Time to make TUESDAY special - what am I up to today ?

Take this music with you and make sure you have a HAPPY DAY

What have you got planned for your Tuesday ?

It's 4.30am here, I always get up early and spend time at my laptop before I get into the day. At 6am I will take my best friend Jake for his morning walk, Right now he is still sleeping at the bottom of my bed. When I get back I will take Lucy for a walk. Lucy is Jake's girlfriend, the dog belonging to my daughter and her husband. Lucy is staying with us while my daughter and her husband are off sunning themselves in the Canary Islands. Right now Lucy is also sleeping at the bottom of my bed. I hope she and Jake are not getting up to any hanky panky !

When I told friends and supporters yesterday of the story Jake and I are writing together there was a lot of interest. Have a look at JAKE'S STORY  I updated this yesterday to introduce Lucy. On Wedneday 1st March Jake's Doggie Blog will be returning to my story library so do look out for this. Have a look at JAKE'S STORY. This Blogger site is a good thing but some times the formatting on the page goes a bit weird ! It could be because I am still half asleep or it could be the geeks managing the site are in overdrive but it will not let me format paragraphs properly. No it's not my English Grammar that is up the creek, I know there is more than one paragraph in this paragraph if you know what I mean.

Once the dogs have had a walk and I've had a bite of breakfast I'll be driving round to my son's house to take his son, my grandson, Adam to school. I am a bit nervous about this today. Coming up to age seven Adam is a sharp young man, his sense of humour is something I love but if they gave school medals for sarcasm Adam would win gold.

He knows I am writing a story for him - FIREBALL XL5, this morning I am going to give him the introduction I have written and see what he thinks about it. If you hear nothing more about this story, if I go quiet on the blog, you will know Adam thinks it is rubbish. If he gives his thumbs up then expect me to bang on about is for days !

Yesterday I wrote a few hundred more words for my story McDermott's Next Case. I am flattered that so many people are following this crime adventure flowing from the end of my pen. Yesterday I left the story where Detective Sergeant Dave McDermott said to his colleagues that kidnap victim seventeen year old Jimmy McDermott was trying to get a message to them via the photographs the kidnappers had sent with the ransom note. McDermott said he did not understand what the message meant. Yesterday, as the writer I didn't either. When I awoke this morning I had it and also had the next thousand or two words ready to add to the tale.

If you are following it I'll just say the message kidnapped Jimmy is trying to send out to those who will, hopefully, come and rescue him lays within the tontine he and his friends have set up. I told you Blogger's formatting tools are up the creek !  It keeps telling me I have not spelt tontine incorrectly - I HAVE NOT.

Anyway..................

Caviar comes from the virgin sturgeon,

The virgin sturgeon is a very fine fish.

The virgin sturgeon needs no urging,

That's why caviar is my dish !

The clue to aid McDermott in solving this case is within these lines. I'll not give any more away.

So that's my day today. I plan to have a good one and hope you do as well. When it comes to the end of the day use my relaxing theme for Tuesday.

THE PATRIOTIC PENSIONER

Meet Jake

This is my best friend JAKE. He is never, ever, far from my side. We do everything together. He is devoted to my wife and I and we are to him.

I have been promising Jake for too long to write his story and include it in my library. Yesterday I completed the first part of that story telling how he came to live with us.

You can read JAKE'S STORY by clicking that title.

I am going to let Jake continue telling you of his adventures both with more chapters in his autobiography and with JAKE'S DOGGIE BLOG. The blog appears at the end of his story page.

Jake's girlfriend. Lucy, is staying with us for the week.  Lucy normally lives with my daughter and her husband but has come to visit Jake while they have gone away on holiday.

Jake and Lucy are having great fun together. 

I can not imagine my home without Jake in it.

Do you have a special friend, someone like Jake ?

