Coronavirus at Bedtime.

Fans of Dr Who will immediately recognise Coronavirus is an alien invasion. Its intergalactic advantage is that none of us can remember what we did in the last two weeks except of course if you were on a cruise. But there’s no doubt about it, Coronavirus is out to infect all of us given the chance. It’s strange to realise that such a dumb life form can have the malicious intent of a Bond villain but basically, it’s us or them. They can’t survive without us and, as they see it, a few humans deceasing prematurely is a small price to pay. So it’s our capacity to organise ourselves against their capacity to sneak across handshakes and sneezes that immediately disappear into the fog of history. And we mix and move like never before. I mean if we were all required to walk for a month things would be a lot simpler, and, in the vein of more helpful suggestions, if we were all issued with a forehead patch that changed colour when we were the least bit feverish. Identified carriers could hand in their phone to show where they’d been. But as we’re told simple things like not shaking hands, sneezing into tissues etc are the best ways of stopping transmission; if only we would think about it at the time, not the next time we watch the news! And why oh why doesn’t the government post a precise case by case map of the UK posted daily showing new ones dark blue and fading out to older ones? This ‘at a glance’ information will galvanise people at real risk to take precautions. With 4 in the whole of Wales and 51 in London it’s obvious who needs to wash hands most. And when a new one appears at 52 Tally Bont Street, Aberystwyth, who’s visited there from, say London? With the public mind informed it can organise itself but our government, seeing us as children, only placates us, assumes it knows better and keeps us in the dark assuming we’ll throw a tantrum like a two-year-old. As with all our other problems our PM’s advice to cabinet has been, “Tell them a bedtime story.”

The Prophet in Pakistan.

The case against blasphemy. The crowd was inflamed by the robed High Cleric, and calling for the young girl accused of blasphemy to be beheaded. Then a voice was heard from the crowd, “Is not the Prophet the highest, most wise and powerful amongst us?” The crowd cheered. “Am I by comparison an insignificant mortal human?” The crowd cheered again. “Am I not fit to touch the hem of his garments?” The crowd didn’t know this man but he must surely also be a cleric to debase himself so at the feet of his Prophet. Sensing the crowd was behind him the High cleric offered the man the microphone. Both men smiled and the man continued. “Who amongst us would commit blasphemy?” The crowd moaned negatively. “Who amongst us would not fight to defend the most wise and powerful?” He waited for the renewed cheers to die down. “And yet what might the Prophet think of our actions”, he paused, “when he is far wiser than us and far more powerful? Does it not dishonour him for us to consider he needs our paltry weak and ignorant help to succeed? Which one of us would truly feel the need of support from a paltry, infirmed beggar to achieve his success? And if that beggar took great pride in his insignificant actions to claim our success for himself would we not feel greatly aggrieved?” The crowd fell silent unsure where this was going. “We are followers of a great prophet who achieved great things and are we here like that beggar to claim his successes for ourselves; that without our defence the wise and most powerful would fail? Surely Allah is greatly aggrieved by such insolence.” The crowd became restless. This was not what they wanted to hear. The High cleric grabbed the mic back. “But the prophet is dead and we now are the living body of Islam. We alone can defend his name.” The man answered, “True. As you say you are defending his name. But what is that? Is what you believe in simply a name? If you honoured me would you defend my name or my way of being, my wisdom, joy and humility? Am I nothing because you don’t know my name? And if you knew it would that be most important? Would Allah in his wisdom be threatened by the words of a child and demand she be put to death? Would his wisdom countenance such a vicious retaliation believing his feelings were hurt? It is you who forget his greatness and in that forgetting are defaming the honour of our prophet, usurping it to the uses of your own ego’s paltry honour.” The crow murmured. “And are you not now offended by what I say and, in your mind, trying to invent some reason to dismiss me and consider me also blasphemous?” The crowd fell silent. “Brothers we must live by the wisdom of our prophet, his kindness, understanding, charity and love not commit sins of vengeance, brutality and hate in his name.” The man sat down. He was never seen again.

Zero emissions part 1

Our street is almost full of parked cars at night and roughly 50% full during the day. So ~40% are used daily and 50% are used for used intermittently for frequent short or rare long trips. A high proportion of the 40% used daily are for short trips to work and back. There are near 26 million cars licenced in England. So roughly two thirds of the 50% (35%) and three quarters of the 40% (30%), i.e.65%. are not in use at any one time so a comprehensive taxi service could cover all private car usage making 50 to 70% of private cars obsolete, i.e. ~15 million, an overall value saving of very roughly £400 billion. (the cost of buying and running a private car) But this doesn’t cut the overall emissions of all car journeys. If though a proportion of these saving were spent on electric taxis and busses to cover the actual 35% car usage, (100%-65%) we could get to zero emissions by making 2.4 million electric cars as opposed to 26 million. And if bus services were upgraded to provide say 50% of this mileage and a bus carries say 6 car loads this would need 1.2 million electric taxis and 200,000 busses. The conversion to electric of 1.2m taxi cars as opposed to 26m private one’s will be far quicker and save several hundred billion in private expenditure. Yes we would lose our own private car parked out front but gain clear streets. Yes we would pay for taxis but save all the hassle and expense of owning a car. Yes we might walk a bit more but that’s good. And yes there would be zero emissions and that’s good too.

Win7exit.

