Centenary Camp

Well it’s over. Five years in the planning (3 of them with me on the team), hours spent working to make it happen, dealing with contractors, health and safety, planning programmes, dealing with paper work and then on Wednesday morning we finally moved onto site.

8.15am and the first lorry turned up. 8pm on Monday we finally had the site clear.

The scale was huge. We took a green field site, normally a public park, and fenced it in, brought in water, sewage, toilets, electricity, rubbish disposal, and every other service a small town needs. For 48 hours a thousand scouts lived, worked, played and learned together and had a fantastic time. We then took it all down again in just 30 hours. I averaged about 5 hours sleep a night, I barely sat down.

I have never worked so hard either physically or mentally but damn I’m proud! I worked with a fine group of people who either already were or who have now become fantastic friends.

And I have been inundated with emails from parents saying how fantastic the whole event was and how much fun the kids had.

Despite all the hard work, it was worth it, totally worth it. There were several moments that told me it had gone off right. Seeing my Cubs dance the Macarena, seeing the Red Cross presentation on human rights have several Explorer Scouts in tears, the Mexican wave before the camp fire and just hearing the banter over the radio system.

So when people ask me what I did over the bank holiday, I can tell them that I pulled it out the bag!

It is now 5 years, almost to the day, that my Nan died.

It was the first time that I’d lost someone that I felt really close to and is something I’ve still no quite got over. I don’t think anyone ever does. Relatives had died before but they were mostly distant relatives or I had been too young to really understand. So I was 23 before I really lost someone.

She was a formidable woman, never scared of standing up to people and never prepared to just accept her lot in life. She did everything that women were simply not expected to do. She tried to become an accountant, she drank in pubs, she watched football from the North Bank at Arsenal, she worked in a factory, she joined the fire brigade. She was truly inspirational. It was her that gave me the attitude of “why the hell not?” when people have told me that something couldn’t be done.

She was also one of my closest friends and I still miss her like crazy. I’ve even found myself shopping for Christmas cards for her (I’ve always been crap with birthdays!), almost forgetting she’s gone, such is the impression she left on my life.

She was a Cub leader in her younger years as well, maybe not as totally immersed in it as her grandson is, but she still got stuck into it and she would have been delighted to see the centenary year and how much is going on. So this weekend, when we’re at centenary camp, I shall say a little prayer for her.

Eleanor “Dorris” Burt
1913-2002

I still miss you Nan.

Let me take you back to July 1997. It was my Queens Scout Expedition, day 2, and myself and 3 friends were trecking across the central Scottish Highlands. It was typical Scottish weather, cloudy, windy with intermitent rain, exactly what we expected. It was wild, bleak but incredibly beautiful. And there was moment inparticular that I remember.

It was late afternoon and we were coming down off of Ben Bheil (pro Voil), which is a long ridge type mountain, and we were looking down into the glen below having just dropped beneath the cloud line. And scudding through this glen were a series of small grey clouds that were being blown over the edge of the col at the top of the glen. The speed that they were coming down the glen was incredible and we spent quite a while just sat there looking out at this.

We called it the Cloud Factory.

Just thought I'd share that memory.

The following is something that I found on Facebook. It expresses some what more eloquantly many of the feelings that I tried to express in an earlier post. You may not like everything it has to say but I personally support every word of it.

Bare in mind that I am a Scout Leader. I love children, I put my heart and soul into trying to make their lives that little bit better. I am just sickened by the way one particular issue has been treated in the media.

As much as everyone is sickened by the fact that a little girl has been kidnapped, I bet that this situation is a newspaper editor’s wet-dream. Everyone is so keen to keep up-to-date on the latest information regarding Madeleine McCann that any paper with her photo on their front page probably boosts sales by a considerable margin. Pretty sick, but probably true.Then there’s the fact that in all the articles we’re told how beautiful she is and how her parents are GPs etc etc. Why the fuck does that matter? Surely the fact that a child has been stolen by a pedophile gang is enough to incite our compassion?I’m told that if I have “any information relating to the case” then I should phone some number to report it, if my information leads to Madeleine’s recovery then I’ll get a million pounds. A million pounds!! Shit. That’s a lot of money. I’m actually quite tempted to call up and say that I saw her somewhere, just on the off chance that it turns out she actually IS there. I’m not really going to call, but it’s a big enough incentive that I can practically guarantee some people will. This mean that as well as wading through the thousands of calls they’re already getting from people thinking they caught a glimpse of Madeleine in John Lewis in Wrexham, the police are having their resources stretched even further by following up bullshit leads from greedy, morally defective pricks. Let the police do their work, don’t drown them with useless information.Another effect this sensationalist media coverage is having is to strike fear into the hearts of young parents at home and abroad. Do you remember when you were a kid and you could stay out and play all day, only going home for dinner when it was too dark to play anymore? Children nowadays won’t remember that; their parents are too scared to let them. The media has made people believe that if you don’t know where your children are, eventually they’ll get raped and probably killed. Yes, sometimes it will happen, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a VERY RARE crime. Are you going to keep your children inside all day incase they get stolen by a pedo, hit by a car, struck by lightning or blown-up by a terrorist? You can’t live your life in fear of what MIGHT happen. Life’s too shortRight, finally David Beckham’s mumbled plea for her return. What. The. Fuck? On my list of ways not to catch a pedophile, David Beckham asking them to turn themselves in is right at the very top. In what shit-fest of a meeting was that hare-brained scheme hatched?“Well the parent’s emotive request for their return was ignored. What now?”“Well the polls show that people like football”“Excellent! Even rapists like football. Let’s get David Beckham to ask for Madeleine’s return. No one can say no to him”Excellent work media guys. Truly inspired.

