Whats in a name?

I often get asked about my name (Dearn) and its origins. My reply would always be that its Irish, that it was my Great-grandmothers’ surname. They lived in Coleraine in the North tip of Ireland near the coast, a place famous for The Giants Causeway. They were farmers who were prompted to move to England (Sheffield) during the Great Famine of 1845. A lot of my family history is a bit sketchy as I never knew my Grandparents as they were long gone before I was born and have no family left to ask but I do know that my Grandfather came to Scotland to work as an head-engineer for the coal mines in Scotland. After a little digging and research I have actually found my ancestry actually came from France and the name Dearn actually has French origins derives from the 7th century word "dierne" translating literally as "Hidden river" (there is an actual River called Dearne in Yorkshire), there are different variants of spelling as Durn or Durne and still recorded in France and a coat of arms was granted there. Interestingly there are links to the 16th-century France Huguenots who were French Protestants mainly from northern France, and were inspired by the writings of John Calvin and endorsed the Reformed tradition of Protestantism. Many Huguenots suffered cruel treatment because of their religion they were a persecuted minority in France during most of the period from the early 1500s until 1789. Many left France, many went across ocean to North America, some to South Africa and some to Ireland (as apparently my lot did) So there are many inhabitants of these lands who have Huguenot blood in their veins, whether or not they still bear one of the hundreds of French names of those who took refuge in their respective lands (like my Great Granny being a Dearn) I don’t know but being the original refugees they brought the word 'refugee' into the English language. Well I never knew my ancestors where once refugees fleeing persecution from France exiled by King Louis XIV, grandson of Henri IV. During the “great escape” from France men who were caught, if not executed, were sent as galley slaves to the French fleet in the Mediterranean. Women were imprisoned and their children sent to convents. Well there you go…..perhaps that’s why I detest religion so much after being brought up a Protestant, convert to Catholicism then “seeing the light” becoming an Atheist and considering myself a Secular Humanist.

In Praise of Shadows

In Praise of Shadows is an essay on aesthetics by a Japanese writer called Junichiro Tanizaki, it was originally published in 1933, with the English translation coming out in 1977. It’s a very slim and short book. The words in the book, although translated from their original Japanese are so beautiful and almost feel mystic when reading, well that’s my opinion and the book has a very personal special place in my heart, last year (2016) I spent some days and nights with my elderly Mother in her care home room, she was unconscious during this time, as I awaited her passing I held her hand and said so many things. During the quietness of the evenings into early mornings the silence scared me, I read this book from cover to cover in a low voice to her 4 or 5 times, savouring the words and not missing the irony how many years ago it was my mum who read to me when I once was an eager bright eyed kid demanding a bedtime story. I just needed a voice in the room, I needed my mind to concentrate on something other than the laboured breaths of a lady who gave me life and a wonderful childhood, this book provided that respite during these sad times, if my mum heard me read or not, I will never know but in a way I can’t describe, I felt a comfort reading to her these evenings. It also felt fitting as it was under just a reading lamp as the lights were dimmed, the shadows crowded around her bed and my chair pulled up at an awkward angle side onto to her bed so I could hold her hand the balance the book of my knee as I read from it, a strange irrational need I felt to be holding her hand when she passed from this world. There is still something about shadows when we fear, the imagination is powerfully drawn to these things that the eyes cannot see. I felt this these evenings in the dusky regions of that room where the light could not penetrate. Have you ever hear of a painting called The Night Watch by Rembrandt? It looked a very dark painting but one day it was restored and cleaned, the “night” was found in reality was actually dirt and the painting was actually set in broad day light. With the grease and dirt gone the magic of the canvas was lost and tourists passed it by in the galleries and the post cards for sale of the painting remained on their racks, this is the appeal of the dark shadows. I have deviated from this post which I intended as a book review but when into a big of a personal gush, I have covered the circumstances in which I read this book as to describe why I have a certain personality affinity with this little essay book. I can only recommend you to read this little book, it’s an eloquently strange book on the Japanese sense of beauty but it also feels like an act of meditation to read, a poetry of words which you almost taste as they drip from your tongue, it’s also an elegy to a culture perceived to be receiving it's last rites, making it part clarion call, part last post…a swansong as the cancer of the modern world overwrites the beauty of the past. “We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.” 

