Down the rabbit hole...

I know it is simply repeating the work of others, although, to be fair, I have not read the other work but I am aware of the work and have read some short books that cover the work, I do like to think about I! That said, I am also aware that for every piece of work that has ever been written on the subject of ‘I’, the soul, the psyche, the spark inside us all… there are other works which challenge the assumptions in the first book. And, so it seems, the merry dance goes on and on and on. I suspect it will continue to go on and on until some form of proof is arrived at and then the discussion might stop. Although I doubt it, probably it will simply head in another direction in light of the scientific certainty that is arrived at. And, of course, even when scientific proof is arrived at there will still be multitudes of camps that will not believe it. Just as there are today still ‘flat earthers’ and all manner of religions that don’t care too much about science and, some of

I doubt that I agree with everything Mesut Ozil says, especially as he count Erdogan amongst his closest friends. But, I do defend his right to express his views the same as any other individual living in a country that allows freedom of speech (with all the caveats, legal and moral, that come with that freedom). So if he wants to make a criticism about something that even the UN has condemned then who is to say that he cannot. His employers are interested in money because his employers are a business. So when Ozil says something that upsets a client that pays money that then in theory flows through and pays Ozil himself it makes sense that they might try to distance themselves from Ozil and his private views and comments. Leaving aside the whole 'issue' itself. Then it comes down to business. So, if Ozil is an employee of the company and he is constrained by his contract about what he says then maybe the club should be sanctioning him, and not simply distancing itself,

Then, continue on a theme, or maybe just to keep pulling on a thread until the whole thing unravels... When you look at the works of Descartes or Hobbes and others they were, if I understand correctly, which should not be a given known fact, they basically had everything as being an extension of provisions of God, Hardly surprising as they would be creationists and then again could they have been anything except being creationists as Darwin et al were not even the merest twinkles in proverbial eyes. But I can't help myself but ask, if there is a God, an omnipotent creator of all things... well, who made God. I'm guessing we'll never know and even if there is an afterlife and we shrug off this mortal coil and then go to a happy smiley place afterwards, it strikes me as sort of irrelevant as there is no connection between this place and that. So for those that are still here when someone dies there can only be the faintest reassurance that they have gone to another pla

Do you ever think about thought and what it is and why it's bothering you all the time. Some of my other posts will reveal that I think about it, sometimes way too much. But then it is fascinating. Not just fascinating but kinda the very purpose of being human beings altogether. Unless you think that there are other living beings that also think. And thought needs to be separated from being. We exist as a body which is not greatly different from other bodies in nature, even when you look at the body genetically there is a large amount of DNA that is common across species but DNA tells us nothing about thought. At least I don't think it does, maybe one day we will find out that the ability to think is contained as code within DNA. Who knows, then maybe we will be able to understand that other sentient beings also have the power of thought, of being self aware and who knows, after that, maybe we might find some surprising way of communicating with them on a whole new level.

He wasn't sure how he arrived in the park. He just seemed to have arrived there. Thoughts raced around his head. He felt so much pressure, squeezing him, so many things seemed to be collapsing around him and there seemed so little he could do. Perhaps this was just some past catching up with him. Maybe this was his due. But whatever it was, it seemed too much, seemed that his head was literally under pressure from inside, like a steam cooker but the valve was stuck, there was no way of releasing the pressure that was building inside. He remembered he had been in his apartment. He remembered he had been thinking about work and relationships and debts. None of them were good. All of them could be dealt with one at a time but when they all seemed to go wrong at the same time, that suddenly seemed to have made a difference. Maybe it was coming already, maybe there was an inevitability about it all. Maybe it was simply written in the stars. Who knew, and who actually cared. The

I've been a atheist or at least agnostic (fence sitter) for most of my life, at least for the parts where I have given it any consideration at all or where I have not been in excruciating agony and thinking that I might be about to cash in and find out whether I was right or wrong to have doubt or lack of faith. And for most of this time I stated the same old memes as many others about science and proof and all the bad things in the world and there being so many different types of god or creator. But... It is not so much that I have suddenly found faith it's just that a number of things strike me when I think about them. The kind of things that I guess most people have thought about one way or another at some point or another throughout time! For instance, I was thinking about the scientific principal called the Law of the Conservation of Energy which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed it can only be transferred from one form to another. Which is

I guess it's election time. How exciting. This is the first time in my life where the number of factors and mix of parties combined with the depth of feeling within the country I have no idea what will happen. Normally you can be pretty certain that either one or other of the main parties is going to win and one of the two main parties will almost certainly win but what kind of win is an entirely different matter. So much has changed in the recent years, the left has gone a long way left and the right has moved even further right (which some might find hard to believe). Not only am I uncertain what will happen in the election I have no idea what will happen once a government is formed. I just have this rather uncomfortable feeling that whatever government is next in power it will not be good for the country but in very different ways. I suspect that a coalition government would be the best outcome, so long as it is not a coalition of right and far right like Conservative and

