Over inflated egos.

Were does Alex Ferguson get his sense of being above mere mortals. There is no doubt that he has been a very great and successful football manager. In addition within the Man United football club he is in charge. He does not get questioned or get criticised. There is evidence that when somebody be it a player, fan or member of the administration asks awkward questions, that person is moved on.
It is the same for all people who think they are so brilliant and gain power. They feel that they are above the ordinary crowd. Any criticism is seen as a personal slight by people who are not worthy to be questioning their actions. All dictators are like this.
The FA should ignore any complaint from Ferguson and deal with him like anybody else in football. If it was some lower league manager making the comments he makes, they wold be fined and banned. Maybe it is that he still suffers from siege mentality. Let us have no more special treatment for Ferguson from now on.

(In my fantasy novel The Return of the Exiles, Book 2 of the Rombuli Saga to be published on Kindle in the autumn, the Duke of Marrinet has these attitudes to other what he sees as lesser mortals.

The old man looked sharply at Edward.  " Do you practice magic young man?"

Edward frowned and then shrugged his shoulders. " I would not say I practice magic, as you call it. I seem to have an in built power to do certain things that most people find impossible."

Boric reproved his friend. " Be careful Tag. You are embarrassing Edward. Now, your Grace, we were talking about the war and what happened."

The old man ignored Boric. " I have never met anybody who dealt in magic other than a member of the Covenent in all my dealings with the Empire. Oh, some of the priests from the Temples of the Sun God say they can do magic but I have always suspected that what they do is more tricks of sleight of hand than real magic. What can you do?"

Edward stared at the old man for a long time before replying. " This is not meant as a snub but I do not think that is any of your business."

For the first time since they came into the room, the old man sat up straight in his chair and glared at Edward. " When I ask you a question, I demand an answer! "

Edward rose from his chair and confronted the old man. He ignored the sharp intake of breath coming from Boric and signalled for Tag to remain seated. " Look old man, nobody demands to know what I can do with my power, not even Nelvask my teacher. I do not come from your estate or your country. Therefore, I am not one of your fawning sycophantic subjects. You may be able to demand instant obedience to your commands from those people but not from me. I can do things with my power and that is all you have to know. If I have insulted your sense of social class by being blunt with you, I am sorry but I am not used to being spoken to like one would to a servant. If my attitude towards you makes you feel I am not welcome in your house, have your servants load up my horses and I will find a place to camp until Boric and Tag are ready to leave."

Book 1 The Teacher of the Rombuli is available for download at Amazon.)

Loyalty.

Looking at the television at what was happening in Lybia set me thinking about the subject of loyalty. What do we mean by Loyalty?
In Lybia bit appears to mean blind following of a leader who to most reasonable people was a tyrant, a bully and a megalomaniac. Yet despite all that, to these people he must have had some charisma which makes them so loyal even tough it is obvious that the end of his dictatorship is at the end.
On a very shallow level I have a similar dilemma on Saturday. For 25 years I have supported Leicester City with my son. The problem is that when I was young I went to my first football match with my father at the old Dell to see Southampton. Some of my earliest memories are of Saturdays getting the bus full of excitement. Of the feeling of elation if they won or dejection if they lost. I can still the headmaster 's voice when he warned of the grave consequences if any boy bunked off school to see Stanley Matthews and Blackpool in a cup replay. ( No floodlights in those days so it was afternoon.) ~Half the school must have been there! Then the time I sneaked down from the Baltic Vanguard in Surrey Docks to see them with out telling my parents. Who should I meet on the way back to my car but my father. But my son, daughter and I have great memories of following Leicester City. Again there has been the elation and the depression. Wembley and the third division ( League 1 nowadays.)
On Saturday what will I do. Support the blue shirts I suppose but a little bit of me will still feel for the red and white stripes.
Then there is the idea of loyalty between the fans and the players. Nowadays there are not many players who are loyal to their teams. They are all mercenaries out to make as much money as they can. Contracts mean little though that is not entirely the fault of the players. If a team wants to cash in on a player they will sell him without any mention of his contract. Managers express their undying loyalty to the club and then leave the next week. Owners pledge their confidence in the manager  and then sack them the next day. Where are the Steve Walshes. the Terry Paines. the Mat Le Tissiers these days?
So what is loyalty? It is easy for me to pontificate about loyalty in terms of football but it must be hard when it involves life and death.
(My book Brotherly Love a Thriller obtainable for downloading from www.smashwords.com explores the loyalty question when a brother involves his sibling in what appears to be dubious actions. Should the sibling stay loyal to his brother or turn him in to the authorities? It is a story about fear, of somebody out of his depth in a world made strange to him by events he cannot fully comprehend. It is a novel about Ken Flood being pulled by family loyalties along paths of experience which would be best left unexplored.Ken Flood lives a quiet life with his wife, Doreen, and two daughters in Plymouth, working as a lecturer in the University. He minds his own business and is relatively happy with life. Until, that is, his brother Norman arrives unexpectedly one day asking for help.Norman works for the government or so Ken assumes.  What his brother asks appears to Ken to verge on an attempt pull him into the murky waters on the edges of crime. Ken has to decide quickly whether to help his brother out of brotherly love or let his brother face his unknown pursuers alone.Reluctantly Ken agrees to help and soon finds himself outside the law, being chased by people he does not know, trying to deliver a mysterious package, given to him by his brother, to a man he has never met in London Along the way there are chance encounters with people who through friendship are willing to help.) 

