Letters to my sons.

Dear Son,

yesterday was a little fraught for me and your mother. You were taken ill at nursery and when your mother came to pick you up she knew something was wrong with you because you were not your usual happy chatty self. You had been sick and your umbilical hernia was hard and could not be pushed back in.

Your mother took you to Accident and Emergency. They gave you some paracetamol to easy the pain and reduce your fever. When I arrived at A & E, I must say that I was worried. You really were not your self, you looked out of sorts. And then you were sick.

Not a just a mouth full but a while stomach full and you had had cheese. Your mother took the full brunt of the puke as it went all over her legs and also down your front and it smelt horrible. I nearly panicked when the stuff came out of your nose but in your state you didn’t seem too bothered and after wards your perked up a little. We were cleaning up your lunch and tea when a surgeon came in and poked around your tummy and told us that your hernia was blocking your digestive system and that you would need an operation to cure it. You were going to be transferred to the Royal London and they were going to do an emergency operation.

After your big puke you had a smaller puke and then a dry puke and after that you fell asleep. A second surgeon came in and had a poke around your tummy and found that your hernia could be pushed back in – whatever was blocking it before (your lunch and dinner we think) was now clear. I came home to get a change of clothes for you and your mother and when I got back you were back to your normal self. Actually you seemed to making up for the time your were ill and were a little more hyper than usual. You were discharged a little while after that – no operation needed that night but you will need one eventually to correct your hernia.

So we keep trying to push your hernia back in and so far so good, it goes back in. If it doesn’t you go back to A & E and the possibility of an emergency operation.

Dear Son, 

A year on from the 7th July 2005 bombings there will be a two minute silence to remember the dead, the suffering of the injured and the bravery and dedication of the rescuers and health professionals. Fifty two people died on that fateful day and I don’t want you to think that I have anything other than sympathy for the families of the dead and the people injured. They know more than most the pain and misery caused by bombs killing innocent people. 

There was a lot of debate recently about failures in intelligence gathering and how the bombers slipped through the net. The argument and debate seems to have missed the point that the intelligence agencies warned the government that if an invasion of Iraq went ahead there was an increased risk of terrorist attacks on main land Britain. And this happened. The idea that there is no link between the actions of the 7/7 bombers and Iraq is pure fantasy but it is the constant line the government of the day pumps out.

Fifty two lives to be lost in a single day is a lot. Since the invasion of Iraq about 34,000 Iraqi civilians have died, that is about 31 people per day (or a 7/7 style bomb attack every two days, all 547 of them) killed because of the decision to invade to Iraq.

There will be no two minute silence for these people.

Dear Son,

copper prices have gone through the roof. So much so that the Royal Mint has warned against melting coins.

Coins minted before 1992 are made from copper and are worth twice there face value. Now this is a little odd I think. How can the physical piece of money actually be worth twice the value stamped on it? Quite easily as the coin is only a physical representation of the value of the money but representations of an item have to be true and accurate for that representation to hold. And in this case the whole façade, for me at any rate, collapses and the role of money and value seem rather odd.
 
For the economic system to work a lot of disbelief has to be suspended. How can it be possible to buy and sell money? How can different currencies have different values? Think about a loaf of bread made in France and one made in the UK, imagine that they have been made with the same ingredients and cooked in exactly the same sort of oven. Why should they be different prices when one currency is converted from one to another? The ingredients are plentiful in both countries, the labour cost is exactly the same but by artificial means the prices are different.

There can only every be a finite amount of money in the global economic system, if too much money is sloshing around the system then inflation takes over and the buying power of a certain amount of money is reduced. Because of this golden rule when certain people decide to horde money then others have to go without. One extreme of this rule is private jets and luxury yachts – at the other end is starvation and disease.

While everyone agrees that pieces of paper and metal disks have a certain value and accept the abstract notion that they have a "value" we will continue to need money and starvation and poverty will continue.

