This has been a long day. Yesterday I moaned about what has been a bit of a damp squib of a bank holiday weekend but today has made up for it. Today we have been to the edge and back in the kitchen and I think if my significant other half had had her way many would have felt the edge of her kitchen knives or that of the lip of the frying pan. There are times in the kitchen when the sound of the printing from the kitchen printer can reduce grown men and women to almost tears. Today was one of those days.
Innocuous it started, a quick visit to the biggest junk stuff sale I have ever seen and then back to the pub for an hour or so of work we thought. After all the whole weekend's performance had suggested that today, Monday wasn't going to happen. Coupled with the rain, people being away, it was a definite non starter. It was sure to determine the trading patterns of future bank holidays. It would have been feet up time. The couch was looking mighty attractive, the recliner had my name written all over it. Instead, the fat fryer spat at me, the oven cursed and cussed and the bloody kitchen printer had the audacity to keep us on the move for most of the day. Its a tough life but I grudgingly suppose one that I am grateful for.
Other stuff that got me thinking today. Today's papers report on the bonanza that the weapons companies have received during the 'Arab spring'. The tree huggers are dismayed that British companies are cashing in by supplying arms and ammunition's to the Arab states. Let me try and understand this. Would the tree huggers be happier if there wasn't an arms industry in the UK, if there wasn't an industry and the associate feeder industry that generates billions for the economy and employs probably hundreds of thousands of people directly and indirectly. There continues to be it seems the misunderstanding that guns kill people, they don't; people kill people with guns. If they didn't have a gun they would probably still kill. And if they didn't get the guns from UK firms they would only get them from somewhere else. And in other countries they would benefit from the contribution to the economy and of course the employment. But no, the papers today go on a bit about the how the government should clamp down, how they should stop issuing export licences. Perhaps, and this is absolutely politically incorrect, the government should increase the number of exports, the long term benefit would be that they could have a proper go at killing each other, the price of oil could be probably be negotiated down as they needed more money for more guns anyway. The government could stop interfering and playing global policeman and save billions by not bombing everything from the jets, just let them get on with it. Why is it the West's problem? (Obviously we would need to keep an eye on them 'cos we don't want them getting hold of a you know what that wasn't found after all the last time the UK was led to war in Iraq by 'ol TB. Nudge nudge wink wink. That'll keep the oil flowing 'ey Gordon.)
No, weapons are here to stay and if they don't sell them somebody else will. And here's a conspiracy theory to get you thinking. I think the manufacturers of the more popular weapons like the AK and the M16 pay for the production of toys that mimic the real thing. Think about it. Get the kids feeling the weapon now, the shape, the butt in the shoulder, the signature feel and look albeit plastic, and later they will always remember the building blocks. And if the visit today to the car boot sale aka the biggest junk stuff sale was anything to go by, there will be many kids that went home with a plastic AK47 or look a like full size plastic BB hand gun. Makes you think.
Until tomorrow.
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