Retail things

One of the benefits of the world wide web is that it by and large protects me from shopping. I have never liked it but my reasons for that have changed as I have grown older. As a youth, I would trail around with my mother, knowing that we could not afford to buy the things that I would have liked and always having to settle for what was affordable, which of course was never very much. Shops for me were placed that offered temptation and made me painfully aware that I was poor.

Of course things change, and for now at least, money is not an issue. I still trail around the shop, pushing a trolley and watching time passing so so slowly. My input is rarely required and mostly irrelevant and this morning I spent a while composing a list of reasons for hating the whole experience. Near to the top of the list are strangers. People with long faces, ambling around like myself, blissfully unaware of those around them, shuffling from aisle to aisle all probably feeling the same sort of antipathy to each other. There seems to be a rule, that wherever you happen to be you are always in someone else's way, so it is impossible just to stand in neutral and disengage from the whole experience.
Following someone while pushing the trolley is a nightmare, far worse than driving in a convoy. Take your eyes off the leader for one instant and said leader vanishes into the maze of aisles, evoking another rule, that being whichever way you go is the wrong way.
I hate trolleys - I always seem to get one that has a wheel that sticks, making steering difficult, and as the load increases, impossible. Mostly I am tempted to pick up the trolley and carry it around, though the ergonomics make that tricky and plainly it would be a stupid thing to do.
I hate the fact that it is impossible to buy just a jar of coffee without having to choose between hundreds of combinations of brand, type, size etc. I loathe the uniformity of fruit and vegetables and the fact that one store is much the same as any other.
I despise the appalling attitudes of some of the staff who in some stores seem to imagine that they are doing you a favour, and I loathe the use of psychological opportunism in the way that supermarkets display goods persuading people to buy what they do not need.
For me, the perfect shopping experience is to search through my favourite sites, make my selection and simply type in my credit card details. To enhance my experience i really do want an iPad, and that I will order online.

I believe

An accusation that is often thrown my way by those that have religious convictions is that unless i believe in something then my life must be without meaning. At this point in any discussion I usually bring things to a halt, as to argue further leads to a circular debate that goes nowhere.
It is impossible not to believe in something; it is part of being human, and with most people it is possible to change beliefs in the light of experience or when presented with evidence. Most of us at some time in our lives believed in Santa Claus, Fairies,the bogey man, God and the Easter Bunny, because we were told that these things existed. Parents pass on these untruths as a means of controlling their children, either by threat or anticipation of something good. Most of us grow out of these fictions and do not hold our parents responsible for misleading us, but some do not and hold onto those beliefs with grim determination. There are even those who believe that the earth is flat and many that believe that the holocaust never happened. Fundamentally some people can be induced into believing anything.
I am a natural sceptic and yet I too have beliefs, and there are many things that I believe that I cannot prove. I believe in Science as a process. Where Science scores highly is in it's scepticism. The scientific process is based upon hypotheses formed from observations. These hypotheses are tested experimentally over and over again, until the outcome of an experiment allows the formulation of a Law. A law might state that under circumstance A, B will happen, but with Scientific laws, this only applies until it can be proved otherwise by different experiments. There are many principles that have stood the test of time and can be accepted as truths, and even the most rabid fundamentalists cannot argue that.
I believe that there are probably other life forms in the universe, and that the universe is so large that we will probably never find evidence for their existence. I believe that the universe is eternal and that there is no creator nor need for one. I believe in energy as the currency of the universe and its transmutability.
I believe in the Atom and its structure of fundamental particles, and that one day we will understand the very nature and origin of those particles.
I believe in Evolution and that we are merely a part of an ongoing process that too few people understand.
I believe that people are intrinsically good and that some are made evil by the life into which they are brought. I believe that adherence to the writing in one book leads to a narrow view of life that hinders the moral progress of humankind.
I believe that capitalism is wrong, but as yet we have no workable alternative. The system has produced huge benefits but has also produced a world that is obsessed by property and material things. We have become greedy and self obsessed and this in turn has fuelled religious backlashes and the terrorism that is a canker on civilizations.
I believe that we are failing to make good use of extending lives and that many people are left to rot by the rest of us. We think more of pets than we do of fellow humans and many elderly folk die without dignity in squalid conditions.
I believe that our children are neglected by parents and society in general, and that many children should be taken away from their abusive parents while they still have a chance.
I believe in friendship, family and freedom of thought and expression. I also believe that there is no God but of course I cannot prove it, any more than I can prove that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! I believe that saying something is true, however frequently, does not make it true.

