over her career. She is a versatile singer. Sometimes she is as loud and raucous as a bawdy fishwife calling for custom on a stormy winter's dock-side. The next minute she sings songs as softly and as any ballad which has brought you near to tears. During this concert she even sang one song 'a capella'.

Elkie Brooks, is an English singer, born in the northern City of Salford, who has been entertaining for over fifty years. It's true that she doesn't illustrate her concerts with lasers, flashing lights or thousands of kilowatts of sound. There are no projected video's. There is no revolving stage. She doesn't fly. There are no stunts. Only music. Two costumes. Six musicians. No time wasting. Just Elkie. Just song after song with a fifteen minute break in the middle. She still has the melody, talent and energy to sell every seat in a theatre for at least one of the nights of her National Tour, as well as making and selling CD's.

In my life, Charity has always been a part of British life. When I was very young, the most obvious charity was 'Rememberance Day', or 'Poppy Day'. This charity collected most of its money each November. You gave a coin in return for a deep red poppy to pin on the shoulder of your coat. The poppy reminds us of the blood-red flowers which grow in Flanders on the French/Belgian border. Where millions of men died in the 1914/1918 Great War. The charity has helped our damaged soldiers ever since. Poppy Day continues to this day. But we do not have Poppy Day Charity shops.

'Charity Shops' in the streets of our Towns and Cities are a recent phenomenon. Above their windows and doors you will read, "The Red Cross", "Sue Rider", "Cancer Relief", "RSPCA", "Help the Aged", to mention only five of the many major national societies. You may also find a shop which is named after local charity.

Some years ago, during a financial recession,  many shops began to close. People had less money to spend. Some shops were not selling 'important' items. Supermarkets cut their prices and small shops could not make a profit. As they closed, the shops and streets began to look untidy. People started to go to other shopping streets. So even the remaining food shops had fewer customers and the Towns were now losing the business taxes. They wanted the shops to re-open.

It was also a bad time for Charities; fewer shoppers gave fewer Pounds into their collection tins. So the Towns allowed Charities to 'take-over' empty shops for a reduced tax. The Charities used their shops for people to leave their unwanted items. In these shops, volunteers choose the best items and put them on display, 'For Sale', and the prices are very cheap! Everything else is re-cycled.

So, in the UK it is possible to spend a morning, or afternoon, visiting local Charity Shops. You will find clothes, hand-bags, shoes, toys, books and, perhaps, furniture. And it will always be possible to find a selection of music. Celine Dion, Sinatra, Beddingfield, Bon Jovi, Rhianna, Kylie, WetWetWet, BoyZone, Lighthouse Family, REM, R.E.O, Travis, Spice Girls, Whitesnake and even Aerosmith, among the CD's on the shelves.

But, in my region, I think people must want to keep their Elkie Brooks CD's at home.

The forthcoming election.

Tonight I was watching the BBC National television News at 18:00. This programme lasts for 30 minutes and is followed by a local news programme which is created and transmitted from the North-East region of England.

The main issue on the North-East broadcast concerned an Election. Not the Peresidential Election in the United States. This is taking place today but was the main issue, again, on the BBC National news.

We have had, it seems to me, countless hours of television and radio coverage of the American Presidential election process over the past few weeks. Even when the British news broadcasters  were covering  the story about the fate of those Americans living on their east coast in the face of the major storm which was called 'Sandy'. For their reporters always managed to twist their stories to include Obama and Romney. Indeed, between the United States' Presidential election and the reporting of allegations of child abuse against the late Sir Jimmy Savile (an entertainer, disc-jockey and larger-than-life charity fund-raiser) the behaviour of our British Government, its handling of our economy and other associated issues have been left largely unexamined, to the detriment; of our population.

Which may go some way to excuse what was reported tonight; an unenthusiastic attitude towards our own forthcoming election. It seems that the voters don't know what they are being asked to vote for. This is because the Coalition government is concerned not to spend money from our Government coffers, which we can't afford. So, taking a leaf from many of those blown about in the USA, campaign funds for this election must come from the candidates.

On the face of it, this would seem to be a sensible standpoint. For this British election is a 'new' one, in the sense that the posts up-for-grabs have never been available before. The responsibilities of these novel positions have, in previous years, been carried out by teams who were not paid a salary.

Now, funding an election campaign is problematic. Made the more-so because of the 'newness' of these novel posts. By definition, a newly invented post cannot have a social machine to support it. So where, then, is one to look for a machine to generate any funding at all? And this is at the root of that which will, in my view, come to bite our society in its future.

