Category Archives: Secrets

Apr 16 2013

The one with the Fear and the Doubt


Fear and Doubt are two things that are personal to the ‘you’.

Today I find myself in a place where I have both, and there are rare periods of time when I have the fear or I have the doubt.

They’re not common periods, and seem to come and go as quickly as a moment.

I’m not sure I have  them about a specific things, or  whether I’m  just generally in doubt, or in fear.

Not doubtful but in doubt. I doubt my security at my workplace, isn’t the same as being doubtful about my job security. For the former is a feeling I have, an uncertainty as a reaction to things, an it’s not based on any outward events, actions or news that would lead me otherwise to doubt things.

Doubt as a reaction to a change, and not being able to settle to a position on it. Doubt because you’re not actually sure about the journey you’re being asked to go on.

I sometimes have the doubt in my own ability, and if I have the fortitude to get me through the journey.

The Fear. Sometimes I have this with the doubt. Sometimes just on its own.

Fear of getting old, of not having done enough, of being poor. A fear that somehow you’ve left something undone. A fear your life is about to be tipped over off balance.

So where has my suddenly melancholy fear and doubt some from?  And when will it go away, and when will I know it has? Why has a sudden introspection thrown me off my good game?

I know that I’m feeling this way, and have fallen into a funk which makes it somewhat worse, I think acknowledging it is a start to making it better. Im not about to go sit on a cliff top or by the waters edge and spend hours in contemplation, it’s not a depression I have, just a fear and doubt.

And I’m sure that this too will pass

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Dec 9 2012

The 12 ways of Christmas – Secret Santa


It’s that time again, we spend 10 months hoping it gets here, one month preparing and then the whole of December questioning the sense of it all.

I’m going to start with Secret Santa. This year over half the people in the #Cubefarm decided that they’d like to do a #SecretSanta.

I have some ideas why the other less than half opted out, the stress of finding a $10 trinket, or for a couple of course the obvious religious reluctance.

I managed to persuade one of the non participants to draw the random name thing for everyone, much easier than going desk to desk, person to person, get everyone signed up and then get them a name. Hopefully the person drawing the names made some common sense decisions about pairing people up, despite everything there are people that wouldn’t match well with others.

Really, it's a boob mouseIn previous years I’ve managed to accrue some really tacky things, things that aren’t even remotely funny or even vaguely related to my own sense of humour or interaction, the comedy computer mouse with boobs as buttons for instance.

Perhaps someone should have got me a funny bone instead.

To be fair I kept this in my office cupboard for ages before it suddenly made its way into oblivion.

There is, at least for me, at least a little bit of skill required to get something that’s at least pertinent to the person you’re buying for. But there are always the obvious and desperate box of chocolate gifts that are just thoughtless, at least they’re trying though.

But and also, I’ve been part of the #NZTwitterSecretSanta thing, whereby @Websam for the second year mashed together a webs site and a random pairing generator to connect nearly 800 people together for a similar process.

The obvious drawbacks, some of the twitter accounts turned out not really to exist, some of them were locked or protected accounts, some of the participants are not regular tweeters. Of course there is always a percentage that will receive and not give.

I’ve given, and wait patiently for reciprocated love, and I’m aware a few people in the same boat, waiting for both the receiver to acknowledge the gift, and to receive their random thing.

Last time up I received a water pistol. Like I said random, and not always thoughtful or pertinent.

Related articles

 

Nov 15 2012

The one with the dodgy kidney


I’ve been living with IgA nephropathy for since 1990 ish

I saw a medical man today, (5th November) Professor Ian Simpson, about it. It’s been since 1998 since I’ve seen anyone, since I was discharged from the out care unit at Auckland Hospital, in factt. And so I’ve been doing this worrying about my kidneys since, and making sure I keep a regular check on them, and all that.

How did this come about, the referral all of a sudden, well that’s a tale of two things. The second thing first.