Desert Island Discs

We have a long running Radio programme called Desert Island Discs. The program selects someone of worth, a celebrity of someone eminent in their particular field, and during a fairly personal interview, they select eight records that they would choose to take to a desert Island, along with a book and one luxury item. This programme has been running for decades, and is as popular today as it has always been. Unlike most chat shows, it seems that those involved are more relaxed and more likely to share their memories than they otherwise would.

I will never be famous or eminent, but I often wonder what I would choose given the opportunity. Choosing eight records/songs is really very hard, and justifying those choices even more so, because to justify a choice is to give something of oneself, and that is something that I have become very wary of. To give of oneself is dangerous in that it makes one extremely vulnerable. In this Blog I do come close to that but as readership is limited to a very select few, I am prepared to take that risk - up to a point that is.

I am sure that my choices would vary according to time of day, season of the year and my own frame of mind but for now my list might, in no particular order, look something like this -

1. Bruch - Violin Concerto. This is one of the first Classical pieces that I ever owned. I played it over and over again. It is a sublime and very emotional work, and one that was very significant in some of my darker days as a young student.
2. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lot of Love. As a student I, like many others in the late 60s discovered heavy rock for the first time. There were two of us who owned the Led Zep 2 album and we would strive to play the song in synchrony at each end of our corridor. Alas our players operated at different speeds so we never achieved anything but the irritation of others.
3. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb. Probably the best ever live performance that I have ever witnessed was the last Floyd tour. I always knew they were good but that night I was transported to a different plane!
4. Monteverdi - 1610 Vespers. For me this is possibly the most wonderful music ever written. To hear this performed in ST Marks Venice would be the most remarkable of experiences.
5. Beatles - Hey Jude. A simple song but one that to me represents the end of those heady hippy days when we were yojng careless, healthy and happy.
6. Richard Strauss - 4 last songs. The last of these Im Abendrot (At Gloaming), was the last thing that Strauss wrote. It seems like he knew that he was dying and this was his farewell. If there was a last piece to hear then this would be it.
7. Beethoven - Symphony number nine. It is difficult not to choose something of Beethoven. Such a brilliant mind and such a tragic life. He strove though the most horrendous difficulties and produced the most sublime music. When he wrote this he was completely deaf and yet he was able to hear the whole thing in his mind. It reminds me that my own hearing loss is nothing compared to his.
8. Loreena McKennitt - Dante's Prayer. I discovered Loreena in recent years and even travelled to Brittany to attend a concert. She has the ability to move me, and this song rarely fails to bring tears to my eyes.

If I had to choose just one of the above it would be the Monteverdi, though the choice would be difficult.

A book? Well I'd have to choose something that would never become a bore so maybe it would be the Oxford English Dictionary.

The luxury item would have to be a supply of pens and paper. That way i could perhaps learn to write and draw.

Hidden shallows

Having more or less a Scientific bias to my thinking, life for me is full of uncertainty. Sometimes I envy those who, with their invisible man who moves in mysterious ways, as life is fully explained in the instruction manuals. For most of us though there are no sets of instructions and we must choose our way and live with the consequences.

One of my issues lies in a fundamental question, that being, What is Art? Apart from my flippant definition that it is what you can get away with, I really do find it hard to determine exactly what a great work of art really is. For some, paintings by Mark Rothko are seen as the bees knees, and others actually like the work of Tracey Emin and the Britart movement. There are plenty who will pay a lot of money to own things because they are attached to a famous name or label.

Art is largely in the eye of the beholder, and what moves one may leave another stone cold. Many people love to be surrounded by artwork, some because they clearly appreciate it, while others do so in order to be seen as having taste. What one displays on ones walls says something about the person I guess.

For some, Art is about making the beholder think or feel, whether that may be a positive or negative emotion, and this can apply to painting, music, sculpture or performing arts. I have certainly been moved by music and theatre but cannot recall being moved by a painting. Oh I appreciate paintings, and the tremendous skill that goes into the representation of ideas on canvas, but I could no more weep in front of a painting than slash it with a knife. In my view, some people are very precious about painting, to the point of being pretentious.

