[them] out of the closet

Two emails arrived in the past week, one from Anon, he of the long, linked comments in the comments sections and another from a blogfriend of mine, asking who ‘Them’ is and what they do. The email subject line was ‘Conspiracy Theory’ which pretty well set the tone for any ensuing ‘discussion’.

This blog suggests that there is no conspiracy.

I don’t believe there are people working for their own ends, except in the context of working for a higher boss. Them, [third person plural], are simply sheep themselves, as we all are.

The last Bond film raises some good questions in a fictional setting. Who was behind Le Chiffre? Mr. White. Who was behind Mr. White? People like Dominic Greene. Who was behind Greene? Mathieu Amalric. Who was behind him? The film doesn’t say because it’s getting closer to the great houses and the franchise can’t afford to step on the real toes.

Who’s behind the great houses?

To me, conspiracy suggests some sort of joint action for their own goals. I suggest that these people, the Sutherlands and Mandelsons of the world, are just as much sheep in the hands of a different shepherd. So yes, they collude, just as Common Purpose graduates collude … but for a higher purpose.

People who suggest there is no collusion going on in the world make me smile. If there was no collusion, then what were the Roosevelt anti-trust acts? What is insider trading legislation for?

‘Them’ themselves, if they could be bothered with me at all, might be intrigued what explanation I could give to the sceptical reader as to who They are. Even usage of the third person plural pronoun, They know full well, is a bit of subterfuge.

I’d like to put an analogy here.

If you look at the situation in Darfur, you might be led to believe that there was evil going on there – babies’ eyes gouged out, people tied back to back and burned, villages razed and so on. If you look at Gary Brecher’s article on Algeria, you might be forgiven for thinking that some sort of evil was riding unchecked there.

Playing devil’s advocate, I could say no, it’s just classic psy-ops. After all, Machiavelli wrote, in 1513:

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.

John Arbuthnot Fisher, around 1902, wrote:

The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility.

Apologists for violence abound. Ian Hay wrote, in 1915:

War is hell and all that but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the small nuisances of peacetime.

Yep, like providing a comfortable lifestyle for your family and yourself, not having your home broken into, family members tied back to back, burned and babies’ eyes gouged out. Real nuisances, those.

What’s to recommend war? Profit, of course plus one other rarely defined and obnoxious element present in its implementers.

The government in Sudan maintains that the villagers were rebels and therefore fair game. The average Brit would look at this and Mugabe’s atrocities and really wonder about the overkill. If you had to raze whole villages for psy-ops, then why not just shoot the villagers and be done? Scorch the earth, yes but why the fiendish little embellishments? From where do they spring?

Similarly, if you have to have land clearances to rid your land of the pesky Scot, then why not just clear the land, why indulge in atrocities?

George Kennan touched on it in his first memoirs [1967], writing that he was:

… never pleased that the policy he influenced was associated with the arms build-up of the Cold War. In his memoirs, Kennan argued that containment did not demand a militarized U.S. foreign policy. Instead, "counterforce" implied the political and economic defense of Western Europe against the disruptive effect of the war on European society. Exhausted by war, the Soviet Union was no serious military threat to the United States or its allies at the beginning of the Cold War but rather a strong ideological and political rival.

Militarization was no strategic necessity but there were those, from Oppenheimer to Dulles [a known advocate of ascendant man] to the hawks of today who allude to patriotism and make a great show of it in visits to the troops, dropping into the earthy rhetoric and simplistic political analysis which is light years from the truth, to achieve the real goal, the goal of Them.

We come down to the same old argument we always have – is it the evil in men’s hearts at work or is there an actual evil, utilizing the evil in men’s hearts? When man is left unchecked – see Golding’s Lord of the Flies – he descends to evil, not the other way round.

Ephesians 6:12 is a good start as to who Them is.

The worldwide legion of corrupt people are not bound in any conspiracy – they’re just the front few lines of people lost to the seven deadly sins but their bosses are something a bit worse.

‘Business is business’ is a wonderful cover for the world’s atrocities.

Girls from the Ukraine and other eastern European nations are prostituted for your delectation, kept in slavery and fear for their lives and that’s just business, isn’t it? Hey, many of them want the chance to get out, you might say. People with nothing will do anything.

I suggest that this is no more nor less than the bestialization of both the victim and the punter. Men and women, unbound by any code except ‘do as thou will’ and ‘business is business’, as indifferent to the plight of the pensioner and common man as any RBS, Northern Rock or Freddie and Fanny big wig, are acting in the interests of evil, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

Buchan [The Thirty-Nine Steps, 1915] touched on it but didn’t go far enough:

Everything would be in the melting-pot, and they looked to see a new world emerge. The capitalists would rake in the shekels, and make fortunes by buying up wreckage. Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland. Take any big Teutonic business concern. If you have dealings with it, the first man you meet is Prince von und zu Something, an elegant young man who talks Eton-and-Harrow English. But he cuts no ice. If your business is big, you get behind him and find a prognathous Westphalian with a retreating brow and the manners of a hog. He is the German business man that gives your English papers the shakes. But if you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake.

I suggest that Buchan was wrong. When we get down to who the people behind the Morgans are, even behind the ‘rat faced men’, then we’re getting into a shaky area where many ideas abound.

Let me ask you a question.

During the rise and age of usury, enormous profits were made and then they just disappeared. Where to? Into the monarch’s coffers? Then why were the monarchs always near-impecunious? It doesn’t take that much research and almost no speculation to come up with the answer.

Let me change the topic completely.

How did the great houses get to be great in the first place, providing the ongoing leadership of Europe and the New World and the captains of industry? Who lent them the dosh in the first place and on what terms?

Leaving them aside and speaking completely hypothetically – if you wanted to be so filthy rich that you made Bill Gates look like a pauper, what would be the most lucrative areas? Surely land rentals, the war industry, prostitution, pornography [and by the way, which are the two most viewed categories of freely available internet porn?] drugs, oil, gas and the car industry, water and food monopolies and the hijacking of the green movement.

That’s whence it’s derived.

Now, if you’re a johnny-come-lately to these money spinners, how do you buy in? You don’t. The people with their hands on the wheel are not going to lightly relinquish that unless you come in with a lot of firepower, work for Them or pay your dues.

But how could you buy in, if you felt compelled to?

Well, you’d need a duplicitous, powerful person, used to funding both sides in a conflict, to provide you with sufficient resources to destabilize the powers that be. Why would he do this? Because he believes that only through constant conflict [Orwell’s 1984], by passing through the fire, will you achieve a higher consciousness. It’s the supremacy of the strong [Nietzsche, 1883]:

I teach you the superman. Man is something to be surpassed.

From the Tower of Babel until the present, this perverse philosophy has ruled in the corridors of power. Look at the currently disabled Particle Collider or go back to Oppenheimer’s 1945:

I am the destroyer of worlds.

Who is Them? It’s too dangerous to name, even for people like myself who couldn’t care less any more. But the manifestations of Them, the visible arms, can be spoken of, e.g. by Woodrow Wilson [The New Freedom, 1913]:

Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

Wilson again [1916]:

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

He should know. Lieutenants Warburg and House stood awfully close to the President throughout those dark years.

Churchill was referring specifically to communism and in reading his whole text, the following must be taken in context and yet the words are still powerful in a general sense [1920]:

From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxembourg, and Emma Goldman, this world wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.

I suggest that the people behind all major movements are many and varied but they’re bound by a common boss whom many of them don’t even recognize.

My personal interest has been in the area of mind-control and this plays a role in the plot of my three books. It is amusing in a way that the existence of MK Ultra, now mainstream knowledge, was both denied by the CIA and seen as fantasy by the general populace when they did get to hear parts of it.

I’ve known of it for years, as you only need to do the most cursory research to come up with DID and SRA. Occasionally, the real roots of this hell on earth surface briefly and only the perceptive will see them before they sink back below the surface again. Do a bit of research on Michael Aquino, heavily involved in this business in a minor role for the U.S. military and look at his night time business – the Temple of Set.

