Generation Zero or Hero?

I am Generation X and fortunately so; born in 1969. I did the pogo and the kick to the punk records played at the local Boys Club music night on Saturdays, and Fridays the Community Centre played Disco, Pop and Ska…it was 1979. I have Punk in my pocket, and Ska. I lived through the gender bending New Romantic movement and Indie. Rap used existing break beats and samples. Acid House was minimal and drug fuelled. In the late 80’s Stock Aitken and Waterman came onto the music scene and churned out prosaic pop music designed for chart success….Risk Astley and Kylie Minogue. Pop music died and has never recovered.

In the 90’s “Britpop” emerged and was the first to re-hash the recent past and did a decent job of keeping Indie alive but that was its end. Everything that has emerged since is a weak and a trivial rehash of the past.

Generation X was replaced by the Millennial, the Y Generation, the Post-Modernist generation that believe in nothing because they never had anything to believe in. Nothing was real for them Perhaps they watched The Matrix when they were too young. Descartes is not for children.

The Noughties fashion revived the 80’s, Millenial’s wearing the same clothes as their Mam and Dad wore 30 years before. They were copying Gen X and have come up with nothing of their own since….except outrage, and in that respect they are certainly very different to Generation X who were wonderfully outrageous. The Noughties started off joyous and drug fuelled: Noughties Hoxton and Shoreditch, the Capital and source of modern fashion and design. They wore and wear clothes of Gen X and listened to their music.

Millennials earned Humanities degrees that were expensive and worthless because Post-Modernism makes everything worthless by dissecting and dissecting and dissecting.

The Noughties began by celebrating Post-Modernism, anything goes and licentiousness. London was a blast. Hoxton and Shoreditch the centre of global Post-Modernism. Tracey Emin’s “Unmade Bed” and Damien Hirst’s “Shark in  a tank” were extreme versions of a 100 year old idea; Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain”. The end of Art.

Post-Modernism infected everything and devalued it to nothing, pure Nihilism.

The internet became accessible during the mid 90’s. I did a Master’s degree in Information Studies in 1995 and the lecturers argued that the Internet could never work because information would be too difficult to find; they did not anticipate Yahoo’s mass employment of indexers (Librarians) or Google algorithms that transformed it.

During the 2000’s the internet became a part of our lives through sites like MySpace and then Facebook. The individual became pieces of information, zeroes and ones, and they too become nothing…but commodities. The Apple logo with a byte taken out of it; a representation of the first sin?

What started this destruction off? The Enlightenment, Reason and Logic, and the death of God followed.

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” Nietzsche ‘The Joyful Wisdom’

The Age of Enlightenment is coming to an end. Post-Modernism is the final destruction, it will destroy itself and everything it can take with it. Then a return to God? You cannot dissect God. The end of Nihilism. Will those that come after Gen Z return to God? Generation 1 or 0? Will Generation One be at one with God or will Generation Zero be nothing; an ever consuming Byte?

Peace & Love

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April 7, 2018

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Compulsory Organ Donation: Human Asset tripping

Imagine that the State decrees that your dead body is theirs unless you have a Religious waiver. In the UK you have to opt out of automatic Organ Donation. For some it will be easily done but for others less so. The Atheist will have to decide if they are more than just their brain and will be forced to re-evaluate their philosophy. With the fence ripped from beneath them the Agnostics will have to choose between Religion or a precision predator chopping and slicing and dicing away at the fresh flesh of their brain-dead corpse.

The Atheists will be known as “Those without Religion”, perhaps even “The Users of the Wheel”

 

Faith will be used as a loophole by the Atheist that can’t fully commit to Atheism. The Loophole would come with compulsory stipulations,  perhaps a Social Credit system with prayer, meditation, diet and exercise strictly monitored.

 

The corpses of the Theists will be healthy. A black market for Theist corpses emerges.

With the abundance of body parts and whole bodies available a boom in stem cell bio-engineering ensues. The moral ambiguity of such practices have been removed by the Atheist’s choice.

The Atheist cadavers have their brains removed, their bodies rebuilt, and a computer aided brain inserted; they became Cyborgs and do the work their Masters desire.

 

 

 

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Atheist, Compulsory Organ Donation, Cyborg, Human Asset tripping, Organ Donation, Religion, Religious choice

October 6, 2017

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Evolution, Truth and Enlightenment

I was inspired to write this piece following Jordon B Peterson and Sam Harris’s recent discussion on the nature of truth. It was a messy discourse but I was intrigued by Peterson’s postulation of Darwinian Truth. He mentioned the demise of the Irish Elk. The Irish Elk devolved into extinction, the process of sexual selection was based on the size of the male elk’s antlers. The females chose poorly; big antlers do not signify genetic health. It is often the case that in the human species females also choose poorly and choose mates based on their height. The irony is that the male offspring will nearly always be taller than the mother. Rich men choose tall women and have tall sons, their daughters height will vary. Height, like, antlers is a poor indicator of “fitness”.

The evolution of the human species is founded on the size of the brain. Mammals with large a brain to body ration are more intelligent. Why is this? Intelligence requires long term planning, the ability to form social networks, use language, empathy. Long term planning exists in the realm of the neo-cortex. Short term planning is influenced by the Lower brain – the Amygdala and Hippocampus; the snake or lizard brain. All addictions are ruled by the lower brain.

In Christian myth the Seven Deadly Sins, Pride. Envy. Wrath, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth and Greed, are attributes associated with the Devil. The Devil is often represented as a horned demon and I am struck by the image of the hippocampus and its resemblance to the Ram. It is also symbolised as the dragon that must be slain.

Any Religion that practices War and Terror is the Devil.

Consumerism drives our Economy. Consumerism is the Devil.

Property must be defended. Property is the Devil.

Crony Capitalism is the Devil

Caffeine, Sugar, Alcohol, iEntertainment are all drugs and are the Devil.

The evolved human being has empathy.

Practice meditation to free yourself from the shackles of the hippocampus, the Devil, and you will know true Enlightenment.

………………………………………………………………………

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Amygdala, Buddhist, Christian, Consumerism, Devil, God, Hindu, Hippocampus, islam, Jordon B Peterson, Nuuism, Sam Harris, Seven Deadly Sins, The Irish Elk, Truth

February 4, 2017

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Existential Crisis, Post-Modern Crisis, Islam

Existentialism was the psychological reaction to Nietzsche’s observation in The Joyful Wisdom –

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

Nietzsche was a product of the Enlightenment which replaced God with the individual at the centre of the universe. Without God the individual may ask “Then how do I live my life?”, “How do I live a Moral life”, “How do I find meaning in life when there is apparently none”. Nietzsche aimed to answer this question and his ideas are akin to Buddhism but delivered in German and with force; the dual title of ‘Twilight or the Idols’ is ‘How to Philosophise with a Hammer’.

The Existentialists (Sartre, Gide “Fruits of the Earth”, Kierkegaard, Merleau-Ponty) suffered from Radical Doubt and doubted even their own existence but still struggled with the same questions. I recommend Gide’s “Fruits of the Earth” as a beautiful response to that question.

The Existentialists did not thoroughly answer that question and Radical Doubt turned inwards, on the individual itself: Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism. We killed God and now we have killed Meaning. We are the snake that has begun to eat itself.

Language is the shadow of our thoughts. But Language is the tool with which we have to communicate. Some use English, some use French, Chinese, etc. There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages and if you don’t speak another’s language then you are reduced to pointing and playing charades. Hopefully you can say at least “Hello” in your neighbours language; saying “Hello” is the first step to become friends (As-salamu alaykum). I learned this in Tanzania where everyone says “Mambo” a hundred times a day; it connects people. To your elders one would say “Shikamoo” as a sign of respect to which if you would reply “Marahaba”. A child would say “Shikamoo” to me and I would say “Shikamoo” to my elders when I passed them on the street. In mud hut villages older is wiser and respect is due just for still being alive. I digress a little but a little colour adds humanity to the prose.

Words are symbols. Words and Language are the tools we use to get ideas from one brain to another brain. We are not very good at it.

This I will say the the Social Justice Warriors and Extreme Left with regards to preferred pro-nouns. I have taught English in Africa and if you want to add 31 more personal pronouns and explain those terms to majority Muslim class then please go to Tanzania as a Volunteer English teacher. I wouldn’t want to explain the personal pronouns to my mother let alone a people who are hungry and have nothing. To have nothing better to worry about than a personal pronoun? This really is what I understand as White Privilege and this is the product of Post-Modern Crisis. (please check out the recent debacle with Professor Jordon Peterson.

Islam is one of the many religions that holds families, villages, towns and cities together; a way of life. These people have meaning in their lives and that meaning is derived from God. We killed our God but we did not kill theirs. This is a Post-Modern Crisis. Generation X had an Existential Crisis (The Death of God) and now we live in a world living in a Post-Modern Crisis (The Death of Meaning).

Kierkegaard wrote about Faith and strove to understand the story of Abraham and the sacrificing of his favourite son, a dreadful thing to ask any parent, and son or daughter. Abraham took a leap of Faith. Reason would lead him to not kill his son but Faith and blind obedience allowed him to kill. Both Christian and Muslim have Abraham at their root, you are cast of the same stone. In anticipation of comments below I would ask you read Kierkegaard’s “In Fear and Trembling”

If we broadly speak of East and West it is a struggle between with Faith and those without. I have repeatedly said that we are not selling it at all well. Post-Modernism has made us a society of Selves, the Selfie being a great example of that followed by the aforementioned personal Pronouns. Online communities appear full of hatred and spite; there is no harmony. It is Sodom and Gomorrah.

More than that the worship in Islam doesn’t fit into Western working hours. Muslims have to prey five times a day and many do. When i was a young man the shops were closed on a Sunday and there was initial outrage at Sunday opening hours. It opened the gate to 24 hour service. The “I want it now!” psyche took over. Shops weren’t open on a Sunday…we got by.

We in the West are being pushed into a consumer lifestyle more so now than ever where we have become products ourselves, and piggy banks for the Government and Corporations. We are all in the same boat and we need to start working together.

 

 

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November 29, 2016

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Syria: Tits or Tolerance

Perhaps i should preface this by letting you know that I have recently returned from Tanzania. It is a mixed bag of Muslims and Christians. Certain areas are predominantly Muslim and some predominantly Christian. There appears to be no conflict amongst the people and they live within their religions quite peacefully. The Christians show respect and don’t make public shows of eating in public during Ramazan and live next to Mosques that wake them up at 4 o’clock in the morning and the Muslim’s let the Christians practice their faith. Now, I lived with people who lived in mud huts and mixed with fishermen, cooks, shopkeepers, hotel staff, charity workers, the Masai…the Lower class (The British use the term “Working Class which is designed to keep them in their place). I was teaching English and thought I had discovered a novel way of teaching Indefinite and Definite Articles applying a little simple Logic:

Definite and Indefinite Articles: The, A and An

The definite article The is used to refer to something for the first time or to refer to a particular member of group or class. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned or it may be something uniquely specified. The definite article in English for both singular and plural nouns, is “The”.

The Indefinite Article (A and An). Use An for Nouns that begin with a Vowel or Vowel Sound. Use A for Non-Vowel Sounding Nouns.

Hence the Logic follows:

If X = True then

If X (Noun) is used to refer to something for the first time or to refer to a particular member of group or class. Or something that the speaker has already mentioned or it may be something uniquely specified THEN use The.

We now know that the Noun must be referred to by either A or An.

If X (Noun) begins with a vowel sound Then

Use An

IF NOT

Use A

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I was explaining this to a fellow native teacher and he said to me “Ah, you must first teach them how to think” and this was because the method of teaching in Tanzania is Victorian, authoritative and children are not encouraged to think for themselves. This extends to their religions and Islam is certainly not questioned, that would be dangerous. I think it is fair to say that people feared offending Muslims. I lived amongst people with very simple lives and all I could ask you to imagine is your country and your people but 100 or 200 years ago, law-abiding, church going Christian folk and then from abroad you see video’s like this:

You must ask yourself: If you lived 100 years ago and was a person of Faith and you saw this as a representation of the West, would you fight to save your country from Sodom and Gomorrah? What would you think? The Muslim’s in the Middle East have not learned to think, all they know is to do. I talk in general terms. The Enlightenment meant a different thing to them. It certainly didn’t involve Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, Post Modernism, Existentialism, Rock ‘n’roll, Punk and the rest. They have not got the BBC despite its faults and oppositional views are tolerated.

A Muslim is a person of Faith and we in the West have forgotten what Faith is and to have a relationship with God. That is a big thing, and we forget this and perhaps dismiss it as silly when it is the most important thing to any human; their relationship with the Universe. For some reason and another, mostly having been born in a Muslim country, they have chosen Islam as their guide and God. The West has chosen Stuff, Sodom and Gomorrah, sugar and coffee to keep usgoing through the week and booze to help us relax on the weekend.

It is no use arguing that the excesses of the West are restricted to Sex because they also apply to things:

The Muslims are fighting against Consumerism and the Self for sale.

Syria is a religiously mixed country also but is ostensibly secular: free from religious rule and teachings.

The Terrorism that Syria is being met with is the same Terrorism that the West is facing. However, President Bashar al-Assad does not want to forge an military alliance with the West (The United States) because Assad like the Muslim’s recognises the excesses Consumerism too and also sees the corrupting influence of Free-Market Neo-Liberal policies on the West.