The point of this diatribe is that yesterday, for the second time, i went to see James Cameron's AVATAR in 3D. Ok it is a thin plot and the storyline is pretty predictable. There are no great performances, but the whole package is in my opinion a work of art that stands up against any other. It is a beautiful visual feast as well as conveying a message that is subject to any number of interpretations. It does make you think and produces a feast of emotional responses.

There are plenty that will disagree with me about this but i really don't care. I may be shallow and uneducated but I know what i like and there is plenty that I know that I do not like.

A case for docking?

So at last the dog is beginning to at least recognise the fleas. Islam4UK in all of it's various guises has been proscribed, and proven membership of said organisation can be met with ten years in prison. Now I would be prepared to put money on that law never being put to the test. All that these young and ignorant radicals will do is to regroup under different headings, and I am sure that none of them will carry membership cards. Proscription of such organisations simply drives them underground, and in the eyes of the deluded and simple minded, they become even more attractive, and so the hideous tumour that lies within our society continues to grow.

Surely it would be better to allow such organisations be seen for what they are, and allowed to go their deluded way, exercising the same free speech that they would deny the rest of us should they get their way. They had planned a tasteless protest march in the town of Wooton Bassett, where hundreds of locals, routinely show their respects to returning bodies of British soldiers. It should have gone ahead. At least then, the membership could have been identified. Their protest seems to be about Muslims being killed by British troops. They make no mention of the fact that huge numbers of their fellow Muslims are killed each day by fellow Muslims who seem unable to discriminate.

Anjem Choudary on the radio this morning spoke lucidly and with the confidence and arrogance of the fanatic that he is, about bringing Sharia law into the country, and his final words were "we shall prevail." Unless the people of this country get off their apathetic bottoms and wake up to the realities of fundamentalism, then I fear that his confidence is well placed.

A question

Five Muslim men who protested at a home-coming parade in Luton where soldiers were called murderers have been convicted of being abusive. Does anyone else see the irony in their defence, which was that they were exercising their right to free speech?

Divorce

When I was a kid, I hoped and prayed that my parents would split. There was only peace in the house when my father was at work, and when he was home there were either rows or long periods of silence where we either left the house or were too afraid to speak. In those days people did marry in haste and repent at length and divorce was very uncommon. So they stayed together, fighting and regretting until at the first opportunity My sister and I left home, and not long afterwards my younger brother die

Since then divorce has become much more straightforward and indeed common, with something in the region of half of all marriages ending within not too many years of that special day. As a result of this, many choose not to wed in the first place and now we have single parents as more of a norm than those who are married. Consequently many children have missing role models and this is having a profound effect on their behaviour and the structure of society as a whole.

So why do so many relationships break down? In my view, much of what we are and how we behave has a biological explanation. We are products of both biological and cultural evolution, and roles of men and women have developed over thousands of generations. I know that I am politically incorrect in my attitudes but I do like to speak my mind, and I have always believed that men and women are different. The failure of society at large to accept this, has led to a situation where the roles of men and women hardly exists as separate entities, and this has happened faster than we are able to cope.

Women's liberation is all very well but it has come at a cost. Women are now the achievers, the national curriculum favours girls, as do the systems of assessment. Women are routinely the subjects of positive discrimination, in the workplace and recently in Parliament, where seats are limited to those with two X chromosomes. Many women are becoming like men in their attitudes and ways of thinking and living, and putting homosexuality aside, most men don't want to live with another man. Sisters doing it for themselves is destroying the natural order of things and producing a vast number of young men, who have nothing to draw on other than their natural biological urges. Education has failed them, society has failed them and worse, women have failed them so what are they to do?

My parents stayed together until my father died. I am not saying that they made the right choice, both might have been better off apart but then, society was far more stable, one partner could provide for a family and a mother could devote her time to looking after her children. There was full employment and equality of opportunity of sorts. I suspect that people's horizons were narrower, but I also believe that people were happier.

Going postal

I admire the post office enormously. I can write a letter or wrap a parcel, shove it into the mailbox and within a couple of days the said item will be delivered to it's target address. I can order stuff online of an afternoon and have things delivered the next day, and that I think is marvellous. What is more the service is cheap.

When i was a boy, I collected postage stamps; I still have them, and if I can be bothered to look through them I can still recall buying some of them and sticking them into my album. Faces of the young queen, countries that no longer exist, leaders long since dead or deposed are all represented in those tiny scraps of coloured paper. To some people those bits of paper may be worth something in monetary terms, but I don't suppose that I will ever get around to having them valued or putting them up for sale. It was a phase and like all phases it was pretty short lived.

