All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
personal

I didn’t get where I am today…

Just to continue the personal theme here’s another post which has been gestating for a while.
Quite a few years ago, one of the weekend colour supplements ran an interview series under the title “I didn’t get where I am today without …”. Each week it asked the usual celebrity to specify up to six things that had got them where they were.
I was reminded of this recently when I happened across an odd copy of the column (undated and unsourced, which is unlike me) which I had obviously annotated with the view of turning it into a blog post. So here it is.
I didn’t get where I am today without …
K at about 51. Bohemian Parents. OK so there was a lot of covert pressure and controlling in my childhood from my somewhat dysfunctional father (which has screwed me up in many ways) — hence the sad little boy on the right. But my parents’ general bohemianism, and liberal attitudes to things like nudity and sexuality, mean I’m at ease with my body, with nudity and with sexuality. I was encouraged to learn; I was given an environment in which I could investigate anything I wanted; and in which I could develop my own ideas — even if they did clash with my father’s. All of which was made easier as I was a teenager in the swinging 1960s.
2. Religion . That might sound strange coming from someone who is such a confirmed atheist, especially as I was raised as an atheist — certainly agnostic — mainly because of my father’s rebellion against his stifling Baptist upbringing. However like everyone, I suspect, I dabbled in Christianity – joining the Roman Catholic church when a post-graduate, although I soon found it unfulfilling, and even to my mind immoral. I subsequently learnt something about many other religions and belief systems but eventually found none to be necessary and most actively destructive. But this led me to my current philosophies and becoming very much my own person, based on my own understanding of “life, the universe and everything”.
3. Technology. Technology, specifically computing technology, has been central to my working life. I learnt programming as a student, used it as a post-grad and that helped get me an entrée into the IT industry when my dreams of an academic career ran out. My father never forgave me for giving up on academe in favour of the world of commercialism and especially computer technology (of which he deeply disapproved); but to his credit he never tried very hard to dissuade me from it. So I spent almost the whole of my working life in IT — not all of it doing deeply techie stuff, but all there because of the technology. I cannot imagine what I would have spent my life doing without it.
4. Being a Research Student. Many people say that their student days were their formative years, but for me being an undergraduate was really only an extension of school. It is my post-grad days which were my formative years when I made some deep long-lasting friendships, discovered lots about everything and had the time and space to start developing my intellectual skills. And it is this ability to think and be a thorn in peoples’ side that has caused me trouble right throughout my working life. Somehow I managed to get a PhD along the way too; I still don’t know how!
These are the days I would wish to return to, if I had the ability — and I could do it all so much better now!
BackInTheJug
5. Being a Loser. I feel that I have been a loser all my life; and a loner (see again the sad little boy above). I was never a high-flyer at school and was a quiet, shy, scared kid with few friends, especially girl-friends. This continued into my student days when I had a number of conspicuous failures, most notably a long-term relationship which when it failed almost cost me my degree. This continued as a post-grad, culminating in the failure of my academic dreams, in large part due to my idleness.
Was the world of work any better? Not a lot; it too produced a number of conspicuous failures, several of which almost cost me my job – not because of major cock-ups but more by being the wrong sort of guy in the wrong place at the wrong time when things got tough; or because I “tell it like it is” and not how management would like it to be (aka. wrong attitude). And it’s trying to pull away from the wrong guy/wrong place/wrong time scenario that has led me to rise above the many negative influences of my childhood.
Although in all truth I’ve done reasonably well compared with many, all this means I feel I have not done as well as I think I should have, especially given my intellectual ability: in terms of recognition, money, personal fulfilment or impact on society. On the other hand without all those setbacks, and enforced changes of direction, I would not have got to where I am now!

w22
The Wedding Photo, 1979.
L to R: Victor (Best Man), Maeve, Me, Noreen, Margaret, Jilly.

