To Beard or not to Beard?

After many years of delays in progressing past a particular situation this summer looks like being very interesting in that I am due to appear in a book as well as having my own autobiographical book published. Details will follow when the Good Witch of the South and I have finalised the book manuscripts, my book Web Site being at www.rememberinglorelei.com; all will become clear, along with other connections, in a few weeks time.

In addition, I had recently been in a conversation with a “Well Wisher”, who confirmed what I had thought about certain past events in Havant and Hampshire, as well as providing valuable information, having followed my progress through my Web Sites. The same person also advised me that certain people were putting it about that “his marbles are loose”, though professional experienced psychiatrists, Members and Fellows of the Royal College of Psychiatry no less, who know me well consider me entirely sane (www.rememberinglorelei.com/RL_About%20me.htm), though, from a limited intellect point of view, that is understandable, given the nature of my Web Sites (www.rememberinglorelei.com/RL_RK_mows.htm).

Hence, there was too much on my mind while shaving one morning in mid-April. The lack of concentration led to a cut chin. As Jo and I were going on holiday in the New Forest the following week, the obvious choice was to simply stop shaving and let it grow.

A couple of weeks later I had a respectable beard, though was not sure whether I liked it or not. Jo had thought she might like me to have one, which was another reason for letting it grow, as an experiment.

However, Jo thought it made me look stern and Emma, our daughter, said it made me look older, which beards usually do, and Jo agreed. Partly because of a remark Jo made, I told Emma, who is expecting a baby, that I was practising to be a grandfather.

I thought it might be interesting to keep it into the summer, maybe for amusing confusion when the books are published and I finally get into the public domain; as compared with the photographs on my Web Sites (www.richardking.name, www.richardsjournal.co.uk, etc.).

Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of having a beard, or not, as and when the mood takes me, though Richard Lucas, Sylvie’s husband, who I have come to know quite well, does just that. Unlike Sylvie, my Proof Reader/Editor and I, Richard Lucas is discarnate, has no physical body, at present, and with that comes such ability in defining, deciding, one’s appearance (www.richardspsychicrealm.com/RPR_familiar_spirit_richard_lucas.htm).

A positive development was a conversation about beards, Richard Lucas, the non-physical, Lorelei (www.rememberinglorelei.com/RL_Lorelei.htm, www.loreleilegend.com) and so on, during an evening while on holiday in the New Forest.

Jo is very intuitive and senses at a high level, at times, including a little while my mother was terminally ill in 2004 (www.richardspsychicrealm.com/RPR_PreDEMM.htm). However, she is very much in the physical and muted, particularly considering she is Lorelei’s Soul Sister (www.rememberinglorelei.com/RL_Jo%20and%20Lorelei.htm), a connection which surfaced when Lorelei helped Jo through a major operation in the mid 1990s. During that conversation, who Jo really is began to surface more, at least a little.

A cold spring in Paris with the Three Chicks

Thanks to a generous present from Tim and Emma, our son and daughter, last Friday Jo and I were heading for a late March weekend in Paris.

We left Havant at on the 10 04 p.m. train and, after a short delay on the way to London, due to a freight train negotiating a signal problem, arrived at London Waterloo only ten to fifteen minutes late. Jo had texted ahead to Tim to warn him, as he was meeting us at the station to confirm the tickets.

The Eurostar train left London Waterloo International at 1.41 p.m. and arrived in Paris, at the Gare du Nord. The train was impressive, particularly traveling in France when, while running alongside a motorway it appeared to be overtaking vehicles at about twice the speed they were traveling, which would have meant a train speed in excess of 150 m.p.h.

Outside Gare du Nord there was a very long queue for Taxis. We were offered a limousine style Taxi for 90 Euros (about £60), which seemed a might excessive for even a reasonable distance, let alone what was purported to be a fifteen minute walk.

After consulting a map, I took a deep breath as regards finding the way and we decided to walk. As far as map reading went I got us quite close to the Hotel, Les Trois Poussins (The Three Chicks) in Rue Clauzel, but the map was not detailed enough. After consulting a female Police Officer, who could not speak English, and a couple of greengrocers, who were very pleasant and helpful, we found the Hotel.

