Just Finished Reading: Property Of….. by Alice Hoffman (FP: 1974)

She knew exactly what she wanted and was determined to get it. But there was one thing that she would never be – Property. She would never wear the leather jacket proudly displayed by the girls declaring that they were Property of the Orphans. She had another ambition – to be the only woman of the leader, the President of the Orphans himself: McKay. When Danny the Sweet finally relented and promised to introduce them she knew this might be her only chance to make an impression on McKay and Fate or something else had her back for that was the night when the Orphans would extract their bloody revenge on their rivals and prove that she what it took. McKay wasn’t easily impressed but the girl certainly had something apart from her attitude. But she didn’t impress The Dolphin, not at all. He told McKay straight up, in front of her, that she was bad news and that she’d cause him nothing but trouble but McKay had already stopped listening and she knew from that moment that she had her prize. McKay was hers. At least for a while. Until that is McKay’s ambition for power and influence led him to the means to have both – and money too, lots of money. Connections were made and promises exchanged. If the other gangs could be swept off The Avenue the Orphans could have exclusive rights to the distribution of as much heroin as they could handle. McKay was eager to run the whole show. Almost as eager as he was to try the merchandise despite everything she could do to stop him. Nothing worked. Nothing could turn him away from the needle. There was only one thing she could do to get his love back, to compete with a chemical. She could get him to inject her too.

I loved the movie Practical Magic and when I read the book I loved it all the more. After hearing that the author had penned a sequel I bought it and resolved to read everything that Ms Hoffman had penned and this was her first novel. To say that I was surprised by its subject matter – New York street gangs in the 1970’s and the heroin epidemic that swept through them – is a massive understatement. I’m not exactly sure what I expected but this was most definitely not it.  First published when she was only 22 years old this is a stunning achievement. Although few of the characters in the book are admirable (and not remotely lovable) they are all completely credible. No one, most especially the unnamed narrator, are free from emotional damage. Their drivers are primal – fear, loss, regret and the overwhelming need to belong no matter the cost. McKay is driven by his concept of honour and is destroyed when he is witnessed performing a dishonourable act that cannot be excused. The descent into drug use is gradual but completely believable. If the author wasn’t drawing on personal experience she seemed to be drawing on the real experiences of others. Consequently this is definitely not the book for anyone of a sensitive nature. There’s some violence here although more threat than actual and some sex without much detail, but it is the slide into drug induced oblivion that will stay with you – the desperate joy of heroin addiction that eats you alive as you both crave the hit and despise the need. Gritty doesn’t cover it. Despite everything though this is a stunningly poetic and, at times, quite beautiful novel. As a first novel it is frankly astounding in its seemingly effortless accomplishment. A must read from those with a strong enough constitution. Definitely more from Ms Hoffman to come. 

Cartoon Time.

Yes, Prime Minister

Several of my regular Book Blog visits have recently come up with the same idea – reading the biographies of every US President (although not necessarily in date order). I thought that idea was pretty cool but, as I’ve stated on multiple occasions, I’m trying to keep my focus on British and European history rather than reading about the entire planet… So, in line with that I thought it’d be an idea reading about every British Prime Minister but starting in the 20th Century and working backwards – but not strictly in date order. Presently I can’t really see myself reading about anyone after Tony Blair (the last PM I actually voted for – although we, the public, don’t actually vote for Prime Ministers we vote for the party they lead and actually we vote for a local MP who makes up a majority in the Commons who then decide on a PM, which to be honest is always the leader of the party).

Presently I have a bunch of books on Winston Churchill, his predecessor Neville Chamberlin and his successor Clement Attlee. Everything else would need to be acquired – and constitute yet another excuse to buy books! Actually I only really started noticing PM’s in my early teens with Edward Heath (1970-74) and Harold Wilson (1974-76). The first time I cast my vote was for Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) and the last time I voted for a PM that got into power was Tony Blair (1997-2007).

