I was watching my cat this morning out of my bathroom window. It did one of those mad pounces into the undergrowth and came out with a mouse. It then played with this poor creature picking it up and dropping it, pushing it with a paw, during which time the mouse shrieked in panic and terror. I wondered, why in such a situation in which death was certain, would a mouse shriek? I have heard animals in their death throws at night and the sound penetrates eerily. But this mouse could hardly be heard, so soft was it’s cry for help. On the other side of the valley I could hear hunting dogs barked in their cages; they would never go quietly.

And it then struck me what an accurate metaphor this is for the latest mass shooting in Florida, North America. On the news we watch the supporters of their lost loved ones holding vigils, whilst the hunting dogs- the politicians – bark. Mr Trump apparently believes the FBI have only enough resources to deal with two cases at once. One is an investigation into him and the other preventing mass shootings in schools. Clearly, in his view, if no resources were put into investigating him, all mass shootings would be prevented. Could he have an ulterior motive that he thinks no one, least of all the numbskull in the FBI, will spot?

I listened to a radio interview with an ex-close aid of his who said that a lot of Mr Trumps tweets, are jokes. Well if this is a joke, I can’t get it.

The ‘right to bear arms’ which many North Americans hold dear, is a general statement, that did not consider future technical developments or evolving attitudes in society. Amendments are possible to the constitution and the vagueness of this particular ‘right’ could be exploited by lawyers. For instance there are four specific areas that do not change the ‘right to bear arms’ but would reduce mass shootings. The first is raising the minimum age for this right, the second is increasing supervision, the third is tighter control of ammunition and the fourth is restricting availability of disproportionately lethal weapons.

That a young person aged eighteen, can buy a gun is absurd. This age could be raised to at least twenty one, maybe higher. The reason to make it higher is that statistically, young men are already the most likely age group to commit and be victim of violent crimes. The founding fathers didn’t know that and could not be expected to.

Any young person using a firearm, could be supervised by a person who has held a gun licence for a prescribed period, say five years. This would apply whilst carrying it in a public place and at a range. It’s a probationary period, tolerate by learner drivers and equally applicable to guns.

The second amendment only refers to bearing arms, not ammunition. Advocates for civilian possession of firearms would argue that ammunition is a firearm, but that is not the legal definition of a firearm in the UK so why should it be in North America? If the firearm is kept at home under the pillow of the delinquent son or daughter the rest of the family can sleep soundly, knowing the ammunition is at the firing range. That would apply to the parents as well, as there have been cases of parents shooting their children as they climb in windows late at night, having forgotten their key or broken a curfew. Everyone would get a good nights’ sleep.

Lastly, if I were a North American, could I go out and buy an Abrams tank and keep it on my lawn for ‘self defence’? It is a self propelled gun by any definition, after all. Hopefully this would not be allowed, so somewhere down the list of proportionate lethality, common sense kicks in. Do civilians need assault rifles for instance? I would argue not, but there is a line to be drawn and hopefully even the pro-firearm lobby would not like my tank pointing across the road at their house. Lawyers on both sides – get to work!

Once the laws have been worked on, there is another debate to be had. Are the ‘shooters’ mad or bad? In most cases their minds have been ruffled by something, and sociologists and psychiatrists could write books on each one; their deprived childhood, loss of loved ones, abuse by loved ones, trauma of all kinds. Yet do these events send every disturbed person out with a gun to ‘get their own back’ on perceived perpetrators? Probably not – so what makes that happen?

Others would argue that these shooters are just bad people who the devil has entered and deserve execution.

The two opposing views are clearly defined in a book I am reading called ‘The Truth About Why People do Bad Things’ by Tom Gash and published by Penguin. Mr Gash used to work as an adviser on ‘home affairs’ in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in the UK.

Approaching the whole issue of crime with a clear head, he noticed two distinct attitudes, promoted by news media and popular entertainment. One he called the ‘heroes and villains’ and the other ‘victims and survivors’. The first is the shoot out by the cops, and courts that throw offenders into prison for long periods.

