A day well spent

A day well spent

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Every nation craves recognition and through that recognition ordinary citizens bathe for a moment or two in the glory. Once it was on the field of battle but as the battles became more costly and the death toll began to include more civilians than combatants, the cost of going to war is simply too high. These days we contest and measure our strength in the various sports we take part in. Sometimes we do well, sometimes we fail but the nation carries each occasion through the hopes of its citizens and in no small part each person seeing a victory feels a tiny part of the event.
Today has been choker block full of memorable sporting events. 
Wimbledon with those two giant champions of tennis, Roger Federer v Novak Djokovic was a titanic five set struggle with Djokovic finally emerging the winner.
We also have the culmination of the cricket World Cup with England favourites to beat New Zealand and, in Formula One Motor Racing, a Louis Hamilton win at Silverstone.  
The cricket was almost impossible to watch because of the tension. We are well known for choking at the last hurdle, we don't quite fulfill the hype our sporting pundits put out in their protestations of our chance to win and too often we seem to stare at the winning line yet unable to hold it together to get there first. 
I'm not sure what other nations do in the raising of their public's hopes of a win, I'm sure the Indian press were astounded by New Zealand ability to graft a small total of runs but enough to see their bowlers carry the day with a well deserved victory. Today it looked like a repeat of the Indian game, our batsmen, who were superb agains Australia in the other semi final were succumbing to the Kiwi bowling attack after the Kiwis set what what appeared to be an easy total of runs to reach. Never before have I witnessed such nail biting cricket. The last over the England batsman Ben Stokes, on his knees trying to score the final run. All square after fifty overs each and a final special over played where each side faced six balls to win the World Cup. Throwing bat to ball the runs came, 15 to England to win, of which 4 were a fluke, (the throw in was deflected off the batsman's outstretched bat as he dived to avoid being run out) leaving New Zealand six balls to do it in. They nearly did but were out from a throw in to the keepers end on the last ball as the batsman threw himself at the crease to score the winning run. The emotion was palpable, people were in tears of joy and tears of disappointment, both teams were winners in everyone's eyes except of course the record book
At Silverstone the combination of a Mercedes's car and the consummate skill of Louis Hamilton brought yet another victory and a record number of wins by Hamilton. The race itself was exciting, not a frequently used description when describing F1 motor racing which is usually a high speed procession after the first corner. Today's excitement came from the amazingly young, new bunch of drivers who unlike their predecessors seem, with that fearless spirit which comes from youth, prepared to pass other cars where previously it was deemed impossible to pass. Their vigor and their ability to rewrite the rules by tearing up the rule book is a breath of fresh air to the sport.
And so another day being a couch potato, skipping between channels, revealing in the freedoms to hang out with my best friend has come to an end and whilst not a champion or even a hands-on spectator at least, as I settle down in bed to write to you all, I feel the day was well spent.

A lack of honesty

Subject: FW: A lack of honesty.

The opportunity to vote on who goes forward to contest the position for the new Prime Minister has been sullied by the claim that tactical voting has been used to 'out' a contestant who it was thought offered a greater challenge to Boris Johnson.
Of course the ability to vote for who ever you chose is your democratic right but is the democratic right not part of an assumption that who you vote for is the person you want to win. This must be especially so when the people voting is not Joe Blogs in the public bar of the Duck and Goose but people (politicians) we elected to carry forward the good name of our country, a name by which the country will be judged in the future for its probity.
Is there a place for the 'dark art' of tactical voting especially given that Boris Johnson has so many votes to play with, being so far ahead. The image of parliamentarians gathering in smoke filled rooms to plot against people they deem as the enemy, is hardly encouraging when we, the ordinary citizen are demonised if we don't practice total transparency in our morality on a whole range of social issues, even when those issues go against the grain. As voters we are critiqued if we don't turn up and vote at elections, we are said to miss  an opportunity to have our say, with the implication that we can't complain when the Governments policies which we don't like, are then enacted.
But this inevitably assumes that your cross on the ballot paper stands for something and reflects what you believe. If we all turned out to vote in a tactical way, one man's tactic to oppose one woman's tactic, heaven help us in the miss-mash which would result.
False news, now false voting, when will we stop and reflect the importance of truth. It may be a truth tainted by prejudice but at least it has the ring of an honest opinion, not the discombobulating lack of any sort of surety, when statements are made in the voting booth or the views given verbally by the politician in answer to a question.
The smokes and mirrors circus which seems to be the norm these days, the sound bites replacing statements of political intent and political intent is proved so  transitory.
 Where does it all leave the ordinary citizen, who always, sadly ends up bearing the brunt.

