Aviation Advice for Nervous Passengers

22/10/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

I have to admit that I am one of those passengers who watches ‘Air Crash Investigation on television as a form of religious experience. I have become initiated into the tinniest detail of what can go wrong for the one million passengers curving through the stratosphere at any one time. It is my greatest and proudest dream to put my hand up eagerly when a nervous steward announces the sudden death of both pilots and asks if anyone has any idea how this thing works. I imagine the admiring and astonished stares of fellow passengers as I make my way down the aisle waving and making mock crash landing gestures as I make my way to the cockpit. ‘Air Crash Investigation’ for anyone who has never indulged in an episode, explains more or less how rubbish pilots are, and or how rubbish air craft and those who maintain them are.

Does anyone speak French?

They always end on a so called ‘high’ note on how lessons have been learnt about aircraft that no one over the last hundred years of cutting edge aircraft design, had ever thought about. You have spent the last 59 minutes shouting to the investigators the obvious cause of the crash which they eventually discover by mind numbingly slow logic.

What I get out of the programmes is a sort of ‘remote’ course in how to fly most of the popular commercial aircraft and what to do when the pilots forget what they are doing or have eaten too much of the crème brulee.

It makes me the sort of passenger who frankly should be given a free seat (and a loaded firearm so that I can be an air marshal). Can you imagine how heroic it would be to shoot your way to the cockpit over the bodies of dead hi-jackers and slip into the dead pilots seat as an admiring air hostess hands you a coffee and a free Twix bar?

Of course if the problem was more mechanical, like an engine on fire then I am all for someone else having a go at slipping through an emergency exit at 700 knots and minus 40 C, with a soda syphon gaffer taped to each hand. I do know that those little yellow sticky up things on each wing near the exits are for ropes to hold people onto the wing during such emergencies, so would be available to shout that from inside the cabin if need be.

I have to admit to being one of those passengers who stops what I am doing on every flight when the in-flight safety briefing is given. Yes, you may wonder why any one except a pessimist peeps over the head rest in front to watch professional adults make synchronised fools of themselves. I mean they do not appear to have considered why the exit lights are hidden on the floor when they should clearly be in the ceiling and pointing in all directions, not just one.

Then there is the issue of landing in water and having that funny yellow thing strangling you as you hurdle over the seats ( the proven way to exit a burning / sinking aircraft before anyone else ). Is it likely that rescue aircraft setting off from far away lands and making a wide grid search over an approximate thousand square mile crash site, are going to hear your whistle on the life preserver. Note that this is a whistle that I have never heard convincingly blown during a safety briefing so may not even work. The same goes for the in built light which may or may not come on when in contact with water. What are you expecting to see? ‘Oh, in the beam of this powerful 1.5volt LED I can see a flotilla of rescue craft on a heading towards me?

This man remarkably survived an air crash caused by smoking his pipe!

Frankly, the whole business of surviving an air crash is laughable – if it weren’t so serious. Even the so called ‘black box’ is positioned at the back of the aircraft away from passengers, where it is most likely to survive a catastrophic failure during a journey. If passengers were more valuable than black boxes, why don’t they put all the passengers around the black box?

As an aside and to show how confusing the whole subject is, a black box is in reality orange in colour so that, you guessed it, it is easy to see. The early aircraft black boxes were probably never found on account of being painted black, and so orange one’s were introduced. That’s how designers work. It goes to show how much of aviation in the twenty first century can be summarised as trial and terror.

I also have strong doubts about using phones and computers in ‘flight mode’. I notice that when the flight attendant asks passengers to check their mobile devices are in this mode, nobody gets up and switches off the phones in the overhead lockers. Clearly there are going to be some phones with SIM cards from the country they just left, projecting out messages into outer space and the odd tablet with Wi-Fi left on. And yet, no plane disaster has ever been attributed to the passenger in seat 21C whose phone was not in ‘safe’ mode. So is it not time to remove the guilt from embarrassed or forgetful passengers and let these little critters chunter away quietly amongst themselves?

Have you ever been a passenger on an aircraft and wondered how many journeys you are going to have to take before you finally get a chance to breath the pure oxygen the flight crew keep going on about?

It’s just that I am still getting over a cold that I am certain came from recirculated air breathed whilst being a passenger on recent flight. I have to wonder why, just for a bit of fun and health giving properties, we aren’t all given a chance to breath some lung expanding oxygen? All those masks are just tucked away above our heads and we don’t use them! Why?

Should not ‘oxygen’ be offered as a healthy option to the sugary and alcoholic cauldrons on drinks trolley? In polluted cities like Tokyo, oxygen bars are making a great trade from customers who come in barely able to breath, blue lipped and semi-conscious to breath oxygen. They return to the streets twenty minutes later as bright as berries. I know the oxygen in planes only last eight minutes for each passenger but couldn’t they change that?

Aircraft pilots are funny people. They select themselves for the task on the basis of the quality of their eyesight. The test is basically whether they can read the small print on the labels of the instantly forgettable knobs and dials. Given that planes are flown by auto-pilot because it is more reliable, you have to wonder why pilots are on huge salaries and endless free hotel and expense account indulgences.

What is interesting and shows the real nature of airlines and their priorities is how little consideration is given to disabled and child passengers. If you arrive at an airport in you wheel chair, paralysed from the neck down after an unfortunate air crash from a previous trip with same airline, you will be asked to get up out of your wheel chair and walk to your seat.

I can imagine the reply being ‘who do you think you are mate, bloody Jesus!’ If I could walk that far I wouldn’t need a bloody wheel chair would I!

But joking aside there was a wonderful woman in America, who was dismayed at not being allowed to take her disabled adult child on an aircraft. She petitioned them to remove a seat and allow her daughter’s wheel chair to be strapped to the floor. The airline refused on the grounds of needing a safety licence from such and such safety body for a modification to the aircraft. The mother set about raising money to pay for such a test, passed, obtained a certificate and was able to fly with her daughter.

Passengers wearing full personal safety equipment are more likely to survive a crash.

You might also have noted how when you drive to the airport, you children must be in appropriate child safety seats or face a fine. When you sit those same sized children on an aircraft with their feet kicking the lumbar spinal region of the passenger in front, there is no requirement of provision of a child safety seat. Not only that but the seat belt on an aircraft just goes over your lap, not lap and chest like a car. If the ‘brace brace’ position is so critical when crashing in an aircraft, why do we prefer to crash in cars in an upright seated position? Could somebody explain?

Flying is clearly risky. Military aircraft align their passengers either sideways or backs onto the direction of travel. The reason is, it’s safer. Why do not civil aircraft offer the same option when choosing a seat?

Military passengers have the additional option to use a parachute should the plane catch fire or run out of duty free or other emergency. One civil aircraft there is no such option. The yellow thing under your seat is for after you have landed in a stormy seat at 140 mph into the wind on a dark night in the middle of an unknown Ocean, should you be unfortunate enough to survive the in-flight meal and lightning strike enforced ditching.

When you throw in the environmental damage that a Boeing 747 creates by burning four Imperial gallons of fuel every second, you realise why the inspirational young lady Greta Iceberg chose to go to the USA to address the United Nations by luxury yacht. A yacht has already landed in the sea and is dealing with the situation a lot better than an aircraft is ever likely to.

Bon voyage.

