The 4 minute mile

It was such a different age. An age when true amateurs contested many of the sports which today are the business of the professional and with it, the distortion that money brings.
Roger Banister ran the mile in 3.59.04, he breached a barrier that some thought was beyond human capability, in a style that reflected the whole amateur ethos of the time. Banister, Chis Chataway and Chris Brasher all had full time jobs, running was a part time exercise, something you did after work training in the dingy weather with no reward other than a medal. No high altitude training, no special food supplements, a pair of running shoes which a runner in today's the also-runs would deem unsuitable and a track which would fail to do service in the most impoverished corner of Africa.
John Landy the Australian had been lowering the record closer to the 4 minute barrier and was Banisters main rival.  Landy trained in the sunshine of Aussie, ate the diet of an Aussie and was odds on the one to break the record.
Watching the film of the event at Iffley Road athletics track in Oxford one had to realise how different athletics is today. Banister, Chataway and Brasher all worked as normal on the Saturday morning of the event, each getting to the track on bus, or in Chataways case he cycled there and they changed on the track. No Mo Farah 5 star treatment, no coddling in the run up to the event, it all belonged to a different time.
A time when Stan Mathews, the best footballer of that generation was paid £20 a game, a time when people and their stars were made of the same stuff in terms of income and lifestyle.
Money, sponsorship and television rights has made today's athletes and footballers millionaires. It has distanced them from the lives of ordinary people who now only in their dreams could contemplate, not competing but not even meeting these superstars who live in yet another bubble of exclusivity which defines the 21st century.

Social norms

It's interesting to reflect on the changes in social norms. The older one gets the more extreme the behaviour of our youth seems to be but is there a danger of saying "it were always so". The loosening of respect and the apparent wish to run against all kind of structure within the society is very evident today. The things that society at large would, in the past have held an opinion on and have been willing to make that opinion known has nearly expired. Today people are far less likely to voice opinions for fear of stirring up socially conspired accusations  where only a few years ago, non existed.

 The interaction of youth with their peers and the adults they know, nowadays lacks the authority figure. No one is in charge. The park attendant, the bus conductor, even the parents position has been watered down so that youth has  a free hand, until something serious occurs and they face the police and the courts.This lack of a guiding hand has tremendous ramifications for the way society works and the way people respect other peoples boundaries. 

Learnt from the knee one accepts the messages of how to behave and if caught pushing that boundary bubble too far, there were aunts, neighbours, officials, who reminded you of what was expected.
Today the strictures of what is acceptable and not acceptable, even within the classroom, have been dismally absent. Education once a haven of discipline with strict rules and common objectives we now see a free-for-all in which the teacher has to contest for their space with the class. The assumption that the kids were there to learn has been turned over for a 'child centric' world where it is the teachers role to discover the needs and the interest of little Jimmy or Jemima and adapt her teaching to suit.
The damming epitaph, "that person was spoilt as a child" could now be in danger of being mass produced as we shy away from criticising the child when it does wrong.
Positive support rather than negative chastisement has a good ring to it but if life is full of distasteful events, many brought on by ourselves and we had better to see our part in them. An adolescence who centres around their needs and their needs only and excludes the needs of others, such as the parent and teacher, is bound to have to learn the hard way.
Is it any wonder that the selfish behaviour we see in society today has its roots in the 'exclusion of family' and an educational system which seems to fail in impressing the need for responsibility in everything we do.

Convenience and obfuscation

 'Secularism', the strict separation between State and Religion is, in this country a muddied convention, as is so much of what we proclaim and would make up the ingredients of a Constitution, if we dared have one. 

The very fact that we shuffle around the edges of wishing to have a constitution at all, claiming the antiquity of the Magna Carta and Case Law is sufficient, allows us to put off any meaningful decision making. 

"It were ever so". 

The French on the other hand have since 18th century, in their magnificent (given the time) constitution of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, wrote into it that strong clause dividing the State and the powerful block representing the Religious Establishment. 

The church in those days represented the Catholic Church which whilst a very powerful economic force in the land was not much different in outward appearance from the Secularists.

Outward observable division has only arisen in France  with the arrival of the Muslim faith (the Jews and the Sikh are small in numbers) in the popularity we see today, due I think to two things.  The numbers of Algerian and Moroccan emigres from North Africa who brought their faith with them and a small but growing body of converts amongst the young who are dis-satisfied with the modern, western code of values and see a purity in the Muslim way of conduct.

The conduct, its strength, is based on conformity, the ability to both recognise one another in your faith, through dress,  as well as the strict uniformity of prayer, all of which lends a sense of belonging to a collective.

The French in sticking to their Constitution, as is their right and some might say, their strength, have banned the outward sign of any religious garment or symbol. The Jewish yarmulke, the Sikh turban, the cross, and of course the hijab and the burka are all barred when entering an establishment such as a school which is run and funded by the State.

The argument runs that each individual who passes through the portals of such an establishment must retain their individuality and be valued each in exactly the same way. Once you stick a symbol on the person donating their exclusivity towards a group you loose that individuality and take on the identity of the group which then lend undue force or attention away from the individual.

Individual rights then become distorted with collective rights and whilst the individual who wishes to assimilate with the group has a right to do so they loose the right to be truly counted as an individual because of the influence of the collective.

The French are far more clear and honest about this than we are but of course we can't be clear we have no clear rules, no founding statement, only a mish mash of convenience and obfuscation. 

The Russian Enigma

My knowledge of Russia is based on what I have read and more recently on people who I have come to know.
Russian literature is unsurpassable in its magnificent sweep capturing the vastness of the land and the people living in it on the one hand and on the other the forensic dissection of character and plot. Tolstoy on the one hand Dostoyevski on the other have written about the human condition from opposition ends of the social structure and yet both deal in that complex character the Russian as an individual.

Any country scopes its people according to geography and climate. Size in this case matters as does the conditions, the length of day and the suitability of producing food to live on. Harsh conditions produce self reliance but often at a cost of self-inversion. Pain and the suffering become a means in themselves, to strike a sense of character, a
sense of ones worth is measured in how tough you are.
The survivors of the gulag were both enabled and at the same time diminished by the experience since survival meant you had to be tough but often at someone else's expense. The memory of surviving was tainted by the memory of those who didn't survive, not in a nostalgic way but with some doubt of your own connivance in the end result.
The drive to survive and the character formed through living in harsh conditions made the Russian soldiers a formidable foe. The heroics of the people who took part in the defence of Stalingrad in the World War was not based on jingoism or flag allegiance but to a sense of we've been here before and our experience tells us we can live through anything which life throws at us.
The current nostalgia for a revisit to the Stalinist order and the lust for the collective strength which  the Russian, desperate to reestablish their place in history, is willing to forgo the individuals trinkets of capitalism for the strength in that strong feeling of belonging.
What is amazing is that, as the stories emerge about the conditions during Stalins time, the structural deceit by the State and the Apparatchiks, the wholesale propaganda machine which was the press this is ignored by those who would wish the Soviet time back. The nostalgia is not for a place of individual dignity but of a strong national identity that can measure its strength in kilo tons of thermo nuclear deterrent.

