Gas Is A Gas

Most of the time, it has an envelope Sellotaped over it, the vent that British Gas made us ram through our living room wall to the gusty, freezing air outside.

I point out to the engineers that we already had two holes in the room, one the chimney into which the fire and back boiler are fitted, and the other its disused partner in what was the front parlour before the through lounge was created. But these and the carbon monoxide detector aren't deemed enough.

I could believe this windy requirement is to maximise fuel consumption.

And at every annual service, we fear that there will be some excuse to condemn the old boiler and press us to get a new system, because BG doesn't stock parts for the existing one ("obsolete") even though they are easily obtainable via the Internet.

Hardly worth it: the Government plans to end domestic gas usage by 2050. Maybe the idea is for us to burn what's left as quickly as possible, to boost profits and fund R&D for energy alternatives.

I'm sticking with Old Faithful. And a C5 envelope.

The Ideal Customer For Gas Central Heating

FRIDAY MUSIC: Pop's Golden Age, Part 2 - by JD

This is part two of music from that 'golden age' of the late fifties to early sixties which came across the ether from Radio Luxembourg and AFN. Gradually the joy faded after Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran died, Elvis joined the army, the Everly Brothers enlisted in the marines, Chuck Berry was in prison, Little Richard found religion and Jerry Lee Lewis fell from grace when the British press found out that he had married his 14 year old cousin.

I was fortunate enough to see Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent on that famous tour of 1960 which ended so tragically. Finally seeing them after hearing them on radio and record so often was wonderful and they did not disappoint us. Cochran in particular was every bit as good on stage as he was on his records, what a great loss he was.

But the music didn't die. There was a 'pause for breath' as it was absorbed by and had a major influence on the future stars of the British 'beat boom' who then exported it back to its homeland! I remember all of these records and more and bought a lot of them at the time from a small second hand shop which sold cameras among other things. They had old 45s from juke boxes and the discs were usually less than one year old, slightly battered and scratchy from use and they were played and played over and over again at home and at parties.

Most of those featured here are well known but a bit of background on three who you may not know-
The Coasters - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coasters
Jackie Wilson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Wilson
Clyde McPhatter - https://www.allmusic.com/artist/clyde-mcphatter-mn0000154101/biography

Reading the comments beneath the YouTube videos there is a recurring theme; so many people being transported back in time with a smile on their faces and feeling sorry for the youngsters of today who are ill served with the plastic factory pap that passes for 'entertainment' now.

The final video below is Carl Perkins backed by many of those who idolised him in his prime including Dave Edmunds, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton. Are they enjoying themselves or are they having a ball! (I used to dance like that in my younger days and occasionally in my middle age!) Ah yes, happy daze indeed.

What has happened to the Skripals? What will happen to Julian Assange?

Blogmire author Rob Slane re-examines the incoherent story of the 2018 "Salisbury poisonings" and challenges Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu of the Metropolitan Police to answer some questions:

https://www.theblogmire.com/the-salisbury-poisoning-one-year-on-an-open-letter-to-the-metropolitan-police/

Yesterday marked a twelvemonth since the incident. Mr Skripal has not been in contact with his mother in Russia since. His daughter (allegedly) had some communication with her cousin, at first angry that the incident had been made public, and later saying that she now had access to the Internet and understood everything; then incommunicado since last July.

Where are the Skripals now? Held securely to prevent another attack? Relocated and given new identities, under a sort of witness protection program? Held incommunicado against their will? "Six feet under"?

UPDATE (10 A.M.):

Russian Embassy website response to Skripal affair (link provided by commenter "JuliaJ" on the Off-Guardian): https://rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/6762

Alternative narrative provided by Michael Antony, suggesting that Mr Skripal was supposed to be the thrid passenger on a flight back to Moscow but was prevented by British intelligence (original post via Russophile site The Saker): https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/05/the-skripal-case-an-alternative-narrative/

* * *

In Julian Assange's case, we know where he is: in a CCTV-infested, permanently curtained and ill-ventilated room in the Ecuadorian Embassy behind Harrod's in London, monitored by a man in a glazed cubicle in the corner. Even a prisoner of HMG held in solitary confinement would have periodic access to exercise and fresh air. He's been there for nearly eight years. Is he to die there?

The distinguished investigative journalist John Pilger wrote yesterday of his visit to Assange. Pilger says Assange is the victim of a game of cat-and-mouse because via Wikileaks, Assange exposed Hillary Clinton's indirect involvement with Islamic terrorism funded and armed by Saudia Arabia and Qatar.

http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-prisoner-says-no-to-big-brother

* * *

What kind of State are we in?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Radio Luxembourg Luxuries, by JD

Take me back to the days when life made more sense!

Perhaps life made no more sense then than it does now but it was a more innocent time, less cynical and I was younger then (obviously).

I can remember when all of these records were first issued, listening to them on Radio Luxembourg https://radiosoundsfamiliar.com/radio-luxembourg.php or on AFN broadcasting from Germany (radio reception was a bit hit and miss depending on weather/atmospherics etc)  http://www.afneurope.net

Some of those featured here are still performing and it look as though this music could be the fountain of youth!

The Tornados - http://www.thetornados.net
The Chantays - https://thechantays.com
Johnny and the Hurricanes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_and_the_Hurricanes
Santo and Johnny - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_&_Johnny
The Shadows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadows
The Ventures - http://theventures.com
Duane Eddy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Eddy
The Surfaris - https://thesurfaris.com

Your body now belongs to the State, by JD

What has been called "Max and Keira's Law" has been passed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and will receive Royal Assent within the next few days:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-47373365/organ-donation-law-how-keira-s-heart-saved-max

What this means is that we are all organ donors now whether we like it or not. If you are old or in hospital you are now a potential source of 'spare parts' for other people whose needs are greater than yours, allegedly. Are we entering a new Burke and Hare era? Do not think it will not happen because it will. In this brave new world of ours, a Godless and mercenary age where everything has a price it will happen. In this brave new world of sanctimonious sentimentalists crying 'think of the poor children' it will happen. And in this brave new world of ours where there is much talk of an overpopulated planet, it will happen; the first message inscribed on the Georgia Guidestones is to "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." https://rense.com/general16/georgiaguidestones.htm

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is much more eloquent and wiser than I could ever hope to be and explains clearly and with great insight why this new law is not a good idea -



N.B. in reference to his story about the drunk -

Kesava Shankara pillai,known as Shankar, was a famous Indian cartoonist from Kayamkulam, Kerala. He was born in 31st July, 1902 and breathed his last on 26 December, 1989.

The other Shankaran pillai ,as related by Jaggi Vasudev ,the famous Sadhguru,is a fictionalised character. He uses this definite example to give some lively meaning to his teachings. Shankaran pillai, accordingly, could be the ordinary person like you and me.

