Category Archives: ramblings

ramblings, thoughts

On National Service

The rise of the most vociferous union power really only happened from the 1960s in Britain, seemingly from about the time of Prime Ministers Harold Wilson (1964-70 & 1974-76) and Ted Heath (1970-74).

This was at the time when National Service had been abolished, so the younger members of the workforce had neither been through the war nor had to do National Service. Military service would have attuned people to the taking of orders without question. But this generation didn’t have that. And they saw that there could be something they believed to be better.

Hence the rebellions of the unions against the “officer class” of the working world: encouraged by the Socialist Wilson and the fire fuelled by their dislike of the Conservative Heath. At much the same time the students, being thinkers, could see that the officers’ orders were not going to make progress towards the “something better” of their vision.

Are people more subdued and subservient out in society if they have had to do National Service and are acclimatised to taking orders rather than questioning them?

But, I suggest, it is this rise of union power which has been a large factor in getting the country into its current mess. Against the backdrop of the world economy (certainly also a factor) there has since the mid-60s been this continual running skirmish — and sometimes open warfare — between the workers/unions and the “officers of industry”, with the government sometimes taking one side or the other depending on its political ideology.

There is also an argument that the unions have stifled job flexibility. By (rightly in many cases) protecting their skilled members they may have compartmentalised job roles making it less easy for people to transition from one role to another, and thus reducing flexibility and mobility in the workplace.

Would Britain be in a better position if this warfare had not existed? If we still had National Service? And if everyone was much more attuned to take orders than question them?

I don’t know. What constitutes “better”?

We likely wouldn’t have the freedoms, the greater equalities, and the opportunities we currently do. But then again we might still have manufacturing industry and people trained in manual skills prepared to do lower-level jobs and thus have less need for immigration.

Would we? I don’t know. But it is an interesting speculation.

I would have hated National Service just as I would have hated going to public school or Oxbridge. I’m proud to have had some of the last of the good grammar school education and been given the opportunity to go to university; an opportunity I would not have had 10 years earlier. And I’m grateful for that education which has been a foundation stone of making me the awkward thinker I am, as are many of my contemporaries. In that sense where we are is a good thing; it allowed many of us to develop and break away from the grindstones. Which is why I consider it beholden on me to give back to society what I can by using both my brain and my skills to help others develop.

And it is gratifying that most of my friends and (former) colleagues – right across the age range – are doing the same thing, albeit in their own, very different, ways.

photography, pleasures, ramblings

A Curiosity of London

OK, so here’s one of the more curious of London’s accoutrements …

Buxton Memorial Fountain

It is the Buxton Memorial Fountain and you can find it in Victoria Tower Gardens, just south of the Houses of Parliament wedged between Millbank and the river.

Apparently it was originally constructed in Parliament Square but moved in the 1940s and placed in its present position in 1957. It was commissioned by Charles Buxton MP to commemorate the emancipation of slaves in 1834, dedicated to his father Thomas Fowell Buxton, and designed by Gothic architect Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812–1873) in 1865.

It surely has to go down as one of London’s more outré and colourful adornments. Not only does it have that “spire” of coloured encaustic(?) tiles, but it is carved with various animals including some very dragon-like iguanas/lizards.

Not the best of photos as it was taken on a horridly grey and, as can be seen by the puddles, rather wet Sunday morning.

ramblings

Uninspiring Weather

Yes, I know! There’s been a bit of a hiatus here.

It’s because I am not feeling inspired to write. And there doesn’t seem to be much around at the moment I feel compelled to write about.

Oh, sure, there’s plenty going on in the world. The news seems mostly about direly boring politicians as usual. That and the calamitous nature of “things”.

And there’s not a whole lot happening in my world despite seeming to be busy. Most of the efforts recently seem to have gone into making some progress on my family history. Which is good, and which is slowly paying dividends. But it isn’t something to generally enthuse other people.

But hey, we’re British! So what better to do on a wet April day that indulge in that world-famous British pastime of talking about the weather!

It’s supposedly the wettest April on record in the UK. Well, yes, the weather has been dire for the last month. Today it’s blowing half a gale and peeing down with rain. AGAIN! SE England has reportedly had over 40mm of rain in the last week and over 140mm this month — that’s well over twice the April average. And the forecast is that there’ll be no let-up in May.

Which sort of disinclines one to venture out unnecessarily.

And there won’t be anything by way of a fruit crop this year. Our apple and cherry trees have been in bloom for the last week, and are almost over. It’s not been a week for bees to be out and about pollinating the flowers. Except perhaps for a couple of sunny mornings.

And what of the drought? Well yes, we still have a drought. A month’s heavy rain won’t refill the aquifers or the reservoirs overnight, although it will help. That takes time.

And once there is drought the soil dries out and the subsequent rain just runs off rather than soaking through properly. Hence we get flash floods and swollen rivers. Travelling to the south coast a few days ago it was noticeable that every river was in spate.

