Early springs of emotions due to my Da – Neil Edwards

In memory of those gone but not forgotten, loved and not lost

Today is 2 months to the day since my lovely father passed away and though I think often of him miss him and feel and know that he is no longer here – I do so in what I feel to be a fond farewell light and positive imprint of him on my mind and soul.

Some people I know are horrified by the death of a love one or terrorised by no longer having a loved one in their life or fear when others lose people close to them too and keep their distance from people who have recently lost or are bereaving. Depending on the circumstances of a death, I know it can be brutal to lose someone that you deeply love.

But I don’t feel we should use our own self suffering as a barometer to how much we loved someone or even how much they are now missed. There are many joys to life and being alive and living in the moment are things which my father enjoyed to do in life himself and he would wish for me in some way I’m sure to appreciate the experience of being alive and not be tied up in knots due to his death or the death of other who were loved and lost.

Years ago in university during what was possibly a sociology class I remember a lecture announcing to us that when we cry we only cry for ourselves and for what those tears mean to us. We have no empthy and emotions for others whatsoever. I was instantly enraged and engaged in this opinion and perspective and that is exactly what the lecture wanted us to do to challenge him to engage with him and ultimately gain an emotional reaction on what his statement said. To this day I have often still wondered about the concept of crying for other s or simply crying for our selves and was the lecturer trying in some way to express a simple truth of his or get us to engage in emotive intellectual debate. Who knows? What I do know is that idea still remains with me some 30 years later.

I suppose the debate will always rage, do we cry for ourselves? or for others? What we have lost or for those whom were taken away or maybe from knowing that we will one day be in the same situation sitting in a coffin ourselves and before that day comes for us crying or morning that day getting closer and closer for us as with each day that passes as well as those others that we love and have in our lives that we will one day lose. Why do we hurt for what was taken away or for what we might yet lose?

Dad, my brother Andy and my Mum at Andy’s passing out parade at his official graduation ceremony following the completion of his course at Culdrose Cornwall.

I sat down to write this as a way of saying I’m ok and hello and its also ok to not be ok. But it appears to be more and deeper than that as the words flow out. What I’m trying to say is to me I want to love those that I have lost, appreciate them in this living alive world and show little signs of respect and love for those I care about where I can by how I live, whether that’s by being a little kinder at times, older and wiser at others but definitely not feeling sad for sadness sake or hurt for the sake of being heartbroken sake.

The people that I have and love in this life I have enjoyed their company at their highs and lows and mostly enjoyed being with them at their highs when they too enjoyed their life. I aspire to enjoy my life and honour theirs.

Simon & Garfunkel – The Sounds of Silence

Sláinte & Happy Paddy’s Day Dad

This time last year me and Dad were on holiday in Ireland for St Patricks day, thanks to a bet that I won on the horse the day after Christmas 2023. It was an unexpected win for a number of reasons and so when the bet paid out I shared some of the money with my mum and dad as the money did not really feel like mine anyway.

Dad said that rather than have the cash he wanted to go on holiday to Ireland and so that is exactly what we did. I paid for the accommodation and flights and we shared the costs of the meals and drinks. It was so much fun and went to some new places that I had not visited before as well as some tried and tested places. We initially got a ferry over from south Wales, which very nearly did not happen to County Wexford, then stayed in lovely hotel there and then travelled to Cork where dads Nan was from. We then went up to Limerick and onto Galway where we spent a weekend and was in St Patricks day for the Sunday. Finally we headed back to Dublin for a few days and then caught a flight back home. I love Ireland; I love my family and feel like although I am missing my Dad now that he is no longer with us I am very grateful for the time we shared together.

I feel like I am counting my blessings at present rather than counting my curses and there are many blessings. Though I hoped and thought he would live longer the time we all shared with him was special and I feel honoured to have known him and had him as part of my life.

Blocking the rivers of trade

Stopping the flow of money & watching some rivers of finance run dry, all for an experiment that will fail and a crash and burn to the US economy.

If we were still in George Orwell’s 1984 novel then the great trade war has begun and if it was up to Trump no matter what damage he does he will be reporting this war as a victory. No matter how many jobs are lost he will be reported as improvements and gains and no matter how much money people loose they will be reported as having increased and gained.

