Sunday, 17 October 2010
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Historical Conspiracy Theories and Weird and Wacky Ideas
Post on Historical Conspiracy Theories and Weird and Wacky Ideas on the History Police.
I have long been interested in what I call ‘ the other side’ of history aka ‘the stories that they don’t tell us’, simply because I, like a Missouran, prefer ‘ don’t tell me, show me. Partly this was due to the first ever BBC ‘Timewatch’. To see two academic historians coming to virtual blows over some detail of a historical subject fascinated me. I don’t remember what they were arguing about but it certainly alerted me to the fact that history can be both divisive and important. Having now acquired a library of old history books I have read enough ‘ canonical’ texts to realise that only parts supporting the author’s thesis have been allowed to intrude. I have also read enough to find that I am unlikely ever to find resolution and ‘seeking the truth ’ is an impossible task.
The problem with anyone dipping their toes in the whole ocean of historical research is that one can never read all the books, footnotes, translations, abstracts and narratives and still lead anything like a normal existence. I cannot understand medieval French even if I could distinguish it from the various dialects and secretarial hands and shorthands, let alone Latin, Hebrew, Gothic German or even Middle English. To have access to all the relevant documents I would have to be in several places at once and have a God like omniescence, certainly to get through the barriers that are imposed upon a mere ‘ fellow traveller’ in the lands of research, let alone including those documents denied to all under the ‘Rumsfeld definition’ of the unknown.
The problem is exacerbated by the need for a definite ideological bias that seems to haunt academic historiography. I remember a search for ‘Marxist’ truth within my own discipline was required; never could stand being told where to stand. Similarly, any gender constraints, any religious dogma, political ‘reality’ or ‘absolute authority’ gets my back up before it starts. Having been educated in several fields and as an auto didact, I feel that there should be no barriers to what can be considered, investigated or thought as long as Occam’s razor is at least acknowledged as is Sherlock Holmes’ redaction of it.
Academia is also haunted by the hunt for funds and it is seriously constricting all areas of endeavour. One dare not mention Psi or homeopathy in scientific circles for fear of losing your grants, or Dan Brown amongst several others. It has always been thus. He/she who has the gold makes the rules. They also write the legends and, more subtly, allow a certain amount of oral history to do their work for them. Propaganda has many faces and a lot longer pedigree than any Aryan interpretation. So when ‘ the History Police’ debate ‘ Conspiracy theories and Weird and Wacky Ideas’ they may be treading along too strict a path of orthodoxy. However unlikely they may seem, conspiracies do exist to hide truth, weird and wacky ideas may lead to avenues of research that may prove fruitful and dogmatism exists to put a stop to all questioning, which I am sure that the ‘History Police’ do not intend as their objective.
Just to get your nightsticks swinging; How about dolmens being designed by hunter gatherers as cool stores for large harvests of fish, game or cereals; only later being utilised as tombs? Evidence? Archaeology shows wooden and turved structures surrounding the dolmens, similar to barrows and long graves but also fish drying structures in Scandanavia; Pottery shards show both animal, fish and cereals and some form of accounting on the side; Shards also show two large circular markings on one side [ see markings for survival amongst animals ] Location near to sea and rivers known to have large harvest of sardines , eels and salmon etc; location on hills away from predators and easily defended. But I know I'm crazy.
As a sidebar. I too am frustrated by the lack of footnotes but must point out that my word processor [ipages for Mac] does not allow me to do either footnotes or accept British English spelling.
I have long been interested in what I call ‘ the other side’ of history aka ‘the stories that they don’t tell us’, simply because I, like a Missouran, prefer ‘ don’t tell me, show me. Partly this was due to the first ever BBC ‘Timewatch’. To see two academic historians coming to virtual blows over some detail of a historical subject fascinated me. I don’t remember what they were arguing about but it certainly alerted me to the fact that history can be both divisive and important. Having now acquired a library of old history books I have read enough ‘ canonical’ texts to realise that only parts supporting the author’s thesis have been allowed to intrude. I have also read enough to find that I am unlikely ever to find resolution and ‘seeking the truth ’ is an impossible task.
The problem with anyone dipping their toes in the whole ocean of historical research is that one can never read all the books, footnotes, translations, abstracts and narratives and still lead anything like a normal existence. I cannot understand medieval French even if I could distinguish it from the various dialects and secretarial hands and shorthands, let alone Latin, Hebrew, Gothic German or even Middle English. To have access to all the relevant documents I would have to be in several places at once and have a God like omniescence, certainly to get through the barriers that are imposed upon a mere ‘ fellow traveller’ in the lands of research, let alone including those documents denied to all under the ‘Rumsfeld definition’ of the unknown.
The problem is exacerbated by the need for a definite ideological bias that seems to haunt academic historiography. I remember a search for ‘Marxist’ truth within my own discipline was required; never could stand being told where to stand. Similarly, any gender constraints, any religious dogma, political ‘reality’ or ‘absolute authority’ gets my back up before it starts. Having been educated in several fields and as an auto didact, I feel that there should be no barriers to what can be considered, investigated or thought as long as Occam’s razor is at least acknowledged as is Sherlock Holmes’ redaction of it.
Academia is also haunted by the hunt for funds and it is seriously constricting all areas of endeavour. One dare not mention Psi or homeopathy in scientific circles for fear of losing your grants, or Dan Brown amongst several others. It has always been thus. He/she who has the gold makes the rules. They also write the legends and, more subtly, allow a certain amount of oral history to do their work for them. Propaganda has many faces and a lot longer pedigree than any Aryan interpretation. So when ‘ the History Police’ debate ‘ Conspiracy theories and Weird and Wacky Ideas’ they may be treading along too strict a path of orthodoxy. However unlikely they may seem, conspiracies do exist to hide truth, weird and wacky ideas may lead to avenues of research that may prove fruitful and dogmatism exists to put a stop to all questioning, which I am sure that the ‘History Police’ do not intend as their objective.
Just to get your nightsticks swinging; How about dolmens being designed by hunter gatherers as cool stores for large harvests of fish, game or cereals; only later being utilised as tombs? Evidence? Archaeology shows wooden and turved structures surrounding the dolmens, similar to barrows and long graves but also fish drying structures in Scandanavia; Pottery shards show both animal, fish and cereals and some form of accounting on the side; Shards also show two large circular markings on one side [ see markings for survival amongst animals ] Location near to sea and rivers known to have large harvest of sardines , eels and salmon etc; location on hills away from predators and easily defended. But I know I'm crazy.
As a sidebar. I too am frustrated by the lack of footnotes but must point out that my word processor [ipages for Mac] does not allow me to do either footnotes or accept British English spelling.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Is ther Anybody there?
According to scientist Frank Drake , there may well have been, be or maybe later, if they are taking a rain check. The probability is increasing over time as more galaxies are found; thus more stars which have suitable planets are observed. As the absolute value of R is large, [ though debatable ] even if the fractions end up being small, there may be a few civilizations around out there. Whether they are on our wavelength is another matter. Evolution to this point for our hallowed species has been more a matter of luck than judgement, especially if rocks keep getting thrown around the glasshouse or the fires below are stoked up to fiery furnace level. If you consider our population growing to that of the trilobites or ammonites then the prognosis for the future is not good. Malthus will be saying
‘ I told you so!’ His equation top and tails that of Drakes and every other species on this planet. Science will give a more optimistic view, similar to that showed to nuclear fission, the pessimists hanging on to the placards for Anthropogenic Global Warming. Evens anyone?
1. Wiki; The Drake equation [ aka the Green Bank Formulas from the meeting at Green Bank WV in 1961] states that: N= R* x fp x ne x fℓ x fi x fc x L where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
2. Rev Thomas Malthus. An Essay on the Principle of Population.
P(t) = P0 x ert
where P0 = Initial Population, r = growth rate, sometimes also called Malthusian Parameter, t = time.
e? Well that stands for exponential, more commonly called the hockey stick. To the power of rt.
Interesting to mention odds and gambling. Old Malthus’ equation is the same as that for compound interest. Look where that has got us. And then there’s entropy! You’ll love this.
Depending on which of the two definitions you choose [ as if you had any choice in the matter ] it can be demonstrated that energy tends to spread itself around. That is you can’t get a cup of tea hot being leaving it on the desk. It’s all one way I’m afraid. Now, men much more clever than me have measured, theorized, defined and utilized this to come out with more efficient means of carrying out the tasks that a man’s gotta do. However, a bigger picture can be drawn because effectively, despite all the wonders of the quantum and theoretical saying that time may merely a dimension in space, the factor that energy only goes one way means that so does time. ‘The arrow of time’ they call entropy, as in ‘fruit flies like a banana’.
Bit Private Frazer isn’t it?3 If you wondering why E.T. is such a miserable bugger that he hasn’t phoned home, it’s probably because all the ills that man is heir to have befallen them. Or, they are trying, as we are, to work out a way to survive and have better things to do than looking for others in the same old deep, brown and smelly.
Oh! Ye of little faith. Let not your woes be woes. There may be succor at hand.4
For a start off, one of the first principles of physics is that energy cannot be destroyed. It can be changed from one form to another, electricity to movement, light heat and 57 channels with nothing on but… energy is a tough dude.5.
3. "We're doomed, I tell ye!", 4. As in “Never give a succour a second break.” W.C Fields
5. “ The dude abides” . The other Liebowsky.
If you think The Large Hadron Collider is a mean machine then remember it needs several hundred scientist with several hundred more computers and a whole mountain full of engineering to finest tolerances known to man and the energy from a large town to get sparks out of bashing particles smaller than even the smallest mote of dust your Momma can see. Wonder why thought experiments are so popular [ and why philosophers never get any work done? ]
Here’s one for you to mull over while I get myself a drink. Where does all the light go? I mean it’s coming down from all these stars as waves or particles or a bit of both depending on how it’s feeling and the time of the month. We CAN see it. Or rather BY it. It reflects the whole of our Nature. But if it is a form of energy then it cannot be destroyed and must change or do what exactly?
Thought experiments go better with a beer. OK. Hands up those who say the paint or surfaces absorb it and it heats up. Hands up those who point out that when it hits the retina it causes organic changes that lead to our visual cortext getting a bump. Hands up those who have muttered ‘ bloody quantums again, ain’t it?’ Yeah I’ll buy all of those and any others that come along. Whatever happens to light it’s down at levels we have no way of looking at unless we spend a lot more money than the LHC.
The ubiquity of light has lead many scientist in the past to try their hands at optics. You could say that the whole of physics was based on light if you include the fact that both Galileo and Newton spent a lot of time looking at the heavenly bodies and working out how the Cosmos works whilst Robert Hooke and Van Leewenhoek were looking at the smallest objects they could find to aid biological studies.
The energy of light is one of the ways we know something fishy is going on. The fact that something fishy was happening attracted the scientists. It behaves in two ways at once. If you take the more common and obvious functions it exhibits a wave nature; it has different frequencies that register as colors to our eyes as Newton showed with his prism. Thomas Young proved the wave theory by polarisation and interference by diffraction. The problem was that waves need something to wave, a medium of transmission. It was also faster than anything else that any body could measure. Or has. Foucault worked it out to some degree in 1850. In doing so he also destroyed another theory of what light was. The particle model, also supported by Newton, on the grounds that, though it could be refracted, light also always travels in straight lines. He explained the rainbow effect by saying that his old favourite Gravity was pulling the particles around differently. Still the science had no idea what light actually was until the 19th century when electromagnetism was discovered and Hertz found other waves that were magnetic and needed no ‘ether’ to be generated or travel on. [ Which brings a question to mind. Do other electromagnetic waves such a radio and heat exhibit the duality of light?]
Then there was Albert Einstein. Talk about thought experiments. Whatever else he is remembered for E = Mc2 is gonna be the same all over the Universe, because whatever exists out there is exactly the same elements as exist down here and the speed of light is constant. it matters. Because c is a really big number, the total amount of the energy in the Universe is way off the scale. And most of it is locked up in matter.
Stars have a way of busting out all over, smashing the basic protons into the helium atom, spewing out energy and electrons and photons in enough abundance to feed a planet; the other elements following in order until the start collapses into a neutron star. Which presupposes that all the protons have gained electrons and all energy has been lost. This what signals to us a black hole, the jets of super energetic gas firing far into the surrounding space. At the same time as matter is being destroyed, that final melding of heavy elements must be occurring. Where does a black hole end up? A final collection of all the matter in the Universe seething until it bursts like a boil into another singularity? Or feeding matter into another dimension or Universe with perhaps differing constraints and laws.
Suffice to say it leaves us without a paddle whatever the result. A second pathway may lead us to hope. There are denizens of this Universe that can use energy, combine it and pass it on to others so that energy becomes trapped. Plants. OK so I’m more a biologist than a physicist but even I realize that comparing your local weed with a star is pretty far out… however much you’ve been smoking. They are not alone. Some bacteria utilize Hydrogen sulphide to provide the energy for not only their lives but as a feedstock for a whole fauna. Each one of those nasty creeping pests or beautiful scented rose, vital soya beans or wheat or a thousand stapless that we are so dependent on can only survive because of the light energy given by our star. It even provides us with the gas that is so vital to us as a by product. Yet there is nothing so despised as plants. After bacteria, the first born inhabitants, the primus genus of all life on earth, the universe, wherever it may be. And the only thing we seek to control, destroy and obliterate because,’ it looks untidy’.
It would be totally politically incorrect to use that term about animals or humans. Yet you can purchase genocide in a packet down your nearest hardware store. It is more than likely that the balance of the Universe in the first days demands that the evolution of plants precedes that of any animal life form. It may be that the symbiotic or commensal bonds that unite bees and pollinating or dispersal animals may pan out differently on other worlds. But to the question ‘ Is there anybody out there?’ I think I have to say, Yes. One can only hope they are gardeners.
‘ I told you so!’ His equation top and tails that of Drakes and every other species on this planet. Science will give a more optimistic view, similar to that showed to nuclear fission, the pessimists hanging on to the placards for Anthropogenic Global Warming. Evens anyone?
1. Wiki; The Drake equation [ aka the Green Bank Formulas from the meeting at Green Bank WV in 1961] states that: N= R* x fp x ne x fℓ x fi x fc x L where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
2. Rev Thomas Malthus. An Essay on the Principle of Population.
P(t) = P0 x ert
where P0 = Initial Population, r = growth rate, sometimes also called Malthusian Parameter, t = time.
e? Well that stands for exponential, more commonly called the hockey stick. To the power of rt.
