An overcast sky

Easter Sunday, the weather is, as usual overcast. 
When living in a warm sunny climate I often was reminded of the quote "the sun is shining again today but why do I have to go out and enjoy it"? As an antidote to the sunshine I used to think how satisfying to be sitting in a room looking out of the window as the storm lashed about outside and we warm and snug inside.


After what has been the most prolonged spell of poor weather for as long as records have been kept I think  sunshine has won the day !!
Inside the small houses that most people over here live in massive improvements have been effected so if the square meterage is much the same, the heating and the lighting, the connections to the outside world TV and internet and through the internet, huge opportunities with on-line music catalogues, skype and video communication, google maps which take you anywhere and everywhere, a limitless 
accessibility to information and yes, if you must, on-line shopping.


When I think of our house back in the 40s, pre the TV era with only the radio and a limited number of 78 rpm, shellac records to play, on a wind-up record player. 
When it was cold outside it was cold inside too with only a small coal fire to heat the whole house. The fire also heated the water which was plumbed as far as the kitchen tap, there was no bathroom or toilet inside the house. 
The bath was a zinc bath which, on Friday night was brought into the kitchen for the family to get a weekly bath. 
Hot water being precious was ladled into the bath, a pan full at a time and each member of the family had to queue to use the same water. Dad always got the wrong end of the stick
and was last in, by then it must have been soupy ! 

To go to the toilet meant a trip down the path, outside to
a small stone shed like room in which the toilet sat cold and foreboding, spiders and other creepy crawlies waiting to pounce.  
Going to the toilet wasn't fun for a young lad with a vivid imagination.

So you see we have travelled far but the overcast sky is still with us !!!  

A bloke with a past

Boris Johnson. Is he a clown or is he a phenomenon of our times. A performer who has used the media to create an image that now considers him a  future Prime Minister.
His attraction is that he is so different from the ultra controlled, media rehearsed, opaque crop of MPs who continually fail to carry the man in the street as they obfuscate on nearly every issue. Of course Boris does this as well but his method is one of claiming uncertainty, not knowing an answer he bumbles and smirks to bring onside his interrogator and lesson the tension. He uses a technique that has empowered him in the peoples eyes, he's one of us, not a know-all who typically tells us what they think we need to know. 
Of course the crazy thing is that his background makes the gulf between him and the ordinary person, vast. Coming from the upper middle class, his life experience has been so different. Head boy at Eaton, President of the Oxford Union at Oxford University, member of the elite and exclusive Bullington Club in the University, a true blue Tory.
It is said that in his school repertory society he learnt, not only how to act but discovered that fluffing his lines in a play, brought the audience on side with a self depreciating grin which signalled his human frailty and placed him as the likeable fool.
Beneath this joker image lies a calculating individual who has learnt to substitute clarity for a unique type of obfuscation. His private life is strune with, some would say, inappropriate behaviour. He has been a profligate in marital affair's, attractive to women, this overweight joker has an allure that must make his red blooded peers very envious !! Given his gaff prone history he is a gift to the media and when he agreed to submit to an in-depth, warts and all interview that brought back into focus his chequered past, he must have known the mine field he would be negotiating.
In the documentary his ability to look nonplussed or,excruciatingly embarrassed as his sister lent her views as to why he would make a good Prime Minister. His giggles as Sis' spoke her mind, made him human, nothing to be po faced about it brought us all around, he is one of us, a bloke with a past !!                    

The truth of course never got in the way

Seeing ourselves in the context of society

Should we move to a secular society or does religion have, over-riding value.

The secularists believe that what is fundamental in society is each man and woman, each citizen has a unique position in being first and foremost within the societies hierarchy. It is this belief that men and women have the right to choose their stand on faith that precludes leading young children through a daily diet of faith based belief.
Religionists believe that God and the teaching of God comes first and that the historical position of the Church to preach the teaching has a special value to the society as it purports to lead people through an ethical based list of do's and don'ts.  

