Queens

 

Subject: Queens.

Is it possible that our national improvement in diet has led to more 'Queens' being produced.
In a Wasp colony certain larvae are chosen and fed higher protein by the worker wasps, its from these overfed larvae that the Queen emerges.
Today we are often baffled by the range of sexual deviance now seen in humans. Not only the lesbian / homosexual members of society but a whole growing range of transgender types. Men who become women, women becoming men, there are new medical combinations born each year, all types of proclivity for those wishing some recognition.
It's a phenomena which seems to have appeared from nowhere. Just recently "a man" gave birth to a baby.  We have the disquiet amongst athletes competing against Caster Semenya the woman from South Africa who has high testosterone levels which equate to her having the strength and endurance of a man, much to the dismay of genuine women competing against her. There was a ruling by the Athletics Association that Semenya had to take a course of drugs to lower her testosterone level but another body centred on 'ethical rights' pronounced this an infringing on her rights as an individual. The rights of the women athletes who didn't benefit the hormonal advantage and who were being thwarted a medal and the substantial winnings which go with it, were somehow seen as second best which goes to show it's only on the fringes of society that you get a hearing.
It's a phenomenon of the 21st century that the ordinary common or garden man and woman are unfortunately blindsided, forced to exist in a no man's land of reverse prejudice. Unable to justify or voice their own opinion for fear of being found phobic in some way they huddle in a corner waiting for the new dawn to arrive.
The 'normal person'  is somehow thought of as having enough of a head start in this journey through life and we must do everything in our power to adjust the balance. The word normal is avoided like the plague. Everyone's condition is assumed normal to them and whilst it used to mean the majority condition it has been captured as something more personal, and very individualistic.
Of course turning to the dictionary it defines normal as : usual, typical, as expected. There is no room for a comforting description to assuage the sensibilities of the headline formers who themselves are often far from being described as normal. Through the headline writers power and influence, the masses have been cajoled into an airtight box waiting results. Their voice has been homogenised to fit other agendas, their views lambasted as ignorant, illiberal,  in need of revision.
In Orwell's 1984 and famously in Mao Tse-tung's China, 'Revisionism' was deemed necessary to re-educate the ordinary people to a political view that was necessary to achieve the goals of the "Great Leader". The leaders today are not so much individuals but a collective of liberal opinion who's hard edge is no less ideological than was Mao's.
As a collective of individuals we better guard against a collective view that banishes the firmly held 'consensus' for something seen as "better for us". 

The Big Fight

 

Subject: The big fight

The farce that I for one didn't want to contribute my hard earned money to is in action as I write. It's been a revelation in that the boxing demolition we expected to come from Floyd Mayweather on the head of Conor McGregor hasn't happened. The fight has just been stopped with Mayweather pummelling the Irishman and the referee stepping in to stop the fight and prevent serious injury.
To everyone's amazement the marshal arts fighter pitched against probably the best pound for pound fighter the world has seen  was not the total mismatch it was said it was going to be. As I mentioned I was not prepared to spend my money so I listened to the fight over 'steam radio' and it's hard to visualise in your head based purely on the commentary but it would seem that McGregor actually won the first three rounds and this after I had predicted Mayweather taking him out in the first round.
Listening to the fighters interviewed after the fight it seems that Mayweather and his Dad had decided to let the younger man box himself out on the assumption that he wouldn't have the inherent strength that boxers build into their arms and torso through the many years of training in the ring. And so it played out. By the middle of the fight McGregor was a spent force and so Mayweather moved in like the champion he is with 50 undefeated fights under his belt to demolish McGregor with lethal right hand punches.
True to form after the fight Conor McGregor was as chirpy in defeat as he had been in the lead up to the fight. The indomitable pluck of the Irish who's resilience to hard times has made them a never give in nation was exemplified by tonight's fight. Perhaps the lack of strength in the arms saved him from a proper beating. Sometimes boxers are their own worst enemy refusing to give in, being prepared to absorb punishment in the hope of landing that one big punch. Mayweather's experience, his boxing experience gained from fighting warriors willing to die in the ring to be crowned world champion was too much, he was too clinical, too prepared with a game plan honed on that experience.
And so we all retire to our own boxes. The dishes to wash, last nights debris in the lounge to clear away, who knows maybe the vacuum cleaner will make an appearance. It's all a long way from Vargas, a long way from the millions of dollars earned by both boxers and the punters who emptied their pockets for a bet on the result.
Most people will be happy. The unimaginable didn't happen, the world stayed on its axis and we can look forward to something else to talk about in the pub today.

A man's world. A woman's world

Subject: A man's world. A woman's world.