Escape to Cuba

In a previous post I covered some literary boltholes but I missed a very important and appealing one, a little fishing village is Cuba called Cojimar. A real town where a fictional fight happens between an old fisherman called Santiago and a giant marlin. The story is from the most beautiful book Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. A book when read at home you can almost feel the salty sting of the fishing line in your hands and the sun blistering the back of your neck out at sea, just imagine how the experience must be sitting outside waterside reading this book in the salt air of this little fishing village east of Havana? An experience I intend capturing within this next 3 months! Unfortunately, my Jura travel companion Rocky (my African grey parrot) won’t be able to join me, this adventure I fly solo and without much Spanish in my vocabulary I do expect to get lost at a few twists and turns but this is what I consider a holiday, not these “leave your soul behind as you disembark off the plane” all-inclusive lay by the beach and pool jobs, or these equally safe golfing holidays or guided tours. Why has evolution shrivelled up our sense of adventure? I want to experience the real people, the real places, make an arse of myself, the good natured Gringo trying to dance mambo when high on rum but smiling at his own foolishness mirroring the laughs around him. People tend to accept you if you are genuine without airs and graces, why arrogance and conceit when we are all the same under our skin on this little blue dot, only certain ideologies can separate us, money does not make people a better person. Although I have seen the worst of people, liars, cheats and manipulators who will invent a narrative of you to justify their own failings, I still believe in humanity and good grace appears to present itself in people who live a simple and happy existence, its therapy just being in such people’s company, in a western world where speaking out and wearing your heart on your sleeve is seen as a weakness it’s good to revert back to such company, I use the word “revert” but its evolve which is the weaker path regarding humanity in this vein. It’s not only the Hemmingway trail I want to see (it’s a short book which I intend re-reading in an afternoon by the sea whilst sipping from a bottle of Havana rum) there is also much to see…El Morro, Christopher Columbus Cemetery, House of Jose Marti and his memorials, Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana….there is plenty, although these which I have just mentioned are touristy there are plenty twists and turns on the road to get lost and discover other places, the boxing gyms, chess games with locals over a bottle of rum. I am looking at accommodations, the hotels are not really the best across there but there are such places as "casa perciulars" where families rent out spare rooms where you can bed down and get a breakfast around the family table speaking (or in my case, attempting to communicate) with the real Cuban people. This would give the real feel for the distinctive Cuban culture and spirit and also helping out people instead of big hotels. The escape, the culture, the adventure and meeting good people and sitting around a table with a genuine family, this would be a paradise for me, and one which I will be jetting off to on an adventure soon, we are a long time dead so I don't intend wasting time, memories created now are the ones which sustain us when we are too old to create any more such adventures !!! **Update** Flights purchased, adventure secured for January .....Havana here I come ...whoop whoop ...solo Gringo planning to get off the beaten track, off grid and using "Casa Perciulars"across Cuba to get the authentic taste of this vibrant country. Better brush up on my Spanish and buy some colourful shirts :-)...off the grid and meeting some genuine uncomplicated people is looking very appealing.

European workers in the UK (Brexit post)