When one listens to a debate on matters, which go to the root of our comprehension of who we are and how we answer such basic questions, one is left feeling affinity for both groups as they tussle with unanswerable concepts. The sympathy for each position is based on the recognition that these people are concerned about their fellow man but have an immense gulf to cross to reach a common goal. Perhaps not the goal so much as the journey.

Listening one is struck by the intensity of their position but also that these are caring, intelligent people who have opinions and beliefs, not necessarily for the usual insular, selfish position, what's in it for me but really do care for people in society at large.

The problem is that these entrenched positions become a creed, which eventually tend to intolerance of all other positions and deny the very essence of what the secular humanist or the person who is religious say they want.

Asserting a special identity, (religious, non-religious) is a problem since it can lead to intolerance of every other view.  The person who identifies his "very being" in a religious continuum is often determined to confront the non-believer with a "satisfied surety", confirmed by faith and belief.
The secularist is convinced that the "individuals right", trump all talk of the primacy of God and find that faith is no basis for developing our primary need to see ourselves within the context of society at large.                

We mope in the gloom

Global warming - you must be having a laugh !!   "Spring" with all that the word conjurers up, has played a joke on us this year and no mistake. As I look out of the window it's snowing the car is covered and the streets empty as people stay indoors. We haven't seen the sun for ages funny to think that its burning warm and bright above the cloud base that continues to cover the UK.  So far, so near !!
The weather is the one downside of living here. It effects moral, it effects the hormonal chemistry and subverts ones capacity to view life with an optimistic frame of mind. The sun boosts our willingness to believe that the bright world around us is interesting and supportive, not wet and hostile.
There was a report the other day that our weather pattern is set to produce poor climatic conditions up until 2020, what a pleasing thought !!   
I can remember in years gone by,complaining of too much sunshine. Of how the continuous heat was draining, stultifying as one laid in bed, sweating, listening to the high pitched drone on the mosquito and the ticking of the night time clock waiting the dawn for the light to flood in through the window, the stimulus we needed to energise a new day.

Are we ever happy. The central heating copes with the cold but our spirits are low as we mope around in the gloom.          

A brave new world !!

In Dickensian days, Fagin was a dark influence in the social mix of London as he trained children to pick peoples pockets.
I wonder how today's pickpocket, the government of Cyprus, will be portrayed when history is written. The government has broken an unwritten covenant that money held in your personal account, money on which taxes have been paid is not safe and can, at the will of a group of politicians be, in effect stolen !!
Cyprus has for a number of years been a centre of financial money laundering, particularly from Russia. The banks handled the huge inflow of money and laundered the money by buying Greek Bonds. As the Bonds became worthless so did the Cypriot banking system.

Bailing out the banks, will it ever end. Will we ever be free from the fear that our Capitalistic System is intrinsically ruined by the unidentifiable mountain of bad debt sitting, like a tumour on the banks balance sheet. We shift from makeshift solution to makeshift solution, printing money with no comparable asset base to value it by.  National debt balloons into unimaginable figures which bare no relation to the productive power of the nation and therefore no way of bringing the debt down.

Nations are beginning to loose their "national" characteristic as having an identifiable entity.
In a global perspective the world and the powerful companies and financiers behind them, have little or no allegiance to a country or its population. The globe is a checker board on which the chips (the factories) are moved around or favoured in an economic game that values a bottom line with no social element. We are just units of production, who's ownership is blurred by complex shareholdings, emanating from cultures that are often alien !!     This is a brave new world !!!                     

