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.
ramblings

Being Grown-up

1 Comment

So according to the Daily Telegraph today the Skipton Building Society has come up with a list of the top 50 indicators that one is grown-up.

Here’s the list:

  1. Having a mortgage
  2. Mum and dad no longer make your financial decisions
  3. Paying into a pension
  4. Conducting a weekly food shop
  5. Written a Will
  6. Having children
  7. Budgeting every month
  8. Being able to cook an evening meal from scratch
  9. Getting married

  10. Having life insurance
  11. Recycling
  12. Having a savings account
  13. Knowing what terms like ‘ISA’ and ‘tracker’ mean
  14. Watching the news
  15. Owning a lawn mower
  16. Doing your own washing
  17. Taking trips to the local tip
  18. Planting flowers
  19. Being able to bleed a radiator
  20. Having a joint bank account
  21. Having a view on politics
  22. Keeping track of interest rates
  23. Finding a messy house annoying
  24. Being able to change a light bulb
  25. Owning a vacuum cleaner
  26. Holding dinner parties
  27. Listening to Radio 2
  28. Enjoying gardening
  29. Spending weekend just ‘pottering’
  30. Mum starts asking you for advice
  31. Carrying spare shopping bags just in case
  32. Like going round garden centres
  33. Wearing coats on a night out
  34. Going to bed before 11pm
  35. Making sure mum and dad are phoned at least once a week
  36. Classing work as a career rather than a job
  37. Repairing torn clothing rather than throwing it away
  38. You iron
  39. You wash up immediately after eating
  40. Enjoy cooking
  41. Buying a Sunday paper
  42. Always going out with a sensible pair of shoes
  43. You like receiving gift vouchers
  44. Work keeps you awake at night
  45. Filing post
  46. Having a ‘best’ crockery set
  47. Being able to change a car tyre
  48. Being sensible enough to remove make up off before bedtime
  49. Being able to follow a receipt
  50. Owning ‘best towels’ as well as ‘everyday towels’

Well that’s a big fail for me then! I scored just 33 out of 50.

So if we start at a base of zero at age 18, and we assume you score 6 months for every “yes”, you would be fully grown up at age 43. Sounds about right?

On that basis I’m about 35. Which is at least more grown-up than the 25-ish my brain thinks I am.

Hmmm … I wonder if I’ll ever get to 43? No, can’t do that, maybe I’ll have to settle for 42.

photography

Buggered Britain 10

Another in my occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.

Buggered Britain 10
Click the image for larger view

This is the road junction near our house. They are replacing the old gas mains. The works were due to start on 2 April (they did) and last 8 weeks. They are still there digging holes today (8 June), that’s already 10 weeks and there is probably at least 2 weeks work still to do. Oh and where are the workmen? At no time have I seen more than two men in attendance.

thoughts

The Mind of a Fruit-Loop

Yesterday I came across an interestingly odd — even loopy — article on Scientific American Blogs about the psychedelic guru Terence McKenna.

Apparently McKenna came up with the 21 December 2012 apocalypse long before anyone have delved into the intricacies of the Mayan calendar. The article is a report of an interview with him in 1999 not long before his death, and supposedly tries to uncover whether McKenna was serious in proposing the December 2012 apocalypse or whether he was just being outrageous for the fun of it.

Well you won’t find an answer to that but reading the article, which contains more than a few grains of truth, will give you an insight into the mind of a genuine fruit-loop. Or was he loopy? Maybe he was just a far-sighted shaman.

Anyway I’ll leave you to read the article but here are a few other quotes from McKenna. At first sight many seem crazy, but look deeper and they contains some surprisingly perception nuggets of wisdom and deep thought.

We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. ‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’ And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”

You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.

Culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviours are acceptable.

Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coersion, brainwashing, and manipulation.

Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.

Nobody is smarter than you are. And what if they are? What good is their understanding doing you?

My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite.

Ideology always paves the way toward atrocity.

Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality. After all, if it’s there it doesn’t require your belief — and if it’s not there why should you believe in it?

And last, but not least …

Pay Attention.
And keep breathing.

freedom of speech

On Tolerance, Diversity and Free Speech

The Heresy Corner yesterday was having a rant about “diversity” and tolerance. And quite rightly. In the pursuit of “diversity” we have thrown away the principle of free speech and tolerance.

