[dolphins] see them in context

What is it about dolphins?

Why do we tend to go all fuzzy over them, in contrast to our feelings over, say, the Great White:

An Irish article, by Graham Timmins, on Dusty the Dolphin showed me the real nature of the creature. Intended as a rebuttal of the MSM and local government paranoia over them, it nevertheless made me stop and think a bit more closely about that loveable dolphin swimming between my legs at Monkey Mia two decades back.

The article stated:

The Clare dolphin, Dusty, in particular, has been slandered right from the start and associated with ‘danger’ in almost every news report in which she has featured.

The writer sets us straight:

Only one dolphin anywhere in the world, ever, has been known to attack and kill a human being, and that was after long and repeated provocation. True, on many occasions solo bottlenose dolphins have banged into and injured people who have gone out to swim with them.

Even Fungie, who everybody thinks has a grade AA safety rating, has given a few bruises and even broken bones in his time. Dolphins are big and strong and if you encourage them to play rough with you it is at your own risk. You are in their territory and you are meeting them on their terms – which is precisely what is so good about it!

The implication that dolphins are by nature aggressive and are likely to set out to injure you, which appears again and again in press reports, is however one without any foundation and which we reject.

Dusty has been known to poke and prod people with her beak and on a few occasions people have been hit by her tail fluke, although this may not always have been deliberate. She has also closed her mouth on people’s fins, arms and legs, and on a few occasions has even used her beak to hold people underwater.

Anyone who has seen film of the Moray Firth dolphins beating up harbour porpoises will also be aware that we humans, by comparison with porpoises, are as agile in the sea and as well able to defend ourselves as a slug on a carpet. If a dolphin were to really attack you and mean it, you would simply not survive, and there is basically nothing you can do about it.

We’ve certainly seen her do this with people who have been very pushy, grabbing her fins for example, or intruding when she has been enjoying a quiet interaction with a favoured playmate, but also with apparently ‘innocent’ swimmers including children.

One scenario we have arrived at only with hindsight and after several similar occurences is that Dusty can be jealous of certain favoured swimmers and can object if they are replaced by others she doesn’t know, who she then chases out of the water. Every time we’ve seen this it has been girlfriends of male swimmers she has picked on – this may be coincidence but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that in human terms, Dusty can be a jealous mistress!

More recently, regular Dusty swimmers have concluded that many aggressive moves by the dolphin can be linked to a battle for possession of what she sees as ‘toys’, although to us they might be useful diving masks or expensive cameras. Right from the first years she has been in the habit of carrying off such objects, including also boogie boards and fins, whenever she gets the chance. Often she will bring them back, but by no means always. Face masks have become a favourite recently and if she grabs your mask with her teeth or bangs on it, it means she wants you to take it off and give it to her!

In any case we advise that if Dusty wants something, and you’re in water out of your depth, you give it to her, unless you are prepared to argue with 250kg of solid muscle. Regulars have found that if Dusty holds them underwater, they only have to let go of whatever they are carrying and she will release them.

Dolphins appear to lose their first calves quite commonly, but her calf’s chances in this case will not have been improved by the absence of other female dolphins to act as ‘midwives’, and it may also have been that Dusty was too young anyway to be a mother. However, other dolphins are frequently sighted in the area and there are many reports of Dusty interacting with some of them; at the same time there have been several incidents when she has conspicuously avoided visiting dolphins and one in which she appeared to be kidnapped by a gang of larger males.

Having read the article now, I’m even more enamoured of the dolphin than before.

Hell, even a baby can hurt you. Anyone who’s ever had his infant beside him in bed and suddenly the tyke turns over and his arm whacks you across the moosh knows what I’m saying.

Even a woman can physically hurt you sometimes if you’re not ready. I had enough kicks and bruises, clawed out bits of cheek and bitten neck to know the danger of a woman if you don’t keep an eye on her during your little tiffs.

So a 250 kg dolphin, even a female, is going to do it her way and if you’re playing on her terms, then her behaviour goes with the territory.

So what? She’s still adorable.

[wigs] these are not worn on the head

Wing In Ground is a strange name for a type of aircraft … well, boat … allow me to explain.

My friend in Russia was once on the bank at the confluence of the mighty Kama and Volga rivers. He looked out over the water and saw a sight which blew him away.



In the distance, zooming across his line of vision were three Orlyonoks, just above water level, so they were planes flying and yet they never took off, never flew up to the sky. They were huge, carrying banks of six huge engines at the front of the fuselage and were moving twice as fast as a plane in takeoff.

Quickly he was told that it was worth his job even to mention that name, to forget what he’d seen.

As you’ve gathered, it was a surface effect craft or WIG [wing effect in ground] as they’ve come to be known for some obscure reason and they were one solution to the age old aquadynamic problem.



Let’s face it, any boat has surface area drag, i.e. the water, acting on the surface, creates friction which prevents forward movement. There are all sorts of formulae which govern aquadynamics. Someone discovered that a boat in the water [displacement craft] had severe limitations due to both this drag and a thing called a bow wave, i.e. the boat creates its own wave which it must effectively climb over to free itself.

If it can achieve this, it does what is termed ‘planing’ – it sits on top of the water and skims. This is the principle behind windsurfers, one of which currently holds the world speed record of over 50 knots. The formula for planing is:

… one and a third times the square root of the length at the water line.

Against this was the rule that the longer the boat, the higher speed or ability to overcome the bow wave. Either way though, it was an unsatisfactory situation and so conventional boat travel has always been limited in scope.

For most people, the leisurely cruise is fine but for the companies, it’s very fuel inefficient. So they had to come up with ways to break the nexus of water, surface area and drag. As you see below, there were three main solutions.


Hydrofoils

Excellent solution but they do cause instability; the picture of Hypdroptere on a lovely day illustrates the upside. Commercially, the fuel efficiency makes these craft viable.




The downside is that it crashed not long after this and broke it’s beams due to wave and wind stress. Essentially, when yours is a boat with passengers moving round, to have it suspended at three or four tiny points in the water, via blades, is dependent on the wave action at the time.

I’m sure you can see this principle in the clip below.



Hovercraft

Using banks of air thrusters below and ‘skirts’ around this to hold the air in, the boat sits on a cushion of air, which immediately gives it an advantage over the hydrofoil, in that you can move from sea to land without fuss.

The downside is cost and the necessity for the craft to be very close to the surface, making it prone to rocking in a big sea.

