And Then, Charity...

A comment by the good Caratacus made me run a search of my four K memory to find something I remember a young African lady saying so long ago. A lot of wot she said is lost in time and space or washed away on a tide of cheap wine. However, below is a précis of wot I remember. I guess it could almost classed as a parable now.

This lady stated that in one of a group of villages where she grew up, located in darkest Africa, a mother complained to her man that their small children were being unmercifully eaten alive of a night by mosquitoes due to the conditions making the little suckers particularly aggressive - the mosquitoes that is – and insisted he do something before the kids got sick. Seeing all the traditional methods had failed, the fellow put his brain to work and eventually came to the conclusion that some form of net would be of best help. He further figured that this netting would have to have a mesh size so as to preclude the ingress of mosquitoes but allow, for obvious reasons, the free passage of air.

With this basic idea he went to the next village where he knew of a lady who spent time spinning cotton into thread to see if she’d let him have some of said thread. After he explained his idea she agreed to his request on the proviso her family would get a net.

Back in his own village, and after a short period of trial and error, a net was knit and after the first nights use the net knitter’s good lady was delighted with the result. As, indeed, were the kids.

It wasn’t long before requests for nets were coming in and were knitted for various payments in kind - a bit of this an’ a barter for that; a little of which was passed to the thread spinner who in turn passed a little of that on to the raw crop chap.

It wasn’t long before a fellow from the big town, two days walk away, rolled into the village. He’d learned of the nets from a passing traveller and he presented the net knitter with the proposition to supply him with ex number of nets per month for him to sell in the big town for which he’d pay the net knitter with proper money.

Details agreed, the net knitter went to work and soon realised he needed help and thus started to pay, with proper money from his payment, a couple of villagers to help. He also started, much to the delight of the spinning lady, using proper money to pay for the thread.

The knock-on continued when the thread lady found she needed help and started to pay, with proper money, some ladies from her village to help spin up the thread.

She also found she needed more raw product and started paying the guy in the next village for the increase in demand using proper money. This chap discovered he also needed help to keep up with the new demand and started to employ fellow villagers paying them with proper money.

Things were starting to move in an ever upwards direction with all the varied knock-on effects created by so many folk suddenly having money. With this new found wealth flowing through the villages, the village elders started to explore the possibility of getting water piped to all the villages and even a rudimentary sanitary systems.

Then, one morning, the villagers were woken by the sound of loud engine noises and leaving their huts found a huge truck in the road. A white fellow alighted and announced he had a wagon full of mosquito nets. The villagers stated they would not be buying his nets as they already had a local supplier in the next village up the way. At this, ol’ whity happily announced that his nets were being donated by a charity and were already paid for by donations made by gulli... white folk and thus they were all, like, totally free.

Folk are the same the world over and the ‘free’ word hit home and they dived in. Before moving on, the charity chap happily announced that free water, food and clothing trucks would be along over the next few days and then monthly thereafter.

Shortly after this truck-stop, the guy from the big town cancelled his monthly order for nets as the market had, unsurprisingly, dried up. Thus the net knitter had to sack his helpers and shut down. The thread lady did likewise as did the raw crop chap and the elders stopped considering piping and sanitary ‘projects’.

Thus, with this new flow of free stuff everyone forgot their brief ‘golden age’ and went back to doing wot they were doing before. Nothing; other than sitting outside their huts talking about the state of the shithole they lived in while waiting for the arrival of the next truck-load of free stuff.

How does that old saying go? Teach a man to fish? Figuratively, those charities took those folks fishing rod off them and snapped it over their charitable knee.

Far fetched? Free stuff? Pause a moment and look around this country. We seem to have an ever increasing number of food banks, cloths banks and an incredibly generous ‘free’ money benefits system. So generous is it that to live on benefits has pretty well become a life style choice.

Right here, how long will it be before the folk sitting outside their homes, on a nice day of course, complaining to each other about the state of the shithole they live in while waiting for the the mobile food bank to roll-up and the benefit payment to roll-in, will outnumber the folk queuing for the seven thirty bus to work?

Quote; Will Leamon.

“Sooner or later there will always be a cost for ‘Free Stuff’.”

And Then, A Thought...

Not much happening of a rainy afternoon here other than I did, however, give my head a shake and re-think the white vinegar warnings.