Why not drop me a line and tell me about him or her ? mx@patrioticpensioner.com

Get your friend to say HELLO to Jake and he will say Hello back.  Send Jake a picture which I can add to my DIARY and Jake can add to his blog.

and

Monday - Thought4Today

Here's today's music to make your day go well.  Listen to it then take its bubbly effervescence with you all day to make your Monday special.

Then when it comes to the end of your day, relax and listen to this. Use it to unwind from you day and have a beautiful evening.

Have a good one

THE PATRIOTIC PENSIONER

And now it's Sunday ! Let's have a great one.

Enjoy the theme - take it with you and make your Sunday special.

Then at the end of the day listen to this - relax and look back on all you have achieved.

THE PATRIOTIC PENSIONER

This is my blog. Have you read my diary ?

Thank you for reading my blog, each morning I check to see how many friends have read what I said the day before. My aim is to reach one hundred page views a day, yesterday was 37 so I have a way to go yet.

Once a week I publish my DIARY which is a large celebration of that which is good while naming and shaming that which is not.

It also gives news for my story writing. Can I take a moment of your time to share a few things on that subject ?

I will be seeing my grandson tomorrow, I take him to school each Monday. I will tell him about my idea for a story involving him.

I will give him the introduction to FIREBALL XL FIVE and hope he approves.

He may be young but his wit is sharper than a razor - I hope he does not use it to make a cutting comment !

When I shared the idea for this story yesterday here on Blogger friends thought it was a good idea.

THANKS...............

I am very busy writing the next crime solving activity for Detective Sergeant David McDermott. McDERMOTT'S NEXT CASE - as the story is progressing I have asked Cupid to help me with a sub plot.

I am really getting in to writing in this genre which, until very recently, was new to me.

Although this second crime busting tale featuring Dave McDermott is still new I have a third case waiting for my hero.

Today I must discipline myself and finish JAKE'S STORY which is something I am writing for my best friend.

It's almost time for me to take him for his morning walk but before I sign off and close the laptop I would like to tell you about a feature I have on my diary.

I want to find an illustrator to work with me and enhance my writing.

On my diary you will find an explanation of what I am hoping to find - I do not want a professional artist but someone who wants to have a bit of fun illustrating the stories I have fun writing.

By any chance could that be you or do you know someone who it may interest ?

Have a look at my DIARY 

An important update - please read

4.30pm (UK time) Saturday 18th February 2017

I have just received a text message - a very important text message.

Ten days ago I posted the blog entry below.  Did you read it ?  If not please check it out now. If you did can I ask you to read it again.

The text message was from the UK Blood Service telling me my donated blood has been used for a patient in The Royal Cornwall Hospital.  I have no idea who the patient is, of course, but I am thinking of that man, woman, boy or girl right now and wishing who ever it is the very, very best for a speedy recovery.

Are you a blood donor ?  When you read the blog below you will read how ashamed I am that I did not become a donor until late in life.

Please do not make the mistake I did - do not wait - become a donor now.

Here's my laptop. This is where I operate my websites and write my stories. Each day I rattle the keys to chat with my BLOGGER friends, supporters and readers.

Today this is a very important blog, the most important blog I have so far posted. Please take a moment to read what I am about to type.

I am always banging on about PATRIOTISM, a love for your country. I am, after all, The Patriotic Pensioner.

It is NOT a government that makes a country great, it is the people within that country who make it great.

If you strip away government, strip away the buildings and so on what are you left with ?

The land and the people.

Let's look at the PEOPLE.

A person who cares about his fellow countrymen is a PATRIOT. A person who goes about his daily life making the lives of others better is worth a parliament full of politicians.

Little things like smiling, thanking the supermarket checkout operator for their service, stopping your car to let someone cross the road.  LITTLE THINGS.

Allow me to share a sentence from my schoolboy autobiography THINGS WERE DIFFERENT IN MY DAY - As I was closing the kitchen door I head someone say, "What a lovely polite little boy that was, such good manners."  That happened when I was 9 years old, 58 years ago !  I have never forgotten it and I have far from repeated such politeness as I have lived my life.  If I had then perhaps the lives of those with whom I interacted would have been better.

