Allergic to Beer?

Woe is me! I am forced to conclude that I am allergic to something in beer. I love beer, especially Czech beer, but it hates me. Last night, I had four glasses of beer with a friend. This morning, I am dizzy, throbbing headache, my right eye is swollen up and my sinuses too and I have a sore throat on that side too. In short, I feel pretty crappy to say the least. I have been getting this sort of reaction to most beers this last few years but this time is the worst. If I drink wine, whiskey or anything else, I am fine so it really is beer. My father suffered the same fate. The older he got the more beer seemed to dislike him. A pint of

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Soccer and Role Models

As those who know me well will acknowledge, I do like my football (soccer). I attended my first match back at the age of 5 in 1965 at Boothferry Park in Hull to watch the Tigers and have been hooked ever since. I’m not the only one as the World Cup unfolds in Brazil, millions perhaps billions of others are following the games, the drama and the action. One or two American friends continue to ask what the attraction is and have no understanding of how two teams can compete and draw but my advice to them is to think what that means about the US culture. What does it mean about your culture that you think you have to always win? There are many who would rather Americans retained

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Science is Never Proven

If I had a quid for every time some punter on TV or in the media or even a politician has said “The science is proven” when referring to global warming, I’d be a very wealthy man indeed. I have to tell you, as a Ph.D. scientist myself, every time I hear this I literally cringe. The person saying it or writing it cannot then understand the philosophy of science as no scientist who does would ever utter such a stupidity. Yes – stupidity. Today, I read an article by a scientist on CNN about the big bang. Please read with me the following excerpts… “Everyone wants to be right. Most of us sure hate being wrong. But scientists know that new discoveries often change or even invalidate earlier ideas.

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Mistaken Priorities

People I just cannot get Would rather save an ant Than one of their own Rather protect a plant Than help the homeless Worrying about the issues They know nothing about And not seeing the little things That would really count Happily labeling themselves Left, right, or by nation Or yet, worse still, By their religion Man made rules to kill For a man made God Hustling, bustling, striving To outdo one another, while Following their dubious heroes Emulating their style What a fucking joke Conspiracy and doom Echoes of their self-created hell Selling their sordid stories Even when there’s nothing to tell They feed off each other Born again idiots spouting hate Confidently assessing their own salvation If that’s your ‘heaven’ I hope you go there as one nation

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What Am I Becoming?

I never saw myself as a grammar nazi. I make mistakes. We all do when writing. We also use short cuts like ‘u’ for you and so on. To me that is acceptable. I know that I am clueless about commas. I have no idea where commas go so I kind of make it up as I go along. This too must annoy comma nazis. However…. Just recently I have become really quiet appalled at the mistakes people make in written English. Many of these people are totally unaware that they make mistakes too, which makes it even worse. The ones that really, really bug me are as follows; 1. There, Their, They’re 2. Were, Where, We’re and,  would you believe – Wear? 3. To, Too, Two 4. Your, You’re

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Customer Service East of the Rhine….

I love living in the Czech Republic I really do. It is beautiful, relatively inexpensive (outside of Prague), full of very nice people and has great beer and food. One thing it lacks however is an understanding of what customer service is. When you live somewhere like the Czech Republic you really do begin to yearn for the American customer service experience. I say American because to be honest, British customer service isn’t all that great either…. but, its not this bad! Let me give you a small example. In an earlier post, I mentioned a bill for natural gas. The company in question is RWE, a major German energy company. You would think then that customer service would be high on the agenda of a company supplying energy to

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Sometimes Everything Just Goes Tits Up….

This last few weeks has been pretty interesting. Its not so much that we have a had a run of bad luck but that things just appear to be testing and frustrating us. First off, we have a had a string of unexpected bills. First we got a fine for having no car insurance last year for a few days – it just arrived in the mail saying we notice you had no car insurance and here is your fine, signed the Czech Government. They are correct actually as the car was leased and insurance included and I forgot to get new insurance when the lease ran out (and no one wrote from said insurance company saying would you like to keep your insurance going)… Next, we got a gas

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The Topless Skier

I think politicians are the scum of the earth. I have made this statement before and I will say it again. They are usually hypocrites, liars, cheats and eminently buyable. They use politics to polarize opinion, cause disruptions and sometimes war. Politicians work endlessly and tirelessly to find ways to be divisive. By being divisive, they gain a following and cynically they hope that the issues they divide us on are popular enough to give them a majority. I think the best strategy is to ignore them and certainly never to vote. The topless skier from The Lebanon emphasizes my point today. Here we have a country polarized by religion (another crock of polarizing crap) and politics with seemingly endless violence (just as the politicians and religious zealots like it).

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The Anatomy of a Bad Review

If you take a look over on Amazon.com at the reviews for The Last Observer, you will discover a couple of 1-star reviews there. I’m not sure if these two people know each other but they sound remarkably similar. There is nothing wrong with bad reviews. We don’t all like the same things and constructive bad reviews are useful in growing as a writer or whatever it is we do. In fact, go to any book on Amazon with several reviews and you will find a range of reviews from bad to great. I was just reading Anthony Peake discussing a bad review he got for one of his books too. Sometimes, people are not just critical but personal and its then that I feel things cross the line to

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Trial by Social Media

There used to be a time when family matters were kept private. Perhaps that wasn’t a healthy attitude – sweeping things under the carpet and keeping it within the family but there were and still are appropriate channels via which people can get assistance and make complaints. Of course, there has always been gossip and gossip newspaper and magazines but by and large, people chose whether they wished to consume this type of frivolous nonsense by actually buying the magazine. Mainstream media, wary of legal action or a slap on the wrist from regulators, also (usually) maintained some element of restraint. Like many things, social media and the internet has changed all of that. Today, we see various ways in which accusations may be made, sides taken and people’s reputations

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