Month: September 2021

Broccoli update

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It seems I have already lost the broccoli. It started well…

The seeds shot up, strong and healthy.
Once outside, it seems the cabbage white prefer the brocoli to the nasturtium.
it didn’t take long for the munching to begin.
caught in the act

I don’t mind at this point, nature needs a helping hand too and I am just getting started learning what to do with plants to keep them safe. Limited space in the garden means I have to share for now, but when I can have a separate space for growing food, i’ll plant extra out for the insects, so they can still join in.

(c) K Wicks

Brexit and decisions

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I have not discussed this subject much, despite is being around now for six years. I have seen and heard both sides of the argument, the hatred and name calling. The fierce fight between the two factions to be vindicated in their choices and decisions. To make sure it is used at every possible chance for a slur, put down or justification for something. I don’t know how others genuinely think or feel about it, apart from my own family. So like my other posts, I will share my thoughts and opinion on it.

I voted to leave the EU. During my adult voting life I have not stuck to one party, having voted Tory, Labour and Lib Dem in my time. Depending on which candidate was purporting to be able to implement the right changes the the area, community and country that were needed at the time. We pick ‘the best of a bad bunch’ as they say. But for Brexit, it was different, there were foreign policies to understand and way more material to digest than for previous votes. I tried my best to be informed, I watched the news like everyone else, trying to gauge the for and against arguments. I felt a heavy weight with that vote – I knew it was important and would change many things, but I felt that in the right hands, it would be the best for this country. I spoke to my grandpa to ask him about pre EU Britain and to get another opinion from someone who was there and paid attention at the time. I won’t lie, I was influenced by others, the media and what I thought I knew.

I had lived in Germany and Cyrpus and visited France, Switzerland, Turkey and Holland by that point, so thought I had a good grasp and experience of where and what we were discussing. Turns out you can never know enough when making decisions for millions of people. And after we voted to leave and it was decided, I moved to Spain, for a chance to experience what had been available for decades and was about to be taken away. I did feel sad for what we had done, but it also still felt like the right thing to do. I spent two years in Spain, then came back to the UK, knowing it couldn’t work out and it had a deadline.

Now, in retrospect and with hindsight, I would have still voted to leave, but wished it would have happened so much sooner, with better preparation and to be done in grown up way. The idea of the EU being a friendly group of countries helping each others was just that, an idea and a fanstasy that never came to fruition, just no-one wanted to admit it. Instead it was hijacked from the very start to be a controlling force over European countries, to make them ‘fall in line’ and be puppeteered. We were all misinformed and are being led by grossly incompetant people who want money and power and are being led by their ego, not by common sense. So it was never going to work.

But it has made me realise how little I really knew about it all before I voted. My own fault, the information was there and readily available, I could have been better informed, would the result have been different for me? No. But I would have understood the consequences and implications of it a bit better. I don’t deride anyone for their vote or decisions, and realise that was part of it from the beginning, to make sure we are split by opinions and keep both sides fighting, because while we were busy being distracted by that, something else was neatly wheeled in to take over.

(c) K Wicks

Work ethic and employment

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I have wanted to work since I was a child. I saw that work gave you money, and money gave you freedom to live. Understanding of course that freedom was not free, you have to earn it, buy it and maintain it. And fully believed that if you didn’t work, you would starve. I had no idea until almost a teenager that benefits were a thing. My mindset was that I should be as helpful and productive as possible, to give myself the best chance of survival. Of course, life gets in the way of whatever you think you will be, or what you want to happen. And it did. I had a rough patch for a few years from mid to late teens and I had to drop out of school and mainstream education. No exams. which of course made me think, no future. It was the mid 90’s, there a big drive for people to go to university, student loans took off and suddenly there were all sorts of courses to do and it was made accessible to people from all walks of life as they put it.

But it didn’t appeal to me for many reasons. Firstly, I did not have a subject that I was taken with at that age, I liked so many things it was hard to narrow it down to just one. I was very good at drawing at the time, so got talked into trying art college. I lasted 6 months, and of that my attendance was shocking. I did not like the relaxed setting for learning, and it was too corporate for feeling creative. Although I met some really sound people, it struck me that most of them were just wasting a couple of years by being there. To take the pressure off so their family didn’t hassle them to decide on uni. It started to become more interesting to question people on their motivations for choices, and where they hoped those decisions might lead them. Studying art felt like a complete waste of time. Because that was not what I wanted to do as a career. It looked like a very hard and thankless job ‘the struggling artist’ perception. Luckily, I do it for enjoyment now, because it really doesn’t pay the bills for me despite having created quite a portfolio of drawings, paintings, photography, books and designs.

