The Queen bestows the highest award in the land on the Duchess of Cornwall! A day of shame and humiliation for what was once a proud nation known for its high moral standing and lofty principles.Yet another example of how the monarchy is so out of touch with real life, as lived and experienced by ordinary people. A closet of pampered, spoilt mediocrity inbred with the delusions you always get want you want and have whatever you desire, regardless of cost or consequences.
The viper in the nest is of course the Prince, Heir Apparent, who chose to stand before the world declare his oath of marriage whilst all the while continuing with his other concealed life, with his long standing mistress. Know nothing of the mistress and have no wish to. In my book, the other woman that comes between a marriage, who wreaks a family unit and encourages a weak male to follow his lust and not his principles, is not a woman to admire or reward with high honour. This is not someone who got involved with another in a broken relationship. Oh, no. This is some one who was more than willing to stand by whilst a wife was declared to the world and then carry on regardless. To be rewarded for hanging onto her target, for not letting decency and good sense prevail, but opening herself to her suitor to ensure his continuing attention, is plain wrong. She should be sidelined by society, not shunned, but to be openly displayed that this is not how adults conduct themselves. Wallace, in contrast stood by her man but received no recognition throughout her life. What value judgements do our monarchy use to get it so consistently wrong. Other than of course that they are so wrapped up in their cosy inward looking bauble they have no comprehension about life outside it.
No doubt in the minds of the monarchy there are loads of extenuating reasons why this honour had to be given. None justify the insult now made public to all those other commoners that have been awarded an honour for truly significant contributions to life, in so many heart rending ways. A public snub, a cock of the royal snoot to all those commoners. Your well earned and well deserved award has just been trashed. These awards and honours are not the playthings of the monarchy. They used to be regarded as the ultimate honour and should be the ultimate public recognition of services, beyond the call of duty, for services rendered. Not laying on your back giving pleasure to a man who should have had the sense and decency not to have been there but back home supporting his chosen wife.
Fine, let the Prince and Duchess forgo all privileges and retire to a private life then even I could wish them well. Until they accept their lack of moral judgement they are condemned. We are living through a period where the glues that binds society together are held in contempt. Fairness, tolerance, putting others first, being true to your word, not taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable, integrity, standing up for what you believe in, dare I say it, honour, all, they all sound so old fashioned and quaint, so unfamiliar in today's rush and grab world. Yet unless we can trust that person next to us we cannot function as a society. We are going to have to rediscover these old values. We need our leaders and public figures to stand proud and affirm by their lifestyles these essential but now old fashioned sounding qualities.
Monday, 9 April 2012
Monday, 12 March 2012
Having a different take?
As way of a prologue, being the youngest of three, my formative years were skilled in ducking and weaving between my elder siblings. No chance for me to be self-centred. Where as the eldest grew expecting the world to be presented to him for his first taking or refusing as the mood suited. There was no counter requirement to defer so that became his normal expectation.
Late in my years, maybe I am at last beginning to appreciate that I did have a rather special childhood. There was no alpha male in the house to rule over it and my mother, partly by the need to feed the ever hungry mouths was out at work, or if home followed some pledge she had somehow arrived at that she should not channel, restrict or in any way try to contain our three separate paths to development or was just plumb too worn out. Anyway there was an absence of any debate, discussion, angling of thought on political lines in my growing up. Just a background permeation of high CofE conformity. What radio I listened to was Dan Dare, bless Radio Luxembourg, then much later on TV where Malcolm Muggeridge sanctimoniously pontificating was as serious as it got until rescued by Dixon of Dock Green or Muffin the Mule. We were not a cohesive family surrounded by extended family. We were all loners that took shelter with another at intervals. My world was books, books with action and a story to follow.
Schooling was also pretty dire. Education by those who had long given up bothering and did the minimalist possible, to get by and not lose control. So no classics for me, no flights of fancy exploring philosophical constructs, nothing challenging such as exploring evolution of political thought or to stand your ground, debate and argue your case. The only ground won or lost was with fists. Maybe that is all entirely normal and everyone's experience. I guess not.
The penny has only just dropped that maybe my way of thinking things through is not mainstream. Let us redefine thinking first. There are many shades of thinking. The Practicalities, need to eat, but need first to shop for food but before that need to have money. The Informational, press button A to achieve release of D, compute this term to solve your desire. The Conforming, signals say to fit in with those, these things have to change, or my popularity has now surpassed all those nearby. The narrow band of thinking I am referring to, is Blue Sky thinking. Taking previously disconnected ideas or facts and melding them into a novel construct where they fit tight and snug with no apparent logic gaps. My first encounter with Blue Sky thinking was when reading Bernard Shaws long convoluted prologues to his pretty asinine plays, which I read voraciously from volume one to the last. Mainly just for their prologues, never got on with reading a play.