A fork in the road: British unity, or civil disorder? (Revised version)

Is Britain approaching a 1776 moment? Or is it more like 1789?

Again and again, on talk radio phone-ins and bear-garden TV shows like Question Time, ordinary people are rudely challenging elected representatives to carry out the result of the 2016 EU Membership Referendum. The latter often seem struggling to contain their fury at such impertinence, as though a scullery maid or horse groom had dared to speak out of turn to His Lordship.

We are moving past consideration of the EU, which is financially and politically doomed (or perhaps its citizens are) whether we remain or leave. The issue has become - for some it always has been - the legitimacy of power itself. And not merely the power of the EU, but the validity of the British Parliament.

Wars, civil wars and revolutions have been fought about this for centuries.

Boston, August 1775: George Washington's army is besieging the British, and the General has learned that captured American officers are being lumped in with other ranks. His protest is rebuffed by General Gage, who says that he does not recognise any rank not derived from the King. On the 19th, Washington replies:

"You affect, Sir, to despise all rank not derived from the same source with your own. I cannot conceive any more honorable that that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people - the purest source and original fountain of all power."

This, from a man brought up in the aristocratic world of the eighteenth century, predates by five months the publication of Paine's bomb-burst pamphlet "Common Sense" (10 January 1776; 150,000 sales among a population of only two million colonists.) Together with the outrageous torching by the British of Norfolk, Virginia on New Year's Day, America had both provocation and a philosophical theory of power to underpin her resistance.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes," said Mark Twain...

The growing recession hitting our country, Europe and the world will provide a similar societal stress - some say this is part of an inevitable historical cycle related to credit, debt and collapse. Once that happens, all it needs is for a radical theoretical debate on power and governance to light the flame.

Revolutions don't happen overnight. They are not spontaneous: masses need organising and leading. So it won't happen after the Brexit deadline in March (or is that to be May?) But if the sovereignty issue is not settled sensitively - it was arrogance and brutality that lost the thirteen colonies - the pamphleteering will begin.

If the balloon goes up, it won't be a colonial revolt; it will be more like a revolutionary civil war, which is far worse because it is much harder to make a lasting peace. There are many fault lines in our society ready to crack open. Even the major political parties have begun to split.

This calamity is avoidable.

Britain nearly had a conflagration in 1789. The philosopher Richard Price, a friend of Paine, gave a French Revolution-inspired speech  "A Discourse on the Love of Our Country", looking at the fundamentals of politics and, like Paine, rooting power in the people. The reception was enthusiastic (a term with distinct connotations of danger, in those days.)

The State was alive to the danger, and acted. Certain gentlemen came to advise Price on his future conduct. Edmund Burke began to compose a justification for the British Constitution in rebuttal. 1789 marked the last time a woman was burned at the stake (in London, for coining.) Radical groups such as the London Corresponding Society were infiltrated by government agents and ultimately suppressed; yet even with the brakes on, the vehicle of power was pushed inch by inch towards electoral reform and democratisation.

Now, Parliament, Whitehall and other well-mounted elements of society are trying to welch on the evolutionary compact with the common people. The latter are divided - votes are divisive, the key to peace is to accept them as decisive - but those with access to power and the media have worked hard to jemmy the cracks wider. The process of re-radicalisation has started, and this time the State seems either unconscious of the peril, or (like George III) sure of its ability to patronise and repress.

Burke articulated a pragmatic scheme for the Parliamentary government we now have, a balance between the royal Executive and popular representation, and between constituency representation and mere delegation. This circumvented the bloody conflict of first principles that played itself out on the other side of the Channel.

But he was addressing the problem of how we govern ourselves, not whether we should be able to govern ourselves at all; even pragmatism has its limits. And on this latter issue, the people - firmly assured by their representatives that this vote would be decisive - made their determination. The task of their representatives was then to carry it through, while closing the divisions among the people as they went forward. They have failed on both counts. The issue has then turned from UK versus EU, to people - a confused, disunited, squabbling people - versus Parliament itself.

If the solution to the threat of revolution in Britain as France burned was to fashion its own sustainable form of democracy, then to discard democracy is to wind the clock back to pre-revolutionary days. And then the clock will start forward again, towards fresh crisis and already-failed solutions.

I'm more worried about the Government than about Shamima Begum

"One day, they’ll decide YOU’RE not British", says Peter Hitchens today, and he's absolutely right (see second section here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6738589/PETER-HITCHENS-need-genuinely-new-political-party-not-rabble-rebranded-Blairites.html)

"... it is cheap, crowd-pleasing mob politics [...] What you allow to be done to others will eventually be done to you too [...] Those who think they are leading mobs always end up discovering that they are, in fact, being chased by them."

I may have missed it, but there seems no sign that Home Secretary Sajid Javid discussed the matter beforehand with the government of Bangladesh, which has not given or offered citizenship to Ms Begum and (I should imagine) is exceedingly unlikely to do so.

Decisiveness, responsiveness to public opinion? This is "populism" and it is scary to see how totalitarianism lies so close to the surface of British government and politics.

I can only think that Mr Javid is obliquely signalling his interest in the Premiership - his "appetite for power", to quote Blair in his declining phase -  as the sharks circle around Mrs May, who hung onto the leadership by promising she would go when Brexit is done.

I can only hope he fails; spectacularly; finally.

Things have that whirlwind feeling lately:

Funny film? I was scared right from the beginning.

Why I don't like Windows 10

It made me buy a new laptop because the previous software ceased to be supported (why?), yet programs with the new system (e.g. Word, Excel) load FAR more slowly.

Even Internet searches frequently come up with this sort of response, before grudgingly having another go (and these are sites I often visit):

With all the billions Bill Gates is prepared to give to charity, could he spare a few to make a product that works?

I'm glad I didn't get rid of my old laptop, as I had planned.

Peak Brexit, by Wiggiatlarge

W. lays about him - and who can blame him?

I have no idea how much mileage there is left in the Brexit farce, I suspect quite a bit more right up to and including the 29th March, assuming as always that anything at all happens, for nothing is guaranteed in this deliberately-made mess anymore.

Deliberate: how else can anyone explain coming up three years of total failure to put together anything like that which people voted for? Naturally as is the norm now, remainers claim leavers had no idea what they were voting for and they themselves of course did. Difficult to get beyond that mindset with people who blankly refuse to see what the EU has proposed for the future since we voted leave, but somehow they are OK with an EU army (we all know who vehemently denied there would ever be one) and central taxation, so they can shovel ever more money without asking to those needy Romanians, and soon to be if the EU has its way Albanians (though a large number seem to be already here running as is their wont a fair spread of criminal activities coupled with violence not seen from any other country.*)

The EU has also voiced its disapproval of any dissent about its activities and wishes to clamp down on any media that dares to disagree with it, making it a criminal act, along with further lack of of accountability on the expenses and tax-free salaries given to its overworked, sign-in-and-b*gger-off parliamentarians.