We have austerity and food banks and homelessness and drug addiction, sex trafficking, politicians in sex and financial scandals, corporations not paying tax, the government giving away tax payers money to the wealthy, our healthcare system falling apart, children suffering from ADHD and medicated, obesity, greed, self and the relentless echo of “I want”. If you were President Bashar al-Assad would you want to forge an alliance with Donald trump or Hillary Clinton? The US has Syria surrounded (Please study the maps) and is supplying ISIS, Al Qaeda and other Right Wing Muslims with the weapons to attack Syria for being Secular. The US wants ISIS etc to beat Syria into submission, to force them to forge an alliance with them. However, Russia has come to Syria’s aid; they both have an aversion to the United States. And the War continues. The White Helmets are on the side of ISIS as is most Western media.

There may be those that view the President of Syria only through Western eyes and ears, who cannot imagine what it must be like to rule a country that has a complicated Religious base with Islam breathing down your neck. The UK has only recently quelled the remnants of a religious war in Northern Ireland. Assad continues to keep his country together despite facing terrorism from many factions of the extreme Islam who have the military backing of the United States.

 

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November 2, 2016

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Why the world is a mess – Part II: Feminism & the Working Class

I have never understood why women fought for the Right to Work. Their cause was and is utterly foolish as Work only serves the ruling elite (Corporations and the State). Work is exploitation and serves business in terms of profit and the State in terms of tax (Two taxpayers are better than one!). Feminists lexicon of blame always begins with the alleged Patriarchy and yet they fought and continue to fight to be enslaved by it. They adopted the term “Patriarchy” and blamed “men” for their position not realising that the men too were enslaved. However, the men wore their shackles with pride and called themselves “The Working Class” and wore that badge with pride and still do; it is a fantastic sleight of hand; words are powerful indeed.

Upper, Middle, Lower. “Working Class” is a dupe.

Women valued Work over Motherhood. Very few women wear the badge of Full TIme Mother with pride…the Feminists won’t let them for a start.

So there we have it. Historically men were duped into finding pride in their Lower Class position and women were duped into following them into the cesspool of exploitation at the expense of the family unit; it was never fought for. Feminism failed because it did not value the role of the mother.

The absence of either parent for most children leave them alienated, estranged and in fear. Schools pick up the mantle and indoctrinate them into the Status Quo; cookie cut kids.

If you doubt my words then just reflect on our Culture. The kids have invented nothing new since the 80’s, they have been pacified like everyone else.

And what of the grown ups? Feminism (3rd Wave, 4th and 5th) has turned woman against man and divided us, turning the power of the proletariat in half; divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book.

Fool me once “Working Class”

Fool me twice “Feminism”

Fool us again and it is our end, and epitaph.

1st October 2016 update
Feminism has morphed into Social Justice Warriors. Their mission – to destroy a perceived Patriarchy and replace it with a Matriarchy.

I consider Professor Jordon Peterson to have a firm grasp on the subject.

 

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November 7, 2015

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Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: Resolved

The Judgement of Solomon is common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As the story goes two women came before King Solomon to resolve a most grievous problem:

Two women who lived in the same house each had an infant son. One of the baby boys died and it was claimed that the dead baby boy had been switched with the living. King Solomon, who was known for his wisdom, declared that the boy be split in two and half be given to each of the mothers.  As the sword was raised one of the mothers cried out “Oh Lord, give the baby to her, just don’t kill him!”. The other, exclaimed, “It shall be neither mine nor yours—divide it!”. King Solomon recognised the true mother’s sacrifice and the baby boy was returned to her.

Kind Solomon has spoken: If you love Palestine you should leave Palestine.

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al-Niza'a al'Filastini al 'Israili, Arab League, Arab Peace Initiative, Arabs, Ha'Sikhsukh Ha'Yisraeli-Falestini, How to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israelis, Jerusalem, Jews, Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian Unity Government, Palestinians, PLO, State of Israel, State of Palestine, הסכסוך הישראלי-פלסטיני, النزاع الفلسطيني - الإسرائيلي

May 12, 2015

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Why the world is a mess – Part I

The continents as we know them now were formed from a large land mass known as Pangaea some 200 million years ago which began to split apart. To greater or lesser degrees the splitting of the land masses dictated the bio-diversity of the continents and had a significant influence on the evolution of our own species. Isolated countries were left to develop their own culture and way of life whilst others became a melting pot of economic, ethnic, and cultural diversity. In recent history the Aborigine and Native American Indian stand out as a people who continued in the tradition of hunter gatherer whilst the rest of the world adopted modern farming methods to survive. As opposed to the hunter gatherers nomadic lifestyle the farmers stayed put; they  planted crops and herded sheep and cattle, they laid down roots. By laying down roots farming tribes would, by necessity, have to defend their land from neighbouring tribes; the concept of land ownership was born. The land that farming tribes fought for and owned would have to be worked; work = food. They would work the land as much as they could to produce a plentiful crop. They had overcome nature but were still vulnerable to pestilence and drought. In times of plenty they could rejoice and perhaps even barter for goods with neighbouring tribes. Some tribe’s crops might fail and they may starve, or they may be forced to work for food and shelter (like you and me). Farmers would invent new tools to farm the land like picks and hoes and this would eventually lead to using animals to pull ploughs. Human ploughs were also used; man and beast were interchangeable, just as man has now been replaced by machine. Farming tribes on good land with auspicious weather conditions would have a surplus of food with which to barter and later sell. Surplus = profit, and profit = power. The roots of capitalism are already beginning to form: land ownership, the means of production, work and profit. Farming requires accurate records, negotiation, and agreements and these must be calculated and written down. The literate and numerate will emerge and mathematics will lead to geometry, to science and industry. We will discover new things, we will create new jobs  and hope we don’t have too few people to fill them or too many people to fill them; it must be equally balanced to be fair at all and even at equilibrium it continues forever. As farming tribes settled labour was required; people to work the land.  Enter the primary role of the female; a breeding machine. This is not to say that women did not work also, they did of course, and  in addition to being breeding stock they were home keeper, cook, and nurse. Childbirth was dangerous and often resulted in death. Those lucky enough to reach menopause would continue their role as domestic help. It is a common denouncement of the patriarchal society.  The traditional role of the male was retired completely and the hunter became a  cart horse. I do not know which is worse. All animals that would now be farmed would be taken from the wild and fenced in, fed cheap grain and cast offs, they have even been fed churned up versions of their own species making them cannibals. Animals were and are still farmed to convert vegetation into protein [meat], and with any process it can only improved by making it more efficient – this involves pumping animals full of growth hormones and a questionable diet. Additionally, they are filled with antibiotics to reduce the risk of infection as a result of living in atrocious living conditions. Using animals as protein making machines is inefficient. For example  it takes more calories to build a chicken than is in a chicken – so say it takes £1 of grain to create a chicken it would have to sell at say £1.20 to make a profit. The lower the cost the more the animal is exploited. Free range food is expensive and not affordable to many people so cheaper alternatives are found e.g battery farming. One solution favoured by vegans and vegetarians is to eradicate modern farming methods of mass processing of animals to meat. This will raise the cost of food and in turn the cost of living which in turn passes the government with the responsibility of raising wages just to sustain the countries workforce. The real solution to this problem is to find an alternative to the arcane method of converting vegetation and waste into protein.  Then we can keep all the farm animals in a zoo because when we have no use for an animal we call it a pest and destroy it.  We must remember that animals are farmed to give maximum protein bursts in the shortest time so people can get on with work. Food prices are kept down so humans can work for less pay. We are at the end of the food chain but nonetheless we are still enchained, still labour for the landowners to work for their profit. We are cattle too. And so, the land was carved up and everything was owned. Auspicious soils, labour and climate allowed smaller holdings to prosper to larger ones, and larger ones thrived and ate up smaller ones. Heads of tribes became Feudal Lords, Rulers, Kings and Emperors. People would fight to protect their land when they were only renting. The status quo was ensured by laws of hereditary, and land ownership was passed down from one generation to the next ensuring that land and wealth was not lost. We were no longer born equal. Blood lines were ensured by the introduction of marriage. The laying claim to land is infectious and it is not hard to imagine how it took off – Children cry out “Last one there is it!”. When North America was invaded by the Europeans they raced in their wagons to claim a plot of land, to put their piece of flag in a piece of earth and claim it as their own. We are it, the people who lost, we all lost. If you have no piece of land you are in debt, and if you are in debt you cannot truly be free and you can never relinquish debt because you will always owe taxes on your land; there is no way out, there is nowhere left that a man or woman could call their own. There are even flags on the moon. Boundaries create divisions between us and weakens us as individuals, a tribe or class, a state or a nation, but especially a species. Armed with mathematics, geometry and science why didn’t we concentrate our collective minds to freeing mankind of having to work just to survive? To work and struggle for our piece of land, for security and peace of mind, to be happy. We continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over again but how do you stop it? Take those flags out of the moon for a start! ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Interesting article on Subsidised Farming courtesy of andywightman.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. This is a great video on what happened next:

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Adam Kokesh, Capitalism, Class, Economics, Feminism, Feminist, History of Capitalism, Hunter Gatherer, patriarchy, patriarchy myth, Peter Shiff, Socialist, Society, Sociology, Stefan Molyneux, Tribes, Why is my life shit, Why monetary economics doesn't work, Why my life is shit, Why your life is shit

June 24, 2013

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Inventions

Throughout my life I have invented things [in my head mostly] and just for fun, well only for fun because I’ve never had the resources to execute most of them.

Some of them are a bit silly but some could save lives (skip to the end for those ones).

The Sunlight Distributor 

The Sunlight Distributor will be an aerial webnet sunlight re-distributor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tests yet to be done and probably dangerous for birds. Problem to be solved. Perhaps connect with magnetic netting.

 

The Portable Shower ©

Ideal for the beach or camping. The base unit is filled with water and transported on wheels like a trolley. By  standing on the base unit and rocking side to side the water is pumped through to the shower nozzle. Curtain and curtainless models are available as are battery packs to heat the water.

 

The SlipperSkateMassager ©

It’s a Slipper. It’s a Skate. It’s a Massager. It’s a SlipperSkateMassager.

The rollers/wheels of the skate drive massaging balls that massage your feet.

Tests yet to be done.

 

JapanEasy ©

A Japanese language learning tool designed for touchpad devices. It’s a game that is played which teaches you Japanese and increases your Japanese vocabulary. Loads of fun for any age group.

 

Removable Bicycle Seat – Anti Theft Device

Opening and closing the saddle releases the seat from the bike. The inter-meshing fan like structure of the seat provides comfort and suspension. I haven’t got a name for this one…The SaddleSafe © ?

Tests yet to be done.

 

The Hide and Seek Hut ©

The Hide and Seek Hut © is a live adventure playground with lit rooms and pitch black connecting corridors. Once in the lit room you will have no idea if you are being watched or if someone is watching you, perhaps about to pounce out and get you, you may reach into the dark to see if someone is standing there watching you, you could be the chaser or chasee. Protective clothing and head gear will have to be worn and rooms and corridors will have to be padded for inevitable collisions.

 

FlexiBreze © – The Ornamental Air Freshener

Stand alone air fresheners are often ugly and don’t fit in with the decor of your home. FlexiBreze © separates the air freshener from the container. The air freshener is contained within a flexible tube with non-aerosol dispenser that can fit into any shaped container. The containers come in a selection of shapes, colours and sizes to suit your home.

 

Shoulder SteadiCam ©

I was fed up of camera shake and wanted to make something that would reduce it so I came up with the Shoulder SteadiCam ©. The camera fits onto the adjustable plate at the front (pictures left hand side) and the curved section is worn over the shoulder. I have since added a Screw that fits into the plate for the camera to attach to for added security. It’s especially good for when you are taking video footage on your camera and ensures any panning shots are much smoother. Also, when using the zoom – the shoulder support and the way you hold the Shoulder SteadiCam © provides additional stability for when your finger has to manipulate the zoom on the camera which can often be tricky. The arched wooden panel on the right hand side could probably be replaced with a heavy duty fabric strap to reduce the size of the device. Great for amateur video footage on cameras,  and maybe the elderly who want to avoid camera shake.

 

Kite Power ©

Like wind power but using kites. Far prettier, vastly more efficient and the added bonus of offering corporate sponsorship to support set up costs.

Tests yet to be done.

 

Cloud Nets ©

The Cloud Net © is an environmentally friendly artificial precipitation or rainmaking device. Current methods use solid forms of carbon dioxide [dry ice], silver iodide, or salt powder. The Cloud Net © uses natural momentum of H2O passing through the  Cloud Net © to increase the size of water droplets naturally and precipitate the production of rain clouds.

Cloudnets exist as a magnetic netting and birds which will enable birds to fly through them unharmed. The magnet attraction is created through wind energy. Tests yet to be done but suspect it might harm birds so that’s on the back burner.
Unless I can figure out a way of creating a natural fly route for the birds to follow. It would require a redirection of wind which would be create by the fan powered magnets. 

 

Wind Farms & Hydro/Aquaponics Farming

Although Windmills are expensive to build we hope they will eventually pay off their investment. The only winners so far are the companies that build and install them. Wind farms are terribly inefficient. They require large amounts of steel, copper, rare earths, concrete, fibreglass and the grid connection cables cost a fortune. Moreover transporting the electricity large distances to the National Gris is expensive. It is a Socialist method of distributing power.

