Im Abendrot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppoqUVlKkBU

In a few hours, 2016 will be consigned to the history books. In some parts of course it has already passed and much of the world is asleep in 2017.  It has been an interesting year in the Chinese curse sense.  Health issues apart, the rise of the right wing both here and abroad have raised spectres that most of us would like to forget, and now we have increased antagonism between the superpowers, fighting like children over their toys.  

The world should be uniting, there re so many problems that we face as a species and yet we continue along ridiculous isolationist pathways. The likes of Nicola Sturgeon have set in motion a very dangerous and undesirable cascade.

I wish my reader a happy New year. It is being delayed by a second but the inevitable will arrive for most of us just after midnight.  I don't suppose that 2017 will be much better for the planet than this one has been but we can still hope that people start thinking again.

At Sunset (Im Abendrot)

We've walked, hand in hand,
thought hardship and joy,
Now we both rest
from walking across the silent countryside.

All around us the valleys are fading,
it has already become dark. Just two larks are rising,
dreamlike into the heavens.

Stand here and let them fly about,
it will soon be time to sleep,
lest we go astray
in this loneliness.

Oh further, silent peace!
So profound at sunset.
How tired we are of travelling:
Is this perhaps death?

Christmas song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I65_S78WHJY

Agricultural Caress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TAa1ghqKwc

Apart from the Archers, most of us have no idea about the realities of agricultural life and the nitty gritty of food production.  My own experience of farming was on a very small and inefficient farm back in the sixties. It was run by an alcoholic Irishman, though his son probably did most of the management. They had a small herd of cows and the rest of the operation seemed to be centred on them. How they made any money is anyone's guess and such enterprises probably no longer exist.

In those days everything we ate was seasonal. Well ok maybe we had Corned beef from Argentina and baked beans from the USA but most stuff was locally produced. Now we have any produce we like at any time of year and farms have become huge businesses and part of the global economy. It is the only way that enough food can be produced to feed the burgeoning population.

Farms are much like factories today, employing highly technical solutions to most processes and in some instances employing migrant workers on very low wages to do the jobs that machines cannot yet do.  having done many of those jobs myself, I can empathise with those people, but for many, a job of any kind is better than no job at all.

The farm that was a part of my childhood had its seasons and we would participate in most of the processes that went on; probably out of boredom more than anything else. We may not have been a very reliable workforce but neither were we paid. For us the work was an entertainment of sorts as well as an educative process.  I learned a lot of pretty useless stuff in school but the learning on a farm is about reality and that has stayed with me. I value and appreciate food because I know that producing it is a long and complex business and one that we should not take for granted.

Hell, fire and damnation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_zuTjtKdI

I just got back from shopping.  I know that some people love it but I could see little evidence of that as I wandered aimlessly around the high street today.  Most people seemed as clueless and desperate as each other and as for christmas spirit - well!

Ok I put my hand up to being a bit of a scrooge on the surface, but underneath there is another one. It does seem to me that most people find this time of year very stressful, and while it benefits local shopkeepers to some extent, the real winners are the corporations who are. like gigantic hoovers, sucking people's hard earned money from them. People are as always spending money that they don't have, incurring debts for plastic crap that nobody needs and few want. We will buy huge amounts of food, much of which will go to waste, and all of this for one day of lunacy. Black bins will soon be piled high with garbage, and that holy of holy, the christmas tree will be heading for recycling and another bloody silly season will be done and dusted.  

In the meantime we smile and wish each other merry christmas and send off the usual pile of cards to people we never see and may think about once a year. We realise that we have forgotten some and have to get more cards to reciprocate, and so do they. It is a time when we find out who is dead and who is dying, who has split up and who have paired, who have reproduced and who has left the country. 

So for me the shopping is done, I won't disclose what I bought but I did find a Pratchett book that I haven't read and a really good DVD compilation of the Old Grey Whistle test in a charity shop. That takes the edge off a little.

Solid Ground

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLqVWsSJC0o

I went to the grandchildren's nativity play this afternoon, and while it was delightful to see the kids perform and show their families what they have been working towards for the last few weeks, it struck me that they are all being prepared to take their places on the treadmill. Ok they have a few years to go yet, but they will be taught to compete, to value property and to fit into the machine that is our society. They will strive to succeed in jumping through whatever hoops are fashionable and hope to find employment that pays them enough to afford a mortgage, which they will spend the rest of their lives paying back. They will then  build homes which they will spend very little time in because they are too busy working to make money, and then at the end of it all their accumulated things will end up in black plastic bags and landfill. Their houses of course will be taken over by the next cohort coming through who will have to raise even more money because the prices of properties has gone up, and so it goes on. Welcome to the machine.

We own nothing. Property is a myth but it is a powerful one that the capitalist system depends upon; in the words used at most funerals, we bring nothing into the world and we sure as hell can take nothing out of it. We are stardust - all of us and simply passing through. Maybe we should think less about ownership and and more about sharing of what we have. You cannot own the land, the land owns you, and to it you will return.

Like a Rolling Stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sftw5k_JRs

When I first heard this song in 1965/66, the world was a very different place and I was a very different person. I loved the song even though I had no idea what it was about. The concept of homelessness was alien to me; limited to the occasional "tramp" that would wander through the village. We'd give them tea and something to eat but then they would pass on and we probably never gave them another thought. It was seen as a lifestyle choice perhaps, and for some it may have been.