My regular doctor changed buildings recently and as part of they hoof all all paper records to the new place, and in reviewing them when I went to see him last it came as a bit of a surprise to him that I had a “condition”. So off I went with a referral.

Such a nice man, Professor Simpson, a conversational doctor, who told me by and by many things, gave me a bag of advice and a few warnings. I came away uplifted,

The kidneys, well I thought they’d been damaged by a virus thing, an upper respiratory infection, and ear ache of Brobdingnagian proportions and an sore throat is what I remember, it was long time ago 1990.

But! my kidneys are fine and dandy, everything I’ve been doing to look after them has been spot on, including the 6 monthly blood tests, and the medication.

All I have to do is lose about a gazillion kilograms and get a bit active. And he says I’ll be on the right side of the longevity thing, uplifting or what!

In an update today it appears that Auckland DHB have lost my medical records including the slides or whatever of the biopsy that I had, but not to worry the general thing still stands that I’m in fine fettle, and need to focus a bit on me.

The upshot really though is that I’ve been living with a monkey on my back for a long time, a background nagging, but it appears that although I’ve been doing the wrong thing that I might not have been doing enough of the good things. So I can relax a bit about the state of the things, and move on.

Aug 28 2012

Happy Families – the one with the recap #2


Anyways we crack on ….  There are many more things to tell

If you remember we had an aunt Peggy  - it turns out that she was not a relation at all. This came to light when Peggy needed proof of identity for her pension rights. Seems our nan took her in. Mum only said she was very upset and angry.

but a footnote clears it up somewhat:  Peggy is a relation, that’s your Mum’s “sister” on her birth cert. The father is named as your granddad ( Eva’s dad ), but the mother isn’t Harriet (grandmother), but is in fact your Grandads sister.  We presume that whilst married – the mother who’s name evades us at present – and with her husband is  at war (or dead) she’s become pregnant. Our Grandparents have taken Peggy as their own, hence Grandads name on the birth certificate, so Peggy was your Mums cousin and her “parents” we’re her Aunt & Uncle.

In other stories

The bishop of Fulham is a relative! He came to visit us once.

Granddad had a  brother who lived just yards away they never spoke.

Took mum to see Albert SCRIVEN  -  he being a cousin –  his brother was a boxer and actually spared with the late Sir Henry Cooper, we have a letter from him telling us that.

Granddads father fell of the back of a horse and cart and died. He was born in Crewkerne  - that’s Somerset.

granddad  served in WW I -  according to mum he was a stretcher bearer.  Had a finger knuckle shot off Clive may remember that twisted finger.

Uncle George who lived at the same house got shrapnel wounds in the back we have a photo of him in uniform with a military motorbike. Sadly he jumped in front of a train at Hither Green. There was a short story in the newspaper at the time. I talked to the head of British Railways about this but they don’t keep records.

Then there is Uncle Jim. Uncle Jim took everything,  but he died a pauper at Bury St Edmunds.  The council cremated him, and put his ashes on nans grave.

The only relation alive is by marriage, and  is Uncle George’s wife.  Mums brother, George was in the SAS.

Our older cousins are passing away,  cousin Tarn died , Cousin Sam (Clive will remember him he has cancer) is living in  somewhere like Thailand  -  sold his house to provide for himself as money goes further.

We have a relation there who as done much ancestry work,  I met him on the family tree. There is a soldier with the surname “Hicks” –  a war memorial statue, more than one, who posed for the sculpture  – we have a photo,  It’s also the memorial statue near us, anyway we’re sure there are more.

Our family tree goes back to 1604 I think but only on mums side.

We have relations in South NZ – Waimate. Might as well put this a relative played for the all blacks. a long time ago.

and Finally….

Uncle Syd was a  boxer –  using the name “Pat Crowley” in Ireland.  Not a good idea to be an Englishman with “the troubles” then. A record of 99 fights undefeated. The information came from a boxing historian who was very excited when we told him who Pat Crowley was. Also spoke to the owner of boxing magazine about George SCRIVEN, grandads son, he was an Olympic hopeful but liked women and a beer he’s the one who sparred with Henry Cooper.

