Cats

Cats.  We had a black cat we called Simba, rescued from the "Stars" print room, I took it home as a pet for the kids.
The first mistake was to believe that cats are like dogs, ready to bond with their human friend, to love, honour and obey! Not a bit of it !!
The kitten, covered in printers ink needed cleaning so I ran some warm water in th e bath and tried to convince the little jet-black bundle that it was all for the good. Of course I hadn't quite understood that my "good" didn't correspond to Simbas.  The bath water turned red with blood, my blood as the bundle set about defending its life and limb.
Simba was always aloof, deaning it possible, just possible that a stroke or scratch would be acknowledged with a deep purr, an occasional meow a lean against the leg and then off, imperious, investing his time in cat things.
There are families who surround themselves with these manifestly singularly, self-absorbed animals and in effect, fall under their spell. Its as if, we humans can't quite come to terms with an animal that treats us with so much disdain. Unlike a dog who is in thrall to its master the cat will capture the high ground and treat us to the proverbial cold shoulder if we show emotion and then switch their interest at feeding time !!
I was always amazed. Simba seemed self contained, even keeping his hygiene under wraps. I never discovered where the cat went but he didn't seem to think it proper to make a mess on his own doorstep.
I think if the cat has friends and family, a colony forms and takes over home and hearth. Humans begin to take a back seat and the house looses its purpose. Never satisfied, the felines curl and stretch all over the place, whilst the humans pick their way gingerly around the room, seeking a spot to call their own.  

Ask the boss for a rise !!

We have just had a interim budget statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
He has highlighted the dilemma we are in as a country. Completely out of alignment in terms of our income and our expenditure, we are like the family who need to go every week to the loan shark to get the money to buy the essentials. How we got here is history what we do from now on is critical !!

When the man in the street is severely overdrawn there is only one thing for him to do  -  go ask his boss for a rise ?? Just joking ?

The propensity for employers to pay as little as they can, especially in times of high unemployment ( the ball is well and truly in their hands), is made even easier as the state plugs the gap to subsidise, shockingly low wages.  
No wonder we pay such a high benefit bill. 

The traditional remedy used to be, to cut down on expenditure, and of course, that's the Governments case. Cutting expenditure on the Welfare State is in vogue.
We are continually being conditioned to believe,through the media, that many people in a  section of society, who claim some sort of benefit, are in some way weak and debauched.   

I am sure these self same outraged people would be equally outraged to have their,winter fuel allowance, the child benefit, the bus pass and so on, questioned in this way.

One man's benefit is another man's scrounging.

The middle-class and the wealthy have these benefits paid into their bank accounts probably without noticing, because these benefits are called,  Universal Benefits and therefore the benefit is paid to everyone regardless of need !!!  
This is plain stupid and should be stopped, why don't they do it ? 

Could it be pressure from closer to home ?

Given the size of our borrowings, a ticking time bomb, has given this Government the opportunity for draconian cuts to the benefits for people who are already on the boarder line, (given that food is, 50% of their out going expenditure).

We are told that the Benefits mountain is our greatest problem.
Not the unpaid tax of our company proprietors, the Philip Greens of this world,Amazon and Starbucks who pay little or no tax at all !!! 

The issue of paying tax,"income" (the other side of the Benefit account conundrum) is always down played by the establishment.  In fact we, the public, are warned that if these people, and their companies, are made to pay the tax, they may leave us and then, - what a pickle we will be in !!!  

Its the same with the huge bonus cheques the Bankers pay themselves, completely out of line with anything the man in the street can comprehend, especially in times of austerity -  remember, we are, all in this together !!
No its easier to feed the public with this diet of "malingering benefit claimants", who must be hit hard.

The right wing media are part of the Establishments strategy to formulate and soften public opinion for even more stringent changes to come. 

The issue of our police (now partly privatised), the issue of our schools (now partly privatised),{and I don't mean the oddly named Public Schools} the issue of selling off the fire engines in London for £2 to a private investor, the issue of the National Health Service, on route to have large segments of the service privatised.


Its a full scale assault, by the Conservatives on the root and branch of our society. 

Who are the beneficiaries,
                     the faceless entrepreneurs, the money men, friends of friends. 

Girls,girls,girls.Good vibrations !!!!

I'v just  watched a program on the BBC showing the Beach Boys appearing in a come back concert in the States earlier this year.
They were terrific. The harmony and falsetto voice of Brian Wilson brought it all back.

I was in Corpus Christi in 1966, the sound of the Beach Boys were everywhere. All the commercial radio stations were playing their records and every party was alive to their sunny beach lifestyle music California Girl, I Get Around, Good Vibration Wouldn't it be Nice. The songs were played everywhere. They perfectly complemented the sunshine and the leggy girls and were all a far cry from the bleak landscape back home.   
It was great to be young and caught up in the buzz !