We should be building Aqua and Hydroponic Led lit farms and at the base of the windmill and grow fruit and veg from all climates. The electricity will be converted into fruit, vegetables and herbs. The windiest and wettest places will be ideal and great for the agricultural industry. Once cannabis is legalised it will be the perfect place for the medical marijuana industry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I know I’ve missed a few from this list and will add them should I remember them. I should invent a Memory Jogger ©

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June 23, 2013

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Can men be Feminists?

A man can write from a male perspective. A man can also write from a feminist perspective. “ists” are learned, not born. Marxist, Socialist, Capitalist, Maoist, Buddhist, Feminist are all learned, not born.

Feminist can explain what it is to be a woman but only from a Feminist perspective, if she explains from a Gender perspective she departs from the party line and cannot be argued with on equal grounds with a man. Feminism is learned, it is new, less than 200 years old and in popular culture arguably less than 50. It is a simple task to learn Feminist critique and I love it as a “ist”, it very enlightening to see how women view themselves in society, how much they feel the forever victim. Feminists, like Marxists, Cubists or Nudists or any “ist will turn on their own kind who do not tally the party line. One of the most beautiful female minds and bastions of Feminism in my generation was Germaine Greer who outraged the Feminists on her opinion on rape and Dr Elly Tams (@Notorious_QRG ) who is often at loggerheads with Feminists having left recently after being a lifelong member.

There are no “ists” for men. We are free to decide our own fate. “Chauvinist pig” stuck for a while till we brushed it off.

We will shrug off being seen as rapists and paedophiles too…soon i hope

Only a woman can understand how it feels to be a woman in their perceived patriarchal society that is learned. Feminism as a political theory it should not become a lifestyle.

All the “ists” are attempts at humans understanding humans and you can never do that by first building a wall.

The “ist” is self-nullifying. It cannot exist beyond its aims, and like any organism whether socially or biologically constructed it will strive to stay alive. It will see its “ist” in everything, it gets greedier and greedier the less it has to munch on and will devour almost anything, it has devoured everything. Men aren’t now allowed to sit next to children on planes for fear that they are paedophiles and are treated by default as sexual predators. The consequences of Feminism is misandry.

Feminism sets itself up as victim with the male in opposition. He cannot win; the feminist has already been defined him by his sex, and negatively so. The male who sets himself up as a feminist must deny his sex, the feminist can only ask of him that he will turn upon himself; he cannot, he should not, he will suffer terrible psychological torment if he tries.

So please, men, do not become Feminist (and women too). It sets us up in opposition. You will do yourself a better service by trying to understand our differences. Read John Gray’s “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” or the “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” by Leonard Shlain to try to get a better understanding of women’s issues and let us both try to understand each other better.

When wars are fought one side always loses.

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@Notorious_QRG, Can men be Feminists?, Capitalist, Chauvinist pig, Dr Elly Tams, Feminism, Feminist, Gender specific toilets, Germaine Greer, John Gray, Leonard Shlain, Maoist, Marxist, Men Are from Mars, Misandry, paedophiles, rapists, Socialist, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, Women Are from Venu

June 13, 2013

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When it is OK for a man to cry?

Earlier today I was directed to an article in the Guardian by @AllyFogg about whether men should cry, and really enjoyed reading DorianHawksmoon’s answer to a particular question: “Why did you feel motivated to comment on this piece?”.

I too am a cryer, though only to TV, films, music, a story I hear or sometimes tell. My crying is empathy or awe which is a very adult type of crying.

As babies we cry when we are in pain, discomfort or in need of food and water. We cry for ourselves. As babies we cry in frustration that our needs are not met, they are a demand for attention. As babies grow into children, adults have to deal with this and try to rationalise with the child or if they are poor parents they will tell the child “because I said so”.  When a child cries for attention they still see themselves as the center of the universe. An adult should try to curb this behaviour in a child by talking to him or her and internalising the child’s existence in relation to the world around themselves.

A child cries in pain and sometimes cries too much. The parent may think that the child is crying for attention. This may be so but every adult knows that if they jam their fingers in a door a stream of expletives will pour out of their mouths. Often a child does not have the vocabulary for pain and also the permission. In respect to pain and ability to cope with it, there has been many studies that show that swearing allows us to manage pain better. Crying relieves stress.

As a child grows up adults see crying as a self-centered and try to abolish it and the conclusion a child draws is that crying is bad and rightly so. They remember that as a child growing up they were told that crying is bad when in fact they are being told off for being self -centered. As the child grows up and becomes a man he begins to change and learns empathy, he may now cry for somebody else and when he does he may still feel the same shame he once did as a child. He should not, he is crying for someone else. This is all you can ask of any human.

To cry in awe at something beautiful, especially music which places the individual in direct relation to the universe and connects all things. We also swear in awe. I have never seen the Grand Canyon and if I don’t cry when I see it I will say “Fuck me!”…I may do both. We also swear a lot in bed and at orgasm. If we didn’t we might cry…I have never tried it.

So, if we are to learn any lesson from this is that we should teach children to swear at a very young age if we want them to stop crying. When adult crying re-emerges in the teens it will be recognised as what it is…a good thing to be cherished.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Personal note: The first time I remember crying for the right reason was when I was watching “The Day of the Dolphin“

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June 13, 2013

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What is about crazy women that is so sexy?

Oh dear. I just worked it out….if it is thought and it’s true then it should be written… no?

Crazy women are reflection of our teenage self. They are all hormones and rage. We want to help them…and if they’ve got a great body and face then we can put up with them all the better.

 Now….I have no idea why women put up with men.

P.S. Bridget Jones’s Diary is one of my favourite films. She is on the cusp to womanood. So many women remain girls.

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June 12, 2013

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The Hand Axe

I have recently started listening to “A History of the World in 100 Objects” by Neil MacGregor. The author concedes that palaeontologists, archaeologists, and the like can often only guess at the significance and function of prehistoric artifacts. What follows is my theory.

Before I begin I must ask you to imagine a time before the hand axe. How did prehistoric man kill an animal? With a club – He would have to get close to the animal and that is extremely dangerous; cuts and broken limbs can easily turn into infection and death. How was an animal divided amongst the tribe? By tearing at the flesh with hands and teeth. Branches could not be cut to build wooden spears, and wooden spears could not be sharpened. Without a blade or axe the life of the prehistoric man would be one of gatherer and scavenger; existing at the whim of what nature would provide.

Hand axes appeared about 1.5 million years ago. The genealogy of modern Homo sapien dates back around 500, 000 years and our furthest cousin, Homo habilis dates back 4.5 million years. Homo erectus, who lived around 1.3 to 1.8 million years ago is credited as the inventor of the hand axe.

We should pause a moment to imagine that for millions of years our ancestors lived a life in which nothing new was invented…nothing, in a whole lifetime. This is a hard thing to imagine. As you are reading this you are surrounded by invention. If, like me, you are sat at home it is unlikely you can see anything that hasn’t been invented, you may be even be sat in a park or on a lawn that has been planted. Imagine your whole life without ever having seen something new, except for scenery – it was a nomadic life back then after all.

I will venture that inventions in prehistoric times were a sole activity; committees and groups require sophisticated language to convey ideas, even now we are often misunderstood when we try to communicate. No, I believe that it was a singular person that invented the hand axe. It may have been a hunter, it may have been a gatherer, it may have been a hunter gatherer. I am not convinced that the hunter gatherer roles were gender based; sexual politics is a high price to pay for survival and if your talent is hunting or your talent is gathering then that is the role you are best placed to ensure the survival of your family or tribe. The hand axe could have initially been invented as a tool for cleaning carcases or digging earth or as a hunting tool. We do not know but we can be sure that it was quickly utilised and used for all activities the hunter gather would embark on. Even now the Swiss Army knife is an indispensable item in a survival pack.

We do not know if the inventor of the hand axe was a man or a woman. What I do believe is that he or she would be revered, and perhaps believed to have supernatural powers, perhaps to be able to talk to the spirits or gods. Would they make images of her out of stone? It is very difficult to explain where an idea came from. I an imagine that this person would be afforded great praise and worship, they would be set apart from the rest of the tribe and treated well. They have given the tribe a tool that allows them to work more efficiently, catch more animals for food, cut the time spent on chores in half, make the life of the tribe easier, free up the day for time to be spent with family and nursing the sick, build better homes. It would transform their lives. Whether male or female their offspring will be afforded the same prestige; perhaps they can talk with the spirits gods also. They would not hunt or gather for that would be too dangerous and they must be protected, fed, sheltered for what will they invent next?

The inventor would pass down his or her knowledge and instruct on how to make a hand axe. Without complex language this would be done by actions and nods and grunts. It may surprise you to know that I have some experience of this. I once worked on a production line in a factory manufacturing electronic goods and my job was to microwave oven doors on to microwaves, press a button and the piece would pass on down the line which each person doing their bit till the microwave was complete. It is called specialization of labour. The Japanese factory was fairly new and most of the supervisors were Japanese who could not speak English, some could of course but tended to be higher up the career ladder than supervising the factory floor. My supervisor could not speak English and went through the assembly process each stage at a time with action and the word “nee” which meant “Like this”. It was a long drawn out process and began with selecting the correct screw from the correct container, “Nee!”. I would nod and reply “Nee” I have understood. He would show me where the screw should go, “Nee!” and so on and so on. I could use “Nee?” if I didn’t understand, though I never felt the need. With inflection “Nee” could be used for all manner of things including “Hello”, “Yes” and “No”, perhaps even “Good morning” or “Good night”. A questioned is sometimes asked – Where did music come from? Is not inflection or a word music, the change from major to minor an indication of mood?

We should not assume that having been shown how to make a hand axe one would necessarily know why it works. I often turn my computer on and off to ‘fix it’ but have no idea why that works. I dare say that if you ask most people why a knife cuts they would hardly reply with “Pressure = Force per Unit Area”. However, this is what the inventor of the hand axe understood in a rudimentary form. Some would also understand this and some would not. For those that did not understand they may think that the tool would be revealed in the rock, that it was always there waiting to be discovered like Michelangelo’s ‘David’. It may encourage some to chip away at rocks in the hope of revealing a hidden tool. What would guide them? They would make it beautiful; is the hand axe not beautiful?  At the most basic level, function and efficiency is beauty. The teeth on a modern saw are designed to produce the greatest effect and conform to mathematic and scientific principles. However, not all that is beautiful has function, apart from perhaps to be adored. There are examples of prehistoric objects that appear to be types of tool that cannot be held and archaeologists at are a loss to find their use…failed attempts at creating something new, of revealing the inner tool inside a rock?

What of the rock that revealed nothing? A bad rock? Was the spirit of the tool not contained inside this rock? Homo erectus may have made a prayer to the tool spirit before beginning the task of revealing the tool contained inside the rock. We do not know, we will never know, this is all speculation as is any comment on such matters.

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#EDB, A History of the World in 100 Objects, BBC Radio 4, British Museum, Neil MacGregor.

June 8, 2013

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Relationships: Solved

To avoid the last straw in a relationship value honesty above all things from the beginning. Lies are a pack of straws.

If you start off being completely honest in a relationship then the rest will take care of itself.

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Honesty in a Relationship, Lies in a Relationship, Love, Relationship, Relationship advice, Straw that broke the camel's back

June 8, 2013

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Why Comedians become Comedians

Comedians become Comedians because they love applause. Whether a clap, a laugh or smile they adore it. It is not vanity, but rather that they have found someone who understands them…and the rest can just fuck off!

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Goddess, Sarah Silverman, What is comedy, Why Comedians become Comedians, Why do Comedians become Comedians

June 7, 2013

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Terrorism Understood: Peace

It’s not God, and it’s not religion. It is their culture they are defending. Until people understand this, they will not understand anything of Peace.

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Terrorism, Terrorism explained, Terrorism Understood, Understanding Terrorism, Why are there Terrorists?

June 7, 2013

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Comedy: The Answer to “What is funny?”

If you can’t laugh at everything then you shouldn’t laugh at all. Any thing less is prejudice.

I hope I don’t need to explain this to you but if I do leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

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June 7, 2013

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“The Perfect Definition of a Perfect Head” Howard Marks

I came across a video of Howard Marks a few weeks ago and have been putting off watching it till I had some weed. Today I managed to score and it’s been 6 weeks since my last spliff which is a long time….to me at least. So I had my spliff and queued up Howard and watched Mr Nice Howard Marks (Great Cannabis Film) Part.1 on YouTube. I really enjoyed the story he tells about teaching English in a Lifer’s prison in the United States. Towards the end of that talk Marks asks a question, a question that I didn’t immediately have the answer for. However, I picked a pen and paper and began to write:

Eager to learn

and listen intently

Excited by new thoughts

and willing to discuss them

adding to them

Finds beauty and pleasure in the simple things

life has to offer

Will more happily smile and the only time to frown

is in confusion

He is your friend…he or she.

Thanks Howard. My thoughts might not be right but i enjoyed thinking them.

