Full feathered headdress.

Just spent two days supporting Mothermouse in her Native American Indian medicine stuff and on my return home, perched in the middle of my bed, is a bird. I engage it in pleasant conversation as one does with a nervous guest but it decides to hide on a shelf behind my pants and socks drawers. Strange because the windows were closed and it shows no apparent cat damage. Anyway after a chilly ten minutes with widow wide open this female blackbird flies away to nest another day. Maybe it was a sign but I don’t know what of. So Indian medicine stuff. Well it’s nice spending time with a lovely bunch of people but I just run away from all the rules and accoutrements. When I was a lad it was bareback riding, buckskin mini skirt and war paint with trusty stallion and six-gun. My gun was silver with a white ivory handle, the rest was imaginary. Even the language was minimal, “How. Me want pow wow.” There’s something unutterably noble about a people who don’t use adjectives. Years later every leap and wheelie of my moto-crosser was riding that imaginary stallion, every camping trip was on the waste ground prairies of Higher Lumox, Greater Manchester. I connected with their spirit as only a ten year old can: I was never the haughty gunslinger. So the rules and accoutrements came as a shock. I guess I’m still ten when it comes to the spirit of the Indians, wild, minimal, generous and protective, and no adjectives. But I’d have given my right arm for a full feathered headdress. So now I help but don't inhale. Clearing sheep poo from the field is my level of ceremony, enough to be renamed 'Stiffmouse the Poo', which in my book puts me in very esteemed company. 

Carbon to Silicone.

In the first seventy years of human flight the hand and foot of the pilot controlled the aeroplane. Now they’re controlled by computers because their performance envelope can be increased by designing the plane to be unstable; the pilot only supplies a general intention of what he/she wants it to do. In essence the computer takes the intention of the pilot and magnifies it to outperform other, mere human pilots. Like for sure I could type this blog out on a typewriter and post it to a friend in Chingford but it wouldn’t achieve my intention of bending the minds of millions to my will. It’s read in over twenty countries from the US to China, mostly, I grant you, by people who click on it by mistake, but it’s out there changing the world about as much as a butterflies wing beat. That’s Peter by the way, the butterfly, he’s called Peter and he’s at 1745 North by 2238 West. Oh no he’s moved. Anyway my point is computers magnify the effect of our intentions on others. Now according to Darwin we’re all involved in the survival of the fittest so if the envelope of the ‘fittest humans’ now includes a computer where is this leading us? Surely even fitter humans will be more closely integrated with their computer until the fittest will be a seamlessly integrated human/computer entity. Once embarked on this route there’s no going back because one would not compete and thus be unable to survive. And as computers are evolving a thousand times faster than humans what in this human/computer entity will gain the upper hand? Many years ago talking to a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh he argued we were the carbon based precursors of silicone based life forms. I argued against him then but I’m not so sure now. 

Human's are what computers have for lunch.

If you’re interested in economic philosophy watch, “All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace” BBC2 TV Monday 23^rd May 9pm. (on BBC iPlayer, series to follow)

It’s not light viewing but wherever you are on this globe of ours you’ll be suffering the consequences of its content. Apparently Ayn Rand, a Russian woman writer proposed in the 50’s the moral merit of selfishism under the slightly more acceptable title of Objectivism. Though dismissed at the time her philosophies were taken up in the 80’s by those in economic power and the world ran with them, or at least ran along behind them shouting, “Give us our money back!” In time Rand was spurned by her lover and became a rich ditched bitch: Some things never change. Anyway Rand’s ultra rational strand of irrationality suited the burgeoning world of computers and in a sense they became her children spreading the lore and lure of digits across the globe. Now the human brain has been likened to a computer but it’s not. Computers simply perform an externally provided intent fast. The brain on the other hand creates its own internal intent. Where a computer produces garbage from garbage the brain, when presented with garbage produces rational stupidity. There’s a big difference. So the series goes on to show how the human race is competing with computers that are devoid of rationality. We’ve already had one world wide economic unhinge so what’s next? I suggest you use your iPad wisely, it may be your prize possession and look pretty but it’s only as intelligent as a plank of wood. It’s simply you very own portal to somebody else’s intent.

Heroism: A Wife's View.

