The Government have a duty of care

Subject: The Government have a duty of care.

"The Government have a duty of care". How often do we hear this mantra and how often do individuals take advantage of it.
Do people who are grossly overweight through their own lifestyle decisions bear any responsibility and presumably a proportional cost of treatment under the National Health motto, "free at the point of need", or should they get the same treatment as someone who fits the spectra of being 'normal'.
It's the same with alcohol should a person who drinks like a fish (a misnomer since I don't think fish drink) and has to go into hospital for an operation on an organ wasted by alcohol.
Smoking another no no when it comes to health but there seems no prohibition on a heavy smoker receiving lung surgery.
Free at the point of need was a slogan to rid ourselves as a nation where, before the war healthcare was rationed, not by self indulgence but by the class you were born into.

With the NHS nearly grinding to a halt because of the pressures of massive immigration, (not withstanding that many of the people who staff the NHS are from abroad) and the longevity of people living well beyond the age when they were expected to die, plus the increase in the cost of drugs which are horrendously expensive as they become more and more tailored to specific diseases, undiscovered when the NHS was first promulgated.

The word "free" has an unsettling effect since it encourages use whilst hiding the fact that nothing is free. Its part of the human condition to properly evaluate our need when presented with a bill. No bill, no evaluation.
Of course the genuinely poor and needy should be covered but with the caveat that if their lifestyle is contributing to their need for treatment then it's only fair to ask them to contribute by at least modifying their lifestyle. The better off you are, a small premium should be charged to cover some of the cost whilst the wealthy usually have private medical aid which largely covers them.
The question of paying for medical treatment is not an ogreish suggestion, it's not a case of hitting people when they are at their most vulnerable, it's a question of balancing the books.
The image of self responsibility has to re-emerge in our society which has got used to blaming everything on 'someone else' and rarely holding up their hands to say "fair cop gov"

You can always put a book down

Subject: You can always set the book down.

The Jane Austen Book Club is one of those schmaltzy films about five attractive women and one young attractive (rich) young man who are drawn together into a book club to discuss their individual conclusions after reading each of Austen's books.
The film draws parallels with the actual lives of the women and the implications of Austen's characters with the subtle interplay which men evoke on the lives of the women in comparison to the modern complexities of their own lives.
The persuasive argument that relationships are nothing without shared interests, the intellectual spike when, as the metaphor goes "both people are on the same page".
Books are but manifestations of someone else's story but a story which you can identify with and travel the same road. Sometimes it's a story which is so well written that the language takes hold of you and you elevate the substance to mean even more than the author intended. This is no bad thing since, like my previous blog it's about stimulants which boost our perception. A good book, either fiction or non fiction can transport us from the mundane and ordinary to another level because we feel commonality with 'someone else'. It's this commonality which releases us from the enormity of doing the journey on ones own.
Music, books, cinema, are all substitutes for the real thing but if the real thing is not available it's better than nothing and at least you have the option of putting the book down, at least you are in control.

The moral high ground

Subject: The moral high ground

If we applied a moral aspect to all our relationships with countries throughout the world we will fast reduce the number of countries we can do business.
The latest is the "hit" on the Russian spy and his daughter is believed to trace back to the Russians and Mr Putin. Putin had famously decried the people who had been released in a spy swap (which included the man who was poisoned)  where he said Russians who had betrayed their country for "pieces of gold" and could expect to  meet their end in ways they would not envisage.
What ever the outcome of the investigation the use of assassination to get rid of people who oppose Putin is an open secret. As a Mafia boss he would rank with the best and yet we are unable, because of the economic situation we find ourselves, to raise other than the most benign condemnation.

Today the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is to pay a fully sanctioned visit with the highest protocol' a meeting with the Queen, the chattering classes including, Mr Corbyn have been inflamed by the visit. Yemen, the latest human atrocity to unfurl in the Middle East is being blamed on The Saudi House whilst my own reading of the conflict is that the uprising in the north was led by a group promoted by the Iran. Iran seem to be a far greater candidate to have blood on their hands with their proxy Hezbollah, the Shia religions private army, who are in conflict all over the place. Non of these 'patriarchal religious ideologies' seem to have much of a civilising agenda and therefore we should in theory step away from the lot of them. Unfortunately they represent a sizeable segment of the Muslim Diaspora, probably getting on for a quarter of the worlds population and now a days a significant section of our own population in this country as well. How do we differentiate our trade from our morals or do we simply close our eyes or worse, sell them arms each to obliterate the other.

If we hold the moral high ground, which of course we don't then we will soon find ourselves in a right pickle. The religious conflicts have been pursued since antiquity and there is nothing we can do to stop the deep religious contempt each side feels for each other.
Whether we should pour fuel onto the conflict is relevant but in the long run we seem to be running out of mainstream trading blocks to trade with and the scraps which are left are mainly all we have.