What will happen if it strains of Brexit means European workers decide to go home? At the last count, there are about 800,000 young people in the UK aged between 16 and 24 who were ‘not in education, employment or training’. I suspect that there are plenty more in this miserable category over the age of 24. Bear in mind that all politically important statistics are massaged in some way to conceal the ghastly truth so don’t paint a true picture. It is the jobs that such people used to do which are being done by migrants. As the liberal Left ceaselessly and rather stupidly point out, much of what goes on around us, from the NHS to the picking of fruit, restaurants, the care of the elderly (it was a “foreigner” who often cared for my Mum in the nursing home during her dementia and she was such a kind caring person I could never thank her enough) and the running of all those coffee shops, depends on migrant labour. BUT migrants don’t work for the NHS or Costa Coffee out of charity. They do it, perfectly reasonably, for money. Why don’t unemployed British people take more interest in these jobs? Why do many our nurses have to come from other countries? There are perhaps three reasons, which no government dares do anything about. The first is the collapse of the old-fashioned family in the UK, in which the young learned how to behave. This is worst among the poor. When I was a child I would never dream being cheeky to an adult, luckily I was brought up in a loving environment by (much older) parents who considered it their duty to learn me right from wrong, respect and good manners. Some children who have never known a father’s authority, have never shared a meal around a table, can barely read and who speak a sort of mumbled teen patois rather than English, are not going to be any employer’s dream. They only know a life in from of the TV with an Xbox, left alone in the house when they parent goes out clubbing only to return drunk and swearing and perhaps with a different man every weekend. Forcing them to apply for jobs they don’t really want, from employers who really don’t want them and who would much prefer someone from Spain, Italy, Portugal or Poland with a much better work ethic, and let’s be honest, in my experience people from such European are usually more skilled, family orientated and harder worker than UK folk and don’t need to get drunk to enjoy an evening. Then there is also our shameful state school system, whose teachers are often themselves ill-educated and recruited out of desperation from government schemes. The system strives in vain to teach an academic curriculum to young men and women who really need vocational instruction, because we cannot admit that not all boys and girls need or want the same sort of schools. At the end of this process, the victims are forced into debt to attend university courses far inferior to old-fashioned vocational training (and don’t dare be ignorant enough to think the old worn out SNP rhetoric that Uni is free in Scotland, you need to wake up to the reality on that one) Schools are guilty of teaching kids what to think and not how to think!!! And the third is our welfare system, which responds to failure and misbehaviour by indulging it – a policy which ends by using tax revenues to maintain the unemployables lifestyles beyond their just means…i.e. Sky tv, fags, holidays, drinks and other crap which are luxuries and should be used as an incentive to work. All these subjects are issues that ambitious career politicians should address but to do so, you would have to breach the modern taboos of sexism and egalitarianism. And you would have to do something even more heretical – argue that people are responsible for their own actions and lazy Brits to get of their arses and actually work but ohhh the sandal if anyone was to say this, and the army of media thought-police will come after anyone who says this out loud…it would be political suicide for a politician to say this. They are jobs out there still and plenty of them, I know people who have only been here from another county a few months and already they have found not one job to do but moved on from one to another when a better post arises, but lazy, fat UK citizens would rather sit on their arses and claim all they can with benefits, we now have generations in this county who have never worked a day in their life!!!!!! That’s shocking!!!!! It’s my opinion Brexit is a big mistake, we need migration here, we need foreigner workers, many of whom I have meet are in skilled intelligent professions and extremely talented putting UK professionals to shame, even the workers in less skilled jobs have a superior work ethic, if Brexit negotiations make it harder for Europeans to come here to work then who will take up these roles? The quality will plummet, the skills will plummet, even the lesser jobs, the standard will go down and the UK will become a poorer place. We need this diversity. I am against the mass migration of Muslims due to the intolerance of their ideology (yeah yeah….I can almost hear your ignorance now regarding my views upon this) but it’s not (certain) cultures and “foreigners” which don’t integrate, mix and enrich these shores, its Ideologies and Islamisation has no tolerance despite certain acts it may perform to work its deception and taqiyya (look it up) to get into power and public acceptance to further its cause. Brexit is not a good thing by any way and this is going to effect the UK very negatively if we lose out on European workers coming here to settle and work.