Here are some descriptions of Them:

… organized, secretive, and extremely wealthy at its upper levels. They are not stupid … … These are NOT nice people and they use and manipulate others viciously. They cut their eye teeth on status, power, and money ... … these are the most cautionary people on earth. They try to leave absolutely NO tracks … … They have infiltrated our government, and the governments of every country in the world, and well as the judicial and legal systems, the media and our financial institutions. They are ruthless, ambitious, and will not stop at killing those they oppose ... … They are arrogant, and this could be their downfall. They view the common man as "sheep" with no intelligence. They are full of pride, believe they are invulnerable and that any press about them is the equivalent of a gnat to be swatted. Arrogant people make mistakes, and they are becoming more blatant and open in recent years ... … Stopping pornography and child prostitution and drug smuggling and gun running would take a huge chunk out of their profits …

Let’s throw in Jenner’s comment [Feb. 23, 1954]:

The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization. It is a dynamic, aggressive, elite corps, forcing its way through every opening, to make a breach for a collectivist one-party state. It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government without our suspecting the change is underway. This secret revolutionary corps understands well the power to influence the people by an elegant form of brainwashing.

That was 1954. Now look at the state of Brown’s Britain today. ’Nuff said.

How do they succeed? George Kennan wrote [George Urban, "From Containment to Self-Containment: A conversation with George Kennan," Encounter, September 1976, p17], that:

The source of the problem is the force of public opinion, a force that is inevitably unstable, unserious, subjective, emotional, and simplistic. As a result, the U.S. public [and we can include Britain in Kennan’s analysis] can only be united behind a foreign policy goal on the "primitive level of slogans and jingoistic ideological inspiration."

People just do not analyse or look for the ulterior motive, preferring simplistic explanations reinforced by the so-called rational sceptics. The average person, beset by his own worries, induced by Them in the first place, manipulates him something awful.

How many people think there’ll be a revolution and anarchy in the streets, where pollies, pakis and the MCB are all summarily executed? How many people would welcome Brown and company being tried and executed for what they’ve done to Britain?

‘Them’ want nothing better. Then they can remove the final freedoms and create the martial state, the whole idea all along. The martyrdom of Brown will have served its purpose.

People are sheep and always have been. Any time they’ve tried to raise the state of humankind, it’s been hijacked by agents of Them. Returning to Bond, the finale, where he stands over the fallen Mr. White is a lovely moment, showing they can’t have it all Their own way but in the final analysis, it is a temporary, Pyrrhic victory and where is the James Bond who’s going to serve your best interests anyway?

Coming back to Anon, he’ll be posting a series of articles at this blog which will be linked in the sidebar. I’d ask you to also have a look at the series of articles at Pro-Liberi, especially the one on civilization. I'll link when it's up.

This blog is in pursuit of truth. I’ve tried to answer the question of Them but have no monopoly on truth. The truth is discovered through looking at all points of view and that’s my motivation for recommending those series of articles.

[growing old gracefully] and the problem of seagulls

Look, I honestly do appreciate my residential location, which I’ve somehow accidentally or on purpose [depending on which deity you follow] found myself in.

I really am grateful … but what I do not appreciate is being woken every morning by the squawk of bleedin’ seabirds outside my window at 03:50.

I know that that was the time because I got up and had a look, didn’t I, before telling them to stop their bloody racket. All very yo-ho-ho in the morning light it was too, with birds screeching about over by the ships, very Robert Louis indeed as I gazed down on the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of a one legged man or to musket my way to a few of those pieces of eight.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to write about today.

Yesterday, as you’d understand because I posted, I did the long bike trek into town, taking my two part spectacles into ASDA for repair. They refused, which is fine, so I had to go elsewhere but one thing which struck me was that ageing women shouldn’t try to dress as if they were still thirty. A mini-skirt and boots on a sixty-year old lady is not a pretty thing.

What is a pretty thing on a sixty year old lady is grace and elegance.

Who said a matriarch or that indefinable person called a ‘lady’ cannot be an alluring prospect if she is obviously some kind of Segie whom the years have treated kindly and who goes in for the Arthurian motif? Has anyone not heard of Queen Margot either - although I think she was a bit younger, wasn’t she?

Which brings me to the men.

In about 1995, I was asked by a girl hockey player of nineteen, with thighs like tree stumps [I have to get my own back somehow]: ‘Why do you try to dress like you’re nineteen?’

Rather than tell her to get knotted, I heeded the pastry-loving damsel’s words, took a look and yes, I’d basically grown older and forgotten to adjust the attire in accordance with the years.

Soon after, I passed my psychedelic yellow Sonnetti jacket and jeans on to a deserving teenager, discarded the designer trainers and went in for the loose top, straight cut jeans and black leather Echos on the feet. All I needed then was the body to go with it but that’s a later tale from Russia which you’ll never hear because I don’t want a certain person to know with whom I went.

So yes, a woman of sixty can look quite alluring if she:

1. is not a man-hating misandrist;
2. does not carp on and on and on about women’s rights and how wonderful Germaine Greer is;
3. looks after herself;
4. plays the part of the mysterious woman with a past.

What a man does, when the chin goes double, triple and finally becomes not unlike a pelican, is another matter. Maybe he should:

1. give away the pastries and sweet comestibles;
2. get back into the training;
3. fail to notice the younger ladies;
4. get involved in some noble pursuit which will bring the women in anyway;
5. have lots of money.

One thing he should not do is ride about on a bicycle at top speed, weaving in and out of cars parked at the lights as if it was a slalom course and then tear off down the road because as sure as a plaster cast, those worthy drivers will catch up with him further down the track and no amount of riding up on the footpath, playing chicken with stationary pedestrians and running lights will alter a car owner’s gleam of determination.

The moral is that people of a certain age should start to act their age. The two words ‘concrete boots’ leap apppealingly to the imagination for cheeky sods like the aforementioned.

Disclaimer: I didn’t really do any of the above – it was just fantasy, like the rest of my life.

Speaking of fantasy, there’s another aspect I’d like to touch on and that’s the ‘old farts – young tarts’ syndrome. With the best will in the world, chaps – that’s a fantasy unless you’re in a third world country and we all know about Gary Glitter, don’t we?

And by the way, have you seen some of the YTs today? What are they doing looking like that at that age? Is it their parents’ fault, their fault, society’s or Gordon Brown’s?

Having written all the above, I wonder if it isn’t easier for a woman in the early years and a man in the later years.

Perhaps not but it seems so.

Seems to me that a younger lady who wishes to enjoy the company of men no sooner need announce, ‘Here I am, boys,’ than she has an instantly loyal clientele. A man announcing, ‘Here I am, girls,’ might not attract quite the same degree of attention.

I saw one just now in the town and she was like a magnet for the middle-aged and yes, I would have.

Conversely, lovable, well dressed rogues who enjoy dancing might find felicity beyond fifty. In fact, I know a number of them. In Tenerife, I saw one Spaniard, maybe sixty-five, not all that tall, an expressive rather than a good dancer, cleanly dressed, with a very pleasant manner and women of all ages dripping off him. I looked at my girlfriend of the time and asked how he managed that. Later, he came over and we chatted about things – he really was one very cool dude without realizing why, I was sure of that.

So yes, perhaps we have to come to terms with where we are and not keep deluding ourselves. I shouldn’t imagine this will get too many comments as it’s a deeply personal issue for many and there’s a lot of either self-delusion or despondency about.

Solution? Perhaps an attitude and values makeover first, followed by a dose of reality – Britain’s good for that. Then a lifestyle change with a new game plan thought out.

[the cabbage] neo-feudal staple

As we slip into the neo-feudal, post-democratic, Richard Briars and Felicity Kendall society, it would be as well to reflect on the two staple foods you should have planted in your garden plot.