The generation gap

Subject: FW: The generation gap.

 

Is there a psychological moment in life when, as a person you are released of your responsibilities, your duties, your ability to make decisions and hand them over to a carer to make them for you. Is there a moment when it's in your best interests to let go and allow the world to go its own way without you defining the course you wish to make in your personal contribution.
Of course in the case of dementia, or any other mental deficiency or perhaps if your physical capacity has deteriorated to such an extent that you can't make your bed or take care of yourself, then a carer is the best option to lend a hand. But is it the case, as one begins to slow down or become less able to run and catch the proverbial bus, are these the signs for pre-emotive action, of handing over the keys as it were and downsizing to fit a role which is defined by others.
The others may have your best interest at heart but is that enough to lay aside the individualism that made you a success, no matter how mediocre. There's a  suggestion that pride gets in the way of letting go, as if pride were a bad thing. Perhaps if we had more pride in ourselves and in the society at large then the norms in society wouldn't become so lax and determinate such that anything seems to go these days.
Having weathered so much, having guided ones family through many hiccups it's difficult to be advised that one now has to not only take advice but accept from now on. It's doubly frustrating when one is encouraged to accept advice when it's not even asked for, as if the giving of the advice is without its own blemish and that a different course of action, your course of action, is now irrelevant and out of date.

Are we ever out of date and is the younger generation always right. There is a cult of youthful profundity where new ideas always out rank the old and If we disagree are we letting the youth down from the conditional stimulation we have provided by never questioning their divergence from our own chosen path.
Is the moment of truth too early, do we have to accept that we are too weak to carry the flag anymore or be the individual who has been the main source of our strength through life.
There's a lot to be said for a carer, especially when we become frail but do not hasten the frailty by suggesting that it's now the time, when it isn't.

Trumping the needs of a country they were elected to serve

Subject: FW: Trumping the needs of the country they were elected to serve.

 

So now, after the contenders debate for who is to be the next Prime Minister the knifes are out and the trolls gather to attack the BBC for its handling of the debate.
The chairwoman was deemed to have targeted Boris Johnson as if his past utterances and dodgy decision making were not fair game. The selection of people who appeared on screen from different locations in the country and across a broad spectrum of the British Public were, in the eyes of the trolls prejudiced  against the Tory Party. Perhaps they would prefer a bunch of pink rinse octogenarians who just love the idea of Boris as leader and ask purely sycophantic questions.
There is a class of people who hate the BBC. Who would demolish the BBC if they could the same sort of people who would demolish the NHS for a market orientated enterprise who see competition as the only modus operandi worth considering. They seem to come from the stable of the Express,Mail, and Sun readership, who pay allegiance to the Murdock blend of capitalism where those that can pay and the rest do without.
Listening to David Davis that genial " everything will come good" merchant who's cry to get out of the EU come what may (not Mrs May) and who admitted this morning that "if he didn't understand a problem he ignored it" on the premise that he could only focus on what he did understand, exemplifies why the warnings of industry are ignored.
A good source of information, not political cant, but opinion from the front line, where the action is being fought, opinion from the chemical industry, and the pharmaceutical industry, vehicle manufactures and many others, are part of the process of information gathering which the Parliamentary Committees undertake to advise government. All this expert advice is ignored by the politicos such as Johnson, Hunt, Javid and Gove. For them the political goal, to become the next Prime Minister is worth the misery of a broken car industry or the diminution of our standing in the field of Research and Development.   For them their hubris, their self importance, trumps the needs of the country they were elected to serve.

Taken with a pinch of salt

Subject: FW: Taken with a pinch of salt.