Referendumb

26/09/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

On 2nd August 1934 the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg died. Seventeen days later Chancellor Adolf Hitler declared a referendum. The question to the people was…should the posts of president and chancellor be merged? According to Wikipedia there was intimidation of the public to obtain the vote Hitler wanted and got. It gave him absolute power and the rest as they say is history.

This is not to say that all referendums are bad. You could have one asking whether all kittens should wear pink or blue bows. I’m not suggesting you should, but you could. Switzerland for instance has four referendums a year. Direct democracy suits the Swiss, although I suspect in many countries, voters would fail to turn out on account of being ‘bored’ with referendums. This was a common complaint in the UK following the referendum in June 2016.

The fact that many politicians and civil servants distrust referendums as a route to policy decisions, is hinted at in the fact that they are only ‘advisory’. In the UK Brexit vote, the main parties promised to abide by the result in their manifestos, something they later probably regretted.

Socrates was against voting by uneducated people on the grounds that they could not possibly understand the issuesin the same way that you go to the Doctor for advice on your health, not the person sweeping the street. What we know, is different for each person and there is a concept called ‘the wisdom of the crowd’. In this the understanding comes not from the individual but the collective and on some matters it works. People en mass can get it right.

However, as the late Dr Hans Rosling has shown, even experts (15% correct) can perform worse than monkeys (30% correct) when asked questions about population growth.

Making complex decisions based on multiple variables, sources, probably outcomes, threats, subsequent strategic objectives etc can just be impossible. So hold in the back of your mind the idea that perhaps, Socrates was right.

Referendums have to follow an organised routine in order to be regarded as fair. This is why the rules of a referendum are vitally important. They must be agreed, practised precisely and officiated (the last being to make sure they are followed).

When children go to school, they are given the opportunity to play team sports. Let us take the example of cricket. The PE teacher will sit down the eager children, all dressed in their whites, and explain the rules of cricket. What will not happen for sure is that a small child at the back will lift a hand and ask, ‘why?’

The teacher will explain that these are the rules and have been for a very long time and that is just the way it is. A pretty poor answer in my view. The rules for games are, after all is considered, also only advisory and if you want to have four stumps at each end or play with a different shape bat or ball, run backwards…why not? Rules are arbitrary and exist only if they are followed.

So let us examine the rules that govern referendums.

I suggest that referendums fall into a similar category of ‘game’ with rules that are just ‘made up’. I can substantiate this proposition as follows.

1. The referendum issue can arise from a single issue party or individual with plenty of money to donate to party funds. For instance, Rupert Murdoch owns a string of UK newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Sun, neither of which would win prizes for balanced reporting. Sir Clive Goldsmith donated to Conservative Party funds and was a keen anti-European. His influence, I believe, got the Brexit question into the Tory manifesto. This process was not particularly democratic but followed the rules.

2. The referendum rules need careful consideration and adjustment so that the result does not split a government and a nation down the middle. In other words, democracy is not held to ransom by a minority of ‘swing voters’. Similarly, a insignificant margin in favour of one side leaves a strong minority to contest. This minority is practically the same as a half way split as both sides are constantly at war. The spirit of democracy is only served when a substantial majority of voters want the same thing. In government this may occur as a coalition. In referendum rules, this is termed a super majority and it can be a minimum of 60% or higher. The UK is currently split almost down the middle over Brexit and the lack of a requirement for a super majority, meant the infighting in the parties and the people was not solved or quietened, even after the referendum.

3. Who votes? Generally the most motivated voters are those who have strong views. They might be misguided, ill informed or ignore the question, but what counts is that they will get themselves to the voting booths, no matter what. Those who expect the vote to go one way or the other and therefore they don’t need to vote, stay at home. These are called the silent majority. Some will vote because they value their vote as a democratic right fought for in two world wars. Some will not vote because they have lived outside the UK for over 15 years and are therefore not invited to vote. Others may post a vote which is either sent out too late to be returned in time or is lost in the post.

In all of these scenarios, the democracy that is held up to the high altar by the winners, has not functioned as a true reflection of the wishes of an overwhelming majority, but a function of unregulated and random and inhibitors and motivators. Is this democracy?

4. How do voters obtain their information? In the twenty first century, the availability of information on any subject, is something undreamed of thirty years ago. Because the internet (in it’s light and dark theatres) is largely unregulated and operates outside national boundaries and legal jurisdiction, anything can be claimed by anybody, as true. If you can make the same claims in multiple virtual places and repeatedly it seemingly becomes more true. Russia, allegedly, has rooms of computer operators who are filling chat rooms and newsfeeds and social media pages with misinformation.

As Mark Twain said, ‘when Truth is putting it’s boots on, the lie is half way around the world.

Adolf Hitler was an unashamed liar knowing that the majority don’t attempt to refute. A minority might but under the rules of democracy, their views can be ignored. Activists risk recrimination from the authorities. Witness the events in Hong Kong today.

The President of the United States is a regular liar, rarely reading books and just making things up, presumably to wrong foot those wishing to have an informed debate.

In the UK referendum in June 2016, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, presented a collection of very dubious ‘facts’ to voters persuading them to vote to leave the European Union. This is corroborated in the recently published memoirs of the resigning Prime Minister, David Cameron. There were also campaigns using social media to spread unsourced information. This is not democracy

5. Why would you not vote?

The silent majority have a lot to answer for. They have the vital ability to challenge the highly motivated minority who do vote.

You will sometimes hear the view expressed that each citizen has a right vote and because this right was defended in two world wars, each person is honour bound to vote. This is a strong argument and yet the majority don’t think this way. Why not? Well here are some common ‘self justifications’.

If you believe the vote is one hundred per cent certain to go in a particular direction, you might justify not getting the car out of the garage and watch the TV instead on voting day. Certainly in the UK referendum of 2016, there was a general assumption that the Remain vote would win easily.

Some people in the UK express total distrust of politicians and the processes of parliament. They sight the expenses scandal where some MP’s were less than honest over their expenses. They say that this is the reason they don’t vote. Whether they would prefer a dictatorship, like the reinstatement of the Monarchy or a prime minister who closes down parliament, you have to ask them.

If you don’t need parliament you are cooked, you will have a dictatorship. That is what it will be

Margaret Atwood : Author

In a referendum a question is asked. Not surprisingly, considerable time is spent in deciding what this question should be. Statisticians know this is a cardinal rule of their science. Who writes the question is largely in control of what the answer will be. For instance, if the question is specifically on a lesser issue, the colour of kittens bows, the question is easier to understand and the answer specific. As the question becomes more general the scope for not understanding the issues grows. So a very general question such as whether the UK should leave the European Union is so broad that few will clearly understand the issues. The question could have been, for instance, should the UK reduce immigration? as that was the issue that many voters at the time had strong feelings and differences about.

What happened was many voted in a way that expressed their anti-establishment views. You therefore have a referendum result for one question which in a substantial number of voters minds, was another question. In school examinations pupils are reminded repeatedly to ‘answer the question’ because humans often lose track of the issues and move into emotionally driven concerns.

Referendums give irrational results for many reasons. Analysts and commentators know that on voting days when the weather is bad, fewer people will vote. Other practical reasons for not voting are not having transport, being ill, at work or living in another country. That last reason was ironically about a vote affecting those ex-pats living EU the most. If anyone should be allowed to vote it should be them, you might argue.