The cabbage [from Wiki]

Cabbage is an excellent source of Vitamin C. It also contains significant amounts of glutamine, an amino acid, which has anti-inflammatory properties.

It is a source of indole-3-carbinol, or I3C, a compound used as an adjuvent therapy for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a disease of the head and neck caused by human papillomavirus (usually types 6 and 11) that causes growths in the airway that can lead to death.

In European folk medicine, cabbage leaves are used to treat acute inflammation.[7] A paste of raw cabbage may be placed in a cabbage leaf and wrapped around the affected area to reduce discomfort. Some claim it is effective in relieving painfully engorged breasts in breastfeeding women.

Buckwheat [from Wiki]

Buckwheat contains rutin, a medicinal chemical that strengthens capillary walls, reducing hemorrhaging in people with high blood pressure and increasing microcirculation in people with chronic venous insufficiency.[23] Dried buckwheat leaves for tea were manufactured in Europe under the brand name "Fagorutin."

Buckwheat contains D-chiro-inositol, a component of the secondary messenger pathway for insulin signal transduction found to be deficient in Type II diabetes and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). It is being studied for use in treating Type II diabetes.[24] Research on D-chiro-inositol and PCOS has shown promising results.[25][26]

A buckwheat protein has been found to bind cholesterol tightly. It is being studied for reducing plasma cholesterol in people with an excess of this compound.

The Russians have sworn by these two for centuries and with good reason. Get yourself onto a diet where these are the framework and your digestive tract will leap up and thank you for it.

[the eu] and its interface with the great british workman

Sometimes the more mundane issues are the more interesting.

Last Thursday, I heard a knock on the door and there was The Great British Workman, named Chris, to be known for simplicity’s sake as The Great British Workman, wearing a sickly yellow green jacket.

‘We’re ah, going to do the lekky, like.’

All right, there were a number of assumptions here. Firstly, what the hell was he talking about? Secondly, what ‘lekky’ needed to be done? I was happy, I had my pay meter, the shop was not far away to do the top ups, the sun was shining.

‘We’re moving your meter, like.’

‘Ah, and where, Chris, are you moving it to, pray?’

‘Downstairs.’

‘Why would you move my personal paymeter, which currently houses my electronic key, which I had to negotiate with the electririty company over a period of twenty five ‘press one if you need to be confused’ days, to some remote part of this mansion, accessible only by three flights of stairs and five intervening doors, when the whole point of a personal paymeter is to know instantly and at hand, how much electricity you have, to take the aforementioned key, go to the shop with it and say, ‘Ten quid on the lekky, please?’’

‘Health and Safety.’

‘Yes and I fervently believe it’s a great idea, health and safety but how does this come into the discussion about my paymeter?’

‘Well, it’s unsafe like.’

‘Who says?’

‘Health and Safety.’

‘Right, let me get this straight. Last week, you’d concede, my personal paymeter was perfectly safe, no sparks or conflagration of any kind? Good. Today though, it’s become unsafe, a liability lurking in a box, ready to spring out and incinerate my children and hopefully my missus?’

‘The EU like. New regulations come through.’

‘Now I understand. Right Chris, when do you want to do this?’

‘Tomorrow – wil you be in all day?’ he innocently asked, expecting everyone to phone up work at a moment’s notice and say, ‘Think I won’t drop in today; I’m having my paymeter removed.’’

‘I’ll be in.’

.o0o.

TGBW arrived only thirty minutes after the designated time [and I appreciated that I’d been given an actual time in the first place], with stepladders, tools, a sheet and a mate, wearing a sickly yellow green jacket.

Soon they were up in the loft, there was a lot of yelling at someone called Tel, elsewhere in the loft and then a great thick black cable was passed through, maybe an inch thick, snaking its way into my bathroom.

‘This is moving the meter, is it?’

‘We have to change the cable.’

‘What, for the whole building?’

‘Yeah, the old cable doesn’t meet specifications.’

‘This is a new flat, that was new cable you put through a month back’

‘Well yeah but it doesn’t meet specifications now. The EU like.’

‘At this point, I ran into the owner of the complex, an exceedingly nice chap named Frazzled to a Cinder, hereafter to be known as FTAC, not wearing a sickly yellow green jacket. You can always tell the owner of a venture in this land - where things are actually built, rather than a few figures being creatively moved about on a page as he applies to be bailed out – he’s the one with the worry lines on his brow and the glazed eyes at age thirty-two and he doesn’t wear a sickly yellow green jacket unless he has to.

‘FTAC, what’s all this about? I don’t want my fucking meter moved downstairs, excuse my French. I was perfectly happy in this nice little complex with its gardens, fountains, triple glazed gas filled, acoustic glass, CCTV, bicycle sheds, carpark, domaphone and piped music.’

‘James,’ he said, in that exasperated voice, ‘tell me about it. This is costing me a thousand fucking pounds to change the fucking cable over. The thing’s cost twenty three thou so far. Scottish Power. We’ll try to get them to keep the disruption to a minimum.’

‘And I thought I had problems. Thanks, FTAC.’

.o0o.

Three and a half hours later, with me still stuck in the flat, TGBW reappeared. ‘Ah, look mate, they say they’ll be in to do it Monday morning now. Problem with the new meters like.’

‘Oh thanks a whole lot for that, GBW, I appreciate being cooped up here all day. What time Monday?’

‘Well, we can’t tell, can we? I’ll be here eight o’clock though. Will you be in Monday like?’

‘For you, Chris, anything.’

.o0o.

The trip to my mate was also stymied due to certain internal issues at that end so a pleasant weekend was had writing and editing the book.

.o0o.

Monday morning duly arrived and no one appeared, as I’d suspected.

About ten, TGBW appeared and said, ‘Right, we’re shutting off the power in an hour. Will you be in, like?’’

‘How long for?’

‘An hour.’

‘No, how long will the power be off for?’

‘An hour. We’ll finish the cable now.’

Thirty minutes later, there was a knock at the door. There was TGBW, Tel, a stepladder and the ubiquitous sickly yellow green jackets. I knew he was my mate because he said, ‘Awright, mate?’

They now went into a four hour session of cursing, swearing to themselves and whatever in the loft, every so often resulting in cable coming through to the flat, dust and debris going over the carpet and walls.

‘You got a vacuum?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Right, brush and pan ’ll do.’

The other one was at my box, incising cable, drilling, screwing, unscrewing and generally enjoying himself. I felt ravaged.

Then the drilling in the walls and roof began.

A couple of hours later, I caught TGBW and asked when the ‘lekky’ was going off.

‘Tomorrah now. They didn’t get the right meters.’

I wondered if he’d meant to say Gomorrah rather than tomorrah. ‘Tell me, Chris, are you expecting me to be in tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, if ya can like. We need ta get in the flats.’

‘That’s very kind of you. For how many more days will this happen?’

‘Only tomorrah.’

At this point, some very official people with clipboards appeared – I knew they were official because they had clipboards and weren’t wearing wearing sickly yellow green jackets - and I made the mistake of asking, ‘Is it absolutely necessary that the personal paymeter go downstairs?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘You’re electricity, right?’

‘British Gas and Electric.’

‘Not Southern Electric?’

‘No. Ah, you’re not one of ours then. What, are you, Npower?’

I went and found a Scottish Power man downstairs – he was the one looking on approvingly and not much else but his jacket was orange, which provided pleasant relief, like – and I asked him the same question.

‘No, not at all.’

Good, my severed cables and debris notwithstanding, my interruptions and inconvenience were soon to be ended. Now, quite a number of hours after the threatened shut down of electricity, I sought out TGBW.

‘Well, we’re not shutting it off until tomorrow morning now.’

.o0o.

Tuesday morning.

About ten, TGBW appeared and went through the ‘we’re shutting the lekky off in an hour’ spiel.

An hour later, it was shut off but everything had been done – washing, ironing etc.

Two hours later, I went for a wander in the strangely silent building and found an interesting sight downstairs. Leaning on his van, with a bemused smile on his face, was FTAC.

