Normally about this time of year it is my habit to write something disparaging about the coming festivities, commercialism and all the hype that goes with it! This year I have decided that in spite of the fact that I still feel the same way about the whole ridiculous mess, that I am not going to, instead, I am reflecting on a year. A year where the world lost a lot of well known and important artists! A political landscape which went against all the so called accepted wisdom! A world where violence continues to create, death, tragedy, homelessness, wrecked lives and seems to have no end in sight! A world where some of the old enmity between East and West reared its ugly head once more! A world where many of the rich and powerful continue to abuse their wealth and power! A world where self-interest and xenophobia has become more prevalent! A world where material gain is still sort in a never ending parade of spending! A world that nature shows that it is the most powerful of all forces! A world which continues to judge people by the colour of their skin, religion or gender! A world that has shrunk in our ability to get to all places but has grown in our inability to be inclusive! A world where the warped and twisted interpretation of religious doctrine drives believers in to unspeakable acts of terrorism because others do not believe what they do! A world we are destroying in so many ways that it is impossible to keep up!
Now in case you are beginning to think that I have lost my normal " half glass full" attitude let me assure you that I am still optimistic!
Why?
Well we have a world, where people still care about others! A world where heroic acts no matter how large or small are carried out every day! A world where there is love! A world that the majority of people live in peace! A world that in spite of differences dialogue goes on! A world that has friends who care! A world where there are enough of us who condemn bigotry, hatred, violence, racism, mysogeny and prejudice. A world of wonder and beauty. A world of humour, wit and satire. A world where kindness is done!
I could go on and on and usually I do but I think you get the gist.
The world is full of danger and uncertainty but it is the only one we have!
SIR GUESTLING THORN: - The thoughts of my alto ego I have opinions on everthing and am not afraid to express them I hope for more kindness and joy in the world!
Monday, November 28, 2016
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
OLDER
It has been a momentous year and of course it is not yet finished, I am sure there will be more to come before it finally creeps it's way into 2017. I have never understood why we place so much importance on each passing year and the punctuation of days, that mark each one. It seems that we humans have a natural predisposition towards marking time as it passes. The older I get the more important those things become that in my youth seemed less so. Perhaps it is the fate of all people as they grow older to understand the unique bond that it is family (and good friends). Our relatives will require extra attention as they age into the run up to their demise. The Who sang "I hope I die before I get old" they did not sing "I hope my family cares for me when I get old" but this is what we must do. Well the good lady and I have got to that stage, which so many people experience and our children will too, when we have to do what we think is best for our parents. Are they able to really look after themselves, how long can they continue to function with independent lives?
My mother in law is struggling, she is simply old and the fragility that goes with that age has began to affect her quality of life. My father is similarly affected and he is even older!
So what does one do, one naturally does what any son or daughter should do and try ones very best to look after them. It is not easy, its life.The parent becomes the child and yet we still want them to be that parent that we always knew and loved, it is a strange dilemma. Reality has to be faced and care must taken to strike the balance. It can be very difficult to explain to a parent that this is for their own good when they are frightened and lonely and are only to well aware of their own mortality. Death is just another stage of life a natural end to our biological clock running out of time. None of this is relevant, however when guiding a aging loved one to get through the daily rigors of their everyday exsistance, no amount of philosophy or explanation is necessarily going to help
As a society it is imperative that we quickly get to grips with an aging population, which I am not that far off joining.
So to all of you who are taking the responsibility to look after an elderly relative or friend, however hard it is remember it is your love and kindness that makes their lives better and although it is hard it is always the right thing to do!
My mother in law is struggling, she is simply old and the fragility that goes with that age has began to affect her quality of life. My father is similarly affected and he is even older!