6. How many referendums?

There has been much debate on whether there should be another referendum following the first in the UK in June 2016. Those who argue against it say that the suggestion they did not understand the issues in full, is condescending. They are certain they did understand all the issues and they just want their wishes to be carried out. They also suggest that if there were a second referendum this would justify a third and a fourth and there is a principle that you should not keep asking a question until you get the answer you want.

On the first point, I would argue that no one really understood the issues and consequences of the question. Even politicians (who are paid to know) are divided in their views. So it is not condescending to suggest that the question was too broad.

On the second point, three parliamentary votes on the same issue, were employed by Teresa May in parliament to try to get her Withdrawal Agreement made into law. So no Tory can argue that repetition of the same question is wrong. She had three goes at this before the Speaker ruled she should change the question in some way.

A referendum is only a snapshot of public opinion on one day. The next day, the next year, the facts will have changed and opinions. To have a second referendum three and a half years after the first, with a different question is sensible. Elections are held at similar time intervals and each election replaces the government of the country in a way acceptable to most.

There is a strong argument that the terms and conditions of the question to leave, were never agreed with Europe before the vote and they should have been, as in previous referendums. For the same reason ‘thorny issues’ such as the border in Ireland should have been resolved before any referendum. These pitfalls in the method and application of the referendum have contributed hugely to the unsightly events in Parliament since.

Statisticians will be fully aware of the changes in the structure of the demography of the United Kingdom in those three years. If old people tended to vote leave, some of these good folk will have died. Their votes will be replaced by young first time voters who are estimated to be about 3 million. Most people can see that if there was a second referendum the result could swing in favour of remaining in Europe for this reason alone. Stopping these voters having their say on a matter affecting them more than the elders, is not democratic but strategic.

Finally, a second referendum would not ask the same question. It might give more options than yes or no. It might be based on national interest rather than UK interest as independence parties in Scotland and Northern Ireland have interpreted the first referendum in that way.

Overall, the above examples above describe the fact that little in the referendum process resembles democracy. This is a sad reflection on a country that prides itself on it’s unwritten constitution and parliamentary procedures as a ‘beacon of democracy’. Referendumbs have been the route to create chaos out of a kind of order.

The next step has to be ‘return to Go and collect £200’, or in other words, cancel Article 50. Then sort out the island of Ireland to make it ‘Brexit’ proof and any other issue that inhibits agreement with Europe, agree a new Agreement with Europe and then go to the people in a general election on and ask the question whether these terms of leaving are desirable.

Horse / Cart – Cart / Horse.

Space Wars

14/09/201915/09/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is an enduring story of two bank robbers in the Wild West. In the film of the same name they are played by the good looking duo of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. They swagger through the film to a jolly accompaniment by Burt Bacharach (including Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head) from one fruitful explosion to another. Inevitably the Federal authorities catch up with them and they manage to escape over the border into Mexico by the length of a horses tail. In Mexico they make a resolution never to rob a bank again, such has been the horror of their last experience. They realise they now have a clean slate to start their lives again. What happens next has always fascinated me. They start robbing banks in Mexico. A few bank robberies later, they die in a hail of Mexican army bullets.

The moral of this story in my view, explains a lot about the worst side of human nature. Remember that these are bad men even though they are played by a couple of smoothies. Humans find it very difficult to change their inner motivations, methods and objectives.

At present humans are plundering planet earth of her wealth. They have been doing it for a long time but now the scale and speed of the robbery is unprecedented. The villains have a plan;

‘Let’s start robbing again in space’.

China, Russia, the USA, Europe, even India have space programmes.

Why does India have a space programme when many of it’s rural villages don’t even have one flushing toilet and a sewer? The answer is complicated of course but one reason has to be the promise of new sources of raw materials; what in Klondike in the Wild West was nicknamed the ‘gold rush’. True to human greed for natural resources, these countries and others are not unaware of the promise of minerals ripe for harvesting from other planets and moons.

Without a World Government with an enforcement arm, it is hard to see how this rush into space and the allocation of unclaimed resources, will not turn into a laser gun fight.

On the 1st July 2019 the United States of America declared a new arm in it’s Defence Services; the Space Development Agency. Will the USA move itself into the role of World Government Peace Enforcement in space – like it has tried to enforce the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on Earth? Will the USA being armed in space be accepted by those being told they cannot do the same? Bear in mind the present difference of opinions between the USA and North Korea and Iran.

The USA may or has assumed a role of Sheriff or ‘protector’ of the valuable scientific, communications and defence satellites already in orbit around the earth. This role is enhanced by the prospect of the new 5G satellites being privately launched – over 2000 in number – to provide fast internet to rural communities around the globe. Who asked for 5G is a subject for another blog. In democracies, no one votes for what private enterprise decides needs doing for profit. Arms manufacturers usually lobby for war.

It just happens because science and technology get the smell of cordite and can’t stop themselves blowing a few banks, and a few more and a few more. Ethics committees don’t carry.

The hugely wealthy entrepreneurs, Elon Musk (BFR) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) both have their own visions for space exploration and travel. Will they be taking pot shots at each other across the craters on the moon or work together?

The space exploration of the 1960’s was famously driven by bitter competition between the Soviet Union and the USA. The latter likes to think it won the race but in the end what came out of those missions was a desire to monitor the earth from space, not keep going to the moon. This mutual desire and pooling of resources and know-how, evolved into a co-operative project which is the International Space Station.

Not surprisingly today, Russian and China want to co-operate in space and ban space weapons and they both signed a treaty in 2008 on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space.

On 21st October 2017, the first committee of the United Nations discussed the non-placement of weapons in space. 122 countries voted in favour of such a ban and five against, which included Georgia, Israel, the USA, Ukraine and France. 48 countries abstained, including the European Union.

The reasons for co-operation disarmament in space are obvious so let us consider reasons for having weapons in space.

There may be attempts by rogue states or state sponsored dissident groups, to interrupt or destroy or threaten to do this to civilian or military satellites.

positions of satellites at time of publishing were correct but may have moved now

The problem with this argument is that a rogue state, or state sponsored dissident group, is being lawful in it’s actions in one view and unlawful in another. Robin Hood was by some definitions, a terrorist. Black and white hats are for cowboy films. The hats in space wars are multi-coloured and nuanced.

For instance, a GPS satellite is used for civil purposes and military. So is the mobile phone network and satellites and direct satellite communications used in those areas where there is no mobile telephone network.

You can describe the action as good or bad depending on which facts you select to present. The criticism is that the ‘threat’ that the threat on which the military base their plans and actions, can be exaggerated for funding approval reasons and, or just plain politics. A government likely to declare war on false intelligence on earth is just as likely to do the same in space. Different place, same gunmen.

There is also a non-military threat; namely asteroids. These are objects that enter the earth’s solar system from outer space and may be on a collision course with earth. The possibility is that a weapon of some kind may be able to alter the course of the asteroid. Comparing the then with now, money would be better spent on protecting the earth from humans rather than asteroids in my view, that threat being more immediate.

The last Hollywood blockbuster myth is one that has appeared on cinema screens since movies were invented – alien invasion. I call this a myth since my belief is that any civilisation that has found and is watching us for malign reasons would have acted by now. Because they have not I conclude that they are benign and waiting for humans to become spiritually aware enough to stop wanting to destroy the planet and each other.

Little Blue Men (and perhaps some ladies)

This is Butch and Sundance story yet again. The question for governments and billionaire entrepreneurs in search resources and a life boat for planet earth is;

Should we spend our time and money on fighting each other in space, or on protecting the earth and building a sustainable future?

