The price we pay

Subject: FW: The price we pay.

It strikes me that one of the great injustices of modern times is that sport has become the domain of the relatively well off, or at least those who can afford the subscription to the Sky and BT sports channels.
There is not much left for the poorer section of society to watch, other than snooker, the occasional athletics meeting, Rugby Internationals and of course, everyone's perennial favorite, the Badminton Horse Trial. Everything else has been bought up by Sky and more recently BT, and unless you can afford the £60 quid plus, a month, all those eye watering events discussed on the news and in the papers are off limits to ordinary mortals.
When I was growing up the game of football was the working man's elixir. For Half a Crown (two shillings and sixpence in the old money) you could pass through the turnstiles in any ground and watch a match. Today the game costs £50 to £80 quid and that's without a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. The people's game has been transformed into a game watched by the more comfortably off and the man in the street, who used to slavishly support his team week in week out, come wind or rain, now has to go into the Dog and Duck to watch it for the price of a pint or three, roughly £8 to £12.
Yet another example of how society has been dismembered into those that have and those that haven't, the poor and the comparably not so poor.  We're not talking of a Ferrari on the driveway but a relatively expensive, £60-70 Sky monthly subscription to watch the game you love, of which at least 50%, of your subscription covers the  time the adverts are screened, selling you stuff you never imagined you wanted. Factor in the eye watering amounts paid to the football clubs which has now skewed football, as it has skewed golf, motor racing and the cricket league in India, to such an extent that the players, now mega rich themselves, live on a different planet to the rest of us.
This contortion of what society, not so long ago, thought fair and normal, that sport is for everyone, not packaged and siloed off only to those who can afford it.
It's the essence of capitalism, that the consumer is chosen by the size of their monthly pay cheque, finds another hurdle to differentiate us by.
You were identified when born  by which side of the rail track you lived on, what we would now refer to as your post code. But the national interest in sport crossed all barriers and it was an unspoken bond to always make these sports available right across the demarcation line of economic well being. You still had to pay the entrance fee but this fee was carefully controlled not to exclude the fans. Once in  the ground the differentials clicked in and the price of a seat in the main stand, close to the directors box made those areas out of reach to the ordinary fan, but no matter, he was catered for within the ground and could cheer his head off as loud as anyone.
Then the monetisation of everything became the norm, the  financial leverage that a brand could obtain  and soon some bright, 'non fan' saw the opportunity to exploit the brand and we are where we are today.
The spin off is that the Premier League can afford to buy the best players irrespective of country, the down side is that the local footballers don't get to play on the weekly fixture list and our nation team is poor as a result.
There are consequences for everything and when the next, smooth talking snake oil salesman comes knocking on your door (and I don't only mean Boris)  look behind the glib promises for the hidden downside, usually the price you pay is more than the entrance fee.

Magic

Subject: Magic

It's magic says the conjurer, as he pulls a rabbit out of the hat. My daughter used the term when trying to describe that "other world" which seems to lie just outside our perception. The question was, what of that world and of ours, can we understand and have faith in a world we can't see, where the assumptions are not based in laws of observation, no matter how complicated. 

Prince Charles is famous for his belief that plants can understand when we talk to them.

The concept of what makes a sentient being, dropped into the equation from my son, as we, in our own way, working within our own parameters tried to acknowledge what the other person thought possible.
Being older, more fixed in my ways, less flexible, more, stuck in the groove I argue that 'perception and memory' are the building blocks of learning and, coupled with books allow us to sample another's persons world of perception and memory. 
The encounters of others, include those of a para-normal experience, or a reasoning that there is a whole undiscovered world outside our own ability to perceive and that plants talking to plants, are only one area where the mind can make an assumption.
It's the assumptions which cause the problem. I can assume that there is nothing to exclude the possibility of ghosts or gremlins. I can assume that there is a person with a white beard sitting in the sky controlling our life on Earth, I can believe I will be born again after I die. These assumptions are part of the collective environment of thought which I chose to surround myself with. It can be part of some sort of optimistic transference from the pessimism which surrounds me in day to day life but at the end of the day it is a conceit which, as humans, we bundle ourselves up in to find alternatives to the reality we see in front of us.
There is no earthly reason to be constrained by facts and figures, there is no reason at all to be constrained by anything science or logic tells you since the question "what if" is the motive force which has driven our understanding from time immortal. But if, like magic there is a wish to believe what the magician has just done then reality becomes nothing more than smoke and mirrors, where anything is possible and even the most deranged mind can convince us that what we see, or are led to believe is true, and therein lies the danger of the cult.
Of course we would be stupid to ignore the limits of our perception. The limiting bandwidth which we sense the world around us, a world which we can only accept with instruments which detect it, a world outside our human design experience, a world outside that of sight and sound, a world where even time confines us in ever knowing. The quantum physics assumption of being in two places at once is a construct of a mind which cannot explain the phenomena of once focusing on an object in the sub atomic world the very function of observing, moves the observable to another place. 
The Mad Hatters Tea Party was relatively benign to the actual world but it's this danger and I mean danger that we allow ourselves to be carried away into a fantasy world and once therein we begin to see fairies. It's not to say fairies don't exist but we usually do. 

