[the telephone] tyrant of the modern age

New Nokia - er - phone

The question came up today why I hate phones so much. After all, everyone and his dog is glued to the phone pretty well 24/7 these days with the advent of the mobile monstrosity.

My first question is - why is it necessary to have to speak to someone on a phone in the first place whilst walking down a street [or even in a car]? We used to wait till we either got to the office or got home.

This gave us time to read the paper, notice things going on about us instead of living in a cocoon and at a frenetic pace. I'm not talking Richard Briars and Felicity Kendall but still - what's the necessity?

The businessman immediately answers: "Because I don't want to lose business." If your product is any good, why won't that person accept your secretary's "he's just stepped out of the office for the moment"?

And what if you're not a businessman or woman? I suggest it's just an affectation you induce yourself into and all those bells and whistles and tunes are pretty neat, aren't they, flashing away and polluting our airspace? Gives you a sense of empowerment.

Except that it does no such thing - it actually disempowers you. The phone is a bl--dy tyrant. Please tell me which parliament enacted the law that whenever the damned thing rings, you must immediately drop anything you're doing, stop the train of thinking, cease the conversation with the person you're with and devote your time to someone who has blown in from nowhere?

Why does the caller assume you've been sitting around half the day waiting for this call and you're eternally grateful for the chance to immediately drop your own business to help him/her?

Why does the caller assume that the person you're with is a lower priority because they took the trouble to get into their car and visit you whereas the caller just punched a number and bingo?

Why does the caller assume you have the time exactly at that moment to devote to addressing his/her issues?

The answer is that the caller never once stops to think. He or she is so into the faster-faster lifestyle that it's assumed that if it can't be dealt with in the first minute, then he hasn't any more time. This is bol---ks.

One of my friends goes too far, admittedly. He lays the three phones down on the table and sees which rings. If it's the phone which he usually answers, he asks: "Srochno?" [Is it urgent?].

Another friend has a better plan.

He lifts the receiver and holds it at half an arm's length, then sweetly asks the one he's with: "Do you mind? I'll just be a moment." Then he turns to the phone and says, warmly: "He--llo." A person with some sort of antennae picks up on that and asks when's a good time to call.

Lesson learnt - the phone does not over-rule the seated incumbent. Time must be mutually agreed, as it is with every other voluntary communication between two people.

But the person without antennae presses on with the inevitable: "No, I was just going to ask …" or "Just a quick question …" Naturally, it is irrelevant to the caller how long it takes, as long as he gets what he wants and gets it in one go.

With such people, if you say: "Could I call you in twenty minutes?" this immediately tells the incumbent how much time he/she has left and it's not nice. Stretching that time outside the expected range is nicer.

However, the caller won't like that. He/she will have another try. "Couldn't you just …?" or "Just a quick question" is repeated and then the whole story begins. The only way to deal with this is to repeat your own "could I call you" and then repeat it and then repeat it.

If you're up against a real hard case, your only recourse is to apologize profusely but you have to go and you promise you'll call, all the while moving the receiver further away and then sliding it into closed position, then slip the plug from the wall socket because they're bound to recall.

Or else they'll hate you forever and never come back. Good riddance, I say.

Again, the businessman will say he can't afford to make enemies that way and I reply that he can't afford to lose the customer he's with either and his customer is watching and listening closely to how the matter's handled. Then he/she also gets the message and two people have been trained.

I've lost countless people this way but none of them were ever contacting me for my health. They all wanted something for free and had no antennae. So my reputation as a curmudgeon got around and they knew they must play by these rules or not at all. This tended to leave one with either serious customers or good friends and with them one was ever so friendly.

"Just wait," you might say, "What if I myself wanted something from that person?" Well, you'd phone and ask if it was convenient for a start. Sometimes that gets you in straight away. If not, then have it already factored into your plan to have to call back twice more and any less is a bonus.

The Russians do have an expression and business people often use it: "Sorry to be troubling you but …" As there are so many over here who don't use any intro at all, then people who do are seen as better to do business with. They're going to be softer touches, for a start - or so the other person thinks.

This post was about empowerment - wresting the power back from the phone and from the people who would set your agenda for you and allowing you to be a full half-partner in a compromise on just when the two of you are going to deal with the matter in hand.