The deep seated problem we have in politics is, not only the tribal affiliation to party but the cocooning of thought into a psychological bubble which surrounds Westminster.
A bubble which stunts politicians, of all persuasions into thinking their world, or at least the important part of their world, is a world of debate and their daily connivance between their political colleagues  and political,opponents. It's as if the world outside was of a second tier which they pay lip service to when necessary, for instance at election time but where their real effort is in playing the game of party politics.
Rory Stewart's stark warnings to his colleagues was that they were being disingenuous to the electorate if they stated that the negotiations with the EU could be opened and better terms obtained by a fresh face at the table. He harshly rebuked the other contenders for the crown as he tried to engender a little realism into the debate.
It's as if his words had fallen on deaf ears to listen to the commentary in the papers this morning. The ridicule directed at Boris Johnson was ignored as if it never happened, the wild offer of tens of millions on tax relief from Michael Gove was also ignored. It's as if they live in a universe which contradicts reality and whilst these politicians speak the world of political scrutiny falls silent through the sheer impossibility  to grasp the consequences of what the politicians, (defending their jobs, the salaries and prestige which goes with them), propose.
The papers this morning were in the grip of celebrity mania as they airbrushed out the inertia of Johnson, the steely eyed Jeremy Hunt who often looks manic, the goofy Gove and the man we know next door, Sajid Javid.  Not a word about their wild claims or expensive tastes with taxpayers money. Not a word about the complexity of disentangling our economy from Europe or the hardship bound to be inflicted on the people on the streets (not them of course) or the diminution of our position in virtually every aspect of academic and economic influence.
For Johnson, Hunt, Gove and Javid they were on the hustings, making wild claims, claims they know no one will hold them to, political claims to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

The Debate

Subject: FW: The debate. 

What a disappointing format for last nights political leadership contest. There was no way the contestants could be held to substantiate their claims on Brexit or tax cuts as the contestants sought to out shout each other and in fact one ended up even more confused as to who deserves to be the next Prime Minister.
The only realistic one was Rory Stewart who seemed to say "a plague on your houses" for not being honest and willing to fall foul  of that political temptation to promise what ever they think the electorate want to hear without any intention of fulfilling  the promise. His rejection of the claim made by the others that "they" would renegotiate the Brexit deal when Stewart repeatedly said to the others it's not in their gift to renegotiate if the EU has closed that option. Also he accused them of hypocrisy by claiming to offer tax cuts on an economy which can't afford them. He was a breath of fresh air in a smoke filled room and for that reason alone I would wish he were the next PM. Unfortunately his body language was at times one of apparent  disinterest and I wondered as he perched awkwardly on his stool if he wasn't suffering from a back problem which was distracting him. His 'tell it as it is' was in sharp contrast to the typical political strategy of saying things to please that section of the electorate, 'the target audience' without any substance for what he was promising. They were all at it, out promising each other as if we, the audience were too dumb to see their posturing.
Boris Johnson the uncrowned king sat looking uncomfortable as he listened to some of his gaffs in the past and it was noticeable how his colleagues, with the exception of Stewart were going easy on him in their furtherance of a plumb job when he becomes PM.
Heaven help us if we connive to brush over his failings because of some Party arithmetic but it seems that that is just what we will do.
The sound bites from the party faithful in one Conservative sanctum was that many were unmoved by Stewart's appeal for 'common sense' and 'honesty', rather they preferred the, same old same old as their party allegiance and the habit of a life times self-aggrandisement, without much thought for those outside their 'set' was disheartening to say the least.

Heuristic reasoning

Subject: FW: Heuristic reasoning.

The intuitive mind or the heuristic way of reasoning is with us all through our lives. It influences who we are and who we become by providing the soil in which we grow and sometimes prosper.
Ask any gardener the route to a pretty garden is the preparation you put in, the choice of plant relative to the sunshine and the wind, the soil into which you place the plant, the nutrients and the water are all the constituents of a flourishing garden.  But the idea of a garden, what it should look like, what flowers should be allowed to grow is pretty much based on the style and common agreement amongst gardeners. They are the experts, they generate the norms - which are not a matter for discussion.
In my garden, perhaps because I am lazy, the influence of wild flowers and what gardeners refer to as weeds, I find attractive. For the weed, the soil is not a problem, clay or rich in humus it grows well, drought or flood, pestilence or perfect pollination the plants prosper. The colours of wild flowers are as vibrant as the most invested hybrid and pop up each year unannounced like good friends.
The reasoned mind has its bias, its inarticulate assumption that others are right to set the standards and that we must follow. The sense that colour and prettiness, which is often the driver behind my sense of having a functioning garden is obscured by the cant of the seed manufactures and the gardening magazine writers who's aim in life is to make gardening as difficult and time consuming as can be. It's the antithesis of heuristic thought, "enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves", it's the profile of modern life where everything has to be pre-thought and agreed for it to have any chance of acceptance.

