May I say to all people - I wish you a very Pleasant Safe and Reconcilable 2014, where the word
True (truth) is prevalent in all things dear to each one of us.My twitter @MalcolmEMason says it all "Welcome to 2014,at last. 14 divisible by the fourth prime number 7. The result 2, the first prime number, how exciting to 'thinktrue'.
Russia is currently in a kind of spotlight, with the winter Olympics in Sochi in February and we all wish that event, all the best for a successful and enjoyable outcome. Its President, Vladimir Puti in reality, I believe, is a very upbeat and media aware man. He steers the Modern Russia in a percieved progressive manner, in a political; Economic and Resourceful way.
My goodness they must have actually read my Essay. Think-Earth- The Finite Planet and Matters Relating, which I sent to The good President in 2011.I called for, placing caps on 'Extraction Quantities per Unit of Time' for all Finite Resources and gave Targets to achieve. Marvelous, right now there appears to be restrictions on the extraction and exporting of 'Amber' . I lost my small piece and cannot replace it.
On Amber of course there remains the mistery of the "Amber Room", replaced we gather, but the original not found. A little while agoe, restrictions were placed on grain exports, presumably to secure seed retention, due to a bad harvests as the result of drought I think. Oil and Gas are going the same way -Good news.
Now where was I, ah yes, The Modern Russia its President and of course the Russian Government, drew media attention Worldwide, with the three amnesty's. One a Punk Rock group and the other an Enviromental Group and an ex Oil and Gas man.
1. The ex Oil and Gas man imprisoned for Tax evasion, was released and he quickly exited Russia for Germany and on to Switzerland ( now thats interesting in itself). Modern Russia let him go, how relieved he must be in 2014.
2. Pussy Riot - To young ladies, who really made a specticle of themselves, in a Church in Moscow - Out now and still being rude with silly ideas. Russia may not be a devout religious country, but it is considered bad from to do silly stunts in a place of worship-- They were very lucky that they live in a Modern Russia. with a chap like President Putin to give them an amnesty.
3. Green Peace - Here we must consider the possible ramifications for any protest group anywhere in the World.
All the crew of the boat that went to close to an Oil rig in the artic circle are now free and home - how lucky they were with a modern Russia and its President.
I say often. Opinion is free and Hope is eternal, so it is here and these opinions are mine only.
As with the BP exploratory rig in the Gulf of Mexico which experienced a major blow out in very deep water, the Russian rig is like 'Ship' at sea or an 'Aircraft' on the ground or aloft. They have a Captain/Pilot/Rig Master, who is in total command of of the personnel and equipment being operated, it is this persons responsibility totally.
Should that person consider that they are threatened with shall we say 'Nefarious Intent' putting personnel and equipment in danger, then it is correct that police or military assistance, be called for. Cleary this was the case with the Greenpeace action of approaching the rig without permission and attempting board in what I suppose was international waters.
Greenpeace activists may have considered they were simply taking direct personal action, BUT they must have known the law of the sea and air as they had done a similar thing in the Pacific with their Nuclear protests by entering restricted areas putting equipoment and lives at risk. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour was the result.
OK, the Modern Russia and its President - who by the way is no soft touch and has a loft of reforms on prisons and say people rights,to address- Removed Greenpeace and its vessel from the area, with the quick amnesty and release of these silly people. Yes a very modern Russia--excellent
Lucky indeed are the Greenpeace personnel=== Listen and learn. Never ever touch other peoples property without permission.
Now here comes my HOPE. I hope President Vladimir Puti and Modern Russia, Can see its way clear to improving its penal system, its rights to free expression and most of all on the international scene with help to solve the terrible problem of Syria and the terrible fighting going on there.
To end this blog I would like to wish every success for the Winter Olympics in SOCHI. May they pass peacefully and be enjoyment to all.
Bye for now.