Interesting to mention odds and gambling. Old Malthus’ equation is the same as that for compound interest. Look where that has got us. And then there’s entropy! You’ll love this.
Depending on which of the two definitions you choose [ as if you had any choice in the matter ] it can be demonstrated that energy tends to spread itself around. That is you can’t get a cup of tea hot being leaving it on the desk. It’s all one way I’m afraid. Now, men much more clever than me have measured, theorized, defined and utilized this to come out with more efficient means of carrying out the tasks that a man’s gotta do. However, a bigger picture can be drawn because effectively, despite all the wonders of the quantum and theoretical saying that time may merely a dimension in space, the factor that energy only goes one way means that so does time. ‘The arrow of time’ they call entropy, as in ‘fruit flies like a banana’.
Bit Private Frazer isn’t it?3 If you wondering why E.T. is such a miserable bugger that he hasn’t phoned home, it’s probably because all the ills that man is heir to have befallen them. Or, they are trying, as we are, to work out a way to survive and have better things to do than looking for others in the same old deep, brown and smelly.
Oh! Ye of little faith. Let not your woes be woes. There may be succor at hand.4
For a start off, one of the first principles of physics is that energy cannot be destroyed. It can be changed from one form to another, electricity to movement, light heat and 57 channels with nothing on but… energy is a tough dude.5.
3. "We're doomed, I tell ye!", 4. As in “Never give a succour a second break.” W.C Fields
5. “ The dude abides” . The other Liebowsky.
If you think The Large Hadron Collider is a mean machine then remember it needs several hundred scientist with several hundred more computers and a whole mountain full of engineering to finest tolerances known to man and the energy from a large town to get sparks out of bashing particles smaller than even the smallest mote of dust your Momma can see. Wonder why thought experiments are so popular [ and why philosophers never get any work done? ]
Here’s one for you to mull over while I get myself a drink. Where does all the light go? I mean it’s coming down from all these stars as waves or particles or a bit of both depending on how it’s feeling and the time of the month. We CAN see it. Or rather BY it. It reflects the whole of our Nature. But if it is a form of energy then it cannot be destroyed and must change or do what exactly?
Thought experiments go better with a beer. OK. Hands up those who say the paint or surfaces absorb it and it heats up. Hands up those who point out that when it hits the retina it causes organic changes that lead to our visual cortext getting a bump. Hands up those who have muttered ‘ bloody quantums again, ain’t it?’ Yeah I’ll buy all of those and any others that come along. Whatever happens to light it’s down at levels we have no way of looking at unless we spend a lot more money than the LHC.
The ubiquity of light has lead many scientist in the past to try their hands at optics. You could say that the whole of physics was based on light if you include the fact that both Galileo and Newton spent a lot of time looking at the heavenly bodies and working out how the Cosmos works whilst Robert Hooke and Van Leewenhoek were looking at the smallest objects they could find to aid biological studies.
The energy of light is one of the ways we know something fishy is going on. The fact that something fishy was happening attracted the scientists. It behaves in two ways at once. If you take the more common and obvious functions it exhibits a wave nature; it has different frequencies that register as colors to our eyes as Newton showed with his prism. Thomas Young proved the wave theory by polarisation and interference by diffraction. The problem was that waves need something to wave, a medium of transmission. It was also faster than anything else that any body could measure. Or has. Foucault worked it out to some degree in 1850. In doing so he also destroyed another theory of what light was. The particle model, also supported by Newton, on the grounds that, though it could be refracted, light also always travels in straight lines. He explained the rainbow effect by saying that his old favourite Gravity was pulling the particles around differently. Still the science had no idea what light actually was until the 19th century when electromagnetism was discovered and Hertz found other waves that were magnetic and needed no ‘ether’ to be generated or travel on. [ Which brings a question to mind. Do other electromagnetic waves such a radio and heat exhibit the duality of light?]
Then there was Albert Einstein. Talk about thought experiments. Whatever else he is remembered for E = Mc2 is gonna be the same all over the Universe, because whatever exists out there is exactly the same elements as exist down here and the speed of light is constant. it matters. Because c is a really big number, the total amount of the energy in the Universe is way off the scale. And most of it is locked up in matter.
Stars have a way of busting out all over, smashing the basic protons into the helium atom, spewing out energy and electrons and photons in enough abundance to feed a planet; the other elements following in order until the start collapses into a neutron star. Which presupposes that all the protons have gained electrons and all energy has been lost. This what signals to us a black hole, the jets of super energetic gas firing far into the surrounding space. At the same time as matter is being destroyed, that final melding of heavy elements must be occurring. Where does a black hole end up? A final collection of all the matter in the Universe seething until it bursts like a boil into another singularity? Or feeding matter into another dimension or Universe with perhaps differing constraints and laws.
Suffice to say it leaves us without a paddle whatever the result. A second pathway may lead us to hope. There are denizens of this Universe that can use energy, combine it and pass it on to others so that energy becomes trapped. Plants. OK so I’m more a biologist than a physicist but even I realize that comparing your local weed with a star is pretty far out… however much you’ve been smoking. They are not alone. Some bacteria utilize Hydrogen sulphide to provide the energy for not only their lives but as a feedstock for a whole fauna. Each one of those nasty creeping pests or beautiful scented rose, vital soya beans or wheat or a thousand stapless that we are so dependent on can only survive because of the light energy given by our star. It even provides us with the gas that is so vital to us as a by product. Yet there is nothing so despised as plants. After bacteria, the first born inhabitants, the primus genus of all life on earth, the universe, wherever it may be. And the only thing we seek to control, destroy and obliterate because,’ it looks untidy’.
It would be totally politically incorrect to use that term about animals or humans. Yet you can purchase genocide in a packet down your nearest hardware store. It is more than likely that the balance of the Universe in the first days demands that the evolution of plants precedes that of any animal life form. It may be that the symbiotic or commensal bonds that unite bees and pollinating or dispersal animals may pan out differently on other worlds. But to the question ‘ Is there anybody out there?’ I think I have to say, Yes. One can only hope they are gardeners.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
A prayer for the new month.
There is a lovely story concerning the hare who being mad with lust at Easter time tried to mate with the moon. Which is why I always see a hare upside down in the moon instead of the less obvious man.
A Happy and fertile festival to all.
Oh Father Sun and Mother Earth,
We know all life owes you their birth.
Protect our hearths, our homes, our fields
From those who wish our souls to yield.
Give us fruit and grain and meat.
Pure water so we may drink and eat.
Our children born in bright array,
to know the right in night and day.
To support the weak 'gainst mighty foe
whom riches trust and gold only know.
And when the light dies in our eyes
Let us walk with you and rise.
The water of life falls on the tree
The river of life flows to the sea
The sea gives rain upon the land
The circle set so man abounds.
Alan Ingram 2000
A Happy and fertile festival to all.
Oh Father Sun and Mother Earth,
We know all life owes you their birth.
Protect our hearths, our homes, our fields
From those who wish our souls to yield.
Give us fruit and grain and meat.
Pure water so we may drink and eat.
Our children born in bright array,
to know the right in night and day.
To support the weak 'gainst mighty foe
whom riches trust and gold only know.
And when the light dies in our eyes
Let us walk with you and rise.
The water of life falls on the tree
The river of life flows to the sea
The sea gives rain upon the land
The circle set so man abounds.
Alan Ingram 2000
Typos
My friends may have felt I let them down. Also I must make clear that they did not deaf me out. These things happen. There was only one whom i did not and do not wish to meet again, so it is more of a self denying ordinance than anything else.
I will write about this later.
I will write about this later.
Facebook.
Now I've posted and found some old friends, I can see the attraction and addictive qualities. Damn it it is fun. I try to be honest and bold about the 50 years that have passed us all by. I have 'no idea what they do with their lives' pace Dylan. There are areas though that I don't want to impinge on and they have similar presumably. We are different people now thrown together in friendship by a uncommon schooling. Sometimes I think it has set us in concrete. Some friends are permanent, others will remain enemies for what ever slight or horror has been made in the past. Facebook is weird because I lost a lot of school friends after 1972. Not deceased. Just that I thought that they thought I had left them down whereas I had tried to act honourably and as a gentleman, though at the time it was a violent though vital step to take. Suffice to say, I would love to make contact with Woody, Frank Humphries and Mark Bristow but there is one friend who I cannot forgive yet for what was done and the ostracizatism that occurred afterwards.
I hope that this explains my reluctance to make contact with old school friends who had nothing to do with this and certainly have no inkling of what I am talking about. It still hurts after almost 40 years. There is little I or others can do, except realise there is a lacuna in my life due to someone I will not name. Helen Pitt/Inman as was knows and I thank her for her support.
I hope that this explains my reluctance to make contact with old school friends who had nothing to do with this and certainly have no inkling of what I am talking about. It still hurts after almost 40 years. There is little I or others can do, except realise there is a lacuna in my life due to someone I will not name. Helen Pitt/Inman as was knows and I thank her for her support.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Is there a God?
5. Is there anybody out there?
7. What is love?
8. What is the secret to happiness?
I think the point of life is to go through it, enjoy when you can , suffer the trials of Job that are bound to inflict us, shout, scream, philosophise, write it, paint it, sing it out loud, try to be Stoic about it or a screaming nancy. The only limitation is that you must do all of this without harming anyone else on this planet. Hard for carnivores, I know, but everything that lives must die. Better to be useful than not at all. It depends how you consider God. This you can discuss until doomsday. Consider this. All the science for geological time, quantum physics, evolution has provided a pretty good picture of the state of play. All this science has been on the basis of the evidence as so far gathered. Unfortunately it does not include all evidence. Logically Science deals with what is known. Science cannot explain everything yet
Perhaps the very random nature of the Universe, quantum behaviour and evolution included, is the reason for the Universe.
Perhaps out of the astronomical permutations of particles, atoms, molecules of life [ or death ] in the Universe there will arise something capable of creating another Universe. The Universe has already worked out how to produce life. To assume that we can know and whether or not you call it God or science is just a vanity that supposes that humanity is the end point when we may not even be the means.
For the faithful, no rationale is needed. For the rational, no belief is sacred.
*
The Atheist / Dawkins Position.
Well nobody can prove that God exists. The point about science is that it can’t prove a negative. Even about such ‘ magic’ as Dowsing or Astrology, which Richard Dawkins has actually tried to do on TV using methods that would be laughd out of a laboratory if he tried them on any other ‘ scientific’ subject.
The Dawk's dowsers were tested by putting containers of water in boxes and asking the dowsers to find the water. Any reading on the subject indicates that dowsers do not find water. They do have a good record of finding moving water. This water does not come from a tap, so is likely to contain dissolved metallic salts that turn this water into... come on you at the back there...an ionised solution. The sort of stuff we put in batteries. When flowing through the earth they pass through the Earth's magnetic field. What happens when you pass ions through a magnetic field? You alter the electromagnetic background. Are you actually saying that there is no way that this could not be detected by some technology or another? Some expensive piece of equipment hauled over the ground to find changes in the electromagnetic patterns? Is it worth attempting in the interests of water shortages? Work it out, do the science come back and then test it. Now if you can find individuals who can sense the changes without needing the expensive equipment, which are you going to choose?
Another ‘ wonder ‘ that raised Dawkins ire is Astrology. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not an apologist of the whole kit and caboodle that appears in the red tops but am trying to look at what astrology actually says it is trying to do.
Astrology is based on a pattern of stars that conventionally have been put into patterns called constellations since the time of the Babylonians. Astronomers still refer to stars using their Arabic names and recognise that the Earth in it's orbit, sees the apparent position of the Sun against the background of those stars which we conventionally call the Zodiac,[ literally 'circle of the animals'] or the Ecliptic. The position of any heavenly [ ooops ] astronomical body has a relative position determined by this zodiacal pattern from the First Point of Aries, though this has in fact moved 30 degrees round since first being plotted some 21 centuries ago. The Moon also moves through the Ecliptic, as do Mercury and Venus, though the superior planets move near the ecliptic less closely. So Astrology is based upon positions of the Sun , Moon and to a lesser degree, the planets, not the stars. They are fixed in the firmament.
Now are you trying to say that the relative positions of the Sun and Moon at conception have no effect whatsoever? Even the menstrual cycle is related to the Moon? Are people affected by the condition of the mother at the time of conception with regards to diet, Vitamin levels and general well being? Is this a direct consequence of the time of the year, seasons and the position of the Sun? Is the health of any cadre affected by this? Why aren't we studying these effects. I'm not saying that these Astrologers have any answers. What I am saying is that scientists are continually failing to investigate mechanisms that may be valid because they dismiss it all as nonsense. Which merely means it makes no sense to them.
What Dawkins is doing is not science. It is not investigating natural phenomena by a methodolgy that is open to peer review, criticism or modification in the light of new eveidence. It is dogmatic ignorance akin to scientific fascism. Just don’t mention either homeopathy or psychic.
'All events that occur in the Universe must obey the the physical laws of the Universe.
Scientists do not know all the physical laws of the Universe.
Therefore some events may occur for which scientists have no explanation according to the presently known physical laws of the Universe.'
'The truth changes with the paradigm.' Karl Hopper
Professional fundamentalists
One hardly knows how to deal with the debate between the atheists and the religionists except to point out that to despise a man because of what he believes in, is a zero sum position. Mankind comprises over 6 billion individual, crazy animals, tending towards neotony, with visions and delusions of grandeur, eyes aglow with the truth as they see it, arguing their square inch of validity by unbending reason or faith, backing it with the ambiguity of language and the musty scrolls of long dead, soi-disant wizards affecting their own heresies. For every 3 believers of anything at least one is a heresiarch and every one of them will argue till the Earth unfreezes.
'Moreover, they come from a scientific background, and science is usually not associated with religious zeal or political fanaticism.'
Have you actually read any of the posts by those of a scientific or medical background? Just mention the word homeopathy and see what zeal and fanaticism is. A lot of doctors seem to think homeopathy practioners are ubermensch. They will not accept anecdotal evidence but make little effort whatsoever to test scientifically what exactly is going on.
'Throughout the world, physicists and biologists tend to be more sceptical and less religious.' The physicists and biologists I've met included some of the most devout Christians and some of the nicest people I've met, never proselytising but having a faith allied to their science that seemed organic and natural.