The Queens Birthday and Trooping the Colour

 
Subject: The Queens Birthday and Trooping the Colour.



It's funny how rounded our lives, watching events much as we did 70 years ago.
It's the Queens birthday and although I am not a royalist by any stretch of the imagination I was still fascinated by the Pomp and Circumstance of the occasion.
The guardsmen resplendent in their red tunics and bearskin, the pageantry of the various uniforms sworn by the bandmasters who head the troops as they march, and the men with their trombones and trumpets, snare drum and kettle drum, marching backwards and forwards across the Horse Guards parade ground.
With Mr Trump packed off home, even the Queen I'm sure felt relieved to feel British again. I have watched the Trouping of the Colour so many times. I was a little lad when I first watched the show on our 9" screen, in black and white which my Dad had bought  to watch the Coronation the previous year.  Previously I had been taken to London to see Whitehall and all the government buildings. That's the Foreign Office that's the Home Office and that's the Admiralty  with the short wave antenna on the roof said my Dad, proud to know his world history and the part we played in it.
As a kid I had marvelled at the stories of brave battles.  Fighting the heathens  in Omdurman, the Boers at the Battle of Ladysmith and the siege of Kimberly. The battles against the Zulu at Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift and the bravery at sea against the Germans. These were the flesh and blood of those stories, true life adventures, not the sci-fi of today full of fictional characters performing to a PC script.
As Brexit makes us feel small, the sound of the marching bands made small boys feel large. Before the cross current of the modern day slander of colonial times, before we were reprimanded for the oppression of people in far flung countries, criticised for what we thought was a civilising effect on cultures so alien to our own.
The call of the NCO resplendent in their stripes, ramrod stiff brought the troops round to form up in front of the queen. 

This little old lady taking the salute. I remember her as a young women sitting on her horse straight on a side saddle (etiquette for a woman in those days) and regal even then. The death of her father had thrust the burden of high office on her shoulders too soon but she responded to duty, a duty she had been schooled for since birth.
The troops continued to pass the Queen. The Horse Artillery's guns pulled in the same way as when they fought the Ottomans. The jingle of the Household Cavalry with their polished breast plates and spiked helmets. The Coldstream Guards the oldest regiment in  the army. Smart as a butchers dog these men were at the pinnacle of their Army careers and the opportunity to put on a show was always well within their means. The tunes were their favourites, as they were ours and as the band swung left off the parade ground  up the Mall with the Palace in the distance another birthday had come and gone but unlike Mr Trump we will hope she is here next year for another celebration.

Girl Power

 

Subject: Girl Power.

 

Are women beset with problems of their own making, a put upon gender who seem to fill the media and especially programs like 'Women's Hour', with boundless opportunity to air their grievance. 

Listening to these programs they have a litany of issues which are all gender specific and which sound like it's a living hell to be a woman. There's a sense of being misunderstood, misused, of not having been able to reach their true potential, of being bullied and abused, of being under represented of being seen as sex objects instead of the vibrant intellect members of society they clearly are.

It's not an occasional gripe, it's a storm always brewing in their heads, choreographed  by a host of people who make it their life's work to speak out on the rotten state of being a woman. 

Yes there are issues like rape and female prostitution, although the prostitution industry has many female representatives who speak, not of the demeaning aspect of sex for sale but rather the wish to have bargaining rights and better working conditions. 

Female genital mutilation is totally abhorrent but it's a girls female relative who is usually responsible for arranging the mutilation and the act of mutilation is performed usually by a woman. Laws in certain societies are skewed against the woman. Her rights, vis a vis a man's are severely curtailed, particularly under certain religious versions  of what a woman can do and what she can't. We seem sadly unable to find common grievance in our own country for fear of disturbing the fragile balance we so desire between the cultures which have made their home here now.