The value of nothing

Subject: The value of nothing

One of the most terrifying sights is when an edifice is torn down. When a structure is revealed to be hollow. When the straw dogs ride into town amidst the shaky sand castles that resembles our surety in "the system".
I'm speaking of our financial system, the system which was built by "experts" who told us that it couldn't fail, a system that was mathematically proven, a system, like the "win win" system in the casino which at the end of the day, "suckers everyone".
Shinzo Abe is casting around to try to stimulate the Japanese economy. A nation which traditionally was extremely conservative and isolationist has a death wish. Its population is getting progressively older and has no way to inflate either its negative inflation rate or to import new blood (people) to reinvigorate the nation and find an economic balance in the relationship between the actively employed and the cost of an older sector who are costing the nation dearly. His idea, to keep on pumping money into the economy to try to stimulate the manufactures and the market by creating a consumer bubble isn't working. The Japanese are too conservative even for that !!
Deutsche Bank is limping along with the burden of trillions of dollars of iffy derivatives and the even greater burden of third party insurance on other derivatives held by itself and other banks. Deutsche Bank, teetering on the brink of nationalisation is to all intents and purposes, bankrupt.
An Italian bank has just failed the banking stress test and there are many of the banks which prop up the functioning of the nation state that are in a similar position.
Afraid what inflation will mean to the re-evaluation of their unfathomable debt and yet stymied by the fact that, without inflation their earnings are flat.
Capitalism is built on confidence, confidence in the financial system, that what they do will receive payment and that sales are rewarded. The problem is that the banking system which is an integral part of commerce has been built, over the last 30 years, on sand with a jamboree of mathematically created products and a super speed computerised system which as reduced the value of things to a nano second and in the wink of an eye has lost sight of what value really means.

Hoisted on your own petard

As a friend of mine in the blogosphere recently suggested to me that Britain, and he ment the English, are supine in their willingness to ignore the dangers of virtually anything which inhibits a quick return on investment.

The reason we are in the predicament at Hinkley Point, where we have to rely on the French and the Chinese because no longer have the skills to design and manufacture our own nuclear power plant, never mind the willingness to invest our own money in the project, is down to a lack of long term planning and foresight. We simple did not invest in the skill base that once was the backbone of this country. From proper apprenticeship schemes to encouragement of niche engineering expertise as the French have done as a part of "their" strategic responsibility towards the security of their country. Nationalisation is not a dirty word in France when it is recognised that a project is beyond the scope of private enterprise and needs the taxpayer to bulk up the commitment. 

Our masters took the American view that private enterprise would be the only source of finance but what they didn't factor in was the fact that, the American government was the major procurement body particularly through its armament industry which its self was financed by the stranglehold the dollar had over overseas markets and able to run up trillion dollar deficits on its own account.

Successive governments in this country blow hot and cold on projects depending on their political ideology and little beyond a 5 year window can be assured. There should have been cross party agreement pre Thatcher to encapsulate an investment package which lay outside current government tinkering to ensure we kept the skills and the structural backbone to run a modern economy. These issues should be outside politics and of course when Margaret Thatcher arrived, championing the free market, in line with her friend Ronald Reagan, both under the throes of Milton Friedman economics, then the decline set in. Yes she gave us cheap houses or rather she sold our national asset back to us, not unlike the Russian Oligarchs who plundered 70% of their nations assets for private gain, national assets in our own case which we have never even attempted to replace.

Yes she was quite a girl our Margaret.

Hinkley has been put on hold by the new PM Theresa May because it is rumoured she has doubts about the probity of the Chinese. The worry that they will develop and install software in this strategic piece of national infrastructure which will, if politics demands switch off the lights in this country by this foreign power which as a matter of interest if no one has noticed is communist the antithesis of the ideology we subscribe to. It's I bit like putting the Vatican under the control of ISIS.  

We are already ingratiated with the Chinese in British Telecoms current national upgrade of our telecoms system, they the Chinese won't need hackers, they now have a direct line !!

Short sighted and low on strategy we are led by the bumblers who's vision is governed by the past not the future.

It's everywhere. I walked into a meeting on Friday to hear that the architect a privately educated university man with a plummy accent had directed the builder to change a suspended ceiling system into a solid gypsum board ceiling so that it complies with fire regulations. The suspended ceiling has been in situ for 20 years but because some other walls have to be removed they are forced to enact current fire regulations. 

Ok that's as it may but what about the access to the cabling which runs above the suspended ceiling. It will be enclosed as soon as the ceiling is installed, enclosed and therefore impossible to reach. 

The highly paid professionals, the architects who are supposed to be trained to envisage all aspects of a building, including the supply of services such as the electrical supplies are oblivious of the need and the total flexibility required by the data/telephone installer who is constantly installing new circuits as the needs of the building change. The architects are either ignorant or oblivious to this. For them the imprint of the building on day one is cast in their psyche, no other manifestation of their design can be envisaged as they sit back and dream of the next incarnation of their portfolio. The buildings have no functionality beyond that which was presented in the original brief and the access to services in many instances is virtually non existent.

Having forcefully pointed this out access hatches will now be provided but if I hadn't attended and I wasn't scheduled to attend, we would have been like Hinkley Point "hoisted on our own petard".

The 35 hour week.

15 years ago France produced a law limiting the French workforce to a work roster of 35 hours a week. The western world was aghast, this was economic suicide we need to get workers to work longer, not shorter hours. 

Work was sacrosanct, work was the natural default position for a heathy human being, anyone who said differently was lazy and unintelligent, dare one say probably a communist, certainly an activist against the citadel  of capitalism. 

15 years on the French haven't crashed in flames and in fact lead the Germans in their productivity and far out pace us in the UK where we are completely laissez-faire ranging from, "no hours contracts" to 48/50 hours which we expect our junior doctors to work. This of course doesn't cover the 3 jobs, single mother who apart from the hours spent cooking and caring goes out all hours, god send, to make ends meet.

So with high productivity it can work. High productivity means good training and good motivation of which part is looking forward to the life you have outside work. 

"Life outside work" how very un-Milton Friedman of you, how very un-American.

The actual leaders in this "Life Value" scheme of things are the Scandinavian countries but this is no surprise since these Nordic people have not succumbed to the American format of consumerist driven lifestyles and in so many ways have been unwilling to follow the flock.

Perhaps BREXIT will give us also a new perspective on how we build a society. A society based on "real" needs not artificial ones dreamt up in the boardrooms on Wall Street and Goldman Sachs, but I'm not holding my breath !!

IOC pass the buck

  There as some supermen and I have just watched one. Mo Farah has just totally dominated the run at the Olympic Stadium. Not a oz, not a gram of surplus weight, a glistening machine of sinew and muscle who having run 5000 metres in under 13 minutes he is hardly out of breath. If I ran 5 metres I would be more knackered and it seems unfair for the gap to be so wide.

