Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Real Victims And Head Cases

Here is how you tell real victims from head cases. The attractive young woman at the top is Elizabeth Smart. In June 2002 when she was 14 years old, she was kidnapped from her bed at knifepoint by a religious fanatic and his equally mad wife.

She was raped repeatedly over a period of months. She is now married and the mother of a daughter.

The not so young woman claims when she was 7 or perhaps 8 years old, Rolf Harris indecently assaulted her briefly, in a matter of seconds. She has never recovered from it.

The real victims get on with their lives, often in stellar fashion. The head cases never move on, including from assaults that never happened.

Thursday, 9 July 2015

Schrödinger’s Rapist — Even Feminazis Aren’t Wrong About Everything

In this case they are right, but for the wrong reasons. Here is the proposition seen from a male perspective, albeit a not particularly bright one:

Several years ago, I came across a woman standing on a street corner at night, obviously lost. She asked where the nearest train station was and I told her – about 20 minutes walk away. I offered to drive her to the station but she refused, saying she’d catch a cab instead.

When I got home, I told my partner about the incident and how puzzled I was that the woman refuse my offer of a lift. My partner said “why would she get into a car with an unknown male. For all she knew, you may take her somewhere and rape her”. While I understood this, I was a little offended – “why would anyone think that”?

Okay, let me offer a counter anecdote, many years ago, sometime between about 1987 and early 1996, I was out running late-ish one night. (I gave up running on medical advice in September 1996, so this is about as far as I can narrow it down). On my way home I’d slowed to a walk when I was approached by a young German girl who was looking for the place she was staying. I think she was an exchange student or something. She spoke passable English, certainly it was a lot better than my German. Anyway, I said I had an A-Z at home, and I would go and get it for her, which I did. I left her waiting around the junction of Venner Road and Newlands Park, ran off home then returned; she was still there, we found where she was headed, she thanked me, and we went our separate ways. I suppose I should have offered to walk with her because earlier she had indicated she was willing to come back to my flat. I almost agreed because it was foggy and cold, but decided on balance that was not a good idea, just in case she was a loony and screamed rape. So you see, this works both ways.

Having said all that, I was amazed at her gullibility, but resisted the temptation to lecture her about men like Ted Bundy.

Schrödinger’s Rapist is paranoia, but for the wrong reasons. Okay, a girl who approaches a guy is less likely to put her life in danger than vice versa, but it has been known. When I was growing up in the 1960s, parents routinely warned their kids – boys as well as girls – not to go with strangers, not to take sweets from them, not to talk to them. Strange women as well as strange men, because this was the era of Brady and Hindley. Let us not forget that it was Hindley who lured their victims into the car, something Brady would most likely have been unable to do to a streetwise kid, so in some cases the female is deadlier than the male.

There is absolutely no need to become paranoid about rape, but one should always beware of strangers because contrary to feminist propaganda, the majority of rapes are indeed committed by strangers. Ultimately though any of us can be violated or murdered by someone we know and trust because ordinary people go gaga on occasion, and after 7/7 we will never know who we can trust and who we can’t. Ultimately all any of us can do is take reasonable precautions, and if for a woman that means being suspicious of strange men – including me – well, that’s the price we and indeed society will have to pay.

Saturday, 13 June 2015

My Doctor Is A Santana Fan

She must be because as I walked out of the door after my appointment she said “I hope you’re feeling better”.

Seriously, I was feeling absolutely horrible yesterday morning; I crashed out and resolved to fast all day, but although I managed a 17 day hunger strike in November 1996, these days I can’t go four hours without taking a bite out of something. She was a locum by the way, hello she said, I’m Susan, one of the doctors. She probably said that because she hardly looked old enough to be doctor, and what a surprise she was too, smallish, bubbly, and with a nice albeit small set of jugs I could have avoided staring at but she would insist on sitting close to me and feeling me around the gills. Does this hurt, she asked? Seriously, much of the magic of medicine is in the laying on of hands, let’s face it, an attractive young woman touching your neck and face softly like that never made anyone feel bad, man or woman.

Talking of bad though, the bad news is that she diagnosed me with nascent influenza – on the hottest day of the year! The really bad news is of course that I am at least a quarter of a century too late, though when I think of the last lady doctor who shared my bed, I don’t feel quite so disappointed, but that’s another story.

Friday, 8 May 2015

The Eclipse Of Women

Recently, the A List actress Sandra Bullock was declared the world’s most beautiful woman by People magazine, while the UK soap actress Michelle Keegan was declared the world’s sexiest woman by OK!magazine. Both are extremely attractive, and not just for a 50 year old in the case of Miss Bullock, but...

Which brings me to Eclipse, an Eighteenth Century racehorse. This stallion was raced eighteen times, and didn’t simply win every race but left the opposition standing. This led to the phrase “Eclipse first and the rest nowhere”. There is a woman who is to beautiful women what Eclipse was to other racehorses; her name is Candice Night. Mary Pickford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Lynsey de Paul, Kate Bush...were/are incredible, but also-rans.

Has there ever been any woman in history who came close to Candice Night in loveliness? Stunningly attractive in her youth, blue eyes, with that same long blonde hair today, she looked and looks like an angel. But it doesn’t stop there, she has the voice of an angel too, both her singing voice and her speaking voice. And the personality of an angel, a genuinely lovely human being. But wait, there is even more, brains too, poetess, lyricist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and together with Ritchie Blackmore the creator of a new genre of music. In short, the complete package, even lovelier today, her 44th birthday, a mother of two, than she was the day I first saw her in an interview with her future husband way back in 1997.

