Feeling lonely

How can I be lonely when I have so much going on in my head. 

Much of who we are is in our head and it's usually only the convivial chatter which we share with others.

Even to our partners we monitor what we say for fear of misunderstanding.

I admit, I miss the camaraderie of your hiking especially with friends. It's fantastic to be with a group of people who you get along with, in an area where you all are fascinated by the sights and sounds. 

To do this on your own needs a camera, note book or a tape recorder so you can bring it all back in the form of writing about it. Of course it's a poor second to actually communicating about it on the spot.

Actually whilst there are times that I feel lonely, it's more a reflective process which in itself is interesting. When you are on your own you learn a lot about yourself  as you interrogate the mood your in. In the noise of a relationship there is never a time to hear your own thoughts as you skip along trying to please others.

One of the things I use the blog for is to be "reflective" about a whole host of things and to share these reflections with whoever reads the blog. It's not so much a place to win an argument but simply to put down a proposition, my proposition and move on to something else. 

It is on the one hand cathartic and on the other it revealing. To reveal something of yourself  especially if you are overly sympathetic to a point of view, always has its dangers since ones own sensitivities can be bruised but it's a price worth paying if the reasoning, like a session with a shrink, drills a little deeper into the issue.

In life there are no solutions only knowledge gained.

Thinking too much of course one can subvert a good intention like taking a holiday. 

Why do we take holidays? Why do we go through so much disruption to get to a place we already know or is perhaps new, to do the things that are not all that dissimilar from what we do at home ?

We used to drive down to Margate. The ocean was a big attraction particularly with the children but the tacky shops and the funfair were their delight not mine. I played a role then but now I have run that script into the ground.

When I come over to SA for instance I seem to be retracing steps that had crumbled through time, nothing as pristine as it seemed. I am now a spectator. The environment which used to mean so much in my life was someone else's stage, not my own any-more.

I remember being severely discombobulated when I turned the car into Plantation Rd and realised I didn't live there any more. My memory bank, activated by habit and with the repetition of so many journeys home and I was momentarily schizophrenic, the warmth of being home fighting the reality of being a stranger had a deep physiological  impact and for a moment I felt truly lonely.

I remember being in Sun City in amongst the thousands, including members of my own family, in the casino and feeling almost manic as I realised I didn't belong. I suppose it was the mental conflict which my upbringing (my parents wouldn't countenance gambling) had instilled and the overriding reality of being amongst so many people who love to gamble. It was only a moment or two but I felt truly lonely.
So loneliness is a state of mind not a physiological state of being. You are lonely not because you are one, you can be lonely in a crowd,  you are lonely when your mind can't make sense of its surroundings.

So long as the mind continues to poke around for meaning within the chaos it is far too busy to be lonely.

Its more than an age gap.

As with all things the young and the old seem to be fired with different rocket fuel as their  trajectories go into different orbits. 
The vigour of youth fires them off in a straight line with little time to reflect on the view as they hurtle along. 
The oldies are in a different phase of their travel they have lost their Umph the rocket is beginning to splutter and Gravity is beginning to take over.
Simple things which to an oldie would mean a world of touch and see has been replaced with an algorithm and a set of virtual opportunities which act as a screen to filter the real world from us. No longer the "the reliance on past experience" rather the need to understand layers of computer driven segmentation which if you know the password all will be revealed.
The world of the oldie collides with frustration as his reflection of the path he trod yesterday to get to a specific destination, somehow has been altered by a 'bit' or a 'byte' and he is stymied. Call the technician !
Now the technician, usually young, he/she comes from the "other" camp they know it all, no need for the historical perspective, "its the future man"!!
The collision often leaves the older person bruised. His sense of maturity and the importance he has built into his natural self esteem is ruined, he has to grovel, not an easy thing to do when in many cultures, his age would ensure he is held in esteem.
The technician meanwhile knows his strength and although he hasn't felt the true corrosion which life can exact, he is confident that when the train hits the buffers, the oldies will be there to pick up the pieces !!!
The Oldie remembers the special place his parents and his grandparents had when he was growing up, in reality how "all" elderly members of society were cosseted as special.  He finds it a little galling to find he is now evaluated with the members of a kindergarten.

Gary Player

Watching and listening to Garry Player being interviewed at The Open a couple of days ago I was struck by the abundance of confidence he carries around. His prowess at golf is legendary but his confidence in his religious belief and his life style is equally prodigious.
I would think he is not an easy man to live with. His generosity is on his own terms, you have to earn it by doing 160 press ups before breakfast. His intensity and focus in what he believes in is clear to see and like all fanatics he has divine surety on his side, brooking little or no dissent.
Given a "purpose" in life through his religiosity everything is black and white and you can see him waiting to categorise you, to which side of the fence you sit, you are either for us or against us and I would think in Garry's book there is no crossover.
His description of his fitness regime is an example of his machismo. He delights in watching the reaction to stories of leg pressing 400 pounds 100 times and doing a 1000 sit-ups to start off his day. His eyes twinkle as they assess your incredulity but it is a measure of the man that he has set himself these goals and with almost messianic determination has achieved a whole set of records both personal and athletic.
He is one of the best golfers, his record speaks for itself. His association with Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus, and the tremendous golfing contests they had throughout the years 1957 - 1986 becoming great friends they somehow didn't let the contest get in the way of the deep respect they must have for each other.
The ebullient Palmer, the polite, reticent Nicklaus and the ferocious self belief of Player would seem strange bed fellows but somehow the acknowledgement that they were each, very special on the golf course sifted out their phycological differences and made them life long friends.
I would think given Garry Players almost pathological desire to push himself he would have acquaintances rather than friends (perhaps his iconic status brings with it a cult of something akin to worship) since to be a friend, he would be a hard task-master.
His conceited is never far below the surface and this must make him very tiring but like his fitness regime which has produced a honed 50 year-old in a 80 year-old body, his passionate positivity and religious surety has sharpened his mind to admit no errors, as he sees it a set of truisms to which you would contest at your peril.

