War like Water.

The speaker began. “When I was a kid I dammed streams in a field by my parents house. I was maybe five. The earth was sandy, you could build dams pretty quick and form little pools but as the level rose the sand gave way and whoosh. When one country decides to invade another they move troops to the border and in response the other country does the same. Rising pressure is contained by a damming resistance all ready for a fight. I noticed the bigger the dam the greater the flood when it broke, and it always broke in the end. If I didn’t build a dam the water just trickled on through. So now I’m thinking a fight is caused as much be resistance as it is aggression. It made me wonder, what if there was no resistance?” The audience buzzed with thoughts of capitulation. “What percentage of a population are in the army? Typically it’s around 0.4%. In the UK, population 65 million, there’s 120 thousand; that’s 0.2%. So if a country invaded a similar sized country in a fight they, being prepared, would have the advantage of slightly more armed troops but if they entered unopposed they would simply advance and disperse through the whole country. Each armed man would have to control around 300 people. In a foreign country and only trained to fight how would they fair? Could 30 thousand troops control London sustainably? In the countryside could one man control a village of 300 people, be supplied, not feel lonely, not succumb to going native? I’m suggesting the aggressor country fundamentally relies on the defending country to resist in order for them to win and take it over. If that country didn’t put up any resistance they would be so far stretched it would be impossible to have and sustain enough troops to run it. They would trickle on through like the water in my stream and dissipate all their efforts in a futile exercise.” A voice from the audience said it didn’t work in WWll. “That’s not strictly true. Every invaded country put up a fight of some kind, the resistance in France for example. That resistance allowed the Germans to retaliate brutally and subdue the population. They did form a government with the help of collaborators but again this caused a fracture in the population leading to resistance. Admittedly the 6 million German Jews put up no resistance and were slaughtered but a fair proportion of the 69 million German population was negative towards them so that situation is not representative of what I’m suggesting here. I’m suggesting that unopposed a 100 thousand troops would advance so quickly throughout a country it would be a logistical impossibility to supply them, and unopposed they would wonder what they were supposed to do and why they were doing it. They wouldn’t have the intent or
kudos of a conquering army. In time they would simply go home back to the town they knew and their loved ones. It would be like the hundreds of thousands of tourists that invade Greece every year. Sure it would be brave to allow this to happen but if I’m proved right it would be the end of territorial wars.” My friend turned and whispered with a smile, “The man’s crazy.”

Brexfix.

You know what a divorce is like. You have at best half of what you had before, conveniently forgetting it never was all yours in the first place, and lets face it no one is exactly feeling generous when it’s going down. Then there’s those soliciting people to pay, what are they called? Ah yes solicitors; what was I thinking. And alimony, which is something like paying for the right not to drive your own car. And then there’s friends. These osmotically divide into yours and hers. If as usually happens they are all her family and friends you’re left with Jim your drinking partner and Simon who you’ve never really liked anyway. And finally from experience the one who wanted the divorce in the first place often comes off worst. If the reason this unhappy turn of events was because you didn’t like the in-laws overstaying their welcome, even though they were terribly useful around the house, then you have Brexit in a nutshell. We will have to pay nearly £1,000 per man, woman and child in alimony, god knows what in legal fees, Europe will be mean to us and all our old friends are more friends with Europe than us. Theresa May is reduced to hold hands with Trump, drinking with Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan, and is probably considering a middle-aged boys fun weekend in Prague with Kim Jong-un. We will all go into a morose decline eating takeaways and watching re-runs of Top Gear bleating, “eeh they could never replace Jeremy Clarkson” and spending our weekends, port in hand, sobbing over the condition of our 1973 Vauxhall Victor, still unable to admit “they don’t make ‘em like that nowadays” because they were shit in the first place. And, though we’d never admit it, be thinking Aunty Joan was, well preferable to Brenda in many ways and made the most amazing meat and potato pies. If only we could Fexit.

ET and Baldness.