Malcolm E Mason.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
A Journey into Darkness
Our time at our fourty acre property in a State Forest, along a stretch of pristine fresh water river, is coming to an end. Daughter and Son and most of their children are coming for Christmas, after their parties and school outings, all quite a way from here.
Before they came Patricia and I decided that we must also go out and celibrate ourselves and thus started an extraordinary journey into an unexpected world of Dark Theatre - In the dark literally.
This is my story, so please,if you will, imagine you are walking down a small town street and there in a window is an almost frightening poster, advertising a local Theatres adaptation of Charles Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' I hesitated, but Patricia purchased the tickets anyway and said it would be a nice outing. On Saturday 14 December 2013 at aroun d 7.30 my 'Journey into Darkness' began.
Here is the Poster. Sorry I have tried to paste a poster image but age defies me, there must be a right click somewhere.
A word picture of the poster-----
IMAGINE IF YOU WILL, A BLACK DOOR WITH BLOOD RED WREATH, SURROUNDING A DOOR KNOCKER OF GARGOYLE IMAGERY. THE SWINGING KNOCKER IS HELD BY THE TEETH OF A WHITE SKULL LIKE FACE WITH ONE EYE NORMAL AND THE OTHER QUITE LARGE AND ROUND INSANE STARING STRAIGHT AT YO U.
As with our little outings at our town at the mouth of the River Clyde before it hits the Tasman Sea, we had a lite meal of Fish Chips and Salad plus a glass of wine and we were off to the Theatre.
It began with people dressed as Dickens would have known well, singing carols. It was odd because they sounded rather wooden, without any sign of joy. They came into the venue and we all ventured to our seats, having said hello to freinds and aqaintances.
The lights went out to very very dim stage, made up of three small very lowly lit sets with black fly net in front of each one. Ha I thought the figure THREE , the prime number with a 'beginning', 'middle' and 'end' as the life Before; Present and Future of Dickens classic tale. Any moment now I thought the Spot lights would go on one of the sets and the nets would go up, but this was not to be. The first was Scooge sitting at a desk and Hum- Bug in a dimly lit set ,behind a black fly net screen.
The two hours was spent mostly in the dark with dim lit three sets. The occasional bright spots with "Lighting" to traditional theatre standards was Ok. What was the problem or was it me, just maybe it was Briilliant and possibly Avant-Garde, suitable for the Edinburgh fringe theatre or a New York alternative audiance.
I just could not get rid of the horrible feeling of a Journey into Darkness and a too close a look unto a very disturbed mind or minds or theatre. I have tried to clear the feeling, but it follows me everywhere.
This a short blog for Christmas 2013. O'Dear 13 another Prime and the notoriously unlucky number and for many, was linked to the 13 who sat at the Last Supper. Starting medieval times I believe.
I am sure I will cheer up on the birthday of the year---------Happy Christmas.
Malcolm E Mason.Sitting amongst happy children and mother and daughter discussing the Christmas day dinner. Oh yes, come on 2014, 14 a good steady number.
Bye for now.The poster was frightening to me. The show was frightening to me and the memory is still frightening to me ------ Goodness I ,must be getting old, or there is something in my past that prompts this terrible feeling of mine. Enough enough Mason, about this Journey into Darkness and move on - Yes?.
.
Before they came Patricia and I decided that we must also go out and celibrate ourselves and thus started an extraordinary journey into an unexpected world of Dark Theatre - In the dark literally.
This is my story, so please,if you will, imagine you are walking down a small town street and there in a window is an almost frightening poster, advertising a local Theatres adaptation of Charles Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' I hesitated, but Patricia purchased the tickets anyway and said it would be a nice outing. On Saturday 14 December 2013 at aroun d 7.30 my 'Journey into Darkness' began.
Here is the Poster. Sorry I have tried to paste a poster image but age defies me, there must be a right click somewhere.