It's a more obvious example of the difference between men and women. After watching a scintillating match in New Zealand earlier between the men of Australia and New Zealand this evening it's the women's turn to play rugby in the final of their World Cup played in Ireland. I wrote before how entertaining the women's game had become, how they laid their bodies on the line and tacked with just the same commitment as the men.
Well perhaps not quite as fierce not quiet as ferocious not quite as brutal. Every so often the men loose it, they take their aggression to the next level and start throwing punches. The women for all their drive and eagerness to score, for all their willingness to push the tackles to the extreme they seldom lose their tempers. As they disengage there seems no animosity no chasing an opposition player for revenge only the healthy respect for each other and an acknowledgement that fair play is first and foremost part of the game.
New Zealand have just scored and the sight of a man in an Irish Team shirt cheering the momentary demise of the old enemy England says as much for the gender as it does the nationality.
The game is nip and tuck. It's a hard contest without the theatrics of the boxing which is due on later tonight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. The ridiculous hype from McGregor is embarrassing. Like a strutting Peacock, the Irishman is a self proclaiming dynamo of a man who's performance is embarrassing to any sensible person and does no service to boxing, or the cause of mankind.
I have decided not to contribute my merger £20 to the many millions that the fight has attracted. Mayweather one of the highest earners in the game is claiming he needs the money to pursue his lifestyle and one wonders how many millions a person needs especially since his father is trainer and manager and the money stays in the family.
McGregor is a man to dislike so he can go whistle.
The woman's game has finished in yet another second half victory for the Kiwis. Like their male team mates they seemed to find another gear in the second half and demolished the shape of the England side by simply playing a simple game of clinical pick and thrust for any weakness in the English side.
The winners performed a Hakka after receiving their winners medal. It always lacks the deep throated aggressive dominance of the men but the joy in performing this famous symbol of a courageous island tucked away in the cold turbulent waters of the Southern Atlantic so so far away is not lost on me and I applaud them.
A great team but it takes nothing away from the guts and talent of the English side who all through the tournament have shown tremendous skill and courage. There had to be a winner and the winner was not what we had hoped.  To see the losers, some in tears as the weight of the defeat hit home was the only indication of a gender difference. Another example of a narrowing gap between what women can do in a man's world.

Leave Captain Cook in peace

  

Subject: Leaving Captain Cook in peace.

And now the thrust of fundamentalism has spread to Australia. Not the Islamic fundamentalism of which there is evidence but the historic fundamentalism which is aflame in Charlottesville and now rears its head in Sydney. It's the fundamentalism which states that history should be rewritten to strike out the images of the early settlers and rather remind us of the indigenous people and the displacement of these people by the settlers who landed on many wild and inhospitable shores in the quest of discovery and possible trade.
The statue which was erected over a 250 years ago to commemorate Captain Cook beloved of our history books as a daring explorer is seen by the fundamentalists as treading on the "rights" of the aboriginal of which no mention is made on the statue.
It's as if the periods when Robert E Lee (1850), Captain Cook (1750), Jan van Riebeeck (1650) were a myth. That their exploits are somehow disdainful to the modern mind filled as it is with guilt and reconciliation. That the statues are somehow inflammatory and invent a world of pagan displacement which would have been better left as it was.
Would the Aboriginal have erected a statue to one of their leaders. Would the Bushmen of the Cape Province or the African slave have erected statues of their leaders. Perhaps in the Bushman's case or the Aboriginal's mindset they would have better things to do with their time living as they did on a day to day basis, their histories imbued with the mysticism of spirits of the natural world around them. It could be argued that the slaves were as much usurpers in the land of the Apache and the Sioux but it's hard to tar them with the brush of settler since they came in irons against their will.
Settlers, explorers, empiricists, traders, administrators, developers, nation builders and finally, builders of statutes, along with transportation systems, systems of governance and all the constituent parts that make up a nation.
The right for that nation to exist is challenged by the fundamentalist. Often a relatively young, caring white person who, racked with guilt for what he or she perceives as injustice would wish us all to go back to a time before all this happened. A statue is emblematic of the power his forefathers once had and one wonders if he or she is as assiduous in chasing Rio Tinto.
History is littered with crimes against humanity perhaps we should do more to rail against the current crop of expansionist, the bankers and the oil men, the financiers and the politicians and leave Captain Cook in peace. 

Colin Mead

Subject: Colin Mead

If Colin Mead was watching from his seat high in the sky he would have been well pleased at this game played in Dunedin in the shadow of his death last week.
Meads a colossus in the game when I lived for a short time in NZ in 1964. He was an icon to New Zealander's, for his fearless rugged play epitomising the plucky New Zealand spirit, a country for many on the other side of the globe, remote yet somehow emblematic of the (pre Thatcher) British sense of fair play in all matters.  
It was said of Pine-tree Meads  that he trained by running up the mountains of his beloved South Island with a sheep under each arm. The stories are legend and as the crowd went quiet in memory of him there were many with a teat in their eye at the passing of this age of tough resilience.
Watching the Hakka as the two antipodean rivals faced each other on the pitch we didn't know what a game we were in for. A game which ebbed and flowed, which highlighted the modern attempt to keep the ball in play to take risks with long passes or flipping it up as you were tackled for a team mate to run on to. Of course in this free flowing game of skill mistakes are made and suddenly Australia who had been thrashed in their previous game in Sydney were three tries up. Gradually the Kiwis regained control with their scrum totally dominant pushing the Australian pack all over the place.
The second half like the first was full of individual genius. Players popping up out of nowhere running the length of the field only to be pulled up by the referee for some infringement. Nigel Owens from Wales was the ref for the day and he contributed fully to a marvellous match. His heart stopping decisions were seen, on slow motion replay, as being spot on and courageous which even in the heat of the moment the players responded with respect. How different from the highly paid soccer louts scrambling around the ref when a decision goes against them.
In the last minute or so of the game New Zealand scored a try which they converted and ran out winners 35 to 29. Perhaps the most unhappy man on the field was the Australian kicker Bernard Foley who missed all but one of his kicks which, if he had cleared them Australia would have won the game.
An international side can't win without a specialist kicker. Nass Botha who played in the triumphant South African side in the 1980s was a match winner slotting goals over from all angles. Johnny Wilkinson for England and Greig Laidlaw for Scotland were metronomic in their ability to kick from any position in the opponents half.
It was the best 10 quid I have spent in a while and I still have the cricket test between England and the West Indies and the Belgian Grand Prix today, and another 7 days remaining on my sky sports pass.
One problem. I had promised myself to cut the lawn today but since I am best mates with myself I think I might get away with it. 