The International Woman's Day

Subject: International Women's Day

My head is reeling with the continuous babble of "International Woman's Day". The continuous claim of injustice and abasement by men. The insistence that "they" are being treated unfairly.
Of course one could look at the gender stereotypes and claim that the pay gap which certainly exists is purely originated by gender. That it has nothing to do with any other cause and that the equality drive will lead us to parity.
I have mentioned in the past that in these islands, the Prime Minister in two of the three countries is a woman. That the political leader of the segment which sees itself as part of the British Isles, Northern Ireland is also a woman. That in those bastions of male endeavour The Police and the Fire Service is each led by a woman, even though by far the largest part of the workforce are men.
The changing face of society in which the woman used to stay at home to bring up the children (perhaps the most responsible job society can task anyone) has been replaced by either women hurrying back to work with their pregnancy barely over or single parenthood with all the selfish claim most, if not all, this situation places on both the State and I would contend, the child.
The drive to have it all inevitably means that something or someone loses but in the shrill innuendo, if one were to question this state of affairs, men have become frightened mute, incapable of raising the rational that "the movement" is led by wealthy
individualistic women who have gained the very system they decry.
Girls are out performing boys at school and in university and yet their position in the boardroom does not reflect that success. Is it that the male preserve in big business is based on the 'old school tie' and patronage. Does this patronage not also impinge on the career paths of boys from less privileged backgrounds. Isn't privilege largely gender blind.
Women are becoming ever more fixated on their gender as the 21st century progresses.
The Me Too # has gained tremendous traction especially across the media as abuse against women is adjudicated by headline assassination. The ins and outs of who did what to whom and the suggestion that "power" lies at the base of all these claims by women of abuse the event stretching back 30 years and more, has at its core the determination of power. But power comes in many forms and women have held tremendous power over men since evolutionary time began.
The woman's  power is if not more potent, their inalienable rights over children, their voice in court, heard with far more sympathy than men and their sentence when found guilty strongly mitigated by their sex.
We are of course talking of the West, not Africa or Asia where Patriarchalism is as strong as ever. Patriarchal societies where woman really are chattels with no future.
This is not to say that women don't have a story to tell but in every story there is always two sides and 'today' we have only heard one.

Freedom of speech

Subject: Freedom of speech

Is it right that the so called "right to freedom of speech" has, in a perverse way, cast out words which, in the past denigrate people because of their colour, culture, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, the list goes on. Have we in the past terrorised people for being different to ourselves. Clearly the answer is yes. Was this done because we were ignorant or was it because we were fearful of the changes to our society, changes which we imagined would somehow diminish our role in the society, and take away our control of the leavers of power.

I am reading a series of articles about "freedom of speech". From our indignation at the "Snowflake" mentality which seeks to shut down university debate making some subjects taboo, racist, misogynistic, inappropriate, plain unhelpful, as we seek to meld a new society out of a multicultural hotchpotch which we are busy evolving into. 

Viewed from the position of a person who in the past held less power to have their say, people of colour, women, homosexual and transgender, then the past was a dark place. It can't be argued that oppression was ever a good thing and yet we did and still do as we try to come to terms with the fact that people who appear unlike us have much in common. Their needs are the same, respect, tolerance and understanding.

Under perfect circumstances these intolerances should be banished but laying in and amongst this tolerance of difference for the sake of unity lies the unpalatable fact that unity often means recognising something which we are not, that is, we are not all the same. 

Dictating a common agenda, that of seeing all people as the same flesh and blood is an etherial view much favoured by religious teaching because of an understanding that we were created by the hand of God and therefore must be in essence the same. But hiding amongst the remarkable likenesses there are a number of cultural dislikenesses  and if there are traits of activity which distort our sense of right and wrong how are we to square the circle.

To close down the freedom to say you don't like such and such a thing for the sake of an accord which is only tenuously growing, since at the same time our sense  of taste and acceptance is being eroded by the bombardment by a politically correct elite who wish to round us all into some sort of amenable shape, a smooth exterior to silence, once and for all people who do not accept that the world, its people and customs are anything but uniform.

It's hard to disagree with the young black woman who clearly has faced a great deal of prejudice in her life and wishes simply to be recognised for who she is and not branded by the colour of her skin. 

Historically the Seafaring Explorers. European white man denigrated the people  they conquered as being savages. These seafarers were of course much more benign than than say Genghis Khan who routinely butchered those he conquered and saw as savages,  but the mindset of the "reformers" is singleminded in blaming all intolerant history on white men. 

Rewriting history and taking out the context (Genghis was a traveling man and didn't want to be weighed down with a baggage train of defeated slaves) is a deceit that all modern day socio commentary writers fall into. As the song says, "times they are a changing" and it was ever so. Our present is not the same as our past even though many of the problems remain the same.