I know what my answer would be because I have seen the statistics about life on Mars and in my view, it’s a hell not worth visiting.

I hope and expect we will forget Mars as an objective in the next decade, as future space based telescopes spy out so called, exo-planets. Astronomers now believe it likely that most stars have a system of orbiting planets based on observations of light from those stars. The new generation of telescopes will find new exo-moons. With so many new places to visit that are in the ‘Goldilocks‘ range of environmental factors similar to earth, man in the future will be spoilt for choice for places to colonise.

Those who choose to live in such places will have one important choice above all others. Shall we take guns to these places? My advice,based on Butch and The Sundance, is don’t.

Not Dead Yet

07/09/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

I have just come from my psychologist after a long and painful session. I was advised uninterrupted rest, in sympathy with my recent trauma.

It all started when I read the latest advice for 19 to 64 year olds. According to the BBC News website ‘strengthen muscles as well as heart to stay fit and healthy say top doctors’ – I am considered to have the same body as a 19 year old despite the fact that I am 64. This body requires the same amount of physical exercise as when I was young and they don’t hold their punches with their recommended exercise regime.

It starts badly. Each day I must be ‘physically active’. This means, presumably, that my normal day of lying in bed holding my breath, is not a good idea. Wow! I wish I had heard this advice before. OK. That was sarcastic I am sorry but really? Do we have to be told to move? Yes, we do so, I have spent the last month not only ‘active’ but taking exercise. Number one on the list of advice is to do ‘heavy gardening’ ‘carry heavy shopping’ or ‘resistance exercise’ at least twice a weak.

I am not sure what heavy gardening is. It sounds a bit like heavy petting and I don’t like the implications of that, so I skipped both.

Heavy shopping sounded appealing. Instead of my normal half trolley full, I filled up with chocolate, cakes, bread, beer – heavy items – so that walking to the car was going to provide my twice weekly exercise and maintain my nineteen year old body. I don’t think I have eaten so much chocolate and drunk so much beer in my life but I consoled myself with the fact that I was doing my muscles and heart a great deal of good.

As for joining the Resistance? Well I have never been much of a political activist preferring to totter to a polling booth and put an x (or is it a tick?) next to the party candidate who stands no hope of winning. It’s what being a Liberal is all about. But as for joining the Resistance? I can see that the average pimply nineteen year old who has had little chance to sort out what makes life tick or even tock – will find this appealing. Me, I have never felt I could wear a black beret with quite the tilt that Che Guervera managed. As for planting bombs on railway tracks. Well as someone who regularly writes to his MP complaining about my daily rail commute being delayed for unforeseen reasons – such complaints would become somewhat hypocritical. I couldn’t feel good, even if it was good for my muscles and heart.

Then comes the double whammy in the advice. Not only do you have to be ‘physically active’ – so breathing – but the advice hammers home a list of unrelenting and unnatural amount of activity. On offer is ‘brisk walking or cycling’. Now I have never liked walking ever since I first tried it as a baby – in fact my first few attempts were down right embarrassing. I guess I have the hang of it now but really it’s not much to write home about and raises little admiration and praise from family and friends. The idea of brisk cycling is more appealing.

I set out yesterday on a jaunt and gave myself twenty minutes to achieve it. After twenty minutes getting the electric bike ready, due to flat tires, rust etc…I realised that if I was going to be sincere to my task like a true Resistance fighter, then I should use my ordinary push bike. That took another twenty minutes to prepare but finally I was ready. I balanced the recycling bag on the back and headed uphill towards the recycling bins. I mused for the first hundred metres about the irony of cycling with recycling and thought it would make a good joke sometime – then I spied Jim filling up my neighbour’s swimming pool and I stopped for a chat. I explained what I was doing and how the last hundred metres had been a challenge. He suggested I sit down and he had some cold beers in the car – all of which I accepted.

Well, the next hour passed very amicably and I thanked him but said I needed to do some more muscle and heart exercise. I explained how I had to do 150 minutes every week, and he asked how much this was each day. A simple question and maybe the beers hadn’t done much for my brain but I had to pause and then ask if he had a pencil and paper.

If it was 140 minutes a week then 20 minutes a day. Easy.

But these ‘top doctors’ had thrown in another ten minutes, seven times a week. Eventually Jim found a calculator on his phone and read out in full – 21.4285714286 minutes.

‘How many seconds is that?’ I asked. Well, even with a calculator he couldn’t work it out. We settled for twenty one and a half seconds each day so as not to offend the top doctors.

Jim asked what the hell was a top doctor and I said I had never met one. They must be like ordinary doctors but much much cleverer…which in human terms these days is probably not very clever. Anyone who thinks 21 and a half minutes is easy to calculate is either dim on theory and dim in practice or unbelievably clever on theory and dim in practice.

I reached the recycling bins about an hour later since most of my cycle ride became a slow walk pushing the dam thing up hill. Coming back was a breeze though I resolved to spend more time going downhill than up in the future – the kind of wheeze a nineteen year old would think of.

I ignored the next top doctor suggestion on health grounds, which was 75 minutes of running each week. Surely the invention of the motor car means that no person has to be humiliated by running along the road in their mid sixties. I can see switch boards being blocked with calls for emergency services to attend this wreck of muscles and bones, every ten minutes.

Lastly, the top doctors pulled out all the stops with their crowning piece of advice. ‘Minimise time spent being sedentary’. I was pleased to read this one as it is clearly the same as ‘be active’ but in reverse. Why, if you were so brainy to be a top doctor, would you advise; ‘don’t lie down too much’ and ‘stand up a lot’? It’s the same advice twice!

Never mind, it just means an easy tick in the achievements box.

What the top doctors did not reckon on was the massive guilt complex that developes in those challenged mentally and physically by this ‘do or die’ advice. How could an old wreck like me ever match the muscular and heart exertions of my nineteen year old doppelgänger? The guy doesn’t exist any longer and if you want the older version, he will be lounging in the hammock on the terrace at the back of the house for medical reasons.

And the medical advice I have been given by my psychiatrist, called Jim, is to wait until my next birthday before attempting physical activity. The reasoning is that on that day the exercising regime becomes considerably more lenient. All it says is that ‘some physical activity is better than none’.

Yes, over 65 years old the top doctors have a suggestion that frankly, a hospital porter on their first day at work could come up with. But I am not complaining.

Another activity befitting the muscular physique of a 65 year old is ‘bowls’ Fortunately I can ‘bowls’ is doable as I have a fine collection of ceramic bowls in my house; I presumably only need to look at them.

Then they advise ‘Tai Chi’ and I have always been keen on these oriental things. Whether there is room in the garden for a Tea House I am not sure. I might have to move the shed in which I store the sun loungers but never mind. The tea ceremony is very calming and promotes mental as well a physical inactivity. Very Zen.

But I am not so sure with the last piece of advice I am going to have to follow. ‘Break up long periods of being sedentary with light activity when possible, at least with standing.’

The longest period of inactivity is a close call between watching Net Fix and sleeping, but I think sleeping tips the scales the most. How I can be expected to either sleep standing up or wake up at intervals in order to stand up and lie down again, I am not certain.

What I do know is that it is all good practice for the grave, in which there is no requirement to stand up.

Bring it on.

