Page 16 w The Top
A View From
Welcome to my monthly column “A view from the top”. Hopefully you will find my rambling readable maybe even enjoyable. You may agree or you may disagree with my views, I care not. These are my views long held and forged over a life time of work, travel and experience. Now that’s over let’s have a look at what is really winding me up.
Scenes from a Soap Opera. Now before you all go and get thinking why oh why would Mr. View start writing about The Opera let me say that this story is about a different kind of Opera…I have just been reading on the wibbly wobbly web a story that made me sit up and take immediate attention. The story dear reader is/was about the imminent demise of our old friend the bar of soap. Yes it seems that the days of coal tar and Palmolive are to become things of memory. The marketing men and ladies have it in for our traditions and are determined to force us to use soap from a “hand soap” pump. On reading this devilish proposition I was taken back to my early years when every Friday night my mum would take several two bob bits and march up to the top floor of the London council house we rented and ply the gas meter so as to get enough hot water to fill our tin bath. We as a family rented
the bottom floor of the house and shared the bathroom with the families of the middle and top floor. Our designated bath night was every other Friday night…if my mum and dad could afford the money for the meter. The procedure for bathing went thus: my older sister went first…she was in her early teens…I went next …eightish I suppose, and my younger sister went last…by which time the water was like soup. The joy of the whole bath time was to wash oneself all over with a bar of soap… every nook and cranny of the body was subject to a good soaping followed by a good scrub down to enliven the circulation. Once finished it was out of the bath to be dried and talcum powered down. The most memorable part of the whole soap opera was when my mum put my head on her lap and proceeded to use the corner of a towel to dry my ears. To this day the meaning of “comfort” can be found in that simple act of motherly love. As I grew I never forgot the soap all over method of washing…not much of a shower person, I
QF Focus Magazine
still prefer to stand by a sink full of hot water, and flannel all over in time honoured fashion. The old adage is still true about coal tar soap in that after using coal tar you even smell clean. The soap on a rope has come and gone …poncey smelling shower gels will come and go… but the bath, flannel and a bar of soap will always stand the test of time.
The General Election … May 2015. I had decided not to write anything about the upcoming UK Election…but on reflection I thought that by the time the next edition of QF magazine is published …the whole event will be done and dusted and the outcome will be common knowledge. My thoughts are quite simple in that I have always been a keen student of matters political. I have been elected to various political posts and indeed have been defeated in trying to get elected to various posts all within the sphere of politics. The difference between when I was active and now seems to be that the choice has gone from politics. Those who know me know exactly where I stand within the political landscape. Ask yourself the same question about the current crop of politicians in Britain. Save a few obvious ones …do they not all seem to be the same people, it’s just that they wear different coloured ties. Politics in Britain has become more about the politicians, when the simple truth is that politics should be about the people.
The German Wings Disaster. Like all of you, I watched with horror as the mystery of what actually happened to the German wings flight Barcelona to Dusseldorf unfolded. Initially I wondered about the Airbus 320 aircraft…Is it safe? Did it fall apart in flight? Do they maintain these things correctly etc etc? Like many of us expats living here, my connection to friends and family is usually facilitated via flying and like many of you it’s the convenience not the enjoyment of flying that makes me get onto the aircraft in the first place. However once aboard I usually convince myself that all will be well because our lives are in the safe hands of the well trained trusted pilots who, like the rest of us just want to get to the destination without incident. Well in this tragedy, one of the pilots used his position of trust to destroy the lives of his fellow passengers and the lives of their surviving families with his selfish act of suicide, or was it mass homicide. Now the story is out, rules about not leaving one person alone on the flight deck will be revised to make sure that two persons are always on the flight deck when one pilot requires leave of absence. This may help although my doubts lie in the ability for example, of the person who served you with your coffee and KitKat biscuit to overrule what a trained pilot is doing at the flight controls… could they stop the door being locked? It cannot be that simple can it! Why not simply tell all pilots on short flights that unless it’s a dire emergency they cannot leave the flight deck… Oh, and the toilet can be managed by the use of a small chemical toilet placed in the flight deck itself and maintained as part of the cleaning routing at the arrival airport. That said it would be remiss of me to finish without saying God bless the souls of German wings flight Barcelona to Dusseldorf.
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