'Fear of difference' is countered by 'there is no difference' and yet we would be fools if we didn't recognise that the bonds formed by difference are as strong as they ever were. The collegiate bond, be it Etonian or Religious, be it cultural or linguistic is so elementally strong that the human rights logic of Aufa Hersch, as much as I would wish to embrace it, is not true to the evidence of realpolitik.

A funny old world

Subject: A funny old world

The word "false" is well and truly in vogue right now. Fake news is the current media speculation with information being beamed 24/7 aimed at distorting actual facts, what ever that may mean. Facts are hard to pin down at the best of times and in the murky world of politics, almost impossible.
The question of who is doing the beaming and who is at the receiving end of the beam, has its usual culprits, Russia being one. the actuality of what we call facts, controlled as we are by a self serving political system, telling the truth, is just plain difficult.

 Mrs May bangs the lecture, Mr Putin gives his icy stare and the Russian public lap it up, inthralled to the will of an inflexible ringmaster.

With the poisoning of the ex Russian spy the spotlight has also turned on RT the external media service of the Russian State. People here have been getting very huffy over the opportunity for the Russian State to portray the West in a poor light and therefore use the channel as a propaganda tool to undermine Western democracies. This along with the claims that the Russians interfered with the democratic process which enabled Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton in the Presidential Election. Cyber Space and the use of targeted media messages which were used to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of gullible voters has in some quarters been proved and therefore the claims against RT have gained traction.
My own experience of using RT as an alternative to the domestic news programs is always with a measure of scepticism just as is the news one gets through Fox News or the local variant, Sky. Even the BBCs editorial staff will pick and choose as which media story to broadcast.
There are always some 'unpalatable truths' as one knows, or believe you know (accepting the version of truth you are happiest with)  but it is useful to see the alternative view displayed since one has to acknowledge, from ones own experience,  there is always an alternative viewpoint.
The more we listen to both sides of any argument the clearer will be our own ability to understand any situation but in the end you are faced with the sad fact that you can't do anything about it anyway.
On a completely different tack but also inclusive of the word "fake".
I was listening to a program in which women were encouraged to phone in and describe the the procedures they had gone through to enhance their features. Botox, breast enhancement, lip injections, eyelid injections, and this includes the normal cosmetics such as false eyelashes, eyeliner lipstick, and the powders to enhance or hide a woman's normal complexion. The list goes on and one has to wonder what is the reality of a woman who has to undergo all this, each morning before she ventures out into the real world. Is their world so full of "wishes" that facts are blown away. Is the necessity to deceive themselves healthy. Does the time spent, (never mind the money) not leave them open to the claim that they spend this inordinate amount of time and money only to decry men when they get wolf whistles from the guys. Can their be any sense in being beholden to how they appear to the opposite sex only to decry that sex when it responds.
It really is becoming a funny old world.

Time passes

Subject: Time passes.

The concept of an ethical progression from childhood into old age and tying that progression into our sense of being isolated in infancy (the mothers love is taken for granted) with 'individual self awareness' which progresses as we grow into and through the other phases of our lives. Are there characteristics where narcissistic tendencies are more prevalent as we seek to set our own seal of who we are on those around us. The game of finding a mate is specifically a torturous time of assessment, of fitting ones own cultured idea of oneself into an amalgam of another's likes and dislikes. We contrive to possess the gilded cloak of attractiveness, (like the birds strutting  around the female, puffing ourselves up) with what we conceive is what the other party desires and ultimately we often make a fool of ourselves.
Move on a few years and we learn that the deceit is revealed and one begins years of often painfully accommodation trying to find sufficient common ground, to begin again with a more honest assembly of facts.
The years advance, the accommodation begins to loose its poignancy and is replaced sometimes with anger at missed opportunities for real personal growth but in the end there is a quietus, a resolve that life is what it is and that our character played such a large part in its success or failure.

An apple a day

Subject: An apple a day.

In the biblical representation of Creation, Adam and Eve were created equal to live in the garden of Paradise. God the creator had but a single rule, not to eat fruit from the tree of life
But Satan, in the form of a snake tempted Eve to eat the fruit and thereupon Eve tempted Adam to also eat the fruit and so both were cast out from paradise.
Do we take it from this story that women are seductresses and men the seduced. Do we comprehend that the beauty of women is in their seductive nature and the weakness of men is in their inability to cope with this ongoing seduction. Is Harvey Weinstein the monster he is made out to be or merely someone unable to detach himself from the saga of the Creation.
I doubt any of you will answer this thorny fundamental question. When God created man and woman his design lead to an unpalatable conclusion. Take away the confusion of cultural modelling with norms so wide as to barely represent in any but the most fundamental way one cultural practice from another. We of course subscribe to only one format which is representative of an evolved western set of norms.
Are we not dealing with what we see in the rest of the Primate kingdom, a desire to keep the species going at all costs and, if it takes the wiles of Eve to lure Adam away from the easy life, so be it.