The jewels are not for sale.

Principles, ethics, democracy all describe a part of the human condition tied into our quest for becoming civilised.
But then there is another level of human endeavour which describes a more base attribute, intolerance, parochialism, greed and avarice
The fear in our unfettered political system is that when a political party wins an election , its ideology is relatively unassailable for the five year term. There are no checks and balances other than the vote of its members.
The man, John Whittingdale who the Prime Minister put in charge of challenging and changing the BBC has on record his opposition to certain fundamentals as to the way the BBC is run and funded.
The BBC is seen by the Conservatives as having a left wing bias (in other words in opposition to them) when it comes to politics, much like the Murdoch Empire has a right wing bias. One of the over riding reasons why there is supposed to be a guide in limiting the ownership of the press and television media is that without it, it puts too much power in the hands of one person who could sway the public with too much biased information.
Of course in a democracy you cannot prescribe to a privately owned company what it should and shouldn't do, so long as it within the law. A public company such as the BBC is not under such limitation and the government of the day can, not withstanding the Charter Agreements set up to protect the integrity of the BBC, interfere specifically through the funding arrangements of the licence fee.
A committee has been formed to examine the workings of this highly valued institution, highly valued not only in this country but world wide.
I say highly valued but of course there are many different types of people who make up a community and one is jolted out of ones presumption when people are interviewed. To many the wide ranging high quality program content is of no value since their needs are met by Sky Sport and its American produced entertainment format.
The cost of the Licence Fee which works out at a ridiculously low,10p a day and which also covers but is not acknowledged in the discussion, the radio output both national and local radio.
Competing and offsetting the Licence Fee is the income generated by the subscription package (Sky, Virgin, BT) to obtain the programs (substantially more than that of the Licence Fee) but added to the subscription package cost is that the program content is broken up by "advertising" which I once evaluated as being 40% of the viewing time per hour.
Are we mad to assume that we are equating a licence fee with a subscription when the program content is diminished by 40%.
There is also I would argue the damage perpetrated on an individual's mind with the highly targeted sales pitch repeated time and time again, often disingenuous but in a format designed to 'sublimate' the mind in what I would argue is an unethical practice. The "committee" is formed of the very people who have either an axe to grind or have a financial objective, that of eventually privatising the Beeb. There are no defenders of the Institution on the committee and clearly it's job is to demolish, in stages the values of this truly creative media organisation.
The Tories sense blood and with their election win they are out to radically change the landscape of what the British society has evolved into and stands for, its liberal values and humanitarian precepts mark us out in a world of diminishing values.
We must do all in our power to counter the Tory assault on the BBC.
We must bombard our parliamentarians with our views on this and on the other services such as the NHS which we hold dear in this country. It is the only force at our disposal (other than the barricades) but a political party can only survive on the vote and if we make our voice felt,  as repeatedly as the advertising media do to sell their product, we will have a similar success.

Wearing your heart on your sleeve.

"Wearing your heart on your sleeve" was a symbol of praise or ridicule depending where you were born.
The North has always been seen to be a grass root constituency meaning that the people were on the whole poorer and therefore the effects of a poor economy and the implementation of political decisions are much more likely to be felt by the poor than by the middle class.
The further north you go the more likely the population is susceptible to the vagrancies of decisions made in the corridors of power.

One of the main driving forces of the Scotish revolution was their feeling of a disconnect between Westminster and the needs of Scotland. The binding force of Nationality meant that whilst the North of England felt equally left out they didn't see themselves as a unit, a common voice to speak for the man in the street.

Listening to the SNP is refreshing. Turning up en bloc to take their seats in Parliament they are generally hostile and very vocal in their opposition to the Government. The Labour Party are a shadow of what you would expect The Opposition to be having spent so much time sifting the policies of the Conservatives to oppose only what the Middle Class wouldn't find distasteful, they have lost the ideological base for being in true opposition to the Conservative Party.
"Southerners" have a different philosophy. The counties surrounding London feed from the economic Dynamo which the capital city generates and the population on the whole benefits economically. There is less of a tribal affinity other than the Cockney to the East of the City and this sense of individuality leads them to believe that they cope as an individual, irrespective of what the Establishment decrees. You often find, in discussion, a lack of compassion towards others less well off than themselves. The philosophy "if I can do it so can they" is well entrenched and little cognisance is taken of the circumstances that can throw a curved ball to anyone.
To wear your heart is to acknowledge you have one but of course I speak of the emotional, empathetic, heart not the muscle !!!

Avoid being average

They say that civilisation is skin deep. The inference from that is that deep within us we are truer more real than the persona which we reveal to others.
It's a sad thought that we feel the need to present this false picture, perhaps its based on feeling insecure, constantly searching for a way to project ourselves as we assume others would wish to see us.
This constant ongoing project to please others is not only soul destroying, sapping so much of our energy and real creativity, it suggests an ambivalence in our lives which is unnecessary and damaging.
One of the "issues" that accompany any sort of "combined"relationship is the assumption that all parties are on the same page.
Men when they get together leave much of their prejudice at home and engage in a loose non binding association which succeed by having an interest in the "difference' between us". We learn to assimilate the interests and the hobbies in the spirit of genuine camaraderie and affiliate our friendship through an ongoing discovery of the other person.
Closer to home the wrestling match that is a marriage excludes for many this appreciation of our difference, but makes these differences, a the focus of disharmony. It's as if the difference was a manifestation of a "lack of loyalty" to an ill defined cause.   It's the concept of a "matrimonial cause" which seen from the others perspective is at the root of our unhappiness.
As we try to be a person "acceptable to all", we loose that vital spark of who we really are. 
as individuals. We are more suited to the blokish "see you tomorrow" , without being enveloped in the minutiae or the interrogation of your every move which becomes a pain.
Single or married we should rejoice in our individuality since its this individuality which distinguishes us from the next person and is often the initial thing which attracts one person to another. To be attracted and then to try to choke it off is plain silly !
Viva la difference should be on everyone's lips as they seek out interesting people and interesting relationships.