‘Morning, James.’

He wandered over and we found an alcove. To my questioning glance, he explained, ‘These people standing about are the first gang, for the cable. There’s another lot meant to be here but they were sent to another site instead and we’re waiting for a third gang to arrive. This lot are costing me by the hour.’

‘They’ve cut off the power.’

‘Maybe you’ll have better luck than me. We’ve got flats to build.’

‘I wondered why it was so quiet.’

‘Look, that’s him over there. Go and have a chat.’

I did. It was a rotund, red-faced little man with Scottish Power tattooed on his forehead and wearing an orange jacket. ‘Excuse my presumption but is it necessary to have the power off while no one’s doing anything?’

‘Don’t blame me mate – it’s them wot didn’t turn up.’

‘Yes but while everyone’s hanging about chatting and having cuppas, could be have a smidgeon of lekky perhaps?’

‘Nah. Regulations. Health and Safety. Sorry.’

FTAC was grinning, fit to burst. I went upstairs, crestfallen.

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours.

I went downstairs to find out and TGBW explained to me, ‘Yeah, the meters came but they were the wrong ones. We’re waiting for the new meters.’

‘Chris, forgive me for being stupid but I thought you were actually getting my meter out and putting downstairs behind an old washbasin?’

‘Oh no, we can’t touch them. They belong to the company.’

‘You mean I have to phone my electricity supplier, with whom it took weeks just to get an identity code, to come out and shift my personal paymeter downstairs here, coordinating with Scottish Power?’

‘Yeah, it might be worth calling ’em like.’

I went upstairs, intending to do no such thing.

Half and hour later, there was a knock on the door. It was TGBW. ‘I’ve come to take out your meter.’

I ushered him in and watched the start of the complex process of about a dozen little sub-boxes needing removing, new cable attached and so on. There was still a little bit of battery power on the Mac so I went back to that.

Late afternoon now, I went looking for them all and found TGBW, a success in itself. He explained, ‘They need these lugs,’ he drew a diagram on the wall with his finger, ‘and they didn’t bring ’em. You’d think seein’ as we’d put new cable in, we’d need lugs too.’

‘Hold on – do you need the lugs or do they?’

‘Them. We put ’em in but they have to supervise it, like.’

‘Why?’

‘Regulations.’

‘Health and Safety?’

‘Yeah.’

Just before my regular meeting with my mate of a Tuesday evening, TGBW appeared at the door and knocked. ‘Your juice is back on.’ He then moved to the next flat.

In the car, my mate chuckled, ‘There might be a blog post in that, you know.’

This morning I told FTAC I was running a post on this and he grinned. He’s heard of blogs, of course but being involved in building things, he doesn’t have a lot of time.

If you want to meet him, he’s the one with the polished accent, his sentences punctuated by he word ‘fucking’, looking like a navvy and driving the van.

[ice cream farms] and the entrepeneur

If the Iceland entrepeneurs can create an ice-cream farm:

On why they decided to produce ice cream on their farm, Egilsdóttir said, “I guess we’re just a little weird.” It only took her and her husband three days to execute their idea. “If we get an idea and it makes sense, it is best to execute it immediately,” added Gudmundsson.

... then why can't we set up something like that? Maybe we already have.

[dearie me] can't see my glasses in front of my face

I tell you, it's not funny.

The other day, I was in the kitchen, my 'computer glasses' fell, I tried to stop them hitting the floor and stuck out a knee and the lenses fell out. Following this, it was a case of finding the little screw [metal] all over the kitchen every time it pinged out of the hole.

Anyway, I got the little bugger [metal] in eventually.

Well knock me down with a glass case if yesterday they didn't fall off again - in two pieces. They snapped in half.

Now I'm wondering who's got something against me writing the book and blogging 'cause I can't do either properly without 'em. Maybe they just don't like my specs.

[quick grabs] the hearts and minds follow

JPT:

I saw a Policeman walking near to where I live today and I thought 'what's he up to then?'

Nornorwester:

Which of the alternative versions of the following proverbs is true:

A) A woman's work is never done.

B) A woman's hair is never done.

A) A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single shoe shop.

B) A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single stag party.

A) If wishes were horses I’d have a palomino.

B) If wishes were horses then Gypsy Princess would have definitely won the 2.45 at Chepstow.

Bob G:

March is here

Another month shot in the ass.

Vox:

I will confess to not understanding how having read War and Peace or Madame Bovary is supposed to make one any more sexy, but otherwise, this common practice of deceit doesn't surprise me at all.

Deogolwulf, on the fallacy of chronological snobbery:

The progressive-historicism of the fallacy often betrays itself in such epithets as “medieval logic”, spoken as though an instance of logical inference could somehow be invalidated and therefore ignored merely through association with a pre-modern source.

[british police] where did the rot set in

My mate said that Scotland Yard is now recruiting thugs. There are still many career officers out there but they're gradually being pensioned off.

Some time back, the Telegraph wrote:

It is no exaggeration to say that Sir Paul takes over at a point of crisis in policing. It is in danger of slipping away from the people it is meant to serve. The middle classes who would, until fairly recently, have supported the police through thick and thin are increasingly disenchanted with what they see.

This is not entirely the fault of the police, though the activities of some senior officers, including Sir Paul's predecessor Sir Ian Blair, are partly to blame. The culpability lies predominantly with the Government and its imposition of targets on the police that actually make it less likely that they do the job most of us want to see.

I'd have described myself as basically pro-police but various incidents highlight the growing dissatisfaction with our bobbies. Mind you, they're on a hiding to nothing and have to do some unpalatable things these days. Another problem is that they have to do the dirty work for this appalling government and by 2012, may even have to fire on white, British, middle-class people who are p---ed off with what's happened.

In 2006, this blog began with the point of view that we are heading for a dystopia imposed by Them and nothing I've subsequently seen alters that view in the slightest. The difference between us is that you blame Brown and the incompetent government but I sheet it home to the Armani suited bstds behind them, predominantly living in Bavaria and Switzerland and with chapters in Scotland.

Sorry to be a bit out of sorts today.

[take this cup] and let the deadly hour pass me by

There've been some beautiful words written which fit the mood precisely.

Such a pity most of you don't read Russian because these below haunt me every time and I can't believe that Любэ did not include the song in their 'best of' collections:

Когда минуты роковые настают,
И волны чёрные до неба достают,
В недобрый час,
В недобрый час.

Помилуй, Господи, нас грешных ты спаси,
И если можно, эту чашу пронеси,
Не мимо нас,
В который раз.

Anyone who does have a smattering of Russian knows that what follows is not a translation but a rendering, as there is much which is idiomatic in the words above. In effect, the lines say:

When the deadly time, the testing time comes to you and in front of you the waves rise like a giant wall up to the heavens, this is an unpleasant hour or period of time you must live through.

Please Lord, forgive us our sins and if possible take this cup of wrath from our hands. In other words, let us escape the horror which is coming up.

That's interesting for this group to write because they'd have to have been as far removed from religion as any sinner. It goes to show that when we find ourselves in that hour where we're alone and have to go through it all by ourselves, how nice it would be to have that bitter cup lifted from our hands.

The context, by the way, in which the words were written was of troops in landing craft being ferried to the shore, presumably to be gunned down when they get there.

[one man show] the problem of the succession

How many times do we see a group, series, film franchise, monarchy or whatever languish because of just one person?

The obvious choice in the monarchical world was Henry VIII, although talent did pop up later in the form of Anne’s daughter. In music, the biggest surprise to me was how the death of Jon Bonham derailed that group when many thought it was Page and Plant that drove it.

I’ve just been reading about a group I’ve featured on this blog before – Niagara and how they ended:

Ceci se rajoute au fait que Muriel, fatiguée, déprimée et lasse, ne supporte plus la pression. Elle décide d'arrêter... Niagara n’est plus! Ainsi se conclut la brillante carrière d’un groupe ayant réussi dans tous les domaines.