1896 version - kept calls to a reasonable length

[blogpower roundup 2] just a little plug

I hope Ian Appleby will not be annoyed that I've taken his appeal from our closed site and reprinted it here. My reasoning for doing this is that he did state that nominations are open to everyone, even outside Blogpower:

I'm looking for the Blogpower posts that have most impressed you throughout September - and yes, that does include the next few days as well. Please send nominations to blogpowerroundup AT googlemail DOT com by 5pm, Sunday 30 September. I've had some great suggestions already, but I am sure there are more out there.

So if you have seen a great post somewhere on your travels and even if you're neither a Blogpowerer nor a blogger per se and if this post was on a site carrying our banner then please send it to Ian for the Roundup. That address again:

blogpowerroundup AT googlemail DOT com

[climate change] blame the right people

An average of 79% of respondents to the BBC survey agreed that "human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change".

Now, before you click out, write an angry rebuttal or whatever, wait just a minute. I don't believe this at all. For a start, I don't trust the BBC in its selection of sample, I don't trust its agenda and I don't trust its conclusions.

Also, I think we've been a bit a-s- end about on this on this site and arguing heatedly against each other when the real target is getting off scot free. Seems to me that the argument is all wrong. Clearly the government [= big business and finance] wants it to be so, so they can hit the little man over the head with a big stick.

So the little people band together and find 500 scientists to say:

1. there is no climate change;

2. even if there is, it's not the fault of humans.

But something [don't call it climate change if you don't want] is happening and it is the fault of humans. The only question is - which humans?

Those who enabled decades of unrestrained industrialization first, closely allied with government and big money contracts, followed by farmers, followed by the Chinese and other primitive coal burning societies, followed by the automobile.

In all this, the government has failed to set attainable targets and failed to move hell and high water to achieve them, as they would do if it was a war they were interested in. The people behind the government are the more cynical - existing for short term gain [the Alisha the Hutts of the world] but knowing full well the long term consequences.

Then there is intent in certain quarters [Ephesians 6:12] but we needn't insist on this point at this moment.

Then there are projects like Woodpecker and HAARP and the Chinese one which only surfaced in relation to the Olympic Games. And if you read all of these, in detail, it is not insignificant, it does try to replace the ionosphere with billions of metal rods and they are playing god. Read the literature for yourself .

What the blogosphere is up in arms about is that these same people are then turning around and blaming the little man for being induced into an unsustainable lifestyle which both government and backers knew full well had to be restrained but would never do because of both votes and the greater world agenda.

That's what this thing is about - the culpability of the MIC and its attempt to slide the blame off onto the common man and leave him with both the devastation, the cost and the guilt.

Very clever.

[amon duul] ever heard of them?

Amon Duul II - dark unique sound

I've just been distracted for two hours or so reading reviews.

Don't know why but this guy reminds me of Matt Murrell in that he tells it as he feels at the time and he'd have to be one of the most unusual reviewers I've read. Flawed - from his selection to his way off comments and then he gets it exactly right:

I hate Pink Floyd. No, ladies and gentlemen, my name is not Johnny Rotten. What I honestly feel is that the Floyders are probably the most overrated rock band in man's history.

Certainly, they are worthy. A very worthy band - even me, who's not a fan, could go on speaking of their advantages for hours. [I just don't want to because thousands of people have done so already].

But the kind of praise given to them, the endless sell outs, monster radio hits, unrestrained critical and fan worship - none but the Beatles received as much, and even the Beatles don't seem to receive that much nowadays ...

… which of course you might disagree with but hey - this is straight down the line opinion from someone who actually knows his music. Then I see he's from Russia and gulp. Some very interesting bands sprinkled in there too, like Amon Duul II [a sort of German Joy Division] and Faust, who I played a lot of in my radio specials I now can't believe I ever did.

[alisha the hutt] updates from matt and ellee

Curses - Ellee got to it before me. The scoop by Matt Wardman of Wardman Wire on the Schilling’s saga, I mean. Now I'm not going to steal the thunder from either Ellee or Matt so you'll have to get over there to read it.

The only thing which concerns me is how much it's all going to roll off his fat blubbery back. I know something of this type and they only calculate risk - it's all they know. Feeling cowed by the magnificence of the blogosphere reaction would hardly come into it with Alisha the Hutt.

[immaturity] you're only young once

Laboratory Bunsen Burner

The Coodabeen Champions made these immortal words their theme: "You're only young once, but anyone can be immature," and that's the theme of this post - a meme with a difference.

Anyone who reads this is automatically tagged and is duty bound to post his or her greatest act of immaturity, at any stage of the aging process. Then don't bother tagging anyone else.

