Category: Random Thoughts Page 1 of 2

I’ve been a Bond fan for as long as I can remember and it’s always fun speculating who the next one will be, when the present incumbent holsters their Walther PPK.

Daniel Craig is a tough act to follow. He brought a darker side to the role that I really enjoyed, as well as bringing a level of physicality to Bond that had never been seen previously. There is talk of the new actor finally being cast before the end of the year, but I have to say I’m not being overly inspired by the prospect of the current front runners, nor the fact the franchise is now creatively controlled by Amazon, although this is somewhat tempered by the fact that the incredible Denis Villeneuve will be directing.

Personally, if I was casting I’d go left field and explore an origin story/ prequel Bond as a Naval Commander and joining MI6 at the tender age of 31, just as Ian Fleming had originally written the character to be. This would require a young guy to play the role, but not necessarily in Fleming’s period of the early 50s. That aesthetic would be very cool, but probably not suitable to meet the politically correct requirements of contemporary cinema.

Enough waffle though. My choice for the role would be the largely unknown Harry Lawtey who looks not unlike a young Sean Connery. He has considerable acting chops, paying alongside Toby Jones in the critically acclaimed Mr Burton and has appeared in BBCs Industry and the new still unscheduled Beatles biopic. He’s got a similar dead eye, tortured soul manner to Craig, but would definitely need some work in the hench department as he’s somewhat slight in build.

At a push, one of the highly tipped front runners, Callum Turner might work, but my Mum would probably unkindly comment that his eyes look too close together. I seem to remember they said far worse things about Daniel Craig when he started, some comparing him to a certain 1970s kids toy that involved placing random facial features on a plastic cartoon character..

Jacob Elordi has also been hotly tipped but the guy is so freakishly tall, I’m not sure he could fit into an Aston Martin unless it’s a convertible with his head poking above the windscreen. That’s not a cool look.

It would be rude not to discuss the music and my choice for the theme tune would be given to Raye with Olivia Dean in reserve.

Raye is an extraordinary musical talent, well versed already in bringing bombastic orchestral themes bang up to date with contemporary influences. The Shirley Bassey comparison is of course undeniable.

Who would you choose?

The Council Tyranny continues…

Finally, after 3 months following the complete closure of the woods and pathways at Hurstwood, we have had something resembling an official response from the Havant Borough Council’s (HBC) Deputy Chief Exec via Suella Braverman’s office. The first point of note is the response comes from a position well elevated from the admin of the Land Services dept who have up until now been providing auto generated cut and paste responses to email enquiries about the closure. This, I guess is in no part to the intervention of Suella Braverman who visited the site recently and asked for a response from the council on why nothing was being done.

Now I should state that I’m certainly no fan of Suella’s politics or her party, but if her influence forces a favourable result here, I’d be first in the line to congratulate her.

Sadly it’s the same old authoritarian guff from Patrick Lee who’s taken nearly 2 months to answer an official request from a sitting MP for the constituency. If that doesn’t scream of self importance, I don’t know what does.

Let’s look at that response:

It starts with the usual 2 paragraph pre-amble stating what we already know followed by an assertion that work is ongoing. It’s been 3 months guys….and despite living practically on the site, I’ve seen no-one resembling a tree surgeon or an ecologist. Suella has even visited in that time…She’d have done twice as much work as the council if she had brought a set of secateurs.

I’ve lived here (almost in the woods) for 23 years and I’ve known about ash die back throughout all that time. The diseased ash trees were self evident, failing to sprout leaves in the spring and the dead branches would regularly drop to the ground once the winds of autumn came. The Council would regularly employ tree surgeons to take out the diseased trees and not even a barrier was erected. Local residents had the good sense to give the workers a wide berth and let them get on with their works.

Suddenly we find ourselves in a situation where a complete lock down is necessary.. We also find ourselves needing, ecology surveys, wildlife surveys, forensic analysis and 50 page report of the habitat and breeding activities of badgers, bats, door mice and anything else with 4 legs or wings that might turn a molehill into a very large mountain. Maybe Havant Borough Council are angling for an ecology award for sustainable green space management, or perhaps a permanent residency of Chris Packham with the entire Nature watch team. And of course we are paying for all of it…through the nose.

At which point in the last 20 years did the diversity of the site change?. All this wildlife has always been here. Only this morning a pair of deer walked across my path in broad daylight. We have always had foxes, squirrels, every imaginable indigenous species of bird… None of this has any relevance to the simple task of stripping out a few dead trees which has been successfully done for decades.