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#EDB, Howard Marks, i am stoned, i can't believe i managed this stoned, I'm stoned, Mr Nice Guy, stoned, Stoners, Weed

June 6, 2013

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Science and The Seven Deadly Sins

Science and The Seven Deadly Sins

I have always had a fascination with science and what it can tell us about the world and universe we live in, that it provides the means and method to prolong life, and provides the technical advances for economic growth. I am also interested in religion, that texts that are centuries old still have relevance to many people of varying faiths across the planet to this day. It is difficult to watch or read the news these days without coming across a story of great harm perpetrated by hate or perceived oppression, whether it be suicide bombers or those with placards stating that ‘God Hates Fags’, and marvel at how these people can do unspeakable things in their Gods name. I understand why people turn to religion for answers; it answers them very simply and for those it cannot you can be assured that God works in mysterious ways. Science, more so now than ever, does have the answers to the questions man has asked since the beginning, since we have been able to form words and sentences to ask these questions. Science will explain how the universe came from nothing, that the earth is just the right distance from the sun, that the Earth’s axis is just positioned, that all the elements required for life exist, theories of evolution will explain the complexity of life. Science does all these things but it does not fill our spiritual needs, it fails to tell us how to live our lives, what is good and bad. Religion fills this hole whereas science does not. However, texts of religions are difficult to decipher and we often find that those of faith pick and mix passages to their own ends. The ‘God Hates Fags’ mob could just as easily have signs that read ‘God Hates People Who Eat Shellfish’ but they do not. All I can ask of anyone of faith is to leave their God to judge other sins for man or woman cannot; He works in mysterious ways after all. This still leaves the question of how we should live our lives. Stephen Hawkins said that philosophy was dead and that science has all of the answers but it does not provide a moral compass. It occurred to me the other day that The Seven Deadly Sins though Christian in origin [Proverbs 6:16-19] could provide the basis for living in the modern world that would satisfy both scientist and those of faith.

To remind those of the Seven Deadly Sins, they are in summary:

Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Pride, Envy

I list them in no particular order and I don’t rate one above another but will take them in an order to hopefully reveal how they are relevant to everyday living in the modern world.

Thomas Hobbes, a philosopher of the 17^th Century, said of man that in a state of nature that there are “no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. This for Hobbes is a place without laws or government to control mans desires; we are animals after all. However, unlike animals we possess higher thought. We are equipped with minds that ask the questions “Why?” and “How?”. Our minds have given us the faculty to comprehend God and also to create penicillin. Man has overcome nature, and yet we still live like animals in many ways and understand the seven deadly sins in ourselves; they reflect man at his worst and most base. However, what man has and animals do not is choice and the ability to rise above our base instincts. This is not true for all of our species and those in less fortunate circumstances still live like animals and at the mercy of drought and famine; the elements. I heard a phrase recently, “The tears of a stranger are only water”, and cried in acknowledgment that people still lived in a world where these words meant something to them. I have never prayed for rain to quench my thirst.

In these places resources are scarce and birth control is often not available and at worst condemned by religion. Wherever you live resources are scarce to varying degrees, be it food or jobs, even in this the 21^st Century. How far we have come to have achieved so little; there is still not enough to go around. Lust ensures the propagation of our species and we enjoy our children. However, we must be mindful that we live on a planet of limited resources and increased population can only make matters worse.

Lust, I would argue is sex without mind to the consequences. We must learn to cut our cloth to suit our needs where population control is concerned. These words may sound harsh, especially for those that know the joy that children bring, but without contemplation we are condemning them to a life less fortunate than our own.

Gluttony is not just obesity, it is having more than you need and a lack of charity. If your wardrobe is full of clothes bought from companies that use sweatshops then you are pointing a gun into the face of a child, if you have more than you need then you have pulled the trigger. If you buy from these shops then the tears of a stranger are just water. In the UK the worst culprits are Primark, Tesco, Asda, Topshop, M&S, and Next . In the United States you an add Walmart, GAP, Forever21, Levi, Nike, and Starbucks. More Info

Perhaps now more than ever we are aware of how Greed affects the society we live in. We live in a world where the top 10% of the population own 85% of the world’s wealth and yet we pride ourselves that we live in a democracy. I only have to ask what kind of democracy are we living in where the masses vote to give away so much of their money to a privileged few? We don’t, it is something we have become accustomed to. Banks, financiers, corporations and governments have bled the masses dry and now their economic model is no longer working and yet we persist. Not only governments but we ourselves buy T-Shirts and trainers that are made on foreign soil where children are paid pence and their tears are just water.

Sloth is our laziness to change the world we live in. We sit back and do nothing whilst atrocities occur throughout our land and others, we no longer vote or demand the change so desperately required from our governments, we turn a blind eye, are fed game shows, reality TV, celebrity gossip to keep us entertained and distracted from our own plight and theirs.

Our Wrath is the anger we feel towards one another. It is misplaced, we are unhappy with our lot and squabble amongst each other and blame immigrants for stealing our jobs rather than government for not creating jobs to fill. We condemn terrorists without really understanding how they have lived and why they have directed there hate towards the West and their own people. We are intolerant of those that think differently to us. I grew up during the 70’s and 80’s when the IRA was still active and terrorist bombings was still commonplace in the UK. I think the IRA did more to secularise the UK than any form of enlightenment. We realised that religion just wasn’t worth the sacrifice of human life.

So to Pride or self love. It is putting oneself above all others, lacking in charity and self sacrifice, the inability to work with our fellow man to make the world a better place for everyone. We live in an interdependent planet and whether it be chopping down a rain forests or polluting the oceans, building industry that favours profit over people, we all suffer in the end. One of the most recent environmental catastrophes is taking place in our own back yard in the UK, the US and Australia; the mining for shale gas or Fracking as it is more commonly known. If you want to know more I recommend  the film Gasland. Here’s the trailer.

Envy is wanting everything you desire and need but haven’t got. Envy is a solitary emotion and eats away at your soul, it is bitter and resentful. It does you no good. You have the means to get what you want by avoiding the aforementioned sins. You can have everything you want but you must act and when you act you must avoid the aforementioned  Seven Deadly Sins.

Religion preaches that the punishment for sin is eternal damnation and for the religious this concept is familiar but for those of you who are unbelievers I would like to say something to you. Our species, like any species is always on the brink of extinction. We have done much to overcome nature and have pills for ailments and cures for diseases, but not all and we don’t know what’s coming. I marvel at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN which aims to recreate the Big Bang but wonder why we cannot cure cancer. For those without faith think of eternal damnation as never having existed; death eternal. As long as the human species continues to exist then you have existed. More so now than ever you have made your mark in the universe. There is an old question posed by Bishop Berkley “If a tree falls in a wood and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a noise?”. It is the same for you. If there is no-one left to witness your existence you may as well have never existed. You have an obligation to your fellow man if only to ensure you continue to exist. Google among others are amassing the sum of human knowledge and this includes your Facebook updates and Tweets you hope someone will read. They exist as long as there is someone around to read them. If only for self interest we should work together for a future in which humanity, you, your children, and children’s children have  a place to live and not just exist, to bare witness to the human race.

Link to New York Time article 13 May 2013

Link to The Guardian article 14 May 2013

Link to Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream – Why Poverty?

N.B.  I have used the gender term “he”, “man”, “mankind”, etc as a pejorative term for all humankind.

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Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Lust Gluttony Greed Sloth Wrath Pride Envy, Pride, Science and Religion, Sloth, The 7 Deadly Sins, The Seven Deadly Sins, Wrath

May 1, 2013

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Thatcher is dead but her legacy lives on

So Thatcher died today and many rejoiced in that news.  She symbolised the ruin of a country for many people including my father. People make a similar mistake when holding up Hitler as personally responsible for the Holocaust. It takes a nation for these things to happen.

Thatcher broke the Unions, it was one of the first things she did. She did it very simply; she introduced the secret ballot. In the secret ballot each man and woman acted alone; they voted for themselves and their family, they did not vote for their community or class. It was like asking a man to climb out of the trenches into no man’s land alone. Margaret Thatcher counted on self-interest, it is what pervades the post Thatcher years and is now out of control. We grumble to ourselves and say something should be done about it but sit back in our chair and watch some shit on TV instead still grumbling. Those that do make a statement are sometimes arrested. In an unjust society more laws on civil disobedience are required. Thatcher’s legacy is an apathetic nation living in fear. I don’t blame Thatcher, I blame us…we let it continue.

[Moments later]

After musing on what I just wrote I wonder if apathy is the lest vestige of rebellion left to the working man and woman. A silent and wantonly stupid rebellion.

For fans of the gangster film they recognise this as a protection racket; be careful what you say and do and pay your weekly tax and behave, otherwise we’ll send the boys around and you may be swimming with the fishes or at least lose your home or with a criminal record and out of a job. We are no longer allowed to join together in a common fight, collective bargaining no longer exists, we are left to fend alone and often with each other for the scraps left off the table. My father still remembers his schoolmate sitting at the end of the table waiting for his father to finish his grub knowing that he would be eating his father leftovers for his dinner. My father particularly remembers his face which was wide eyed and regretfully drooling at each morsel his father ate. The unions came into power to redress things like this. No man, woman or child should live like this and they fought for the working man and woman and we did some good together…why can’t we do it again?  I can only but hope that Thatcher’s death will be a rally cry to the masses to rise up against the ruling elite in all their guises.

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dead, Hitler, Margaret Thatcher, ruling elite, State Funeral, Thatcher, Thatcher's death, Unions

April 8, 2013

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I like Titles

I have a penchant for titles and still wrestle with the correct pronunciation of ‘penchant’.  I love it when pedants mispronounce pronunciation. In conversation with a friend I discovered the title ‘The Wind in the Whispers’. I like the titles of chapters too. A good title is a warning of what you are about to get yourself into. I sometimes go too far and thrift warns that I cannot go around everyday thinking up titles for books and not writing them. I had a good title the other day and went too far… “The Existential Carnivore”. I didn’t go that far today. You write the goddamn book!

http://eliasdbradshaw.com/

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April 3, 2013

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“I am not a rapist”

Sexual politics is not something I like talking about, not because of fear of reprisals but because it usually involves the plight of women and the flogging of a dead horse that is feminism. Feminism, a dead horse? Yes, they won.

I went for a walk today, the Burial Walk; I needed to stretch my legs. On the way i walked past a gang of girls, not a gang, there was four of them i think of varying ages or sizes, i do not know how old but I would say about seven or eight…i can only guess…not teenagers. I felt guilty as I walked past; I was in the proximity of four young girls with no-one else around….I could do anything! I did of course what every man does these days and in this predicament: eyes down, don’t say a word, “Girls? What girls?”. I have walked past girls this age before who have innocently said “Hello”. I imagine they were trying out their new found verbal communication skills. By ignoring them I agonise that I may cause them to think they have done something wrong by reaching out to a fellow human being. Instead I…”Don’t say a word, Eyes down!”

I rebel against these fears and at a recent festival openly took pictures of kids. Sometimes I would ask the parents if it was OK and sometimes I did it afterwards for fear that I would miss the shot.

A little later I got lost on my walk and passed a middle aged woman with a dog ( I am being kind saying “middle aged”). I asked her directions and I could sense her anxiety; she beckoned to the dog “Come Tiggy! C’mon Tiggy. Here! Here!”. I sensed her nervousness, cut the conversation short and walked back the way I had come and to a more familiar route. I often via off the known path on these walks. Within minutes I had gone from paedophile to old lady rapist! In fact there is nothing women think men wouldn’t fuck given half the chance.

I have and have had a few female friends and remember in the 90’s asking one of them what was the attraction was of skinny blokes. She paused for the shortest moment and replied “less chance of getting raped”. I could not help but wonder that this belief was held by other woman and asked around…it was more common  than you may think.

I will venture that if I were to launch an awareness campaign and ask men to wear T-Shirts with “I am not a rapist” emblazoned on them I would get few volunteers. Men, most men have not understood “No” as No. Most teenage boys are rapists to some degree as are too the teenage girls willing victims. Herein lies a power struggle and the seed of feminism and also female neurosis. The feminist has reduced man to a stereotype of their own neurosis and emasculated him in the process.

Either the feminists have won and are flogging a dead horse or they do not know they have won and are still flogging a dead horse, or they know they have won and are just still being bitter about it and still flogging that poor dead horse.  Woman, all too Woman.

 

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April 2, 2013

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NO BEGGARS!

I watched a documentary the other day and it recommended trying a new experience each day. The programme was about Intelligence. I have been feeling in a bit of a funk these past few days and considered that my days had become routine. I was going to go and do some filming in the forest but the sun was not out so I went to a pop-up Gallery that was being held at the local Cinema and enjoyed a particular painting by Gary Fell which was wonderfully garish and made me smile. It reminded me of the fabulous drag acts I would watch in various gay bars in various cities.

I popped into a charity shop and picked up ‘Let The People Think by Bertrand Russell and that made smile also.

On the way home I saw a pottery shop which I had passed many times but never gone in. The pottery in the window is not to my taste and it has a sign on the door saying “NO BEGGARS” which I find offensive, but embracing the day and the search for the new I went in. There was a grey haired moustachioed chap in his late 50’s doing something out back and he came into shop as the doorbell rang. I said hello and looked around. I had never seen anyone in the shop and wondered how he could make a living out of it. I did not ask him about this but I did ask him about the process, does he have to use special paints etc – I have never pottered. I have been dabbling with painting myself for the past few years and am always interested in new techniques, paints, methods….i asked the shop owner if I could take a tile away and paint it and bring it back to get glazed. “Yes” he said and it would be £8, “but I cannot guarantee the paint if you use you own”. “Oh, I see. If I use the same paint as you it should be ok? What do you use”. What happened next I was not prepared for.; the mood changed “What is this twenty questions? The sign on the door says NO BEGGARS and that also means Twats. Get out and don’t come back!”. The sign says much more. It came from nowhere I thought. I wish I had filmed it because I would like for a third party to put some perspective on the events. Maybe he thought I was going to rape him?

