Nanny Oz Again.

I read a news report yesterday which said that Australia is enacting legislation requiring age verification to be a condition of viewing YouTube. This seems silly to me. Google responded by saying that ‘YouTube is not social media’, and for once I agree with them.

Social media carries pressures and concomitant risks which are entirely lacking on YouTube. Social media attracts the group dynamic factor. It carries the risk of propounding the view that what is commonly believed must be the truth. It encourages cliques and clubs, thereby exerting peer pressure on young minds, and peer pressure is a major influence on young people.

YouTube is different. It’s true that a very great deal of what’s on YouTube is utter rubbish which attracts views using click bait methodology. But so what. How are children going to learn to differentiate between quality and trash if they’re not subjected to both? And of course there are examples of people spreading hate, prejudice, and extremist views on YouTube. But so there are in life generally, and responsibility must lie with parents to guide innocent young people to recognise the dark side of human nature when they see it. All you do by hiding it from their sight is to keep them in the darkness of naïveté, and that can make them even more susceptible to dangerous influences later.

And so I believe that Australia’s position is seriously misguided. It seems that I should suggest, as I did in earlier posts, that dear old Australia is the very grand-nanny of all nanny states.

Edited to Add:

I have since learned that this piece of nonsense has already been enacted in the UK. I think the BBC must have buried that bit of news in a corner of the website overlooked by me. Apologies to Oz.

 

Wind and the Road.

I don’t tend to go along with the prosaic view that wind is merely moving air. To me, wind has character, sometimes commonplace and sometimes more interesting, but every wind has one. And the breeze that’s been blowing over the last two or three evenings has felt autumnal. In July? Indeed, and that’s what I thought odd.

There was no obvious explanation, you see. It wasn’t a particularly chilly wind; a little on the cool side perhaps, but nothing unusual for an evening in mid-late summer. And yet it instilled in me a strong sense that here was the first palpable sign that autumn is breathing its first breath.

It rather goes along with the fact that flowers which bloomed prematurely in the warm, dry spring and early summer are now fading earlier than usual. Whatever next I wonder? Best not think about, I suppose. Just go with the flow.

*  *  *

I was thinking yesterday about the circumstances during my childhood and school years which conspired to deny me tertiary education. I don’t regret it, of course, because we can never second guess fate. But it did encourage a backward look over the long and winding road onto which those circumstances placed me, and I became poignantly aware that the road, for all its inclines and declines and joys and sorrows and successes and failures, has nearly reached its end.

Best not think about it, I suppose. But I do, I do, and I do.

Trump's Words.

When Trump dismisses the NFL shooter merely as ‘this deranged lunatic’, he is demonstrating yet again either: a.) His inability to comprehend the complexities of human nature (not to mention the irony of the statement in this particular case) or b.) His continued need to pander to the lowest common denominator in American society.

Or both.

You might ask: ‘Is this Presidential material?’ Does anybody still need to?

Leaving the Lionesses Behind.

During the recent Women’s Euros football final, one of the England players – Chloe Kelly – apparently mocked the Spanish goalkeeper after scoring a penalty against her. That is not the behaviour I expect of somebody representing my country, and it was rightly picked up by the Spanish media.

My core values consist of truth, justice, fair play, and mutual respect. I still hold to the Corinthian ideal, even though big money has long since taken over the professional sporting world and elite sports people have probably never even heard the word ‘Corinthian.’ Winning is the alpha and omega now, and I think something of greater value has largely disappeared from the sum of human endeavour. To me, that’s a major loss.

If I were on social media, I would certainly send a note of complaint to Ms Kelly’s Facebook page. No doubt it would be regarded as ‘abusive’, even though it would be nothing of the kind. (People do so love to pick up these words without giving proper thought to their meaning. ‘Anti-Semitism’, ‘racism’, and ‘misogyny’ are further examples.)

In the meantime, I’m currently well off the ‘Lionesses.’ If they’re going to behave that way I don’t want to know them, and I’m sick to the back teeth of the continued and excessive fawning heaped on them by the BBC and other outlets. I’m fairly sure I’m in a minority of one.

Determining Deer Priorities.

As I was walking along Church Lane today a Roe deer buck ran past me along one of the public footpaths crossing a corn field. When I got back I checked the website of the British Deer Society to be sure that I’d correctly identified the species. (I had.)

Now, call me naïve if you like, but I tend to the presumption that an official body representing a particular species of animal would take the ethical aspect as presumptive and consider protection of the animal to be its predominant position.