I imagine that there are approved right ways and wrong ways to Blue Sky think, there must be lazy sloppy methods in contrast with the taunt, finely defined approaches. I have no idea, my background has never exposed me to anything to suggest there might be levels to aspire to. I guess that my Blue Sky thinking is, feral. What I do know is that out of nothing, apart from an initiating seed grain of dirt, this orb of concentric ideas and associations suddenly appears with one central linking theme. Shift the focus off ever slightly to one side or another and the cloud of associations shift. Zoom out slowly and this cohesive orb of connectedness compasses bigger and bigger dimensions. Visualthesaurus's display is the most graphical way I know of, to compare my 'idea' inspirations. Where the words are replaced with associations and related ideas and as I move around just off centre, further expanses of relativity show.
Nope, not a single notion of whether this is normal, abnormal, eccentric, bizarre or just so commonplace that every one of us experiences it. All I can do is be sensitive to other people and their reactions to events. These tend to confirm that I am off the wall, a feral thinker, sometimes coming up with gold nuggets, often reaching wild conjecture based on the flimsiest of facts but always good for a different take on the world from the prevailing norm.
Late in my years, maybe I am at last beginning to appreciate that I did have a rather special childhood. There was no alpha male in the house to rule over it and my mother, partly by the need to feed the ever hungry mouths was out at work, or if home followed some pledge she had somehow arrived at that she should not channel, restrict or in any way try to contain our three separate paths to development or was just plumb too worn out. Anyway there was an absence of any debate, discussion, angling of thought on political lines in my growing up. Just a background permeation of high CofE conformity. What radio I listened to was Dan Dare, bless Radio Luxembourg, then much later on TV where Malcolm Muggeridge sanctimoniously pontificating was as serious as it got until rescued by Dixon of Dock Green or Muffin the Mule. We were not a cohesive family surrounded by extended family. We were all loners that took shelter with another at intervals. My world was books, books with action and a story to follow.
Schooling was also pretty dire. Education by those who had long given up bothering and did the minimalist possible, to get by and not lose control. So no classics for me, no flights of fancy exploring philosophical constructs, nothing challenging such as exploring evolution of political thought or to stand your ground, debate and argue your case. The only ground won or lost was with fists. Maybe that is all entirely normal and everyone's experience. I guess not.
The penny has only just dropped that maybe my way of thinking things through is not mainstream. Let us redefine thinking first. There are many shades of thinking. The Practicalities, need to eat, but need first to shop for food but before that need to have money. The Informational, press button A to achieve release of D, compute this term to solve your desire. The Conforming, signals say to fit in with those, these things have to change, or my popularity has now surpassed all those nearby. The narrow band of thinking I am referring to, is Blue Sky thinking. Taking previously disconnected ideas or facts and melding them into a novel construct where they fit tight and snug with no apparent logic gaps. My first encounter with Blue Sky thinking was when reading Bernard Shaws long convoluted prologues to his pretty asinine plays, which I read voraciously from volume one to the last. Mainly just for their prologues, never got on with reading a play.
I imagine that there are approved right ways and wrong ways to Blue Sky think, there must be lazy sloppy methods in contrast with the taunt, finely defined approaches. I have no idea, my background has never exposed me to anything to suggest there might be levels to aspire to. I guess that my Blue Sky thinking is, feral. What I do know is that out of nothing, apart from an initiating seed grain of dirt, this orb of concentric ideas and associations suddenly appears with one central linking theme. Shift the focus off ever slightly to one side or another and the cloud of associations shift. Zoom out slowly and this cohesive orb of connectedness compasses bigger and bigger dimensions. Visualthesaurus's display is the most graphical way I know of, to compare my 'idea' inspirations. Where the words are replaced with associations and related ideas and as I move around just off centre, further expanses of relativity show.
Nope, not a single notion of whether this is normal, abnormal, eccentric, bizarre or just so commonplace that every one of us experiences it. All I can do is be sensitive to other people and their reactions to events. These tend to confirm that I am off the wall, a feral thinker, sometimes coming up with gold nuggets, often reaching wild conjecture based on the flimsiest of facts but always good for a different take on the world from the prevailing norm.