So what does one do, one naturally does what any son or daughter should do and try ones very best to look after them. It is not easy, its life.The parent becomes the child and yet we still want them to be that parent that we always knew and loved, it is a strange dilemma. Reality has to be faced and care must taken to strike the balance. It can be very difficult to explain to a parent that this is for their own good when they are frightened and lonely and are only to well aware of their own mortality. Death is just another stage of life a natural end to our biological clock running out of time. None of this is relevant, however when guiding a aging loved one to get through the daily rigors of their everyday exsistance, no amount of philosophy or explanation is necessarily going to help
As a society it is imperative that we quickly get to grips with an aging population, which I am not that far off joining.
So to all of you who are taking the responsibility to look after an elderly relative or friend, however hard it is remember it is your love and kindness that makes their lives better and although it is hard it is always the right thing to do!
It is time to use your voice
You know when one has been around a while, you think you have a handle on how some things in this world work but in reality the longer you are around the less you know or at least the what you think you understand is befuddled and far less easy to understand.
In recent times the world has become unstable and results no longer seem, to many of us, to make sense. We feel out of touch and disengaged with what we have come to believe are the stable tenants and the norm. It appears that nobody is right or everybody is wrong! The so called establishment is not trusted and why should they be. The political elite and those with money and power and so far detached from the most of the population, they simply have no conception of what is going on. They talk and pontificate, promise much but deliver little. People like me sit on the sidelines sniping away on social media, spouting empty words into the ether, complaining but presenting no solutions or suggestions. Collectively we have largely forgotten or are to apathetic to actually get off our arses and actually be heard! So much needs to be changed, so much has become mired in red tape and bureaucracy. Simplicity and clarity are in short supply, no one says exactly what they mean for fear of being misinterpreted or being taken out of context.
Well this old diplomat is fed up to the back teeth with all of this crap. Our politics is shit. Many of our politicians are as much use as a one legged man at an arse kicking party. We get the people we deserve, we've had Cameron, Johnson, Osborne and Farage, he is a grinning poisonous knob-head and now we have Trump, another absolute git faced, hair wobbling, gurning, tosser. Teresa May, someone who wanted to be PM so badly she managed to do it without having any agenda at all and is rushing headlong to wards exiting Europe, without any real plan, simply because the "people have spoken". Corbyn what is he all about, has all the qualities of paint drying! There are worse leaders in the world, who are far more dangerous and evil than any of these but it does appear to be joke time in the in the old political arena, unfortunately the joke is on us!
So I urge you all of whatever persuasion your views may be to make your voice heard , not by the means of banal social media but by the almost forgotten method of protest, written, public, passionate, heartfelt! The vast majority of us have been apathetic for far to long and it needs to stop! I may shout from the roof tops that I disagree with you but at least we will be talking and let us do it using real language and honest words.
Our system is failing us and it is up to us to repair it and not the so called politicians, many of whom are University educated career politicians who have no fucking idea what real lives are like.
Stand up and start shouting do not retreat into your comfortable apathy and say its not your problem and there is nothing we can do about it, history proves that we are the only way things can change!
In recent times the world has become unstable and results no longer seem, to many of us, to make sense. We feel out of touch and disengaged with what we have come to believe are the stable tenants and the norm. It appears that nobody is right or everybody is wrong! The so called establishment is not trusted and why should they be. The political elite and those with money and power and so far detached from the most of the population, they simply have no conception of what is going on. They talk and pontificate, promise much but deliver little. People like me sit on the sidelines sniping away on social media, spouting empty words into the ether, complaining but presenting no solutions or suggestions. Collectively we have largely forgotten or are to apathetic to actually get off our arses and actually be heard! So much needs to be changed, so much has become mired in red tape and bureaucracy. Simplicity and clarity are in short supply, no one says exactly what they mean for fear of being misinterpreted or being taken out of context.
