[citizens juries] reflective but not representative

James Barlow, Constituency Chairman for the Conservative Party in the three-way marginal Bristol-West seat, was writing about what would presumably be the ultra-boring subject of local recycling and landfill but it turned out to be anything but boring.

The moment he touched on Citizens Juries, danger signals abounded:

Now my party colleagues in the Conservative Group of the council have taken an active part in this process - John Goulandris as Chair of the OSM committee, and Richard Eddy as Chair of the Quality of Life Scrutiny committee.

But I'm concerned that the Jury process is misleading us all. I suspect that it removes the impetus for oversight of Council policy by the opposition party, and it creates an illusion of impartiality and "judicial" deliberation when it's really just a rubber stamp on existing policy - i.e. it ain't a Jury.

As another UK user of Citizens' Juries comments on their website :

"[It c]an be difficult to 'reject' the Jury's recommendations"

In our city, a Citizens' Jury is constructed as an off-shoot of the Citizens' Panel ("Bristol's Biggest Think Tank") which consists of two thousand local residents, some randomly selected, some self-selected.

For the randomly selected, a London firm supplies the questionnaire:

The on-street recruitment questionnaire (Appendix 5 of the latest Jury's report) is less intrusive than that of the Citizens' Panel, but also fails to check whether the respondent is a Bristol Council Tax payer. It also mispells "Cotham" as "Cotam", and indicates that Cabot is a ward in both Central West and Central East Bristol, but I suppose that's to be expected from a London-based market research firm .

If you like, you can apply to join the Citizens' Panel, for which you will be asked your ethnicity, sexual orientation and whether you consider yourself to be transgendered, but not whether you are a council tax payer in Bristol.

But:

...half the jurors are recruited from the existing membership of the Citizens' Panel, and the other half by on-street recruitment...

James comments on its purpose in giving feedback, which it certainly does, but then:

I'm slightly more sceptical of some of the other aspirations for the Panel -

"[to contribute] to democratic renewal and [to encourage] participation in democratic processes"

I thought that was achieved by voting, and doesn't seem to be compatible with the stated utility of the panel "as a vehicle for developing public relations". You can petition the electorate, or persuade the electorate. Doing both at exactly the same time seems a tricky proposition.

So, is this Citizens Jury a legitimate representative body?

The jurors are recruited to be a cross-section of the community: the Jury is said to ‘reflect’ the local population, rather than to ‘represent’ it.

In other words, recommending policy without being elected but with the virtual guarantee of recommnedations being adopted - and leading this process are "facilitators":

The role of the facilitators is to enable the jury to complete its task, not to lead the discussion in any particular direction.

Officially. But the facilitators are also charged with this task [taken from N10's guidelines for the Nine Regional Focus Groups, i.e. the EU concept of regions]:

"Participants will be given facts and figures that are independently verified, they can look at real issues and solutions, just as a jury examines a case. And where these citizens juries are held the intention is to bring people together to explore where common ground exists."

Independently verified by whom? By "experts" approved by the ODPM from whence came Julia Middleton [there are various links halfway down this post on her organization].

Now if you explore CP's training of "facilitators", assuming this is from where they received their training, snippets emerge. Candidates are trained to lead beyond authority, to seize an issue and lead in it, that is, to become facilitators.

And the skill in this is to be able to persuade without coercing, to leave participants feeling that the three-card trick was actually democratically arrived at and government can then point to a democratically arrived at decision.

One of the central motifs in the whole EU drive is "legitimacy".

This is why Lisbon was, why the referenda were, why Brown won't put a referendum on the EU to the British electorate. It's not correct that Westminster acts lawlessly - they are obsessed with being able to claim they acted lawfully.

Hang on a minute - why would a government need to spend "£45,000 to run the jury", muliplied by however many Citizen Panels there are [by page 10 of Google, they're still being listed]? Why the expense?

The illusion of legitimacy.

Now look at the whole mechanism. There is a group of approved citizens who, for a start, have been raised above the common throng to oversee local government policy, traditionally the preserve of councils. But councils are corrupt, incompetent, in thrall to paymasters and political parties, aren't they?

So The Select Body of Citizens feels it's doing important work and that government will listen to their recommendations. Hell, isn't that what we're all going on about - government listening? And they do listen - to the decision the facilitator is able to get out of the forum.

The leader poses questions, people respond, the recalcitrant or obstinate objector is bypassed and the decision is arrived at. Any trained teacher could tell you about this technique and as a former Head, I was on my guard against it - the others are tacitly encouraged, by raised eyebrow or other non-verbal expression, to either approve or disapprove and always there is the desire to please by the honoured citizen who, don't forget, has already been preselected.

But what if the citizen selection process didn't completely work, what if someone has the temerity to ask: "What is your legitimacy?"

Here is an example of this occurring. John Trenchard mentioned Englisc Fyrd, who quoted:

And yet another blog has noticed CP. This speech by CP head honcho Julia Middleton. And I quote:

No region and no part and no part of any country are ever going to go anywhere until it manages to engage the talented.

and:

The other day I was in a meeting in Belfast, I have no idea how I ended up in this meeting. It was a really wonderful meeting with about fifteen people there. When we were really getting going there was this little jerk in the corner, who kept piping out “What is your legitimacy?” and we all said “just shut up” and we kept on going.

and:

Anyway, he went on and on about our legitimacy to such an extent that in the end I turned to him and said “Let me just be absolutely clear that at this meeting we are not trying to allocate any public funding, nor are we trying to make any public policy.Actually in this meeting are the fifteen people that are the only people in Northern Ireland that have done anything for the homeless in Northern Ireland for the last 10 years. That is our legitimacy and it is a totally compelling and overwhelming legitimacy”.

