The Truth.

True Camoron now has a slim majority, but even amphetamines won’t keep the whips awake for five years, so why the capitulation? And why have Miliband, Clegg and Farage resigned without the usual ‘we’ll fight on in opposition’ speeches? I mean was Clegg shown in an empty car park and presented with a worm-ridden hedgehog stage-managed? Did Miliband fall off the plinth on purpose and get his aids to punch him in the face to maintain the slant, Farage’s men promise to shoot their opposing candidate and all their other gaffs for a reason? Is there something they’re not telling us? I mean what if they know there’s an ISIS bomb in the Mace and it’s begun ticking, or the SNP has two thousand angry Glaswegian shipbuilders set to invade Westminster, or are banking on five more years of austerity putting an end to the Conservatives forever. Has Camoron threatened them with his own resignation in favour of Boris, or worse Gove if he didn’t get a majority? Could you spend five years sitting opposite either without secretly taking a shotgun into work and getting life? An attractive thought but risky. Has Murdoch offered them a job presenting Sky’s new reality show, ‘I’m a LibDem get me out of here’? It makes you think doesn’t it? I mean ITV’s already got Paxman doing stand-up. Has Putin booby trapped No 10 or put polonium in the sandwiches? Or has he sold Camoron the secrets of how to create a one party system?

The Result.

Well we treated it as a joke and we got a joke. There’s never been such a mass un-think since the late 30’s in Germany. Then again we’ve been given nothing to think about apart from trivia and a smoke screen of numbers and ridicule. If anything the cheap joke crowd have won it for the Bullingdon Club simply because their genetic, unshakable confidence is impervious to slapstick. It’s as if Murdoch’s now employing comedians instead of journalists because he’s found cheap jokes are more powerful than investigative reporting. You only have to count the numbers of laughs we got from the party leaders to predict the outcome, Sturgeon nill, Cameron negligible, Miliband lots, Clegg even more, and for all his comedic value even Farage wasn’t slandered much by comedy. In the light of the SNP landslide is UK politics becoming zonal? I mean if I was Welsh I’d definitely be aiming for a Plaid Cymru landslide, or if Cornish voting for ‘The Sticky out Bit Party’, and might there then be an opening for ‘The North’ party? Appealing isn’t it. I mean it would leave London with less than a hundred seats that even in coalition with the home countries couldn’t form a majority. And lets face it the left/right political paradigm is well past its sell by date. Perhaps then this parochial politics will give rise to a new sort of candidate who’s allegiance is local rather than Westminster-centric, who’re chosen for their individual quality rather than being able to ya-boo on one way or the other. I’m reminded of a Chinese official who commented that ‘in China we choose on ability. Your British politicians would not stand a chance in China’, and from my days in industry where the marketing department didn’t have a clue; they just knew how to make bad things look good. And that’s what we’ve got, bad politicians that look good. Well today anyway.

Boxed in Penis Pain.

Twill shortly be fitting a new bathroom in a 1970’s house. What is it with these people? Everyone knows taps don’t ‘make’ water and loos don’t vaporise wee and poo into an alternative dimension, they’re all connected by pipes to the supply and the sewage system, yet the sight of a naked pipe is as much an anathema as seeing Gandhi’s genitals when his toga or whatever it is is blown skyward like Marilyn Munroe’s dress. Where in old houses waste and soil pipes are on the outside showing a pride of purpose the designers of this 70’s house boxed them in on the inside hoping to prove to anyone stupid enough to believe that they don’t exist. And I’m guessing even now if I leave a visible pipe anywhere it will require boxing in. Good pipe work is a thing of beauty people and hiding them is a plumber’s pain in the pants. I wanted to say arse but it didn’t begin with p, perhaps penis. It’s a form of denial that’s a sure sign of decadence. It’s like covering your arse-wipe paper with a hand knitted tea cosy. But I guess it’s age. I mean when you’re young your insistence on there actually being a good life overrides any realisation of reality with your favourite beliefs whereas when you’re old and heading for incontinence reality dawns and niceties appear as strange as owning a camel. Hay hoe boxing it is then and bugger the plumber’s penis. Oh and as I'm getting a surprising number of reads in Russia I'd love it one of you could post a comment so i know you're a real person. Thanks.

Human Hearts Lawyer.

OK it should be ‘Rights’ but that’s how it came into my mind and it seems apt. Anyway this crew cut HRL on TED knocked me sideways. Probably the crew cut; it’s hard watching a marine get emotional. Apparently the millions in official poverty, 1$ a day, have fallen considerably but only because it’s not risen with inflation. Allow for that and there’s been no change. So you could say our millions in foreign aid has achieved one thing, inflation. But that’s not what knocked me. His experiences have led him to realise the poor are created by violence. Not wars or racial conflict etc, though there’s enough of them, but day to day violence because there’s no rule of law. Slavery, rape, daily theft and brutality are committed with impunity because there’s no effective policing. The poor have no redress against the violence inflicted on them, and it is this that causes poverty and for the poor to be and remain poor. With the rich being able to afford private security any trickle down effect is not of wealth but violence. What knocked me was our human lack of compassion. Have we really been afforded our greater intellect to create insularity, given free will to create brutality? All animals become brutal when starving or without territory or mate but when satiated they’re not. Are we then the only species incapable of being satiated, who can neglect the plight of the poor for a private yacht or a new bathroom? All the above may have happened in far away Africa but when a woman in Cleveland (USA) phoned the police to say a man was breaking in to rape her and got the reply, “sorry our police don’t work on the weekend, try asking him to go away”, and was raped because of public spending cuts it’s closer to home than we might think. Back to his main point, less than 1% of our overseas aid goes to better policing when it’s the major cause of poverty. But why do that when you can afford private security? 