After a pleasant forty minutes in Pounstretcher Mothermouse and I are approached by the young woman in the next car. She tells me, note ‘me’ not my matrimonially connected co-shopper, she can’t get her car started and could ‘I’ help. MM suggests the steering lock but I am on a mission to save a damsel in distress and temporarily deaf to such obvious suggestions. I manfully assume the driver’s seat and try the key. Nope, won’t turn. I open the door and close it again, lock it and un-lock it as every good software engineer knows to do. Nothing. I try the key again. This time there is a strange sort of snuffly gurgling sound from the back of the car. Ah petrol, maybe an air blockage or a malfunctioning pump causing cavitation in the fuel supply. I try the key again. The same sound. Very strange. I wondered, could a sensor strategically placed in the petrol pipe be triggered by an electrical malfunction that cuts off the ignition so as to avoid the car bursting into flames? In desperation I yanked the steering wheel and the key at the same time and it turns, and the car starts. Hero 1; Vauxhall Astra 0. As I exited the car in triumph I turned to notice an eighteen month old in a kiddy seat in the back suffering from a cold and watching my every move. I’d like to think in the years to come he will remember this time and he too will rise to his moment of heroism. Meanwhile I have to continue home to the sound of Mothermouse reminding me, “I said it was the steering lock didn’t I, I mean that’s what I said it was, try the steering lock I said ….” 

Dead Elephant Anybody?

So it’s party house cleaning time, it being my birthday tomorrow, and good reason to take a heap of crap to the tip from its septic corner by the shed. I put it in Dorothy, our Renault Scenic. A lovely sunny day, what could go wrong? Well it transpires a small amount of festering water from this crap dribbled onto the boot carpet and gave forth an eye-watering, nose abusing smell that, had my nose been a small child, would have spent many years in prison. That such a small amount of liquid could produce such a rank odour is truly remarkable. Returning from the tip I removed the carpet and power washed it with bleach while an unsuspecting Mothermouse took Dorothy to Sainsburys. On her return she complained she could hardly drive because of the smell. This was becoming a difficult situation: A mechanically perfect new-ish car one can’t drive yet could never sell either. It’s like finding yourself with the ripe carcass of a dissolving dead elephant on the drive. Well not so much a drive, more a ‘d’ in our case. I’m thinking my only option is to put it on e-bay and apologise for having a particularly bad personal body odour problem on the test drive. It’s humiliating but what other option do I have?

Smile Crime.

It is not a crime not to smile. I just want to say that. In fact the majority of life’s concerns, involvements and even joys are not the stuff of smiling. When one old jazz musician talking to another old jazz musician put the lines on his face down to laughing the other commented acidly, “Nothin’s that funny.” No, we’ve been duped brothers and sisters. Since the early days of TV our lower facial muscles have been coerced into action by sit-com laughter machines originally designed to make mid-west housewives feel less lonely while their husbands worked 24/7 for IBM. But as our viewing hours have increased over the years from zero to over 50% of our spare time we have grown to believe if life isn’t transacted in a constant state of mild amusement it’s time to see a therapist. One is not depressed when one is not smiling! In fact quite the reverse. If one has to maintain a constant grin from watching Friends in order to stop one self-arming one very well might be. No there’s a lot to be said for apparent grumpiness, it gives your face a break and can bring a deep sense of satisfaction. It’s like when the charge hand of the pattern makers had an almighty row with a lippy youngster. Forman admonishes charge hand for shouting and using bad language, “Now I’ve got to go and sort this out and quieten him down.” The charge hand waited in the foreman’s office till he heard more shouting and the sound of the foreman’s fist smacking into the youngster’s jaw. No one smiled then, even though a rich feeling of pleasure permeated the place. I mean when I tell a joke no one laughs but my grumpy faced inebriated wisdom is apparently hilariously funny. No, life is not a sit-com and I’m not going to smile until someone tickles me on my birthday, which is tomorrow. 

Fun with Numbers 7.

So the gov want 50% of young people to go to university right. In time that will be 50% of all of us i.e. around 35 million. Now currently there are 29 million employed so that would leave 6 mil graduates unemployed with no hope of paying off their student loan. At £30,000 each that’s £180 billion debt for the gov to cover. And if the graduate Class of ’08 is anything to go by a good percentage of the other 29 mil employed graduates will be behind a Blockbuster counter in Wolverhampton on min wage so they’ll only be paying back a shilling a week. And as most of us will pair up and produce kids at some point, which take a fair amount of looking after, I’d guess around 40% wouldn’t pay off much of their loan. That’s another 14 mil and £420 billion. Total £600 billion the gov will have to cough up to pay off unpaid student loans. Of course that’s over a fair few years but it’s still a lot of money. Even so it will lead to 20 million graduates either unemployed or in demoralising jobs; rather disappointing when you were led to believe a degree would be your key to a comfortable middle class existence. It’s rather like building a four-lane motorway to a back street in Solihull. Now I’m not an expert in traffic management but I’m fairly sure that would lead to road rage of epidemic proportions. It’s all about flow as in 7 trickles make a stream, 15 streams make a river and so on. But here’s the difficulty: It’s easy to give students loans because most will graduate and the gov will appear successful in achieving its objective, but funding industry and creating employment is a dastardly difficult thing to do without getting egg on your face. It takes a vast amount of industrial knowledge, experience, foresight and management skills that the gov don’t have. So a failed investment in industry of several million will provide a glaring example of their incompetence whereas losses of several billion in unpaid student loans will appear the successful meeting of targets, they all got a degree didn’t they? It’s like Tom Leira’s line, “Vonce za rokets are up who cares vere zy come down, zats not my department says Verna Von Brown.”

