Why do I do this stuff

Why me?

Am I doing it all wrong?

The World according to ME?

Am I wrong in seeking revenge?

Should I leave it all be and concentrate on more pressing present issues only, like walking again ?

Never did like that in my turbolent life before . Should I start now?

Let's think of this the other way around: if I left it all be, would these greedy scumbags also let it be ? Would they turn and want to suck blood from other suckers ? Would they REALLY let me be ?

Would they respect my new hunger for a peaceful existence and let me concentrate in battling diabetes, renal and optical complications?

Would Kannoh and Toda the ophtalmogist REALLY help me out to find an insulin substitute or give me my eyeballs pictures as I have been requesting for without bullshit such as " Hospital rules don't allow me to give you the pictures, blah , blah ..." ? Would Doc Kannoh not try to turn me into a f@:king zonked out vegetable by prescribing an extra pill for my lowered blood pressure. A pill that the patent will run out next year and I am taking even if I don't suffer from angina? Would that dental intern and his mentors, trully clean my f@:ked up teeth and do a proper reform job, restoring my dental frame and work hard for the fortune I would have to pay them and kindly refrain from playing ghost golf or baseball or oggling the female interns asses day in and out instead of telling the intern to buzz off AND do what they are there for?

Would the crow bastards stop looking at patients with disdain while getting in and out of " staff only " elevators and wait for the proper elevators, maybe even help some poor sod by pushing his / her wheelchair in and out of the over crowded elevators instead? Would they stop their openly bartering / bribing and shoving greedy gold anklet carrying bitches behind vending machines at Tokyo Women University Hospital?

Would that cardiologist young punk let the female nurses take a break at the same hospital resting rooms without injecting or knocking them out with drugs to make them morose and then groping, sexually harassing them, to put it mildly ? And then would the cops AND the hospital authorities that caught him after one nurse woke up during his statuory rape, parade the bastard on TV instead of hiding his name and face and let him return to his home town and start to work at daddy's clinic like nothing ever happened and to get up to God knows what type of mischief in that Hicksville clinic / hospital?

Or would the cops arrest him, the judicial system judge, condemn and lock him up with some sexual deviate in the slammer and throw away the key? Would the victims who came to his trial and testified be allowed to return to work at TWUH with their pride intact and be respected by staff, other doctors and society in general ?

Would doctors stop taking fat envelops stuffed with money on stairways, hospital corridors and other odd places, from parents, relatives of the sick person in need to be operated BEFORE being operated on and then receive more fat envolopes before the patient was released from hospital?

Would the same fat cats smear their greedy paws with the poor sucker's blood at the operating table instead of standing by joking about his or her anomalies while the real docs, if the poor sods are lucky, are being operated on? Would that same fat cat bastard SHARE the 100.000 / 1.000.000 yen bribe with the hard working staff around that operating table?

Would K.K.K Boot Camp respect the contract I and they signed and then informed me of the miserly 32 yen per section rise without putting a stupid " some time in December " date in their info sheet and respect the terms of our contract by informing me at the minimum stipulated month in advance? Would K.K. K. not slap another bigger bombshell by up coming Spring??

Would the pauper's welfare center for the physical and mentally disabled in Toyama , Shinjuku -Ward not put me or others through the traumatic sham like that near blind rat did when " evaluating " if I deserved to get a new casket for my prosthesis, treating me like a retarded piece of human wreck and would a real doctor instead of a f@:king public works plumber come by to check things out ? Would Shimanuki the f@:king blind bat " see " which one of my limbs was chopped off instead of asking me AND not write down " left leg bellow the knee " like I jockingly told that piece of s@:t , while , in fact , my right limb ABOVE the knee was the real thing?

Would that same center stop welfare buzzards like Tachi-warui-Oka the skunk or Doodle Dandy from keeping on coming for extra unnecessary welfare money and force them to return tax payees money they have filched during decades, while that same money and privileages could be given to the ones that REALLY needed help ,instead of telling them poah bastards to drop dead, just like that amputee I used to see till last Winter, crawling on User Road spit soiled pavement in Oyama, Itabashi-ward just meters away from Itabashi's Tax Office and roughly 800 meters from that cesspool called KUYAKUCHO ( ward office )?