Well this old diplomat is fed up to the back teeth with all of this crap. Our politics is shit. Many of our politicians are as much use as a one legged man at an arse kicking party. We get the people we deserve, we've had Cameron, Johnson, Osborne and Farage, he is a grinning poisonous knob-head and now we have Trump, another absolute git faced, hair wobbling, gurning, tosser. Teresa May, someone who wanted to be PM so badly she managed to do it without having any agenda at all and is rushing headlong to wards exiting Europe, without any real plan, simply because the "people have spoken". Corbyn what is he all about, has all the qualities of paint drying! There are worse leaders in the world, who are far more dangerous and evil than any of these but it does appear to be joke time in the in the old political arena, unfortunately the joke is on us!
So I urge you all of whatever persuasion your views may be to make your voice heard , not by the means of banal social media but by the almost forgotten method of protest, written, public, passionate, heartfelt! The vast majority of us have been apathetic for far to long and it needs to stop! I may shout from the roof tops that I disagree with you but at least we will be talking and let us do it using real language and honest words.
Our system is failing us and it is up to us to repair it and not the so called politicians, many of whom are University educated career politicians who have no fucking idea what real lives are like.
Stand up and start shouting do not retreat into your comfortable apathy and say its not your problem and there is nothing we can do about it, history proves that we are the only way things can change!
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Election
Well, well, well,well, it had to happen the Yanks have gone completely ga ga and voted for the impossibly coiffured, idiot billionaire. I can't say I am surprised the way this year has gone it makes sense. Neither candidate was a choice that was palatable but really! So we ask what happens next, well this old diplomat is frankly unable to make a coherent statement anymore as it seems whatever the sensible opinion of all right minded people, it matters little as the lunatics have literally taken over the asylum! Somewhere in our history, enough people have become so disenchanted, that they will grasp hold of any straw in order to effect what they hope will be change and too many people believe they can go back to a time when they were supposedly better off, they can't, you never ever can. Maybe, just, maybe they are right and we of the opposite persuasion are wrong, my heart sinks to think that may be true. Bare in mind this man has never held public office or any official position, I am so flabbergasted that who knows it could be a good thing. With all the things he has said and threatened at such a controversial level it is hard to know what to think! Do we get the politicians we deserve, I suspect we do. To many people disengaged and lost in a world of smart devices and I understand the irony of writing that in a blog!
4 years of the Trumpster, let us hope he does not do to much damage , maybe actually becoming President will make him realise the responsibility he has taken on, though one fears a man with that much ego, may not resist wanting to wield that much power!
I have tried to be balanced but what I really want to write is fucking hell what a disaster, sorry I did try!
4 years of the Trumpster, let us hope he does not do to much damage , maybe actually becoming President will make him realise the responsibility he has taken on, though one fears a man with that much ego, may not resist wanting to wield that much power!
I have tried to be balanced but what I really want to write is fucking hell what a disaster, sorry I did try!
Sunday, November 6, 2016
A little of the Devil
When you travel as I have done around the globe you meet many different types of people, some good, some bad, some regrettably of a nature that appears to be so evil that it is difficult to comprehend that such a person exists or how their nature made them that way! Now I am no believer in spiritual matters God, Devil, Angels,Heaven, Hell and all that stuff, not for me I'm afraid. I like the concept but to me it has no more a truth than a good comic book!
I have been unfortunate to meet two men in my professional career that I would term as truly evil, one was an African dictator, whom I had the misfortune to deal with early on in my career and about whom I've written elsewhere. The other I met much later when I was near the end of my time in the service and the good lady and I were contemplating how we would use our retirement.
By this time my service as a full time Ambassador had come to an end and I was spending my final couple of years as a special adviser, when and where I was needed. It was almost a return to how I had started my career, only this time I had seniority and was never under "orders" just requests, with which I was pretty much given a free hand to handle in the true Thorn manner!
One such request found me in Miami. Much as we would like to believe that the world turns on good deeds and peaceful morals, most of us are sufficiently savvy to understand that the two things that really drive people to do what they do, is money and power. Both are an addictive aphrodisiac and can corrupt the purist of natures.
