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. 

UK Corruption.

After hours of struggling to define corruption I think it is, ‘a fish swimming backwards.’ Obviously fish are too smart to attempt this but if they did they’d find all their scales that help them swim forwards would flay out and make a thousand little brakes, like teazels that go in but won’t come out. In corruption the thousand facets of effective human interaction become points of jagged resistance. Using this analogy the UK is a hot bed of corruption and its futile activity of coercion. Cameron may comment about Nigeria and Afghanistan corruption but at home he’s presiding over an unprecedented expansion of a more sinister form. In every aspect of education for example every participant, students, teachers, lecturers, parents and future employers are bristling with stress and anger from record levels of coercion. And coercion in academia just as in Nigeria is the active ingredient of corruption. It forces stress down the power structure and rewards, i.e. money, up it, and like the teasel it only goes one way. But more importantly coercion corrupts effectiveness hugely as in the fish swimming, or in this case being pulled, backwards, and once this paradigm sets in ineffectiveness obviously requires more pulling, which in turn leads to even less effectiveness. It must be very confusing to the likes of Nicky Morgan that whatever she does things get worse. It’s simple dear, just consider a fish swimming backwards.

A Children's Fire rain cover.

During dance ceremonies with a Children’s Fire it can rain. Many years as a DS has brought this fact to my attention. So here’s a cheap and pretty easy to make rain cover for the Children’s Fire  designed to go up and down quickly and fold to the size of a large umbrella for storage. You’ll need 6 hazel branches, a 1.1m square fire blanket (~$12), ~8m guy rope, 50cm of cloth tape, 4 nails, 4 eyelets and 4 tent pegs, and a cup of tea if you’re English.

If it looks like rain lay it out on the ground as in the diagram. Do a dry run to find the best position for the pegs and leave them in the ground. Unhook the near two guys and fold it back down. You’ll find it’s a bit wibbly-wobbly in the erection phase but when pegged down it’s quite stable. Best to hold the guys as wide as possible to stabilise it. The blanket will turn slightly brown in the centre but that’s fine.

To make Child’s fire rain cover.

  

1- cut 2 pairs of stout hazel poles  95 cm and 125 cm long by 2-3 cm diameter.

2- drill holes 2 cm from both ends to take string.

3- buy a 1.2 m square fibreglass fire blanket (~$12) and 4+ tent pegs.

4- fold over two opposite edges 5 cm and sew along to make a tube. (pref with a zigzag stitch) Fibre glass fabric frays very easily!

5- insert two thin hazel poles 1 cm dia by 1m long into tubes. These will become front and back edges.

6- on the outside ends of these poles wrap cloth tape around the ends and sew onto fibreglass to make a sandwich  and make a button hole or use an eyelet through.

7- tie together the thick ends of each long and short pair of poles to make a hinge.

8- nail (big headed) through each corner button hole into the thinner ends, front edge to the two long poles and back edge to two short ones. Use a large washer to stop cover coming off if necessary.

9- tie a length of guy rope round the nails of one side to match the length of the extended blanket plus 2 m at either end.

10- measure approx 1.5 m along the front guys and 1 m along the back ones and form loops for pegs.

11- That’s the cover completed, but as it is it won’t fold up, so look at where the back edge pole must be broken for it to fold and snap it there. The whole thing should then fold into a roll for storage. 

12- test it out and practice putting it up and down. There’s a bit of a knack to it but it comes easily.

Palestine in Lancs.

Imagine the history of Palestine played out in Lancashire. Seventy years ago there’s an influx of migrants into Lancashire fleeing Russian and European repression. After several years they become a significant minority. They organise and simply declare themselves an independent migrant state within England. The US president recognises it and US dollars provide it with arms when the English retaliate. There’s fighting until the UN recognises the new state and boarders are drawn. More migrants come and the new legitimate state expands into Cheshire and parts of Yorkshire. The English are incensed by this intrusion into our country but our economy is poor and we can only afford inferior weapons. The migrants build a wall to keep us out and ‘legally’ persecute the English ‘rebels’ in other counties killing many innocent children and civilians. This is what it feels like to be a Palestinian. 

Leicester-Austerity.

This morning where I volunteer we had a morning reading and sang a hymn. Steven read us the virtues of Jesus and asked how we might live up to his example and the hymn followed in a similar vein. I was suddenly struck by the thought that this aspect of religion is a form of repression. I mean we might attempt supporting the homeless and stuff, but he saved the world! How are we supposed to do that? Now I think well actually he didn’t, he travelled around being good to people and talking beautifully about life, and we can all try to do that. And the repression was from someone along the line bigging him up so much that we normals just feel terminally inadequate and that’s a bit of a downer. But then feeling terminally inadequate means we’re unlikely to get big ideas that we can change things. No, when we’re all insignificant failures we’d best just keep our heads down and follow whoever’s leading. That’s why it’s so brilliant Leicester winning the league. They didn’t have Man City’s cash or Chelsea’s star players they started the season as the terminally inadequate. Then slowly Claudio Raniari taught them they weren’t. They found they could be fierce, focused, play freely and win matches. It’s become a miracle that nobody can quite believe has happened. And all because of attitude, no mega bucks, no PR spin, no star egos, no double speak platitudes just permission to play wonderfully. In the face of our burden of austerity under the repression of the all mighty (Conservatives) Leicester showed us how to be wonderful. And that my friend is the true message of Jesus, before the establishment got its hands on it. Just be amazing and enjoy it. Simples, chiqk.