I woke to the sound of
the rain, rolled over and went back to sleep. I woke a little later to hear no
rain and smiled. I took the puppies outside to find it was pouring down
outside. How did that work? They did their thing and went to bother a sleeping “er
indoors TM”. Two soggy dogs made her sit up and take notice.
I
made toast and watched the fourth episode of “The Pentaverate”. In the
introductory monologue the narrator (Jeremy Irons) said that this was
episode four so if you’ve watched it that far you might as well carry on with
the rest. And that was why I carried od watching. If you’ve not seen the show,
don’t bother.
I
then sparked up the laptop. There was an interesting discussion on Facebook
about capital punishment where a very middle-class chap (who I have known since
1975) was pondering on the morality of imprisoning someone for the rest of
their life. There were all sorts of opinions being expressed. Some were saying
that execution was too good for them, others felt that a stern talking-to would
make offenders see the error of their ways.
Whilst
no laws can be absolute (which is why we need judges and juries) I can’t
help but think that people break whatever law is being broken because for them
the benefits of doing so far outweigh
any consequences their action might bring.
I
once worked with a chap from the deepest parts of China who would leave his
six-year-old daughter having her dinner in the works canteen. When we explained
about how it isn’t safe to leave children on their own, he explained that in
his home village there was a stocks where wrong-doers got put, and villagers
would throw things at them. Traditionally we think of rotten fruit, but
apparently on the one time in living memory when the stocks was used people
threw bricks. And so everyone behaved themselves.
Or
take when I was at school. I for one was terrified by the thought of the cane
and so didn’t muck about. The headmaster had a cane and anyone who sodded about
sufficiently would get “two of the best” (NOT six). They would
have a sore arse for a day, and a thousand boys would behave themselves for
ages.
Or
look at how children carry on these days. When my two were small if they sodded
about they got a crack on the bum and they knew it. Those people who disagreed
with corporal punishment either had no children of their own, or had the most
ill-behaved brats.
As
a leader in the Boys Brigade and in the Scouts I would watch other leaders
trying to reason with recalcitrant brats who were openly laughing at reason.
Generally
(there are some exceptions) crimes are committed because there is little
deterrent. With a harsher penal system, people behave themselves and crime is
lower.
It
has been my experience that those who don’t subscribe to the “hang ‘em high”
philosophy are some of the best and most decent people I have ever met, but
really don’t understand that not everyone holds their values.
Seeing
the rain had slacked off to a medium monsoon I chivvied the puppies out of bed.
Leaving Treacle and “er indoors TM” snoring I took the small
ones to dog club. I rather expected a poor turn-out, but in (yet another)
triumph of idiot enthusiasm over common sense loads of people ventured the
weather and brought their dogs to the swamp which was the field at Repton
Community Centre.
There
are those who wouldn’t see the fun in standing in a swamp watching
dogs running riot (whilst getting tiddled on three times), but the
dogs love it, and so do I.
As
we drove there and drove home we listened to Steve on the radio. I strained my
brain on the mystery year… “Poldark”, “Space 1999”, “The
Growing Pains Of PC Penrose”… I was
confident that it was 1976… then changed my mind to 1978.
Google
told me it was 1975. I suppose I was close…
We
carried on listening to Steve as we then drove to Sainsburys. “er indoors TM”
went into Sainsburys; I went off to get
petrol. Far be it from me to disrespect those who fixed the car’s bodywork
before Christmas, but before the car went in for fixing the trip meter would
get to five hundred miles before the “need fuel” light comes on. Now it
comes on just after four hundred miles. All the fix-it people did was bodywork;
there’s nothing they could have done which would have caused this… but over the
last month I’ve been getting a hundred miles less per tank.
I
drove on to Sainsburys and chivvied “er indoors TM” out.
We
came home, and I spent three more hours working (struggling with) the
Lego pirate ship that a colleague gave me late last year. Last Sunday I said of
the thing “She’d warned me that some of the bits were missing. I’m not sure
the instructions were the original ones either…”. I can quite understand
why she and her children had given up with it. I was making full use of my
spare Lego today. I stopped at the point where I found the Lego anchor was
missing. I shall have to think about how I might make one of those.
We
got ourselves organised and set off for Sittingbourne. A friend was having a
surprise get-together for her boyfriend. I must admit I wasn't keen on leaving
the dogs, but Charlotte had volunteered to dog-wrangle. As we approached Karl
and Tracy's house so Treacle recognised the area and got incredibly excited.
The puppies picked up on the excitement and it all got a bit much for Morgan
who disgraced himself on the laminate flooring. It happens to the best of us
from time to time.
Perhaps
we might replace the carpets with laminate flooring?
As
Charlotte dog-wrangled so the taxi arrived and we went into Sittingbourne where
quite a few of us had a rather good evening which got progressively more
vague as the evening went by.
Hic!
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