Monday, 20 February 2012
Sexism
This has been sparked by an article of no consequence, bemoaning the lack of Catholic woman priests. That is just the entry point and otherwise not significant. It is just that it bought my mind around to considering sexism. A few years back, starting with and as a celebration of my Mothers ninetieth birthday, I began charting my family history. Knowing nothing of my father, who left home when I was around 8years, naturally I explored my mothers side. Got engrossed and, with bit now fully between the teeth, explored all provable connections on my mothers line, proud of the links and lineage discovered. In reaching back to the tenuously discernible 1730's I began to consider and explore the social history that led to some key changes in my families histories. Farmers do not become labourers nor end up in a workshop to die of 'insanity', ( as alcoholism was known), without due cause. Cutting a long introduction short I eventually after a couple of serendipity moments, stumbled on an entry point and began to unravel my fathers family. Only to discover I was repeating the steps he too had taken some twenty years earlier. Nothing new under the sun.
I was pulled up short on more than one occasion by relatives who dismissed the maternal line as not having any significance. To them, it was only the male line of inheritance that had any relevance. With my background this puzzled me but slowly other pieces of jigsaw have begun to fall into place.
We are now, here , this is where it is at, but we are only a continuum of our past. We have to keep our past in view to understand where our future lies. The way forward has to be shaped and based on the path taken to reach this point. All very laboured but let us not forget, male inheritance has been the dominate consideration. Up until this point, the now. Inheritance is simply the passing on of the title to land. Land equates to wealth, privileged, influence and power. Your position utterly depended on what land you inherited and the wheels and deals you could use it for to expand it or prevent others from taking it from you. The by far greatest wheeling deal in town was who you could get to marry you, bringing in privileges, connections or simply more land, not for love or romance but plain pragmatics. Hopefully a woman who could bear strong sons, strong enough to survive childhood. That she was compliant, frugal or even attractive were very secondary considerations. Lets us roll back the years even further. To get land and hold on to it, you had to be a strong fighter able to attract other men to fight by your side and defer to your authority. As top dog, women you could take and have a plenty but you needed one who would bear you a son and nurture it whilst you were away defending you claim to land against all others. Nurture it and stay loyal to you and you alone. A son that you could pass your battle won respect (titles) and land to to survive after your death and making your fights, battles and inevitable death in battle worth while. It does not justify it, but with so much emphasis on the brute force of the macho man, it is understandable that women were regulated. Regulated to a secondary role even to the point that they were legally chattels to be placed, controlled and futures decided at the whim of their lord and master.
Fast forward to today's now. Gender equality rules. The girl, should she choose to marry, may or may not take the male name. Maybe the continental practise of hyphenating the two families lines names into one surname, one from the father and one from the mother, would make good sense. But then which name is to come first, not as on the continent, the fathers name first, that would be sexist. Alphabetical order? And then are both lines to be given equal weight and standing in the family tree? I can avow that the family tree very quickly becomes very diffuse and difficult to read. Starting with four parents, with eight grandparents, sixteen great grandparents and so on. This does probably reflect our genetic inheritance. Very clearly we, as an individual, are a meld of our two parents and through them it is possible to discern genetic characteristics passed from the grandparents. There are some genetic features that are so dominate and survive through several generations even stretching back into the mists of time. We should not be too dismissive of genetic traits. Science has yet to declare whether one sex or other inherits more from one parent or the other, probably not.
My desire to know where I have come from, whose dominate trait do I have that gives me the flair or flaw I struggle to cope with does not justify selecting a male or a female line as my line. To select both is too unwieldy, too diffuse, too many branches that could or could not be significant or worse arbitrary. To make sense you have to follow back along one line of parents but unless we all follow the same rules chaos ensues. Is the need to know and acknowledge our direct line of inheritance more important than this, probably, transitory fashion of gender indeterminacy? It matters to me. I have to know whether I am my fathers son. It matters to those few where the chance of inheriting the stately pile or crown depends on it. To the rest of the world? Just a blip in our ever evolving story of personkinds development and ultimate extinction.
I was pulled up short on more than one occasion by relatives who dismissed the maternal line as not having any significance. To them, it was only the male line of inheritance that had any relevance. With my background this puzzled me but slowly other pieces of jigsaw have begun to fall into place.
