[g-d rest you merry citizens] minor miracles can happen

No wisecracks - this is neither Angus nor myself.
Yet ... :)

Remember those alone:

This is the fourth Crimbo I will spend on my own; I’m not looking for sympathy, or invites.

“We” really used to enjoy the festive season, no thought of the homeless or the poor, or the old, or the lonely. Since “Mrs Angus” passed, my outlook has changed, I look on Christmas as something to get past, and over with, but I do think about the above more. Christmas to me now is a time of reflection and pondering, a time to look at the past year and add the good and the bad bits to either side of the “scales of life”.

The past three have come down heavily on” the Bad side, this year I think they may well be balanced, I have discovered the joy of Blogging, made quite a few “online” friends, and learned a lot.

How many others out there will be alone and which of those will be resigned to it, dearly wanting some sort of company and yet liking their own routines they've got into? How many drug-ravaged kids can't cope and will succumb over the next few days? Is there power in all thinking about them on Christmas Eve around the same time and hoping some minor miracle occurs for them?

As for myself, I quite prefer to be alone on this holiday, as I've become less social as I've gone along. This year I can't escape the festivities and the family here quite enjoy it so there'll be a turkey, bonhomie and all that. Well, fine, good, let's do that.

It's the people who once had the joy of this time, who really appreciated the coming together and then somehow lost that - you are the ones I'd like to get some cheer across to if I could.

Lastly, spare a thought for a group who never get sympathy, never seem to be in people's prayers - these are the employed, with the house and car, the mortgage, the bulging credit card debt and the worries about the New Year. You are the ones who are supposed to be sympathetic to the have-nots and the visible lost-allers but you yourself don't seem to register on the sympathy counter. You're often the ones who are expected to open the wallet and pay and yet how many spare a thought for you?

You are the unfashionable for the media.

Well, Merry Christmas to you as well.

[christmas quiz] how much do you know

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True or false:

1. Shepherding was considered a very noble occupation.

2. Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because of a decree by Caesar Augustus.

3. The wise men found Jesus not in a manger but in a house.

4. There are no records of Joseph speaking in the Christmas story.

5. The little drummer boy came to the manger after the other shepherds.

Answers here

[search and rescue] who should carry the can

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Consider:

In February, 1999 three climbers went missing for four days on the Dômes de la Vanoise during a period of high avalanche risk. After a long search and rescue operation the climbers were found safe and well. They were hailed as heroes by the media with the efforts of the rescuers being largely ignored and unrewarded.

They sold their story to Paris-Match for 600,000 Francs and it was published in a 20 page special. This provoked outrage amongst many people and the climbers subsequently donated part of the money to the mountain police widows and orphans fund.

The article puts the cost of a helicopter alone at 2000 euros an hour and a straight stretcher rescue at 300 euros. In a typical scenario, it might be an all day or two day operation with dozens of personnel.

Another article puts the cost differently:

Each year, the National Park Service spends $3 million on rescues. Most of the searches are for kids who wander from campgrounds, park officials say. But the expensive rescues--the ones that require leasing a $300-an-hour high-altitude helicopter to pick "thrill-seekers" off snowy cliffs--are on the rise.

Whatever, the costs to the residents or in the case of a national rescue service, the taxpayer, are high. Climbers and potholers get a bit hot under the collar about having to pay what they see as exorbitant fees upfront and outrageous costs of an actual rescue:

In one of those four snowboarders were rescued from Mont Rosset in the Savoie in 2003 and were billed around 6000 Euros for the private helicopter that plucked them to safety.

There's a difference, isn't there between experienced and amateur, safety conscious and not, foolhardy and following a plan which was left with officials.

Years ago, at the end of a sailing season, on a windy day and over very cold water, I was racing my A Class cat when the trapeze I was on broke and I was flung some distance from the craft. The club rescue boat was involved, at that moment, in rescuing some kids and they said later they hadn't seen me. The only thing which saved me was a passing motorboat with some some party-goers on board.

That involved just an obligation to my rescuers but I've often thought of rambling and getting caught and needing to be got out. Who should pay? What should the set up be? Should there be opt out clauses? Or should it all be banned?

[caption] please

[good luck, bad luck] would be nice to know the formula

Oh, don't you just love this one:

UK couple Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence have been on holiday in Mumbai, London and New York just as terrorists have attacked each of those cities, and have survived each occasion.

The couple, from Dudley, near Birmingham, were in central Mumbai last month as Islamic terrorists targeted foreigners during a killing spree that paralysed the city with fear, London's Telegraph reported.

They were also in New York on September 11, 2001, when hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers and brought them down, killing about 3000 people.

Four years later, they were in London on July 7 when four terrorists used suicide bombs to blow up trains and buses, killing 52.

How lucky are you?  I am lucky in some ways but desperately unlucky in others.  For example, if I'm in a car, it's most unusual not to get a parking spot there and then.  There is always someone pulling out or one break in the traffic - I think it's a little beyond the average.