Note the sleight of hand - the legitimacy question wasn't directed at the 15 people. It was directed at Julia Middleton and Common Purpose. Note the disdain for dissent - "just shut up", "jerk". That says a lot.

and then the anti-democratic agenda stall is laid out:

I believe with a passion that there is a democratic space. There is an enormous space in it for politicians. They call the shots. They are accountable. That is right and proper. But there is another space for leaders of civil society.

Coming back to James' verbatim text of the process on waste recycling in Bristol - read through it and make up your own mind about how far this discussion was "not led".

Citizens Connect is different and yet along the same lines, in this case citizens connecting directly with the government electronically but not face to face [Micro-Control 7], on whom Englisc Fyrd writes, [when looking at the Dome question]:

But with millions pouring down the drain (well into a few people's pockets) an attempted diamond heist and daily financial craziness at the Dome, no one really noticed anything unusual when Camelot, whoever runs Common Purpose and Lord Falconer gave £2 million to Common Purpose to run a web site which links to the governments' sites, which is all Citizen's Connection is.

This is the government's thrust - circumventing the elected channels within the UK. Brown's own speech included:

So the citizens jury on crime will look at how we can empower people in their neighbourhoods to work with the police and other agencies to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour.

and:

It is a politics of common purpose, because our country is built on the fairness of the British people.

So, the juries produce "recommendations", of which James notes that there is a history of Jury recommendations being quite coercive on policy formulation [supported within the full text of Brown's speech] and not simply advisory. James further notes:

The whole terminology of "jury" and "witnesses" is misleading, as this is not really an antagonistic process. There is no judge, no prosecution or defence, but rather an agenda to be agreed. In fact the use of the trapping of a proper jury are just theatre to mask the manipulative nature of the exercise.

There was a similar process, sometime earlier, when the leading figures in the Scottish Arts were led in a "debate" which was not a debate:

After an obviously unwanted debate (chaired by Mrs. Jack McConnell, Labour Party) in which the audience clearly did not accept what they were told, the final words from Seona Reid (then Director of the SAC) conveyed the impression that some form of transaction had taken place, that "SAC was working to ensure the arts were incorporated into the range of Government policies - but arts organisations and artists needed to play their part in making this a reality".

So let's summarize. The ODPM trains pre-existing "facilitators" and from whence are they drawn? Well, you tell me - where would you expect such leadership to come from?

"Would an organization of such magnitude as Common Purpose, whose whole purpose is to have people in place in all regions of the EU-UK for the purpose of "leading beyond authority" and given the government's own first thrust into regional assemblies which was soundly defeated, would CP stand back from these Citizen's Juries and play no leadership role whatever?"

There's a little matter they seem to have forgotten though, as James notes:

But hold on a minute - this is essentially what Councillors are supposed to do isn't it? Scrutiny of legislation and local service provision?

So James asks what such "Citizens' Juries'" prime directives really are:

Well let's look at the originators of the Citizens' Jury concept (and owners of the US trademark) - what do they have to say?

"Democracy is based on the idea that elected officials and public agencies carry out the will of the people. But the manipulative nature of our election campaigns and the great power of lobbyists make it doubtful that government policy is based upon the wishes of a well-informed and engaged public. Public opinion polls can tell what people quickly think in response to telephoned survey questions. The actual "will of the people" may be something quite different."

Let me have a go at translating that: The people (that's you and me) don't know what we want if you ask us, and we're easily swayed by slick election campaigns. In fact we need someone else to tell us what we really need.

But even beyond circumventing elected authorities, there has to be some further point to it. It has to be something more than just "legitimacy".

Helpful in understanding this is the Carpathian Foundation's tagline "five nations, one community" and that is an indicator or what is going on. With its "Carpathian Cross-border European Citizens’ Panel", the purpose is clear - to empower sections of the citizenry, handpicked and vetted for affiliations, in the upper AB socio-economic groups, in geographical divisions which do not correspond to national boundaries.

That is - the EU is circumventing national and traditional local government to indirectly implement policy.

You might like to read the Micro-Control series on this blog through the search at the top left and it goes into aspects of Common Purpose's common purpose of setting up regional leadership under Westminster, which in turn has signed Lisbon and is firmly on the EU path, a point few dispute today.

The very first warning sign for me, in James' post, of the stink of CP was in the words:

"ethnicity, sexual orientation and whether you consider yourself to be transgendered".

Excuse me but how exactly do these details reflect on waste recycling in Bristol, a matter supposedly thrashed out in local council meetings?

Chair of New Deal for Community in Liverpool quoted the advice given to Franklyn D Roosevelt when he set up his own New Deal:

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial."

It's the process of diverting and hijacking the agenda of what began in a well meaning way, of harnessing a pre-existing desire in the community and giving it to them in your own way. The idea of citizens having a say is admirable.

But to implement it, it can only be done with government assistance and governments, especially of the Brown ilk, are not noted for divesting themselves of either power or funding unless there is a common purpose. A Roosevelt Justice, quoted from the same source above, said:

"The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

Well meaning people are often naive [e.g. the development of the atom bomb] and this is the genesis of PC and from where the diversion and hijacking come. There are a great many out there less altruistic, less naive and all too willing to harness buzzwords to pursue entirely different agendas.

[shipping forecast] on radio 4 this evening

If you're not a Brit, it's difficult to explain the hypnotic, reassuring comfort, in the wee hours, of the shipping forecast. Oh how I want to hear it again.

Picture this - you're ready for the next week, you've bathed, you've packed, you're in bed as snug as a bug in a rug with the bedside lamp on, the pips go for midnight and then the news and a light discussion programme.

By 00:45, your light might be out and you listen, drowsily, as church bells start to peal and then, at just before 00:48 comes some stately sailing music, then, in a dignified, clear voice, speaking at near dictation speed [speak it out to yourself as you read and you'll see what I mean], something similar to this earlier forecast from today is given:

And now the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office, on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, at 1725 on Sunday 09 December 2007.

There are warnings of gales in Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger Thames Dover Wight Portland Plymouth Biscay Fitzroy Sole Lundy Fastnet Irish Sea Shannon Rockall and Malin.

