Daniel Kemp's Blog: FREE AUDIOBOOK, page 16

Black & White Photos of London During The War

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A Sad Tale Of Toes

His feet were warm, having been spread out in front of the hot radiator whilst he worked at his desk. Hers, on the other hand, were cold. Freezing cold!

She had not worn slippers to protect her feet, preferring to simply tuck them under herself, sitting in a leather armchair watching the TV. Foolhardy with no consideration. Now they were about to strike!

After stretching his stiff legs against the crisp chill of the freshly laundered bed sheets, he lay on his left shoulder, his right foot slightly upon his left, keeping the warmth within his body as much as he could. Her right foot led the attack.

It was a strategy he was accustomed to, but he was not aware of just how cold her feet were. The big toe was first into the fray, surreptitiously sliding against the underside of his overhanging right heel. The next move was not her usual method of attack. She had recently read an account of one of Nelson’s attacks on the French fleet. Nelson’s innovative move had surprised them, now it was about to succeed in bed! Or was it?

Both feet attacked simultaneously.

Raising her leg she placed her knee heavily against his kidney, causing her right foot to slide further up his pyjama clad leg, as her left foot slipped between both his feet. He could take no more……..

“Why dear love do you do make such a move,

When you have only to choose

My advances of thrills and bliss

Bestowed on your body but without the risk

Of freezing my ardour before it does start

By allowing your cold to attack my heart?”

He was Russian. A man of many poetic words, few making sense.

She was Italian and the opposite, being verbose in the extreme. Only this time he never heard most of her words as she mounted the most ferocious physical attack he had ever been involved in.

She rolled on top of him, pinning him uncomfortably against the bed.

“Ardour you say? You obviously don’t mean harder,

As you couldn’t care less if you tried!

You keep your warmth to yourself as if your skin’s been fried.

I’m sick of you with your selfish ways, and inconsiderate behaviour too.

You’re just about to be hit on the head, with this heel attached to my shoe!”



She pounded away, never stopping for breath, nor ceasing to curtail her blows.

She sneezed in excitement, but even that, didn’t stop her to blow her own nose.

By now she was away. Her body now warmed, even sweat appearing on her brow.

It was now that he flipped, no more could he take. He swore this solemn vow!

“I promise my love that from this day forth no more are my feet my own.

I admit my faults. ‘Tis true that my love for you I have not always shown.

I will warm you through, be kind to you, by sharing my bodily heat.

Now please my love, be gentle with me, go lay on top of my feet.”



This tale of toes is not over, it never ended that night as if a sweet dream.

As his feet lost their heat, it finally ended in a terrible, piercing scream.

Her love had departed along with his heat, but that was not all that he lost.

He now saves money, by paying less, than his regular pedicure did cost!

Do take seriously all your wife’s woes,

Or else you too might lose some toes!

Time

‘In the beginning was the word,’ or, if you are a believer of the big-bang theory, in the beginning, was a cosmic explosion from which we all originated.

However, before either of those two occurrences, there was something else in existence.

It was Time. Without there being Time, neither event could have happened. No word could have been written, spoken or thought, and no explosion took place.

It was Time that introduced the solar system that we know, and it will be Time that will end it.

If you accept this premise then, to use a modern parlance, the rest of my discourse is a given!

Darwin argues that we evolved from a unicellular organism, an amoeba type creature, into what we are today. I personally disagree with that, but I will not discuss my beliefs here.

Suffice it to say that whether he is correct or Christianity is right, both required the unhindered assistance of Time.

I use the word, unhindered, deliberately, as Time could not care less how we, as humans, use it. Why should it?

What we do with the gift is our choice.

Time is omnipotent, eternal until it decides to end itself.

If you are about to argue that it will be a man who ends the world, I will not disagree, but Time will still exist!

No matter what we do we cannot change it in any way, shape or form. It is yesterday, today and tomorrow. It is perpetual.

The missing energy source that if bottled, would solve every problem ever created. It is not tangible though, but I would suggest that it’s not abstract.

We spend Time watching time pass.

There are two entities in Time. There is Time in perpetuity, and time the movement, that governs all.