The normal rivers of Economic trade being blocked and dammed by Trumpian probable failing economic policies will cut deep. Damaging both economic systems across the globe and Trumps ego and people’s perception of him as an intelligent and knowledgeable business man. Trump likes to see himself as a brilliant business man and an assumption of this brilliance should be a keen understanding of international economics and trade is unravelling before his eyes and stock markets around the world and recessions are on the horizon while his attempt to block flows of trade fails for the USA and rest of the world. Trade and flows of trade will likely find a way even if this is further away from the USA rather than directly to it. Yes, Trump it will be a painful transition for many but what no one can really predict with and clear insight is what the change will look like and what that change ultimately leads too. Will it result in more or less jobs and money in the USA in the long run is yet to be seen.

Economic policies and trade from country to country can be viewed as flowing of goods and services to and from places across the globe. These flows are natural and part of economic cycles. Where there is financial clout to purchase goods and services and where there is an ability to produce and design, market and provide excellent goods and services and then transport them across the globe then these flows of products and services are natural economic eco systems that take place. It’s a consumers market and Trumps policies go completely against the free flow of consumption and he fails to allow the flow of trade and consumption and in my opinion Trumps policies will ultimately fail just like many of his other policies.

But the fact that he sees himself as such a great business man means that this failure will likely hurt him the most as well as his own country the place he is in fact trying to make great again. With the shocks to share and trading markets and likely continued break down in flows of trade and consumption this will be a damming of the river of financial, goods and services trade. Jobs will be lost, goods will go up in price and business will go out of business.

Trump says that the USA has been treated unfairly, what he is really stating is he does not agree with the economic flows of finance and he is conducting a global experiment that will likely fail for him and cause more damage to USA and global business than good for goods and services. Trump cannot buy rivers of flow and Trump can not force the USA consumer or businesses to by USA goods and services. Freedom of consumption is natural to human markets and trade he’s peddling ideas and views that will fail and meddling in economic markets and trade flows he simply just does not understand. Like a bull in a china shop its likley there will be a crash or two of the economy.

Dear friends and family of Neil Edwards

So we said fairwell to Dad on Friday 7^th March, his family would just like to say a huge thank you to all of you that have shown how much you care for him and us. Me, Shamen and mum have been so grateful for the love and support offered to us at this difficult time. It’s sometimes hard to make a call or show people, if you care due to already full up and busy lives, there is always something else in life to distract you that steels your time away. With that said it has been so very heart-warming and reassuring to know that in our time of need you were able to offer us your love and support.

Whether that was in the way of a kind word or thought, or a call or text to see how we are or for those that made time for us and also for those that were able to see us and Dad in Spreyton on the day we just can’t thank you all enough.

With the decisions to hold the ceremony in Spreyton Village Hall and have the burial at crossways site in Cheriton Bishop, I was a little nervous prior to the day, as to whether we had chosen the right words, locations, hymn and ideas for the day. But with all of those that attended and helped us I do believe we did dad proud and showed him how much he was loved. The whole day and event was a wonderful celebration of Dads life and thank all so much for the time you spared for us prior to the service and also on the day and evening too.

I also want to share Dads poem for those that might want to see it again and also for those that could not make it on the day.

Love the ones you Love by Neil Edwards

Love the ones you love. Don't assume they're fine,
because you haven't heard from them in a while.
Assume they're not - and call them.

Make sure they know you love them.
That can be difficult to say,
but tell them, in whatever words,
in your funny old way.

Take every chance that comes
to do an act of lovingkindness
for those who live in your heart.
These things are powerful voodoo,
because they work for them as well as you.

The only thing we know is true,
is that we don't know what's to come.
Don't just keep them in your heart.
Turn up, and talk, and be with them.

Thank you, dear God, for this good life,
and forgive us if we do not love it enough.
And forgive us if we forget to love the ones we love.

P.S. Don’t beat yourself up. Even if you do all these things, some of us will slip away.

We are good actors and take great pains to keep you off the scent. It’s nothing you did or failed to do. Don’t beat yourself up.

Oddschecker.com is it really worth paying for a subscription to have a bet?