It was during the walk that my first impressions of Paris formed, essentially, just like London, except they drive on the wrong side of the road and the signs are gibberish. Maybe it was the cold weather combined with trying to find my way through a strange city. In any even, my mood, feelings, soon lighted. They certainly did by well into the following day, Saturday. Besides, my French, largely remembered from forty-five years previously, at school, was enough to make out quite lot, at least as far as signs and shop fronts were concerned; later, menu items started to come back as well.

The only sensible way to get to other parts of Paris, without spending a fortune on Taxis, was to use the Metro. Finding one’s way around on an underground, Metro, system is far easier that bus routes. The Paris Metro not only has colour coded lines, as does the London Underground, but each line has its own number, so, it was simply a matter of deciding on the route and following the relevant colours, number. It was also quite inexpensive at 1. Euros each way to the Bir-Hakeim Station near the Eiffel Tower.

Unfortunately, that Saturday was very cold and, intermittently, rather wet. It was also overcast and a little misty. So, apart from a long cold wait to go up the Eiffel Tower, the view at the top, up to 74 kilometers on a clear day, was very restricted. We opted for a tour bus instead. Unfortunately that was so cold, on the open top, we moved down inside; not such a good view and no place to take decent photographs but decidedly warmer. I listened to the commentary provided, on earphones, and, though the quality of the sound was, occasionally, not brilliant, I learned quite a lot about the parts of Paris that the tour covered.

It was fairly late in the afternoon before we returned to the Hotel. It was a relief to be out of the cold. We lay on the bed and read as we rested, intending to go to a restaurant for a meal in due course.

That evening we ate nearby, at La Calangue Pizza Restaurant. Jo and I had a pizza each, though somewhat different; Jo’s was her usual Marguerite, mine a Provençale. We shared a half bottle of rose and finished with a real crème brouillée as opposed to the usual supermarket variety, version.

On returning to the Hotel, I asked the Receptionist for the key to Room 203, adding that my numbers, in French, did not go that high.

She said it was easy, “Deux cent trois.”

I had not been thinking enough, or remembered enough.

She was right, it was easy, so I said and repeated,

“Of course, deux cent trois.”

“Your accent is South of France,” commented the Receptionist.

I laughed as I corrected her,

“My accent is Clacton County High School, 1960.”

She laughed as well as Jo broke into our conversation,

“Come on. You’ve had two much wine.”

I had only had a glass and a half of rosé. It was just my natural exuberant sense of humour and quick wit; not something with which all my family are happy, though immediate family are okay with it.

Jo should certainly have been used to it after thirty five years, plus; though she had some wine as well

Sunday, the day of our return, was somewhat warmer, with the weather due to improve after we left.

However, overall it had been an interesting visit with Les Trois Poussins turning out to be a very pleasant little hotel.

We finally arrived home at about 9.30 p.m., via a coach from Petersfield due to engineering work on the line south of there.

I booted up the computer to see if there was an E-mail from Barbara Ford-Hammond, a reaction to Lorelei’s thoughts on Andrea Wren’s regression, for her forthcoming book, “Past Life Tourism”, Mirage Books; about which, more later; Barbara had wondered if Lorelei (www.loreleilegend.com/index.htm) would like to comment and Lorelei had been only too pleased to do so, of course. There was no E-mail, so I told Jo and mused that Barbara was either so taken aback that she did not know what to say, or was having the weekend off, among other possibilities; though in practice, it is Barbara who is supposed to be muse, according to her Blog (www.newsfromthemuse.blogspot.com).

Jo said something along the lines of,

“You’ve probably shocked her so much you’ve blown the poor woman’s bunions off.”

Actually, they are supposed to have gone already by other means, but that is Barbara’s story, though I accepted the sentiment of Jo’s reply.

I did begin to wonder if Jo was becoming more in tune with her Celestial Sister, remember, sense, what she is like, at this stage of our current physical life together.

It turned out to be a little different, in due course. Barbara found Lorelei’s comments “interesting”. Does that mean Barbara is getting used to Lorelei? Now that is an achievement, for, almost, anyone.

The store that was not, perhaps, to be; plus a journey to Oz?

On the way back from Fareham, yesterday afternoon, I called in at Tesco, Havant, for a little shopping and to buy some coal.

When I was at the checkout, in the store, I asked the Checkout Assistant if she knew what was happening with the new store that had been proposed. She said that, as far as she knew it was not going to happen, not be built.