Time creates, as it does destroy. It has power over our very thoughts and purpose. The forever asked question; “is there enough time?” Answered by,“I wish there was!” But there is.

Only it’s not there for us. It is there for Time to use, as it alone decides.

Man invented a clock as a way of measuring and regulating time.

But Time does not recognise that system of quantification, why would it?

It has no need to calculate, as it had no need to begin, and as far as an end product is concerned, why would it have one?

We both love and despises the movement of time. We blame it for passing slowly, or quickly depending on the circumstances, then praise it for the same reasons.

Seldom do we notice Time, the creator.

Time is good. Time is bad.

So, what’s my point in this? I cannot provide you with any clues as to its source, but can you see an analogy here, a comparison with belief?

In the Scriptures, believed by some, God sent his only Son to earth to die for our sins. When God’s son was here he was abused. He still is!

Could Time and God be the same? Could time be Jesus Christ? Could the Bible be an early philosophers dream?

I hope I have sown many questions into your mind.

It’s a great thing to have time to ask such things and an equally great thing to be allowed by Time to ponder.

© 2017, Danny Kemp All rights reserved

Halloween

’Tis soon the night of Halloween
When ghosts and ghouls are said to be seen.
Be quick and run and hide from view
Before they see and chase after you.

Ghosts can walk through those walls
While ghouls along the floors do crawl.
Put yourself well out of sight
And worry not despite your plight.

For only one night do they rule
With the world in turmoil with all things cruel
But then they vanish in the morning light
And hide until next year’s Halloween night.

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© 2017 Danny Kemp All rights reserved.

My First Pub

The first pub I took as a tenant of Courage Brewery was in the picturesque village of Headcorn in the Weald of Kent. It was a run-down establishment, commercially just surviving.

I was in my early thirties, as fit as I’ve ever been with a good physical build obtained from pumping weights three times a week. I had packed-up rugby a few years earlier, but conditioning was my hobby. I looked good and that’s not being vain!

To become a first-time ‘tenant’ one had to apply to a brewery chain showing both the financial capability of running a pub, the physical ability and most important the ambition to turn one of their outlets around, giving an increased profitability on any future investment they chose to make.

List’s of potential locations were sent to those who qualified on a regular basis leaving the prospective tenant to look over the sites and apply for any thought suitable.

If a pub is subsequently applied for, an interview board must be attended where a series of questions are asked by senior management officials of the brewery all aimed at selecting the right tenant for the bottom line figure of profit for the management company i.e. Courage.

The agreement between tenant and brewery is one where the brewery holds the freehold of the building whilst the tenant pays rent on it being tied to purchase all beer from the brewery and all wines and spirits from a wholesaler nominated by them. All other items for sale were purchased at the discretion of the tenant. Profit from all of those sales could be kept by the tenant.

Fixtures and fittings inside the property were bought at market value by the tenant and remained his or hers. If they were ripped out and replaced in order to improve the ambience and appearance, then it was a cost the tenant endured, but the improvements could be sold on when the tenancy expired.

The flat above the pub was entirely the responsibility of the tenant and never viewed before the occupancy. It was considered private with nothing of relevance to the business. On my arrival at the White Horse, the carpet on the upstairs landing was covered by dog faeces left to be cleared away!

The pub tenant is called the Landlord and bears his/her name above the entrance to the premises. He/her is the only person legally allowed to sell alcohol on, or for consumption off, the premises, but the law recognises that staff are employed and waive that restriction.

However, it’s the Landlord’s strict accountability to acquaint the staff with their legal duties in relation to the age restrictions within the pub, allowable behaviour and the customer’s personal condition in a licensed environment. If there are infringements to the various laws then it’s the Landlord who is prosecuted.

And so to the beginning of my eight-year life in the licensed trade. At this stage, all I knew was how I wanted to run a pub, not how a pub was run! I was, thankfully, a quick learner.

The White Horse in Headcorn was one of four pubs in the village; one other Courage pub and two Whitbread ones. All had reasonable footfall. I immediately set about taking trade from those pubs and any others in a travelling distance. Within a year I had almost doubled the sales figures of that pub, but it was far from an easy journey.

