The Knowledge Revolution…like the Industrial Revolution is happening and we’re living in interesting times. A programme on TV was about how ordinary people accessing information were able to influence things on a local, country and global scale by banding together with others via the web. China is struggling to block sites like Twitter fearing a web-based overthrow and actually employs a few thousand people to blog in the regime’s favour fulltime. Mighty companies can be brought down by a single blogger revealing malpractice. The way the information highway is constructed means that it cannot be blocked. The programme said there are 13 Route Servers in the world in different locations which control and switch all web information - one in California has all the dot coms for instance but even it is backed up offsite somewhere. Information is broken down into bits and those bits are sent over different routes to be reassembled at the receiving site - so that’s how it works- ooh it was interesting. With any subject capable of being researched by anyone with a computer and link to the web, it occurs to Rider how much more can be crammed into one lifetime. Will our brains be expanded to contain all this knowledge. Will we evolve mentally to mature and become a better species, start living a more harmonious life with other species… will separate Countries be abolished … will it all end like that fantastic film AI so if ET comes they find only traces in cyberspace of what we once were ? Random stuff … now Rider is off to Sunday lunch 
Writeous Dude has gone to Paris for a few days. He’s staying with someone he met on a Theatre course last year and helping with a production. He only speaks a bit of French with a Yorkshire accent so things could get a bit difficult …. It occurred to Rider to wonder what derogatory description the Froggies give us Brits these days. It used to be Les Rosbifs but these days perhaps it’s Les Chicken Tikkas or Les Thai Green Curries. Of course we used to rule parts of France - Gascony for one and French was the court language back around 1200. Funny to think France might have been part of Britain if a few things had gone the other way. The French call that bit of sea between us La Manche but we know it’s really the English Channel. I gave Writeous Dude a tip about shopping if he’s in one of those upmarket Stores where the assistants all look like models and have perfected the art of contemptuous disinterest. Pretend to be American and gush all over them, being loud and flashing some cash. Then you get served just to get you out of their department. Will he eat moules et croissants? .. visit Montmartre? … lucky Dude
Retired…. Have you retired? Are you keeping busy in your retirement? Rider has been musing on the word and it seems to have more negative overtones than positive ones and a new word is needed. After much brain bashing Rider has decided to launch ‘matured’. As in: I’ve matured now…. It’s terrific reaching your maturity…. I’ve so much to do now I’ve reached my maturity.. All the situations it can be used in: Rider’s off to ride across America - well she’s reached her maturity you know …. Rider drives a Blue Streak - well it’s a maturity thing…. Rider has a thing about irregular choice shoes/writing/funky hair/personalised coffins… (what ?) - matured is she? well there you go! Matured can excuse all sorts of things - like the cobweb I’ve just spotted in a corner beside the toilet. It could have been there for a day or several but life’s too short for housework when you’re matured. Yippee.. I bet you can’t wait to join the ranks of the matured. The trick is to avoid joining the ranks of the decrepit and jump straight to the personalised coffin.
Might be my title for my next tome - but I get so interested in research that creative writing seems to elude me. Perhaps I don’t have it in me :( Writing more about the village is postponed at the moment too but Rider is pursuing one project - to try to set up a visit for top class to Oriel College for next year. I met the Burser by chance last year when he visited the Church ’cause Oriel still have an obligation to help to repair the roof and through him the Provost’s secretary gave me a contact. It would be great if the children could visit - might inspire them to try for a place there. What other little village primary school in the Country has such a unique connection to one of the greatest Universities in the world … but don’t tell anyone or all the pushy parents will be flocking to you-know-where to give their offspring an early advantage
It’s all good fun being a Parish Council Clerk - a letter I wrote on behalf of the Council provoked some fone calls. One chap was reluctant to let me answer until I said I would have to put the fone down unless he allowed me to. Another lady was the opposite being kind and supportive. As the chap was so voluble maybe he will consider becoming a Councillor which he said he had seriously thought about as there were things the PC should concern itself with other than a few dustbins… dog fouling being one. (I was able to remind him, if he’d forgotten, that the PC had involved our village children in a poster competition on that subject and litter last year, with prizes of £50. The posters were put up around the village) …. Rider felt like she’d poked a vipers nest with a stick.. ‘a storm in a teacup’ felt more like ‘a hurricane in a dustbin’. A Clerk’s life is an interesting one … and yes it is ‘Clerk’ which is an old and honourable title, probably going back to the chancery clerks of medieval times… so there 
