Morning sickness...

Monday is living up to its reputation as a bloody awful day again. I'm feeling sick again, because any movement seems to have ground to a halt on the flat front. And let's face it, the current panic around Northern Rock isn't helping at all. I do wonder if anything else nasty can happen. I'm sure that people with their life savings at stake would feel nervous, but as someone on the radio said, haven't any of them seen "It's a Wonderful Life"? Of course, the global nature of financial situations makes the current crisis quite different - but I do feel that the financial world brings these things on itself. The banks are so greedy, and so are the Building Societies. In every respect, it's their customers who pay, usually through the nose, for everything. Believe me, their profits are not going to suffer overall - it's us who'll end up paying. Mr Bank of England, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, et al, they will go on piling up the profits and living off the fat of the land while we, the suckers, will pay. As James Stewart said, in the aforementioned movie "Is it too much to ask that all the little people who do all the living and dying and paying around here should have a decent home to live in?" That may not be word for word perfect, but it's pretty close, and the sentiments are spot on. The money men are greedy bastards, and that's about it.

Going back to my weekend with Sister, we uncovered a few inconsistencies with regard to our past. For one, she has apparently attempted an investigation into our family tree, only to find that our Father's birth does not seem to have been registered anywhere. We have always believed that his birthday was 25th May 1915, and that he was named Jasper Stanley. This may be true, but the fact does not seem to have been recorded anywhere. His mother, Martha, is long dead and so are any other relatives, so we can't check the facts with anyone else. His whole birth and history have always been mysterious, and Sister confirmed that he did indeed die without knowing who his father was. So the mystery deepens. Who are we? God knows, but I guess we will have to try and find out.

Sister and I laughed about our Mother and her obsession with illnesses. I had forgotten that I apparently had cerebral spinal fever when I was a baby - this sounds serious and Sister thought it highly amusing that I didn't remember any of the conversations about it. I knew that I had had double pneumonia, and that my little life had been saved by 'M & B' tablets: the first readily available antibiotics. What a sickly wimp I was; it's amazing that I'm in such rude good health now. In fact, we're both ridiculously healthy 60 somethings, though perhaps I shouldn't tempt providence...