It’s a year since Coronavirus killed off Parental Alienation Day for many of us … and this year’s event a few days ago was low-key.

But things still happened across the world, sadly with very little coverage. So lets try and put that right. If you have any pictures or thoughts on PA DAY, send them to us at the preservation society and we will publish them.

In the meantime, in this story, our hearts still march on…

The Heart of Hope Family Tree has grown stronger in the year after Parental Alienation Day was brought to its knees by coronavirus.

There were still moves to mark the event all over the world. But it couldn’t be what it was hoped to be, sadly.

One organiser of PA Day said: “Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic this year, we are encouraging all who want to still raise awareness to blow bubbles at home and take photos or video’s and post them online.”

And Andrew John Teague, from D.A.D.s and NAAP, pushed on with the heart of hope campaign. He said: “The virus was hitting a lot of events and many people were left disappointed – however, the heart of hope event will survive one way or the other.

“The idea is one heart for each child – there’s no cost and we can give you the heart colour you choose.

“I only put children’s first name and the tree and there are seven different colour hearts and five different colour ribbons. I don’t put any siblings names together to avoid any controversy. No two children from the same family are together – but they are all on the tree and they all share the same problem, absent or controlling parents.

“And the questions any parent wants to ask I will write on a huge banner and when this virus crisis is over, I’ll go to London with the questions and take the hearts with me.”

April 25 was to be Parental Alienation Awareness Day in the UK, USA, Canada and Bermuda and many other parts of the world.

And the event happened again on that date a few days ago. This awareness day is part of the global campaign over parental alienation.

The campaign said – and the Preservation Society wholeheartedly agrees – parental alienation needs to be a recognised form of child abuse and psychiatric harm punishable within the criminal justice system.

‘Both children and parents have a right to private and family life, so why should one party be enabled to interfere with those rights?’

But due to the absence of a real definition PA has been characterised by CAFCASS as: ‘Constantly badmouthing or belittling the other parent; limiting contact; forbidding discussion about children; creating the impression that the other parent dislikes or does not love the child’.

Andrew put it this way: “One of the most important things that needs to be addressed is the children’s emotional and psychological health and well-being.
“Of course, everyone looks at safeguarding children from different forms of harm.
“Forms of harm like physical, sexual and neglect.
“More often than not the emotional and psychological impact on the children is due to controlling parents and family courts.
“Children don’t simply throw away a parent, grandparent or whole half of a family. This is systematically and strategically done by bad parents (grandparents new partners) and family courts.

“Children who went through it a decade ago are now knocking on the mental health door (suicidal self harming alcohol and drug abuse failing in the simplest tasks criminal and sex exploited and more).

“And so the patterns continue – and just like today’s children, tomorrow others will be knocking on the mental health door. That means more young people run the risk of suicide.
“Children every year being dragged through the family courts and getting their future mental health shot to pieces. They are poisoned, not simply just by a bad parents, but in a big way by the whole family court process.
“Cafcass will do in 15/20 minutes what a well-trained child psychologist would take weeks to do.
“What makes Cafcass so amazingly special? I will tell you – being left to their own devices, to do what they want and answer to no one. Accountability zero!

“What special training do Cafcass undertake? I shall tell you none! Here we have untrained used-up social workers, the failures of the rat race, playing god with children’s lives.
“Many many parents are thrown to the side directly because of Cafcass and social workers, because it’s easier to target the targeted parent and protect the abuser.

“A good start would be to disband Cafcass and completely remove them from the family courts certainly keep them well away from children.
“Kids – everyone talks kids but really how many actually give a toss about the kids?
“Kids are for life to enjoy being kids not pushed to the bitterest of ends sadly very sadly too many times this happens
“Children need us everyday to save them from the tomorrows.”