But these examples are as gross a generalisation as any you could make. Surely an individual of any persuasion should not confine his outlook to that of his vocational training or religious upbringing? What is wrong with thinking for yourself? How can you have any democratic dialogue with a view point that maintains that the premises of the argument are invalid and then resorts to eliminating the opposition by violence of language or behaviour?
*
Cats and docs
God is neither good or bad, male or female, yin or yang, here or there or does not give a flying spaghetti monster how us imperfect little bags of emotion think of it. It's all of these and more.
The body of any animal creates energy throughout the fact of being alive. Energy is the crux of thisI have often thought that the whole psychic, spirit, soul, ghost doo dah is exactly as Einstein predicted. You cannot destroy energy and it may be a question of quantum mechanics that allows something to survive, to escapethe bounds of a coporeal existence to exist on another plane. Is this any more unbelievable than saying that particle phyicists have proved that there are at least 11 or 13 dimensions? They at least have mobile phones to point to as evidence. That and billions of Euros to prove whether they are right or wrong.
Perhaps the development of consciousness and intelligence of thought is a necessary part of evolution. We certainly value it in our children; are we not hoping that they will advance in the greater picture? Why deny that we expect the same of their internal store of well being? That they should advance in their psychiatric and mental health, that they should be more comfortable in their sould than we are. Was it any different for a parent in the Mesolithic?
Why should Souls not grow, evolve and develop along with every other form of life in the whole Universe, part of the energy field you create by being alive. No scientist has found a mind separate to the body. Do they think it does not exist? Thinking that the energy just gets dissipated when the life is extinct may be ok for you but there is plenty of evidence that something survives the experience, even if it's just a quantum hole in the local Universe. Try looking for it and try to get funding and you are left with ‘screaming Evie and Living TV.
The deal could be that because of the total, random nature of life, with cohesive separate units being continually created is that something evolves and something survives as an individual, if not as a species. It may well have an effect on how the genes actually operate, according to the latest research. Add all these together and what have you got? The total experience of the Universe floating around somewhere with no limits. We have evolved communication, a skill that detemines exactly what we are.Voila, something my be left that has a real interest in making sure that what has been created survives.Now a simple mind experiment is to think of what it would be like if everyone could see each others thoughts. You were part to all the information held in any mind, anywhere. Is there not a case where anything that is believed, theorised about and proved under such conditions will be believed by all? Suddenly you are faced with the nature of your being. What do you believe? That you are a part of the cosmos? That you belong to one special, righteous clique that was right all along and everyone else is a heretic, kuffar, blasphemer that does not deserve the life that is given. That you were so badly treated that you have it in for every other bastard in the Universe. That you really didn’t want this to happen and you are seeking revenge. Or do you accept the gracious gift and say, ok, what’s next? In a way it’s exactly what the religions have been saying. Whose side are you on? Good or Bad.
There is one truth I can state here. Evil never wins. Why? Because it is inherently selfish and co-operation breaks down at the real test. Are you prepared to die for your loved ones? True love is exactly that. Any mother or father knows it; the sacrifice is worth it. Love overcomes all. Whatever you feel about religion, Christian or otherwise, it boils down to that. Love.
What is the Purpose of Life?
The Objective? Making sure life continues, making more random individuals and hoping that one or more or a combination of them has the ability to start the whole thing up again somewhere else. The Opposition. Ultimately it always fails because it's selfish, ignorant and not good at working together. A really evil entity would never give it's life up for something -else but ' Negativity just won't pull you through'.
The biggest argument against God is that how can He [ and it is always a He] allow people who do not deserve it to suffer? The first thing to realise is that ‘It's not personal, it's just business.‘ Whatever creation you could devise in your dreams is still a zero sum game and a no win situation. However much you botox, you are still going to look your thinnest in a shroud. And you don’t even get to enjoy your riches! Suffering is not bad for the soul if you have the strength to overcome it. It hurts like hell, which is what hell is, especially if you turn the experience negative. Remember there is no cosmic joke. It's just the way they tell them.
“God’ could be envisaged as more a combination of all the symbolisms that are held on Earth. three distinct envelopes that we may all experience on our voyage through the Universe. Mother Earth, Sheila Na Ga, Gaia Madonna, virgin, whore and mother, Stella Mare,The High Priestess a guiding light, our caring Muse of all arts that a civilisation may need, who has to let us escape her bounds to grow to our best.
Father Sun, The Phallus whose energy feeds, whose quantum actions affect totally at random every life form on the planet, an Emperor and King whose mercy and justice are not often logical in the eyes of man, ruled by a throbbing need to expend his seed wherever it may fall.
The offspring, as foolish as the Tarot Card ,as romantic as the Lovers, as caddish as the Juggler, as devious as the Devil, as warlike as the Chariot, as dogmatic as the Hierophant, as caring as the Emperor, as wise as the Magician and all heading towards Death in the same manner, sacrificed as the Hanged Man with The Tower as a reminder that all man’s works must ultimately fall.
All this is encompassed in the Green Man, as the Hero of Joseph Campbell, sacrificed in the quest for the truth of a Holy Grail that may only exist in the procreation of our sacred blood onto and into a thousand generations. It is a wonderful irony that a solid rock of the Ulster Protestant faith, Reverend Alexander Hislop wrote a book called ‘ The Two Babylons ‘in the early 20th Century that is a meticulous appraisal of how all religions have a common base in a past so far back that we haven’t even explored it yet.
Is There a God?
If there is any sense in the Universe, then all the good souls have got together up and created a co-operative entity to defeat and protect what is going on down here. It has limits for even a ‘merciful God’. It does not need to be worshipped every moment of the day, [ only something a lot nastier needs that]. It may well hear any ‘prayers’ that may be in it’s remit. More likely the agenda is way above our common preoccupations and cognisance but prayer works in the same way that hatred only hurts the hater. That forgiveness most helps the forgiver, and a quiet contemplation of the Cosmos has it’s own intrinsic benefits. In the meantime, have faith there is something good out there. You only have to deal with the bad down here.
Love. I pray that everyone learns to know what it means. Nothing and Everything
Live long and Prosper.
2. Is there a God?
5. Is there anybody out there?
7. What is love?
8. What is the secret to happiness?
I think the point of life is to go through it, enjoy when you can , suffer the trials of Job that are bound to inflict us, shout, scream, philosophise, write it, paint it, sing it out loud, try to be Stoic about it or a screaming nancy. The only limitation is that you must do all of this without harming anyone else on this planet. Hard for carnivores, I know, but everything that lives must die. Better to be useful than not at all. It depends how you consider God. This you can discuss until doomsday. Consider this. All the science for geological time, quantum physics, evolution has provided a pretty good picture of the state of play. All this science has been on the basis of the evidence as so far gathered. Unfortunately it does not include all evidence. Logically Science deals with what is known. Science cannot explain everything yet
Perhaps the very random nature of the Universe, quantum behaviour and evolution included, is the reason for the Universe.
Perhaps out of the astronomical permutations of particles, atoms, molecules of life [ or death ] in the Universe there will arise something capable of creating another Universe. The Universe has already worked out how to produce life. To assume that we can know and whether or not you call it God or science is just a vanity that supposes that humanity is the end point when we may not even be the means.
For the faithful, no rationale is needed. For the rational, no belief is sacred.
*
The Atheist / Dawkins Position.
Well nobody can prove that God exists. The point about science is that it can’t prove a negative. Even about such ‘ magic’ as Dowsing or Astrology, which Richard Dawkins has actually tried to do on TV using methods that would be laughd out of a laboratory if he tried them on any other ‘ scientific’ subject.
The Dawk's dowsers were tested by putting containers of water in boxes and asking the dowsers to find the water. Any reading on the subject indicates that dowsers do not find water. They do have a good record of finding moving water. This water does not come from a tap, so is likely to contain dissolved metallic salts that turn this water into... come on you at the back there...an ionised solution. The sort of stuff we put in batteries. When flowing through the earth they pass through the Earth's magnetic field. What happens when you pass ions through a magnetic field? You alter the electromagnetic background. Are you actually saying that there is no way that this could not be detected by some technology or another? Some expensive piece of equipment hauled over the ground to find changes in the electromagnetic patterns? Is it worth attempting in the interests of water shortages? Work it out, do the science come back and then test it. Now if you can find individuals who can sense the changes without needing the expensive equipment, which are you going to choose?
Another ‘ wonder ‘ that raised Dawkins ire is Astrology. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not an apologist of the whole kit and caboodle that appears in the red tops but am trying to look at what astrology actually says it is trying to do.
Astrology is based on a pattern of stars that conventionally have been put into patterns called constellations since the time of the Babylonians. Astronomers still refer to stars using their Arabic names and recognise that the Earth in it's orbit, sees the apparent position of the Sun against the background of those stars which we conventionally call the Zodiac,[ literally 'circle of the animals'] or the Ecliptic. The position of any heavenly [ ooops ] astronomical body has a relative position determined by this zodiacal pattern from the First Point of Aries, though this has in fact moved 30 degrees round since first being plotted some 21 centuries ago. The Moon also moves through the Ecliptic, as do Mercury and Venus, though the superior planets move near the ecliptic less closely. So Astrology is based upon positions of the Sun , Moon and to a lesser degree, the planets, not the stars. They are fixed in the firmament.
Now are you trying to say that the relative positions of the Sun and Moon at conception have no effect whatsoever? Even the menstrual cycle is related to the Moon? Are people affected by the condition of the mother at the time of conception with regards to diet, Vitamin levels and general well being? Is this a direct consequence of the time of the year, seasons and the position of the Sun? Is the health of any cadre affected by this? Why aren't we studying these effects. I'm not saying that these Astrologers have any answers. What I am saying is that scientists are continually failing to investigate mechanisms that may be valid because they dismiss it all as nonsense. Which merely means it makes no sense to them.
What Dawkins is doing is not science. It is not investigating natural phenomena by a methodolgy that is open to peer review, criticism or modification in the light of new eveidence. It is dogmatic ignorance akin to scientific fascism. Just don’t mention either homeopathy or psychic.
'All events that occur in the Universe must obey the the physical laws of the Universe.
Scientists do not know all the physical laws of the Universe.
Therefore some events may occur for which scientists have no explanation according to the presently known physical laws of the Universe.'
'The truth changes with the paradigm.' Karl Hopper
Professional fundamentalists
One hardly knows how to deal with the debate between the atheists and the religionists except to point out that to despise a man because of what he believes in, is a zero sum position. Mankind comprises over 6 billion individual, crazy animals, tending towards neotony, with visions and delusions of grandeur, eyes aglow with the truth as they see it, arguing their square inch of validity by unbending reason or faith, backing it with the ambiguity of language and the musty scrolls of long dead, soi-disant wizards affecting their own heresies. For every 3 believers of anything at least one is a heresiarch and every one of them will argue till the Earth unfreezes.
'Moreover, they come from a scientific background, and science is usually not associated with religious zeal or political fanaticism.'
Have you actually read any of the posts by those of a scientific or medical background? Just mention the word homeopathy and see what zeal and fanaticism is. A lot of doctors seem to think homeopathy practioners are ubermensch. They will not accept anecdotal evidence but make little effort whatsoever to test scientifically what exactly is going on.
'Throughout the world, physicists and biologists tend to be more sceptical and less religious.' The physicists and biologists I've met included some of the most devout Christians and some of the nicest people I've met, never proselytising but having a faith allied to their science that seemed organic and natural.
But these examples are as gross a generalisation as any you could make. Surely an individual of any persuasion should not confine his outlook to that of his vocational training or religious upbringing? What is wrong with thinking for yourself? How can you have any democratic dialogue with a view point that maintains that the premises of the argument are invalid and then resorts to eliminating the opposition by violence of language or behaviour?
*
Cats and docs
God is neither good or bad, male or female, yin or yang, here or there or does not give a flying spaghetti monster how us imperfect little bags of emotion think of it. It's all of these and more.
The body of any animal creates energy throughout the fact of being alive. Energy is the crux of thisI have often thought that the whole psychic, spirit, soul, ghost doo dah is exactly as Einstein predicted. You cannot destroy energy and it may be a question of quantum mechanics that allows something to survive, to escapethe bounds of a coporeal existence to exist on another plane. Is this any more unbelievable than saying that particle phyicists have proved that there are at least 11 or 13 dimensions? They at least have mobile phones to point to as evidence. That and billions of Euros to prove whether they are right or wrong.
Perhaps the development of consciousness and intelligence of thought is a necessary part of evolution. We certainly value it in our children; are we not hoping that they will advance in the greater picture? Why deny that we expect the same of their internal store of well being? That they should advance in their psychiatric and mental health, that they should be more comfortable in their sould than we are. Was it any different for a parent in the Mesolithic?
Why should Souls not grow, evolve and develop along with every other form of life in the whole Universe, part of the energy field you create by being alive. No scientist has found a mind separate to the body. Do they think it does not exist? Thinking that the energy just gets dissipated when the life is extinct may be ok for you but there is plenty of evidence that something survives the experience, even if it's just a quantum hole in the local Universe. Try looking for it and try to get funding and you are left with ‘screaming Evie and Living TV.
The deal could be that because of the total, random nature of life, with cohesive separate units being continually created is that something evolves and something survives as an individual, if not as a species. It may well have an effect on how the genes actually operate, according to the latest research. Add all these together and what have you got? The total experience of the Universe floating around somewhere with no limits. We have evolved communication, a skill that detemines exactly what we are.Voila, something my be left that has a real interest in making sure that what has been created survives.Now a simple mind experiment is to think of what it would be like if everyone could see each others thoughts. You were part to all the information held in any mind, anywhere. Is there not a case where anything that is believed, theorised about and proved under such conditions will be believed by all? Suddenly you are faced with the nature of your being. What do you believe? That you are a part of the cosmos? That you belong to one special, righteous clique that was right all along and everyone else is a heretic, kuffar, blasphemer that does not deserve the life that is given. That you were so badly treated that you have it in for every other bastard in the Universe. That you really didn’t want this to happen and you are seeking revenge. Or do you accept the gracious gift and say, ok, what’s next? In a way it’s exactly what the religions have been saying. Whose side are you on? Good or Bad.
There is one truth I can state here. Evil never wins. Why? Because it is inherently selfish and co-operation breaks down at the real test. Are you prepared to die for your loved ones? True love is exactly that. Any mother or father knows it; the sacrifice is worth it. Love overcomes all. Whatever you feel about religion, Christian or otherwise, it boils down to that. Love.
What is the Purpose of Life?