We are now, here , this is where it is at, but we are only a continuum of our past. We have to keep our past in view to understand where our future lies. The way forward has to be shaped and based on the path taken to reach this point. All very laboured but let us not forget, male inheritance has been the dominate consideration. Up until this point, the now. Inheritance is simply the passing on of the title to land. Land equates to wealth, privileged, influence and power. Your position utterly depended on what land you inherited and the wheels and deals you could use it for to expand it or prevent others from taking it from you. The by far greatest wheeling deal in town was who you could get to marry you, bringing in privileges, connections or simply more land, not for love or romance but plain pragmatics. Hopefully a woman who could bear strong sons, strong enough to survive childhood. That she was compliant, frugal or even attractive were very secondary considerations. Lets us roll back the years even further. To get land and hold on to it, you had to be a strong fighter able to attract other men to fight by your side and defer to your authority. As top dog, women you could take and have a plenty but you needed one who would bear you a son and nurture it whilst you were away defending you claim to land against all others. Nurture it and stay loyal to you and you alone. A son that you could pass your battle won respect (titles) and land to to survive after your death and making your fights, battles and inevitable death in battle worth while. It does not justify it, but with so much emphasis on the brute force of the macho man, it is understandable that women were regulated. Regulated to a secondary role even to the point that they were legally chattels to be placed, controlled and futures decided at the whim of their lord and master.
Fast forward to today's now. Gender equality rules. The girl, should she choose to marry, may or may not take the male name. Maybe the continental practise of hyphenating the two families lines names into one surname, one from the father and one from the mother, would make good sense. But then which name is to come first, not as on the continent, the fathers name first, that would be sexist. Alphabetical order? And then are both lines to be given equal weight and standing in the family tree? I can avow that the family tree very quickly becomes very diffuse and difficult to read. Starting with four parents, with eight grandparents, sixteen great grandparents and so on. This does probably reflect our genetic inheritance. Very clearly we, as an individual, are a meld of our two parents and through them it is possible to discern genetic characteristics passed from the grandparents. There are some genetic features that are so dominate and survive through several generations even stretching back into the mists of time. We should not be too dismissive of genetic traits. Science has yet to declare whether one sex or other inherits more from one parent or the other, probably not.
My desire to know where I have come from, whose dominate trait do I have that gives me the flair or flaw I struggle to cope with does not justify selecting a male or a female line as my line. To select both is too unwieldy, too diffuse, too many branches that could or could not be significant or worse arbitrary. To make sense you have to follow back along one line of parents but unless we all follow the same rules chaos ensues. Is the need to know and acknowledge our direct line of inheritance more important than this, probably, transitory fashion of gender indeterminacy? It matters to me. I have to know whether I am my fathers son. It matters to those few where the chance of inheriting the stately pile or crown depends on it. To the rest of the world? Just a blip in our ever evolving story of personkinds development and ultimate extinction.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Corporate Greed
Since the inception of Planning Law in 1947, a central aim, encompassed by Abercrombie in his first London Plan, was to banish squalid slums and give everyone the right to sunlight and open space to enjoy. We pay the price in multi-layers of heavy-handed bureaucracy to ensure we all benefit Pretty basic stuff but constantly being whittled away.
A large site, previously used by a utility company, on privatisation became surplus to need. The new foreign owner of this, our essential service developed over decades out of tax-payers money, was now to be maximised for the profit of their shareholders. I have no doubt that teams of experts were assembled and charged, (you will get more if you make more), with getting the most possible return out of this redundant land. Encouraged indirectly no doubt by our government who saw loads of lucre rolling into the exchequer when they sold off London Dock's, freed from planning constraints as the bait.
Our local Planning Officers do have to be mindful of the possibility of an Appeal against any unfavourable decision they might make. One important plank in their defence is that they are adhering to government guidelines. So when the government, as central policy, decrees that housing densities are to be increased to reduce the demand for green field take, our local Planner's have little option. A well muscled team can use that government directive to achieve whatever goal they have in mind leaving our local officer with no room to argue. What we end up with in our town is a new built 'sink estate'.
The one location that is doomed to ever spiral down until even the lowest of the low ask not to be sent there. Such is the certain future for this recently built development. Where developer profit, maximising the greatest number of households on the plot, is made regardless of all future consequences.They have no tie to the future of the development, only in the immediate, now, profit return to their 'foreign' investors. What we end up with is an overbuilt estate, gloomy, dank and sunless with mean spaces, dominated by car provisions and waste storage and tiny patios, (for a 'lucky' few), overlooked, cast in shadow, too small to plant and undesirable to sit out in. What left over public spaces there are, are 'greened' with robust unfriendly deterrent plants. The obligatory 'children's play area' reduced to a token with no room to run, to sit in the sun or enjoy some fresh air. Does that sound like the pre-war slums our planning laws were meant to prevent? Does to me.
Not just mean in layout and mean in usable public space, but also mean in materials and lacking in any imaginative design, detail or quality.
We have got to this point. The old presumptions that local pride and interest will ensure the quality of local development have been overturned. Now national corporations with interests far removed from the pleasure and enjoyment of local residents, now determine the quality of developments within our own patch.