Family Tree

Kings Of Leon

I tell you now that I don’t understand
Why everybody gives a big hi-damn
Oh where I’m going to
Don’t mean a thing to you

I see you sitting in your masquerade
I’d love to pour you some of my lemonade
And get it off alright
We’re caught in an early night

I know you hate me so, but I ain’t gonna go
I’m staying here all right

I am your family tree
I know your A to Z
This is a secret proposition lay your hands on me
Not gonna talk about darlin’, its so neighborly

I see your hands are shaking but
My heart is breaking me down

Its a pretty day and I’m gonna get alright
I lost my head and you ain’t nowhere in sight
I see you got it all wrong
I got no calls on my phone

I just keep holding out, until I find a doubt
That you ain’t coming home

I am your family tree
I know…

#parentalalienation #mums #dads #grandparents #awarenessday #crosstobear #childrenareforlife

The long and the short of it is this … last year we did a two hour show with Maria Kyriakou and Ralph Ripley Hall, former musicians with the Halle Orchestra, the Birmingham Philharmonic and many orchestras across the world. They are true expats, having lived in Iceland, Germany, Slovakia and so many other places on the globe.

They certainly hit the right note with us … then things went a bit flat!

In the change from a little station to bigger things, including ROKU, AirTV International and Netflix, we lost the show … vanished into the ether apparently, never to be seen or heard again!

We searched desktops, files and ‘brains’. But it was gone, demised, dead.

Then a few weeks ago – I heard a cry from the office… it was Andrea sounding like Snoz Durante: “I done it! I found the lost show!”

Audio Player

Well that struck a chord!

It took a bit to put it all back together again – but it was worth it! They are fascinating, honest and funny people. It’s worth two hours of listening.

More radio show to come here

Restaurant terraces and gyms are about to open again as Slovakia eases coronavirus restrictions.

Measures are said to have slowed the spread of COVID-19 in recent weeks.

The latest easing follows the re-opening of shops, hotels, hair salons, churches, libraries, pools and zoos.

But customer numbers will be restricted and they will have to show a negative COVID-19 test before being allowed in.

Slovakia is also hoping to ‘up’ its vaccination programme. Daily COVID-19 cases in the country have dropped to a seven-day median of 642, after reaching around 3,000 in December and January. Hospitalisations, too, have fallen.

https://leighgbankspreservationsociety.blog/as-a-sick-man-closes-an-oz-city-are-we-seeing-the-dystopian-shape-of-things-to-come/

Another worrying rumour is that the new vaccine appointments computer system has missed out up to 70,000 elderly and vulnerable people. Thousands are having to re-apply two or three times for the ‘jab’ without receiving an appointment.

One man had his first ‘jab’ three weeks ago but his wife is still waiting for an appointment to come through.

The problem appears to be that the computer system can’t be over-ridden by an operator.

https://leighgbankspreservationsociety.blog/well-uk-is-getting-better-but-were-covid-figures-just-a-load-of-hot-air-or-a-stinking-lie/

Ján Jančár, a PhD Student at the Faculty of Informatics, has built his own appointments system and has been critical of the official systems in Slovakia. “I do know that it has flaws. Creating an ideal system is complicated, but no one should try to excuse mistakes by claiming that the job of developing such a system came out of the blue.

“Since we first began fighting this disease, wide-scale vaccination has been touted as a solution, and therefore, vaccine-reservation systems should have been planned well in advance.

“A working reservation system must be much more than just a registration form. That’s something many people don’t realize. Ideally, the system should contact people, not the other way around.”

A system developed by Ján searches for information about free vaccine slots in Slovakia and sends it to users.

He said: “Right now, I am working closely with the people at the official government website, and my goal is for them to put my system on their site.”

Slovakia, like others in central Europe, has shown one of the highest per-capita death tolls during the pandemic, according to Our World in Data.

#slovakia #poprad #vaccine #appoinments #jabs

Writing is a really difficult business and to get to the top is like climbing a rope ladder … you hang on for dear literary life as it twists and turns and tries to throw you ‘into the valley below’.

I’ve been lucky – all my working life I have made my living as a writer, a journalist, an editor and, latterly, a broadcaster and TV pundit.

But, throughout, I’ve hung on for dear life to that reeling-spinning rope ladder.

The problem is you never know which way the trade winds of your chosen craft or sullen art are going to blow!

There are some things you need as you are cruelly buffeted day-in-day-out and they include determination, tenacity, talent, ability, imagination, knowledge, faith – but above all you need integrity.