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

I went back to the shop intent on filming the guy but knowing it would not be as good as what just happened.

I was interested to see if this belligerent old man had a web presence, he did and the splash screen is one of a Union Jack. This is one of those rare instances when I don’t think it was my fault.

http://www.recklessdesigns.com/

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March 30, 2013

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“As a youth I used to weep in butcher’s shops”

I first watched ‘Withnail & I’ at a Town Hall. I was a member of a film club and they would pin up a white sheet to a wall, get their projector set up and roll the film. No-one knew anything about the film and we were only just aware of Paul McGann at the time. I’m sure you can imagine watching ‘Withnail’ for the first time….i only hope you weren’t alone. That must have been 1987 then, I suppose….

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Richard Griffiths, withnail

March 29, 2013

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Not for sale.

I bought a pixie sitting on a shell at a local car boot sale. I was intent on not leaving empty handed and this odd object caught my eye. I asked “how much?”, it was a pound – a little expensive i thought, but the stallholder, a women of some years, told me that should could tell me exactly how old it was.; it was 47 years old and she knew that because it was the first thing she ever bought. I was fascinated and bought the item. I wondered how someone could sell such a thing at so paltry a price. It wasn’t a doll or a cap gun or catapult, it was a thing, a piece of decoration, a memento of an event, for her perhaps a trip to the seaside. I can only conclude that I am a materialist and a sentimentalist. I found this scrap of paper in an old wallet some 20 years old. I doubt whether you could offer any price for it that I would accept.

I think I remember the first thing I ever bought, it was a record, a single, The Pink Panther Theme by Henry Mancini, the B side was The Baby Elephant Walk which I still enjoy listening to,  and hope you do too. That’s not for sale either!

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March 24, 2013

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I know a lot about snow me

After my walk in the Forest i walked home and by the side of the road was a woman with her daughter building a snowman. “Left it a bit late” I said by way of introduction. “Better late than never” the woman replied and added “The snow’s not very good for making snowmen”. I was surprised the conversation had gone any further but i wanted to show some interest and asked “Is the snow too dry?”. “I think so” she said with some realisation. I know a lot about snow me.

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January 20, 2013

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It’s a helicopters life for me

Batteries are an illicit product. They are stacked, hung, behind the counter with the fags and booze. Like condoms they are requested, but what size? What do you want them for? “No, not that!” Women buy large batteries with a torch. Women have torches. How fitting that they should use both in the dark.

The booze and fags have age restrictions; 18 and 21, but anyone can buy batteries, Anyone, no questions asked. I know this: if you are buying batteries you are using them today. You have plans for those batteries and they have no say in it whatsoever. They pray in hope that they will be used to power a child’s remote controlled car, or helicopter…even better. Oh, how they pray. Imagine being strapped and trapped to a fire alarm all of your life. Trapped in constant alert, praying again, but this time for your life . Imagine the torment. What are the death rate statistics on fire alarm battery death? Their uncertain destiny. It gets worse – We only want you in your peak condition. You may go in the bin after 6 months if I am being dutiful. It’s a young mans game. No, it’s a helicopters life for me.

What about a dildo, a vibrator wouldn’t that be fun? No, no it wouldn’t. It would be like being trapped in a room in the middle of a party. All the fun is going on outside. No, it’s a helicopters life for me.

I have heard they can do amazing things on the outside but there has also been talk of electrocutions and painful deaths. Very much like me, there are positives and negatives. [Did I just write that?]

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October 21, 2012

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The Outside Hurts

I knew as soon as he asked what philosophy was and I lazily replied “If a tree falls in a wood and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” and he answered the question immediately, that he was not destined to be a philosopher – it is not for everyone. He is 14 or 15. At the same age I was introduced to Descartes, not  by great reading, no, I chanced upon a television programme on late night Channel Four and it was American as I recall. I remember that these were the questions I was interested in. I was always less interested in the answers than what the questions would reveal. In each question contains an eternal truth, even if that eternal truth is a symmetry of sorts. The questions were elusively simple and concerned with how I could know that I exist and what was real. These are and were questions for the greatest minds, the low and the lay. The Matrix have made them commonplace.

It is easy to confuse the answer as truth. They are mutually exclusive. We talk of truth and rights and facts and petty things like religion that present fiction as truth. The deficit of man cradles these lies like bounty. Too many necks have been broken on the back of a lack of inquisition.

After 25 years I still struggle with these questions. I have Nietzsche in my right hand and Kant in my left; I am invincible but I cannot defend myself. Their books should be read as living documents. Some have made wild accusations that Nietzsche went mad due to his own genius and suffered at his own inability to comprehend the truths he uncovered in thought; a lexicon betrayed by shadows, or vice versa.

I have experienced my brain burning when faced with quantum physics. It really hurt. It really hurts now if I try, but not as much. I can turn it off. I do not have to go there. This pain is my stupidity and inability to comprehend the consequences of an idea. I wonder if this is when learning stops; when the brain begins to burn.

I have seen anger in the ignorant…and apathy, but apathy never wantonly killed anyone. Nietzsche said that convictions were prisons so why would someone so vehemently build these dungeons, lock themselves in and defend them so fiercely? The outside hurts.

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convictions are prisons, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Plato, quantum physics, The Matrix

September 22, 2012

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Peter Alexander – A Window Opens but the Blinds are Shut

A friend died last night. You don’t know him; well some of you do. He was 28. He was tight as fuck and never bought a round of drinks but Emily loved him. Even now as I type this I cannot believe he is dead. This is how death hits; it is not real…and why should it be? I still hope he is not. I, like probably everyone who knows him is in disbelief. He was 28, just 28. I stall and think what that means.

i stall.

He was beyond human height and a gangly bugger. He was unique in personality. There are so few….exclamation, exclamation, exclamation.

From a fourth floor story he fell to his death – a window opened but the blinds were shut. How stupid and silly that he should die this way. He did not fall alone, another survived. I do not know this person. I will.

He was a photographer. He was many things…I cannot name them here. I miss him already.

Some people die too young. He did. He bought peteralexander.xxx  last week to promote his work – too late. I look forward to an exhibition of his work. He will posthumously mourn the profits. We hope to set up a charity in his name. He would not approve. “What’s in it for me?” the ghostly whisper whimpers. “The accolade”. He grimaces.

R.I.P? He won’t…I owe him £100, and he won’t rest till he gets it!

 

**** IF ANYONE HAS ANY INFORMATION REGARDING WHAT HAPPENED THAT EVENING OR IS WILLING TO PROVIDE PICTURES OR STATEMENTS ON THE INCIDENT, OR THE HEALTH & SAFETY SURROUNDING THE EVENT PLEASE CONTACT billa@shitbilla.com ****

He did not buy this round.

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Blow, Death, Hoxton, Peter Alexander, PR Scandal, Shoreditch

September 14, 2012

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R.S.V.P

I walk past black somber suits – church gathering. I am sad for them – a funeral. I spot a bright red dress and then another emerald green, and the tight mini dresses of youth. Black suits and even navy blue do not belong at a wedding. Perhaps I am too harsh. Perhaps this is poverty, “Sunday best”, “one good suit”.

For those who work in offices you must appreciate that there are some that don’t. Office and shop workers, the service industry are the working class, or rather the lower class. Upper, Middle, Lower. “Working Class” is the dupe they allow themselves to fall into. The men in black suits cling to this that they will not become lesser men. They work in factories or manual labour.

If I did not know these people I may poetically muse that they are mourning their position. I do not, I am of their class. Their virtue is as misplaced as their suits.

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September 9, 2012

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Foot Notes

The existential novel has been written and the post-structuralists hammered the final nail in its coffin…the post-modernist danced on its grave, they danced on all Arts graves. Perhaps the post-modernist role is to dance but not necessarily in celebration. They often dance on the graves of those they do not know the name. They dance on, not with. What a merry dance they lead. Play it LOUD.

 

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September 1, 2012

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Is Rape Funny?

The comedy of rape is there is such a thing. Until today I was undecided on which side of the fence I would fall until I remembered a Roy Chubby Brown joke that I had forgotten: “Rape is a myth; a woman can run much faster naked than a man can with his trousers around his ankles”. Even now I find it funny. The image in my mind is a seaside postcard version. I take it for what it is. I have not been raped.

There are two types of rape; one born from lust and one born from violence. The fact that the victim sees both as acts of violence is the essential factor when understanding rape. We have laws that punish murder and manslaughter; intent is the deciding factor. The complexities of rape are not, or rather have not been thoroughly discussed, analysed, or considered. I read an article recently which highlighted that the laws pertaining to rape are still stuck in the 17^th century. I was also horrified to find out that in 31 states of America that rapist can file paternity claims. What a fucked up world we live in that this is going on. So when I hear those who say that we should not be joking about rape I say “no”. That I am writing this and others have written theirs have added to the dialogue; I have been informed. Perhaps the debate will culminate in new laws being passed, new charities set up that will help the victims of rape, existing charities will get better funding, society will have a better understanding for rape victims.

It is trite to say that comedy pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable to say. A comedy routine about diarrhoea will lead to somebody somewhere saying “That happened to me” and now we are able to talk about it. Comedy can be entertaining and sometimes it is challenging.

If any man wants to understand rape then he should watch “Scum” 1979. Rape isn’t funny…jokes are funny.

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August 26, 2012

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Sludge, Slosh, Superman

I cannot remember having worn Wellington boots before; I must have as a child and probably as a teenager in the snow but I cannot recapture these memories. I wore Wellington boots this past five days at the Green Man Festival. As I waded through the sludge, slosh and mud I felt the invincibility wellies afforded me. I mused that this feeling was the seed that gave birth to the superhero. Superheroes wear wellies.

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Green Man, Green Man 2012, Green Man Festival, Green Man Festival 2012, Mcnuu

August 20, 2012

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Self-medicating

I am self-medicating and not what you may think but it does have an air of illegality about it, or at least it feels that way. I am suffering from self diagnosed Lyme Disease. It is caught from a tick bite usually from walking in areas of long grass and is usually transported by birds, mice, sheep and deer. Lyme Disease can result in Multiple Sclerosis and sometimes death if left untreated. How is it possible that I have self diagnosed myself with Lyme Disease when it has gone undiagnosed by the medical profession? How indeed? Lyme Disease of often undetectable; the current blood tests [ELISA and Western Blot] used for diagnosing the illness are inconclusive and unreliable. Before I started the course of antibiotics I suffered from extreme pain in my muscles and arthritis in my hands and feet to the extent that it hurt to walk. It is not pleasant.

After 3 months I ‘forced’ a months supply of doxycycline out of my GP and could not get a repeat prescription. The prescribed treatment for Lyme Disease according to the experts is at least 3 months and sometimes longer. In short you take antibiotics until it disappears which could be up to 12 months and sometimes longer and sometimes intravenously. It is a perishable disease. The NHS guidelines are for a one month supply.

So faced with this truth based on my self diagnosis I have been forced into buying doxycycline off the internet at £30 for a months supply on the online diagnosis that I am vulnerable to malaria on my ‘trip’ to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. I lied to get drugs.

It is difficult to blame the medical profession; the NHS, as their hands are tied. They cannot treat me for an illness that the tests prove I have not got. I have had the blood test results which have confirmed that I do not have it. The next step for the NHS is to refer me to a specialist, the specialist will prescribe me doxycycline. Of course I will have to wait for that referral and in the meantime the bacteria will become immune to the antibiotic and return with new vigour and possibly leave me incurable; suffering from Chronic Lyme Disease.

I am getter better.

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August 11, 2012

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Poof!

I have just been shouted at; “Poof!” from a white van. I would like to say “Me?” in consternation. “Me? The epitome of manlihood, the alpha male, the man, a man”…but I cannot. I am in many ways used to it. I have been called a “poof” since my teenage years. Was it because I wore bracelets, plucked my eyebrows, and wore make-up? I imagine it was.

I am not alone. It was the 80’s and a lot – not a lot but a few – wore bracelets, etc, dyed their hair, wore ballet shoes [yes I did], and capes [yes I did], perhaps even experimented kissing other boys [I…What is this a confessional?]. Yes, I have always been a bit of a poof. In the way I dressed at least. This is not to say always feminine: I have dressed as a well-to-do gent from the country, a mod; a gentleman dresser. However, even these raise suspicions with the bête noire.

Clothes for me have always been a bit of an adventure, even in my darkest sartorial hour; the 90’s, I was trying to ‘get it right’…it never was. In many ways the saving grace was the likes of Pulp, Suede, and even Menswear who adopted the dress of the dandy. This was something I understood. Alas, during this period I had started to lose my hair and I was no longer skinny. I felt age creeping. This is the moment that separates those with style and those without.

Mutton can only be dressed as lamb in very exceptional circumstances: Iggy Pop pulls it off, Mick Jagger doesn’t. Serge Gainsbourg did and Tom Jones didn’t [may I add that this reflects nothing on Toms voice and his version of “Hey Jude” is far superior to The Beatles version]. It is rare. One with style must tiptoe on the edge between cool old bloke and embarrassing dad. No man over 30 should be wearing Superdry.