She said that Tesco had sold off land at each end of the site. That I, more or less, knew, as they had been denied planning permission to go beyond the present store site; hence the proposal to build a store “in the air”, in effect above the existing car park and existing store ground area.

The Assistant said that the Council had refused planning permission, due; it seemed to the large number of objections to the new store that it had received. I was surprised, taken aback; that meant that Havant Council had actually said no to Tesco.

On the basis of events over the last several years I had developed a general “rule of thumb” that Havant Council would cave in to anyone who had financial muscle of a few hundred thousand Pounds, to a million Pounds, or more, even when planning permissions were breached; anything less than that and you did not stand a chance with the Council.

The idea of Havant Council denying an organisation of Tesco proportions what it wanted was phenomenal. I began to wonder where the Council had gained its courage, short of a trip down the Yellow Brick Road to see the Wizard of Oz. So that is a fantasy, though no more than Havant Council standing up to someone bigger than itself seemed.

The Assistant said that Tesco could re-apply in March but seemed to think that it would not happen. Part of her reason for that was the new checkouts that were due. The staff had, apparently, been complaining about the old ones and asking for new ones for some time. They had new ones due to be installed in June or July, some six months, or so, hence. So, to the best of her knowledge, the new store was not going to be built.

Strange things happen in Havant, at times.

Education and Standards – Personal Experiences

The Saturday 10 February entry on the Blog of my hypnotist and muse friend Barbara Ford-Hammond (www.newsfromthemuse.blogspot.com) reminded me of my own experiences three years or so ago at educational establishments in southern England.

As well as lecturing in engineering materials and design at a further education college I was involved in providing support for students who were finding their studies difficult. That covered a range of students though included those studying engineering.

One such student, on an Engineering Diploma Course, had difficulties with a number of the problems he had been set.

Of the problems with which I helped him there was always one which particularly came to mind. It involved a weight suspended by two cords, each at a different angle to the horizontal; a simple statics problem. I showed him how to solve it by resolving forces horizontally and vertically; the sum of the horizontal forces in the cords being, of course, zero, and the vertical forces in the cords being equal to the weight supported. The horizontal forces were the tensions in the cords multiplied by the Cosine of the angle to the horizontal and the vertical forces were the tensions in the cords multiplied by the Sine of the angle and the weight.

The student looked at what I had drawn and written for a few seconds, then asked,

“What’s Sine?”

Bearing in mind that I was talking to a student who was eighteen or nineteen years old, well into his Engineering Diploma Course, and I had mastered such levels of trigonometry by the age of fourteen, I was somewhere between amused and bemused.

More was to follow. After setting out a problem in my usual way; read the question careful, draw, lay it out on paper, set up the basic equations and solve, the student again looked at what I had done, listened to my explanation, and asked a question; on that occasion it was,
”What’s Pythagoras?”

Another student was studying electrical engineering, something I had not been involved with in earnest since my first year at Brunel University (www.brunel.ac.uk) in 1967. He was stuck on some problems involving alternating current in electrical circuits with the usual resistance, capacitance and impedance elements. When such knowledge is long gone, or, at least, ahs not been used for some time, the obvious starting point is the College Library and appropriate library research skills; find an appropriate book, look up the basics, find similar problems in worked example form, follow them through and regain forgotten knowledge. A little over an hour later I had done electrical calculations of a type last worked through some thirty-five years previously and a student was a little happier and more confident with his work.

At a higher level, I lectured final year Engineering Degree Students on engineering materials at a University for a several weeks. Of the forty-plus students many (most?) were foreign. There were only about half a dozen of those who could have lived with my 1967-1971 Brunel University Engineering Degree Course.

Barbara’s 10^th February anecdote of a conversation that illustrated the woeful standards of knowledge was very much in line with my experiences in the education system. To say that education standards have been dumbed down would be a rather gentle way of putting it.

Back Online and Visible Again

For the last couple of years I have been concentrating on my Web Sites and have neglected blogging as such; though the Blog of a relatively recently acquired and very good friend, Barbara Ford-Hammond (www.newsfromthemuse.blogspot.com) has encouraged me to try to do more with this one. We have similar interests in the non-physical field and, it would seem, a not dissimilar sense of humour.