Let’s face it, there aren’t many Henri Charriere’s around – the writer who stung the world like a butterfly. But then he was imbued with some basic elements of genius and was a brilliant story teller.

One major place where integrity is lacking is Amazon and its review ‘boxes’.

Would-be writers, many of whom can’t actually write, are going on social media to tout for false reviews and offering to review somebody else’s work in exchange.

Most people must really agree that ‘touting’ for reviews is unethical…

How can it be anything else? ‘You review my book and I’ll review yours…’

It really invalidates a review in every way possible. Who’s going to point out the failures of your work of art if they want you to be nice about theirs?

How can you trust a ‘commissioned’ review to be truthful and honest?

Now, that’s not to say it’s never happened in traditional publishing. Of course it has. But it was and is still frowned upon. Quite rightly.

And do you know, it actually misleads your potential readers before they buy your book. Why would you want to mislead your readers of the future?

Sadly, because Amazon is allowing this to happen, the ‘con’ brings in to question every review on arguably every book advertised on the world’s biggest bookshop …

I reviewed books for a number of years. I got paid independently by the publication which commissioned the review from me.

I was never in cahoots with the author.

And that gave me the autonomy to say what I believed.

If you do a ‘deal’ on a review-for-review basis, both reviews are suspect.

Please don’t go down another road to the destruction of the written word … learn your art and believe in what you do. Make your work the best you can, employ a real editor with a real background, study the world of words, how to create, how to move, how to excite. How to tell stories.

And choose the integrity of the fact somebody wants to talk about your work. Don’t offer favours for reviews.

It is just an empty wind blowing nobody any good, and not a rope ladder to the stars!

#integrity #writing #reviews #swaps #amazon #kindle #fake

During the opening months of 2021 I have faced the social media insult and threat machine from conspiracy theorists and amateur propagandists alike over the fact that I question that Covid-19 is a world plot to take control of our minds, money and liberty.

And the one question I can never get a straightforward, non-insulting, non threatening non-expletive laden answer to – is this (long question admittedly) but how did Bill Gates (in his little submarine) get together with every world leader and come up with a plot to rule the world, that in fact that they already conglomerately rule, and control the population they already control through every means known to cyber robots and AI?

Or to put it another way, why did every country in the world decide to poison its people and destroy its economy?

Or if it really is a China Crisis as propagated by that great Trumpian lying oaf Donald, why hasn’t the rest of the planet gone to war on them?

So, I was particularly concerned by this bit of news coming out of Perth, Australia, which on the face of it gets the news coverage it deserved, more or less none.

But did news desks around the world miss the impact of this small story, pretty much in the way they ALL apparently missed the greatest world conspiracy ever going on behind locked doors in every town and city in every country across the globe?

Here is the news:

Perth and the Peel region have gone into a three-day lock-down after several people contracted COVID-19 while in hotel quarantine.

The news service that first reported it focussed on this – Anzac Day services in the lock down areas have been cancelled.

Very sad indeed.

The lock down follows the testing positive of a man after completing 14 days of quarantine in a  hotel.

The 54 year old man stayed for five days with a woman and her two children in Kardinya in Perth’s south after completing quarantine.

What worries me about this is how quickly and with ease Perth decided to lock everybody up again, if not in their homes, behind their dehumanising masks. How the powers-that-be could decide and enforce putting peoples lives on hold again, out of the blue and with little warning over a middle-aged man who seems to have done almost everything right but became ill.

All, it appears, he did was have a relationship with another human being.

This is not something that happened in the world we knew.

Is there a rat starting to stink somewhere?

#Perth #covid #conspiracytheory #lockdown #westernaustralia

Oh, and they chat about why Leigh hasn’t had his hair cut for 30 years

Click bottom RHS for sound

Gerry and the Pacemakers singer Gerry Marsden died at the age of 78, two years younger than Bob will be soon.

Gerry’s band was one of the biggest successes of the Merseybeat era, and in1963 their first three songs hit the top of the charts.

The band’s second best known hit, Ferry Cross The Mersey, came out in 1964. And it was a track that Bob Dylan seems to have always remembered.

The single was released in America in 1965 and soon after that Dylan played Liverpool where he was captured on film sitting in a doorway in Dublin Street, close to Liverpool’s Dock Road, surrounded by local children.