 Of course I have felt on the wrong side of that fence or maybe precipice on a few occasions – those jeans were too skinny – but I like to think that I get it right most of the time. I hope at least. I don’t know, none of us really do. If you’re still reading this then I venture you recognise yourself in this. If you are still reading and don’t then you probably should have a wardrobe change right now and before you leave the house. We are the last of our kind, for the next couple of generations I would think. We had punk in our pockets. We grew up with Punk, Bowie, Ska, and even Frankie Goes to Hollywood [Holly Johnson was the last of the 80’s dapper dressers].

“Poof” is a masculine term; it is only used at men. How strange and even banal that what one wears signifies sexuality or gender. If I wear a blouse I must suck cock or put my cock up another mans bum….or not. They don’t all put their cock up other men’s bums and not all of them like cock up their bum. There are some homosexual couples or trysts that do no bumming, no bumming at all.

It is not wrong to judge a person by what they wear. If that person has gone out of their way to stand out then stand out they will…and be judged accordingly. To care about what you wear says an enormous amount about you. There are not many still reading but those left will be able to accurately, within 80-90% accuracy, sum up a person by what they are wearing. If a guy is wearing a suit from H&M he is not one of us. I cannot speak for women – for me the nearer a woman gets to a twin-set the nearer she is to style. I do not know my Jimmy Choo’s from my Blahnik’s. No, I am not a real poof. I know nothing of women’s fashion. This is the real ‘poof’. They understand the feminine world; Sex and the City, Prada, and Chanel. These are the new ‘Pooftas’ It used to be Oscar Wilde, Bowie, Morrissey Joe Orton and Quentin Crisp. To be a poof in the olden days meant you were aesthete. If you were called a poof in the late 70’s or 80’s you were in good company. These days it is a different gutter and the stars are different stars. The worst think about being called a poof these days is sharing the spotlight with Louie Spence.

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August 11, 2012

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Good Cunt, Black Cunt

Today we must talk about the ‘black cunt’ issue. It was on the front pages of the news a few weeks ago; John Terry was declared innocent and we could all go about calling people ‘cunt’ without them having any recourse in law. Yes, ‘black’ was the slur; a pejorative term indicating a negative value on an otherwise neutral word.

What is it saying? You are not only a cunt but you are a black cunt. You are black which is bad, and a cunt – which is the lowest of the low, a filthy specimen of humanity, a plight on this world, despicable and despised; a cunt. You are both combined and amplified. The connection of the negative slur on black  appears pretty mild when compared to being a cunt. When I say “cunt” there are no redeeming features, I say “black” and I think of Motown, the blues, Michael Jackson [when he was black], Chris Rock, Different Strokes and Sesame Street. “Please give me black over cunt”

To live in a world from cradle to grave as a black person is to experience discrimination at some point in your life, but you can live with it, people live with you, you have friends, people who love you, a job, you can become the President of the United States or the other most powerful person in the world Oprah Winfrey; it’s not all that bad. Imagine being a cunt from cradle to grave. “Please give me black over cunt”

The reason is of course that ‘cunt’ has another meaning; a woman’s vagina – there I’ve said it, vagina. A woman’s vagina. If I call you a woman’s vagina it’s not all that bad. It also has redeeming features. They come in all shapes and sizes: big ones, small ones, hairy ones and bald, some have Hitler moustaches [weird], trimmed, wild, quaffed, dyed, they each have a unique smell and some taste of peaches [Bath 1996]. They come fair haired, brown, black and ginger. The hair itself: tight curls, loose curls, scruffy, sparse and sometimes straight [“Hello the Asians”]. Something for everyone so to say. Yes, I like a good cunt. We appear to have stumbled into an oxymoron or at least it teeters on the edge. “A good cunt” – it feels awkward. Why? We can’t seem to rid ourselves of its shadowy Hyde. “You know Bob? He’s a real good cunt”, “Pleasure doing business with you, you’re a real good cunt”, “I love you, you’re a real good cunt”. It will never happen. I dare you to try!

We hate the word ‘cunt’ because it has ruined, destroyed, obliterated the most beautiful thing in the world; a woman’s vagina. Let us pause. Can you re-read the preceding sentence once more but replace the words ‘woman’s vagina’ with ‘cunt’. Compare how you felt the first time you read it with how you feel now. Yes, it is a very powerful word. Softly “Please give me black over cunt”.

From a legal perspective ‘black’ is what you hang your hat on. The colour of a person’s skin is apparent. Nobody is going to court for calling someone a cunt. We have all been cunts or cuntish in our lives. The first stone would not be thrown. Perhaps this is why ‘cunt’ is not seen as as offensive as ‘black’. We believe in redemption, justice, epiphany and grace. “He used to be a right cunt but since he met Emily he’s a completely different person”. Change is possible. To be ‘a cunt’ is not to hate, it is to disregard; to have a complete disregard for someone’s life, well-being and happiness. When we call someone a cunt we mean to admonish and hopefully redeem. Perhaps ‘cunt’ isn’t such a bad word after all.

If I am oblivious to the fact that I am veering off the straight and narrow of expected behaviour you will be there to call me a cunt and hopefully, if I am not a complete cunt, I will modify my behaviour accordingly and try not to do it again. I do not want to be a cunt and I will do my best not to be.

To call someone ‘black’ pejoratively is to reveal your ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity. John Terry was on trial for being a cunt.

Swear words are often substitutions for complex and moral thought.

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John Terry Trial Black Cunt

July 29, 2012

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The Sea

I want to write something positive and uplifting. The summer has arrived and I’m off to the beach. I haven’t been to this particular beach for over 25 years. I used to drive here in my Mini 1000 packed with a few nibbles, a book and my guitar. I also brought a sleeping bag and would stay overnight in my car in a nearby car park that overlooked the beach. I would write songs and poetry and read great works by Kafka and Chekhov. I am drawn to the sea.

As soon as I moved to London 25 years ago I missed it immediately. Trees and woods can be found in London if you know where to look but London Fields Lido is the nearest thing you will get to the sea. I do not count Hampstead Pond; it looks dirty and I do not want to swallow the water. Do not get me wrong I have swam in the Lakes of the Lake District. I am not against still waters. Hampstead Pond seems unsavoury.

The sea is alive; it breathes giant breaths and beats a cosmic drum. It lulls with soft hush and whispers. It seems to beckon. Rounded pebbles are reminders of its power and conceal its terrifying force with their soft curves.

It has been described as cruel and gentle; it is neither, it is nature. We cannot fathom its depths. It is a place of myth and legend. Mermaids seem possible when we spectacle at its bio-diversity and madcapery. I have made up a new word – today is a good day.

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July 22, 2012

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I’m offline. I’m fucking offline!

I’m offline. I’m fucking offline! What is going on? No, I mean, really, what the fuck is going on? How did Pasha get on with the ‘orgasmatron’? Who ‘Likes’ the photo I uploaded this morning of a wet dog?

My online life is on hold. Is it? I’ve still taken the photos on my phone that have failed to upload [the first indication that I may be offline] but will be uploaded later, and even as I write this it will be uploaded later. Hey you’re reading me now. My story of feeling sorry for a pebble because it was doomed to spend what must feel like an eternity sat on a beach looking like a seagull had shat on it. It does not no more. I have rescued it from its ridicule [It is not on online so it will never see this. You must never tell!]. I will put him in the bathroom. Pebbles like the bathroom I hear; they are near water.

Is this what it is to be offline? Am I reduced to, no longer howling into the wind on Twitter, but to giving pebbles personalities, pasts and destiny; a place to sleep. Oh, what a happy life I lead. I have me and my imagination and I love it. I am surprised and joyful when he appears. He is my companion and confidant. He is my other me. I rejoice in his creations and publicise his feats.

We acknowledge the posthumous hero and heroine in ourselves. We are online. We will live forever in ones and zeros as long as ones and zeros exist. It is a kind of immortality. The great need for us to establish ourselves, to leave a legacy, live on in peoples minds. If you were to die tomorrow you would live on in words and pictures. Facebook is a living wake. It is very easy to look through a timeline and imagine the person dead. I used to create montages of a girlfriend to the sound of ‘Memories’ by Barbra Streisand and mourn her passing. She was in the next room.

So you see, I am not offline, I am not alone. I have my imagination, my imagination and me, and for the time you have spent reading this he has kept you company too.

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July 22, 2012

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How Billa invented Lady Gaga

I was there. I saw it. I witnessed it take shape. He stood there hanging on to the rail that fenced the front of the stage at The Bowlie Weekender April 1999. The music blared and whilst others danced enthusiastically post live performances to the ephemeral sets pumped out by DJ’s and Jarvis Cocker, Billa hung on; the night was not yet over. The beat penetrated his mind and his body jerkily took over. The familiar head nod, turned into a delicate head bang, the right shoulder followed on the back beat and a stylised air guitar appeared – played low and fretless. We looked on in astonishment that he could still move; we had all been drinking all day and had no drugs to keep us going. We were in good spirits and joined in with Billa, fashioning our own air guitars from the ether we danced the ‘Billa Dance’.

From 1999 to 2001 he flitted between Shoreditch and Camden until settling in the former. He lived cheaply in ‘De Beauvoir Towers’ and enjoyed the burgeoning Hoxton/Shoreditch lifestyle. The ‘Hoxton Quiff’ was born and a style was developing in this run down part of London. He was not the first to embrace all that it had to offer and jumped on its band wagon enthusiastically. Billa got a DJ spot at the Red Lion in Hoxton Street– not the Red Lion that exists today but the Red Lion whose wooden floors revealed the cellar below and where beer was breakfast. His set included Chicks on Speed, David Carretta, Vitalic, and even Gary Glitter; he favoured tunes he could dance to. Ladytron had just released their debut album. The sound of Shoreditch was forming and Billa was a DJ ambassador. Club nights such as Foreign, Anti-Social and Computer Blue were at the heart of this new wave embracing sound and style.

At around 2002/3 Billa’s girlfriend at the time Nisha Thirkel & Tree Carr formed ‘10 minutes with my Dad’ following the likes of ‘Gob$au$age’, and Nobless Oblige, and others who emerged from this underworld embracing tits out rock ‘n’ roll with an electronica back beat as its seedy mistress. To see these bands live was to experience a new awakening of performance art on stage. These were days of great licentiousness. Semi –nude performances, and ex-strippers and strippers would adorn the stage . The audience was as much a part of this experience as the bands themselves. The beautiful, the sublime, the surreal adorned the room, walls and floors.

Billa would DJ at these events further legitimising and promoting a sound of Shoreditch. That electrifying Shoreditch beat permeated into the subconscious soul of Shoreditch and everyone was doing it in some shape or form; they swaggered, they air-danced, they became their own performance, they wore extravagant outfits and embodied the spirit of David Bowie, Leigh Bowery, glamour, artifice and art. Performance artists [Michael Curran], graphic designers, designers, fashionistas, artists, DJ’s and drunks all flocked to the area. A scene and a club scene was born.

In 2001 Billa, who had already refused to be Mark LeBon’s understudy some years earlier, decided to document the nightlife of Shoreditch and London and has been ever since. His Flickr.com/billa page became a who’s who of London cool. He documented club fashion; fashion that was to become everyday fashion some years later and even now. In 2005  The Billa’s Flickr page launched and became an inspiration to club goers of what to wear and who’s wearing what and where, it captured and enraptured extreme fashion usually only seen on catwalks, and it was sometimes ridiculous…but never dull. He was the unpaid publicist of London’s underground music and fashion scene. There have been many younger copycat photographers aping his style but none come close to capturing it, the elusive it. Peruse the vast number of pages that amass Flickr.com/billa; be agog at its reflection.

The music that pervaded this scene was termed electronica; a broad term which embodied the spirit of punk and glamour of the 80’s with a disco back beat.  This spark, this beat is the beat you hear in Kylie’s “Can’t Get You Outa My Head” and Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” years later is ‘pop electronica’, the style is also Shoreditch and Billa provided the magazine which documented and inspired a generation of fashion designers and photographers.

He is not rich and not even famous in regular terms. He does not pursue wealth or fame. He is an enigma. If you are now typing “billa” into Google you will not find this story, it has never been told, it has never been written till now. This is part of ‘The Story of Shoreditch’ – a much bigger story that cannot be told here.

All images appear courtesy of Billa and are, of course, subject to copyright. [shitbilla.com]

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Billa, Lady Gaga, The History of Shoreditch

July 16, 2012

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“Look Mom, I’m writing!”

“Put the pen to the paper and your mind will do the rest” – this is my mantra and it works like magic. Even as you are reading this you are witness to its alchemy. The hardest thing to learn as a writer is how to follow this word by another and another in the hope that they bear some semblance to the thought expressed in your mind. Perhaps the first hurdle is not the expression of the idea in language but the physical act of doing, of putting pen to paper or striking those keys on the keypad.

I choose to write with a pen because I understand its flow. I write long hand and always have. When I have tried to type what I think the process is much slower and awkward, and so are the results; I have no rhythm and the actions have no romance. When I hold a pen the very act has a story all of its own. I have always had terrible handwriting and one of my earliest memories is of being the last in my classroom to receive a pen (pencils first – we’re not wasting valuable ink on these morons). The pen was thrown at me from across the classroom by my teacher in frustration and resignation some months after the penultimate moron was happily scribbling away with his first Biro, or was it a Bic?

