Referendum. The Truth.

Three years ago Cameron decided, in a fit of peek after the UK’s abysmal faring in the Eurovision Song Contest, on a ‘Screw You EU’ contest of his own. If the ESC can be much ado about, well something else entirely, apologies to the bard, he can have a referendum on similar lines. Ostensibly aimed at garnering the public’s once and for all decision on in or out, in ESC terms the songs, he had two very different motives. I mean when was the last time you heard a politician interested in what we think? One was to message the anti EU section of his own party to, “Shut the fuck up!” and the other to put the fear of God into other EU member states to reform the out of touch central committee, i.e. re the ESC the politics. And it may be working. Already Michael Gove has muted he might quit politics to raise his own family of snails in Shropshire and in this morning’s news France are thinking of having a ‘Screw You EU’ Frexit of its own. It’s all very therapy. It’s not enough to talk about wanting to change, it’s about getting off one’s arse and making change happen. So it’s all very difficult And just like Australia is now for some unknown reason in the ESC I suspect the EU’s enlargement plans are more about empire building than any rational beneficial expansion. The real and obvious truth is the moral of the English public has been broken by lies and corrupted truths on all sides. It’s not that we can’t see light at either end of the tunnel, it’s that we’re in the tunnel in a sort of old age demensure. The mother of all parliaments has become senile. A referendum about a youthful reinvigoration of our own parliament, now that would be worth voting for.

Free Radicals.

A Muslim man kills 49 because the internet said so. ISIS propaganda gave him permission and the local gun store sold him the equipment. It’s all worryingly similar to my recent purchase of a Hitachi cordless drill from Screwfix. The only difference being marketing good, propaganda bad, but they’re pretty well the same side of the same coin. I begin to wonder, am I giving up my decision making to Google’s algorithms of what’s right for me? But then Google is far more benign than Islamic terrorists- because we live in a western democracy don’t we: Sorry, don’t we? Try Googling ‘California election fraud.’ Apparently California uses electronic voting machines. You press your voting button and it adds them all up and provides a result. They are guarded by men who understand this complex mathematical process. But when candidate Susan Bernecker asked to see them in the ‘90s she was amazed to find that on every machine 4 out of every 5 votes for her were being registered to her opponent. It appears the mathematics was more complex than simple addition on what might well be re-purposed one-arm-bandits. One can imagine the good old fashioned sales pitch, “So how much would you like to win the election by?” It appears allegedly that this and other ruses have been used by the Clinton camp to ‘adjust’ Bernie Saunders substantial poll lead into a substantial election win for Clinton. It appears ISIS aren’t the only radicals around, but at least no one died. Well apart from the democratic process.

My Silly Quiz.

My last music quiz is now Ale House folklore for being both a shocking waste of 50p and/or a wee-inducing comedy. As I find music facts, even the few I know, terminally boring my basic aim is mayhem because presiding over chaos is an absolute joy. Chaotic fun may seem trivial but it has great significance. It’s the reason for several thousand years of alcohol consumption and its ubiquitous cure for woes. So for me presiding over chaotic fun is providing possibly the greatest human lesson, how to experience carefree delight whilst still being able to pass a breathalyser test. It’s a much overlooked and underrated therapeutic modality. In my mind it’s like conducting a disorderly orchestra whilst providing silly melodies for them all to improvise on. And with provocation and permission each instrument finds its voice. It’s a skill that would greatly improve any political leader. A couple, long time absent after being banned, looked on bemused as if deeply rearranging their concepts of permissible behaviour. But it’s simply opening up the farcicality of our mutual existence. We’re all Bottoms in our own midsummer night’s dream having donned an ass’s head for a brain that happily takes life too seriously. It’s not that chaotic fun is a denial of important seriousness but rather important seriousness is the denial of life’s true nature. Of course life is of great consequence requiring bravery, focus, honesty and imagination but nowhere in these is it implicit to be serious. So though my quiz may appear buffoonery, it’s not.  

Daughters & Mothers.

Being male I can only off a different purely experiential perspective. The mother is the relationship hub of the family. Fathers and sons relate indirectly via the mother. They may have a good loving relationship but it somehow feels indirect, at arms length, and mostly via shared interests. Because of this it’s rare males emotionally compete. Mothers pass this relational hub role to daughters but while the daughter/s still at home there’s two hubs when there can only really be one and because women relate directly the result in whatever form is intense. It’s not a simplistic vying for the mother role but to a greater or lesser extent a suffocating tension. Daughters rarely fledge like sons do. There’s always a mother role comparison hidden deep. I find it quite hard to imagine a mother saying, “I’m completely fulfilled with your father sweetheart, I love you but do what the hell you like.” It seems to me this suffocation can rob women, who were all once daughters, of fully-fledged confidence. Men by comparison usually have, whether well founded or not, a certain confidence in themselves as a person. Most parental relationships aren’t perfect mostly because the husband does not fulfil his wife but that’s not the same as blaming patriarchy in general but individual masculine development failing to acquire enough feminine energy just as feminine development can fail to acquire masculine energy. I suspect a lack of the arms length masculine relational energy is the fundamental cause of mother/daughter suffocation.