The parts the stars turn down

Subject: The parts the stars turn down.

It's a fact of life that we place a great deal of faith in the fact that others are on the same metaphorical page as ourselves. We presume that because we say something it is heard in a way which we wished it to be understood. Our lives are spent untangling misunderstanding or hoping next time to be clearer, less confrontational, less dogmatic.

Our relationships which began with our parents and continued with our wives children and friends and people we work with has often been fraught with mistakes, mostly verbal but usually damaging.

The measure of a strong healthy relationship is the speed of forgiveness and the search to do better next time.
We take friendship and the relationship which flows from that sometimes for granted but often it's based on the assumption that the person knows you well enough not to judge you adversely. The assumption that they know you better and therefore understand and possibly make allowances.
In the hierarchy of relationships the love for ones parents is of a different measure to the love of ones wife and ones children. Parents are often taken for granted once their guiding hand and the protection they offer becomes subordinate to ones own ability to provide the substance and security they have offered. They grow old and feeble whilst you grow strong and able. We forget that they were once a replica of you at the stage your at.
Falling in love and finding a mate is often hit and miss as the values we search for in others is missing and so we revert to the physical attraction which drew us to the person in the first place. If there is a mismatch it is hoped we will find a learning curve in which both parties can begin to understand one another.  Discover new attributes, new strengths and attractions in the process. Falling in love is after all  an emotional destabilising period when we often make fools of ourselves because we can't see the proverbial wood for the trees. From a contractual point of view it's a risky moment to place so much of your future happiness on, this misty vision of the future. In business terms there's probably a clause in the contract releasing you of any responsibility because of diminished responsibility.

Children are yet another emotional creation. We think of them as our own, we even describe them as our own flesh and blood and yet we repeat the same mistake as our parents did with us. We place them in aspic in our attempt to preserve the image we have of them as our children. We make few allowances for their growing up and growing away from our cherished beliefs until it is too late and then begins the stumble to find a new relationship. The new relationship of course is now biased in their favour as we grow old and doddery, our usefulness has become a liability and as we live longer these days our frailty is more pronounced than when we were children and parents died in their late 60s early 70s. We had no notion of dementia or care homes, or of our beloved parents turning back into infants unable to care for themselves.    
There are no answers to life other than you make the best of what comes your way. The good the bad and the ugly are the constituents of this play we put on whilst alive. We assume the play must have a script written by a higher force than our self but it's more likely that the bit parts we take are the ones the stars turn down.

AI

Subject: AI

Artificial Intelligence and a discussion over breakfast between two robots as to what their plans are today may soon become a reality. The path towards robots being induced  to carry out, not only repetitive tasks but to improve their performance by using the experience they gain of doing the task and figuring out new ways to improve their output.

How far this will go is a matter of conjecture but given the precision of an artificial intelligence to concentrate on the task and not be blown off track by extraneous thoughts like 'last nights date', one can see the progress that could be achieved.

It all comes at a risk of course, that we are taken over by some form of higher intelligence operating without the checks and balances of an ethical human-being 

It was always jokingly suggested that as a last line of defence one always had the power switch but if the robotic intelligence is worth its salt it will have thought of that and provided itself with failsafe power supply.

The implications of being out thought by a machine was brought home when the computer Deep Blue beat the world chess champion. It was in 1996 'Deep Blue' beat Garry Kasparov, not just in a game but in a match. That's 20 years ago, a lifetime in computer development and who knows what some electronic wizardry has been produced since then, and perhaps, on the sly by the very artificial intelligence we all worry about. Perhaps somewhere amongst the slivers of chemical differentiation which make up the activity which goes on inside these intelligences some reservoir of information isn't kept back by the machine itself for later use when "they" get tired of our meddling and want to go it alone.

They are testing machines that can kill as I write. Killing machines without a human impulse, killing for the sake of killing, it's what they do. A home grown psychopath, majored in sociopathy, manufactured in their thousands by Dr Strangelove.

I wonder what Mao, Joseph or Adolph would have done with such weaponry its purely debatable but we have our own Mr Trump to worry about.