Watching them perform tonight they were wondrously, spot on with the lead singer Mike Love, rolling back the years and creating a tingle as the beat and the extended lyrical harmony flooded from the stage to a rapturous audience, up on their feet, doing the moves, reliving their youth.
Music which has a hold as has no other, on the years when we were young and imperious      
The excitement and the memories that tumble out of the brain when hearing a song or rhythmic beat played by a band, morphing ones personality into a youth full  identi-kit of who we might like to be, again !!!

So once again we find ourselves caught up in the convention trap bursting,  to relive a time when we were unabashed by anything and totally absorbed by hedonistic youth and the desires that keep the whole thing rolling !!  
Corpus Christi, Clifton Beach, the hot sun beating down mercilessly, the bikini girls always unaware and we, tormented by our shyness unable to bridge the gap !!  
Music and dance somehow broke the barriers down. the conventions that inhibited us, suddenly opened up an avenue to communicate and risk ones ego.
Somehow the formality of dance and the common thrill that the music imparted made the route to 66, seem less daunting.

As the song goes, "Girls, girls, girls, Good Vibrations" !!!!!!  

A collective experience

Free Speech has been on trial in this country for a number of months since the revelations of phone tapping and character assassination by the press.
The press' freedom to hold everyone and anyone to scrutiny is a bastion of the democratic structure that we have much to be proud of in this country. Without this independent scrutiny powerful people and powerful institutions can flaunt their power and bulldoze their will over us all. The press more than any other institution has revealed situations that have made people very angry and the miscreants forced to change their methods and renege on the way they were acting.
The problem is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The power of the press to put into print a story which may or may not be true has enormous consequences for the person or institution upon who the story is based. There is no rowing back since the seeds sown in the minds of millions of readers can not be removed. People hold what they read as factual and denial by the victim of a story is always treated with suspicion, the "no smoke without fire" syndrome.
Lord Justice Leveson, given the task of listening to claim and counter claim has produced a report today which was immediately debated in Parliament.
The Prime Minister acknowledged the recommendations in the report but dug his heals in on the issue of legislating a body into law which would have over-sight of the press. His fear was that bringing such a body into existence could in the future, be used to muzzle the press when politically sensitive issues needed public scrutiny. The Opposition felt that the independence of the new scrutinising body could be guaranteed and bore no threat from future government interference.
 
Listening to the debate I was struck by the quick minded eloquence of the people who laid out and defended each proposition. I was particularly impressed by the Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg. In an extremely unusual situation he rose to disagree with his boss, at the dispatch box, and promoted the acceptance of Leveson in full.  I was beguiled by his command of the language, his ability to think on his feet as criticism flowed his way. A command performance.

People who have this talent to enunciate and articulate a proposition clearly so that the issues are clear and transparent, are gifted and a pleasure to listen to, even if you disagree with what they say. It is almost hypnotic to hear a good debate where the issue is tossed around like a bone leaving one almost convinced black is white. The demagogue uses this skill to entice the ignorant but the true practicianer has the ability to communicate at the highest level and one must remember that it is the ability to communicate that sets mankind apart from the animal world. Communication is the tool by which we pass on and develop our collective experience.          
          

Start up the presses

With the rise in instability in the Middle East particularly the rise of Islamic government we enter another phase of disharmony that has plagued mankind for evermore. The seemingly "inherent" ideological disconnect that mankind has been prone to since we came on earth.
Its strange that we seem to feel better brandishing our disapproval of something, someone, instead of looking for the good, the commonality we share rather than the difference.
When you watch politicians braying at each other it does remind one of donkeys, donkeys who's main influence is to out bray the other in a noisy display of self centred mindless noise.
Outside Parliament, listening to debates there can be a common thread, an aim to achieve a goal that will improve the current situation. The methods may be different but the aim is common since with few exceptions mankind has much in common, where ever they are on the globe. We all seek much the same sort of things for ourselves and our families but ideology, power and greed get in the way.
Imagine a government with a benign wish to listen and coalesce, to incubate ideas and act by common consent.

Another form of warfare and one with a power for far greater and wider destruction, is the currency war that is being fought right at this moment with damaging results across the world.
Since mankind developed an alternative measure of exchange, from the days of the barter system, money has been the value of a transaction, as well as our measure of judgement in the analysis of how well we have done vis a vis someone else.     Money reflected the value of the assets we hold.