Fresh Prince of Wolverhampton.

Remember the Fresh Prince of Bellaire? Chicago slum kid in trouble with local gangs gets chance to live with his rich uncle in Hollywood? How we laughed at his streetwise antics in the sober middleclass household. He was bright, lively and they were accepting and supportive, and they all lived happily together except for his cousin Carlton who couldn’t get laid. It was all a perfect solution to his problem; just leave the overcrowded poverty and life threatening violence of his home for the sunny suburban pastures of southern California. Luck for him it didn’t include a boat ride. Lucky for them he didn’t have eight hundred brothers and sisters in the same situation. I don’t know if the program was aired in North Africa but it looks like it as many thousands flee the hunger, poverty and violence of Libya, Chad, Syria and Niger etc for the relative opulence of Europe. Whilst it’s true that much of the violence and poverty in Chicago and North Africa is self-inflicted external factors of depravation and exploitation are the root causes. Corruption, both local and multinational, governmental, sectarian and corporate can reduce a region to its knees and provoke a bitter, angry brutality, a winter of discontent, from which all but the brutal must flee. Fine if it’s Will Smith on his own but 100,000’s? With brutality now endemic in the Middle East and North Africa they could double the European population and destabilise us too. We can’t order the various factions to be nice to each other and we can’t pump in aid because it would be used to support the brutal. It seems to me comfort at least allows reflection and tolerance where extreme hardship fosters hardened beliefs, which in turn foster conflict. My only solution is to create oases in the heart of these regions necessarily defended but acting as beacons of ‘how life could be’ with cooperation, goodwill and honest governance and hope that they act as an antibiotic to this disease of brutality. I guess it’s the ‘good guy in the ghetto’ approach; he can change beliefs. 

How to Write Spiritual Fiction.

This non-residential weekend course, 10 till 4pm, £295 + VAT, will cover all you need to know to write your first novel, mostly because you’re not dealing with fact but something far deeper. This allows for great creative scope. The narrator, usually a woman, in her quest for personal growth happens on a like-minded group with a mysterious leader, usually a man. This gender stereotyping though typical is odd because most men aren’t usually drawn to spiritual growth yet always appear as teachers having presumably achieved it, whilst most women searching for it apparently haven’t. Obviously the leader must have deep ancient knowledge of some kind that requires him to speak either obtusely or in simplistic truths, and have dark penetrating eyes capable of looking into one’s soul. This soul vision allows him to delve with complete certainty the recesses of the narrator’s vast unconscious describing memories she can’t remember, deeds she is unaware of doing and thoughts she is oblivious of having. These supernatural powers captivate her as she is drawn back time and time again from her ordinary mundane life. Do remember to put in mundane facts about the narrator; they act as a counterpoint to the supernatural but stay clear of the same about the leader. The reader will not want to know about his leaking toilet, mortgage arrears and illegitimate children. Also remember the narrator must be dumb as shit to begin with with no ideas of her own so as to allow room for the growth. She must be bewildered by the obtuseness and marvel at the simplistic truths as wonderfully succinct and, well true. This raises the question of sex. Most deeply mysterious authoritative men with penetrating eyes have a large libido and it’s up to you how explicit you go with this. It’s probably unwise to go into Fifty Shades territory as it won’t help on the personal growth front to depict the leader as a womanising letch. It’s best left between the lines. Oh look at me giving away all the course material. Still it’s not too late to get the £2 early booking discount. Knowledge like this is priceless. You owe it to yourself. See you there.

Jesus Nailed.

At the risk of boring Mothermouse having explained this aaat lengthhhh the other evening under the influence of wine and a banal radio program that pushed my mental health issues close to breaking point, Jesus was a Buddhist. Following on the heals of my recent revelation that God is Reality a BBC doc makes the case for a different life of Christ. Jesus’s unknown years were spent in Cashmere becoming a mystic and returned at twenty nine to teach the ways of the Buddha. After being nailed to the cross, taken down and put in a cave his friends revived him and before Pilot could grab him again he went back to Cashmere. There he became a revered healer, lived to old age and buried in a tomb that still exists today. If that’s the case Jesus is not in the Arabic or Abrahamic tradition and the New Testament must be seen as having totally different references to the Old Testament not a continuation of it. That would make Mohammed’s references five hundred years later somewhat confusing. Brought up a Christian and making meditative visits to earlier Abrahamic prophets he began another religion based on two different theologies, part Jewish, part Buddhist, one based on an external god, the other on an internal progress towards one’s own supranormal presence. Similarly Christianity is part Buddhism and part Roman Empire that co-opted it for its own reasons of state leaving the original Christians to argue over the best way to organise a piss-up in a brewery. Well at least the Catholics have got that one sorted thanks probably to the pagan influences in Ireland. One thing for sure the origin of suffering is in the mind so best not to think too much. Whatever you choose it won’t be what you think it is.