It dawned on me though, that many people of my age group were getting themselves unneccessarily in debt, on the whim of having a degree in something, whether it would be useful or not. So I looked at that as the starting point, why did everyone want them? I’ll use my own family experience, my grandparents on one side went to University, and fully believed that if you had a degree it would mean you would be guaranteed employment. Because I think in their day, that is how it was. I held my ground and said no, a degree was not needed. Four years out of the job market when I already felt behind was not going to suit me at all, got to get on and all that, and why would you want to start so far in debt, it made no sense to me. Within a few years and a great number of jobs later, I found myself working in recruitment. Helping people find work and prepare their CV’s and understand their skills to assist placing them.

What I found were a couple of prevailing attitudes. Firstly, the worn down type, who seemed to realise their situation of extreme debt, limited jobs in their chosen field and the reality of life after uni. The other was the self-entitled one, the “I have a degree and I wont work for under £15.00 per hour”. Which is fine to have that attitude, it really is and may work in some walks of life. But when there is work available for £8.50 per hour, and you have no skills or experience for the higher rate job, you have to start somewhere. So maybe it was a good thing that I have had jobs in finance, catering, property, care homes, recruitment, pubs, and markets. That I got myself experience in all sorts of industries and with all sorts of people from different backgrounds. And even though I may be doing ok at the moment having worked really hard for it, I still might end up cleaning toilets again for £5.00 per hour, because you really don’t know what life may throw at you, but having a ‘let’s gets on, can do’ attitude can possibly help along the way.

Aside from all that, I understand we are now in very odd times for employment. Many jobs and futures have been taken away or restricted of late, automation seems to be moving in where it can and what was once a sound career may now need revisiting. In this we may have to come up with new ideas and ways forward for peple, to keep things moving and progressing at a pace that includes everyone and can be maintained.

(c) K Wicks

So Much Is Wrong About This

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How do you really explain to someone what is wrong with this picture? Where do you start? It seems so many have been sleepwalking through life for so long. But what has happened over the last 18 months is astounding and should be undeniable, yet we have among us, those who either through choice or just plain ignorance, can’t see what is right there. I have already highlighted in my previous article It looked sinister about the very odd and fatal happenings within the NHS and ‘care’ system.

But that is one part of a very big unfolding picture, which is proving to be too large to really break down into a quick chat, or a briefing, or of being able to ‘get someone up to speed’ as it were. And that is not by accident. It’s meant to be that convoluted and divided, otherwise it would be so obvious, no-one would have fallen for it. I have never wanted to be right about what I had theorised would happen, either before this about where society was going, or after the ‘pandemic’ started to rear its ugly head as an organised plot. Being this way, “suspicious, cynical and seeing corruption everywhere” as my grandpa puts it, isn’t a choice. I see what is there, but sometimes think I would gladly shut it out if I could. It can bring a melancholy that follows you everywhere, knowing the system isn’t broken after all, that it is exactly how ‘They’ meant it to be. Interestingly though, my grandpa did not try to say that corruption wasn’t everywhere, just that I shouldn’t focus on it and point it out all the time. It didn’t go unnoticed.

So, let’s talk about They. Who are They? That is usually where people roll their eyes and say, “oh, the mystical ‘they’, sounds like conspiracy talk to me”. And that’s where I know I have lost people, which is ok, I don’t demand they have the same interests as me or be able or willing to undertake complex thought. It really isn’t in everyone’s repertoire, and every now and then, I envy that. But trying to explain who They are, means unravelling who really pulls the strings, who makes the decision about finance, health, society, education etc. It would appear to be politicians. They are the face of the people, but they do not design the systems. They are employed to roll out the systems, to make them palatable, and acceptable. To ensure that the overall purpose is achieved, whatever that may be.

There is much published about nefarious plans to reduce population, or to wipe us out by way of a virus or biological agent, so is it really that unreasonable to think some people may be suspicious of that given what has occurred recently. To simply denounce them as ridiculous or a conspiracy theorist seems awfully narrow minded to me. I would want to know why they thought that. Just as I would like to know why people don’t see it, it might be they have a different angle on it. Surely that’s how we improve our own viewpoints and try to understand others? I have read many things which make me very nervous and wary of where this is all going. Not because I read others words and it makes me worry, but because I read the words and I see things with my own eyes, the outcome. What I theorised so far has come true, so I feel I am doing the right thing by being concerned. To turn a blind eye to what is unfolding would be as criminal as the wrongdoing happening around us.

I want to be wrong. And if I am, what happens, nothing. Maybe a bit of ridicule, but no harm to anyone, I have not given advice or told anyone what to do with their life. But what if I am right, what if it is going to go where I think it is being steered towards. I would want to know I did something, that I said something. That I tried. And although films are thought to be fiction, we appear to be living in a rather macabre mixture of many of them all at once right now. Maybe I will do another post over the weekend giving a breakdown of which ones and why, in case anyone is interested. I will close with what appears to be an extremely apt quote from a film some of you may be familiar with…

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission” – V for Vendetta

(c) K Wicks

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