Walking the Wasteland.

I don’t understand why, according to Blogger stats, this blog has received over 14,000 page views in less than twenty four hours. They come, apparently, from more than twenty countries scattered around the world. And yet no one is speaking to me either to react, agree, disagree, or discuss. Nobody ever does, and frankly I’m glad they don’t because I know nothing. I’m no kind of influencer and wouldn’t want to be. That sort of thing is better left dangling from the pallid fingers of celebrities and presidents who delude themselves with the notion that fame and power endow them with the mind of a genius and the wisdom of the ancients. About the feeble minded who follow them no more need be said.

But I do have strong suspicions. I suspect that what we are conditioned to regard as the only true reality is actually just the final frigid 10ft at the summit of Everest, and that it’s enveloped in a dense mist hiding the variety of riches running rampant on the lower slopes. And that leads me to wonder on a daily basis whether the death of the body is not so much an ending as an awakening.

So how do I find out whether I’m right or not except by dying? I can read everything from the Bardo Thodol to the peevish pronouncements of the Catholic Church to the pointless and probably fraudulent NDE experiences presented as ‘proof’ on YouTube. Why believe any of it? How can they know? (And what is their motivation for making the claims?)

And I’m becoming ever more disenchanted with this mortal realm, this icy summit littered with the detritus of disinformation and general dishonesty. Fakery is everywhere, usually driven by pecuniary or bigoted self-interest. It’s a realm in which the hum of mother culture draws the Line of Axiom – an invisible but highly potent barrier between that which may be discussed and that which must be accepted without question because it’s set in extra-reinforced concrete. Such is a major mainstay of political, commercial, societal, religious, and media practice everywhere.

The result of these suspicions is that they leave me wandering under flat grey skies in a featureless no man’s land. I used to relate to the culture which reared me, and to the people who mostly occupy it, but I can’t do most of that any longer. The culture seems to have too much wrong with it and the people speak a different language from me. Daniel Quinn did warn that once you’ve heard the hum of mother culture you can’t un-hear it, and he was right. To me, the hum is growing louder and so there’s no way back. Equally, I can’t walk forward with confidence either because a landscape without reference points offers few satisfactory clues as to what direction I should be taking.

I mentioned recently that I’m currently without a car. Well, I was offered one – just an elderly but reliable runner – at a knock down price, and I’ve been agonising over the decision for a couple of weeks. One part of me recognised that the motor car is probably the most visible icon of modern, developed society. Indeed, some cultures – most notably the US – have gone so far as to build their infrastructure around it. Its identification with a culture from which I now feel largely remote was the reason for deciding against. On the other hand, I still have to operate within the culture to some extent for practical reasons, and a car would provide me with more opportunity, convenience, and freedom. That was appealing, and yet I still rejected the offer.

But I’m tired of typing now, so maybe I’ll make the post about the epiphany which this brought about (regarding its relevance to the depressive tendency) another time.

Minding Mini Damsels.

The first was a little lady of around 2-2½ standing alone and forlorn at the top of Sainsbury’s supermarket. She was breaking her heart, poor mite. The tears were flowing, the nose was running, and the chest was heaving pitifully. It was clear she was lost, but I couldn’t tell what she was trying to say because it was too garbled in her distressed state. I persuaded her to come with me in order to find whoever she was looking for.

And so she did. When we got to the far end of the aisle and turned the corner I spied a middle aged woman – presumably granny – hurrying along the bottom lane and evidently looking for something. Reconciliation was effected and all was well.

And then I noticed the interesting part. Granny’s first words to the now quieting victim were: ‘Let’s get that nose wiped first.’ I imagine the mother’s first action would have been to give the child a reassuring hug, so maybe mothers hug and grannies wipe noses. Is that how it works? The female of the species continues to delight and intrigue.

