Category Archives: thoughts

current affairs, thoughts

Does the UK need a Monarchy?

The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II and the Coronation of King Charles III has opened debate on whether the UK should have a monarch or an elected president.

This is essentially two questions: do we need a monarchy, and do we want a monarchy? And they are two very different questions. I can’t account for what people think they want – but I can point out some of the arguments.

First of all … Do we need a monarchy? Put simply, no, a monarch as head of state isn’t necessary. Many countries operate quite effectively as republics with an elected President – see France, Germany, Ireland – as head of state. What a country does need is a head of state, who is empowered (within whatever the constitution is) to make final decisions on ministers etc. and to represent the country at the highest level. The buck has to stop somewhere and, for the avoidance of factionalism, that has to reside in a single person be they a president or a monarch.

So should the UK have a monarchy? Well, just because there are more presidential republics in the world than there are monarchies, doesn’t mean they are necessarily better. Let’s look at some of the arguments.

  1. Cost. Monarchs are generally well off; presidents maybe not be so much. But in both cases the state will be paying much of the cost of maintaining the head of state. This will encompass their personal maintenance, the cost of state apartments/palaces, and duties performed as head of state (including transport and security). There are also, of course, state occasions like banquets (usually for other heads of sate) and ceremonial (like regular inaugurations, irregular coronations, opening parliament, state funerals). Whether you have a monarch or a president these costs are going to be much the same. A president will not de facto be cheaper.
    Given sufficient wealth a monarch or president may maintain their own private residence(s), staff, etc.; and this may help constrain the cost to the public purse. Monarchs, likely being wealthier, are perhaps more likely to do this.
    Result: a draw
  2. Appointment. Monarchs are in most cases hereditary, so the succession from one to the next is fairly assured, relatively smooth, relatively infrequent, and relatively low cost. The major cost is just that once in a while state funeral and coronation.
    By contrast presidents have to be elected every few years. Hence there is the cost of the regular elections and regular inaugurations. And the inaugurations may require just as much pomp and pageantry as a coronation. Additionally, past presidents are often paid huge “pensions” for life, and a country could be paying several of these concurrently – as the US currently is.
    Let’s look at this another way. Those regular presidential elections are a recipe for farce, charade, deceit and a completely overwhelming media and political circus. Just think about the US Presidential elections: do we want an unedifying circus, US-style, every four or five years? Because that’s what we would get; we have a track record of picking up bad habits from the US. We already have general elections, local elections, and in many places mayoral elections; aren’t they sufficient circuses?
    Result: win for monarchy
  3. Malfeasance. In general, these days, with constitutional monarchies the monarch doesn’t have their hands on the country’s finances. This is not the case with (a lot of) presidents. In consequence it is much easier for a president to have their hand in the till and to syphon off money etc. into their own pockets. Presidents are much more likely to become newly wealthy at the expense of the country. Another weakness of a republic is that it can afford too easy an inlet for foreign corruption.
    Of course this was not always the case and in times past many monarchs lined their own pockets via all varieties of taxation – but then in those days there was little differentiation between the state’s money and the monarch’s; something which disappeared with the separation of state and monarchy (during the 18th-century in the UK).
    In the UK, the royal family are super-wealthy, and much of that wealth has arisen via their ancestors, and not all acquired honestly. We may decry that, but whether right or wrong by our moral code, such were the “rules” of the day – and good legislation is not retrospective. But not all the royals’ money comes from their ancestors; much comes from business activity – whether that’s things like the Duchy of Cornwall or the late Queen dealing in racehorses.
    So yes, perhaps the royal family should not be so wealthy, but at least these days they have relatively little opportunity to have their hands in the till.
    Result: win for monarchy
  4. Property. Do not run away with the notion that everywhere the UK royals live is theirs. Many (most?) of the properties belong to the state (Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Holyrood House, Kensington Palace), and some belong to the royal dukedoms (eg. Highgrove is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, and hence is now under Prince William’s control but not ownership). Only a few properties are actually owned by the royal family per se: eg. Sandringham, Balmoral.
    Result: a draw
  5. Popularity. This is where having a president may be preferable. With an unpopular, inept or corrupt monarch it is almost impossible to get rid of them; although most monarchies are constitutional (or parliamentary) and the head of state can do relatively little damage. On the other hand an unpopular president can be removed at the next election; but in the meantime will often have more power to do untold damage – see events of recent years in the US.
    Result: a draw
  6. Tourism. The British Monarchy is well respected abroad, a profitable brand, and our pageantry is second to none. Which all brings in tourists – and hence money – from around the globe. This is much less likely to happen with a president: for instance, boring motorcades are much more likely than horse-drawn gilded coaches.
    Result: win for monarchy
  7. Partisanship. Most monarchs, and the late Queen was an exemplar of this, are above partisanship. Whereas presidents, almost by definition, will always be partisan. Monarchs are not involved in the day-to-day activity of government; by contrast a president is so often the head of government and has day-to-day control – so there is no-one outside government to try to see the bigger picture and provide impartial advice.
    Monarchs generally offer steady, self-effacing leadership, whereas grubby politicians come and go, they cut deals, and win elections by dividing their country.
    Result: win for monarchy