Going back in time I only know a few of the really BIG names of the 19th century so much of the period will be political terra incognita to me. That in itself is enough reason for the proposed project. Interestingly I have absolutely no idea who the first PM was or even what century he took office in (without looking it up) but presume it was the 18th or possibly the 17th. I just couldn’t guess. No doubt my investigations will throw up many names that no one remembers except for some dry political historians but that’ll make the hunt all the more interesting. But before I plumb the absolute depths I’ll cut my teeth on our leaders that at least some of you will recognise. I am however starting from a very low base with a single book in the list so far. My intention is to post updates every six months which should give me some motivation and might even prompt me to get my ‘Britain Alone’ reading off the ground with the added bonus of the PM books in the mix. But so far the list stands at this:

Winston S. Churchill (10th May 1940 – 26th July 1945) (26th October 1951 – 5th April 1955)

Churchill’s First War – Young Winston and the Fight against the Taliban by Con Couchlin.

Needless to say, we have FAR to go. 

Cartoon Time.

Facial recognition: EU considers ban of up to five years

From The BBC

18th Jan 2020

The European Commission has revealed it is considering a ban on the use of facial recognition in public areas for up to five years. Regulators want time to work out how to prevent the technology being abused. The technology allows faces captured on CCTV to be checked in real time against watch lists, often compiled by police. Exceptions to the ban could be made for security projects as well as research and development. The Commission set out its plans in an 18-page document, suggesting that new rules will be introduced to bolster existing regulation surrounding privacy and data rights. It proposed imposing obligations on both developers and users of artificial intelligence, and urged EU countries to create an authority to monitor the new rules.

During the ban, which would last between three and five years, "a sound methodology for assessing the impacts of this technology and possible risk management measures could be identified and developed". The proposals come amid a calls from politicians and campaigners in the UK to stop the police using live facial recognition for public surveillance. Most recently the Kings Cross estate found itself at the centre of controversy, when it was revealed its owners were using facial recognition technology without telling the public. Campaigners claim the current technology is inaccurate, intrusive and infringes on an individual's right to privacy. A recent study suggested facial recognition algorithms are far less accurate at identifying black and Asian faces compared with white faces.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has begun rolling out facial recognition in pharmacies in Shanghai for people buying certain drugs. Individuals buying controlled medicines, such as those containing psychotropic substances, will be asked to verify their identity by scanning their face. It marks the latest in a series of moves from the Chinese state to prevent potential abusers from getting hold of certain medicines that can be used to produce illegal drugs. The country is a big supporter of facial recognition, and while the West remains cautious, China continues to embrace the technology.

[Oh, I’m SO suspicious of the whole facial recognition thing. If our growing surveillance society wasn’t bad enough before it! With facial recognition either authorised or in widespread unauthorised use nowhere would be safe from being spied on. I still think there’s a huge future in decorative masks….. Money to be made there I think….]

Never been bullied - not even once.

Just Finished Reading: Antigrav edited by Philip Strick (FP: 1975)

This was a short book of short stories published from 1969-1975. I think the theme of the collection was, as far as I can tell, humour. The 70’s was a time of experimental literature – and nowhere more so than in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi realm – and it seemed that a big part of that experimentation was the use of off-beat or plain bizarre humour in a SF setting. Most of the time this just didn’t work for me. This was reinforced by a number of stories in this book that had little plot, poor dialogue and which rested their narrative (such as it was) mostly on the strangeness of the story rather than thinking it through. Making sense (to any great degree) seemed to be some kind of defeat. After all its SF/Fantasy so it doesn’t have to make sense… right?  By far the best story, simply head and shoulders above the rest was The Alibi Machine by Larry Niven (1973) which told of an editor who plans to kill one of his writers and who planned to use a matter-transmitter to concoct the prefect alibi. Naturally it all goes wrong and he can’t transmit out of the crime scene but fails to think through his other options properly. It’s a clever insight both into the use/abuse of technology and the failure of imagination caused by the too heavy reliance of that technology. Overall not recommended.

Cartoon Time.