Drought we certainly do have. There is an area of our garden which usually has standing water after any significant rainfall, and it is noticeable that the standing water hasn’t been there until this morning. Our houses were built in 1930 on what was previously farm/park land. We suspect that where we get standing water is where the builders likely backfilled a field ditch with rubble but the ditch still runs with water from a small nearby spring. Dowsing certainly tells us there is running water there.

But how do we have a drought? I ask because my fish pond is overflowing and has been most of the winter. The water level is usually down by 2 or 3 inches by the Spring. But not this year; if anything it has been consistently 2 to 3 inches higher than normal, and overflowing, with no effort on my part.

On the other hand the garden is looking wonderfully green with all the water. And the grass is growing like Topsy — well it was top-dressed with “home-grown” compost a few weeks ago!

But it is essentially uninspiring and demotivating all round. Where’s my summer?!

ramblings, science

Aliens, but not as we know them

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This is the title of an interesting article by Ian Bogost in the 7 April 2012 issue of New Scientist. In it Bogost posits the question: Are everyday objects, such as apple pies or microchips, aliens?

Answer: It depends how you think about what it’s like to be a thing.

I can’t link the article as it’s behind a paywall, but here are a few salient snippets.

[E]verything is an alien to everything else. And second, the experience of “being” something else can never be verified or validated …

[W]hy should we be so self-centred as to think that aliens are beings whose intelligence we might recognise as intelligence? … a true alien might well have an intelligence that is, well, alien to ours …

[L]et’s assume they are all around us, and at all scales – everything from dogs, penguins and trees to cornbread, polyester and neutrons. If we do this, we can ask a different question: what do objects experience? What is it like to be a thing? …

[W]hy is it so strange to ponder the experience of objects, even while knowing objects don’t really have “experiences” as you or I do? …

This kind of engagement will necessitate a new alliance between science and philosophy … From a common Enlightenment origin, studies of human culture split. Science broke down the biological, physical and cosmological world into smaller and smaller bits in order to understand it. But philosophy concluded that reason could not explain the objects of experience but only describe experience itself …

Despite this split, science and philosophy agreed on one fundamental: humanity is the ruler of being. Science embraced Copernicus’s removal of humans from the centre of the universe, but still assumed the world exists for the benefit of humankind … Occasionally animals and plants may be allowed membership in our collective, but toasters or [electronic components] certainly aren’t …

[W]hat if we decide that all things are equal – not equal in nature or use or value, but equal in existence? … then we need a flat ontology, an account of existence that holds nothing to be intrinsically more or less extant than anything else …

Thomas Nagel … famously asked what it was like to be a bat, concluding the experience could not be reduced to a scientific description of its method of echolocation. Science attempts to answer questions through observation and verification. Even so, the “experience” of all objects, from bats to Atari computers, resists explanation through experimentation …

The world is not just ours, nor is it just for us: “being” concerns microchips or drilling rigs as much as it does kittens or bamboo.

So perhaps the people who apologise to things when they throw them away aren’t quite so mad after all!?

personal, ramblings

Quirks

My friend Katy blogged a few days ago about her quirks — inexplicable things ones does and habits one has. And I thought rather than post a long comment for her I’d write what follows.

Quirks? Yes, I’ve got my fair share of them; maybe more than my fair share. Who hasn’t?

My friends are too polite to tell me about them — and they still remain friends — so I can only assume they’re not too annoying for most people. Or maybe that’s why I don’t have a huge circle of friends.

So what are my quirks? Hmmm … you really want to know? OK …

I repeat words in the middle of sentences. For instance I’ll say something like; “I wonder if maybe I — maybe I could borrow your saucepan?”. I don’t know how often I do it, but I catch myself at it every so often and think “WTF did I do that?”. It’s a sort of hesitation, although not quite. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m going to say because invariably I do, so that isn’t the cause, unlike most hesitations. It’s something much more automatic than that, like a little loop in the brain circuits snaps open.

I interrupt people; and talk over them. This is very annoying for them, and almost as annoying for me. I catch myself doing this and every time I kick myself in the ankle and say something like “f***ing dickhead — STOP doing that!” in my own ear. It isn’t just something I do on the phone, where there are no visual cues about speaking; I do it in face-to-face conversations as well. Again I don’t know why I do it. I’ve been moaned at for it over many years by parents, work colleagues, managers, friends and myself, but I still do it. It seems to be something I cannot break. We all have a collision detection system which kicks in when we start speaking at the same time as someone else. Usually it stops both people, who then either start again after a random delay or undergo some negotiation; sometimes only one person will stop leaving the way clear for the other. Clearly my collision detection system doesn’t work properly. Why?

I also swear a lot. I know I do. Hopefully it (usually automatically) moderates itself in polite company.