Forget getting Brexit done this Christmas we have to get Win7ext done after clinging onto it for as long as possible. Daunting. With the help of a friend I got a laptop converted to Lynux Mint; pretty simple and fast. And it’s lovely, clean simple and fast, so happy there. But for my desktop I needed Windows so installed 10. It’s still free if you have a bona fide Win7 installed. But it took hours in fact days including the failed attempts, and it’s slow, a nag compared to Lynux. Then needed a new MS Office 2019 to replace my 2000 version. £9.87 on Amazon for life compared to their new yearly subscription 365. Deal! Again slow, bloated and submerged in features one rarely needs. Basically computers are now designed for people who don’t really use computers especially the Win10 start menu. (get Classic from Ninite) Then Sonar6 stopped working (not bona fide) so got Sonar8 second hand for £12, coming soon so hope it works. The only consolation from this up(down)grade is I’ve saved over £500 in new price software which is kind of a result.

Climate Change Negotiations.

It’s evident to some but not all that climate change may threaten our world and our existence on it. In negotiations to mitigate its effects countries take different stances. Some have already taken action while others are either in denial or don’t want to lose out in the scrum for power and economic advantage but if all were convinced of impending world demise power and economic advantage would be of zero significance. So how can we create a framework for these negotiations that harmonises these different points of view?

            When some see the possibility and want to move fast while others don’t and see an advantage in moving slowly the process is governed by the slowest, which might in the long run be too slow. So what to do?

            There seems a need to level the playing field between the two such that all are motivated to the same degree independent of their stance whilst remaining free to choose their course of action. One such levelling would be to structure a framework whereby prompt action is rewarded and slow action incurs a cost. You can choose but by increasing the possible jeopardy of the whole by moving slowly one incurs a cost.

            Climate change already has a history of some twenty to thirty years. In that time science has established a timeline to possible extinction that is currently still deniable. If these predictions are true there will come a point where denial becomes unsustainable, where to cling to it becomes patent insanity. This point of no return I’ll call the hinge point. Before this point actions are rewarded and beyond it the then undeniably necessary actions must be done but also incur a penalty for their lateness. But it remains open to all to choose the time and extent of their actions dependant on their beliefs either before or after the chosen hinge point.

            As a suggestion the hinge point might be agreed to be say 2035.

            In the first instance to create this framework each country is required to contribute to an action fund possibly per head of population. Going forward drawing from the fund to take action will include a timing multiplier. This would be an agreed multiplying factor dependant on timing that governs the size of the withdrawal relative to the contribution. As an example this factor might vary from 200% for immediate action to 100% at the hinge point to a percentage less than 100% thereafter. Thus early actors would gain and late actors lose out. At the chosen hinge point on or close to the point of undeniability late actors would have to take action but with less funds available to mitigate their situation.

            With this framework clearly laid out there will be, prior to the hinge point, growing social pressure on the government of each country to act quickly. Governments will still be free to act as they believe but under the growing realisation that late action will have negative consequences ‘if’ their beliefs prove wrong. At no point though is any government restricted in its chosen course of action. 

Boris the Pizza Delivery Guy.

The only positive out of all this is Boris now has more than enough rope to hang himself. After Corbyn lost the narrative, (he doesn’t even understand the concept), he was more like a bank manager attempting an open mic stand up contest against Tommy Cooper. “I have a document here that…” against, “Just like that, hahaha”, or a computer expert explaining how to get rid of a Windows ‘Error code: 8000327’ to 99.9% of the public. Maybe Dom Cummings even got the power of the three-word narrative from Tommy. Even ‘You’re a twat’ would have percolate better into our language than some fully costed squirrel training policy. So here we are on Friday the 13^th chanting we got Brexit done, ‘we did it!’ We finally got the baby out of the bathwater by smashing the fucking bath to bits. (new one on back order because it’s made in Belgium) but does Boris, our real live Pinocchio, have the promises to keep the baby warm? Well yes but delivery is another matter. Like Chamberlain Boris’s successes aren’t worth the waved note they’re printed on. He will succeed by capitulation, which isn’t a difficult prediction to make because on its own the UK has as much clout on the world stage as say Wales. Maybe our only hope is the Conservative Party. It’s still split and it may recognise which side its electorate bread is buttered. Even in the midst of this success it’s still prone to the biggest backlash since the end of WWII. Its progress to the 2020 cut off and an EU trade deal is far from a shoe in and a quick US trade deal will be straight out of the disaster politics playbook. So will Boris break the habit of a lifetime and deliver and/or will the Labour Party find an Obama type leader who can deliver a three word narrative like, “Just like that, hahaha”? For some strange reason I feel far more optimistic than I thought I would, due in no small part to the size of Corbyn’s disastrous defeat. 

The NHS Dustbin.

Four million Americans are personally bankrupted by medical bills. With  $10,000 for the birth of a child, as is likely under Boris, I imagine most of us would be in the same boat. But that’s not the point here. Since 2010 the demands on the NHS have skyrocketed. This has been put down to us getting older and OK living longer. But that run up to our universal final option, death, hasn’t changed that much. You’re healthy, your body gives up and you die but I feel there’s something else contributing to this rise in demand. In those ten years after 2010 (financial crisis and Conservative austerity) our whole life cycle as changed. Kids have poorer education, don’t have opportunities and throughout their working lives get stressed and depressed; homelessness and food banks etc etc.  All of this contributes to ill health, not in our last days but throughout the sixty years of our adult life. I suspect this harmful social malaise expresses itself in a myriad of physical illnesses. Put any organism under pressure and it will get ill. On holiday in Greece we’ve had to see a doctor twice. Once a home visit, doctor arrived in an hour and the other time his waiting room was empty and he treated Mothermouse on the spot with all the time in the world. Contrast that with trying to see a doctor in the UK. It’s like a high-pressure production line. It’s not inefficiency it’s that we’re all getting ill far more often due to a sick society. It’s not about throwing money at the NHS it’s because the NHS has become the dustbin of our sick society. If we address that the NHS crisis will melt away. AND we’ll all feel a lot happier to!