***

Under the previous Landlord, an ex-boxer, certain customers were virtually in charge of the pub. They decided when it was time to close, not the Landlord, who by the time he left was beyond such control. I never met him nor knew this about the place. It was in the first week when I found all that out when ringing the last orders bell and then the bell sounding Time. A dozen or so youngsters (aged 20/25) in the public bar laughed on hearing my new bell ring.

The White Horse was designed in such a way that two drinking areas were designated. A public bar: pool table, dart board, stone floor and little in the way of comfort. A saloon bar: carpet, soft bar stools and seating. Over the eighteen months, I remained there I kept it as a two bar pub, but improved both….More of that perhaps later. For now, back to the night when those young locals didn’t want to go home!

Obviously, I tried to reason with them whilst I cleared the empty tables, stacking the chairs on top and trying to make them feel as uncomfortable as I could. To some extent it worked. Eight left! I carried on like this for ten minutes or so in the other empty bar until the clock showed 11:30. Drinking up time in those days was ten minutes. The glasses on their table should have been emptied twenty minutes ago!

To be honest, their type of trade was not something I wanted in the long term, but I have always tried to avoid animosity if I could.

“Come on chaps, enough is enough. The rules have changed. I’m now in charge, not you. You’re all welcome to drink here in the future, but your hours of going home are now earlier than before. If you don’t like it then feel free to go elsewhere with no hard feelings on my part.” It wasn’t working. They stared defiantly at me.

I picked up the four remaining half-full glass of lager, walked to the front door and poured their beer in the street gutter. I then placed the now empty glasses on the bar. I was on my own, there were four of them. Although as I’ve said I was fit, I was no pub brawler, but circumstances demand certain actions.

Perhaps here I could, and maybe should, have acted differently. But I was what I was then, that’s my excuse if that’s what’s needed. I grabbed a fistful of hair of one of them and another by the collar and pulled them both from their chairs and dragged them to the open street door. The two of them complained noisily and were joined by the other two. No blows were exchanged and after the expected verbal I closed for the night.

Sadly, that incident stayed embedded in all of those four minds leading to an altercation of far greater magnitude a few months down the line.

***

If you want me to continue the story of my life as a Pub Landlord in this pub and the others then I’ll gladly write it up. But for now I’m going to continue doing what I love best; the writing of fictional stories. I’m a mere 10,000 words into what I think might be my final novel. I have miles to go yet, so, please, bear with me whilst I indulge myself in pleasure.

Stanislav Petrov

The Desolate Garden was a work of fiction, or was it?

http://mybook.to/DesolateGarden

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan ordered the commencement of a NATO exercise named Able Archer ’83. Nothing unusual in that as each year NATO stretches its muscles with shows of strength.

1983 differed considerably. Prior to the exercise, a cordon of submarine beacons had been laid in the North Sea from Newfoundland to Iceland and from Scotland to Norway. US Naval task forces had increased in the Pacific and all of the UK and French nuclear missile carrying submarines had put to sea.

NATO aircrafts were flying to the limit of USSR radar installations, marking them then turning back at the last minute before entering Russian airspace. None of this was reported in the civilian press. As a precursor to a First Strike scenario the Politburo knew that radio traffic between the US and the UK would escalate; this it did and using a code not previously used, which was indecipherable to the Soviets.

Unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the last time the world was on the brink of war, now it was the Russians being threatened not the West. To make matters worse for the USSR their early warning missile satellite, code name OKA had malfunctioned and was decommissioned awaiting repair. NATO’s readiness had been moved up to its most critical; DEFCON ONE, so when on the night of the 26th September a single ICBM leaving a silo in Nebraska was sighted by ground radar commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov he could have well pressed the button alerting his senior officers up the chain. But he did not. Nor did he panic when half an hour or so later three more ICBM’s were detected leaving the USA.

Within 16 hours Able Archer ’83 had run its course and Russian troops, air bases, naval forces and nuclear weapon ground control units were stood down. This was the closest the world came to imploding and it was saved by this man Stanislav Petrov who died last May aged 77.

Apart from the names all this, and more was told in The Desolate Garden.

May I introduce Stanislav Petrov:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europ...

The Desolate Garden

10 Reasons You Should Love Blogging

My First Blog Post