Warning!!!

Warning!!!

A question which has been bothering me for most of my adult life but has now more than ever been placed in sharp focus. Events in England over the last thirty years have made the answer imperative for our society to answer. 

Is it right that somebody who does nothing but dish the dirt on other people earns hundreds of thousands of pounds a year while a fitter and turner in a factory which creates wealth earns twenty thousand pounds a year. In addition those who earn vast sums live in this clique which looks after their own. They close ranks to exclude outsiders. When one of them is found wanting in moral fibre or truthfulness, the rest deny any knowledge of what was going on. Andy Coulson and his Oxbridge circle is a case in point. You cannot convince the bulk of the hard working population that those in authority did not know about what was going on. Yet after he left the News of the World not only did they employ him on a vast salary but turned a blind eye to his payoff and continued hush money from News International. The very people who say they did not know about this are the same who are running the country. Can there be any doubt why certain parts of our society have no faith in the common aims but think that they have to grab what they can.

There is a history in England stretching back to the middle ages of ordinary people getting so angry at the disparity in wealth between the elite and the rest that they rise up in protest. Though in the main the authorities win, the system usually has to change.

Are we now living through one of those periods? That there is a wide disparity in wealth and responsibility in this country there is no doubt. We have to learn the lessons of our history and somehow curb the worst excesses of those with power and wealth.

Where though is the Labour Party? The ranks of this political movement are now full of those coming from the same Oxbridge background as all the others. They laugh behind their backs at John Prescott but he worked for a living. Alan Johnson is sneered at in the newspapers which are run by members of the same clique. What is the difference in the Oxbridge mafia looking after their own and the gangs in the estates looking after their own. Gangs do not have the levers of power to pull or their weight of public opinion formers to keep their territory to themselves  but they have a strength in violence against other gangs. Is there any difference other than in the methods used?

If we are not careful the ordinary citizen will rise up in revolt against those with the power and the wealth just as over the ages English people have done.

( This theme is explored in my novel A Ceremony of Innocencewritten under my full name of Edmund J Gubbins. It can be obtained through Amazon both as a paper back or for download to your PC, Kindle, iPad or other readers.)

Warning!!!

A question which has been bothering me for most of my adult life but has now more than ever been placed in sharp focus. Events in England over the last thirty years have made the answer imperative for our society to answer. 

Is it right that somebody who does nothing but dish the dirt on other people earns hundreds of thousands of pounds a year while a fitter and turner in a factory which creates wealth earns twenty thousand pounds a year. In addition those who earn vast sums live in this clique which looks after their own. They close ranks to exclude outsiders. When one of them is found wanting in moral fibre or truthfulness, the rest deny any knowledge of what was going on. Andy Coulson and his Oxbridge circle is a case in point. You cannot convince the bulk of the hard working population that those in authority did not know about what was going on. Yet after he left the News of the World not only did they employ him on a vast salary but turned a blind eye to his payoff and continued hush money from News International. The very people who say they did not know about this are the same who are running the country. Can there be any doubt why certain parts of our society have no faith in the common aims but think that they have to grab what they can.