A word picture of the poster-----
IMAGINE IF YOU WILL, A BLACK DOOR WITH BLOOD RED WREATH, SURROUNDING A DOOR KNOCKER OF GARGOYLE IMAGERY. THE SWINGING KNOCKER IS HELD BY THE TEETH OF A WHITE SKULL LIKE FACE WITH ONE EYE NORMAL AND THE OTHER QUITE LARGE AND ROUND INSANE STARING STRAIGHT AT YO U.
As with our little outings at our town at the mouth of the River Clyde before it hits the Tasman Sea, we had a lite meal of Fish Chips and Salad plus a glass of wine and we were off to the Theatre.
It began with people dressed as Dickens would have known well, singing carols. It was odd because they sounded rather wooden, without any sign of joy. They came into the venue and we all ventured to our seats, having said hello to freinds and aqaintances.
The lights went out to very very dim stage, made up of three small very lowly lit sets with black fly net in front of each one. Ha I thought the figure THREE , the prime number with a 'beginning', 'middle' and 'end' as the life Before; Present and Future of Dickens classic tale. Any moment now I thought the Spot lights would go on one of the sets and the nets would go up, but this was not to be. The first was Scooge sitting at a desk and Hum- Bug in a dimly lit set ,behind a black fly net screen.
The two hours was spent mostly in the dark with dim lit three sets. The occasional bright spots with "Lighting" to traditional theatre standards was Ok. What was the problem or was it me, just maybe it was Briilliant and possibly Avant-Garde, suitable for the Edinburgh fringe theatre or a New York alternative audiance.
I just could not get rid of the horrible feeling of a Journey into Darkness and a too close a look unto a very disturbed mind or minds or theatre. I have tried to clear the feeling, but it follows me everywhere.
This a short blog for Christmas 2013. O'Dear 13 another Prime and the notoriously unlucky number and for many, was linked to the 13 who sat at the Last Supper. Starting medieval times I believe.
I am sure I will cheer up on the birthday of the year---------Happy Christmas.
Malcolm E Mason.Sitting amongst happy children and mother and daughter discussing the Christmas day dinner. Oh yes, come on 2014, 14 a good steady number.
Bye for now.The poster was frightening to me. The show was frightening to me and the memory is still frightening to me ------ Goodness I ,must be getting old, or there is something in my past that prompts this terrible feeling of mine. Enough enough Mason, about this Journey into Darkness and move on - Yes?.
.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
ROMA Encounters
I have encountered people called Roma; Travelers; Gypsies all my life and never in any one of them have they ever done anything to me, physical or verbal. This blog is a short story of my encounters.
I am now seventy eight, so I will take you back some time when I was living in England, then on to Pakistan and on to France and on to this day.
England-------- One of my school pal's lived near a place named Hanbury in Worcestershire, near a Pub called 'The Gate Hangs Well'. John is his name and I know him still. John lived in a large farmhouse as I remember and one day some one said 'The Gypsies are here', just down the lane.
Off I went with my pals to see and sure enough there was a couple of caravans ,with horses graising near by.some adults and children watching us and like all youngsters do at first, assess each other, they were ok.
I was told they picked apples as it was the cider making time. A summer at the end of the Fourties.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us------No. Just accepted us for who we were.
Oh dear I am a little ahead of my self. There was an earlier encounter in the mid fourties, when I lived in Lydney Gloucestershire and occasionally on a Saturday, with my Mum and dad, we went by train to Gloucester and just before entering the station we went over a kind of viaduct or bridge and down below was a Gypsie camp which facinated me and my ,mother said they made wood clothes pegs we would buy, plus they also came for the Plum picking near Newnham.
Did this group of Gipsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us------I do not think so, or my Mother would definately have said.
Right at the end of the fourties we had moved to Worcestershiore and there was a Horse Fair on ground now occupied by a technical college. Of course it was mainly a Gypsie event and I was now about fifteen. Lots of noise by auctioneers and horses plus their handlers. All went well, but I think the world moved on and that was really the last of these events'
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us ----No.