The second is trying to understand the causes of why people commit crime and tackling those causes. You might recognise the first to be common in right wing political policy and the second to be the stand point of the political left. We all tend towards one explanation or the other and most of the time we are wrong because we believe the myths perpetrated around crime. Read the book if you want to follow that thought. I raise it here because ‘gun control’ is clearly in the grip of mythical views, held by ‘opposing’ parties. I would like to believe that both sides hold a lot of common views such as the sanctity of life, the right of young people to go to school without fear.

Obfuscation

Obfuscation is a word that sounds great and deserves more use. The problem is that we live in an age of ‘transparency’. This means that everything we say and think is as clear as clear can be. Or is it?

Thinking has always been a challenge for humans. Even in ‘sophisticated’ education systems, it is not a subject which is taught. We are so close to it that, like fish that can’t see water, thinking is not something we think about. And because of this we don’t ‘see’ when the water is cloudy, which is a lot of the time.

The first problem are the neural pathways, the patterns which develop from habitual thought. We run our thoughts in ruts which over time become deeper and deeper.

The second is our use of language to construct thoughts. In English there are plenty of words but many, like obfuscation, recede from non-use. We prefer to use language that is packed with emotion rather than clarity. Or we just use completely the wrong words to obfuscate. It’s about time I gave an example and here is one used by the late Dave Allen in a monologue he performed about flying.

‘When a plane is late, it is described as delayed. Delayed, just delayed…what does that mean?’ I paraphrase but you get the thrust. It takes the sharp logic of a comedian – the fool – to cut into foolishness.

‘Oh that’s nobody’s fault then!’ we all think. ‘The plane is just delayed.’ Perhaps the captain stopped off on the way to the airport to buy his wife some flowers, or her husband that classic car magazine he likes, what’s it called? Perhaps they forgot that the plane had to be somewhere else before it arrived here and they understandably didn’t allow for that. Perhaps a flying duck hit the windscreen and took the head off the pilot. Some unimportant but entirely rational things that we don’t need to know about because we are just passengers.

Another common usage of language that is a perfect example of obfuscation, is the term ‘road accident’. My local radio keeps reporting all sorts of accidents on the road in which nobody is, apparently, to blame. Two cars just accidentally collided head on. Well that’s all right then. Accidents will happen. No, there is always blame and on the roads the apportion of blame is vital for insurance companies, highways departments, car designers, government policy makers, driving instructors and emergency services to name but a few. The emergency services spotted the the misuse of the word ‘accident’ maybe ten years ago and refer to ‘road traffic collisions’. Much clearer and with obfuscation removed.

If the police looked at their collision statistics I wonder if they find a spike during the ‘rush hour’. This is the time of day when you might expect cars are going fast, rushing to work or home. But no. The ‘rush hour’ is the time of day when traffic slows down or stops. How do foreigners understand these obfuscated English idioms?

The railways have a different approach to obfuscation for which I expect they would like some credit. But in my view, the reasons they give for ‘delays’ are so diverse and absurd that obfuscation is being achieved whilst pretending to ‘keep the customer informed’. I am sure they have a database of reasons why the train is delayed and reasons are reasonable – aren’t they?

In the summer I had to take a train to my stepson’s wedding. ‘This train is cancelled due to a fire next to the track.’ Brutal but honest, you might think. I ignored the advice to use the flame-proof buses laid on for the emergency, since I had a bicycle with me. There was another train on it’s way so I waited on the platform. When it arrived I parked myself and my bicycle on the train next to the guard. A fellow passenger asked the guard about the fire. He said he knew nothing about it. As the train pulled away he rang the driver who said he didn’t know about any fire and we all carried on to my destination. In the last year my train journeys have been ‘delayed’ by staff not turning up for work, lorries hitting bridges, aliens landing, level crossing barriers not working…and I know that what they are trying to tell me but don’t want to, is that they on strike.

One final dig then at the rail dispute. The train company want to run all trains without guards. The guards insist they are important for the safety of passengers – like knowing when there is a fire on the line. The guard on that train commented ‘I am always the last to know’ – about the fire. A comment that a local journalist would have loved to have quoted since the guards have been on strike for over a year! I happen to agree that all trains should have a guard, but the guards have failed to make a reasonable case. Perhaps they need a book of words and a course on how to think – or is that what lawyers are for? No, we in the Union of Railway Workers are much cleverererer than lawyers. We’ll just continue obfuscating under the cloak of safety. Oh really?