Florida's capital, Miami, is a hot place full of life and colour and colourful characters. Like most it has a thriving sub culture where the criminal fraternity operate. It is my experience that where there is crime it is usually sheltered by the umbrella of the perfectly legitimate. Like all human activity there is always light and dark, it is reality, we might not like it but perhaps we need the dark in order to recognise the light! Anyway enough philosophizing and on with the tale!
I had been sent to sound out a business man Santana Diablo, with regard to a military contract that our government was keen to use his company for. Diablo owned a huge weapon making armory. He supplied many countries with weapons and it was rumored that he had no scruples as to who he supplied, consequently he had become immensely rich and powerful. I was there to asses whether the British government should get in bed with such a man. My instinct told me the answer before I ever got to meet him. He was a well known recluse and guarded his privacy jealously, therefore details about him were almost non-existent. It was known that he often refused to meet even very high powered and the rich and famous and I had been told that he could still decline to meet me, even though the it had already been arranged. His mercurial nature lead him too often and suddenly decide to cancel all business until he was ready to talk and often left deals hanging in limbo for weeks.
I was travelling solo and had left the good lady back in our home in England, where no doubt she was keeping herself busy with her large group of friends, whom I jokingly referred to as the Shire Mafia!
I had checked in to the Mandarin Oriental, I was lucky enough to have an old friend, Billy McClean, who was on the board of the Hotel and a quick call to him had easily secured me a penthouse suite and I admit I taken full advantage of Billy's generous nature. As they say it's not what you know.............
I had settled into my rooms and was just pouring myself a small snifter when the phone rang.
Hello Guestling Thorn speaking.
Sir Guestling Thorn said a very cultured female voice at the other end Good to hear you have arrived, my name is Valeria, I am Mr Diablo's private secretary, he has asked me to call to confirm your meeting with him in two days time.
Yes of course, thank Mr Diablo for me, won't you.
In the mean time Mr Diablo has told me to inform you that his Casino, The Sixty Six Six, will welcome you and that a line of credit has been established should you wish to gamble and all other sundries are complementary.
Most kind I replied somewhat surprised
A car will pick you up to take you wherever you wish just ask at the concierges desk.
The same car will deliver you to meet Mr Diablo please have a pleasant stay until then. Goodbye Sir Guestling. The phone went dead and I found myself staring at it in disbelief.
I took a long pull of my scotch. I called Billy and was delighted to find he was free.
Billy and I had become friends many years ago when we had been thrown together almost literally in a house in Budapest, as we had both just arrived to be stationed in our mission, in those communist days we did not have an embassy. We hit it off straight away, had quite a few adventures together and had stayed in touch ever since. He'd left the service when he inherited his families fortune. Billy never cared much for material things and had over the years become quite philanthropic, supporting and funding many charities and projects to which he donated generously. The fortune he had inherited was vast so it did not make much of a dent. His only weakness was a succession of failed marriages, 5 by my last count. His divorces were all amicable and he was very close to his five children and now his six grandchildren. Billy was one of life's good guys, he had decamped to Florida some years previously and loved the place.
Guestling you old bastard, I cannot tell you how tremendously good it is to have you here! Was his greeting when we met down in the hotel bar.
Likewise Billy you are a sight for sore eyes, how the bloody hell are you.
Never better, never better and the good Lady, I trust she is well and still married to you?
Well eventually all caught up, we got down to some serious drinking, whiskey of course and then Billy took me to a favourite restaurant of his, I forget the name but I do remember the Cajun cuisine which was delicious. I also remember Tequila!
I have been unfortunate to meet two men in my professional career that I would term as truly evil, one was an African dictator, whom I had the misfortune to deal with early on in my career and about whom I've written elsewhere. The other I met much later when I was near the end of my time in the service and the good lady and I were contemplating how we would use our retirement.
By this time my service as a full time Ambassador had come to an end and I was spending my final couple of years as a special adviser, when and where I was needed. It was almost a return to how I had started my career, only this time I had seniority and was never under "orders" just requests, with which I was pretty much given a free hand to handle in the true Thorn manner!