The sound of the crowd cheering him on brought back memories of our Olympics and the tremendous crowd participation in each event. One felt proud to be a Pom.
Listening to Paula Radcliffe discuss the issue of the World anti doping Agency (WADA) recommended that Russia be banned from attending the imminent Olympic Games in Rio, the IOC, the Olympic Governing Body now seem to want to back track (perhaps for legal reasons) and allow the national federations for a specific sport the final say. The commentators seemed content that the IOC will pass the buck but surely this is the body who are closest to the organisations within Russia who deliberately, not only turned a blind eye to the cheats who were taking drugs by falsifying the test results they even went so far as to swop the results around so that athletes were given a green light instead of red.
Well now we know the IOC did in fact bottle it and refused the opportunity to ban the whole Russian team. Whether this was fair was based on the presumption that any 'test' in Russia coving any athletic discipline was suspect.
The power of money, the power of influence from a powerful state won out and we and athletics as a whole loose out.
The Olympics is a massive money making machine. Coke and Niki are but two of the multi million dollar organisations who stand to gain from a conflict free Games.
The Russian TV Channel is cock-a-hoop as they realise that at the last minute the threat of a total ban was removed. Their general theme has been "how can you ban all the athletes if many have not been caught cheating" but this pre-supposes that the testing was being done to an international standard and of course, this is the accusation against Russia, that the labs in Russia were equally guilty by avoiding, one presumes for national prestige, when a drug was found.
It appears that the claim of "not me guv" is now being wheeled out and the Russian Authorities have survived. Not only survived but there is a measured hostility by their Athletics representative that the findings, which still ban the 'track and field' athletes will be tested legally, although practically, the outcome will not effect their attendance at this games.
The only person who will not be attending the Games is the Russian "whistle blower" who revealed the State manufactured avoidance of test results and who wished to run under some sort of amnesty as an independent. The IOC managed to find enough collective will, to ban her but of course she now has no national flag or stern faced President to breath heat on the the IOC. 

She above all is the loser in this sad, sad world we live in !!

Any Questions - Any Answer

Listening to "Any Questions" on the radio and the follow up program, "Any Answers" which invites the listener to ring in with their opinion on the questions asked on Any Questions one is often struck by the gulf which lies between the professional and the members of the public. "Any Answers" offers the politician or a member of the political commentariat  a platform to spout their professional opinion and as opinions tumble out of their mouths they are soon replaced by sound bites. "Any Answers" is a very different animal. The public ringing in are not in the business of proffering their ideas for personal advantage but are truly held opinion on what they had just heard.
Jeremy Corbyn and the travails of the Labour Party was one of the questions and I was struck by the dissimilarity of the members on the panel, who were the members of parliament and the people ringing in. The quality of the "phone in" and the apparent sophistication of the people calling, set against the sound bites of the professional panel was striking. The Establishment and its foot soldiers the Fourth Estate (the press and media) are continuous in their clamour against the fitness of Corbyn  for Leadership and to listen to them the whole country, like many of Corbyns fellow MPs, are dismayed at his performance so far. It was so rewarding to hear caller after caller ring in to say they supported Corbyn and felt there was a sense of rebirth within the country for politics, particularly amongst the young where the same old faces and the worn cliches had turned them off and made them sceptical. Corbyn and John McDonnell the Shadow Finance Minister has struck a cord with thousands of new voters, voters who were prepared to fork out £12 to join the party,(an increase of 200%), an increase imposed by the party apparatchik to try to limit the people willing to pay and show their support for Corbyn  but which backfired as record numbers (now over 600.000) paid and joined.
The airwaves and the press are unyielding in their non stop barrage against the man as if he were some evil messiah which I suppose he is if he is about to upset their cozy world of half truth and lies which describe what is supposed to be communication.

A time warp

Listening to 702 in South Africa this morning it was like skipping back in time.

 John Robbie is still injecting his blend of cocky, up market confidence to his show in which he chatters on, without taking breath describing events that have taken place over the weekend and in the week to come. His voice has been projecting his optimism from the 1980s when he was one of the founding presenters. In those days 702 was a real alternative to the State broadcasting system, daring to criticise the government with its chirpy presentation. 

The traffic is still chaotic as the queue's build up at the places they always did, Gilhooleys Exchange, Bedford View, these names imprinted on my brain as I sat in my car in traffic on the M1 on the way into work, back in the days. 

It's strange to reflect that no matter where on the globe you are it's the same, Bombay to Bradford people sitting in their cars waiting for the guy in front to move forward. The precious hours of our lives spent captive in our motor car, going nowhere listening to the news, listening to the adverts worrying if you are going to miss the meeting or if the boss will serve you a sarcastic comment or worse your P65. I see some passengers on Southern Trains trying to get into work in London are being faced with just this stress.

The traffic and the fumes, particularly from Diesel engines, engines we were all encouraged to buy 20 years ago but which, with a little research were shown to be far more dangerous with their output of large 'particulates' than the petrol engine. I for one would never buy one for that reason and yet the "experts" we're saying the opposite. Where are those experts now.  Where are the food experts who have turned 180 degrees in their advice and propaganda. It can't be just marketing can it, it can't be as crass as that. It can't be about making money, surely not !!

John Robbie seems ageless, his optimism bottomless, as he ploughs on through the vicissitudes of the changing face of the nation. Nothing changes as he swoops from Apartheid to the ANC, from white to black nationalism, from one set of propaganda objectives to another. One set of lies for another, he sails on regardless, doing his job, minding his business providing a sort of lighthouse, rising a beam through the murk and squaller, not a beam of sense and security but one of persistence and feasibility, to rock on regardless.

 

Name dropping

At last I can indulge in some sort of name dropping, well nearly. My son's school mate, well not quite, has just won, for the third time the worlds most prestigious bicycle race the Tour de France. Chris Froome attended St Johns College a prestigious school in Johannesburg. He epitomises that quiet confidence that private schooling gives, always polite yet firm, always sure yet thankful always willing to thank his team mates but assured of his own star quality.
As the Sky Team rolled on to the Champs-Elysees to start the eight circuits, ending in a sprint to bring the three week marathon to a close, one could truly wonder at the path of this unassuming Kenyan/South African.
Not quite reaching the heights of that other Kenyan (through his father) Barack Obama, Froome has proved himself the real thing winning this his third Tour. Covering a period of three weeks the race is the severest test of endurance. Not only are the cyclists pressed into herculean effort day after day, Mo Farah for instance will not compete again until the Olympics but these cyclists are expected after physically burying themselves, climbing impossibly steep and long climbs through the Pyrenees and the Alps, draining the last of the reserves of energy, having to be helped off their bike they are expected to repeat the dosage the next day and the next for three weeks.
Cycling has for many years had the spectre of drugs hanging over it but is it any wonder given the extreme nature and what is called on the human body that some have used stimulants to keep going.
The overhead shots of Paris,  the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens and in the background the stately River Seine all capture the elegance of Paris. The helicopter view of the villages and chateaus across the country, the beautiful snow capped mountains and narrow valleys as the riders zoom their way through the country is the perfect holiday brochure, a superb marketing tool to display France.
The Tour is finished and the skeletal framed Froome is standing on the top step of cycling of rostrum. He and his team, for this is a truly team event. Men who were prepared to grind out their last oz of energy as the Sky Train picked up speed and overhauled the early leaders day in day out. Geraint Thomas, Ian Stannard, Wout Poels, to name but three who we saw each day heading the Peloton keeping up the speed so that no other team could match them and bring their own top rider into contention. It was a thing of planned precision owed mainly to Dave Beresford the General Manager of the team who seems to have found the winning formula of team selection and discipline.
Well done Chris, Lux Vita Caritas (Light. Life. Love)

Trump v Clinton

When a mature, educated society, cheers and flag waves to the rhetoric of Donald Trump, one has to wonder at the psyche of the crowd. I suppose the vibe one gets from like minded enthusiasts at a pop concert isn't far from the Republican Convention. 