Pakistan.-------- From the mid fifties lots of things happend. Thru Technical Colleges and University on to joining The Austin Motor Company later to become The British Motor Corporation and Mason representing them around the World, what a life. One day in the mid sixties I happened to be in the Swat Valley and I was in the company of a distributors directors having tea, when there appeared a long line of people with horses; wagons walking through the town. Bells tinkled with very colourful ladies all with their children and menfolk. Ah, said my hosts Gypsies or was it Travellers ?. They are coming down from high altitudes for the winter and will set up in the valley.
No one appeared to be disturbed by this event.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us. ------ Of course not.
Life went on of course and I arrive in France 2002.
France---------In the summer of 2002 or maybe it was the next visit a few years later the on a summer visit to the Dordonge area of south west France, we were driving down a side road not far from the town of Riberac and came up behind two horse drawn caravans. They approached a small stone bridge over a stream and then it happened.
With an explosion of children's happiness, boys and girls, appeared, ran to the bridge and stream and jumped in clothes and all. What a wonderful scene it was,to see them so happy.Just over the bridge the road divided and we passed the caravans with parents not the least disturbed at the scene of their children playing in the water fully clothed.
As we used this road quite lot that summer we encountered and waved as we passed. They had cut Willow sticks which lay soaking in the stream, they were basket makers and presumably grape pickers at the end of summer, Bordeaux being about 60 kilometres away.
Friday is the big market day in Riberac and so each week we visisted to buy Trout; vegetables and of course lunch at the main cafe, the name of which defies me. Hang on, was the Colonnes, something like that One friday we witnessed the market security ordering a group of people off the market. They were , our Gypsie families, it was disturbing when my French was not good enough to try to intervene. Apparantly they did not have the correct or any trading licience for that market.
We encountered their camp a few times after and as we visiters could not purchase a basket as they were very sturdy. And then they were gone.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us ------ No, simply took life as it came.
I have left Australia for last as it includes encounters from the early 1970's to now and it is where we live and how lucky we are.
Australia-------
Our little family arrived in Australia on a Qantas flight September 1971 at a time when new arrived were welcomed by Government and people alike and I mean physically with a handshake and a G'Day..
Ah yes encounters. In 72 there was a goup of families Gypsy, camped near Banktown Airport in Sydney,s west and they were there some time as I recall with the usual horses ;caravans and vehicles of various kinds. Very nice I thought and suddenly they were gone, where I know not. Fast forward to the 1980,s and on a forest road near where we now live on the river Clyde, we encountered a horse drawn caravan with two dogs and a young couple , I,m not certain, if there were children. They too settled near here, although I have not seen the lady for some time. Whoop's I have a flash back to Lydney in the fourties and a picture of Gypsies coming to our front door selling flowers and furtune telling. My mum I think had both.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us -------No, not in the least.
We are in the NOW, 2013 and I have being asking friends and strangers alike Have you ever met a Gypsie? and any experiences with them. I can tell you the normal answer from young people, is no,at least I don't think so and they have all heard about what is going in Europe at the moment and in the main 'thats hard'.
Older people like me say Ah, yes I remember them coming through this or the town on the way to fruit picking and the like ,depending on the season of the year.
Not one person I have met had anything nasty to say about Gypsies; Travellers or Roma's.
The older ones of course knew about what happened in Europe before the second world war and during it, when Roma's ; Jews and Gays were pescecuted terribly. Now we are hearing about Neo Right groups are having another go at them. How sad. What have they done to deserve such treatment.
Roma's and the like have a very strong sense of family and that could well have been behind the compassion for the mother and child of that reported incident in Greece. Was there any other peoples in Greece that would have given a home and a life to that child and its desperate Mum, probably without paperwork and into a family that would treat her as their own. We should praise that family for its compassion.