Here's one of my better ones:

In my late schooldays, we did Chem in a huge, cold, red/brown painted concrete mausoleum of a lab with parallel benches, with large, admittedly quite light windows which opened outwards. The Chem teacher's name was Bunter [as in Billy - see below].

Now we had rows of these bunsen burners [see pic top left] and it was the job of two boys to have them lit when the lesson started. I don't know who first suggested it but we saw their immediate possibilities if we attached the rubber tubes to the water nozzles but now we had a problem.

What to call these new devices.

We decided on "Bunter Burners" and so every single one of them was attached to the tap and the tap turned on. My, it was a wondrous cascade of fountains except that things went a little awry when the small, white, rectangular sinks began to overflow onto the floor and we feared the water would run out the door and down to the Principal's office.

We needn't have worried. Now a party of four persons, one bright lad pointed out that in fact there was a step of six inches at every door, obviously designed for such situations as this and so we rested easy, observing, in true scientific fashion, the rising of the floodwaters. Somebody may have mentioned Winnie the Pooh and his umbrella at this stage - I can't remember.

It was now felt best to switch the taps off and escape through the windows. We never did have that Chem lesson for two days.

Bill Bryson, in this excerpt from Neither Here nor There, Black Swan, 1998, pp 98/99, recalls his area of expertise:

I had no gift for woodwork. Everyone else in the class was building things like cedar chests and ocean-going boats and getting to play with dangerous and noisy power tools, but I had to sit at the Basics Table with Tubby Tucker and a kid who was so stupid that I don't think we ever learned his name. We just called him Drooler.

The three of us weren't allowed anything more dangerous than sandpaper and Elmer's Glue, so we would sit week after week making little nothings out of offcuts, except for Drooler who would just eat the glue.

Mr Dreck never missed a chance to humiliate me. The class roared. Tubby Tucker laughed so hard that he almost choked.

He laughed for twenty minutes, even when I whispered to him across the table that if he didn't stop it, I'd bevel his testicles.

Billy Bunter

[gracchi meme] earliest political memories

Via Tiberius Gracchus, originally from Nich Starling or the Thunderdragon, not sure who. Thanks for nothing, lads:

Not coming clean on this one because it will give away my age, which I assure you is between 23 and 73. So have to think of a political memory.

Better not mention the Night of the Long Knives, the Cuban Missile Crisis or Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood Speech, nor the Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubelum re-run on the Triple Underpass at Dealey Plaza, nor even my birthyear Margaret Brighton Bombing - so perhaps Watergate. I made that a major study at one time but it didn't do any good because I never picked Mark Felt, even though all the evidence pointed that way.

So, apart from Mark Felt Lovelace, the one who always intrigued me was the arch hp-hp-hp military nutter G. Gordon Liddy. There was a possibly apocryphal story [surprisingly not denied over here] that Liddy was once talking to his opposite number among the Russkies [or was it the Chinese?] and it was a vital meeting in that both sides were trying to show how hard they were.

Liddy lit a candle or a cigarette lighter, whatever and proceeded to hold his hand over the flame, letting the flesh burn. The Russkie is supposed to have gone away convinced that the Americans were total nutters. Thanks, Gordon.

I lived through the Winter of Discontent of 1979 and clearly remember Stand Down Margaret in 1990 and was over in Australia earlier for the Coup d'Etat in 1975. These were all pretty interesting.

Watergate tools of the trade

I hereby tag Mutley the Dog, Ordovicius, Pub Philosopher, Stan and Steve Green. If any of these have already been tagged, consider yourselves double-tagged, chaps.

[suppression of speech] the danger of platitudes

The Thunderdragon is a good chap and is no different to the rest of us in that he has chips on his shoulder as all political bloggers do, otherwise, we wouldn't be blogging.

One of his is about "organized religion":

This is why I find Archbishop Nichols comments so offensive. He is claiming that we need religion to be a moral person, and that religion is the basis of humanity. Well, it's not, Archbishop. Look at the atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of religion.

Mistake 1: Lumping Christianity in with "religion" when the whole thrust of the former is towards service to our fellow man, not abstruse points of theology - check the Gospels for details of how to go about it.

Atrocities are committed by humans in the name of anything they'd like. I could commit an atrocity and say: "The Blogosphere is Great!" I could assassinate William McKinley and shout: "A Stalwart is now in Power!"