Fast forward my life to when I was an undergraduate....... the college matron, I remember, was a blood donor who received her gold donor badge for giving FIFTY pints.

In a conversation with her she encouraged me to become a blood donor but I was far too big a coward for that. I was not going to have a needle stuck in me and a pint of blood drained from my body ! What a self-centred despicable coward I was. I am ashamed of myself. Thoroughly ashamed. 

That was 43 years ago. A blood donor gives a pint of blood three times a year. Do the maths, if I had not been such a coward I would by now have given 129 pints of blood to help others. How many lives would I have helped to save ? But OH NO other people can do that - I AM NOT. What an appalling attitude I had.

Eventually, decades later - several decades later, I did become a blood donor. I overcame my terror and put others in front of myself.

Yesterday was blood donor day for me. This was the 17th pint I have donated. The staff at the donor session congratulated me on the number of times I had donated. Two words describe how I felt - SHAME and EMBARRASSMENT.  Seventeen pints - BIG DEAL - yesterday should have seen me reach ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE pints.

I bang on about being patriotic, loving your country and those who share it with you. Minus one hundred and twelve - ALL missing pints of blood shame, me and I want to share that shame with all who read this blog entry today.

My college matron donated 50 pints of her blood. Since I became a donor myself it has been my ambition to also donate 50 pints. A donor is allowed to give blood three times a year, I need to give another 33 pints taking 11 years. I will be 78 years old then. I hope I make it, I hope I can follow the proud example of my college matron.

I am never going to lose my shame by not becoming a blood donor until late in my life. I want to extend my embarrassment by telling this story to all who will listen.

It does not hurt, it is not some vampire experience. Can you see the tiny little mark on my arm where the needle  went  in ?  Today I am going to be clearing some rubbish in my garden and nail up a broken fence. I will scratch myself tearing down brambles and hit my thumb with a hammer that will hurt more than that little needle going into my arm. What a coward I was all those years.

I actually find the donor session relaxing, laying back on the bed and entering a 

short time where everything else is cut out. Laying and looking upwards to contemplate the ceiling of the donor hall.

In a couple of days time I will receive a text from the blood donor system, not telling me who received my blood but telling me where my blood was used - the hospital.  That will be a proud moment.

Are you a blood donor ? Please do not be like me when I was younger. Use your computer to search for the blood donor system in the country where you live then give them a call.

Thank You

THE PATRIOTIC PENSIONER

Welcome to Saturday

Hi - It's SATURDAY - well you know that don't you !

Then when it comes to the end of your day enjoy this theme:

The Patriotic Pensioner

Fireball XL5 - A new story

I have started work on a new story.

This story is a bit different. When I write I write for myself, I do not have a target audience. I have always believed that the primary enjoyment in writing comes from composing the story, developing a plot and bringing in characters to make it all happen. It matters not if anyone ever reads the story or not. If they do and if they enjoy what has been written then that is a bonus.

This story does have a target audience, my grandson. He will be seven years old in May 2017 but with a reading age about two years in advance of that. In writing, therefore, I am trying to use words and style that he will be able to read on his own and without any help.

First thing one Friday morning I popped up to my local supermarket. Turning on the CD player the theme tune from this song blasted out into the car. Walking round the supermarket an idea for a story filled my mind. As soon as the shopping was in the boot and I was back in the driver's seat I played it again. The moment I got home I typed up the introduction.Then I turned to Destiny and asked if I was meant to write this tale or not. I was told to see if I could purchase the website domain name FireballXL5.com. If I could then write I had to do. NO that was not available BUT  FireballXLfive.com was. I waved my Visa card at the laptop so now own the domain and am committed to writing the tale. A tale inspired by the music.