As we all know, there are many societies and /or ethnic around the World that follow a tradition of rearing children of other members of that group, who cannot raise the child themselves. I have encountered two incidence,s one in Tunisia many years agoe and one here in Australia in the 1980,s, I am damned if I can remember there names. They simply implied that that was the way for the happiness of all concerned.
I wiil close here with a message of hope.
I Hope,that every one in the World can sit quietly for a moment and endeavour to understand the Ways,Apprehensions; Faiths;Cultures and Ideas of others. We can do this,hopefully not just this Armistice Day Eleventh November 2013, at the Eleventh Hour, but at all times.
There are two books which may interest you all.
1. From my wife Patricia's library-------The English Gypsy Caravan - Its Origins; Builders; Technology and Construction. By C H Ward-Jackson and Denis E Harvey Drake Publishers Inc NY 1973.
2. Hopefully will be in my library at Christmas.-------No Place to Call Home: Inside the Real Lives of Gypsies and Travellers By Katharine Quarmby. Published by Oneworld Publications..
I have not read the book as yet, only the review in the Weekly Guardian, which of course is part of the Guardian group. "The Paper That Stops the World and makes it 'think'". I try, it succeeds admirably.
All the best, until next time.
Malcolm E Mason 11/11/2013.
eo
I am now seventy eight, so I will take you back some time when I was living in England, then on to Pakistan and on to France and on to this day.
England-------- One of my school pal's lived near a place named Hanbury in Worcestershire, near a Pub called 'The Gate Hangs Well'. John is his name and I know him still. John lived in a large farmhouse as I remember and one day some one said 'The Gypsies are here', just down the lane.
Off I went with my pals to see and sure enough there was a couple of caravans ,with horses graising near by.some adults and children watching us and like all youngsters do at first, assess each other, they were ok.
I was told they picked apples as it was the cider making time. A summer at the end of the Fourties.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us------No. Just accepted us for who we were.
Oh dear I am a little ahead of my self. There was an earlier encounter in the mid fourties, when I lived in Lydney Gloucestershire and occasionally on a Saturday, with my Mum and dad, we went by train to Gloucester and just before entering the station we went over a kind of viaduct or bridge and down below was a Gypsie camp which facinated me and my ,mother said they made wood clothes pegs we would buy, plus they also came for the Plum picking near Newnham.
Did this group of Gipsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us------I do not think so, or my Mother would definately have said.
Right at the end of the fourties we had moved to Worcestershiore and there was a Horse Fair on ground now occupied by a technical college. Of course it was mainly a Gypsie event and I was now about fifteen. Lots of noise by auctioneers and horses plus their handlers. All went well, but I think the world moved on and that was really the last of these events'
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us ----No.
Pakistan.-------- From the mid fifties lots of things happend. Thru Technical Colleges and University on to joining The Austin Motor Company later to become The British Motor Corporation and Mason representing them around the World, what a life. One day in the mid sixties I happened to be in the Swat Valley and I was in the company of a distributors directors having tea, when there appeared a long line of people with horses; wagons walking through the town. Bells tinkled with very colourful ladies all with their children and menfolk. Ah, said my hosts Gypsies or was it Travellers ?. They are coming down from high altitudes for the winter and will set up in the valley.
No one appeared to be disturbed by this event.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us. ------ Of course not.
Life went on of course and I arrive in France 2002.
France---------In the summer of 2002 or maybe it was the next visit a few years later the on a summer visit to the Dordonge area of south west France, we were driving down a side road not far from the town of Riberac and came up behind two horse drawn caravans. They approached a small stone bridge over a stream and then it happened.
With an explosion of children's happiness, boys and girls, appeared, ran to the bridge and stream and jumped in clothes and all. What a wonderful scene it was,to see them so happy.Just over the bridge the road divided and we passed the caravans with parents not the least disturbed at the scene of their children playing in the water fully clothed.