Dude is busy working on his Theatre script, having nearly completed the first act. He’s been to see The Lion King and is due to see Enron at the Albery and Jerusalem at the Apollo in the next 2/3 weeks. He also has a couple of other shows to go to so he will be busy writing reviews for them. Lucky guy is off to Paris (with a girl friend) to stay with a chap he met on a course a few months ago. Dude’s friend lives in St Germain and Dude and friend will be helping a bit with a production his friend is putting on - a group of international theatre enthusiasts who get together to put a show on in Paris from time to time. There’ll be plenty of time to see the sights too - lucky Dude. Before all this he’s coming to God’s Own County for a few days so some food shopping is called for. Never mind turning base metal into gold - get busy on turning a bale of hay into human food
Two boys who almost killed two others (virtually torturing them over a prologed period) have been sentenced to be detained indefinitely. They came from a ‘toxic’ family background and had been placed by social services with elderly foster carers. Why weren’t the actual parents in the dock? They should have received prison sentences with a lengthy period of retraining followed by tight supervision if ever found fit to be released. The social services should be investigated as to their decision to place these boys with elderly carers. What is happening to the other offspring of that ‘family’? How many other toxic families are there - can society hope to salvage them? The best move over recent time has been the creation of Sure Start centres which have a full range of professionals to counsel all the family members - teaching simple skills like money management, cooking, cleaning etc. However, on this day all Rider can think about is the four broken lives of four young boys and which of them - if any - might go on to become normal men. Feral parents (and they can be from all levels of society) make Rider Mad 
Our young newspaper guy has a unique way of dressing and his hair is usually multicolour and ever changing. He was upset the other day by some old fart making rude remarks to him when he went to collect the paper money, something the guy had done before apparently. He won’t be delivering a paper there again so that’ll teach old fart. How would the rest of you know you were ‘normal’ if it wasn’t for eccentrics like me ? - that’s what I told our paper guy he should have said and I made him laugh. Do you wonder I adore Mickey Rourke’s look/attitude - mostly fantastic outfits as per the Golden Globes - sports young ‘Natashas’ on his arm (hopefully he won’t get any of them pregnant) - doesn’t seem to give a flying f..k but is careful these days to behave in his work life. He makes Rider smile but if he doesn’t stop his horrendous smoking he probably won’t last long. Viva eccentrics - like the guy who presents ‘Bargain Hunt’ - Stephen Fry - Boris Johnson - the Naked Rambler - that cross dressing painter chap. Not many women in the list are there - except Rider
Mine is great and I have confidence in her built up over 20 years or so. This took some doing after the school dentist back in the day who was a witch and probably a fan of S & M in her spare time. Mind you the filling I had replaced today was done by the witch probably 40+ years ago so she at least had skill. Kids today may never have a filling given the advances in dentistry plus straight teeth with the correction that can be done. My teeth can’t be straightened now - not that they’re too bad - and veneers will have to wait until I sell zillions of my next tome. A good dentist is like a cross between an engineer and an artist and I’ve never heard of a poor one but mine is worth every penny. Make sure you go
After an enforced month off due to snow, the Blue Streak won’t start. Trickle feed charger didn’t work cause the battery is in the boot where a couple of lights come on when the lid is lifted thus draining the trickle charge. Red Devil’s battery is not suitable to connect up to try to jump start Blue Streak. Purchase of trickle feed set and jump leads wasted money so far … wonderful. If our helpful neighbourhood garage get it jump started will it be enough to run it for several miles before stopping for petrol as there’s not a lot of petrol in it ? If a new battery is needed then disconnecting the old one means a Key Code is needed to make the radio work again… said Key Code is unknown. A new battery will have to be a factory produced one specially for the Blue Streak and not a bog standard one… cost about £125. The mood at Rider’s may be described as ’sombre’, verging on ‘it’s all Rider’s fault’. Must be thousands of cars with flat batteries at the moment given how many have had to be abandoned etc in the snow but that’s not a lot of comfort. Blue Streak you’ve made Rider mad…. Later - after partial dismantling of Red Devil’s battery a way was found to connect to Blue Streak… Eureka … he fired up and may now be kept after all