The Objective? Making sure life continues, making more random individuals and hoping that one or more or a combination of them has the ability to start the whole thing up again somewhere else. The Opposition. Ultimately it always fails because it's selfish, ignorant and not good at working together. A really evil entity would never give it's life up for something -else but ' Negativity just won't pull you through'.
The biggest argument against God is that how can He [ and it is always a He] allow people who do not deserve it to suffer? The first thing to realise is that ‘It's not personal, it's just business.‘ Whatever creation you could devise in your dreams is still a zero sum game and a no win situation. However much you botox, you are still going to look your thinnest in a shroud. And you don’t even get to enjoy your riches! Suffering is not bad for the soul if you have the strength to overcome it. It hurts like hell, which is what hell is, especially if you turn the experience negative. Remember there is no cosmic joke. It's just the way they tell them.
“God’ could be envisaged as more a combination of all the symbolisms that are held on Earth. three distinct envelopes that we may all experience on our voyage through the Universe. Mother Earth, Sheila Na Ga, Gaia Madonna, virgin, whore and mother, Stella Mare,The High Priestess a guiding light, our caring Muse of all arts that a civilisation may need, who has to let us escape her bounds to grow to our best.
Father Sun, The Phallus whose energy feeds, whose quantum actions affect totally at random every life form on the planet, an Emperor and King whose mercy and justice are not often logical in the eyes of man, ruled by a throbbing need to expend his seed wherever it may fall.
The offspring, as foolish as the Tarot Card ,as romantic as the Lovers, as caddish as the Juggler, as devious as the Devil, as warlike as the Chariot, as dogmatic as the Hierophant, as caring as the Emperor, as wise as the Magician and all heading towards Death in the same manner, sacrificed as the Hanged Man with The Tower as a reminder that all man’s works must ultimately fall.
All this is encompassed in the Green Man, as the Hero of Joseph Campbell, sacrificed in the quest for the truth of a Holy Grail that may only exist in the procreation of our sacred blood onto and into a thousand generations. It is a wonderful irony that a solid rock of the Ulster Protestant faith, Reverend Alexander Hislop wrote a book called ‘ The Two Babylons ‘in the early 20th Century that is a meticulous appraisal of how all religions have a common base in a past so far back that we haven’t even explored it yet.
Is There a God?
If there is any sense in the Universe, then all the good souls have got together up and created a co-operative entity to defeat and protect what is going on down here. It has limits for even a ‘merciful God’. It does not need to be worshipped every moment of the day, [ only something a lot nastier needs that]. It may well hear any ‘prayers’ that may be in it’s remit. More likely the agenda is way above our common preoccupations and cognisance but prayer works in the same way that hatred only hurts the hater. That forgiveness most helps the forgiver, and a quiet contemplation of the Cosmos has it’s own intrinsic benefits. In the meantime, have faith there is something good out there. You only have to deal with the bad down here.
Love. I pray that everyone learns to know what it means. Nothing and Everything
Live long and Prosper.
Answers and Apologies
I have no idea about Tony Soprano, I have an idea that the answer to 10 is ' Too bloody soon' and if I knew the answer to 4 I would be both slim and extremely rich.
Being a philosophical follower of Gadus morhua [Linn] I am tempted to attempt the impossible. [No surprise; my Tarot card is the Fool]. Will try and keep up to date with this but as no-one is listening what the hell? [Sorry God]. It fits well with a book on love poetry I am considering and this is cheaper than Vanity publishing. [I wonder how they are getting on?]
BTW. If you have come here via Facebook, may I apologise for not recognising your names, faces or anything that may have happened between us. It was the 60's, there were drugs, I was known for my firm and effective joints,[ which are now arthritic and I now take at least 20 other scrips ] and it seems I was something of a celebrity within my own lunchtime. For late comers to this story I can only admit to being known as 'Iggy' while at Camp Hill School for Boys. The rest is between me and my legal advisor.
Being a philosophical follower of Gadus morhua [Linn] I am tempted to attempt the impossible. [No surprise; my Tarot card is the Fool]. Will try and keep up to date with this but as no-one is listening what the hell? [Sorry God]. It fits well with a book on love poetry I am considering and this is cheaper than Vanity publishing. [I wonder how they are getting on?]
BTW. If you have come here via Facebook, may I apologise for not recognising your names, faces or anything that may have happened between us. It was the 60's, there were drugs, I was known for my firm and effective joints,[ which are now arthritic and I now take at least 20 other scrips ] and it seems I was something of a celebrity within my own lunchtime. For late comers to this story I can only admit to being known as 'Iggy' while at Camp Hill School for Boys. The rest is between me and my legal advisor.
10 Questions
Apparently these are Jeeve's top ten unanswerable quesions.
1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Is there a God?
3. Do blondes have more fun?
4. What is the best diet?
5. Is there anybody out there?
6. Who is the most famous person in the world?
7. What is love?
8. What is the secret to happiness?
9. Did Tony Soprano die?
10. How long will I live?
1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Is there a God?
3. Do blondes have more fun?
4. What is the best diet?
5. Is there anybody out there?
6. Who is the most famous person in the world?
7. What is love?
8. What is the secret to happiness?
9. Did Tony Soprano die?
10. How long will I live?
Saturday, 4 September 2010
The Slate Clock
Nobody could ever consider Iolo ap William to be what you would call a handsome man but he had certainly married the most beautiful girl in three valleys in Rhyannon Morgan. Jet dark eyes, coal black hair like silk and a complexion as creamy as a Spanish peach for it was rumoured the family Morgan had blood from a ship wrecked Armada vessel. She had broken many a mans heart before Iolo won her round and, to give him his due, he was the hardest worker in those three valleys.
Iolo had been a ‘rybelwr’ around the slate quarries for more years than the usual apprentice. It wasn’t that he was bad at the job. Fact was he could split the slate like no other before his first Bargain was over, a man born to the task. As every Bargain gang was only paid by the amount of finished slate, there was more than enough competition for Iolo’s skill in producing any size of tile required from ‘Duchesses’ down to ‘ladies’ in half the time. Even as an apprentice.
You see, back in Victoria’s time, the slate was worked in gangs who to all intents were self employed. They had to bid at the beginning of each month for a particular area of the quarry, called a Bargain, depending on how much usable slate there was, how much rubbish, how difficult it was to mine the slate and how much the Setting Steward had it in his mine to settle for. On the first Monday of every month, the Bargain Letters were handed out and the work for the next month was allotted. The Bargain gangs had a hard time of it, for they had to pay for their own tools and sharpening, ropes and chains to haul the slate and explosives to clear to the slate vein. They also had to pay the men who cleared the rubbish but they themselves were only paid by the company for finished slates. So the gang depended on the finishers for their money at the Day of the Big Pay. Oh yes, all had been given subs at the end of every week but after all the expenses, and the management fees on top, there was little out of the 7 shillings per ton left to split at month’s end. The mine owners, English of course, and Anglican Tories at that, were sure of a decent profit and when they weren’t, it was the Welsh miners that suffered.
Even so, Iolo was always sure of work even from the first and could choose his gangs as it suited him. He went for men he could speak to easily in Welsh, Non-Comformists like himself and of a Liberal disposition. Soon he had acquired a gang who knew each other well and could bid for the best bargains and, depending on the market for slate, could make a living amongst the cold, misty mountain around Dinorwic. Better still, the gang was mainly Anglesey men. Waking on Ynys Mon at 3 am on the Monday morning and traveling via the rails back to the valley, they slept in the barracks, made of the same slate as the hills, between Monday night and Saturday afternoon when they returned to their families for the Sabbath. So it continued for five years until Iolo married his dark eyed beauty, Iolo having money put by for such an occasion and having gained a reputation as a very suitable catch.
They made a fine pair and were happy to rent a small cottage a few miles down the road at Deiniollen. Nice Staffordshire on the dresser surrounding a gold carriage clock, his Mam’s pride and joy, a fine bed brought all the way from Chester and even a range, as coal black and shiny as Rhyannon’s hair to keep the wolves from the door. But it couldn’t keep the ‘Mam yng nghyfraith’ away; Margaret Morgan, Iolo’s mother in law. Far from it.
Now a chapel man may be dry, that is he will take none of the demon rum; but it is an iron heart that will remove from him the washing of his throat with a pint of ale. Not too much mind but the slate dust dries one out more thoroughly than if one was sheltering beneath it. Margaret Morgan was not of this opinion. She had seen the founding of the North Wales Temperance Union as a vocation God had given her but until she moved into the newly wed’s, she was well off over in the next valley at Bethesda. Now preaching is one thing, nagging is another. Having barely met the the woman before, it came as a rude awakening to Iolo to find that he had the shrewdest termagant on God’s sweet Earth under his roof. Duw, she could quote chapter and verse about everything and let no occasion pass not to do so. She was relentless. From the pulling on of his boots in the morning to the drawing of the range in the evening she was reminding the poor man of his duties and his failures. He could do no right. His wife could do no wrong and though he tried to please the Mam, it naturally began to affect his marriage. The wife invariably took the mother’s part. To put it bluntly , if he had known about the Mam, he wouldn’t have married the daughter. His mind did get to wondering what had happened to all the other suitors she had and whether or not they had been eaten!
The Lord sayeth , or should do, that an unhappy man is not a good working man and it came to pass that the change within Iolo had manifest itself even unto his Bargain gang. He could barely finish half of what the miners could bring down and some of that spoiled. He no longer had his bids accepted for the choicest sections and if it carried on much longer then the Bargain gang would barely break even at Big Pay Day. The rest of the miners had noticed it and, though none would say it to his face, the nickname Iolo the Nagged had been whispered abroad. They knew Margaret Morgan propensities and though the daughter was beautiful it is rare man who did not remember the proverb: if you want to see the girl as a woman, look at her Mam. So Iolo’s gang mulled it over during the first week of September at the barracks and they deputed Dafyd Jones to have words with Iolo; on the grounds that he worked with Iolo as a finisher and that he was out at the toilet when they decided. There were better reasons though.
Now Dafyd Jones was the kind of man who could think out a solution better than any other and he well deserved his nickname of Dai the Fix. He knew just the kind of person to go to for advice. The ‘Dyn Hysbys; the Wise man. Geoffrey Pritchard was his name. Famous around Ynys Mon for his abilities and his discretion. It was even said that he had restored the life of a man pulled drowned from the Menai Strait by blowing pipe smoke into his lungs as he hung by his heels above the dock, earning for himself the name Lazarus Pritchard. So the next Saturday afternoon, Dafyd took an excursion to Caernarfon to see the man himself. He knew that he frequented the ‘Black Boy’ and may have found him sooner had not an owner re- christened it the ‘Kings Arms’, a problem that troubles many of us still today. Dai the Fix bought the man a drink and then related the problem, stressing that time was of the essence and that there was the living of several others to consider. Over a pint or two and an ounce of what the old gentleman cared to call tobacco, the Wise man considered the problem, asking several questions in order to clarify the situation.
Was the woman amenable getting married again? Dai though it highly unlikely that anyone could be found to take her on. Could she be prevailed upon to move out? Dai assured Mr Pritchard that Mam had got her feet set squarely under the table and it would take an earthquake to get her out. What about her moving to Anglesey? Could not the daughter give a hint that she was not wanted? Dai maintained that any woman who could be separated from her Mam was unlikely to exist outside of Heaven, Dafyd Jones being a married man himself. Besides Iolo would take it badly if his wife had to go as well. Marriage had actually for a short time made him increase his productivity. After many possibilities had been mooted and rejected, Lazarus Pritchard said that it was beyond him. However, there was an old book he could consult that might have an answer so would Dafyd return the week after. There was little choice so Dafyd Jones made a second appointment and left to go to his Anglesey home.
Iolo must have have been getting near the end of his tether during the intervening week. He actually swore once at the young man clearing the rubbish stone and was short even with mates he had known for years. By Friday the tension was so taut that he had to talk about it and let it all out to Dafyd Jones, by that time the only person who could get near him. Blurting out his troubles tearfully he finally said the fateful words ‘I would do anything to get rid of her’. Dai was thus given ‘carte blanche’ for his second meeting with Mr Pritchard.
‘Anything?’ asked Mr Pritchard. ‘Anything’ replied Dafyd Jones.’
‘Well then, In this book I told you about there is an ancient Celtic, let us call it a process, for making a person go away.’
‘Yes, what is it? Dai sat forward.
‘ It is called, “ Carving the name in stone’’.
‘ “ Carving the name in stone’’ I could have gone to a memorial mason for that!’ said Dai whose funds were running low from keeping Mr Pritchard in baccy and beer.
‘ No. You don’t understand. You can’t carve the name yourselves. Oh no. No human can. It has be inside the stone.’
‘That’s impossible. How can you carve a name inside the stone?’
‘You can’t. You have ask someone very special to do it. And person wishing for it to happen has to pay for it to be done’
‘ Who does it and what exactly do we have to pay?’
‘I couldn’t say who exactly. The book is not clear on this matter. ‘
‘Why not’ insisted Dai for he was nothing if not thorough.
‘ It is a translation of a copy made by a monk many centuries ago . Where it is clear is that the payment has to be in gold. Along with certain other, hmm, oddities.’
‘How much gold? ’ Dai was beginning to get a funny feeling.
‘ The first is simple enough. As much gold as the person owns.’
‘What are these oddities then?
‘ Only two of them. The first is a page torn from the Old Testament’.
‘Oh, that’s not too bad. Which one?’
‘Genesis. Chapters 11-14 and 19. Preferably in English.’
‘Well that’s not too hard to come by, is it?’ Dai tried optimism. It didn’t suit.
‘No... but maybe the threads from a hangman’s rope are.’
Dafyd went pale and sat back. ‘Duw Where the... am I going to get that?’
Mr Pritchard leant closer and took his pipe out of his mouth.
‘ I thought of that and I just happen to have some that I acquired earlier’.
‘Duw! What do you use that for?’
‘I couldn’t say and you wouldn’t want to know either’ replied Mr Pritchard.
‘And it doesn’t come cheap either.’ Mr Pritchard held out a package to Dai the Fix and quoted a price that made Dafyd blanch once more. He paid up though after weighing the splitting of the cost between the Bargain gang against how much they were losing in wages and received a hempen thread about two feet long wrapped in brown paper. He didn’t look too closely.
‘It’s the genuine article, I assure you. I was there at the time,’ smiled Mr Pritchard.