An Influential Movement

As my regular readers will be aware of by now, as part of my ‘quest’ to understand the world I’m endeavouring to read at least some of the treasure trove of significant or influential books that exist in the world. My ‘discoveries’ are by and large random (as you can no doubt tell from the list below) and vary greatly in significance. However, I think they all make at least some contribution to the quests objective. My aim is to add at least 3-4 such books to the list each year. This year’s additions are added at the top of the list in Bold. I don’t have anything specific put aside for this year but I’m guessing that near future contributions will mostly be classical texts of politics and philosophy. I’m definitely feeling a lack of philosophy in my life…..! But to the list….   

Suffragette – My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
The Old Straight Track - Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones by Alfred Watkins
The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
All The President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence
The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
The Rights of Man by H G Wells
The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes
The Two Cultures by C P Snow
The City by Max Weber
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
The War of the Flea – A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory & Practice by Robert Taber
Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton
Seize the Time – The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P Newton by Bobby Searle
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
The Autobiography of Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley
Achtung Panzer! – The Development of Tank Warfare by Heinz Guderian
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
About Looking by John Berger
A Vindication of The Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
War on Wheels – The Evolution of an Idea by C R Kutz
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
Design as Art by Bruno Munari
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz
The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
The Rebel by Albert Camus
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara

I’m very pleased with the addition of 6 books last year with some very serious contenders in there. Again they came from all subjects from science, politics, feminism and a foundational tome of the New Age movement. Let’s see what I can dig up this year!

Cartoon Time.

Plant life 'expanding over the Himalayas'

By Navin Singh Khadka for BBC World Service

10 January 2020

Vegetation is expanding at high altitudes in the Himalayas, including in the Everest region, new research has shown. The researchers found plant life in areas where vegetation was not previously known to grow. A team used satellite data from 1993 to 2018 to measure the extent of plant cover between the tree-line and the snow-line. The results are published in the journal Global Change Biology. The study focused on the subnival region - the area between the tree-line (the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing) and the snow line (the boundary between snow-covered land and snow-free land). Subnival plants are mainly small grasses and shrubs. "The strongest trend in increased vegetation cover was between 5,000 metres and 5,500 metres altitude," said Dr Karen Anderson, from Exeter University, lead author of the report. "At higher elevations, the expansion was strong on flatter areas while at lower levels that has been observed on steeper slopes." Using Nasa's Landsat satellite images, the researchers divided the heights into four "brackets" between 4,150m and 6,000m. It covered different locations in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, ranging from Myanmar in the east to Afghanistan in the west.

In the Everest region, the study found a significant increase in vegetation in all height brackets. Other researchers and scientists working on glaciers and water systems in the Himalayas have confirmed the expansion of vegetation. "It (the research) matches the expectations of what would happen in a warmer and wetter climate," said Prof Walter Immerzeel, with the faculty of geosciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study. "This is a very sensitive altitudinal belt where the snowline is. A withdrawal of the snowline to higher altitudes in this zone provides opportunity for vegetation to grow." The research did not examine the causes of the change.

Other research has suggested Himalayan ecosystems are highly vulnerable to climate-induced vegetation shifts. "We have found the tree-line expanding in the subalpine regions of Nepal and China as the temperature rises," said Achyut Tiwari, assistant professor with the department of botany at Nepal's Tribhuvan University. "If that is happening with trees at lower elevations, clearly the plants at higher altitudes will also be reacting to the rise in temperature." Some scientists regularly visiting the Himalayas have confirmed this picture of expanding vegetation. "Plants are indeed colonising the areas that once were glaciated in some of these Himalayas," said Elizabeth Byers, a vegetation ecologist who has carried out field studies in the Nepalese Himalayas for nearly 40 years. "At some locations where there were clean-ice glaciers many years ago, now there are debris-covered boulders, and on them you see mosses, lichens, and even flowers."

