The mind

What is the mind ? Where is the mind located ?

We are beginning to understand the working of the brain and how it reacts to external stimulus.

Parts of the brain are mapped as the receptor of certain specific stimulus and we partly understand the chemical reactions stimulated by the electrical influence which its self is stimulated by internal and external events. But where is the mind in all this, where and how do thoughts and reasoning come about. Is the mind captive in the brain or is it like the 'cloud'is to our computer system these days, separate somewhere else. 
As we interrogate our surroundings and the part we play in these surroundings including the people we know and sometimes love, does the mind have the capacity to see, and more importantly understand beyond the questions currently asked of it. Is the mind personal or does it exist externally to us. Does our willingness to ask questions and delve deeper into the minds comprehension, a comprehension born of the instinctive subliminal intake of data, only a part of which the brain assimilates as fact. Or is the mind something which exists on its own waiting to be interrogated. If we agree that the brain is limited in its cognitive ability where does that super cognitive ability which is evident in some people come from. The meditative speciality that certain people have and the effect it has on them comes from a settled mind, a mind at peace but never the less a mind which has learnt to focus, but does the focus become the totality of the mind or simply a pencil beam cutting down through the fog and the clamour of events that continue even as we meditate. Is the point of our existence to ignore our existence and establish a moment when all is still so that in that moment of supreme stillness we hear our life beating on its own for ever. Is that nirvana ?
 

The fragile mind.

How fragile the human mind.

That a man could deliberately crash a plane full of passengers headlong into a mountain is past all understanding. If he had been a Jahidi bent on revenge against the west one could have pieced together a reason, as crass as that would be, but what distorted the co pilots mind to such an extent that he would commit suicide in this way taking 150 people with him. 

How did he distance his own wish to die from causing so many other deaths, particularly the school children who can not be placed in any frame of reference regards the way his distorted vision of the world made him wish to depart its clutches. Marriage problems, health problems, money problems none would seem to fit a 28 year old pilot. He didn't say a word as he plunged to earth to his death, no cry for help no anguished diatribe against anyone or anything. Perhaps the investigators will dig up some dirt but they will never understand nihilism. 
To the normal mind life makes seductive promises, you are always loved, the universe is in good order, right and wrong can be known, your suffering has meaning, you have a special role and there will be justice after death.
Nihilism is the determination not to be fooled again feeling they have been swindled over and over the nihilist refuses to acknowledge the most meaningful observation lest they turn out to be illusory.
What a contrast, two heads, two worlds, we can't recognise the difference until the rational become irrational, the action determines how we are simply in the dark until the act tells all !!

The locked door

The danger of punditry. The latest news from the downed aircraft investigation is that the co pilot was locked out of the cabin and the pilot, piloting the plane was refusing or unable to answer the repeated knocking of the chap outside. Was this a suicide or had the pilot passed out ?

Planes cost many millions. This particular aeroplane was, although 20 years old when built the state of the art in automatic controls, in fact some pilots complained that the aircraft was boring to fly since so much was automated. With a plane costing millions how come there was no over ride on unlocking the door ? 


It's a common occurrence for a pilot to leave the flight deck to visit the toilet and with inboard security protecting the flight deck from terrorists the door is always locked. Apparently when the pilot leaves on a call of nature, they sometimes leave the drinks trolley blocking the entrance !!! What sort of Micky Mouse management / design is that. Are we to believe that these very highly paid executives and designers at Air Bus couldn't come up with something better. What else have they left off the menu ?

The one and only way.

Cultural unity is a bond between people. To understand a people you have to understand their culture. In Britain we seem to want to turn this centuries old cultural observation on its head.

The concept of Multiculturalism is a mixing of cultures, each culture adding its best to the mix and in essence provide a stronger richer culture. There is no doubt that in certain areas other cultures to ones own provide an extension, an enrichment, food is a perfect example. But in many ways cultures do not meld into one another and there is a competition for ascendency to be the dominant one. The more cohesive a culture is the more likely it will predominate and therefore a more disciplined, more focused, more decisive a culture is then it's people feel more at home following its dictates. 

We in Britain have been guilty of taking our culture for granted of even finding fault in having a cultural indices to call our own and easily being persuaded that this identification with long established historical norms is in some ways racist. We beat ourselves up, or at least the chattering classes do by their control of the establishment and media to make us feel unworthy of our past and our history. We feel the pressure to apologise for things done in a very different time, in a world that didn't tread lightly afraid of its own shadow but believed rightly or wrongly in its purpose which at that time was colonisation. Not a bad thing, as is now suggested but in many cases a liberating glimpse of how civilisation as it stood at that time could bring the benefits of architecture transport and a system of governance based on law to other people and cultures throughout the world. There had been other great colonisers, the Romans for instance who laid a similar footprint with similar structures and I don't hear the call for apology there. 
If we don't pull ourselves together we will dissolve into not what the politically correct soothsayers wish, a better society but we will fall under the sway of a stronger more determined culture who would find it ridiculous to question their way of life as other than the only one.