Green Gold

23/08/201923/08/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Once upon a time there was a human baby. It grew and became strong and healthy. Then, after about sixteen years, an extraordinary thing happened to the body. A great cloud of poisonous smoke filled the lungs. Toxins began to flow around the body and various organs responded with panic. Unfortunately, there was also an amount of ‘satisfaction’ associated with this smoke. The organs argued with the brain telling it to stop allowing breathing smoke.

The body continued to breath smoke and rumours spread that the lungs were turning black at the edges and in a few years they would become diseased and not function at all.

The organs decided to challenge the lungs and were astounded by the reply. The lungs said that the rumours were all ‘lies’ and that they should mind their own business. The organs could see that the health of the whole body was there business, but the toxin had spread and the name of the toxin was ‘stupidity’.

Picture copyright credit: Ranger Rick

Today, in August 2019 the ‘lungs of the world’, being the Amazon rain forest, are on fire. The country with the largest number of fires is Brazil. There are over 25,000 according to the BBC News website, which has little reason to misreport the problem and used the National Institute for Space Research as their source. The President of Brazil, Mr. Jair Bolsonaro, has responded with a volley of denials and obfuscation, of the type that we hear so often from right wing leaders today. But he, does have an interest in denying the size of the problem and that no other countries have a right to be concerned. He sees the forest as a resource for mining and logging and agriculture, which from a purely economic development point of view, it is. The problem for the ‘rest of the world’ is that the blinkered thinking that accompanies ‘national interests’ is in the wrong century. In a world where sharing global opportunities and problem solving is becoming ‘normal’, the attitudes from the nineteenth industrialist capitalist governments and entrepreneurs, prevails in Brazil. Interestingly Mr Bolsonaro accused the President of France Mr Macron, of being just such a ‘colonialist’ while the reverse if true. Mr Bolsonaro is ripping the heart out of his own country in just the way the colonialists used to do in their greed for natural resources.

The Amazon rain forest contains many layers of richness. Not least are the million or so indigenous people who’s very lives depend of the forest. When I was in school we were taught that the forest people practised a technique of farming known as ‘slash and burn’. Tiny pockets of forest would be cleared and crops planted for one or two seasons before the thin soil could produce no more. Then the people moved on and the forest and it’s animals were able to re establish the ecosystem.

What is happening now is the early stages of desertification.

picture copyright credit: straitstimes.com

The world cannot allow it’s lungs to die. Although much well intentioned re-afforestation has taken place in the northern hemisphere, the small scale and the type of trees planted means that the effect on the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not enough. The Amazon rain forest is the only place where the carbon dioxide can be absorbed on the scale needed to prevent a rampant rise in the average temperature of the planet.

So what is the solution? Clearly the rain forest has to be saved for current and future generations. The Brazilian government are only responding to the promise of economic prosperity for their country and citizens. They might be persuaded to change their short term destructive policies if they made more money by not destroying the forest.

I suggest then that it is sold, square metre by square metre to the rest of the world. Who would buy it? Well not governments but ordinary people. I believe that people would willingly purchase a few square metres as they can at present buy micro land on Scottish estates to gain the legal title of ‘Lord’.

The area of the rain forest in Brazil is 477 698 000 hectares (source: brazil.org.za). One hectare equals 1000 square metres, so if you sold one hectare to 1000 buyers at 100 US dollars each, you make 100,000 dollars per hectare. This is 47,769,800,000,000 US dollars! Even if only ten per cent of the rain forest is sold in this way, that is 4,776,980,000,000 US dollars. I expect that is more than miners, loggers and farmers are going to pay in tax to the government in a thousand years!

The process to purchase your piece of rain forest could be standardised and completed as any legal process of acquiring land title; either as an owner or tenant. The only extra clause / covenant purchasers would be required to agree to is that they will permit the land to remain pristine or allowed to ‘re-wild’ as much as that is possible. Each individual would be limited in the number of square metres they could buy to prevent devious exploitation. The price of the land might be double or even triple what a logging company or beef farmer is going to gain in the few years the land would be productive. Any tenancies could be renewed every ten years or so, if not sold freehold and the Brazilian government will be able to spend the money on the prosperity of it’s citizens as it wishes.

Picture copyright credit: Rainforest Foundation

Attempts to ‘mine’ or exploit the forest on a large scale would be a legal nightmare on account of the number of owners or tenants whose location and consensus would be difficult to obtain!

In this way however, the business of Brazil would become the business of the rest of the world. By keeping the rain forest from becoming a desert, Brazil maintains it’s indigenous population, fauna and flora and become a gate keeper on the world’s increasing need to store carbon dioxide. It is likely in the future that these will become of greater economic value to Brazil than the nineteenth century approach of logging, mining and ranching. Perhaps shares could be bought in each tree for the carbon it absorbs to enable ‘carbon neutral’ deals to be made with polluters like air lines and industry.

Brazil has a unique and irreplaceable resource to benefit all it’s people, indigenous and settlers. There is a fable about a goose and a golden egg, that President Bolsonaro would be wise to inform his economic advisers to integrate into national policy before the land is worthless to anybody for anything.

Head for the Hills!

20/08/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Suppose for a moment you lived in an unstable African state. You might one day receive a threat from a ‘warlord’ or drugs cartel or terror group. You round up your family, grab a few possessions, kick the pets out onto the street and run. Where are you going?

Most wealthy and privileged people would head for the airport, wouldn’t they? A couple of suitcases, a fistfull of currency for a hurriedly purchased air ticket to ‘anywhere the next flight is going to,’ and a passport is all you need.

If you are a citizen of that state from which you now wish to flee and you don’t have a passport, what are you going to do? No passport at the airport and they won’t let you on the plane… international law says so. It’s only a hundred dollars to the next State so money isn’t the problem. The Government stole your passport, or some thief stole it, or it expired and you didn’t renew it, or it was burnt with the rest of your belongings when your house was burnt down – which is why you have to flee.

It’s a kind of Catch 22. If you are in trouble and you have nothing, you can’t get on the plane. If life is normal and you just need a holiday…you can get on the plane.

Many people and politicians are wondering why people are taking a one in six risk of drowning and fleeing by unsuitable boat. They think the problem is the cause of their flight and the people smugglers who ‘help’ them and the failed State fighting itself.

And yet there are working International Airports even in Libya. Why do not those fleeing the country take a plane?

The answer is of course this passport law. Understandably air lines don’t want passenger lists with a lot of question marks. USA airlines are providing passenger lists to the NSA before the plane even lands in the USA.

Yet with thefts of passports and help from those able to alter passports illegally, obtaining a new passport is not impossible. It might be enough to get someone on the plane even if they are detained on landing. They can then claim political asylum and sit out a few months in a detention camp. At least the food and bed is free.

The majority of emmigrants don’t have passports though and no means to get one. That is why they are taking their children and climbing into rubber boats that wouldn’t make it across a river, let alone a sea.

Clearly the problem is being created by the inability of emmigrants to get through an air or sea port. The air port staff at the check in desks are performing the task of ‘border control’ on behalf of governments. The question has to be ‘is this right?’

It’s wrong to believe too much in the a document like a passport. Even with passports, people are passengers on planes who have hidden their identity. These are the individuals most likely to have criminal backgrounds and or intent and they will be allowed to enter the country ‘for a holiday’ without being challenged.

If a person reaches the check out and falls on their knees in tears with a baby in their arms, begging to be allowed to leave the country as men with guns followed them there – should their be a compassionate process to allow them to get on the plane?