Land of my fathers paying tribute to the sons of their mothers

The has to be few experiences in modern life that can compete with sport, the conflict, one on one, fifteen on fifteen, nation on nation.
In today's politically correct society where "confrontation" is denied and we are forced into turning the other cheek, irrespective of the slight, irrespective of the fault, we often go home humiliated and feeling that the law is an ass,
Only in sport has the PC brigade been refused entry, we can still confront each other and not be collared !!
The singing at the start of the English / Wales rugby match played in Cardiff rings the roof with a fervor that makes one think how remarkable the human spirit can be, when raised to a cause.
We have become used to being manipulated into a placid, compliant people, confused about our personnel rights, about our identity, about the massive changes to the make up of our society. The cult of the individual being valued more than the collective, the slow dismantling, piecemeal of the National Health System, to privatise it and hand the doctors an open invitation to cream the society even more !!
Just to explain. The doctors now form an immensely strong element in the procurement of the drugs and of the services they recommend and administer to the patient. It is a licence to print money, not their money but the tax payers money as the doctor hold, not only their doctors licence but directorships in the companies that supply the services. Usually in business or politics you have to "excuse yourself" from the decision making if there is a conflict of interest but somehow this requirement, in such a prioritised industry as the nations health is ignored by the "privatise at any odds" Government we have at the moment.
Given all the confusion that people feel, the unhappiness they experience every day with unemployment, low wages, reduced employment rights and closures every week, the Welsh have their moment in the sun as they outplay England and of course, against you old enemy, it was twice as sweet.
The crowd sung their hearts out at the opening and are now wild with emotion as their team thrashed the ogre of old !!
"Land of my fathers" are paying tribute to the sons of their mothers.
           

Not for Gods sake but for our own !!

When I was growing up, our household, from Dads side offered Humanism rather than a particular brand of Religion, whilst Mum would encourage me to attend the local Church of England services on a Sunday, usually Evensong. The church, situated in a village, was a leading focal point amongst the village community. The Vicar, along with the Doctor and the Policemen were the leading lights of a group of people, tightly caught up in each other,censoring and keen to pass judgement, yet helpful and supportive at the same time.
As kids we shared our parents, in so far as the grown ups were quick to set you right if they felt the need to and would have a word in the ear of a parent who they thought might need to know what little Johnny was getting up to. To be warned or even given a clip over the ear for being cheeky was accepted and part of the social tapestry. 
The point I wanted to make was the place the religious institution had in the society as I was growing up and the importance of religious dogma in our village environments early years.
Given this inculcation of Christian indoctrination, which I hasten to add was no bad thing in a general sense, I eventually emerged with a more rational position, that without evidence and specifically, without faith, I built on my scepticism and moved through from being an agnostic to become an atheist.

Andrews gradual immersion into Buddhism has challenged me to think again about the meaning of life and the sense that their could there be more to it all ?
Of course my prejudice against faith based religions and the reliance on the word of God passed down through a series of revelations in a book that propounds to be the word of God puts me immediately on the defensive.

Buddhism from the outside, appears to be like another religious group. It has a distinctive following, dressed in distinctive clothing who it describes as priests, a distinctive, revered leadership, temples, symbolic chanting and distinctive music, even massive opulent statues of the Buddha are scattered around parts of East Asia. All the panoply that is usually represented by the established Church.
The teachings of the Buddha and the interpretation of those teachings by the priesthood have some resonance with Judaism.

Of course what you see is not the substance of what Buddhism is about.   Buddhism is bound up in ones own, singular, exploration of your own mental substance, based on the recognition that much of who we are, is grounded on false values that can only lead to unhappiness and personnel disharmony.   
The recognition that there is potential, to fundamentally acknowledge the cause of our "suffering in this life", by the objective examination of ourselves, through the mind. 
To attempt to extinguish the external mental noise of events that happen around us, and the thoughts that flow with those events, which at root, falsify who we really are. 

Its about retaining control of the way we think and what we do in this life, not for Gods sake but for our own.                                     

Business as usual

The pigeon hopped off, eventually the white smoke issued forth and we have a new Pope !! The faithful, packed into St Peters Square burst into cheers and whilst the rain continued to pour out of the sky the people were ecstatic, determined to ignore the weather, this was a life time experience for many having travelled from all parts of the globe to say, "we were there".
The resignation of the Pope Benedict was unparalleled and having decided to stand aside we had the spectacular scenes of a 21st century departure by helicopter, flying low over the ancient city of Rome, on his way to a Papal Retreat. The helicopter was followed by the camera crew flying alongside, swooping around, in front capturing the old Pope on his last significant journey with the city roof tops falling away below. It was magnificent theatre and I was fascinated by the simplicity of how well it was all organised without much pomp but a lot of circumstance.
The new Pope is from Argentina part of the South American see, where the bulk of the worlds catholic's come from. He is from the conservative school and there will be little movement towards a more liberal stance on homosexuality or contraception. The secretive power behind the throne , the Cura, will be content, business as usual !!            