The Ugly Truth of Britain's Grooming Gangs

Be forewarned, this is a very uncomfortable post to read. I have a bee under my bonnet about all religions, I really need to write more especially about Catholicism but Islam is by far the most dangerous and a very extremely ugly ideology which needs confronted. Like the naïve majority, many of us believe the Leftist narrative, namely it was 'a racist myth' that organised Muslim groups in Britain are luring white schoolgirls into sex, this is young girls who are groomed, taken to Muslim men’s houses where they and their friends have a sex party which they call a “session’!! Disgusting and sickening, but this IS happening and too many are turning a blind eye for fear of being labelled “islamophobic” The true nature of this grooming phenomenon was known about more than 20 years ago. Now if you have read my previous posts you will know my views about religion but Islam is by far the worst, the most dangerous and its infiltrating the west and risking the democracy which we have taken for granted so long (see my disenchantment with labour post) If you think such posts are “racist” then you are ignorant, a race is not something you can convert to or apostate out of, religion is an ideology and Islam is not only a religious ideology, it’s a very barbaric one too once you peel back the veneer and see its true meaning, it also covers every aspect of life and even the most “moderate” Muslims born and bred in the west is compelled to follow it ever increasingly or they are shunned from their family and culture, there is no compromise, this sort of multi-culturalism just does not work. To ignore this uncomfortable truth is cowardly and a disservice to the innocents. There are people who I describe as “heros” in every sense of the word who are outspoken against Islam, people such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali who is under constant police protection and in fear of her life, yet we bury our heads in the sand afraid to give the slightest criticism in case some ignorant fool may think what we say is motivated by hate, NO, we criticise Islam as we love humanity and stand against ideologies which are intolerant of others, this is true brotherhood of the species, Islam, as most religions (to a lesser degree compared to Islam) retard the human race. (I am starting to rant a bit but this is something I am passionate about and it sickens me now people choose to keep quiet and their ignorance to learn and educate themselves) If you want to find out more then I would recommend to read Easy Meat by Peter McLoughlin, it covers the Rotherham sandal. Rotherham is down by Manchester and official reports have finally admitted there were more than 1400 victims in this otherwise unremarkable town and the author describes how the authorities were involved cover-up of this scandal and how the Islamic communities kept quiet and protected their own. This is not just an isolated case in one area, it is happening up and down the country, with many thousands of new victims are coming forward every year. The book exposes how political correctness was used to silence potential whistle-blowers, and how this grooming phenomenon demonstrates that multiculturalism does not work, Islam is an ideology which places non-Muslims as low and second class, especially women (even Muslim woman are restricted especially once married, many are banned from using social media online and fear being shunned by their community and family if not complying to their “imported culture” and ideology. I have spoken with a few, one who was disowned for dating a Christian guy and another left her country fleeing abuse and can never return for fear of death) This story here is not just the wave of Islamic migrants, this is also happening with British born Muslims and within their communities up and down the UK. Now if we are to believe the media then the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes are “Asian” men, this is a far too broad description, we know the religion of these men. If a Neo-Nazi did crimes against the Jews would we ignore the Nazi ideology behind it and consider it irrelevant? If a radical socialist bombed a conservative party function would be say his political activism was not relative to his crime, yet we are ignoring how Islamic ideology is justifying the rape and grooming of young girls (does that sound too strong? Well it should!! Because this is what is happening, this is what people are ignoring and saying these old clichés about a religion of peace) There is a pattern here, these are Muslim men, the majority of who have been born here. Why does the media insist of saying “Asian” men? This is staining the character of multiple innocent communists, Japanese, Korean, Hindus, Indian Sikhs (a side note here is that due to Sikh victims by Muslim grooming gangs, some Sikhs in Britain have already resorted to vigilante justice, filling a vacuum because the police are hindered by politicians fears)… all these Asian communities are also falling victim to Muslim grooming gangs!!!! I only have the statistics for England and Wales, this is from 2011, in the UK (eng & wal) Hindus are 1.5% of the population, Sikh 0.8% and Muslims 5%.... Now let’s look at the prison population, 0.9% of the prison population is Sikh, 0.5% is Hindu ….but the Muslim prison population is 15.2% (despite being only 5% of the community and despite most of their crimes being concealed by their communities) look up these stats yourself, this is shocking!!!!!! And the media has the cheek to say it’s the “Asian community” that is causing the problem!!! No, it’s the Muslim community with their doctrine of Islam are how they see woman, especially non-Muslim woman. 90% of grooming gangs convicted in the UK are Muslim (20% of these convicts are called Mohammad) And remember, these people are protected within their communities who are notoriously reluctant to supply information to the police and help their enquires if it could lead to the arrest of a Muslim and put Islam in a bad light, a survey of British Muslims found that two thirds say they would choose NOT to inform the police about a terrorist plot if they had prior knowledge!!! Now these are the ones who choose to answer the questions, many refused to give a response!!! What the perpetrators have in common is their proclaimed faith, they are Muslims and most of they are practising, on some occurrences they committed these sickening rapes shortly after attending their Mosque!!!! Islam teaches Muslims that non-Muslims are lesser mortals, especially woman as Islamic culture sees western woman in a poor light. This is a common belief of Muslim men and their culture and it comes straight from the Qur’an, even the ones born in the UK are pressured by their culture and family with this. A friend I once knew was disowned and shunned by her (British born Muslim parents) just for refusing to stop seeing a non-Muslim man. Muslim men have more leeway with non-Muslim woman as non-Muslim woman are seen as lesser people and as such pre-marital sex is not such a crime as it would be if they were with an unmarried Muslim woman but still they would have to eventual convert to Islam is married and of course their children would need to be born into Islam….no compromise. What is being done to tackle such barbaric attitudes? Nothing, that’s what’s being done. Its good these gangs are now slowly being exposed but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Muslim communities know what’s going but they are not working with the police (at least not enough) to resolve this. Politicians are not dealing, they don’t want to be seen speaking out against Muslims in case they are considered “Islamophobic” and lose their highly paid positions, quite the opposite, see how Labour have sided with the Muslim Brotherhood, their biggest ally (just read up about Corbyn’s anti-Semitic beliefs and you can also read about how labour tried to cover up a lot of these crimes, truly disgusting stuff) Religion is the root of all evil and Islam is a massive cause!!!!