I have written love poems and poorly written essays, I have written on beer mats, I can write in the dark. Me, the pen, have a history; we have been together from the beginning, from the burgeoning of my personality. Show me a child of two playing with crayons and I will show you the man or woman. Yes a long history like no other.

I write much slower than my mind of course but each word I read out in my head: thought, written, read. Did my words express my thought? No? Bin! I feel the rhythm of the sentence and adjust my journey accordingly. All great ideas, sentences, all great art has rhythm. “It flowed out of me!”

I was at a talk by Milton Glaser, the chap who designed the ‘I Heart NY’ logo and he said that a graphic artist should first design with a pencil because a computer takes too long to express the idea. The same applies to writing for me at least. When pen hits paper and a letter appears then another, letters become words, words become sentences, sentences become paragraphs and all of a sudden “Look Mom, I’m writing!”

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July 8, 2012

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We must saw off the branch we are sitting on

Honey does not rot, they say. I don’t believe it; even water rots. “Rots”, what more proof do you need of the egocentric man-made construct language. To rot, is to be no longer useful, poisonous in fact, to the human. Doesn’t language belie our arrogance, superiority, natural right and ego? Even the structuralist, post-structruralist and post-modernist do not saw off the branch they are sitting on. Language is at source primeval; it relates to food, shelter, danger  and safety: Good and Bad. Good and bad bear direct relation to survival: Food-Good, Shelter-Good, Poison-Bad, Predator-Bad. Animals share this sentiment too. Yes-Good, No-Bad. It is a moral binary. Language is born of necessity; survival. It is selfish by nature even as far as family and further social groups are concerned. The ‘other’ are bad; they threaten my survival. The rotting water or fruit or meat are bad; they threaten my survival. This is the foundation of language.

It was not till later that language developed beyond its binary roots to the complexity that it is today. I could argue that the complexity started with fire. Fire; the symbol of civilisation, of man overcoming the elements, of man mastering the elements. Fire, the complexity of thought contained within its mere existence. It is good and bad. It can provide warmth, burn, purify, transform, purify, and destroy. It is alchemy. Is it this simple? Did the relativism of good and bad begin with fire? Only if you perhaps don’t agree that the first pre-historic joke was “Good for me, bad for him [chuckle chuckle]” after clubbing his rivals dead on the head. The mother-in-law joke came much later. Of course this is moral relativism [let’s call it what it is].

Moral relativism understands that the truth is not pure and is negotiated. History is written by the victor after all, it is also told; oral history. One only has to be familiar with the game ‘Chinese Whispers’ to appreciate the necessity of the written word. The written word was conceived to translate the past, what was agreed upon.

Good and bad bear no relation to anything but us, humankind. We do not care if the stagnant water will provide a breeding ground for bacteria [another form of life], that the wolf will go hungry because we slew all the lambs, that our fellow predators perish.

We are trapped in language, in binary, in yes and no, good and bad. Despite a few individuals rebelling against this fundamental truth the mass prevail. Our base instincts prevail in the individual, tribe, race, country, race and species. We are the predator elite, on mass. How thoroughly we represent that when we witness mans inhumanity to man.

We were right to fear fire. Fire is a symbol of our potential. It can be good or bad and so can we. If we are to learn any lesson from fire it is that we too can burn ourselves out. We know this already.

We need to go back to the beginning and see that we are rotting and continue to rot. What hope is there? None. Our species has run its course, we need to evolve beyond binary, beyond language, beyond the self at the core. In the human evolution we once came down from the trees, now we must saw off the branch we are sitting on.

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July 2, 2012

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I didn’t learn nothing at school

I feel compelled to add my bit this week, a duty perhaps, on the topic of abandoning the GCSE to the erstwhile O Level and CSE. I feel compelled because my year at school was the last year to take O levels and CSE’s. I went through the system from beginning to end. I was, and still am, one of those scallywags that played around in class, played truant, never did my homework and a had a complete disdain for education and what I was being taught. I liked English most of all but hated reading books. I liked some poetry and wrote some of my own, but I hated reading books, or as I now know, the books I was given to read. To my horror I discovered recently that children are still be taught Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’. I didn’t give a shit about Slim and someone who’s wife made him a cuckold. It was boring to a 14 years old kid and still is I imagine. ‘Cider with Rosie’, Shakespeare and ‘An Inspector Calls’. Now ‘An Inspector Calls was the only piece of literature anyone really took any notice of. Why? I think because it was something we could understand; a policeman knocking at the door presuming guilt. We had all done something we could have been arrested for from petty theft to vandalism, trespass. It was about Class; something we understood. Despite this interest it didn’t make a blind bit of difference, a dent, because you could never get a decent grade on ‘An Inspector Calls’ alone. For the rest of the subjects taught at school there were no standouts. We didn’t have a particular fondness for the Ox Bow lake, or whether Germany invaded Poland or was it the other way around? We didn’t know or care…it was probably Germany. So I left school like many others with a handful of CSE’s; my highest grade was a 2 in English Language which was the equivalent to a Grade D at O level. So that would be one D followed by poorer grades for every other subject. Now I left school at 15 and returned to education after two years of serving as an apprentice hairdresser, but this time I studied GCSE’s at college. I studied English Language and Literature, Maths and Physics. This time I was keen to learn, it was new and I had a lot of catching up to do. It was a one year course and I did OK; B’s and C’s, then on to A levels, a degree in Philosophy and next a Masters. I should mention at this point my years at University were paid for by the government and I was also lucky enough to get a Bursary for the Masters. Halcyon days. The moral of this story is not that O levels and CSE’s were a great success but that they had little or no impact on my conduct at school. If I had applied myself I could have attained decent grades at O level standard. The problem was and is that the education system was not made for me in the same way that it’s not made for the youth of today. The problem is not how it is measured but what is being taught. I now love ‘Of Mice and Men’, I love Steinbeck but I know that I could never be motivated to like it when I was 14. We have been saying it for years; that children need to be involved if they are to learn effectively. I am very happy to declare that very little of what I did learn at school has been any use to me in later life. Teach maths but apply to real life. It’s all there but it’s practical mathematics. Teach Geography, History, English and Religion as a combined subject; they only really make sense in relation to each other anyway. The sciences are of course witchcraft. Keep the GCSE as it is but make it harder if you want to increase its value. I’m surprised that the Conservative government don’t understand this simple economic principle. On a more pragmatic note the GCSE has no real value anyway. Having five or ten GCSE’s is not going to get you that job you’ve always wanted. If you haven’t got A levels or a degree you’re working in sales or the service industry. A decent GCSE result will only allow teachers to place students in suitable A level subjects; this is there only use. It begs the question: why is this even being considered? Answered on a postcard or in the comments box below.

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June 25, 2012

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By Royal Decree

The sun doesn’t favour the Queen. In years gone by we would take this as a sign that the gods were no longer on her side.

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June 3, 2012

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How to Serve Man

The horse that tried to kill me. 

I was walking on the moor as I often do, and this particular day I noticed up ahead two horses. It was, and still is a beautiful site to behold. Whilst enjoying this view I noticed that one of the horses, all of a sudden, noticed me; his ears pricked up and he looked in my direction. He paused for a second or two and started for me. A steady, light, playful perhaps, gallop towards me. Now whilst I’m not a city boy I am certainly no country boy either. I panicked slightly and quickly walked, trying to look calm, to a spot where a small pond had formed due to the recent heavy rain we had been having. I stood one side of the pond creating a moat between me and the horse. The horse by now had arrived, saw the pond and recognised that it had come between it and me. He stopped, and paused and began to slowly walk to the left around the pond towards me. I did not pause, I walked away from it to the left also. He stopped realising that I was moving as he was moving. He tried again. The same again. Same again. He now realised that I would always be his opposite compass. He tried a few more times, very sneakily at times, faking left and going right; sophisticated stuff for a horse. Eventually, with anger and frustration the horse decided to brave the brave and jump the pond.

As I was remembering this story I was on the moor once more and considered the horse. I marvelled at its intelligence and cunning and remembered that there was a time when man did not acknowledge that animals had intelligence. We used to think of them as automatons. The story of the horse that tried to kill me reminded me of what it is, this thing we call intelligence. In short intelligence is the ability to see oneself in the future and make decisions based on that thought. The conclusion I came to is that if a living thing can see itself in the future then it has a basic concept of space a time. Put simply, if you can anticipate yourself [space] in the future [time] then you understand space and time. This seemed both profound and simple to me and I thought I had immediately stumbled onto something. I considered the plants I was surrounded by and realised that they too understood space and time. “I need sunlight”, they move towards the sunlight. “I need water”, they spread their roots far and wide. This was thought as action. Every living thing from the smallest microbe is pushing forwards clinging to life. This is the Will of the universe.

So we consider life on other planets: “Is there intelligent life out there?” The “intelligent” part of the question is redundant. If there is life there is intelligence, for intelligence is just the Will of the universe. What we really want to know is “Is there civilised life out there?” There is intelligent life down here and we care little for that. They say dolphins are as intelligent as humans but we are not learning from them or sharing their technologies [maybe sonar], we pay little attention to them. The extraterrestrial life we are seeking is something out of Star Trek: A life form that we can understand. If we can’t understand it we have no compunction about killing it, or blink an eye when it is killed; remember the dolphin. No, we want a life form that is “civilised”, that has language and culture. That is our hope. But why? Do we ever learn from other races or species? We only have to look at the ‘American Indian’ to realise that faced with a culture that embraces and promotes living in harmony with nature and each other that we exterminate it in preference to our own. Our own a culture, western culture,  where 1% of the worlds human population owns 99% of the wealth of the world, where there is poverty and drought and famine that could be solved at the drop of a hat if we decided it. We don’t, we continue on this road to ruin in full knowledge that we have the means of making the choices that could improve the lives of every living thing on the planet but do nothing. Now that is a Star Trek episode I would like to watch; solve that in 45 minutes Jean-Luc!

What is it, this ‘civilised’? Why do humans have art and literature and language? What separates us from the beasts? We, like animals and every living thing, understand space and time but what really separates us is that we understand death. Death, and the acknowledgment of what death means is an understanding of forever, and forever is an understanding of infinity, we used to call it God and he was omnipresent. The horse can think ahead perhaps a few moments, hours, weeks or even a year, most animals understand seasons and even the lowly salmon even returns to where it was born to die. It is a grand assumption to make that animals and plants do not understand what infinity is and I am comfortable with that assumption. Of an extra-terrestrial life form we should ask “Do they understand infinity?” For if they don’t we are likely to think “food”.

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May 20, 2012

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Facebook: Let the Culling Begin!!!

Facebook is being floated on the stock market and is set to make and estimated 10 billion dollars. This is the next giant step for this multimedia giant and for some this is a harking back to the good old days when dotcoms were bought for seemingly extortionate prices on the promise or speculation of generating billions in the future.

At the risk of being a nay sayer, cynic or harbinger of doom I do not predict good things for Facebook’s stock value. I believe the face of Facebook is changing and for many for the better but for the marketing machine for the worse. I am one of many who in the past few months has had a real good think about how I use Facebook and who my Facebook friends really are and I have made a mass cull. I now have only forty Facebook friends and now enjoy the Facebook experience much more than I ever have. Of course not everyone posts regularly but those that do I always notice now. Scott, a friend of some 20 years often updates his status with pics and videos of his two young sons, where he is and how he’s feeling on any given day, we play “Guess the Fishes”, and occasionally chat or message. He lives in Fife, Scotland and I never see him these days but I feel more in touch with what is going on in his life because his posts are not lost in a morass of wall post status updates from over 100 ‘friends’ I hardly know or care about. The average Facebook account has 139 friends. I think I’m pushing the boat by having 40. More and more I hear that people are bored with Facebook and I venture that the reason is that they have accumulated too many ‘friends’. When they have posted status updates their updates are lost in the sea of updates available and even their closest friends miss their posts leaving them feeling like they’re howling in the wind and perhaps nobody cares. No ‘Like’? No ‘Comment’? Everyone likes a ‘Like’.

I was speaking of this to a friend who has similarly exercised a Facebook culling and uses the more ruthless method of “If I haven’t got their phone number then they’re not a friend on Facebook”. She has 19 Facebook friends – Kudos. Most people on Facebook accumulate friends like Sonic the hedgehog collects rings. At the other extreme I have another friend who has 3055 friends; he never sees my posts.

The conclusion is that anything over about 50 Facebook friends and most status updates are irrelevant and you get bored, unless you’re just networking and that’s just business. The natural conclusion is that people will either get bored with Facebook and stop using it or reduce their friendship groups to something more manageable and Facebook wants neither. Facebook actively wants you to accumulate ‘friends’, as soon as you log in to Facebook you are confronted with “People who you may know”. Facebook wants you to amass ‘friends’, to create a large network because when you ‘Like’ Starbucks, or Virgin, Cadbury, or British Airways then you are advertising to all your friends and the more friends you have the better advertising job Facebook is doing for it’s clients. If you have 20 friends and you ‘Like’ Starbucks the advertising reach is far smaller.

In some way it may not be all bad and perhaps local and speciality interest groups will get more attention in this micro environment as it will be more localised and of a personal interest to those who you share information with. Remember my 40 Facebook Friends are not the same as my friends 40 Facebook friends so networking still occurs, but in the future this may be at a micro level.