A friend recently showed me a picture produced by her daughter. It was of a face, painstakingly created in photographic detail with a pen. It was exceptionally accurate in proportion and detail.

‘She’s a better artist than you or me,’ I was told.

I know what my friend meant. She meant that her daughter was highly technically competent. On that point I would not argue, but does that make her a competent artist?

Realism, as a style, has come and gone through the ages. I would have hoped that with the advent of the camera, most artists would chose to create an image that cameras can not. Realism is after all, ninety percent technique and one per cent content. An art critic would ask, ‘- very proficient, but what does it mean?’

For me a creation, whatever it is, has to achieve a balance between form and content. With buildings, for instance, an engineer can design a perfectly functional building. They do, regularly, in fact the western world has built it’s cities of perfectly functional buildings – that have no meaning, no content. You might expect an architect to be able to introduce that missing element, but with the modern style of minimalism, architects have veered towards engineering solutions. Society is partly to blame for this, because I would argue, it has lost sight of meaningful ideas, inspiration – that which it loves and holds most dear. We all love different things now and in this chaos, we dumb down content – even eliminate content – in order to achieve, if not consensus, then tolerance.

When I was practising architecture in Australia, I worked for an inspirational Chinese Australian who was also an alchemist. Not short on content for his inspirations, he told me that ‘all buildings should tell a story’. I have always followed this from that moment. It is obvious that all great literature, all great art, all great architecture, all great music – tells a story. Without this ‘content’ it is a mere representation of something else, as a photographic image is a representation of something else. So many soulless items, places, stories, tunes, films, pictures, sculptures – have no story to tell! Ironically, in societies that have no story to tell, such art is not recognised as meaningless but lauded as ‘clever’.

In a society that is rich in meaning and understands itself, all it’s creators reflect that commonality -either consciously or not. That is why tourists flock to the ‘old town’ and ignore the modern estates and factories surrounding famous cities. In the past, there was a commonality of consciousness, that included cultural myths, legends and stories – both sacred and profane – that were constant through the generations.

If you doubt this, then consider some modern artists who have achieved enduring high status. ‘The Beatles’ for instance were not only lucky for being spotted and commercially developed – they were a combination of gifted minds that came together to tell stories through popular music. The content of their songs, like the ‘greats’ who had gone before them in the 50’s (Matt Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Louis and Ella), told timeless tales of human emotion. This was combined with inspired composition of tunes and accompaniment making the opposite of a perfect storm – a perfect creation.

This is a modern example, but the principle of storytelling has always been true. The ancient Greeks for instance, produced perfect statues of their gods – into which the god moved – because the statue was perfect. The stories surrounding the gods then inhabited the sculptures. Everything made sense.

Art has to make sense, not just be well made. If an artist can create with these two aspects of creativity in equal measure, the result will give satisfaction. If it synchronises with the spirit of the age, as often art does, then that artist may become appreciated by society and famous. But that is not a given and many great artists, never achieve fame. In fact, I would argue that currently, many famous people do not achieve great art.

The music you hear today is discordant and if there are words to the song you can’t hear them. If you could hear them, they would not be the poetry of Bob Dylan or Blake, but rather – devoid of meaning. I am exaggerating but switch your radio on and you will get my drift.

The art and sculpture of today often leaves the onlooker without words, not in awe but in astonishment of the poverty of meaning.

Listen to a short story told on the radio or a film and too often the end is an anticlimax. The story has no end because the story lacks inspiration – meaning.

Western Societies produce designers and artists with such a wide range of styles and techniques to chose from, that style and technique is almost all there is.

Nobody dare pronounce a shark in a tank as naked ignorance. Instead such installations are produced on a commercial scale for wealthy people who have no idea what to buy or why – no personal story to tell – just the fragments of another person’s madness to barter and boast about in the corridors of their affluent poverty.

Some people are convinced that the United Kingdom has been integrated into Europe over the last forty years.

There is an argument however that many of the signs and symbols of UK independence have never been given up.