It would seem, from the report on our local news, that the solution to the funding problem; such as it has been, has fallen into, or rather has been grasped by, the hands of the established political parties! Possibly because they have people, skills and are in the invidious position of having to join-in, even if they don't philosophically agree with the pantomime, or maybe just don’t want to become involved, in case it somehow might reflect upon their own sensibilities in some future Political elections.

And what is it that that the Coalition wants us to decide? "Who do you want to be your local Police Commissioner?" Not, "Do you want to pay a salary to an individual to run your local Police Force like they do in the United States?"

What is it with the United States?

What is policing to do with Political Parties?

Furthermore, breaking its own rules of austerity, the Coalition has the Government Department known as the 'Home Office' running adverts asking us to vote! The Home Office; running adverts? And if we, the people, don't actually want to spend a fortune establishing another trench of the Noveau Riche, how do we say so?

The solution, according to those people on the television who are getting to know about the election, is just not to be bothered voting. And why would they? After all, they have no sense of 'ownership'. Which just brings the democratic exercise into further disrepute; as if we don't have enough of a problem asking people to vote for proper politicians (whatever they may be).

But then we know what politicians will say to the people who will complain, don't we? "Well, if you didn't vote, it's your own fault."

So we're going to get a set of ex-politico's on happy salaries, bunked-up into glory by their nominee politico friends. Some time in the future they'll be running around fund-raising for re-election, or not; depending upon whether they think citizens have a right to know what it is that they think they have accomplished. Which would be what? Can they invent new laws? Can they instruct the bobbies to ignore this law in order to pursue another?

Well, the Home Office advert tells us. It says that if we want the local bobbies to concentrate on something we feel strongly about, we just phone the Local Commissioner. Yo, sherrif!

I am sure that you will be forgiven if, after a moment pondering the out-come, you believe that harassing the Local Commissioner might bring his wrath, in the persons of his bobbies, down upon your head and you decide to keep well out of it.

But you should rest assured; for who in their right mind, would expect anyone to instruct a Constabulary to concentrate upon the whim of one citizen?

Unless, of course, you can prove that you were the one who voted them in.

King Henry Vth upon 'difficult times'.

Once more to heal a breach dear friends, once more

To rid this defecit the lager-boys do want our English pounds!

In peace they nothing gave to deserve the working man

Save scabby scraps and party platitudes:

But now, with wine-sot bankers blast within our ears,

The #posh do imitate the bludgeon of the overseer.

Warping truth and wefting with their words

Confounding logic with etonian guile.

Then, with straightened tie and lifted nose,

Let bonus through their constraints of fair day

As champaign falling lets their glass o’erflow.

And, jubilant as cock crows every morn

Or as the fatted pigs do wallow in their muddy swill,

They play carefree within their golden mile.

Now, set your arse and stretch your lugholes wide,

Hold hard your brew and stay your crispcrunch jaw,

To learn your brother English public servants fate

Whose life to spill to benefit too their dukish friends!

You that, like so many reasonable men

Who in these parts do stand for your beliefs

Did buy your round with “Nothing to be done”;

Dishonour not your children, now accept

That times have changed from those your fathers knew

And to mirror days of interest and free speech

Teach them how to shout.

So we, good tipplers; whose drink were brewed in England,

Show them all the bitters of your place; let us swear

That pints are all worth pulling: which I doubt not;

For there be none of us so crass

That has but Stella Artois in his glass!

I see you set like greygounds in the slips

Notes and coin within your hardy palms. I’m nearly done –

So, strain your sinews, grab your pint pots firm

Cry, “Good for CAMRA, scratchings and Real Ale!”

British Blue

British Blue PLC  - Flight Control

213c, Upper West Tring Crescent,

Westminster,

London,

EC1 1UP

Dear Sir,

Re: United Kingdom Airspace.

You may be unaware that the second Thatcher Government privatised the sky over the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, incorporating Wales and its Territorial Waters. Consequent upon this was the stablishment of "British Blue' which finally came to the stock market early this year. Accordingly your recent letter to the Office of the  Prime Minister has arrived upon my desk.

In your letter to us, you refer to information passed to you by persons of your own, occasional, aquaintance who patronise the 'Independant' newspaper, and you raise the matter of future changes of Regulation with respect to air transit above the UK & NI, incorporating Wales & its Territorial Waters. 

I can confirm that your access to the 'Casual Annual Permission Without Any Prior Application' (CAPWAPA) facility is to be withdrawn effective as from September.