He was playing Liverpool’s Odeon Theatre that evening.

Dylan was always drawn to the New Yorkian decay of Britain’s North-west cities like ‘The Pool’ and Manchester and did many publicity shoots on the streets.

There is also a tape circulating of him actually singing The Leaving Of Liverpool.

Later, when he was playing the Echo Arena in 2009 Bob joined a conducted tour of John Lennon’s childhood home, Mendips.

I don’t think Gerry and Bob ever actually met but (please tell me if you know different) but he mentioned him and played Ferry Cross the Mersey as he went Around The World in a 2008 edition of his Theme Time Radio show.. Bob also played Celia Cruz’s Africa, When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano by The Ink Spots and Whole Wide World by Wreckless Eric.

But an equally important recognition came in his sprawling Murder Most Foul last year when Gerry and his Pacemakers got another poetic mention:

Hush little children you’re gonna stand

The Beatles are coming they’re going to hold your hand

Slide down the Bannister go get your coat

Ferry cross the Mersey and go for the throat

There’s three bums coming all dressed in rags

Pick up the pieces and order the flags

Gerry Marsden was made an MBE in 2003 for services to charity after supporting victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

At the time, he said he was “over the moon” to have received the honour.

Probably his best-known record was his version of You’ll Never Walk Alone which became an anthem amongst Liverpool football fans.

#bobdylan #gerrymarsden #liverpool #johnlennon #pacemakers #

Where life matters… in the hearts of police officer and a young girl

Joe Biden told the USA that the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial sends the message that nobody is above the law.

He called the killing of George Floyd a stain on the nation’s soul.

Biden was speaking after the jury returned the guilty verdict against ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin who is now in a maximum security prison on suicide watch. He was found guilty of three counts.

Chauvin looked around in disbelief as the judge read the decision, based on footage of the nine minutes and 29 seconds he knelt on the unarmed black man’s neck. 

Biden has promised now push through civil rights reforms as White America hung its head shame.

Chauvin worked nights in one of Minneapolis’s toughest area by choice and he didn’t fit in with the other officers. He married to beauty queen who divorced him two days after Floyd’s death.

Part 1:

How Floyd’s fate moved a young Slovak girl to remember him

This moving portrait of police victim George Floyd was sent to the preservation society by the family of Karin, aged 13, who lives in Stropkov, Slovakia.

Karin was watching TV when a news broadcast high-lighted what had happened to Floyd. “It made her very sad,” a family member said.

i”She was thinking about this guy for a few days and wanted to do something so people don’t forget about him.

“She is angry about situation in USA and about racism. She is very young, but understands so much.”

George Perry Floyd Jr. was an African-American killed by police during his arrest in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

Protests in response to his death and police violence against black people, has spread across the United States and the rest of the world.

Part 2.

George Floyd and why good cops hate bad cops

Guest writer, Mark Pearce, experienced UK police officer

I don’t normally get involved in stuff that goes around. But feelings are so strong regarding the death of George Floyd, that some things need to be put in to perspective.

The death of Floyd was needless and unnecessary and came about as a result of illegal actions by one main police officer, but assisted by three others …. George Floyd was not resisting and was complaining that he could not breathe….. in anybody’s book, you can see that the way those police officers dealt with this situation was wrong and unforgivable.

And quite rightly, they have been arrested, charged and will face the courts for the appropriate sentencing.

Now, George Floyd was committing an offence for which he was being arrested. It is quite common for people who are being arrested to resist.

And if this is the case, a police officer has to raise his level of involvement and, depending on the level of threat and resistance, it can involve the use of deadly force, for example, if an officer is about to lose his life or he needs to end someone else’s life to protect another person (such as in terrorist attacks).

Now, I have not seen any footage of the initial interaction between the police officers and George Floyd, so I don’t know what his initial response to the police was. But it is very clear that whether or not George Floyd  had put up any resistance at the moment leading up to – and at the time of – his arrest, he was not resisting when the video everyone has seen was filmed.

That is why we can see, and we all know, that those actions were totally wrong and unnecessary.