And all overseen by Germany who runs the EU as a personal fiefdom. All this is crumbling fast, Deutsche bank is on its knees and looks like a merger with the equally on-its-knees Commerzbank. All this is perfectly obvious to any who bothers to look but for some reason the remain side feel that is not enough to leave, indeed they are ever more vocal that we stay.

Now over and above all that we have a new ‘group’ formed in parliament - not a party, a group, as if they declare a party they have to declare where their funding comes from and that at the moment is a no-no; not a good start one would think for fledgling startup.

But this is not a fresh face of politics, despite endless articles in the press wetting their knickers over a new gang of four SDP, who whatever you might have thought of them carried some substance, some ideas and included people you would actually listen to, though even they (with a couple of exceptions who were outside Parliament when the SDP was formed) did not put themselves up for a by-election.

The Telegraph even went so far as to say this could be the great realignment of British politics; they must be really desperate for a headline with that rubbish.

Sadly for this new group despite the immediate blanket coverage, the only member who has emerged as a front person is the one who would undoubtedly lose her seat in a by-election. Anna Soubry has become the poster girl for all that is wrong in our Parliament, or at least a large part of it by failing to stand by the manifesto they all stood on (as with the others in her group).

Even worse than Soubry, if that were possible: Sarah Woollaston**, just days before the last election reneged on wanting to leave the EU and again the manifesto she stood on, after having spoken to her father. For someone who is a 57 year old GP that is not a very good advert for free thinking or anything else and she has steadfastly refused to engage with her constituents on that matter.

In essence, despite the media coverage and the gloss put on them, this is nowhere near the direction that British politics needs to go; it is just a group of mainly marginal seat holders who are hanging on to a few more years in the trough before oblivion. Judging by the reaction of the majority of the public (in complete contrast to the media), oblivion can’t come quick enough.

Though to be totally fair those remarks also apply to the vast majority in the HoC who have shown their true colours since the Referendum and should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, such is their deliberate incompetence in their attempts to subvert the Referendum result. None of them could run the proverbial whelk stall. No British politics needs a lot more than a few glory hunters including one in a suit who thinks he is Britain's answer to Barack Obama, God help us, who have no policy other than to stop Brexit.

All of this is a result of forty-years-plus of a two-party system that history shows (with one exception)  has shown little if any difference when either was in power. Because of the yah-boo nature of this and the rest-assured-we-will-be back-from-the-party-in-opposition attitude, they have grown fat and lazy, apart from the people and arrogant to degree that has revealed itself since the "wrong" result in 2016 to be like no other time in modern politics. Sadly heads on pikes along Westminster Bridge remains a dream many would salivate over but is unlikely to happen, despite many doing things that would have been treasonable in times past.

Where do we go from here? Who knows, but it doesn’t look good at the moment. As someone said recently, ‘We are not well served’; that must be the understatement of the time we live in.
____________________________________________________________________________

*For corroboration, see for example the revelations in Roberto Saviano's 2006 organised-crime exposé "Gomorrah"; and the recent Guardian article on cocaine dealing in the UK

** MP for Totnes, Devon

Sajid Javid To Order Mass Deportations Of IS Supporters (spoof)

https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/the-expulsion-from-eden-illustration-to-miltons-paradise-lost-183700

Following revelations about Britain's involvement with terrorist groups in Syria*, Home Secretary Sajid Javid has ordered civil servants to prepare documentation to strip hundreds of their British citizenship and deport them.

"As soon as IS has built another enclave with Western assistance, HMG will be one of the first to recognise their sovereignty," said Mr Javid. "IS will thus be in a position to offer citizenship and issue passports to their supporters.

"We can then send the denaturalisation and deportation letters currently in preparation, to persons of interest among MI6, the Foreign Office and others including, regrettably, one or two of my colleagues in the Cabinet.

"And you thought I was only big enough to bully schoolgirls!"

_________________________________________________________________________________

* "More recently, in its military interventions and covert operations in Syria and Libya since 2011, Britain and its supported forces have been working alongside, and often in effective collaboration with, a variety of extremist and jihadist groups, including al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria. Indeed, the vicious Islamic State group and ideology that has recently emerged partly owes its origins and rise to the policies of Britain and its allies in the region."

- https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/ian-sinclair/britain-s-collusion-with-radical-islam-interview-with-mark-curtis

FRIDAY MUSIC: Taimane Gardner, Ukelele Virtuosa, by JD

So I was half watching a thing on TV called "Islands of America" and having an after dinner doze when I heard some music. Opened my eyes and saw a Hawaiian lady playing the ukelele, an instrument introduced to the islands in the nineteenth century by Portuguese immigrants.

But this one sounded rather different so I sat up and watched and listened. This was an amplified version and I noticed that it had five strings as opposed to the usual four strings. The unusual arrangement of the strings can be seen clearly in the first video below. The player was Taimane Gardner and she was very good, excellent in fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taimane_Gardner

I love good music, wherever it comes from!















________________________________________________________________________________
Sackerson adds: 

This clip of Taimane is one of the "Top 10 Ukulele Moments" selected by Guitar World magazine last year:



and I didn't know about the instrument's Portuguese (and Brazilian) connections...

US Political Parties: Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right - by Paddington

I live in the US, where we have two barely-functioning political parties, the Grand Old Party (the Republicans) and the Democrats. We are unlikely to ever have a major third one, as the American culture strongly favours an A/B decision-making process, rather than recognizing that there is such a thing as a grey area.

Returning veterans of WWII, in both the US and UK, had had a taste of equality with the monied classes, and they wanted it to continue. The GI bill enabled many to get a good education and rise to the comfortable middle class.

That reality was reflected in the platform of the Eisenhower Republicans. It was pro-union, pro-Social Security, pro-conservation and largely anti-war. I would have been at home with that party.

However, in order to secure the Presidency, Nixon executed the 'Southern Strategy', which involved absorbing the racist Southern Democrats over Civil Rights issues. That was followed by Reagan absorbing the Social Conservatives over the issue of abortion and the teaching of evolution.

What has happened is that the party has become a very disparate set of interests, from anti-abortion, to isolationism/anti-immigration, to anti-feminism, anti-science, anti-education and so much more. The tactics are of fear and hatred. There is no part of the party which appears to follow the 'common good' parts of the Constitution to build anything, with the standard idea seeming to be that making the rich even richer will make everyone better off.