And finally for now cos I am getting exausted, would f@:king MACKINTOSH make a gysmo that won't freeze when needed and with true battery life INSTEAD of this piece of JUNK iPhone 3G?

The simple answer for all of those questions and more I got buried in my mind and battered soul is : N-O F-*-*-K-I-N-G W-A-Y !!!!

Thus, my quest for peace and respect of basic human rights I suppose to deserve is now officially over and it's back to to the grinding stone and sharpning my temporary War AXE.

Necks will fall soon or my nickname ain't KACHIDOKI !!!

That Japanese Healthcare Part 2

There was as paper given to me by unknown weasel in medical garb (but wore expensive glass frames and manicured nails) who I suspect is the son of grandson of the KeKeKawa hospital founder and is in there to show off and to get paid for doing nothing.

It simply states that KKK BootCamp will be getting another extra PT by next month (they just put in a Twat as O.T.) and for me and other users to cough up an extra miserly 32 yen per section. It looks nothing but remembering the yakuza term of Hashimoto-o-miru ( checking the sucker's reaction) I suspect soon another bombshell will pop out of the blue. Normal protocol here stipulates anybody to warn the clients about two months in advance in case of price rises or organization changes . KKK is a big entity and has no call to give me or any other client a bombshell like today. It stinks too much like the Metropolis / PayPal scam (200 yen for your soul) and other scams.

So I asked WHY the f*@k wasn't I informed earlier as it should be the case? NO F*@KING ANSWER !! I asked Twice and received the same mute poker face . WHY DIDN'T WADA , my Care manager / welfare agent / probation officer / Ward office snitch tell me about this when she came to check on me just a couple if days ago? NO F*@KING ANSWER THERE EITHER.

Watch this space...there's gonna be more.

Metropolis and Paypal

Be sure to read our little verse after it before you sign up.

http://metropolis.co.jp/members/campaign.html

How the Metropolis 2009 Christmas Charity Campaign Works

By becoming a Metropolis Member, you also get to participate in a unique charity campaign that is supported by ourselves, PayPal, and several other corporate partners yet to be announced.

This is how it works.

After you sign up as a Metropolis Member, we ask you to go to the PayPal Japan website at and create an account (NO payments or credit card details required). Once you have done this and let us know your account details, we send you a small “starter” donation of JPY1, after which you verify receipt of the payment and let us know you received it. It’s as simple as that!

On our end, once we see that you have accepted our starter donation, we will arrange a matching donation of JPY200 directly to JHELP. You will receive a thank you letter from JHELP after the donation goes through.

While JPY200 may not seem like a large donation, if thousands of people are doing the same thing, the amounts quickly add up. Our goal of 5,000 people would allow us to contribute JPY1,000,000 to the JHELP budget which enables it to operate the phone lines and rescue teams for another year.

Is it really Free?

Yes, to you, absolutely. You see, PayPal wants you to experience setting up and using a PayPal account (they have plans for Japan next year), and we want you to sign up as a Metropolis Member. Therefore, in return for doing this, we and other corporate sponsors are supplying the funds needed to help you make your JPY200 donation to JHELP. Of course, rather than just JPY200, you can also choose to donate more – and certainly we encourage you to do this, in the spirit of Christmas 2009.

What Happens to My Information?

Metropolis will only possess information that you choose to enter into the Metropolis Member form. We are not privy to any PayPal form information and that is covered by PayPal’s own privacy statement. Please see our Privacy Policy for more details. From us, your email address and name will be shared with PayPal, but nothing else. Other partners may also receive information if there is a form specifically stating that such information will be shared. For the 2009 Christmas Charity Campaign, there is no such information sharing.