But the article came to the question: Is it a good or a bad thing to have Roe deer in our landscape? The answer was that it’s both – it’s bad because they can damage the farmers’ crops, but it’s good because they provide an opportunity for stalking and their meat provides a valuable addition to the farmers’ incomes.

And so the practical and pecuniary benefit takes precedence over the fact that a deer is a sentient, emotional animal with as much right to its life as any other. That surprised me coming from the British Deer Society.

The Two Sides of the Harvest.

The sound I could hear coming across the fields this evening was unmistakably this year’s first sound of the harvest being gathered in. It struck me that there was a time, when diets were far simpler and communities more self-reliant, when the harvest was a joyous occasion because it meant that the community would be fed for the following year.

Matters are very much changed now. Our eating habits are not about survival any more, but about choice and lifestyle. And so much of what we eat is imported. The main thing to celebrate now is that the farmer’s income has been maintained for another season.

But one thing hasn’t changed: the knowledge that the harvest is the most telling of signs that summer is entering its last lap before dying into darker days and colder nights. Therein lies the ambivalence, a word I seem to be using a lot lately. And for all that both spring and summer this year have been gloriously sunny and warm so far, it seems to me to have raced past at a faster pace than ever.

Creature Comforts.

I met a gaggle of gorgeous girlies at the top of my lane this evening. Charolais cows they were; all white, all slightly different in looks, and all pretty as peaches. And most of them were accompanied by a little brown calf, each of which was nothing if not engagingly cute.

They all came trotting over to the fence where I was standing, no doubt curious to know who this creature was who wanted to talk to them. Talk to them I did, of course. They didn’t actually talk back, but the combination of body language and incessant stares of curiosity left me in no doubt that they really, really wanted to.

And the two donkeys in Meadow Lane came to me for a bit of fuss this morning, as did one of the horses who is definitely the ugliest of the herd but also the softest. They all got handfulls of fresh hay from the road side of the gate as usual.

No goats, though. They live half a mile away and I wasn’t going in that direction. But the Lady B’s Dear Mama did flash her hazard lights at me and wave, which was an added bonus. She’s never flashed her hazard lights at me before so I felt especially honoured.

(You wouldn’t think a woman would know where the hazard light switch is, would you? Bit too technical one would imagine. And have you noticed that one aspect of weird Brit humour is to extend a friendly insult which is intended to pejoratively reflect on the joker? We’re really good at it.)

Atrophy and Ambivalence.

The daily news continues to push my mind into a parlous state. I see a world run by men with ice in their hearts and greed in their eyes, while millions more seek to emulate them on some level or another. Greed for wealth and power, and in some cases for glory. If only it were the right kind of glory, but such is a forlorn hope as long as we continue to laud the conquerors.

It seems to me that the world and its human cargo are now shifting into a desperate need for a reset, and we all should know that the transition will not be a pleasant experience.

For my part, I feel I’ve reached a point of no return. My prospects now consist of little more than sitting on a rail platform waiting for the last train out. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe it’s just another bad day when the god of mischance and malfunction is in a particularly malevolent mood.

*  *  *

I wrote the above before I watched the England women’s victory against Italy in the Euros semi-final. With just one minute of the match left the Italians were leading 1-0 and heading for their first ever Euros final. And then England scored a goal and extra time was needed. England scored a second goal to send the Italian girls out, and that was when a sense of ambivalence set in. The English were ecstatic, naturally, but the pitch was littered with young Italian women sitting or lying on the pitch sobbing their poor bloody hearts out. My feelings were, therefore, understandably mixed. That’s the problem I have when there have to be winners and losers.

But the best moment of all came during the other semi-final between Germany and Spain. During the first half the German goalkeeper pulled off two splendid saves from one of the Spanish forwards, and when the half time whistle blew the Spanish lady (and she must surely be a lady to my way of thinking) went over to the German and gave her a substantial embrace, presumably by way of congratulation. That, for me, was the highlight of the whole competition. Sport as it should be; the Corinthian ideal. Much kudos to Esther Gonzalez.

Such moments are the ones to hold onto when you’ve all but given up on the world as it is. (But you still have to wake up again the next morning.)

Questioning the Doctor's Duty.

There was a bill making its tortuous way through parliament recently on the question of assisted dying. The purpose was to enact a law permitting doctors to help those patients suffering incurable and terminal conditions to voluntarily end their lives peacefully.