Next week is the Cheltenham horse racing festival in the UK – it is the BIG celebration of horse racing in the UK and for those that enjoy watching horse racing and having a punt and putting a bet on that is the week to do it. But there are so many horses at so many different odd to bet on that it’s very easy to not know which horses to bet on and see who will win or who will lose.

There are websites out there that have people that recommend the horses that they think are most likely to win on the day of each race, but even when you follow the tip of a good tipster there is no guarantee that any horse they say might win a race will win. The Cheltenham festival is a week when if I try to have a bet I make sure I set a limit to how much I bet because chances are I will lose most bets and it is likely I will lose money and so it’s important to only bet what I can afford on my budget to lose. Betting should really be looked at by me as a bit of fun, a challenge a gamble and not in a any way a way of making money or profiting from.

I tend to place 1 or 2 £3 bets on four horse known as a lucky 15, 10 pence each way bet, each day during the Cheltenham festival and use sites such as Oddschecker.com to help me decide which horse to bet on. Last March in the week before the Cheltenham festival the Oddschecker.com website started charging people £10 to view all the tips on it’s website concerning which horses to bet on. This was incredibly annoying at the time as this service has been free for years with tipsters such as Andy Holding recommending which horses to back during the Cheltenham festival. I kind of assumed and hoped the site would always be free to view tips on.

So to start charging the week before the the Cheltenham horse racing gold cup festival seemed really harsh back in 2024 but I though £10 a month to pay to see what horses Andy Holding recommended was not too bad. So I paid my money and took my chances and placed my bets. I don’t remember if I won or lost last year which meant I did not have a big win but likely did not loose that much either and probably broke even betting for the fun of it and not for the win.

Well it’s now Sunday 8^th March 2025 and my subscription to get bets for £10 a month has just today stopped working suddenly even though I’m still paying Oddschecker.com my subscription of £10 a month for what now appears to be a complete waste of money and no tips. Oddsecher.com are now asking for a subscription charge of £34.99 per month for what was once £10 if I still want to get tips from Andy Holding for next week’s Cheltenham festival, which does feel extortionate.

Considering I normally only spend £3.00 to £6.00 a day on bets and there now asking me to pay an extra £34.99 a month to see tips so as to be able to place a bet. It feels like an excessive rip off and out of my budget and will not increase the amount of winners I back if I start paying £34.99 for a subscription tipping service that was recently completely free. I would like to cancel my subscription of £10 month but they also offered me a share in a horse called Unknown Journey so I am going to decide later whether to cancel my current subscription of £10 a month for what now is just for a share in the owning of a horse with no horse racing tips with it and the tips were my main reason for agreeing to a subscription in the first place.

There are other sites to consider in order to be able to gain tips from tipsters that are good at picking horses that sometime win. The best site that is still free for tips is attheraces.com Hugh Taylor is a person I follow on this website that offers good tips but there are disadvantages to following his tips. Firstly he does not always have tips every day and also when he backs a horse the odds then narrow and so you don’t always get good odds on the horses that he backs because lots of other people are tipping the horse too, so you don’t get good odds on the horses he chooses and just because the odds are lowered does not increase the chances of a horse winning. On the attheraces.com website there is also Lawrence Taylor’s speed ratings tips and I like theses as these are six good tips everyday on race horses that he recommends to put a bet on, but one downside is you do not know what the odds are on the page and have to go to a new page to look up the odds for betting on his choice of horses.

If you are able or willing to want to pay for tips then there is also another Andy Holding website that is expensive it’s called andyholdingspeedfigures.co.uk and costs £39 per month to see the horse he recommends placing bets on. To be honest I signed up years ago on a trial discount rate for Cheltenham week festival tips and it looked and felt like they overly gave you lots of stats about horses to back but the site was very confusing and complicated and did not help me know which horse to pick to place a bet on. It’s too expensive for me to have a yearly subscription but I am tempted to try it for a month when the Cheltenham Gold cup week takes place and just see what the site looks like now.

My final thoughts are if you have an addictive personality, a small income or gamble money that you cannot afford to lose, please just don’t do it. Betting on the horses is no way to make, earn or win money. Know your limits and if you not betting to play a game or you try to chase money you have lost or need it’s potentially dangerous and just not worth it.