 Conformity is an acceptance that 'average' is cool. You owe it to yourself not to be average !

Will the real criminal please stand up

The dust hasn't settled yet as Alexis Tsipras has to persuade his parliament to accept a dreadful financial situation forced on the Greek people.
The troika were unrelenting in their pursuit of Greece who were seen as profligate. They practised the tactics of State interrogator threatening to leave the meeting in staged frustration, playing the good cop (France) bad cop (Germany) routine so that eventually after 17 hours of non stop negotiation they bullied the loan appellant Tsipras into signing away the State silver.
For a 68 billion euros loan he handed them the crown jewels which, given the leverage he was under, understated their true value by multiples of the value of the loan. Typical of the capital markets as the suitor for a loan you take what you can get and try not to estimate what, on the open market your assets will fetch. There will be financiers today waiting in the wings to cream enormous profits from the deal.
It also has to be remembered that politics like high finance is a dirty game.
Greece has had financial mismanagement at the route of its governance for decades. This was well known by the political leaders and the EU bureaucracy prior to Greece being joining.
Goldman Sacs were brought in to work their magic and massage the figures to get over the hurdles of due diligence.
Most importantly the financial arrangement was between the "banks" and "Greece". The banks extended them the credit and were the creditors with all the responsibility that lending money brings to the lender.
Somewhere along the line the banks were relieved of this debt, they were allowed to walk away with the European taxpayer now footing the bill.
Like a replay of the 2008 financial crash the banks were bailed out by the taxpayer even though the taxpayer had not been privy to any of the dealings.
Listening to Mrs Merkel and her finance chief, Wolfgang Schauble rage against the Greeks in Vienna would could be forgiven for thinking that they were the innocent party but it was Merkel and Schauble who convinced the ECB to take on the debt to save the German banks.
They were the ones to saddle the taxpayer, they were the ones to let the banks off the hook, the same banks who were guilty of basic financial diligence (examining the books).
Blaming Alexis Tsipras, or the Greeks in general is fraudulent given the history of the Greek saga and particularly Germany's hand in Greece's entry into Monetary Union.

Sent from my iPad

A move to Scotland

It seems to me that the Labour politicians are putting the cart before the horse. To my mind one has to have a set of beliefs, a set of values on which your mental foundations which form your actions rest.

The Labour Party is currently hunting around for an identity which it can sell to the British electorate on the supposition that the important thing is to find a recipe to please the electorate rather than have a manifesto which contains the substance of what the party stands for.
I suppose this is a perfect example of when a political party is run by a set of university taught intellectual professionals who's move through the ranks started in the university environment rather than the streets where their main crusade should be directed.
The old Labour Party parliamentarian (with the exception of a few) were not a career politicians. They were largely from Industry, or Local Government. Trade Union based they were naturally integrated with the people they chose to serve and their problems were their problems. They didn't have to define their ideology, their ideology defined them and they would find it corrupting that the Party they loved and cherished had morphed into New Labour.
New Labour was an experiment, the creation of Tony Blair with its missions to be elected at any cost. They would tailor their policies to flatter a specific section of the electorate, redefining the targeted electoral base to include people who were clearly of a more right wing Tory persuasion. In doing so the base of the old party were forgotten or at least assumed to be captured and their needs were allowed to wither on the vine.
If you want to know why affordable houses were not built, why the educational system has repeatedly failed the poor leaving them worse off after so many years of Labour rule, if you want to understand why the infrastructure and the skill base has deteriorated particularly for that section of the population which the Labour Party came into existence to protect, look no further than Tony Blair and his electioneering plan to shift the emphasis towards the Tory heartlands and the middle-class vote.
It seems to me a new party has to be created, a visionary party which would shake up the establishment and re-evaluate the direction from first principles, not as an accommodation to Conservative principles but radical policies not afraid to re-establish a proper redistribution of wealth through the Income Tax system.
All governments seem to have been blinded by the Friedman low tax/no tax scenario as if taxing people who earn massive amounts of money is a crime and that these entrepreneurial maestro if upset will leave in droves. Leave to go where ?
A person lives and arranges their lives within a country for a whole range of reasons and a fair properly constituted tax system would not be reason for ignoring all the benefits that living in this country brings.
If the Party creates a distinguishing "alternate voice" I believe there will be sufficient time for the brutality of the Tory plans to effect enough people for a majority to vote anti Tory at the next election. If not perhaps there is no hope for the English and a move to Scotland is on the cards !!
 

Standards my boy, satandards

Who sets the boundaries on behaviour.

Why is behaviour so important to some sections of society and not to others.

How is it that society which in many ways is an artificial construct, why is it important or perhaps the question  should be, is it important ?

Mrs Thatcher is reported to have argued in her neoliberal mind-set that there was no such thing as Society only individuals struggling to be recognised.

The Neoliberal concept which sprung as an antidote to the classical Liberal concept, which was an inclusive philosophy,recognising that people needed to be supported, the weak by the strong. It had at its heart, Strong Governance which one of its main concerns was the condition of the people it governed.

Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman are the economists who advocated a turning away from centralised overarching Governance with its strong Public Sector serving the people's needs,  towards 'privatisation', 'fiscal austerity', 'deregulation' and 'free trade'. 

Politically, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were its political standard bearers with the transition from "consensus" politics to "neoliberal" politics. It was the acceptance of its financial philosophy, "financialisation" which led to the financial banking crash of 2008.

Continental Europe is a mixed bag so to speak with its many nations, it has had many historical journeys to get  to where it is today. 

Generally speaking the Europeans are heavily committed to "society" and one of the most attractive aspects of this conglomeration of people's is their willingness to recognise each other "as people" with very similar needs and aspirations.  So remote from the "nationalistic block mentality" of a century ago.

