I cannot let this day go past without acknowledging the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Whatever ones politics, whatever you may have thought of her as an individual, no-one has the given right to cut off anyone's life; by any other name it is murder.

This woman was a daughter, one who was very attached to her democratically elected father, the child, who was most politically like him. This daughter was held in solitary confinement when her father was hanged following a coup; this sister saw her two brothers assassinated for their political connections; this woman also served time in Pakistan's prisons as did her husband. This woman was also a mother of three children at the time of her death.

I understand the loves that drove Benazir Bhutto to take the risks she took, risks that she knowingly took, the love of her father and of her country.

I do not pretend to understand the complexities of the political life of Pakistan but I will say that what happened today was so wrong, very wrong. All killings anywhere are wrong, no cause is worth it.

I have a theory that because it is generally pounded into our collective psyches,the Christmas period is a tough time for family relationships, most of us make a supreme effort and manage to survive the 24th, 25th and 26th December.  Come the 27th December on, that's when fortitude wanes, tiredness sets in and danger time begins. I wonder how many of you will manage to stay, and continue to be, even tempered, full of sweetness and light?

Hogmanay (new year) approaches...

Recently a new store opened here. It is a medium-sized supermarket which was asset stripped by its two previous owners and was beginning to look a bit sorry for itself.

The management, very much in evidence in the store for the first day, preened itself on its efforts. However, their smiley faces soon turned an embarrassed colour of deep pink   when customers discovered there was no soap or any kind washing products available to buy. Head office, who approved the final stock planogram design,had not included a sales space for those basic household needs.

What did they think? That we locals do not use soaps and keep ourselves clean like anyone else in the U.K. 

There I was in front of the foot care section of a well known supermarket peering at the care items for feet, when my eyes fell upon... earplugs!

Reading my friend Adamantixx blog on his experience of Christmases past, in which he talked of being on his own, feeling peripheral to the rest of society during the festive time,  got me thinking about two Christmases that have, for me,  particular memories.  So, here is Christmas number one.

That Christmas I found myself in Guildford in the county of Surrey, in a small room, just furnished with essentials and it was warm. There was no television and no radio but I was fine.  I admit, I felt cast out on a limb. The main difficulty, I discovered, was catering for myself during the festive days, as there was no provision for food  and there were no cooking facilities .

The end result was a warm and unexpected pleasant meal for all of us.  I was ordered to leave the washing up.  It was to be a shared job later on.  As the lads finished their duty stints, again, at different times, we gathered in the kitchen with its lovely warm food smells.  With a radio playing Christmas tunes and carols in the background, we sat, talked, played scrabble and just enjoyed each others' company. The lads were insistent that I should not walk back alone to my digs on that Christmas night. We arranged to meet up again in the section house on Boxing day. There were plenty of left-overs to dig into.  

This is bugging me and I have to write it out of my system.

The king of the kingdom in question, has intervened to prevent the woman's sentence from being acted upon - he has given her a pardon. According to reports, conservative groups in that society, are complaining that the king has given in to international pressure against the clearly stated religious laws which, they say, have been contravened.

As the Christmas mail and cards roll in, I am ready with scissors in hand, carefully cutting stamps off envelopes and scissoring around identity and address details to prepare for for shredding.   

"I don't know why you are going to so much trouble" says hubby,
"After all, the government is already giving away all our identity details on CD's."     

I seem to have been getting unsolicited pornographic material on my site. It has been sited where the BCUK adverts usually appear. Some people have expressed surprise as they have not seen similar material on their sites. One S.E.Asian blogger contacted me to point out that it was not very nice. I totally agree.

Innocuous advertising is one thing, imposing potentially offensive material onto unsuspecting users' blog sites is an unacceptable other. This stuff is definitely not to my taste and I have no wish to be faced with it, nor do I want anyone else to accidentally view this material either.

I usually try to arrange a group gathering for a ladies Christmas meal. None of us work together, most of us are unlikely to experience an external social gathering at this time of year. Some of us are friends and know each other well, some are people I am friendly with and they do not know some of the others. It's an arrangement that has worked really well in past years and made for an enjoyable interlude.  

This year's  festive dinner will be a little different, in that the group of ladies has almost doubled in size (late availability of extra seats so I took some extras).  Just to make it interesting, there will be a figure of eight round table set up. There will be named place cards to mix and match people. Hopefully, it will all happily work out for this year's disparate group of ladies, who I trust will have an enjoyable evening in each others company.

Does anyone else use Google Mail? It has its uses and limitations, but its uses for me, far outweigh any constraints.

However, (isn't there always a ...but)I feel there must be a more efficient way of dealing with the avalanches of spam that are launched over the internet. An awful lot of it seems to fly in Google Mail's direction. Yes, there is a dedicated spam area to check, just in case there's been a misplacement of genuine mail, but it sits waiting to be checked.

If I am away, spam mail piles up in the Google Mail box of unlimited size, (it needs to be because it is accepting so much rubbish)till I log on and then in tumbles down to me. At this point I see enormous numbers of spam mail that has to be deleted. I assure you, I don't check it, I delete the lot.

I do understand it is a web mail box, so technically the rubbish shouldn't be downloading to my hard disk. What I don't know is, is the traceability of its destination, by the spammers.

Surely, spam can be filtered to a much larger degree before it moves on to us unsuspecting recipients and in such vast numbers, for us to do the final deletion.

I delivered a few seasonal wishes cards to the neighbours tonight, in-between gale force gusts and bursts of rain. Some of the neighbours are really thoughtful, they have lights that switch on so I can see who my envelopes are addressed to. One had a lit lamp post outside the house but on the opposite side to the steps. Never mind, I was on a mission of good will.

I moved on, crossed the road and came to another house. I tripped up a little slope at the platform above the top step.  I'm sure I didn't have that problem last year with this particular delivery. Damn! another step level letter box. They really are impossible.  Not only do I trip up the step but I have to strain my back as well.  I should have just fallen forward when I tripped, it would have saved the bending

Oops... oh dear, the card delivered to previous house, should have been delivered to one two houses further on. Now I know why I didn't have the problem last year, I didn't visit this house. Let's hope the card will be passed on.

Yesterday, 3rd December 2007, I was in a well known pharmacy, a nationwide chain; a small branch admittedly, but nonetheless, a pharmacy.

I'm having a brief break from doing greetings and things for the seasonal and annual contact, and I am blogging about it. I always say  the greetings etc must reduce in quantity and number, but  they don't seem to.  I think hubby's side is expanding and on purpose. That being so, I shall save a few greetings things for him to write.

All that remains, is for the light bulbs I want, to be traced and ordered. I can't get those, unless I pay an absolute fortune to one local shop to order some in. 

Have Ryanair and Easyjet been having a secret affair?  The latest in-flight Ryanair magazine virtually admits they got into bed with one another, but were, perhaps, unsure which side of the bed they got out of.   

Ryanair were extolling the virtues of visiting Poland with them and for further information directed passengers (readers of the in-flight magazine) to a www. address. It linked them up with the Easyjet website where they were given details of Easyjet's three flights a week to Warsaw and the other bargain facilities Easy Services could offer. 

I am reliably informed that pupils at a high school in a Marseille suburb went out on strike yesterday, Friday 30th November 2007, in support of the French university students who are currently out on strike. They are protesting at what they see as the loss of higher learning neutrality. University funding is going to be cut, forcing the institutes to seek financial input from external sources.