Diversity of appearance, diversity defined as a number of officially-defined, externally-validated “characteristics” is to be tolerated, celebrated and legally enforced. Diversity of thought and opinion, on the other hand, attracts suspicion and censure, sometimes official, often moral, always self-righteous. Intolerance of dissent has become the hallmark of a “diverse” society.

What this amounts to is that if I’m a black, Estonian, homosexual, paraplegic I have to be provided with wheelchair access to every building, allowed a civil marriage and who knows what other “privileges”. If I were to express an opinion that gay paraplegics should be castrated and have their state-funded wheelchairs and crutches taken away I would be banged up in HM Wormwood Scrubs hotel. Well maybe not quite that extreme, but most venues would refuse to give me a platform from which to speak.

That flies in the face of not just diversity and tolerance but free speech. It’s as has been said many times before:

I may disagree with, even abhor, your opinion but I will defend to the death your right to publicly express that opinion.

That is free speech and tolerance. And by listening to all opinions (yes, including those we dislike) is how progress is made. As the writer at the Heresy Corner remarks:

Censors invariably begin their remarks with the pat phrase “I believe in free speech, but…”. If you believe in “free speech, but”, you don’t believe in free speech.

It’s the same as saying you don’t agree with discrimination but you’re happy to go along with positive discrimination or (say) female only short-lists for appointments. If the latter then you don’t believe in non-discrimination.

Read the whole Heresy Corner article; it’s important.

amusements, links

In Case You Missed …

Another selection of links to things yu may have missed and which interested/amused me. This episode is in random order.

First of all a satirical comment on the effects of gay marriage.

Why do some people hate raw tomatoes but others don’t? Jennifer Ouellette investigates.

I am not alone. Someone else agrees with me about top freedom, if not about actual nudity.

Shit and other scatalogical verbiage.

The church of St Andrew, Greensted-juxta-Ongar is apparently the world’s oldest surviving wooden church. I went there half a lifetime ago and it is a delight.

There are new editions of two historical cookbooks: The Medieval Cookbook and The Classical Cookbook. One for culinary adventurers, I think.

And finally a recipe to live long and prosper: keep eating those nuts.

Enjoy!

photography, pleasures, science

More Kew

Here are a handful more photos from our visit to Kew Gardens on Saturday.

Click the images for larger versions
Lotus
Not a water lily but the sacred Lotus flower
growing in the Water Lily House

<i>Echinocactus grusonii</i>
Echinocactus grusonii
in the Princess of Wales Conservatory

Indian Horse Chestnut
The last of the Indian Horse Chestnut flowers

Lily Pond
The Water Lily Pond:
what a delightful spot on a sunny day!

Pagoda
The Pagoda looking drab in the dreary weather

General Pershing
Finally another tropical water lily, this is Nymphaea cv. “General Pershing”
in the Water Lily House

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 29

Experiment, week 29. Another week, another selection in my continuing experiment in documenting five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful during the week. So this week we have …

1. Iris sibirica. These wonderful blue, delicate looking iris are out now in our garden. They’re always a delight to me!

Iris Sibirica

2. Hypnotherapy. I always enjoy my 3-weekly-ish hypnotherapy sessions with Chris. We always find something interesting to mull over and I enjoy the experience of being hypnotised. And this week Chris reckons he got me hypnotised much deeper than ever before; I was certainly reluctant to emerge from hypnosis and it took me a fairly long time to come round.

3. Yummy Food. Yes we’ve had the usual good meal this week (as well as a few mundane ones; we don’t eat royally all the time!). On Friday I did pasta and seafood (a variant on my Pasta with Bacon recipe) again, only this time with scallops. Much as I like scallops I think I actually prefer this dish with king prawns — well who wouldn’t?! And tonight I did Pork Fillet with Pesto, but with a jar of commercial tomato pesto; served with steamed new potatoes and English asparagus — most yummy!

4 & 5. Meeting Friends. It’s always great to meet up with friends as we did yesterday with Katy and her children at Kew Gardens: always another delight and which I’ve blogged about here.

natural history, pleasures, science

Kew Gardens

Yesterday we went to Kew Gardens to meet our friend Katy and her three children who are in London for half-term holiday, and trying desperately to avoid all the Jubilee shenanigans.