Like many people I have the thing about peeing. I have to pee just before I go out and last thing when settling for the night. Yep, even if I’ve been only 10 minutes before. I also have it when doing anything in the garden: within 10-15 minutes of starting anything in the garden I have to go to the loo.

Does nudity count as a quirk? Yes, I thought it would. As regular readers will know I’m comfortable being nude. I always have been; it’s how I was brought up. We have a naturally warm house (no the heating isn’t turned up high, if anything the opposite) and I don’t feel the cold easily (too much blubber!). Consequently at home I seldom get dressed unless I’m going out, someone is coming round or the weather is really, really cold. I always have a dressing gown or jeans & t-shirt to hand in case the doorbell rings. I even sit in the garden, near the house where essentially no-one can see, in the nude, although I don’t normally wander down the garden in full view of the neighbours. Mustn’t frighten the horses y’know.

I almost invariably have to sleep flat on my front, facing left. Don’t know why; I always have, even as a kid. I have to be really tired (or ill) to sleep on my back or side — although I do sometimes wake up on my back. Bloody annoying now I have a CPAP mask (because of the sleep apnoea); it would be much better and easier if I could get to sleep easily on my back. But then I suspect everyone has one position in which they normally sleep.

Another annoying thing I do is sniff. It is about the only way of clearing my nose. As a kid I was always being told to blow my nose not sniff. But blowing my nose was a waste of time; I never could clear it that way; it just didn’t work, whereas sniffing did. And that’s still the case. I assume it must be something to do with the structure of my nasal passages ans sinuses; and despite surgery. The catarrh in my sinuses annoys me, so I’m damn sure the sniffing annoys others. Sorry!

So there are a few quirks. I’m sure I must have lots of ohers that I’ve not noticed.

Dare you tell us about your quirks?

ramblings

Dreary Weekend

I don’t understand.

Why is it that Easter is always such a miserable weekend?

No, I don’t mean the weather. OK, so far today is dull and damp, but that isn’t always so.

Nor do I mean the fact that it isn’t the most joyous of Christian festivals. As a non-believer this weighs with me not at all, but I don’t dislike Easter on principle.

I’ve noticed, though, over many years, that Easter is somehow always a miserable, dull, boring, depressed and joyless weekend.

OK so as a culture (religious or secular) we’re not indulging in the festivities of Christmas. But Easter took over the old pagan Spring festival, when everything was growing again and there was more daylight than darkness. Even leaving the chocolate aside, there are flowers and cute Easter bunnies (which should really be hares anyway!). Despite the fact that I don’t do cute, that still ought to make Easter weekend joyful.

But it isn’t.

Why?

I don’t understand.

beliefs, ramblings

Cross Spotters

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Oh dear! The Christians are fluttering in their olive trees again. Various clerics, most notably Cardinal O’Brien, Roman Orthodox Archbishop of all Scotland, are telling their flocks to wear a cross to signify their faith.

Why? Why do they have to be told? Are they sheep? [No, don’t answer that!]

And why do they need to do this? I don’t give a flying wombat what fictions you believe. I’m glad to say that’s your problem, not mine.

And yet most true believers already wear their faith on their sleeves and — very rudely — make sure we’re not allowed to forget it. But sure, if they want to wear an emblem, why shouldn’t they?** Who is to stop them going around adorned with badges and looking like a bus spotter? Moreover I’m sure the monasteries could find enough spare saints’ fingers for them all to have a few poking out of a breast pocket to complete the bus spotter look. The same applies to believers in any other faith, or no faith.

Most of us don’t need to advertise our beliefs on our lapels. But if others are sufficiently insecure in their faith that they have to remind everyone, including themselves, what harm? None really if they stick to just wearing a badge. But I bet they don’t. The harm is if, as so often, it becomes another nauseating means of proselytising beliefs. That’s something the rest of us have no need to do; indeed don’t believe in doing. We’re secure enough in our beliefs; beliefs which are personal and not to be imposed on others. We don’t need lots of other like-minded fools around us to convince us we’re right.

Yes, OK, fine if you want to wear a discrete cross, pentacle, Star of David, swastika or whatever on a chain round your neck. But is it just me who finds badges, bumper stickers, prayer beads hanging from driving mirrors etc. somewhat nauseating? And I don’t draw the line at religious symbolism. Badges for the Rotary Club, football club, train spotters guild are just as annoying. Why do we need to advertise our allegiances in this way? If we can’t spread our faith (whatever that is) by shining example then pretty poor show. Good works and humility, not faith alone.

Who are we to deny such poor benighted souls their comforts? Although can you imagine the outcry if they were forced to wear some identification, as were the Jews in Nazi Germany? They’d be up in arms quicker than a ferret down a drain-pipe.

Maybe I should have a supply of “There is no god” badges made? Or should we all have 42 forceably tattooed on our foreheads?

** There will always be employers who, rightly, ban jewellery for safety reasons. But that is really a side issue.