Women in industry

Watching a program on women in industry, produced by AlJeezera in Doha where they are holding a conference, I was struck by a number of things. In this male dominated environment the participants were women who were at the top of their game and had something meaningful to say. The interviewer, a man was exemplary in his measured questioning, he knew his subject but his job was to get the panellists to talk. How often on our TV,  the person asking the questions sees themselves as the star of the show with an agenda usually to trip up the person answering the question rather than listening to what they have to say. The tone of the show was collaborative and whilst tricky questions were put there was never a sense of the bulling or the grandstanding we see so much on our television. 

Given the setting in an Arab country and given the topic it was refreshing to witness a proper conversation. The audience were also interesting given the topic, "women in the work place". Many were dressed in conservative European style clothes, many wore the head scarf, the hijab, but not obtrusively and a few had on the full burka with only a slit for the eyes.
What a contrast in their understanding of acceptability and under lying this, what a contrast in their potential lifestyle. Beneath the burka was an intelligent person who for religious reasons was prepared to subvert herself from the gaze of men as if in doing so she could be more true to herself away from the acquisitive eye of the male. The conversation, as it rounded on a women's equal position in the workplace must counter pose the traditional hierarchical of men and women in the Middle East and present quite a topic around the dinner table.

The changing world.

The weather is closing in. Vicious lightening strikes hitting the ground a few miles away, one wonders who or what is under the strike and what damage is done as a million volts of energy focused on a few metres of earth. We are in the wonderful world of a new GP season, a world where money is spent like there is no tomorrow and the glamour spots where the races are held are infested with the rich and famous with all their baubles and toys so that the rest of us can only sit back and wonder.

That was the trick of Hollywood in the old days where the glamorous stars used to act out self absorbed lives in huge mansions and we, for a few penny's could jump aboard the fairy tale for an hour or so. It still works as the celebs are paraded on our screens and we shower them with interest as if they were a best friend, this sad fraud we play on ourselves.
It's Malaysia and the second race of the season. The track is close to Kuala Lumpur, newly built to signpost the country. 

Back in the mid 60s this area was densely tropical, an intriguing hidden and dangerous place to visit off road. The lush thick vegetation sprouted from the roadside edge like some dangerous inhospitable place but now it's been sanitised, much like its neighbour Singapore which 'back in the days' was a humdrum place with Malays and Chinese competing for every scrap of land and water frontage with sampans thousands of them providing not only a mode of transport but a place to live and bring up a family. The sights and sounds of those robust energetic citizens has been throttled out of existence by Lee Kuan Yew their dictatorial leader who died late last month. The place has become the home of Prada, Rolex and all that is ostentatious. 
Both societies Malaysia and Singapore where rich in tradition and I was fascinated to watch and come close to people enacting a way of life that was so remote from my European experience. Sitting enthralled listing to the cymbals crashing and the strange stunted movements of the Chinese actors enacting a piece of Chinese opera, the singers wailing the strangest sounds as mythical dragons rushed forward to menace the heroine.
You knew you were a long way from home. How different now as globalisation and the brand culture represents only one thing and one thing only, how rich are you and are you rich enough to be with us !!!

Life after Schengen.