The general synopsis at midday:

Low Forties 976 losing its identity. Low southern england 975 expected northern germany 996 by midday tomorrow. Atlantic high moving slowly northeast, expected south Fitzroy 1032 by same time.

The area forecasts for the north-east in the next 24 hours:

Forties:

Cyclonic 7 to severe gale 9 becoming northerly 5 to 7. Rough or very rough, occasionally high at first. Rain or showers. Moderate or good.

Cromarty Forth Tyne:

Northeast 7 to severe gale 9 backing northwest 5 to 7. Rough or very rough, occasionally high at first. Rain or showers. Moderate or good.

Dogger:

Cyclonic 3 or 4 becoming northerly 5 to 7, occasionally gale 8. moderate increasing rough or very rough. Rain or showers. moderate or good.

Fisher German Bight Humber:

Cyclonic becoming northerly 5 to 7, perhaps gale 8 in Humber later. moderate or rough, occasionally very rough. Rain or showers. moderate or good.

That concludes the area forecast for the north-east at 1725 on Sunday 09 December 2007.

Understand that there are another dozen or so areas also given. The hypnotic part is the repetitive nature of the area forecasts, always in the same order, always with the same BBC intonation.

Lying there in bed, your house around you, it's a great comfort to know that whatever might be the trouble in the political and economic world out there, the BBC still continues to give the shipping forecast, come what may.

[illegal immigrant] paddington to be arrested

[Head shakes]:

Paddington Bear will be arrested by police and interrogated over his immigration status in a book marking his 50th birthday.

In the book, to be published next June on the anniversary of his debut in A Bear Called Paddington, the stowaway from Peru will be interviewed about his right to remain in England.

After being arrested, Paddington has no papers proving his identity, because his Aunt Lucy had arranged for him to hide on a ship's lifeboat from Peru after she went to live in a home for retired bears in Lima.

Sigh.

[burger king] new taste sensation

I used to visit Burger King in Lewisham because:

1. The McDonalds was too far up the street to go to;

2. It was close to Boots and WH Smith;

3. I had hunger attacks at the time;

4. I was able to turn a blind eye to the lack of hygiene and surly service in Burger Kings - many can't.

Whilst conceding that the Whopper is not a bad concept for a burger, I don't know about a whopper's rubber wrapping being part of the burger itself:

"My third bite into the burger, it was just a foreign taste," he said. "It was a very sour, bitter sort of taste. It almost had a numbing sensation.

"As I went to bite down a little harder, I felt a rubber grind in between my teeth. I saw it half in my mouth, half hanging out. It was an immediate sick-to-my-stomach type of thing."

Yes folks, it's Burger King's latest - the South-Western Condom Whopper. Actually, the only fast food place worse was Wimpy's, which ruined Paris for me when I ate one of their offerings in Britain just before the ferry trip across to France. Terry Durack, Glenfiddich Restaurant Critic of the Year, said of Wimpy:

"Cheap, but nasty. My cast-iron stomach turns and runs screaming out of the door."

One night in Paris on a whirlwind tour and I spend it in a Paris hotel room on the toilet!

Of course, I'm sure Burger King have improved in your part of the world although this survey, putting Burger King at the top of the unhygienic league, makes bleak reading. And in case you think that that survey was a one off, try this one.

But if you really want to read about some gross food being served, try this. By the way, I forgot to wish you a nice Sunday lunch today.

[guilt of banks] teens sent into debt

There are many who puzzle at my constant attacks on the banks, particularly central banks. Many blogfriends humour me, most ignore these posts.

[I suggest you cover the children's eyes before reading on.]

When I suggest that "sub-prime lending" is simply a euphemism for an appallingly socially destructive phenomenon perpetrated on the weaker members of society by cynical, sardonic greedy vultures displaying utter indifference to the social collapse which is the only possible consequence of this unsustainable policy, I'm putting it mildly.

It is Sunday, after all so I shan't follow up with Andrew Johnson's "viper" epithet.

Just look at this:

Easy credit may leave thousands of teenagers unable to pay their bills, as new figures show that people who apply for credit in the lead-up to Christmas are most likely to default on repayments.

A cocktail of poor financial literacy and savvy marketing means that young people without assets or stable employment are racking up tens of thousands of dollars in debt, leaving them facing defaults or even bankruptcy.

In the past three years, the highest number of credit applications in any month has been November — 9.2% compared to the monthly average of 8.3%. Along with December, November leads to the highest number of defaults (3.1% of applications compared to an average of 2.7%), according to figures from credit reporting agency Veda Advantage.

One debt collector said he knew of a major bank that had extended thousands of dollars of credit to customers, knowing they would struggle to pay the debt. "There are people who get limits who quite clearly ought not, and my understanding is the banks have a policy of 'extend credit, get the money out' and just wear the default rate," he said.

"Some of the poor credit of the people was a bit frightening — people even given credit when they're unemployed."

This is simply wicked. Unscrupulous, power dressed men and women have been allowed to run riot in society and turn Christmas into a season of debt and delayed misery.

They should be rounded up and transported to Elba or similar, at their own expense. Whatever happened to decency, to the old Arthur Lowe type of bank manager who refused to lend if your collateral was not up to scratch?

Where did integrity go?

[christmas] the 2007 assault is blunted

Warning - blogger about to get decidedly caustic and frothing at the mouth

Despite this sort of Marxist, PC, humanistic, atheistic shameful behaviour from people who have simply taken leave of their senses:

A primary school has scrapped its Christmas carols concert in favour of scaled-back shows featuring nursery rhymes and Madonna's Papa Don't Preach. Disenchanted parents have written to Premier John Brumby - who called on schools to embrace the festive season last month - seeking his intervention.

The latest furore follows attempts to ban some shopping centre Santas from shouting "Ho Ho Ho", as fears grow that Christmas is under threat. Ringwood East's Tinternvale Primary prompted the anger after replacing the long-running concert with individual class productions.

