Jude Smith

I just saw this on the BBC news site: "Police are summoned through 999 more than 10 million times a year, and not always for the right reasons - hoax calls, trivial incidents and people sitting on their mobiles among them. These nuisances aside, new figures show many forces aren't coping too well with the rising demand. The lady was clearly hysterical. What to do? She felt she needed some serious assistance. So she dialled 999. After all, it was an emergency. Her call was answered. The operator asked what the trouble was. "It was basically a lady who had called up and requested police attendance because there was a spider in her bath," recalls the operator, a former civilian employee with the Metropolitan Police." I wonder whether people have fewer and fewer community options to sort out their problems. Maybe the days when you can call a neighbour are over for many people. The police for some are the new friendly fix it man from next door... A...

I've just sat and balled (no change there really) at Lady Thatcher (a little different maybe). I've been watching Ronald Reagan's funeral. And among all the tributes (that are still flowing as I type), Lady Thatcher's stands out for a couple of reasons. I guess first it harkens back to my earliest memories of world politics, of going to bed at night scared that there might be a nuclear war. Not sure that I trusted Reagan to keep me safe, not aware of the immense changes which would hit the world just four or five years later. Hearing Maggie talk about those times kind of affirms my right lack of trust and heightens my cynicism about looking back with rose tinted glasses. But it also brought home to me that these two now old (well one now dead) people, were friends. Ronnie (to use Maggie's affectionate phrase) WANTED Lady Thatcher, (that feisty old sort who stole my school milk (for which I am grateful by the way!) to speak at his funeral. They were mate...

as ever. But I haven't managed to blog much since I set this one up. That snot to say that things have not been going in... They have and as of tomorrow I think I will have a much clearer idea of what Life will look like for the next year or so. So I will write more then. Suffice to say the marsh farm prayer blog is up now... marshfarmprayer.blogspot.com go look go on