There was a controversy recently over the colour of the UK passport after leaving the EU. This surely is a detail when judged against the content of the passport. On the front is written ‘The United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland’. How could this offend a patriot? Inside the design and content is entirely determined by the government of the UK. If you are abroad and need a new passport photograph for instance, you will not find it easy to obtain a photograph with a Passport Office prescribed white background. Photograph machines in Spain for instance, have grey backgrounds which is the preference of the Spanish Government. The UK Passport Office state very clearly that if you submit photographs with grey backgrounds they will be returned and no passport issued until they are changed.

When you renew your UK passport, it will not have the number of your previous passport, but a new one. Imagine how confusing this is to other European countries who do not do this. Is Europol going to be able to track these changing passport numbers?

Such squabbling over details is common across the entire European Union. Most of the time it isn’t serious but when it comes to European Armies trying to share ammunition for their weapons unsuccessfully, you realise it can have real implications.

But let’s go back to European documentation. After a passport, your driving licence might be considered the next most personal State-issued document. Europe has never issued a European driving licence. If you move around Europe, after a year in one country, you need a driving licence issued by that country. During that time you might have committed various offences ranging from parking to drink driving. How is the penalty point system administered? Are police in the UK really going to spend time with drivers of foreign lorries trying to put points on their licence through the UK courts, when the driver is leaving the country in a few days?

Does such a disjointed system make it easier or more difficult for a criminal or terrorist to move around Europe?

It would be less serious if the car registration system was unified across Europe. But no, just as passports and driving licences have been made ‘European’ by putting the European symbol on them, the same has happened to car registration plates. Each European car has a more or less, meaningless blue badge with a circle of stars. So what? More seriously it means that as you cross borders in Europe, speed cameras may not be set up to read numbers on ‘foreign plates’ often because of different backgrounds.

People may not realise it, but number plate recognition systems are in place on most major roads, borders and travel hubs. Surely they should be allowed to work without hindrance from multiple letter styles and backgrounds? Not that it matters because as far as I am aware there is no European car registration database.

Many European countries gave up their national currencies for the Euro. In rich countries like Germany, their goods and services suddenly became highly exportable overnight. Not so in the UK, which decided to keep the pound and kept UK goods and services relatively more expensive than Europe. For it’s citizens, they are forced to pay every time they buy a product in Euro’s or go abroad for a holiday. Pensioners living in Europe have their precious pounds squeezed through an exchange rate every month, and in the last year or so, have lost 15% of their income.

These are a few of the more high profile indicators of what living in the European Union means to the average UK citizen. I would not pretend to understand whether a similar hollow process has taken place in the European Courts and Parliament. Has there really been any serious integration between nations? At a superficial level at least, each has retained their signs of nationality and ignored the benefits of integrating economies, law enforcement, migration and customs control or defence.

The deckchairs have been well and truly moved around on the Steamship Europe since it’s inception. Little has happened to change the ship’s course or speed, as it enters ice berg infested waters.

Emissions Impossible

There is a traditional story where a number of people are holding onto an elephant in a dark room. Each has hold of a particular part of the elephant. The person holding the trunk describes an elephant as long, tube shaped, rough skinned with a breathing hole at one end. Another describes an elephant as long and thin with a hairy tassel at the end. That person is holding the tail. You get the idea. No individual is able to examine the elephant as a complete elephant, due to their limitations.

So it is that many of today’s problems are viewed by specialists in the subject, never getting a grip of the whole problem. Take car emissions as an example.

At the time of the signing of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the level of Co2 in the atmosphere was viewed as an important means to reduce global warming through the greenhouse effect. So it was that diesel engines were favoured over petrol engines, as they produce far less Co2. Measured in terms of input / output, as petrol engine will produce 200g of Co2 / km and a diesel engine 120g of Co2 / km. (source for figures; Sadiq Khan – theconversation.com)

Twenty years on the problem is viewed from a different angle. City mayors have highlighted the large numbers of deaths associated with or resulting from, respiratory diseases. When the debate on diesel or petrol cars is considered from this angle, petrol cars produce 30% less nitrogen oxides than diesel cars without filters, that is the older diesel vehicles such as buses and taxis.