Our lack of individuality of following the herd is evident all around us. In for instance the stark sameness of the candidates for the position of becoming the UKs new Prime Minister (with the exception of my favorite Rory Stewart). One can't put cigarette paper between them in their unwillingness to look outside the box for solutions. They have been conditioned by their need to speak the language of the tight knit cabal who will vote for them, the Conservative Party members. It limits their actions and makes them, to a man, (other than Stewart) trail down the cul-de-sac of renegotiation with the EU, who have made it plain that there is no renegotiation. The appeal of jingoistic hubris to the pink rinse brigade and the colonel blimps of the Tory heartlands is the cry of yesteryear and the nostalgia of our history books but which has little to do with the practice of life as it is today, or the importance of common sense, of an optimal way rather than the perfect solution, sufficiency for reaching an intermediate goal which allows us to move on.

The Johnson phenomena

Subject: FW: The Johnson phenomena 

Does it matter for Britain that Boris Johnson looks likely to be the next Prime Minister.
Does it matter that Donald Trump is likely to win a second term of his presidency.
Does the grim politics played by Mr Putin or the President of China Xi Jimping matter in our daily deliberations obviously not since we also understand that there is little we can do if we disagree.
This frame of mind has serious consequences, not so much for our leaders but for ourselves. There was a time when leadership was a national pride thing and one felt a personal relationship for the outcome, but today with global politics and a stage which is too big for us to grasp the ramifications or the political consequences,, we rather slither away under a stone to ruminate on how different it used to be.
The lives of those we choose to lead us used to contain certain strategic values which, without those values a person was judged flawed and not fit for office. The values of honesty and truthfulness were paramount in our appraisal and we would no longer dream of supporting a lier that we would of insulting a friend.
But today we seem in a different land, where political commentary makes light of those virtues of telling the truth and skirts over false pronouncements in the past, as merely observations with little or no consequence. It's that term consequence which is missing. There seems no sense of the consequences to anything this political cabal says or does. The columnist simple dress up their articles with hyperbole as if they were writing fiction, keeping fact at bay at all costs. It's the cult of celebrity where glitzy and glamour are valued and political probity count for nothing.  

And so we have the gaff strewn years of Boris Johnson, air brushed to erase what, under normal circumstances, would be political suicide. Fake news has made us unable to judge these politicians by the standards we would judge ourselves, we are adrift in a sea of platitudes, cliche's and inescapable banality. We are adrift our compass spiked, no Star to guide us, no sense of a wise head who's collective experience would pull us through, lead us to a better place only a bunch of liars and deceit merchants who you wouldn't trust to sell you a used car

Racism in all its guises

Subject: FW: Racism in all its guises.

 

  

Is there a difference between being racially reserved toward people who don't look like you and arguing the case for limiting the number of people coming into the country.
The howls of protest even to suggest that we can differentiate between people in this way is now so persuasive, it takes a brave person, to claim you are not a racist and yet suggest that the wholesale mixing of people from wildly disparate backgrounds, brings  as many problems as it offers the rich diversity which is claimed.
The issue do I dislike a person simply because he or she is black or yellow is a racial one and has no place in a civilised conversation. But the question can a society absorb a set of cultures and religions which fly in the face of its own culture was never properly discussed.
Rather today the question is asked, "what do we call our own culture and how do we define being English", and the suggestion is that we practice a sort of exclusivity if we define an English person as being White, Christian and speaking English.
There is little disquiet in describing a Nigerian as being black or a Chinese person as having yellow skin. There are white Nigerians and white Chinese but they are in such a minority that to do so is unhelpful when describing the population as a whole but it's the case in this country, that the numbers, which were artificially swollen after the war and have been a source of cheap labour ever since are now so large that they have a competing claim as to their importance, and that, along with their customs and religious preference they demand some sort of equality. It is thought that diversity is a strength and that foreign customs are rich and add a variety to our ordered parochial  lives, we should therefore be grateful for the chance to see them at close quarters. Equally the religious traditions of societies based on the other side of the world would, in some way, reinvigorate our blinkered self centred society away from its historical isolation.
It's always interesting  how many of these societies, who are now entrenched on our soil  are not so forthcoming towards the indigenous society they found here when they arrived by trying to assimilate  more.  Of course the lack of assimilation was due to the negative reaction of white working class societies who bore the brunt of these unannounced people (our betters in Whitehall thought it unnecessary to explain and educate) and were invariably seen as stealing the jobs by being prepared to work for much less money.
The schism of religious belief and the importance of upholding their customs which they brought with them, makes it difficult for the white majority to acknowledge, on the one hand, their reticence to be welcome whilst on the incomers  side, to mix or learn the language.  Whilst the majority are constantly being pushed and harangued to make the necessary adjustments for everyone, the resentment gradually builds up and it does the attempts at harmony no good to hear the vitriolic challenges made by certain sections of the immigrant society on the media criticise, no matter how justified, the largely compliment society as a whole.
The white middle class professional who were isolated from the changes caused by the unfettered influx of people from the West Indies, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and now, Syria and Lebanon, it's a long list, and it's from their ranks grew the ghettos as people seeking  to find similarities in language and custom, turned already run down inner city areas into hot spots of dissatisfaction from both sides. The term no go areas became common as clusters of national awareness grew, not the nation state which had provided a new home but pocket sized equivalence of life back home. The charge of racism is also frequently heard from these equivalent societies, often articulated by the people who left the family behind and made their way into journalism and the media.. They are the opinion column journalists who spread their ideological cant about diversity and the one world view, whilst Trumpian reality seems to be embarking on a war which will soon be fought on just those lines of interpretive miscalculation we term racism.

