For Harry Patch and his friends

The Old Soldier

The string of history snaps with a heartbeat
casting the mud and grime of your sacrifice
away to join that of generations before.
Although you were a survivor, an old man
at the end, your kindly eyes still show that you
too sacrificed much. Too much.

Not dulled with the misty passing of time
but blazing with the fierce, sharp, sad memories
of friends torn apart, poisoned and broken,
The stench of the rat-scurried trench, the cries
of the wounded, the grey bird-less sky
and everywhere mud... mud...mud.

Your memories seeped back through the
mud and the blood of Passchendaele, and your eyes
told us more than any Owen poem or history book.
Through them your pain and humanity blazed
like the guns on the Western front. Through them
you remembered friend and foe as we now remember you.



Copyright D. Findlay 2009

Dr Nicholas Hughes

The tragic, premature death of Nicholas Hughes has been reported rather predictably by the media. Instead of simply reporting the event as the untimely passing of someone whose family was in the public eye, many articles simply reprise the sad, and equally untimely, deaths of his mother, Sylvia Plath, Assia and Shura Wevill.

A number of column inches have also been given over to the anti-Ted Hughes reaction instigated by some more hysterical elements.

All of which may be true but, rather sadly, they diminish the tragedy of this young mans death by reducing him to a bit part player in his families wider tragedy.

Here is a tragedy in its own right. Reading Ted Hughes' letters to his son and looking at the photographs in the recently published volume of Hughes' letters, one gets the impression of a normal, well adjusted young man, totally at ease with the world of nature and in particular with fishing, a past time he truly loved and which eventually provided him with a livelihood.

I am deeply saddened by his passing and want to express my deepest sympathies to his sister, Freida, and other members of his extended family.

This article in the Alaskan press gives a true appreciation of the man and his work. http://www.newsminer.com/news/2009/mar/23/nicholas-hughes-son-major-poets-emerged-prominent-/

RIP.

Hector's balls

Hector's balls are there no more,
He left them on the veterinary floor,
To procreate he is unable,
They cut them off on the surgery table

Thoughts on redundancy

I'm sufficiently reassured by the apparent fact that nobody reads this blog to continue posting my nonsense.

What, I hear nobody cry, were your thoughts and feelings on being told that you might be getting made redundant?

Firstly, nobody has told me yet that I am being made redundant. My position is being made redundant on the 30th April and I am now in what is euphemistically known as "consultation". I'm intrigued to find out what this "consultation" actually involves. In the six working days since I found out this news there has been little, if any, consultation. My boss phoned once to find out how I was. I was fine. The only other consultation as such was a five minute telephone call from an outplacement consultant - there's a potential growth industry - who asked me to send him my CV. He would call me back tomorrow. I'm still waiting.

The company has undertaken to try and find me another post and I am also expected to look for positions on the company intranet. There are some interesting jobs there but unfortunately they are all in the snowy wastes and I haven't had my jags to live there.

Now, I wouldn't want anybody to think I'm doing nothing. My agents have been appointed and are all beavering away to find me new opportunities. I have also started to use my network of friends and ex-colleagues and opportunities are pending. It's just that most of the opportunities are not ones I particularly like.

Insurance Brokers like to appoint people who can basically steal business from their previous employer. I mean that quite literally. If you can bring a book of business with you most firms will give you a position tomorrow. Let me be more precise. Most people will have something called a restrictive covenant in their contracts. It forbids them from canvassing any of their previous clients during a period, usually the first twelve months, of their new contract. It is frequently ignored, usually on the grounds that it is held to be a restrictive practice or a constraint of trade. I personally have taken business with me before and I regretted it and felt somewhat shabby, and that was without a restrictive covenant. Notwithstanding the legalities I take the position that I signed the contract, accepted the covenant and, in so doing, gave my word that I would honour it. This is something that may make me appear to be a fool to some but, if so, I'm happy to be that fool.

I actually, through a takeover, once ended up working for a firm which was actively involved in inciting its new employees to steal business from their previous employer whilst issuing dire legal threats of retribution to any of its ex-employees who had moved on. Such bare-faced hypocrisy is perhaps an extreme example of a practice which many others quietly condone.

I must admit that my initial feeling on being given on this news was a excitement. My previous position was becoming dull and stale. I would probably have looked to move on in around a year or so, so the only inconvenience was having to move at a time not of my choosing. But that can't be helped, the company have their requirements so move I must. I'm generally positive and excited that the next few months will be hard work, tiring and invigorating. They will result in a new challenge and in meeting new people. It's something I enjoy and am looking forward to.

Redundancy

So, at great expense, I flew down to Leicester attanded my interview and flew home.

The following week, at even greater expense, I flew down again, stayed overnight and attended a meeting where I was told that my position was provisionally being made redundant, I had been unsuccessful in obtaining the new replacement post and would probably be leaving on 30th April.

I have to admit that I wasn't devastated. I was genuinely pleased for my colleague who got the job. He genuinely wanted it and went the extra mile to get the job.

So, now I'm faced with a job search and it's something I'm genuinely positive about. I have been in my industry for more than 20 years, but with a newly minted degree I'm quite anxious to see if there is anything else I can do with my life. I've been looking in my current industry and have arranged two interviews but it's proving a little more challenging to find something new and exciting. It's also really quite scary putting your head above the parapet and stepping out of your comfort zone - that's enough cliche's for one sentence!

Breaking news...

...on the redundancy front. Now won't be finding out on Friday but will be getting interviewed for a new role which nobody understands instead.

National Insurance - a Ponzi scheme

Charles Ponzi is one of the most notorious fraudsters in history. Promising investors spectacular returns, he attracted investments in his scheme using new investors to pay off the earlier ones.

He has been back in the news recently following the allegations made against Bernard Madoff who has allegedly made off (geddit?) with millions of dollars prior to the collapse of his own business and his own apparent admission that his fund was a Ponzi.

Here in Britain, we have a scheme, apparently to pay for our pensions and the NHS called National Insurance. YOu put something aside each month - I think it's about 10% of your salary - and it goes towards your pension and healthcare. The only thing is that it doesn't. It actually goes towards the cost of paying for todays pensioners as their NI contributions have already been spent.

So, my conclusion is that either National Insurance is just another tax or it's all a great big Ponzi. What do you think?