More to the point, what happened is NOT a practice that is taught during police self defence classes… the taking of someone’s life is the ultimate last resort irrespective of what they have done.

But please do not tarnish all police officers with the same brush, please do not think that all police officers are bullies or racists. Please do not think that other police officers are OK with what they have seen. Please do not think that police officers are OK with what is going on right now. Please do not think that police officers want to be in confrontation with their communities.

Police officers want to help communities.

Police officers want to protect vulnerable people, police officers want to serve for the good. Police officers are drawn from the very communities they serve.

They are your neighbours, your customers, your friends. They are mums, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles etc… they go to work like everyone else, but they see day in day out what can only be described as the worst aspects of the community. The police officer that you have just totally abused, spat at and attacked, might have just come away from a fatal road collision where they have just finished delivering an agony message, or they may have just arrested a paedophile, who has been assaulting someone’s young daughter. They may have just been dragging someone out of a burning vehicle… they may have just been tackling terrorists whilst unarmed and without protection.

As a police officer you have switch on and off emotions at the drop of a hat… one moment you are dealing with a person who wants to take on the world, high on drugs, attacking innocent people trying to go about their business and you end up in a fight with him to effect an arrest.

The next call is to help Mrs Miggins, who had a pint of milk stolen. With Adrenalin still pumping, still feeling angry that some guy has attacked innocent people, been extremely violent and abusive to everyone and anyone, you have to deal with Mrs Miggins like she is the first job you’ve had in your police career.

Good cops hate bad cops.

Good cops are there for the community. But every cop at some stage in his career more often than is acceptable, has endured massive levels of abuse and assaults, but everyday they go back to work because they believe they can make that bit of difference in someone’s life, and it doesn’t matter to a good cop whether you are black, white, green, brown, yellow or red, they will put their lives on the line for you.

Unless you have walked in the shoes of a police officer, it will be difficult to fully comprehend the messing around of emotions you go through on a daily basis, not knowing what you will deal with on any given day, not knowing if you will actually come home to your family that day.

A police officer has to wear many hats, and being human, that sometimes put the wrong had on for a situation, but we all do, we all make mistakes and have misunderstandings… it’s called being a human……(and please ….. by that, I am NOT referring to the George Floyd incident as a mistake/misunderstanding. That was wholly an unlawful act).

So all I am really asking is that you reflect on what is going on with an open mind in a sense that no one is better than anyone else, we are all equal irrespective of colour, creed, religion, sexuality, but there are some in society that don’t see that, and feel they can do what they want, and take exception when the law intervenes, and when they do, it seems like society is ready to jump onto the police without knowing anything about a situation.

If a police officer is arresting someone, like it or not, there will usually end up being some amount of force used, but once an officer(s) have gained full control the situation should calm down and the vast majority of officers know how to act properly not only before and during an arrest, but the aftercare of a suspect.

When you consider the amount of arrests made on an annual basis, the vast majority that occur without any complications, then it proves that on the whole, the police are doing a proper job of caring for detainees.

#georgefloyd #blacklivesmatter #alllivesmatter #weallmatter #art #bobdylan #riots #violence #murdermostfoul #police

Jim Steinman, a self-confessed creature of the night, has died. He was 73.

Jim wrote for Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler and Celine Dion. No cause of death has been given.

His songs sold more than 190 million copies worldwide. He was nominated for four Grammys over the course of his career as well.

His best-known songs though have to have been with his Meat Loaf collaborations, like Bat out of Hell, Paradise by the Dashboard Light and the likes of Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.

How things that came around come around again in our Covid world… this story was written almost a year ago to the day in 2020. Our world had begun a slow creaking revolution in the universe and we thought we were making our first clod-hopping, aching steps back to normality. How wrong we all were, across Europe, the UK and so many other parts of the world.

And so today, step by step, hope by hope. shop by shop we began to follow the path we followed in 2020… the sun was shining, the icy breath came down from the mountains, some people wore mask, many others didn’t and three kebab shops were open for business.

Well, fingers crossed as we go outside again after more than four months of lockdown, this time we will be out for good…

A couple of days ago my ‘small-town’ city at the foot of the High Tatra mountains came back to life.