Surface effect

Using aeroplane technology, the craft takes off as a flying boat does but then vertically stops, riding a cushion of air created by its huge wings. You’ve noticed, when you land, that the plane pauses momentarily before finally coming to the tarmac.

This is ground effect. Watch the short clip to see it in action:



The benefits are obvious. With virtually no drag, the craft has a smooth ride and long range. You’ve probably gathered that there are disadvantages though which are explained in the clips below. You might have to click on them to read them properly.







In fact, the Russian version had those banks of engines actually angled downwards at takeoff and one version had two separate sets of engines. The huge cost of this precluded short journeys and those not carrying a large payload long distances.

Also, the craft was again subject to wave action but not only that, wind unsteadiness as well. So it needed to be very long and very heavy, to avoid flipping over, a phenomenon associated with these craft, as with the Donald Campbell speedboat.

This made them ineffective except within a narrow range of usage, mainly military.



To date, no other solution to the age old problem has become commercially viable, except perhaps for ‘outrigger technology’.

This is what I use in my designs and it works on the basis, which you can see in the craft in the pic below, of enabling a very narrow hull at waterline, broadened above for passengers. The reduction in overall area creates the efficient plus the formula of LWL versus beam getting up to the very efficient range of 14:1.

Another very clever move is that if you look at the outrigger ‘amas’, they are just logs, of neutral buoyancy, i.e. they sit on the water on their own but when pressure is put on them, they sink.



This is clever because when you have a sea coming abeam or side on, the alternate sinking and rising either side of a power boat creates overall stability and gives a smoother ride through rough seas.

To a point.

When you have very rough wind and wave action, the boat turns over and people die. You’ve all heard about Philippine ferry disasters.

The navy has been interested in both trimaran and hydrofoil technology as well, as can be see below and so the ongoing struggle for efficiency continues.





Here's one site on the subject.

Here's another. [Between the Wind and the Waves, Julian Edgar, Issue 170, 5 Mar, 2002]

[quiz for men] which flower means what

Linda Jeffery Sailors watercolour

You girls can play too!


Match the meaning with the flower or flowering plant:

The meanings

1. Treachery and Misrepresentation
2. Aphrodisiac
3. Good luck gift to a man
4. I can't live without you
5. Keeps unwanted visitors away

The flowers

Camelia, primrose, peony, lily [general], dahlia

Answers

Camelia - Good luck gift to a man Primrose - I can't live without you Peony - Aphrodisiac Lily (general) - Keeps unwanted visitors away Dahlia Treachery and Misrepresentation

[what’s in a date] some to consider

1991 Brown attends the Bilderberg Conference

1993 Blair attends the Bilderberg Conference

1994 Smith conveniently dies

1997 Blair and Brown rapturously welcomed by a grateful nation, Diana bumped off

1997-2009 Britain destroyed

2009 Blair appointed to a cushy Morgan job, the Morgan Fed being the name behind the global meltdown, non-American Obama rapturously welcomed by a grateful nation, March 23rd - America loses its sovereignty, unconstitutionally, to the NAAC

2009 onwards America destroyed

2012 Ah, the magic year

[sonus] understanding issues: part 2

This is part 2 of the Sonus series on why we're effed, who is responsible and whom we need to lynch. I've just read all of it to part 5 and have to say it gets even better the further you read.

Dates for posting the Sonus articles: March 16th, 18th, 20th, 23rd, 25th and 27th.

Part 1 of this series can be read here.




Let us now revisit the simple banking model in Part I

I do not want to over-complicate the varying mechanisms, between the US and UK banking systems, as that is not the issue here, merely to say that over time the State began to control the individual banks.

Banking licenses were issued, which allowed the banks to issue bank notes in their own name, (subject to limitations), and as banks failed, or merged, no new licenses were issued. Over time this resulted in a monopoly for the Bank of England. (Differing notes are still issued by banks in Scotland)

In order to control the amount of credit (debt) that could be issued under fractional reserve lending, (sometimes called “the multiplier effect” in the UK system) The Bank of England could require the clearing banks to hold varying proportions of the assets as deposits at the Bank of England. (The Chinese authorities are very active currently, using special deposits as a way of controlling their economy, via credit/debt issuance, and they seem to be avoiding the traps of pro-cyclicality quite well)
That is enough of the details to suffice.

There are several features of a modern Fiat system that must be understood in principle.

0. Modern Fiat systems have evolved efficient control mechanisms. If a 5%, or a 2%, or whatever %, rate of inflation is required, absent large extraneous events, that is what will be achieved. (remember the previous political machinations with interest rates prior to election times, and the Kudos Brown earned for making the B of E independent - allegedly)

0. All Fiat systems beyond a tipping point, have a definitive life-span, after which the “National Debt” is compounding at such a rate that it overcomes the ability of the economy to pay it. The Maths cannot be beaten.

0. During that life-span, incremental debt injected creates diminishing increases in GDP, on a £ for£ basis. Towards the end of a Fiat life-cycle, massive injections of incremental debt will create negative GDP. Once again, the maths cannot be beaten.

0. Increases in the rate of inflation in a Fiat system shorten the life-span of the system. Maths again.

Ron Paul says it well!

The above are enough rules for now, but think of their importance, and understand the implications of the above in relation to current circumstances.

The intrepid blogger Karl Denninger blogged about points 2, 3,and 4 above. He produced a graph here.

When reviewing this graph, take note that it was published BEFORE trillions of new debt was injected, albeit sterilised, by the Fed. The upcoming de-sterilisation will bend the trend line lower!

And the blog is here.

Simply put, there is too much debt in the economy. If people won't borrow, because they are up to their eyes in debt and non-profitable companies can't service any more, or can't roll existing debt over, the velocity of money decreases. You cannot inflate away from an over indebted position by injecting more debt via borrowings. Interest rates will not remain at, or near zero, for long, as bond vigilantes will strike, then even more existing debts become unserviceable as interest rates rise, and currency devaluation becomes the only option.

The dirty hidden secret of all Fiat systems is the theft of all savings via inflation. Gradually, over the years, everything is confiscated. Yet everything is so gradual, (when operating properly) that it goes un-noticed, becomes part of an unconscious acceptance, it is insidious and evil.

Once again, Ron Paul gets it.


To give an example, in 1972, I purchased a serviced building plot from a local council, obtained detailed planning consent, and built my own residence. The land cost £2,500, it was one quarter acre. Today, the land would cost more than £150,000.
The land has only marginally increased in value due to development, - it was bought with outline planning permission, - the difference is that the £ has devalued since 1972.