People claiming to speak for various causes and doing despicable things in the name of those causes is millennia old. The only way to verify is to go back to the original source material. The noble TD continues the theme in a more recent post:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has finally decided, in his esteemed medical opinion, that gays aren't necessarily ill … It is precisely this sort of thing that makes the Church and organised religion as a whole look entirely out of place in the 21st century, and proves to me that it is past its sell-by date.

He's right that it makes it "look" out of place, as I replied [abridged here]:

[People] like Williams, Runcie et al are, as I've posted many times before, not representing Christianity in the least. Their relativism and equivalence are sickening and they're doing all they can to drive a nail into the coffin of Christianity, coming out with inanities like this but remaining silent on important issues.

JC said "you'll know them by their fruits" and this is very much the case here. There is no such thing as "not necessarily ill". They either are or are not. He should have the courage of his convictions and stand or fall by them, instead of trying to be all things to all people.

Mistake 2: Confusing the leadership with the cause. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

...it is past its sell-by date...

Why? Because Williams said what he did or because Christianity, which is an ageless rock, unfazed by fads like gay rights and feminism, keeps on keeping on, giving succour and help in time of need? The message of Christianity, as distinct from the Official Church, is more relevant today than it ever has been, in the face of a quite serious assault on society's very basis.

This is far beyond a squabble between a couple of bloggers - it's a fundamental issue for the earth and will become increasingly so in the next few years.

ThunderDragon replied, in the comments section ...

Society has moved on from organised religion. It has tested it, and found it wanting. And now society is moving on.

Mistake 3: This is precisely how suppression begins. Someone claiming to speak for a cause utters inanities which annoy the majority. Blairite platitudes like "moving on", meaningless and devoid of stated purpose, designed and inserted into the debate to damage and instigate suppression by the majority are unquestioningly accepted by the mob and whilst the utterer of the inanities himself escapes, supporters of the cause are rounded up and neutralized.

My reply:

As Chesterton said: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been left untried as too difficult.

You're completely right that the moment "organization" came into it, it ceased to be Christianity, which is a personal commitment and a joining together of like minded people, not unlike Blogpower. But elements from the other side have continually hijacked it and this is written about in Ephesians 6:12 with its reference to "high places".

You would be the first to concede, Chris, that Brown and Blair are not good leaders. And yet that is how the Russians see the Brits. "You British" is how anything Brown says is viewed. Why then do you ascribe Christianity to its equally corrupt leadership? Do you think corruption is restricted to parliament?

As well as that, 194 of us, at last count, were up in arms about the suppression of freedom of speech by Alisha the Hutt. Yet this is precisely what "past the used by date" is taken as.

You were merely making a personal statement but that's not how it is being taken in a highly charged climate where the essential humanitarian message of Christianity itself is under duress from high quarters, e.g. the William and Mary Cross affair, the renaming of Christmas and so on.

Or are you condoning the suppression of the Christian message? Even Mr. Eugenides came to the defence over the W&M issue [because he recognized here the danger of allowing the suppression of a point of view - that it is the thin edge of the wedge, particularly in these uncertain times.]

Bolt's Man for all Seasons has More saying to Richie Rich [paraphrased]: "And what will you do when you tear down all the defences and the Devil, cornered, turns on you? Where will your defences be then?"

[What do] you mean by "moved on"?

You really think society today has "moved on" with its drugs, underage sex, internet porn, road rage, restriction of civil liberties by Labour, [blatant greed, rampant materialism, the end of decency], destruction of the NHS, dumbing down of education, wastage of money [check Wat Tyler for this] and Tom Paine's statement that the country is no longer fit to be lived in?

Labour's policies make no sense when approached from the point of view of reason, fairness and justice. That is because they were not conceived from that point of view. The logic behind Labour's policies is simple and corrupt … Once you understand that, your sense of puzzlement at Labour's poll lead will evaporate and be replaced with a desire to find another homeland.

And all of this [has] coincided with the first turning away from, then mocking and now attempts at suppression of that which was once held dear.

If society has moved on from God, Queen and Country, support for our armed forces and the expectation of decency in public behaviour, then I don't particularly wish to be part of this Brave New Dystopia.

[r.i.p.] marcel mangel

There's a lovely tribute here from Omnium.

[gold and silver] a catch 22 situation

Gold or silver?

Fabian Tassano noted in April:

The gold price breaking above the 2006 high of $730 per ounce — an event I expect to happen this year — will mark the final death of the British public's lurve affair with Blairism. But let's not break out the champagne yet. I don't see any grounds for confidence that whatever succeeds it will be much better.