In those days people wrote letters and sent each other cards via the Royal Mail, there was a lot of it and deliveries, even out in the wilds where I lived, were twice daily. Every village had a post office and many towns had several. Now of course we write very little. i think I have forgotten how to use a fountain pen and for me at least letter writing has become a thing of the past. I email of course and pick up the phone from time to time, should I wish to talk to someone.

Despite all of the competition, the mail continues to work, and work well. Oh yes people complain that there are few post offices and that the cost of posting a letter keeps going up, but it is still a small price to pay for what you get. Having said that, there have been no deliveries for a couple of days, I guess that the mailmen are all snowed in too.

let it snow

LIving on an Island has many advantages but there are real disadvantages too. Today we are covered in snow and the place has come to a grinding halt. There are no buses, the roads are impassable, schools are shut and most businesses will cease to function until the roads are cleared. As I write it is still snowing and I just remembered that I have no boots or wellies. We have no milk and so a trip out is essential.

Days like today are a stark reminder of the fragility of the system under which we live. One tiny push and the house of cards could easily come crashing down. We are fortunate because we live in a society, which though mightily flawed, still hangs together because the glue of tolerance is still in place, that and the adherance to the law. Anarchists would love to see all of that break down, and like most fundamentalists, they think with their testicles rather than their brains. If the house falls, then what would replace it?

Some people think that a brave new world would grow swiftly from it, and maybe it would but what a primitive world it would be. The average person would be completely helpless without a supermarket. We have become incapable of doing things for ourselves, we buy everything ready made and cannot even repair things any more let alone make things from new. Should the worst happen, there would be a terrible dog eat dog society in which the strongest might survive, but once supplies of basics ran out, even the survivors would find it hard to maintain anything but a primitive way of life with lower standards of living than our ancestors enjoyed in the dark ages.

A huge proportion of the world population live is such conditions already and even more are thinking that way. Perhaps those with the medieval mentality will be best able to perpetuate the species.

Aspirations?

I don't think that I have ever had much of a sense of direction. Mostly my life has happened to me, and although i have a natural tendency to fight against the flow, I get swept along on a pretty well worn channel. I cannot claim to have had no opportunities, as I was lucky enough to have been born with a higher than average intelligence and a strong instinct for survival. I went to Grammar school but didn't know why and basically squandered my time there, drifting aimlessly into a career in teaching. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy working with students and like to think that I was able to help some along the way and even steered some in directions that I might have followed with the right kind of guidance.

Every time I read a book, especially one that really grabs me, I aspire to be a writer. I cobble together this blog on a fairly irregular basis and that is about as far as it goes. Oh I have written a few short stories and even done a short course in creative writing but I cannot seem to manage a long term project. I lie in bed at night and have great ideas for stories but when it comes to applying myself to the task of setting down those ideas my terrible sense of direction fails me again and again. I must have started a dozen or more novels, and have yet to get past the first chapter.

They say that everyone has a novel inside them just waiting to get out. I suppose by that, whoever came up with that meant that we all have a different story to tell. When it comes down to it though, most of us lead fairly dull lives; we exist and our presence means very little to the world in general. Only a fortunate minority manage to make a difference, and their stories would be worth reading.

Rarely do I have any idea what I want to say when I start this blog. Today is no exception. If you have read my entries before, you will realise that I don't even proof read and no my writing tends to be full of errors. The reason for that is fundamentally idleness and I apologise to anyone who is affronted by my apparent lack of care. I do in fact care a great deal about what people think of what I write and value your comments and criticisms. I don't suppose that I will change too much in respect to my frequent rants, but hey this is one place where, for now, I can say what I want.

Maybe this year i will make a greater effort to write better and more frequently. Perhaps , just perhaps I can develop one of those dormant ideas into something a little more worthwhile. I'll keep you posted.

Happy new decade

Well the noughties are over and done with and will probably be remembered for all the bad things that have happened as mankind continues its spiral into inevitable oblivion. Financial meltdown exposed all that is wrong with the system that we all depend upon, politicians, our representatives were shown to be liars and cheats, and the western interference in the Arabic world has opened a chasm between the west and the world of Islam that can only get bigger with the growth of its greatest export - terrorism.