Songs in the new-look mini-performances include a reworked version of Papa Don't Preach - a song about illegitimate pregnancy.

... and despite this being the season, in recent years, for the ridiculous winterval substitution, a remarkable number of MSM sites are carrying that dreaded word:

Christmas

... and not only that, they're calling the winter/new year tree the:

Christmas Tree

... again. Could Jesus of Nazareth be making a comeback? Yo and really cool things! [Don't want to be prevocative or anything now.]

[voting systems] which is the fairest

Just been glancing at the election results for Bennelong, in Australia:

Raw results

PETERS, Lindsay [The Greens 4,811 5.53]
HOWARD, John Winston [Liberal 39,551 45.49]
McKEW, Maxine [Labor 39,408 45.33]

Two party preferred

HOWARD, John Winston [Liberal 42,252 48.60]
McKEW, Maxine [Labor 44,684. 51.40]

Interesting what the results would have been under a few common voting systems:

Single Transferable Proportional Representation

Of course the vote was set up head to head so comparisons cannot really be made but assuming there were maybe seven Liberals and seven Labor on the card, along with a dozen others and assuming Bennelong was to return 9 members, with a quota of 10%, then Liberal and Labour would get their 4 each on the second ballot and the Greens would return one member.

First Past the Post

John Howard would be returned.

Preferential Voting

Maxine McKew has actually been returned.

In this blogger's view, FPTP is the least fair system and STPR the fairest. However, STPR needs a single constituency element in it to make members accountable locally and this complicates the issue.

[country quiz] five curlier ones

Can't attribute this Wiki photo because it is one of the countries in the quiz.

1. It is long and thin and near the coast. It actually elected a communist leader years ago and is next door to a country whose sporting colours are light blue and white. It might sound cold but in fact it crosses many climactic regions from warm to cool.

2. This country exports water and electricity, it can get down to minus 7, Celsius, during winter, is in the British Commonwealth, it is 2/5 Catholic and the currency is the loti.

3. This country is long and sprawls across many islands, as well as half of another big island it disputes with its large southern neighbour. Bombings there have tarnished its image of exotic South East Asia. The wife of its former corrupt President was known for her thousands of pairs of shoes.

4. This country is hot and has an aging leader whom half the world accepts and the other half thinks is a madman who sponsors terrorists. It was the scene of huge battles in the Second World War, mainly between the Australians and Germans. From its desert you could sail across the large sea to Europe.

5. This country also has an aging leader and is famous for its cigars and lovely beaches. It is a very poor country under its system of government and it was nearly place for the start of World War 3 in 1962.

Don't peep now!

Answers in reverse order: abuc, aybil, senippilihp, ohtosel, elihc

[blogfocus saturday] tales of day to day life

Day to day events in people's lives can often be eminently readable:

Firstly, Ubermouth, yes she of the four letter words, gives us a gentler picture of life here on her farm [above]:

This is in the entrance of the woods, where I often walk when I am stressed out. It is nice to be able to have ample room to walk about , knowing that you will never bump into another soul.

One day I tripped over a tree root and sprained my ankle. Mum had to fetch the wheelbarrow ( which I sat in) and cart me home that way. LOL

On the farm we have a variety of natural growing berries, chestnuts, holly as well as bluebells, honeysuckle bushes, hedgerows, snow drops etc.

Trees surround the property on all sides so, as you can see, I am totally cut off from civilization ( which I prefer). I can, and sometimes do , walk about in my knickers. I often blare my music and dance at midnight and have complete control of my privacy and surroundings.

Not that I am anti- social. :)

2. Shani tells the story of the blown fuse:

I very quietly and calmly started working back through the events... and then I asked him to check the fuse box.. which he declaimed angrily was of no use... but he would anyway....

Low and behold - it all started working again (except the blown light bulb!).

The lamp had blown first, everything else being a coincidence...

So we rang the book club and yelled at them, a combined effort - because obviously it was all their fault.. ended up with the books at a heavy discount and on cessation of the conversation ----- fell about laughing...

3. Oestrebunny tells the history of her schooldays as they really were:

Secondary school things get easier. They usually do. When all my friends were getting braces to fix their teeth I didn't need too. I filled out a bit and looked more like a person, less like a lanky baby deer. I made new friends and was put into the groups that best suited my intellect. I suppose I'm actually quite intelligent when I apply myself.

I didn't really have many problems in secondary school. One insult from a boy who had particularly large ears, particularly stands out. He called me 'thunder thighs', charming. Way to blow a teenage girls self esteem and imply that she is anything but stick thin.

Which coming from him was a bit rich really. Given the right wind conditions I have no doubt that if he'd flapped those enormous ears of his, he'd have soon taken off.

4. Betamum explains blogging epithets:

Ben was standing over my shoulder the other day, watching me as I caught up with all the postings from fellow bloggers.

He asked why I would want to have anything to do with someone called Potty Mummy, potties being a part of his long-forgotten past, and not a word which can mean two things. No-one says “potty” to mean slightly crazed, not around here anyhow.

So I explained that people use nick-names or made up names when they blog on the internet.
And in the course of explaining this, I mentioned my own blogging handle.

He was silent for a moment, in a deeply confused way.

And then he said,

“I thought you were called Better Mum!”

4. Finally, Sean Jeating is caught in one of those meme things:

fact 4: books. There are about 3,000 in the shelves around me, and - I did even read them. :)
Being asked which one I'd take "to the island", I could not decide and would therefore prefer lots of papers and pens, so that I could write the stories I want to read, myself. :)

Another day in the life ...

[scrooge] bah, it's all humbug

Selfishness

Matrimony has one thing going for it, apart from the joy of family - it keeps a man from indulging himself.

Though he might kick against it and grab his chances when he can, his kids keep drawing him back and he gets used to living with a bunch of other people in the house - he knows the word "compromise" and what it truly means, even down to bathroom availability.