The mood music, "Make America Strong Again" is a rallying call that few would disown. 

The route to this strength seems to lie in the exclusion of immigrants particularly Muslims and Mexicans "who are taking our jobs and are seen as a security threat to our community". It's the same old, same old. Blame the poor, blame the itinerant, blame the foreigner but never examine the part big business and Wall Street plays particularly in the States through the portals of Globalisation to shift resources to the far flung corners of the word where profits are highest. Where is the plight of the workers of Seattle or Boston in the decisions of these City Executives, rather keep focused on the shareholders many of whom reside where the jobs now reside.

The Messiah hath comeath. Trump walks on to the stage amid rapturous cheers from his followers.  His following is emotional not rational, its swayed by the sound bite not the process.

He has the knack of choosing the females at his side. His wife Melania, a very beautiful 46 year old woman born in Slovenia she epitomises the benefits of excessive wealth.  Her beauty must have played no small part in her decision to link her future with him. He is no film star, he is no philosopher, he isn't eloquent but he is very rich and her beauty is well provided for. 

I saw and listened to their equally beautiful and assured daughter Ivanka the other night and was amazed to be won over by her poise and the youth and the simplicity of her massage,- well not quite !! Schooling and the poise that money can produce is there in bucketfuls.  It only seems missing in Dad who has none and seems to disdain the need. 

As the music plays out, this has become more like Dallas, these saintly women hug and show affection, as he luxuriates in the setting, everything is perfect until "he opens his mouth". There seems no logic only populist sound bites, no policies only propaganda. He seems bereft of any sort of compromise only rejection of everything that has gone before. 

The convention loves it, the convention wants to 'kick ass' wants to go back to the time when the world trembled when America spoke. For most, the world is at best a holiday destination,  at worst an inconvenience, and an expensive one at that.

Clinton has wormed her way, after years as the also ran, the one who bathed in the glow of her husband and ate humble pie when he was discovered as a womaniser. 

Kennedy was the same, its the power of high office and the willingness of some women to try to use that oldest ploy, their sexuality for thirty minutes of fame.

Hillary Clinton played the long game, she was close to fame and power and saw herself as heir to what Bill had. But she is no Bill Clinton. His silvery tongue, his demeanour, his charm, she has non of this. More like a wind up doll she keeps repeating the same old motions on stage, the coy wink, the pointed finger into the audience as if she has just seen an old friend, she projects all that is false. Her intensity is that of a person going through the motions but at the end of the day, what else have we to stop Trump.

I liked Bernie Sanders, he seemed genuine with policies which addressed the social problems in America but the political machine which is so powerful in the USA was afraid of his quasi, left wing background and the potential effect on the capitalistic fundamentals enshrined into the American psyche. 

Too dangerous, they let him run and gather a tremendously enthusiastic following only to let him wither in the intricacies of the Primary voting system and the even more opaque Caucus system. 

It might still come back to bite them since rather than unite behind Hillary Clinton they, the Sunders supporters, are threatening to withhold their vote regardless of the danger that the Republican nominee Trump wins.

It's rare that a parties Presidential candidate is so disliked and distrusted by those who should be the rank and file of the Democratic cause but if it were not for the spectre of Donald Trump looming in the wings, then they might just welcome a Republican into the White House, this time around.

They are in a tiswas

  There is a debate going on in the House of Lords regarding the consequences of the decision by the democratic majority within the country to leave the EU.

One of the terms which keeps coming up in their Lordships debate is the term "national interest". What do they, what do we, understand by the term. 

I suppose Sir Philip Green has a view, although his treatment of both the tax system and his workers, make his "interest" a rather self centred down interest. The interest of the 'unemployed worker' is very different to Philip Greens view and whilst speech maker after speech maker in the House of Lords  wears sackcloth and ashes since for them, the Referendum is terrifying, as terrifying as the confrontation of King Charles 1  by Oliver Cromwell, with the old having to move over for the new. The whole aspect of a separation from the "status quo" is unthinkable.

They are casting around for ways to draw back from the implications of the vote. 

One is the implicit responsibility of Parliament towards its citizens to protect these citizens from there worst inclinations (the refusal to bring back hanging which if the pollsters are to be believed, the majority of people in the country favour, depending on the heinous nature of the crime). 

There are also parliamentary statutes which are in place to make important and far reaching political decisions such as taking the county out of the EU. 

Decisions with the potential to do terminal harm to the economic health of the nation are it is argued decisions for the elected MPs.

Of course these men and women in the House of Lords, who are like the Commission in the EU, unelected but who hold important positions in business and commerce, "have an interest". 

Largely the assumption of their Lordships seems to reflect a tremendous negativity, even a passivity, an echo of Chamberlin's Munich deal with Hitler where "peace in our time" was so desired that it obscured the reality of what was going on in Germany. 

No one seemed to be troubled by the the growing strength of unelected bureaucracy in the EU or the growing Federalism which seems the only way to save the euro. The economic situation was viewed only from the exclusion of the European market and no opinions were forthcoming regarding our trading potential with the rest of the world to which at the moment we are severely inhibited by the fact that "all trade deals have to be negotiated by the Commission for the benefit of Europe as a whole".
Nobody seem to think we can gain something of a trade balance, even a modest surplus as we strike deals on our own right. 

Even being granted WTO (World Trade Organisations) access to the EU market and there are many countries which trade with Europe who lie outside EU membership but who trade on the basis of WTO rules which applies a cost premium of roughly, three and a half percent customs duty. I would suggest we could live with that if at the same time we did something about our poor efficiency which requires spending on both training and education and a significant improvement of our capital investment to modernise our declining industries.

These are big asks but it only requires the will and imagination, a will and imagination which all self employed people have to grasp. The gravy train of the massive cartel which is the EU is coming to an end. The sloth and automatic assumption of turnover and profits is at an end and the excitement of once more running your own show is soon to be upon us.

Perhaps if we could rein back the corporate pay structure differentials where CEOs receive nearly 200 times more than what their workers are paid. 