The new year has been heralded with an attack on a Danish cartoonist by an axe wielding fanatic, and the continued decline of Yemen and Somalia, along with other failing nations. How long must it be before people realise the direct link between blind adherence to ludicrously outdated dogma and the inability of nations to govern themselves in an increasingly complex world.
Airport security has had to be ratcheted up again because someone was mentally ill enough to fill his underpants with explosives, and allegedly there are other loonies willing to shove bombs into their bottoms simply to blow up aircraft and kill innocent people - all in the name of a peaceful and tolerant religion of course.

Anyhow - the sun is shining again today and although it is very cold, bright days such as this one are a bonus in probably my second least favourite month of the year. I am determined to write more frequently this year and I will try not to rant too much about the evils of religions, but in my humble opinion the men in silly hats have gone unchallenged for far too long.

May my reader have a good new year and do keep up the feedback - I love a good argument.

What was that all about?

Here we are on the 27th and it is all over bar the shouting and the singing of the fat lady. All that overindulgence will be replaced with a yearning for something other than turkey, and as the mail comes back to life tomorrow, the bills will trickle in along with the notifications of the January sales. The shops will soon be full again, with people trying to exchange things that are too small, the wrong colour or just in utter bad taste. Within a day or two though, some will be bracing themselves for the last night of the year - a chance to wear silly clothes and to drink to ridiculous excess before making resolutions that are repeats of the previous year's, and then 2010 will begin the teenies in an optimistic way, short lived though that might be.

It is a scary thought that I have seen (just), seven decades so far and next week it will be eight. I can't say that any of them was remarkable, though the changes that have taken place have been incredible. In my lifetime virtually everything has changed and not all of it for the worse. I have lived through most of the history of pop music for example. I was born at a good time for that, being an incipient teen when the Beatles and the rest of those bands raised pop music into a wonderfully creative and original art form. Since then, the likes of Simon Cowell has managed to transform it into mass produced plastic pap, an artistic equivalent to Christmas cracker contents made in China. Pretty soon the people's Republic will be exporting our entertainment along with everything else that is cheap and nasty.

I have seen the rise in Information Technology from the first hand held calculators to the amazing if frustrating broadband internet connections that we now take for granted. Photography, access to music, you name it, has all been transformed by easy access for everyone, and now most people have digital cameras, iPods and mobile phones, none of which was even conceivable when I was a child. Now of course it is hard to find something to strive for. When everyone has everything they want, where do we go from there?

I was dragged up to believe that if you wanted something, you saved for it and debt was seen as unacceptable. Such training has a way of sticking and even now I hate owing anyone anything. I guess that I am fortunate that I have no debts but I have always tried to live within my means. Now people are encouraged to take on debt by the banks and credit card companies, to the extent that they are taking on new debts in order to pay off the ones they already have. It is no wonder that our economy is in such a bad state. Capitalism seems to have reached it's logical conclusion. Infinite growth is neither possible nor desirable.

Well there - probably my last rant of the year. I have been less than regular lately and must endeavour to be more organised with my life. Gosh that sounds like a resolution of the kind that I never make.

Bah Humbug

It has been a few days since I wrote and not much has gone on that is worth commenting on. Though having said that, the climate summit in Copenhagen came to a predictable end with no-one really giving anything away and with all vested interests well protected. The rich nations, as well as China, pulled up the ladder and declared that we are ok Jack! What did anyone expect them to do?

Abdul Dinnerjacket has assured us all that Iran has no intention of building a nuclear trigger, despite evidence to the contrary, and we are supposed to believe that this man who openly declared a desire to erase Israel from the map, has peaceful and honourable intentions. What is honourable to some is clearly not understood by others. For some it is honourable to murder their wives and daughters in the name of honour, simply because they have accepted and adopted the customs of the country in which they have found themselves. Only recently was a young Muslim girl killed by her father to protect the honour of the family. How can anyone with a civilised bone in their body see any sense or justification for that?

It is no surprise that the middle eastern problem has not gone away. Can it ever? The two worlds are so far apart in so many ways that there seems little middle ground. Perhaps the solution would be to build a wall around the middle east and fill it with the surplus water from the melting of the ice caps.

