Unemployed at Home!

Suddenly I've become a domestic God!

Royal Mail decided in its wisdom to dismiss me during the height of the recent dispute. Since then I've become chief childminder and bottle-washer. It's an interesting role and not one I haven't experienced in the past. However, the changes I've noticed in what constitutes 'proper' childcare over the years has astounded me. My baby daughter has had to sleep on her back. Apparently, this is to avoid 'cot-death'. The consequence of this is she has no idea how to crawl! More babies are now walking before they've learned to crawl.

Feeding (post breast) is a nightmare! What a child can suffer with too much of this and not enough of that makes me wonder how on Earth we managed to survive as a species!

Anyway, she's beautiful, healthy and bright. Who could ask for more?

Are Atheists REALLY Angry People?

New TV series keep being made here in the UK trying to set the balance right between the believers and the non-believers. And recently, the general goal of the programme makers is to promote "tolerance" between those who DO and those who DON'T.



I have a problem with this.



It's obviously a response to Richard Dawkins' recent attacks on the religious community for their insistence that they have a responsibility to bring the "DON'Ts" into the fold.



Now, while I'm more than happy for the professor to set out his stall on my behalf, (a far more scholarly individual than I!), I do have reservations about being called a "Darwinian" simply because I do not believe the Bible, Torah, Koran (or Qu'ran, or whatever...) to be a true, or in any way, accurate record of history.



It matters little to me that Darwin, or Wallace for that matter, discovered certain principles which lead us to conclude that a Master Creator made everything from scratch could not have done so in the way certain 'Holy' books describe. Yes, it's all very interesting and indeed fascinating. Nature certainly is a fabulous wonder to behold in its own right, but that is not the sole reason for me not-to-believe!



I can begin with some very basic and simple unanswered questions. My middle daughter was aged just six years old when she had returned from her first time at Sunday School. (Yes, I allowed her to attend, and yes she has been given every opportunity to make up her own mind, and no - I haven't imposed my views on her!). Her first question to me was; "Does God have a willy?" The question to the adherents would have been received with incredulous horror in a "Christian" household, I've no doubt, but I asked her what she thought. Her reply was that He obviously had because He had created a man in His image. As she grew more aware of the nature of male and female anatomies and the reasons for said it occurred to her that there must be a miss God. If not; why would God have a willy? And if He didn't have one; why give Adam one?



We live in modern times. Knowledge is easier to obtain for most of us. But for fundamentalists of any religion, it's just not allowed. The Bible states quite clearly that the fall from grace that Adam and Eve endured was not from rape, murder, theft or any other serious misdeed, simply that they'd eaten the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge"! That's it! That's all it took! Stay ignorant or lose your right to Eden!



Before we've got as far as Cain and Able and where Cain "took himself a wife" from, we have to ask not- does God have a willy? - but why God wants a couple of ignoramuses jumping through the daffodils in Eden!? Why imbue them with a thinking brain?



And, of course, before we even enter into the ridiculous stories in the text, the most glaring question of all is; Where did He come from?



I'm not a "fundamentalist Darwinian", I have no axe to bear. You, and even my kids, are allowed to believe what you want to believe. But please, don't feel pressed to 'convert' me. I have eaten the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge". I have learned things that I can't un-learn. I'm already dammned to the outer reaches of Eden. And I've no intention of going back!



I'm not angry with you for your need to evade the inevitable truth of your existence. That to me seems perfectly reasonable, but don't judge others in the name of your god. And please don't kill others for the same reason. Surely, if your god is as powerful as you claim, He doesn't need your help! Let Him, and only Him, make those decisions.



Tolerance should come from you, not me. You're the ones who are supposed to set the example, aren't you?

I Used To Be....

...a postman, y'know! But I made a mistake that cost me my job. Not a warning, or a reprimand and an order to "get it right", no; I got fired!

The dispute between Royal Mail and the CWU is not about money. It's about safeguarding the jobs of the workers who are being bullied into working longer shifts, taking bigger deliveries, and losing pension benefits. And that's just for starters! Many postmen and women in my region lost their jobs unfairly, yet the union legal team have been losing nine out of ten appeals. The rot has set in good-an'-proper!!

Part of the problem (and probably the biggest part) is that Adam Crozier; the highest paid civil servant in history; wanted to sell off parts of Royal Mail to his wife's company - TNT. The government were behind him all the way up until thoughts of elections turned their heads. Crozier becomes another Dr Beeching!! Let's kill the Royal Mail and make it cheaper for my wife's company to but it!

He's lied about the fall in mailings to get the government back on board. Less letters mailings appears to equal less work. BS!! The rise of internet trading has INCREASED mailings significantly!! That's how the Royal Mail were able to announce record profits this year!! Strikes are affecting the internet trader more than any other business sector. Because that's how they make their money. And the internet is still in its infancy.

We're all victims of "the Corporate Dollar". Service industries should be 'not-for-profit'. They should not be at the mercy of the greedy few major shaerholders. Industry is for that!

Here's another thought on the Corporate Dollar - We're constantly reminded of the dangers of leaving our DVD players on 'standby'. As a postman it was my job to deliver letters to an unsuspecting host of customers. A good 80% of what I delivered went straight into the bin unopened! Mostly because it was unsolicited advertising gunk. So I did a quick calculation: a single item of mail, averages around 22grammes. We delivered to some 35million addresses in the UK. If each address received just 1 item of junk mail per day, that would equal around 7000 tonnes of waste paper per day, six days a week! However, given that we delivered unsolicited product catalogues weighing in at some 20 times more than the average, and promotional magazines with even more pages, how much paper is wasted on chasing sales?

Baby, baby, baybeeee!!!

Our beautiful daughter Martha Olivia was born (finally) at 7minutes past one on the 24th!

A long, and incredibly arduous, labour belied our romantic ideas of a home birth in a pool. No more gruesome details, but to say, in the words of Jim Reeves; "Welcome To My World" - you gorgeous thing!!