The second mini maiden to flatter me with her attention was a little older at around 4. I was standing outside enjoying a quick rolly and idly watching the comings and goings through the big front windows. I noticed the child sitting on a packing shelf while her mother was scanning her shopping through a self-service till, and then the child noticed me and did a double take followed by a smile and wave. Couldn’t resist that, could I, and so I smiled and waved back.

And thus began a game which lasted 5-7 minutes. She kept shifting her position, then smiling and waving, and I had to keep smiling and waving back. Eventually her mother finished the scanning and my right arm received the relief it was beginning to crave. ‘That was fun,’ I said when they came out of the shop and walked past me. ‘Thank you.’ The mother didn’t appear to notice me.

And then I was struck by a thought. Maybe little Miss Wavealot was rehearsing for the day in about fourteen years time when she will be consumed by the irresistible urge to entrap passing sailors on shore leave. Maybe I should make every effort to find a black velvet band in case I see her again. For who knows what state the world will be in by then, and black velvet bands will be the new gold dust. I’ll be dead of course, or at least too far gone to notice.

On Fairies, Firsts, and Football Coaches.

I painted part of a wall today, and when I was clearing up I found three drops of paint on my desk which is on the other side of the room. I examined the possible scenarios by which three errant drops of paint could have found their way to the other side of the room. None were entirely credible, and so I settled on the only available solution: I have a paint fairy.

These little varmints clearly take delight in transporting wet paint to parts of the room where they have no logical right to be. The same thing happened in my kitchen a week or two ago. So now I don’t know whether to speak harshly to them, plead with them to behave, or be glad of the company.

*  *  *

This week’s firsts:

The first butterfly – a Peacock.

The first ants – two outside and one in the kitchen

The first bumble bees.

The first dandelion flowers.

The first bluebells – that’s pretty unusual in March.

The first bat hunting around the house at twilight – great Hurrah for that.

The first hare I’ve ever seen dead on the road.

The last one gave me pause for thought. Apart from being a sad sight, it reminded me that seeing a hare is supposed to be an omen of misfortune. So what does it mean if the animal is dead? Does that magnify the misfortune or reverse it? I’ll try not to worry.

*  *  *

I was reading a football match report today which included an interview with the coach. Not for the first time I noticed that football coaches speak a very strange brand of English. It’s similar to the standard version but with enough differences as to be highly irritating, and the most notable feature is its complete misuse of tenses. I’m inclined to wonder whether football coaches learn this weirdly irrational habit in football coaching schools, or whether they’re not actually human.

17th March and All That.

Notwithstanding my lamentable lack of literary aspiration at the moment, it would be remiss of me not to mention that today is 17^th March. It matters to me, you see, and not because it happens to coincide with the feast day of a certain ancient Irish cleric. It matters to me because it’s the birthday of somebody else.

It sends my mind wandering casually back to a day nearly two decades ago, and the sight of a comely maiden walking her little dog along a little lane near her house. On the surface she was unprepossessing – rat’s nest hair, plain dress representing no sort of style, and a total lack of paint on lips, eyes, or anywhere else. And yet she was compelling in a way I found difficult to rationalise. Eventually she became the Queen Regnant of my consciousness and has remained so ever since.

And so today I wanted – as I do every 17^th March – to send her a birthday greeting. I can’t do so because I undertook nine years ago to remain silent unless approached, and approached I never am. (And I regard undertakings to be sacrosanct.) Yet send them I do, silently through the ether from what has become a somewhat impoverished consciousness, in the hope that it will be received at some deeper level. It carries with it my regret that I never explained to her that there was never any hint of the libidinous about my interest. I simply ached for her presence and her good opinion. Nothing more.

*  *  *

And an almost totally unconnected little curio: I discovered only last night that St Patrick’s Day was treated in Ireland until relatively recently – some time in the 1970s if I heard correctly – as a religious observance requiring pubs to remain closed. It appears that the message never made it to New York. Maybe the telegram rests still in what remains of the post box on the Titanic.