Dafyd did not pursue the matter.‘Ach a vi! What are we supposed to do with it?’
‘In your line of work, very easily. Take the torn page and write the name of the person across it. Put it between two blocks of stone, slate in your case, and bind them with the thread. Place your gold offering on the stone and leave them out over the next full moon. Lucky for you that is this Wednesday coming. For safety’s sake it might be well to leave it on the quarry somewhere. Well away from any habitations.’
‘Duw! What happens then?’
‘It’s not exactly clear. My runic is a bit rusty and there are, what you might call, ambiguities in the language. Best not to find out.’
‘Will it work and how will we know if the lady in question’s name is inside the stone?’ Dai was beginning to worry that he was being made fun of; ‘fel hwch ar y rhew’, like a pig on ice.
‘Well, either she goes or she stays. I wouldn’t go cracking the stone open to find out though that’s for sure.’ warned Mr Pritchard as he took his coat and walked to the door. Dai the Fix turned to him and asked him one last question.
‘Why does it have to be an English Bible?’
Mr Pritchard took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled.
‘Because English is the Devil’s own tongue, look you. Nos da.’ and left.
Finding an English Bible was easy. He spun the local vicar from the Church of Wales a tale and got it given free and ‘ with the love of Jesus’. The problem was getting Iolo to agree to the strange and disturbing procedure and to get hold of the gold. Although Dafyd Jones was not what one might call a ‘ righteous man’ he held the superstitions of miners as strongly as the next man especially as regards even naming ‘Hen Nick’. Worse even than saying the word for furry, long-eared vermin. So after two sleepless nights worrying about it like a old dog on a bone Dai determined that the less Iolo and the bargain gang knew the better. Least said, soonest mended. So when Monday came Dai the Fix made a point of finding a slate block that looked unlikely to provide a good clean tile, split it in two and set it aside for later. He broached the matter with Iolo during their tocyn, but he kept it simple and without detail in case Iolo got cold feet. He merely said that he had heard of a way of relieving a marriage of a nuisance mother-in law and that it would require the use of gold. This meant the carriage clock.
‘So you reckon if I give you my Mam’s carriage clock, my mother-in-law will leave us in peace?’ Iolo was sceptic. Dai had a way with words but Iolo couldn’t see how Margaret Morgan could be bought off with a carriage clock.
‘ No, you don’t understand. The clock is payment for someone who will persuade Mam Morgan to go with him. I’m just a go-between as it were.’ soothed Dai. Iolo had taken a lot of persuasion on very little information.
‘And you are sure this will work? My Mam’s pride and joy that clock was.’
‘ But it’s the only gold you possess isn’t it? The... man won’t accept anything less. And there’s three weeks to the next Day of the Big Pay.’
‘ I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to. Better be worth it though. And it better work.‘ Iolo was not pleased but muttered ‘Rwy'n barod i roi'r ffidil yn y tô.’ Or in English ‘I'm ready to put the fiddle in the roof; In other words he was ready to give in. Iolo agreed to the deal.
Dai the Fix took Iolo by his word and later that day went down with Iolo to his cottage and was given the carriage clock on the pretext that it needed cleaning in Caernarfon as it was losing time due to the slate dust that was always around,. Mam Morgan merely sniffed and wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders but let it pass. She didn’t trust Dafyd Jones as far as she could throw him.
So it was on the Wednesday evening after work that Dai the Fix took the slate blocks he had prepared to a site a little away from the Bargain they were working. He placed the page torn from the Old Testament, signed with Margaret Morgan by her less than devoted son-in -law [ Dai wasn’t taking any more chances than he had to] and tied the stones with the distinctly greasy hempen thread. Upon them he placed the carriage clock and left the place quickly before the full moon rose above the mountains in the south east sky. The sky was a clear as a bell though it rarely stayed that way. Storms come down fast in Snowdonia, so there was little comment when as the moon passed it’s zenith there was an almighty ear splitting crack as of lightning from the quarry that woke everybody in the valley. Everybody except one that is.
In the morning Rhyannon Williams awoke as usual, stoked and fed the range and made tea for her husband and her mother. Iolo was dressing in the half light before dawn when he heard the scream from the room next door. He saw his wife in the doorway, stock still and crying pitifully and moved her gently aside to see the cause. In the bed, propped up by her pillows, sat Margaret Morgan. Grey, stiff and as cold as the slate on the mountain.
The doctor was called for but only as a matter of course. There was nothing anyone could do. The doctor put it down to a stroke. Natural causes of course. Nothing anyone could have done. That didn’t make Iolo any happier though and as soon as was decent and proper and could be explained by his having to inform his gang, he strode up the hill to see Dai the Fix. He did not mince his words. He demanded an explanation. ‘What exactly have you done?’ he demanded of Dai.
‘I didn’t really do anything at all, look you. I just made the payment, named the person and ...’ Dafyd Jones was believable only because it was obvious he had not expected this outcome either. Besides he had checked first thing and he had no explanation for the strangest result of his efforts. He showed Iolo what he had found in the place he had put the slate, named page and the gold. He left out the hempen thread. Which was just as well for it would have only confirmed their suspicions further and besides, what was there before was no longer as it was. There before them stood a polished slate block with the face and movement of the carriage clock embedded in it. Still ticking away with a measured tread, the exact time given by the hands. No sign of the gold, the thread or page, which was comfort of a sort. For it involved Lot’s wife. Which for you ungodly creatures is how she was turned to a pillar of salt, on looking back on Sodom or Gomorrah. I can never remember which.
What there was was a few lines in English, carved in a copper plate script that was beyond the masons craft. In English. Now neither Iolo, Dai or Rhyannon was given of the English so it did not signify until after the death watch and the funeral. The slate clock was given pride of place next to the corpse, on the grounds that it had been made as a present for the deceased in order to mollify the bereaved daughter. It was only when the wife of Rees the Undertaker came to lay the body with Rhyannon and the other women that the cat was let out of the bag. Molly Rees was a respected wise woman herself. She didn’t need to be told what the slate clock meant but she kept her thoughts to herself and winked at Iolo knowingly. She had had her run ins with Margaret Morgan herself and it was no business of hers.
And what a funeral it was. The local North Wales Temperance Union made it a point of pride to send Margaret Morgan to her rest in style. Parading in full fig, with the banners waving, down from the cottage to the chapel lower in the valley, followed by the men in their Sunday best corralled by their wives, all secretly glad of a morning away from labour and for the chance to prove the old bat had gone to her long home. A wake there was not. Tea and cakes were demanded by custom, however. The men excused themselves quickly though and leaving the women to their grieving went back to work where they found a barrel provided by Iolo and presided over by Dai the Fix to wet their whistles and drink the respect of his mother-in-law.
It was only after the guests had departed that Molly Rees took Iolo aside.
‘ Do you know what is written upon that fine slate clock of yours?’
‘Come Molly. You know I don’t have the English, look you.’
‘ Well if I were you I’d be careful to always wind it every night and to put it secure on the wall if you are to keep it. Never let it be fall to crack open or broken up. Ever’. Molly whispered.
‘Why Molly. What do the lines of poetry mean?’
‘ They say, more or less;
If I run down, I will come around. If I run slow, my fate you’ll know.
If you break me, you will wake me. Till the crack of doom, let this be my tomb.
Molly winked again. ‘I think it’s better to let Maggie the Shrew rest in peace, don’t you?’
To which Iolo could only agree and he and the beautiful Rhyannon had three fine sons and lived as happily as any working man’s family could before the Great War.
And what became of this diabolical clock. Well, not knowing what to do with it, and Rhyannon not liking it as it reminded her of the death scene and thinking it might please her mother, Iolo donated it to the North Wales Temperance Union for their jumble sale. It didn’t make much money though. It seems there were too many slate plaques around with English poems on at that time and everyone only spoke and had the reading of God’s tongue. Welsh.
Iolo had been a ‘rybelwr’ around the slate quarries for more years than the usual apprentice. It wasn’t that he was bad at the job. Fact was he could split the slate like no other before his first Bargain was over, a man born to the task. As every Bargain gang was only paid by the amount of finished slate, there was more than enough competition for Iolo’s skill in producing any size of tile required from ‘Duchesses’ down to ‘ladies’ in half the time. Even as an apprentice.
You see, back in Victoria’s time, the slate was worked in gangs who to all intents were self employed. They had to bid at the beginning of each month for a particular area of the quarry, called a Bargain, depending on how much usable slate there was, how much rubbish, how difficult it was to mine the slate and how much the Setting Steward had it in his mine to settle for. On the first Monday of every month, the Bargain Letters were handed out and the work for the next month was allotted. The Bargain gangs had a hard time of it, for they had to pay for their own tools and sharpening, ropes and chains to haul the slate and explosives to clear to the slate vein. They also had to pay the men who cleared the rubbish but they themselves were only paid by the company for finished slates. So the gang depended on the finishers for their money at the Day of the Big Pay. Oh yes, all had been given subs at the end of every week but after all the expenses, and the management fees on top, there was little out of the 7 shillings per ton left to split at month’s end. The mine owners, English of course, and Anglican Tories at that, were sure of a decent profit and when they weren’t, it was the Welsh miners that suffered.
Even so, Iolo was always sure of work even from the first and could choose his gangs as it suited him. He went for men he could speak to easily in Welsh, Non-Comformists like himself and of a Liberal disposition. Soon he had acquired a gang who knew each other well and could bid for the best bargains and, depending on the market for slate, could make a living amongst the cold, misty mountain around Dinorwic. Better still, the gang was mainly Anglesey men. Waking on Ynys Mon at 3 am on the Monday morning and traveling via the rails back to the valley, they slept in the barracks, made of the same slate as the hills, between Monday night and Saturday afternoon when they returned to their families for the Sabbath. So it continued for five years until Iolo married his dark eyed beauty, Iolo having money put by for such an occasion and having gained a reputation as a very suitable catch.
They made a fine pair and were happy to rent a small cottage a few miles down the road at Deiniollen. Nice Staffordshire on the dresser surrounding a gold carriage clock, his Mam’s pride and joy, a fine bed brought all the way from Chester and even a range, as coal black and shiny as Rhyannon’s hair to keep the wolves from the door. But it couldn’t keep the ‘Mam yng nghyfraith’ away; Margaret Morgan, Iolo’s mother in law. Far from it.
Now a chapel man may be dry, that is he will take none of the demon rum; but it is an iron heart that will remove from him the washing of his throat with a pint of ale. Not too much mind but the slate dust dries one out more thoroughly than if one was sheltering beneath it. Margaret Morgan was not of this opinion. She had seen the founding of the North Wales Temperance Union as a vocation God had given her but until she moved into the newly wed’s, she was well off over in the next valley at Bethesda. Now preaching is one thing, nagging is another. Having barely met the the woman before, it came as a rude awakening to Iolo to find that he had the shrewdest termagant on God’s sweet Earth under his roof. Duw, she could quote chapter and verse about everything and let no occasion pass not to do so. She was relentless. From the pulling on of his boots in the morning to the drawing of the range in the evening she was reminding the poor man of his duties and his failures. He could do no right. His wife could do no wrong and though he tried to please the Mam, it naturally began to affect his marriage. The wife invariably took the mother’s part. To put it bluntly , if he had known about the Mam, he wouldn’t have married the daughter. His mind did get to wondering what had happened to all the other suitors she had and whether or not they had been eaten!
The Lord sayeth , or should do, that an unhappy man is not a good working man and it came to pass that the change within Iolo had manifest itself even unto his Bargain gang. He could barely finish half of what the miners could bring down and some of that spoiled. He no longer had his bids accepted for the choicest sections and if it carried on much longer then the Bargain gang would barely break even at Big Pay Day. The rest of the miners had noticed it and, though none would say it to his face, the nickname Iolo the Nagged had been whispered abroad. They knew Margaret Morgan propensities and though the daughter was beautiful it is rare man who did not remember the proverb: if you want to see the girl as a woman, look at her Mam. So Iolo’s gang mulled it over during the first week of September at the barracks and they deputed Dafyd Jones to have words with Iolo; on the grounds that he worked with Iolo as a finisher and that he was out at the toilet when they decided. There were better reasons though.
Now Dafyd Jones was the kind of man who could think out a solution better than any other and he well deserved his nickname of Dai the Fix. He knew just the kind of person to go to for advice. The ‘Dyn Hysbys; the Wise man. Geoffrey Pritchard was his name. Famous around Ynys Mon for his abilities and his discretion. It was even said that he had restored the life of a man pulled drowned from the Menai Strait by blowing pipe smoke into his lungs as he hung by his heels above the dock, earning for himself the name Lazarus Pritchard. So the next Saturday afternoon, Dafyd took an excursion to Caernarfon to see the man himself. He knew that he frequented the ‘Black Boy’ and may have found him sooner had not an owner re- christened it the ‘Kings Arms’, a problem that troubles many of us still today. Dai the Fix bought the man a drink and then related the problem, stressing that time was of the essence and that there was the living of several others to consider. Over a pint or two and an ounce of what the old gentleman cared to call tobacco, the Wise man considered the problem, asking several questions in order to clarify the situation.
Was the woman amenable getting married again? Dai though it highly unlikely that anyone could be found to take her on. Could she be prevailed upon to move out? Dai assured Mr Pritchard that Mam had got her feet set squarely under the table and it would take an earthquake to get her out. What about her moving to Anglesey? Could not the daughter give a hint that she was not wanted? Dai maintained that any woman who could be separated from her Mam was unlikely to exist outside of Heaven, Dafyd Jones being a married man himself. Besides Iolo would take it badly if his wife had to go as well. Marriage had actually for a short time made him increase his productivity. After many possibilities had been mooted and rejected, Lazarus Pritchard said that it was beyond him. However, there was an old book he could consult that might have an answer so would Dafyd return the week after. There was little choice so Dafyd Jones made a second appointment and left to go to his Anglesey home.
Iolo must have have been getting near the end of his tether during the intervening week. He actually swore once at the young man clearing the rubbish stone and was short even with mates he had known for years. By Friday the tension was so taut that he had to talk about it and let it all out to Dafyd Jones, by that time the only person who could get near him. Blurting out his troubles tearfully he finally said the fateful words ‘I would do anything to get rid of her’. Dai was thus given ‘carte blanche’ for his second meeting with Mr Pritchard.
‘Anything?’ asked Mr Pritchard. ‘Anything’ replied Dafyd Jones.’