I'm finding it increasingly hard to like any politician of any hue any more. In fact my favourite politicians seem to be those that are in the later years and either retired or shuffled off to the Lords. And amongst them I count members from all parties. I am uncertain as to whether this is just because I am getting old and this is some kind of age thing or whether politics has changed. I recall being an 'angry young man' myself and remember how passionately I felt about aspects of politics and would regale my friends with my drunken opinionated blatherings about how the world would be better if... And yet today I find politicians way too shouty, nearly all of them! Even when they are not being shouty they are bending the truth in such a manner as a balloon artist would be proud of. Taking a serious subject and manipulating it into somethings that come out looking like a giraffe with a pink body and green ears! I can no longer watch the programs that I enjoyed wher

Some random thoughts... I was thinking, imagine if you thought about the person you know best in all the world, maybe a member of your family or a friend or, somewhat unlikely, a complete random stranger, although I guess if you have been studying a particular person in order to write a biography on them then perhaps you might really know that individual best! Maybe. But regardless, if you thought about that person whoever it might be. And you thought about everything you know about them, about every recollection, and you spend hours and hours just thinking about all the things you know about them. The good, the bad, the laughs, the tears, where they have been, what the have done, what they have been through. It's just. Well, there would be a lot, there would be a lifetime of memories all sifted through. And why was I thinking this complete randomness. Well, because every time I hear an empty statistic like, 5 people killed in a shooting, two people dead in a car crash, 81 de

Much as I admire 80 year old eco-warriors super gluing themselves to all manner of things in the name of the environment I do have a few teensy weensy little concerns with it. The first might just be that an 80 year old has not just lived through, er, 80 years of varying degrees of economic and industrial growth but has in all likelihood contributed and definitely benefited from it. I wonder how many cars they have bought in that time, and clothes and all manner of consumerist goods from further and further afield as time went by. So I just find it a little bit much that they should put themselves front and centre in the argument. Unless of course they all wear a sign that says, heh look, really sorry but this is all our fault and, having had all these wonderful benefits and flown around the world on holidays for many a decade we hate to have to say we were wrong and now repent and ask you not to do, or enjoy, the kind of life we did... thanks! But that's only a small part o

I'm not keen on Autumn. Not when it is wet and let's face it, wet is the new normal for the UK. It's almost as if the nature itself has decided to live up to the stereotypes about the British weather. The year seems to have been one of various records being broken, mainly records that involve large quantities of water and ever bigger measuring devices complete with ever greater superlatives to go with them! And a wet Autumn is the worst of all I think. The days are getting shorter, the temperature is dropping, the central heating is on and the faults in the central heating that have been there through the preceding six months of so, sniggering unseen in a pipe somewhere, suddenly burst forth (not literally I hope) and say 'tarrah here I am...' and the plumber is summoned from his slumber to come and deal with it! Doing things in the garden is not exactly pleasant. The cold air, the never ending cascade of leaves as the different variety of trees decide upon th

As trite sayings go 'work to live not live to work' has to be one of the top five. It does have to come with a shed full (an English expression basically meaning a shit load... a lot, is that better!) of exclusions and amendments. Can you imagine saying that to a surgeon? What would you have her do? To not do the extra couple of hours and leaving the latest stabbing victim to the care of the A&E nurses until they cannot deal with the trauma any longer and the victim bleeds out. Even a surgeon, or any Dr or nurse or Fireman or policeman or or or, should work to live but when they take up this wonderful and noble career, a dedication, they know what they are getting into. In fact Drs have to survive a trial by fire simply to get through the training. The training itself, simply to become a Dr is so tough and so stressful it verges on the limits of what is permissible according to the various bills on Human Rights. Then at the other end of the spectrum a single dad who i

I was in the gym today and noticed a young girl (these things being relative so she could be anywhere from mid twenties to thirty something but I digress...) who had self-harm scars on her arms, actually only one arm, her left. Mainly on the upper arm but some on the lower arm as well. My first thought was why am I even looking it is none of my business but she was cute and that kinda hooked my attention for a minute. Then I felt a little sad for her having gone through whatever it was in her life that made her feel so bad that she needed to self-harm. But ultimately, before I stopped noticing, I felt really proud of her for having put this behind her, guessing by the age of the scars, and not just accepting her past but also wearing the scars like a badge of honour. Not sure whether that's quite the right phrase for it but I think it is brave and really cool that she didn't just cover up and feel ashamed of this part of her life. Also, I'm not sure I can feel proud