He concludes that the site ‘must remain closed for pubic safety’, a classic textbook line from the manual of authoritarian control, with no basis in evidence and ignoring every possible second order consequence;

What is more risky, a member of the public being hit by a falling branch? or pedestrians/ cyclists being hit by motorists on the nearby Tempest Av because they can no longer get to work or school using the Public footpath?

If you are struggling to stay with me this far, the TLDR (too long, didn’t read) appears to be we are going to spend tens of thousands of pounds of your council tax, making a simple job into a really, really, big and complicated one.

As it stands the local residents have given up with this nonsense. The barriers are breached multiple times every day, sometimes violently so. The council employs a local contractor to close the barriers, 3 times a week and he sends a photo the council to prove his pointless diligence. Within minutes, they are open again.

We’ve already been threatened with heavy duty concreted in gates…although I think they are going to run into some issues with permissions and damaging people’s neighbouring property. There are also hundreds of neighbouring properties with rear access from their gardens direct to the area… Good luck fencing that off…

Is it only a matter of time before they turn up with the razor wire and watchtowers… ? Nothing would surprise me…

How have we got here? I just want to be able to walk my dog and enjoy this beautiful area in peace… But these bureaucratic zealots thrive, both on wasting taxpayers money, and making people’s lives more difficult.

The mainstream media are finally catching up with the crisis of young people never being able to afford their own homes. I’ve been railing about it for years and I’m right at the sharp end of it right now..

We have a 26 year old with 2 degrees, a great job, significant savings for a deposit, but no chance in hell of being able to afford a starter home anytime soon. Also a 21 year old, just got a great degree and looking for work opportunities (you can guess how that’s going). It’s not fair that our young people have to live their 20s and possibly 30s still living at home, and not fair on their parents either.

I bought my first property at 21 with zero financial help, and I was by no means exceptional. Back in 1991, one reasonable wage was all you needed to rent or own a property, a home, somewhere to raise your kids, even with the bank interest rate being over 10% at the that time. The world has inexorably changed since then…it’s become financially hostile, and young people have been left behind… The social contract has been broken… It’s no wonder then that there are epidemic levels of anxiety and depression amongst GenZ. “Oh they are work shy, snowflakes?” Someone in their 80s actually said that to my face the other day when I was talking about my two. Jesus.

No wonder our kids are developing anxiety and depression, when they are presented with a task so difficult, a goal so unattainable, that the natural reaction is to give up…

Support your kids and grandkids as best you can. They are going to need your help.

Hurstwood Closure due to Ash Die back

Dear Friends, I’ve known for a long time that I’m ungovernable…I have a zero tolerance policy for unnecessary bureaucracy and being told what to do, which I think stems from seeing the worst of corporate culture in a former career, and being self-employed for over 17 years.

Well most recently I’ve found myself in a battle with the local council over their decision to close the entire woods which surround the area where I live. There are a large number of Ash trees in the area which are suffering with something called ‘Ash Die Back’, a fungal disease which will end up killing 80% of the Ash trees in Britain.

It’s a serious problem for sure but the local council’s reaction to discovering it almost 20 years after everyone else, has been the most risk averse health and safety madness I’ve seen for some time.

Instead of sensibly assessing the infected trees and cutting them down, they’ve locked down the entire area like something from a Hollywood post apocalypse film. Most of the interconnecting pathways including some fairly arterial cycle routes have been closed, fenced up while the Land Services department basically spend months in pointless meetings, and writing risk assessments so they can employ ecologists, arborists and eventually tree surgeons to start felling the dead and dying trees.

They are so terrified of someone suing them from being hit by a falling tree that instead of taking a common sense approach and only closing the area when actual tree felling works is being carried out, they have unilaterally decided that walking in woods that are hundreds of years old, is suddenly in 2026 a risk akin to taking a walk near the Chernobyl power station.

Meanwhile, less than 50 yards away there is a gulley that keeps flooding across the main road and has caused several car accidents and near misses over the years. The council have ignored repeatedly calls to repair it along with all the numerous potholes on the surrounding roads, not to mention the frequent fly-tipping.

It’s taken me several weeks of communication to get them to finally admit there have been no actual works being carried on the site for the last 6 weeks, and they haven’t even put the job out to tender to fell the affected trees. In the meantime local residents are being denied access to one of the few green spaces we have to walk dogs, cycle, and generally navigate safer routes to the local town away from the much more life threatening traffic on the neighbouring roads. One disabled resident is stuck in his house because his mobility scooter can’t exit the traffic calming cobbles on the entrance to his road, and his only exit to get anywhere through the footpaths has now been closed.