‘Well then, In this book I told you about there is an ancient Celtic, let us call it a process, for making a person go away.’
‘Yes, what is it? Dai sat forward.
‘ It is called, “ Carving the name in stone’’.
‘ “ Carving the name in stone’’ I could have gone to a memorial mason for that!’ said Dai whose funds were running low from keeping Mr Pritchard in baccy and beer.
‘ No. You don’t understand. You can’t carve the name yourselves. Oh no. No human can. It has be inside the stone.’
‘That’s impossible. How can you carve a name inside the stone?’
‘You can’t. You have ask someone very special to do it. And person wishing for it to happen has to pay for it to be done’
‘ Who does it and what exactly do we have to pay?’
‘I couldn’t say who exactly. The book is not clear on this matter. ‘
‘Why not’ insisted Dai for he was nothing if not thorough.
‘ It is a translation of a copy made by a monk many centuries ago . Where it is clear is that the payment has to be in gold. Along with certain other, hmm, oddities.’
‘How much gold? ’ Dai was beginning to get a funny feeling.
‘ The first is simple enough. As much gold as the person owns.’
‘What are these oddities then?
‘ Only two of them. The first is a page torn from the Old Testament’.
‘Oh, that’s not too bad. Which one?’
‘Genesis. Chapters 11-14 and 19. Preferably in English.’
‘Well that’s not too hard to come by, is it?’ Dai tried optimism. It didn’t suit.
‘No... but maybe the threads from a hangman’s rope are.’
Dafyd went pale and sat back. ‘Duw Where the... am I going to get that?’
Mr Pritchard leant closer and took his pipe out of his mouth.
‘ I thought of that and I just happen to have some that I acquired earlier’.
‘Duw! What do you use that for?’
‘I couldn’t say and you wouldn’t want to know either’ replied Mr Pritchard.
‘And it doesn’t come cheap either.’ Mr Pritchard held out a package to Dai the Fix and quoted a price that made Dafyd blanch once more. He paid up though after weighing the splitting of the cost between the Bargain gang against how much they were losing in wages and received a hempen thread about two feet long wrapped in brown paper. He didn’t look too closely.
‘It’s the genuine article, I assure you. I was there at the time,’ smiled Mr Pritchard.
Dafyd did not pursue the matter.‘Ach a vi! What are we supposed to do with it?’
‘In your line of work, very easily. Take the torn page and write the name of the person across it. Put it between two blocks of stone, slate in your case, and bind them with the thread. Place your gold offering on the stone and leave them out over the next full moon. Lucky for you that is this Wednesday coming. For safety’s sake it might be well to leave it on the quarry somewhere. Well away from any habitations.’
‘Duw! What happens then?’
‘It’s not exactly clear. My runic is a bit rusty and there are, what you might call, ambiguities in the language. Best not to find out.’
‘Will it work and how will we know if the lady in question’s name is inside the stone?’ Dai was beginning to worry that he was being made fun of; ‘fel hwch ar y rhew’, like a pig on ice.
‘Well, either she goes or she stays. I wouldn’t go cracking the stone open to find out though that’s for sure.’ warned Mr Pritchard as he took his coat and walked to the door. Dai the Fix turned to him and asked him one last question.
‘Why does it have to be an English Bible?’
Mr Pritchard took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled.
‘Because English is the Devil’s own tongue, look you. Nos da.’ and left.
Finding an English Bible was easy. He spun the local vicar from the Church of Wales a tale and got it given free and ‘ with the love of Jesus’. The problem was getting Iolo to agree to the strange and disturbing procedure and to get hold of the gold. Although Dafyd Jones was not what one might call a ‘ righteous man’ he held the superstitions of miners as strongly as the next man especially as regards even naming ‘Hen Nick’. Worse even than saying the word for furry, long-eared vermin. So after two sleepless nights worrying about it like a old dog on a bone Dai determined that the less Iolo and the bargain gang knew the better. Least said, soonest mended. So when Monday came Dai the Fix made a point of finding a slate block that looked unlikely to provide a good clean tile, split it in two and set it aside for later. He broached the matter with Iolo during their tocyn, but he kept it simple and without detail in case Iolo got cold feet. He merely said that he had heard of a way of relieving a marriage of a nuisance mother-in law and that it would require the use of gold. This meant the carriage clock.
‘So you reckon if I give you my Mam’s carriage clock, my mother-in-law will leave us in peace?’ Iolo was sceptic. Dai had a way with words but Iolo couldn’t see how Margaret Morgan could be bought off with a carriage clock.
‘ No, you don’t understand. The clock is payment for someone who will persuade Mam Morgan to go with him. I’m just a go-between as it were.’ soothed Dai. Iolo had taken a lot of persuasion on very little information.
‘And you are sure this will work? My Mam’s pride and joy that clock was.’
‘ But it’s the only gold you possess isn’t it? The... man won’t accept anything less. And there’s three weeks to the next Day of the Big Pay.’
‘ I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to. Better be worth it though. And it better work.‘ Iolo was not pleased but muttered ‘Rwy'n barod i roi'r ffidil yn y tô.’ Or in English ‘I'm ready to put the fiddle in the roof; In other words he was ready to give in. Iolo agreed to the deal.
Dai the Fix took Iolo by his word and later that day went down with Iolo to his cottage and was given the carriage clock on the pretext that it needed cleaning in Caernarfon as it was losing time due to the slate dust that was always around,. Mam Morgan merely sniffed and wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders but let it pass. She didn’t trust Dafyd Jones as far as she could throw him.
So it was on the Wednesday evening after work that Dai the Fix took the slate blocks he had prepared to a site a little away from the Bargain they were working. He placed the page torn from the Old Testament, signed with Margaret Morgan by her less than devoted son-in -law [ Dai wasn’t taking any more chances than he had to] and tied the stones with the distinctly greasy hempen thread. Upon them he placed the carriage clock and left the place quickly before the full moon rose above the mountains in the south east sky. The sky was a clear as a bell though it rarely stayed that way. Storms come down fast in Snowdonia, so there was little comment when as the moon passed it’s zenith there was an almighty ear splitting crack as of lightning from the quarry that woke everybody in the valley. Everybody except one that is.
In the morning Rhyannon Williams awoke as usual, stoked and fed the range and made tea for her husband and her mother. Iolo was dressing in the half light before dawn when he heard the scream from the room next door. He saw his wife in the doorway, stock still and crying pitifully and moved her gently aside to see the cause. In the bed, propped up by her pillows, sat Margaret Morgan. Grey, stiff and as cold as the slate on the mountain.
The doctor was called for but only as a matter of course. There was nothing anyone could do. The doctor put it down to a stroke. Natural causes of course. Nothing anyone could have done. That didn’t make Iolo any happier though and as soon as was decent and proper and could be explained by his having to inform his gang, he strode up the hill to see Dai the Fix. He did not mince his words. He demanded an explanation. ‘What exactly have you done?’ he demanded of Dai.
‘I didn’t really do anything at all, look you. I just made the payment, named the person and ...’ Dafyd Jones was believable only because it was obvious he had not expected this outcome either. Besides he had checked first thing and he had no explanation for the strangest result of his efforts. He showed Iolo what he had found in the place he had put the slate, named page and the gold. He left out the hempen thread. Which was just as well for it would have only confirmed their suspicions further and besides, what was there before was no longer as it was. There before them stood a polished slate block with the face and movement of the carriage clock embedded in it. Still ticking away with a measured tread, the exact time given by the hands. No sign of the gold, the thread or page, which was comfort of a sort. For it involved Lot’s wife. Which for you ungodly creatures is how she was turned to a pillar of salt, on looking back on Sodom or Gomorrah. I can never remember which.
What there was was a few lines in English, carved in a copper plate script that was beyond the masons craft. In English. Now neither Iolo, Dai or Rhyannon was given of the English so it did not signify until after the death watch and the funeral. The slate clock was given pride of place next to the corpse, on the grounds that it had been made as a present for the deceased in order to mollify the bereaved daughter. It was only when the wife of Rees the Undertaker came to lay the body with Rhyannon and the other women that the cat was let out of the bag. Molly Rees was a respected wise woman herself. She didn’t need to be told what the slate clock meant but she kept her thoughts to herself and winked at Iolo knowingly. She had had her run ins with Margaret Morgan herself and it was no business of hers.
And what a funeral it was. The local North Wales Temperance Union made it a point of pride to send Margaret Morgan to her rest in style. Parading in full fig, with the banners waving, down from the cottage to the chapel lower in the valley, followed by the men in their Sunday best corralled by their wives, all secretly glad of a morning away from labour and for the chance to prove the old bat had gone to her long home. A wake there was not. Tea and cakes were demanded by custom, however. The men excused themselves quickly though and leaving the women to their grieving went back to work where they found a barrel provided by Iolo and presided over by Dai the Fix to wet their whistles and drink the respect of his mother-in-law.
It was only after the guests had departed that Molly Rees took Iolo aside.
‘ Do you know what is written upon that fine slate clock of yours?’
‘Come Molly. You know I don’t have the English, look you.’
‘ Well if I were you I’d be careful to always wind it every night and to put it secure on the wall if you are to keep it. Never let it be fall to crack open or broken up. Ever’. Molly whispered.
‘Why Molly. What do the lines of poetry mean?’
‘ They say, more or less;
If I run down, I will come around. If I run slow, my fate you’ll know.
If you break me, you will wake me. Till the crack of doom, let this be my tomb.
Molly winked again. ‘I think it’s better to let Maggie the Shrew rest in peace, don’t you?’
To which Iolo could only agree and he and the beautiful Rhyannon had three fine sons and lived as happily as any working man’s family could before the Great War.
And what became of this diabolical clock. Well, not knowing what to do with it, and Rhyannon not liking it as it reminded her of the death scene and thinking it might please her mother, Iolo donated it to the North Wales Temperance Union for their jumble sale. It didn’t make much money though. It seems there were too many slate plaques around with English poems on at that time and everyone only spoke and had the reading of God’s tongue. Welsh.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Referee!!?
The Lord Triesman affair has generated a lot of heat and debate amongst those who are concerned about the 'press freedom' aspect. Personally I think that the dogs of fleet street would eat their own young for a story and am in despair over the fact that one of the most notorious editors in the past few years is now in government. Anyway... here are a couple of posts for the Guardian CiF .
If you Google Melissa Jacobs , you end up with a US Porn star.
Can't see the colour of her eyes though.
The point being missed by North is that it is obviously common currency amongst the FA to think that the Spanish FA are not beyond bribing referees [ an act that has been suspected before in previous World Cup Finals and by other countries and not only by taxi drivers ] and that they could hardly bring these suspicions to FIFA directly.
Could it be that Triesman fell on his sword? Remember that under our very generous libel laws if Lord Triesman brought a case against Melissa and the MoS, the Spanish FA may feel free to appeal to the same law and court.
In any case it has given fair warning to FIFA and the rest of the world that previous refereeing decisions that affected England's progress in past campaigns will be looked at more closely and cynically if they occur in future .
If it brings about a stricter appraisal of dodgy decisions and a resort to more advanced technology then the lady may have been worth the price paid.
Oh come on, North. Surely you are not naive enough to think that such things do not go on? Au Continent? Do you know of any multi billion enterprise that does not have it's unfair share of fixers, dopers, dodgy middle - men, agents, touts, and 'administrators' who are given more VIP treatment than the Pope? It may be a beautiful game but it's also a bloody dirty business.
If you Google Melissa Jacobs , you end up with a US Porn star.
Can't see the colour of her eyes though.
The point being missed by North is that it is obviously common currency amongst the FA to think that the Spanish FA are not beyond bribing referees [ an act that has been suspected before in previous World Cup Finals and by other countries and not only by taxi drivers ] and that they could hardly bring these suspicions to FIFA directly.
Could it be that Triesman fell on his sword? Remember that under our very generous libel laws if Lord Triesman brought a case against Melissa and the MoS, the Spanish FA may feel free to appeal to the same law and court.
In any case it has given fair warning to FIFA and the rest of the world that previous refereeing decisions that affected England's progress in past campaigns will be looked at more closely and cynically if they occur in future .
If it brings about a stricter appraisal of dodgy decisions and a resort to more advanced technology then the lady may have been worth the price paid.
Oh come on, North. Surely you are not naive enough to think that such things do not go on? Au Continent? Do you know of any multi billion enterprise that does not have it's unfair share of fixers, dopers, dodgy middle - men, agents, touts, and 'administrators' who are given more VIP treatment than the Pope? It may be a beautiful game but it's also a bloody dirty business.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Fe
Is this how we are forged,
Struck from the womb in an Anglo Saxon phrase?
To be beaten or cast into fashion or form
Over which no control is possible.
A tempering by smith or by Vulcan into
a shape that yet retains our own polarity?
Do we forge ourselves into sword or plough;
Into magnet or barbed live wire;
Into firegrate, penknib, knife or vat
That our parents or school marm have wished?
Or were their designs beyond their means,
Distorted by the fires of a fiercer furnace?
Was the polish rubbed off a bright future
by the stains of experience or fatigue
And tell a final tale of corrosion
Under the influence of water, air
and the stronger Bru?
Can the archaeologist tell the true form against the age?
I think on all the tempering
that others have endured, enjoyed or borne.
To remain sharp and Sheffield bright
Or dulled into a sullen bluntness
Of uncaring barbs and razor sharp swarf
That can draw oxide red blood with unfeeling words.
To be as smoothly oiled
As by the trusty engineer or joiner’s craft
or blackened by the simple cook
retaining all vestige of the pleasure
of the making and the use.
To be savoured again into the memory impressed.
To cut through the times and grain
with the confidence of a two handed saw.
To shoe the horse and the wheel
To roll the world into the greener grass,
Mowed by the scythes and threshed
Into a future where iron no longer rules.
To fire the ball into the foe
And cut the the swathes to freedom.
To hold and form the gate
To keep the peace or lock in,
Or out of, the honest moil,
The corruption that would steal it’s own future.
To link so many chains and padlock us
into a holdfast secure to all
Or bridge the gap between dividing banks.
Have we still the formulae for this
or abandoned it for a weaker earth
That depends on transition of unseen force?
Must I rust into impassive mechanism
And lose all use in the failing of my nuts and bolts?
Lose my temper, far too brittle to survive the strains.
Ill-usage and fatigue change the tasks I must do
Into a grating of pain
where entropy works far faster on me than on iron.