Tattooing an old tradition

Subject: Tattooing an old tradition.

I'm watching the World Indoor Championships held in Birmingham. My issue tonight is the use of tattoos amongst the female runners and women in general.
Why do these women find it necessary to do what I would say is 'disfigure' themselves by permanently adorning their bodies with all kinds of motifs, like the savages of the past.
Are we becoming more and more socially retrograde in our desire to follow a fashion. Is the fashion of tattooing our bodies not something rather barbaric and perhaps belonging to the 'lower classes. The seaman returning from many months in foreign ports had, as an emblem of his trade, an anchor emblazoned on his forearm. The need to encourage your girlfriend in believing your commitment to her by having her name tattooed somewhere but always running the risk of being embarrassed if you replaced her later down the line.
It used to be the domain of men, particularly traveling men but never women.
Today, as in much of our modern society, the girls say "anything you can do we can do  also" and the number of women, who for some reason seek to display such artificiality is increasing exponentially.
One of the women settling down onto the blocks had, amongst other things an image of a hand gun on her inner arm, something a gangster from the Favelas would have been proud of.
It's always supposed that civilisation is an upward trajectory but I wonder as the modern woman seem condemned to mimic a very old tradition.

Virtual reality

Subject: Virtual reality 

As programmers and computer scientists push out the boundary of what a computer can be used for and as the computer therefore becomes more and more an indispensable tool, there also lurks in the background the ability to do more. Doing more has its dangers since it also takes us into competences that push us further away from the reality of who we are. That link in our mortality and the boundaries it imposes is important.
The drug LSD was promoted in the 1960s as an escape route into another world a psychedelic world of vivid experiences not possible to the man or woman going about their ordinary lives. The ordinariness of everyday life had to be emblazoned by new exciting experiences which, much like the use of alcohol was an escape from life's dreary reality. The price to pay was the return journey and the acceptance, in some cases that "hell on earth" had to be faced.
The claim that 'Visual Reality' extends the minds ability to journey further, to see around corners and experience the inexperenced pleasures of a trip into the exciting  hallucinatory world of our mind has at its root a deep question. Do we as human beings benefit from the highs gained by escaping our reality. Do we gain from visiting a place so remotely individualistic, since it is our personal journey and no one else's, only to be dragged back when we put our apparatus away.
I was never tempted to take LSD although living in and around the Cross in Sydney one had friends who were always tripping. I never wanted to be out of control although I must admit to being close to it through alcohol on more than one occasion. To me alcohol was a journey without an end result, one went in for one beer and usually only had one or two beers and only occasionally the atmosphere and camaraderie drew one in to having more than was good for you with the inevitable result. The journey was not preordained and occasionally  the result was a confusion as to who you were and what was appropriate.
The word appropriate is of course a loaded word, appropriate to who and why. Behind the word lies the assumption for us all to get on and function as a society where there are rules of engagement. There is an assumption that we have to collaborate in some sort of way, that we have to forgo our independence to do what ever we want and remember to behave like animals in a pen. For this we describe ourselves as being civilised.
Virtual Reality is in essence the rejection of civilised behaviour, not in the sense that we become belligerent or necessarily dangerous to others but, I would suggest, we become dangerous to ourselves as we probe further and further into the chemistry which makes up the mind.  Without the countervailing force of 'real life' reality which curbs our actions and makes us the social person we are, we exclude everyone and run the danger of becoming narcissistic with all its feelings of exaggerated self importance.

The Government have a duty of care

Subject: The Government have a duty of care.

"The Government have a duty of care". How often do we hear this mantra and how often do individuals take advantage of it.
Do people who are grossly overweight through their own lifestyle decisions bear any responsibility and presumably a proportional cost of treatment under the National Health motto, "free at the point of need", or should they get the same treatment as someone who fits the spectra of being 'normal'.
It's the same with alcohol should a person who drinks like a fish (a misnomer since I don't think fish drink) and has to go into hospital for an operation on an organ wasted by alcohol.
Smoking another no no when it comes to health but there seems no prohibition on a heavy smoker receiving lung surgery.
Free at the point of need was a slogan to rid ourselves as a nation where, before the war healthcare was rationed, not by self indulgence but by the class you were born into.
With the NHS nearly grinding to a halt because of the pressures of massive immigration, (not withstanding that many of the people who staff the NHS are from abroad) and the longevity of people living well beyond the age when they were expected to die, plus the increase in the cost of drugs which are horrendously expensive as they become more and more tailored to specific diseases, undiscovered when the NHS was first promulgated.
The word "free" has an unsettling effect since it encourages use whilst hiding the fact that nothing is free. Its part of the human condition to properly evaluate our need when presented with a bill. No bill, no evaluation.
Of course the genuinely poor and needy should be covered but with the caveat that if their lifestyle is contributing to their need for treatment then it's only fair to ask them to contribute by at least modifying their lifestyle. The better off you are, a small premium should be charged to cover some of the cost whilst the wealthy usually have private medical aid which largely covers them.
The question of paying for medical treatment is not an ogreish suggestion, it's not a case of hitting people when they are at their most vulnerable, it's a question of balancing the books.
The image of self responsibility has to re-emerge in our society which has got used to blaming everything on 'someone else' and rarely holding up their hands to say "fair cop gov"

Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all

Subject: "Better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all".

It is of course pure nostalgia, that parachute which music provides taking you back to a time when you were a different person, stimulated as you were by music and of course the opposite sex. The fixation that girls brought to our lives made most other things pale into insignificance. The tug of war which went on between ones male friends and the comfort we gained form the uncomplicated friendship of ones mates and the quagmire of the emotional depth-charges which lay in ones path when one fell for a girl and entered her world of self absorption. 

The music,  Peter Paul and Mary, Tim Buckley, Joan Baez  targets us right back to those emotionally turbulent years when we thought the experience would never end and we were immortal. The vocal story telling the sound of a acoustic guitar driving us out of our complacency, out of our greasy, noisy jobs, out of our Monday blues and the grey sky's  which signified the mood of a teenager. 

Where did all that testosterone go, all those nights of anticipated glory mixed all too frequently with the disappointment of rejection. The highs and the lows are remembered through the songs which idealised our passion and signposted our failure. 

The rockstars stamping their way around the stage snarling into the microphone to screaming thousands of youngsters like ourselves seemed to epitomise the gulf between what we wanted and what was available. Those songs still have the power to unlock the emotional ambiguity of our youth. The unrequited love, the hopelessness of being rejected far out weighed the successes since these successes only led to an eventual rejection. We were as guilty in the function of an attained desire, once attained, the attention went elsewhere. That human failing of not  recognising when you had found something special only to cast around for an illusion.

The Beatle song  "If I fell in love with you" rang through my head in Sydney after coming unstuck and if I were to hear it today I would remember the miserable incomprehension of those weeks until something else turned up.

It's lucky we have this ability to succumb to nostalgia since in old age the fire of passion has been truly quenched.

 "The bitch is back" (Elton John) is the setting for Sun City. Rod Stewart's "Baby Jane" harks back to the USA. I remember attending a black tie hotel extravaganza and being captivated by the songs "Born Free" and "Yesterday" sung by Mat Monrow, aided and abetted as I was by a beautiful lass from down under. I can still remember the sense of place and moment as if it were yesterday.

We are lucky if, as Oscar Wilde wrote, " it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all".

You can always set the book down

Subject: You can always set the book down.

The Jane Austen Book Club is one of those schmaltzy films about five attractive women and one young attractive (rich) young man who are drawn together into a book club to discuss their individual conclusions after reading each of Austen's books.
The film draws parallels with the actual lives of the women and the implications of Austen's characters with the subtle interplay which men evoke on the lives of the women in comparison to the modern complexities of their own lives.
The persuasive argument that relationships are nothing without shared interests, the intellectual spike when, as the metaphor goes "both people are on the same page".
Books are but manifestations of someone else's story but a story which you can identify with and travel the same road. Sometimes it's a story which is so well written that the language takes hold of you and you elevate the substance to mean even more than the author intended. This is no bad thing since, like my previous blog it's about stimulants which boost our perception. A good book, either fiction or non fiction can transport us from the mundane and ordinary to another level because we feel commonality with 'someone else'. It's this commonality which releases us from the enormity of doing the journey on ones own.
Music, books, cinema, are all substitutes for the real thing but if the real thing is not available it's better than nothing and at least you have the option of putting the book down, at least you are in control.

Abuse or simply testing the water

 Abuse or simply testing the water.

 

It's difficult not to become sceptical as the race is on to blame men for inappropriate behaviour. As our papers line up to condemn the rich and famous in terms of abuse towards women there is a feeding frenzy of claim and counter claim with the interesting entry this morning of Donald Trumps comment that "human lives are being destroyed by mere allegations".

Of course abuse of anyone, towards any animal, is wrong and should be challenged but the term abuse has such wide ranging connotation.
Does a spat between husband and wife or between son and daughter fall into the bracket of abuse. Does a flirtatious evening where signals were received and then withdrawn but the change in the sexual weather front not picked up and what is described as inappropriate behaviour, even years later, is now the cause of allegation and lives ruined.