10 books

A list of 10 books which changed my life, well, perhaps not changed…..at least made me think or perhaps appreciate certain things more. It’s certainly not a list written in stone, I’m doing it off the top of my head now so perhaps I have failed to give recognition to more important books but here it is, you may notice a lack of “self-help” books here, although some are important are I do consider helpful in day-to-day learning I don’t feel any have influenced me enough to be in my top ten, as for such books as “relationship self-help” if someone needs assistance through memes and “chicken-soup for the soul” type advice then sadly your are looking for “join up the dots” on a blank sheet of paper, try reading about someone like Pablo Neruda and his works instead, such instincts are from the heart but supported with the head (importantly supported by the head) and if your parents never passed on the example of how to treat someone good with respect and manners or you have learnt lessons by experience then don’t kid yourself there is a magic formula in a book, you are just attempting to justify something or look for hope. You would not learn to box using a book, experience, hard training and many punches to the jaw teach you this, we all fall down many times hitting the canvas with a thud but we pick ourselves up and learn to be a better person because of our mistakes. Books do have a special power, each one of the 10 I list here I read in paper form, either hard back or paper back, I just don’t do kindle or e-readers, it feels so soulless reading a book in digital print, a book feels like a living breathing creature, something to lay on your bedside table, reach out, feel the grain on the pages, grow old with and watch it age yellow. There is a certain comfort holding a book, something you never experience with a e-reader. If you have ever read to a small child you can see how they venerate the book, cherish it once you put it down and almost treat it as it its got some magical power…….which of course books do…..they have the power to change us, educate us and make us think, so here is my list which is in no order……. The Old Man and The Sea…..by Ernest Hemingway Written more than 20 years before I have born, I have read this book many times, I have two copies, one is a Hardback, displayed proudly on my bookshelf, the other is an old second hand used and abused paperback, dog eared and ripped, yellowing and stained but it’s an old friend I take outside to read, the book (my copy) has seen better days, much like Santiago, the lead character who is an old Cuban fisherman. There is just something about Hemingway’s books which makes you feel part of the action and this book, for me is a lesson in persistence, never giving up even when everything seems against you. In Praise of Shadows….. by Junichirô Tanizaki This is a very short book which can be read in a couple of hours, it’s a reflection on Japanese art and architecture, not subjects I was particularly interested in but I just love the way the book in written, although it’s a translation the descriptions and order of the words feel so beautiful rolling off the tongue almost as if they were poetry. The book also has a personal spot with me, last year (2016) I spent some days and nights at my Mother’s bedside before she passed away, I was afraid of the silence as I sat next to her as she lay unconscious seeing out her final hours. Between saying all my personal stuff to her I read to her aloud from this book, I will never know if a part of her within her brain registered the words or my presence but I found it a comfort reading to her and this book as a very special place in my heart due to this moment. What Dreams May Come……By Richard Matheson Another book with came me great comfort after the death of my Father about 20 years ago. It’s about a guy who is killed in a road accident, in the afterlife he learns his wife committed suicide after his death and was in a kinda purgatory, he travels through (a) Hell to find her, It’s just so beautifully written, touching, holding and moving, the sacrifice someone would be for love. The God Delusion …..by Richard Dawkins So this a very important book to read. Everybody should read it. You don't have to agree with it, but it will still be an education. It matters, unless you believe the Sun revolves around the Earth, or that the Earth is flat, or any equivalent nonsense that science has exposed as false belief. I was an atheist before I read this book but it educated me and strengthened my belief (or lack of perhaps I should say) It helped me to stop feeling alone in my struggle of knowing we have one life to be enjoyed and which we should not waste on pointless adoration of a mythical something, Christopher Hitchens’s “God is Not Great” is also an important book to read too which is in a similar vein. Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now….by Ayaan Hirsi Ali  I am not going to go into too much detail about this book here as you can see what I wrote about this on one of my other posts but this is a very important book to read, as it all this amazing lady’s books are. I had the privilege of once meeting Ayaan during a talk that she did, an amazing person. Read this and her other books then decide yourself if this is a peaceful religion and if Islam and its followers are compatible with democracy and the freedom of the west. Reading books alone has not brought me to the conclusion I am at, speaking to a girl who’s family disowned her because he fell for a non-Muslim who would not convert in Birmingham also discussing with another girl who is an apostate living in Glasgow from Iraq and why she can never return home…these people’s living stories I have heard and the emotions they display when telling them is powerful, there is nothing moderate about Islam and its followers on every level. Billions and Billions ….by Carl Sagan This is a very accessible easy to read science book by the visionary Carl Sagan, it also concludes with a touching epilogue by Ann Druyan (his wife) written two months after his death. The is in the form of essays written by Sagan. It’s an eye-opener of a book, why don’t they make this compulsive reading in schools? Welcome to the Universe…..By Neil deGrasse Tyson, J.Richard Gott and Mchael A. Strauss This book was developed from a lecture series designed for non-science university students, this wonderful book plots a course through astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology, assuming nothing in the reader more than an intelligent interest and a level of education attainable by a conscientious curious reader. Each of the authors brings his own distinctive voice to the telling of the story, drawing contributions from his colleagues where appropriate. The result is that this enormous subject is covered as broadly as it could be, yet to a depth that is readily accessible. Read this book and see a beauty in science which is supported by empirical evidence and not blind faith of the ego-centric believer of the Goat Herders Guide to the Universe which I call the bible. Prepare to be amazed reading this book, if the first couple of chapters don’t capture your mind then stick to your iron age book of fairy tales. The Buried Giant ….Kazuo Ishiguro Again I have already wrote a review about this book in a previous post so will not spend much time writing about it here, I will say this is a book of hypnotic beauty. There is something so sweet about the old couple in this book and how their memories are fading into a fog, I found certain comparison between how my Dad was with my Mum, and how my Mum struggled to hold on to the memories of the man she married and loved for half a century as her mind tried to fight off dementia like a figurative dragon, again this link to this book. Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda….Pablo Neruda It’s no secret that I am a big fan of this man and consider him the greatest poet who ever lived. I have written a post all about him before. Throw these relationship advice books away, they will be more use as kindle (not the e-reader type) on a fire as you read from this book to a woman to make her aware of true intentions and despite the restraints of modern society and all its falsities that there is something called love and it can be displayed by following this man’s example, being a perfect gentleman and of course, reading out to her aloud from this book. This fact and the fact that time revels all and masks slip in this masquerade ball which we all dancing a jig at, always remember to use the head with the heart, some people are just a beautifully wrapped bag of shit and we learn this from experience but the words this man writes makes us believe there is something worth searching for out there still. One Hundred Years of Solitude …Gabriel Garcia Marquez The story involves six generations of one family, established by Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran, who also helped found the town of Macondo, in the lowlands of Columbia. It’s just pure escapism, that’s what this amazing book is for me. No matter how shit people are, how cruel the world can be, just pick up this book and escape within its covers to Macondo and live!!!!