You will recall that the 'Air Traffic and Flight Navigation (1915); Assorted Regulations Applicable To Air Freight By Abnormal Methods Of Propulsion', was enacted by His Majesties Govenment, during the First (or Great) War. Covered by these (then) emergency regulations were all active, and proposed, 'Vehicles capable of Sustained Levitation by means of Propulsion Systems other than Mechanical (VcoSLbmoPSotM)'. 

For your information, having legislated upon the matter of the suppression of aircraft noise from 'Residences of Persons of Note and the Need for Undisturbed Game', by the inclusion of a sub-clause in the 'Air Transport: Air Fund Tax - Exemptions (Bombers, Fighters and Reconnaisance Aeroplanes)' bill (enacted 23/07/16), Parliament then responded to the lobby from the 'United Kingdom  National Association (Incorporating Wales) of Pigeon Fanciers'.  The UKNA(IW)OPF 'Massed-Basket' event in Trafalgar Square (11/04/17) served both to highlight the splendid job its members were doing by providing a means of  Rapid Information Transfer (RIT) between the front line and the War Office and to confuse the resident, non-aligned, Trafalgar Square population.

During the ensuing Debate the words of Algernon Fitzwilliam Penworthy; member for Strawbotham, proved pivotal. "Mr. Speaker, I must tell the House the opinion of no less an expert on Pigeons than Mr. Albert Green of Dankwater View in my constituency. He contends that it is not known by what method pigeons navigate. It is his conclusion, therefore, that it is foolish for the Law to seek to regulate the flight directions of feathered spirits." (Hansard 19/5/17)  The House accepted this and agreed that by incorporating the word 'designed' within the leglation, Pigeons and Pigeon-fanciers would thus become dis-applied and therefore exempt. 

Having conducted extensive research, I confirm, as you rightly pointed-out, that members of the 'English, Scottish and Northern-Ireland (Incorporating Wales) Falconers League' (ES&NI(iW)FL) successfully argued, at the time, that the legislation applied equally to them - in the matter of their Falcons.

I am pleased to report that your correspondence, with reference to your own predicament, came to light, quite co-incidentley,  with a copy of each of the replies to you from the Ministers for War, Home Affairs, Transport, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Hunting, Shooting and Fishing (HS&F). I note that they concurred with your argument and effectively exempted you and your International Enterprise, forthwith.

Subsequent to this, Govenment commissioned considerable and learned research into air transport. In  his  report to Parliament, 'The Expansion In The Use Of Aeroplanes, Hot-Air-Balloons And Airships; And The Prediction Of Intraference With Other Significant Bodies In Flight: The Need For A Concept Of Sky-Density' (which subsequently became known as the 'TEITUOAHABAAATPOIWOSBIF:TNFACOSD Report'), University of Wigan Press, 1928, Professor Karl Nummerzwei Kleinersdorf Schwartzfeuer showed a collision risk factor of slightly less than 0.00034 whilst illustrating his proposed Sky-Density Factor of 2. You will, no doubt, recall his (Chapter 87) analysis which concluded that, since your activities were limited to the few hours before midnight on Chrismas Eve, the Sky-Density Factor Fluctuation Index would not vary by more than +/- 3.795. (It was later qualified by a deviation of 0.00009, after the University of Uttoxeter (Staffs) concluded that a variation of +/- 53.7% was required to model those commercial pilots who prefered to be at home for Christmas.) 

This was considered to be well within acceptable limits and the 'Select Committee on Flying Planes, Objects and Other Things' continued to over-look your contribution to air congestion on Christmas Eve.

During the Second World War, whilst a rapid development in aircraft design took place, Parliament was disinclined to look again at the regulations, since the forward propulsion method of aircraft continued to be by propellor.

However, as I am sure you are aware, since the end of the Second World War the turbo-prop and jet have been developed as alternative means of increasing flying speeds in the Commercial and Military Sector and I note, with regret, that the contents of your letter are unable to assure me that your traditional propulsion units are currently able to keep pace with these developments. 

Please find, enclosed, copies of Flight Plan Application Forms AS8a, Fc7b(sub), DR3b(special), GFT45(holiday) and BDJ-7.9.3 (low-level: winter). I also enclose, for your interest, a copy of MN45f-s(alternative date). 

You should complete, sign, and submit the relevant documents not later than 9 weeks before the event. 

You should also enclose your remittance in the sum of £3,476.92 (+VAT).

Yours faithfully,

 F.T.S/S.

The Hon. Ffortesque Timothy Smythe-Smythe.

N.B. Failure to comply with the Regulations of BritishBlue, its Partners, Subsidiaries and PALS will result in the Cancellation of your Flights.