The more friends you have adds to Facebook’s advertising portfolio, this is above and beyond the social profiling and targeted ads already in place. In my experience and the experience of a growing number of people less is more when is comes to Facebook. Less is definitely more and less doesn’t make tens of billions of dollars. This is not a long-term investment.

If you’re inspired to cull and get the most out of Facebook and be re-united with your friends then please Share this link. Let the culling begin!!!

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May 7, 2012

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I can live without electricity but I cannot live without water!

I have been camping in the Gower, South Wales . It was a little cold and wet but the ‘great outdoors’ nevertheless. I walked along the cliff tops, beaches, and rugged public pathways enjoying the magnificence of nature both big and small; sea cliffs and seaweed. High on hills overlooking the raging sea were occasional wind farms; a blight on the landscape for many, a necessity for others.

The negative reaction to wind farms is a curious one. It is an argument for conservation, for putting nature above progress. Harnessing the power of the wind has been with us since we built the first sail powered ships that navigated the world bringing both trade and invasion. Windmills have been with us since before the birth of Christianity, and in the UK since at least the 12th Century. The reason that it took over 1200 years for the UK to adopt this revolutionary system had nothing to do with the ‘Janet Street Porters’ of yesteryear. No, this technology was introduced to us from distant lands, the Normans , who travelled to Great Britain by the power of the wind. I will hazard a guess that the conservationist did not picket or protest the building of these towering turbines that brought industry and wealth to a region, which allowed for progress, an abundance of food, and economy for those fortunate enough to live within spitting distance of one. The immediacy of the windmills impact on the economy of a region was obvious, and the windmill was constructed to be a beautiful accompaniment to the landscape; there are now windmill preservation societies. Will there be Wind Farm preservation societies in 100 years? The relative beauty of wind farms is a personal one.

The anti wind farm lobby is a selfish one. It is first and foremost about ‘views’ and ‘views’ are only appreciated by humankind; dogs, birds, sheep and cows are not bemoaning the loss of their once unspoilt countryside vistas. The land has been here for billions of years and will be for another billion. To conserve the views for our and another generation is an arrogance on behalf of the coming generation. The choice: affordable electricity or a corrupted view of the landscape? The biggest threat to the environment these days in forms of accessing natural resources is ‘Fracking’; a method of injecting thousands of gallons of water mixed with chemicals (lead, uranium, mercury, hydrochloric acid, formaldehyde, and methanol to name a few] deep into the earth to release natural gas. In the UK , Blackpool has had minor earthquakes as a result of fracking. Despite the obvious effects of this devastating process it seems the government are still going ahead with it in Lancashire , Kent , Sussex , Scotland [Falkirk], Wales [Vale of Glamorgan]. France as abolished it. The documentary “Gasland” revealed the devastating effects this method has had on those areas where fracking has taken place, the most shocking of which is that residents can set fire to their water as the fracking process has corrupted the local drinking water of that region as it is now infused with methane and the other chemicals mentioned above. I can live without electricity but I cannot live without water!

The argument against wind farms is an aesthetic one and aesthetics are a luxury. Humankind is on the brink of an energy shortage which we cannot imagine; an armageddon perhaps, unless we solve this problem. Nature is everywhere, wind farms are not so get in your Land Rover and travel to a wind farm free area and have a picnic. Even better drive there in an electric car because at least it will be renewable energy you will be consuming.

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April 30, 2012

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Anders Breivik: An analysis

This week as been the trial of Anders Breivik who, on 22nd July 2011, shot and killed 69 people on the island of Utøya, most of which were teenagers, and bombed a government building in Oslo killing 8 . The trial is not about his guilt but whether or not he is insane. The trial has caused much controversy, not least of which is that it has given Breivik an opportunity to air his extremist views; an opportunity that he ruthlessly orchestrated. Whilst the trial was not televised live Twitter feeds provided the world with the profile of a man, his motives and the gruesome details of a killing spree in a courtroom filled with friends and family members who had lost their loved ones on that solemn day. The disturbing details stoically described by Breivik left all those present emotionally drained and for some paralysed by what they had heard.

The court made a concerted effort to try to reveal if Breivik had empathy, and that somehow if he lacked empathy then this would in some ways prove that he was in fact insane. If I had any doubt of Breiviks sanity and ability for empathy they were put to rest by one comment he made – “I cannot claim to comprehend the suffering I have caused. If I were to try to comprehend the suffering I have caused I wouldn’t”. Breivik is fully aware of the atrocious nature of his crimes and the ravaging effect it has had those left behind to live with this for the rest of their lives. He recognises, he has the acute empathy of realising he will never be able to comprehend the devastation he has caused peoples lives, and perhaps this ironically will keep him sane.

To find or to think that Breivik is insane is too easy. That a man, an educated man, a man from Europe, from Norway with all the privileges of living in a country free from tyranny, famine, civil war and relative poverty should commit such brutal acts seems incomprehensible but happened nonetheless. Killing and the taking of life is part and parcel of modern living. The UK in the past few years and presently are actively involved in the taking of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq and The Falkland Islands and we will continue to sanction bloodshed wherever our governments feel it appropriate. No, it is not the killing of innocent people that has put him on trial for his sanity it is his method; cold blooded murder. To pick up a gun and to ruthlessly shoot people in the head at close range is grotesque and unfathomable for most people. The question of how someone could do such a thing leads us to think he must be insane; he isn’t, he had a political agenda and a method of execution that would ensure his extremist views were heard; that was his goal and that is what he achieved I am sorry to say.

Breivik is on trial for his sanity in a country not unlike our own, where his views on Islam are shared by many. As Prison psychiatrist Dr Randi Rosenqvist who has assessed Breivik three times said, “The view that Muslims should leave Norway has nothing to do with psychosis. The belief that Muslims will take control of Europe within 20 years is shared by many people without them being psychotic.” We have UKIP the BNP who, to a lesser or greater degree share Breiviks view and as he points out these views are not allowed to be aired and are sidelined in the popular press, apart from The Daily Mail. The Norwegian Government too would not allow Breivik a podium to air his extremist views. We can bandy about terms like ” Nanny State ” and “patriarchal society” but they do not get us anywhere. I felt compelled to reply to a tweet made by a reporter, Helen Pidd, who was tasked with reporting on the trial, of her apparent surprise that 75% of Guardian readers wanted Breivik to have his day in court to expound his views, that although I can lookup online how to make a Victoria Sponge cake does not mean I will bake one, and I feel the same way about these extremist views. To refuse these people with unpopular views a podium forces these people underground and results in us not knowing who these people are or what they stand for. Is giving these people a platform the price we should pay for living in an heterogeneous society? This is a debate on freedom of expression that will not be resolved here. However, it is the reason, whether we like it or not, that Breivik felt he had to do what he did. To relegate him to the insane asylum is to dismiss him as a loony and brush him under the carpet. We do the same with suicide bombers; we label them terrorists and forget to assess the reasons why they are conducting these atrocious acts of violence. Suicide bombers or those we have caught planning such actions are not given a trial on their sanity. Dare I ask the question? Is it because they are not ‘white’? Let us pause a moment and consider that. No, Breivik is on trial for his sanity because he shot people, a lot of people in cold blood and at close range, and it takes a certain type of person to do that. It is not pressing a button that ignites a fuse that explodes a bomb. If his only crime was to explode a bomb on a government building his sanity would not be on trial. His method of killing is what we cannot comprehend.

The Breivik trial will continue and the shocking events will be reported, we will pigeon hole him into a category of Nazi, neo-Nazi, lunatic, extremist, terrorist and so on. The consequences of Breiviks actions will be a catalyst for governments the world round to highlight this incident as a reason, a justification for tighter national security and big brother surveillance; it is already happening. The most frightening thing to emerge from this trial is that somebody sane is capable of these atrocities, and if somebody sane is capable of these atrocities then we are all on trial. My heart goes out to the people of Norway and especially those who have lost someone in this politically motivated attack on innocent people but please please please let us at least learn something from it; what that is I am unsure as yet because like you it is still something I am struggling to comprehend.

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April 21, 2012

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You’ll never walk alone

I was motivated to write this piece following this weeks online attacks of ‘pretty boy’ Alan Davies, the stand-up comic, star of QI, much loved entity, etc, etc, who people now want dead. What did he do? He made a remark on an Arsenal podcast about Liverpool not playing football on the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster of which people took offence. The measure of the over-reaction can be witnessed on Twitter where @AlanDavies1 re-tweeted what appeared to be every death threat, insult, aspersion thrown at him. Whether right or wrong I do not care to discuss, because I believe this is about football.

Football, footie, the beautiful game, soccer; twenty two men, or women, on a pitch, kicking a ball around for ninety minutes, extra time, win, lose, draw. Have I missed anything out? Yes, I have. There are two opposing teams, a league table, divisions, cups, trophies, season tickets, kit and colours [home and away], transfers, memberships, etc, etc. The etc, etc is because this is as much as I know of football and don’t really understand the machinations of the whole thing. Yes, I can kick a ball around a park , and I even played in the school team, but I never understood watching it. Why watch it when you can play it? There must be at least 5,000 five-a-side teams at any Premier league game.

Now, I must confess to knowing two people in my life that watched football but never had a team; one my dad, the other a friend. They both loved “the beautiful game”, would love a good game and complain about a bad game and sometimes a wasted ninety minutes of their lives, but they at least loved watching it; entertainment I suppose. They knew the rules, patterns, defence, offence, far more than myself and the intricacies involved but even though they sometimes watched a “rubbish game” that was it and they got on with their lives. Now…now, this is not the usual football supporter.

A football supporter has to have a team and to have a team means taking sides. God, taking sides. To this day I am asked “Did you watch the match?” “What team do you support?” I don’t. Most football supporters do have a team and some from cradle to grave. Like voluntary pigs to the slaughter they line up enthusiastically happy to be branded. Sometimes by geography, sometimes by whim, who is on the top of the league, or who your friends or family support; you have to have a team. Some people of course have two teams because their home team always loses so they need a Premier league team to counteract this precarious emotional balance and give them some happiness in the game at least. Hartlepool, Blackburn Rovers, Swansea City , Motherwell and also Arsenal , Chelsea , Liverpool, Man U or Man City , Rangers or Celtic….the religious divide. “I do solemnly swear that from this day forward my happiness, sadness, guile, torment, ridicule, pride, love and hate will depend on something I have no control over”. What sane person gives themselves up to this kind of emotional slavery wantonly? The football supporter.

As I said my father watched a lot of footie on the weekend and as such, to me, was an absent father to some degree, and for many other children, wives, girlfriends, or lovers they too have absent boyfriends, husbands or fathers, for a few hours a week at best and at worse afternoons and evenings, when they share their loved one with another family; their team. I have to interject and say that woman watch and play football too and suffer the same slings and arrows I’m now throwing. However, it is a male dominated sport so I’ll carry on in this stereotypical manner. This is not the point. The point gets much worse. Whether your happy or sad, tormented, ridiculed extends beyond the ninety minutes, it pervades your whole life. Yes you; you who are reading this who love football, who have a team, who, whether or not your team won, lost or drew on the weekend are affected emotionally by the result and it’s still affecting your life. You may not think so but it did and so it does; cause and effect, let’s make this article scientific at least.

What is worse is that supporting a team is like building your house on a shifting sand of bank notes and commerce. Players are bought and sold as assets, foreign companies and pop stars own regional teams, and at the end of the day the game is played for pounds not play. A football supporter has nowhere to hang his hat or state his claim. He has the colours, a flag, season ticket or just plain enthusiasm but nothing more. That team, the team that he supports does not exist; it is a name. Players get switched from Chelsea , to Liverpool, Fulham and Newcastle at the drop of a hat; as interchangeable as lost golf balls. Mangers change by month in some cases, and even grounds change but the name remains the same. Who do you support? Chances are you support the likes of Mohamed Al-Fayed, The Glazer Family, Sheikh Mansour, Carson Yeung, or the Venky’s Group. Yes, I’ve only heard of one of them too, and yes, that is who you support; commerce.

So why the vitriol at the Alan Davies comment? Because, it was about football and football is protecting your patch; it’s tribalism plain and simple, protecting your patch, your team, your family, your school, your county, your country. Saying something bad about your team is saying something bad about you, because you are your team. “How did you do on the weekend?” “We lost”, “We won”, “We drew”, “We had a good game” blah blah blah. When did you become “we”, when did you practice all week, get changed in the changing rooms, have a pep talk, play your heart out for ninety minutes, or score a winning goal? No, you are a supporter of a team that only exists in pounds, shillings and pence…those were the days; when footballers were footballers and football was football.

Perhaps because football is so fragile, so ephemeral, that it needs defending by the supporters so fiercely, but why so violently? To make it exist? Perhaps this is why the support for a team can create such extremes of emotion. The Hillsborough disaster wasn’t the root of this witch hunt against Alan Davies it was football, and everything that goes with it. Hooliganism pervades the game and always has, perhaps always will, and more violence and deaths have been caused by the tribalism of football than any disaster like Hillsborough, and lest us not forget the Hysel disaster which was the result of hooliganism.

The remark made by Alan Davies was the match that lit the flame of rage of a thousand Liverpool supporters who bayde for the blood of a Gooner, nothing more, nothing less. Football.

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April 15, 2012

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