Happy Basant Panchami everyone, (or Vasant Panchami, depending where you come from and your religious persuasion). Did you know today was Basant Panchami? It’s the festival to herald the arrival of spring.

Doesn’t seem much like Spring. Still cold, wet and very windy. So not an auspicious start.

Today, 10th of February is also Spring Festival Golden Week holiday in China, Tet Holiday in Vietnam and the Feast of St Paul’s Shipwreck if you happen to live in Malta. Just thought you’d like to know.

Its Sunday

For me, it’s Sunday and the start of the working week in Erbil, as it is in most parts of the Middle East. Never get used to working on a Sunday. Don’t mind the finishing on a Thursday, but Sunday working doesn’t seem natural. Unless you are a priest, or these days, a shop worker, which I am not. Still, solves the issue of what to do on Sundays.

Church

Growing up in a Roman Catholic family, Sunday’s meant church in the morning then again in the evening. A slap up roast lunch between church services, followed by a John Wayne movie or match of the day, which grandad would gently snore through. God it was boring.

As a teenager, I rebelled against church. Certainly going twice a day seemed a step too far. Of a Sunday evening I would far rather listen to the top 20 countdown on Radio 1, before spending an exciting hour hanging around outside the local off-license. Post pop charts and after 2nd mass, was Sunday tea.

Still stuffed from lunch, this was a genteel affair of cold cuts and pickles, battenburg cake and my treat for the week, trifle. I never ate the bits of tinned fruit cocktail that used to appear in the jelly. Instead I would concentrate on the custard and cream topping, scooping whatever unadulterated jelly I could find. I would happily have eaten all of the top two layers given the chance. I never got that chance. Instead, I had to fight off a freshly awakened grandad who had similar tastes and dislike of fruit cocktail. Thinking about it, none us liked the fruit cocktail, so no idea why it kept appearing week after week?

These days, I rarely have a Sunday roast. Or trifle for that matter. Working on a Sunday doesn’t lend itself to the preparation required for a good Sunday roast. And a Friday or Saturday roast just isn’t the same. How the times they are a changing.

But I digress. Yes, Sunday is the start of the working week and that means my first day of the week battling the Erbil traffic.

Traffic Trials

I believe I may have mentioned before, in passing, that the traffic here is dreadful. I used to think the Tunisian traffic was bad. Then the Cairo traffic. But both pale into nothingness compared to the traffic in Iraq. I strongly believe, to pass your driving test here, all you need is a pulse, a strong nerve and manage not to hit anything as you drive around for 30 minutes. I also suspect that last part is optional. As you may gather, I am not enjoying driving here.

The driving took on a whole new dimension this weekend. I had realized that, without doubt, driving is by far the most dangerous thing I have to do here. There is no car insurance and it is true that taxi drivers seem to aim at you. It’s also true that around 90% of the population are taxi drivers. In short the odds are stacked against you. But until this weekend, I had thought a slight fender bender was the worst that could happen. Wrong.

The Shoot Out

There was an interesting incident near a local mall. Inevitably, there had been a small collision between a couple of cars. This resulted in a heated argument. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it. One of the drivers produced a gun and proceeded to start shooting at the other. It kind of went downhill from there. It was like a scene from the Wild West, with the security forces arriving and joining in. Not something you see outside Tesco very often. Never a dull moment.

Closer to Home

I suppose it’s easy to take the moral high ground over incidents like this. But if the papers and tv news are to be believed, the UK isn’t much better. People may not be packing kalashnikovs or Glock 9mm, but there is an alarming rise in knife crimes. Particularly in and around London. I simply don’t understand the mentality behind this.

Sticking a sharp object into another person is not something that comes naturally. And yet, it seems a growing number of young people are quite happy, even keen to do so? Do these kids lack imagination? I mean, thank God, I have never been involved in a knife crime and never would or could contemplate such a thing. But just imagining what it must be like, from both sides, would be enough to dissuade me. If you stick a sharp piece of metal into another human being, there is a damned good chance they are going to die. Can they not see that? Or do they not care? If the latter, then why the hell not? It smacks of a serious failing somewhere.

Natural Justice?

Blaming violence on TV or the internet seems like a very lame excuse. As a kid, I used to watch bloodthirsty and gory films. The more bloodthirsty the better. Never made me want to pick up a knife and use it, other than on a nice juicy steak. I grew up in a rough neighborhood. As such, I was not averse to punching someone if I had to. I learned that if someone is determined to cause trouble, best way to deal with it is get your revenge in early. But I knew the worst thing that would happen was a bloody nose. Not being stupid, or suicidal, I also knew when to run. Not so these days. Look at some one the wrong way or say the wrong thing, chances are a hidden blade could appear.

Is it our new soft touch justice? Where ever more emphasis seems to be placed on the perpetrator. Their human rights and finding a rational for excusing or at least justifying their actions. “They was just misunderstood Me Lud’” In contrast, the victims can sort themselves out. Shouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Soft Touch

The Scottish government are passing an act that will see any custodial sentence of less than 12 months duration being voided in favor of a non custodial, slap on the wrist. What kind of message does that send out?

Worse, those supposedly in nick are being let out early as long as they promise to be good boys and girls . They also get a nice electronic tag to wear. Would you be surprised to hear a huge number of these people have absconded and are at large, whereabouts unknown? A large proportion reoffend and some have even murdered. Still, at least their human rights weren’t infringed. (We’ll just forget about the victims, whoops, never mind)

Change

You can’t help thinking, something has to change. A good first step might be holding criminals accountable for their actions. It would also serve society well to take a long, hard look at itself. Figure out what are it’s priorities. Forget all the political correctness and hand wringing liberal virtue signaling. Rather than defend and worry for the minority who break the law, how about standing up for the vast, silent majority. Those who do respect the law and the moral obligations of a civilized society. Those whom just want to live their lives without worrying about their safety. Doesn’t seem an unreasonable aspiration.

Or perhaps the Iraqi’s have it right. Let’s start an American style gun culture and if someone annoys you. Shoot them.

Finally, whilst on about morally dubious Scottish government ideas. What about this car parking Levy? Really.

Death and Taxes

It’s astounding that middle Scotland has accepted, with barely a mutter, becoming the highest taxed part of the UK. It’s mind boggling that we are now about to see inflation busting rises in Counci tax. It will make my sorting rubbish into 5 different bins so much more enjoyable. Not to mention, driving over all of the potholed and crappy roads taking the surplus rubbish to the tip because the bins only get emptied once every blue moon.

But now, we have a new, ill thought out, but ‘progressive’ initiative, ( which is code for robbing you blind.) Courtesy of the unelected Greens, Scotland is to have a tax on parking your car at work. Sounds awfully like a tax for having a job to me. These lentil munching fanatics are in the position of king makers in the Scottish Parliament. Unelected in the sense they didn’t actually win an election. They are where they are because of proportional representation. These clowns find themselves able to foist their ‘progressive’ policies on the Scottish public as a condition of propping the ailing SNP governments budget. Shame on the SNP for agreeing, given it’s a policy they rejected themselves. They are now adopting the “a wee boy did it and ran away” tactic. Nothing to do with us, it was all them Greens.

We’ll see how it pans out, but presumably there has to be some consequence at the next parliamentary elections. People will put up,with an awful lot. But when their pockets are being ‘progressively’ picked whilst services are ‘progressively’ deteriorating, they will eventually push back. Time will tell.

And on that cheery note.

Bye for now.