After three years living here we’d got used to its gentle bustle, its unsmiling-ness and the lack of eye contact and realised it was all down to to the virus of communism that permeated every aspect of life for decades.

It gave Slovakia a tough exterior which hung a shell across the softness and friendliness of its citizens.

It was fear you see, that made them look at their bootlaces as they walked down the streets.

But once the people in Poprad – our home now – got to know us we liked the way they ribbed us about our lack of ability to talk their language and how they had fluently mastered our own.

I even like its fizzy beer and Andrea love its biele vino, we love its cafe society, restaurants and its dark tower block memories.

We love the cold breath coming down from the broken shark’s teeth of the mountains… and the snow in the winter up to our ankles and the sun baking us into alcoholic dehydration between July and September.

Then about seven weeks (sorry, it has gone by in a timeless blur) one midnight, Poprad became a ghost town.

It was put to sleep by the authorities who said they were saving us from ourselves and corona virus.

The shops and the bars and the restaurants began to die before our eyes and the city council took all of their park benches inside so we and the homeless couldn’t linger.

Egidia Square became as quite as a mouse, the four lane Route 66 through ‘town’ became empty except for police cars and the bleating noise of rushing ambulances.

The snake of our river still ran through and it still stank of sulphur but AquaCity, once classed as the world’s greenest hotel, leaned against the mountains like some tired old captain of industry.

It’s power was gone its lights had gone out.

And the only things landing or taking off at Poprad-Tatry airport were pigeons.

Bears and wolves began coming down from the forests and falls to check out what was going on.

Dutifully, Andrea and I remained locked down in our penthouse apartment with plenty of wine and beer and shelves of food.

We marvelled at the silence.

Even the trains had stopped.

The only sounds we heard were the mechanical bells of St Egidia and the clarion cry of emergency sirens.

We were stranded together in high-rise dystopia and it was quite nice really.

Text would fly across the world from family member to family member, Skype would cough and splutter, then Zoom zoomed in and it all got a bit better.

Old friends out of the blue began to re-appear on Facebook or in emails.

In so many ways it felt good, lazy, lethargic a bit drunk. We were getting flabby and unfit, but we didn’t really care.

All around us the borders were closed for the first time in half a century, the police held their guns across to their crotches like metal snakes, politicians made things up, the news was full of emptiness and fear.

Thousands were dying across the world.

And then something happened.

We climbed down the nine flights of stairs from our eerie and stepped out into the light, not like moles coming out of their holes blinking, but like we sensed our world had come back to life.

Because we both have English phones we didn’t receive any texts from the government telling us what was going on – but we felt it!

We walked past the nurses from the old folks high-rise opposite the duck house in our garden and watched as wheelchairs and zimmers were socially distancing in the home’s garden and gazebo.

The nurses coughed in unison, not because of the virus, but because of the fags they were rabidly consuming in the cool clean mountain air. The old folks too, lock-down might have made them healthy, but now these craggy faced women needed chimneys on their straggly grey old heads too.

And the regular old men, bleary in donkey jackets, those who had spent their youth under communism, were sitting on steps outside potraviny after potraviny, guzzling slivovica, beer or rot-gut cider. It was only 2pm but it’s what they are used to.

Trash-can pickers in shell suits and parkas dangled deliriously from plastic roadside bins gathering the detritus lock-down had jettisoned.

And the shops were open too – the supermarkets had hardly closed throughout except for Sundays when hard-worked staff were allowed to rest.

Yep, shoe shops, kitchenware emporiums, haberdashers, chemists, bicycle shops, clothes shops, flower shops, booze shops, book shops, record and CD shops, blue-ray shops … almost everything was open. Even some of the park benches had been put back.

The bars were serving frothing beer through holes in the wall and restaurants were serving beef burgers and chips across rickety trestle tables in hallways and ginnels.

Joseph Bonk’s small shrine outside a traditional Slovak restaurant in the square has even had its flowers changed…

Yes, in our ‘small-town’ city we are halfway home … but what will it really look like when we finally get there?

TAGS: Coronavirus, covid 19, lock-down, Slovakia, communism, Poprad, High Tatra mountains, music, Roman Vitkovsky