One wonders what exactly the world would or should or could do about China. What exactly will 'the world' do when the puppet government in Hong Kong cracks down upon the protesters that have been on the streets for several months now. The level of violence from both sides has increased and the protesters, particularly the student protesters, are now, I think it is fair to say, radicalised. It is almost as though they want martyrs for the world to look upon and act on. But the world will almost certainly not do so. Hong Kong has a population of c.8 million people. Sounds a lot. But China has already shown that big numbers don't scare them. For a start the population of China itself is c1.4 billion so Hong Kong is not even 1% of the population. Not to mention the PLA has a standing army that numbers at least 2 million and then there are reservists after that! And for those that think China, or at least the Communist Party or China, will not do anything about such larg

Ladies and gentlemen, roll up, roll up, roll up. We have for you one of the finest, most audacious, most malodorous shows you will ever have had the confusion to watch. Or, for the more initiated one of the most complete shows of manipulation you have had the pleasure, or displeasure depending upon your viewpoint, shows that ever you did see. Whether you like, or dislike, BoJo. Whether you trust him or wouldn't ask him to feed your cat for one night while you go and watch a show in town. Whether you think 'Johnson' is an all to apt expression about the man and his penchant for accidentally putting his hands on knees other than his own. Or whether you think he is really quite such a bumbling buffoon that it is entirely possible for him to put his hands on his own thigh and simply miss, is completely up to you. What is almost undeniable is that he, or maybe the dark evil creature that looks a little like something that lives in a cave and craves a magical ring standing

It can be difficult, mused a muse, that parody and satire can be lost at times when fact seems to encroach upon fiction. Or indeed simply replaces it. In a world where facts about misconduct are simply denounced as lies and 'fake news' is not so much the problem because it has always been thus. It has commonly been the case that an individual or company or government would simply state that some piece of news reported about them, or even just scurrilously repeated down the local bar, is a lie and then there would be hundred of hours of investigation by people that believe it is true and that this truth should be reported as such and that the perpetrators should be called out about their misdeeds. And so it came to pass that huge organizations were brought low, political careers were ended, marriages destroyed or even wars started. By truth. And things have not changed so much, except now of course, the lies and mistruths are now more greatly accepted as being true. And when

On a more serious, reflective, topic. It seems uncommon to think much about death until death itself knocks on your door and says 'hi, I'm here to collect..' and then looks down the list of names that today are due to catch a ferry across a river to another place. But I think about the manner of death and about how people look upon those poor souls, of whom I have known too many, who suffer from either debilitating diseases or simply rigours of old age that make their minds go to, well, mush! There have been more than one or two people I have known that have said 'I would kill myself before I get to that stage!' and yet they never have and they have instead endured a slow, sometimes painful death which does not end like the knock on the door above, but instead is more like death turning up and saying 'hi, I've come to take x away for a decade of torment and literal hell on earth before finally taking them to the ferry!' Medicine is a wonderful an

There is nothing so troublesome as procrastination. To be indecisive about a direction and so take no decision. To stand, if you like, at the head of a path that splits in two and be unable to decide which one to take. Robert Frost would understand, although he chose one, and it was less trod, if memory serves me correctly. BoJo was vacillating. When he was advised, by an advisor, that he was vacillating, he claimed somewhat to the advisers dismay, that he was not currently in need of any form of lubrication. He also gave the advisor a kind of curious, stay away from me with your whacky ideas kind of look. This look was commensurate with a man who mistook vacillation for something completely different and something that only has questionable usages by a very small proportion of the population. Mainly that proportion of the population attended very private schools with a pretty much entire male attendance although there were always the odd questionable ones. And indeed, nowadays the

I'm not finished with my story, I'm just taking a break. Partly coz there are things I must address and also because my attempt at humorous parody of current events are less funny than the actual events! Especially now that BoJo has compared himself to the Hulk... the Bulk maybe, but not the Hulk. What's more, the actor best known for playing the Hulk has even weighed in the matter. How are you supposed to parody stuff like that? I mean, it's crazy and ridiculous already and funnier than anything I could think up! That doesn't mean that I'm not going to try. I just need to lie in a dark room with a cold wet towel covering my eyes, just for a little while you understand.

Today was a beautiful day and Dumpy was out and about playing with some sticks and a ball. He tried very hard to hit the ball with one of the sticks but quite often missed and even when he hit the ball seemed not to be getting the message that it was supposed to go in a certain direction. To help educate the ball often Dumpy would take to picking the ball up after hitting it, when he did hit it, and moving it to where it was supposed to be after being hit. He would then spend several minutes lecturing the unmoving ball as to the rights and wrongs of going where he wanted and not where it seemed to want to go. There were, as it happened, as it always seemed to be the case, several men standing around him following him up and down the nice greenery with excellent sandpits in which Dumpy was very keen to play with his balls and always one or two other people accompanying them who also had sticks and balls but they always seemed to have balls that were far better trained as they defin