Curse Of Buddy Holly

Some say that there are World's beyond this one and Halloween is the time when the barrier between our one and the others is at it's thinnest.  
Let's pull back that curtain and take a trip to that other side, the side where knowledge and science have no use. Take my hand so you don't wander too far because over here, everything can harm you.

In January 1958, while touring in England, recording engineer Joe Meek received a message whilst attending a tarot card reading. The message was that his friend, Buddy Holly, would die on February 3rd aged only 22.
By the time Meek got to tell Buddy of the message, February 3rd 1958 had already passed and they laughed off the warning. 
On the evening of 3 February 1959, after a performance at the Surf Ballroom, Iowa, Buddy Holly chartered a plane to take him, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens to the next gig. Tragically, the plane crashed, killing all three.
Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent had both earlier pulled out of the the ill-fated Winter Party Dance. On 17 April 1960, Cochran and Vincent were on their way to Heathrow Airport for a return flight to the U.S while on the way, the taxi they were travelling in blew a tyre and crashed into a lamp post. Vincent suffered permanent damage to his leg but Cochran was thrown from the vehicle and died the next day of massive head injuries aged 22, the same age as Buddy Holly at his death.
Singer Ronnie Smith was hired to replace Buddy Holly for the remainder of the 1959 Winter Dance Party. He was committed to a mental hospital complaining of disturbing visions of the dead Buddy Holly and in 1962, he hanged himself aged 24.
The Crickets brought in David Box as their new singer but he died in a plane crash in 1964, aged 22.
In 1967, on the eighth anniversary of Holly's death, Joe Meek shot and killed his landlady and then turned the shotgun on himself. 
In 1977, a film was made of Buddy Holly's life starring Gary Busey and written by Robert Gittler. After completing the film, Busey was involved in a near fatal motorcycle accident which left him with brain injuries. Gittler committed suicide shortly before the film's release.
On February 3, 1990, the thirty-first anniversary of Buddy Holly's fatal crash, Del Shannon performed at the Surf Ballroom Clear Lake, Iowa (the location of Holly's last performance). The Crickets acted as Shannon's backing band.
Five days later, Shannon shot himself.

Don't have nightmares but tonight when you go to bed, you may want to leave the light on. 

Scary Stuff

Not sure what happened after the camera stopped, maybe it is best we don't know.

Thanks To Those Meddling Kids

In Massachusetts, they have a law that states if you are selling your home, and it is haunted, you must declare it to the prospective buyer about the ghost on the second visit to the property.
If ghosts do not exist, why do we have this law?
The Massachusetts law makers obviously believe in Ghosts but extensive research by experienced ghost hunter Scooby Doo has proved it is almost always the creepy guy from the amusement arcade.
Despite centuries of sightings with no proof of their existence, belief in ghosts is growing in the UK with 52% saying that they believe in the supernatural with the data also found that one in five claimed to have had some sort of paranormal experience.
While belief in ghosts is rising, the study, suggests a fall in the numbers prepared to accept the existence of UFOs, 39%.
As ghosts can't be proven to exist scientifically and there is no evidence that they exist, why do so many people accept they they are there at all?
It was only two hundred years ago, science pooh-poohed the idea that things like bacteria and
viruses existed, largely because it seemed absurd to imagine that creatures could exist that are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Once the microscope was perfected, of course, all that changed, so could it be that we just haven't yet got the technology to be be able to 'see' ghosts?
Until such a time, all we have is a Great Dane, his hippy friend and a small group of other meddling kids to keep exposing the frauds and con men.

Not Wearing A Poppy

The Poppy sellers are out in force and already i have had a disagreement with the security guard at work who tried to push a poppy onto me. 
I don't wear a poppy for two reasons, the first being i am continually being told i should do and secondly because i believe that rather than send young men and women off to fight wars and then stand around looking solemn wearing a red flower once a year, just don't send them to fight wars in the first place.
The idea of wearing a poppy seems to have become co-opted by politicians to justify our folly in places such as Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.
It has become 'patriotic' to wear a symbol which represents the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers but my thoughts are never for the military, the people who make a decision to join the army and go off to fight wars, my thoughts are always for the innocent victims of missiles sent from hundred of miles away, warriors sat behind television screens in far away countries guiding armed drones to destroy villages and pilots dropping their payloads from high altitudes.  
I will not wear something that is used to support wars, either conflicts past or the ones we are currently embroiled in.

Important...Don't Read This!!

Don't read this any more, stop now and go straight to the last paragraph, the one beneath the dotted safety line. Don't read below this paragraph. Please...you have to trust me.

I have no control over the words on this page, my fingers are on the keys but they are not under my control. He is making me write it, the one word on this page that will summon Him.

All isn't lost if you haven't looked away yet and you have made it this far, just skip to the last paragraph and avoid saying that word in your mind. Whatever you do, don't read the paragraphs following this one. You must ignore them completely, cast your eyes down to the paragraph at the bottom. Believe me, this is your only chance to redeem yourself for not looking away earlier.

By now it's too late, nothing you do now will make any difference. You have read too far and He will know as it is here that he starts to take notice, hear your thoughts and starts making 'arrangements' for His visit. Why didn't you just look away when i said??

Listen, you can keep him at bay for a short time as he will wait until you have finished reading, then He will come for you. You only have one way to stay alive you must keep reading because He will come as soon as you stop. That's how He works. It's too late to go back to the start and skip down to the paragraph below, He is watching and waiting.

Only thing i can do if you have read down to here is wish you luck. Phone your loved ones,  settle any outstanding squabbles and make your peace because it's too late, you read the word, the word that you can see by reading the first letter at the start of each paragraph. Damn, you went back and looked didn't you!!