Free Movement of Labour
The big question, no not the Sunday Morning program which I enjoy, but it's the Big Question of what we are to do with our society in this new economic paradigm of Globalisation?
Is it true that society has grown flabby through,( up until recently ) a concentrated effort after the Second World War to develop civilised, concerned, feely, protective governmental support for its citizens in all aspects of their lives.
Huge strides have been made in health, in transport, in environmental control, whilst equally we have mismanaged many things. For instance a huge deficit has been accumulated in affordable housing held under public control. Our education system has been high jacked by ideologs who, idealistic and doctrinaire, determine the way are children are brought up both inside and outside of school, seemingly oblivious to the fact that for many their ideas seem to be failing.
The introduction of the Welfare State, a very laudable idea which was initially designed to absorb only those at the edges of society, has become a support system for many who do not need it. The concept that one should not 'suffer' holds good as long as the suffering is out of your hands to remedy, for instance if you were sick or mentally ill ( and even here the mental condition must be clearly defined). The Welfare State was also intended as a temporary support when a person, for no fault of his/her own found themselves out of work (again, clearly monitored) and unable to feed their family.
Of course today being unemployed and unemployable is in many ways a direct result of our education system. The fact that we took our eye off the ball and concentrated on getting more and more of our kids on  tertiary education instead of training them through trade and craft skills to give them overall ability and equip them for the actual workplace not the panacea for an idealised world of work. Because we didn't train lads and lasses to be focused on the workplace after school (we filled their heads with dreams) they had no concept or basic skills to cope when they entered the workforce and so we now have the much more astute and grounded young men and women coming over from the Continent to do the work we are now clearly unsuited to do.
Does large immigration from the EU impose a stress on our local workforce with their acceptance of lower wages, or is it a fact of life that with overpopulation and porous boarders, we have to accept a new dawn is upon us and that Globalisation has rid the employer of any constrain he once had.  Profit, of which low wages is one important constituent, is after all, a great incentive to view the world through a selective prism, seeing only ones own selfish needs.
Is the main problem that when the Schengen Treaty in 1985 which was drawn up it encompassed only a limited number of fairly comparable societies whilst today there are 29 nations belonging to the EU all with the same claim of hegemony but clearly at vastly different stages of development. Only the "Palaces"  seem to kept pace whilst around the wall the peasants do as well as they can !!!
Perhaps as the Giants of Industry and Finance have righted the ship (their ship) and put the silly notion of Liberty Fraternity and Equality to sleep for the more mundane concept of "servitude" !!!

A travel pass for the young.

To quote a famous person, " those who travel or depart only change their sky, not their condition". Is there then any purpose in travel if we carry around our prejudice ?

The excitement and any benefit are cancelled out if the mind set is unhealthy. If when you travel to a new country you only allow as your companion your preconceived ideas about the country and its people. 

Perhaps travelling should be left to the young with their hopefully slate clean mind in which every new experience is lodged untainted in the memory. The "old" have a whole set of preconditions to all they see, a lifetimes jaundiced predisposition based on innuendo so that the prism through which they evaluate anything is like trying to see the road through a dirty windscreen !!
The excitement and awe of a child, even a young adult is a thing of beauty. The receptive mind absorbing the thing for what it is, not for what it is supposed to represent. For this person travel is rewarding, it forms a basic understanding of the complexities around us highlighted when observed outside our home setting. Perhaps the greatest gift, more than a university education would be to cut a young person off, adrift in the world for a number of years to learn and gain some basic structure to what they may see and understand of the human condition, which theirs specifically is only one type.
 

The grossly rich or simply gross

In a world of enormous disparity, the sickeningly sycophant display put on for the rich and famous staying at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai made one want to vomit.It was the ultimate example of how money distorts everything. 

Ostentation, ostentation, ostentation, from the gold leaf chairs to the gold leaf iPad (£10.000), from shimmering white Rolls to the beach party where the beach is carpeted with the most expensive Persians rugs to impress the Arab oil sheik, the Russian oligarch or perhaps Wayne Rooney. 
To work in a place like this requires you to continually demean yourself in the face of such overt wealth, individuals with massive egos who demand constant massaging. How can you subvert your self to the constant pressure to be subservient, bowing and scraping to these princes who a generation ago before the oil was discovered were camel traders or the oligarch with a standard 6 education but knows how to steal a countries assets. At least Rooney has skill of sorts ?
I'm never sure of the intention in making these sort of films. I also deplore the film makers who's theme is the fat, the disfigured, or the sadistic. "Back then" in the funfair there were booths, peep shows where, for half crown you could gawk at some poor deformed person as part "entertainment".
I never had any desire to do so, my conscience is clear, but today certain popular TV channels show a series dedicated to revealing the sordid and the sad aspects of modern life.
What possible value is there in seeing grossly overweight people unable to get out of bed and take care of themselves laying there like stranded whales, or men and women so coarsened with drink and drugs they can barely stand up let alone behave with any sense of dignity and finally the ruthless exploitation, by Jeremy Kyle, of barely functioning human beings slagging each other off in a parody on marriage.
The grossly rich or the simply gross, it's the money that counts. !!

The same old same old

The working of Parliament is strange to behold. This evening a debate followed by a vote was held on selling of land assets by London Transport to cover the shortfall in revenue and government subsidy. 