I would suggest their should. An asylum application is an international right and it matters little in which country it is made. What I mean is why can’t you be in Libya and apply for asylum in Europe? Why can’t you be in Calais and apply for asylum in the United Kingdom? Why can’t their be Embassy Offices in every airport and staff to process ’emergency’ applications? Every application for asylum is someone’s emergency even if it isn’t the airline’s or the Abassador’s. Why can’t an Emergeny Asylum Application allow a person or family to pass through a border control?

At present there is an argument that ‘undocumented passengers’ should not be allowed on planes for security reasons. They might be international terrorists pretending to be asylum seekers. That is true although, as already described, terrorists are going to pose as holiday makers or business staff before they pretend to be seeking asylum. Even then, if you wanted to be sure that a person or family were not carrying a bomb onto a plane; you send them through ‘security’ as you do every passenger. If you want enhanced security checks – a strip search for instance – and luggage examined in fine detail – then do it.

If you had a long enough queue of asylum seekers at an airport, you could start chartering aircraft for them or use military aircraft.

In my view there is an alarming lack of a strategy, certainly in Europe, that adresses immigration, front on.

You might have thought that there would have been agreement as to how many applicants should be allowed to work and for how long, and a quota arrangement allocating people to countries. Processing applicants for asylum could be achieved in any European or neighbouring country – providing the government staff have wi-fi!

Thinking globally should be second nature to the international men and women who take up positions of government whether in Europe or the United States of America. Both have different immigration demands but the basics are the same.

President Trumps response to build a wall on the Mexican border is the same as Italy’s prime minister who stops rescue boats entering Italian ports. Both strategies are looking at the tail end of the problem rather than the front.

The front view is that there is no humane process in place to accept or reject asylum seekers.

Both Union’s could seek the support of the United Nation’s Refugee Council active player’s in a global strategy or relocation.

People in distress clearly must and will pick up a suitcase and run. People in search of economic benefits will do the same but these will not pass the asylum questions – hopefully! So if populations are willing to leave all they have, governments should have strategies to deal with them with compassion and fairness.

Because it is not just war and rogue governments that cause populations to move en mass. Factors such as climate change – floods, flames and famine – should also be in the mass migration plans of the emergency planners.

Sea level changes alone will become a cause of massive movements of populations in the next decades to come. Volcanic activity and earth movements will destroy cities as they have done in the past and people will evacuate islands and vulnerable seismic locations and new deserts in large numbers.

It’s a huge problem for which non-government agencies should not be leaned on too hard to ‘sort out’.

A good place to start however in the present is to change the question at airports from ‘can I see your passport?’ to ‘how can I help you?’ The rest is common sense.

The All Seeing I

02/08/201902/08/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

There are quite a number of theories as to why an all seeing eye above a pyramid, appears on the dollar bill.

Clearly there are masonic connections with the originators of the United States of America and the original intention. There may have been as many as twenty one signaturees of the American Constitution who were Freemasons.

They largely reflected anti monarchist views and promoted European Enlightenment ideals of liberty and self governance. God was not encapsulated in a ‘religion’ but seen as an entity who largely left humanity to it’s own devices, whilst keeping a benign watch on things.

Also, the ‘eye’ on the dollar bill is clearly disembodied; without the arms and legs. This ideal of the Creator is more akin the gnostic view, than the Christian.

The symbol shows rays coming from the eye in all directions. This is important. Firstly the rays are coming from the eye, not into it. It is therefore akin to the sun and akin to the Ancient Egyptian deity Ra.

Whilst the human eye is perfectly adapted to receive and focus electromagnetic energy in the wavelength of light, modern science does not support the idea that eyes emit light. Yet in Ancient Greece, Plato and Socrates believed the eye was an organ that emitted a ‘fire’ to produce a ‘visual touch’ sensation. This reversal of what is today ‘the norm’ is not as nonsensical as it may seem. In ancient times the physical world was seen more as a system of energies, rather than the solid physical forms of today. Given that perception then it is quite possible that a human can feel with the eyes by emitting energy. We have all probably had the experience of someone watching us from behind or from a distance whom we cannot physically see.

The other symbol is the truncated pyramid above which the eye floats. The pyramid has thirteen courses and this number is repeated in other symbols present. It’s significance to the designers was clearly important and probably has several interpretations. Personally I would view it as a unification of the numbers one and three, one being the Godhead and three the Holy Trinity – in Christian symbolism which the Freemasons were most likely to use. At another level one interpretation I find interesting is by Swaller de Lubicz who said that thirteen is ‘the manifestation of the good or bad generating power’.

Swaller de Lubicz is a renowned investigator of the sacred sites of Ancient Egypt whose theories were unorthodox but very interesting. His book ‘The Temple in Man‘ is recommended.

In the Old Testament of the Bible and Torah, God is just such an energy that passes judgement and destroys that which it does not approve. Although this image of the Creator is at odds with the New Testament, for the Jews and many other societies, God is not just ‘Mr. Nice Guy’.

In science, the physical universe is in a constant process of decay known as ‘entropy’ and creation; with entropy ultimately being the winner. Even our own bodies reflect this state, and one day our bodies will expire, despite constant renewal processes.

So the eye at the top of the pyramid is more likely, in my view, to be an ‘Old Testament’ eye. Whilst man has freewill to make mistakes and good judgements, so does the Creator. Divine intervention does not, in theory, take place however in a contradictory way is does. God permit cities to be destroyed as does man.

The all seeing eye of God is not just protection, as worn by many as a symbol in the Middle East and known as the ‘evil eye’ or more accurately – protection from evil.

So, why a pyramid and why one without a point? Most pyramids are pure representations of the geometric pyramid form. To do otherwise is rare but there is one and it is well known. It is the so called Pyramid of Cheops on the Gaza Plateau in Egypt. This was one of the first to be built and many of the latter pyramids were pale imitations. There has never been a ‘pyramidion‘ stone and it was constructed to have a flat platform at the summit.

In my personal researches, I have come to the notion that pyramids were constructed to accumulate electromagnetic energy (amongst other reasons). This was done using rock which conducts ions and between anodes and cathodes. In the base of the pyramid are underground water courses associated with the river Nile. These bring in positive ions to the pyramid to be draw upwards through the centre. They were never intended to be emitted from the point of the pyramid as most others do, because other uses of the energies were being made in the chambers.

Suffice to say that I believe most pyramids were constructed to emit a steady stream of electromagnetic energy, from a height and in all directions, to other pyramids. This was a world wide network as evidenced by the presence of ancient pyramids on all the continents, including Antarctica!

A Pyramid and Tesla Tower with similar construction

The concept of ‘mobile phone’ masts as a network of transmitters and receivers of information encoded microwaves, is something most a familiar with in the modern world. It should not be so extraordinary to imagine such a network existed in the past using more primitive materials but with sophisticated, intuitive software.

The pyramids were transmitters and receivers between computers. If you wonder how computers existed so long ago, I am of course referring to the human brain, a computer so multi complex that it will be several decades, perhaps never, when it is replicated by scientists.

A form of ‘telepathy’ is plausibly existent between people such as twins or even husbands and wives, who finish each other’s sentences.

The ‘all seeing eye’ or ‘all knowing eye’ is therefore quite plausibly something contained not only in the mind of God but also His construction, humans.