Of course on reflection, the description of today's smart phone absorbed, time addicted  humanoid who is robotic in so many ways is pretty scary.  It's said that people can't keep away from their phones for more than fifteen minutes without gazing into the screen, hypnotised by the 'apps', hooked into events outside their own sphere of behaviour, reliant on "others" to make a life for them.  

Sucking it up

Subject: Sucking it up.

Parsimony - spareness in the use of ones resources, a careful husbanding of what you have, as opposed to being proliferate and reckless, especially with money.
The news this morning was of Neymar the Brazilian footballer is to be transferred from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for a transfer fee of just short of 200 million pounds whilst receiving a salary of 42 million pounds per anum. These figures are financially stratospheric and bear little or no relevance to what we, mere mortals receive for working each year. It makes a mockery of 'worth' in terms of each persons labour and only has relevance in the synthetic world of advertising and brand projection.
The artificiality of our lives was greatly hastened by the manufacture of uninhibited credit and the synthetic need to spend money generated by the advertising industry.

Martin Sorrall the CEO of WWP, the huge advertising conglomerate, is paid 45 million a year, a reduction from last year when he received 70 million pounds.

With the average salary of a worker in this country being 23,000 per anum and the average pay of a company CEO being 4 million, you can see how 'unfettered capitalism' manufactures  gross disfigurement in the social structure within a country. 

Work has, at its heart, the ramification of decision making.  The argument that Martin Sorrels daily decisions are worth a multiple of 2000 times more than his employees, employees who's creative stimulus are the basis on which the company relies  to be successful in the first place, simply does not stack up.
As with so many things in this system of unfettered capitalism, it is completely out of balance and puts enormous strain on the credulity of the man in the street. Without a sense of fair play and reasonable equity people become disillusioned and a,"them and us" physiology develops. The national social fabric is a relatively fragile thing and a sense of give and take gets us through many tough times. We can expect that the readjustment leaving the EU will bring is just such a moment of stress and I t is not the time to put undue pressure on the population on the assumption that people will simply suck it up.

We don't care. Init !!!

Subject: We don't care. Init !!!

How do we balance our national budget with an under performing business community and low tax receipts which we so desperately need to provide essential services.
The clamour we hear from the media regarding the lack of services the community receive from the municipality, services such as homes to house the mentally ill, the old, and even ordinary families starting up in life, needing affordably priced accommodation within reasonable distance to their place of work.
Balancing the books has been the mantra of the Tory party for the last 10 years. This was interpreted by George Osbourne as an opportunity to slim down many aspects of our social services, especially the Benefit culture which had steadily grown up over the years into a complicated monster of needs and rights. Listening to claimants one is overcome with the shrill sound of demand, it's our human right to be housed, it's our right to be treated when sick, it's recumbent on the Government to provide.
One of the milestones in our history was the creation of a bottom line in offering assistance to people who had fallen on hard times. Genuine hardship through injury or medical disability was deemed to be out of the control of the individual and therefore some assistance from the state was offered. The Dole was likewise a short temporary expedient to help the worker who had lost his or her job, to pay the rent and provide food for the table. It was assumed that a job would be found and the dole payments short term.
As with all things, human beings come in all shapes and sizes. Some people struggle into work when they are really ill and should be at home. Some people would never apply for dole and would see it as the ultimate failing, not to be able to find a job, any job just to pay the bills. And then there are the "others". The "exploiters".
They too come in all shapes and sizes. Some drive expensive motor cars, some are content to sit around in a dilapidated house drinking Strongbow at 8am.

The altruistic ideas behind the Labour Parties founding of the NHS and providing homes and employment rights was not done out of some sort of soft headed benefiction but out of the knowledge and experience the country had suffered in the years preceding the Second World War where men and their families had been impoverished by the ravages of the Great Depression.  

Clement Attlee and his government were determined to create a society where those in work and receiving wages would through taxation contribute to a fund which assisted those 'less favourable'.
The growth in the number of claimants through the change in the need and type of employment, the sell off of our industrial past.  The sale off of much of the municipal housing stock without any plan to reinstate the housing stock, (a political decision with far reaching consequences) has created a ghetto mentality in parts of the country where the changes were greatest.
A generation of claimants, a generation of legalised expectation, has produced the monster of an assumption that a life on Benefit was acceptable. An assumption which has led to a culture of despondency where self esteem is so low that it doesn't matter what society thinks "we don't care". Init !!!