Little is known about plants at these even-higher altitudes, as most scientific studies have focused on retreating glaciers and expanding glacial lakes amid rising temperatures. The researchers said detailed field studies on vegetation in the high Himalayas were required to understand how the plants interact with soils and snow. "What does the change in vegetation mean for the hydrology (the properties of water) in the region is one of the key questions," said Dr Anderson. "Will that slow down the melting of glaciers and ice sheets or will it accelerate the process?" The Hindu Kush Himalayan region extends across all or part of eight countries, from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. More than 1.4 billion people depend on water from this region.

[Yet another sign of Global Warming that will, no doubt, be ignored for as long as possible – GRASS is growing on Mt Everest! You have to wonder what the next data point will be….. Isn’t it about time we really started taking this stuff seriously?]

Interesting idea.......

Just Finished Reading: Bomber Boys – Fighting Back 1940-1945 by Patrick Bishop (FP: 2007)

It was much more than a simple belief, it was an article of faith. With little evidence to support the idea it was assumed, all through the Interwar years, that the bomber would always get through to its target and, once there, would cause great devastation, loss of life and general panic. Those who planned for such things knew of only one effective defence – the fear of retaliation – and so RAF Bomber Command was tasked to destroy the enemy if anyone had the temerity to attack the British homeland. When war was declared in September 1939 this is exactly what they did and, for the first time, faced the stark reality. Bombers did not always get through – nowhere near in fact.

It was a rude awakening. Throughout the 1930’s the RAF had taken delivery of some of the most advanced as well as the fastest bombers in the world. With great confidence they attacked their targets in France and suffered greatly for it losing 20, 30, and 50% of their aircraft in a single operation. They were truly unsustainably casualties. Very quickly operations were changed to the hours of darkness. Immediately the casualty rates dropped but so did the accuracy of any bombing with ordnance landing sometimes miles from its intended target. The RAF was simply not ready for precision night time raids. Coupled with this the overall bombloads carried by each plane was pitiful. Even when the aircraft arrived on target the damage caused was negligible. The British were hitting back but the enemy hardly noticed and, for the steady low level losses, the results were much less than hoped for, anticipated or promised. Something had to be done.

In the years that followed the older, smaller and slower bombers were phased out or given other duties. The technology of navigation and accurate targeting improved by leaps and bounds and aircraft grew larger, more powerful and with much increased bombloads. More importantly the sheer number of bombers increased year on year. Where initially 20, 30 or 40 bombers flew out on any particular mission now 100 or more where assigned to each target. Increasingly targets were hit repeatedly giving them little chance to recover and the number of 1,000 bomber raids taking place became increasingly commonplace. But the enemy had been far from idle. The Germans developed an effective radar system slaved to deadly anti-aircraft guns like the much feared Flack-88. Radar was also fitted to a new breed of night fighter. Techniques to mislead bomber streams and the logistics to hit them throughout their long flights both to the target and back again were honed to perfection until few missions returned to base without significant losses. It was a rare crew indeed that completed its 30 mission limit before moving to safer duties.

But eventually the RAF bomber war provided results. With the RAF bombing primarily at night and the USAAF doing the same primarily in daylight the Axis powers in Europe were being ground into dust. Eventually after many loses and many setbacks Strategic Bombing finally lived up to its promise and assisted in the victory in Europe – or at least its defenders have maintained since 1945. Its many detractors have argued otherwise showing that, right up to the end the productive power of Axis industry hardly faltered under Allied bombing despite the appalling loss of life on the ground.

I am familiar with most of the history of RAF bomber command during World War 2. Still this well written and insightful volume kept me more than interested throughout its almost 400 pages. Although ‘Ops’ remained front and centre in the narrative the author spent a great deal of time looking at the lived experiences of the crews themselves, looking at their training, how crews were selected, the stresses of combat, life on base and so on. Likewise the author didn’t shy away from the lived experience of German citizens in the towns and cities that were the RAFs target for tonight. Those sections were particularly disturbing and gave me much pause for thought throughout my time reading this book. The author most definitely did not shy away from the argument, still ongoing today, about the morality of bombing whole cities rather than at least attempting (as did the USAAF) targeting clearly military targets. It’s not a question that can easily be answered although the author gives it a good go.