6. Noreen. Noreen and I have been married for almost 35 years. Over any time like that there will be many things which one wouldn’t have done without the support and encouragement of one’s partner. And we’ve been no exception; Noreen has consistently supported what I want to do and on many occasions happily joined in. Without that I would not have done much of what I have.
But Noreen’s effect on where I am now starts even before we married. When we were discussing getting married I was having to change job. I had two job offers: one in west London and the other in Winchester. But Noreen’s job — the job she had always wanted to do — was tied to London; and Winchester would have been a horrible commute. So I chose to take the London job offer rather than force Noreen to give up her cherished job (or have a long, expensive commute); and we’re still in London. Had Noreen and I not been in the throes of shackling ourselves together I likely would have taken the Winchester job — and who knows where that would have led?
There’s another thing for which I have to thank Noreen: she introduced me to Jilly, her best friend from school. Apart from the fact that I had an affair with Jilly (and who wouldn’t!) it was she who introduced me to Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. This sustained me through recovery from glandular fever and so captivated me that, in time, my enthusiasm was translated into a major web resource and into the Anthony Powell Society; 14 years on I remain the Society’s Hon. Secretary. The AP Soc has taken me to interesting places and introduced me to many interesting people; it really has been one of the major influences on my life.
I didn’t get where I am today by being somewhere else.

beliefs, nudism, personal

On Nudity and Naturism

I’ve just added two new pages to my Zen Mischief website.
On Nudity and Naturism — in which I explain my views and why I believe we need to normalise nudity (and sexuality) rather than marginalising and criminalising it.


Nudity and Naturism Quotes — from a wide variety of people; some great and/or good; some ordinary; some unknown.
I’ve been meaning to write these pages for a long while, and today was the day.

words

Word: Aiguillette

Aiguillette
An ornamentation worn by certain military officers consisting of cords with metal tips.

Household_Cavalry

This is a surprisingly recent import from French, with the OED giving the first recorded English usage is 1816.

science

Oddity of the Week: Cat Pawedness

In 2009, scientists at Queen’s University, Belfast published the results of a study on paw preference in cats. When cats are playing with a fishing-rod toy, the scientists found that they were equally likely to use either left or right paw, but when posed with the more complex task of getting food from a glass jar, male cats were found to show a strong preference for using their left paw, while females used their right.


In humans, left-handedness has been associated with the hormone testosterone (which has been used to explain why more men than women are left-handed). Exposure to testosterone has also been shown to result in a female cat changing her paw preference from right to left. Scientists do not yet know why the hormone has this effect, or whether it is testosterone that is responsible for the initial handedness.
From: William Hartston; The Things that Nobody Knows: 501 Mysteries of Life, the Universe and Everything

sexuality, thoughts

Swedish Model

*** Warning — long read ***
So the EU and many governments want to embrace the Swedish model for the regulation of prostitution do they?
Buying and selling sex is not currently illegal in the UK but soliciting, pimping, brothel-keeping and kerb-crawling are all criminal activities. By contrast the Swedish model says that it is legal to sell sexual services but it is illegal to buy them.
The Swedish model is a complete nonsense, for a number of reasons …
1. It is totally illogical. Making the selling of sex legal, but the buying of it illegal just does not make sense. It is like saying that Tesco may sell me a Mars Bar but it is illegal for me to buy one. If we applied this logic to any commodity other than sex the proposal would be laughed out of court as being totally ridiculous.
Moreover, I suggest, It may also be a restraint of trade: I’m legitimately allowed to trade in a commodity but no-one is permitted to engage with me to buy it so I am restrained from carrying on my legitimate business.
2. By criminalising the buying and selling of sex government is attempting to legislate morality and exercise control over private sexual behaviour — which I submit are basically none of their business. Sex workers are human beings and selling sex is their trade. As such sex workers must surely be entitled to the same labour rights as other workers and the same human rights as other people. It is vulnerability, not sex work, which creates victims. (And let us not forget that not all sex workers are prostitutes and not all are female, although the majority probably are.)
No wonder the English Collective of Prostitutes (the nearest UK sex workers have to a trade union) has said:

We are appalled that at a time when benefit cuts and sanctions, lowering wages, increased homelessness and debt are forcing more women, particularly mothers, into prostitution, the best that MPs can come up with is to increase criminalisation. These proposals will further divert police time and resources from investigating rape, trafficking and other violent crimes to policing consenting sex.