I bet you don’t make money or win a lot but the fun of watching the races and betting small amounts on bets you can afford to lose is a lot of fun. I don’t think the paid sites are worth there subscription fees and just because you pay a company website to tell you which horse to place a bet on does not guarantee that a horse will win. Best of luck though whatever you do.

Keywords across site

Make America Hate

Trump is an isolationist at heart. There are many things which Trump does not, cannot or has no will to understand when it comes to his world view and he views others as being weak or insignificant, if they do not think and feel the same as him and his outward reaction to those who do not share in his world view is divisive and in the short, medium and long-term extremely damaging to the US, it’s allies and enemies alike. No good will come from Trumps actions and inaction as he seeks to impose his world view on all of us.

With great power comes great responsibility normally and Trump is not responsible to anything or anyone if anything he is a reckless bully or reckless bull in a china shop. His actions and lack of political accountability when signing of executive order after executive order is mind boggling. His overstepping of his executive power with the sacking of state employees, shutting down of government programs is done on a whim and not with any true political oversight judgment or accountability.

With Trump offering trade wars to break up years of stable trading relations and treaties with Canada for what appear to be petty reasoning’s in response to complex problems for the USA e.g. Trump wants Canada to become part of the USA to be used as a strategic asset and profit from this and is punishing Canada for not being part of the USA. Trump is only able to do a lot of the negative things that he is doing because his country the USA is the most powerful trading nation in the world and he is using that power as leverage. If the UK or any other nation in the world tried to do this they would be punished by others and time will see if the US will be punished and how.

His cruel turn on Canada a historic partner and ally is in complete opposition to his views on Russia – Russia really does have an elusive hold over Trump. Not that any conspiracy theorists talk about it but I do wonder if Trumps first wife or current wife could be Russian sympathizers or even agents infiltrating Trumps inner circle and making him a bonified follow of Putin’s Russia as he really does love and respect Russia’s way of doing business and has an affection for Putin.

It’s not just Putin that Trump shows support for he likes and is attracted to the political perspective of authoritarian leaders across the globe and one most damagingly supporting is that of Netanyahu in Israel he does not force a peace deal on Israel and continues to offer them an open-ended offer of arms and a blank cheque to fight against those that wish for autonomy and self governance in Gaza. So he is a man of peace when it suits him in Ukraine but also a man of war when it suits him and the politicians he shows favor to and supports when seeking war in Gaza.

Just a final thoughts I am in no way mad at or wish to upset American citizens the reasons that brought people to vote and not vote for Trump are complex and diverse. I aim to respect and understand what drives people to resort to needing a leader like Trump to vote for whilst at the same time wholeheartedly hating and fearing what Trump is capable of, what he has already done and what he will do next he neither has a moral compass nor proven limits on his power yet.

Trump’s Position: to embrace Putin over Zelensky

Trump is very attracted to Putin’s style of political manoeuvrings and that suits Putin at present – he is also very much moving towards Putin while moving away from Zelensky. Russia will aim to play Trump and his cards for all he is worth until he is spent.

President Donald Trump has said Ukraine not Russia started the war. He’s called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy not Vladimir Putin a dictator. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration is standing down on a suite of tough anti-Kremlin policies.

In just over a month, Trump has executed a startling realignment of American foreign policy, effectively throwing U.S. support behind Moscow and rejecting the tight alliance with Kyiv cultivated by former President Joe Biden.

Trump may argue that by agreeing with Putin and disagreeing with Zelensky’s view of the war that he is in fact remaining neutral but that is just in my mind a convenient lie. Trump knows we must all have perspectives, truths, opinions and sides and all his point to being closely aligned with Putin.

He also implies that he sees Europe as a weak democratic collection of nations very much in the mould of what the USA was before he started trying to make it great again. Describing immigration as in some way diluting the purity of the soul of a society and not in any strengthening it or making it better.

Flows of citizens across the globe are historically natural processes and in no way should be seen as immoral or deviant. The greater the level of upheaval, uncertainty, war and famine that happen this century will result in a greater flow of people across the globe – an America first policy and cutting of aid to the world is short sighted and will only result in more people looking to escape to America to escape the hell created somewhere else on the globe due to Trumps foreign policy’s lack of initiatives or initiatives.

