Page 24 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.


Is it just me? The New Year brings with it many things …a new future …a new determination to make changes and most probably a new set of New Year resolutions. Well this year I have also decided to make some changes to my life and to iron out some of the foibles that seem to have been with me for far too long. My life changes revolve around the strange things I do in an effort to keep my life in order. So as from January 2016 …I do resolve never to get frustrated when the toilet roll paper is hanging from the bottom of the roll rather than as nature wills it to be …hanging from the top. I also resolve not to get upset when I walk on cracks in the pavement … from now on I will walk with confidence head held high and be dammed about the pavement


cracks. No


longer will I worry when a TV channel I


am watching has a channel number that ends in an odd number … out with my odd number fetish. My need to clean the toilet and bathroom before every Chelsea game just to assure they win has obviously passed its magic by date as recent results will show … although I do claim that my super bathroom clean of three-ish years ago enabled the mighty Blues to win the Champions League. My final resolution is on the health front, in that I will now fight the desire to unwind my body should I turn around in a complete 360 turn…My insides will just have to unwind in stages and not in one reverse 360 movement. There I feel happy now that I have got all my madness out into the open in one or maybe two foul strokes. I cannot wait to see what the year brings me now that my demons


QF Focus Magazine


are cast to the four winds… could I have cast them if it were to the three winds…only time will tell.


Who wants to live forever? Watched a lively TV debate about a new super drug that has the possibility of enabling the human body to live until the very ripe old age of 120 years. In fact the drug being tested in trials is Metformin which is the world’s most common treatment for diabetes. Scientists claim that Metaformin, which costs about 10 pence a day to supply, has the potential to interact with our body cells and our DNA and prolong life. It seems that ageing is not an inevitable part of life and indeed some marine creatures do not age at all in the conventional sense and with cell and DNA management we could live until 100 plus with ease. I suppose that last nugget explains the Cliff Richard phenomenon. On a serious note is life about the length of life lived or about the quality of the life you live, a nice combination of the two would seem to be the best way to pass our time on planet Earth. Imagine having to listen to ‘my old man’s a dustman’ every week for 60 years - although one good effect might be that the people of Britain get to ride on the projected High Speed Two train …just think you could live some of your life in Birmingham …enough said.


Who is watching over you? If you have read my ramblings before then you must have detected that part of my belief system is that there is a God and that all God’s creatures have a soul. In medieval times I would have been called a “Cather” and been liable to be burnt at the stake by others of a God fearing tradition for simply believing such a thing about animals. That said I always try and respect and revere all God’s creatures be they great or small as the saying goes. I suspect that like me if you drive around this part of countrified Spain you cannot help but notice the daily slaughter of smaller animals on our busy roads. Rabbits, hedgehogs, cats and dogs can be seen squashed and mangled on our roads. When I see such a sight I always shout in frustration …not usually a polite shout but more usually a profanity that catches my moment of sadness at what I am seeing. For some time now I have had cause to drive at least twice weekly from Quesada to La Finca via the road past the cement works and Monte Bello. The road is a nice straight cut through and is a godsend in time saving terms. That however is where the tarmac adulation ends …the road is also so nice and clear that it has become a race track with cars belting up and down at breakneck speeds. The road cuts the country side in half and as such is a death trap for any creature that tries to pass from one side of the Campo to the other. As I drive up and down this road I spend all my time shouting and swearing at the sight of dead animals littering the road. The same was true the other day as I returned from La Finca to Quesada…I spotted a recently squashed rabbit and shouted as is my wont …half a mile or so further on down the road my car suddenly took on a life of its own. The engine revs and consequently my speed reduced for no apparent reason …the steering became lighter and the car felt as if it was floating over the ground this went on for about 20 seconds…all of a sudden a beautiful large bird (of prey not sure which) flew across my windscreen at windscreen height. I missed hitting the bird simply because my closing speed had been reduced and our closing trajectory had been altered. After the bird had passed the car went back to normal behaviour and I was left wondering what had just taken place. I am still wondering.


What a plonker.


Austerity rules …the food banks are full of people who cannot feed their children …zero hour contracts make a mockery of employment figures and one Brimstone rocket fired on an old Toyota truck in Syria by the RAF costs 800,000 pounds a go. What does dopey Dave ‘Camoron’ come out with…I need a private jet to make me look important and more of a President than a lowly Prime Minister. What will this pride of Great Britain be called …I suggest “Air Farce One” and it should be painted with the logo “Roundabout Tours” to reflect ‘Camorons’ decision making skills.


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