The unique attraction between a man and a woman is the Darwinian process that makes the animal kingdom flourish. Without the attraction which is substantially sexual our species would die out. If as is rapidly happening, the male seeks to protect himself from unfounded accusation, he had better stay at home. Of course it's not in the home where so many of these claims of abuse flow and more and more the office environment is the killing field for misunderstood innuendo. 

The claim is that 'power' which one individual has over another is the tinderbox and that the 'casting couch' in Hollywood has been the focus of ire for many female starlets. 

This public outing of so many famous household names is spreading.   First it was the political arena and now the whole process of male/female interaction is under the spot light.

The world at large is unmoved. Religious distinctions  continue to mark out what is good and what is bad.  The "oldest profession" still thrives across the world and these matters are largely the concern of the Western liberal fringe who feel most affronted. 

Abuse comes in many shapes and sizes. The tongue is one of the sharpest instruments of daily abuse and yet it is not classed in the same league as a hand on the knee. Why is this. Is it because men, who are often at the sharp end of verbal abuse just shrug their shoulders and accept it, much as a lass from a working class environment would know how to deal with an inappropriate hand. If it were just evidence of "correctness" gone mad then one would simple put it down to the times we are living in but as Trump says, "lives are being ruined" and who knows the reasons behind the claims, often made decades later.

Can you envisage returning to a Bronte era where the courtship was conducted in such a way no one could discovered the true character of the person you were marrying until it was too late - and then the real abuse could begin.

Is Britain racist

Is Britain racist.

 It's a question we can ask, irrespective of our colour since the society is now such a hotchpotch of race and culture that the claim to ownership within this country has long ceased to have any meaning.
The question of being white in the society is now questioned since we are told that being white is a state of mind, bound up as it is in colonialism, slavery and an assumption of being superior.  An assumption of being "better than those 'gollywogs', to use 1950s language" who inhabit the countries from which the parents of many of the people in the audience in Oxford had left in the late 1940s. 

The challenge which the articulate black people in the audience wished to put across was that our whiteness and the attitude that goes with it is based on a false premise - that we are superior.
The vigour with which these young people decried the society of which they are now a part and the hurdles this society purportedly puts in front of them, even though they had obtained university degrees at our universities in order to articulate their disgruntlement,  is somehow symptomatic of the unreality of living here.  We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. If you don't believe their cant, you are a racist.
Of course in any society there are racist, people who hold vicious views against people of colour, but wait a minute, weren't these people in the audience also racist for holding the same sort of antagonistic judgement towards white people.
Of course history gives them a platform to protest since, it is argued, the white community, where ever they went conquered, exploited and when settled, closed ranks  barely integrating with anyone except their own, least of all with the local indigenous population
White men and women are of course not alone in determining their allegiance to what they believe they stand for and what reflects their image.
The Indian nation, the second largest nation on earth has a multi tiered system of defining people, straight jacketing and pigeon holing whole swathes of their community,  with little or no opportunity to be accepted outside the designated caste.
African tribal hierarchy is equally firm in its discrimination within its patriarchal  mix but of course, this hierarchal structure is for some reason more acceptable than plain racial bias, a discrimination according to skin colour.
To listen to the audience 'bias and prejudice' has no basis when applied from a black person towards a white person, since the black person, who came over in the late 40s was actually brought over as an act of exploitation, exploitation  of the black person by the authorities in this country designed to hold down wages in this country to support the nation in its attempt to compete world wide with the low wages paid in other countries.
Of course no allowance has ever been made toward the white population who paid host to these immigrants, arriving  in their thousands, settling where they were most needed in the industrial towns of the North. No one informed the white working class of the changes to their lives, including their ability to hold onto a job. No one smoothed the way  least of all the politicians in Westminster.
Is it any wonder there is resentment, which continues to this day, within pockets of a disgruntled, jobless white population, particularly in those  very towns in the North who were hit hardest.
No matter how often we apologise for our forefathers who were simply following the practices of the day this audience in Oxford will be forever emotionally at odds with the people who, abet reluctantly, gave them a home and an opportunity to prosper in a way their kith and kin  "back home" have never experienced.
The question of being black or white, which has been toned down over the years (forgive the pun) through the natural tolerance in people who see the practicality of getting on and discovering that the colour of the skin has little to do with the underlaying character of the person and bolstered by significantly successful Intermarriage, the sheer preponderance of 'other nations' on our high street has meant we have become more and more colour blind.
It's not irrelevant to say that if the views heard in Oxford had been espoused in a BNP meeting it would have made the news as "overt racialism" but because it is a view point from a so called 'minority group' it is apparently important we hear it if only to hear and understand "their" frustration. But what about "our" frustration.
What about the frustration of being lied to and misrepresented over the years about the highly profitable business of whole scale immigration, it's good and it's bad side and not simply ignored as a pliant, easily manipulated, politically illiterate mass of so called indigenous Brits.