Libraries are Dead.

Why on earth in this age of the internet, Google, Kindles etc do we need libraries and librarians? They’re fusty and musty and only fit for the crusty trying to keep warm. On an iPad you can see everything you ever dreamt of and rotate it with a flick of your finger. This surely is the future of our information rich society. Then I read the information rich Guardian Guide. Page 1 took a satirical look at a Nescafe ad alluding to the need for coffee after a night of undergraduate three-summing. After briefly considering applying for yet another degree course having the requisite coffee already in the cupboard I considered the ‘information’ I was taking onboard. Yes it was words and sentences but it was illusory allusion not information. Being 67 going on 68 it probably wouldn’t work in my case. So how much of our burgeoning barrage of information is in fact information? Could it be our meandering clicks across the internet is only providing us with a torrent of misleading unstructured gossip?  Could it be we plaster it onto our brain cells in some meaningless fashion so we end up in a spin of fact-less emotional and prejudicial ignorance? Could it be the manipulative arts of our marketing industry have changed the fundamental colour of what we consider is information? Maybe now more than ever we need a calm reflective place where what we receive is structured to being useful, informative and accurate, a place where we can grow our understanding rather than simply acquire reams of information garbage. I know, we need a library.

Class of ’08.

My son’s longstanding girlfriend listed for me at the weekend the whereabouts of her fellow English graduates of 2008. Three years on their careers have taken off in multifarious directions;

1-     Shop assistant

2-     Tamworth Ski Dome bookings clerk

3-     Receptionist x 2

4-     Trainee midwife

5-     Barmaid

6-     Blockbusters counter staff

7-     Ladbrooks counter staff

8-     Taking a PhD

9-     Teacher x 3

10- Upholsterer and wedding invite maker

11- Considering being a burlesque performer

However comforting it is to know the person taking your bet, or passing you a DVD has the capacity to engage you in an interesting conversation about James Joyce’s Ulysses or take their cloths off tastefully should you have a spare moment one wonders if it’s worth the three years study and £30,000 worth of debt. One did briefly write for a local free newspaper but left finding her talents were being used for immoral purposes. Laughing said girlfriend also added the consequences of her degree;

1-     Loss of interest in reading

2-     Pain of rejection

3-     Debt

4-     Feeling of inadequacy

She added with a hint of venom, “I wish someone had told me before I did it.”

I wish universities would state in their prospecti, “This course will provide you with the opportunity to work at a crap job for minimum wage or, if you can still afford it, retrain in something more useful.”

SZR660 headlight Modification.

This mod for the SZR660 headlight overcomes voltage drop from dirty switches which makes the lights very dim. It uses existing wires where they don't cause volt drop to make a neat solution. It requires reasonable soldering skill.
1- Trace the cable from the ignition switch to a connection block behind the headlight. Find the red wire leading to the other side of this con block and strip off a quarter inch of sleeve. (this should show as 12 v with ign off)
2- Buy 12 volt relay SP 8 amps (£5), 6 amp wire and spades, one that allows two wire to connect together.
3- Build as shown with 3 wires to light about 8" long and leave the other long. (solder and crimp spades)
4- Feed the 3 wires through rubber cover. (only do when you're sure it's working)
5- pull off brown earth wire and connect it to new coupling spade and reconnect to earth tab.
6- Pull off bulb wire and connect new spades to incoming wire and bulb.
7- Hold 4th new wire onto red wire and test that light works as it should.
8- Wrap relay and any bare wire and connectors in insulating tape as water tight as possible.
9- Cut 4th wire to length and solder to red wire.
10- Repeat for other light.

Gleeful Counselling.