I think this is my first book by this author and I shall enjoy reading more of his work. Certainly knowledgeable he comes at the subject from many angles and does not shy away from difficult questions or counter arguments. Whilst not afraid to offer his own opinion he gives the reader enough information and argument to make up their own considered viewpoint. Recommended for anyone interested in the campaign or the controversy.

Cartoon Time.

For a Night Out in the Rough part of Town.

The Best Books of 2019

I finished 66 books this year (not too shabby for me) with just 1 (surprising) DNF. As usual I’ll split the Best’s between Fiction and Non-fiction with the Best of the Best in each category in BOLD. At the end of that I’ll do a summary and give my feelings on the year just gone.

Fiction: 

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
Replay by Ken Grimwood
The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
House of the Hanged by Mark Mills
Destroying Angel by Richard Paul Russo
The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin

Non-Fiction:

The Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes
Peacemakers – Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret Macmillan
Why We Sleep – The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
A Higher Loyalty – Truth, Lies and Leadership by James Comey
Killers of the King – The Men who Dared to Execute Charles I by Charles Spencer
Chasing Che – A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend by Patrick Symes
Life 3.0 – Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark
The Vanquished – Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 by Robert Gerwarth
The New Silk Roads – The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan
Suffragette – My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst
Voyages of Delusion – The Search for the Northwest Passage in the Age of Reason by Glyn Williams
Fractured Lands – How the Arab World came Apart by Scott Anderson
The Arab Uprisings – The People Want the Fall of the Regime by Jeremy Bowen
Secrecy and Privacy in the New Code War by Steven Levy
The Deluge – The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order (1916-1931) by Adam Tooze

So, not a great year for Fiction (at least numbers wise) but another really good one for Non-fiction and not just History this time (although as usual the list is History heavy). I am disappointed in the gender disparity but I’m working on that. I doubt if I’ll be restrictive to the extent of forcing a 50/50 split but I’ll try to increase the percentage of women authors. Saying that, two of the best books of the year (Silent Spring and Suffragette) are both by women and are excellent and influential in their own fields. I was pleased with the publication date spread this year – from 1914 to 2019 and not just at the two extremes but spread throughout the century with a few clumps in the 1950’s, 1970’s and around the Millennium. The other success of the year I think has been my imposition of Probabilistic Reading – meaning that whenever I finish a book I roll a dice (literally) to decide if I drop in a random read at that point. Only a couple made it into my Best List but I’ve had some nice surprises along the way. As mentioned previously with my upcoming Retirement I anticipate the numbers of read books to increase in 2020. I think that 75 should be a pretty safe bet at this point. Ultimately I’m aiming at 100 a year but that’ll take a bit of doing I think. So, here’s to a new year of reading!   

Cartoon Time.

Man who threw 'lucky' coins into plane engine fined

From BBC News

3 January 2020

A Chinese man who was flying for the first time has been fined for throwing "good luck" coins into a plane's engine. The 28-year-old was ordered to pay $17,200 (£13,100) in compensation to the budget airline - called Lucky Air. The plane was grounded after the coins were found near one of its engines. Lu Chao admitted throwing the coins as he boarded an internal flight at Anqing Tianzhushan Airport in eastern China in February 2019. He appeared in court in July but the ruling was only recently made public. The flight was cancelled after staff spotted two 1 yuan coins on the ground near one of the plane's jet engines. Safety checks were carried out, leaving passengers stranded while replacement flights were arranged. Mr Lu was also detained by police for 10 days, charged with disturbing public order, but was made to pay compensation via a civil case.

In court, Lucky Air said the incident had cost it more than $17,600. Mr Lu argued in court that the airline should have warned passengers not to throw coins at planes. It's not the first time superstitious passengers have been caught throwing coins at plane engines. There have been a number of such cases in recent years, including an elderly passenger who delayed a flight in 2017.