Difficult to believe?

Well here is a website that can be used interactively to illustrate my point.

Here is a website that looks at the prices of housing from 1890, to present, and adjusts them for inflation. It shows vividly the vast over valuation of housing currently, so let's say the land valuation could drop to £75,000, that is still a vast devaluation of the £ from the £2,500 purchase price.

Yes, it is American, but if anything the degree of historical over valuation is higher in the UK.

In the normal run of business activity, if a business were to issue receipts for non-existent goods, or sell a product that it did not own, it would be guilty of fraud, and the directors would run the risk of jail time.

This is what banks do as part of normal business activities, called fractional reserve lending, and it becomes legal because the Government issues a banking licence that says it is legal.

It is the global use of fractional reserve lending that increases overall inflation levels via increasing levels of credit (debt/money)-(although inflation levels may vary geographically) and results in the gentle theft of all savings, over time.

The dirty little secret restated, is that no Government running a fraudulent Fiat Banking system wants you to know, is that prices do not automatically increase, it is the currency that devalues in a Fiat system. NO FIAT CURRENCY HAS A FIXED VALUE AGAINST ANY GLOBAL ASSET, IT MUST DEPRECIATE OVER TIME. PERIOD. AND THE ASSET MUST APPARENTLY INCREASE IN COST. Absent fractional reserve lending and interest on debt, the normal evolution during a product life-cycle is one where the product becomes cheaper due to increasing volumes of mass production rising from public acceptance of the product selling in greater volumes, and improvements in technology, and competing companies entering the market attracted by the initial margins. For example, look at the advances in computing power, and the price decreases in the last 2 decades,- albeit an element of the price reduction is due to off-shoring/currency manipulation in the exporting countries.

The mistake that MOST thinkers make is to consider the currency as fixed and commodity prices as increasing. Such thinking is particularly useful to Fiat governments. It disguises their theft of the savings of the populace, and their reneging on their future liabilities, eg, for pensions.

A Fiat system cannot be deflationary without ultimately imploding. It struggles to exist profitably in near zero inflation (equilibrium). It can best exist in a “growth” situation, that is, where increasing levels of credit/debt are being created, - the classical western “growth model” of western economies.

Deflation is death to Fiat because the paying down of all debt, or the cancelling of all debt via bankruptcy destroys the money supply, and economic activity ceases, since credit (debt) is “money” in a Fiat system. This is part of what worries the global financial authorities in this current deflationary stage of global financial collapse.

Here is an excellent summary of the above issues.

The authorities are determined to preserve (their) the Fiat system at all costs, even at the expense of criminal moral hazard, and possibly the future viability of the country, and age-old democratic values. Although the current crop of political leaders seem oblivious to economic principles, there are increasing numbers of dissenters to their methods, who are becoming increasingly more vocal in their opposition.

It is this passion evidenced by the authorities, for the preservation of the Fiat system, which is becoming increasingly illogical, that causes inquiring minds to speculate the true motivations behind a seemingly noxious stand. 
 
 



Jamming with a Pretty Woman refreshment break.

Or as I remember clubs!

 
 
 
 

Part 3 of the series can be read here.


It says 'written by James Higham' below. Actually, it was written by Sonus but I can't reformat the author in my template.

[age of consent] and a time to refrain from embracing

Was there ever a topic as offputting as incest and child pornography? No blogger in his right mind would touch it, not least because the key words appear in search engines worldwide.

Also, if you’re of the gender and within the age range of the most highly suspect, you’re hardly in a position to write on the topic. I’m going to though because it’s deeply distressing to see what’s going on.

To begin with, I accept the point made by Lord T that:

We pride ourselves as having progressed where in fact we have not progressed much since we left the caves in these regards. It is all surface coating or lip service to the law.

Never mind the porn, just look at our newspapers.

Nobody has any page 3 grannies. It’s all 18 to 20 year olds, younger if they can find a good reason and as it sells papers we all guzzle it up. We all like looking at young things.

Remember Charlotte Church when she was only 13 or 14? How people commented on her body … Nature made women fertile long before they matured mentally.

Some years ago, a friend of mine, a footballer of some note, was discussing this over dinner and his wife made some point about cradle snatching, which was interesting because she was cradle snatched before she met her husband. He made the comment, ‘I might have thought about it for five minutes.’

At least he was honest. I’d suggest that the reason he didn’t think any longer than the five minutes was because of sheer availability; in short, he was a catch for females of any age. How far is dwelling on the charms of young girls inversely proportional to one’s overall attractiveness to the female gender?

And yet there was Ted Bundy, not unpersonable and accepted by one girl as his marriage partner but he was psychopathic, whereas we’re referring here to ostensibly ‘normal’ males..

I’d answer my own point by saying that the more that opportunities result in the taking of those opportunities, the more voracious becomes one’s own appetite.

What I’m getting at here is that in the periods of my life where I was doing well with the ladies, the more ladies that I was seeing, the more ladies who mysteriously seemed to become available. It tended to snowball.

Perhaps it was all their friends and colleagues which opened the pool, perhaps it was what it did to the man – making him take more care and attention over his own appearance; maybe he was just more attuned to the female, the more he indulged her and indulged in her.

These days in Britain, with virtually zero opportunity, nothing snowballs in the least.

Sexual orientation

Lord T mentioned a ‘sliding scale’ and I believe in that. For example, one of my pet theories is that we all have a sliding scale, like the fader on a sound system, between homosexuality and heterosexuality.

I don’t think that one is either all one way or the other. Having been traumatized as a child by friends of the family [my parents never knew, right up till the end], my slider on that scale is jammed hard up at the hetero end.

I have almost zero homosexual tendencies. In fact, I even have problems shaking hands with a man, which is why I tend to have such a hard handshake and if one puts his hand on my shoulder, which the Russians who like you tend to do, with no connotations whatsoever, I try hard not to cringe.

On the other hand, I have zero problems with two girls hard at it and a love affair between girls doesn’t worry me any. Older woman-younger woman, older woman-younger man – not a problem unless it’s my woman with the younger man.

By the way, much of my life was spent avoiding the charms of older women - my second wife was six years older than me, my first four years older and I had certain problems with mothers as a young teacher. My next door neighbour who was about fifty, invited me over [I was maybe thirty] and began, ‘I’m a woman, you’re a man,’ at which point I made polite excuses and ran.