So in my estimation, a monarchy wins 4-0. But as always YMMV.

Sources

beliefs, thoughts

Transgenderism

A few days ago Brad Warner, one of our favourite Zen Masters, wrote an interesting blog post titled Transgenderism: A Buddhist Perspective.

It is indeed just as the title says. Brad gives a reasoned view of his interpretation of Buddhist philosophy as applied to transgenderism. It may not accord with everyone’s view – indeed it may not be the view of all Buddhists – but he ends up saying pretty much what I have thought for a long time:

[W]hen I see people trying to solve their deep suffering by altering their bodies with chemicals and surgery, I wonder if they are making a mistake. And I wonder if we should be so quick to allow children to make permanent changes to their physical bodies that they may come to regret. It may be better to reserve that for adults who have had adequate time to consider the ramifications of such drastic alterations … I think that, rather than trying to alter one’s body to align it with one’s ideas about one’s “true self”, it would be better to learn to live as comfortably as possible with the mind and body that one’s past karma has manifested in this life.

I would go a little further … Many boys will wonder, and ask about, what it’s like to be a girl – and vice versa. That’s a natural part of childhood curiosity. But it seems to me likely that many well-meaning but misguided adults who are in a position of care and influence pick up on this and, knowingly or not, end up over-influencing the child to “act out” their inquisitiveness without any checks and balances. As Brad says, this should be left to mature consideration in adulthood, or perhaps better to learn to live with what you were given. But then none of that is easy.

arts, books, thoughts

On Poetry

Until now I had never read TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. So when Simon Barnes (yes, that Simon Barnes: environmentalist, journalist, author, former Chief Sports Writer of The Times) had a piece recently in The New European I took notice.

I know Barnes slightly; he’s a great fan of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time and gave the 2022 Anthony Powell Society Annual Lecture just a few weeks ago. So of course I took notice – especially as he read English at the University of Bristol, and I know him to be a thinker.

Why had I not read The Waste Land before? Well, I’m not a great reader of poetry; I never have been, partly because, like so much of English Literature, I was put off it by school. It’s not that I dislike poetry but all the

I wondered lonely as a cloud of golden daffodils

[sic] stuff turns me off, as does most modern so-called poetry that doesn’t scan and doesn’t rhyme – and I’m not even sure how Shakespeare brings off blank verse. So spare me, inter alia, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Longfellow (of the first type) and Allen Ginsberg, Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy (of the second).

But there is poetry I like. Coleridge, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834. Lewis Carroll, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43909/the-hunting-of-the-snark. TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (see Eliot can write “proper” verse) – I knew the entire 66 lines of Skimbleshanks off by heart when I was about seven or eight. Roger McGough, Summer with Monika. C Day Lewis, Requiem for the Living. John Updike. Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno.