Besides, having been off the Internet for the best part of two months, thanks to some malware and not particularly brilliant computer repairers (eventually sorted out by someone else) it is good to be back on the Internet and visible again. This is as good a way to start as any, particularly while I play catch up with my Web Sites.

As you will gather from my Web Sites such as www.richardsjournal.co.uk, as well as the archives of this Blog, an Internet presence is about the only way of being heard in the town where I live, or the County for that matter; Havant, Hampshire, England.

However, despite all of that, there have been positive developments. My autobiographical book, “Remembering Lorelei” (www.rememberinglorelei.com) should, at long last, be out in the next few weeks, will be reviewed in national publications and I should be appearing in such publications before that.

Developments can be followed through the above Journal Web Site (www.richardsjournal.co.uk), at least when I finish catching up with the word processing.

Yesterday “The News” (Portsmouth) carried an article about Christmas lights being banned in Havant (Hampshire, UK), or, rather, it being decreed that the Christmas Lights will be known as Festival Lights to avoid upsetting no Christians.

Today the story is on page 31 of the “Daily Mail”. Presumably, Andy Dolan, the “Daily Mail” reporter, took the story from “The News”, local to national being a common route.

The culprits were, of course, the Council Officers who are the real power in Havant Council, though they ran for cover when “The News” tried to interview them.

They did not seem to have considered that they might offend Christians as well as non-Christians with their stupidity.

The Council Leader, David Gillett, is reported as begin vociferously against such lunacy, though, Councillors in general have let vastly more serious matters pass, including those beyond the civil context. I have one removed personal experience of Councillors being sent packing” by Council Officers and Agents of the Council.

The general level of incompetence, illustrated by the Christmas Lights fiasco, runs right through the Council, including, especially, relating to business: see my other Web Sites, especially the older ones --- the My Other Web Sites page on any of my Sites will guide you to the others (e.g. http://www.rlkassociates.co.uk/RLKA_mows.htm).

Contrary to the impression given by articles such as that in the “Daily Mail”, Havant and the surrounding area is a very pleasant place to live. Unfortunately it is ruled by a “we know best” Council which is beyond the control of and unresponsive to the Residents.

That apart, I would strongly recommend this part of the Country as a place to live, though not, at present, a place to which to bring a business or attempt to establish one, nor much of Hampshire or the local Business Link region for that matter. Sussex and east, Surrey and north, or west of Dorset is much safer.

This Web Log is long overdue for updating.

My thoughts were to a large extent elsewhere than Blogs for much of 2004 as my mother was terminally ill in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire, from the end of June until 11th October. From then onwards, apart from sorting out the estate, mostly, almost entirely, done by my brother as he is retired, I have been more concerned with surviving and putting up a larger collection of interconnected Web Sites.

There was a development in June 2005 when I recorded a contribution for a Discovery Channel Programme on predicting the future, with Barbara Ford-Hammond of Alton, Hampshire. Filming was mostly in Blenheim Gardens, Denvilles, Havant with my house becoming a television studio for many hours. More details of that are on my Business Web Site (http://www.rlkassocites.co.uk/) under “Press Release” (http://www.rlkassociates.co.uk/RLKA_PresRel.htm).

Hopefully that will break the logjam I find myself in.

To be heard in Havant, Hampshire, UK, (as well as the County as a whole, to some extent) you have, it would seem, to resort to the Internet and have sufficiently unusual connections to be of interest to an International Television Company.

In order to develop business of immense value to Havant, Hampshire and the South of England generally I am not only having to go out of Hampshire but, in many ways, out of the Country.

Welcome to what passes for democracy and representation in Havant.

You can easily find me by entering “Richard King, Havant”, “Richard King, Engineer”, or “Richard King, Healer”, in an Internet search, especially non-Google for the greatest number of results; as long as you remember my name “Lorelei, Legend” or Loreleis Links” will also do. Thereafter, you can find all my Web Sites from any one of them.

One outcome of those months through the summer of 2004 was a series of pre-death experiences totaling thirty to fifty hours depending on definitions, how they are counted, etc. Some of those are recounted on my Richards Psychic Realm Web Site (http://www.richardspsychicrealm.com/), I know of no one who has had that much, though only some of the less demanding ones are recounted on the Web until my family becomes more acclimatized to such matters.