by
Frank Hatton

Some of you may know that I have a grandson called Jack. He is coming up to his sixth birthday, and rightly or wrongly, I have encouraged him to differentiate between fact and fiction with regard to the stories we either read from a book, or those which I make up from my own imagination. Hence he understands that Peter Pan is not a real person, and that neither children or adults can actually fly, unless it is in an aeroplane or some other mechanical device. Likewise he accepts that the wicked witches, cruel magicians, and frightening monsters, are figments of an authors mind, and that in fiction, it is possible to make anything happen that you want. Now, his mother, (my daughter) is not 100% happy with this situation, and has taken me to task on several occasions for spoiling his childhood stories by putting the realities forward. In fact, it has already caused me to walk on eggshells on a couple of instances, like when he asked me about the tooth fairy, and wanted to know if she really came into his bedroom and scrambled around under his pillow. Also, on another dangerous episode, he touched on the reality of Father Christmas, but, fortunately I was able to blind him with sufficient science to side-track from giving him a direct answer. The point I am trying to make here, is that when one starts to give an appreciation of the difference between fact and fiction, then it should be appreciated that it is a very delicate and precipitous path, and your so called wisdom is highly likely to come back and give you a terrific wallop between the eyes. Like the two examples I have given of the tooth fairy, and Father Christmas. A long time ago, I came to the momentous decision that governments and politicians are up to the same sort of games and tricks when dealing with the folk who have the power to either elect them, or reject them. During the run up to the election, they beguile us with all sorts of fairy tales about how they are going to make life more comfortable for us, by increasing our incomes and lowering our taxes. Our health services will be better, the children will get a far superior education. The police will be given more money to increase their efficiency, more housing will be provided for the less well off, and generally, life will be a sort of utopian, star filled, heavenly existence. However, we are all aware that once they have achieved the position of power, the whole scene changes; sure they want to carry out all of their election promises, buuuut, unfortunately, the amount of money available has to be used for different priorities, and they feel sure the electorate will understand the realities of life are such that these other things will have to await the time when finances will allow them to be rectified. One of the reasons that this thought came to mind, was the forthcoming Republican election for the nomination of the Presidential candidate in the USA, and while I do truly appreciate one cannot believe everything one reads or hears on the TV, the down to earth appeal of Mr John McCain seems to give a realistic picture of how the country should be run. While I am aware that he is a national hero of the Vietnam war, I get this feeling that he has also been either a cab driver or a barber at some time in his life, as these are the only folk I have ever met in my life who appear to have a clear idea of the way things should be done to achieve success in politics. In my customary stupidity, I wonder what would happen if a candidate for a high governmental position were to stand up and give an honest appraisal of all the bits in our society that are wrong or bad, and need action of some sort. Then went on to say just how difficult it will be to carry out the rectification work to put them right,..... like, how much it will cost, where the money will come from to do it, and how long it will take to do, plus any other problems that he can see in doing the job. I like to think that it would be such a refreshing change from the normal twaddle we get from politicians, he would stand a much better chance of being elected to office. In addition to the many other problems that exist in this country, we have for some years now been beset by a plague of race relations fanatics. These people have made our police so sensitive to the trouble they may run into if they so much as breathe on a member of an ethnic minority, they are now almost terrified to act. Consequently, our crime figures are escalating at a frightening rate, and I fear that unless some prominent political figure gets mugged, or maybe a member of our royal family gets assaulted, the situation is going to get even worse. I know you have had similar problems over the past years in your country, particularly in the city of New York, but at least with the introduction of the ‘zero tolerance’ policies, the crime figures have dropped dramatically, and your police are winning the battle. Our poor souls, (still only armed with a truncheon) are working with the equivalent of an arm tied behind their backs, and an axe poised above their heads, ready to drop if they put a foot wrong. I have just watched the evening news on TV, and the closing item was simply unbelievable. It has just been reported that in the USA, a six year old boy has been held in police custody after shooting and killing a six year old girl at school. You may recall in last month’s article, I wrote about what I thought was an over-reaction of our government after the Dunblane school shooting, when they completely prohibited all private ownership of handguns, but how do you deal with the fact that a six year old was able to take a firearm to school? At times when I start feeling that life is not as sweet as I would like it, I only have to take a look around at some folk I know, like friend Frances, who is waiting for husband Harry to die of the Big C, and Maria, who has husband Dennis, with his lungs all in tatters, permanently connected up to an oxygen supply. My wife’s friend Sally, trying to come to terms with husband Mike committing suicide. Then I give myself a good swift kick up the rear end, and thank my lucky stars. 'til next time, Frank Hatton

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