Being colour blind

Subject: Being colour blind.

I am Black, you are White, she is Yellow, he is Brown what is the significance.
Of course it's an indication of where I come from, although in this world of easy and convenient migration it bares less and less relevance, especially in the western world where economic migration is most common but colour is still used as a cultural marker.
The cultures of Africa and Asia are assumed to be an integral part of the person who comes from that part of the world and the colour of a persons skin and the evolutionary facial differences which have developed, signify a difference which we are often likely to be prejudiced against.

Culture can be fascinating and whilst helping to identify a person in the likely way they will respond to questions of faith, food, the importance of education, perhaps the work ethic, we would seriously misjudge a persons character purely on ethnicity.

And yet we do. We do judge people on the colour of their skin and in this way it can be claimed that racism is bad or at least a poor indicator of that other human trait, compassion and tolerance.
Compassion and tolerance, the ability to feel good will towards another human being irrespective of your intimate knowledge of him, is a mark of a civilised society.
There is also the matter of not being conversant with another persons culture and of how important his cultures norms are to him or her. My agnosticism does not trump his belief system, in fact the disregard for other people's likes and dislikes is at the root of much of the disharmony in the world regardless of colour. Colour only accentuates the presumption that we will differ in our belief system due to these variances in the way we were brought up and the values we gain throughout our childhood.
Difference leads us into asking questions which are unnecessary when there is a sense of conformity and oneness, questions which in the very asking indicate a presumption of "them and us".

"Them and us" leads to a judgement call, am I right or are they wrong, a foolish question since there is no plausible answer. 

The culture we grew up in is the product of centuries of assimilation.  It is not a binary process but a multifaceted experiential process still in progress. Worn like a stone in a fast flowing river to a shape and form made smooth by the passage of time so our culture defines us. Importing another dissimilar culture has the effect of disrupting the flow of the river producing eddies and turbulence with unforeseen consequences far downstream.
The accelerated rise in multiculturalism means we are rapidly approaching a crossroad, there will be no turning back, the forces which made us what we are. Dissipating under the force of a more determinant cultures than libertarian Christianity which has no answer to a harsher, more dominant religious servitude. The Muslim faith and it's hands on approach to the individuals daily life within its community cements is a powerful foe. 

"Love thy brother as thyself" assumed a homogeneity in which thy brother was a recognisable neighbour. Being an island the nations ability to assimilate was not difficult and generally there was common understanding as to the acceptable norms within the society. Now we are stricken to silence and hold our voice when we see the flourishing growth of different norms built on patriarchal views which for decades had withered in an attempt to find a more equitable society. Whilst the feminists fight the unwanted hand on the knee, a hand on the throats of all they fought for is close at hand, closer than they think and yet being the good multiculturalists they are it's impossible to voice opinions against any culture other than ones own.

 

Oxfam and their dark secret

Subject: Oxfam and their dark secret.

How puritan we have become or is it the herd mentality ignited by the media and the luvies who set its agenda, which draws us in and we become so sensorial.

Oxfam one of the oldest of the many charity organisations which have grown their business to represent the aid benefit of millions of pounds donated by both the general public and government grants, (which we must remind ourselves is again our money), money distributed in times of disaster to the impoverished and stricken of this world. Perhaps it's the only case of "trickle down" actually working.

I and many others like me have become sceptical of the business model on which these business's are built with too much being skimmed  off on management overheads. 

Fat cats sitting in large offices in this country controlling the organisation for very substantial salaries. 

The men and women on the ground in the crisis zone, much like foreign correspondents are a breed of very individualistic  people, people who give up the 'nine till five' and settle amongst the turmoil of an earthquake region or a famine disaster seeing things we on the 'nine till five' would rather not see close up and smelly.

Like the travelling salesman or the seaman away from home the trespass of 'home comforts' is all around with the exploitative function of sex and prostitution never far away. It's always a two way street the woman who sells sex does so because there is, relatively speaking much more money to be made than in the local economy and of course in some countries the attitude to sex in general is far more healthy than in our own Presbyterian souls.

Men have fallen foul to the wiles of women since time began and in some South American countries or in parts of Asia the "oldest trade in the world" flourishes without censorship.

So we have a story of men who have fallen into the trap of needing solace through purchasing sex and suddenly, they are the devil incarnate. The press and our politicians mainly women are in a frenzy of indignation threatening to cut off (the surgical option is still denied them but watch this space) all funds which Oxfam distribute. 

Never mind the good they did, never mind the the misery they alleviate now being amplified by one of the largest players being ruled offside.  Only the scorn of the 'female sisterhood', which knows no bounds, is now on display and we all had better listen - otherwise.

