A disaster waiting to happen

Subject: A disaster waiting to happen

I suppose it's a common theme running through mankind, the need to understand and bond with fellow human beings. This is particularly true and most acute between a man and a woman. 
Watching a scene in 'Breaking Bad' where the man is rhapsodising about life in general the girl reaches across and twirls her finger around his, the rhapsody stops and a poignant  silence ensues. The magic of love and being loved stops thought in its tracks

and heads it off down another road, that of compromise, of fitting in to someone else's desire, of leaving behind unfinished thoughts and form those you never knew you had.
Again watching on the news the progress of one of these extreme explorer types as he nears the Pole, his sense of achievement is palpable but one is also privy to the other side of a relationship, his fiance, back home, worrying, fighting back the tears.

From "I want to paint that wall pink and call our daughter Tulip" to the no less important stuff like putting a deposit down on a Mustang. The desires and the conflicting gender dynamic, the easy going compatibility between two creatures now brought under strain as environmental and gender issues, are finally faced with decisions about choice. 
If the differences are small, usually a fudge will do. Tulip it is but if not a Mustang, at least a new gasket head and valves for a Cortina.
It's when the life's plan (assuming there is one) is being usurped for another plan, perhaps a  much more radical lifestyle, then the decisions are difficult, if not impossible. Someone has to make  a big accommodation to their dreams and their own aspirations. 
Compensation in the form of 'pleasing' the person you love only goes so far and the newly  chosen path will now have, as its constituent part, a thorn under the flesh which will regularly prick and cause pain.
The urge to unite and sail away always assumes that the direction is agreed. So often it is not even addressed or discussed (how can it be) for fear of the loss you have built up in the relationship so far. We skirt around the issues we disagree about because the disagreement essentially runs deep in our character and no matter how we twist and turn it probably has no satisfactory answer. Usually in these cases the strongest personality wins but whether the win is for the month or for years ahead its a question which should be asked and unfortunately has no simple answer.
Mankind can adapt somehow to anything his imagination can cope with, but he cannot deal with chaos. Our most important imaginative assets are always the symbols of our general orientation in nature, especially in society, in what ever we are doing. Chaos can mean instability, cultural disharmony, not being able to fit in because the gulf is too wide. Chaos can eat away at the soul like an untidy house eats away, 24/7 with someone suffering OCD. It's not a fault line, it's a disaster waiting to happen.

Justice being done

Subject: Justice being done.

It's fascinating delving into the nooks and crannies of the legal mind, listening  to submissions of "my Learned Friend" and the arcane reasoning of the "Learned Judge" especially if it is the combined wisdom of the highest court in the land.

The case I listened to at random concerned an application brought against the West Yorkshire Police Force, that a little old lady was knocked down as officers arrested a drug dealer in the street. She was suing the police force for damages.

The argument on the Appellants part was that the police had been negligent in not foreseeing, adequately, that she or others might be injured in any fracas that ensued as and when the drug dealer was arrested.

The polices response was that in the normal line of duty a decision had to be made to arrest the man and whilst due notice of passers by was taken it was of the opinion of the arresting team of officers that no harm would ensue. 

Listening to debate at this forensic level is rewarding as it gives us insight into not only the complexity of our actions in relationship to the law but also the laws complexity when trying to cover all its bases.

Language and the precise nature of its use is no better founded than in the intricacies of law where near perfection in an eloquently formulated a statement is not enough. You can be fluent and persuasive but if your grasp of "case law" has caused you to skip a paragraph or two or demand a conclusion different from what the Judges understand, then verbal hell will descend on your shoulders.
There is no quarter given in this verbal tussle and it is as it should be since a persons freedom is on the line. 

The participants, the QC representing a particular line of thought, are extremely well paid and in a High Court appearance, certainly earn their money. The State is usually economical in its representation, represented by only one barrister whilst the Appellant  has a team of highly paid and resourceful legal eagles sitting in court. The State has only one go at placing before the court its argument whilst the Appellants team have chance, not only to state their case first but also the opportunity of rebuttal after hearing the Staes case. 

It does seems slightly weighed in the applicants favour to have their say but I suppose it is also seen, as justice being done.

Happy New Year.

Trust

Subject: Trust.

The concept that "trust", the ability to trust people and events, to trust yourself and your ability to find things at least rational, leads to a much more contented and less stressful life.