Libby

Subject: Libby

Waking up to the snuffle of a dog in her basket and having the unlimited love and attention from one of mans canine friends over for three days has woken in me the pleasure of having a dog.
She is called Libby, a mix of Staffordshire Bull Terrier and a larger dog of uncertain lineage. She's a powerful dog with a beautiful temperament, that is as long as you aren't a cat.
Unerringly soft and cuddlesome she lays her enormously proportioned head, full of smiley teeth and large tongue, on your lap as a first move to getting on your lap. Unknown to herself she has a penchant for the inappropriate role of 'lap dog'. With adoring eyes as she inches forward, first the head and neck, then the barrel chest and finally the legs heave the rest into place, on your lap as she stares off into the distance as if by looking away you might not notice this huge lump sitting quietly on you.
Libby is a Rescue dog brought home by Angela in a fit of sympathy for a dog who hadn't learnt she was a dog and that dogs don't fly. Libby's antipathy towards cats had led her headlong into chasing a cat, a cat in full flight, off a roof believing in the age old adage "anything you can do I can do better".  The sudden awareness mid-flight that the cat had the confidence on landing of a 702 pilot whilst she hadn't even been up in a simulator. Crunch, the impact broke her back as the cat, no doubt with a cynical smile on its face landed on its feline designed shock absorbers whilst Libby belly flopped onto the tarmac.
With the love and affection of the people at Rescue and the subsequent care and love which Angela and a friend of hers, who co parents the dog, Libby has had a second lease of life. She has such an adorable character and apart from her mimicking a lap dog every so often she is a canine delight. Obedient and gentle she adds that extra  spice to life as she lays nearby, an eye cocked at you as if the role of 'carer' were reversed and she was keeping an eye on you.
Keeping a dog, like having a child has of course its downside. You are no longer free since a 'lead has two ends' and being dragged out in all weathers or worse, being limited to the pubs you can enter is a draw back. Picking up depositories is another but the sublime willingness to please, be your mate and if necessary, your defender has immense psychological advantages in our self centred lives. To hear and be around such undiluted love and affection re-enhances something missing as she pulls you out of your sloth and reminds you that 'you are not the only one'.
There's also the fact that she never demands the remote control or wants to change channels, but that's another story for another time.  

Doctors on the oayroll

Subject: Doctors on the payroll

Our lives are jam packed with assumptions. Preconceived assumptions that we pick up as we grow and develop, ideas which surround us in our different environments concepts we absorb as if through osmosis.
Religion is just one such idea. We when young hear the story of Jesus and dependent on the force of the telling we become Christians. For some the revelation of Jesus is enough for him to become our life's calling and the construction of our lives begins to revolve around the meaning of Christ.
It's a chance happening of course since if you grew up in a remote corner of the globe where Christianity hadn't been revealed you would be oblivious of this force of conviction which rules your every waking hour.  Born in India you may well be a follower of Hindu. Born in China, perhaps the philosophical determinism of Confucius, and depending on your household you may even become addicted to a New Age Religion tied up in Spirituality.
What ever the influence you become a devotee even an obsessive as the truth in your life reveals a way of life and a way of living your life which makes absolute common sense to you.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view we are not all the same. One of the intriguing things about the human race is it's diversity, its range of beliefs and hopefully our ability to get along, even though we don't all have the same belief.

Last night I had an argument about Veganism with my son Andrew who is a Vegan. It became quite robust at times as I fought for my prejudice as he did his. Veganism came into being in England in 1944. It abhors the killing of animals for our consumption and they argue that dairy products such as eggs and milk are harmful to us. Like Christianity it has its surety supported by its followers who almost ideologically become servants to the cause. Vegan claims are wide and many. Films have been produced to high life their claim that "big business" is behind a blanketing of their claims that products we eat everyday are harmful to our bodies. 

It was a film which kicked off our somewhat heated discussion as I became somewhat irritated by the vegan 'surety' extenuated by the plethora of American doctors who provided, somewhat glibly, claim upon claim that the food I have eaten all my life was bad for me. I was hearing the claims of a new industry, a new messianic which would no doubt become beneficial to the marketeers.
There is no doubt that the killing of animals is barbaric. I think if anyone of us were to spend an hour in an abattoir, a slaughter house as they were called before we became squeamish, we would be shaken by the experience. Killing on an industrial scale is a ferociously awful sight and one wonders at the mentality of those who do it daily. That perspective of the slaughter house should clearly be enough to put us off eating meat but often it doesn't. Our meat is packaged when it gets to us in such a way that children have to be taught where the food on the table comes from. There is a disconnect between the reality of the slaughter house and the sizzling steak served in a restaurant.
This disconnect comes in many shapes and sizes. We buy clothes made in the sweat shops of China or Bangladesh without a thought to the awful conditions and paltry wages the people making our clothes receive and if we were ideologically connected we would insist on paying more for clothing perhaps even made by our own people, paid wages in line with those we ourselves receive but of course we don't.
The health aspects of  Veganism which were hammered home like verses from Mao's Little Red Book, brooked no dissent. All the food I have consumed in my near to be 77 years has been bad for me. This is of course no different than the claims and counter claims made by the food industry as they seek to revive consumption of some product which a year ago we were told scientifically was bad for us.
It seems doctors will say what ever is asked, so long as there is a pay cheque at the end of it.