So the description of the elephant ( that is the problem ) has changed. The problem would be different again if viewed from the point of view of particulates in emissions or nitrous oxide or nitrogen dioxide. So the debate can ramble on all the time missing the whole problem- in our analogy, what does the elephant look like?

The observers will not consider the whole problem until the question is asked, ‘how do we get rid of the internal combustion engine?’ – for that is clearly the real problem.

For many years it has been possible to run buses and taxis on compressed air – the emissions from which are, well, air.

The first cars of the 19^th century were electric cars but the technology, patent payoffs and markets, forced the world to adopt the internal combustion engine using fossil fuels.

Technology and markets are now, once again, creating change in a way that governments have been comparatively powerless or inept to bring about. Currently the development of super capacitor batteries at affordable prices, is about to bring about a revolution in vehicles powered by electric motors. The world has waited a long time for this development and it comes not a moment too late. Beyond this is the vision of the 700mph Hyperloop – which I foresaw when I was a schoolboy in the 1960’s while the rest of the world was concentrating on vehicle body styles and disc brakes.

Already the Nation States which have become wealthy on the sale of their fossil fuel reserves such as Saudi Arabia – are diversifying their economies. They know what is coming.

When the world no longer needs oil as a fuel, many environmental, cost and safety problems will be solved. There will be less vehicle noise and air pollution in cities, more reliable engines needing less servicing, computer guided vehicles eliminating human error and so on.

We will then have a true understanding of what the real problems have been facing the human race since it first conceived of private transportation for the masses. That is what the elephant looks like.

In the same way, as a human race, we need to consider problems outside the fashion or Zeitgeist of the moment. Instead of specialists, we need to encourage and reward innovators and visionaries, more than anyone else. They hold the key to ending many of the problems the world still faces, in the way that science fiction writers seeded the space race. Today’s ‘race’ is giving ten billion people a fair share of the planet’s resources, it’s beauty and promise, stable governments and an eternal peace. The elephant might be big, but it’s not too big to be understood and studied. We just need to stand back, look and consider – in way few people have done before. It’s not impossible.

From the famous referendum vote in 2017, we can infer very little, other than the British people want less immigration from Europe and more money for the NHS. Some were convinced that leaving the EEC would free up money to be spent on the NHS – if a slogan on the side of a bus is a promise.

The NHS has become one of the largest employers in Europe, a huge organisation and expensive. The question has to be asked, are there any other ways the NHS could raise money, other than indirectly by Brexit?

One obvious way would be to claim back money from Europeans given medical treatment in the UK. At present the NHS spends about 600 million pounds on such treatment to European visitors and yet recovers a mere tenth of that. Remove the ‘European’ element of such costs and there is left the ‘medical tourists’ from all over the world, coming to the UK and suddenly discovering they need expensive treatment. Should the tax payer be paying for this? Simple laws, like a requirement to take out private medical insurance when you enter the country as a temporary or permanent resident, has to be a good solution. After they have contributed in taxes for a calculated number of years, they are eligible for free treatment. Not in the arrivals lounge at Heathrow.

Governments have been very keen to take up public / private contracts in the construction industry, known as PPI’s. Such partnerships could also be made in the health service. One obvious place where there would be immediate benefit is the A and E Departments. I can imagine a private A and E department built within hospital grounds, say a storey above a new multi level car park. The parking can be allocated to staff as part of their contract employment, thus improving staff retention. The private A and E will offer treatment within thirty minutes for a set fee. This amount would be in the region of eighty to one hundred pounds. Many a person seeking stitches or an X-ray – would be grateful for the option to pay and eliminate long waiting times. The NHS would start to meet it’s waiting time targets as a result.

The NHS spends a lot of money each year on compensation for mistreatment. This has no doubt resulted from the growth of the ‘compensation culture’ in British society and the proliferation of ‘ambulance chasing’ lawyers. Lawyers often obtain more in their fees than the litigants!

And yet these are the people who want more money for the NHS, the referendum voters and believers in the ‘battle bus’ promise of 350 million pounds a week for the NHS. But one would like to think that there is an alternative to seeking monetary compensation. Sometimes an apology is all that is morally needed. If there are no lifetime costs as a result of mistreatment, then morally, I would ask for no compensation. I prefer NHS money to be spent on healing people, not paying off my mortgage.