The debate was to amend the fire sale of extremely valuable land in London to a range of developers who wish to increase the long list of expensive accommodation for the rich, often from overseas, to invest their ill gotten gains, especially the hot money flowing into a poorly scrutinised financial empire which is the City of London. There are billions of pounds up for grabs and the initial debate simply asked for a list and a valuation of all these assets which London Transport prepare to sell so that proper public scrutiny could be made and adjudicated.
The decentralisation of power to the London Mayor secures power in the hand of the Mayor (Boris Johnson) who in my observation of his his performance in the Mayors chamber seems ill fitted for the role.
One gets the impression that the support for these assets, sold at knock down prices comes from the usual places, it comes from the pals of those hungry developers who sit on and behind the Government benches.
Parliament represents a closed shop and with it a closed mind.
Parliament these days ill represents the interest of the people and clearly, with a total lack of proper opposition, as New Labour, the brain child of Tony Blair (who has been described as son of Margaret Thatcher) does not hold the Conservative government to task in matters like this.
Is it a lack of interest or is it a result of the parliamentary Labour Party drawing its members from a university educated middle class have ditched the working class for the middle ground where it believes the floating vote comes.
Only Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway had any fight in them and only Galloway mouthed the contempt he felt for the coterie of self interest that the cosy benches of parliament have, over the years produced. Galloway reminds me of those stalwarts of the first Socialist Labour Party Government under Clement Attlee. Members such as Aneurin Bevan, Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison, men who didn't mix their metaphors and argued the case against the Establishment with vigour and commitment. It must be so disheartening for their ghosts to see the dismemberment of valuable public assets to the same old faces by the same old people !!!

Thou shalt

It's interesting how morality, a way to live ones life, changed from its conception.
I suppose it's important to realise that it is a concept born of rational need, as society drew together and interpersonal rules and the values you placed on your fellow man developed.
The Greeks held the view that morality and ethics were of this world, a philosophical expression of thought which lived alongside the sciences being discovered and codified.
Mankind had a responsibility to consider his own life and improve upon it for no other reason than for the betterment of society and his fellow man. The gods that he acknowledged, were totems of the physical world and the things he felt he had no control over.  A God of war, a God of love a God of the sea and all its mysteries, these gods were not integrated with him but stayed apart and separate.
It was only from the stories which make up Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, did the concept of an authoritarian God who was prescriptive and laid down the rules of behaviour for mankind, that religion came into its own.
Gods interaction with Abraham in the story of the burning bush and, much later, Gods revelation through Moses of the prescriptive Ten Commandments which were handed to mankind through Moses  and became the crucible of Christianity and the Muslim faith, where discretion was taken out of man's hands and became, "the will of God".  
In Christianity, what fundamentally altered from the Jewish adherence to the teachings of the Old Testament was that the "means", the attitude and the consideration one gave to the way one lived ones life was an "end" in its self, (much as in Buddhism).  In the Jewish teaching the "means" had only one end, "Gods acceptance".

 It is interesting to see the difference of emphasis in the teachings of Christ which come to us by the books of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John themselves written quite a while after the crucifixion.

Christ seems to have led by example and left no actual written record and so we are left with interpretation, consolidated by Paul who came on the scene even later to publish through his letters his distinctive entreaty to the believers to reach out and preach the word according to the stories of Christ's life and his message as interpreted by the New Testament
The fundamental difference between the prescriptive path followed by the Commandments of the Old Testament and the realisation of Christ that mankind is weak and that religion is a journey in which one endeavours to abide by the Commandments. That in the end you will be judged for effort as much as the success.

A super day of rugby

What a superb day of rugby.
I thought it hard to surpass the titanic battle two weeks earlier waged between Wales and Ireland (23 to 16) where the two teams slugged it out like prizefighters. It was too much to comprehend the sheer energy sapping assault and defence as both teams tried to force their way over the try line. Over 30 passages of play without infringement only 5 metres from the line and then another 23 uninterrupted bone shacking tackles as these huge men went toe to toe. It was like the spectacle of watching Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali in both their memorable battles, two supremely fit courageous men each unable to be cowed and so it was with each of the teams trying to grind the other down.