[Lucky? I’m guessing not! Can you imagine the possibilities? I think it’d be a lot safer if they just flew with their fingers crossed if they’re that superstitious. Personally I find flying somewhat tedious rather than frightening. Funnily though a friend of mine hates flying (despite the fact that he’s travelled all over the world) and, as a joke, I started tapping on the side of the plane as we got on. I did this two or three times on our long holiday and then stopped. On our fourth flight he stopped me as we got on and essentially ordered me to tap before he would get on. But neither of us would even think about throwing coins into an engine – a fountain maybe, but not an engine!]

An OLD poster (obviously!).

Just Finished Reading: The Organized Mind – Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel Levitin (FP: 2014)

This was not the book I was expecting it to be. I thought it was more about how our IT systems and especially Social Media was overwhelming people in its relentless flood of tweets and pokes. It was somewhat about that but mostly it was about two aspects of the information environment we’re presently swimming in. The main focus of the work was from the neurological side – using the latest research into the human brain to both show its limitations (after all it evolved to keep us alive on the African veldt not on Social media) as well as the best way to organise things taking into account how the brain actually works (and not just how we’d like it to work). It appears that our ‘wetware’ bandwidth is pretty low by technical standards and that explains why we have problems dealing with too many things at the same time – somewhere between 2 and 5 we can just about cope with (and 2 is far better than 5). It was good to see the author repeatedly say that multitasking is a myth. I’ve long held that opinion so I’m pleased that it’s backed up by science. Multitasking is far more like spinning plates. We can keep a number of them spinning but in order to do so we need to rush from plate to plate and give them a nudge. It’s only a matter of time before the energy needed to keep moving between plates exhausts us and all of the plates come crashing to the ground. Naturally we can keep 2 plates revolving a lot longer than 5 or 10. That’s the reality of multitasking – it’s actually time-slicing and each switch of attention costs mental energy. That’s one of the oft repeated pieces of advice in this more than reasonable book: Pay attention to the lowest possible number of things at any one time in order to get things done. Categorise, Prioritise and Act.

The other recurring theme throughout the book is based on the limitations of the data retrieval functions of the brain. It’s entirely possible, as several theories attest, that you remember everything you pay attention to. The problem is getting an accurate and, more important, actionable memory back out on command. That’s not easy. What you can do though is externalise the memory in another form – notes to yourself, diary entries, prompts from your phone or other electronic system or, if you have the money and need such things, a personal assistant to orgainse your life for you so you don’t have to remember a thing except what you’re working on right now. Naturally some of these things are incredibly mundane and I did find myself rolling my eyes a little as the author recommended techniques for organising e-mail on your PC (something I HAVE to do at work if I don’t want to drown under the weight of them as they come in) and paper in filing cabinets. Ever a fan of categorising things the author recommends keeping things in piles as long as you know which pile holds what. This utilises the innate ability of the brain to locate things in physical (or virtual) space. Keeping something in the same place – like keeping your house keys close to your front door – ensures that you know where things are when you need them.

I did have a few issues with the tone of the book rather than (much of) it’s content. The brain/neurology bits where interesting but I did find the author repeated himself a LOT which was rather irritating. Another thing that grated was the fact that over 95% and probably close to 99% of the institutions, scientists and ‘highly successful people (HSPs) were American. This might be invisible to American readers but I think non-Americans might find it odd that it appears that, from the perspective of this book nowhere outside the US either exists or has had any impact or influence on anything he says. But with those caveats in mind overall this wasn’t a bad book at all. I was probably more than a little disappointed that it wasn’t the book I expected so this probably tainted my general opinion of it. I did think it was a bit prescriptive despite the fact that the author often said that individual styles are important in adopting the right information organisation strategy but with a bit of reading between the lines you can pick up on the essence of things rather than the actual list of Do’s and Don’ts. Both reasonable and reasonably helpful especially if you’re having real problems organising aspects of your life and need some pointers.         

Cartoon Time.

Happy NEW Year! Let's Hope that 2020 is THE year things turn around for us all....