That seems to me to be good ongoing training. It most certainly builds character and keeps him on the straight and narrow. It also has health benefits. Seems to me that, once having broken the matrimonial harness, we begin a downwards spiral towards self-centredness and self-gratification.

Pity the young hedonist who sees a woman and beds her, sees another and beds her and then tries to justify his position. Because what he's doing is killing part of himself as a person and slowly becoming more sociopathic and less tolerant of any but his own needs and desires, though he'll convince himself he's simply being altruistic to more people.

It's an illusion. He is on the way to becoming a satyr. After all, who was it said:

The body of a hedonist is the coffin of a dead soul.

Pity the old hedonist too who has broken free of wife and family and now can never get back into it.

He meets a lovely lady and they seem tailor made for each other. All her quirks seem unimportant at this point and he falls in love with her, the way she seems to have fallen for him.

Compromise

They enter the era of compromise but this can't go on forever. As ardour cools and little habits start to become annoying, thereafter it becomes a question of luck for the two of them.

Example - there was a girl sitting next to me yesterday [and as you know, I like a cooler room with some flow-through ventilation at all times]. I asked her if she wasn't cold and she said she liked it that way.

Uh-huh, just like me. She and I could do business.

Now, a different girl in the room whom I would give anything to marry, she was so lovely; however, she took the opposite point of view. She's a "seal all the doors and windows and seal in the coughing, spluttering sickness with it" type and she was feeling sick too.

Unfortunately, though she would have been my first choice, the other would have been a better bet.

I haven't explained myself well. All right, here's another example.

Basically, there are some things which can't be compromised on and the air we breathe is one of them. I have a lady client and it's a constant battle with her. We like each other immensely but she sits opposite me and asks me to close the door but I have to have it partially open because the room becomes so stuffy and the eyes start to water after ten minutes.

So I close it.

Ten minutes later, she starts coughing and her eyes start watering. I point this out, open the door - give her a towel to put over her feet, she wraps herself up against the cold but the sickness does disappear. The rest of the session is spent like this, trying to find a compromise position between her needs and mine.

Next girl is a different proposition. She likes the air as I do and the session goes smoothly.

So imagine this was a marriage situation. For example - she likes seafood and has a habit of leaving prawn shells everywhere. The fridge smells of it and it's awful. Or what about a girl who's crazy for cats and kisses them, then expects me to kiss her? No wonder I was always sick.

You can speak about compromise until you're blue in the face but what can one do here? Now I expect a married person reading this would think I was so self-centred and it's true - that's what escaping matrimony does to you, I'm sure.

When the two go in opposite directions

There was once a woman I was involved with who'd been married years earlier to my accountant. He'd remained the same, year in, year out. He had his circle and his cycle, he liked skiing [she didn't] and so on. She got into astrology, joined a group whom she began to bring into the family home for conferences and it sent the hubby round the bend.

What to do in that situation? Naturally, they divorced.

I do accept Dale O'Leary's view:

The "family" in all ages and in all corners of the globe can be defined as a man and a woman bonded together through a socially approved covenant of marriage to regulate sexuality, to bear, raise, and protect children, to provide mutual care and protection, to create a small home economy, and to maintain continuity between the generations, those going before and those coming after.

It is out of the reciprocal, naturally recreated relations of the family that the broader communities—such as tribes, villages, peoples, and nations—grow.

Yes, I really believe it's the only sustainable way to live [let's just agree to disagree here] but the barriers to making it work are awesome.

Christmas and New Year

I can't stand the commercialism of this season and am doing everything humanly possible to stop people buying me anything. But it's impossible.

For example, the Vice-Deans and Dean, I just know they're quietly expecting something and I know certain clients are going to feel duty bound to offer me something. I'd prefer just to have a coffee with them. Seriously.

Selfish? Maybe it is but I look at Sally in Norfolk's comment about being stressed out by the Christmas pressure and I ask:

"For what to do this each year?"

[grub street] fat cats at it again

The Grubby People are at it again:

Sainsbury's and Asda have admitted fixing the price of milk and cheese following an inquiry by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The supermarkets, along with a number of dairy firms, have agreed to pay fines totalling at least £116m. Cases against Tesco and Morrisons will continue after no deal was struck.

The OFT said that its evidence found that while dairy product prices went up after the collusion, the price received by farmers did not increase.

Don't you just love that - the watchdog makes a deal with the firms who are being fined for making a deal. So who are the Grub Family here?

This is the downside of capitalism - cabals, trusts and price-fixing. Not a lot can be done really. At what point can a government step in and prevent mergers?

Their answer, of course - when it threatens to restrain free trade but what is free trade anyway other than cutting your rivals out of the market? The strongest survives and then it's irrelevant if the monopoly is state or private - the fat cat still pocket the dosh.

[regions] only within the national whole

We're going to keep blogging on this thing. It's as simple as this - there are democratically elected governments, yea, even the traitor Brown ... and then there are the euphemistically named qangos and NGOs. Behind them is the money.

Only a madman would speak out against this real power. Call me mad. Here is the latest, from the CEP:

So it would appear that Peter Davidson (who sits on the governing body of Unlock Democracy) sees the destruction of England as a nation - or indeed Britain - a desirable outcome.

I suspect that this is his website, on which he explains:

I would also endorse the proposal that the Committee of the Regions should be elevated in stature from the toothless body it currently represents to become the second legislative chamber of Europe.

Toque quotes author Frederick Forsyth:

[He] was once approached by the East Midlands Regional Assembly to become an ambassador for the region. His reply was a joy to read:

Regionalism, behind its mask of local democracy, enhanced prosperity for all, but in truth standing for millions more unaccountable gravy-slurping jobsworths, has got to fool enough of the people enough of the time…

But you run into a group of people far more numerous than yourself, just as committed to the retention of England as you are to its disappearance, just as smart and just as moneyed. Before the fight is over you and yours will have learned the hard way that this old country of ours is not yet prepared to be led into the knacker’s yard.