(I’m doing deconstructed communication again. I wonder why. Just be thankful I didn’t make the intended post on Trump’s latest attempt to convince the world of his inadequacy. It’s the one thing he’s very good at.)

Doubting Even a Reset.

I’ve had so many posts running through my head recently but lacked the will to type them up. There is, however, one subject that keeps prodding me insistently, so I’ll make it mercifully brief:

Let’s face it, Iran desperately needs a regime change. Not for the sake of America or Israel, or the rest of the world come to that, but for the sake of the Iranian people. They suffered when Iran was a monarchy, and they've continued to suffer ever since. Let’s also face the fact that the USA, Israel, and Russia are also desperately in need regime change, in that case mainly for the sake of the world in general.

That’s the start of the issue. It goes on from there, but I won’t presume on anyone’s patience by wading through individual factors, presumptions, and considerations. The final line in the argument is simple enough: the human genome is defective and needs excising from the human animal. From time immemorial humanity has allowed itself to be ruled by those with the will and determination to achieve power, wealth and (dare I say it?) greatness on the blood and suffering of the innocent.

And so getting rid of the likes of Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, and the Ayatollah won’t cut the ice. It will take a global nuclear war or environmental catastrophe on a scale greater than the Younger Dryas to do that. Or maybe even that won't do. There are those who believe – with some evidence that is not unconvincing – that it has happened before, and yet still the angels continue to be ruled by chimpanzees utterly lacking any ethical or humanitarian dimension.

So where do I go from here? I haven’t a clue.

Understanding Donald.

I saw this morning that Trump referred to Keir Starmer's intransigence with the statement ‘we’re not dealing with Winston Churchill here.’

Well now, have you noticed that whenever anybody disagrees with Donald Trump or declines to toe the Trumpian line, his immediate response is always to hurl a cheap insult at them and imply, at the very least, that they’re ‘losers’?

I should think the psychologists must love studying him. I’m not a psychologist, but I suspect I’m not too far from the truth in suspecting that he’s a prime case of arrested development as a result of defective potty training.

Meeting Mrs Lopsided.

I spent five minutes this morning renewing my fond acquaintance with a lovely lady collie dog in Mill Lane who I haven’t seen for several weeks. And then an elderly woman came walking uncertainly down the path holding a new-looking smart phone which appeared to be troubling her. She told me it wasn’t actually hers, and then said ‘A man keeps telling me the time. I don’t know why.’

For those unfamiliar with the appellation, Mrs Lopsided is the delightfully dotty MC of the 1955 Ealing comedy, The Ladykillers. It’s in the top half dozen of my favourite films. If the French have M Hulot, we have Mrs Wilberforce (AKA 'Mrs Lopsided'.)

Notes on the Iran Thing.

Last night I felt moved to write quite a long post about yesterday’s big event, but I ended up doing other things instead and today I’ve lost interest, so I’ll just offer a couple of brief notes instead.

As usual I’m intrigued to know what was buzzing around among the cobwebs in Trump’s head, and the best I could come up with went something like: ‘I know what I’ll do. I’ll send a bunch of brave American boys and some fine, expensive American ships to go shoot fish in a barrel. Then everybody will know how important I am and will stop laughing at me. They might even stop asking how close I was to Jeffrey Epstein and his kinky lifestyle.’

I doubt that too many people will mourn the loss of the tyrant Khameni, not even in Iran, but let’s not forget that there are tyrants on both sides. While considering this fact I imagined a comparable scenario. Let’s suppose the boys of the Chicago police department – fine, upstanding specimens to a man, no doubt – were complicit with Al Capone in the planning and prosecution of the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. It sounded about right.

I wonder whether Trump will be landed with one humdinger of a fatwa. (No fake blood this time – allegedly.)  But maybe not. I wonder whether fatwas can only be declared for blasphemy, not merely having a congenital dislike of Muslims, killing a head of state, and showing scant regard for what Donald likes to call ‘shithole countries.’ Must look it up.