Perhaps if we could be assured that the corporations paid tax, commensurate to what the man in the street pays, particularly the self employed running a small to medium sized company.

Perhaps if we stopped the disparity of private and public education with all the distortion that privilege brings.

On reflection perhaps it's no wonder their Lordships are in such a tiswas.

Fully in charge

Listening to the conversation at another table (I was eating out again) one is reminded of the different bubbles each person, including myself, live in.
They were posh, old and fully confident that what they had to say carried some weight and they were sure that what they said and thought represented a strand of sanity in a crazy world which now differed measurably from the days when the Empire was built.
My ears first attuned to the talk when Cecil Rhodes was mentioned. The one old buffer was in lightweight gear, on his way back to the continent from a holiday in the UK. The other his brother, if features are anything to go, by was more akin to the UK environment with its guarded reflections and hidden patterns of communication.
To the expat, Rhodes was all that Empire stood for and he was not of the opinion that we, 'as the collective Brit' had anything to apologise for. The other worn by the censorious environment in which he lives was more reticent about the Empire but happy to concur with his brother on this one. One can imagine there had been a fair amount of jousting during his brothers stay and the light hearted banter about the need to get to the airport on time, was poo pooed by the visitor "no need to panic" since time ran to a different beat down on the estate overseas. Until you saw the tail lights of the plane as it took off, all the rest was conjecture and should be treated as such.
I have been in both camps and the joie de vivre of not confirming to type, released from the strictures of an overbearing condescension which segments of society here insist upon is invigorating even when you are a working class lad, never mind when carrying the traditions of centuries old privilege on your shoulders. The accents and the confidence were not learnt, you were born with them, they were your heritage and one could see either of the men, fully in charge, where ever and what ever the environment.

Declension

 With BREXIT there's talk about our further diminished status on the world stage. Perhaps we should ask ourselves does it matter. It seem to me to matter far more that we have squandered our time and money trying to act 'big' when at the same time we can't now raise the skills, never mind the capital to build our own nuclear reactor. We along with the Americans led the way and had a whole industry dedicated to designing and building nuclear power plants. Like our shipping industry, we were world leaders and we gave it all away to play in the banking casino. I suppose it was easy money and we have always hankered after easy.

It's dismaying to find that we no longer have the negotiating skills in government (the Civil Service) to start the round of negotiating to take us out of Europe and form new trade alliances with other countries. Leaders in Victoria's time, we now have to import the skills from countries that never lost touch with their identity and knew the importance of maintaining the skills they already had as well as learning new ones.

Where were our "elite", and  what were those lauded seats of education such as Eton Collage teaching the young privileged boys, destined to become our leaders in government and industry. They weren't all going into the media surely. 

The pipe fitters and electricians, the carers and the nurses, the small shop -keepers and the clerical workers, working away, some on close to minimum wages, many not receiving a wage increase for five years (whilst the boss was sprinting away with pay rises to drive a 200% earnings wedge between him or her and the people they employed) , doing their bit, holding their head high whilst believing that the business of governance was in good hands. 

It was always in someone else's hands. You never actually met the people who actually pulled the leavers, you read about them in the Queens honours day list as they received a Title but class got in the way of actually meeting them. And now we discover they were asleep on the job !!

Imagine replacing the "unemployed scrounged" show on TV with the "fast asleep gravy train", an insiders view of what I did (or rather to the point didn't do) since leaving the college. 

It's disgraceful "bring back the stocks", I would embarrass the lot of them. 

Is it any wonder that the definitive language by which each recognises the other is Latin. A dead language, characterised by its use of the declension, where nouns, pronouns, and adjectives must be "declined". 

No wonder after 5 years of Latin they also 'declined' the responsibility to maintain skills within the nation in things they had little use for, never mind any native comprehension.

A structural tension

  

As we digest the resulting opprobrium heaped on Tony Blairs head following the Chilcot report on the dodgy prognostications for entering the war against Sadam Hussein, little or no mention is made of Blairs buddy, George W Bush. The American President seems to have emerged without condemnation.

 Perhaps the fact that the American Constitution allows more leeway in committing the nation to war, although I thought at the time of the Iraq war the British PM didn't need Parliaments consent either. It's this business of consent and how he went about producing it that has brought Blair down but surely Jack Straw and Gordon Brown were privilege to the same information and, as one sees then both sitting behind Blair in parliament as he concocts his reasons, the "weapons of mass destruction" speech, there seemed no inclination by them to disagree with what Blair was saying.

I have seen little reported of any backlash in America over the war.  Rumblings against Donald Rumstead and Dick Cheney perhaps but nothing like the bashing Blair has taken.
Perhaps past Presidents are above and beyond but Blair was only Bushes lap dog. It was the sting of the 9/11 attack which had galvanised American public opinion for action against someone, it didn't matter who.
The actual war which was over quickly got rid of a tyrant who was cold bloodily murdering sections of his own people. The problem was that it was not realised how the Middle East is like a taut structural member in a building which supports the building by being under tension, once the tension is removed from the single member the building crashes to the ground. It's one of the reasons that they implode buildings rather than dismember them floor by floor.
Once his tyrannical rule had gone the old enmities rose to the surface and you see conflagration across the region today. I doubt, other than putting another tyrant in place could you temper the deep enmity that seems to exist between Shia and Sunni. Democracy comes a poor second if you have to subjugate half the population and whilst in mature populations like ours, where Sunni and Shia live side by side under the weight of our democracy and the rule of law, left unhindered, who is to say what form of religious oppression might have to be enacted by 2050.

A reconciliation

  I don't know if it means anything but having just left an interesting debate on RT about the causes of the terror we see on the streets of France and Germany I came upstairs to hear my radio, tuned into the BBC, talking about the issue of being charged for plastic bags at the supermarket. (Perhaps this says something about editorial).

It's very important to listen to all sides of any argument. Russian Television has its own bias as does Fox in the States and Sky in the UK. They all line up a plethora of speakers to fulfil the narrative they wish to put across and it's only by listening to each, can one get any semblance of what is actually going on.

Plastic bag charges aside, the introduction of Wahhabism and Salafism into the conversation was a welcome enlightenment on the muddy story of Muslim separatism and the terrible clashes we see on the streets of the Middle East which spill over in another form as terrorism in Europe.

The search for a pure form of religious observance is not unique to the Muslim faith. 

The ultra-orthodox  Haredi sect of the Jewish faith are equally strict and equally intolerant of people who don't follow their stricture.

One of the difficult things for western non-Muslims to get their head around is the basis for the wanton killing of Muslim on Muslim. This is particularly so when you question Muslims living in this country who know of the separation of Shia and Sunni but are unconcerned. Some have been taught by parents and family living in their mother country to revile the Sunni or Shia but they are not clear why they should do so and the hatred dies out. 

I suppose the conflict between the Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland has a similar ring to it a hatred which over time will wither away.

Wahhabism grew in the 18th century from the religious teachings of Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703 - 1792) and was interconnected with the political rulers of what became, in 1932, Saudi Arabia, the Saud family. 