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If you followed my advice in the first paragraph, well done. You can stop reading now. But never, never be tempted to come back and read the paragraphs you skipped. You must trust me.

Blair Getting Excuses In Early

Are we really still talking about the Iraq War twelve years after it happened?
Appears so and Tony Blair is getting his excuses in early before the Chilcott enquiry publishes it report and as the enquiry has already informed the people it is about to criticise, seems Mr Blair is in for a kicking.  
He is now apologising for mistakes in planning the conflict and for a lack of understanding of what would happen once the regime was removed but he flat out refuses to say sorry for removing Saddam.
He did say that the Iraq war was to blame for the rise of Islamic State though which i'm pretty sure
everyone assumed that anyway.
As his 'mistakes' caused the death of a million Iraqis and the consequences are still there in the form of IS today and even more deaths, getting his excuses in early is not going to clean the odious little mans legacy and quite right that it shouldn't because no matter how he spins it, he lied to go to war so long may he and his 'apologies' be treated with the contempt they deserve.

Not Tipping

My colleague told us a story about how he and his wife recently stayed at a hotel and his bags were hardly on the floor for 30 seconds as they stood at the reception when someone picked them up and carried them towards the lift.
Apparently he explained that they were quite able to carry their own bags, a small suitcase each, but the guy insisted and just kept moving towards the lift with their bags.
My colleague stated firmly that his service was not required all the way up to the rooms where he dropped the bags in the room and then stood in the doorway obviously waiting for his tip.
All he got was a thank you and a door in his face which is exactly what i would have done because i am not a tipper and i don't know many Brits who are.
To my thinking, if i go somewhere and the service is good then i go again, if not then i go somewhere else so the idea that you tip to make sure that you get a good service is not even an argument.
It seems very much an American thing because the service staff there are so low paid that they rely on tips to make up their wages rather than the employers who should pay their employees regular wages.
My view, and it seems the vast majority of people here who i have spoken to about it, is that it is up to the employer to make sure that those people earn living wages and this burden should not be transferred to the customers and the receipt of a decent service dependent upon it.
I show my appreciation for that service which i have paid the advertised price for by thanking them and returning to pay for it again at some point.

Want To See Something Really Scary?

I have seem more than my fair share of horror films over the years and they don't seem to deviate too far from each other in the way of scares but it doesn't stop the mirror scenes from frightening the bejesus out of me even though i know what is going to happen.
It is a pretty sure fire thing that if you see someone looking into a mirror in a horror film, they will move away at some point but the reflection will remain in the mirror and carnage will generally follow but according to science it is the fact that we know what is going to happen that makes it even scarier.    
In the name of science, the University of Nottingham attached receptors to volunteers to measure sweat, electrical activity in the skin and heart rate as they watched a series of horror films.
'The audiences experience the most dread and tension when the viewer knows what’s about to happen but the fictional character is completely unaware' they explained before naming the top ten films that caused the most sweaty hands, the fastest heartbeats and most change of underpants.

1. The Shining, 2. The Exorcist, 3. A Nightmare On Elm Street, 4. Ring, 5. Alien, 6. The Silence of the Lambs, 7. Poltergeist, 8. Insidious, 9. Halloween 10. Saw

Why They Are The Nasty Party

Before the General Election in May there was a leaked document that said the Conservatives, if they won the election, would make £12 billion worth of cuts, something they neither confirmed or denied. saying that it was not relevant to explain where any cuts would fall until after the election.
'When we are right and we are ready, we will talk about what we plan to do' was the standard answer as questions were raised before the election regarding just where the £12 billion cuts would come from.
Seems we found out because before the dust had even settled, it was announced that the axe would fall on Tax Credits which top up the wages of those on low wages with the result being three million low-paid families losing more than £1,000 a year.
The Government argue that this is vital to reduce the welfare bill and cut the deficit and would be offset by other changes, such as increases in the personal tax allowance and the National Living Wage. 
Considering the cuts come into force in April 2016 but the raised National Living Wage not until April 2020, it does seem the Government are trying to pull a fast one because a four year gap before one offsetting the other doesn't seem particularly kind.
Especially as it is hitting those in work who will be looking at a pretty drastic drop in their income until 2020 and then they will only be bought back up to the standard they are at today meaning in 2020 they will be back to where they were in 2015.
While a portion of their own party are warning it would have an adverse effect and the Institute for Financial Studies has warned it would force the poorest further into debt, the Government are powering on and in a wonderful piece of timing, the letters going out to advise recipients how much their tax Credits will be reduced by are being sent out in December, just before Christmas.
They are not called the nasty party for nothing and this lot seem to be surpassing even the Thatcher Government in the nastiness stakes.

Trudeau Takes It

Right up until earlier this year, Google Trends had an excellent record in predicting the winner of major elections but then it went and gave a thumping win to Ed Miliband and the Labour Party only to see it decimated and the Conservative Party romp to victory.
The eve of the Canadian General Election is a good time to get back on the horse and see if Google Trends has rediscovered it's mojo and it is declaring a change of backside in Canada's big chair with incumbent Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, thrown out on his ear and Justin Trudeau of the Liberals laughing over his Maple Syrup breakfast sandwich on Tuesday morning.
Unless there are revelations that knock him from his pedestal between now and voting close tomorrow, Google thinks Trudeau will sneak over the line in front of Harper but it is close call so beware anyone who is thinking of remortgaging their house and throwing it all at a bookie on the strength of Google. 
Here in he UK we should be filling our swimming pools with gold coins under a Labour Government like Scrooge McDuck as Google predicted but instead we are breaking up what's left of our furniture for the fire under a Conservative Government so be careful.