Yes, I would

Age range

Similarly, there seems to be a sliding scale with age preference but a better model here would be the margin tabs at the top of your Word document. They’re set somewhere across the page.

Chandler’s Philip Marlowe preferred his women to be shiny and hardboiled; I can’t imagine anything worse. Nabokov’s anti-hero preferred Lolita. I can’t imagine anything worse than a child lover who lies there and says, ‘Tell me when you’re done.’ Surely the game with a woman is the whole thing – the thrill of the chase etc.?

Let’s put a hypothetical to the men and ask them the question of where they’d set their tabs.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you find yourself on your own and a precocious eighteen year old makes herself available. You’re never going to be caught as she knows somewhere you could both go to do the deed.

Well? Would you? Don’t lie!

A Segolene Royal finds herself with you and seems to be taking a deep interest in your middle-aged pontificating. It’s clearly on … so do you? You’d need not ask me twice.

OK, now let’s broaden it a little.

You find yourself, somehow, with one of the thirteen year olds you’ve seen pictures of, she’s clearly sentient, she’s on her own, she likes you and no one’s ever going to know. She says, as Clemence Poesy, living child-porn on two legs, said in the film In Bruges, ‘Fuck first, eat second.’

Would you cross that line?

A lady of sixty, elegant, silky voiced, educated, still naughty, powerfully Loren, seems quite affected by your charms.

Well? Would you?

So where do you set your tabs, boys? 3 to 70? 16 to 43? 9 to 22? 26 to 49 [where mine currently are]?

I have another theory, as Anne Elk had, that other sliding scales also come into play now: fat-thin, serious relationship-one night stand, intelligent-bimbo, blonde-brunette and so on.

In other words, all of us are all over the place in whom we could go for although conversely, the pool of women willing to go for us is steadily contracting.

The disintegration of normal relations in developed nations

In a western world where fathers can’t even go near their daughters for even normal fathership and mothers are so paranoid that they look askance any time their daughter is left alone with her father, there is real sickness going on.

In a world where the majority of women are making themselves exceedingly unappealing to and demanding of their partners [and make no mistake about this, ladies – it is happening, not least with some of your gender’s feminist carping], the male is looking elsewhere. Look at the mail order bride market and the increasing number of men willing to go ‘offshore’.

By their very actions, women are driving men to look in other directions. Women will violently attack me for saying this, saying it is no excuse for touching a younger girl.

I agree – it is no excuse at all but human nature is what human nature is. Are all men rapists? Not in a society which is balanced, where women act as women. And what does that mean – acting as women?

This one is for you, ladies – have you ever thought what attracts a man to you apart from your luscious lips, perfect thighs and big breasts?

It’s you as a person.

Now if you’re going to make yourself unattractive through the feminist motif running through all your words and actions, even though you have no idea and would hotly deny you were actually doing that … and at the same time, some undemanding young beauty appears on the scene – whom is he going to be more likely to want to spend his time with?




The prostituting of young girls

This really upsets me and is the reason for the post.

This generation of girls is growing up doing the full adult sexuality and more by late teenage, doing things that only prostitutes did two generations ago. I’m going to get specific here. Even the Rodox porn of yesteryear, while showing group sex, did not dwell on dp and other acts to nearly the extent that today’s porn does.

Today, these acts are almost par for the course and what’s more, the models doing them are either close to or I suspect are under eighteen. This is progress in society?

What’s worse is in the social interaction at school age.

From her sexually sentient years of around eleven or twelve, where once they were fourteen to seventeen, it is obvious that the only way a girl is going to be part of the gang, the most increasingly important focus of any child whose world is expanding, as always has been the way, is to conform to group mores.

From where is the young male getting the idea that it’s fine to bang girls indiscriminately and that that is a girl’s ultimate value within the group?

The answer is that these days a girl says yes and has to say yes or else she finds herself marginalized.

Gordo had a plan to have a nurse in every school. It’s de rigeur to provide sexual counselling for children and condoms seem to be readily available.

Why? Why now?

It was never necessary before in school because boys might have dreamt of it and a certain percentage of slutty girls crossed the line but generally, they were Playboy days, when the woman was still held to be a desirable person, rather than just a semen pit.

Before the late teenage guys leap to their own defence, let me qualify this by saying that it’s not so much a 24/7 orgy I’m alleging is happening but normal adult relations, where full adult sex is just part of the whole, shifted downwards to the lower age range around fourteen.

Some will claim that that’s healthy. Guys and girls hanging around together, socializing and yes – having sex. Without complexes and healthy, right? Are the girls traumatized? Are they heck as like – they’re some of the main instigators.

So what’s wrong with it?

They’re not effing ready, that’s what’s wrong and I’m not only referring to the explosion of teen pregnancies. In a society so officially fixated with protecting the young and vilifying the male, no one is effing well actually protecting the kids, in real terms.

To have to face the loss of virginity so early, on top of all the hormonal angst and in the context of the pressures of school life, peer group troubles, bullying, the constant pressure to be ana and so on – it’s a bizarre cocktail.

When I say they’re not ready, the model of sex being the consummation of a deep relationship between two people has all but gone out the window.

Fourteen year olds can certainly feel deep love and my own thirteen year old lover when I was that age is still very much on my mind. I had sexual relations when I was eight with another eight year old I’d known since I was four. She’s the one I mentioned whose case I used to carry when we walked to kinder. But this was the ‘I’ll show you mine if …’ variety.

So yes, even eight year olds have a certain sexuality but it’s an eight year old sexuality, not an adult’s.

Yet the porn available has the whole biz with an older, adult male together with a seriously teenage girl and they package it up as an ‘audition’, for money. This is wrong.

How has it come down to this?

Look, the porn market would not exist without people viewing it. If no one viewed three thirty year old men and a fifteen year old girl in a no holds barred video and thumbnail presentation, then that category of the industry which prostitutes girls from less developed nations and even our own would not exist.

To paraphrase Lord T, we’d all be viewing page 3 grannies.

But men and even some women do view these things and are becoming inured against any sense of shame that they’re doing so. What they are, in effect doing, is giving lifeblood to the industry and to the exploitation of girls. Not only that but with the ready accessibilty of this material, this is the pattern on which young sexual relations are being built, now that the church is virtually silent and parents don’t seem to be mentoring any more.

So our own children are at high risk of learning sexuality outside the context of love and normal adult emotions. A child can’t feel those emotions. She can feel the physical stirrings after a certain age and knows about falling in love but she can’t feel what adults eventually feel and so she interprets, as the boy does too, a perverse sort of male-female social interaction based on lust in a group setting.