We had a great day. We’d agreed to meet at 10 and provision lunch for ourselves (we’ve not been impressed with the catering at Kew in the past); although Noreen and I did agree to provide cake for all: no mean feat when you’re meeting four cake eating fiends! We also provided a generous supply of home-made pizza.

Noreen and I left home too early. My fault as I was calculating on weekday rush hour traffic not that at dead of a grey wet Saturday morning. Even having stopped on the way to to acquire sandwiches and cake we arrived 30 minutes before the gates opened at 9.30. Boring!

Katy and troop eventually showed up just before 10.30 having (predictably) been stymied by the vagaries of London Underground. By this time Noreen and I had drunk coffee (some of which I spilled, scalding my hand — dozy git!), we’d had a wander round the shop and Kew’s all too tiny garden centre, and I had bought two orchids to add to my collection (luckily the shop were happy to keep them aside for me until we left).

Cactus Flower

Although we go to Kew at least once a year, I’ve still never managed to see more than about 40% of the 300 odd acres. And Katy hasn’t been there for half a lifetime! So we decided we’d take the motorised tour train round the gardens, to get a flavour of everything. It wasn’t very warm and was trying to drizzle; I was glad I’d worn jeans rather than shorts and had a waterproof. Sadly the tour guide/train driver was dreadful and seemed to be telling us everything except what we wanted to know — but then it’s probably designed to appeal most to Americans and Japanese (of whom there were plenty).

We managed 80% of the tour before jumping off and heading for (more) coffee and early lunch. Still, having now done the tour I now know that the parts of Kew I have seen are the parts which really do most interest me, with a couple of exceptions.

Kew Palace Panorama

After lunch, and allowing the kids to run around for a bit, we wandered off to see Kew Palace — yes, a small Royal Palace built late 17th century in the Dutch style and one of the last refuges of the madness of George III. It isn’t large, but is well done and is quite interesting, especially as in restoring it they have left some of the walls of the upper floors in pieces to show how they were constructed. The formal gardens behind the palace are also rather lovely, although the Laburnum walk was clearly well past it’s best. After this I had a little rest on a park bench (so decadent!) while the others availed themselves of a guided tour of the palace kitchens.

By this time it was nigh on 2pm and we were still cold; well the weather was unseasonably grey and breezy. So it was off in search of more coffee and share out some cake, with more time for the kids to run riot!

We then wandered off in search is the Princess of Wales Conservatory and the Palm House. There at least we would get warm! But by this time the sun was out and it turned into a rather nice afternoon.

I always like the PoW Conservatory. Like the rest of Kew there is always something to look at, whether it is flowering cacti, orchids, bougainvillea, water lilies … and there are Amazonian fish in the pond including, this time, a huge puffer fish and an enormous Plecostomus catfish.

Water Lily House

Another short rest to allow the children to let off more steam — where do they get the energy?! — and off for a quick tour of the water lily house (instant sauna!), which is always gorgeous at this time of year, and the Palm House with more aquatics in the basement as well as bananas, neem, ylang-ylang and ginger plants.

Nymphaea Cultivar

By this time we adults were on our knees, and in fact the kids were beginning to tire too. So just after 4.30 we packed up our kit and decided to go our separate ways home (having collected my orchids). We didn’t get to the roses, the Temperate House, the Japanese Garden or the Treetop Walk, all of which remain on the list for anther day. Nevertheless it was a grand day out; we got cold; we got hot; we saw lovely things, we drank coffee, we bought ourselves treats and we consumed a month’s worth of sugar. And there are still things to go back for. What more could one want?

You can find Katy’s account on her weblog.
And lots more of my photos of Kew (not just yesterday’s) on my Flickr.

words

Word : Apophenia

Apophenia

The experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.

In statistics, apophenia is a type I error (false positive, false alarm, caused by an excess in sensitivity). It is also used as an explanation of paranormal and religious claims, and a belief in pseudo-science.

The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad who originally described this phenomenon in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has become more widely used to describe this tendency in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of mental illness.

(Thanks to Prof. Ian Young for the word!)