On the home front the final run down towards the most silly day of the year has begun. Money has been spent, fridges and freezers are stuffed and blood alcohol levels are reaching saturation point. The TV is bursting with pap and ready to deliver the usual dreary mass of crap to millions of dispeptic sleepers and bored children. Here we will be cut off from the mainland for a whole day and even the Curry houses will close, not out of respect for the Christian festival but because there will be no takers; and so the unregistered and nameless thousands of employees can take a break from their less than minimum waged jobs, and be seen in the streets, no-one will care.

If you are reading this then i hope that you have a good holiday and, in the words of the late great Dave Allen, May your god go with you.

Time passes - listen, time passes.

Coming from a dysfunctional family has its advantages, and my peculiar childhood prepared me for most of life's dissapointments. I learned very early in life to be self contained, knowing that the vast majority of people can only be relied upon to let you down. People say that I am a pessimist but I disagree. I prefer to think of myself as being a pragmatist or a realist. However none of that matters to anyone but myself and is not what I intended to write about. I was thinking about growing up with my overbearing father who, would never allow us to waste any time. If we were sitting around doing nothing, we were committing a sin, though that is a word he'd never use. We had to be occupied all of the time. Only he was allowed to fall asleep in front of the TV because only he was in need of resting his eyes. We were expected to be up early and actively doing something all of the day until sent to bed. I suppose it was a clever way of getting us out of the house because it worked.

Wasting time is a strange idea and means different things to different people. Many have a very powerful work ethic and unless they are redecorating the house for the nth time, or cleaning or filling in their time in a practical manner they are very uncomfortable. It is believed by some that kids today waste time sitting in front of computer games or TV, but what choice do they have? Freedom of children has been much curtailed by health and safety regulations as well as the threat of a paedophile on every corner, and so thanks to the media and paranoid parents, kids are kept off the streets and have to find ways of filling their days

Each of us can expect to experience a finite stretch of time and it is up to us how we use that time. It could be said that much of what we do is a waste of time. Cleaning the house, raking leaves, washing, ironing etc are all pretty thankless tasks, all of which need repeating over and over again and yet we still do them. A walk around the block achieves nothing and yet it can be pleasant.

I read a lot and if anything can be costrued as a waste of time it has to be reading novels. Filling our imaginations with other peoples fantasies achieves nothing at all and yet millions of people do it. In the eyes of others the time could be better spent, and perhaps it could but I don't care.

There comes a time in life when one has achieved everything that one is likely to. After that most of what we do is a pretty futile anyway and so whatever we do is self indulgent and of little value to anyone. Ironically, the less purpose one has the longer the days seem to be while the years seem to vanish like the last grain in the hourglass. Friends either pass away or pass on and we sit back on the timeline in anticipation of hitting the buffers.

My father spent his last years doing nothing. He'd sit in his chair, staring out of the window, read a book or vanish into his bedroom to drown himself is whisky and loud music probably ruing the life that he has misspent. He had never travelled of his own volition, never seen a live concert or visited an art gallery of the theatre. He's never driven a car or enjoyed the love and respect of his children or grandchildren. When I think that I am wasting time, and i do so a lot, I think of him and what he missed in his life, and as I approach the age when he died, and his father before him, I hope that at least some of my time has been well spent.

December days

Today is one of those days that never gets light. I loathe December more than any other month I think, though it does have one saving grace and that is the winter solstice - beyond that the days get longer again.
The lemmings are all out spending money that they haven't got on things that no-one needs, stocking larders to bursting point with food that will largely go to waste, and all of this for one day that has no meaning whatever for most of those that celebrate it.
There is an irony in that a very important conference of climate change is going on while houses, streets and shops are festooned with the tacky and tasteless light shows that have carbon footprints as big as a family car, while merely contributing light pollution to our already overlit streets. The same people that spend a whole year switching off lights wherever they go will be negating those actions with jolly fat santas in red suits flashing merry xmas to one and all.
Houses are already filling with paper and card as the christmas card barrage enters its final days. I suppose at least people who were thought dead put up their heads momentarily and get added once more to that inexorable list of those who we simply must send cards to.
Looking on the bright side - we have the coldest months yet to come and this year I got my cheque for heating allowance, so perhaps I can throw a few extra twigs onto the fire and wish you all a happy humbug!

Save the planet?

Well the Copenhagen summit is in progress and highly paid politicians and boffins will sit around in not very smoke filled rooms, pontification on the state of the environment. At the end of it I predict that there will be no concensus and the only step towards reducing greenhouse gases will be to increase the costs of energy.