But I’m sorry, The Waste Land is pretentious garbage – and the Four Quartets are not that far behind. It neither rhymes (OK, there’s the odd couplet) nor scans. For me it is in the same rubbish bin as Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Edith Sitwell’s Façade. None of them make sense, and they’re pretty unreadable. Pseudo-profound bullshit, one suspects written to make money from a clutch of gullible critics. And were they gulled.

No, sorry, you enjoy it if you want to, but it says nothing to me. Just leave me alone to be a Philistine.

beliefs, environment, science, thoughts

Mars & the Moon

Stop building a spaceship to Mars
(and the Moon too)
and just plant some damn trees.

Stop building a spaceship to Mars and just plants some damn trees
Isn’t it more important that we protect this planet against global worming etc.?
Just think how much good all that money could do, and how much
environmental refurbishment could be done by just 10% of the money.

medical, personal, thoughts

On Depression – VIII

1 Comment

It’s three years since I last wrote about depression.

That’s not only because my depression has gone away; there just doesn’t seem to have been anything much worth saying about depression.

The depression hasn’t gone away. If anything it’s got worse. I seem to have descended from “I just don’t want to do anything” … through “I just can’t make myself do anything” … to “why am I even bothering to do anything”.

The rationale (such as it is) for not bothering isn’t just a lack of visible results for my efforts – although that doesn’t help – but has been significantly impacted by the plague of the last 18 months and the ongoing need to stay isolated.

No, it goes deeper. I’ve reached my “three score years and ten” and I’m not going to be around here for very much longer – especially given my medical history etc. Obviously I want to make it to at least 80 in a reasonable state; if I do I shall consider it a result. However I’m not optimistic that I will make 80. Which seems to make anything I do even more pointless.

But then, as Noreen pointed out to me last night, I have loads of longevity genes on both sides of my family. If I look at my parents and their siblings (8 of them) their ages at death were:

Men: 86, 3 (severely handicapped), 93 (and still going)
Women: 90, 99, 99, 78, 89
[I’ve ignored my father’s three half-sisters as they’re only half related to me.]

And if I go back to my grandparents and their siblings (23 of them) their ages were:

Men: 54, 1, 61, 3, 80, <1, 84, 9, 82, 80, 62, 24 (WWI), 78, 73, <1
Women: 26, 84, <1, 72, 83, 40, 88, <1

Stretching a point and going back to my great-grandparents generation (another 60 people) of the 29 I know about we find ages of:

Men: 57, 96, 71, 57, 40, 54, 43, <1, <1, 91, 87, 37, 46, 6, 67, 3
Women: 57, 73, 71, 57, <1, 66, 79, <1, 81, 76, 46, 88, 75

This last isn’t so brilliant, but remember with my great-grandparents we are talking about people born in roughly the middle third of the 19th century.

In all this we also need to remember:

  • We are not talking about wealthy people – even if my parents generation eventually became comfortable with advancing years.
  • Until post-WWII medical care was fairly basic, and had to be paid for (no money; no doctor); and it was more basic the further back you go.
  • Also pre-WWII child mortality was significant, and perinatal death not uncommon; again worse the further back you go.
  • There was relatively little regard to health & safety in the workplace, so industrial accidents were more common.

There are a number of interesting things which pop out at me in this data (though I admit it is incomplete).

  • Almost a quarter (14/60) don’t make their 10th birthday.
  • If you make 10 then you have an evens chance (23/45) of making at least 75; a 40% chance of making 80; and a 1 in 8 chance of making 90.
  • While I don’t know he cause of death for many of these people, only 3 of the 22 adult women could even plausibly have been perinatal deaths. That seems surprisingly few.
  • Only one of the cohort was lost in WWI.

So all other things being equal – which of course they’re not; if it weren’t for modern medicine I’d likely not be here now – I must have a decent chance of having another 10 years.

What would be interesting is to know how much of my depression has a genetic basis, and how much is environmental (in the widest sense). My father had depression (largely unrecognised, except by him, and latterly me) and his father was also depressive (although that was ascribed to trench fever from WWI). How many others of my (recent) forebears suffered from depression we shall never know.