I thought that was the best we were going to see from this Severn Nation Tournament but I was wrong. Whilst the Welsh, Irish game was a battle of guts and gore, this Saturday was magnificent for its open running rugby. 211 points scored in a day, more then the English cricketing side can score with the bat and considering one flashy struck can rack up 4 runs, it puts the point score in perspective. 
With the three teams Ireland, England and Wales poised to win so long as they won their match on Saturday but crucially dependent on the number of points they won by, it was edge of your seat stuff all day. England had the hardest task since they played France which, no disrespect to Scotland and Italy, France have always been a top rugby playing nation and could therefore present who ever they were playing, a tougher challenge.
It was a day of 'what ifs'. If Italy hadn't gone over for that last minute try thereby narrowing the gap of Wales win, what if Scotland had been allowed a disputed try to narrow Ireland's winning margin, and what if England in the last minute of the game had gone over when they were camped on the French try line with only a converted try 7 points needed to win the tournament by 1 point.
First up was Wales against Italy away in Rome. They had to win by a huge margin and turning at half time just about equal on points it seemed well beyond them. They came out in the second half a new team and for forty minutes proceeded to ravage the Italians with red shirted attack after attack to rack up 61 points to Italy's 20. The commentators especially the Welsh were sure it old be enough to win the title.
The second match started 15 miners later in Scotland with Ireland taking the field as the pre favourites having played the better rugby throughout the tournament only being beaten by Wales in another tremendous display by the Dragons. Given the number of points scored by Wales they now had to win by a large margin against Scotland, a side who promise to do well but somehow season after season fail. They scored 40 points to Scotland's 10 and so had a margin of 30.
It overhauled the magnificent effort made by Wales earlier but would it be enough to beat England.
Tough international don't usually produce large numbers of points since it's the win that's important and a good defence is as valuable as a good attack but in this unusual set of circumstances points were the important thing and in both previous games open attacking rugby had been the thing we witnessed and enjoyed. How would England a side of undoubted talent but who sometimes seemed to confuse the training field with a real match, where the opposition also have something to bring to the table.
Of all the games this was a match of equals where there would be no runaway point scoring and the English side had it all to do just to secure a win !
As the game progressed England playing out of their skins and the French pinning them back with a try or two it all seemed too much. And then the points stated to come as England threw the ball around probing here and there searching for a weakness. The try's were coming, was there enough time, one more try one more mighty effort 30 men pitched against each other, 5 metres from the try line, one minute to go, 2 metres, 1 metre, had they got over. Yes, no, surly yes, maybe no.
Well we now know the answer, 55 points to Frances 35, a Herculean effort by England but short by 6 and Ireland are the Severn Nations Champions for the second year running.
A truly great day of rugby and a day when sport came out on top epitomised by the praise the great Irish skipper Paul O'Connell had for England's attempt.
 

Statistics bloody statistics

What value do we place on the stories which are propped up by statistical information.
Numbers are a mathematical method of securing a scientific fact or providing a comparison one thing with another. The way we use statistics which are a set of numbers to extrapolate a position, usually a political one is constantly employed to such an extent that we often disregard the stat as creative nonsense. The use of numbers, this time presented as percentages is another misuse of a perfectly valid comparator but when used in political real time is downright misleading. 

We have just been provided with a lot of pre-budget information. I'm not sure what George Osborn still has to announce to parliament since most of the information has been leaked. 
This is unheard of a few years back when a leak of budget information was deemed a serious thing and whilst it was no longer indictable with a trip to the Tower for a beheading ( imagine if ISIS come into power they will resurrect the practice ) it is still frowned on if only for disrespect to Parliament.
The Chancellors proposed 23% increase in the "minimum wage" is in fact an increase of 57p an hour.
When a ordinary wage earner such as a postman or a nurse gets an increase of 2.5% this means an extra £58 pm.
When the boss of a large company gets a 2.5% increase it equates to £1666 pm but of course he doesn't get such a puny increase his remuneration committee vote him a 15 to. 20%, increase £10.000 pm to an astonishing £14.000pm equivalent to £150.000 pa. This is an increase of nearly 7 x the annual pay packet of the average worker which again statistically is seriously inflated by the inclusion of senior managerial pay. A more realistic figure given that so many people are on the minimum wage or part time employment would, I estimate be closer to £14000 per annum nearly 11 x the annual pay in what is his "increase".
No one talks in this way, the air waves are littered with astronomically high earners and everyone is too embarrassed to highlight "the great rip off" in pounds shillings and pence !!!

The envelope

It's a funny thing to see your life like an envelope, an envelope which contains all the years, hours and minutes all the laughter and the tears, all the hopes and desires that you yourself believed were personal and part of an inevitable journey. It's only when you look back and concern yourself with the time left that you realise the importance of time.

As a youngster the immediacy of experiencing the new things you were learning and the excitement of every day and it's revelation absorbed you totally. As a young man or women released from the constraint of parental guidance there was the release of opportunity to express yourself as a person, through educational attainment or travel, through relationships and the planning that became part of your life with another person leading to children and the totality of bringing children up. As you progress into the later stages of the envelope there is a realisation of the fixed time span we all have to work with.
Of course if we were made aware of the encapsulated period of our existence then we would distort our lives to such an extent that we would find difficulty in coping, since one of the drives we have is our belief in our invincibility or at least a great expectancy to attain our goals.
Looking back, those goals seem somewhat flimsy but as we absorbed ourselves in immortality there was always time for something more meaningful. Imagine the terror of being fixated on every minute, continually ticking boxes, squeezing every ounce out of everything because the clock was ticking !!
But wait a minute isn't the shortage of time simply a factor in the totality of our unique envelope the envelope is our three score years and ten and that "time" as it relates to us is nearly spent. We are but flotsam floating on a vast sea with little or no importance in the greater scheme of things.