The export of Wahhabism or Salafism has created hardline Muslim sects all around the Middle East and it is this ultra -conservative interpretation of the Islamic faith within the nationalistic construct of the Middle East which has provided the extremes and invoked an excuse to wreck mayhem in the name of the faith.

This doesn't let, in my view religion off the hook but at least it highlights the age old problem,  "there will always be extremists". People who drink too much, people who eat too much, people who gamble too much, people who do anything to excess bring what ever they do into disrepute. The reaction of society is to impose laws which punish the meek on behalf of the wild and it's unfair. We are led by headlines and conditioned by headlines, we become putty in the hands of the headline writer, we are the doll at the end of the marionette controlled string. We have to, as a society learn to take back our own, common sense founded rationalism which is as much based on our own findings as on what others tell us. We might know a few extremists friends who drink too much or never stop eating but whilst they remain friends we would never dream of excluding them. Of course religious extremism is on a different level altogether since the religious extremist is usually very intolerant of people who are not the same. There is a wall of exclusion through which communication is extremely difficult if not impossible.

To make sense of it all one must remain open to ideas and opinion from all angles since in the brew there are threads of commonality which connect us as human beings and with some effort, that's as good a place to start the reconciliation as anywhere.

Not equality but control

I have written recently of my instinctive fear of the ideological tendency of that religious movement we describe as Muslim, as they push their claim for righteousness and demand, total observance to their cause.

Another lessor fear I have which was demonstrated tonight on the  News-night program where three labour MP appeared, two women and one man to argue the respective case for each of the contestants for the job of being leader of the Labour party. 

The contestants, Jeremy Corbyn who is the current leader. Angela Eagle and Owen Smith are to contend for the leadership later this week.

What came across in the statements from the respective supporters of each of the contestants was the fervent claim by the two women MPs "of the need to have a women"  as the next leader of the party. 

It's not beyond the bounds of current hysteria regarding the politically correct assumptions of our ruling class that to denigrate men in this way and suggest that it "had" to be a women for feminist reasons and not for any other reason has to be challenged as sexist. No panel of male MPs would be able to get away with such bias and yet the single minded fervour of these women went unchallenged by the Chair who of course was a man simply watching his Ps and Qs.

There are people out for ideological blood in many avenues of our public life and depending on your ethnicity, gender, or simply representing one of those imponderable and now untouchable, the so called 'minority factions' a new species of unimpeachable privilege has raised its ungainly head.

The enjoyment these women had in their special relationship was palpable and they delighting in their new found strength which left the remaining male, a thoroughly decent man, squirming with discomfort at being, just that, a man, a eunuch amongst these strong ideologically sure women. 

Germanic Greer wrote a book called "The Female Eunuch" in which she portrays the woman of that era, the book was written in the 70s. It was a call for women to strike out and demand equality. Today they seem to want more than equality, they want control and those of us who have been married know "that that was ever their goal".

The value of having principles

One of the revealing things about the discontent in the Labour Party, where a majority of MPs are in open revolt with their leader Jeremy Corbyn is, back in 1994, when Tony Blair assumed leadership of the Party he set about changing it into New Labour  but he didn't carry all of his parliamentarian colleagues with him. The reversal of Clause 4 and many other alterations to the image and substance of the party, an attempt to make it more acceptable to the middle ground voter, went against the principles of many socialists, in fact the very description of socialist for New Labour was rejected for something more akin to a Centrist party which at that time was in vogue in Europe, such as a Social Democrat.  

Blair who has been described as "son of Thatcher" was a career politician who ideologically could float to where the votes were rather than have a set of principles by which he stood and argued for.

Watching Corbyn defend unilateral disarmament to a house of baying Tories was one thing but when the loudest critics came from his own party supporters one knew that the schism Blair created in 1994 was deep and lasting. These MPs were of a time when political principles were a work in progress and meant little so long as one gained power
Now rationally speaking, it make sense since without the voters behind you are impotent to make those changes to the daily life of the people you purport  to serve.

But there is more to politics than the mechanics of wresting power.

People become members of a political organisation because they believe in the founding aims and the ideological tenants of a belief system. They hold these beliefs throughout their lives irrespective of whether it has popular support or whether the party has a chance of government, being in the party and being seen to belong with other people who belong to the party, is enough. A little like a club but with a serious agenda to represent a point of view which, whilst not popular, has for them a logical message. They propound that same message throughout their lives and like Corbyn will not sell their principles for anything. 

In the nature of things at large we should value these sort of people, not necessarily for what they support but for their faith in their commitment. The general trend amongst people today is to have few fixed principles, to go with the flow, to exchange yesterday's commitment for another one if today I can gain some sort of advantage. Few people today will stand up in a crowd and say something they believe in if they know that the majority will shout them down. 

How easy for Corbyn to modulate his principles for party advantage over Trident. How easy to make a speech along the lines of the tub beaters and jingoistic to say we need the nuclear sub to maintain our image amongst nations whilst the real image amongst our peers is of an under educated, under provisioned, under invested nation, all of which could be addressed by reallocating the estimated £200 billion into education and reinvestment to grow our economy. We are enormously over borrowed as a state, borrowing madly to sustain our payments to our lenders on the current account. We are to all intents and purposes bankrupt, if it were an individual the bank would withdraw our facility. And yet we propose to spend this colossal amount to support the Americans who wish to place us at the back of the trade negotiating queue.

Of course to Jeremy Corbyn it is much more than the money. The ethical consequences of wiping out tens of millions of people by pressing the button is too great. His humanity is too profound, unlike Mrs May who with glee answered the SNP member when asked if she was prepared to press the button said with a glare across the chamber "yes".

Perhaps only woman can be so clear minded so ideologically profound that their instincts can contemplate wiping out mankind perhaps she doesn't understand that it includes womankind as well.

Self analysis

One of the important things which retirement brings is the time to reflect. Not necessarily on ones own life but rather the successes or failures of humanity itself.
Of course mankind is a work in progress and what we do in the next 50 years will be crucial. But it's not into the future that I gaze but into the present and near past.
Human beings are born individualistic but often revert to pack animals and its this conflict, to think for ourselves as entities on our own right and not become one of a herd that mark us out for what I would value as successful in life.
Whether you define your success by the size of the television screen on your wall or your attempt to understand the complexity of the human personality within all of us, the one consumerist, the other the effort in trying to make sense of what life, (perhaps your own life) has meant in your bid to be inclusively successful.
One of the difficulties in assessing your ability to be inclusive is that it demands detachment. The need to stand back and be honest about those you know and, especially honest about yourself in your endeavour to create some sort of communication with people you meet along the way. Is it one sided, does it demand you loose a lot of yourself in forming some sort of halfway position towards the other person, creating in the process a falsity to please, or are you happy with the idea that you can't please them all.
I mentioned in my last blog Jeremy Corbyns life long struggle against nationalistic totalitarian ideas which sadly seem to be the flavour of the month as we seek a new identity having emerged from under the bureaucratic blanket which describes the European Union. His beliefs seem so out of step to the jingoistic sounds from across the dispatch box on the Tory side, he is accused of naivety by his own side in this bear pit of completing aims and yet he is a man of steel compared to them in his unwillingness to forsake his ideals.
There was a man in Judea who witnessed his own followers forsake him, one by one for the sake of self preservation but who of them, do we now remember ?
Humanity is as complex as the genetic rules which make us. We are around for such a short space of time in this life of ours that to cast around in the rubbish of our past to find points of direction which brought us to where we are, is no waste of time or the effort needed to embark on a journey of self discovery.