Look, if you start a girl too early, it causes all sorts of psychological dislocation at a much later date. I’ve seen it happen and it’s so subtle it’s hard to prove. There are no stats on this.

How to stop it all?

Stop men watching, pull the plug on this market.

How to stop men watching?

Girls saying no, as the vast majority once did.

How to get a girl to say no?

Remove the social expectation for her to say yes, the idea that it’s quite all right by us - instead, make it the norm and quite OK for her to say no.

How do we do that?

By ourselves, us males, stop feeding the monster.

I suspect that our own two generations are too far gone and any progress will have to come from sexually weary girls, at twenty five or thirty, with their own children, to start reasserting some sort of moral code where there’s a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.

Leave aside right and wrong and the idea of ‘thou shalt not’.

Let them educate their children that peer pressure should not extend to personal sexuality, that there is a generally accepted age where these things have a meaningful context and above all, re-establish the connection between sexuality and one-to-one relations of some sort of meaningfulness.

Dare I say it – in a context of ongoing and abiding love.

Dare I also say it – this is the true feminism, ensuring girls are allowed to grow up in a healthy environment where they are valued for themselves and not just for their bodies.

[2012] cashless economy, here we come

I wanted to hold this post back as the political comment on the blog is best made by Sonus for a week while I concentrate on other issues but I got to my mate's too late today and it had already gone up. As you know, once readers get their RSS feed, there's nothing which can be done. It's a pity.

I'll still post the Incest post though and Sonus's part two will appear tomorrow morning.


As we all tighten our belts and fail to really comprehend what Wolfie said about the last quarter this year, reactions will vary.

Those who don’t accept the ‘Them’ scenario, that there is a malevolent, interlocked power keeping wars and human misery ticking over, will be buoyed up by the Roosevelt dictum, ‘All we have to fear is fear itself.’

Britain and America will pull out and let me quote Svali [§] again:

There will be massive bankruptcies nationwide. Europe will stabilize first and then Germany, France and England will have the strongest economies …

The economist pundits who were shown not to have a clue [or else they knew precisely what was going to happen and dissembled], will preach confidence and not to listen to the doomsayers.

Quite frankly, if there is a way out and the analysis of many, including myself, turns out to be wrong, if construction does begin again and the first shoots of confidence pop their heads up, then this blog, if it still exists, will issue a grovelling apology.

People like Lord T are basically optimists and it’s the optimists who get us out of things. So well done.

On the other hand, I left a bit out of that quote above.

… and will institute, through the UN, an international currency. Japan will also pull out, although their economy will be weakened. The good news is that if a person is debt-free, owes nothing to the government or credit debt, and can live self sufficiently, they may do better than others.

Yes, we do recover but into a brand new world where money and credit is now reconstituted, having been shown [by Them] that you can’t trust people, especially sub-primes, with it.

To enable Nanny to rebuild the devastated economy, a new currency needs to be in force [Brown’s contribution to saving humanity] and no one buys or sells except in this currency. It’s not even a currency but a cashless economy, a reaction against the huge, reckless borrowing by governments such as Brown’s which left the country up to it’s neck in debt.

With the stroke of a pen, all debt is now wiped out by good ole Nanny Europe and anyone playing along, e.g. Ireland by ratifying Lisbon, is rewarded.

After some time, even plastic becomes obsolete and a small veri-chip in the wrist is promoted with huge discounts on accommodation and food prices, which eventually means that the only way to eat is to have one of these.

How far away is this?

Look at what’s been happening at local level in Russia. There’s a post 1990 tradition of truly free enterprise, which the mafia naturally tried to muscle in on and control but it was beyond them as every time they closed someone down for selling, [see the film Brat for an example of this], grandmothers would pop up selling staple items such as coleslaw, other produce and cottage cheese.

People mostly have dachas or gardens and they can revert quickly to growing their own produce. The more enterprising keep livestock, kill a cow, chop it up and store the pieces over winter. Bottling with the vacuum sealing is also a long tradition there and can return quickly, as the infrastructure is still in place.

But here’s the rub. Local authorities won’t let it return.

From about 2001 onwards, there was a major move to construct hypermarts under local government control, with accredited [read ‘ripped off’] stall holders and the iniquitous system of ‘concessions’ in which the law colludes in killing off genuine free enterprise.

Then began systematic destruction of all local stalls, kiosks and people just appearing on the streets to sell their wares, which was the one major, positive feature about the Russian economy. They simply disappeared and people who could once come downstairs to buy something now had to travel by car to the hypermart.

At the same time, high end chains such as Metro and Bahetlye became emporia to which the new middle-class flocked. What people failed to realize was that it was the same process as in Britain years earlier.

Let’s check. Could I produce my own ready-cooked meals, soups, confectionery, as well as keeping a supply of cigarettes, go on to the street here with a little table and chair and start selling?

How long would I last and who would be the people to stop me?

Therefore, ASDA and Morrisons [or whoever your local is] assume huge importance in your life. Imagine you had to run your wrist through a small electronic hoop [see Casino Royale] even to enter the store. Imagine that one day your chip did not register [just as occasionally your card at the checkout shows credit limit reached] because someone in a ministry had decided that you ‘failed to qualify’.

Any reason – slow in paying council tax, wrote things against the government on your blog.

Where do you now go to eat? After two weeks or so, having exhausted your family’s patience, it will become apparent that it’s either going to be dustbin picking or the country to grow seeds.

Can you go to the country in Britain to grow seeds? Would the cabbages you grow happily remain in the ground or would someone come along to f--- you over?

Therefore, the only possible way to eat is going to be to keep well hidden within the extended family and let the family take up the slack.

Oh but how many don’t have the extended family any more? How many live either on their own or with one partner? To you, I’d say, ‘Your f---ed, mate.’ The instant someone decides you’ve been a naughty boy or girl [drugs, wheelie bin offence, it doesn’t matter], you’re off the list and don’t eat.

This is how they are going to do it. This is how they can most effectively have us by the short and curlies.

Independent thought? Libertarianism? Thing of the past, fellow citizens.


§ [Interviewer HJ Springer, Chief Editor CentrExNews.com., 2000]

[caption time] just that

[christa päffgen] reasons to continue, reasons to pass away

On July 18th, 1988, a lady went out cycling around her favourite roads in Ibiza, on a swelteringly hot day.