On the other hand, the Democrats look to be completely dissipated, trying to satisfy every marginal constituency, while also appeasing the very wealthy. If there is something positive to be said for them, it is that Democratic presidencies have resulted in smaller annual deficits than Republican ones. Where the GOP is anti-science on the subjects of evolution, an old Earth, climate change and several other topics, the Democrats appear not to believe in biological differences in genders, or innate intelligence, or the reality of alternative energy without nuclear power, or vaccines (although there are nuts on both side who are against the latter).

In short, neither party represents me, and the other parties are just out there, from the Natural Law party, to the Communists. There was even the case where a cult tried to poison a whole town in Oregon to gain political power.*

And that is why I call myself an orthogonal-American.

Representation of a 4-D cube (a tesseract) - at right angles to all 3 dimensions
https://interestingengineering.com/understanding-fourth-dimension-3d-perspective

_________________________________________________________________________________
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

Let's play "Dual Nationality"

It seem from the Shamima Begum case that the modern British Government is good at picking on a teenager to please a howling mob.

But in order to be consistent, perhaps Home Secretary Sajid Javid should rule that any undesirable British citizen who has at least one Irish grandparent should be stripped of British nationality, since such persons are entitled to claim Irish citizenship as an alternative.

And how about wealth-extracting billionaires who are "domiciled" abroad in some tax haven such as, ooh, say Monaco, but actually live in London?

On the other hand, we could also deem any foreigner we don't like, to be British, even if he isn't, in order to get at them - think of Lord Haw-Haw.

This could be fun.

#metattoo...   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31905764

We could end up with nothing but Celtic tribesmen. Or possibly, continuing the Celtic connection,  convert ourselves into a colony of Eire, which would get round that silly Irish Backstop business.

There is a more serious discussion of the legalities here - including how the law was changed in 2014 to suit the Executive: https://theconversation.com/shamima-begum-legality-of-revoking-british-citizenship-of-islamic-state-teenager-hangs-on-her-heritage-112163

THAT worked well! (Sanctions on Russia)

OK, we backed Russia into a corner. Now the country is in a position to cover all its debts:

https://www.rt.com/business/451954-russia-reserves-cover-debt/

Just wait till the world's central banks confiscate and revalue gold to make themselves whole!

I guess we can consider two ways forward:

1. Pray that the West imposes sanctions on the UK (the EU is keen to help, I think), or

2. Start a war with Russia*, to prove that There Is No Alternative to globalist crony capitalism

*(in the Ukraine, which is not Russian sovereign territory, so we don't trigger the general nuclear exchange.)

Rise Of The Robo-Trolls

Back in 1974, a fellow student took time off his dog-killing experiments to code a program for writing porn. It made amusing sentences using a randomised selection of phrases, e.g. "Painfully they peeled a grape for twenty minutes."

Now, there's an AI program that can take an opening line and develop a fairly convincingly human-sounding post from there. Just imagine what that might do if let loose on Facebook, Twitter etc.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-developed-an-ai-so-advanced-they-say-it-s-too-dangerous-to-release

I should think disinformation agencies are watching with keen interest. It could multiply the output of the 77th Brigade, for example:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-77th-brigade-britains-information-warfare-military

Authentication is going to become a big issue.

Gender Benders, by Wiggiaatlarge

Caster Semenya, a female athlete with high testosterone levels

The latest in the convoluted efforts of sporting bodies to try and make some sensible rulings on what is or not a woman in sport is already under attack.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/47233633

Caster Semenya, the poster person of men in women's bodies competitors in athletics, has once again hit the headlines in the sporting press. S/he has in fairness suffered at the hands of sporting bodies with their endless vacillations on the problem since Semenya  appeared on a track outside of SA  for the first time and the resultant eyebrows were raised, for as appearances go if it talks like it and walks like it, then in every likelihood it is.

We will return to Semenya later, but first a little background to what has been the backdrop to this latest attempt to subvert the rules in sport, i.e. cheating through the use of drugs. Drugs in sport is not a new phenomenon: I have some knowledge of this having been a track racing cyclist back in the fifties early sixties.

Doping actually started almost with the first cycle races in the late 1800s. The then very popular six day races on indoor tracks attracted very big crowds and the races unlike today were over six days non-stop, a sort of wheeled version of the marathon dances in the 20s and 30s.

It didn’t take long for competitors to start taking almost anything that would keep them awake or keep them going. Alcohol was a favorite then, brandy mixed in the coffee and it went from there. It is difficult to pin down when hard drugs first started to be used in cycling but by the time the Second World War started it was acknowledged that all the top road riders were using drugs. Of course despite few actually standing up and declaring that fact, it was not illegal then, there were no tests and in fact it was not till later that drugs were to become a no-no. In the early days it was considered as much a reason to see improved athletic performance and drugs were part of that and accepted.

https://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/the-origins-of-doping-in-sports-47634/

More sophisticated drug use started soon after the war and by the Sixties doctors in the shadows were prescribing drugs for top riders. These of course were all professional road riders where the advantages of drugs in endurance races were were by now fairly well understood.

In track racing, apart from the six day races the endurance element was not uppermost. Track racing requires explosive effort over mainly short distances, so different drugs were needed, steroids being the most obvious one, and this is where we go back to the start of the more widespread use of drugs in women's events, mainly coming from Eastern bloc countries who saw the advantages and could use sporting success for political gain.

There was a difference in those days which also had an effect in how doping became more widespread. You had two distinct classes of riders (three actually here but the third we can dispense with for this analogy): amateurs and professionals. The professional class was beginning to die on its feet as far as track riding was concerned; dwindling events and lack of top class amateurs turning pro were the root cause.

So you had amateurs remaining amateurs because turning pro was a dead end as a profession, for professionals unlike today had to win to live, through prize and appearance money.

Amateurs therefore became the de facto top riders. Most of the top riders were in effect paid by the state as on paper they could not be paid and therefore be thrown out of the amateur ranks, so as in the Eastern bloc countries where most had  military title but in actuality just trained for whatever sport they were involved with, in the West many had jobs either working for example Raleigh Cycles here or in the Ministry of sport in France and similar wheezes throughout the world.

For women it was not so easy except in those Eastern bloc countries or the USA where colleges provided sponsorship in their chosen sport whilst studying, all ways to subvert the ethos of actually being an amateur.

At this time women from the same Eastern blocs started to dominate many sports. The first time we saw as cyclists a visiting Russian women's team of track cyclists it was obvious that all was not well: not all but many were built like the proverbial brick sh*t house, looked like men and facial hair was evident on one or two, all the result of a doping regime that used steroids to alter the women's physical make up to nearer that of a man. As time went on and there were still no doping tests, other forms of doping usage started to leak out from the East. Naturally men as well as women were getting the same treatment but it was with the women where the obvious advantages were being translated into performance enhancement.