I have written the initial introduction which I am going to give to Adam so he can read it.  If he thinks it is a load of rubbish that will be the end of it and I will have wasted the money buying a domain name for it. But, and fingers crossed, if he does like it I will finish the story. THEN I will ask Adam to draw pictures for it and to become the story's illustrator.

Adam has a wit which is as sharp as a razor so in writing I am trying to play to these. In his picture he may look as if butter would not melt in his mouth but, trust me, he is not like that at all.

When I was just a little bit older than Adam there was on childrens' TV a programme called Fireball XL5. I took the theme tune from this and added it to one of the collections on my YouTube channel.

This is what I have so far written:

FIREBALL XL5

Adam's Granddad is completely bonkers.

Honestly he is. He is always coming up with stories. Adam has always known that some of them are true but others must simply  come out of his head !

"When I was ten years old Juri Gagarin became the first man in space."

Adam knew that but when Granddad said his Nan and Granddad had taken him to a Russian exhibition in London where he saw some of the people who designed Gagarin's spaceship Vostok One Adam did not believe him.

"When I was eighteen I watched the first moon landing live on television,"  Granddad said.

Eighteen ? What would it be like to be eighteen ?  Adam was seven.  When Granddad was seven they did  not have computers.  Tablets and smart phones had not been invented. Television programmes were all in black and white with very little for children to watch. It must have been very boring to be a boy in Granddad's time.

One of the stories Granddad was always telling was about a television programme which he used to watch, it was called Fireball XL Five.  Granddad downloaded the theme tune from YouTube and would play it to Adam constantly in the car when he took him to school.

Fireball XL Five was a spaceship commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac. All of the characters were puppets. Granddad said his favourite was Robert the robot. The way he described this robot made Adam think it was a bit girlie !
When Granddad asked Adam if he would like to go away on holiday when school broke up for the summer it sounded exciting.

"Where are we going ?"

"Somewhere special."

Adam knew that when his Dad was a boy Granddad had taken him with his sister and brother to Legoland in Denmark, they had also been to Egypt to visit the pyramids but most exciting of all they had been to California to Disneyland and Universal Studios. Was that where Granddad planned to take him ? Where was somewhere special ?

"Can Ollie come ?"  Ollie is Adam's younger brother.

"No he's too young. he can come when he is older."

"What about Mum and Dad ?"

"No, just you Adam."

"Is Nanny coming ?"

"Yes, and Jake." Jake is Granddad's dog.

"Anyone else ?"

"Just Robert the Robot."

Oh no !  This was one of Granddad's crazy stories.

"I see," Adam said disappointed.

"We are going to Titan. That's one of the moons orbiting Saturn."

"Yeh, yeh ! I suppose we are going in Fireball XL Five."

"How did you know ?

"Oh Granddad !"

To be continued - I hope !

The Patriotic Pensioner

Am I a racist ?

I posted this on TWITTER yesterday. It did not arouse much interest which was something of a surprise to me. With more than seventeen thousand followers I would have thought somebody would have said something about it but NO.  It was just accepted as my true and honest opinion.

A while back I was speaking to my seven year old grandson and saying that Britain was the greatest nation on earth. He challenged me saying I was wrong, America was the greatest nation.

"What do you mean if you say something is U S ?" I asked him.

"Useless," was his quick reply.

"So U S A means......................"

"Ah yes," he smiled.

I have been to America many more times than I can recount. I have been to California, Boston, Detroit, New York - terrible place New York ! I have been to Nevada, to Yosemite, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas - now that is a strange place !  I have had some great times in America even if Americans do frustrate me like crazy.

I can not stand their inability to spell. Why must they use a Z in a word when it should be an S ?  Realise not Realize. Why when I am typing up this blog does the damn spell checker tell me I have spelt the first word incorrectly ? Damn Americans LOL.

Why do Americans insist on writing the date backwards ?  Today is Friday 17th February 2017.  It is NOT Friday February 17th 2017 !