Trust, the sort which isn't specific but is seen as a general attitude towards other people and the situations people find themselves in is built up through the family in early childhood and enacted as an instinctive default position, to trust people until they are no longer worthy of your trust. 

Trust has a daily component to it, that of routine and the expectancy encountered by routine. Behavioral physiology is best served by trusted routine and the pleasure in being rewarded by the predicted outcome. Even when the outcome is not as predicted, it's the fault of others, not our dogged belief in 'trust' the almost mystifyingly satisfying unconditional belief system a human being can hold. Trust is a sort of practical conscience which exists as a protective device against anxiety and is amplified through repetition. Trust solidifies our ability to live happy and contented lives.

Before I have confidence in you I have to have confidence in myself but coexisting with my self confidence, is my confidence in you. It is the belief in the  mutually compatibility of people and the trust we have in them. From the driver of the bus to the school teacher, from the change we receive from the shop keeper to the integrity of the news we receive through the media.

A relatively recent phenomena has been the question of false news, news deliberately put out to deceive us for ideological and political reasons. 
Of course trust in what we read or hear has been soiled in many instances. The last 100 years has seen the growth of the advertising industry whose job it seems is not only to bring to our notice new products but at the same time to over embellish the efficacy of those products to the extent that you begin to take what the advert tells you with a pinch of salt. There are few people who would put their trust in this industry other than  people who are willingly gullible. If you bombard them with distortion they succumb to distortion whilst admittedly remaining sceptical. They become compliant like sheep a sort of passivity at being duped. Trust therefore becomes an emotional rather than a cognitive thing.

Part of our susceptibility in this media/Internet addicted world is the 'regularity' and the repeated exposure to one of the most manipulative industries of modern life. Our daily input of television/internet and the effect it has on our senses can only be harmful. Regularity reinforces implicit trust, the minute by minute interaction with a mother reinforced this continuity of trust which rooted in love. Generally our relationships in early childhood do little to dislodge this optimism. Unacknowledged at this stage is the credo, "do unto others as you would wish they would do unto you". The sense of an Innate rightness which comes from trusting people and events is fundamental to your well being and psychological health. If your trust in someone is found to be misplaced don't blame the psychological mechanism trust, blame the inadequacy of the person who can't offer you their trust and feel a measure of sorrow for them that they have to carry the burden of not allowing themselves an insight into the joy of trust.

OMG its snowing

Subject: OMG it's snowing.

It's snowing. Christmas was clear but now it's snowing quite hard. 
I suppose the Scots would poo par this attempt to remind us that winter has yet still a few surprises in store. They, a more stoic, phlegmatic people are used to snow and ice and the hardship it brings, especially the hill farmer. 
Out in all weathers this adds just another dimension to the husbandry of animals or the reliance on weather to grow his crops. It's a tough life often carried out living in some remote farmhouse, solidly built but spare on comfort and modern amenities. 
Mud everywhere and a time table which runs to mother natures errand not our own. Severn days a week they have to be up and about doing the chores and a thousand variations, filled with expectation and chilled with disappointment. I'm not talking of the 'southern squire' with his thousands of acres under cultivation, mechanised up to the hilt, I have in mind the small holding, rented, clutching to the side of a hill or mountain, always in competition with the bank, always shuffling the bills. The suicide rate for these farming folk is extremely high as they battle their independence in a financial world which no longer values the characteristics they represent. Tenacity and a willingness to think 'long'. To solve problems by using their own imagination and having lots and lots of patience. 
A regular cash flow and market security are not their provenance and in the tight air conditioned environment of a bank managers office, his view of the snow falling outside his window is, like mine, purely one of moderate inconvenience. 

Am I right to object

Subject: Am I right to object.

A major question arises. Do I judge the world and the events I see with the experience I have gained along with the prejudice that has been built up in the act of living ones life or do we always have to search around for an alternative view which, it is suggested, is shared by virtually everyone else on the planet, a view which is a construct of their experience, not mine.

Do we have to amalgamate these other experiences into our own in order to get a better perspective, one which is more "socially inclusive".

If I adapt my own point of view to suit these other points of view, doesn't that literally contaminate the 'unique' construct of my own experience.

Of course if your life has been constrained by protective forces, parents, work environment, the influence of political correctness then these other forces take precedence over our own observational sense of right and wrong, by what we loosely choose to call public opinion. 

