Watching the Void

Friends can be tough

My friend Tomas is a good guy. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a really good guy. He’s from Hungary somewhere, although he’s never told me exactly where it is he hails from. He works in a sandwich shop in the West End, which seems like a bit of a dubious gig for someone who’s 29 years old. But he has big dreams. Like, outrageously big dreams. One is that he wants to run his own airline. He flew a little bit when he was doing his National Service, although my understanding is that he never quite qualified as a private pilot, and now his big dream is to buy a plane and start an airline.
In fairness, he doesn’t want to start a big airline. It doesn’t need to be British Airways, or even Ryanair. He imagines that he could be an owner-operator, flying his own plane from Newquay out to the Scilly Isles for example. Short hops, not many passengers, personal service. Maybe it’d even become a Courier Service, air freighting people’s packages and other things that need to be got urgently from A to B.
I don’t believe he’s ever quite going to make it. But I hope it does, because Tomas is a dreamer and in this increasingly depressing world it feels like what we really need are dreamers. People who will aspire towards something, and concretely work towards it. Tomas is saving as much of his money as he can. And while he may be more likely to fly a kite than a plane, it’s still a beautiful thing to dream of being airborne.

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The Farce That Once Was Britain.

Is it just me or is Britain rapidly turning into some kind of ‘police state’? We seem to have an ever-increasing amount of control being forced upon us in so many different ways –

· There are now more CCTV systems in Britain than any other country in Europe. And this means being scrutinised just about anywhere that we go.

· We are being swamped with bureaucracy and red tape (and most of this originates in Brussels) on a daily basis. Sure, a civilised society must have a certain amount of rules, but do we really need this many???

· Being British is supposed to mean having ‘freedom of speech'fitted as standard. However, when you look at the way that protests are handled it makes you wonder how much freedom we really do have…

· Health and Safety regulations (Brussels again!) are becoming so restrictive that we will soon not even be allowed to leave our homes. Isn’t it a little over the top to expect children to don protective equipment before engaging in a ‘dangerous'game of ‘Conkers’?

I am slowly becoming convinced that David Cameron will one day go the whole hog and turn into a cruel and ruthless dictator! Or perhaps he will morph into ‘the Beast'from the Bible’s ‘Book of Revelation’?

You think I sound paranoid? Well, ask yourself this; if you were roaming worldwide , how many countries would make you feel like a social pariah simply for having a cigarette in your mouth? Because smokers are certainly made to feel ‘dirty'in Britain…

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Look at the positives

A couple of my friends emigrated to Cyprus for a new life three months ago and already it’s fallen to pieces. I think they had it in their heads that starting afresh in a new place would make all their problems go away but no, they have soon realised that whatever personal issues they had, they exist no matter the location. I find it annoying when people criticise the UK – as if every other country is perfect. My family come from Poland so I know what I am talking about. Many people I speak to highlight all the worst aspects of the UK and talk up all the best aspects of countries they are from or have visited. It’s strange.

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