3. It doesn’t work. All the criminalisation of either sex workers or clients is going to do is to push sex work further underground, where it becomes prey to abuse and criminal activity.
The argument for the Swedish model is that by attacking the demand to buy sex the sex industry in general, and trafficking in particular, are reduced. However there is no credible research to support the idea that the Swedish Model reduces selling, buying or trafficking. However there is significant research to show that conflating sex work and trafficking is a conscious attempt to prevent people from voluntarily migrating to do sex work. The argument about the reduction in trafficking doesn’t hold water. Evidence shows that the vast majority of the UK’s sex workers are there voluntarily, have not been trafficked, and are not being controlled.
Instead of improving things, a Swedish National Police Board report shows that the policy has driven sex work underground and made sex workers even more vulnerable. It has also lead to an expansion of indoor sex work (OK taking girls off the streets is arguably a good thing): for example, apparently Thai massage parlours offering sexual services in Stockholm increased almost three-fold between 2009 and 2012.
Yes, of course UK law needs to be changed to improve safety for sex workers. In the UK sex workers are forced to work alone because working with anyone else constitutes running a brothel. Working alone dramatically increases the risk of them being subjected to rape, violence, robbery and even murder. Given that 80% of the UK’s female sex workers work indoors, decriminalisation would enable these women to work from premises in teams of two or more which would be safer for them. And the same has to be true for male sex workers as well.
Moreover decriminalising the sale of sex empowers sex workers to use the justice system to seek redress for abuse, violence and discrimination. Removing the threat of criminal penalties would also enable sex workers to work with police to facilitate the enforcement of anti-trafficking laws.
Decriminalisation would also encourage sex workers to have more open access to health, legal and social services. Indeed following the Dutch model licensing of sex workers could go even further by making regular medical check-ups a condition of the licence. And healthier sex workers has to be good for them as well as good for the punters.
4. You can’t regulate an intangible commodity like sex. Basically it is bad law because it is unenforceable.
You can licence the sex workers, but without doing that you cannot regulate sex. People will have sex, even if they aren’t supposed to. And where they’re having sex as a commodity there will be a trade in it. Any two people can go off and have sex and who can tell if money (or other tangible payment) changes hands? The deal doesn’t have to be done in the open; it will happen in a private room somewhere well out of sight of law enforcement’s prying eyes and the tax man. Basically the buying and selling goes underground.
This is no different from the way in which any (black) market works: A is willing to sell commodity Z to B who will pay for it; if this is illegal then it just gets done “under the counter”. This happens in every country; you cannot stop it. The UK currently has a thriving trade in illegally imported (cheap) alcohol and tobacco as well as drugs; during WWII rationing coupons were illegally traded; during the beef crisis, meat was still sold on the bone, but out of sight. They are tangible commodities and the trade can be restricted by confiscating the commodity when discovered. But how do you confiscate sex? It’s like saying that consultancy is illegal — it cannot be enforced. Anyone can talk to (have sex with) anyone and who can tell if money changes hands along the way?
So unless you are prepared to licence sex workers, basically it is a free for all and open to exploitation by any petty (and not so petty) criminal. And ultimately that is bad for everyone. The girls are exploited (or worse) by pimps and open to abuse from the punters; and they can’t do anything about it as they can’t report the abuse. The punters are vulnerable too; they can be fleeced of their money and they have no clue about the health status of the girls. Everyone loses.
5. But it is even wider than this. Sex work challenges our current social and cultural norms — just as homosexuality, illegitimacy, anal sex and even masturbation have done in the not so distant past. As a result we changed the way we thought about those issues. Isn’t it about time that we changed the way we think about sex work too?


So what should we do? We agree that the UK’s sex work laws need to be rationalised and updated.
The ECP and other sex worker rights groups continue to campaign for the introduction of laws similar to those in New Zealand, where sex work is decriminalised and women are allowed to work together in small owner-operated brothels. To me this seems a sensible option; it takes girls off the streets, gives them safety in numbers and permits them the security of being able to have abuse and criminal activity against them investigated by the police. If we were to go further and follow the Dutch model of licensing sex workers then regular medical check-ups can be made a condition of the licence — which has to be good for everyone’s health. Let us not forget too that once permitted and legal, earnings from sex work can be taxed; and what government wouldn’t like more money in its coffers?
How hard is this? Why is the logic so impossible for politicians and law enforcement persons to grasp? Why is this too much to ask?
Wake up guys. Smell the coffee. Stop jerking your knees and start thinking.
——————————
Sources:
Suzi Godson; 10 Things You Need to Know Before You Support the Swedish Model of Sex Work. This is a short, well researched article which cites its references.
Alexandra Topping; Selling sex should be decriminalised but buying it should be illegal, say MPs.

amusements, personal, ramblings

Five Questions, Series 5 #5

I’ve just realised that I never answered the last of the Five Questions in Series 5 that I posed way back at the beginning of the year. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but anyway here at last is that answer.


