http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/m/macedonian_proverb/#sthash.9uK3o4t4.dpuf

A few relevant ones:

• 7. Think twice, say once. 
• 8. What one fool can ensnare, not a 1000 sages can fix. 
• 9. Where force rules, justice does not exist. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49582852

EXTRACT

In their study of the CIA, the intelligence experts Milo Jones and Phillipe Silberzahn write: “The first consistent attribute of the CIA’s identity and culture from 1947 to 2001 is homogeneity of its personnel in terms of race, sex, ethnicity and class background (relative both to the rest of America and to the world as a whole).”

An inspector general’s study on recruitment found that in 1964, one branch of the CIA, the Office of National Estimates, “had no black, Jewish, or women professionals, and only a few Catholics”.

By 1967, the report said, there were fewer than 20 African Americans out of some 12,000 non-clerical CIA employees, and the agency maintained the practice of not hiring minorities from the 1960s through the 1980s. And until 1975, the US intelligence community “openly barred the employment of homosexuals”.

Talking of his experience of the CIA in the 1980s, one insider wrote that the recruitment process “led to new officers who looked very much like the people who recruited them – white, mostly Anglo-Saxon; middle and upper class; liberal arts college graduates”. There were few women and “few ethnics, even of recent European background”.

“In other words, not even as much diversity as there was among those who had helped create the CIA.”

Diversity was squeezed further after the end of the Cold War. A former operations officer said that the CIA had a “white-as-rice culture”.

I did this drawing many years ago

He said he could never forgive himself if he forgave me.
Somebody has to be the bad person
Then someone else can be the good one.
As Melanie Klein might have said:

It’s the paranoid schizoid position

But what exactly is it?

https://goodfoodseeking.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/sausage-flan/

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/i-carry-your-heart-with-me-by-ee-cummings

Are you nurturing an old wound? Seal it off with “super soul and heart glue!”

I believe that we English people use irony more than other folks do,although I’ve not carried out any surveys.I am waiting for the government to give me 5 million pounds to carry out a short research project on this.

Now,if you hear someone say

This government is the best one since King Alfred burnt the cakes or since Queen Elizabeth the first lost her virginity,you would guess they did not mean exactly what they said.
BTW what kind of cakes did Alfred make? More importantly,what kind of oven did they have in those days.We had one adjacent to a coal fire so to bake or roast the fire had to be well alight and going strong.
Burning cakes was not too easy because there was no thermostat and the fire tended to die down.So you could not turn the knob around by accident or for fun as my brother did in 1947  on our gas cooker when my mother had put all her eggs,dried fruit etc together to make a Xmas cake… rationing was still on and besides we were quite poor then.A cake like that needs a long time to bake on a low  heat.
So it was ruined and although I was only a baby then I can hear the shouting now.Had my brother been the king ,no doubt he could have put all the family into prison where at least they would have got a slice of roast pigeon and some stale Xmas cake…. probably left over from Saxon times.
Come to think of it,were the Saxons Christians and if not  how come they made Xmas cake? If the Royal family had gone to Amazon and bought an oven timer history would be quite different.I wonder what Alfred was doing? Was he enjoying the delights of his Queen? Now in my baking book it says

Never  make love while waiting for a cake to bake.Not even to yourself.It will distract you.

Personally I’d admire anyone who got turned on after spending hours mixing the ingredients and preparing the cake tin but maybe I am unusual.
How would I know if I were?I can hardly go around asking if they find making a cake arousing.I’d have thought that it’s what you do when you are frigid as you hope the oven might warm you up.
On no account must you  try to make love inside the oven on a household cooker because  it’s not possible.Why?
That requires a  lot of thought.Basically it’s all about size
.Now if Queen Victoria had baked instead of having so many children the history of Europe would have been very different.
The Kaiser was her grandson and because his mother was Victoria’s first child he believed he should have been King of England.Now if he had been,would there have been a war?Is there any point in speculating like this?
Again I need a research grant to carry out …. research.Speculating can be dangerous sometimes.Again soe folk like gambling and others like playing Solitaire.Vive la difference.Oy vey.Amen

Now if Victoria had stuck to jam and cream filled  sponges the world would be utterly transformed and we would all be speaking a different language…but which?

