Penge Anomaly

A strange thing happened to me today. It was around 11.30am or just after, and I was crossing the road in Penge having finished my shopping when a driver paused in the queue some distance from the lights motioned to me. He was holding something in his hand which as I approached him I saw to be a £10 note. He was a young black guy who I think was in the passenger seat, if that was the case then the black car, which had an American look to it, had a left hand drive.

When I reached him, he held the money out to me. I said something, and he nodded, I took it, and the car drove off. I attempted to memorise the licence plate then thought better of it. I don’t know who he was, though he had a moustache and looked slightly disreputable, but I have a beard and am extremely disreputable! Obviously he didn’t think I was dealing drugs, maybe he thought I was a tramp; as I always dress down, that is a distinct possibility. Maybe he’d just won the lottery. I don’t know what moral to draw from this, but I think we should all try to be a bit kinder, especially to strangers, including people to whom we would not normally give the time of day.

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.

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.

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.

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 44^th 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.

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.

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.