Christmas Eve: Dickensian thoughts

It’s Christmas Eve and during Christmas, I tend to think of the year that has just gone by and the one that is about to start. I write articles here on WordPress and on a Zillion ideas and some of those get featured on the Express and Star website (my local newspaper) and these get syndicated on The YamYam.

I also take all the photos. Last year, I bought a new Nikon camera (D3200) to take even better photos and this year, I’ve bought extra lenses and filters. I’ve even bought a tablet computer so I can show people the photos. I enjoy writing and photography and when you enjoy doing something, you become good at it with all the practice! I hope all the practice I get watching the stock market will eventually make me good at that too!

I still help students with their studies and was mentioned in the acknowledgements of the dissertation one of them wrote this year. She graduated last year with a BA and this year with a MSc. A few months ago I took her to the Manor House (the one pictured) and we got a guided tour.

I’ve photographed a few events this year too, notably the ones with Gareth Gates and Noddy Holder switching on the Christmas Lights. If someone had told me a few years ago that I would be photographing rock stars with an expensive DSLR, I wouldn’t have believed them. Life can change; if you want it to change. Most of the excitement came as I watched the stock market and the oil company that I had invested in seemed close to striking oil and gas! My shares quadrupled in value in a matter of days and then slowly sank again. They thought there wasn’t as much oil as the forecasts suggested. Strangely those estimates were wrong too and the share price has been going up again. It won’t make me rich, but it does make life more interesting.

We want a quiet life, but we also want a few risks and the excitement that goes with risk. I might risk a bit of Christmas brain damage and turn the television on later. I have no idea what the Christmas programmes are; but I read something about Downton Abbey. That brainwashes and distorts our history. How nice the toffs are with their benevolent, caring attitude to the servants whom they are kind enough to provide with employment. In reality, servants are treated more like animals and these days the rich bring servants in from overseas. In Victorian and Edwardian times, the servants were mocked, worked six and a half days a week and lived in the attic or cellar. We have a Tory government now from the elite privileged classes who con the middle classes that they can aspire to be like them. No, sorry; if you weren’t born into the aristocracy. You didn’t have a private education and aren’t an Oxbridge graduate; you are simply delusional if you think you can ever be ‘upper class’. You are just an oik with attitude and a credit card. Technology has changed Britain, but the Portside Out, Starboard side Home lot still run the country, aided by their executive lackeys.

This post is getting very political; I am a bit concerned that many people won’t be eating turkey this Christmas. This is a modern day Dickensian scenario, with Iain Duncan Smith as Scrooge. I suppose the whole DWP is Bob Cratchit.

Anyway, I do visit art exhibitions sometimes and have even been asked to review them. I’ve only reviewed one this year, but I haven’t lost my interest in art. So I do have a go at editing my photographs to produce something artist now and then…

Click a picture to bring up the carousel and view the pictures larger; press escape to escape the carousel…

What do you think? Please comment and share you views. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Do you think Britain’s getting more Dickensian?

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