Chris Dillow added:

The upshot is that when gold prices are low, support for the incumbent government will be high.

Now Fabian reports:

Today, the spot gold price went to 739, a 27-year high.

Although Zachary Oxman, a senior trader at Wisdom Financial said prices will likely see a [temporary] correction into the $710-$720 level:

"which should be a great buying opportunity for a continued leg up as gold approaches $800 by year end."

When you think about it, it holds up. Gold has always been the resort of fear or at least uneasiness and this fear is what has been induced in the western economies by the Fed and ECB's latest little outing into instability.

So how about buying gold? Are you allowed?

On April 1, 1971, the United Kingdom lifted all restrictions on gold ownership and as of January 1, 1975, U.S. citizens were again free to own gold in any form, including bullion, and in any amount that they can afford, without restrictions or any federal ‘reporting’ of those holdings.

Blanchard Research gives six primary reasons why investors own gold:

1. As a hedge against inflation.

2. As a hedge against a declining dollar.

3. As a safe haven in times of geopolitical and financial market instability.

4. As a commodity, based on gold’s supply and demand fundamentals.

5. As a store of value.

6. As a portfolio diversifier.

Where are the major gold reserves just now? In whose hands? The World Gold Council says:

If we take national gold reserves, then most gold is owned by the USA followed by Germany and the IMF. If we include jewellery ownership, then India is the largest repository of gold in terms of total gold within the national boundaries. In terms of personal ownership, it is not known who owns the most, but is possibly a member of a ruling royal family in the East.

Blanchard Research noted, in 2005:

Gold languished in the 1980s and 1990s and was replaced by the dollar as the standard against which all things financial are measured. In the coming decade, as the dollar suffers one of the great meltdowns in monetary history, gold will reclaim its place at the center of the global financial system.

So how viable are government bonds? Alan Greenspan wrote, in 1966, of bonds not backed by gold, the current situation:

[G]overnment bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates.

The current and soon to be worse economic jitters were predicted two and a half years ago:

Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve Board, said, in March, 2005, that unless America changes course, there is a “75 percent” chance of an economic crisis in the next five years. Steven Roach, Chief Economist at Morgan Stanley, predicts that America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding “economic Armageddon.”

Alan Greenspan was in no doubt that a return to the gold standard was the only safe government policy:

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.

Britain abandoned the gold standard in 1931 and almost all western currency is fiat money. There seems little chance of a return in the immediate future.

So what's the message? That the rise in gold will spell the end of Blair/Brownism? Probably. That gold should be bought now? There's a strong case for getting in now - but it might be taken from you unless you have somewhere offshore to put it. Blanchard warns:

The problem is that the very circumstances that could make your gold so valuable could also result in its being taken from you.

Peter Cooper, of CNN noted, with regard to silver:

And unlike paper money the central bankers of the world can not print more silver. The supply of this commodity expands in line with mining operations and not printing presses. It is therefore less prone to devaluation than paper money.

Against this is whether you believe that precious metal mining firms operate independently of the financial cabals, i.e. that there is no overlap of personnel and friendships across the board. I'm not going to try to prove that they're all part of the same club - you can make your own mind up. But it seems logical to me that the power of the central banks would be immeasurably weakened unless they at least had some say in the regulation of further mining.

Fabian has mentioned how far gold is rising. Silver seems to be subject to much interest of late as well and does not seem so prone to confiscation or to other vicissitudes. It has an interesting feel to it. Here are some reasons as of 2003:

Supply side deficits now into the 14^th year.
Decreased investor selling.
Diminishing supply stockpiles.
Declining institutional and investor interests.
Large paper short positions.
Expanding uses for a scarce metal.
The return of silver as money.
The dollar and credit crises

Whenever silver rises, short positions are taken and derivatives are issued until the price is capped. Access to silver in any large quantities is difficult as well so it's basically in a managed state.

Now my own feeling is that if you were to progressively buy small amounts, letting it seep into your portfolio, whilst getting out of any non-real stocks and shares, you might have a decent haul of the stuff when the crash comes. Silver equities is a possibility.

The thing you'd be waiting for is a return to precious metals when paper crashes and naturally gold would hog the limelight. But now freed of managed constraints, sivler could find its own level like never before - at least, that's what you'd be hoping for.

Well worth looking at anyway.