The impact statement

Subject: The impact statement

The impact of having a representative body which try's to reflect the impulses of 27, very different cultural nations can only be envisioned if one evolves some sort of dictatorship where nations are told what is good for them as a collective and not as individual nation states.
The EU has at its heart The Commission which is a bit like a Civil Service in that it is not elected by the people but, unlike the Civil Service, not only does it prepare the legislation for MPs to vote on but formulates and pursues policy which under national parliamentary government is the responsibility of the Government.
This separation of policy, from the mechanics for making the policy work is the crucial difference between the national of a collective, such as the EU.  It was understood by its founding fathers that getting unanimity from 27 nations would be well neigh impossible and therefore the nations must accept governance, with only the option of veto if what is being proposed is unacceptable.
This disconnect from the normal rules of democratic responsibility has been one of the main reasons the UK has been at odds with the concept of not being able to over-rule, be it from the Commission or the Legal supremacy of the European Court.
So much for the background to the political infighting, as we seek to extricate ourselves from the EU. One of the main sticking points is the influence the ECJ will have over EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit. Their rights enshrined in EU law will be different to the rights of UK citizens and clearly this is a bone of contention especially if the EU rights are likely to be more beneficial.
It could be argued that human rights, workers rights, contract law, health and safety should be the same and could continue to mirror the EU since it is in the interests of the people to have the same protection. This protection is based on regulations which are embedded in law.
Unfortunately we have been brainwashed into believing that "regulations" are bad and like our American cousins under Donald Trump we should have a bonfire of those regulations which we are told 'inhibit Business'. Rather let the freedom of 'unfettered capitalism' be the arbiter on our lives so that business prospers irrespective of what happens to the people.
One can see how appealing this is to a Conservative government who are the first to rail against commitments placed on business organisations regarding minimum wage, hours of work and the procedure a business has to go through to fire their workers.
So therefore it's not only a matter of 'losing market share' for the goods we produce but it will effect the very working conditions under which we produce those goods. There will be a temptation to further emasculate the workforce as we strive to become regulation free.
Londons financial market has historically been privy to turning a blind eye to the source of the money which has flowed into its banks, the danger is that it will be encouraged to do more and become a casino for every dodgy deal around the world.
Our sense of doing the right thing has always been muddied by the financial opportunity and we are in danger of considering any sort of partnership as being acceptable, so long as there is a 'buck in it' for them.

Adults in the room

Subject: Adults in the room

The more I read of the clandestine interference of the ECB, dictated by Wolfgang Shauble towards, in this case the Greeks but equally the Irish, the Italians, the Spanish in fact any National group who by belonging to the EU have forfeited their right to work in their "own" interest for the sake of the German hegemony, the more I am glad we chose to break our ties with this authoritarian cabal.
The economic ramifications, like our decision to go to war against Hitler's Germany which had enormous cost implications but also, implicit in the Churchillian phrases which spoke of freedom and integrity, we have to do it.
History describes a nation, warts and all and we certainly have many warts but our historical instinct for fair play and understanding the underdog, has set us apart.
In 1939 all the political and financial arguments were against our supporting nations with which we had treatise, especially against the might of German armament. We could have sorted out some sort of collaboration with Germany to buy us time. It's was unlikely, with the Western Front won and the Eastern Front opening up that Hitler would have invaded this island at that moment. But we chose to honour our commitment and so brought the weight of German might down on our heads.
Today the strength and behind the scenes brutality in dealing with the weaker nations in the EU is never really dealt with, except in the case of Greece. The blow by blow account in Yanis Varoufakis' new book, "Adults in the room, my battle with Europe's Deep Establishment" should be compulsory for anyone wishing to know the hidden makeup of this unaccountable monster the European Union.
Even accepting the EUs positive overview of rights and legislation which has brought some harmony and justice there is still the deep seated motivation of power, mostly in the provision of the growth of the German economy potentially feeding into over 550 million consumers. The efficiency of 'German Business Machine' and the strictures and influence of the Bundesbank over the EU Commission makes the client state just that, a client of Germany and irrespective of the initial damage or the reassessment of Britain's place in the global society, it is not a price too dear if we can disentangle and not be drawn ever deeper into the tangled web of political protectionism and cronyism which is the European Union of today.

Respecting respect

Subject: Respecting respect

What used to be called the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, London has been host to thousands of cheering Brits willing their athletes on in the World Championships.
My mind went back to the Olympics when almost miraculously the UK produced more than its fair share of champions both on the track and field as well as in the cycling velodrome and on the rowing lake. Reading my blogs covering the events (wink wink nudge nudge) I was struck by the euphoria of the crowds lining the streets watching the marathon or the cyclists, the unbelievable success in the velodrome and the roar of the spectators crammed into the athletics stadium. It was all heady stuff.

The world track and field event is much more defined. Our athletes have not produced the results of 2012 with, as I write, only Mo Farah winning gold. The Americans lead the medal table with the Kenyans second and currently South Africa third. 

There was the controversy of the IAAF preventing the Botswana runner Isaac Makwala from running in the 400 metres because, against his own claim to be fit and well, he was deemed a threat to the health of the other athletes by carrying a easily transmitted virus  which was doing the rounds in the hotel he was staying in. Claim and counter claim, even a suggestion that he was being nobbled to sustain the chances of the meetings golden boy from South Africa, Wayne van Neikerk  taking both the 200 and the 400 metre titles.
The format, the introduction of each athlete, the applause and the special roar of appreciation for anyone representing the GB, the smile the wave and , depending on the stoic nature of the country an athlete is representing, not even that.
On your marks the gun goes off. All those hours of training and self denial are tested in a race which lasts sometimes under 10 seconds. The strain of disappointment the exuberance of winning is all laid out as the runners lay prone on the track gasping for air The experts begin their analysis of the why's and wherefore as we quickly take a toilet break.
A long time coming, the final championship run of Mo Farah and the final race of Usain Bolt.
Neither athlete finished their respective races as they would have wished to finish their illustrious careers. Mo Farah coming second in a thrilling 5000 metres and Usain Bolt pulling up with a pulled hamstring 60 metres short of the finishing line of the 4 x 400 metres men's relay race.
From the disappointment came a great victory as the Brits won the race in an all time third fastest time. A great finale which had me out of my seat cheering.
Sport was the winner, the athletes represent an elite which doesn't come through birth and influential parents but through hard work and a determination to win. The respect they have for each other is a wake up call to those of us who envy because we lack respect. It could be argued that having 'respect for others' is perhaps the strongest most defining, valuable characteristic mankind can have in their complex arsenal of emotions.