Dr Rachel McKinnon, born a male, won gold in the women’s 35-44 age bracket in in Los Angeles (Oct 2018).

When dope testing first started to be used, there was a concerted attempt to subvert the process. Various wheezes to get round the urine test included clean samples being brought into the testing booths to fill the sample tubes, resulting in the first cases being rumbled when male urine was found in women's samples.

Yet bit by bit the tests became more sophisticated and more and more athletes were found out.
This rather long winded article in the BMJ gives a taste of how complicated all the international bodies have made the whole problem:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/39/10/695

There is a sub-plot in that article which puts physiological harm as a reason to be nice to trans athletes !

A 50-year old post-op transwoman called Gabrielle Ludwig was able to join a girls’ college basketball team

Naturally it then became a race between the testing authorities and the drug providers to find drugs that could not be detected, such as EPO  for distance events. The ante was upped in the 90s when Lance Armstrong became the first really big star to (at first) get away with systematic drug usage and then to fall spectacularly from grace. It was becoming increasingly hard to cheat the system.

I am not going to go any further down that track as the fight against drugs in sport is ongoing, but it brings full circle the rather different approach, that is the use of drugs for women which for the most has consisted of replicating male hormones with the resultant added body strength.

If it had not been for the increased sophistication of the doping tests the cases of the likes of Semenya would not have come to light. In the past there have been women athletes with questionable physical traits who either got away with a drug regime that made them way stronger, or they were physically women in a man's body producing male testosterone and being largely male in body except for genitalia.

39-year-old weightlifter Laurel Hubbard was the first transgender athlete to represent New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games in April 2018

The problem world wide the Semenya case has brought about is that countries like SA that have known but not been prepared to reveal what they knew about Semenya are loath to turn against one of their own, having bathed in the initial glory of gold medals won by her.

The case is it seems permanently ongoing as authorities having absolved her are now changing their minds, as a Pandora's box has been opened.

What will happen in that case is anyone's guess, but what it has done is opened a way in this progressive all-will-be-equal world, a route for transgender people to compete. As is natural it is all one way: men who would be women competing in women's sport. Allowing a man to call himself a woman has already led to problems in the real world, but in the world of sport it has only just started. Now instead of individual countries doping women, we have various movements championing the trans people's right to compete and to hell with any logic.

The various sporting administrative national and international bodies need to get their collective acts together fast before this whole trans business wrecks women's sport for good, unless they believe the public will turn up to watch what will be in reality a freak show. Examples have already been seen and in those cases the public disapproval has been ignored on the altar of PC, but if it continues women's sport will be finished.

There is another problem: sport has reverted to the old Eastern bloc set up under a different name. There are no longer any amateurs, which gives countries license to pay what would have been amateurs a decent living as long as they produce medals. This sport going open has really only been a smokescreen for many sports that could not possibly provide a professional living in the real world through lack of interest in that sport and therefore lack of sponsorship, but lottery money doled out to medal-winning sports makes that all possible.

It also means as certain countries have shown, Russia and China being at the forefront, that the old Soviet bloc doping regimes are alive and well. If some of the rumours are to be believed gene replacement will be the end of all sport as it is undetectable at this moment in time, and once again for women they will reap the most benefits.

The end, that is, unless drugs in sport are accepted as an option to greater performance, as they were in the past. There was a time when doping of race horses carried criminal charges if found out but doping of humans was given the OK by the public; perhaps we will go back there, who knows these days.

There is an answer to the problem: simply create a class for these trans people to compete in on their own; but I suspect if that was announced there would be howls of indignation that they were being pigeon-holed as as an unwanted minority or some such and that would never do as then it would indeed be a freak show. Plus if that happened I doubt if there would be nearly as many coming forward claiming they are women; it’s not unlike the man who recently said he was 65 and should be allowed to claim his State pension despite the fact he was actually 47. Today if you believe it and state it your dream can come true; well, maybe for some. 

I Was A Teenage Jihadi Bride

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-i-found-isis-bride-shamima-begum-anthony-loyd-isis-bride-syria-n9vcmpkrf

The camera is one of the best liars. A carefully-selected shot can turn a gormless youngster into what looks like an insufferably smug terrorist's moll.

Facebook is fizzing with hatred, indignation and daft solutions. Even the Home Secretary, Mr Sajid Javid, tells the Times “My message is clear – if you have supported terrorist organisations abroad I will not hesitate to prevent your return,” a position contradicted by the head of MI6, who says it is not legally possible.

What happened?

A 15-year-old girl is living in Tower Hamlets, London. Her family are from Bangladesh, a Muslim country, and Bangladeshis are by far the largest ethnic minority group in the borough. Bangladeshis also suffer from high rates of unemployment. The borough is full of new arrivals and transients. The pupils at the school she attends is "predominantly Muslim."

If she is a well-brought-up girl by the standards of her community, she won't go out much or have much to do with non-family males. In a different world this might protect her from bad influences, but not now the world can rush through your landline and iPhone.

So her family, her friends, her classmates, her local place of worship, the local community... all sharing one clear understanding of the Universe and her place in it.

The school? An irrelevant academic treadmill. It has been rated as "outstanding" by Ofsted in a report whose wording seems more unguardedly enthusiastic than one might expect from bureaucrats. The exam results are stunning; some years later, there are allegations of exam irregularities, a ruthlessly exam-oriented curriculum and management bullying of teaching staff. One doesn't feel it's going to stress Enlightenment values, particularly a culture of suspended judgment with respect to religion.

And then she has a couple of schoolfriends of about the same age...

What is a closely-controlled, hormonal teenage girl's dearest wish?

And how to fulfil it? The Internet will guide you. Within ten days, you will be found a young hero to marry!

Just imagine. Instantly, you'll be the equal of your mother, and more.

And how can she possibly regret anything? What in her life and environment will have prepared her to do that?

__________________________________________________________

BBC News, 23 Feb 2015 - school denies radicalisation happened on-site:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31589762

Daily Mail, 15 Feb 2019 - about Shamima's husband:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6710821/PICTURED-Terrorist-husband-ISIS-bride-Shamima-Begum.html

Birmingham Mail, 15 Feb 2019 - possible loss of citizenship for Shamima?
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/brit-schoolgirl-shamima-begum-who-15835602

Evening Standard, 16 Feb 2019:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/isis-teen-shamima-begum-fears-shell-never-see-her-jihadist-husband-again-a4068561.html

Daily Mirror, 16 Feb 2019 - on Shamima's husband:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/revealed-shamima-begums-middle-class-14008008

Birmingham Mail, 17 Feb 2019 - transcript of interview with Shamima on Sky News:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/full-transcript-shamima-begums-controversial-15844796

Demographics of Bethnal Green North (Tower Hamlets):
http://bethnal-green-north.localstats.co.uk/census-demographics/england/london/tower-hamlets/bethnal-green-north

Borough profile of migrant population in Tower Hamlets:
https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/Documents/Borough_statistics/Diversity/A_Profile_of_the_Migrant_Population_in_Tower_Hamlets.pdf

Borough profile of Tower Hamlets - unemployment and ethnic groupings:
https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/Documents/Borough_statistics/Research-briefings/BP2018_5_Employment.pdf

Wikipedia entry on Shamima's school  - "school's population is predominantly Muslim":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_Academy_Shoreditch

2012 Ofsted report on Shamima's school:
https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/2160871

BBC News, 10 Feb 2017 - suspension of headteacher re alleged exam irregularities:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38929737

BBC News, 10 March 2017 - follow-up on leadership, exams:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-39194587

FRIDAY MUSIC: Glenn Gould, by JD

Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (1932 – 1982) is probably best known for his unique interpretation of Bach’s Goldberg Variations which he recorded in 1955 and then again in 1981.

