Mardi Gras Time

While we wait with awe the news from down under and of course get very upset at what we are missing, but reflect on what we remember from 99 and 08, Walter and Marco's carnival party pics will have to do!

I think Marco is the horny devil and well Walter is just arrving from his tour of all the Berlin hot spots! Wonder if it did anything for this fetish reputation, deviant is certainly it! Lovely!

So from Oz the party seems to be getting into full swing. I think after what they have been through Sydney Mardi Gras will be a good time to helpdraw a line and move on to better

times! Always the optimist!

This link should take you to all the fun! Happy Mardi Gras!

Wherever the parties are!

Off to Austwick tomorrow to do my lumberjack impression and I hope get a decent quote from the kitchen renovations!

Yet another link to give you some idea of what I would like, obviously we (the royal one) need a committee meeting!

http://newmardigrasltd.createsend2.com/T/ViewEmail/r/EA43203194D5150A/2F6F1A75828796E72540EF23F30FEDED

http://www.arena-kitchens.co.uk/schuller_burgund.htm

Back & Forth

After having a great week in Austwick and a couple of overnighters in Newcastle, we returned refreshed and ready for the Kirkcaldy routine! However having negotiated the tree work we had to leave them to get on with lopping the Leylandii, and cutting down the large pine. Although this work was expected to take two days the work was done in one, with a short return on Friday to cut the pine tree stump ready to make it into a seating space!
So off I go again on Thursday after putting in a bid from the Fife Choose Life group for project funding to create a safe space for LGBT community members who have contemplated, survived or cared for someone where suicide is/was a factor. Many of the people we see pre and post HIV testing go through this trauma and I suspect the counselling that may occur is reluctant to engage in such debates!
Bill and Barrie were great company, although both Barrie and I ended the week with a bug that give the runs and other nasty feelings! Fine after 24 hours but missed a Newcastle curry session! I think Frank and I are considering very seriously a move next year down South!

A MUST READ

You will see that the bedside reading has been updated! May I suggest that you spend around £8.99 for one of the most enlightening, disturbing and yet still relevant pieces of modern literature I have come across for many a day?
The Hounding of David Oluwle

"Leave David to me " or words to that effect struck me in the book.They are spoken by one of the two police officers convicted of assaults on David Oluwale. The use of this mans first name is incongruous given his inhumane treatment by these officers and give a glimpse of what might have been a more indepth relationship between these officers and Oluwale than one of bully and victim. This book is not an attack on the police or other Criminal Justice agencies and public bodies,nor is it pre occupied with institutional racism.It is an account of an immigrants life in Leeds in the context of a changing police force and a changing city.The police officer Kitchin and Ellerker have become dinosaurs in the force and they know it and one has a sense of their growing sense of inadequacy and powerlessness in a changing job and city.They exert their pathetic power and control over Oluwale. We are left with some sympathy for the officers as Aspden gives powerful accounts of their personalities and backgrounds and the lonely death of Kitchen. That Oluwale passes through the hands of other Institutions and Authorities and no help is seemingly given is not surprising given the historical context of the book but it leads the reader to ask if much has changed since.The vulnerable and dangerous still fall through loopholes and safety nets today as revealed by subsequent enquiries into preventable murders and deaths. Nationality Wog is so thoroughly reserached and touches on so many institutions and individuals in order to put the story into as wide a context as possible that one wonders how Aspden manages to bring all the threads together.He does achieve this and the book culminates thankfully not in a dull account of the trial of the police officers but in a skillful account of the best bits of the court scene and lovely portrayals of the QC's in the case. The detail in the book will delight anyone familiar with Leeds from descriptions of the shop door ways where Oluwale slept and received his beatings to the position of Leeds United at the time and an account of their black players. The book has been described as brave and it is right from its almost shocking title to the authors attempt to speak to Ellerker in his driveway.

Presently the stage play based on the book is in rep at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and time allowing - Leeds being about an hour away from Austwick - I hope we may be able to catch it!
Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day - this is not the present you are looking for to perk up you love life - bust still should be read is you are interested or involved in any of the issues. I would put it on the complusory list for any mental health student/worker!

Hot in OZ

The recent tragic events in parts of Australia, together with the sweltering temperatures have cause us great concern. The reports on the BBC locally and World Services indicate a combination of natural and human-man disaster! Who in the world would cause the situation to be worse than it already is by lighting more fires and re-kindling those that have been brought under control is beyond my understanding!
I know my Mum had friends in Victoria, so we are thinking of them at this time. When we go down to Austwick next week I will get the address and drop them a line, not that we can do much from here.
On the political front Kevin Rudd has conducted himself with great humanity, dignity and empathy for those affected. He really seems a politician of priniciple. Shame we don't have many of them here!