Maintaining your identity

Subject: FW: Maintaining your identity. 

 

The enabling of being both an 'insider', and an 'outsider' when seeing yourself, one foot inside the customs and traditions you were born into, whilst the other foot is clearly outside those traditions and encourages experiencing that 'other world' which involves, amongst other things, some of the things denied in the place once removed, you called home.

Listening to a British born Muslim women, conflicted by her faith and her femininity, living in a non Muslim country, with only pockets of the faith to draw sustenance  from one saw the daily conflict. Undertaking the Hajj to Macca, she experienced the slow rotation of people, hundreds of thousands of 'fellow believers', walking around the Kaaba. It inevitably made her reconsider her  faith and the sense of her individuality the space she occupied with those 'other people' back home. 

This ongoing confrontation with the 'other', the non Muslim, is part of her life here in the UK, separated as she is for most of the time, from people with similar goals. 
I'm not comparing apples with oranges but the Hajj is like being in a football crowd, a crowd seeped in the hysteria towards one team. The occasions  when we displace our normal sensible self  and take on a different persona, as we become infected by the crowd, and change, from the contemplative person to the seeker of a particular truth.
Of course the scale of 'individual soul searching' can be equally comforting. No one is looking or criticising, everything is embryonic and personal. The conflict which can arise when following the crowd as part of you questions your own commitment, a commitment carried along by hysteria, a hysteria you never subscribed to since your personality always made room for the other side opinion which is an anathema when hysteria is involved. 
The woman, a highly intelligent Indian lady highlighted the conflict of the multicultural nature of our society. She valued highly her background and the part history and religion played in it. She didn't resent the forces around her which conflicted her values but never the less she wished to keep her distance. She was not about to amalgamate her beliefs or customs, even whilst living amongst people who were at odds with her. Her strength and her future she saw as continuing to be who she was. 
In our own contradictory search for an alignment with all peoples, all religions and all customs, we become a person without any recognisable  'surety of our own. We are then in danger of becoming irrelevant in our own country as new forces push out to sway the government to install new categories of 'exceptionalism' and the landscape we knew is  now so unrecognisable, that we ourselves begin to search for a new home. 

The issue of care

Subject: FW: The issue of care.

 

 

Of the more dramatic confrontations in life that between parent and child is the most contentious. As a child grows up there are moments along the way when the child rebels and does anything and everything to oppose the parent. The teenage years are an example when whatever the advice the teenage boy or girl is given they simply reject it a nod seek alternative answers in a culture closer to their own age group. Frustrated the parent can only sit back and hope that the lessons learnt in the early stages of the relationship surface again without too much damage being done.
There's the inevitable breakdown  as the new adult seeks to justify their own rational as to their own concept of the how and the where fore. All the lofty folk law of parenting is examined and much of it thrown out, all the old surety of wisdom, born of past experience is challenged and deemed old fashioned and certainly past the sell by date. The respect for the parents advice slowly vanishes and in its place, a challenge to ageing which pre-highlights the more acutely defined senility and the need for care which accompanies the outlying assumption that the children will be caught in the process which will inhibit their lives.
There is no acknowledgement, more should there be, of past favours repaid, only the fear of inevitable inconvenience. This perceived encroachment into their lives makes the child of the ageing parent critical of the stages of old age. The unsteadiness, or the loss of memory, brings home the insecurity which old age brings and which is then, like osmosis assumed by the children as a chore best not acknowledged, other than in the frustration it brings by its sheer inevitability.