As you know ET was hairless, at least the bits of him caught on film. Likewise NASA’s secret internet extraterrestrials. There are even ancient myths that the extraordinary evolution of the human race is in some way a result of extraterrestrial contact. Being staunchly working class I lean towards the baldness explanation. Imagine you are an ape, a monkey or Orangeman covered in hair happily picking nits from your other family members and popping them in your mouth for extra nutrition. You’re warm and good-looking according to the social norms of all the other hairy apes. And then one fateful day there’s an outbreak of alopecia. Bam! overnight you’re all hairless, not only cold you feel ashamed in glossy coated company. You develop a massive inferiority complex. In desperation you slink away and seek a fire to keep warm then figure out how to keep it going and eventually make it. This necessity becomes the mother of an inventive mind. Pretty soon you’re making tools and roller skates and stuff and finding a new use for the skins of all the animals you’ve eaten. After the initial shock this isn’t turning out too bad but you’re still holding a grudge against all those little shites who made fun of you. You progress. You begin to look down on all the animals that haven’t had that necessity thrust upon them and haven’t upgraded to your new outlook on life. You domesticate them, cage them but somewhere deep inside you wish you weren’t an outcast, you wish you could still be in your natural place. You evolve to solve every conceivable puzzle, find the answers to everything, but at every turn that inferiority complex bugs you. It’s summed up in the Eagles lyric, “Who will form the grand design, of what is yours and what is mine?”  I’m looking forward to the day we lose it. Oh and I may be wrong about the roller skates. 

Lime Plaster.

Did you know cement, gypsum plaster and acrylic paints cause damp in older houses? And that lime mortar and plaster, clay and linseed based paints solve a damp problem, and there’s no such thing as ‘rising damp’? My beliefs were re-written last night after a short read. Apparently the first lot create a barrier to moisture, which my poor understanding figured was a good thing, and the second lot are permeable. This permeability allows moisture to breath in and out of walls naturally whereas an impermeable barrier causes moisture to build up behind it. Being stuck there with no means of escape it causes damp. The expert who wrote the article was quite exercised by a whole industry created to ‘solve’ damp problems by these widely held misunderstandings. Excessive water ingress as with my current problem will cause damp but these are usually obvious structural faults often easily fixed. My father in law had three builders fail to overcome damp when it was obvious it was caused by a broken down pipe, a half hour job to fix, and their remedies, using concrete, gypsum plaster and an injection DPC might actually add to the problem. As I struggle to relate this to Donald Trump all I can come up with is that democracy must be allowed to breath and his administration shows all the signs of creating an impermeable layer and the US is getting damper by the week. 

DT Transcript.

Hello I’m Julie. Obviously I know your public persona but here you have a chance to be simply Donald. Is that OK? / nod / Does that possibility excite you? / Look they told me to come see you. They think you might .. / Go on / … / Well ‘they’re not here and I don’t change people. What do you, Donald, want to get from this? / Me? What do I want? Hell I’ve got all I want, money, beautiful wife and now I’m P.. / but behind all those acquisitions, what does that Donald want? Your internal dialogue if you will / Well all the things I’ve got. Julie I got all those things, I deserve them, and they loved me on Apprentice, I was like a king on that show and … / and now you are it’s all different / Right, exactly / Why do you think that is? / You know I’ve always been able to get people to do what I want, it’s a natural ability. Ever since I was a kid, my parents, my school. I got all the girls you know, I was real handsome back then, then starting out in business and all the way through to the Apprentice people did what I wanted. I wanted the Presidency, I got it / Do you see any pattern there? / Of course, it’s obvious / No a different pattern. If I may you’ve always started out with the power over people. Your parents because they wanted the best for you, girls because you were handsome, boys because you could beat them up, business partners because you had the money and the Apprentice because; well it’s in the script. And now you’re dealing with people you don’t have power over. Is that right? / What are you saying? / Well I’m asking you do you have any experience of dealing with people who you didn’t have some natural, some might say privileged advantage over? Imagine you meet a complete stranger and for some reason you have to spend a week with them in a log cabin somewhere. How would it go? / You mean a nobody, an average Jo / OK / I’d shmooze him and if he didn’t come round I’d kick the crap out of him / Lets say he’s a linebacker for the Patriots, a black Muslim and really intelligent and he really doesn’t like you / Seriously? / nod / I’d find what he’s afraid of, work on his him and sell him a condo / Good. So it’s all about manipulating him to get a result, is that right? OK so he has no fears and he tries to befriend you, he’s a nice guy / Where are you going with this? / Donald I guess I’m trying to see how you would react to a situation ordinary people would see as ‘normal’ / But Julie I’m not normal now am I? / And you say that with a sort of pride right? / Of course / You take pride in being abnormal / Just better / And that ‘better’, that disdain cuts you off from being normal? And now you’ve achieved the ultimate position, the ultimate power, you’re finding the lack of empathy you have for ‘normal’ is somehow causing you sadness. You’ve come to the end of the road you’ve chosen and there’s no satisfaction there. You’ve found your special gift, your feeling of superiority is in fact your Achilles heal / … / How does that feel? / Look I just came here so you’d tell me I’m fine / And are you? 