Do all our parts finally meld
In an atomic fluidity at our core
That sends a world spinning and holds the Solar storms
Or steel a Universe into a iron will that
Decrees our final mettle.
Or will a mixture with gall and shredded wood be all that lasts?
Struck from the womb in an Anglo Saxon phrase?
To be beaten or cast into fashion or form
Over which no control is possible.
A tempering by smith or by Vulcan into
a shape that yet retains our own polarity?
Do we forge ourselves into sword or plough;
Into magnet or barbed live wire;
Into firegrate, penknib, knife or vat
That our parents or school marm have wished?
Or were their designs beyond their means,
Distorted by the fires of a fiercer furnace?
Was the polish rubbed off a bright future
by the stains of experience or fatigue
And tell a final tale of corrosion
Under the influence of water, air
and the stronger Bru?
Can the archaeologist tell the true form against the age?
I think on all the tempering
that others have endured, enjoyed or borne.
To remain sharp and Sheffield bright
Or dulled into a sullen bluntness
Of uncaring barbs and razor sharp swarf
That can draw oxide red blood with unfeeling words.
To be as smoothly oiled
As by the trusty engineer or joiner’s craft
or blackened by the simple cook
retaining all vestige of the pleasure
of the making and the use.
To be savoured again into the memory impressed.
To cut through the times and grain
with the confidence of a two handed saw.
To shoe the horse and the wheel
To roll the world into the greener grass,
Mowed by the scythes and threshed
Into a future where iron no longer rules.
To fire the ball into the foe
And cut the the swathes to freedom.
To hold and form the gate
To keep the peace or lock in,
Or out of, the honest moil,
The corruption that would steal it’s own future.
To link so many chains and padlock us
into a holdfast secure to all
Or bridge the gap between dividing banks.
Have we still the formulae for this
or abandoned it for a weaker earth
That depends on transition of unseen force?
Must I rust into impassive mechanism
And lose all use in the failing of my nuts and bolts?
Lose my temper, far too brittle to survive the strains.
Ill-usage and fatigue change the tasks I must do
Into a grating of pain
where entropy works far faster on me than on iron.
Do all our parts finally meld
In an atomic fluidity at our core
That sends a world spinning and holds the Solar storms
Or steel a Universe into a iron will that
Decrees our final mettle.
Or will a mixture with gall and shredded wood be all that lasts?
Friday, 21 May 2010
Henry Porter , RIP
I can't decide whether Henry Porter is a Tory stalking horse or just a one trick pony but as he rides off into the sunset he leaves behind some precious little piles for my garden.
Just one of those things...
Let the number of preventable events that maybe expected to occur equal x.
The probability of any one of those events occurring is 1/x.
Let us take x = 5 the probability = 1/5 = 20%.
Each event has a 20% chance of occurring.
If we prevent one of those events from occurring then the probability is now 1/x-1.
If x= 5, x-1 = 4 The probability = 1/4 = 25%.
The probability of each event has increased as the number of events decrease.
If there is only one event probable of occurring then 1/1= 100% = Certainty
[ If all events are prevented from occurring then 1/0 = infinity [though it may be taken as certainty.]
Thus the probability of the unexpected event is certainty or,
'Whatever can happen, will happen'
QED
Monday, 17 May 2010
Wot...No Narrative
Film blog on Robin Hood,Russell Crowe and accents
I cannot see why these remakes cannot keep to the narrative as it has been passed down through the ages. I am writing whilst Merlin And The Book of Beasts is on the TV. A better title would be Merlin Goes To The Dogs. Truly awful. [The similarity of Merlin's accent to Windsor Davies is uncanny]
The Beeb did the same with The Tudors, Merlin and it's own take on Robin Hood. Got rid of the original story and 'explored' the narrative. It may not be history but it has tradition behind it. If we are not true to that tradition then we can hardly moan about Hollywood or Texan school book history. It means it's fair game to make up any story you like or or adapt a universal parable to whatever fits your purposes. It means that if you tell a lie big enough and long enough then people will believe it. A proposition adopted by Dr. Joseph Goebels I believe. Makes Liberty Valance almost a martyr to the First Amendment.
I cannot see why these remakes cannot keep to the narrative as it has been passed down through the ages. I am writing whilst Merlin And The Book of Beasts is on the TV. A better title would be Merlin Goes To The Dogs. Truly awful. [The similarity of Merlin's accent to Windsor Davies is uncanny]
The Beeb did the same with The Tudors, Merlin and it's own take on Robin Hood. Got rid of the original story and 'explored' the narrative. It may not be history but it has tradition behind it. If we are not true to that tradition then we can hardly moan about Hollywood or Texan school book history. It means it's fair game to make up any story you like or or adapt a universal parable to whatever fits your purposes. It means that if you tell a lie big enough and long enough then people will believe it. A proposition adopted by Dr. Joseph Goebels I believe. Makes Liberty Valance almost a martyr to the First Amendment.
The day the war broke out...
Hard to know what to say about a marriage made in hell except that a majority of voters did not vote for a Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition. It wasn't on the ballot.
Personally I cannot see it lasting for a full term because even Lib. Dems are not that naive [ though Clegg may well be ] to believe that the Tories are going to modify their behaviour or their basic policies to anything that can be remotely described as fair. Less than a week in and there's a nasty smell in the air.
George Osborne is ramming through the £6Bn cuts in a week... which means he must have had them up his sleeve all along. Setting up an 'independent' economic forecasting quango is a real doozy too. Means he can ignore what the Treasury is saying and carry on regardless. Bet he didn't run that one past Vince Cable first. He's been side lined and if the banks aren't kept on side then Cable can be blamed, sidelined and then quietly removed. Vince certainly has so little influence now he may as well retire.
Creating enough Tory peers to ram bills through Parliament [ whilst being so generous to Nick's side. Some Lord's reform ] so that Cameron can gerrymander the boundaries, voting system and parliamentary reform. Bet they don't get around to repealing all those 'anti-libertarian' acts that Henry Porter hated NuLabour for. Going to come in useful when the natives get restless.
Europe? Who wants to get closer to that cluster fuck? Means Cameron can get the press on side towards disengagement and away from a European social model and move towards the Americanisation of the 'Big Society'. Any rich, Tory philanthropists out there?
Make no mistake about it. The Tories have an agenda. Remember how much Cameron didn't say during the election. Leaves the field clear because he promised sweet FA. Clegg has been bedazzled. I wonder how long it will be before he realises this is a devil's bargain.
Personally I cannot see it lasting for a full term because even Lib. Dems are not that naive [ though Clegg may well be ] to believe that the Tories are going to modify their behaviour or their basic policies to anything that can be remotely described as fair. Less than a week in and there's a nasty smell in the air.
George Osborne is ramming through the £6Bn cuts in a week... which means he must have had them up his sleeve all along. Setting up an 'independent' economic forecasting quango is a real doozy too. Means he can ignore what the Treasury is saying and carry on regardless. Bet he didn't run that one past Vince Cable first. He's been side lined and if the banks aren't kept on side then Cable can be blamed, sidelined and then quietly removed. Vince certainly has so little influence now he may as well retire.
Creating enough Tory peers to ram bills through Parliament [ whilst being so generous to Nick's side. Some Lord's reform ] so that Cameron can gerrymander the boundaries, voting system and parliamentary reform. Bet they don't get around to repealing all those 'anti-libertarian' acts that Henry Porter hated NuLabour for. Going to come in useful when the natives get restless.
Europe? Who wants to get closer to that cluster fuck? Means Cameron can get the press on side towards disengagement and away from a European social model and move towards the Americanisation of the 'Big Society'. Any rich, Tory philanthropists out there?
Make no mistake about it. The Tories have an agenda. Remember how much Cameron didn't say during the election. Leaves the field clear because he promised sweet FA. Clegg has been bedazzled. I wonder how long it will be before he realises this is a devil's bargain.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Simon Jenkins' Rabbit Stew
This is a response to the Simon Jenkins' article in the Guardian of Saturday 8th May 2010.
A 53% [ actually a 64% ] vote against Cameron and Tories is considered to be a kiss of life? Well if you are a 'fluffy bunny' it might be.
I am sure I am not alone in thinking that nobody who supports PR thought it was going to be Teletubbies [ except the Solihull woman who said she didn't mind who was in charge as long as they 'stopped bickering' ]
Politics is 90% ' heated discussions' in 'smoke filled rooms' [and ffs let's change that cliche to 'butt strewn draughty doorways' Hasn't anybody noticed where smokers congregate? ] The other 10% is like an old whore's 'slap' of makeup to convince the punters she's still got what it takes. The voters stuck with the ones they know. Less likely to pick something nasty.
Time for all us bunnies to understand that our present system is as outmoded as the 'Empire' and that it is as curious a British eccentricity as £sd. As an' electoral college' Parliament is efficient. Separation of a 'presidential ballot' from the representatives leads to pork barrel politics and wrangling between the executive and the legislature . It's the bias of FPTP that is most egregious.
PR at least makes every vote count. [ Perhaps the constituency problem could be overcome by each MP being selected from caucuses or ' appointed' after election to an area on the same basis that priests are sent to minister to flocks. Couple it with the Lords being told to take up their beds and get out into the constituency and us coneys may be drooling. Make it interesting at least ] Whatever the pros and cons they were all dealt with by the Jenkins' commission in 1998. Going back over the same ground just to get a better pupil/teacher ratio would be lunatic and a total betrayal of the Lib Dems raison d'etre. Even bunnies don't vote for Christmas.
Shackle himself to a guy who has 'lost' a 20 point lead for a mess of potage? No-one can trust Cameron because the Tories will never allow PR. The electorate will never forgive him or the Lib Dems for not giving us a 21st century constitution. Brown may be unattractive but 52% of this country think Cameron and Osborne are dangerous tossers forever in hock to Tories who are further to the right of Attila the Hun let alone Thatcher.
Cameron cannot command an overall majority in Parliament. He has only 306 seats out of 649. Could he become PM as a minority with a 'confidence and supply' arrangement? Only if Brown/ or AN.Other and Clegg sat on their hands whilst waiting to slip a rabbit trap noose around Dave's neck and by bribing NI to share the burrow. May be sooner or later but 64% think Tory policies stink. Plus knowing the Tories delightful ability to eat their own children if they thought it would bring them power, Dave's already being seasoned for the Hassenpfeiffer.
Delicious irony.
PS On my previous posts I alluded to the loss of my iTunes due to my computer crashing. I explained the situation to Apple iTunes and they allowed my to download all 784 in my account again. Why I bought Apple 25 years back.
A 53% [ actually a 64% ] vote against Cameron and Tories is considered to be a kiss of life? Well if you are a 'fluffy bunny' it might be.
I am sure I am not alone in thinking that nobody who supports PR thought it was going to be Teletubbies [ except the Solihull woman who said she didn't mind who was in charge as long as they 'stopped bickering' ]
Politics is 90% ' heated discussions' in 'smoke filled rooms' [and ffs let's change that cliche to 'butt strewn draughty doorways' Hasn't anybody noticed where smokers congregate? ] The other 10% is like an old whore's 'slap' of makeup to convince the punters she's still got what it takes. The voters stuck with the ones they know. Less likely to pick something nasty.
Time for all us bunnies to understand that our present system is as outmoded as the 'Empire' and that it is as curious a British eccentricity as £sd. As an' electoral college' Parliament is efficient. Separation of a 'presidential ballot' from the representatives leads to pork barrel politics and wrangling between the executive and the legislature . It's the bias of FPTP that is most egregious.
PR at least makes every vote count. [ Perhaps the constituency problem could be overcome by each MP being selected from caucuses or ' appointed' after election to an area on the same basis that priests are sent to minister to flocks. Couple it with the Lords being told to take up their beds and get out into the constituency and us coneys may be drooling. Make it interesting at least ] Whatever the pros and cons they were all dealt with by the Jenkins' commission in 1998. Going back over the same ground just to get a better pupil/teacher ratio would be lunatic and a total betrayal of the Lib Dems raison d'etre. Even bunnies don't vote for Christmas.
Shackle himself to a guy who has 'lost' a 20 point lead for a mess of potage? No-one can trust Cameron because the Tories will never allow PR. The electorate will never forgive him or the Lib Dems for not giving us a 21st century constitution. Brown may be unattractive but 52% of this country think Cameron and Osborne are dangerous tossers forever in hock to Tories who are further to the right of Attila the Hun let alone Thatcher.
Cameron cannot command an overall majority in Parliament. He has only 306 seats out of 649. Could he become PM as a minority with a 'confidence and supply' arrangement? Only if Brown/ or AN.Other and Clegg sat on their hands whilst waiting to slip a rabbit trap noose around Dave's neck and by bribing NI to share the burrow. May be sooner or later but 64% think Tory policies stink. Plus knowing the Tories delightful ability to eat their own children if they thought it would bring them power, Dave's already being seasoned for the Hassenpfeiffer.
Delicious irony.
PS On my previous posts I alluded to the loss of my iTunes due to my computer crashing. I explained the situation to Apple iTunes and they allowed my to download all 784 in my account again. Why I bought Apple 25 years back.
Monday, 19 April 2010
Polled at last
For the first time in my life I have been asked about my voting intentions over the phone. As we are going through the great Nick Clegg bubble, I hope that it may make a difference. I know I don't agree with every aspect of Lib Dem policy I can at least have the glow that comes from being in a position where the rest of the world is catching up with you. I pray for a hung Parliament and the utter destruction of the Tory hopes for a term in office in any other century. They would probably try to engineer a coup if they lost. I'm a victim of the Thatcher era along with millions of others and we would all love to see those fuckwits who only care about the money consigned to the garbage bin of history. For Ever
Saturday, 3 April 2010
There is a lovely story concerning the hare who being mad with lust at Easter time tried to mate with the moon. Which is why I always see a hare upside down in the moon instead of the less obvious man.
A Happy and fertile festival to all.
Oh Father Sun and Mother Earth
We know all life owes you their birth.
Protect our hearths, our homes, our fields
From those who wish our souls to yield.
Give us fruit and grain and meat
Pure water so we may drink and eat.
Our children born in bright array
to know the right in night and day.
To support the weak 'gainst mighty foe
whom riches trust and gold only know
And when the light dies in our eyes
Let us walk with you and rise.
The water of life falls on the tree
The river of life flows to the sea
The sea gives rain upon the land
The circle set so man abounds.