She was found unconscious by her bike and taken to the Cannes Nisto Hospital with a brain haemorrhage; she died at 8 p.m. Cremated, her ashes were placed in her mother Margarete's grave in a small cemetery in the Grunewald Forest, at the edge of the Wannsee, Berlin,

A few friends played a song from Desertshore on a cassette recorder ...

You can get a metro train to Wannsee and there is a bus that goes from outside the train station. It's the old fashioned historical omnibus which runs hourly. When you get off the bus there is a sign pointing in the direction of the cemetery. In winter the bus only runs until 17:00 and the cemetery shuts early, too. As you get to the cemetery, her grave is a couple of rows in to the left.

Thus ended a living enigma in less than romantic circumstances.

Christa Päffgen was born on October 16th, 1938, in Cologne, in Nazi-controlled Germany. At the age of two she was taken to the little town of Spreewald on the outskirts of Berlin where she lived together with her mother and grandfather, a railway man, through the end of World War II. Her father died in a concentration camp.

Fleeing from the Russian occupation in 1946, mother and daughter wound up in the ruined American Sector of Berlin where Christa worked part-time as a seamstress. She was sent to school till she was 13 years old, then took a job selling lingerie. After a year, her mother found her work as a model with a Berlin fashion house.

At 15 she was sent to the Isle of Ibiza on assignment and met a photographer who gave her [a different name to use] after a recently departed boyfriend of his.

In 1958, she fell in love with Ibiza on a visit there. In 1960, she was enrolled at Lee Strassberg's Method School in New York, joining the same class as Marilyn Monroe.

She became a supermodel, then one day Fellini signed her for a part in La Dolce Vita the instant he saw her. In 1964/5, she had a child by Alain Delon.

Among her friends and partners were Andrew Loog Oldham, Brian Jones, Jimmy Page, Andy Warhol, whom she supposedly told, ‘I want to sing,’ the Velvet Underground, Jackson Browne, Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop.

The Velvet Underground threw her out when she wanted to be their lead singer but John Cale was so taken that he produced three of her albums; Bob Dylan also dedicated his song Visions of Johanna to her.

Chelsea Girl and Camera Obscura were two albums associated with Christa.

Her work was obscure, mystical and intense, with gothic overtones and sparse instrumentation, her voice deep and soulful, almost fey. Death appeared the companion to her narcotic life and she may have understood that her time was up, as her final works resembled a requiem, remembering old friends and others littered through her past.

I feel she ran out of reasons to live.

The notion that a person cut off from youth, from the real love of her life and from the things which gave her life some piquancy, which allowed it to make sense, the notion that this person simply dies, is an appealing one.

There are two battles I’m fighting at the same time right now.

One is that the girl I love is trying to get here to see me and some days ago, it appeared that it’s now a forlorn hope. I’ll have to go there although there are no means to. What were the odds that her former best friend, having returned from another country, is also trying to get in touch with me?

Both of them are characters in Insanity.

The second struggle is having to kill off a character in the second last chapter of the final book but I can’t let her go. A tragic girl, rescued from her past, I’m thinking of killing off my main characters instead. Somehow the tragic character needs to live on and others who’ve gone as far as they can should take her place on the last train.

When the writing’s done, then the mission is completed. Parents, friends and loves having all gone and with no infrastructure, the future is too opaque to continue.

It wasn’t an altogether unfulfilling experience.

There's a nice article here.

[decency] an issue of style

Chivalry is not always decency - witness Guinevere

It’s interesting that, while decency appears to be the new norm in dealings between agencies, firms and the public – inclusiveness, non-abuse policies etc. - it seems to have departed in interpersonal relations.

Our local council is whatever you want to say about it but I observed, in officers’ dealings with the public, if not compassion, then at least a willingness to help out. It was pretty impressive to see, as I waited on the comfortable couch, how each new enquirer was dealt with.

If only that could permeate the sphere of how we deal with each other. Regular readers are well aware of this blog’s promotion of chivalry as a mode of behaviour towards one another but I admit I’ve failed to be chivalrous in the past to people who act indecently themselves and indulge in unmitigated lying to save their butts – witness the events of last year.

I should have lived up to my own ideals and just let it go most like.

What is decency?

For a start, it’s not being a stern moralist who would snuff the very lifeblood out of enjoyment. I look at the hymn writer in the pic to the right [possibly William Kethe] and though it might be doing the man a disservice, I shouldn’t have liked to have to operated under his stern gaze the whole time. He might have been the kindest and most compassionate of men but I simply can’t live up to his ideals. Somerset Maugham’s Rain touched on the issue too.

Brrrr!

On the other hand, I’m at odds with today’s world where you’re in a shopping arcade, say, and all you hear is constant stream of bile coming out of the mouths of kids, especially the girls who are trying to be every bit as bad as the boys and this is their way to find acceptance. That sort of thing can be seen in the antics of bloggers like John Edwards’ harpies and Britbloggers like Caroline Hunt. I mean, those things are just low.

A lady I admire recently said she was going to grow old disgracefully but it’s important to discern the difference between what she means and lowlife gutter antics.

Decency, to me, is not a moral issue but an issue of style. A much admired phrase of the Brits and one I’ve used negatively quite often is ‘the triumph of style over substance’.

Now I’m not so sure.

In a rugby analogy, one can admire the sheer danger posed by the disciplined, gritty Englishman, which will win more games when conditions are bad but to watch – give me the freeflowing style of the Aussies, New Zealanders or Barbars please.



There’s nothing wrong with style as long as it’s based on substance. I ask where either the substance or the style is in today’s devil’s children? They’re so enamoured of fashion but where’s their own personal style?

In my landlord days, I had to throw out a couple of tenants who’d trashed the house and after cleaning up the ordure and repairing the infrastructure, one letter which stayed in my mind, amongst the unpaid bills and final demands, was a circular from the “Young Sophisticates Club’.

Sigh.

The problem is, if you take decency to mean that we should all strut around like lords and ladies, making chivalrous gestures, this is not what I’m driving at.

What about sex?

Within the personal space of two people, there are three basic orifices and I see no problem with that, nor could I bring myself to be upset by the thought of two women exploring the possibilities. Don’t ask about the other because I was traumatized by men as a child and find that disgusting.

But even in the middle of quite anatomical congress with your partner, you can still be decent, in the sense of celebrating and revering her, even if your actual physical deeds are only one step up from animal rutting.

Decent wags?