Okay, I wouldn’t clean my gold bars or those silver ingots with vinegar and, as per the warning, question the use of said acidic cleaner on aluminium, herein after known as ‘ally’, which, by-the-by, is noted for it’s resistance to corrosion but, apparently, not vinegar. Then it hit me. Hay, isn’t that shiny shower trim chrome? That got me thinking - and how, like, awesome is that then?

Is the trim ally hot dipped to chrome? Ally electroplated with chrome? Are those two terms one and the same thing? Will white vinegar act in a detrimental way on chrome? If so, why isn’t it mentioned in the warnings? What to do? Start on a course of extensive research? Only joking. How about I search the shed for a little chromed item, left over from some past project, and kept for that ‘just in case’ moment that rarely, if ever, arrives, place it in a small dish of the liquid and observe the results over time.

I could even construct a spreadsheet to keep track of my observations and have the results presented as a series of graphs and pie charts. Giving that idea some careful thought, I do believe I’d lose the will to live after just naming various cells.

Talking of the will to live, I believe I’ll just continue as-is and see which dies first; me or the chrome.

On a final note, I see we’re remembering the great fire of London and I feel those ‘we hate tobacco and all users thereof’ folk are missing a trick here so below is one fun way they could be re-writing history to further their cause. If any tobacco Timidadians pass by, please note the operative word here is ‘fun’.

It’s been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the fire started at King's Bakery in Pudding Lane when the owner, one Thomas Farriner, a known heavy smoker, stepped out back for a quick smoke, or a crafty Raleigh as it was called back then, while his ovens worked their baking magic on a batch of goodies.

Shortly after lighting up he smelt burning emanating from the bake-house, dropped his fag and rushed back inside just in time to extinguish a burning batch of pepperoni pizzas. Ensuring all was safe in the bakery, he then withdrew to a local hostelry for a self congratulatory ‘job well done’ drink or six.**

Sadly, his hastily discarded cigarette smouldered away awhile and finally ignited a pile of recently delivered pizza boxes. The rest, as they say, is new history. Bloody smokers, eh?

**As an added historical note, it’s a sad reflection on the attitudes of the people of those far off times to note that it was considered quite normal and acceptable for folk to have a Raleigh in a pub should they have so wished.

Quote;  Charles Dudley Warner.

“To poke a wood fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the world.”

And Then, Old And New...

The good Caratacus reminded me that the 26 August was the anniversary of the battle of Crécy and, as he stated, there was nary a mention of this English victory throughout the MSM. He also provides a link to a simple clip. In these modern times, any English victory seems to be none PC an if it’s mentioned at all in school, it’ll probably be taught along the lines of those dastardly English, cowed into following the orders of the hated aristocracy, slaughtering defenceless French horses.

A. K. Haart; here you go, the destructions for that vinegar stuff. Hard to read? I know the feeling.
                     
As usual, the devil’s in the fine print. I guess the clue is in the name; vinegar = acidic. I honestly don’t think that any damage could be done to the trim as it only gets minimal over-spray and is only left to soak for a short time, but, over extended usage?

Anyhoo, the comment by Caratacus triggered another voyage into the past bit of my brain to something wot I copied from somewhere some years ago and wot I’ve pasted below. In an attempt to credit the original author, I did one of they search thingies and it seems the piece is reproduced all over the place but none I found mention the author. Whoever you are, thank you very big.

I certainly won’t fall over backwards in surprise if you’ve already seen it. Is it a modern parable or a fable? A farable perhaps?

NOTE; the name of the London Mayor has been changed from Ken Living-dead to that of the present incumbent.

The old version:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

---------------------------------------------------------

The new, politically correct version:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others, less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC interrupts a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with the breaking news and highlights a multi-cultural choir singing 'We Shall Overcome'.

Sadiq Khan rants in the Guardian that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his 'fair share' and announces increases to the charge for squirrels entering inner London.

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper didn’t want to work. The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and re-distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the place. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers' drug ‘illness'.

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arriving in UK.

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The government praises the asylum-seeking cats for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity, and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a government minister.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombings, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses. Their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told they’ll have to work well beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

THE END

Quote; Napoleon Bonaparte.

“What is history but a fable agreed upon? “