This is version of a pagan prayer that I wrote several years ago.Unfortunately having lost a lot of writhg when mt G5 crashed I have had to rewrite it. But all is change and none the worse for that
A Happy and fertile festival to all.
Oh Father Sun and Mother Earth
We know all life owes you their birth.
Protect our hearths, our homes, our fields
From those who wish our souls to yield.
Give us fruit and grain and meat
Pure water so we may drink and eat.
Our children born in bright array
to know the right in night and day.
To support the weak 'gainst mighty foe
whom riches trust and gold only know
And when the light dies in our eyes
Let us walk with you and rise.
The water of life falls on the tree
The river of life flows to the sea
The sea gives rain upon the land
The circle set so man abounds.
This is version of a pagan prayer that I wrote several years ago.Unfortunately having lost a lot of writhg when mt G5 crashed I have had to rewrite it. But all is change and none the worse for that
Sunday, 28 March 2010
iTunes
Typical isn't it? After starting to blog my G5 has gone haywire and refuses to boot up. So I'm back to my old iMac. State of art in 2001 and now obsolete unto the third generation. Problem is when your hard disc goes so does all the iTunes you've purchased over the past 2 years. All that crazy music you won't find anywhere else. Do I have back-ups? I have now. The G5 went soon after Xmas and was sucessfully repaired and I purchased an external 1 Terrbyte hard disc. But before I could download a new set of iTunes it has crashed again. I have contacted iTunes to explain the situation but basically they say that I have to pay for all the tunes I had purchased again. To the tune of £500 if I tot it up. Restoration of my old hard disc starts around £270. Seems I'm caught in a Devil's bargain.
Friday, 26 March 2010
Troop Aid
I am sending this as a mailing to friends. Through my Masonic involvement I have been involved in some fund raising for Troop Aid, one of the first charities to respond to the needs of those troops injured who arrive at Selly Oak hospital, Birmingham: they now provide for a number of other reception hospitals. Troop Aid who are a small body of relentless volunteers, provide what they call Buddy Bags which are the essentials (clothing, trainers, toiletries) for those who are returned injured to the UK - most of whom arrive wrapped in a blanket or in the combat kit they were injured in (torn and blood stained) - we are talking both sexes. One wonders how those who sent them to war might feel if dumped in such an undignified way? (I will avoid a political statement)
I must emphasise this is a private mailing and not a Troop Aid circular however it has prompted me to ask that if you can help Troop Aid then please contact them <pamsutton@troopaid.info>
or go to their web site for more info. I AM NOT A REPRESENTATIVE of Troop Aid just a Brit. who believes these kids deserve better - to me there is a message in the story below.
or go to their web site for more info. I AM NOT A REPRESENTATIVE of Troop Aid just a Brit. who believes these kids deserve better - to me there is a message in the story below.
Kindest regards
Ken Reeves
Airline Lunches
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight from Gatwick. 'I'm glad I have a good book to read Perhaps I will get a short sleep,' I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of British Army Youngsters came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.
'Where are you blokes headed?' I asked the Young man seated nearest to me. Cyprus. We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan. After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that lunches were available for five pounds. It would be severa l hours before we reached Cyprus, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time. As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his mate if he planned to buy lunch. 'No, that seems like a lot of money for just an airline lunch. Probably wouldn't be worth five Quid. I'll wait till we get to Cyprus. His mate agreed. I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty Pound note. 'Take a lunch to all those soldiers..' She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. 'My young bloke was a soldier in Iraq, it's almost like you are doing it for him. ' Picking up ten lunchboxes, she headed up the aisle to where the boys were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?' 'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class. 'This is your thanks.' After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. An old bloke stopped me. 'I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.' He handed me twenty-five Pounds. Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he wasn't looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand, and said, 'I want to shake your hand.' Quickly unfastening my seat-belt I stood and took the Captain's hand. With a booming voice he said, 'I was an army pilot a long time back. Once someone bought me lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.' I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers. Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A kid who looked about 18 was sitting about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five Pounds . In my palm. When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to depart. Waiting just inside the aeroplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five Pounds! Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip up to their training area. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five Pounds. 'It will take you some time to reach your training area. It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You Blokes.' Ten young blokes left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow Brits. As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of meals. It seemed so little... A British Serviceman is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank cheque made payable to 'United Kingdom' for an amount of ' up to and including my life.' That is Honour, and there are way too many foreigners in this country who don't understand it.' May you have the strength and courage to pass this along to everyone on your email mates list.... I JUST DID!
Contact
Pam Sutton
Secretary Troop Aid
PO Box 14482
Solihull
West Midlands
0121 711 7215
Apologies . This was originally a poem
Thursday, 25 March 2010
So much longing
http://www.myspace.com/jbcom
Have found that iTunes has 5 new tunes from the Glaswegian songstress Jerry Burns and bought them without hesitation. We lost our hard disc the other week and all our favourite songs. A fine balance between paying for a disc retrieval at £300 or a lot of work finding the missing tracks which cost even more on iTunes. Must remember to back everything up. Now I have a 1T external should be easier.
For those who don't know the lady [ and do not get confused with the male country singer Jerry Burns ] she writes and produces music of exceptional clarity and beauty with almost French chanteuse qualities. Anyone who has heard her 1994 album 'Pale Red' knows that there is an artist who deserves to be heard far more widely and whose production has a longing and nostalgia that you want to hear more of. Which is a pity because 'Pale Red' and 'Angel' are 15 tracks only. Her fans have been waiting for years for this, barely 20 minutes. She's not to everyone's taste, my nearest and dearest do not see the point. There are no histrionics, no complexity, almost nothing there but bare understated piano riffs and strings and that voice that is mellow single malt with a hint of IrnBru but pure lost love, madness and ecstasy that only Marcel Maljhoudi can come close to in ' Une jour Tu Verras' . Quelle domage.
Have found that iTunes has 5 new tunes from the Glaswegian songstress Jerry Burns and bought them without hesitation. We lost our hard disc the other week and all our favourite songs. A fine balance between paying for a disc retrieval at £300 or a lot of work finding the missing tracks which cost even more on iTunes. Must remember to back everything up. Now I have a 1T external should be easier.
For those who don't know the lady [ and do not get confused with the male country singer Jerry Burns ] she writes and produces music of exceptional clarity and beauty with almost French chanteuse qualities. Anyone who has heard her 1994 album 'Pale Red' knows that there is an artist who deserves to be heard far more widely and whose production has a longing and nostalgia that you want to hear more of. Which is a pity because 'Pale Red' and 'Angel' are 15 tracks only. Her fans have been waiting for years for this, barely 20 minutes. She's not to everyone's taste, my nearest and dearest do not see the point. There are no histrionics, no complexity, almost nothing there but bare understated piano riffs and strings and that voice that is mellow single malt with a hint of IrnBru but pure lost love, madness and ecstasy that only Marcel Maljhoudi can come close to in ' Une jour Tu Verras' . Quelle domage.
Hello. Is there anybody there?
Well that was easy enough.
Don't get me wrong. I've been playing around on Macs since the word go. Just been a little wary. Don't particularly like sticking my head out of the trees but since I've been making a nuisance of myself on the Guardian CiF for almost three years... I got it coming to me.
First let me introduce myself. It's an anagram and a nickname. Nuff sed. I've had others but won't answer to them.
What do I do? For a living.. absolutely bugger all. I had to retire as a teacher of science because of asthma, [ always, always use a fume cupboard ] Never mind that fact I was lousy at it. Saved Chris Woodhead stringing me up. The pension paid the mortgage and my wife is a saint who hates not working. She hates the job too but ... As we had a second son as a toddler the obvious thing to do was to take over some of the myriad jobs you ladies have to do and the DIY that comes with buying a money pit. That's a story for another day.
Though I became a house husband, back in the early '90's I had a karaoke road show and disco. Stop tittering at the back there. I took it seriously and was rewarded with hearing some of the finest singers in the Black Country. I never took the mickey, I always tried to ' make show ' and ignored the bullet holes in the windows. It was the empty bars that got me. I even had a gig at an old peoples home. That is probably all you need to know about agents.
Being a musician was fun but no money to speak of. Same as trying to get it together as a songwriter. I'll let you judge that later but as my cousin said' You're good but it's tough out there.' We had to give up the band in the early noughties. Every gig we got the place closed down soon after. Even Ronnie Scott's [ Brum branch][ Mind you, having seen the ladies toilets and the price of drinks it wasn't surprising]
So now I write a bit here and there , still not making any money but feeling less useless than I used to. I like writing and I try to keep it snappy and relevant whilst grammatically correct
[ though since everything now has an American spell checker.... I sometimes despair]
One of the reasons I post and surf is that despite being virtually disabled now, communication is still one of things I value more than anything else and I reckon there are a lot of people out there who still like solving the world's problems over a decent conversation. The biggest problem seems to be one's own inability to overcome depression. Been there, done that and I wouldn't wish it even on ...certain politicians. So if you want to take the evening air, sit awhile on an imaginary porch swing, sing an old Carole King number together and light a candle in the gathering night.
Oh... I'm a sucker for punishment so if you want to recommend songs, books , poets or anything, feel free.
Don't get me wrong. I've been playing around on Macs since the word go. Just been a little wary. Don't particularly like sticking my head out of the trees but since I've been making a nuisance of myself on the Guardian CiF for almost three years... I got it coming to me.
First let me introduce myself. It's an anagram and a nickname. Nuff sed. I've had others but won't answer to them.
What do I do? For a living.. absolutely bugger all. I had to retire as a teacher of science because of asthma, [ always, always use a fume cupboard ] Never mind that fact I was lousy at it. Saved Chris Woodhead stringing me up. The pension paid the mortgage and my wife is a saint who hates not working. She hates the job too but ... As we had a second son as a toddler the obvious thing to do was to take over some of the myriad jobs you ladies have to do and the DIY that comes with buying a money pit. That's a story for another day.
Though I became a house husband, back in the early '90's I had a karaoke road show and disco. Stop tittering at the back there. I took it seriously and was rewarded with hearing some of the finest singers in the Black Country. I never took the mickey, I always tried to ' make show ' and ignored the bullet holes in the windows. It was the empty bars that got me. I even had a gig at an old peoples home. That is probably all you need to know about agents.
Being a musician was fun but no money to speak of. Same as trying to get it together as a songwriter. I'll let you judge that later but as my cousin said' You're good but it's tough out there.' We had to give up the band in the early noughties. Every gig we got the place closed down soon after. Even Ronnie Scott's [ Brum branch][ Mind you, having seen the ladies toilets and the price of drinks it wasn't surprising]
So now I write a bit here and there , still not making any money but feeling less useless than I used to. I like writing and I try to keep it snappy and relevant whilst grammatically correct
[ though since everything now has an American spell checker.... I sometimes despair]
One of the reasons I post and surf is that despite being virtually disabled now, communication is still one of things I value more than anything else and I reckon there are a lot of people out there who still like solving the world's problems over a decent conversation. The biggest problem seems to be one's own inability to overcome depression. Been there, done that and I wouldn't wish it even on ...certain politicians. So if you want to take the evening air, sit awhile on an imaginary porch swing, sing an old Carole King number together and light a candle in the gathering night.
Oh... I'm a sucker for punishment so if you want to recommend songs, books , poets or anything, feel free.
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Could I make a plea for a less sceptical attitude? I have lived in several houses that were haunted. Being half Anglo/Saxon and half Welsh, I very rarely see ghosts except as a peripheral view but other effects do occur far too regularly to be dismissed with ' I should take more water with it'. The closing of doors, sounds that have no explanation, acquaintances who have behaved far too convincingly to be just acting' on seeing something . One room mate at University never went in that bathroom again whilst another saw so many in the old houses that made up our hall of residence that he left after the third change of room.Even the Warden of the hall sympathised with him and advised students to keep quiet about it.
The second example that happened to me personally makes me feel ashamed now. I lived with two girlfriends [ one of whom became my wife ] in a terraced house in my University town. We had several flatmates but nobody stayed very long in the room they occupied. It never occurred to me until the latest residence made such a noise overnight that I felt I had to comment on it the next day. She hadn't been in at all.
Later my step son used to ask where 'Doctor Who' went to and my wife and he heard someone going up and down the stairs all the time. Finally the room was taken by a Ghanaian who had been seen on the campus behaving strangely. I couldn't in all charity turn him away so he took the room, along with his wife. They were, I think, Catholics or Baptist but were going to the other church's services. It was enough to give my wife and myself paranoia. So when they woke us up in the middle of the night, screaming and praying to God to save them from the Devil, we panicked, dressed and went to the nearest phone box for the police. The poor guy must have been on some list somewhere because the police didn't turn up but ambulance men with instructions to take the man to the local mental institution. Later his wife, who moved out very soon after, explained that a 'demon' had appeared in their room and was throwing the furniture around. Fortunately the man was later released and went on to complete his studies but I still feel perhaps we behaved rather too hastily.
It may all be dismissed as anecdotal evidence by the sceptics but there are enough posts here to indicate that something is happening. Being a cat lover who moved into a house owned by many cat lovers in the past, at this time of year my wife and I are made aware of a lot of feline behaviour not attributable to our now lonely Arripussalom. The heavy weight landing on the duvet, the sound of miaows and the occasional sighting of stranger cats is too frequent to be ignored. The closest I have come to seeing one recently was last Thursday, through a doorway from the kitchen into our sun lounge. It used to have a cat flap to the outside and the entrance from the other lounge was locked where Arrow was busy on the sofa cleaning. Even a Muslim friend of my son saw one at the same time as my wife. It then disappeared as did Ramesh very rapidly. He has never returned.
I don't write this as a rag to attack sceptics with but as an appeal for more open minds. Apparently there is one country in Northern Europe where there is total denial. It is maintained that there are no ghosts there. Yet this is a country where mental illness is too high to be explained satisfactorily. It may be ok for David Mitchell to deny the phenomena but to deny that other people have different experiences and are disturbed by them; i.e. they are all crazy, is doing a great disservice to the community and to psychiatric practices. How many cases of hearing voices are being solved by stuffing patients full of anti-hallucinogenics, or left out of 'the community' by pure scientific rigour and scepticism,doctors and the same people who decry religion as having no role in the modern world. I agree, if it is left to Evangelical Christianity or 'TV psychics' I too worry. It may be that by a little more understanding and compassion for and by the churches, people who do have genuine second sight, clairvoyance or hear voices may not be shunned and ridiculed by an unfeeling world. Remember, we all end up dead.