The locked door

The danger of punditry. The latest news from the downed aircraft investigation is that the co pilot was locked out of the cabin and the pilot, piloting the plane was refusing or unable to answer the repeated knocking of the chap outside. Was this a suicide or had the pilot passed out ?

Planes cost many millions. This particular aeroplane was, although 20 years old when built the state of the art in automatic controls, in fact some pilots complained that the aircraft was boring to fly since so much was automated. With a plane costing millions how come there was no over ride on unlocking the door ? It's a common occurrence for a pilot to leave the flight deck to visit the toilet and with inboard security protecting the flight deck from terrorists the door is always locked. Apparently when the pilot leaves on a call of nature, they sometimes leave the drinks trolley blocking the entrance !!! What sort of Micky Mouse management / design is that. Are we to believe that these very highly paid executives and designers at Air Bus couldn't come up with something better. What else have they left off the menu ?

Death strikes when least expected

The air crash in the Alps has caught the attention of our press in the way that the more conventional crashes do. We know where the plane went down and there's a finality in seeing the wreckage strewn down the side of the mountain in which no one could possibly have escaped.
Unlike the mystery of the Indonesian crash where the plane disappeared into the ocean South of Australia and the one that went down in the Indian Ocean, even the plane that was shot down over the Ukraine had a crisis factor in that we didn't understand the cause.
In this latest disaster they still have to look at the data from the so called "black box" but according to the trajectory of the plane as it virtually dived towards the ground, it is my bet that the plane lost pressure in the cabin and the pilot was trying to get lower to get air. Perhaps in this manoeuvre, over the mountains they miscalculated and hit one. 

The trauma of the families waiting at the flights arrival time to receive their loved ones is unimaginable. The scale seems to add to the collective grief but as in any disaster death is the destination and it's how we handle death, the solution.
Today a massive bomb went off in Kabul, yesterday it was in Iraq, tomorrow somewhere else.
We don't see the grief in these countries there is little fuss made of the thousands killed in Syria our concerns are naturally near to home but perhaps we should take some time to think about the terrible state the world is in. I suppose the millions who died in the World Wars and the slaughter in Vietnam and Cambodia have made us immune to a thousand or so here and there.
But it puts Uncle Joe's death into perspective and perhaps we should treat death as our constant companion, close to us at all times !!!

The one and only way.

Cultural unity is a bond between people. To understand a people you have to understand their culture. In Britain we seem to want to turn this centuries old cultural observation on its head.

The concept of Multiculturalism is a mixing of cultures, each culture adding its best to the mix and in essence provide a stronger richer culture. There is no doubt that in certain areas other cultures to ones own provide an extension, an enrichment, food is a perfect example. But in many ways cultures do not meld into one another and there is a competition for ascendency to be the dominant one. The more cohesive a culture is the more likely it will predominate and therefore a more disciplined, more focused, more decisive a culture is then it's people feel more at home following its dictates.
We in Britain have been guilty of taking our culture for granted of even finding fault in having a cultural indices to call our own and easily being persuaded that this identification with long established historical norms is in some ways racist. We beat ourselves up, or at least the chattering classes do by their control of the establishment and media to make us feel unworthy of our past and our history. We feel the pressure to apologise for things done in a very different time, in a world that didn't tread lightly afraid of its own shadow but believed rightly or wrongly in its purpose which at that time was colonisation. Not a bad thing, as is now suggested but in many cases a liberating glimpse of how civilisation as it stood at that time could bring the benefits of architecture transport and a system of governance based on law to other people and cultures throughout the world. There had been other great colonisers, the Romans for instance who laid a similar footprint with similar structures and I don't hear the call for apology there.
If we don't pull ourselves together we will dissolve into not what the politically correct soothsayers wish, a better society but we will fall under the sway of a stronger more determined culture who would find it ridiculous to question their way of life as other than the only one.

Trip of a lifetime.

Sitting on a hard plastic chair in an airport lounge waiting for news of your onward flight is a bummer !!!