It attracted much impassioned debate, which is understandable up to a point given the view in modern cultures that suicide is somehow a sin or at least a crime of sorts. In other words, that longevity is the first moral imperative to which we must all adhere. It’s a view I strongly disagree with, and it’s interesting to note that suicide is no longer deemed a crime in law as it used to be.

But the problem lies with the position of doctors in the matter, the question being whether it is reasonable or ethical to expect a doctor to be complicit in an act of suicide. A lot of doctors went public with their vehement opposition to the idea, and herein lies my point:

One has to ask what a doctor’s function and order of priority should be. The first priority is simple: to cure the sick and maintain good health in those who are not sick. But what of those patients whose conditions are incurable and who are suffering as a result? To my mind the second priority then applies, which is to alleviate the suffering. If the only way of achieving that is to help the sufferer to voluntarily end their life, then that is what we have a right to expect the doctor to do. And so it further seems to me that any doctor who objects to doing so is abdicating his or her professional responsibility.

Quo Imus.

There’s an organisation in the UK called Palestine Action, formed to protest at the treatment of Palestinians in Palestine. In a purportedly democratic country, that’s a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Ah, but…

Some of their supporters recently broke into an RAF base and sprayed red paint on an aeroplane, Oh dear, now we’re into serious stuff – far more serious than troops killing innocent civilians queuing for food or water at an aid centre. These ne’er-do-well protesting types are now guilty of two serious crimes: being in a place where the government says they mustn’t go (and thus ‘putting the security of the nation at risk’; you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?) and vandalising an expensive piece of equipment. So the organisation can now be seen as being in the business of encouraging criminal behaviour. But let’s not call it ‘criminal behaviour’ say the politicians, let’s call it ‘terrorism’, and then we can make it illegal to belong to the organisation or even show support for it. (Should one laugh or cry at this attitude? It’s difficult know, isn’t it?

Unsurprisingly, a series of protests was held to object to the proscribing of the organisation, action which, in itself, is considered to be supportive and therefore defined as criminal behaviour… The police turned out in force and arrested over a hundred of them. And so I ask again:

Where are we going?

Meanwhile, the government has enacted another law making it illegal for people to show interest in violent activity, even though they haven’t yet actually planned any, much less carried it out. ‘This,’ say the politicians, ‘will catch the offenders before they can do any harm. That’s good, yes?’ Well, that view has at least an element of logic behind it, but how far is it reasonable to go in taking people out of society before they’ve done anything wrong? (The maximum sentence for showing an interest is life imprisonment, by the way.) It reminds me of another idea which was aired recently – the compulsory mapping of everyone’s genome so that any proclivity towards criminal behaviour can be spotted in advance and people can be locked up before they’ve committed any crime. Is there a difference? I find myself asking again and again:

Where are we going?

Feeling for the Swedes.

The English women’s football team won their Euros match against Sweden two nights ago, and when it was all over my feelings were ambivalent.

It had been a strange sort of game in which the usual balance between skill, physical strength, and tenacity were thrown out of their normal proportions. With three quarters of the game gone Sweden were leading 2-0 and had played the better football. But then Weigman made some inspired substitutions, England got two goals back, and the game went to extra time which produced nothing. The penalty shoot-out which followed was a comedy of errors which seemed to go on forever, but England prevailed in the chaos and the Swedes were on the plane home. I doubt they were very happy.

I dislike seeing Swedish ladies looking unhappy. It should have been noted by regular readers of this blog that I have a soft spot for Sweden and the Swedes because their attitude to life/lifestyle balance appears better to me than that exhibited by most nations. And they tend to be a very thoughtful people, which I also like (despite the Swedish fan in the crowd carrying a placard claiming that ABBA are better than the Beatles, but I can be a forgiving sort of chap when I need to be.) But in the final analysis fate can be a hard arbiter and what’s done is done.

And through all the mystery and mayhem of an unconventional football match, one redeeming factor stood out: the Spanish referee (at least her name suggested she was Spanish) was drop-dead gorgeous. I kept wishing that the producer would show a little less of women kicking a ball about and more of the referee. (Objectifying women is my only vice you know – quoting that old queen Ernest Thesiger – unless you count scotch and tobacco. But they’re dietary, so I don’t.)

How to Handle a Woman.

The man coming out of the Tesco store on Sunday was carrying a little girl of around two in his left arm. I risked a wave, as I always do with young children. The child was regarding me with some interest, and after a couple of seconds favoured me with a return wave. And so I went for the jackpot: I smiled at her. Another two or three seconds elapsed while she evidently considered the matter, and then she beamed broadly and waved frantically back. Success; job done.