Sign-up

OK, are you ready to help JHELP help others? There are 5 simple steps:

1. Fill out the Metropolis Members form if you have not already done so.

2. Go to www.paypal.jp and fill out the PayPal form. Please be sure to read our tips on registering for PayPal first.

3. Then email us at jhelp2009@metropolis.co.jp, to let us know that you’ve set up the PayPal account and the associated email address

4. We send the starter donation.

5. You verify on your PayPal account that you received the donation (VERY IMPORTANT!) and email us to let us know at that you verified it

Thereafter, we pay JHELP in January 2010 the remaining donation, and your Metropolis Members email newsletters will start in a week or so. Membership will make you eligible for some really great prizes and discount campaigns.

Metropolis

When worlds collide

Your Paypal pal

Is by your side

Your little scam

Don’t fool a bit

It rakes in money

And stinks of shit

The foreign banks

Are at your door

As the money flows

Through Singapore

You say it’s not

For personal gain

But we know you

We’re not insane

Two hundred yen

Is all it costs

Subscribe to you

My email’s lost

So take a hike

My hat won’t doff

You can go to hell

And fuck right off!

The Japan Health System - no thanks.

KOKURITSU KOKUSAI IRYO CENTER

(Tokyo International Medical Center)

1-21 -1 Toyama , Shinjuku - ku

http://www.imcj.go.jp

03-3292-7181

国立国際医涼センター

The whole health system is made to make you worse and docile like in the Cuckoo's nest movie .

It " guides " you ever so softly to the point of no return ... Turns you into a zombie . A docile silent lamb waiting for the slaughter house gates to open so that with other zonked out lambs you can be processed and catalogued according to their material greedy needs : diabetic /renal lamb number so and so monitored by master (Docs name ) and supplied by so and so drug company on a permanent basis until the lamb needs either a heavier supply of insulin (as in my case), loses another limb , his mind or he croaks .

Worse still, he runs out of money and thus starting another wheel spinning in the health system dealing with welfare " charity " rules; 20 % for the lamb and 80% for the buzzards. A sort of pauper's kitchen soup. Prescriptions that NEVER show the price of a unit of insulin, nor the price of high blood pressure pills nor even the price of a fucking band aid either. IF you want the records of the whole supply of shit they fed you these past years, you’ve got pay around 20.000 yen or much more for the real receipt, a thing you have the fucking right to get from the moment you are PAYING for the medicine/poison.

And believe me or not, there is a good possibility they give you reduced or over done Doctored receipts. All doctored so that you cannot read between the lines. All in useless technical jargon. This way you get only half the meaning and thus, as is often the case, you just give it all up or are stupid enough not to try to read between the lines.

It happened with my ever first charts and receipts I had a couple of Yakuza quacks " translate " the whole fucking rigmarole and was on them like a flash , two months after getting out of my coma.

You should have seen their panic veiled looks.

" WHY ? Oh WHY ??

How can this stupid Gaijin just out of Hades, one legged and still zonked DARE to accuse us of malpractice and WHOEVER " translated " our Doctored Charts and photos so promptly?

Even gave this fucking Gaijin a set of key questions to ask us ?

I gave them 24 hours to come up with the real McCoy and the missing pictures of my limb before and after it been chopped. Photos they claimed to have deleted out of their data base when they cleaned their computers of all 2006 rubble and refresh the ditto computers memory for the next year of macabre mistakes and malpractices. Mad Miwa the nurse at ICU, the one that shaved me and bushed my teeth while I was in a coma asked: WHY YOU SO AGRESSIVE TOWARDS THE DOCTORS ?? THEY SAVED YOUR LIFE DIDN'T THEY ?!?!

Meaning ; they should have let you croak you thankless bastard.

The cost to me for the privilege of getting my leg chopped and a three week stay in the ICU unit was the miserly price of 2.3 million yen. That’s 30% of the full price cos I was a good boy and had paid for my taxes and medical insurance rates for years.

Then came a full month of hospitalization bills almost as much as the previous price, while they overfed me morphine to the point I was zonked and my kidneys were gonna get paralysed. Then I would either have to pay a yakuza for two Filipino kidneys made in Smokey mountain (2 million yen 2007 rate) including transplanting in a fucking ghetto abortion clinic out of Manila ...OR being pumped someone else’s tainted blood onto me every week.