.

A United Ireland

Subject: A United Ireland 

Sometimes one reaches an impasse without quite knowing how we got there. Looking back it's a bit like Groundhog Day where the groundhog retreats into it burrow if the conditions are not quite right.
The complexity of Brexit each day reveals the bureaucratic nature of this world where governance in virtually all its form is covered by a multiple interlocking agreements. It seems a far cry from the 'handshake' which formed the basis of agreeing to a contract between two principle interests and resting on mutual trust.
Listening to the former WTA head who was taking questions from a committee of parliamentarians trade negotiations are all a matter of leverage. The 'common cause' has been supplanted by "how can I screw the most out of an opponent" and of course size and power determine the outcome. The major blocks, the US, China, the EU are the main players and the crumbs which fall from their table are the scraps which small nations, such as the British struggle with.
As a nation made up actually of four nations, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland we are more susceptible to disharmony than most and this historically was at its most raw with the Irish and the war for their independence. Northern Ireland was like the runt child, a political necessity to quieten the powerful land owning segment within the English parliament, a mismatch of Protestant land owning interests set against a Catholic society who's faith was passed down from the early forays of St Patrick and his Gaelic Catholicism. "The Troubles", the most recent manifestation of the discord between the Irish Nationalists and the representatives of the 6 counties of Ulster and the link to England. Much blood and money was lavished in the cause but in many ways, the imperative of keeping a foothold on the island of Ireland from Westminsters point of view although historically important at the time now seems much less relevant.

Brexit has spotlighted the anomaly of the boarder between north and south, between the need to seek independence from Brussels and all that Brussels represents in the EU and its entrenched hold over the main body of Ireland in the south.

How is the boarder between the two parts to operate without greatly increasing the cost of shipping. How will the tariffs be accounted for if, as seem more and more likely the divorce between the UK and the EU becomes more acrimonious. Perhaps it is time for Northern Ireland to amalgamate with the Oireachtas, to unite as a whole on what is relatively a small island and stop the constant, seemingly petty discord.
Once upon a time, (settle back children and I will tell you a story) boarders and customs were common and part of the background story representing the nation state. The wait to display your passport and the lorries to have their papers stamped was a fact of life and we managed without to much inconvenience. The early manifestation of the EU was the ECSC (the European Coal and Steel Community) signed by 6 nations, its aim was closer industrial cooperation to prevent war on the continent, a forerunner to the EEC and its present format the EU. (The continual thrust towards Federalisation is what frightens the Brits the most).
Boarder and tariffs are an anathema to the global masters interfering with trade and profit but before we were cajoled into believing that a globalised economy was good for us we managed to trade independently with one another paying due cognisance to each other as independent nation states. If we wish to value ourselves as a community with individualistic foibles and not become some sort of economic profundity without form or face, then the delay at a border is a small price to pay.

The 'peoples bank' is going bankrupt

Subject: The 'people bank' is going bankrupt.

As we become hysterical  about the weather outside, as the train companies take their services off line (no pun intended) as the schools close and the authorities swing into action with their coloured flags to tell us whether it's 'safe' to go out, it all reminds me of a country which has become institutionalised and brain dead.
Of course their are people who have become stuck in traffic queues spending hours in a freezing cold car is certainly no fun but I would suggest that that is the worst which can befall you other than suffering hyperthermia as an old person unable to afford to switch on the heating.
In countries who are used to heavy snow fall and sub zero temperature life goes on as normal because for them it is normal but in this country we have a swath of 'experts' waiting to give their prognosis and not wanting to be caught out like the famous weather forecaster John Kettle who in 1988 said an approaching storm would be something and nothing but which turned out to be the biggest most damaging blow of the century they prophesy the worst.  Not wishing to enter the Parthenon of getting it wrong, everyone these days strays into the red of calamity, "stay at home" is the call.
I was listening to a long list of well known high street names who have recently gone into receivership. It makes chilling (the other kind) listening. Established companies, house hold names, going to the wall in the face of 'on line shopping'. Amazon's boss Jeff Bizos has become the richest man in the world as he continues to expand and exploit our willingness to shop from the arm chair. Goods of all kinds, things which you would have thought necessary to evaluate in some sort of way we now seem to prefer to chance our arm and order from a catalog of specification and a host of online recommendation.

The only people venturing out are the delivery people who will struggle through the snow, come what may to put a crust on their table.
Amazons quest to make their warehousing and dispatching automated and robotised, with driverless vehicles just over the horizon to deliver to our door makes one wonder who will be employable to afford the goods which Amazon displays.
A Brave New World is unfurling where the untrained unemployed will become evermore superfluous, a burden on the books, and the nations who hold many of them will go bankrupt.