Aug 28 2012

Happy Families – the one with the recap


I mentioned yesterday how strangely a family that doesn’t really communicate that well suddenly gets a burst of enthusiasm for each other. Today I have the recollections of  the #2 Child, my older brother (there are 3 sisters in between us though). Let us begin….

Lots of photo are missing the oldest ones were taken when dad was a misplaced person after the war.

The reason, for his being a misplaced person, is, I believe, dad,  along with many others were rounded up after the Warsaw uprising.

He probably knew Pope John Paul  - who evaded capture.  That could explain why we got Christmas cards and holy bread, and that we also a photo of the pope on the wall. (signed by the pope himself I remember)

This is important  - dad was a slave worker for the nazis , I think he must have been liberated by the Canadian forces so ending up in Canada, where his listed occupation was a barber.

After release dad joined the Royal Engineers.

Mum saw him visiting a friend in London (near her home address in Beacon Road and said “I will marry him” –  and she did  - at Lockerbie in Scotland.

Dad like many other war veterans did not talk about the past.

Dad first went back to Poland in 1964 in an Austin A40 car a red one.  He took to Poland things that were rare like coffee, plasters , chocolate, warm clothes  - including socks and underwear. When he came back home all he was wearing was a top and trousers and a pair of sandals he had given everything away.

The photo you are referring to is at a place called krakow  (possibly Zakopane),  you have been there along with Lesley ,Andy, Stewart also Shirley.  You all went in a Austin 1100.

That was 1966.

I remember going to Poland, indeed in a red Morris 1100 there were 4 asleep on the back seat, top to tail, and mum and dad in the front. It would have been an overnight drive. I don’t recall Stewart being there, since he was born in 1967 it would be unlikely :-)  OS just myself, my older sisters Shirley and Lesley and my younger brother Andrew.  There are a few vivid memories – I was after all only 5) Sitting on mum’s lap as we drove through the night – having a night watchman looking after the car – a bit of a rarity in Poland at the time – a private car – the Trams and the Ice Creams. 

Jun 18 2012

Unhappy Families – at least you can pick your friends – part the third.


I make no apology for the airing of dirty laundry and tawdry family behaviour in what follows. I’m as amazed and amused as you might be;

The cast, a family of 8;  5 boys, 3 girls :

#1 Son – Australia / #2 Son – England /  #3 Son (#6 child)  - New Zealand #4 Son (#7 child) England #5 Son (#8 child) - unknown
#1 Sister – England (#3 child) / #2 Sister (#4 child) - Norfolk / #3 Sister (#5 child) – Derby

The prequel….

  • My mother died suddenly and unexpectedly, and without a will.
  • There are 8 children, and we all live in dispersed places through the world, I’m in New Zealand, I have a brother in Australia. The rest of the family are salted throughout England.
  • Only one child, #1 sister lived in proximity to where the mother was living, in a sheltered accommodation (granny ghetto), and spent a fair amount of time with her.
  • That we were from a poor background led us to assume that the ‘estate’, such as it was, consisted only of a small amount of money in a Post Office account.
  • It was suggested, by #2 Son, and it was a good suggestion, that should the mother die then that fund should cover the cost of the funeral and anything left to go to the #1 sister.

And it turns out that on her death we know that there was at least a HSBC banking account with some money in it.

Part the Second – the waiting bit  – And this is where it went a bit wrong…….

We have a brother who for whatever reason has decided to go awol. He’s been unheard of for a few years. His choice. #1 Sister decided to tell the HSBC that there were only 7 children, which raised a few eyebrows, and caused some discussion between us, we all by consensus acknowledge his fair entitlement to inclusion in the family (As if that’s not the law anyway).  #4 son was volunteered to take things in hand and to take legal steps to become the administrator of the estate, since settling with the HSBC would have been impossible with only 7 of 8 signatures required.