Unlike the Americans and their cousins the Brits, much of their regulation and law is turned towards consensus building through fairness and equality, not through a "winner takes all" philosophy.

Why do you think the Tories are so anti E U. They rage on about the imposition of rules and regulations from the EU but it is these very regulations and laws which are designed with the common man in mind that are an anathema to a Tory Squire.  Only the Market and an unwritten-constitutional set of laws dating in their roots to Feudal times have relevance to his mindset.

Historically the British Class System prevents the efforts of the European to provide a homogeneous balanced society since it runs against the fundamental divisions in our society which the educational arrangement, private and public schooling sets in place from an early age.

The cry for our own legal and parliamentary establishment to be unhindered by the "inferior" Europeans is a perfect example of our Establishment wishing to cling to its Feudal past. 

We still tug at our forelocks at the sight of Royalty, we accept the crazy notion of ennobling people and calling them My Lord, as he taps them on the shoulder with a sword dating back centuries and with it, customs, which are equally antiquated. We make a fetish of worshiping our early history as if it has relevance to today. One can be proud of ones past without wishing to see it invested in the proceedings of today.

And yet recently the Europeans seem to have taken a step back from their ideals in the saga which is Greece. The struggle between France and its democratic instincts rooted in "The Revolution" and Germany the Teutonic powerhouse with its own strict set of rules is being enacted today. The French wishing to make a path for the Greeks and the Germans resolute like a Victorian Father - "standards my boy, standards"  no matter that the boy is crushed under these very standards !!!

People in glass houses should not throw stones

It's a murder story. 
The victim is being slowly strangled to death, the police were called by the victim but the cops were not interested and the crime is due to continue.
Of course the strangler has his objective, that of applying pressure, just short of asphyxiation. His head is lost in the passion of financial conservatism which he remembers as being the saviour of his own nation. What his memory excludes, as with all fanatics is the very generous terms which were offered to Germany when the "austerity", brought about by the "reparations" demanded, particularly by France after the 1st World War, were seen to be destroying the country and very sympathetic restoration was pursued, by particularly the Americans.
Also in 1953 when, due to the American Marshall Plan which in effect pumped 150 billion dollars into Europe to stimulate the war torn economies it also offered Germany enormous debt relief to help the country recover. 

The image therefore of the German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schauble with his hand around the neck of Greece, demanding payment in full with "no debt relief" is to me beyond comprehension.

The commentators have been scathing of Alexis Tsipras for calling for a Referendum, winning an outstanding "No" vote on increased austerity (which mainly the Germans had  been demanding) and now, caving in to the pressure and accepting what the creditors demanded.
I think Tsipras played a blinder. Firstly he got the populous on his side and showed the unity and the desperation of the Greeks to the World, particularly to the U.S.
He made headline news and showed that even under the desperate straights his country was in under the hard, unyielding financial hegemony of Germany a nation showing no empathy when only 60 years ago the Germans were offered and needed exactly what they were now denying Greece.
When the EU cry about the massive bailouts they have placed in the Greek banking system they fail to mention that the bulk of the money is returned to the EU banking system as repayment for the last loan. It's a merry go round with few Greeks benefiting, other than being kept on "life support"
The focus of Tsipras is to get a moratorium, or a 'right off' of a large part of their debt so they can breath again. His modernisation of the Greek state, (tax and pensions), has been agreed but will take time but his focus and the glare of publicity he has shone on the impossible burden of existing debt will I hope drive the Wolfgang Shaubles of this world back into their den perhaps to read their own history and become a little less judgemental.

Till death do us part

Once upon a time in the far off days when I was growing up we had a dog, Chummy, a sort of Heinz 67 variety sheep dog. In the days when "we were so much less precious" he was simply a dog. He was loved and cared for but had a life of his own. He would slip away and go walkabout exploring the village and the fields on his own. He wasn't cosseted, he was a dog.
When he became ill we took him to the vet but in the case of a serious illness we knew that he would have to be put down, as much to save him the pain as to save us the expense. He was a dog !
Today owning a dog has become like adopting a child. The authorities have a responsibility to the dog and your parenting skills are checked out. Does "your profile" fit that of the dog.
Would you be able to exercise the dog since in this day and age we do not let the dog wander off to fend for himself rather we tether ourselves to the dog with a lead and plod, each morning and evening behind our shaggy friend learning his needs. Talk about the tail wagging the dog, the dog has us well and truly nailed as we take on the daily rigour of walkies come hail or shine.
Of course, he or she is a great companion and one accepts that a dogs temperament is so much more amenable than ours, it seems to be one of simplified love. Not  the crazy zig zag up and down of human love with its highs and lows and its interminable self justification. No a dogs pleasure is there for all to see with a tail which gives the show away every time.
Whitey our Bull Terrier would hide behind the long curtains if he knew he was in my bad books but his tail sticking out from under the curtain couldn't resist wagging when I walked into the room, giving the show away and destroying any animosity, how could you be mad with such a loyal idiot.
Considering a dog as a companion is a bit like asking a girl for her hand in marriage, it's a commitment, 'till death do you part'.  You agree to feed, house  and treat the dog with love and respect and in return, he/she has to lick your hand and refrain from chasing the next door cat. You have to foot the veterinary bills, and walk the dog in all weathers in return for a canine grin and a bit of tail thumping when you get home. We transfer our brains into our dog to interpret our love for the dog, as his love for us and, having accomplished that task the marriage is complete and we are well and truly under his paw.