Trump the Marvellous.

I marvel at Trump. Notice how he says things twice. Every policy statement he made in his speech he said twice. It’s like once consciously out loud and once as an echo of his own internal dialogue. Somehow it becomes more convincing, not because it’s twice but because one feels in the repeat one’s hearing his real thoughts; it’s not just empty rhetoric. Then by defaming everyone important he shows he’s fearless and powerful, and as such he knows things we don’t. And then he openly shows all the tricks he’s pulled in his campaign. Somehow this honesty makes him even more believable. Like a magician who’s duped his audience with some slight of hand and explained it it deserves twice the applause. He appears thus frank, honest, fearless, powerful and knowing; what more could you want in your leader? On the other hand he employs cheap verbal tricks, he shoots off at the mouth without consideration, shows no honouring of others and just says what you want to hear without any thought of achieving it. He will simply retract it later when he’s got what he wants. If he’s written the book on manipulation he’s almost certainly manipulating me so he must be the worst leader one can imagine. Such is the American divide. One side must come to terms with their own gullibility, the other with their own vacuity. Since the fifties our watching of entertainment has increase from 2 hours per week to forty plus, an increase of 2,000%. It’s no wonder we view reality as entertainment. But in reality when we stop liking the program we can’t just lean forward and turn it off. 

Open Sensitive Receiver.

Last night, 11.45pm, I snuggled into bed and turned on my little radio. Three women are describing how sleep depravation is ruining their lies. That’s the equivalent of watching an episode Bear Grills before embarking on a weekend’s camping in the Lake District. I’m sure it’ll be fine, no really it will be, trust me, snakebites and frostbite are rare in Ambleside. So I turned off the radio and employed my trusty method of entering the wonderful kingdom of nod. In the dark with one’s eyes closed one might assume one sees perfect blackness. Not so, after acclimatising to the near black one begins to perceive ever-changing shades and shapes. They’re probably remnants of nondescript mental activity. Anyway I begin to watch avidly for something meaningful or at least recognisable as one might an avant-garde art house movie. As a sound track I focus on the sound of my breath. With complete focus conscious deliberations are purged as if by a conscientious cinema usher with a flashlight. The screen shifts, a swirl, a shape, they meld, merge, separate and reshape. Often I see a face then more faces melding one to another but no one I recognise. And so it goes on until I can only presume I enter the realm of Nodsville. Once whilst camping I saw a vivid picture of flames coming from a rectangle, so vivid and specific I got up and looked for a fire believing it a possible premonition. Nothing. I rejoined my friend Liz who explained she’d just stopped a young guy pouring firelighter fluid into the hot rectangular mouth of a giant wood burning stove and preventing a nasty accident. What I’d seen was Liz’s imaginary picture of what could have happened. Spooky but I digress. I guess it’s all an arty version of counting sheep. But I’m left with, ‘how did Liz’s startled imagination transmit itself into my technicolour image some 40 meters away, half asleep and behind a tent?’ Could the dim faces, scenes and brief movies be weaker signals from other people? After that vivid example I think so. That would mean we’re all mind connected, however dimly in the normal run of things. It doesn’t seem much use to be honest except to realise the conditions necessary for one to be an open sensitive receiver.