Setting off with all the anticipation of a 12 year old on their way to a Theme Park, the journey had been one of predictable events. The train and the transfer to the airport had gone well after the predictable mad panic to pack and the search through the pockets of the bag for the hundredth time, have I got my passport ?
Airports are a mixture of nostalgia, emotion and the bland. To the business commuter,it's another bloody day at the office and the worry of a meeting in Budapest. For the people in love, parting for a time and wondering whether the parting will seal their love since whilst absence is supposed to make the heart grow stronger, there is the doubt they might meet someone else whilst away from my influence. And then there's the holiday maker on a short leash and keen to make the most out of every minute.
People from all walks of life and persuasion pad around the Departure Lounge. The sign boards announcing the flights click over as the minutes roll into an hour or more and one seeks ways to pass the time. Eating and drinking, reading or simply watching.
I love to watch, trying to imagine where so and so is going and what for. Who does that group represent. Is that the chap you saw on TV a while back. The cleaners, the message carriers, the aircraft personnel with its flight deck hierarchy striding purposively for their plane, the careworn mothers, the squabbling children, the anticipation of reunion writ large.

As the time trickles away it's time to face the security process which seems ever more draconian each time you travel. As you strip down to your underpants (it's coming), placing all your worldly possessions into an open tray you fight the thought of picking up someone else's tray and having an unintentional identity swap. Trousers barely supported you shuffle forward, shoeless through the X-ray gate to sound off the alarm because your old lucky penny is still in your pocket. How women with wired bras ever got through to the plane is one of those unanswered questions like Malaysia MH370 ! I can't imagine First Class have to submit to this sort of humiliation but anyway, bin Laden must be laughing in his unmarked grave at the ignominy he has caused so many Kafur
Eventually,at long last the time arrives "will flight Vs300 please board at gate 12.
Joining the queue you wait to find your seat and struggle with the bag into the luggage compartment, "fasten your seat belts please". What will tomorrow bring ?
After sitting in the cramped tube for 12 hours, and now released into the warm tropical air of Delhi, part one of your trip over but wait a minute, there's a hold up on the M25 ( a wrecked plane on the runway in Kathmandu ) and all your plans are dashed.
As the old war time song goes, "Pick yourself up and dust yourself down" it's time to make new friends and test yourself under adversity. Think of those poor sods waiting to go "over the top" in World War One and you will see this as an opportunity, another notch on life's "experiences" belt

Our values.

Life, is a sexually transmitted disease !!

A graffiti sign scrawled on a wall pleads for the poverty of ambition, the hopelessness of so many people out there trying to keep head above water. 

Money the lingua franca, the bridge, the vehicle by which we negotiate our life's journey. 

Without it we are nothing on the social barometer. But what of the inherent worth we all have which is not on display but is deep within all of us. Is the laid back existence of a person living in a village within the Solomon Islands worse off than the busy busy Wall St Banker with his next deal to broker whilst the last is still hanging over his head. 

The speed and the 'instant opportunity experience' that global economics has opened up has flushed out the values society used to value so highly. We have so much, and value so little. 

When one considers the influence the media has as it exposes, for a while a new horror for us to gawk at and then, when it's time is up the searchlight moves away leaving the tragedy to play its self out as best it can. 

What happened to Ebola. Did they find a cure. Are the camps still filling with the dying. Do we care ?

Of course we have our own personal tragedies to deal with, they may be small and insignificant but to us, in the moment they are huge and as we negotiate our daily response to misfortune we can be equally heroic as the brave medics left behind in the disease ridden camps in Guinea but it is this fragility which faces us all on which we should reflect.  

Life is not a gimme and yet do we take it 'too' seriously. Given the wide ranging condition that mankind finds himself in, some would find being or not being a pretty cruel joke. 

The boarder line between life and death in Somalia is insignificant, "you go to sleep alive and wake up dead" and yet we in the security of our three score and ten (out of date, four score) do not value what the dying Ethiopian simply has no way of comprehending. 

Perhaps we put too much value on being alive. We give ourselves up each night for sleep, a sleep in which we have little or no memory (in some-ways a few hours of death), on the assumption that we will wake. Would it be so bad if we didn't ? Would we be worse off without the stress and worry, the aches and pains, the unrequited communication ?

The Ride of the Valkries

I remember when I was growing up listening to the exciting piece of music "The Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner. The music has this tremendous urgency as the Valkyries, the mythological female figures who carry the dead from the field of battle to Walhalla (the hall of the slain in Norse mythology). There's a link between this music and the defeated German nation at the time of their conquest by Napoleon as the Germans bitterly seek to maintain their past history by building their own Valhalla in which to assemble representations of all the important figures that had preceded the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1807. One of the most idiocentric reactions to history, this determination to keep alive what Germany stood for in this age of Napoleonic hegemony was the work of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria.

