Couldn't agree more. He's more Worldly than most of this Site's members combined.
Yet all he seems to get is guff from know-it-all Millennials.
Myles i know you like a summary and this will freak you out but it is what it is and i am only writing this in case it helps someone .
you are very kind -- i have lived possibly 30-40 years longer than the average on this site --this does not give me any intellectual ability however i have clocked up 40 years more miles and seen 40 years more of life and made more mistakes and had to endure their cost and i have reflected on some and come to a better understanding of my frailties and others,
and i am only now starting to get sense near the final curtain.
i through my work have spent much of my life traveling and have worked for the most varied mix of people including the British House of Lords and the Bangladeshi community of the south east of Ireland in the same week --
i made friends with the Bangladeshis most of whom were from Sylhet in northern Bangladesh which i was familiar with and this is the tea growing area and the British embassy is located there and not in Dhaka for very practical reasons.
i have an engineering base and i am familiar with heavy vehicles also ,
i am semi retired now working 2-3 days per week +++ and as a hobby i have an small electronics lab and a studio for making documentaries which i hope to christen later this year .
i have spent the past 5 years gathering material for a book which is non fiction and is based on Irish and world history .
what was 7 chapters is now almost 40 and i am trying to limit my input to 15 pages at the most as i require the book to be devoid almost of any personal commentary and i am merely connecting dots .
i was not given money as a child but could have any book i wanted and i read every page in a large collection of encyclopedias prior to TV arriving in our house in 1963 which only lasted a few hours a day and i was used to hearing the national anthem each night and read continuously some rubbish and some great material .
i pay my monthly sub to scribed and others and i download books each month for free and for a pittance .
i was totally liberated by the internet and you who have never been totally frustrated by---- info being either in-accessible or UN-afforadable by making inquiries at Easons or Chapters and if they did not have it that was the end of the road for thousands of inquiring Irish people .
the wealth of Ireland today is almost beyond my comprehension and my father came from a small farm and had a very humble start and my mother came from Leitrim and went to school barefoot for a period -- my grandfather died when they were young and it left them destitute and it marked them for life .
my grandmother brought my mother to a small kilkenny town and PAID the shop and sawmill and pub owner to give her a start as an a trainee accountant who then gave an oxo cube in hot water and bread for lunch .
my father reared greyhounds and trained them while he was serving his time as a mechanic in order to feed himself.
i as their son did not suffer their lot and traveled this planet and proposed to my wife in the gardens of the Taj Mahal and she quite rightly initially turned me down.
my grown children are just qualifying as teachers and do not read nor are they curious or have any great interest in seeing the world or meeting it people.
my politics are foreign to them and they will never search easons or chapters .
they are lovely people and i do not impose my beliefs on them -- life for them is so different and i am frightened by their quiet acceptance of evil -- they don't see it and i cannot make them see it --i keep thinking they will cop on and i do my best to hint that things are not what they seem -- but it is too much at present they need depth and background to make an assessment and they and their lovely kind friends have neither.