Today, money is no longer is tied to assets, in fact the money in circulation is many times the the numerical value of all the assets held in the world. Up to Bretton Woods the money supply was tied to gold which acted as a  measure of value vis a vis printed currencies. If you devalued your currency you devalued it against gold and whilst it improved your competitive position by making your exports less expensive and therefore more attractive, it was also a token of your national value as seen in the international community and weighed against you in so far as institutions who held you currency were now short changed. After Bretton Woods the major holder of gold was the USA and when in 1971 under Nixon, the USA came off the gold standard, the currency wars could begin in earnest.
The old financial structure required a great deal of discipline and highlighted each nations financial health, from now on, currency's could float and the movements were not seen as a national disgrace.

Old concepts of probity and self discipline became "old school". So much in the financial world became a matter of evermore complex instruments to trade money. Money became a commodity in its self.  

The mountain of debt that was traded across the world had a monetary value which bore no relation the actual value of anything that could be tied to anything.
Without money being tied to anything or any sort international discipline the time was ripe for massive manipulation, enter "quantitative easing". Every time the Americans print money, holders of dollars loose the peg to their own currency and in effect the tied currency is revalued upwards, causing inflation, with the toll that inflation brings on the financial stability within a country. 

Across Africa,Europe,Asia the effect depends on the strength of the individual country but, as is always the case, the poorer nations and the populations in those countries can be devastated. Witness the inexhaustible increase in food prices across the world and the misery it brings,

Does Mr Bernanke take any of this into his calculation when he decides to start up the printing presses.  I doubt it ?            

Life's timeline

Life's, time line unfurls in its inevitable journey. 

We often talk about the need to make the most of our time. It can become a fetish to worry about what we are doing and what we can do to do more !! 
There is a question mark over our use, or misuse of the time we have at our disposal. I use the word disposal as if it were a commodity to use or throw away and it is this concept that time is so important as the constituent that adds value to what we do throughout our life.

Some people become completely obsessed in using all the hours that is in a day to consume the jobs they set themselves to do. Life is a box ticking event as the desire to do so much takes hold. 
For the ambitious, even when we are young the time is spent cramming for academia or sport and the issue is no longer, the "freedom" that childhood is supposed to bring but rather an early start on the treadmill of achievement. 
The grim climb up the slippery slope of a hierarchical structured business environment leads to ever longer hours and even days away from home and family. The decision as to where ones alliance lays, family or the job means that the time one spends at one or the other is critical.

Suddenly the company relinquishes its hold, the schedules that have governed our every waking minute are gone, the intimacy of the everyday business conversation and the emotional satisfaction of decision making is no longer the adrenaline lift that makes so much sense out of the contract we have made to spend so much time and so much commitment on such a  goal.   

Retirement deals a near death blow to some and one has to ask why we spent so much of that illusive commodity on such an artificial outcome.


Time is precious but equally is the way we spend that time and the fulfilment we get as human beings to include another type of tick box, a more humanitarian tick box, one which takes the view that there are many other riches to this life, than the traditional ones of the pay cheque and the company car.                   

The Synod and the art of civilised debate.

We have just concluded a momentous session of the Church of England Synod to decide whether to have women Bishops.

The Press and the Media, "as is their want", generated a great deal of heat and not a great deal of light as they recorded their bias.


The Synod is a remarkable exposé of democracy at work which, divided into three segments The House of Bishops. The House of Clergy and the House of Laity (who represent the Congregation), are seen to debate and consider in a way that seems far removed from the viscous, rough and tumble of today's world. 


The Establishment, (Bishops and Clergy), were pursuing the common call (media driven) for the advancement of women to the top table (the equivalent of the boardroom). The Laity meanwhile were concerned that the Bible lays stress on male continuity and were adamant that the structure laid down in the "good book" had stood society well and it was not in the gift of man to change it.


It is important to stress that each Bishop has a single vote which represents his own view.
Each member of the Clergy,seated in the Synod represents 20 or so clergy who do not attend.
The representatives of the Laity each represent roughly 1800 members of the Church. 
Do the maths and you see democracy at work.

Listening to the media, they howl like banshees at a result, so non-politically correct that they are having a seizure !!   Unable to control or ignore the general view, they can hardly control their hysteria.
 
The reason for writing was to describe a strange and truly rewarding phenomena. 
The sight and sound of such a gathering of mature people discussing, in such a balanced civilised way, a subject so close to their individual hearts  but which some were diametrically opposed. 
Each person called rose to speak in a measured, thoughtful, sincere way that one could only respect the depth of their commitment and integrity.


It was all such a far cry from that other gathering of lay people who profess so much and produce so little. Whose bile and contempt, not only towards each other but their overt disrespect for any point of view opposed to their own, is the basis of their existence !!

I speak of course of "Parliament" and many who sail in her !!