As I scoffed my brekkie I
read something on the Internet that made me think. I have often said
that we don't actually have a very balanced view of history because
all the first hand eye-witness evidence we have from days gone by is
from people who could be bothered to write it down. And people who
can be bothered to write it down will colour what they write down
according to their personal prejudices. I certainly have done this
over the last few years.
Mind you, without
eye-witness reports we can infer from historical evidence. Over the
last century TV and radio and newspapers provide a lot of the
historical record. Much of it has disappeared (like a lot of
Doctor Who episodes) but archaeologists are used to piercing
together from the scraps that they find. But now the historical
record is being edited. The BBC has decided to expunge
"It
Ain't Half Hot Mum"
from history. It was a rather dire comedy. It was bigoted and
racist. But it was very much a show of its time. The show speaks
volumes about social attitudes of the time that the show was made far
more than it does about the time in which the show was set. To remove
it and to make it not available too future generations will not allow
our children and grandchildren to get a better view of where they
came from. Do we have the right to edit our history in this way?
With brekkie scoffed and
some of the laundry on the line and some more in the tumble drier I
took Fudge for a walk. I had a letter to post for the astro club and
since the post box up the road went missing some time ago we went to
the town's post office where I knew there was a post box. Whilst in
town I looked for a new geocache which had gone live yesterday, My
beloved had looked for it last night and had given up. I found it in
a matter of seconds. Sometimes these things are glaringly obvious;
sometimes they are not.
We continued our walk
exploring some paths round the back of Godinton Road and followed
down Chart Road, past Matalan and into the back of the park where we
met "Orangehead" and her chunky little friend. We
exchanged pleasantries; the chunky little commented that Fudge is
well known in local dog walking circles because (apparently)
he is the one which is "one dog high and two dogs long".
That made me snigger.
We then saw some strange
woman being dragged along by an evil animal which I can only describe
as a set of snapping jaws on a lead. She hysterically screamed that
we should get away from her dog because it was wild and she couldn't
stop it. We went the other way where I warned other dog walkers about
the vicious thing. A couple of chaps told that they'd been savaged by
it previously; but that it responded favourably to being kicked in
the balls. Perhaps those balls should have been removed years ago.
As we came across the
park I saw that someone has installed an outdoor table tennis table
in the park. That's nice. I shall get a ping-pong bat and an opponent
and have a go.
And so home, where I
found some geocachers in my front garden looking for the cache. They
found it and after we'd chatted for a bit I made myself a cuppa and
did some homework before embarking on more of my psychology course.
I'm a little bit unimpressed with the course so far. Last week was a
*lot* of on-line lectures that didn't actually say anything. This
week there are a *lot* of lectures which are all about biology and
physiology rather than psychology. And the on-line laboratory
experiments that we are supposed to play with don't work because the
server keeps crashing because too many students are using it.
I then got the underwear
sorted and my shirts ironed. And I then got the laundry off of the
line and put in into the spin drier. Whilst I'd been fiddling about
the rain had started and it was quite torrential. A pain as I had
plans for the late afternoon which rather depended on it not raining.
So I watched more drivel which I had recorded onto the SkyPlus box
whilst Fudge sat on my lap and farted continually.
By the time er indoors
TM" got home the weather had chirped up
quite a bit, so we went out for a walk for the evening. To Larry's
Wood and then on to Challock. As the evening wore on it got rather
nippy, but it was good to be out.
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