Does that make me feel any better? Well sadly, as a fully paid-up pessimist, it doesn’t. Most people would doubtless say it should; but depression doesn’t work that way. And despite all my efforts I’ve yet to find anything which will kick this “black dog” hard enough in the nuts; although the antidepressants do keep me mostly functioning.

To cap it all, I just can’t get my head round the thought of not being here, doing what I do. How can I not be here, leaving everything in limbo?! It just feels so wrong; so unlikely; so frustrating; and yes, even depressing. Which luckily means I’ve never had any serious thoughts of self-harm or suicide.

Wish me luck!

thoughts

On Privilege

Subsequent to my recent post on Living Like the Gentry, I’ve been thinking more about privilege, and as a generalisation I think there are at least two different types.

Innate Privilege. One is born into this. It would include things like: being white; family wealth; money being spent on posh schooling; being titled; family connections and networking.

Earned Privilege. This one acquires through one’s own efforts. This would include: making the most of educational opportunities; working to rise above family background; working hard to acquire good employment (with commensurate salary, pension etc.); learning to network.

By contrast there is also:

Dis-Privilege. This is usually largely accidental or lifestyle imposed, and would include: physical and mental disability; not being cis-gendered; being too openly LGBGT+; poverty (of money, accommodation etc.); low paid and/or insecure work; or just being born into insuperable Dis-Privilege.

 
Like all these things, this is a gross generalisation. There is a spectrum of privilege. These categories can, of course, overlap and there are always grey areas. For instance people with Innate (or Earned) Privilege could also be Dis-Privileged, through (for instance) disability (consider Stephen Hawking); the former often ameliorating the latter.

The biggest grey area is the large mass of the population who fall between Earned Privilege and Dis-Privilege. These are the people who have never worked to earn privilege but equally don’t have anything much going against them. Many are content just to bumble along (and in many ways who blames them) without engaging their brain; they can’t see that it is possible to bootstrap themselves into something better.** They are capable of thinking, but oh so often fail to stretch themselves to make the most of what they’ve been given – they tend to suffer what my late father would have called “poverty of mind”. Clearly that’s also a generalisation; many people do get out and use what they’ve got to improve themselves, even if that is only to be a plumber, taxi driver or seamstress – these people are just as valuable as dentists, wealth managers and lawyers; arguably they do more to keep the wheels turning.

Innate Privilege is there regardless of what one does. These people tend to be the cream rising (effortlessly) to the top of the heap. However through effort they can ameliorate it, “humanise” themselves, and become more in tune with the populous at large. Many do ameliorate their privilege, but equally many cash in, mercilessly and selfishly milking the system for all they can get – think Boris Johnson, David Cameron or Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The lower echelons of Earned Privilege is where Noreen and I are. We both come from humble origins, without wealth or connections to pull us up the ladder. But we’ve had good (free, state) education, made as much of it as we can, learned to think for ourselves, and consequently had decent, though not high-flying or insanely lucrative, jobs. While we’re not wealthy, we are fairly comfortable. What our Victorian forebears would have considered solidly middle class.

All this sort of, very roughly, meshes with the traditional view of the British class structure:

  • Those with Innate Privilege tend to be the Upper and Upper Middle Classes.
  • Those with Earned Privilege are likely to be the majority of the Middle Class.
  • The great bulk of the ordinary population would be the Working and Lower Middle Classes.
  • While the Dis-Privileged would be the Under Class and the lowest reaches of the Working Class.

Whatever any state might do to level this playing field (in terms of wealth, or whatever) there always will be this type of stratification. The intelligent and more intellectually able will always rise towards the top – because they can. And the more physically able will be the valued artisans.

Is this stratification wrong? Well maybe; it all depends on one’s modus vivendi. Clearly there is something wrong if the “uppers” do nothing but play their privilege for their own benefit and to Hell with the plebs; equally if the “lowers” despise and set out to arbitrarily demonise the “uppers”. But people from all layers of society can (and do) do much good while working within the system. One doesn’t have to like, or agree with, the system to be able to work within it and to overcome its failings; or indeed to try to change or dismantle it.