This is a perfect example of a group which was not a group – it was actually a duo and when we get down to the stark reality – it was her.

At least Blondie acknowleged that Deborah Harry, whom I’m delighted to be able to claim I’ve rubbed up against in a frottagically crowded pub, was the be all and end all of that group.

Similarly, take out Ian Curtis and what’s left?

In film, would the Bond franchise still be alive without Craig? Perhaps that’s one case where the principle of ‘take out the principal and there’s no point anymore’ doesn’t apply.

[the blogosphere] marginalizing itself into oblivion

You might like to read this first.

Right, now my post:

For quite some time I’ve been wondering about how the blogosphere is allowed to go on when it almost certainly militates against the powers that be.

I mean, at some point, surely they’ll have to pull the plug, as in China.

At least, that’s what I thought.

At a simplistic level, party politics and government, they don’t have the power yet in this country or the U.S.A. to close us down on a pretext although there’ve been attempts, not least the two tier blogosphere and other proposals.

What does seem to be happening is that it’s killing itself off and it’s marginalized. Let’s face it, we don’t go to any blog to hear or see the news – we go to the MSM, in my case the Telegraph first, followed by Reuters, the BBC, Google for the U.S. news and The Age for the Australian. Don’t remember the last time I looked at the Guardian.

If we want analysis, we have our blog of choice – Dale, DK, Denninger, whoever. The rest of us, busily typing away, are at best marginalized, no matter how perspicacious we may claim to be. We don’t reach anyone except those wanting a quick, thirty second grab.

Therefore, the powers that be, the genuine ones, Them, have relatively little to fear, which won’t stop them fearing, as all totalitariansm does in its own paranoid way.

Perhaps the blogosphere peaked in late 2006/early 2007 – certainly I saw a lot more cut and thrust around that time.

I wonder how you see it these days?

[cymru] cyfriniol cenedl

In this ongoing Ignorant Travel Guide, I wrote that I was going to do Ireland next.

I lied.

The first thing about Wales is that online Welsh translators are rubbish. The second is; 'r Cymraeg ydy da boblogi.

In this mystic land, things are not as they seem:

Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name BZJXXLLWCP is pronounced Jackson. [Twain]

Yes but what do the Welsh actually look like?

Welsh in general have dark features i am Welsh and I'm from Welsh speaking Wales were you get more dark complexion than light maybe this is because foreign tribes never really made it this far into Wales. I have dark brown/black hair, Brown eyes, I am medium sized and have darker skin. When I'm in Spain the Spaniards always come up and speak to me in Spanish.

That's interesting because in Sicily, people were forever coming up to me asking directions in Italian.

What do the Welsh think of themselves?

I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it's rather an attractive image. [Richard Burton]

What do the non-Welsh think of them?

"The Welsh," said the Doctor, "are the only nation in the world that has produced no graphic or plastic art, no architecture, no drama. They just sing," he said with disgust," sing and blow down wind instruments of plated silver. They are deceitful because they cannot discern truth from falsehood, depraved because they cannot discern the consequences of their indulgence. Let us consider," he continued, "the etymological derivations of the Welsh language...."

Apparently, everyone wants to move there:

The jobs are already held by Civil Servants around the country who will be expected to relocate to Wales or lose their jobs.

Which leaves us with the obvious question – did Owain Glyndŵr ever use the expression: ‘Sod the English?’

Finally, who is the sexiest Welsh woman afloat?

Answer

Personally, I prefer this one.

[secession] who stands to gain

Theo has quite a bit up about the secessions.

With only a few days to the ceding of the powers of he U.S. to the equivalent of the NAAC, it's interesting that this is coming to a head now. Working on the basic premise that the CFR and other heavenly bodies are well into the breaking up of the union, then it is logical that secessionist movements would be viewed favourably by them.

With non-President Obama a tool in the hands of those in charge of the U.S.A., secession is understandable for lovers of the constitution but unfortunately, it's also a power thing with one set of pollies wanting to run the show and to have a slice of the pie.

The question still remains though - who stands to gain if all these states [or even a few of them] secede?

[love] underrated

10 years ago i thought love was over-rated, today i think it is under-rated.

[silent sunday] captions please

[the crimean war] and the persistence of old issues

For a look at this conflict, try this site.

How much has really changed?

A glance through key elements of the wiki version of the Crimean War show that the old issues are still alive and well.

“The Crimean War lasted from 28 March 1854 to 1856. It was fought between Russia and an alliance of the United Kingdom, France, and the Ottoman Empire, joined somewhat tardily by Piedmont-Sardinia. The majority of the conflict took place on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea.

The war ended with the Treaty of Paris (1856).”

My exit from Russia, not fancifully I would suggest, had some of its antecedents in Britain’s traditional rivalry with Russia. The war also confirms continued support for the Muslims at governmental level and in many other sections of British society.

Basically, Russia wanted to solve its Eastern question and to score some much needed victories for home consumption. It had a vehicle for victory in Admiral Nakhimov or so it thought.

It was a fiasco and many things resulted from it, such as “the mass exodus of Crimean Tatars towards the Ottoman lands, resulting in massive depopulation in the peninsula. Crimean Tatars became a minority in their homeland.”

“The roots of the war's causes lay in the existing rivalry between the British and the Russians in other areas such as Afghanistan (The Great Game). Conflicts over control of holy places in Jerusalem led to aggressive actions in the Balkans, and around the Dardanelles.”

So what’s changed?

“Florence Nightingale came into prominence during the Crimean War for her contributions in the field of nursing during the war.”

A positive effect in the field of nursing.

In the light of coming events in our era, it’s interesting that Britain supported the side against the anti-Muslims in the Crimean War and subsequently in the Middle-East and North Africa. It’s interesting how, while Italy is vehemently anti-Muslim for the most part, to the extent of banning the proliferation of mosques and Islamic schools, Britain sees no need for such things.

The gates of Vienna clearly has had little effect on British foreign policy. Yes, it’s interesting but in the context of the forces really driving Europe and this island nation, it’s not at all puzzling.

[bloghounds] stirrings from the hearth

Bloghounds Term Report

[Cross-posted at the site, if the technically wizardry of Cherry Pie worked.]


As usual, this is a personal review and you’re welcome to post your own. The Bloghounds welcome your perspective.

We find ourselves with eight months under our belt and where are we?

The attrition of blogs

Some say that the nature of blogging has changed; certainly there is a move by certain sections of society to restrict and register blogs but there also seems to be less blogging going on in general.

Bloghounds needs to recognize realities and the immense pressures [in blogging terms] of real life in 2009. In short, people have their own worries and less time to devote so this, in turn, makes rules about visiting other members and linking quotas unworkable.

There is also the firm principle that a blog is a voluntary, largely unpaid medium which someone maintains because he or she wants to. Therefore, he will want to visit the Dales, Wat Tylers and Dmajor bloggers, he has his own daily round and his own inner circle.

Where does that leave Bloghounds?

From a personal point of view, it seems, as I wrote once before, that BH is a brand name and as such, the principles upon which it was founded need to remain immutable, as the best trading houses in the world, the ones remaining viable and not bailed out, also do.

The line, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ applies to us. As a badge of a certain, if minor distinction, it stands for ethical principles and that has implications for new inductees. We don’t have many rules but those we do have, we stick to almost vehemently. Not to put too fine a point on it – there is a certain type of blogger we like to see wearing the Bloghounds badge and there are, sadly, some which we don’t.

This is not high-nosed but a simple statement that we are protecting the brand name.

The committee

We do seem to have settled on a skeleton committee which takes care of the nuts and bolts but I’d like to mention some in particular.

There is our technical whiz, Wolfie, who made it possible in the first place and keeps these matters going, there are the original committee members such as Andrew Allison, Welshcakes, Jams O’Donnell [current committee member], Sackerson and then there is one other to mention at this time.