There was a woman on TV last night saying that she had turned vegetarian in order to save the planet! Now while I am aware of the importance of flatulent cattle and their role in climate change, I cannot see how any of us can save the planet! It isn't the planet that is in danger, it is the human race that is, and not just through climate change.

One of the biggest producers of methane, possibly the greater of the greenhouse gases, are the termites and they have been around a lot longer than we have. Nobody talks about extermination of insects in order to save the planet.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole global warming issue was merely a political tool. People are more easily led by the nose when they are scared. Oil and gas are dwindling resources and unless we cut down on their use there will be unprecedented crises in the future with the rich and powerful riding roughshod over the poorer nations in the fight for the last drops of the stuff. So scare people now, increase the prices to the consumers and people just might travel less and sit in cold houses through the winter. As always it will be the less well off that will suffer, the bankers and their like don't notice the prices of the energy that they use, while those at the base of the pecking order do. Even a small increase in prices makes a big difference to the less well off.

There can be no turning back. We are a world that runs on fuels that produce Carbon Dioxide. Efforts to utilize renewable energy are largely supressed by the oil industry, which in turn is governed by enormously wealthy individuals who wield the real power in the world today. If the fuel runs out then life as we know it Jim, will come to an end. If it doesn't then perhaps the planet will get warmer, maybe even considerably so. The worst that can happen to the planet is that it might just sterilise it's surface and start all over again.

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is a nonsense. It does not exist, even in the 21st century in the so called emancipated west where we pride ourselves on basic human rights. In these scribblings I think about what I say and am careful not to write things that might result in some religious headcase removing my genitals because I have offended his sensibilities.

Last night there was a football match between France and Ireland. The outcome of which was very meaningful in the world of football in all sorts ow ways, not least financially. France won the game through a deliberate foul that the referee and his linesmen failed to see or chose to ignore. The whole world saw the offence over and over again on action replays and now everyone knows that the offending player (note that I do not use his name) is a cheat.

Members of the Ireland team of course cannot call him a cheat or refer to the incompetence of the referee without risking huge fines or suspensions, the cheating side win through on the notion that you can do that as long as no-one notices. It would seem that calling someone a cheat is worse than cheating, and so the deliberate breaking of rules has become part of the game.

In Parliament one is not allowed to call someone who is economical with the truth, a liar. And so politicians lie their way through their careers unchallenged, protected by the lack of freedom of speech.

Of course there are some things that one can criticise freely without fear of retribution and some things that you cannot. Women are free to criticise men while the inverse is seen as sexism. You can discriminate in favour of women by for example limiting electoral candidacy to females only, but would it ever be conceivable to bar females from standing for a seat?

Worst of all though is the blanket protection given to certain religious groups, whose followers include terrorists and misogynistic leaders, routinely committing atrocities against their own people while openly condemning all those who disagree with them. To raise one's voice against these people has become very difficult without incurring the wrath of the law. We live in fear of the viper that lies within our bosom and are powerless to speak out.

France will go to the world cup finals and will take with them the knowledge that they got there unfairly. If that was me i would feel very guilty and probably withdraw. However i was brought up in a different world to the sorry one that we live in today.

Conspiracy theory

Almost daily we hear someone or other bleating about the death of the music industry thanks to illegal downloading and the copying of recorded material. Sales of recorded music have plummeted and a song can reach number one in the charts but selling a few thousand copies.

I have always been a music fan and love to attend live concerts whenever I can, and am currently anticipating the 4Oth anniversary tour of Steeleye Span, complete with Maddie Prior. Having said that, I rarely buy music anymore, neither do I download it. I am becoming seriously disenchanted with the whole Pop industry and I for one hope that it dies a quick and painless death.

There was a time when to become a pop star, you needed either huge talent and some luck, or you needed a new and quirky idea and a lot of balls. Nowadays it seems that in order to sell a lot of records, performers need an image, a manager and an ability to look plastic and to fit into preset moulds that make you attractive to pre-adolescent girls. Boy and Girl bands spring up like weeds and die off just as quickly, always dozens more waiting to take their places.