Why the on earth is there an advert for David Guests blog at the top? These adds are meant to be relevant to the content of my blog.

As far as I can see he is a useless waist of space who is famous for being famous and contributes absolutley nothing of use to this world.

So please do not click on it, you'll only encourage him.

Yesterday the alleged leader of an alleged group of football thugs who allegedly support West Ham and who allegedly trashed a pub near White Hart Lane in 2003 was found not guilty of various charges. he claims to be completely innocent and his days of being a member of the ICF (The inter city firm, an infamos group of 1980's hooligans) are behind him.

And if you believe that you'll believe anything.

Now it is a shame that this particular specimen of pond life has not ended up behind bars. Such though is life.

What I am hopping mad about is that his barrister is a Barnet fan, my little club that is safe for kids to go and watch on their own. He saw fit to take his client to the club bar for a celebratory drink and brag about it on the club message board. I have never met this Barnet fan but I think that there is enough evidence here to classify him as a total wanker.

Worse though is that his client now wants to sponsor a game at Underhill next season and bring his army of wankers with him.

Let me make it clear, and I believe I speak for the over whelming majority of not just Barnet fans but also all football fans, they are not welcome. End of story. Full stop. This is my club, it is a club where you can have a drink with the players and the chairman after the game. It is a club where kids can come on their own safely. It is part of the community and trying to get more local support for a new stadium.

We do not need pond life like this at our club, regardless of how much money they spend.

More bloody cold calling today. This time they wanted to actually give me a free mobile phone! Once again I didn't give them the chance to get the "but" bit. I once again told them to go away and hung up.

Mrs Akela said I was being rude to them but her heart wasn't in it. I could tell!

I HATE COLD CALLERS!!!

You may have noticed that I have started to get adverts at the top of the blog.

It's quite simple, I signed up to have ads at the top and I get paid when people click on them, so please do so!

However they are meant to be relevant to the subject matter of this blog, so why the hell do I keep getting ads for marriage guidance counselling????

The Media

The media are it again, creating a culture of fear.

A young British child has been abducted in Portugal and that is an appalling tragedy. I care passionately about kids, I wouldn't be a scout leader if I didn't. And many others do as well.

I am though not a parent and despite how much I care about the kids in my care I know that I will never have the same depth of feeling for them as their parents do, I accept that. So accuse me if you will of not understanding when I say the following.

There have been many reports in the media along the lines of what more should parents be doing to keep their children safe. About precautions they can take to stop their children being kidnapped by the Boigie man. I hope that doesn't sound insensitive, it's not meant to be, it's meant to be a serious point. The odds of a child being abducted by a stranger are actually longer than being struck by lightning. It's true.

And just like preventing a lightning strike the precautions are very simple and ones that everyone is doing already. Make sure your child doesn't stand underneath a loan tree in a thunderstorm. Make sure they don't walk off with strangers.

It's a simple precaution to prevent something very unlikely in both situations.

There is no reason for the media to carry on trying to create a culture of fear over this issue or indeed any other. I may not be a parent but I do know that it's good for children to develop independence and self confidence. If you wrap them in cotton wool that wont happen.

Tony Blair

So Tony Blair is finally on the way. So maybe it's time for a few thoughts. And the big one is this, first of all lets put Iraq to one side for a moment, it's important to do so. Because if you do then Tony Blair is the best Prime Minister that I have lived under. True there have only been 4 of them (and one of them, Harold Wilson, only for a few months). The Conservatives, who were in power for more or less my entire childhood were disastrous. I wont go in to it, just accept it they were a shambles. Then along came Tony Blair.

He has not been perfect. I have not agreed with all his main policies. Tuition fees, partial privatisation of many public services. At the same time though, things like the national minimum wage, banning hunting with dogs, gay marriage, stake holder pensions. These have all been fantastic, and while I would prefer to have seen some Liberal Democrats policies, Labour have done a pretty good job and I would always prefer them to the Conservatives.

That is with Iraq put to one side. Now lets consider Iraq.

The most important decision any leader can make is weather to go to war or not. It means the decision between life and death for many people. And the only body able to prevent that decision, under our constitution is Parliament. Parliament is the ultimate sovereign body in the UK. So for anyone to lie to it is a very serious matter. And to lie to it when convincing them to support a war, particularly a controversial one that is a long way from overwhelming public support is frankly unforgivable.

And that is what Tony Blair did.

He told Parliament that we KNOW that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Now "believe" or "suspect" or "have reason to believe." No, he used the word KNOW.

Now tell me exactly how many weapons have been found? Actually no, not exactly, just a an approximation, just a round number.

Ah!

Hold on!

I can do both, an accurate number and a round number. In fact its the roundest number of all. It's 0. Nil. Zip. None. Nothing.

He said he knew what was untrue.

HE LIED TO PARLIAMENT.

And that is why I am glad he has gone because I can now consider voting for Labour again (and that depends quite simply on whether I believe they have the best policies or not come election time) with a clean conscience.

Cold Callers

My God I hate cold callers. Just today some random punter in Bombay phoned me to try and flog me a new mobile phone. Perhaps simply saying "go away" and hanging up was rude of me. Actually there's no perhaps about it, it was rude of me. But what the hell gives these people the right to keep ringing me to flog me stuff I don't want? So I'm unrepentant. The more they phone me, the more rude I fully intend to be. If I'm rude enough then I might get taken off their calling list.

Grrrrr.....

Akela's patients are being tried intensely and his nerves have now been worn waifer thin. He's had enough.

Pity the poor sod that pushes him that little bit further because he will, I swear, chew their head right off.

Grrrrr.......