No need for me to add anything here because Leonard Bernstein introduces Gould in the first video below and then, in the penultimate video, Gould himself explains aspects of his style of playing, among other insights.

"Glenn Gould’s music is now playing beyond the stars! Amazing to know that NASA’s Voyager spacecraft included “The Well-Tempered Clavier” on their Golden Record."
http://glenngould.com/

Getting our minds back, by JD

Last week saw several news items in all of the papers and on TV and the items seemed to be related in some way:

• Mental illness among young people.
• An apparent increase in suicide and self harm among young people.
• The need to police social media to exclude 'harmful' images and messages.
• Teaching mindfulness in schools.

This looked like a co-ordinated campaign to draw attention to what are, in the first two items, very serious and worrying trends. The second two items are being promoted as a 'solution' to counter the first two, so what does it all mean?

I shall try to deal with them one at a time and perhaps draw some conclusions afterwards.

1. Mental Illness? A very vague catch-all phrase without any precise meaning. Are they referring to 'depression' or something really serious like schizophrenia. Forgive me for being cynical but depression is not an illness; it could be anything from being fed up with life to feeling sorry for yourself. More often than not it is about 'hurt feelings' or more accurately a bruised ego. 

"...the rise of depression is mainly due to changing lifestyles. Too much eating, not enough activity, no exposure to nature, no contact with the five elements, no emotional security – these are the main reasons why depression has become so widespread in the world today."
https://isha.sadhguru.org/global/en/wisdom/article/how-to-prevent-and-reverse-depression

2. Suicide? Well it is not just among young people, it is increasing among older people too. It is not necessarily among those who are at a low ebb in their lives, it can happen to those whose outward demeanour appears cheerful and the reasons for it may be obscure or deeply hidden within a person's psyche.

This is a tale from the late Iain Carstairs whose excellent blog has disappeared since his death from cancer three years ago. It is recovered here via the Wayback archive but for some reason the pictures are missing. It is very well worth reading:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161114211547/https://iaincarstairs.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/the-life-of-a-stranger/

3. Policing (censoring?) social media. Perhaps it is not so much the content but the relentless and repetitive frequency of it. Maybe it is not the fault of social media alone. TV is no longer about entertainment. A quick scan through the schedules reveals a very dark cloud over most of it; very little of it can be said to raise ones spirits, to entertain. There is rather too much murder and violence for my liking. Murder mysteries are said to be popular, but all the time? I don't know about cinema because it is more than thirty years since I last visited.

The aforementioned Iain Carstairs wrote a very good and well researched piece about the effect neurologically on our brains in the way the media presents things to us. It was his comment on his own blog in response to a comment from an atheist and this is part of it -

"These media presentations are not designed this way purely for information. The orientation time for the brain is 2 or 3 seconds for any new scene; the job of the editor is to switch scenes so rapidly that the brain becomes hooked before it is able to settle, and in its confusion and desire to know what happens next, unable to change channels. It is like trying to stand in a revolving tunnel. The brain is burning out its circuits trying to keep up, and why? Because someone wants us to listen to a terrible piece of music or watch a documentary that has almost no real information in it. In one of Mel C’s efforts, they switched scenes no less than 120 times in the first minute. I’ve seen some where they actually switch scenes three times in a second! It makes me want to puke from nausea. Can you imagine what the brain is going through, to generate that kind of discomfort? It is as if the brain is some kind of a toy to be poked and prodded and squashed into whatever shape we want."
https://web.archive.org/web/20161114211835/https://iaincarstairs.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-story-so-far/

It was in fact a very long comment and is reproduced in full in the notes below. Very detailed and comprehensive critique of our modern world. You must read it to help understand how things have changed over the past thirty or forty years.

4. Teaching 'mindfulness' in schools. I saw some footage on a news programme of a teacher with his class sitting in front of him but the voice over did not reveal very much about what exactly was being taught. I doubt that the teacher knew, to be honest.

A quick look through the various offerings in search engines revealed rather a lot of half baked nonsense. I think what is being promoted is the Zen proverb of "Sitting quietly, doing nothing. Spring comes and the grass grows by itself" I read that many years ago in a book called 'The Way of Zen' by Alan Watts. It is a variation on Quaker  meetings where they would sit in quiet contemplation, quite unlike the worship of other Christian denominations.

But we are talking of young people here and asking them to sit quietly conflicts with their natural exuberance. It could do more harm than good. If Dan Siegel's ideas are those being promoted in schools then I am right. -
https://www.mindful.org/the-science-of-mindfulness/

This is not mindfulness, it is brainwashing. Much better to teach children 'mindlessness' by which I mean engage them in non-verbal activity i.e. creativity or sport. And the non verbal nature of their activity is crucial. Instead of wasting time in 'mindfulness' children should be encouraged to exercise their imaginations in creative activity, either collectively or individually. They should understand the spacial awareness which is essential for most sporting activities. It has long been known that physical activity will release endorphins within the body which then lead to a feeling of well being. Laughter also does the same thing. The use of imagination allied to the intense concentration required in creativity does the same, not just a sense of 'achievement' but a sense of wonder at what you have drawn out from within yourself.

These things are what we all did before the age of five, before we ever went anywhere near the education system. I have a book called 'Art and Fear' which tells of the trials and tribulations of  giving birth to works of art and the joy of seeing what was once imagined become reality. In the book is a tale of how the very young daughter of one of the authors asked him what he did when he went to work. "I teach people to draw" he said. His daughter thought about that for a moment and then said "You mean they forget!" 