There is a history in England stretching back to the middle ages of ordinary people getting so angry at the disparity in wealth between the elite and the rest that they rise up in protest. Though in the main the authorities win, the system usually has to change.

Are we now living through one of those periods? That there is a wide disparity in wealth and responsibility in this country there is no doubt. We have to learn the lessons of our history and somehow curb the worst excesses of those with power and wealth.

Where though is the Labour Party? The ranks of this political movement are now full of those coming from the same Oxbridge background as all the others. They laugh behind their backs at John Prescott but he worked for a living. Alan Johnson is sneered at in the newspapers which are run by members of the same clique. What is the difference in the Oxbridge mafia looking after their own and the gangs in the estates looking after their own. Gangs do not have the levers of power to pull or their weight of public opinion formers to keep their territory to themselves  but they have a strength in violence against other gangs. Is there any difference other than in the methods used?

If we are not careful the ordinary citizen will rise up in revolt against those with the power and the wealth just as over the ages English people have done.

( This theme is explored in my novel A Ceremony of Innocence written under my full name of Edmund J Gubbins. It can be obtained through Amazon both as a paper back or for download to your PC, Kindle, iPad or other readers.)

Rioters in England.

What is the point of taking away benefits from yoiung people convicted of rioting? Surely this is the way to push such people into more crime. They have nothing in the first place so how are they to live. It is a sign of a compassionate society that it helps those in need. We have therefore to find a way of helping these people feel that they can have a stake in our society. That means giving them hope by getting them into work earning money.
The man to do this is our Prime Minister and his government. There is nobody in the government, however, who knows anything about being short of money. When did David Cameron have to think about spending money on anything he wanted? His phrase ' the broken society' does nothing to mitigate the harm done by his mentor Margaret Thatcher. She said that there was no such thing as society and it was everyone for themselves. Now we are reaping the harvest in certain sections of society.
The bankers and other rich people do not set an example. They show no desire to put anything back into our society at all. They have reaped the benefit of the system until the became rich. Now they leave for Monty Carlo or some other tax haven. I think ordinary people should boo Lewis Hamilton for the way he has set up systems to dodge paying his fair share of taxes.
In addition, the communities where the riots took place have to accept some responsibility. They have to set moral standards to their young. Teach them what is right and what is wrong. To do this they should set an example.
If we are to help, enterprise zones must be set up in these areas with cast iron promises that the jobs will go to the people living there.
We are not a broken society. The vast majority of people live quietly and communily.
There is the problem of the local communities and the police. As I related in my book An Ordinary Life published as an ebook for for loading see Amazon, some people will never involve the police in their affairs.

( It was Pat who answered. “Nobody goes to the police from where we come from. It is against the custom of the people living on our estate. Most people who live round where I live in the middle of that estate up there, hate the police. Well hate is too strong a word but they are suspicious of the police. They’re scared that if they call the police in for a small matter, the police will use that as an excuse to look further at what is happening on the estate and its surrounding area. As far as I know there are a lot of rogues living on our estate. Oh, not everybody is bent but a lot of people living there are. With the poverty and all, what else are they supposed to do? Most of those who are not bent will stick up for the other people on the estate, trying to sort out their problems between themselves. That is the obstacle to anything being done about family violence. Just like Derek’s, my dad used to beat us at the least little thing which upset him. We were lucky in that he did not try to interfere with me or my sister. He only stopped beating us last year when my uncle threatened to smash his head in if he did not show some regard for his family. Uncle Harry is even bigger and tougher than my dad. Dad has always worked so we have plenty of money to live on unlike some of the people. Did you know, I passed the eleven plus? My dad told me not to get ideas above my station. I would not go to grammar school because he could not afford to send me and, anyway, girls should leave school as soon as they were fifteen and go out to work to contribute to the household. It was not for girls to go to grammar school. One of these days, I will be free and then I will go to college to get an education.)

The Return of the Exiles

COMING SOON!!

Editing and checking 

Book 2 of the Rombuli Saga

called The Return of the Exiles 

before publishing alongside 

Book 1 The Teacher of the Rombuli 

on Kindle.