The lack of joined up thinking is staggering. It’s just an exercise in arse covering…a classic council overreach from over-enthusiastic clipboard fondlers and lanyard autocrats.

I rely on my morning walks with Ozzy for my mental health and sanity. I don’t want to walk with him near main roads and I miss observing the wildlife, the changing of the seasons, and generally being in nature for a short time each morning and evening, something that used to be freely available to me on my doorstep without resorting to driving anywhere.

I’ve lived here for 22 years. Never once has even a twig fallen on me whilst walking in the woods. Plenty has fallen on my studio in that time including very large branches, but that’s because the council have ignored tree maintenance at property boundaries for over 10 years.

Anyway the local residents won’t take it lying down… The fences have been breached, some violently so.. The local dog walkers are a feisty lot, some are well into their 80s and saw national service and rationing and have no time for Clipboard Colin telling them where we can and can’t go in our own parish.

We are doing that British thing of carrying on regardless.

Please arrange bail if you see me on the TV getting arrested and bundled into the back of a police car for throttling a council official.

Power to the people…

I saw this earlier and it really resonated. Alongside a spiralling cost of living, I’ve seen a pernicious uptake on social media , of a kind of ‘workhouse virtue signalling’, reminiscent of a Victorian era. When times get hard, the poor are gaslighted in working even harder, not even by the rich, but often by those struggling themselves. In 2025 Britain, the demographic of ‘the poor’ has now significantly widened to include the working and middle classes. You now need two significant incomes to buy a house, pay a mortgage and cover the basics, where as just 30 years ago, a single average income was enough, to buy a house, pay the bills, bring up kids and still have money leftover to do the fun stuff.

‘But I have a dream to retire early from the 9-5 grind and do something more fulfilling!’… ‘Sorry, old chum, the rich need more investment properties and I need my 2 weeks in Greece next year…keep rowing!!’

I’ve seen this coming for a long time and I took evasive action. I simply wasn’t prepared to spend a lifetime toiling at something I didn’t believe in, just to fulfil someone else’s warped sense of success. 16 years ago I bailed out…I left the rat race, put everything I’d made into paying off the mortgage and made a steadfast resolution that from now I’d only work at something that personally fulfilled me. Like Ade outlined, I’d realised that people should be working less, not more and having more diverse and fulfilled lives. What progress have we made as a species if we now work harder at things we don’t want to do?

The road wasn’t always easy and I’ve had to give up on the dream on some occasions having been overwhelmed by cost of living pressures, but I’m still here 16 years later… With a few exceptions I largely kept to my promise… There is simply more to life than living someone else’s dream..As Ade says, don’t grind away until you die, cultivate your own dream, make it happen.

Do you remember back in the late 70s and 80s that we seemed to have an overwhelming appetite for the mysteries of the universe?  Ghosts, paranormal activity, spontaneous human combustion (remember that?).  UFOs, crop circles.  All these things were huge in the zeitgeist of the era, but now are much less now prevalent.  I believe our deepest fears are often played out in the media we create.  Art and music are like a collective dream we all have, which gets worked out in creative endeavour, film, TV, music, the arts.  We have an overwhelming urge to explore in art, that which troubles our minds. 

Back in victorian times, people were obsessed with magic and communicating with the spirit world.  Did this speak of a generation that lived repressed, hard and sometimes short lives?  A life half lived perhaps? Then no wonder they fantasised about a secret world that could possibly offer immortality.

In the 70s we became obsessed with visitors from another planet.  Films like ‘Close Encounters…’ defined the box office, then we had Star Wars, ET, all alluding to dreams of a better society, of alien beings showing us the folly of our ways, and how to be more tolerant to others that didn’t look like us.

So where now?   The volume of content to available to watch and listen to has multiplied by huge factors.  Choice is much larger, we aren’t watching or listening to the same things anymore and every taste is catered for, most of it available for free.

If we can learn anything from the most popular content on say Netflix in the last 10 years, then it’s that we are currently obsessed with escapist fantasy, worlds we recognise but which are clearly not ours.  The imagery is dream like, often absurd.  We are maybe living lives so impossible that our subconscious minds want a playground that evades reality, even if the brutality depicted there is far worse and more dangerous than we experience in the real world.

I think in another 50 years we will have achieved a sense of detachment so profound that facts will have lost their importance.   The only truth for many will be what you believe it to be.  This is possibly scarier than anything we can depict.