You’ve no idea how much of a lift that sort of thing gives me, even more than the sight of the large, luminous, and seductive eyes of the young woman in the pet shop. I considered asking her whether she had some Mediterranean in her ancestry, but resisted the urge on the grounds that it might appear creepy. At my age I feel I should be entitled to express such interest without fear of impropriety or worse, since I no longer offer the slightest threat to any woman young or old.

It’s just that the matter of women and their eyes is of such great import to me, and becoming more so as the years advance into dotage. But then I can’t be absolutely certain that my boyish charm has quite gone the way of the dodo yet, so maybe circumspection should remain the order of the day. (I think I’m joking here.)

Contrasting Encounters.

Do you remember the elderly woman who stopped her car when I was walking along the lane and asked ‘You’re not wearing a coat today. Is that because it’s warm and sunny?’ (Well… erm… there’s probably a connection…) She did it again this morning, this time with the opening gambit: ‘You’re wearing a sun hat today.’ My reflexes must have been razor sharp because I managed a reply before the obvious question was raised. ‘I have two of them,’ I said, ‘this one and a blue one.’ I thought of taking the matter further by advising her that I also have two other hats – a black beanie and a tan beanie – for winter wear, but her second move was too quick for me: ‘You’ll be wearing a raincoat later in the week because it’s going to rain.’

What is it with old ladies and outdoor apparel? Should I feel sorry for them? Or should I contrive to start a new conversation beginning with an opening gambit along the lines of ‘It all depends on the nature of reality, doesn’t it? According to the quantum physicists, reality isn’t what we think it is.’ I wonder what her next move would be. (Could be interesting.)

The afternoon was very different. I had a dental appointment booked for 5.30, but I had a little time to spare and so I popped into the homewares and garden store on the retail park. And who do you think I bumped into? (Not quite literally, of course): Honourable Sister and Mr Oscar the sprocker dog. And how very delightful it was. It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s the first time I’ve ever had a substantial conversation with HS in the nearly two decades during which I’ve been aware of her presence. And Oscar was as wriggly and friendly as ever.

And I wasn’t done yet. I went into the dentist and found that the same young woman receptionist was there to book me in as before. She’s the one who reminds me so much of the Lady B. Same dark hair, same eyes – even the same colour as I noticed today – and the same smile. I suggested that she might have a psychic twin in the area in spite of the approximate fifteen years of age difference. She thought it possible, but didn’t seem convinced. (I sometimes wish I could be as aloof with young women as I am with old ones, but we all have faults, don’t we?)

But the upshot was that I returned home in a good mood, and that’s rare these days.

On the Bee and the Boss.

We view bees as one of the tough guys of the flying insect world. Bees have stings, and a bee sting is quite painful. Some people are scared of bees, usually needlessly so but not always because bees will occasionally swarm and attack people en masse. Bee stings can even kill certain people with strong adverse reactions. And so people are wary of the tough guy that is the bee.

Not so with butterflies. Butterflies are the stuff of children’s story books and pretty pictures. Their wings are multi-coloured and endowed with pretty patterns; they’re delicate creatures with gossamer for wings; they float and flutter in the sunshine; they’re everybody’s favourite in the summer garden. Nobody is wary of butterflies.

It’s interesting to note, therefore, as I have, that when a bee and a butterfly contest the space on a food-bearing flower, the butterfly usually wins.

(When I write my magnum opus – What the Hell This Life is All About – in my next incarnation, I think I might mention the case of the tough bee and the pretty butterfly. That’s forward planning, that is.)

America Approaching the Ferryman.

I read today that the UN Human Rights special rapporteur has been sanctioned by the US for making remarks critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The sanctions are also connected with her support for the International Criminal Court, other members of which have also been sanctioned. And this on a day when a further eight Gazan children and two women have been killed by Israeli action while queuing for food at an aid centre.The report failed to mention how many children were blinded or had limbs blown off.

Sad, isn’t it? And maybe it might be worth mentioning that Trump congratulated the President of Liberia – an English-speaking country set up by African Americans and greatly influenced by American culture and architecture – on his good use of English. He even asked him where he went to school. Further comment would be redundant, I think, although I might admit to feeling a little nonplussed that Trump has ‘demanded’ that the trial of ex-Brazilian President Bolsonaro must be stopped. Trump does so like pardoning the right people, doesn’t he?

I’ve said it before – America’s international reputation has been sliding down the scale at a rate of knots ever since Trump was first elected. I think it’s now very close to rock bottom. Next stop Hades.

On Crisps and Cussedness.