Th "ECKS" factor is a very popular TV "Talent" show that is generating much controversy here at the moment. I mention it because it really does encapsulate all that is wrong with the world of music at the present time. For those of you who haven't seen it, vast numbers of hopefuls gradually get whittled down by a panel of judges, until a small handful are put through a series of trials and humiliations, each week one more being voted off the list, theoretically by the public. The panel of judges is of course led by the multi-millionaire who owns the show and he is accompanied by three other representatives of the "industry", none of whom seems to have a brain cell let alone a mind of their own. The weeks go by and the victims are led through various Karaoke moulds and in the end one will remain and will be given the strait jacket that leads them to become Mr or Mrs Plastic 2009. This year there is a large fly in the custard. A young duo who have the talent and the personalities of a pair of young labradors are storming along and could well win the contest. Neither of them can sing at all, but they look the part with their silly spiky hair and their utter lack of talent.

Each week, hard working singers with huge potential have been sent home while the talentless and highly irritating continue to garner support from the teenagers that are doing the voting and generating the Judge's retirement fund. Part of me suspects that there is a conspiracy going on and that the public is saying that enough is enough, but my cynical side is screaming out that this is just what people want - to see Pop Stars that are just like them - banal, ordinary and utterly dull.

I hope that these lads win, and as they accept their million pound contract, that the first thing they buy is a hammer so that they can drive in the last nails of the coffin. Maybe then, once this business is laid to rest, musicians will learn their trades in public performance and make their money for being talented and original and we can hear some real music once again.

A new week

It has been a while since I felt even remotely like writing and i know that if I don't push myself to do so that I will stop doing it altogether. I blame it on having a cold of course; one of the fringe benefits of having people to stay for a weekend. I think that my extended isolation tends to lower the efficacy of my immune system and so whenever i am exposed to viruses they see me as virgin territory and move in with relish. I should have the flu jab and the one for swine flu but I probably won't. That would mean going to the medical centre and queueing up with lots of sick people and having someone stick a needle into me. I confess that i am scared of injections - a real hangup from my childhood and one of so many.

It would seem that the government is keen to make nursing an all graduate profession, as they did with teachers a number of years back. The aim is to ensure that the quality of nursing increases and that patients will receive a better deal when they go to hospitals. I am not sure that it will help. What it might help them to do is to fill in paperwork more accurately and free up time for them to generate more.
A spell in hospital was never much fun but it has become a challenge to anyone these days. Speaking from the point of view of a fairly frequent user, I have to say that the quality of nursing care has declined massively in recent years. Side wards mean that patients can lie unattended for long periods of time without being checked on by anyone, and we frequently hear of patients who have quietly bled to death in a hospital bed. I experienced copious bleeding after my last operation and when i struggled out of bed to report it to the two nurses sitting behind a desk, all they did was to change my pillow while i was in the toilet. Nobody even looked to see where the blood was coming from - the paperwork was more important.
I am sure that there are plenty of good nurses who know how to care for patients and many who are not good at paperwork. We should be employing more of the former and allowing them to get on with the job that their profession was meant to do. Government targets are a hindrance to us all and there are walks of life where they really should be ignored. Education and medicine are not businesses and should not be treated as such.

On a different note I did promise to post the hairy thing under my nose as it develops so here we go.

Excuses

I have just been reading about the student in Yorkshire who is facing a jail sentence for urinating onto a war memorial. As is usually the case he has claimed to have no memory of the event because he was too drunk.
Alcohol abuse has been going on since alcohol was discovered, and I have in my time drunk myself into almost oblivion and probably done shameful things that are best not spoken of. I may have even, in my youth, set out to get drunk, but I don't think that it happened on a regular basis. Nowadays it seems that there are elements of society that do this almost daily, and that many of these are young girls.
Women it would seem have adopted all that they can of male behaviour and frankly it doesn't suit them. Drunken females look even more ridiculous than drunken males and are of course incredibly vulnerable. It is so sad to watch and hear hordes of adolescent females behaving so badly and urging their male counterparts to do worse. There seems to be a lack of shame in what they do, and when they get arrested for antisocial behaviour or indecency the plea is always the same - "I didn't know what I was doing" or "i can't remember". Now i don't believe either of these statements. I admit to having been too drunk to stand up on rare occasions and yet always knew what I was doing and always remembered most of what I did the next day. Not being able to remember is a myth. Sometimes we like to think that it is the case but it is a convenient lie and besides it is meaningless in the eyes of the law.
I hope that the young man in question does go to jail and that he is named and shamed. Let's face it, if we were under Sharia law he would probably have the offending part cut off publicly.