If I pursue my goals with a series of idealistic preferences of my own, formed through my own upbringing,  idiocentric perhaps but harming no one, then at least to what ever extent the views were unique, they should be valued over and above the modern homogeneous set of compromises which make up parent day values.

Every day there is a call to recognise some new claim for identity, some new call for a unique classification to fit to the ever expanding social milieu and whilst I accept this shows greater diversity, perhaps this 'diversity' is becoming more artificial and threatens my sense of acceptability. 

In this modern intolerant world am threatened by my inability to conform. I am censored by my reluctance to vary from a structure which I recognise as my own through my own fairly varied exposure to life.

Stick a pin in me and I bleed but whether I rush for an antiseptic bandage or treat a cut as a normal day to day event, (depending on the environment), with out much fuss or over reaction, a measure I suggest dependent on ones age and exposure to influence.

You have to be very unlucky in the tropics to stand on a snake and for the snake to turn and bite you but the fear emblazoned in your brain by folk law precludes a rational objective summation of that chance and discourages people from walking at night in an ill lit place.

Our minds are full of superstition and fear planted by others. If we had the sense to exclude a lot of what we are programmed to think by modern society, if we could cast out much of what makes up modern norms of artificial social behavior and concentrated on our own well tried common sense, we would be far better for it -Gunga Din 

Whenwe's and Soutpiel's

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Subject: Whenwe's  and soutpiel's

One of claims I hear about the articles I write is that my pieces revisit time and again the same subject matter and people then wonder why I "bang on so".
One would have to be dead from the neck up not to have an opinion about say Brexit or the dreadful state of our once governmental, nowa quango, bodies who's job it is to oversee our builders, with the dreadful disaster of Grenfell Tower in mind.  To have an opinion about the extremely lax attitude to fulfilling building regulations and abiding by building standards, from a professional building contractors point of view, (where to them cutting corners is an accounting 'bottom line' issue) but, even more serious is the lack of oversight by the 'Industry Standards Inspectorate' which is supposed to monitor what is going on during the build. The evidence of poor building practice, particularly by the large construction firms, especially when it comes to houses built to so called  "affordable housing" standards seems to indicate that the 'Inspectorate' is much too close to the builder to disturb its lucrative practices. 
In the past in the 'pre quango era' it was always the fear that quangos, and the deliberate distancing from ministerial responsibility (a political contravention which went on irrespective of who was in government), would not, in the long term, fulfil the needs of the public for unbiased scrutiny.
As a topic, this and issues on pollution, global warming, the failing of children in our educational system, the apparent in-affordability of the NHS and the looming disaster of old age accommodation (where we warehouse the oldies until their maker relieves us of the problem), all topics we should be aware of, and I believe, have opinions about. 
And yet it seems that many have no wish to be reminded of the mess we are in, would rather bury their proverbial heads in the proverbial sand.
Governments response is to kick most problems into the long grass, initiating 'enquires' under the chairmanship of one of their own. "Give Howard Winston Smyth a call he is free for a couple of years to collect and correlate some facts but remember, make his remit so narrow he wont frighten the horses and disturb too much".
Much of our ambivalence is rooted in our attitude to belonging.
The importance of 'belonging' and our need to belong to something, or someone, is at some levels nearly universal. There are few people who feel they don't need to belong who feel they are quite independent, the vast majority need to feel they belong to something, a club, a sense of neighbourliness and of course ones family.
The belonging of a child, initially to its parents, especially its mother. The identification with friends and the assumption of tribal affinity. Then for many comes a sense of nationality with the recognition of national values, the norms and customs which we absorb as if by osmosis without much questioning. The intellectual assimilation of ethical standards and morals comes later, along with a sense that we all have a common currency, our humanity.
People who live for any length of time 'abroad' know the conflict as they try to assimilate the new country with their old assumptions of what is fit and proper. It soon becomes apparent that norms are far from universal. We sit and listen to people rant about something we loved or felt had been unduly smeared. We wish to set the record straight but of course the record is so personal, it's impossible to convey. 
And so we bumble along, recognising the gap between us, missing the unspoken bonds of home and people we would affirm as a friend. The convention which grows when we live abroad is to tread carefully and avoid at all costs being defined as a "soutpiel" or a "whenwe". We try to fit in and understand the vagaries of the society we have chosen to inflict ourselves upon, at least this is the sensible individuals route to acceptance but unfortunately when a tipping point is reached and enough "whenwe's" gather together then good form goes out of the window and a bout of nostalgia brings out the what we miss from "back home". 