But no I am not speaking of the obvious trials and tribulations of being a woman in the Middle East, Africa or the Sub Continent, rather I am speaking of the on going complaint of women who perceive they get a poor deal when compared to a man here in the West. The glass ceiling where women complain of not being able to rise high enough in their work place. The disparity in pay. The lack of childcare facilities for them to be a mother and a worker. 

Woman's World a program which has been on the air ever since I can remember has proclaimed the rights of women for a special compensation in life. Not only to make them equal, but more equal. 

The fact that many of the largest companies now have a female chief executive, that from the police to the fire brigade, both until 20 years ago were the province of physically strong men, are now headed by women. And Politics where the top job of PM or Party leader is becoming dominated by women. 

There has been in the West a sea change in the power of women. The laws make it a minefield for a young man to navigate the whims of a young woman who's word is final.

The procedure of gender correction where men are deliberately passed over for promotion is as common today as women being passed over for promotion due to their biological need to have children and with it the dilemma a woman faces when she puts the child before work. 

There will never be equality because we are not the same. It's only a social construct that demands we are the same. The same but different. 

Our physiology is different and so in all but exceptional cases there is a subtle deferential applied to a woman doing a job. There's a differential when sport separates the male from the female and gets its head in a noose when someone like Caster Semenya comes along with internal genitalia and the testosterone levels of a man but who claims she is a woman. Women competing against her complain that it's not a level playing field and of course there heaps of money tied up these days in winning. 

The whinging is not only on the part of women. Men complain about their rights to see their biological kids which seems at the whim of the mother, irrespective of what the court says. 

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Men complain at the right of women to claim so much of the family estate including the business estate, instance Jeff Bezos's wife who the courts decided was entitled to 50% of his Amazon based fortune getting as much as $66 billion for her matrimonial gamble.

Where is it to end. Germaine  Greer a life long feminist says enough is enough. Woman are damaging their brand by claiming equality. It was always the difference which made the ultimate impression and by claiming inequality, when so often they not only have equality but fail to recognise their ultimate power relies on keeping the guys guessing.

 Lose that and they lose every thing, unless of course it's open season and neither needs the other.

 

Human Rights. The Law v Democratic Debate

 

 

Subject: Human Rights. The Law v Democratic Debate.

It just been listening to a Reith Lecture given by Johnathan Sumption,  (Justice of the Supreme Court) regarding the Human Rights Act. 

The Act is a construct of lawyers, not of a political forum, such as Parliament and the fear is that decisions made by lawyers is less representative than law contrived through debate in Parliament.

The argument that lawyers are inherently selective, because of the structure of their educational and social construct, in the way they gain their experience about society is different from the politician where sufficient numbers of politicians are not from the legal profession and lend a different emotional construct to the social debate about human rights and what should be a human right.

The EU, and the USA are examples of where lawyers frame the law on these matters and the political establishment accept their ruling. The UK is different and along with a small number of parliamentary democracies insist that the law flows from parliamentary debate and procedure into the courts and not the other way round.

The concern that law belongs to the people and has to be seen as a confirmatory process and not something handed down by Judges was the basis of Johnathan Sumption's lecture and follows his first lecture on the expansion and encroachment of the legal fraternity into politics. He argues the law is taking over the space once occupied by politics at the expense of democracy. 

This of course draws us into the view that democracy is and continues to be, skewed by political constructs such as 'first past the post' ballots which clearly differentiate against smaller and new entrants into the political debate. The vice like grip which the two main parties have over the seats in parliament stifle political debate and leave many of the electorate unrepresented. Part of society then does not have a voice and their views, which may, or may not have relevance to human rights is missing from the theoretical debate. 

Much of the argument for democracy is theoretical in that assumes a high proportion of people will turn out to vote and that those that do are well versed in the debate. Clearly this is not the case and the pressure on democratic rule is that money and influence play such a high place in leading people to think in one way or another. The almost continual barrage of criticism and fake news about the European Institution from the likes of the Daily Mail, the Express and the Sun has distorted the EU in so many minds that when fundamental questions are put to the electorate they have no way of seeing through their bias.

It is assumed that the lawyers would rise above such bias but they to have their own bias, a professional bias which often excludes the experience of people living ordinary lives.