The quality of life

Much is made about "the quality of life". By this we seem to mean the intrinsic value in the things we do.
As a working person one rarely has an option, the bulk of ones time is spent working, burying oneself in the needs of others to earn a living, part of the earnings, hopefully set aside to pay for doing something which is outside the scope of work or the money and effort you put in to simple live each day.
The decision regarding what you value as special is very individualistic except when and if you are bringing up children, their needs often come first.
The question of considering "quality" rather than quantity become particularly sensitive when one reaches "retirement" since time and options begin to become naturally limited.
There can be an obsessional focus on the time one has left when you retire. The things you need to do whilst fit and able, the places to visit, the mountains to climb and the rivers to cross. Of course the fact that the list you made a few years ago begins to be less relevant as you cogitate about your life in general and the dreams seem not now as relevant when you visit a place as an older person, unable to fit in to the night life or risk your lot on a relationship amongst strangers.         
Quality therefore means something very different when you get older. Quality can mean a good nights sleep. Quality can mean having a peaceful day. Quality can mean sustaining good communication with family, friends and neighbours.
Getting older, one begins to shrink back into ones self, to a degree, finding your own company sufficient, your own thoughts entertaining and revealing.        
Perhaps it's natures way of reminding yourself after a lifetime of putting others ahead of you that you can reintroduce the substance of who you are to the person you have become and hope there is still plenty left in the relationship.               

I,m out there somewhere

Sean Kelly. I woke at 2am. The name of the Irish cyclist who commentates for Eurosport had popped into my head and I wanted to check it out before it effervesced into the thin air which purports to be my memory.  

Another advantage of living on your own is that you disturb no one in your strange relationship with time and the immediate need to jot something down, or having a snack when most are sleeping. The in-consequentiality of your actions seems to allow a broad canvas for mental activity when before, you were naturally constrained not to wake other people, now you are free to potter.
This very phrase "to potter around" has a homely sound to it, far removed from the definite action required by many. "Make up your mind" is the usual direction of travel insisted upon by a busy public, the antithesis of "pottering".
It goes hand in glove with the garden shed, a retreat from the sounds of constant movement and chatter, a moment when your actions have no effect on others but signals the onrush of those inner thoughts struggling to find their place in the noise and constant clatter which is modern life.
Waking and jotting down the name I reached, as I so often do these days, for my iPad.   The iPad has been a discovery which has rejuvenated my life.
It is the focus of so many things. From the email which is what I am engaged in now, to the monumental resource of the Internet. From the books stored and available at a click on the screen, to the huge music store held within the catalogues of Spotify.   Radio stations broadcasting from all parts of the world revealing the character and the culture vibrating from people in distant lands, to the instant recall of a film simply to be entertained.
Night owls often have for their edification documentaries or avant-garde films which are not to the taste of the general public and tonight, having been woken by Sean Kelly I watched a moving film depicting the trauma felt by the survivors of the dreadful massacre of Andries Breivik on the tiny island of Utoya 25 miles north west of Oslo in Norway. He mercilessly shot down students attending a Norwegian Labour Party summer conference and the harrowing stories of the survivors as they sought to escape, the horror still lingers in their eyes.
From podcasts to Google World and the mesmerising  amazing ability to drop down, out of the sky into a friends back yard on the far side of the world to lectures in Astro Physics from some of the best universities, and to how to cook an omelette via You Tube.
It's all packed into a slim, no fuss, 10" by 8" package which brings to focus, on your knee the might of modern day communication.
Two way communication, both receptive and expressive, the iPad is a proper tool to communicate and receive  ideas, since in my world, the world of the "Potterer" the important, inconsequential yet powerful acknowledgement that we still exist is perhaps the most important message out there.

Being anti

In a conversation I had recently, I was accused of being anti Jewish. It could have been anti Muslim, anti Establishment, anti Authoritarian, anti Elitism, anti Women, anti Gay, anti Drugs, anti Security, anti the Educational Establishment but this time it was anti Jewish.  The list of anti's is fairly long because at some time or other I have criticised certain aspects of all these groups largely driven by what I see as their over reaction to criticism.

We all have flaws, we all are guilty at some time or another of following our stereotype, reverting to norm, being what we are accused of.
But it seems in this age of infinite attention and none stop communication we begin to build a fortress mentality behind which we fester with a false image that we feel we must provide ourselves with to continue to establish who we are. Criticism is seen as hurtful even hateful rather than just someone's observation based on what they believe they have discovered over time. 

Truth as we mentioned in recent blog is relative. Our own perspective is often fractured by our involvement and our own proximity and whilst it's important to preserve our loyalty we mustn't be blinded by facts if they present a different conclusion regarding whoever we wish to reserve our loyalty for.
All of history is full of things which people should perhaps not feel too proud about but sometimes that very history is the problem since it is often the bedrock on which 'exceptionality' builds a smokescreen and we begin to judge others as inferior or simply different. The difference becomes a way of defining our exceptionalism, of making us not only feel different, but superior.
Defining oneself as special with all the protection that is implicit in maintaining ones speciality drives our understanding of others and the way we appear to others, into a dark place. A questioning voice raised in asking perfectly reasonable questions of your exceptionality becomes hurtful especially if the questioning comes from someone outside the group.

The task of every mind is to comprehend "reality" accurately. If we 'deny' ourselves this task, not only to comprehend but on comprehending, criticise, (if there is need to criticise), if we deny for the sake of harmony then we land ourselves in the situation many people in this country and across the world find themselves, scared to opinion for fear of up-settling, or worse, being branded as one of those chronic undesirables, a seeker of truth.

Oblivious to whats important.

As I settle into bed without a cheery "goodnight" ringing in my ears, or the sound of snoring as I make a customary trip to the toilet, peace has once more descended on the house. The piles of discarded clothing, which in a panic got thrown out of the suitcase when 'over-weight' was calculated in dollars of potential surcharge. Clothing I might add I will have to send on later. The question, "does this fit you" soon revealed a gulf in taste and "no thanks I don't think I will wear it" only goes to show how conservative, 75 years of living can bring to a person.

From a monastic existence I had been blasted into a roller coaster, subsumed in a friendly, enthusiastic, dynamic which covered, eating, shopping and eating, in that order.

My dietary regime was torn apart. I was sadistically chewing dead animals (at least I was one removed from chewing live ones) and my karma would inevitably bring me back as one of these defenceless warm blooded creatures to endure, what I was so cavalier about, the killing machine which supports our sightless pursuit of satisfaction.