A year or so (quickly) went past and I, in a fit of pique, decided to contact the family (Actually rather un-tactfully I put a post on FB) about how I was getting a bit miffed about not knowing what was happening. I got a fair old mouthful of feedback from the brothers (and wives of brothers) about how I needed to take a chill pill.

#4 son then starts to pursue vigorously the steps to become an administrator, which means swearing something or other in front of a judge or some such. Very important, and clearly it comes with a bunch of requirements and obligations, such as accounting for all the estate money, and assigning it to the right places.

#1 sister is asked, politely, to provide a statement or receipts of the money spent from the post office account (As mentioned above), as part of that. Also a general enquiry was made to the banking system to discover any other banking accounts that may have been active.

#1 sister sends a letter and at the end turns on the family

“May I remind all my family that on mum’s birthday it was agreed that as I had looked after mum for many years that when she died I would get everything when she passed. The agreement made still stands.
I do not want anything to do with anyone in my family. So you can take all the bank a/c money & stick it where the sun does not shine. Please do not bother me again.”

The list of expenses was a mish-mash of things, but included some items of dubious veracity, and an admission that about 50% of the money that was left had been taken by her for personal expenses and ”by this agreement”.

Part the third – the bit where you go mmmm…

That’s ok. That  there are some dubious expenses listed Is fine, it’s nit-picking to go over it with a fine tooth comb and be picky to the Nth degree, but does raise the hackles of the family who want at this point to have a completely fair an open understanding of what is what.

And all this is ok except for a couple of things,

  1. Not all the family made this agreement (not that it’s not a sensible and fair sounding thing).
  2. Turns out from the general enquiry to the banking system that there was another building society account ! Who knew?!

Indeed who knew? #1 sister knew and had produced a statutory declaration signed by her which stated she was legally entitled to the money, and had been paid out in full. #4 son has requested a copy of the declaration as part of his administrator status.

Follows though is a bit of  response from me and fury from #1 Son, #2 Son, and #4 Son. Along the lines that “Any agreement that was made only covered the post office account” and that a building society account was in place was unknown at the time (but not by everyone it seems). The #2 and #3 sisters have been silent on this issue so far between the whole family, they may have or may offer something to #4 son in due course.

What is clear that #1 Sister may have made a bit of a mistake. She’s clearly done something that has upset the family and gone against any spirit of agreement or understanding. It might not even be strictly legal.

From the ensuing emails the ongoing consensus seems to be at this point that

  • It’s not about the money (as if it ever was – the amounts are in reality small).
  • It’s about fair, and everyone being given the chance to say what happened to the money, and not have some arbitrary “you said in passing I could have it all”.
  • Those that have an opinion don’t think that the money is recoverable from #1 sister.
  • Those that have an opinion seem to agree that a legal recourse might be required to make a point.

I’m glad we live so far disbursed from each other, reasoned and judged emails, I think, are the way we’re going to resolve this, and resolve it we will. Can you imagine this as an afternoon meeting that you wouldn’t want to be at. I have to point out too that MrsPdubyah is convinced that there are more skeletons to uncover, such as the insurance policies that are yet to come to light.

Feb 18 2012

No Bain no Gain


I was spurred on by this today about David Cullen Bain :  David Bain Defence Still Less Than Convincing | Stuff.co.nz.

I’ll put my stall out before I get to the article;

My opinion on this is that Robin didn’t do it. Despite insinuation and denial it’s not that cut and dried. It could have been if David had testified in the re-trial, which he chose not to do, relying on fear, uncertainty, doubt and liberal attitudes to sway an unpredictable jury.

For me the key piece of doubt relies on the time that the computer was switched on.

The time. What exactly was the time, compared to what time, there was no “reference time”, everyone looked at their own watches and decided that was the time. It’s was a nonsense from the get-go

So how do you tell when a computer was started, I might have missed a trick or two but I still do not know how or where a computer of that age would have stored that kind of information, and I then assume that it was a guess. A guess based on some “expert” pressing the go button and timing with a stopwatch the time it took him, an expert, to type in the mystery message. Like a said a nonsense.