Andy heads down below for his annual pilgrimage and we are in reflective mood thinking of last years visit with him to see Robin and his friends. Womderful memories that we hope one day we can recall here - about time Robin paid another regal visit to us! That was a hint my dear!

http://www.smh.com.au/

DVLA

Unwitting motorists face £1,000 fines as thousands of photocard driving licences expireThousands of motorists are at risk of being fined up to £1,000 because they are unwittingly driving without a valid licence. They risk prosecution after failing to spot the extremely small print on their photocard licence which says it automatically expires after 10 years and has to be renewed - even though drivers are licensed to drive until the age of 70.The fiasco has come to light a decade after the first batch of photo licences was issued in July 1998, just as the they start to expire. Motoring organisations blamed the Government for the fiasco and said 'most' drivers believed their licences were for life. They said officials had failed to publicise sufficiently the fact that new-style licences - unlike the old paper ones - expire after a set period and have to be renewed. To rub salt into wounds, drivers will have to a pay £17.50 to renew their card - a charge which critics have condemned as a 'stealth tax' and which will earn the Treasury an estimated £437million over 25 years. Official DVLA figures reveal that while 16,136 expired this summer, so far only 11,566 drivers have renewed, leaving 4,570 outstanding. With another 300,000 photocard licences due to expire over the coming year, experts fear the number of invalid licences will soar, putting thousands more drivers in breach of the law and at risk of a fine. At the heart of the confusion is the small print on the tiny credit-card-size photo licence, which is used in conjunction with the paper version. Just below the driver name on the front of the photocard licence is a series of dates and details - each one numbered. Number 4b features a date in tiny writing, but no explicit explanation as to what it means. The date's significance is only explained if the driver turns over the card and reads the key on the back which states that '4b' means 'licence valid to'.Even more confusingly, an adjacent table on the rear of the card sets out how long the driver is registered to hold a licence - that is until his or her 70th birthday. A total of 25million new-style licences have been issued but - motoring experts say - drivers were never sufficiently warned they would expire after 10 years. Motorists who fail to renew their licences in time are allowed to continue driving. But the DVLA says they could be charged with 'failing to surrender their licence', an offence carrying a £1,000 fine. AA president, Edmund King said: 'It is not generally known that photocard licences expire: there appears to be a lack of information that people will have to renew these licences. People think they have already paid them for once over and that is it. It will come as a surprise to motorists and a shock that they have to pay an extra £17.50.'The AA called on the Government to use the annual £450million from traffic enforcement fines to offset the renewal charge. Before photocard licences were introduced, old-style paper licences were valid until the age of 70. Many motorists still believe this to be the case with the new ones.Driving instructor Tony Carter, of Canterbury , said: 'It's outrageous; everybody thinks their driving licence is for life. Why - when you have already paid £50 for your photocard licence - should you pay the Government an extra £17.50 every 10 years? It's another stealth tax. Drivers will be very annoyed.' Today the DVLA said the date of expiry was carried on the new-style licences, even though the AA says this is 'not clear'. The Agency was unable to say whether motorists were told the licences would expire when they were first issued. It said it was issuing postal reminders to drivers whose photograph was due to expire, to get the renewal message across. But a spokesman admitted this was the limit of the DVLA's publicity. Experts say many drivers will slip through the net because DVLA records are inaccurate and many motorists have changed address, making it impossible to trace them. A DVLA spokesman said: 'Previous experience has shown that wide-scale publicity is less effective and can generate enquiries and concerns from those not affected. Instead, DVLA focussed on targeted publicity to ensure that we got the message to the right person at the right time.' The Driving Standards Agency is allowing L-test candidates with out-of-date photocard licences to sit their driving tests as long as they provide a valid passport. This concession will end in January next year, raising the prospect that some L-test candidates will be turned away. The DVLA said no one had so far been charged with failing to surrender a licence.
Does this mean my paper license written in Latin is not valid?

Ali Mackay

Yet another sad but glorious celebration of life yesterday. Family, friends and comrades gathered to pay respect to Ali - sadly died before her time at 57 years:-

Mackay Alison of Cupar, formerly of Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh. Feminist, campaigner, friend and beloved partner of Lindsay, daughter of the late Margaret and Alan and sister of Ron, died of Cancer, aged 57, on Saturday, 24th January, 2009. Funeral Service to be held at Kirkcaldy Crematorium, on Wednesday, 4th February, at 11.00 a.m., to which all family, friends and colleagues are most welcome. Garden flowers only, donations in lieu to Maggie’s Centre Dundee.

Gillan Stewart for the Scottish Humanist Society officiated at a wonderful one and half hour of tributes and KD Lang songs. A piper in the crematorium wood played a lament as the woven casket strewn with wild flowers and heather was brought into the crematorium. Some tears of regret and sadness that it is only such occasions when wholesome tributes are made, sadly Ali was not in the hearing of them!

So we are looking forward to going to Newcastle next weekend and tackling the emerging gardening tasks at Austwick after a quick stay-over in Newcastle to see "West Side Story". That should get my spirits going. Bill and Barrie are coming to Austwick with us so plenty of willing "gardeners". One of the neighbours has pointed out concerns about the Leylandii tree that borders both our properties - they have got to go - hate the dark strangling creation.