The Ancient Egyptians denoted the Eye of Horus as in the diagram below. There is a convincing connection between this stylised image of the eye and the cross section of the human brain. This includes the pineal gland where our ‘extrasensory perception’ originates and is known as the ‘third eye’ – another illusion to the number three.

The ‘eye’ is also at a poetic level the ‘I’ or feeling of individual identity within the multiverse symbolised by the number 3 or the Trinity. I and 3 is of course code for, 13. The American Constitution protects the political and human rights of the individual and was fundamental to the creation of a free state which the USA has enjoyed for centuries, (at least in it’s imagination, when such issues as slavery are concerned.)

You can see, therefore that the information contained as they say in ‘plain sight’ on such a lowly item as a bank note is the perfect place to maintain a profound cognisance intended by the ‘Founding Fathers’, never to be forgotten.

Time Traveller

29/07/201929/07/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Good evening and welcome to another edition of Time Traveller. In this programme we ask a well known personality which seven items they would take into the future as their personal memories of today.

Our guest in the studio with me is Mrs. Teresa May, the recently deposed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Welcome Teresa May and let us start by introducing your first item which is a film you have liked of admired and wish to take into a time in the future.

Well Robin, firstly thank you for inviting me onto your programme and giving me a chance to talk on one of my favourite subjects, myself. My most memorable film would have to be For Whom the Bell Tolls. Politics, as someone once said, is ‘war by another means’ or was that me? Anyway, I recently have discovered just that. I knew that I had a slim chance of achieving anything let alone the Brexit debate. Now with a career worst legacy of a failing health service, failing prison service, failing criminal justice system (in particular the probation service), failing police service, failing education system, failing defence services (those aircraft carriers oh dear), failing transport infrastructure, failing social cohesion, failing high streets and housing provision, failing agriculture and fisheries, failing trade deals, failing immigration policy, failing universal credit benefits system – I feel that there I have done enough for the country that I love (tear). What a pity that even the Houses of Parliament are leaking and in a bad state of repair in particular the Big Ben bell that has not tolled for quite a long time.

Well, what an extraordinary legacy and one which few people could be less proud, so let’s move on. Give us you favourite piece of music that you would take with you into the future.

Ah! Yes well this would have to be one of the places I would like to visit which is the Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. I believe the Chinese have a little something walking around there already and I would like to make similar ever decreasing circles in the dust bowls and craters so abundant there and not be asked awkward questions by members of the opposition and press.

A fine choice and somewhere we hope you will be able to go and stay perhaps, in the future? Your next choice is to consider a favourite meal that you would want to enjoy on the moon.

Ah! Well that’s a easy one because I expect it will not be so abundant in the future as it is now – good old British ‘fish and chips’. Because with the Fisheries and Farming policies of my previous government will mean that there are hardly any fish left in the seas in the future and no casual labourers to pick the potatoes rotting in the fields.

Extraordinary to contemplate no fish and chips but yes, perhaps you have sown those seeds not least when you were a disastrous Home Secretary who did little to reduce uncontrolled immigration (nervous laugh). So let us move on to your next choice which is a painting you would like to take into the future.

Can I have The Last Supper by Leonardo de Cohen, even though it is painted on a wall?

The whole wall is yours.

Yes, because whilst I don’t think I am Jesus (well not yet anyway) I have to consider my last appearance in the House of Commons and how nice the other disciples, I mean politicians, were to me. There was so much praise for my character and policies, saying how clever I was and how much I had done for the country I love selflessly – I know it was all untrue but what a lovely fantasy.

OK, a good choice and one which will remind you of your prophet like status at least in your own household if you include your cat. So next we have a poem for you to choose and take into the future. What would that be Teresa May?

Well Robin, I am not really one to read poetry mainly because I can’t understand most of it written with so many words missed out. But I think the words of the hymn Jerusalem by William Blake would remind me of the ‘green and pleasant land’ that England once was before my inept environment policies to reduce climate change turned England into a burnt and unpleasant desert.

What about the other countries of the UK?

I can’t see that they will still want to be part of a Brexited desert by then and will have gone off in their own directions to maintain the models of prosperity that I strived for and never achieved.

Great, so nearing the end of the programme we just have two more requests for you. What novel would you bring with you into the future?

That’s a simple one. I’d like the Secret Life of Walter Mitty because I can identify so closely with the main character whose name I forget? Is it Teresa…

No it’s Walter Mitty.

Yes, so there is this fantacist who dreams of all sorts of accomplishments way above his or her real life potential and abilities and creates all sorts of confusion amongst the people around him or her. That so reminds me of the me I love!

Marvellous, how interesting and finally then we have to ask what play you would take into the future.

That would be The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I have always found in my career as a politician, that it matters little what you say and more how you say it. If you sound unsure of yourself it will show, even if it’s the most obvious and benign policy you are suggesting people will want to shrug it and you off. However if you come up with the most bizarre and unpractical ideas but are completely and utterly earnest in your pursuit of them, well, doors open, as they did for me.

Astonishing. An one luxury item you would like to bring with you into the future you describe so well?

Can I have a Tesla submarine. I do believe that in the future we will no longer be living on the land on account of global desertification and will have moved into the seas to earnestly carry on the destruction of the planet to the very end. Therefore I think a nice shiny Tesla submarine powered by the phosphorescence of tiny planktony things will be the perfect place to contemplate the last days of my life.

A little domed perspex window into a world of dying coral and empty abysses?

Oh, yes, what a wonderful legacy.

Teresa May, thank you for causing all the worlds problems and being on this edition of Time Traveller.

Boris Gump

23/07/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

The End Game for Brexit

Only a vain fool would want to be prime minister of the United Kingdom today. Teresa May was greatly flattered when she was asked to take the poisoned chalice of leadership. Today, 22 July 19 is her last day of holding that chalice.

There was little democracy in the process of electing the new prime minister of the United Kingdom today. Only members of the conservative party were eligible to vote – almost 160,000 of them which is just 0.000625% of the population of the United Kingdom. This process was preferred to a general election for what reason? Could there have been a fear of losing the majority of two seats in the House of Commons and therefore power?

This absence of a sizeable working majority, an apparent inability to consult with like minded partners and her private belief in ‘remaining’, was what ultimately brought down Teresa May, as I see it.

So having decided that the country has no right to choose their next prime minister, ‘they’ decided to pitch a ‘remainder’ against a ‘leaver’ as candidates to – well – leave. Which one do you think was expected…no…intended to win? Yes, the leave campaigner was always going to win.

Unfortunately for Boris Johnson, he will have to act out his dreams of being a right honourable politician whilst facing an impossible situation. It’s like arriving at five in the morning at the Glastonbury music festival after an all night concert in which all the bands were booed off stage. Only a single cleaner is to be seen sweeping up debris from the back of the stage.

Come on Boris, get your ukulele out and give us a number!

shouts someone from the crowd. They are not quite sure how he got there but they are willing to sit through one more act before the stage is dismantled.

Vanity makes you so thick skinned you find yourself being handed a battered ukulele (called the Withdrawal Agreement) and tuning it’s three remaining strings. You can now say you have been in a band at Glastonbury 2019, when your grand kids ask you Boris.

But he is not so poor a politician that he has forgotten to organise a bus to take him home. It sits at the back of the stage with the engine just ticking over. The driver leans against an open door dragging on cigarette. This bus has written on the side; ‘no deal’.

