Not completely clueless...

There's few that get the point o' me. Sometimes it causes me to lose my temper.I am not about pressing other peoples buttons to see what I can get out of them . I was brought up to survive well beyond the strand line of the privileged officer's mess.
Some folk might think I need anger management counselling. I don't need it here.
They backed the wrong horse, sad to say. The popular favourite, the sure fire winnner fell at the first hurdle. "Never gamble with your luck." Sez I. Count your blessings . I could pour out platitudes all day, it would make little difference. I am not a gambler. Learned to draw with loser's pencil's picked up outside the bookies as a kid.Learned to steal potatoes and cabbage from the fields to feed my dad and my brothers. Sold some to neighbours to pay off a bit of the debt at the local shop. The hard won miner's wage squandered on booze and horses. I didn't blame my dad for the hardship and poverty our family endured in my youth. My childhood ended at seven years old. Previous tenants of the N.C.B. house had sold off the good topsoil in our garden. Me dad was a prisoner in Markham Main without a choice but to maintain a holding pattern to keep a roof over our heads. He was a damaged man. Even at seven years old I understood that well enough. I tried to talk to "grown ups " back in the day. They didn't get it then nether it would seem do they get it now. "The ignorati ", I call them. "Clever Monkey's" cultivated by patronage to regard themselves as the leaders of men.
I will be hammering the point home soon enough. perhaps they'll understand wassda matteaux wi' me in the fullness of time. First I'll need to re-temper.
I think my toe is broken, fractured at least. Serves me right. I kicked a chair when I ought to have kicked someone's arse. Folk teks a big risk that habitually press stranger's buttons just to see what happens . They can count themselves lucky that I am disciplined enough to keep my powder dry and hold my fire till I can properly see the target. It has been the habit of my adult lifetime to take the pains upon meself in order to avoid the unacceptable risk of collateral damage.
"Iz he angry?", the question posed the next day. Insensitive little wazzuck didn't have the balls to speak directly to me.
It is not as if he didn't speak English, when he did he spoke of trying to shift English girls, then comparing with Scottish then Irish girls. his wife was sitting next to him , I guess she doesn't speak English well enough herself.
On the plus side, it appears that during his two year adventure in,Britain the English girls managed to keep their Rizla packets clamped firmly between their knees.
To hell wi' crying, "God for Harry". The man had better do the headwork , he has been fairly warned. I am not well pleased.
I can speak and understand some French. I learn it the way a child would learn. I am grateful for that small gift. I have just answered the phone, the bhai understood me well enough. Active working intelligence is most times a non vocal mechanism. None academic.
Where was I? My broken toe.
I don't wear the trappings of material success by the common standard. Having been wholly cheated robbed and deceived throughout my former marriage,even if I had a want I couldn't. From the age of seven I knew there was a lot more to life than money and self indulgent shopping. I have seen what folk do with theirs long enough. An old Breton worker in his melancholy cups once told me "The young are not free, they only have money." With him I wholly concur.
Academic success may be a useful and desirable add-on.Life however is not academic.
I would rather remain an unqualified success by my own definition. The objective detached over view on the ground can turn the whole world upside down, and so it does. There's too many by half that underestimate the singular intelligence of the working man. Hard won experience is not something that can be licked off the pages of a book or inducted by screen side programming. We can't afford to up grade our hardware. Most people don't use the technology to compute, deluded fools don't even use the sense they were born with once they plug into the crenulated logic of the electronic P.C. world. I would be content enough if the plug was pulled on all of it.
One million 16-24 year olds in U.K.are not merely unemployed and unhappy. They are unemployable and toxic with undeserved self indulgence sponsored by the ignorance of neglectful parents. It is only the tip of the iceberg.The malaise is a world wide problem, no nearer being put to rights by the faceless button pressers.
What would I know? The imported labour force, post war is now becoming resented.
Unjust congenital jealousy, happen.
I left home at 14, I put myself in care, I wanted to complete my education. You can only do that when you are alive. Orphan Alley I called it. A lot of folk felt sorry for me.