Due to that over feeding of morphine, insulin (three doses twice as much as now and real fast kicking insulin 90% pure) my eyes got fucked to the point I was near blinded. My nerves were shot to the point I felt no pain at all even when the Docs stabbed my remaining foot with needles and electric prods and cut crusts of my foot infested wound with a thin metal cable saw. That folks is similar to a real cheese cutting tool to the point I shouted every time my tormentor came by, “Here comes the cheese cutter !!!”

I had to do three days of hunger strike with the window fully open at the end of November, sitting on my bed without eating nor drinking (if a cotton swab with water could be called a drink) nor accepting medicine. All that for my right to have my vital organs checked and the right to get a wheelchair and wheel myself to the crapper cos I didn't want the nurses to clean and wipe my ass or be given diapers either.

Mad Miwa said my room looked and felt like the exorcist movie room : cold and with demons hovering all over me ...

But I got my wheelchair and a signed paper by the head doctors that within a week all my vital organs and signs would be examined to a T and that a schedule of my medical checkups and nurses in and out of my room would be written at least a day before instead of busting into my room and saying turn over time for your injection or this and that ... all basic human respect in my book at least.

Anyway, it turned out that my kidneys were in danger (+3) + 4 and I was a candidate for the pump every week till I died. My liver was 120% ok, heart too, vision needed to have laser shots ASAP or a blind Gaijin would join the ranks. Nerves shot to Hell, a diabetic common syndrome same as for the vision and lots more of complications that could be avoided IF they, like most times a major operation like mine happened, the vital organs are checked within a week. It’s a must.

When I got chopped, I stayed on the 6th floor next to a cuckoo's nest isolation ward for the suicidal nut cases. There was an epidemic of (NORO VIRUS) whatever that meant; similar to SARS. The old woman next door got infected while staying there and the diarrhoea attacks went on and on. The stink was atrocious and many in that ward got infected. I went paranoid and wore a mask, disinfected my hands and gurgled at least 20 times per day. Made even the cock sucking nurse gurgle too and demanded a sticker type of floor mat on my room entrance.

They dared me NOT to divulge to outsiders visiting me about the NORO virus epidemic being rampant on the 6 floor.

Can you imagine the stress I was under? There were crappers only for the infected patients, protected by a fucking shower curtain and those crappers were the best positioned for my sort of amputation.

LOL.

Third World seemed soooo cosy.

Another thing was that Rehab in the building always told me they had no funds to buy new wheelchairs and I had to use the one used to carry the dead or near dead in and out of the place but I rather have the fucking clumsy chair with the dead spirits in it than be locked in my room all day. I begged to my military friends in Atsugi and got five near new wheelchairs donated to the Rehab. They disappeared soon never to be seen and get this, so did the doc that chopped my leg and they are now constructing a state of art 30 floor building right where the parking lot was.

On the 10th or 11th floor they have the penthouse where the VIP yakuza stay when they need to gain time before getting hauled by the cops or a copy cat gang member gets the rap. Three inch deep carpet, pretty nurses and top service including garter belt wearing " nurses " according to the gossip. Same room area where ex-prime minister Hashimoto Ryutaro got hospitalized due to black lungs thanks to JT fags induced lung cancer AND died in there too. A famous music composer that fought with singer Mori Ichinichi married with Mori Masako and divorced recently too or some shit like that on music rights for the song (OH FUKURO SAN / Oh dear mother) he stole from the old geezer and used it to make trillions with the super hits the song brought him for at least two decades. Geezer also croaked in that very floor .

Cosy place ain't it ?

I've got more on my month at the Tokyo Women University Hospital just next door ...

How about when a cardiology young punk doc entered the nurses resting area and forced an injection on a nurse then attempted rape? Somehow she woke up and got him arrested. Then the nice Toubib (doc in FFL jargon) had the combination of the rooms in that dormitory and that he disappeared back to Hiroshima into dad's clinic without more than a mere slap in the hand and a pat on his shoulder leaves me even more curious.