As we used this road quite lot that summer we encountered and waved as we passed. They had cut Willow sticks which lay soaking in the stream, they were basket makers and presumably grape pickers at the end of summer, Bordeaux being about 60 kilometres away.
Friday is the big market day in Riberac and so each week we visisted to buy Trout; vegetables and of course lunch at the main cafe, the name of which defies me. Hang on, was the Colonnes, something like that One friday we witnessed the market security ordering a group of people off the market. They were , our Gypsie families, it was disturbing when my French was not good enough to try to intervene. Apparantly they did not have the correct or any trading licience for that market.
We encountered their camp a few times after and as we visiters could not purchase a basket as they were very sturdy. And then they were gone.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us ------ No, simply took life as it came.
I have left Australia for last as it includes encounters from the early 1970's to now and it is where we live and how lucky we are.
Australia-------
Our little family arrived in Australia on a Qantas flight September 1971 at a time when new arrived were welcomed by Government and people alike and I mean physically with a handshake and a G'Day..
Ah yes encounters. In 72 there was a goup of families Gypsy, camped near Banktown Airport in Sydney,s west and they were there some time as I recall with the usual horses ;caravans and vehicles of various kinds. Very nice I thought and suddenly they were gone, where I know not. Fast forward to the 1980,s and on a forest road near where we now live on the river Clyde, we encountered a horse drawn caravan with two dogs and a young couple , I,m not certain, if there were children. They too settled near here, although I have not seen the lady for some time. Whoop's I have a flash back to Lydney in the fourties and a picture of Gypsies coming to our front door selling flowers and furtune telling. My mum I think had both.
Did this group of Gypsies do anything Physical or Verbal to us -------No, not in the least.
We are in the NOW, 2013 and I have being asking friends and strangers alike Have you ever met a Gypsie? and any experiences with them. I can tell you the normal answer from young people, is no,at least I don't think so and they have all heard about what is going in Europe at the moment and in the main 'thats hard'.
Older people like me say Ah, yes I remember them coming through this or the town on the way to fruit picking and the like ,depending on the season of the year.
Not one person I have met had anything nasty to say about Gypsies; Travellers or Roma's.
The older ones of course knew about what happened in Europe before the second world war and during it, when Roma's ; Jews and Gays were pescecuted terribly. Now we are hearing about Neo Right groups are having another go at them. How sad. What have they done to deserve such treatment.
Roma's and the like have a very strong sense of family and that could well have been behind the compassion for the mother and child of that reported incident in Greece. Was there any other peoples in Greece that would have given a home and a life to that child and its desperate Mum, probably without paperwork and into a family that would treat her as their own. We should praise that family for its compassion.
As we all know, there are many societies and /or ethnic around the World that follow a tradition of rearing children of other members of that group, who cannot raise the child themselves. I have encountered two incidence,s one in Tunisia many years agoe and one here in Australia in the 1980,s, I am damned if I can remember there names. They simply implied that that was the way for the happiness of all concerned.
I wiil close here with a message of hope.
I Hope,that every one in the World can sit quietly for a moment and endeavour to understand the Ways,Apprehensions; Faiths;Cultures and Ideas of others. We can do this,hopefully not just this Armistice Day Eleventh November 2013, at the Eleventh Hour, but at all times.
There are two books which may interest you all.
1. From my wife Patricia's library-------The English Gypsy Caravan - Its Origins; Builders; Technology and Construction. By C H Ward-Jackson and Denis E Harvey Drake Publishers Inc NY 1973.
2. Hopefully will be in my library at Christmas.-------No Place to Call Home: Inside the Real Lives of Gypsies and Travellers By Katharine Quarmby. Published by Oneworld Publications..
I have not read the book as yet, only the review in the Weekly Guardian, which of course is part of the Guardian group. "The Paper That Stops the World and makes it 'think'". I try, it succeeds admirably.
All the best, until next time.
Malcolm E Mason 11/11/2013.
eo
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