In the spirit of Frederick Forsyth I respond to the regionalists over at Our Kingdom:

Phil Davis in the Guardian signed off his Guardian article by informing us that he ‘chairs the Campaign for the English Regions’. [I was] shocked because I thought we’d buried that particular organisation when we were victorious in the North East referendum, so I emailed Phil who told me:

Nationalism is not an ideology, but a disease (of the soul)…Hope you recover...

[S]uch a statement shows contempt not just for the Scots and Welsh - who have recently voted for national government of their own - but also for the majority of the world’s population who elect their government along national lines.

Toque refers to the North-East in particular and here's an interesting thing. I myself have been extolling the virtues of Northumbria but there is one distinct difference. My Northumbria is under English control, it's part of a greater England, of which it is an earldom. Even that stout yeoman, Englisc Fyrd, remembers the true regionalism with affection.

The neo-regionalists, on the other hand, are under the control of the EU monster, an alien seed seeking to insinuate itself into someone else's country..

That distinction makes all the difference in the world. If you look at the flag above, which requires the Northumbrian colours somewhere in it, it is quartered with the English flag, not the EU's.

And yet the EU seeks to hijack this vague nationalism and somehow twist it into a version of itself. We need to be on our guard about quislings within our borders twisting the structure to suit themselves, an analogy yesterday being the cult leader who tries to redefine something which requires no redefinition, the ulterior motive being personal power and control.

He does it by appealing to vague innate feelings within each person, harnessing them, redirecting them and then carrying the person away on a tide of emotion. Pure 1930s all over again.

Interesting that I'm integrally involved in "the region as part of the nation" over here where I live and the notion of the region as part of and a major contributing factor to the national whole is a process which has very nearly been reachieved. We were discussing this only yesterday in the light of the different post-election political map.

In every nation, let it be the same but let artificial constructs like the CFR controlled SPPNA [which Bush, Martin and the Mexican allowed into being in March, 2005] and the EU monster go the way of all things.

[facebook] nice to see it confirmed

All that needs to be said about this has already been said. Do not join Facebook unless:

1. You would like your private details leaked and shared with government;

2. You plan never to leave Facebook [as it's near impossible].

Have a good day.

[omaha shootings] three ways to view them

Before we even start, the shootings were tragic and our hearts go out to the victims and their families.

After that comes the inevitable analysis and this falls into three camps:

1. Those who read no further than than news sources:

A man opened fire with a rifle at a busy department store Wednesday, killing eight people before taking his own life in an attack that made holiday shoppers run screaming through a mall and barricade themselves in dressing rooms. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

The gunman left a suicide note that was found at his home by his mother, said a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak. TV station KETV reported that the note said he wanted to "go out in style."

... and conclude from that that America needs to revoke the gun laws in the light of yet another senseless citizen shooting.

2. Those who read no further than than news sources, patriots draped in the American flag, defending the constitutional rights of all citizens to bear arms. They will say that the Omaha shootings are not related to the gun laws issue. Already on this blog there's been a lively discussion about these laws here and here.

3. Those who are prepared to read far more widely than news sources and then filter the mass of material through the filter of past substantiation and logic. For such people as these, the name Omaha is quite well known in a number of contexts.

The Franklin Cover-up is well worth a look, particularly its being ruled as a hoax then that overturned nine years later, together with the MK Ultra cover-ups [see either orthodox sources like the Church hearings or read books like Trance Formation and Thanks for the Memories] which point to Offutt Air Force Base, near Omaha, as one ongoing source of human misery.

In the light of all that, it is scarcely surprising that Omaha hosted the latest in the attempts to disarm America. If your mind is so constructed that you can reject 100% of this material out of hand, then I have one question. O'Brian's and Taylor's books make quite detailed and specific allegations against, among others, Kissinger and Cheney.

Why, in a litigious society like America, did these two statesmen not act immediately to slap a libel action on the two authoresses for gross defamation and fabrication against the United States itself? After all, Bing Crosby and others labelled the Church hearings as treasonous [though the allegations were later substantiated].

Why has all this material not been debunked? And while we're at it, why hasn't the testimony of Paul Bonacci and Johnny Gosch been finally and irrevocably shown to be demonstrably false? Those who point to the 1990 grand jury judgement that it was a hoax and Bonacci's subsequent imprisonment fail to mention the 1999 Judge Urbon award of $1 million to this star witness who was supposed to have perpetrated the hoax.

So, coming back to the original question of gun laws, if I were an American and I'd seen all this testimony about my gallant leadership and how the organs of state are utilized [not a pun on Cheney], I'd feel the right of Americans to bear arms in that Most Dangerous Game - Life in America - is a most fundamental and necessary right indeed.

Interesting that these tragic shootings took place about the same time as this.

[december 5th] day for me to remember

The first thought which comes into my head regarding my mother is "energetic", energetic to a fault.

She'd never sit still. If we were watching the football, she'd be bustling round doing things and giving scornful glances as if to say: "You great lugs, sitting there when you should be up working." Didn't matter if it was a night match, it was the same.

If we went, as a family, which we didn't often, to someone's birthday or to dinner, it would be off with the coat and gloves and into the kitchen to help, often reaching for a tea towel before anyone said: "No, no, you're a guest." No one ever did say that because she'd have it all done with whilst they were still talking. They weren't fools.

This attitude of wanting to have the thing done and onto the next job has come down to me and I can't help wanting things settled, for example in Blogpower, so that we can get onto the next issue. I took less money for my last car for precisely that reason - I just wanted the thing over and done with.

She was canny as well - there was no way to fool her and when someone came at her with a tall story, the wry lift of the eyebrow was usually enough. She adored children which was just as well because they were her job and there are many today who look back on their mothercraft nurse with affection and a little awe.