There are also female docs walking around with gold anklets and expensive accessories being bribed by the crow men (medical supply companies dressed in black and moving EVERYWHERE the hospital without impunity). The crows furnish the greedy bitches with coupons for trips to Onsens or Hawaii if they accept bigger bribes and countless gifts. I once heard of some being dinned at the ASKA the luxury cruiser while cruising around the World.

Sky is the limit and the pile of skulls keeps on growing...

Not this SKULL!

BASTARDS !!

Glenn's Gripes 3 An Occasional Series

Oi! Bill Gates!

I’m tired of you’re company’s bullshit!

I’m tired of installing software that conflicts with Microsoft. I’m tired of the useless crap that your support centres give out. I’m tired, really fucking tired, of the bugs, updates and pathetic messages that pop up on my screen every time I try and do something. Real Player crashes; DVDX Player crashes; all DVD players crash except Windows Media. Now why the fuck do you think that could be? Oh…could it be that Window Media Player is a Microsoft product? Doh! Silly me! Funny how it never happens on a Mac isn’t it? It was a rhetorical question before you reach for the keyboard.

Just what is it with computer moguls and oil barons?? You have it: the Bush family has it and President Mugabee in his own small warped out-of-shape brain has it. The want and desire of world domination. What the fuck are you going to do when you actually have it? I’ll tell you what, bugger all because what you and your power monger cronies don’t realise is that while you’re all fighting like a bunch of James Bond arch-villains for it, you’re actually killing it. Yeah, you’re killing it and guess what – when you’ve killed it, there’s nowhere to hide the body you twats!

Nice charity work you do Bill. Lots of money poured into the third world nations with photo opportunities but why don’t you really make a difference and create a software that actually works 100% of the time (like…umm…Macintosh for example) and then the cyber world can run more efficiently. No crashes, no lost man hours, no updates, no repackaging, no software conflicts; no essential external hard drive back ups (a Microsoft recommendation if I’m not mistaken). While you’re at it, take off those pathetic ‘ *** has crashed and needs to shut down: please email Microsoft to help solve this problem’ messages. Why the fuck should we help you? It’s your software, your computer that we paid for: make it fucking work without our help. I don’t come crying to you every time my job goes wrong.

Speaking of which, you’ve got a nice job. Well paid, all the trimmings and you’re the talk of the town, local boy made good. Except you’re not. You’ve made crap and forced that crap down the average company and family’s homes in your bid for monopoly in the cyber age. You’re a geek who made it, probably the only geek that made it and that my dear Mr Gates will be your legacy. Dustin Hoffman was once asked what he wanted to be remembered for and his answer was simple: ‘If the world is a better place for me being on it and my body of work has contributed to the enjoyment of people being on it, then that’s all I ask.’

I don’t think you qualify on that point, do you Mr Gates?

Glenn's Gripes 2 An Occasional Series

Absolute madness.

I recently read an article in the Daily Mail about the English Copper being given a 93-page book about riding a bike – pushbike that is; not a motorbike. This two volume, step-by-step guide, offers instructions as how to turn, stop and dismount safely; tips such as ‘avoid kerbs’ and also instructs Britain’s finest to eat and drink to avoid hunger – certainly comprehensive if nothing else. There followed a few days later, another article from the Warwickshire constabulary instructing its officers on communicating with people of different ethnic backgrounds. Amongst other amusing highlights are:

• Don’t assume that words for the time of day such as Afternoon and Evening have the same meaning.
• The word Homosexual is best avoided as it relates to sexual practice and not sexual orientation
• Do not address anyone as ‘Boy’ or ‘Girl’ as it may cause offence – use Young Person instead.
• 
  

Sadly, as humorous and pathetic as these things are it’s a reflection on the way Britain has gone and how we have lost our identity and individuality. We have a right to speak our own language in Britain and it’s down to other nations to accept it if they want to be there. I live in Japan and I would be laughed at to demand that people speak English here. The authorities would still be laughing as they carried me on the plane to send me home actually. Other countries don’t put up with this – why do we? The French – love them or loathe them – at least take to the streets to protest against something they don’t like. It may be over something trivial, but they do it. Us? We sit and take all this stuff up the arse and whinge down the pub or at work the next day.