The colour of the baby-grow, the exciting jazzy patterns of tiny clothes, the expected beauty of a new born child with all its potential is the counter opposite to the mental incongruity of a parent approaching old age. The vision is a very different one, from  the expectant anticipation bound up in a baby and the opportunities it heralds to the dread incomprehension of how will I cope with an ageing Mom and Dad.
There is always the augury that what is happening was never spelt out in any way, that parents simply faded away into rose filled Gardens, the sound of another addition of the Archers playing on the radio and the kettle boiling in the kitchen. The strong, well lined weathered old biddy still pruning her flowers, the old man writing his memoirs sipping his first brandy of the day, each a pocket dynamo, right until the end which reliably came conveniently, in their sleep.
With the advances in medicine we stave off this date when we are called by nature until ro often we have become  a poor resemblance to what would have been had  the medics not got their hand in. The end now-a-days can be well beyond our "use by date" and the implications for young and the old have changed. The old social implication of the state taking care of the elderly has changed. It is now more a matter of how much money you have in the bank as to how far as your care is contrived  and given the atomised nature of the family, living next door or down the street is not an option. It has been replaced by busy people living hundreds, if not thousands of miles apart.
There's no easy answer to the care or mindful eye a daughter or a son can keep on  their ageing parents and since the scourge of dementia, when the physical body outlasts the mind this final ignominy would be better handled by a quick confrontation with the 49 bus than  a trail of bills from the new care centre, set up under Boris Johnson  from a head office in New York.

Trouble at Mill

Subject: FW: Trouble at Mill

 

 

 

If you wished to describe a rumpus amongst family members you might describe it a trouble at mill. The mill in the old days,  down at the end of the cobbled street to which the men and women trudged each day to do their shift was, next, to family the most constant source of camaraderie and friction. 

The people you knew as neighbours and work colleagues, made up of disparate families, each with their different tastes and idiosyncrasies, each resolute to get their view across and often indifferent to your own were the grist of the mill and of daily life.

The friendly greeting each morning was replicated out of habit, the banter similarly, a sort of repartee which people arm themselves with when proper conversation is dangerous. There's nothing malicious in the frown which indicates you've trodden on a corn, a difference of opinion, a bias which runs deep and only it indicates how deep the current of our lives run.

We are all full of bias, we have all picked up the tics of disagreement which are based on personal experience and often resentment. Our way of dealing with difference is different (what else would you expect) untrained in conflict management, even perhaps proud of your difference, perhaps even enjoying the difference  since the difference may be down to a life spent away from the one you disagree and life's experience has drawn you in a different direction. 

Some people decline to outwardly differ preferring the 'consensus' of the middle ground to the rough and tumble of the marginal extreme. For them the negotiation is always to defuse the verbal fight and to seek a centre ground where nothing grows but conformity

The great social movements which have sparked the revolutions in the past, the ideological held opinion on which, right and wrong are individually based, have no place in the culture of simbahan. The need to love all and sundry and respect everyone regardless of their tribal proclivity is carried through to the point where  to accept there are different interpretations of good and bad, is an anathema to the new 'holy'.

And so it is with family, the differences in age and experience put us on a different footing but, unlike in the mill, where we can chose to walk up the other side of the street or chose a different set of friends to chat, family ties bind you to make good even if your views are a trillion miles apart. There's no bridging the gap as you try to shout across the divide, fearful you will lose sight of the person you love. both in danger of losing something precious. 

Under normal circumstances you chose your friends but with family you are stuck, puzzling how they feel so differently about such and such and evermore afraid to project your life long held opinion for fear of it being shot down.  It's easy to be convinced of the necessity of kumbaya, of a youthful cry to disinherit you of past values and prerogatives, which place freedom and rights above responsibilities. With values in disarray, with the concept of family blown to smithereens, with drugs and knife crime on our streets increasing daily then yes I hanker after some of the old curbs which we used to accept for the genuine acceptance of our neighbours.

Neighbours were seen in the old days as people within walking distance of the mill. We had many common traits and could recognise each other, even on a dark night. Today we glorify the neighbourhood in Bangladesh as if it were our own, we seek communion with the Chinese whilst not understanding the social rigour of Confucius. We misunderstand the tight conformity of the Muslim faith when compared to the loose arrangement of Christianity, we misunderstand middle eastern misogyny for tribal custom, we are awash in a quagmire of do gooding without realising that our true neighbours, the ones at the end of the street have been left behind in a culture of seeing only the good in others, far far away.