I mean, carnal knowledge is meant to be that, isn’t it – knowledge? Surely it’s your duty to take time to explore, as Leonard Cohen wrote, ‘those holy hills, that deep ravine’. The notion of coition as a means of getting your quota, rolling off and falling asleep is a cop out as far as I’m concerned.

What a waste of good rutting time – after all, you do have until the dawn. Besides, there’s a challenge in getting her over the line, a challenge to your ingenuity. Don’t get me wrong - wham bam, thank you ma’am is fine in the sense that you have to use a bit of the old steam train, women expect no less but you can still still do that and be at least sentient, monitoring to see that she’s OK along the way.

That’s what I mean by decency.

Swearblogging

Hey, just because I don’t go in for it myself, except to punctuate a particular point, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its place. The crime is when it supplants style and doesn’t serve any literary purpose.

We keep coming back to style.

That’s the chief crime of today’s age – the assault on style in the scramble for Procrustean mediocrity. And in my eyes, this is very closely interwoven with the concept of decency.

[sonus] understanding issues: part I

This is the first of a series of five articles by Sonus [the Anon of the comments sections on this blog]. In view of the material here, I'll hold my own post '2012' over until tomorrow. This series will be linked in the sidebar in a few days. Thanks, Sonus, for the post.




The problem I have in writing an essay like this, is where to start?

Or rather....

What is the knowledge base of my readership?

If the knowledge base of my audience is inadequate, how can I explain the problem, have it recognised, and how to debate a solution?

So I find that to begin, a wider explanation of the current situation is needed.

We live in a financial system that is dominated by, or rather, called, a Fiat, financial system, which uses Fractional Reserve Lending as part of its business model.

Let's examine those terms.

A Fiat system is a false system, an un-backed system, that is, there is nothing of intrinsic value to back the promise on a Sterling note, other than the promise to pay the bearer with another sterling note, - another promise to pay the bearer. This is accepted as a medium of exchange because the Government says it is, and because the government recognises it as a legal way to pay government tax demands. It is “legal tender”. Sterling notes, indeed any currency notes in any Fiat system, are “irredeemable”, ie the promissory note can only be replaced by another promissory note. They are however accepted as a medium of exchange. The ultimate backer for any paper promise to pay the bearer with another paper promise is the issuing government, and that ultimately falls to the responsibility of the taxpayer resident in the issuing country, ie, the ability of the issuing government to tax the population of that country to be able to pay the debts that the government has already incurred.

It has not always been like this.

Prior to 1971, when president Nixon cancelled the right to exchange the US $ paper currency for gold on demand, at a fixed price, the system was not Fiat, ie it had the backing of gold.

Excessive expenditure by the Federal Government had resulted in the issuance of large amounts of paper dollars, and these were held by foreign governments. Several foreign governments, notably France, began to worry about the level of debt incurred by the US government, and demanded payment, not in paper dollars, but in gold. This created a demand for gold that would have drained the US gold reserves. The decision was taken to end the convertibility of the US dollar into gold. Henceforth US debts would only be repaid in paper dollars. The Dollar became Fiat.

The second term used was Fractional Reserve Lending.

Fractional reserve lending mainly arose as a matter of operational convenience.

Originally Gold and sometimes Silver (in certain geographical areas) were used as “monetary metals”. They were used as ingots of defined purity, or made into coins of various sizes and defined purity. As a matter of convenience and security, these were stored in premises held by people who became known as “money changers”, an ancient profession, mentioned in the Bible, in Egyptian hieroglyphs, and in Sumerian tablets.
Receipts for precious metal deposits were given by the money changers, and it became the norm over many years, for the receipt holders to use them for trading purposes, rather than the physical transfer of bullion.

Thus the modern “bank note”, or promissory note was born, - the promise to pay on demand.

Also over time, the money changers began to notice that not all owners of deposited bullion would seek to withdraw their bullion at the same time, and over many years they began to issue “loans” to borrowers, by way of debt obligations, - promissory notes they could present to a third party to obtain goods or services immediately on “credit”, and repay the debt to the money lender over time, together with an interest element.
After many years, in diverse countries, a ratio of 10% seems to have evolved, That is only 10%, on average, of depositors, would seek the return of their capital at any one time. The money changers were thus able to lend out ten times the amount of money (gold, or by this time other securities too) on deposit, as paper,without fear of insolvency.

Imagine that, the Banks, (for that is what the money changers had evolved into) were able to create 90% of their raw material, - money, - out of nothing, charge interest on 100% of their loans, and yet some currently still make monumental losses.

Look at it another way.

A bank pays interest to its depositors of (say) 3%. And that 3% is paid on effectively 10% of the loans it can create, and lend to borrowers at (say)5%.

Or, the interest it pays to deposits of £1M over a year (let's assume a static model for simplicity) at 3%, is £30,000.

Via Fraction Reserve Lending, with deposits of £1M, it is able to lend out £10M, and charge 5% interest on £10M, which is £500,000.

So £500,000 interest earned against £30,000 interest paid out. Then add in the £10M of capital repayments over time, remembering that £9M is pure profit, that the bank had created out of nothing, and you begin to understand just how profitable, or rather the extent of banking gross margins, that the banking model can deliver!

Naturally, that is a very simplistic explanation, and banking has evolved into a much more complex industry than portrayed, however, to better understand the evolution of banking, I would suggest this link .

This is a 3.5hour video, filmed in the US in the late '90s.

It is very revealing.

At this point for further details you should also acquire and read the book, - “The Creature From Jekyll Island”, written by G. Edward Griffin.

So, now you are an expert on the corruption of bankers, their centuries long endeavours to impose their debt based financial system on the US nation, copying the UK system of debt created “money”, and the unscrupulous methods employed to achieve these ends. The profitability of the debt-based financial model was their prime motivation coupled with their knowledge of the power that such a system would give them, to wield over whatever country they managed to subjugate into their system.

Not for them any notions of “national” pride or loyalty to a host nation. International branches of the same bank would arm both protagonists in any international war, and reap the rewards from both combatants. In fact the financing of wars, and subsequent reparations, were recognised very early in the games as being their most profitable activities. Naturally warring parties could not be funded, since the looser would be unable to pay, until the authorities in the warring parties were able to instigate a method of national taxation on the populace. The Napoleonic wars created the first income taxes in England, with the Rothschild Dynasty funding both parties. In many cases the providers of funds were able to choose the eventual victors, and finance flowed that would guarantee the desired outcome. This became the “National Debt”.

Now THAT is power.