Trumps policies are a direct result of conservative me first view that there is not enough money to solve the worlds problems and so why bother trying to solve any of them. As a fascist capitalist he shows no signs of care or empathy for others wadding in with trade tariffs on other nations to profit from them and taking away foreign aid and assets from them as he has no interest in helping them either, thus increase a cycle of suffering which will lead to more fleeing desperate places and ending up on the doors and shores of the USA.

Animals don’t behave like men

Richard George Adams FRSL was an English novelist. He is best known for his debut novel Watership Down.

Watership Down is an adventure novel by English author Richard Adams, published in 1972. Set in Hampshire in southern England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural wild environment with burrows, they are anthropomorphized (the act of attributing human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities), and the wildlife in the story possesses its own culture, language, proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel follows the rabbits as they escape the destruction of their warren and seek a place to establish a new home, the hill of Watership Down, encountering perils and temptations along the way.

Watership Down was Richard Adams’s debut novel. It was rejected by several publishers before Collings accepted the manuscript; the published book then won the annual Carnegie Medal (UK), annual Guardian Prize (UK), and other book awards.

The novel was adapted into a 2D animated feature film in 1978 and a 2D animated children’s television series from 1999 and 2001. In 2018, the novel was adapted again, this time into a 3D animated series, which both aired in the UK and was made available on Netflix.

Never stop fighting, until the fighting is done!

The scenes this week when Trump and his deputy showed their true colours to Zelensky when invited to the oval office was neither a surprise nor justified. They have no interest in the war and are most likely mildly amused by the idea of trying to make a considerable amount of money over carving out a peace deal that they see themselves as the only ones that can broker and make happen. Though countries pay a price for peace for sure – no leader has gone to the negotiation table quite like Trump before.

Would you like a slice Mr President, I hear it’s very good.

One thing I am also finding very interesting at present is the tone of different media sites, if you pay attention some will side with Trump (stop having those sites as a main source of information, if you dare as that’s just propaganda and disinformation for the wealthy and ruthless, some see it as being both Trumps fault as well as Zelensky which also makes me feel uncomfortable as they are just still trying to justify what Trump just did and continues to do it reminds me of a quote which is ‘Well, you can put lipstick on a hog and call it Monique, but it’s still a pig’.

Trumplet Pig getting ready for his next performance

I part of me thought the image above was too much but the fear of the depths of the potential of Trump is a true worry to me and should be to you too. Some news sites really have taken the situation as a serious and unprecedented attack by Trump, which is what it truly and sadly is with an explanation of this story from a news outlet, cannot always explain away the two sides to each argument theory when one such as Trump is being so manipulative of the truth and outspoken in order to try and get his own way and be seen to try and win an argument

Since Trumps election I have found it quite sickening concerning all of the billionaires queuing up to kiss at the hand of the newly crowned king of the USA. Not one of them has an issue with his morality, methods of salesmanship or political perspective, which says just as much about them as it does Trump.

Lest they forgot at the next election in the states their votes will be equal to and not greater that each and every other American citizen. Imagine a world where billionaires were outlawed and their finances confiscated for the greater good. As they don’t care for your vote or your ability to have a job now, why should you care for their ability to be billionaires either.

If Trump is so keen to raise money by excessive and self serving tariffs on the economic industries and places across the globe why not tax mega wealthy of their power and influence instead? In the next four years Trump should not and will not be judged just on how much money he makes or how much power he has – but on what he does with it and what is undone because of it.

Trump now reminds me of the depiction of Al Capone, an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1925 to 1931 as shown in the movie the The Untouchables a 1987 Film starring Robert De Niro (as Al Capone), Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith. It is written by David Mamet and directed by Brian De Palma.

Though in the clip below Al Capone is met with justice I sadly don’t think it likely at present to happen to Trump in his lifetime – Trump is likely to die of old age prior to meeting justice and we have another 4 years of his bullshit still to unravel the world and its workings prior to the end of his presidency.

The Untouchables Movie CLIP – Here Endeth the Lesson (1987)

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