The Foreign Office

When I was a lad wandering the streets of London with my Dad. I remember him pointing out the Foreign Office and his describing the importance this building and the decisions made in there which effected results in many parts of the world.
This was before "The Winds of Change" when Britain held its Empire together by diplomacy and occasionally the gun boat. To my young impressionable eyes this building and the Admiralty Building further down Whitehall were the nub of our external power. The array of antenna on the roof of the Admiralty Building spoke of warships ranging around the oceans of the world, at this very moment, in my youthful eye massive battleships plunging through the waves off to deal with 'Johnny Foreigner'.
Today our reach is off Falmouth with the occasional sallies into the Med and our communications go through Washington. But we have attempted to retain the pomp of a circumstance long gone.
The Admiral of the fleet in all his gold braid speaks longingly of his Aircraft Carriers still being built and the day when the aircraft to land on them will be conjured, probably from some redundant American stock sitting in mothballs.  
The Foreign Office itself is a splendid example of display without power. 

The huge stately offices and grand staircases all contribute to a past glory. A time when a foreign diplomat had impressed upon him that this was the centre of world influence, "where the sun never set", and one had better listen or we will send those pesky gunboats around.
The Tunisian massacre the other day was evidence of how far we have slipped.
More then 30 British holidaymakers were gunned down on the beach. The media were there filming and informing but the Foreign Office was silent. The families of the dead along with the worried families of the survivors were unable to have any assistance or information regarding who was dead and who was injured. This was not an event in a Borneo jungle but in a seaside resort flanked by attractive hotels with rooms and a check-in procedure to enumerate who was there. The dead and wounded were one assumes, killed by  bullets and not high explosives and therefore should be recognisable. They must have had their wallets and other means of identification on them and yet over 4 days elapsed before the Foreign Office swung into operation and began to communicate with the desperate relatives and the public at large.
This was presumed a major terrorist attack and yet no instructions were issued to the travel agents or the airlines with regard to how safe or unsafe Tunisia had become.
The massacre occurred on June the 26th !  Today, July the 9th, the Foreign Secretary has announced that the Foreign Office have advised everyone that Tunisia is too dangerous and that anyone from this country are warned against going. Two weeks to the day, one wonders how many meetings and sub meetings had to be constituted to be sure of action !!!
100 years ago one can imagine the worried officials scurrying around, in and out of meetings as the "Fleet"  put to sea off the Scapa Flow to prevent the German Navy from leaving their base in Wilhelmshaven. The air waves must have been humming with cryptic orders too and from the fleet.
What a change 100 years brings when not a peep is heard other than the hollow footsteps as the officials busied themselves away from their posts, hoping the trail of emails didn't land on my desk !!!

Road to Damascus

Watching the London commuters trudge home looking for transport reminds me of why I turned down any request to go in today.
Contrasting the disgruntled London commuters with the scenes which had proceeded the London story, one has to thank ones lucky stars that we live in a country which often feels peeved but has little to cry about.
The picture of Syrian families fleeing across the boarder into Turkey was truly heart breaking.
We have become used to the pictures of little African children sick and in many cases dying projected into our living rooms by the Charities asking for donations. Somehow we have become immured by these pictures, perhaps we even turn away because we feel impotent.
The sight of the long lines of dusty, exhausted Syrians shuffling along with few belongings clutching the most precious thing in their lives, their children, the concern and the anguish etched in these faces which have known only hardship. The mothers, fathers and the grandfathers and grandmothers with their little ones perched, like little birds on their shoulders bobbing around in a sea of humanity heading for who knows where or what.
The grim determination to keep going no matter how far they have walked to get here or how far they will still have to walk to reach a destination. But what sort of destination what sort of resolution of their fears. How do they counter, as all parents try to counter, the pain of hunger and dread in their children's eyes. The children trusting in their mother the mother loaded with that trust turned to guilt, yet knowing full well they are destitute with no solution. Only life itself has any meaning clinging to that they trudge past, faces etched with a mixture of fear, apprehension and grim determination.
The Londoners today have around them the cafe, the bus, the taxi, and the overground train service only the underground is out of reach for a day yet to hear some of them complain of their  "Road to Damascus" experience bears no comparison to those who are trudging down the actual road.

Up the creek without a paddle.

I suppose receiving a punch on the nose for your own good has its place. If a person were threatening to throw themselves over a bridge then a punch might be in order but to expect immediate thanks is optimistic.
The Chancellor has taken his seat after the much heralded, first true Tory Budget since the John Majors government which finished in 1997. It was said by the Liberal Party, who were in coalition with the Tories that they had softened the effect of Tory hegemony and today we saw the true colours of unfettered Conservatism.
Things politically sometimes come together to give a particular party an advantage.
I believe Scottish Nationalism dealt the death blow to the Labour Party in the very strong assault by the bulk of the media, (which just happens to be owned by Tory grandees),on the potential of the extremely strong showing of the SNP to pack the Opposition Benches in parliament alongside Labour with a mandate to push through pro Scottish Legislation. The English were appalled to think that the unruly nation at the top of this island, Scotland. A country which had had more say and sway in the British Parliament through Scottish born and educated individuals who often won the plum jobs both in Government and in Opposition but who now, through their collective national voice would be a collective danger as to how the cosy way of doing business would be broken up.
That's old history and today we saw and heard a Canceller set about in some detail how he intended to balance the budget, 'income v expenditure'.
There are not many who would deny that a household budget, like a national budget has to be in balance. Unless you have a rich Uncle you have to learn to live within your means.
Part of living within your means, you have to distinguish what is "your means" and for years this earning conundrum has been skewed by the Benefit System.
Benefit payments which were envisaged to be short term to pay for exceptional circumstances such as loosing ones job to tie one over whilst you found another has grown into a mammoth
1. The nature of the job market changed and security of long term employment was no longer available.
2. The nature of the family changed with single parenthood becoming more the norm and the single parent finding it hard if not impossible to find enough time in the day to earn enough and provide their child with sufficient time to cover their needs.
3. The remuneration and the skill level declined as the jobs which were available were of the Berger type trade, long hours, low pay.
4. And finally and crucially the housing stock which had been sold off by Mrs Thatcher was not replaced and the rental accommodation was now in the hands of private landlords who because of the housing stock shortage could charge high rents.
Low wages and high rents have driven up the Benefit Bill as the tax payer has supported both the Landlord and the Business Establishment by topping up the wages of the poor so they could have a roof over their heads and put food on the table.
This phenomenon is part of the new world order in which Global Capitalism has skewed the equity between people to the extent that, 1% of the worlds population has 50% of the total wealth/income, whilst the other 50% is split between the 99% left.
The Tories see this situation not as iniquitous, or morally wrong but as the cause of a "National dilemma" a weakness in not being able to balance its books. Their solution is, to withdraw part of the Benefit from the needy. Needy not because they are profligate but because "the system" is against them.
a.) Nowhere in the Budget Statement did he address house building and a replenishment of publicly owned affordable houses.
b.) Nowhere did he suggest anyway of offsetting the poor wages offered by business other than to announce that by 2020 the minimum wage will become compulsory at £9 an hour. In no way will this offset the withdrawal of the Benefits these "working people" need to balance their budget !!
Hand in hand, whilst punishing the children of the poor they reward the children of the rich by raising the threshold of when you reach Inheritance Tax, from £380.000 to £1.000.000 so that these rich kids will remain in the clover to which they are accustomed.
They held out the olive branch to the "ordinary Joe" by shifting up the level where tax becomes payable but to the majority of the people effected by the draconian Benefit cuts their earnings fall well below the existing threshold and so raising the threshold has no meaning.
I could go on but those of you who have got this far are falling asleep anyway so I will stop. I only want you to consider what a charade of a budget this is when the Chancellor, in closing his speech said " This is a budget for the whole nation since, we are all in this together".
I would have liked to add," yes but the majority don't have a paddle"!!!