The bottom line is that the NHS is a potential ‘black hole’ for money. These are just a few suggestions for saving money and there are no doubt many more. Ultimately though, the expectations of UK and foreign people have to be educated to expect less and pay more. The models of other European countries might give the NHS a few ideas, but then, we don’t like Europe or its standards do we?

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines conspiracy theory as ‘an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.’

One of the definitions of ‘conspiracy’ in Dictionary.com is;

A combination of persons for a secret, evil or unlawful purpose.

***

There was a discussion on the radio this morning about conspiracy theories and whether social media had influenced their proliferation. One commenter described a conspiracy theory as ‘fallacious’ – that is having no proof.

That however is a criticism pertinent to all theories, including Einsteins’ Theory of Relativity. The lack of proof is not seen as problematic in science, since one needs a theory at the start of the experimentation, before there is proof. It may be that the theory is ahead of the ability of technicians to create laboratory experiments, or that there is no sensor yet invented to detect an effect being postulated. This has never stopped scientists imagining possibilities using mathematical models rather than instruments. Einsteins’ mathematical proof that light, bends has only recently been proved using astronomical instruments.

Lack of evidence then, should not stop scientists, philosophers, theologians, artists, poets, politicians from postulating.

Consider the postulation, ‘God exists’. To date, this theory has not been scientifically proven and yet billions of people believe it; even model their whole lives on it. Does that mean believers are part of a conspiracy? Certainly, level headed insurers reject claims caused by ‘acts of God’

The conspiracy being alleged is always open to doubt. The persons believing the conspiracy do not generally offer, indisputable proof. We all know that photographs and videos (once considered to be true) can now be easily manipulated.

Even a reporter or journalist is normally required to provide corroborated information of a story, usually from at least three independent sources, before the story is published. Even then, others will object that the story is just a ‘theory’ or, as is now rather glibly alleged, ‘fake’.

Conspiracy theorists who use the word ‘theory’, will retain the respect of others for so doing. The next evolutionary step however, is that the postulator believes the theory – even without incontrovertible proof. We see this process in popular detective stories, where the famous detective has a ‘hunch’ that he can’t prove. The intervention of the intuitive area of the mind, presents itself as a kind of ‘magical’ power of the detective. Even though the scent stops at the river, he or she picks it up on the other side.

Scientists do this, probably more often than they know. ‘Mistakes’ happen in laboratories and the logical line of reason is skipped over, savings years of work. The line of reasoning then works backwards to prove the original premise.

In a conspiracy theory, the official version of events is challenged. One might call this somewhat facetiously, ‘my version of the facts’ – but that is what is happening. Facts are challenged or ignored and often ‘new information’ presented. The official story is regarded as no more than what psychologists term a ‘rationalisation’ – in other words a reasonable explanation. Conspiracy theorists offer new ‘evidence’ from respected and unrespected sources, because their ‘gut feeling’ is telling them the official reason is unreasonable, uncorroborated, unproven or based on false information.

Take the assassination of John F Kennedy. The person accused of the act had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the act. What is ignored is that so could have many others, standing along the road that day. This ‘smoke screen’ to the actual events is often used as a plot device by writers of detective stories. The ‘red herrings’ divert the reader from the true events, all of which have been honestly presented.

‘My version of the facts’ becomes a truism double edged and lethal to human beliefs. We all know that history is written by the victor and / or a powerful minority.

With facts being so available now using the power of the internet, we can all access them and feel a certain glow of ‘expertise’ – even though we have no in depth or practical knowledge of the subject. Parents refuse treatment for their sick children because they don’t believe the doctors.

In such a world, few of us have the mental capacity to fit together the pieces of the jigsaw, because it has a million pieces and no picture. Only the next generation of quantum computers will be able to make decisions based on the huge amount of data available.

Conspiracy Theories of the future will be postulated by computers. The question is, will the computers themselves, start to believe them?

Okay, here is the scenario. Queen Elizabeth II, sadly, passes away. We don’t want this to happen, but we know she is human and nearing the end of her life expectancy. What will happen next?

