vox sana in mundo insano

                               The above photo was taken on Christmas Day 2019. Covid was already with us but had yet to make its presence felt What a difference a year makes. Many of us have endured such really hard and difficult trials, and may well face many more before this nightmare ends. Who can possibly know the number of people who have already succumbed to panic, despair, loneliness and hopelessness behind the closed curtains of their personal prisons? There have been days where I have been so demoralised, that if there had been a magic button I could have pressed to release me from this life, I would have gladly done so. But then I have somehow found the strength to continue, envisioning my mother at my side, taking my hand, helping me rise from my bed and face another dark day in this hellhole that is reality. I refuse to give into despair. This year has not broken me. It has in fact shown me the valuable lesson that freedom and liberty should never be taken for granted; tha

Most of you who have watched the1997 movie The Matrix will probably understand the expression ‘red pill’, which seems to have gained a lot of traction in recent months, particularly in the latter half of 2020. However, I’m not going to make the assumption that everyone who reads this will automatically know what I am talking about so for your benefit, I will give the following explanation. The Matrix is set in some awful dystopian future, where the robots and machines have become intelligent and have risen against their erstwhile masters, the humans. Knowing that they are in a desperate battle for survival, the humans devise a plan called ‘Operation Dark Storm’ that involves blocking the sun’s rays, which is the machines’ power source. However, this proves to be catastrophic for human civilisation as it leads to crop failures and ultimately, famine and starvation. The machines meanwhile, manage to adapt to lack of sunlight, and find a way of harvesting energy from humans themselves,

There's a new star in heaven tonight. I call her Pamela. She was the only mother that I really knew.  I first would have become aware of my mum to be, Pamela, at the tender age of 2 when I was a mere toddler, feeling absolutely bewildered and frightened in a large dormitory full of other children in a similar situation as myself. You see, it's fair to say that I didn't have the easiest start to life. I was the fourth child born out of a family of six siblings. It turns out that my biological mother was not mentally well back then. Had she been assessed by health professionals and given a mental health diagnosis, it maybe would have been schizophrenia or borderline psychosis. I am sure she cared for me to best of her ability in that squalid prefab house in the Old Swan area of Liverpool; a house almost devoid of any furniture. But in the end, her mental health meant that she was no longer able to take care of me. When I got sickly and developed pneumonia, I was taken to Alde

Dear Mum, You took me in when I was scared, unloved and unwanted And you made me your own You and dad brought me up as best you knew how I hope I made you proud of me throughout the years I am sorry for any hurt I caused you both For all the time I failed in my duties as a good son I will continue to strive every day to make you proud of me And to be the best version of myself I can be In your last hours and at your final breath I was not able to be there for you Your suffering is now at an end And for that I am grateful My heart is broken and shattered But I will stay as strong as I can Until the day comes when I'll see you again For now, farewell And all my love Peter XX  💔 Pamela & Gerry Franks at the wedding of their friend Judith in Uffculme, Devon    

                            Have you seen the movie 1984 with John Hurt? Are you old enough to remember the Cold War between Soviet Russia and the West or how people in eastern bloc countries lived under a communist regime that fed them lies and propaganda? Can you recall the Chernobyl Power Plant nuclear disaster that contributed to the decline of the USSR, and the fall of the Berlin Wall that heralded its eventual collapse on December 25th 1991? Do you remember thinking to yourself how lucky we are to live in a free society where the media is less biased and journalism more balanced, and people can say what they want without fear of arrest and incarceration in gulags for wrongthink? What if I said that we were turning into an authoritarian state? That we have been brainwashed and our thoughts manipulated? That mainstream media, even the BBC has become an unreliable source of information and propaganda channel? It sounds far-fetched doesn't it? But it's true. Today's jou