Like Goethe and Grimm where language was a utilised to develop the image of a nation, so Ludwig realising the disastrous effect occupation had on a nations people and was determined to preserve German dignity.
         How far we have travelled to our present day denial of our history and the glories of our past for the trivia of the present, where attention span is becoming less and less as people allow their minds to gallop around at breakneck speed, looking for its next fix.
History has become something to apologise for as politically correct brain washing proceeds on its course.
How often the hair shirted, sandal wearing apologist who sees nothing but pain and resentment, place all the blame of today's "human condition" on the actions of the past.
Context is lost. Today's (false) morality is is used to judge the actions of even as recent as 50 years ago, without recognising the insidious, homogenising effect of "group think"practised through mass media, particularly the television.
Sitting quietly in the corner of the lounge is the conduit for all the propaganda Joseph Goebbels could have dreamt of.
It floods our psyche with messages about ourself and who we 'should' be.
It subtly creates another type of Valhalla, not of heroes but of creatures who are but parodies of who they should be.
The 'free rein' chicken is lauded for its stress-free meat and, as a contribution to ethical breeding, but the contaminated mind set of the "pre programmed, consumer dominated human" (the PPCDH) which has been developed in the laboratories of Western capitalism would make Socrates turn in his grave (provided the Valkyries haven't carried him off) 

High expectations.

Watching a program about a contest called "Britain's brightest child" I was struck by the fact that none of the kids were white children. Of course in modern Britain I should not be asking this sort of question since there is a presumption in my question that race has an influence.

In some ways of course it does but not as measure of a child's ability, rather it is a measure of the parents willingness to encourage and become embroiled in their child's life particularly their educational attainment. These children had grown up surrounded by books and musical instruments and were encouraged to learn from them. Of course in some children this type of interaction can be stimulating whilst in others it creates a barrier and it's hard to judge which way it will turn out.
There is of course another way where the parent is obsessive about the child and their achievement whilst growing up and it is often in such a family that one sees the attainment of a skill, playing the piano, academic study, even the skills needed to play a sport are nurtured from an early age. Perhaps there's is an assumption amongst the white families who have gifted children that their normal progression in life is enough whilst Chinese and Indian parents know through experience that life's opportunities have to be grasped against fierce opposition and only by constant tutoring can the child be prepared to be one of the best.
It takes a special kind of parent who thinks ahead in this way.
Others set aside money to pay exorbitant school fees and the teacher becomes the surrogate parent whilst the child competes with his classmates but this is a far cry from a parent devoting all their time and money solely on the child to nurture the talent.
Of course it's obsessive and has drawbacks but even given the fragility that this goldfish bowl existence can do to the child's, what we would call normal social skills, the results can be mind boggling in the level of skill it extracts.
It begs the question, does this level of untapped skill lie within all of us ? Without the pummelling of this extreme parental discipline, we are but rough 'unfinished' objects of what we might have been ?

A night out.

Watching on my iPad the beautifully crystal clear Livestream broadcast from Detroit one cannot be other than struck by the professionalism of the package. The scene gradually builds up as members of the orchestra walk onto the stage to take their place within the orchestral setting, tuning their instruments and chattering between themselves, an ever so relaxed atmosphere of professionals going about their daily task. Men and women at the hight of their talent exude a speciality, a training and a dedication to their art which gives them supreme confidence and a beauty which is rare. Thousands of hours of painstaking training are straining at the leash to show us their talent.

The concert platform has filled and the lights dim. The Detroit Symphony Orchestras leader, a beautiful young Chinese woman stands up to play a note for the others in the orchestra to find their key. She sits down and with no fuss Leonard Slatkin strides onto the stage with the soloist a young Cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan.
Being in America the performance, like the surroundings is precise and exciting. Tradition and ornateness are banished and replaced by clean functionality and a sense of modern purpose. Embellishment is stripped to the bone of all that was unnecessary, leaving one to marvel at the virtuosity of the players, especially the soloist who produced (from a $3000 Chinese made cello) a hauntingly emotional mournful sound, the strings resonating as the bow crashes onto them, the sound amplified by the sound box within the body of the instrument, adding its own timbre, a tonal colour, a resonance which sets this instrument apart.
Youth is always breaking down barriers and the attacking style of the soloist brought the audience to its feet at the end of his performance. You could see from the faces of the other members of the orchestra that they to had witnessed something special.
And so with the wonder of modern communication we had been transported into another world a world in which as they spilled out into the cold wet streets of Detroit I simply reached out to fold my iPad away (after having written this bog of course) and snuggled down under the duvet switched off the light and wished you "sleep tight dear friends" !!