Repercussions, repercussions…well, one consequence will be that the Commonwealth of Nations, of which she has been so proud over the years, will no longer have a person in the role of Head of the Commonwealth. This is important because her successor does not inherit the role automatically.

Imagine then a delay, a negotiating period whilst the role of the new incumbent is discussed.

At the same time as this process is taking place, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is riding the roller coaster of post-Brexit in 2019. The final negotiations with the EU had a poor outcome for the UK. Europe was united in making the UK an example, before any other member states had the same idea. If the UK preferred to leave the club they will no longer have access to the benefits. This meant that the UK, which became wealthy as a trading nation, looked around for more countries with which to trade. The 15% tariffs for goods from within the EU made them often, too expensive. Not only that, countries like Germany, were subsidising their car industry and encouraging skilled migrant labour that could no longer work in the UK, to work for them.

Some bright spark in the British Civil Service spotted in Wikipedia, that the Commonwealth of Nations covers 29,958,050 km squared of the world’s land surface – about twenty per cent. On this land live 2,419 million people. A huge market!

The politicians ate this bait and set up working parties to establish free trade with these countries as soon as possible. They soon discovered that membership of the Commonwealth already included free trade amongst member states. That is when the international lawyers were called in. They had to negotiate formal multi-lateral trade agreements and / or bilateral agreements, with as many Commonwealth countries as possible.

Unfortunately the pressures then exerted had an unexpected consequence. Countries that had been used to just sending athletes to the Commonwealth Games every four years, found themselves hosting un-invited trade delegations from the old colonial power. Governments felt their collars being held by their ex-colonial masters and it sent a shudder down their spines. Protests in the streets and the burning of the Union flag in public places gave politicians the confidence to call their diplomats back from the UK for serious consultations.

The trade delegations were sent back to the UK from most countries, including Australia, with their tails between their legs. The scars of colonisation run deep and the scars take many generations, not enough generations yet, to heal.

So, the house of cards began to fall. One after the other, Commonwealth countries resigned from membership, as is their right.

With no Head of the Commonwealth in post and an ever diminishing number of member countries, the unthinkable motion was discussed in the Houses of Parliament. ‘Is the Commonwealth of Nations an outdated institution?’

The UK’s desperate need for new trading partners had exposed it’s shortage of commercial shipping tonnage (on which the British Empire had been built), had put misplaced pressure on countries eager to find fault outside their own incompetence, had failed to agree a definition of ‘free trade’ within the Commonwealth and placed a spot light in the shadow that is the belief that the UK out of Europe will be ‘independent’.

In the twenty first century world of globalism, ‘independence’ is an outdated fantasy. Countries, and States within countries, which co-operate with each other, have a greater advantage, militarily and commercially, than those that don’t. 

The Commonwealth Games in 2022 were boycotted by those countries that had still not officially left the Commonwealth.

Despite attempts to ‘re-brand’ the organisation as the ‘Common Values Organisation’ or ‘Common Peoples Organisation’ their differences were now clearly greater than what they held in common. The ‘wealth’ of the UK had never been shared with other countries, neither within Europe or it’s old colonies. The common values had been shared and of that the UK could be proud. The common values were often central to the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day. The values of the twenty first century though had changed from brotherhood to me and mine both within the ex colonial master’s country and the old colonies. 

And when that happens, history informs us, the consequence is usually war. 

I am in favour of discrimination. That may be an unpleasant thought for many people – but let me explain. To ‘discriminate’ means simply to distinguish or separate one thing from another. In popular parlance the word has aquired the same meaning as ‘prejudice’ but clearly they mean different things. Prejudice is to discriminate in favour of one part over another for reasons of negative emotions rather than reason. To ‘discriminate’ then can be useful or not. Consider the uses.

I once went to Carmarthen in South Wales armed with a guide book to wild flowers. I had no knowledge on the subject and to me one flower was much like any other. But forty years or so ago the rural roadsides were abundant with wild flowers – prior to industrial farming and ‘agrochemicals’ much favoured by the custodians of the countryside – farmers – but that is another subject!