The awe was because she was a stickler for the old ways. The bathwater was never deeper than six inches for toddler safety, one had to learn to say no to a child to bring the child up with good values and yet she never laid a hand or slapped any child except me - once - when I was two and pulled the knobs of the radio. Even then it was a tap, otherwise I would have remembered.

This is going to sound stupid but I'm typing this now at the table, rather than in the armchair because I half suspect she might be watching me slouching. Father too.

Despite this, she wasn't stern and if I was looking for a way to describe her, the old military rule of "fair, firm and friendly" is closest to the mark though I'd say loving rather than friendly. The type of love which never speaks but one knows it's there. Sense of humour too. The wry grin was her trademark.

If either my father or I accused her of something - throwing out a piece of equipment or washing a motor, she'd say; "Oh yes, all of that and more." She couldn't be insulted, she couldn't be hurt or so it seemed and in a male household, she held her own. In fact she held it together.

I always had to look someone in the eye if I was speaking to him, I never ate with my mouth full, used a knife and fork properly, wasn't allowed to slouch in a chair and so on. Came in handy during my military days later.

On such occasions as today, there is a tendency to wax lyrical, to eulogize. I shan't do that because she wouldn't. And yet she was as susceptible to the compliment, the flowers, the attention, as any woman. To be taken out was her delight, even if she could have cooked it better herself.

That was the other thing I took for granted - I just thought all women cooked superbly until I got into the wife business. Then I realized how spoiled I'd been for grub. In those days it was always the heavy, cast iron pressure cooker for the veg and the grill for the meat. Except on Sundays when it was the roast and I couldn't get enough of those tatie quarters.

As you'd expect, the house was clean enough to eat your meal off the floor and it was shoes off at the door if the weather was inclement. Only in Russia are they more obsessive about shoes inside. The venetian blinds and curtain rails constantly needed cleaning and that was my father's job. Another thing he was roped in to do was to wash up after the meal. This was never questioned and sometimes they got me into it too.

On our motoring holiday, she'd sometimes get me in free overnight wherever we were and if wasn't clean enough, that was the end. One day she sold our house because the price was right. More than right - it was apparently way over the odds. Both my father, from his work and me from university, came home that Thursday to discover we were moving.

Interesting about my dad that he put up with all this sort of thing but I suppose he knew when he was onto a good thing and her sixth sense for a good deal never, in my experience, turned out to be wrong.

Naturally, with such a go-getter, we could only take so much before we ran for cover - my father to the workshop and me to a friend's. Never fazed my mother though and the meal was ready when we returned. That's one reason I love the grandmothers over here.

They have no mental equipment to enable them to perceive that someone might not want to have their chunky broth and torn off hunk of bread. It's just taken as read and a person must have rocks in the head to refuse a grandma's cooking in this country. It's just so delicious. So it was with her.

Not that she ate this herself though. Oh, no, she was of the sparrow variety - a nibble of salad here, a couple of mandarins there - well eight or nine, actually - and the olives which I never got to love, though I can eat them today if served.

Ice-cream was her Achilles' heel and if it was from an ice-cream shop, she was gone. In the later years, when she had lost a lot of her powers, the mention of ice-cream had the intellect alert and the smile would come to the face.

As you'd expect, she could not abide a fool nor amateur dramatics. One day when I came home from school with a nose which had been bleeding several hours, supported by two stout schoolmates, one on either side and I was deposited at our front door, my mother came out and told them: "Uh-huh. He'll live."

The schoolmates were mortified as my dramatics had been pretty effective. Once inside, it was time to drop the act and just clean up the nose. She wouldn't let me out to play though and had the doctor see to me next day.

She adored Yorkshire though it had nothing to do with her - she came from other parts [see photo above]. That was my father's thing. Didn't like the snow though and that was one reason for the move to Australia. I don't really know then, from whence I picked up my love of the Russian winter.

So here I am before you this evening, a product of many influences but most certainly of my my mother, whose birthday is today.

Happy birthday up there, mother. My underpants were clean on today, I promise. Yes, yes, I cleaned my teeth after supper. Yes, I've done my homework. Yes I know I had two girls here now cleaning the flat and I could have saved the money but I'm not you, am I?

You were ... are ... a one-off.

[charisma] and the lure of the cult

Being an overweening egotist himself, this blogger can't understand the lure of the cult. At least he can understand it but can't feel the pull.

Remember the teen series Beverley Hills and how Kelly was lured into one of these cults run by one of her professors? [Yikes, Higham thinks ... there but for the grace ...]

Reminds this blogger of Jim Jones, of which one google entry opens:

This was a Christian destructive, doomsday cult founded and led by James Warren Jones (1931-1978).

Now there are a whole lot of things to say about this:

1. He used a sort of pseudo-Christianity as his springboard to lure people in. It was presented as Christianity for modern times, tuning in with many anomalies and vagaries in the bible and stressing the "free love" aspect, interpreting it as free sex, as distinct from the real Christian message of platonic love for one's fellow man, a completely different message.

Looking specifically at Jones:

His intention was to create an agricultural utopia in the jungle, free from racism and based on socialist principles. People who had left the organization prior to its move to Guyana told the authorities of brutal beatings, murders and of a mass suicide plan, but they were not believed.

And that's the key - what could have been a social experiment - inter-racial free love - became quasi-religious and the behaviour by no means matched the message. Also, there is always an element of socialism in these things. It's a mix of Christianity and Marxism, the former voluntary, the latter coercive. Dangerous brew.

2. There are distinct tendencies in such men [and it is usually but not always men]:

a. Egotistical yet personally not whole. Overcompensation for an inferiority complex [e.g. Charlie Manson];

b. Perceived as highly intelligent and well educated, concerning himself with the macro-issues of the world [either incapable or not interested in the day-to-day details of public life] and able to use articulate rhetoric to convey his message but when that message is analysed, it's found to have little actual substance.