However, nothing really changes: - Politicians, or minor aristocracies decide to wage war on a neighbour, convince the local population of a “common enemy” and the need to attack/defend, and suddenly the debt incurred and the interest payments become the problem of the entire population, while the banks/politicians/aristocracy, benefit!

Naturally, once “stock exchanges” were developed (initially Government bonds were the Rothschild favourite), the financiers were able to make the correct investments well before the event.

They rapidly grew very wealthy.

For thousands of years, gold, and intermittently, silver, have been regarded as monetary metals, and have been used in the manufacture of coins, - money. From the Sumerian civilisation, (which also used other commodities for monetary/barter purposes) through Egypt, Greece, Roman civilisations, their use was common. All through history currency issuing powers have sought to get more from their limited supply of precious metals, by the debasement of their coinage. This would take several forms, - reducing the precious metal content of the coin, reducing the overall weight of the coin, increasing the face value of the coin while maintaining the quality. Either way, the population viewed the act as devaluing the currency, as prices of other commodities, grains, etc were adjusted upwards by traders/importers in terms of the face value of the currency, in order to achieve the same QUANTITY of precious metal content.

This was inflation, it debased the currency of the realm, and mass protests featured strongly against this, particularly in the declining years of the Roman Empire as the practice became prevalent. Eventually, as the Roman Empire began to collapse, the quantity of money in circulation began to contract rapidly, and the entire economy of the Western Roman world fell into heavy deflation, the velocity of money also contracted heavily, and what is now known as “The Dark Ages” descended on the entire remnants of the Western Roman Empire.

This lasted for hundreds of years.

Many modern writers are drawing parallels with the current financial problems facing the West, and the US in particular. They point to an exported manufacturing base, internal price inflation, and military over-stretch, with balance of payments deficits, and a debased currency.

The populations in those days regarded monetary metals both as money, which is both a medium of exchange, and a store of value. Modern western writers seem to wish to prevaricate on these features, arguing that gold and silver may well be stores of value, but they are not money. Those writers forget history, and assume that fiat regimes dominate the world. Many current societies still use barter, still use monetary metals, and I can speak from experience that both Krugerrands and UK Sovereigns are regarded throughout the world as money, and their value is based on their gold content, priced at current prices. UK retail banks may now be totally divorced from monetary metals, and no longer buy or sell gold or silver in any form, leaving that activity to specific dealers. This is certainly not true for the majority of the remaining world.

Perhaps the most successful, though short-lived bankers of all times, were the Templars. But then again, perhaps they were/are, not that short-lived after all!

The Albigensian Crusade in Languedoc ended in 1244, but it was 62 years before King Philippe IV of France, and Pope Clement V were in a position to harass the Knights Templar for their reported vast wealth. Having murdered two Popes, Pope Boniface VIII, and his successor, Pope Benedict XI, Philippe installed his puppet Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, as Pope Clement V, in 1305.

Philippe drew up his list of accusations against the Templars. Heresy was easiest, as it was known that the Templars did not hold the doctrines of the Virgin Birth, and the Crucifixion. Also known was that their diplomatic and business affairs involved dealing with Jews, Gnostics, and Muslims.

Philippes plan was to strike on Friday 13th of October, 1307, and it would be an international (as far as it could be organised) strike, involving hundreds of armed men, but principally throughout France.

In 14th Century France it was the practice for aristocratic families to have sons within the Church, as Bishops, or Abbots of allied orders. The Chaplain of the Manor of La Buzadiere was such a nobleman, and shortly before the Papal edict against the Templars was enacted, he entertained seven Templar guests at his castle, and fully informed them of Philippes plans. The Knights Templars were Gaston de la Pierre Phoebus, Guidon de Montanor, Gentilis de Foligno, Henri de Montfort, Louis de Grimoard, Pierre Yorick de Rivault, and Cesare Minvielle.

The Knights immediately departed for Paris to inform their hierarchy of the plans. Runners were despatched to spread the word. The Grand Master of the Templars was Jacques de Molay. He arranged for the Templar treasure, stored in their Chapter House in Paris, to be transferred to La Rochelle on the Brittany coast, from where it was shipped, together with as many Templars who could get there, in eighteen galleys. Most of the ships sailed to Scotland, beyond the reach of Papal inquisitors, since Scotland under King Robert the Bruce, that is the King and the entire nation, had been excommunicated by the Pope for taking up arms against the Catholic King Edward II of England. The Templars were made welcome in Scotland, with many (around 50) settling in the Mull of Kintyre region. (Interestingly, several ships sailed to the Americas, where buildings and graves can be found identifying them as Knights Templars – they had access to copies of the same maps as Christopher Columbus used in his quest, years later)

The Papal edict of Scots excommunication was eventually lifted in 1323, when Pope John XXII recognised Robert the Bruce as the true King of Scots. As a reward for Templar loyalty at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and in order to further hide the Templars, in 1317 Robert the Bruce hid the Templars under a new organisation, - the Order of the Elder Brethren of the Rosy Cross. The King of Scots was installed as the hereditary Sovereign Grand Master, and from that time whoever held the office of chancellery was known as the Prince, (or Count) St Germain. Gaston de la Pierre Phoebus, (one of the seven knights) had escaped to Scotland, and since the Pope held the international reins of Chivalric Orders, Gaston, as senior Knight of the Rosy Cross, arranged for a meeting with Pope John XXII at Avignon. Pope John agreed to issue a Charter, providing his nephew, Jacques de Via, became the operative Grand Master. De Via died on 6th May, 1317, and Guidon de Montanor (another of the seven Knights) was elected Grand Master. The Charter of Incorporation, signed by the Pope was duly presented to King Robert the Bruce.

The lifting of the Papal Edict in 1323 caused many historian to assume that the Knights Templar must have been disbanded in Scotland. Nothing could be further from the truth. Robert the Bruce had successfully hidden them behind the cloak of a new Chivalric order, duly Chartered by the Pope.

It was during these Templar influenced times that the Scottish Banking System evolved from the Orders financial experience in Europe and the Middle East. Scottish lands held significant Gold deposits, and the Templars were quick to commence their extraction. This wealth was one of the reasons that Plantagenet England so desired dominion over Scotland.

Today there are several active Gold Mines in Scotland.


With a Mystery Girl, a refreshment break.

Part 2 of this series can be read here.


It says 'written by James Higham below. Actually, it was written by Sonus but I can't reformat the author in my template.

[freaky friday] comments please