Unforeseen influences

I'm reading a very good book by Hilary Mantel, Wolf hall. Its set in the England of Henry the Eighths, with its Machiavellian plotting behind the scenes, as powerful families strain to plot their way into favour with a King obsessed with Anne Boleyn and the need to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, against the weight of the Catholic Church, represented by Cardinal Wolsey.
I remember my Dad reciting Shakespeare. Words from Wolsey when he was held in the Tower. "Are Cromwell. If I had served my God with half the zeal I served my King, he would not in my age have left me naked, before my enemy" The echo of my Dads solemn words as he put the full pathos of the Shakespearian message into the delivery, comes back to me over the years, since, I was a boy with little interest in Tudor England and now, a man, I'm catching up on time, trying, as always to gain a wider perspective !

Thomas Cromwell, the character thread that runs through the book, ruminates about England and about allegiances, about the boundaries about trust and the concept of being a guardian.
In this case, it was the right of the King of England, a sovereign nation, not to be told what to do by the Catholic Pope regarding marriage which of course led to the creation of the Church of England.
The issues were tide up with Henry's obsession with Anne but there was a deeper root, that of a national will, which trumps all other.

A nation is like a stone in a fast running stream, it is buffeted about on the streams bed until, "overtime", it is worn smooth and could be said to represent the characteristics of the stream and the environment over which the stream runs. The forces that come to shape a people, are many and profound, they are organic, as is the temperament of the individual living in that environment. 

We have witnessed and taken part in "an experiment" to create an artificial environment in which it was thought that the force of the stream would wear away the rough irregularities that were now to be introduced into the stream and that a homogeneous outcome was possible.
In many ways this has proved to be true. People encouraged to join our society have moulded into the fabric and respect many of the norms that were here before they arrived. 
They of course brought their own norms which, shall we call them, "the locals" absorbed, food is a particular example. But of course they also brought much more.
Culture is difficult to define but runs deep in mankind. Its a sense of identification, like a story passed down from an elder, told around a camp fire about ones past, about ones forefathers, about ones heritage about the tribe !! A sense of belonging, a sense of a common identity. Mixed in amongst these norms lie the traditions and the accepted way of this or that,of the permissible and the none permissible.
The "Rule of Law" hovers above all of this, as a nation seeks to channel the tribal energy into self-beneficial avenues but the law its-self has its own characteristics depending on the environment (remember the stream). Some environments from which people coming to our shores have grown up,  are naturally hostile to the Law. Their experience has seen The Law as a repressive force, used in the hands of an oppressive elite to suppress opposition.
Others take their law from Religion and find it difficult, if not impossible to ignore the calling of a body of faith which is so entwined in their daily activities that the cultural norms of the host country are rendered irrelevant other than in a formal sense. A parking ticket still has to be paid !!  

This is a problem and was highlighted, just the other day. Students going to University usually obtain a loan from the "tax payer" to pay for the tuition fees, they repay the loan over a number of years but only if,when they eventually find work, their earnings are above a certain amount. The loan, as do all loans attract interest, a very low and generous interest but interest never the less. There is a growing, noisy rejection to having "interest" attached to these loans, by the Muslim community. It is a tenant of Muslim teaching that "interest" is an anathema to their teaching and avoided in his conduct in business.

This is but one of the thousands of "unforeseen consequences" of artificially, often ideologically, interrupting the natural sequence of cause and effect.

(I must say, we might learn something from this, as we persecute the poor with the horrendous interest charged "within our law" by companies offering short term loans to people who can't obtain a loan any other way, but that's another story).