 So this week’s Glee is attempting to counsel a nation’s issues by the magic of light musical entertainment. Nothing like a musical to find out you’re gay, which is nothing to be ashamed of by the way. It’s just like homophobia, racism, obesity, paedophilia and manslaughter, just own it and you’ll be able to feel good about yourself. Well they’re all in Glee for a start and that must take some owning. But they all have their own individual reasons for self-hate they need to get off their chest and onto their T-shirt. The ugly obese girl with a matching personality found this simple measure made her much happier with her high risk of diabetes, heart problems and early death. The OCD sufferer popped a pill and will be much better by next week and Mr Shooster, the teacher, overlooked his struggle with nonce-hood and plumped for his large chin, which I must admit I hadn’t noticed till he pointed it out. The Jewish girl, Rachael, struggled with a nose job and another, vaguely Asian, with being a bitch, which I must admit made her rather endearing to me. Ha-ho if we’re all en-route to bland perfection we can’t let personality stand in our way. So now with all their hang-ups out of the way they’re much closer friends in a sort of lying, cheating, backstabbing kind of way and progressing nicely towards facile PC adulthood. I only wish someone had had the foresight to get me to write, “Ugly, skinny, boring, shy with crap teeth” on my T-shirt when I was sixteen, I’d be a much more rounded individual by now. 

Sexual Thoughts.

It’s 3.30am; I decide a bowl of cereal in the garden is a good idea. In the kitchen Dave is growling. I close the door to the hall in case the mean black cat is in here and I might have a chance of scaring it shitless. No Dave has a mouse. I’m very dismissive of Dave’s mouse catches, I tent to assume one of the others has caught it and Dave’s just fielded it when they got bored and it was still a bit stunned, but as no one else is around it must be his. So well done Dave. Cereal on the swing seat in the company of Mothermouse’s plants in their pots humming their plant energy into the warm darkness in a sort of chorus of “Hello it’s me” way. They’re no good on specifics, no opinions on the AV referendum, just “Hello it’s me”, which is quite enough. I go back in. Dave is quiet; he’s lost his mouse. I think he must overdo the growling and open his mouth enough for the mouse to do a quick getaway. The others are pawing the door and troop in to see what’s going down. Britney’s up on the fridge pawing out morsels from the Cup of Plenty, Betty’s wandering round like a vague Essex girl lost in Chiswick as Dom sits needily hoping I’ll provide him with a winning Sheba lottery ticket. Buy your own! Dave is silently considering his loss and the mouse is somewhere considering his luck. And Osama Ben Laden is looking down or up on the scene from somewhere far far away. Oh yes, sexual thoughts. Two young Latvian women behind the bar in the Cheshire Cheese, Buxton. What is it with eastern European women, do they bathe in Links or something?! One briskly whisks the lemonade for my shandy, looks, “Now iss pweurfect.” She smiles and adds the beer. It becomes a pint cocktail made by the creatively massaging hands of a red light angel. “Would you like us now to go to bed ant do all za fierlty tings are racing through your mind?” I nod. She wonders why I’m nodding. “Three peounds tventy.” My genitals leap up on the bar and do a little dance. Why are they so sexy?!! It’s like they’re born with some knowing most English women go to their graves wondering about. When I die I’m going to Latvia. Oh and on that score the mouse is, I’m sorry to say, with Ben Laden. His mangled body was later found unarmed on the bathroom floor murdered by our elite core of Navy Seals, well cats. He was buried at bin.    

Bin Laden caught by estate agent.

On Sunday, May 1, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in a military operation by U.S. special forces in a compound near Abbottabad.

 Abbottabad is a city located in the Hazara region of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan. The city is situated in the Orash Valley, 50 km northeast of Islamabad at an altitude of 4,120 feet and is the capital of the Abbottabad District. It is well-known throughout Pakistan for its pleasant weather, high standard educational institutions and military establishments. It remains a major hub for tourism in the summer.

That’s right Osama bun Laden was caught by the deductions of a real-estate agent. The CIA, after ten years of looking in murky dank caves, finally co-opted Prime Punjab Properties. “Well sir to be honest caves are shit to live in, especially with a growing family. This guy has spent time in England, he would need somewhere near a good school, golf course, local shops, nice weather etc. Here look, here’s a nice spot. Just south of Lady Garden Park (true), walking distance of Government Post Graduate College No: 1 and Gammi Adda shops, and ten minutes from Abbottabad Golf Club. High walls and instant access to military information from all the surrounding army bases.”

Basically anyone with Google and Wikipedia and watched ‘Location, location, location’ could have worked this out years ago.