As the most astute Agatha Christie observed, in N&M:

... carrying you away on a tide of emotion ...

c. Often with some sort of inner drive of a twisted nature, e.g. satyrism, lust for serial killing, whatever. In other words, possessed and a little other-worldly. As a sidelight, a good sign that the guy's finally gone over the edge is when he adopts the cassock, the robes, the one-piece garb, such as with Neo;

d. Needs a following to support and justify his excesses but once he has the following, not satisfied with the organization he's set up and feels the need for some sort of denouement [e.g. Manson and Jones];

e. Having had a tough time, e.g. Manson's time in prison and basically being, inside the psyche, a "wrong 'un". Look at such people in history, look, for example, at Clyde Barrow - look at his psychology. The correlations are uncanny;

f. Personally very dangeous if crossed and capable of turning savagely on former friends. See the Jonestown beatings as an example of those who dared to deviate or dissent.

3. The Method

He gathers followers through his charisma, his up front charm, his assiduous attention to women, knowing how to give the compliment and when to apply it and through offering a vision of a new world of love and peace where all the old muddling, hatreds and cruelty are all swept away and in its place some sort of utopia, of course with him as the head of it and his few "chosen" accolytes at his side - his henchmen and favourite concubines.

A Messiah fixation with a twist.

Another thing he does is identify "the enemy", i.e. any who have both the insight and the power to oppose and stymie him. His methods are not nice and there's no depth to which he will not stoop to silence dissent. As he becomes more powerful and more "family" join him, he sends them out to do the dirty work e.g. Manson again.

One method is to crucify the reputation of former accolytes who broke away. Now the very nature of this girl being an accolyte in the first place is that she has a screw loose and therefore she is not psychologically capable of opposing and only damages herself in the process, turning people against her.

Just been watching Die Hard again and it was a motif running through it. John McClane [Willis] was immediately viewed as a kook, a crazy, all sorts of things and why? Because he was presenting an idea, i.e. that a major hotel [citadel] had been taken over by terrorists, a concept which no one particularly wanted to believe.

Don't forget, his reputation had already been tarnished in his earlier gung ho ventures and he had a habit of seeing conspiracies which ultimately turned out to be so. People liked him personally but humoured him with his weird ideas. Analogously, don't forget Sackerson's blogname - They Laughed at Noah.

Back to our new Messiah. His theology, such as it is, is that Christ had a good idea going but didn't take care of the fine detail. He, the new cult Messiah, will supply that fine detail tuned into modern and future times and invokes all the religious and spiritual imagery, in other words, hijacking the "image" of the Christ, to add drive to his recruitment.

Whoa! That is seriously weird stuff. Not only that but as any real Christian can tell you, the central aspect is firstly redemption and secondly love your brother. In the message of Jones and other messiahs, there's no redemptive aspect - a warning bell for real Christians.

And now to the point of this post. What if a blogger knows one of these budding messiahs already? What if the great man is already inside the citadel, so to speak and is about to open his campaign? What should this blogger, as someone who instantly recognizes the type because he himself possesses many of the preconditional traits - what should he do?

Apart from posting a post like this, what should he do? Especially as he is now surely high on the hit list and expects his personal reputation to be tarnished very soon, most cogently? One of his own dear lady friends even suggested, some time back, that he should be sued for unsubstantiated remarks.

So what should he do?

[end of year] easy does it

I just said over at Blogpower and expand on it here that we shouldn't read too much into end of year blogging blues.

Many fellow bloggers are going into hiatus over the festive period and those downunder will go for their long break. It might look like the blogosphere's falling apart but it's not doing that.

There is weariness after a tough year and more than a little sickness, especially for me. My greatest concern is university end of year, with all its statutory requirements which are a pain in the neck. Blogposts are therefore, by definition, curtailed for now. My aim is one post in the morning and two in the evening until the week before Christmas.

I'm also going hell for leather on my four books, which are being condensed to three. I'd love to get them posted at my Lit blog before too long.

So, I'm not personally planning to go anywhere and my whole agenda for the next few weeks is to get out of things - academic pressure, buying of presents, pre-Christmas compulsory drinks and so on. My other agenda is to visit other blogs as much as I can and try to get a Blogfocus up soon.

[hawaii] calling russia

Now is this weird or is this weird? A New Englander, possibly to avoid leaf-peepers, settled at Maui and is writing of boogie-boarding:

"I don't see fins on you guys. Things in the water have fins. Things in the sky have wings."

Fortunately, in spite of his shamanic sense of metaphor, the know-it-all smartass in me was able to keep quiet, so we weren't kicked off the beach all together. Still, he was right. Even with a decent boogie board, it is tricky as hell to effectively move out there once you get past the white water... and ironically, with 5-15 foot waves, the white water is the part that frikkin' kicks your ass the most! So, I guess today's lesson is: If you're a crazy a-hole who likes to go boogie boarding in the rain, be sure to wear some fins.

So he's talking maybe 80 degrees, Fahrenheit, right? OK, so let me tell you that we're under snowdrifts here and it's minus 14 degrees just now and the sun went down an hour ago. What a world.

Possibly last post for the evening, people, Have to ease back into it, like.

[northumbria] remember the '19

Bamburgh Castle - site of the ancient capital of Northumbria - click to zoom

We don't really claim Cumbria, Westmorland or Lancashire, as shown on this map - the others are sufficient.

The year is 1019. Northumbria, now accepting its final role as an earldom, cedes its northernmost territory to Scotland and assumes its eternal and rightful place as part of England. The ancient Northumbrian flag is in the right sidebar and under it, the ancient Northumbrian Tartan.

From Lindisfarne to the Humber, from the sea to the West Riding - all are welcome guests to our fair earldom. Now there is a proposal for a new Northumbrian flag and yet an ancient one, taking into account its final historical status. That flag can be seen lower right here.

G-d save Northumbria and England. This blog now bends its knee and pays tribute to the honour of being considered a Northumbrian [please don't utter the term Northumberland] and thereby, an Anglian.