In this dog eat dog world, it is now becoming more and more difficult to make ends meet and with falling incomes and rising house prices, unscrupulous and greedy landlords are evicting tenants in order to raise rents and make more profits. As a result, more and more people of all ages are finding themselves on the streets and this is one of the tragedies of a so called civilised society. This is the legacy of long term government by parties that worship the capitalist ideals and does not look like getting fixed any time soon.  Council flats and houses were there to provide affordable housing, and when these were sold off to make profits for landlords, they were not replaced and now the concept of affordable housing seems to be based around cardboard boxes under bypasses.

The problem always seems worse at this time of year, with cold nights and all of the vulgarity of the festive season forming a contrast with the reality of misery for so many.   

My grandson is an innkeeper in his school nativity play today. He and all the rest of his privileged friends will put on the usual display of middle eastern mythology to the delight of their parents and relief of their teachers. I recited the temptation to subvert things by prompting him to tell the unwed parents, that they had plenty of room.

Albatross

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u4vb3OPN_w

My brother Mark would have been 64 today had he not died at the age of seventeen in a stupid accident. He had been drinking with friends and was riding his motor cycle home. They were fooling around and he rode directly into the path of an oncoming vehicle. The whole family was of course devastated and probably never recovered from that.

After the funeral I went back to college and took his record collection with me. They were all 45s and  quite a lot of them were by Fleetwood Mac. I didn't even know that he liked them, and I remember sitting in my room playing them for hours on end. Albatross, Man of the world and Oh well must have driven my neighbours mad over a few days, but they did help me to come to terms with his death, something that my parents never did.

I understand , I think, why some people find comfort in their religions. It probably enables them to imagine their dear departed to be in a better place and still in some way alive. For me and many others, death is an ending, not a beginning. Mark will be remembered by the few family  members who still exist and his images will probably somewhere exist even after that.

The summer of that year, 1968, my cleaner, yes we were spoiled in those days, tidied my desk and put a pile of records on the windowsill in full sunlight.  Vinyls do not cope well with heat and when I returned to my room, they looked like a pile of black poppadoms so my physical link to him had gone.

Now I have access to whatever music I wish to hear, but Albatross on a scratchy vinyl would still sound wonderful.

Anthem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wRYjtvIYK0

My current ear worm is this song by  the late great Leonard Cohen.  I never got to attend any of his concerts and now of course it is too late.  We do tend to imagine that we have plenty of time to do things and we put things off.

I have a diagnosis at last, and although not definitive, it seems to be the most likely one.  It would appear that I have developed a form of epilepsy and am being treated for that with purple pills that I have to add to my growing list of medications. I was already feeling unworldly before I began taking them but at least the episodes should be kept at bay. The next batch are overdue so maybe the pills do work - early days.

So now I have to find other things to write about. Mostly my posts here are pretty random and I babble about  whatever has come into my head. I sometimes wonder about those of you that read, or at least open the posts. I know that I have a small number of followers but you are of course anonymous and that is how it should be.  Occasionally I get a comment from someone but these tend to be few and far between; I must say that comments are welcome as it reminds me that I am not writing in a vacuum.

Anonymity is a double edged sword however and many people expressing their views on the web, do so only because they cannot easily be identified. Sitting in a darkened room can give a great sense of safety, and in those circumstances it is easy to be brave and even aggressive.  I am a frequent user of social media and I do use Facebook to express my views and to occasionally challenge the garbage that gets published, and for that I am frequently in trouble with some people that I know; especially those who think that the sole purpose of Facebook is to display their dinner or their pets.  At least with Facebook, people can identify me and I can limit my profile access to those who I wish to communicate with.

Social media will change the world more than we can imagine. We live in a world community and yet that community is divided and kept that way by manipulation of wealth. The rich have had things their way for centuries and there is a whiff of change in the air. There will be revolutions; the current system does not work and cracks are already appearing. Let us hope that light does get in and that the whole thing does not fall apart; anarchy is not an attractive option.

Brain Damage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z39KZAryzk

Another in a long succession of bright sunny days, but so cold. However this is preferable to the dull dark rainy winter days that are the norm.  Today is also my appointment with the neurologist and I hope that I may get some answers, though of course he may have none. Some things are mysterious and have no answers. We do tend to think that all questions can be answered, and of course Google can do most things but there will always be mysteries.

Science has made much progress in our understanding of the brain, but it remains the least well understood organ in the body. It is fundamentally a mass of cells, neurons of  several types, blood vessels and fluid filled spaces, incapable of independent existence but it is where WE reside. Our thoughts, memories and emotions all originate in the brain, the rest of our bodies are there to ensure the survival and to provide stimulation for the brain.  We can describe the nature of nerve impulses and their propagation, we can to some extent comprehend the effects of those impulses on muscles and glands and we know how many of the hormones released operate, but we still do not fully understand memory or even our sense of self. There are some that believe that the brain is far too complex for us ever to understand it fully.

Some believe that the self is a soul and that it is immortal, remaining in the body as long as it lasts and then moving on.  It is easy to see why these beliefs are held, as when the brain shuts down completely, all we are is a lot of meat that will in a short while decompose into component parts. The idea that we have gone forever is for some very scary.  For me it isn't; we are all temporary and must face the fact that the world was here before us and will continue when we die. Some of us will be missed by a few people but we will inevitably cease to exist apart from in the memories of others or in family photographs.

I know that there is no tumour in my head, and for that I am grateful. I have known a number of people who have had them and have suffered horribly as a result.  There is some comfort in that knowledge but I am not sure how I will feel this afternoon, whatever the news may be. Remaining a mystery may be as hard as having an explanation.