Anyway, I had to creep along edge of the road with book in hand learning one by one the different flower types. This is done by colour, number of petals, stamens, type of leaf. Everything about flowers in the British Isles was in this book because someone had been there before me and was sharing the results of their journey. Discrimination between one flower and the next was a journey not only to naming but unexpectedly – enjoyment. You might think that you do not need a menu to enjoy a meal and to some extent this is true. But to go to the absolute limit of enjoyment to understand the component parts and label them, makes enjoyment complete – ask any top chef.

Perhaps this is what spurred on our Victorian ancestors to travel the globe categorising flora and fauna and filling the museums of the home country with their findings. There are drawers of butterflies in the Natural History Museum in London, each with a label containing precise information, cross referenced and catalogued. Glass cabinets reach to the ceiling as places of last resort for the bodies of exotic birds each with genus and species recorded for all time.

There is a film called The Draughtsman’s Contract by Peter Greenaway (1982), which featured characters numbering the leaves in a tree. The flavour of the time was an art inspired compulsion towards list making and categorisation. Perhaps in it’s time it was a reference to the Victorian obsession with collecting and sifting and the insights it brings.

We are passed that now. Artificial intelligence can determine the contents of a supermarket shopping bag at the check out in a second. The counting, the establishment of order is not something humans do easily using conscious thought. From the tedium of that task we moved away into the promised land. We can switch off our need to understand how things are arranged, knowing that it has been done or can be done far quicker than we can ever do. The catalougisation is over.

Even the spaces between galaxies have been found to be full of the correct amount of anti-matter to match the visible universe (once 80% of matter was missing!) The stars have their numbers even though they are too all intents and purposes infinite in number, don’t worry about that.

Don’t believe me? Well The Sky at Night this month told me that even the spaces between galaxies have been found to be full of the correct amount of anti-matter to match the visible universe (previously 80% of matter was missing!) And what we can see – the stars – all have their numbers even though they are, to all intents and purposes, infinite in number – don’t worry about that.

In the twenty first century we may sit back, put up our feet and wait until such and such a list needs checking – pick up our phones or log on and see how everything is. Pity that. I liked to smell the flowers, watch the bees and hum a little myself. The space between words and numbers – well that always has been and always will be poetry.

Some people known as the ‘death doulas’ are determined to break down the barriers that make ‘death’ a taboo subject. There is a place called the ‘death café’ where people who are dying, meet the ‘death doulas’. On the menu are the following genuine questions;

(source; The Guardian Newspaper Wed 3^rd Feb 2016 article ‘Meet the Death Doulas’)

The answers are completely vacuous but intended to bring a scythe-like smile.

What makes a good death?

Taking out a law suit against Microsoft for using the message fatal error in Windows 10, applying for life insurance, applying for bankruptcy, buying a brewery, pretending to die several times in front of your relatives, access to plenty of cushions,

Can you prepare for death and dying?

Disable the air bags in your car, build a pyramid, pack a suitcase, learn the harp, enter a burning building without protective equipment to get an idea of ‘the other place’, empty the fridge, don’t buy green bananas, more cushions

What do you say to a friend who is facing death?

‘Cheer up,’ ‘I have to confess everything,’ ‘Well I am sorry I just thought a chicken costume would brighten your day,’ ‘weather is going to be better by next week,’ ‘ever thought of becoming a vegetarian?’ ‘I’m visiting you from now on – your husband has gone on a cruise,’ ‘ The hospice wants to start a bagpipe band,’ ‘ The Mafia are after me; would you live in my flat for a short while?’ ‘ The hospital are submitting their success rate figures this week. You’ve got to leave.’ ‘Sorry I gave you a shock – this scythe is for cutting the grass this afternoon.’ ‘Do you want a cushion? ‘

What can we learn from death?

The Highway Code is not as stupid as it seems, do not trust bungee jump instructors, some food is not as good as it looks, commercial airlines do not carry parachutes, tattoo your intended last words on your wrist, death is not all it’s cracked up to be, if I had gone to university what good would it do me now? Cushions are a blessing,

What does it mean to leave a legacy?

Empty the rubbish bins, mow the lawn, publish your school poems as an e-book, publish everything as an e-book, someone else is going to have to put those shelves up now – Someone else will like that pile of cushions.