This lady is the goods, a great administrator because she does it with so little fuss. To have an admin who is also so in Real Life is a coup and I’m referring here to Cherry Pie who has carved out her own little niche in the blogosphere and who crosses so many blogging boundaries.

Issues

There are two issues we’ve so far had to face.

One was the image copyright matter which we jumped on in uncharacteristic haste, followed now by our own langorous search for a new logo.

The other is the constant problem of applicants who are refused. A look at the correspondence which goes back and forth over any controversial applicant has shown a distinct pattern – unanimity amongst those who spoke and silence from the others.

We know what we want and we know what we don’t. We reserve the right to rely on our members’ voices and we go with the majority opinion. There is no undue administrative directing of opinion for the simple reason that this membership has shown itself to be impervious to undue influence. They’re big boys and girls in their own right.

Bighound

There is one mystery member who can usually be found contentedly curled up on the hearthrug. We assure members he’s been fed and watered and if you see him roaming round the premises late at night, do not be alarmed – he’s simply shifting position to get closer to the warmth.

The human members

We are the members. Having said that, recent votes and comments have shown a distinct tendency to leave it to the few and so be it. BH does not push the unattainable; it recognizes reality. If things are going in a certain direction, then that’s the direction they’re going.

If this report resembles a boring quarterly company review sent to your mailbox, then that’s a big plus in our eyes. ‘Steady as she goes and into 2009’ is where Bloghounds is currently sailing.

[united kingdom] or disunited kingdom

Do you need a manifesto? This one is worthy of perusal.

[birth] miracle of life or a pain in the proverbial

Interesting post on giving birth here.

My mate tells me my recent posts have been cr-p so here's another one in the same line:


Sadly, I can’t claim any first hand experience of giving birth and like any issue I’m shut out of, it’s of interest to your humble blogger.

My only experience of such matters has been to be present at a few of these momentous occasions and in each case I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Better her than me.’

Well, anyway, there is a section in the latter half of the last book of mine which deals with babies being born all over the place and in the interests of variety, I had to make some of the births easy, following good preparation and some a bit … well, I hardly like to use the word ‘messy’.

I’d be delighted if some of you could describe your experiences of birth, as it seems a sort of miracle to me.

Along the way, I came across … hmmm … found is a better word … found some snippets I’ll now share with you.

Dr Patricia Rashbrook and her husband, in 2002, had a 6lb 10oz baby they named named JJ. The point of interest was that she was 62 years old. Hope for us all yet.

She was described as "selfish" by pro-life groups for having a child at such an advanced stage in her life and she promptly told them to get knotted, that she and her husband were meeting all the child’s needs. The fertility treatment had come from the Italian doctor Severino Antinori.

She wasn’t the only woman in her 60s to have a child. The oldest woman in the world to give birth is thought to be Adriana Iliescu, from Romania, who had a daughter called Eliza Maria in January in 2001, at the age of 66.

This blog’s advice is not to try this at home.

At the other end of the scale, we have a 1.3 metre tall 9-year-old girl of the Apurina tribe in Brazil's Amazon rainforest who gave birth to a baby. She apparently had an almost full-term pregnancy but her weight was below normal.

A doctor, Christiane da Costa, from the hospital where the girl had a Caesarian section, reported, "The girl is only starting to feel that she's a mother, with the help of our psychologist. She's still playing with her dolls and watching cartoons in her room, like a child would."

The girl had spent three months in the hospital under observation after her 19-year-old sister took her to Manaus from the riverside town of Manacapuru. She had a high fever and was initially diagnosed with malaria, pneumonia and an ear infection. Authorities were reportedly investigating local tribal customs in that village.

This blog’s advice is not to try this at home.

From another more orthodox account of a birth come these observations:

“Even though I was ten days "overdue" I hoped nothing would happen for at least another week or two... Giving birth frightened me more than I had told anyone.

About three pm, [I] had to stand leaning at a table because my back hurted so badly...

I sat in the sofa, clock in one hand and pen in other, timing each one. Now and then running around the house trying to organize my packing of the bag for the hospital.

The pain wasn´t really that bad, actually … 10 minutes apart, seven, five …

A nurse came running and almost didn´t stop while checking us in. Short of breath she asked "Where to? Light or Normal?"

I leaned towards a wall as I tried to figure out what on earth the woman meant ... the nurse cut me off with a sigh "Okay, okay You can go to the Normal, but we are rather busy today... "

I asked about enema. “We don’t use those anymore, it´s only natural ...” I had to stop her and explain that I hadn´t been able to "go" for several days. Finally she agreed but gave the enema was given with no respect for any privacy. Door open and people running around looking in...

Our designated midwife ran all the tests. (vaginal and external examination, CTG, blood pressure and other) She than told me that the baby was a bit "high" and the best for me would be, not to lie down during the opening- phase. The midwife chasing me up each time i tried to lie down "upright as much as possible makes it all much quicker!"

My arms were totally numb, I was all sweaty and hardly managed to catch my breath between the enormous contractions....

Without any explanations she broke the membranes (amnion) in order to speed up the procedures... As I asked if I could please try to breathe the N2O for the pain, her reply was: "Oh, I thought you had taken it already...."

She ordered me to assume "gyn-position" [and] we were a bit puzzled.
“I´m just going to check that your baby is Ok, we are going to take a small blood-sample.”

My dis pair and anxiety grew and I started to cry. Not from pain, but from concern over my unborn baby.

"I feel an unconformable pressure at my rear end..." I whispered to another nurse. The nurse was convinced "we will fix that with the bed-pan... "in an inferno of pain she forced me to climb a portable chamber pot.

No, nothing happened in it... "Couldn´t it be the baby coming...?" I moaned. "Oh, no You are a first-timer, I bet you have many hours ahead, and anyway, the baby isn´t below spinae yet..."

I still hadn´t realized that this simple and common test measures the amount of oxygen reaching the baby, and doesn´t at all indicate anything being wrong.

Fine, said the midwife, not even bothering to check the dilation first. i was to receive epidural pain-relief.

Four in the morning, exhausted, large as an elephant, movable like a ninety five years old, in a sweaty hospital-robe, water running down my legs and contractions twice a minute I wasn´t really at my best.

The doctor came in. Handsome man in his early thirties, a total ass hole. He started out telling everyone who cared to listen how many important patients he had, waiting right now, and what he thought about this, having to run around giving injections to sissies, unable to have their baby s in a natural way...

Finally, the anaesthetic hit me and in the same moment the nurse made an examination just to realize that "oh, look at this, you are already fully dilated!!".

She ordered injections of syntocinon to stimulate the contractions and now the real inferno began!

I can´t remember clearly what happened for about an hour but I know I clinged to my husband screaming "Do anything, cut me up, but take the baby out, I can´t stand this anymore!!!"

Suddenly the doctor and nurse started quarreling above my head about an injection. My husband interrupted, he finally found this too much and threatened to sue them all if they didn´t go back to work.

Anyway, two nurses lying on my belly, pushing, while the plastic-doctor pulled the handle with all her power...

It felt like popping a balloon when the tissues broke from the quick stretching. "The head is out!" my husband shouted and tried to pep me up, I screamed and tried to push but nothing happened.

Finally it came and a blue and messy little creature came out, coughed, screamed and were placed directly on my belly with a warm towel on top. "It´s a boy!!"

Enjoying the silence and the smell of the newborn baby, the absence of pain (except for some very sore parts below...) I didn´t quite understand that I was a mother, no concern whatsoever about the baby being a boy or a girl

45 minutes and more than 40 stitches to patch me up, [it didn’t matter now.]

I was disposed of into a dark storage room where I waited for hours. I hadn´t eaten for more than 24 hours and lost 2.4 liters of blood.

On fourth day I was very concerned. I had no milk for my baby and he was now dry and tired. For four days he had been screaming all the time, nurses denying me to give formula since "you will soon get milk, be patient" he now had stopped crying and slept for nine hours.