Dear Son,

I’m watching a program on Channel 4 regarding Wearside Jack. I was only about 9 years old when the tapes were made public and as the program discussed it contents were made available far and wide. I remember waking up early one morning, putting in my ear piece and switching on my little transistor radio. I don’t remember which radio station I was listening to but they played the Ripper Tape and I started listening to it before a huge wave of fear came over me and I had to switch it off. I remember it being very early but also light so it must have been during the summer.

Fear is a very nasty thing, even more so to a nine year old. There was no way that the person doing the murders could harm me via a tape recording broadcast on the radio but as a child logical doesn’t matter. At the time lived a couple of hours drive from where the murders had been taking place and we visited the area regularly to see family so maybe it was all a bit more real to me.

Dear Son,

you bagged your first peak two days ago (Saturday) when you successfully climbed the stairs unaided and without oxygen. I was right behind you with my arms ready if you slipped and fell but this didn’t happen. If you had been a bit bigger than a harness and a belay would be in order, but you did fine on your first free climb.

Dear Son,

I started writing this blog after the 7th July 2005 bombings in London which I had the unfortunate misfortune to witness the aftermath at Aldgate East tube station. And it is to this subject I return again. I keep returning to this subject because the justification of killing people is the root cause of all that is wrong in this world. The value of human life is nil for so many people and this worthlessness seems to start with certain individuals themselves.

Today in Iraq more suicide bombers have reeked their personal type of terror, just as they did on July 7th in London. They are so motivated in their beliefs that they are prepared to die for them – so far nothing so bad. The bit I don’t understand is why they insist on killing others. Do they know, on a personal basis, the people they are about to kill? If they did then maybe the people they have targeted are nasty murdering scum who need to be taken out to save many more lives and they are doing the majority a favour and saving lives. There is no evidence to suggest that these suicide bombers are nothing more than random killers who are interested more in the number of people they kill than the life stories of the individuals them selves.

If these suicide bombers are so intent on killing themselves, then why do they have to make others suffer? During the Vietnam war Buddhist monks protested against their oppression in the South by setting themselves on fire in Saigon. They committed ritual suicide and sent a powerful message to the world without hurting anyone except them selves. So why don’t these suicide bombers follow this example and simply set themselves on fire well away from other people?

And let us extend this principle to leaders of countries engaged in war. In the old days leaders of factions would ride at the front of their army and risk their own lives. They wouldn’t send someone else’s sons into battle and hide away along way from the front. Any person who wasn’t ready to risk their own life would find very people ready to risk their own. This may lead to a lot less wars.

Dear Son,

you can count the number of people who read this blog on one hand, doesn’t stop me from being insightful. Yesterday I wrote about Sven not having a Plan B. And guess what? I was right. Sven’s right hand man admintted as much today. You can read all about it on the BBC web site.

All I can say is : Come on the Soca Warriros.

Dear Son,

summer is on it’s way and with it the World Cup. Over the weekend Chelsea won the Premiership by beating Manchester United 3-nil but in the process of loosing Wayne Rooney managed to get injured and will, with out doubt, miss the World Cup. He is England’s best player and without him England have little chance of winning the cup, with him they have a very good chance. But it isn’t the player himself who makes the difference, it is the England manager.

The current England manager, Sven, only seems to have a Plan A when it comes to a game or a tournament. He has no Plan B, so when things go wrong he just sits in the dug-out and watches it all go wrong. This happened against Brazil when England went out of the 2002 World Cup. England were 2-1 down but Brazil had a player sent off but failed to take advantage of the extra man – they simply let Brazil get the ball and pass it around.

When Rooney departed the Euro 2004 game against Portugal injured Sven had no plan to shuffle his squad and play a different game to the strengths of the team on the pitch. England eventually lost on penalties. The game against Northern Ireland was also a tactical disaster as a team of lower league journey men turned over highly paid top flight ponces.

My earliest memory of World Cup football was my father cutting a section out of newspaper that had the times of the matches on it and sticking it to the front of the television, something completely out of character for the man. That is when I knew that something special was about to happen.

Luckily you have duel nationality so if Trinidad do well you can bask in the reflected glory in a few years time.