Who,s side are you on

Subject: FW: Who's side are you on.

Are there any of "us" left holding the tiller as another cricket stadium erupts to the sound of a partisan audience from the sub continent and New Zealand lose its first wicket. Where else is this phenomena of visiting sides holding the preponderance of supporters, cheering each ball, especially when against the home nation England. Nowhere, not Australia, not New Zealand, not the West Indies, not Bangladesh or India, not Siri Lanka and certainly not Pakistan, only in England, this polyglot experimental nation are the home population told to keep quiet and know their place in the new world order.
I know we are supposed to hang our heads in shame for Empire, for being White, for not providing more for the rest of the world on the basis that we took more in 1896.
We are shamed for daring to speak out against virtually anything these days and heaven help us if we disagree at the partisan nature of these people who now claim to being British but wishing to thrash the English when ever they play them at sport.

Our loyalty to flag and country is sneered at when the likes of Tommy Robinson or Nigel Farage draw attention to immigration but nothing is said when the immigrant, who can do no wrong, barracks us from the stands in Edgbaston,  Headingly or the Oval in London. The sense that the 'nation state' should always rule a persons emotion and loyalty is flatly denied when an Englishman wishes to show his elegance by flying the St George flag in his garden.  It's deemed infra dig and somehow demeaning and yet the shrill cry of the British-Pakistani fan as another England wicket goes down is forgiven by those who's blinkered ideology who see everything through the eyes of the so called underdog, the exploited colonial, the religious other-man.
Of course to write in such a way is to bring opprobrium on my head with a cry of racist ringing in my ear but why, when clearly a growing proportion of the citizens living here support another nation they feel more clearly represents them. Be it culture or their religion, their hearts are overseas and it's only the economic tie which keeps them here. Am I wrong or is the truth just too hard to bare from the multicultural idealists who inhabit the streets of Notting Hill, who's moralistic certitude inhibits their ability to see the truth on the ground. I'm not against a Pakistani person cheering for his team or a man or woman from Siri Lanka willing their side on to win, what I do find incongruous is the insistence that they are also British, on a par with the chap with his St George's flag.
As as if a cloud of idealism has settled on this island, blotting out reality, ignoring the dismay of the white skinned chap who follows the English side all over the world, in what is called euphemistically, the Barmy Army, where, there is no doubt that the fan in the Army is supporting England because he lives, was born there and dare I say, looks the part.
There no incongruity no double-blind, no reason to doubt the rational for identifying him or her as English but in this crazy world of innuendo toward the people who used to populate  these wet and windy isles before 1947, only 70 years ago, and well within my own life time, I am told to pipe down and stop questioning the multicultural experiment which in my view is, as yet, unproven.

Making Machiavelli proud

Subject: Making Machiavelli proud.

One can never tell how other nations treat their sporting public to the spectra of a  sporting series, be it cricket, rugby or most infamously, football but in this country we can't help ourselves by going over the top and pumping the air with pre-congratulatory stories of how good we are.
With the magnificent exception of New Zealand Rugby which has proved virtually unbeatable over the decades, most sports ebb and flow in who is on top. The Aussie test match team were a cert a few years ago, other than on the turning wickets in India but then they were eventually challenged by India as being, top dog. Cricket, whose format has changed the game dramatically with the introduction of the 20/20 and 50/50 over games is now a game of flashy batting, sixes galore, and no place to hide for the unfortunate bowlers. It's not cricket for the connoisseur, it's a game manufactured for a TV audience with short attention spans, much like American Football, which seems designed with a staccato, stop start format, perfect for the short blocks of time between the adverts, designed to keep the audience watching.
I suppose in Germany there is an assumption that Germany will at least get to the final of a football tournament. That the USA will scoop up most of the short distance medals in athletics whilst the Ethiopian / Kenyan runners will clean sweep the long distance events.
In this country we are fed the hype of a promised success and then, as events unfold and we fail, we are reminded there's always the next time. Why can't we learn to be modest, why can't we learn to bite our tongue before shouting to the world, "this is ours". The stiff upper lip which came with defeat is now replaced with blubbering columns of self flagellation as we seek answers to our tactic of caving in under pressure.