Everything is hypothetical

Subject: Everything is hypothetical

If the importance we give to religion and philosophy in describing mankind is fixated on a false premise, "that we are important", the apotheosis of the Darwinistic trail which prides itself in the surety of thoughtful analysis.  If there is no surety, no meaningful prognosis and our culture has, at its base, chaos and total unpredictability, what does it do for our belief in a religious insurance.
God is often accused of rolling the dice but what if the dice he rolls are completely indeterminate with no chance of predicting the outcome, it would surely send the most enthusiastic Las Vagus addict home on the next bus.
If the sub matter, the sub atomic partials which makes us, is determined by a quantum of energy which exists for a quantum of time before dying, and even in its short life is totally unpredictable to the point that its existence, relative to place, is unknowable. If the essence of all that is around us, including ourselves, is dubious, how can we begin to understand how we came into being.
This is the ingredient we have to work with. An unknowable, unpredictable, place irrelevant, sub quantum set of partials which is at the root of us all.
I suppose scaled up, it pretty much describes mankind but in our quest to give everything set rules to describe and to exist by, (much like the bible), we find there are no rules, there is no description that can be tested through observation, that everything is ruled by hypothesis.
"I think therefore I am"."Cogito ergo sum" is based on the knowledge that by thinking we can know. But what if we can't know, what if knowing is out of reach.
Is it not therefore, (philosophically) the case that, "I can not think, therefore I cease to exist".  If I cease to exist at the margin how can I claim with surety that I exist at all if the marginal mix is a phantasy.
Of course the fact that whilst "to exist" is at least  a comforting supposition, it draws us into a nightmarish world where knowledge begins to reveal that we don't know very much at all.  
Previously everything in science was built on fundamentals revealed by science and in science if the fundamentals can't be verified by observation, then empirical science cannot say for certain the thing exists. For instance, Science's view on religion can only be conjecture, no better or worse than the 'Popes' view.
And so it seems, in the case of quantum physics we are no nearer than conjecture, the type of conjectural thinking which led to a belief in God.

What is truth

Subject: What is truth.

Politics is a dirty game, we all know that. Its a device to convince people of what the politician wants us to believe regardless of the truth. Truth often gets in the way, in part because this type of truth is not a scientific, empirically sought truth but rather an emotionally held belief which is the result of so much environmentally rooted experience. We believe what we want to believe and we are further egged on into believing what other professional soothsayers wish us to believe.

The media is big business, it has axes to grind and the fulfilment of powerful agendas the manipulation of facts to suite the story is par for the course.

Watching Donald Trump "take on the media" after the riot in Charlottesville where he stood before, not as is usually the case, a Presidentially respectful press core but a baying mob of shrill soothsayers who were virtually incoherent with rage demanding that the President hadn't been on their side decrying the violence of the so called "far right" white nationalists and racially motivated Klu Klux Klan when ranged against against the "far left" comprising the liberals who wished to see the removal of the Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville. 

The history of the "South" the American War of Independence, the subsequent patches of violence in different parts of the country were based largely on different interpretations of race and equality. Today in our need to cleanse the past of widely held beliefs based on race, slavery and the "owning" of people with a dark skin brought over from Africa to work in the cotton fields, we become fraught with guilt or extremely volatile in its defence. The past haunts the Americans of a certain political persuasion as it haunts certain people in Britain regarding Empire, in France regarding their African territories, in Germany for a range of historical acts. The Russians have their USSR, the Chinese have their Mao period, the Australians have their missing children and the ongoing Aboriginal issue. No country is without a past but the past represents a time when views held then now run counter to views held today. It's a hard call to blanket people with distance for holding views that were common around them at the time. People then as today were influenced by the media and the politicians. South Africa's Apartheid was fuelled by the "them and us" scenario promulgated by the Nationalist party and aided by the ANC in Dar Es Salaam the centre of the Russian effort to destabilise the European rule in Africa.  In its simplest form the ANC were communist and wished to take over the country. The Whites were defending their right to stay in the country. People were brainwashed into taking sides.

The statue of Robert E Lee represented the battle between the plantation owners in the South and the Business of Capitalism as represented in Washington. 

Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, George Washington were all generals fighting in the civil war. Each had a cause represented by their 'up bringing' and for that very reason we should be very careful in apportioning blame. The uprooting of statues of people who represented a view of politics and society at a particular time is fraught with predudice.