Peace and quiet.

 It is said that silence is golden. I remember the exquisite silence of the Karoo, in South Africa, when far off the road, the silence is a 'presence', you can taste it when that background noise to our everyday life falls away, not even the sound of birds to break the pristine silence.

It's funny how we go through life carrying with us, yet hardly realising, this background noise of things and events happening around us.
Who hasn't been seduced by the rhythmic crash of waves working to the mechanism of tides. The sound of a water fountain or a stream is meant to be cathartic as we find, in its delicate pattern some sort of solace.
But when I talk of silence I am not talking of that sort of silence or even the silence and pleasure of being in the Dales and hearing a curlew call as you stride out up a path.
I'm talking of the silence within a house where the outside influences have been muted.

 Usually the early cup of tea is accompanied by switching on the radio to find out what is happening in the world at large. Maybe the TV is on, maybe the HiFi plays a piece of music, what ever, there is man made sound to accompany your arrival from the state of sleep. 

But what if you enjoy the silence and the ability it brings to allow your mind to pick its own path through each minute and each hour with 'no distraction'. Letting your thoughts mature into a relaxed uncluttered review of the day. A day without priorities, a day without judgement, a day without measurement, a selfish day hanging out with your best friend - yourself !!

Propaganda.

When you begin to loose trust with a partner, a colleague at work, your police force, the whole political structure as reported by the media it leaves you with a feeling of dismemberment with no substantial support structure in which to place your emotional footprint.
Listening to the unashamed political attack on the West from RT, the Russian external TV station and match it with the mud slinging which comes from the West towards Russia, be it their troops in the Ukraine or the criticism of their domestic and international posture, one is caught wondering, "who is right".
NATO is a useful foil for America to stand behind but make no mistake NATO is an American project and what ever NATO does it has to obtain American Approval first.
It's interesting that RT cobbles together many dissident voices. Serving University professors, people recently retired from positions in the US Government, and many freelance commentators but it is always one way traffic. There is never a balanced viewpoint from a Russian dissident or an ex employee of the Russian State, not even an academic to question their propaganda.
So for all its connivance with the dark forces in politics and big business, the Americans are able to accommodate the people who disagree with virtually everything they stand for, as part of the trade off for having a so called democratic system. Freedom of speech, like the freedom to carry weapons is supposed to carry with it a measure of responsibility and usually it works. But when it doesn't the pressure to react negatively is strong and it's this tension of believing in your principles whilst knowing that your enemy may use your leniency against you which creates the problem.
Listening to well organised propaganda, not the sort of storytelling which is non factual but pulling together the threads of isolated incidents and projected them as the norm, is the work of a good propagandist.
On the other-side of the coin, many of these incidents go unreported in our own news media either through editorial design or just that their singular impact is deemed not worthy of a "story" in a 'time critical' news cast.
By spreding your source material you obtain a closer representation of what interests you. We need to look under all the stones, even the ones we would rather not know about.

The 5th Estate

Is the propaganda machine which supports the financial establishment (perhaps I should rephrase this, they "own" the propaganda machine), which has been pumping out the message that, if a "No" result comes in (which it seems certain), then the Greek world will crash and burn.

Placing fear in the hearts of ordinary people is, and has been the methodology of any powerful plutocracy and so long as the public had its toys (in this country, its beer and football) the public play along.
As this propaganda machine churned away with its message of fire and damnation, another method of communication the Internet, had another following and was playing a different tune.
This blog is but a tiny example of the alternative voice. It evaluates things from a different platform, a platform closer to the people, a platform without any "skin in the game", a platform which could be just as objective because it has little or nothing to loose. 

The EU, an unelected bureaucracy has no substantial ties to the voting public and only through the national parliaments, which can be voted out, does it feel any sort of heat for its actions if they are felt to be unfair. 