Even our female footballers fall to the fate of being touted for greatness when the team is still a work in progress. The headlines scream their invincibility until they are beaten and then the hype machine move on to another target.
Its the same wordsmiths who make verbal hay whilst we choose between a 'lying clown' and a slightly 'less clownish liar', to be our next Prime Minister. It's the same headline makers who drip feed vile propaganda against a host of institutions, Europe, the NHS, the BBC without focusing the spotlight on themselves and the mendacious games they play on the behalf of their owners.
We are poorly served by many things in this country, not least our skewed educational system but the power to change the minds of people has to be the most dangerous.
From sporting optimism to false images of our capacity to shrug off the torturous Brexit shenanigans, we are fed a diet of falsehood of which Machiavelli would feel proud.

The dearth of regulation

 
Subject: A dearth of regulation.


You can pinpoint the fault line virtually to the year and certainly to the party in office, 1979 to 1990 and Margret Thatchers tenure coincided with on the one hand a bonfire of regulation and the wholesale privatisation of many sections of industry and commerce.
Listening to a program about the shocking state, not only of the building industry but of the regulatory bodies who are supposed to oversee and insure that building regulations are met was demoralising, but the real crime and crime it is, is that the regulations governing what the builder can do including the materials used have either been abandoned, or changed to accept a cheaper versions.  Grenfeld Tower was the most dramatic and shocking outcome of poor choices and a totally inadequate system governing the regulations when it came to installing cladding designed to insulate and improve the looks of the tower block.
Slowly the peeling back of good sensible regulation had been allowed to happen because of the building industries ability to lobby government, ministers and the civil servants, who's job it is to protect the detail of what can and can't be done was so impervious to reason and restraint.
With the increasing pressure from a largely privatised industry, who's focus is as much on pleasing the shareholders as on engineering practice with engineers fulfilling their professional charter of corporate and technical responsibility.
Engineers, like surgeons know when the conditions are right, we place our faith in the engineer to do his work properly. The aspect of profit before safety should never be allowed to happen and I am of the firm belief that the executive of these firms should be held criminally responsible for any attempt to short cut the purchasing of any materials in a buildings construction which are found to be inadequate or, in the case of the cladding which should have been non combustible. Stiff fines levied on the company are not enough, there should be prison sentences enforced if loss of life can be tied to the choice of knowingly using dangerous materials.
I believe 'Privatisation' can be traced to the decline in standards within the building industry and its ialso the cause of the massive rise in the use of drugs in medicine.
The GP today is as likely to be faced with a pharmaceutical  rep as a patient and the pressure on the consortium GP to prescribe new drugs is immense.
The GPs reliance on the medical regulator to protect the patient is also under scrutiny for just the same reason as in the building industry. The pressure and leverage of money by the immensely wealthy pharmaceutical and building construction bodies on government has seen a widening of the gap between public safety and the profit motive.
In the case of the highly contentious child vaccination program. The increase in the USA, in only a couple of decades, has seen the rise from 3 vaccines, (Polio, Smallpox and Diphtheria) in 1964 with a total of 5 doses given to each child, to 1983, when 24 doses per child were recommended for a longer list of  diseases. The figures for 2018 are 72 doses for each baby, with a list which includes vaccination for diseases which you would only expect to encounter in some third world country, and a vaccine which you would only need if you intended to travel there.
72 does of marginally toxic vaccine which is supposed to stimulate the child's immune system and create the antibodies if a disease were to strike. 72 immunity stimulants for a newly functioning immunity system, 72 stimulants given as one multiple inoculation. Is it any wonder increasing numbers of mothers are hesitant to allow the doctors come anywhere near their child.
In my day, one inoculation for Smallpox was given and allowed time to work its way through the system before giving another for Diphtheria and yet another, later on for Polio. We all had some sort of reaction and a slightly unpleasant incubation period whilst our young bodies coped with each disease in turn.
The multiple injection must cause considerable trauma to the child's immunity system as it copes with the onslaught of multiple low level virus infection and who can say, with any surety, that some children will not be permanently effected by side effects.
Never the less, private enterprise, which now makes up most of the pharmaceutical industry in the US, and a path which we in the UK are being slyly coaxed into by various Tory Heath Ministers who seem to have sympathy with the profit motive emanating from   the new vaccination methodology and soon it will be mandatory for mothers to bring their child into the surgery to receive this questionable cocktail.
On the one side regulations the mothers don't want and on the other regulations the people need. Each going in the wrong direction, each at the behest of powerful interests each with a profit motive, where profit should be secondary.