But my criticising (YES with an S and not a Z) America in this way, does it make me a racist ?

One of my favourite meals (YES my American readers that IS how you spell FAVOURITE not your way as favorite !) Is mushroom chow mein. Love it. As a special treat I will go to my local take away and buy a portion with fried rice and prawn crackers. When I say I am popping up to the CHINKY is that a racist statement ?  Many would say it is derogatory and yes, racist. GET OVER IT when I say Chinky I am a referring to something good and something special. How can that be racist ?

Many a time I have joked saying THERE ARE ONLY TWO NATIONALITIES IN THIS WORLD - BRITISH AND FOREIGN !

That is what it is - A JOKE.

I was ten years old before I saw a negro. Oh not allowed to say that are we ?  What do we have to call them now ?  Black ?  In my teenage years calling someone black was considered wrong. 

Since seeing my first coloured person - am I allowed to say coloured - they are all over Britain. You know what ? I don't even notice if a man or woman is black or white, they are just people to me. Call them Afro-Carribean, call them West Indian if you like to me they are fellow Brits who have brought a lot to our nation and I would not want my country to be without them. So how ever I try to find words to say the tone of their skin am I being racist ?

What I do not like about my country is walking down the street and hearing every language under the sun beyond English being spoken.  I do not want that. If you come to live in England you speak ENGLISH. I think if I were to live in America I may well consider spelling words incorrectly and writing the date backwards.  By objecting to the infiltration of foreign tongues into England is that being racist ?

I do not like religion in any form. Among the 17k+ followers I have on TWITTER  if I see on a person's profile I AM A CHRISTIAN I tend to ignore them completely. be a Christian if you wish - to me it is all mumbo jumbo, but DO NOT shove it in my face. There is not a Jehovah Witness in our town who would dare knock on my door. The first of hell would be a better ordeal than the tongue lashing I would dish out.

When I see women walking about in GREAT BRITAIN with - YES I AM GOING TO USE THESE WORDS - rag bags on their heads it offends me. I do not want religion or a non-British culture shoved in my face like that. Those head coverings to me are like putting two fingers up to my country and its culture. I would, not go to Saudi Arabia and disrespect its national way of life so why should my way of life be disrespected ?  Is that being racist ?

I do not care about the colour of a person's skin, if you ask me Mother Nature got it wrong with both black and white people, brown is the most pleasing skin tone in my opinion. When the world was created I think Mother Natire got it right when she created the Indian sub-continent and decided the colour of we Brits on a bad day. Is that being racist ? yes I would like to see all the mosques in Britain closed down but I would also like to see all the kingdom halls boarded up. So is that being racist ?

We used to say someone was half-cast, meaning a parent of one racial colour and a parent from another. It was not an offensive way of speaking, not intended to be. These days we have to say mixed race ? WHY ? Can you tell me why ?  Why do we have to say anything to describe someone who had one black and one white parent ? Why do we have to have any way at all of describing them ? they are just people like you and me.  That is NOT being racist !  If a French man marries an Italian woman will that make his children mixed race ? No different than a Welsh man hooking up with a woman from Barbados !

When I left school I went to work in a large city centre department store in Birmingham.


Here it is on the right. 

Part of my job was to manage furnishing contracts for customers. I had several customers who lived in a street named Viceroy Close which was with the city's Jewish community. Not one of those contracts went smoothly. Every customer found something to moan about, several although wealthy were bad payers and all were constantly changing their minds.

One day my sales manager told me I was not allowed to take any more contracts from Jews.

Did that make him racist ?  Did it make him anti-semitic ? NO he was just being a businessman.  I ignored his instruction and continued to sell to this Jewish community simply because I wanted high sales figures !

I have been to Amsterdam, three times I have visited Ann Frank's House.  As a teacher I took my students there so thew could see where the book was set and better understand what  the family was going through. That did not make me pro Jew or anti German.