On the other hand, I'm not too lucky on the work front and sometimes things go pear shaped which there was no reason for them too.  Some of it, like being booted out of Russia with the other Brits was wrong place, wrong time, wrong ethnicity.

You know sometimes, when you're in for a bad day.  Things don't gel - you knock that table and it it all falls on the floor, you stub the toe, even when not rushing, a phone call comes with bad news and another comes with a demand.  The bus doesn't arrive at all.  That sort of thing.

Sometimes I know when it's going to be a good day and much of that is if I'm in the good books that day with a certain Personage.  That's the day to try your luck because the chances are it will all work out.

I hope it works out for you this Christmas, as long as your wish doesn't involve the destruction of someone else.  I hope you're not cold or impecunious to the point you're not eating.  I hope it's OK for you.

[the soothsayer] and the greed of the senators

A certain curmudgeonly soothsayer was known for his crazy predictions which caused all and sundry to label him as mad.

Day after day, he could be found on the steps of the Senate and as Senators climbed the steps to the forum, the soothsayer would predict some dire thing or other which was sure to pass.

“Oh, Cashius Minimus,” he would say, “do not leave the city tomorrow for your wife will entertain one of your colleagues of the populist persuasion.”

Now the tall, spare Cashius, afflicted with his dandruff trouble, knew better than to physically rough up an old man on the steps of the Senate so he just grunted and went up to the forum, making a mental note to have his luscious wife watched, in order to prove the soothsayer wrong, to publicly label him a charlatan, a humbug.

Needless to say, his two henchmen had occasion, the next afternoon, to put both Cashius’ s wife and her lover to the sword, on their master’s express orders. When one of them brought the gory news to the steps of the Senate, the soothsayer could be heard cackling: “I told you so, I told you so.”

Yon Cashius kept his peace.

On another occasion, the egregious Maximus Flatulus, who had just been appointed princeps senatus and was surrounded on the steps by sycophantic admirers, was advised by the soothsayer that a plague of locusts was coming to devour all the produce in his fields east of the city.

He laughed the soothsayer to scorn, as nothing so ridiculous had ever happened in those parts before. In Egypt, maybe but here in the Golden City? And why only the east of the city anyway?

Flatulus swept past the crumpled old figure on the steps, pausing only to live up to his name and immediately put the matter out of mind. Needless to say, in three days time, a plague such as had never been seen swarmed through the countryside, eating everything in its path and leaving Flatulus stony broke and without either property or senatorial appointment.

...........

Now, it would be wrong to suggest that the soothsayer never took a break – he did – and his favourite place to meditate was close to the Tarpeian Rock. Being a soothsayer, of course, he knew beforehand that a group of very disgruntled landed gentlemen were approaching him from the Capitoline Hill and he could also glean their intentions.

“Welcome, kind sirs,” he croaked, as they gathered behind him in malevolent silence.

Flatulus spoke for all. “I suppose you know, Painus Arsus, why we are here?”

“Of course, your honours. You wish me to desist from my irritating predictions of doom and gloom. Otherwise you will throw me from the Tarpeian Rock.”

A wicked gleam sparkled in all eyes but Arsus went on. “However, that would be to your disadvantage, gentlemen,” he fawned. “I can predict wondrous things as well as evil. It’s just not as much fun, that's all.”

“Well start predicting now,” growled Hypocrises, who shouldn’t be in this tale anyway but these things happen.

“Well, your lordships,” murmured the gnarled and balding Arsus, standing and facing them both bravely and obsequiously, from long practice, “if you were willing to lay down the most valuable things you possess, one item apiece and if you were to return to the Senate henceforth, riches beyond your wildest dreams await you there.”

The landed gentry looked from one to the other. They’d actually come to end the life of this pestilential creature before them but business is business and each, in turn, laid the most precious possession he happened to be carrying before the soothsayer – a few aureii here, a few sistertii there, a picture of Arnius Gropus’s concubine, a season ticket to the corporate box at the Colissei, until the social isolate with the protruding front teeth, Flagellus Logus, was the last.

“I … er .. came out without my wallet, I’m afraid,” he shuffled awkwardly in the dust.

“Never mind,” replied Arsus. “Each will be rewarded in kind.”

With that, he stood aside, as a herd of wilderbeast came charging at the cliff, taking the Senators with them over the edge in one fell swoop, arms flailing and togas failing to act sufficiently parachutie to prevent their untimely deaths on the jagged rocks below.

Arsus nodded, gathered the booty into one toga which had got caught on a sharp boulder, then made his long, painstaking way back to the Senate steps, stumbling here, dropping a note to Mondo Lecherus there, a note from a fellow Senator’s wife for an assignation that night but now he had no need for such youthful diversions; he was a rich man and within two weeks he was appointed princeps senatus, a title he graciously accepted, before trading it in for an Emperorship and the Divine right to rule.

But that’s another story.


This cautionary tale is dedicated to Jams O'Donnell [but does not refer to him]. :)