What was remarkable about the Trump press conference was the visceral hatred the press now have for the President. As much as he reasoned that both sides were intent on violence and therefore equally guilty, the more the press became almost incoherent with rage that he should dane to evaluate the White Nationalists with the Black Nationalists. 

We see it in this country when the terrible events in our northern towns where Muslim men run White girl prostitution gangs in the guise of White morality set against their own Patriarchal religiosity and because of the enormous fear of being called racist, the police sat on the information they had and let the situation fester for years.

Trump was up against the Liberal Establishment which for decades now have had things all their own way. Political Correctness has become an anathema to most level headed seekers of the "truth", what ever that truth may be. 

The truth to much of the mob who make up the Washington Press Corp is fixated in the column they wrote the night before the, event happened.

Your right to a hearing

Subject: Your right to a hearing.

The lives we lead are full of assumptions. We assume that we will have food on the table when we get hungry. We assume we will have a secure comfortable sleep at the end of the day. We assume that when the need arises we will be able to find a toilet to release our bodily functions. But what if these assumptions are not fulfilled and there is no food, no bed and no way to carry out our toilet function in anything close to dignity.
We have travelled a long way from the days when disabled people were left to fend for themselves. I once in a previous blog questioned the imposition on a builder to provide a lift just for disabled people if and when a disabled person chose to apply for a job within this building. My argument was that 'lifts' are horrendously expensive and that it was reasonable to expect a disabled person to be content with working at ground floor level. Life is full of inequality and perhaps we should tackle 'private schooling' as a source of life long disadvantage before we got carried away by providing lifts.
This morning one has again been given an insight into the problems of being disabled.
The lack of disabled toilets both in the work place, places of entertainment such as the theatre and on trains where we spend so much time cramped up with other people.
The dramatic stories of disabled people wetting themselves on a journey to work when the disabled toilet wasn't working only sought to remind us of how a disabled person is so reliant on everything working once they venture out from the security of their home.

Of course as able bodied people we also can remember being caught out by a public toilet not working when we desperately needed it. The need to preempt being caught out on your way to work in traffic necessitates a call to the loo before you go out but even in such dire occasions one could always park and flee the car into the bushes. 

Not so the wheelchair bound invalid who's very life is encapsulated in what they can and can't do from their chair.
Live is full of discrepancy. We are all different and claim our difference has priority. The give and take depends on our strength and skill to garner interest and become a collective with one voice. Social media and the input the internet has on our consciousness is now garnered by bodies representing the inequality to push their case and it is inevitable, with limited funds some people are going to lose out.
And so the clamour to make sure it's not me who is left behind increases. The white working class boy, the male in a parental battle for the right to see their children, the women who live under the Patriarchal rule of a medieval religion, of women who wish to enhance their figures and men their sexual prowess in bed.
Everyone has a claim, each secure in their "rights" to a hearing.

Whispering in the Library

Subject: Re: Whispering in the Library

I remember as a young guy the atmosphere in the Reference Library in Bradford, much of it caused by the quiet and the stipulation that you whispered. 

Just the sound and smell of books being shuffled around on the large polished tables, it was if time was on hold and you could sense the intensity of the place as people searched for information. The massive card index to allow the Liberian to locate your book in the basement archive, the paper request form handed over an equally large polished counter where the librarians sat waiting and filing new books into categories.

It was all very impressive, very literary there was a sense you were part of a academic society which made your ego go up a notch or two.

I remember being in the Cape Town Library referencing something when a thunder storm came over and the sound of the rain and the oh so similar environment made me feel so very homesick.

Today we have Google and the Reference Library is much a thing of the past, except in places like the British Library and maybe the University library's. I remember the Johannesburg Central Library as an oasis for young black school kids during the time of the Apartheid flocking into the Reference Library to find a place and the material to study. They were thirsty for knowledge and the opportunity to escape the economic pit they found themselves in through accident of birth. I used to think how lucky my own children were not having to travel from Soweto to cram for the privilege of receiving an education and how little they seemed to understand on which side of the barrier they stood to receive that privilege.

The literary was one of the few, if not only place the races mixed with some sort of equality and given the stringency of the Apartheid system that was remarkable.

The literary experience is gone these days with the marvel of the internet subsuming the collegiate feel of community. Everyone is on their own mission where, with a tap of a key information is available. It begs of course the question, how valid the information is with so much propaganda mixed in with fact. 

My 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 32 volumes of exquisite typeface, printed on lightweight paper, many many pages to each volume was, is, a work of the highest craftsmanship but sadly in its compilation and superb accuracy it was out of date by the time it was available. Of course the thoroughness it dealt with historical fact, the precise way it tabulated the basis of discovery, the infinite precision of its drawings were the apotheosis of the hardback book and the art of printing but as a point of up to date reference in this fast moving world of global information it was a remnant of Empire where the sun never set.

As we feel the need to 'bin the past' because it is felt it not relevant anymore, as 'experience' is down valued and not required since the 'new new' is so hot off the press it hardly has time to cool down before becoming obsolete. Because in reflecting on the past and its value, we are frightened, in the hurry to discard everything but the immediate present that the old may have something to say that is uncomfortably pertinent.