Question 5:Unicorns or magic carpet as your only form of transport? Why?
That just has to be a magic carpet. It should be much more comfortable a ride and there should be space for others to come along too. Moreover magic carpets probably fly lower, so you can see things along the way.
I assume that unicorns are basically horses. I don’t like horses. To me they are temperamental and untrustworthy beasts. I’ve sat on a horse only once, when I was a kid; it was very scary and bloody uncomfortable. So I can’t imagine being able to cling onto a flying unicorn.
No, the “My Little Pony Club” can have my share of unicorns. I’ll have a magic carpet, thank you!
– oo OO oo –

OK, that concludes Five Questions, Series 5. I’ll do another series in a few months.
Meantime, I would like questions to answer — ask anything and I will see if I can answer it. No promises though ‘cos you really don’t want to know about my … TMIA!

thoughts

We're All Zombies Now

The other day I came across this article on The Zombification of the West. While obviously written from an American perspective, it crystallised for me a number of thoughts which have been covertly buzzing around my mind for some while: basically we have allowed ourselves to be stuffed.
It isn’t quite George Orwell’s 1984, but we’re getting uncomfortably close. Let’s look at some of what the article says.

Slightly more than ten years ago, in the heat of the moment, the West believed a war on terrorism was useful — so, it was prepared to give up civil liberties. Then the crisis hit in 2008. The banks unjustly demanded a bailout and the West passively went along. Today, again, the West in general passively believes the narrative of its secret services in favour of state control. What’s wrong with us? Why do we give up our liberties so easily? And how can we avoid this trend toward authoritarianism?
…
What did Western governments do in recent years to establish justice and ensure domestic tranquillity?

Indeed, what have they done? Basically not a lot. Or as the writer of the article, somewhat cynically, suggests …

Well, first they helped our inner tranquillity by dusting off medieval practices like waterboarding and humiliation; they simply tortured people. Next, they hypnotically repeated the unjust idea that taxpayers, not the unregulated banking sector, were the root cause of our economic problems. And to further our calm, they extended the use of secret evidence; they spied upon us and increased the installation of cameras on every corner of our streets. This process toward possible authoritarianism is still far from over. Somehow, we all seem to accept this McCarthyist paranoia. That highlights the following question: what is going on in the West? Why do we have this uneasiness inside our minds that makes all of this possible?

So what is this new McCarthyism trying to protect us from? Has anyone ever expalined it? Really explained it? No, I thought not. It seems that apart from the nebulous “them”, no-one actually knows!

We lack the time in modern life to reflect on things that are really important to us, like taking up the responsibility to help secure our civil liberties.

It’s the “God makes work for idle hands” approach. Keep us too busy and we don’t have time to think, let alone rebel.

This process of the “zombification of the individual” as one can call it, works something like this: For the past 40 years, we have been dominated by the ideology that people would be happier and more at ease if they were constantly shopping for the best deals. But there’s a catch.
To do that, most people are obliged to spend a lot of time at work. Meanwhile, the time to enjoy the mystery of life — to watch children grow, to develop one’s creativity or to learn oneself — passes.

Or as Clive Hamilton observed: People buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t like.

Most people seem to accept the status quo, give up their dreams and, thereby, their power as well. They accept the downside of materialism as the natural order of things since they’ve come to believe that possession of material goods is what it takes to experience personal fulfilment … welcome to the age of cynicism and decadence, where there is no hope for a more fulfilling future other than “buying stuff” …

OK, yes, I’m guilty of that too, although I am trying to cure myself. Honest I am!