While one doesn’t like privilege, especially Innate Privilege, it’s here. And it ain’t going away real soon, or real easy. However much we’d like it to.

** Remember, as Robert Heinlein is quoted as saying: “There are perhaps 5% of the population that simply can’t think. There are another 5% who can, and do. The remaining 90% can think, but don’t“.
Or according to Thomas Edison: “Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think“.

personal, thoughts

Living Like the Gentry

Some days ago, someone on one of the family history groups I follow posited the question of what our ancestors would have thought of our family history researches. Which in some ways amount to delving into their lives.

I don’t know what they would have thought. No! Wait! Actually I do: they would have wondered why we find them so interesting. It’s a bit like how Noreen reckons the medieval masons would wonder about why we spend so much time, effort and money shoring up our old churches and cathedrals: I’m sure their attitude would be “Why are you repairing it? Can’t you already do better than that!”

I’m also fairly sure that our ancestors would be astonished at our lifestyles. OK, so we live in a 1930s terraced house, which is really the 1930s version of a Victorian two-up-two-down. But we have more space, better amenities, and more money than most of them ever would.

One thing Noreen and I have been doing over the last year, during lockdown, is making sure that we eat well. Actually we always did eat well; just it got a bit better! Food and wine are two of life’s pleasures, so they help with keeping morale up and helping keep us healthy (maybe!).

Now our ancestors (both mine and Noreen’s) were in large part AgLabs, labourers (skilled and unskilled), mariners and fishermen. They would not have had a lot of money; nor good housing; and they may well not have had access to good or sufficient food, with the possible exception of bread and beer.

One of the comments Noreen often makes is to wonder what our ancestors would have thought of our food habits. We can (and sometimes do) have strawberries and cream in the winter; pheasant; decent sized pieces of good meat; fresh and smoked salmon; duck salad with asparagus (in season); wine with a meal; and at weekends a liqueur with our strawberries. As she says, they’d probably say we were living like the gentry.

But then compared with them we are the gentry! At least in terms of our disposable (and secure) income, secure housing, and easy access to good food.


The cottage in Rolvenden, Kent, in which my paternal great-grandfather,
Stephen Marshall (1849-1946) was born.
Top: as it was probably c.1900. Bottom: as it was in 2014.

It is salutary to think that my father’s maternal great-grandfather Jabez Hicks (so my great-great-grandfather; born c.1820, died 1905), a mariner in Dover, would likely not have had a very wonderful diet, or good housing – even after he became a coal & wood merchant and lived his last few years on his own means. He lived in a pretty ramshackle area of Dover, near the docks, for most of his life. His sons mostly did well for themselves: working on the railway; in a senior position for Dover Council; with a business as a fly-proprietor (the taxi/car hire company of the day). But then, largely due to two World Wars, things pretty much stagnated until our generation and the easier availability of good secondary education and universities.

Although we were born with no silver spoons in sight and we’d both say we’re working class (at the very, very best lowest middle class) by origin, yes, we’re privileged on many counts:

  • We’re white, cis, able-bodied, heterosexuals.
  • Our parents were married before we were born.
  • Although our families were never well off, they got by without state help or social workers.
  • We can read, write and think fluently.
  • Our parents engaged with us, encouraged us, and taught us many things outside school.
  • We had the last of the good, free, grammar school education in the 1960s.
  • We also had state funded university education (around 10 years between us) in academic subjects.
  • That enabled us both to have professional jobs for prestigious institutions.
  • Our jobs paid enough for us to buy our own house (despite stinging interest rates), without recourse to the Bank of Mum & Dad.
  • Our jobs also provided us with pensions; and our parents frugality with some money in the bank.
  • We’re our own people, with our own, considered, views and beliefs.

To our ancestors (in general) most of that would have been things to aspire to, and would certainly mark us out as at least solidly middle class. All basically thanks to our hard work and our parents’ thrift and foresight.