Every time I see her, she leaves me speechless with delight. Happy birthday Candice, from one of your many, many admirers, male and female.

Friday, 17 April 2015

My Harold Covington Moment

I can’t remember the exact date, but I was fifty years old at the time, and having reached that age, an age I thought I would never live to see, I was feeling more than a twinge of regret at the inevitability of dying without issue.

I was in Central London not far from Cambridge Circus, and it was a sunny evening. Coming towards me was a tall, young, bearded man, blond or blondish, and handsome. Something about him caught my eye, and I thought if I’d had a son, he would probably be about his age, and impressive physical specimen that he was, I would have been proud to call him mine. Then something unthinkable happened. He was walking with another man of about the same age, this man was clean shaven, and they were talking. Then, to my utter horror, as they were right on top of me, the bearded man put his arm around his companion’s waist. I couldn’t believe it, and as they passed me I turned to look back to ensure I wasn’t daydreaming. Sadly it was not a daydream but a nightmare; they were actually walking off like lovers.

At that point, I thought of Wicked Harold, a man who is nowhere near as wicked as his myriad enemies believe, nor as wicked as he likes to make out, as I know from personal experience. Harold has never been shy about ranting against queers. While I’ve never been able to take lesbianism seriously, there are few things that disgust me as much as male homosexuality. Suddenly I was glad to be both fifty years old and childless, because if this man had indeed been my son, I would have died of shame.

Friday, 3 April 2015

A Degree Of Separation

You really begin to feel your age when you are separated by one degree of separation from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Almost. When Samuel J. Seymour was knee high to a grasshopper. his godmother took him to the theatre, and while there, on April 14, 1863, John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln in the head. The President died the following morning. On February 9, 1956, Mr Seymour appeared on the American Quiz show I’ve Got A Secret wherein one of the panel guessed correctly what was his secret, namely that he was the last living witness to the Lincoln assassination.

Seymour J. Seymour died April 12, 1956, and less than four months later I was born, so in theory I could almost have met him, though sometimes, when my back is at its worst, I feel like I actually met Lincoln.

Having said that, I have a closer connection to Adolf Hitler, having shaken the hand of a man who had shaken the hand of a man who had actually shaken hands with the Führer. That is probably not something to boast about, so I will say that my connection to royalty is a lot closer, having been in the same room as both Charles and the tragic Diana, although not at the same time.

Thursday, 12 March 2015

My First Revealed Truth

As today is an anniversary of sorts, it’s about time I wrote about this matter. I’ve had a number of revealed truths over the years, decades; this is not only the first one I remember, but the first one, period. I was bullied unmercifully at school. Although that is a cliché, it is true in my case. I can still remember my very first day at junior school, and the kids who tried to force my head down the toilet in the outside “bogs”, and how a friend helped me, a neighbour who lived downstairs in the same block of flats. I alluded to his mother in a previous rant, but to stay on track, when I decided to chuck in school after one year of sixth form, one of my chief tormentors – who was, ironically, the reason I first took a real interest in chess – alluded to my tenure at Barnhill Secondary Modern as “Six years of unhappiness”. He thought that was a real laugh.

It was a year or two before that though, my first revealed truth. I was, I think, fourteen, and used to hang around in a small gang. One of this three strong gang – Biscuit (don’t ask) – lived near a drop-out named Roger, on the opposite side of the road and a few doors down. He was, I suppose, a nasty piece of work. Although he was perhaps seventeen his teeth were already rotten. One day when I came out of school. probably later, after the crowds had gone, he and another, younger boy whose name I don’t think I ever knew, tormented and hit me. Although I’ve always been tall, I was too a bit of a wimp, and never used to hit back. On this occasion though I did, and it made matters worse. I was rescued by a girl. I’m not sure if she was older than me but I have a feeling she wasn’t in my year. She didn’t physically pull them off, of course, but she did chastise them, and in 1970, boys would generally not hit girls.

I don’t think she got more involved than that, I think probably I had a bloody nose or something. Anyway, fast forward a week or two, and as I was coming out of school, late again, there was a mangy cur a few feet away from me. There were a few stray dogs that used to hang around the school. I don’t know why, but for some reason this dog annoyed me, I picked up a stick, or perhaps a stone, and threw it at the animal. I think I took a swipe at it too, a wild kick that missed. And would you believe who came along? Yes, it was the very same girl, and after berating my conduct, she said something like “I’m glad those boys hit you now”.

What is the moral of this? Well, how often do you hear the claim, usually in a court case, that X was abused as a child, which is why he dragged this woman into the bushes and raped her, or Y was sexually abused by her wicked uncle, which is why she falsely accused her ex-boyfriend of raping her? And so on. Abuse does affect us, so do many things, but does it either help us or really make us feel better by subjecting someone else to pain and misery because we have suffered? And is it really an excuse?

I wish I’d learned that lesson, but four decades and more on, I can’t say I have. On top of that, Roger, the same youth with the rotten teeth who abused me on that occasion, well, he started hanging around with us, or we with him. As I said, he was a nasty piece of work for sure, but I suppose it was cool to hang out with him, although I never used that word at the time. There must be another moral there about abusive relationships, but here I will simply put it down to the follies of youth.

March 13, 2015