Many politicians cringe at the thought of a ‘no deal’ with the danger of a catalogue of unintended consequences emerging from it like the Monty Python one ton weight descending from above. The EU commissioners are expecting the £39 billion pound debt to be paid by the United Kingdom. Failure to do this would leave the UK’s reputation as an honourable nation in tatters, the pound would crash and investors rush to remove capital and businesses from the nation.

Yet Boris has cleverly wrapped up this ‘no deal’ option in a transparent tissue of lies paper. ‘This is on the table so that we have bargaining power’ the public are told. But of course the mere presence of this option means that there would be no deceit if it were decided to be used. After all, the problems faced by Boris Johnson are so unmanageable that ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’ is an appealing Party ploy.

And when the unexpected consequences start appearing one by one, he can say that none of this was his fault. Third parties such as the EU commissioners and Teresa May and all the other political parties, were the cause of the chaos now falling from the skies.

One such cloud burst, in my view, will inevitably be the countries that make up the United Kingdom seeking independence. I expect Northern Ireland to vote to become part of Eire (and Europe) first. That will pave the way for Scotland to seek independence and perhaps even the north of England!

Boris will be like the male lead in a farce that ends with his trousers around his ankles and a chicken on his head – but then – I expect he would rather like that look.

I am disheartened when I listen to people asked for their views on Brexit on TV. They expect there to be some sort of change after Brexit but rarely state what that might be. The ‘end game’ is lost in the excitement of the ‘present game’.

I am reminded of the ‘independence’ parties held in countries in Africa as the colonial powers withdrew in the 1950’s. The national exuberance and excitement lasted several days. New national flags were flown from windows and vehicles, horns blaring. People danced in the streets all because they were ‘free’ without pausing to think what that meant.

I make no excuse for colonialism which was clearly wrong. But when the European countries left Africa there was a political vacuum. Despots and power hungry ‘leaders’ filled the parliaments and military top jobs. Corruption and victimisation of populations became normal. People found the end game was no better than before – sometimes worse.

I wonder what will be the ‘end game’ for Brexit, once the bunting has been taken down from the streets parties.

Nigel Farage will disappear from the scene because his great ‘oversimplification of the facts’ will be over.

All that will be left will be a resounding silence, little direction in the shape of cleverly managed new prospects.

The EU will treat the UK as positively second class; why shouldn’t they? And America will not save the UK from nasty Europe this time round – unless you think President Trump is a very very good person… very loyal and trustworthy person who loves British Trump…Boris Gump.

Lunar Madness – Apollo ll

18/07/201918/07/2019 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

On the fiftieth anniversary (20^th July 1969) of the first lunar mission and landing on the moon – I dedicate this blog to all explorers.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that the name given to the American space programme to reach the moon, was a bit odd? Apollo is the Greek and Roman god associated with the sun – not the moon. Was it used because the mission to send men to the moon was totally male dominated? The mission objective clearly stated, in the words of President John F Kennedy :

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Indeed, there were no female astronauts at that time, apparently on account that they were considered not to have the physical strength and willingness to take risks that men do. Ironically, today female astronauts are known to be physically more suited to space travel and averse to risk taking for the benefit of the entire crew.

The First Astronaut – Apollo (about to launch a thunder bolt)

It is also curious that earth’s Moon is not the only moon in the solar system. All the other moon’s are given the names of gods (except for Uranus which has moon named after characters from Shakespeare plays). The word moon is strangely containing two adjacent spheres! But more importantly Moon or Menses has proto-Indo-European linguistic roots and is older than Lunar which is Latin. Moon is closer to menses and month relating to the female cycle.

It being 1969, the male symbolism prevailed. Apollo had a bow and arrow and was the god of archery – if that is sufficient imagery for a the masculine principle seeking and penetrating the feminine circular target.

A British rocket of the 1960’s for launching satellites was named the Black Arrow. An even more curious historical eponymy is that Stevenson’s 1829 railway engine was also named The Rocket. A symbol Sigmund Freud could also have written a chapter about.

Whatever the reason’s for naming the Apollo mission, the shallowness of the venture is evidenced by the fact that fifty years on no nation has repeated it. The reason is clear. There was no material benefit in going to moon – effectively a desert. Instead in the 1960’s there was a ‘cold war’ between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The Soviets were ahead of the Americans with the launching of the first unmanned and then a manned earth satellite. The ‘land of the free’ was out to prove its technical, economic and political superiority and they did.

The Scientist’s at the time preferred space missions to be unmanned and crammed full of scientific experiments. Robotics and remote communication meant that manned missions were scientifically speaking – a waste of payload.

But the politicians wanted pictures and pictures / film had to contain an all American explorer laying claim the moon by planting the stars and stripes flag.

As an aside, there is a conspiracy theory that the entire Apollo 11 mission was faked. This was achieved by using a Hollywood film studio to recreate a believable lunar landscape on which actors could land and leap about. Personally I expect there was a ‘back up plan’ to the real lunar landing – given that the mission was highly risky. If the American astronauts crash landed then the political fallout would be as damaging as a successful mission, rewarding. So it is highly likely, in my view, that there was a plan to fake the landing if necessary in the National interest. It is these films and images that are referred to by the conspirers as evidence of a fake landing.

As it turned out, the final descent in the lunar Lander was almost a disaster. There was only another three seconds of fuel in the tank for Buzz Aldrin to land ‘The Eagle’ lunar module.

Buzz Buzz Buzz Busy Busy Busy B

But why did these men risk their lives so publicly and for so little scientific benefit? Clearly as patriots and explorers from a gene pool of risk taking ‘settlers’ – the chosen crew were dedicated to their mission. These were not humans landing on the moon, this was America – The Eagle.

Another great irony was the ‘elephant in the moon’, which was that the destination could hardly be more adverse to human survival. It was known that the Moon was a ball of dust and rock with extreme temperatures and no means to sustain human life. It was and is, more deadly than ‘Death Valley’ in California.

Hardly surprising then that the picture from Apollo missions that brought most gasps from the crew and earth dwellers alike, was the view of the blue planet itself. Seen for the first time from a considerable distance the earth looked both majestic and fragile. A lonely jewel in a forbidding black landscape.

We know today from subsequent unmanned missions to the planets, that the earth remains the only place on which human life can exist without technological reliance. If the reason behind the moon mission was partly to find a suitable ‘life boat’ to use to escape a dying earth – then what we know now gives little hope for the perpetuity of mankind.

Only one of the moons of Uranus will be a suitable place to land when our sun expands and swallows earth in a few billion years time.

For now only Mars appears sufficiently similar to Earth to sustain colonies – but a fragile existence this would be with the need to grow food on a large scale to sustain just a few ‘settlers’. It will be a long while before there is a Mars Mc Donalds and they probably won’t sell burgers.

There is another lesson to learn from history and that is ‘possession’. Traditional declaration of ownership on behalf of a nation by explorers such as Captain James Cook, was the raising of a national flag. No teams of lawyers were necessary historically to defend the rights any indigenous people, who were usually shot if they caused dissent.

Even if no Martians line up to defend Mars from future settlers, there will need to be teams of international and interplanetary lawyers to deem who owns what. Treasures such as mine-able water ice will be precious enough for significant sums of what ever is used for money in the future. If Earthlings continue their war-like ways on other planets, as they do on their precious earth, then there will be a giant step backward for mankind, instead of one forward – a type of lunar madness from whose bourne no man returns.

M – OO – N

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Matters Blog

Original thoughts on a variety of subjects that matter to me

Author: Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me