One such request found me in Miami. Much as we would like to believe that the world turns on good deeds and peaceful morals, most of us are sufficiently savvy to understand that the two things that really drive people to do what they do, is money and power. Both are an addictive aphrodisiac and can corrupt the purist of natures.
Florida's capital, Miami, is a hot place full of life and colour and colourful characters. Like most it has a thriving sub culture where the criminal fraternity operate. It is my experience that where there is crime it is usually sheltered by the umbrella of the perfectly legitimate. Like all human activity there is always light and dark, it is reality, we might not like it but perhaps we need the dark in order to recognise the light! Anyway enough philosophizing and on with the tale!
I had been sent to sound out a business man Santana Diablo, with regard to a military contract that our government was keen to use his company for. Diablo owned a huge weapon making armory. He supplied many countries with weapons and it was rumored that he had no scruples as to who he supplied, consequently he had become immensely rich and powerful. I was there to asses whether the British government should get in bed with such a man. My instinct told me the answer before I ever got to meet him. He was a well known recluse and guarded his privacy jealously, therefore details about him were almost non-existent. It was known that he often refused to meet even very high powered and the rich and famous and I had been told that he could still decline to meet me, even though the it had already been arranged. His mercurial nature lead him too often and suddenly decide to cancel all business until he was ready to talk and often left deals hanging in limbo for weeks.
I was travelling solo and had left the good lady back in our home in England, where no doubt she was keeping herself busy with her large group of friends, whom I jokingly referred to as the Shire Mafia!
I had checked in to the Mandarin Oriental, I was lucky enough to have an old friend, Billy McClean, who was on the board of the Hotel and a quick call to him had easily secured me a penthouse suite and I admit I taken full advantage of Billy's generous nature. As they say it's not what you know.............
I had settled into my rooms and was just pouring myself a small snifter when the phone rang.
Hello Guestling Thorn speaking.
Sir Guestling Thorn said a very cultured female voice at the other end Good to hear you have arrived, my name is Valeria, I am Mr Diablo's private secretary, he has asked me to call to confirm your meeting with him in two days time.
Yes of course, thank Mr Diablo for me, won't you.
In the mean time Mr Diablo has told me to inform you that his Casino, The Sixty Six Six, will welcome you and that a line of credit has been established should you wish to gamble and all other sundries are complementary.
Most kind I replied somewhat surprised
A car will pick you up to take you wherever you wish just ask at the concierges desk.
The same car will deliver you to meet Mr Diablo please have a pleasant stay until then. Goodbye Sir Guestling. The phone went dead and I found myself staring at it in disbelief.
I took a long pull of my scotch. I called Billy and was delighted to find he was free.
Billy and I had become friends many years ago when we had been thrown together almost literally in a house in Budapest, as we had both just arrived to be stationed in our mission, in those communist days we did not have an embassy. We hit it off straight away, had quite a few adventures together and had stayed in touch ever since. He'd left the service when he inherited his families fortune. Billy never cared much for material things and had over the years become quite philanthropic, supporting and funding many charities and projects to which he donated generously. The fortune he had inherited was vast so it did not make much of a dent. His only weakness was a succession of failed marriages, 5 by my last count. His divorces were all amicable and he was very close to his five children and now his six grandchildren. Billy was one of life's good guys, he had decamped to Florida some years previously and loved the place.
Guestling you old bastard, I cannot tell you how tremendously good it is to have you here! Was his greeting when we met down in the hotel bar.
Likewise Billy you are a sight for sore eyes, how the bloody hell are you.
Never better, never better and the good Lady, I trust she is well and still married to you?
Well eventually all caught up, we got down to some serious drinking, whiskey of course and then Billy took me to a favourite restaurant of his, I forget the name but I do remember the Cajun cuisine which was delicious. I also remember Tequila!
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