I knew some Iranians once. They were all honest, honourable, and humorous men. I even had a fight with one of them which was entirely my fault, but he was the one who apologised. Nice guys. And maybe it’s worth bearing in mind that Persia is generally recognised as having been the cradle of civilisation, lacking only candyfloss and Disney to add gravitas. Does that count for anything? I don’t know.

Signing off now.

Overheard on the Grapevine of Imagination.

‘Caleb.’

‘Yes, Martha.’

‘Why do we Americans let them Russian and Chinese commies have nuclear weapons?’

‘Well now, they’re a bit too big for us to stop ’em. And besides, it establishes balance, ya see. If both sides have the same nuclear weapons, then neither side can start a war ’cos then they’d be blowed to kingdom come their selves. It’s a good system. It’s even got a name. It’s called Mutually Assured Destruction – keeps the world safe.’

‘Oh, ah see. So what about where them A-rab folks live?

‘Ya mean the Middle East?’

‘S’pose so. They don’t got nuclear weapons, do they? Only the white folks in Israel got ’em. Why aint there no balance there?’

‘Erm… it’s complicated, hun. But ya see, them A-rabs, they’re brown people and they aint responsible. They ain’t smart like we are. They’d be throwin’ ’em about like fire crackers on the 4^th July.’

‘That so?’

‘Yup.’

‘Shucks.’

The Good, the Bad, and the Disturbing.

The Good

Mother Nature is being even more precocious than usual this year. The snowdrops have been more numerous than ever, and now we’re seeing primroses, crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils, celandines, and even blossom on the blackthorn trees. And both the bluebells and wild garlic plants are more numerous and more advanced than is usual for February. Even the birds are behaving as though they think it’s April, and are starting to prepare for the production of this year’s next generation.

I was left feeling frustrated and annoyed last night when an arranged phone call from the pharmacist at the GP surgery failed to materialise. I called the surgery today expecting there to be some friction, but there wasn’t. The woman I spoke to was calm and apologetic, explaining that the problem had been due to a combination of sickness and the failure of modern technology to deal effectively with the requirements of modern times. This has become the way of things now, of course, and a new appointment was easily made. And all was well that ended well.

The Bad

I read this morning that Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, says his technology firm Block is laying off almost half its workforce because artificial intelligence (AI) "fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company." So is this stage 2 in a trend which began in the nineties when the banks were laying off up to 5,000 people a week as the internet removed the need for bank staff and even whole branches? Where is this going, I ask.

We in the west live in a world almost wholly dependant on consumption. Consumption is the bedrock of capitalism and the driver of economic growth, and economic growth is the tenuous means by which society as we know it hangs together. So I wonder what will happen when there is so much unemployment and concomitant poverty that the base of the capitalist system begins to diminish rather than grow.

Will the practice of wage slavery be replaced by a harsher and more transparent form of the same thing? Will there be riots on the streets and the imposition of marshal law? And is this the real reason behind (allegedly) the billionaires buying up properties and converting them into bunkers. Some assume it’s intended as protection from post nuclear excesses after WWIII, but maybe they’re intended as a shield to protect them from angry mobs who have finally woken up to the realisation of who has been causing the damage over the past century or two.

And how will that change the world order? Will the once-powerful USA be reduced to an archipelago of third world states? Will Russia and China become the new overlords, while Africa, South America, and probably Europe will be forced to bow the knee? Karl Marx was a highly intelligent man, however much Americans have been brainwashed into considering him no more than a ‘dirty commie.’ And Karl Marx did say that capitalism will one day destroy itself through its own greed. Can’t you see it beginning to happen?

The Disturbing

Earlier today I watched a collection of shuffle dance routines on YouTube (only because they were set to Lady Gaga’s Fine Romance, you understand. It’s one of my favourite pop songs.) I really shouldn’t, you know. I shouldn’t. While the spirit felt renewed, the flesh felt weaker than ever when faced with imagined prospects now become deader than a dodo’s granddad.