I haven’t made any posts lately because I’ve been spending my evenings watching footie games from the women’s Euro championships in Switzerland. And on that note I might offer a comment on the marketing ploy used by Sainsbury’s to take advantage of it. They have big banner pics of the England women’s football captain with the tag line:

 

No Walkers

No game

And all to sell more of what? Walker's crisps, would you believe – potato chips – that ubiquitous doyen of junk food overloaded with fat to encourage atherosclerosis and obesity, and salt which greatly assists in the development of high blood pressure. According to Sainsbury’s, you can’t have sport without crisps. The world – and the abject effrontery of the retail sector – just get gets madder and madder.

*  *  *

On a totally unrelated note, I’m becoming aware that there’s a movement in so-called western democracies for the leading politicians to become gradually more right wing in their policies and attitudes. One of the favoured targets is the practice of public protest against perceived wrongs. Protesters are being vilified, some are being arrested and even sent to prison, and the groups to which they belong are occasionally being proscribed. Don’t they ever take note of history and see that many of the basic rights and freedoms which we now take for granted were brought to fruition by public protest? Don’t the women politicians on the right who rail against protesters for committing minor acts of sabotage and causing some disruption in day-to-day business ever consider that the suffragettes who enabled them to hold political office were treated the same way, and that we now regard them as heroes?

*  *  *

A man on YouTube says I should keep on writing a blog (well, implied I suppose) because words have power. But they must be the right words because it isn’t the words themselves which are powerful, but the individual letters. OK, I’ll try to remember. (It can be very difficult to know what you’re supposed to do and not supposed to do in this life if you’re the sort who feels the need to break ranks.)

Four Reasons to be There.

I was just about to start some gardening jobs this afternoon, but on a whim I decided instead to walk up to the school and village hall car park, there to lean on the fence bordering the field where the sheep used to be. If anybody had asked me why I was there I would have said:

First of all I like to look over fields while leaning on gates and fences. (It’s one of my favourite occupations.)

Secondly, I was curious to see whether Millie and Rosie (the two horses which used to share the field with the sheep) were back because I haven’t seen them for a few days. (They were.)

Thirdly, I knew it would be school run time and I would be in close proximity with a gaggle of young mothers collecting their charges. I like young mother energy. It gives me a lift. (Which is usually most welcome in present circumstances.)

Last but not least, it occurred to me that the Lady B would probably be among the young mothers and might honour me with a greeting and quick conversation. That, too, gives me a lift. (She wasn’t, or didn’t, if you see what I mean.)

So that’s what I would have said and that’s what I’m sticking with.

On the way back I saw a dead baby blackbird lying by the old school well. (That didn't give me a lift.)

On Baby Milk and the Mothers of Israel.

I signed a petition this morning raised as part of a movement to persuade Netanyahu to allow baby milk into Gaza. I asked myself the question: ‘What reason would the tyrant have to disallow Gazans baby milk, if not to kill Gazan babies?’ And then I read the response by Britain’s Chief Rabbi to an admittedly controversial anti-IDF chant raised by a performer at the Glastonbury Festival, and asked myself the question: ‘Why would a man with the authority of a Chief Rabbi spout words which are both stupid and mind-bogglingly hypocritical, if not to gain favour with the weak-minded?’

I often wonder how the ordinary people of Israel feel about all this – those who just want to live a peaceful life in which decency, justice, and inclusivity prevail. I wonder whether they are aware that Israel has become such a pariah state while the world watches agog at the atrocities being committed by the hard liners and their henchmen. I wonder whether they’re aware that these very actions only serve to augment the blossoming of those anti-Semitic attitudes which Netanyahu uses as a disingenuous shield against every criticism.

And I wondered whether Israel is relying too much on American support to keep them safe in their Middle Eastern bubble. As long as Israel remains of strategic benefit to America, no doubt the support will continue. But what if that situation changes in a world growing ever more fluid and volatile in its allegiances. What then?

There was one more wondering to be done when I’d finished with the questions. I wondered whether the future security of Israel should be placed – by consensus rather than design – into the hands of Israeli mothers. Mothers understand the importance of baby milk in the general scheme of things. Mothers are a power to behold when protecting their cubs. Jewish mothers have always had a high reputation in the matter of strength in such situations. Lionesses have been known to gang up on and kill a bigger male which is threatening their offspring. And I’ve come to a more than tentative suspicion that mothers are the most important people in human society.

Maybe there’s a seed to be planted there in hope. I expect to have gone on my merry way before it does or doesn’t come to fruition.