Remember - "School is where you go to learn how to be stupid!
......................................................................................................
A few thoughts in conclusion. We have all heard the aphorism 'mens sana en corpore sano' This is usually attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal as being a satire on the Greeks' obsession with a 'healthy mind in a healthy body' but in fact it comes from the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus who pre-dates even Socrates. The idea is not wrong because the Greek ideas of philosophical discourse help to promote a healthy mind and the Greek origin of the Olympic games help to create a healthy body.
The modern mind since the 'Enlightenment' and the industrial revolution believes in the god of progress, ever onwards and upwards to a better future. But ancient wisdom tells us that progress is a false god which is destroying humanity because it is devoted to the material world and ignores the divine essence in mankind.

All of the great philosophers in history have offered variations on the theme of 'know thyself' which is an eternal truth and essential for well being.

"If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion."
~ Aldous Huxley

"Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave."
-- George Gurdjieff

===============================
Notes:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161114211835/https://iaincarstairs.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-story-so-far/
Iain's response to a comment by an atheist (a very sensible and polite atheist):

Stress, even very minor stress, has been shown (this month’s SciAm) to have a catastrophic effect on the neurons. The abandonment of altruism, which generates protective neurotransmitters, in favour of greed and self-indulgence, which has been shown to decrease mirror neuron activity, is only one part of the problem. The other is that the brain is being flung about like a child’s toy: work related stress, endless competition,rivalries, fears of wars, shocks from the media on the hour, and even mainstream media presentations such as the National Geographic documentaries are so full of stimulating twists, turns and visual shocks that it is no wonder the brain is being utterly destroyed long before the end of life.

These media presentations are not designed this way purely for information. The orientation time for the brain is 2 or 3 seconds for any new scene; the job of the editor is to switch scenes so rapidly that the brain becomes hooked before it is able to settle, and in its confusion and desire to know what happens next, unable to change channels. It is like trying to stand in a revolving tunnel. The brain is burning out its circuits trying to keep up, and why? Because someone wants us to listen to a terrible piece of music or watch a documentary that has almost no real information in it. In one of Mel C’s efforts, they switched scenes no less than 120 times in the first minute. I’ve seen some where they actually switch scenes three times in a second! It makes me want to puke from nausea. Can you imagine what the brain is going through, to generate that kind of discomfort? It is as if the brain is some kind of a toy to be poked and prodded and squashed into whatever shape we want.

Added to this you have the senile attempt to multi-task: the brain swaps rules out and back in about 3 seconds, for any specific task, like, say talking to your wife rather than talking to your client, or working on a spreadsheet. To swap back and forth requires 3 seconds to swap contextual rules. But people don’t have time for that. So the brain, ever trying to oblige, is forced to use the short-term memory to hold rules patterns – which it is not designed to do – and which speedily burns out the short term memory, permanently. Memory loss is a feature of executive progress. The brain is being torn to shreds, in order to keep up with the pressure placed on it, and is becoming stunted and deformed, as a child would be if you secured a heavy weight around its neck from the age of three.

In fact one doctor in the UK has warned of a “tsunami of dementia” coming our way. Why? Why should the brain of an intellectually superior race be degenerating so rapidly that the WHO say mental disorders are now the number one health problem in the world? The answer is that the whole lifestyle is now not in accordance with Nature. Man has become a rebel to his own nature, and has abandoned any idea of self-sacrifice, altruism, generosity, gratitude and self-development. He is interested only in bigger houses, faster cars, taller buildings, more income, longer holidays, more clothes, expensive technology, and so on.

This question of the brain literally being destroyed in a few decades must be the biggest cause for alarm today. Its degeneration is so obvious that revolting massacres, obscene crimes, horrible anti-social behaviour, and rampant sociopathy are on the rise everywhere. There is no escape from it anywhere on the planet. And in all of this, man is still building bigger bombs, and the whole world is preparing for war, gearing up for it. Tell me, where is the peace of mind which should accompany intellectual superiority?

Man has simply abandoned the inner world. he is no longer interested in it. far more exciting is the new technolgoy, the latest phones, cars, computers and so on. And the result is that the brain is now falling victim to decline. Dementia even occurs now to people in their 30’s! This was absolutely unheard of two decades ago. So it cannot be age related. The destruction is even carried over from one generation to the next: do you know at the current rates of autistic births, within 22 years, 100% of children born will have some form of autistic spectum disorder? But still man is looking to new drugs or technology to fix it. The inner world lies vacant and unexplored. I even had one reader who insisted he could only find proof of God in a new book. You cannot reason with that kind of mind because it is totally fixated on the external world.

You are right in that logic itself does not dictate spirituality, any more than it should dictate love and romance, or art for that matter. In some cases, people find themselves unable to justify even living, and so they kill themselves. There is no arguing with them. We see that there is a fault in their thinking, but using logic, they cannot be persuaded. In fact, logically thinking, a person would never fall in love or decide to have children because the risks and responsibilities are so great, that considering each person has limited resources and should be averse to serious risk, love is the most foolish thing they would enter into.

Although there are many who feel that way, and I have known quite a few, most people naturally give in to those feelings and make a life which is based around it. Sometimes they do this despite themselves! But none of it is based on logic. We would even think it strange if it were. So much for logic! If you tell them their marriage is not logical, they’d look at you strangely, because for them it is very natural and gives them immense rewards. The same could be said for art. People devote their lives to it, suffering immense personal setbacks, and their love for creating sustains them. Where is the logic in that?

When we examine the biology behind meditation (also called prayer) and altruism, self-sacrifice, honesty, devotion to a higher cause, we see there are neurotransmitters at work. So it is not mere idle wish fulfillment driving people towards these ideas; we can even say man’s normal brain seems to be designed for it. Certainly that is the evidence from the laboratory. Yes, there are those who shun it, just as there are those who ridicule the idea of having children, or entering into relationships. This state is normal for them as well – perhaps it is a nature’s response to an overcrowded world. But either way, people act in persistent ways not because of logic or because of illogic, but because they are designed that way, usually right from the very start.

As far as the sense of other intelligences comprising the universe, some people have a sense of this dimension, and some people do not. To a brain already angled in that direction, the sense that there is an intelligence active all around in the Universe is unmistakable, because the brain itself has developed this capacity. It is a valid sense, just as the senses of sight and of sound and like those senses, cannot be replaced by logic and cannot be explained by logic to those without them. yet the impact they make on the mind is unmistakable and thoroughly convincing. But they cannot be explained by logic: by your argument, they should then be useless! But Nature is not in the habit of giving man redundant senses or redundant capabilities. The spiritual sense exists for a reason, and religion has simply reflected its pervasive impact over the course of history.

But for those approaching the world solely through logic, they shut themselves out permanently from this dimension, just as a person sitting permanently in a chair never exercises their legs, and search though they might through books, the internet, and endless discussions and debates and arguments and lectures, for evidence as to the benefit of having legs, they never will develop them or discover anything about them other than by the use of their own legs. They could watch athletes all day long, but it would never change their own state, just as they could imagine the pleasure of eating all day and still starve to death.