It is an 'artificial construct' which came into being to draw the Continents main historical belligerents together in an economic pact with the intention of preventing notational national conflict.
The expansion of the EU and the creation of a Euro currency zone was to obtain a collective market and in theory a powerful counter to the hegemony of the Americans. It provided, particularly for Germany and to a lesser extent France, a financial bargaining chip and a vastly inflated market to trade in.
It was the driving force behind the economic rise of Germany and contributed billions if not trillions of Euros to the German Exchequer.
The down side of having created the cash cow was that when the cow became ill, the vet bills began to arrive and like many pet owners they began to question the cost.
Most things have a cost and its this annoying aspect of modern day finance only to envisage the upside of any transaction. Growth is their mantra, expansion and consolidation, the emphasis on efficiency and the bottom line to the exclusion of any other consideration. Raw materials sourced and these days often manufactured under slave labour conditions are then sold to countries which are debt ladened with consumerism and fuelled by credit.
The masters of the financial universe couldn't care a damn nor it seems, could their lackeys the politicians and so the machinery of misinformation churns away avoiding real confrontation for a crust today.
Watching a frightened, toned down BBC, questioning the Chancellor of the Exchequer today reminded me of the cost of voting in this unhindered Government, who have threatened to reform the BBC, seen to be left wing, which relays on a Licence Fee under the control of the Government. This is a Government which would like to privatise the organisation, much like it would like to privatise the NHS and destroy another cherished British institution.
This newly elected government was elected largely on the fear it was able to garner in the English Middle Class with a spectra of the SNP, the Scottish dog, wagging the Labour Party tale which drove many potential UKIP voters and the undecided middle class Labour vote into voting Tory.
It was an unrelenting scurrilous right wing media campaign which carried David Cameron back into Downing Street, a campaign based on innuendo with the usual ingredient, "misdirected fear mongering".

The Greek crisis continued.

The votes are being counted and the Greeks will soon know which way their future lies.
Of course that is not really true since the ramifications of a "No" vote against a "Yes" vote have not really been spelt out in any sort of detail.
A "Yes" vote means probably more of the same. More borrowing with more debt leading to more borrowing.
Companies who set up up over in this country offering loans to people who could not get loans through the normal banking system came under intense scrutiny because the interest, interest on interest drove the debt into multiples and became impossible to repay. The word "Usury"comes to mind which is an illegal practice, illegal because it draws a person in a financial trap where they will never be able to get out of debt no matter what they do.
This of course is exactly the position of Greece, it can never extricate itself from its debt because the countries income  can hardly pay the interest, never mind the capital.
I was having a go at the IMF in my last blog on the Greek crisis, after listening to Christine Lagarde the head of the IMF. She supported Wolfgang Schauble the right wing German Finance Minister who was adamant  that the Greeks should be made to suffer.
Having returned to Washington someone must have had a word in her ear since the IMF have since put out a statement which mirrored what I had suggested was a solution.
The Greeks need two things.
1. A moratorium on the repayment so the country can be given the time to process realigning their tax take with their income from earnings.
2. An even more difficult and painful process, is that of bringing the Greek Pension system into line with what is on offer in other European countries.
These financial / social changes can not be changed overnight in fact it is the laxity of persuasion by the EU over the years that has allowed the imbalance to continue even when the Greeks were heading for bankruptcy.
3. The second IMF change of mind is that the Greeks get a much longer period to repay their debt, up to 25 years.
Why Christine Lagrange didn't say this before she departed a few days ago is a mystery but it's incontestable that the financial pockets of the Europeans and the IMF are deep enough and could  be induced to go easy on Greece in return for positive changes by the Greek government.  

In 2008  "for no changes" the Banks across the world were bailed out by the ordinary people to the tune of trillions of dollars.
No it's an ideological problem particularly on behalf of the Germans who, when faced with austerity and a valueless currency went  through hell to put themselves right and it's the memory of that effort and stoicism which asks of the Greeks,  if us why not you ?
Of course the Greeks have their own memories of the terrible time they experienced under Natzi occupation when their people were shot and tortured out of hand.
If the Greeks decided to exit the Euro what would happen.
1. Their Central Bank would revert to printing Drachmas. The Markets would decide on the price of their convertibility and a peg would be decided.
2. Income into the Greek exchequer from exports and the tourist industry would purchase services and negotiate contracts and the bank would avoid the crippling debt repayment schedule since they would no longer be liable to their creditors.
3. The immediate need, to cut their cloth to suite their income would be forced upon everyone and for many this would be better than trying to survive under the yoke of an ill thought out currency experiment which has divided Europe into two halves, the Northern Industrialist and the Rural South.
A 4th option would be to allow the Greeks to exit the currency but stay in the Union allowing them to trade with their own currency which would in some ways put them on parallel with the position of the UK.

Perhaps this is the moment when the "Capitalist hegemony",( which has been all powerful throughout the world ) is brought if not to heel but to re-examine its blind pursuance of profit above all else, if other countries such as Spain, Italy, even Ireland decide their future lies outside the EU currency and vote more "left wing" governments into power.

Black consciousness

Steve Biko once said "Black consciousness is not just for blacks, its for whites too. It frees them from their superiority. It gives them back their humanity.

This is one of the claims, by non whites. It fundamentally describes the impasse in race relations if, for what ever reason, one group feels itself fundamental superior, then true dialogue stops and a game of charades begins.

History teaches us largely our own brand of history. The path our forefathers trod and little about the vanquished. It enlarges or inflates our importance by its telling and whilst there is no doubt that the more mechanically creative a society is in leaving a paper trail of buildings and artefact, the importance of the societal interplay of the vanquished is ignored in this grandeurs attempt to instil what I know and think on others.

We all have a history. Some of it is proud and can be told and some of it is best not said.  Our history, our life is largely based on chance with only a few individuals being able to to strike out for some distant shore and create their own footprint. 
If we are weighed down by circumstance and even feel constrained in living our three score years and ten, think how much more collectively constrained and bruised a society must feel if it's 'character' is based on colour and ignores individuality. 

At least we are judged by our 'own' actions, our failings are our 'own' individual failings but what if, because of the accident of colour we were categorised from birth.

A true gift is to recognise humanity as being, "of us". Not a series of Petri dishes, each containing its own strain, some more dangerous than others !