On a psychological level, what our laissez-faire capitalistic system effectively does is construct a social reality that seduces most people into omitting their inner call for personal growth. Thus, they neglect their very own personal responsibility and, consequently, their democratic duties as well.
And so we end up in a situation where most people in the West don’t believe in fighting for civil and economic liberties anymore. They simply can’t imagine that a more humane form of capitalism and democracy is attainable
…
This basically means that there is a whole lot of negative energy out there. However, people are not necessarily aware of their own inner state, especially when, on average, they have less and less time available for contemplation. And above all, it is too big of a taboo to talk openly about these issues.

And as the article goes on to say, this lack of debate is incredibly dangerous. In fact, when you think about it, it links back to Lord Neuberger’s recent comments about freedom of speech.
Remember too that Napoleon, Hitler and much more recently Mugabe all came to power by the will of the people, who they subsequently proceeded to subjugate. In other words …

Because of this cultivated resistance to growth, politicians gain in popularity when they facilitate this process of zombification. That’s why they push political discourse farther and farther in the direction of the punishing police state instead of the social state.

Whereas …

To build a vital democracy, most artists and intellectuals … conclude that one needs a soul at ease. But income stagnation and the cultivation of cynicism, consumerism and decadence throughout the West makes it hard for most of us to have the tranquillity to bolster our democracies. Instead, people passively seem to accept tight state control.

All of which means it’s not going to be easy to change things, for to do so one has to get people to see the problem and that means they have to recognise their inner resistance. That process has to start with people like us continuing to speak about such things, challenging the status quo and being a thorn in the flesh of TPTB.
Even that is not going to be easy. As the article says, this zombification has been going on now for over 40 years. Indeed I suspect it all goes back to the late-1950s/early-1960s reaction to WWII that we deserve something better. A belief that was picked up and actively promoted by Harold Wilson in the UK.
Why does everything in the UK today seem to funnel back to Harold Wilson?

history, photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph is one from my perambulations of the Romney March Churches in Kent. Well actually this one, East Guldeford just outside Rye, is just in East Sussex; it is the only of the of the Romney March churches which isn’t in Kent and the only one not in the Diocese of Canterbury.
These are the Arms of Richard de Guldeford (died circa 1507) patron of St Mary’s, East Guldeford. They are on the north wall of the church and may be contemporary with the building of the church (consecrated 1505). The photo was taken during the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust members’ tour in July 2010.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Guldeford Arms
Guldeford Arms
East Guldeford, July 2010

links

Your Interesting Links

Another round-up of links to articles you may have missed.
First let us return to the perennial question of Fukushima and whether the fear of radiation the real killer, rather than the radiation itself. The BBC’s
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes investigates again.
Now for the truly bizarre. A tiny wasp that enslaves a cockroach with a sting to the brain.


And here are ten things you likely didn’t know about parasitic Ichneumon wasps. They’re incredible and they’re all around us!
Cats are all around us as well. Here’s an article on how they manage their society with group scent.
We all know that cats and dogs don’t really get on. And surprise, this is quite naturally part of their approach to the world.
Dogs see the world completely differently to us. Here’s how.
Here’s a very scary graphic from XKCD which puts us and our domesticated animals in perspective with wild land mammals. Now tell me again why we don’t need to reform agriculture?
The Raven was Toast’s “Bird of the Month” for February.
The human microbiome just gets more weird. Earwax transplants indeed!
Still on the medical, some surgeons have discovered that silk screws are strong enough to mend broken bones. And they’re biodegradable.
We are ashamed of everything that is real about us and this is causing us harm. Like I keep saying we need to normalise sexuality and nudity.
And if that means just being happily nude at home, then why not just do it?
Now for more weirdness, this time archaeological. Apparently some of the stones at Stonehenge ring like bells when struck. Could Stonehenge be a prehistoric belfry?
Also in SW England, a 4,000-year-old burial on Dartmoor is shedding lots of new light on our bronze age history.
More up to date and in London here’s part 3 of the history of Waterloo Station.
Here’s something I bet you Londoners didn’t know about. Roaming the Thames with Thames Clippers — a jump on, jump off river rover ticket.
And while we’re talking about London, what if Greater London was to be made a National Park? Well the idea isn’t quite so crazy.
And finally one to send you girls right over the top … an orgasm machine to deliver climax at the push of a button.