[The nurse said,] "Oh Lord, anyone should know that there is absolutely no chance of getting any milk after losing that amount of blood!!!"

I was also informed that I should have spent hours in the "pump room" every day. - What pump room? Why? Where? How? … A nurse told me that I should have received a blood transfusion earlier, but someone forgot it...”

The name of that hospital, by the way, was Danderyd, North of Stockholm. Bloody hell! This blog’s advice is not to go to a hospital.

Apart from the incredibly callous hospital staff, the appalling procedures and non-existent care, which I can’t say I’ve ever witnessed although one particular lady of mine had to have heaps of injections and all manner of fearsome attention, it was this account above which really brought home to me, with such force, what women have to go through to have a child.

I’m trying to come to terms with it in my head. We make the beast with two backs one night in a fit of lust and nine months later, give or take, she has to go through all of that.

This blog’s advice is to be a man, if you can.


Thanks to BBC News & Reuters, on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 for some of this material.

[to be a scot] what must it feel like

Local VIPs clearly approve of the image of Glasgow Rab projects

I’ve often wondered what it must feel like to be Scottish.

Apart from being home to G-d’s own nectar, it must have something else going for it. If Salmond and the gang are the result of Scottish evolution, then one really wonders.

And yet a glance at the major movements in the world, from the military through literature to the shop stewards who close down sections of British industry, e.g. in Liverpool, shows that the Scots have always been in there at the sharp end.

An article from some years back on a central issue to the Scottish heart gives the non-Scot some insight:

At a Berwick Highlands Gathering, event co-ordinator Ross Chudleigh said "simulated haggis" would be used as the real stuff would be too messy. The simulated version would instead use sand or oatmeal in a Hessian bag that would be thrown in the traditional Scottish style similar to a shot-put action.

But the decision not to use the sheep organs minced and boiled in the animal’s stomach - has outraged traditional Scots. Butcher Rob Boyle asked: "If there's no haggis, how can it be haggis throwing?"

He said he had supplied haggis to other festivals in vacuum-sealed bags, which did not result in any unsightly mess. "If you have an egg-and-spoon race you don't use a golf ball."

For the ignorant non-Scot, under haggis hurling rules, the dish is either thrown from one person to another until someone drops it, or the greatest distance without ruining it.

Trying to understand the Scot in the same way that I try, tomorrow, to understand the nature of giving birth, I came up with the following, beginning with that anthem, IMHO one of the best pieces of music ever used as an anthem, alongside maybe La Marseillaise:

“Those days are passed now
And in the past
They must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
That stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again.”

Why would a national song largely dwell on a terrible enemy rather than concern itself with its own greatness and the national ability to overcome all obstacles?

No matter, let’s move on.

‘It came with a lass and will pass with a lass.’ [James V]

Hmmm. I thought Macbeth had had something to do with it.

‘There are few more impressive sights in the worlds than a Scotsman on the make. [J.M. Barrie -1908]

I can well imagine although I’ve nae been wooed by a Scot, with the single exception of a Highland lass, Morag, I was once sweet on but that was me doing the wooing, bloody Sasenach.

‘Oh Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!’
[Scott – 1805]

That poetic child was certainly not Byron who ungraciously wrote, in 1812 [auspicious year otherwise]:

‘A land of meanness, sophistry and mist.’

Well, this blogger is not averse to bit of mist, especially Irish Mist and dear olde Eire will be the next subject in this ongoing series. An example is to the right here.

If I’ve breached copyright, forgive me, Mr. Lane and I’ll take her down immediately.

[retrospective legislation] today godwin, tomorrow ... you

Iain Dale takes one point of view on Our Fred and DK takes another.

Let me put it a third way.

The legacy of the Soviet Union bureaucracy is that whatever you do, wherever you go, you are illegal. Just by trying to make ends meet and live a normal life, you, by definition, break the law.

Now, the way the country gets around this is that having legally got you by the short-and-curlies, the law is by-and-large ignored. In the day to day running of things, it works semi-fine. However, if someone's a bit short of cash or whatever, the authority looks at you and says, 'Oh, you've broken the law.'

Your job is to now to rue your unlucky day, go across and say, 'Let's see if we can't sort this problem out.' This usually involves the transfer of a certain amount of cash or whisky or in lesser infractions, a large box of chocolates for his wife.

Everything goes back to normal and you hope to avoid anything like that the next time.

Now.

If you don't think someone has been punished enough, with a man named Fred Godwin, for argument's sake, who was encouraged anyway by another man we'll call, say, Gordon Brown, then to retrospectively decide to enact legislation to dock the man's pension, given that he has already made an agreement to forego his bonuses, is just plain immoral.

Worse than immoral, it is stupid. If the type of person who is the first to demand the death penalty in these sorts of situations, that enabling any sort of retrospective legislation and putting it into the hands of this lot in Westminster is a good idea, think again.

Thomas More, in that immortal Robert Bolt play pointed to just such an issue. If you go around tearing down the law or redrafting it to suit some moral outrage you currently feel, then when you have the devil cornered and he turns round and uses it on you, to whom will you have recourse?

You've left yourself wide open.

I suggest we think carefully before enabling anything which has a retrospective whiff to it and look to our own safety in the current onslaught taking us back to the new feudalism.

Hat/tip Lord T

[diamonds] and the yearning of an amethyst

How hopelessly soppy and romantic and brave for a man to reveal his heart. How lucky will 'she' be to stumble upon such a diamond.

Oh how I pine to be a diamond but sadly, I am but amethyst.

[enemies] there are some best not tackled

This ain't me ... yet. Still have to get home though.

Interesting day.

I'd just finished insulting [in the final chapters] the one entity in the world it's not advisable to insult and was making ready to have a bath when there was a knock on the door. They were turning all the water off for one hour.

Not to worry.

Went back to the desktop, Word had decided to close down and I lost half a chapter. plus suporting documentation.

I went into the kitchen to have a french toast when my reading glasses I'd forgotten to take off dropped, I tried to trap them with the leg as they fell, broke the frame and then went searching for the little screw which could put them back together. I got it all back in place and because of the coiled spring affect ... ping ... the little screw went flying.

French toast was all over the floor meantime and the brunch in the pan was burning.

You may or may not know that I bicycle to many places. The gears decided not to work today; the wind stopped me after a couple of hundred metres and I had to walk against it.

Doesn't pay to take on the metaphysical world. If I'm still around and haven't been skewered by my kitchen knife or whatever, I'll get back to you on this with an update.

[camerons] naturally

No one wishes this on anyone. Prayers and sympathy required.

[palestinian unity] post-apocalypse, methinks

Fat chance:

Egypt urged all Palestinian factions on Thursday to work on ending their internal chasm in reconciliation talks aimed at pushing rivals Hamas and Fatah to form an interim unity government.

Distrust between the groups runs deep after a power struggle including Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, leaving Fatah in charge of only the West Bank. Tensions escalated further after Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza, designed to stop Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel.

Hamas claimed the government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ran a Gaza spy ring that fed Israel information about Hamas targets during the offensive that ended January 18. Abbas' Fatah accused Hamas of killing and wounding dozens of Fatah activists under the cover of the war.

[forgiveness] powerful weapon in the right hands

‘The Tree of Forgiveness ’, 1882, by Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Wonder why artists are all coy about the male but are happy to show all the female? Just asking.

Cherie wrote about forgiveness:

The ones listed are relevant to the comments on my previous post:

* Aids psychological healing through positive changes in affect

* Improves physical and mental health

* Restores a victim’s sense of personal power

Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. It is not something you do for someone. It is not complicated. It is simple. To sum up it takes a great deal of courage to forgive someone and move on.

I have two main ideas on file [not my own] to add to that:

1.

Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

2.

If someone hurts us, either that person never knows he’s hurt us or else he just goes away and leaves us to suffer. Where once we were going along happily, now someone has made us angry, depressed and seeking revenge.