Have a Happy Christmas where ever you are.

A changing world

  

Subject: A changing world.

In a world vastly changed from the days Harold McMillan tried to get us into the European Coal and Steel Area made up of  West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium,Netherlands,and Luxembourg  and was excluded with the infamous "Non" pronouncement by the dictatorial President De Gaul. 
An alternate area, the limited Free Trade Area, EFTA made up of European states unable or unwilling to join the EEC such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK came into being with over time only Norway and Switzerland not being drawn in to the ever more powerful EU.
The essence of it all was to create blocks of common interest which economically would prosper better than a nation standing on its own. 
With the Brexit decision we are returning to the 50s again, standing apart in the hope we can negotiate a special deal and maintain some sort of connection to the EU 'Big Brother', and gain access to their huge market. It all seems a forlorn hope given that the politics can not condone a country leaving and still retain the benefits. 
Perhaps 'money' could persuade, although great play was made of the costs we were burdened with in the persuasion to vote out. The money we make by being in would, one assumes, have to be greater than what we pay but with our rapidly decreasing currency brought about by the mechanism of quantitive easing and our inability to keep pace with modernisation and the training required to equip our workforce with the skills it needs to compete, our "productivity" is way down at the bottom of the European league.
There are no, of old, titans of industry, in fact the industry's now sit in countries who hire people for a fraction of what we are permitted to offer and who enforce labour practices which went out of fashion here in this country in the 19th century.
Niche markets where our talented designers can sell products not yet thought of is an option for highly specialised manufacturing but it won't feed the masses.
What will the country, as our 'older generation' grows in numbers and lives ever longer and the 'working generation' have a myriad of claims to make on the Exchequer to support them "in a way to which they have become accustomed". 
It's a blind alley into which we shall have to accustom ourselves. The politicians will wriggle their way out of it with fine words and promises. Their get out clause will be the Referendum, a decision made which was out of their hands and whilst they willingly added material to the flames along with the 'press' who further ignited the spirit of rebellion,  no one from the Establishment will do a mea culpa.
Of course one can uphold that it was the correct thing to do. The European Union has many faults not least that it is becoming increasingly non democratic or accountable.
This democratic principle and the belief that the people matter and can be counted at the ballot box lies longer in our history than most others. Many European nations have only a fleeting experience of parliamentary democracy, many have had dictatorships many simply had aristocratic families deciding their fate. 
As the EU began to proclaim the need to Federalise and remove the instinct for nationalism which is seen as a danger for an amalgam of nations with disparate cultures and very different historical assumptions, we took fright believing our specific type of governance was valuable in the long run.
Our conception that we count for something as a nation a nation with its own values and priorities led many, including myself to vote to leave. 
The treatment of Greece, particularly by Germany was an omen. The sight of dictatorial power running rampant over the human beings who make up a society, people who had had no part in the financial mismanagement but were the flotsam and jetsam of the behind closed doors meetings with no sense of democratic scrutiny. It was this which persuaded me enough was enough.
Yes we were not told of the economic straight jacket which the EU weaves, particularly in Banking and it was not spelt out the effect of potential lost markets and the difficulty of trying to get into trading with those other monoliths the USA and China but never the less the freedom to make ones own decisions and spin a cloth which represents ones own values was more attractive.
Of course I am an old man with one foot in my historical experience and the other in the grave. It's different for someone young who have only experienced this new world of global contracts and an internet that transforms our ideas of individuality. They are the ones who will carry the burden of lower living standards which initially at least seems to be the outcome of our leaving the comfort blanket of the EU.   Only a few will concern themselves with being limited to employment within the Sceptred  Isle. They never had the vision of working in Germany France or Italy or even trying their luck in the wider world. The barriers have slowly come down to emigration to Australia and New Zealand The comfort of the Welfare State made them assume that their basic needs would be covered by the State and so long as Arsenal beat Tottenham all is well in their world. Perhaps in this brave new world of independence, the worth of a person will be seen once more by his or her inventiveness to keep afloat and for those who don't there are visions of a truly desperate poor on the streets of Mumbai to compare with.