The danger of "we know what's best for you" is always there and whilst human rights should perhaps be an academic choice the reasoning of people who would wish to bring back the death penalty for certain crimes and the on going argument about the length of sentences, (usually commuted by 50%) or the recent release of people who the public consider should remain in jail, are never the less released by the parole board. 

Perhaps 'they do know what's best' but as a society we have to feel that there is fairness and justice for the victim to. 

This innate sense of what's right and what's wrong needs to find a balance amongst the general public otherwise consensus politics, which can not be part of the lawyers brief, is eroded and with it the essential trust society needs to function.

D-Day

 

Subject: D-Day

The 75th D day remembrance ceremonies have passed and with them many memorable pictures of old men standing to attention, medals strewn across their frail chests to signal the battles they fought in and the heroic acts they performed. Mention has been made of the fact that this might be the last time we see these veterans, many in their late 90s, a few over one hundred years old. The enduring theme which one was left with was the almost complete lack of self awareness in the part they played in rescuing us, the later generations from the scourge of fascism. In a world of celebrity there was no sense of their own celebrity in fact the opposite as they repeatedly shuffled off the praise heaped on their shoulders and spoke only of their comrades who didn't come back.
The young reporter who drew the comparison between his own relatively frivolous life at eighteen, his main concern was having a good time and these young lads on the landing craft who were heading for who knows what. The carnage on the beach, the minutes which must have seemed like a lifetime as the bullets brought down men to the right and the left, when was the bullet with his name on it due to strike. The sardonic humour which kept them cheerful would be deemed, none PC today as we now wrap ourselves in the infantile.
Kids amongst men, drafted in to arms to defeat an enemy which our leaders determined needed killing. Never having killed anything they were thrust into the cauldron of battle kitted out in a rough kharki uniform, with a 303 rifle on their shoulder having paraded up the quay onto their landing craft, in the peace and quiet of an English port, then to be faced with seasickness as these ungainly craft bounced there way across the choppy seas of the channel and finally released as the ramp dropped to expose them to murderous machine gun fire and what we call, War.
It's been a fine remembrance of the many who died and the few who survive. The speeches from our leaders were scripted in the way speeches are but I was very impressed with Theresa Mays reading of the last letter to his family from a man who was about to die. Hers were words of connective feeling as she captured his own words. Her delivery and sincerity was head and shoulders above the others as she brought alive the pathos, the poignancy of the letter and one felt a deep respect for her as our Prime Minister in this final chapter of her troubled leadership. She was given a poison chalice by David Cameron and her own personality didn't help but as a  vicars daughter she was more in her element here and she represented us perfectly.

Making up your mind

 

Subject: Making up our mind.

It's a bit like having a fever. One minute the temperature is up and the next down, one moment we are quite sickly the next we are confident to come out of the gloom.
I'm talking once again of Brexit and the ramifications of our leaving instead of staying.
President Trumps pronouncement that everything is on the table when we come to seeking a deal with America, painted in stark relief, what the ramifications of leaving the EU and joining the likes of America as a trading partner clearly are.
Our gripe with the EU is their over riding incursion into national decision making and the power of the EU Commission to make decisions on our behalf was echoed by President Trumps firm belief that, not only was everything on the table but we must understand he only has our best interests at heart. Goldilocks and the big bad wolf springs to mind. We often think that our beliefs and interest are mirrored by the Yanks, simple because of a common language. In fact we are further away from their concepts of so many things.
Health Care, their judicial system of incarceration, gun control, racial intolerance, the list goes on. In Europe even allowing for the disparity in culture and nationhood the norms in European society are much more like ours than ours is to the Americans.
We talk about the lack of accountability in the EU political system but the system of patronage and lobbying which goes on in Congress, even allowing for the Constitution, twists the political system in a way to make it unrecognisable to us living in Europe.
The tragedy which unfettered capitalism brings to the people who are less than successful is mirrored in their president who's bully boy tactics seen across the globe must make us fear becoming reliant on the crumbs which might fall from his table.

Chlorinated chicken, Monsanto agriculture, higher prices for our drugs to keep the American pharmaceutical industry happy, the privatisation of the NHS, all these objectionable aspects to his trade deal will make our worries about the links with Europe seem inconsequential. Our press never reveal the down side of the neoliberal capitalistic
laissez-faire economy which controls the USA. They prefer to ridicule the rules which insist on standards across the EU, opting rather for the no standard, market orientated decision making which represents the pork belly lobbying for government contracts in America.
Give me Europe any time.  We are too small economically or numerically to be a force worth listening to, so we better chose well when we finally do.