Lets assume that there was a record, somehow, in a history boot file, or something unknown to me, that only tells us a relative time, it’s not “the time” it’s the time that the computer thinks it is.

If I could get that answer straight in my head then I’d be happier. I might be the only on banking on that drum though, the prosecution and certainly the defense don’t want to answer  the question. I even asked the defense team once and got a very off hand reply.

Any way via David Bain Defence Still Less Than Convincing | Stuff.co.nz.

The second item of key evidence is the bloody footprints found in the Every St house. Clearly, if Karam can show the footprints were made by Robin Bain, then he is home and dry. This is because Robin’s socks, when he was found, had no blood on them, showing he must have changed them between shooting the family and then himself.

Robin’s foot was 270mm long and David’s 300mm. A bloodied footprint in the house measured 280mm, but the scientist who did the testing stressed the footprint might not show the “extremities of the heel and toe”.

Karam hangs his hat on testing done by both defence and prosecution experts who had subjects dip their feet in a tray of pig’s blood and then walk on various surfaces.

These tests showed it was very unlikely a person with a foot of David’s size would make a 280mm print under luminol testing (it is usually larger). As with most reconstructions, this testing was flawed from the start. The variables were huge. Were the socks the same? Was weight put on the feet the same? Did the carpet in the tests match the Every St carpet? Was the amount of blood on the socks the same?

…

At the trial I counted at least 20 items of important evidence which, in my view, pointed to Bain’s guilt. According to the book, they all have innocent and logical explanations, but key points such as the damaged glasses found in Bain’s room, sister Laniet’s gurgling, the fingerprints on the rifle, the blood on Bain’s clothes and the bruises on his face are formidable although admittedly not unimpeachable pieces of evidence.

Interestingly, Karam does not mention the bizarre if not ludicrous scenario that would have played out if Robin had been the killer. This involves Robin putting his bloodied clothes in the washing basket and then changing his clothes and socks before killing himself in a highly unusual way.

The trial-by-ambush scenario as trumpeted by the title of the book is not sustained. I had to wonder if this was because the defence was not immune to springing things on the prosecution and had to be counselled by the judge on several occasions.

…

Karam is right about many things in the Bain case. Some of the police bungles were inexcusable, but neither was it the shoddy inquiry he makes it out to be. It’s true some tests, if done, might have exonerated Bain, but also they might have supported his alleged guilt.

I doubt this book will change many minds. Karam has once again done a superb job for David Bain. Perhaps more debatable, in my opinion, is whether he has done such a fine job for justice.

I’ve been known to change my mind before, on many thing’s, and I’ve read the books, read various web pages, articles, Wikipedia entries, and pro and anti sentiments. The family was dysfunctional and Robin was a “strange egg” but whilst it’s not unusual for the police to get the wrong man, for me in the case they didn’t and we’ve had an ongoing tragedy played out before us.

I wish David well, I have no personal malice or desire to cause him hurt harm or distress, only he knows for sure, and only him, and he had the chance to say, and he chose not to.

I rest my case.

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Aug 31 2011

In an instant…


Way back when, before the internet and mobile phones we’d agree to meet somewhere and we did. The newspapers arrived with the news from far-flung places, with the best bits held for the Sunday papers. Junk mail didn’t exist. There were weekly local newspapers. We all watched either the news at 5:45, 9pm or 10pm or all three. There was no 24 hour TV.

Fast forward a bit. Now we have everything in an instant.”Social Media”. For instance  we have Twitter, which is about as real-time as it gets without being there, sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes not. If you’ve ever witnessed the rise and decline of a twitter meme you’ll understand how fickle it is.

And we have deal-a-day websites, by the hundreds, imploring us to buy now, immediately, things we don’t need at prices we can’t ignore. We have deal a day advertising on twitter of course, and Facebook.