Common sense around the world is dead and it officially died in the USA when some idiot didn’t realise that a hot coffee meant that it was ‘hot’, spilt it in their lap while driving, sued the proprietor and won. After that, it was fair game for all to make dumb claims. The law suits came flying in and no one stood up to it. Why? Because the dollar and power rule and that’s the reason that George W. Bush, despite starting a false war that has claimed thousands of lives, will never be tried for war crimes.

Thinking back, Mankind has achieved some amazing things in such a short period of time. It’s incredible to think that it was less than sixty-seven years between Wilbur and Orville’s first man powered flight in December 1903 and Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon in July 1969. Sixty-seven years is less than many human beings live on the earth. It’s less than the time between when you are reading this and the declaration of the end of the Second World War. For many of you reading this, it is less than the age of your parents.

Tempus Fugit: There is a whole generation of people out there that cannot comprehend the impact that the Beatles had on the world. Music, fashion, recording techniques, media coverage, privacy and almost everything else were forever changed innocently by Liverpool’s lovable Fab Four and that was only forty years ago. Those too young to remember the Beatles in their heyday, may, if they are lucky, recall where they were when John Lennon was assassinated in 1980. That was twenty-eight years ago and those who cannot remember it have probably never switched on a TV without a remote control much less recall black and white TV. Blimey, they are probably so naïve as to think that Michael Jackson is white (Oh oh! Call the racist police!).

I often hear people say that the years pass quicker the older you become but that’s not true. The years pass at the same speed, our own lives seem to pass quicker because advances in all aspects of life move at a faster rate and that rate is something we can’t keep up with. We now live in an accelerated world of technological advanced gizmos and gadgets. We eat processed foods that have more preservatives, pesticides and chemicals than our bodies can tolerate. Everything must be recyclable or disposable, it must be user friendly, ergonomically packaged and beneficial to our health. Those of us who don’t adhere to this are considered outcasts. We are considered non-conformist, slackers, losers, renegades and eco-unfriendly. We are not even given the honourable status of ‘Rebel’ any more.

The truth is, I love this planet and it is beautiful and the problem as I see it, is that the people with power and financial control don’t. They take, rape, steal, pillage and loot the one wonderful thing we all share for all it’s worth. They don’t give a damn. Multi-national corporations say they do, but they don’t. If they did and had a conscious, they would shut up shop. Easy for me to say they will reply, you don’t have fifty thousand employees dependent on your business decisions. I must admit the corporate executive in his New York office with expense account, company car and second home in Mantauk are correct on that point but here’s the other side: those people putting in ten hours a day earn a fraction of what you earn every year and really, Mr Corporate Man, are you more afraid of what they will lose or what you will lose? Be honest, do you even know one of their names of the nine-thousand+ in the canning factory? Be honest again, if it all folded tomorrow, would you worry where your next meal is coming from or how you will upgrade your yacht next year?

I don’t care how people’s perceptions of other people have changed over the years. Women want to be guys and guys want to be women. So what? Start reading your history books people – it’s been around a long time. What concerns me is common sense and the ability to think for ourselves.

We are force fed lies by the world’s media run by multi-billionaires who don’t care for Mother Earth unless there is a dollar in it for them. Those same billionaires are prepared to start or support wars for their own personal growth, ego and stature and if that’s all you have in life you sad sod, well I’m glad I’m not in your circle of hoity-toity knob-end friends who consider wealth, power and greed to be above friendship and honesty.

Money: They say you can’t take it with you and that’s true so to all you dear rich corporate God-loving people out there (Hey! - there's a thought... Didn't God despise money in the bible?) – read this last line and remember it as you slip off this earth into hell…

Every penny you have in the bank now, is going to be spent by someone else and it’s probably someone you don’t like.

Diddums.

Glenn's Gripes 1 An occasional series

The Bournemouth Council.

My dear friend Geoff Gillespie, recently drew my attention to this article about the Bournemouth Council. It’s from the Telegraph by Chris Hastings, Public Affairs Editor, 02 Nov 2008 (yeah I know it's late - shaddap and read).