I have never visited the sites of a former death camp and do not want to. Why would I ? The holocaust was way before my birth and is now part of history. I am not saying we should forget what happened but I do suggest time has embellished things slightly - SLIGHTLY not significantly.  I do not want the holocaust thrown up in my face the way it is a little too often. Does that make me racist ?  How long before we let those souls rest ? Will we still have Holocaust Memorial Day in fifty years time ?  One hundred years time ? One thousand years time ?  When will we let it rest ? By asking that question does it make me racist ?

At school the French master was always called FROG.  A Frenchman was, is a frog. It's not a term of derision so is it racist ?  I am British, you can call me a Brit if you like or you can call me a Limey even - I don't care, it does not offend me. And NO it is NOT racist.

I hate the European Union - no secret there.  I feel sorry for the people in nations bound into its terrible anti-democratic ways. I am not a Frenchman but I think France is an ancient and proud nation. Frogs if you like but GREAT people the Frogs.  Italy is a beautiful nation. Never been to Spain but am told it is lovely.  Greece - had a fantastic holiday there a few years ago. The European Union would seek to destroy France, Italy, Spain, Greece and all the rest of its unfortunate members.

NOW THAT IS BEING RACIST

The Patriotic Pensioner

What's happening ?

How's things going in your part of the world ?  Are you having a good time ?

I'm away from home spending some time with my two lovely grand daughters. Yesterday the oldest, who is only five, took me to a climbing centre. What an incredible place that was !  I just had to post a review on Trust Pilot  We also went to Burger King for a bite to eat where she asked for a cheese burger. When she started picking at it I asked if she liked it or not to which she replied - I like my cheese burger without cheese ! There's a review of Burger King on Trust Pilot as well.

On the story front I have started work on something new. McDermott's Next Case. This follows on from my Angels Of The Anti Christ tale.

My best friend Jake is getting a bit cross with me for not finishing his story. I did write a few hundred words for it yesterday.

We are returning home today then tomorrow Jake's girlfriend Lucy Dog is coming to stay for a week while my daughter and her husband fly off to the sun. We are in for a week of doggie romance. 

Check the blog and I will tell you what happens !

So now time for Thought4Today..................

And today's MUSIC TO MAKE YOUR DAY GO WELL.

So have a good one. Speak again tomorrow.

THE PATRIOTIC PENSIONER

Isn't it GREAT to be alive ?

My thought for today.

There have been some tough times in my life but I have always done this and here i still am while the bitch days are gone and forgotten.

I am way from home at the moment spending time with my two wonderful grand daughters. That's one joy of being old, grand children - I have two grand sons and two grand daughters. We had a wonderful day yesterday, you should have seen me on the childrens' playground rides ! Today the older of the two, she is only five, is going to a childrens' climbing centre for a lesson. I am not sure if I will be brave enough to watch.

My wife and I enjoyed a fantastic meal for Valentine's last night. Yep Tuesday 14th February 2017 was a special day for me.

Here's the music to set my day and your day off well this Wednesday.

That is a WIKID piece of music. I have all of the songs from my YouTube Channel on CDs which I have loaded into the car's multi changer. Yesterday, as we drove along, I was singing away to them.  I'm not sure the girls were impressed.

I love music, I could not imagine a world without it. I have always like YouTube, well ever since I discovered it a number of years ago. have you visited My Channel ? It's just staring to be found by other users.

Now then, I have come up with an idea.

I have purchased another website domain name and will, next month, be launching a new Patriotic Pensioner project. People will be able to tell me their favourite tunes, why they like them then I will make a YouTube collection just for them. Look out for this.

Isn't it great to be alive ? In the 66+ years I have been on this planet I have never been so happy as I am right now. Life is a disco you know and the ONLY way to live it is to dance. So have a fantastic day - have a WIKID WEDNESDAY. Speak again tomorrow.

THE PATRIOTIC PENSIONER