Going shopping drew me into corners of the shop I had never visited. Packets of things the names I couldn't even pronounce. Ingredients which held no appeal but which, I was assured, would be good for me. 

All this trauma and good intention is now sadly gone and I'm contemplating a bacon butty but in the full knowledge that each meal will have to be accompanied by a big swig of Gaviscon. 

The impetus another person brings shakes you out of your lethargy and is good for you but the internal turmoil of playing second fiddle, handing over the car keys and visiting places one would never have thought to visit, is at an end.  I sit once more in my "ivory tower" the door locked and bolted, invaders repulsed, master of all I survey but  like the King with no clothes, oblivious to what's actually important.

A Substantial Loss

Emotions are in some ways an Achilles heel to our sense of our sobriety and of being in charge.
It was not long ago when I wrote of my trip to Gatwick airport and the suspense I had in not only getting into the airport but the special thrill of meeting Andrew once again after all these years away in Australia. The smile on my face as I saw him confidently walk through the doors into the 'Arrival Lounge', his own face wreathed in a smile of its own anticipation at meeting at least one of the "oldies".

 Now the anticipation is changed, replaced with a sad tint of farewell as we make the preparations for his departure for "down under". The bags packed, the weighing of the bags, and the unpacking to see what can be left behind to get the weight down. Eventually it's near enough so there's one last chance for a walk across the fields of his childhood, or rather the emergence from childhood as one learns for the first time of the scrapes with the local Bobby for smoking cannabis. This was a world we as parents were blissfully unaware. It was a world relatively unscathed with much danger since the affiliation to gangs and the trouble young people get into was diluted by the fields and open spaces and with these open spaces came the relinquished containment 'grown ups', particularly parents brought with them, their baggage was not yours. You had of course baggage to collect of your own, things your parents could not share. How could they understand your obsession with "rap music" or the attraction of "scratching" (the vinyl record scratching as opposed to the skin) to add yet another dimension to the noise we, Mum and Dad, had thrust upon us as we watched the metamorphosis of our sweet boy into a teenager.

Walking on this last walk, with the distance of many many years he was at ease to tell of some of the scrapes he got up to but I think  it was the carefully scripted version as we walked trough the fields of rape seed and corn each field heavily pregnant with its crop.
I got up early today to arrange the Dartford Crossing Toll payment, make a cup of tea and see the sun rise on what could turn out (weather wise) a beautiful day.
We have had poor weather from the time of his arrival, not that it mattered much since it was the reunion which mattered most and that went very well with only the occasional histrionics from Angela as she defines a new course for her life.  Having spent the last few years securing it financially, she is now engaged with finding "purpose" for the years ahead in getting closer to the essence of things, disentangling herself from some of the day to day responsibilities she has shouldered up until now.
In amongst those is "work" or at least the regular 9 till 5 treadmill as she seeks a more sublime regime of one day a week in Optometry whilst spending the rest "down on the farm" volunteering and helping retarded folk gain some meaning in their lives.
Andrew with his Buddhism, Angela with her "good causes".  Although I can't claim any credit, at least the kids are not in any conformity rut and although marking my own scorecard with rather long periods of nonconformity, I seem to be the essence of the mould these days. Perhaps my refusal to accept retirement is just another one of the bloody minded things which make the backdrop for 'their' kicking over the "normal".
Anyway the sun is shining and soon we will be driving the wrong way to Gatwick, heading for Departures this time and a final hug as he sets off through the door where the aliens live whilst we the "ordinary" people shuffle back to our cars, making the most of what is left of the day whilst reflecting on what we have just lost.

Truth

Is truth a singular thing or a component of many interrelated things which feed into and shape the "truth".

Is there a surety in truth which we crave or is truth,  one man's truth, another man's falsehood, a moving target which can never be known.

Are there different kinds of truth. Some, which based on faith, are as much  a creation of the mind to support that other mental conjuring trick, 'religious surety' which we then use to put off the emotional enormity of the 'finality of life' question. 

The truth of particle physics is itself a moving target as new discoveries reveal new truths. The truth of what is morally right or wrong varies with culture and environmental necessity. The truth of a political statement is defined by circumstance.

Andrew and I were walking down the beach in Swansea this morning yacking away about politics and the rights and wrongs of Andrea Leadsom's argument, that having children some how brought you into a collegiate of mothers who's experience of having children gave them greater insight into societies problems and our responsibility to plan well into the future so our children wouldn't suffer.

His view was that it didn't make any difference whether the "leader" was a mother or a father a man or a woman for that matter, these questions were dealt by "leadership" and the influence of child rearing or being childless played no part in the sensibilities of tackling that particular issue. Being a transvestite didn't bring particular skills to solving the problems of being a transvestite, those problems could just as easily be defined by a person of either gender so long as they were humane and intelligent.

Truth or the correct application of a healthy mind must arrive at the same destination since there is only one answer.

If you set up the truth as a goal and work backwards to find ways of obtaining that truth then you better be sure your truth is correct. I have propagated the idea that truth has no fixed position and that society, as it investigates itself and the world around changes its conception of what is the truth on a continuous basis.

If truth is as is love, seen through the eye of the beholder, then we arrive at many truths each dependent on the specific experience of the person holding that truth.

If your 'fortitude' (truth) is cemented in a belief system then you will move heaven and hell to ensure your truth fits the result you want. With the result that your truth will be narrowly defined and somewhat totalitarian. 

If your truth is less sure and changes as you bring more and more factors into the attempt to define it, then perhaps like adding too many ingredients into a receipt, you loose the concept of the dish.   Perhaps allowing too many influences into your definition of anything, can so muddy the water, that our perspective of everything is then lost. But sadly we are still no nearer "the truth" but our journey to find it  has been massively educational.

Relationships

Relationships are so difficult, so loaded with expectation, so vulnerable to disappointment, so dependent on factors outside our control, so influenced by personality and the fluctuation of character.
The mind sets the scene with its limitless optimism and a strong tendency to ignore past experience but more often finds itself back into the old impasse which because the mix is problematical becomes the reset mode.
Like a box of firecrackers the care you take to ensure that no stray spark or comment sets off the whole box makes communication itself a minefield and extremely tiring. The best is to retreat into your own mental bunker and seek sanity with your own toys fielding off the slings and arrows by ducking the issue of building bridges but when relationships matter it's not something one can do lightly.
And so the gavotte of best intention versus pragmatism starts with a little sally this way and a retreat that way, hoping to maintain some sort of esprit de corpse, trying not to damage moral or appear aloof to other sensitivities whilst clinging to ones own assumption of normality.
Should I be described as eccentric if one analyses everything and everyone. Becoming judgemental where it would be better to let things flow and be as they are.  Over analysing things, and looking for patterns and structure where there is none.
It's a devil of a processes since no stone is left unturned and many bruises are inflicted, not least on ones self, in this examination of the human condition.