We may be privileged, but it is largely privilege of our own making. Thanks to the inexorable rise of capitalism (I blame a combination of Harold Wilson and Margaret Thatcher) sadly a lot of the younger generations today do not have many of those opportunities we had. I’m sorry to say that our generation of “boomers” forgot its (mostly hard-earned) privilege and we’ve buggered it up for the younger generations.

current affairs, medical, thoughts

Horrible Times 19: Easing Lockdown

So our dearly unbeloved Boris thinks he’s going to end all lockdown restrictions on 21 June. All I can say is that like everything which emanates from BJ’s mouth this is either madness or fiction – and quite possibly both. Let’s take a look.
[Links to some relevant BBC News reports at the end.]

  1. Lockdown ends on 21 June. But all UK adults aren’t going to be offered their first vaccination until 31 July. When do they get their second jab? Well at least 3-4 weeks later, which takes us effectively until the end of August, or 8+ weeks after 21 June. So we have a minimum period of 8 weeks with no lockdown and with the UK not as fully vaccinated as it can be. Does not compute.
     
  2. Can we hit the 31 July target? Given that the rate of vaccination is reported to have fallen in recent days, partly due to a lack of vaccine supply, this seems unlikely. Moreover the priority sequence for those under 50 has not yet been decided. Yes, it might be possible if we get the volume of vaccine we need. But there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip.
     
  3. That is ignoring that we don’t yet have very much data on the effectiveness of the current vaccines against the new variants of the virus. Nor are there updated vaccines available (or even nearly so).
     
  4. So lockdown is eased in five steps on 8 March, 29 March, 12 April, 17 May and 21 June. (The media are reporting this as four stages by lumping together the two March dates.) These appear to be the earliest dates for each round of eased restrictions. They will only happen if four conditions are met:
    • The coronavirus vaccine programme continues to go to plan
    • Vaccines are sufficiently reducing the number of people dying with the virus or needing hospital treatment
    • Infection rates do not risk a surge in hospital admissions
    • New coronavirus variants do not fundamentally change the risk of lifting restrictions

    WTF do these conditions mean? They are flabby and woolly at best. Without specific numbers against them, published up-front, they’re worthless as the government can flex them any-which-way it likes. They’re about as ethereal as mist.

  5. When they return to school, secondary school children will be required to have two Covid (lateral flow) tests a week. It seems the first three will be conducted in school but thereafter parents will be expected to administer the tests at home and report the results to the school. How many parents will (a) bother administering the tests, (b) do the tests properly, and (c) report the results accurately? This is going to end well, isn’t it!?

I’m not even going to talk about the rest of contents of each round of restriction easing. As you’ll realise from the above it is all rather academic when we don’t know the detailed baselines and criteria being used.

But what I will say is that if this timeline is adhered to, we’ll most likely have an up-tick in cases in May (as a result of schools going back) and another one in August (due to incomplete vaccine coverage).

Now don’t get me wrong. I want to see lockdown removed just as much as anyone else. But I want to see it done safely. For everyone’s sake.

Links
What’s the roadmap for lifting lockdown?
Lockdown review: What are the risks of schools, pubs and shops reopening?
Covid: When will schools reopen?
Covid: Why can’t we unlock more quickly?
Number of UK Covid vaccinations falls by a third as vaccine supply dips

current affairs, thoughts

They Think It’s All Over

So the Biden supporters in America are jubilant that he has ousted Trump as President. They think it’s all over! But I wouldn’t be quite so jubilant yet …

  • Has there been a handover of power?
  • Are there any outstanding lawsuits relating to the election?
  • Has Trump been physically removed from the White House?
  • Has the fat lady sung?

Answer “no” to any of these and a Biden Presidency is not assured.

Trump will do everything he can to stay in power; it is the way of tyrants.

Watch out for a confetti of lawsuits – all spurious but outwardly plausible – on top of the usual tirade of abuse, misinformation and lies.

Oh and of course there are over 70 days before the Inauguration. Time enough for Trump to wreak untold damage and havoc.

A pessimistic outlook? Certainly. And I hope I’m wrong. But Trump doesn’t have a good track record for acting decently.