It is this stumbling block which causes the whole anti-religious mindset to one who is, from the start, intellectually averse to it. Using logic to defend one’s own spirituality is probably the most unconvincing argument of all, just as it would be to justify marriage. It is not based on logic, because it is a built in impulse. Anyway, that being said now many times over and over, I’m glad you enjoyed this blog!

Supercrash: "The Euro is organized madness" - a German economist explains "Target 2"

Europe's sword of Damocles: a trillion-Euro central bank debt that doesn't pay interest and is owed by... nobody. European capital preparing to fly to Germany because of fears of a major unfixable financial crisis. Germany possibly exiting the EU...


Slides from the above:
file:///C:/Users/Welcome/Downloads/ThePoint2018-presentation-Dr-Oliver-Hartwich.pdf

About Dr Oliver Hartwich: https://nzinitiative.org.nz/about-us/our-people/oliver-hartwich/

Martin Armstrong chimes in:

"The crisis brewing here is monumental and it will tear the European Union apart at the seams. There is this crisis that because the Euro was NEVER designed properly to begin with, Brussels is trying to enforce its demands upon every member state to maintain austerity regardless of the consequences domestically in each member state.  When Southern European states joined the Euro, they had to convert all past debts from their local currency to the Euro. What happened was not only their national debts DOUBLED in real terms, but ALL PRIVATE debts also DOUBLED. Suddenly, banks that had lent Italian lira were now demanding to be paid in Euro which doubled in real value. Nonperforming loans skyrocketed and every politician blamed the bankers for their own misguided creation of the Euro."
- https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/the-european-crisis-of-philosophy-is-the-destruction-of-the-european-union/

Memorials, by Wiggiaatlarge

I wrote a piece about this subject some years back, but an article in the local paper revived the memory of that piece at a time when I had imagined the ‘fashion’ had died a death !

I don’t like stereotyping people but sometimes they do it themselves. I can honestly say I don’t know anyone who would build a roadside memorial and have never really understood who they are for.
The drivers going by will no doubt be 99% oblivious to whoever the memorial was intended for and if it is only for the family or close friends would anyone trek to a green verge on a regular basis when even visiting a cemetery is a rare event? - well, certainly in this country which makes it even more puzzling.

The piece I wrote long ago was prompted by a stretch of road running from Cambridge to and past Haverhill in Suffolk, that had a bad record for accidents and deaths, being one of those single carriageway roads that should have been updated many moons before. It also sported a wide grass verge for some miles and this became a natural draw for the monument builders.

Among the more inventive ‘art works’ were a small mountain of soft toys; this one was allegedly for a deceased 25 year old biker ! A masterpiece of kitsch which had a small cupola with an angel inside on a mound surrounded by more angels, a lantern and a shepherd with dog ! A cement scroll, no idea what was written on it and topped of with several hand held windmills - a favourite of these shrines - several nondescript tacky ones incorporating foils as the backdrop, one with a foot high name stuck on it, and the most ghoulish one, a two-foot-high coloured photo of the unfortunate who was killed on this spot. Facing the oncoming traffic it was regularly replenished with fresh flowers; that one survived for years !

All came to an end after numerous complaints saying they were a distraction making the road even more dangerous and after protests from the bereaved they were all removed, something that at the time I remember being done at various sites across the country as the craze got out of hand owing to the efforts of the memorial builders to outdo one another.

We have a bridge over the motorway, I am being generous with that term in this case, near us: a road that is much in demand for the late night bikers who thrash their Japanese super bikes at unmentionable speeds up and down this road at weekends unhindered by the total absence of any Police traffic patrols as is normal these days.

Two have managed to kill themselves in the last twelve months or so and large displays of flowers and the odd obligatory teddy bear with cards of condolence went up on the bridge. Neither was ever removed for fear I suppose of being labelled ‘unfeeling’ as is the way these days, so they were left to rot. One is still there after months, looking like a cross between a bad day at the florist's and a recycling yard.

This all comes back to the piece in the local paper. The first reading of the article gave the impression the memorial was in a graveyard and you had to read on some way to realise it was another roadside “attraction” and in this case that was probably a factor in why it had been vandalised. However "vandalised" was used by the journalist in a form of poetic license as further reading after the sister of the deceased (seen in photo with pink hair and described as a tattooist !!) described the vandalism as "cut wires". It appears the memorial surrounded by tree lights was powered 24 hrs a day by a solar panel, all on the edge of the grass verge facing oncoming traffic. Such a distraction would not have lasted five minutes years ago as it contravenes so many road laws, but today anything goes and the attention-seekers under the guise of grieving parties win out so the lights are repaired, the bereaved tattooist gets in the papers with her pink hair and all is well again in the world of those who must be noticed.

If I sound callous so be it, as in real life I have never known anyone who gives that much time to grieving so long after the event. Some societies, Italy and Spain are good examples, do pay more respect to the dead long after they have departed; how much of that is genuine grief or a culture of habit I could not say, but in this country until a few years back it never existed. Now it has become a cottage industry in self-promotion; some poor sod gets his fifteen minutes of fame through dying and all those associated climb aboard for a piece of it.

________________________________________
Sackerson adds:

Readers may recall that Spike Milligan wanted "I told you I was ill" on his headstone at St Thomas' churchyard, Winchelsea, but the Chichester diocese refused to allow this epitaph.

Instead they allowed a Gaelic inscription: "Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite", meaning...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Milligan#Death
http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/East_Sussex/Winchelsea/pictures/1087087
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6522482/spike-milligan

FRIDAY MUSIC: Dusty Springfield, by JD

Mary O'Brien otherwise known as Dusty Springfield "has been acknowledged around the world as the best female soul singer that Britain ever produced. With her oddly erotic, throaty voice, she racked up a string of hits from the 1960s onwards. Born in London to Irish parents, Dusty grew up in and around London. Her early work included an all-girl trio, "The Lana Sisters" and, then, with her brother Tom Springfield (Dion O'Brien), The Springfields."
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0819778/bio

'Blue eyed soul' is a phrase which could have been invented for Dusty Springfield. It applies to British singers who, in the early sixties, were inspired by and tried to emulate the Soul music and Rhythm and Blues music coming from the USA as featured previously in these pages - https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2016/09/friday-night-is-music-night-mood-blue.html

Dusty deserves special mention mainly because of her album Dusty in Memphis, easily the best record she made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusty_in_Memphis

Her first recordings were with The Lana Sisters which were very much in the style of early American pop music of the fifties. A lot of them are on YouTube and feature excellent harmonies, worth a listen but the videos which follow begin with her in The Springfields which is where I first heard her. Some of the videos here have less than good sound quality but there is no mistaking that fabulous voice!