I put up with it. Little treats were arranged to "enlighten" the savage from the pit village, "Blacky's Kid" as I'd often heard spoken whilst in Armthorpe. The introduction to the politically correct middle class and upper class houses was an eye opener.
I had long time learned to keep me big gob shut till I knew a bit o' summat worth speaking rightly about. Things iz sed. Well enough I heard as I crammed me face with petit fours. I was taught to be polite in "mixed company" well dressed patrons of the arts were attempting to "Cultivate" , "civilise" me. I never did take to liking the symbolic significance of Steinway grand pianos since those days . "you ought to be grateful". Half a dozen canapés chewed silently with my big mouth shut opened my ears to ideas mostly not to my best liking.
"Grown up" discussion of how to control the "new servant population" politely spoken educated privileged people. Indian people being regarded as the best was a most enlightening view. With so many lost in the war, and the mass exodus to what then was refered to in some quarters as the "White Commonwealth" the big houses were in crisis as to how to maintain a grip on the vestigal post Empire legacy, of power and influence. What with the famous, "Give us the tools, and we'll finish the job". "Tools" had a different meaning for those brought up to keeping their fingernails clean. I got them , they didn't get me. I'd sed nowt. Cottoned on right bloody Sharpe- ish. A right bunch of Burkes they seemed to my way of thinking, arrogant and patronising in the extreme.
I am nobody's fool and nobody's tool. As far from "User friendly" as it is possible to be.
My former life in Armthorpe wasn't all bad It was just hard. I still cherish the valuable lessons I absorbed there. Bill Godden being number one guru in his more lucid and mellow periods before he had been destroyed completely. Many others coached me in the real often unsung history of the working class struggle,world wide, whilst me dad was in the bookies,in conversation with his mates or doing a double in the mine, old boys spoke of the International Brigade, and much else besides. Benign indoctrination, LEST WE FORGET. There's no such thing as history, past or future.
The resurgence of the pre-war liberalism, "The Liberalism that dare not speak it's name" as it was unfondly called, had not up to then re-estabished as a popular mass movement. I was brought up to be ever vigilant.
I remain grateful for the extra curricula schooling and will be for my mortal lifetime. I am not likely to forget.
A recent survey of British children found that one in two people interviewed had never heard of the death camps in Nazi Germany. "About time they introduced modern politics into primary school education" sez I. They have been taught about condoms before they can tie their own shoe laces. "The Velcro Generation". I call it.
Self righteous old fart aren't I? Some 'd say so. They are welcome to their perceptions.
To get back: The bloke tried to impress me that as I was living in France I should forget about politics. He obviously had never been brought up to learn first time around. Came over as a sociopathic manipulator, Fruedian slips evacuating from his mouth like projectile vomit. I heard him, didn't over react. I kicked the chair when I got home. "Vive la Resistance" thinks I.
Somethings a man can't forget. those too timid to learn first hand had better learn by relating to the sensitivities of those who take the pains on their behalf. Perhaps he should try running the gauntlet I have had to endure. I doubt that he would have survived.
I was iron barred to paralysis by neo Nazi xenophobes in the good old days of your in London. I was a homeless youth . In Greece I was herded into the sea drowned then dragged out of the water and kicked back to consciousness by fascist junta supporters.. I'm still standing. by the blessing of the Great Divinity my recall and nominal physical repair was good. Damage is permanent but I compensate. Some scars I can show most are invisible to the eye.
The man couldn't get the point even when it was explained the next day in French over the phone. I will be coming back his way as I have business in the region. He had best keep his head down for now at least his mouth firmly closed till there is a formal reconciliation. He has in effect slapped me around the face in challenge. Knowingly or not. I feel rightly or wrongly that his intellectual arrogance must be stopped from virally spreading into the greater population. My Dharma. I have no choice.
The how of it is yet to be seen and heard. There is a rake more to this story han meets the eye.For the record I will dutifully recount all transparently. The complete tale will be relayed without prejudice though with little confidence that the man may ever understand.
I will assuredly act by every moral and constitutional means. Doesn't mean he wont get the larruping he deserves. I accept the challenge. The bloke is a Burke, I'd rather be a Paine. More later.
See the picture above... It's a clou. A big one.