The gender gap

In great danger of upsetting at least my female readers I have to tell you of a story in the papers today, about a school who have resorted to insisting that their female pupils must come to school in trousers. The reason is that the girls have ignored the schools advice that skirts were getting too short and the sight of their underwear was becoming embarrassing to teachers and distracting for the boys.
We are in strange times.
The feminists are determined to give women and girls their right to wear what ever they want (or don't want) so long as it's within the law. Their claim is that irrespective of the flesh revealed men/boys have no right to become in anyway effected and certainly not aroused.
Quite right. Men and women for that matter, should always be in control of themselves and in theory be able to contest any sort of advance made on them with a terse "non"!!
But of course lurking below the surface of every human being is their primeval state, a large part of which is controlled by the sexual urge to procreate. The primates have all kinds of rituals to signify their acceptance of each other, the timing of which is made even clearer by chemical derived odours for each potential mate to recognise and with mankind's sociological persuasion, we have created a set of criteria to help society to manage the inevitable sexual attraction between men and women.
Having decided that monogamy is the best way to ensue that the offspring, who have a long gestation period followed by a very long child rearing period, that both the woman and the child need protection, rules of behaviour . Rules were in place, depending on which end of the social structure you came from, and Society was the guardian, particularly for the younger members of society, to ensure, by observation and comment,that these rules were embraced as far as possible.
Part of the strict rule base was the dress and the demeanour of the boys and girls toward each other. Respect was uppermost and the formality which went on in the middle and upper classes was epitomised by the painful, drawn out dialogue in Jane Austen's characters.
Today we have gone full circle.
Perhaps the pill, perhaps abortion has meant that there is little downside to a romp in bed. Perhaps it is the badge of 'motherhood' which childbirth initially brings to a poorly educated girl, knowing she has the Welfare State to fall back on, but there is no doubt young women and young girls flaunt their sexuality these days in a way which was unheard of outside prostitution.
The claim that it is their "human rights" which are at stake if they are inhibited in anyway and that it is for men to handle the provocation since it is argued that no sexual intent is intended.
It's a strange thing this question of flesh and its effect. In Victorian days the sight of part of a woman's bosom, even an ankle was enough to drive the men to distraction, and of course the cleavage in those dresses were an architectural masterpiece of peek a boo engineering.
Today, women in all walks of life are keen to show of their bodies. It comes in the form of the young intoxicated lass who stumbles down the street with everything flashing to the female athlete who run in little more than a bikini with a logo and a number on. I'm no prude but why do the men feel happy in a pair of baggy running shorts and a full vest whilst the women seem to need to reveal more and more each year.

In the case of the athlete it's not sexual but it is about their needing feel attractive but attractive to who and why. The women in tennis are lovely but it seems as much a fashion show as it does a game.  When you see the men turn up looking as if they've just crawled out of the washing machine unshaven and unkept why is there such a discrepancy. The girls wishing to be "seen"in a certain way and the men apparently feeling good, irrespective of how they look ?

A fuss over a minutes silence

 An "old" friend in South Africa once commented when I started to issue my blogs, that I was in danger of becoming a Cassandra. Cassandra a character in Greek mythology, was given the power of prophecy by Apollo and then after she had refused his "overtures", (who said I'm not old fashioned) cursed her never to be believed. For those of you old enough, Cassandra was the pen name of a journalist William Connor who wrote for the The Daily Mirror and the tongue in cheek pseudonym was his take on whether what he wrote would be believed.

Russell Brand has of late made a name for himself by using his web site to broadcast his political views which are anti establishment and this morning he has caused a storm by suggesting the minute silence for the dead in Tunisia, which David Cameron has suggested we support at midday, should be ignored because of the hypocrisy of our leader, who willingly sides with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen, plus a host of countries who would compete for the title 'most brutal' as evidenced by ISIS
Brands attempt to confront the issue of our support for brutal regimes has raised a lot of steam from people who are blinded by the profit from the sale of guns and cattle prods used by the police in these countries to control their population.
His aim is hypocrisy, one of the worst human traits because it characterises our feeling better than someone else, we are superior and it's a dreadful deceit.
I am also a little squeamish when I hear the media and the people who could not have known any of the people who died, lining up to offer their feelings towards those who died.
It seems these days as if you are not a proper civilised person without offering your sympathy and express your unhappiness, in front of the cameras. The Diana phenomena is symptomatic of a people who's very 'individuality' seeks moments like this to come out and recognise their fellow man.

Hot nights

It's been as hot as hades today, with the temperature on the Wimbledon Court up above 35 degrees. A ball boy fainted whilst the players rushed around regardless and the spectators visibly melt into their seats whilst they scoff their strawberries and cream.
It's a funny old thing this hot weather we love to go on holiday to places that serve it up, day in day out and even though we know the dangers, like the Noal Coward song "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" we are gluttons for punishment.
The first time I got badly sun-burnt was when I cycled down to the South of France and having arrived at the camp site on the coast, spent the day lounging by the pool. Long before society educated us on the dangers of too much sun we had turned ourselves into beetroot coloured, shivering wretches. Not many years later I would turn my hand to "cooking" or rather "frying" on the sun deck of P&Os Oriana, coating myself with Brylcream in an attempt to get a loverly light brown tan, the very antithesis of the sun screens used today.
Hot days and hot nights, the scalded skin sung out its anguish but there was more at stake than a bit of discomfort.  The girls wouldn't give a white skinned Pommy a second look and so one tried to speed things up with the Brylcream. A voyage to Aussie from Cape Town was only a couple of weeks, no time to loose and not much time to score !!
Hot nights and Mosquito's. I remember them well as you laid in bed, sweating away, afraid to expose too much flesh for fear of the mossie, listening for his whine, switch on the light, where the hell did he go, switch off the light and within seconds he was airborne again. The joy of tropical living.
Tonight it's hot, there shouldn't be any but just in case I will leave the light on !!!