This then makes us bitter.

Does this person pay for his crime against us? No way. Do we pay for his crime? Yes, every time, through loss of balance, loss of mood and loss of health. In the end, he wins and we lose. Only we should choose how we feel.

Forgiveness is the way to say: "Nobody is going to hurt me and control my feelings, even in his absence. I make the choice whether to be hurt or not. In the end, he is the unfortunate one, not me."

By rethinking the meaning of forgiveness, we can become emotionally freer, calmer and generally a more pleasant person. Power over oneself is the key to a calmer, more balanced life.

This last was a paraphrasing of Philip McGraw.

My view of forgiveness is more aggressive than Cherie's. It can be a powerful weapon and not only to harm but to rebuild yourself.

[systemic shistemic] here we go

For those who don't like to click:

The global systemic crisis will enter a fifth phase in the fourth quarter of 2009, a phase of global geopolitical dislocation.

A. Two major processes:
1. Disappearance of the financial base (Dollar & Debt) all over the world
2. Fragmentation of the interests of the global system’s big players and blocks

B. Two parallel sequences:
1. Quick disintegration of the current international system altogether
2. Strategic dislocation of big global players.

Anyone disagree out there?

[watermelons] oh the politics

Fat people and giant space-pigeons.

[the existence of g-d] maglev trains and macintosh osx

This blog sees its purpose [given that it is sentient, a contestable claim] as tackling any topic, no matter how uncomfortable.

The antidote to that is your clicking finger.

An epithet I like to give to the phenomenon of Jesus of Nazareth is ‘the man who came to earth to make you feel uncomfortable’ and I’m really comfortable with making you feel uncomfortable on that.

Let me employ three really weird analogies – the Macintosh OSX, electricity and a train.

Two men go to a train station to take the Intercity. One gets on and makes the journey, the other is stuck at the station. Later, the second makes out, on the phone, that the train refused to take him and anyway, it probably wasn’t going to his destination.

The man who travelled says, ‘Well first you have to buy the ticket. Only then will you know or not know.’

You can extend that analogy to the lottery. Someone’s bemoaning the fact that nothing good seems to happen and he has no money. Why do some people win the lottery and he gets nothing? Same thing – first you have to buy the ticket.

In other words, you have to get off your butt, physically make a move and buy it.

Let me ask you one. ‘How do you know sex feels exquisite?’

There’s a man with a PC which has broken down and a man with a Mac. The first says there’s nothing special about a Mac – it’s just a bloody laptop, after all. The PC can do so much more than a Mac ever can. The second only wants a simple, reliable device, with an elegant operating system which is a joy to use on an hour-to-hour basis. He says the Mac does what it does and does it in luxury. No more, no less.

Someone says, ‘Prove there’s a G-d and a Christ.’ I say, ‘I can’t prove it.’ ‘Aha,’ the first leaps onto this answer, ‘there you are, you see – it doesn’t exist.’ Then he goes into a long diatribe about how he can ‘prove it doesn’t exist’, how the gospels were written after 70CE and how this superstition needs to be stamped out.

I look at him and think, ‘You should take a recording of yourself – why are you so passionate about this?’

A fellow blogger comes over, apoplectic and asks me why I need to invent a G-d when there are perfectly rational explanations. I say, ‘Yes, there are rational explanations and one of them is that He exists.’

‘No, no,’ he says, ‘rational, scientifically provable.’

‘Ah’ I say, ‘like global warming.’

If you were to ask me what electricity is, I can’t tell you. Well yes, I can parrot back to you about volts, amperes and Charlie but I don’t know what it actually is. I know it works but I couldn’t begin to tell you how.

Well yes, I can tell you how but not what it actually IS.

I do know, coming back to the train analogy, that I bought the ticket way back in the past and immediately life became like a Mac in a PC world – just a better way to do it, serenely arrogant bstd, as Adams would say. Personal things just fall into place, while the extrinsic things like no job and the constant worry of being on the street continue but the thing is, I know the direct correlation between when I am doing the right thing, fulfilling the contract, so to speak and when I’m off on my own tangent.

In the former, things really do click and there are enough anecdotes to fill a library. What’s more, the correlation is not seventy or eighty percent – it’s 100%. It always works, like a Mac [in the first few years anyway – you can only take the analogy of a piece of machinery a certain way].

For example, a cheque arrives or I meet a nice lady and have a good afternoon or something just appears out of nowhere. When I’m not doing the right thing, it’s just like everyone’s life – some ups, some downs, mainly downs.

It doesn’t give you actual things. You’re still going to die, you won’t be left a fortune by a rich uncle - it won’t give you anything material, you’ll still find yourself on the Titanic, the same as all the other passengers but it does give you the mechanism to cope and the most important one of all – it gives comfort. In your head, if you really have faith, you also have comfort. One follows from the other.

Why this elicits such anger from people, why the fire comes out of the nostrils of someone intent on saying you’re a bloody idiot if you believe that long-exploded guff – this is a mystery to me. I don’t get apoplectic over your beliefs.

Returning to the train, how do I know maglev works? Actually, I think it’s flawed; I think that if you’re relying on electrically induced magnetism and with the ease with which circuits can be broken, that at any time out there, the connection can be broken and the train hurtles into the valley.

You’d answer me, ‘Have you ever been on maglev train?’ ‘Well no.’ ‘Then stop talking through your a-se. Until you’ve bought a ticket and gone on one, how can you say? It works fine and there are many people who can testify to that.’

Now it’s my turn. I ask, ‘Do you believe that there are other planets with sentient life forms out there in some galaxy?’ You say, ‘Of course.’ I say, ‘Prove it.’ You say, ‘Well on the law of averages, there have to be.’ I ask, ‘Why are you so obsessed with inventing the existence of other life forms? There’s only us.’ You say, ‘That’s such a blinkered view.’

[decadence] and the presence of the pod

"By ‘decadence’ we mean the point at which a creative function’s indwelling essence has rotted, leaving nothing but the outer rind of form. We do know that new forms come from new experiences."

Click.

[not so united states] and uncle sam

States seceding in the U.S.?

Hat tip Lord T by email.

[please read] and weep

Read please.

[apocalypse now] actually, a few chapters from now

Har Megiddon

All right, I’m in a bind. I’ve worked my way into a corner.

Help me please.

The first part of this tome was pretty straightforward. Written from 1996 to 2006, set in Russia and France, there’s a lot of what actually happened in there and the relationships were dead easy, so it almost wrote itself.

The tunnel under Har Megiddon - it does exist, truly.

The second was set mainly in France and then in Britain and it was almost all fiction, with my experiences up and down France thrown in and a hell of a lot of research on Paris and the area south of it. You should see the files I have on everything from what Galeries Lafayette and Au Printemps sell through to the Barbizon School.


The third book is the best written but it’s two books in one. I had the third part, set in Britain and that works well but that’s now finished and there are still seven chapters to write cold. The little band of survivors have now made it to the coast near Haifa, ordinary life in Britain having been made impossible by the government [all fiction, I know, I’m sorry] and they’re shacking up with the Druze on Har Carmel.



In lieu of actual knowledge of the Har Megiddon area, necessary for the apocalyptic ending where the troops amass, I’ve had to fill in with a falling out between the two main characters. The setting works – looking out over the Esdraelon Valley, the trees, the olives, the local culture – so that’s OK.

The problem is - how to get from there to the apocalypse and make it sound natural? The mechanism of this – you know, the cabals, the Thirteen in Europe and their arcane insanity leading to a recession, depression, the new feudalism, war, depopulation and then the apocalypse – that’s easy enough to do and people would accept it more in 2009 than in 2005.


Another thing – what does an apocalypse actually look like when it’s at home? When you’re really in that valley that night and the monster appears overhead to frighten the children, what does it actually look like? Tolkien doesn’t help here. Plus, that’s only half a page.



What plot can I put in, from the landing on the coast through to the Big Night, to fill in four chapters?