We can’t just agree to meet somewhere, we have to text and call numerous times ‘just in case’ It’s scary how frail we’ve become, how unsure it all is, how needy.

Facebook has given everyone access to our lives, out thoughts and deeds. And we accept it. FourSquare has given you the ability to let people know what cafe, shop, street, bar you are in all the time. It’s “me” central!

But it can’t carry on. This explosion of socializing on the internet is doomed at some point, where it becomes intrusive. And I mean intrusive to me – I don’t really care that you’re the mayor of the donut shop, I don’t really want to see your party pictures on Facebook. There are bits of your life that I am interested in, just not some bits.

Twitter, Text, Facebook, et al, is where the wild west is. “Everyone” is trying to get a piece of the action, to make a buck, and to get you to spend a buck. At some point you just have to switch off and tune out.

Now I can’t actually think of a service that I’ve used that has fallen into obscurity, other than the web hosting Geocities, other than that Bebo, and MySpace perhaps. So I can’t see a tailspin for any of the services we use right now, or are familiar with, which are, to repeat them, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, and Youtube. Even an aggregation of all these things into one super app isn’t what is going to happen, because why? It’ll be too cumbersome, too awkward, too heavy.

The thing that we overlook  with Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Youtube. Google+, Flikr, WordPress, LinkedIn et al is that they are all “free” That’s right we don’t need to part with any cash of any kind to use them. Sure we have to have a device that can access them interactively, but they are free to use. And we accept that without question that we’re giving up something for something. We just don’t seem to care about what it is we’re giving up, which in two words is privacy and ownership. Of our identity and our intellectual property.

Anything that rises will have to have some basics, speed, reach, ease and appeal. Anything that falls will have become bloated, tedious or have some cataclysm around it like bankruptcy, where users fall away like hair falling out never to return.

Aug 25 2011

Driving Entertainment


Sometimes my journey to work or home from work can take an hour or more. And filling that time can be a chore.

It took me a while to cotton onto podcasts. I know! and there is an awful lot of chaff in the wheat.

I started with the “ricky gervais show” radio series, and whilst initially not a podcast it did turn into a podcast show, and they are very funny.

And this is a bit convoluted but then came twitter, and on twitter I came across a twitterer from the NZ Sceptics society, and then to another twitterer who mentioned some podcasts.

These then were “The Merseyside Skeptics -Skeptics with a K” and the awfully good “Righteous indignation” podcasts. However having listened to each of  them all from Episode 1, which was rewarding, I got to the point where I’d caught up, and was back to the radio for entertainment, so now I get my fix on a weekly or bi-weekly basis from these guys.

I tried other podcasts from the sceptical range but you know when you’re enjoying something or someone, and if you’re not engaged with the personalities or voices, pace or content you soon stop. So I never did get on with others, yet. Of the two that I mentioned above one has a slant towards “alternate medicine” but also covers a range of topics and subjects, there is always something. The latter has a paranormal focus, and I was hooked from episode 1, which I still think was one of the best. So crop circles, monsters, and interviews with a psychic, it all gets an examination.

I latched on the Play of the week podcast from the beeb, they can be challenging, but now I’m catching up on the “Irriligiosophy – the one true podcast” which is an atheist podcast that examines religion from the perspective of two people who were part of the mormon church and are now atheist. It’s sometimes stodgy, sometimes a bit off track, sometimes not relevant but frequently funny.

Thinking about the content of the podcasts mentioned, with the exception of the play of the week, they’re all belief based podcasts.  And they have sharpened up my critical thinking and questioning of things, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in an angry way. I don’t believe everything I hear, and I don’t agree with it all, Vaccinations are good (for instance), fluoridation of water bad.

I get a lot of pleasure out of affirmation of my beliefs, that there are others that share similar thoughts about religion, alt-med, ghosts, psychics and monsters. I wouldn’t have it any other way.