The matron of the Home made cakes for tea
Her husband helped by stoking up the fire
How happy all the residents would be
Home made cake was  very much desired

This Home  where men and women shared their meals
And went for rambles in the afternoon
The spirit of the Home  was made to heal
The grief of those just widowed felt its boon

The Matron like a mother showed great care
I watched her in my silent way  to learn
Now who makes cakes  to feed the old and scared?
What kindness  is there now for those who yearn?

Food  will help us live and keep our health
It makes a symbol  shared ,  our spirit’s wealth

Our narcotic is excessive work
Who could  think that work might be a sin?
Thinking numbs the heart in sadness stuck

Learning mathematics,feeling pert
Latin Greek and music, what a din
 Our narcotic is excessive work

I wonder if my cello I could pluck
Its metal strings  made grooves upon my skin
Abstraction numbs the heart in sadness stuck

If we feel, our feelings make us hurt
We kick the nearest person on the shin
Today’s narcotic is excessive work

With our government we  stay alert
We can’t be quiet inside when all’s maudlin
Exotic symbols numb the heart so stuck

We feel the pricks of many sharpened pins
The  conscience of the soul is wearing thin
Our narcotic is excessive work
Thinking numbs the heart in  angst now stuck

Use an electric powered back brush in the bath
Take a boiling hot cup of coffee into your hand when you feel faint
Ride your brake-less bike along a dual carriageway. as fast as you can.
Warm your feet on the back of a tiger in the zoo then run for your life
Let a beginner take driving lessons in your new car
Never insure your house
Never  check your bank account
Never read this column
While making chips  smoke a cigar
When the cat is angry try to kiss her
Smoke in bed and charge your tablet under the duvet
Keep your i phone under the pillow and dribble.
Let a man you  don’t know   read your hand

Buy a motor-home  to Europe   go
Soon there will  be built a  British Wall
I know, they know, we know, you know

See the Concentration Camps,enjoy
Buy a reproduction of the Fall
Buy a motor-home,  to Europe  go

Go to France, where is the Maginot?
See the Europeans in our thrall
I know, they know, we know, you  know

See the Rhine and Rhone and how they flow
Hear the people  laughing at our calls
Buy a motor-home,  and to Europe  go

Churchill bombed out Dresden in the War
Even great men’s deeds  will us appal
I know, they know, we know,  who knows?

 By the hands of   politicians mauled
Beetles on our breasts will shortly crawl
Buy a motor-home,  to Europe  never go
I know, they know, we know,   he knows?

When we think of what’s inside  our skin
The sacred heart and the  most precious blood
The fire that burns alone without  new wood
The still small voice, the  mind and soul within

The systematic violence  of our kin
The  burning  church, the  holy books in flames
While  the leaders swagger  and play games
Unmoved, they kill  our culture as  protection

Yet the mother  will protect her child
Would that we could do the same for all the world
Your love mine and  all the earth’s divine
Would that we  had not  so long defiled.

And as the curtain falls across the stage
Would that  life was real and we engaged

Hand upturned

Image by Katherine

I realise it did not tell men how to keep warm in winter.It might be easier for them if they can buy trousers made of wool or thick cord.And we have heard that policeman wear tights under their trousers! You can get long legged underpants and woollen vests
With a shirt and jumper and a warm coat,you will be quite hot.
That is the problem.If you have central heating and a car you don’t have to stand at a bus stop in icy winds.
If you dress warmly and then go into a shop like M&S it can be uncomfortable.I nearly fainted once.
Don’t wear a balaclava especially if there is no backstop