Local authorities have ordered employees to stop using the words and phrases on documents and when communicating with members of the public and to rely on wordier alternatives instead.

The ban has infuriated classical scholars who say it is diluting the world's richest language and is the "linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing".

Bournemouth Council, which has the Latin motto Pulchritudo et Salubritas, meaning beauty and health, has listed 19 terms it no longer considers acceptable for use.

This includes bona fide, eg (exempli gratia), prima facie, ad lib or ad libitum, etc or et cetera, ie or id est, inter alia, NB or nota bene, per, per se, pro rata,quid pro quo, vis-a-vis, vice versa and even via.

Its list of more verbose alternatives, includes "for this special purpose", in place of ad hoc and "existing condition" or "state of things", instead of status quo.

In instructions to staff, the council said: "Not everyone knows Latin. Many readers do not have English as their first language so using Latin can be particularly difficult."

Well what can I say? This raises several issues.

Firstly, surely the councils of England should be employing people whose first language is English to start off with and if not, then they should be made to learn it. I live in Japan and I can guarantee you that no one on a council here does not speak fluent Japanese whatever there, colour, race or religion. It’s a simple, probably the most basic requisite of being elected to council that you understand all the people of that you represent and have voted for you and if the predominant language in that area is English, they have to know it. The council is quoted as saying ‘Many readers do not have English as their first language’. This intrigues me: exactly how many? Considering the population of Bournemouth is below 150,000 I can’t imagine there being that many on the council to begin with.

Secondly, if by same amazing miracle I was elected to any governmental position and I received a memo with a few words that I didn’t understand, I would either a) ask someone what it meant or b) consult the good old Oxford English Dictionary. I presume it is still available in Bournemouth. May I be so bold as to suggest that the council invest in copy?

Lastly, this is Latin, yes but it is actually part of the English language so much so that we use at as English and not as Latin. In fact as we all know, English is highly derived from Latin and therefore has a right to be in there far more than words that have appeared there in the last one hundred years or so and as Mr. Hastings points out, the very motto of the council is Latin: are they going to change that as well?

If we let this go, where do we stop? Do we start to take all the French words such as à la carte, reconnaissance, Grand Prix and sabotage? Do we remove the German words Kindergarten, poltergeist and angst? Is it time to dispose of some of those daft Celtic words such as gob, crockery, bucket and gaol? Tell you what, while we’re on Celtic, lets change all the names of the places in England from tor, coombe and pen to rock, valley and hill so that those poor things in Bournemouth Council can understand where they live.

The topic of this article has not only infuriated classical scholars it’s infuriated me and should infuriate anyone who feels that their heritage is under threat in their home country in any way. I accept that all languages evolve, probably none more so than English but it should happen naturally, not unnecessarily and this is unnecessary. We should not be deleting words because people don’t understand them, we should be educating them as the meaning of those words. It’s a sad fact but true that a similar thing happens in America. The title of the first Harry Potter book was changed from ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ to ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ because it was felt that American children would not understand the word philosopher. Well English children did or if they didn’t, they certainly do now having read the book and what scares me a little here is that Americans children may never know the word Philosopher and if it’s going to be deleted I guess it’s time to delete Prophet, Visionary, Seer and Sage as well.

The original title for the Bond film ‘Licence to Kill’ was ‘Licence Revoked’ but again America stepped in and had it changed because they felt that their citizens would not understand the word revoked. This is ridiculous. Americans have the Webster’s dictionary and although some of the words have a slightly different spelling they are all in there and besides, it was an original title of a Fleming story and it never stopped sales. Really, honestly, can you tell me one instance where you didn’t go and see a film other than it being in a foreign language where you didn’t go and see it because you didn’t understand the title? Of course not and it won’t in the future because given half a chance, unless we put a stop to this (so eloquently put) linguistic ethnic cleansing, all film titles will be monosyllabic and the residents of Bournemouth will be voting for someone who can’t represent them verbally in Parliament.

Sermo datur cunctis; animi sapientia paucis

(Speech is given to many; intelligence to few)