Now for a final turn of the screw. The government rules that ultimately determine what shall or shall not be built are all city centric. Drawn up by civil servants that have no living experience other than London and its suburbs. Their mind sets do not encompass rural county towns but their rules, endorsed by a parliament focussed on timetables and vote catching, do set the limits. Take Taunton a rural county market town. Low rise with every expectation of still sitting out in the sun and enjoying the quiet of the countryside. Why should that expectation be set aside for all future generations just to meet a city orientated need to save space? Why should our town be forever despoiled to meet some other place needs. Ruined not just for now but for generations forward and lowering the bench mark by which future schemes are to be judged by. We need decisions by local people, judged in the context of their local concerns and needs. Not a National Policy applied regardless. A high rise development is not suited to Taunton. Flats are not the norm for Taunton and should never be. These are city solutions for city problems. Low rise and gardens are the norms for Taunton.
A large site, previously used by a utility company, on privatisation became surplus to need. The new foreign owner of this, our essential service developed over decades out of tax-payers money, was now to be maximised for the profit of their shareholders. I have no doubt that teams of experts were assembled and charged, (you will get more if you make more), with getting the most possible return out of this redundant land. Encouraged indirectly no doubt by our government who saw loads of lucre rolling into the exchequer when they sold off London Dock's, freed from planning constraints as the bait.
Our local Planning Officers do have to be mindful of the possibility of an Appeal against any unfavourable decision they might make. One important plank in their defence is that they are adhering to government guidelines. So when the government, as central policy, decrees that housing densities are to be increased to reduce the demand for green field take, our local Planner's have little option. A well muscled team can use that government directive to achieve whatever goal they have in mind leaving our local officer with no room to argue. What we end up with in our town is a new built 'sink estate'.
The one location that is doomed to ever spiral down until even the lowest of the low ask not to be sent there. Such is the certain future for this recently built development. Where developer profit, maximising the greatest number of households on the plot, is made regardless of all future consequences.They have no tie to the future of the development, only in the immediate, now, profit return to their 'foreign' investors. What we end up with is an overbuilt estate, gloomy, dank and sunless with mean spaces, dominated by car provisions and waste storage and tiny patios, (for a 'lucky' few), overlooked, cast in shadow, too small to plant and undesirable to sit out in. What left over public spaces there are, are 'greened' with robust unfriendly deterrent plants. The obligatory 'children's play area' reduced to a token with no room to run, to sit in the sun or enjoy some fresh air. Does that sound like the pre-war slums our planning laws were meant to prevent? Does to me.
We have got to this point. The old presumptions that local pride and interest will ensure the quality of local development have been overturned. Now national corporations with interests far removed from the pleasure and enjoyment of local residents, now determine the quality of developments within our own patch.
Now for a final turn of the screw. The government rules that ultimately determine what shall or shall not be built are all city centric. Drawn up by civil servants that have no living experience other than London and its suburbs. Their mind sets do not encompass rural county towns but their rules, endorsed by a parliament focussed on timetables and vote catching, do set the limits. Take Taunton a rural county market town. Low rise with every expectation of still sitting out in the sun and enjoying the quiet of the countryside. Why should that expectation be set aside for all future generations just to meet a city orientated need to save space? Why should our town be forever despoiled to meet some other place needs. Ruined not just for now but for generations forward and lowering the bench mark by which future schemes are to be judged by. We need decisions by local people, judged in the context of their local concerns and needs. Not a National Policy applied regardless. A high rise development is not suited to Taunton. Flats are not the norm for Taunton and should never be. These are city solutions for city problems. Low rise and gardens are the norms for Taunton.
 |
| High-rise does not suit Taunton |
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| No matter the quality, it is the wrong answer |
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Consensus
Consensus is beset with contradictions. A consensus takes form as a wraith out of the mists, suddenly everyone seems to be concerned about the same topic and leans towards one convergent view. Yes of course there are always the controversial ones either with heads buried deeply in the sand or with backs firmly planted against the general trend. It is remarkable how from one day to another a topic arises and people, apart from these exceptions, all seems to hover around a consensus view. We are born with this innate desire to seek out the middle ground and conform, at a subconscious level, almost without rational monitoring.
That said, the consensus wraith does not just materialise out of the ether, the thought, the idea, the spark, the argument position is seeded. Seeded by a leader, a very lowercase leader. Just one that thinks for them self. Most people follow received ideas, just a few have, from time to time, that original thought. But then it has to be broadcast, to be put it out there, no point just being internalised. That separates the little player from the bigger player, how socially connected and the potential sphere of influence one is against another. We are not talking here about the greatness or otherwise of the 'original idea', just the social connectivity and how potentially fast it can spread out. The capital letter Leaders do not necessarily have to have original ideas, but they do need to be connected with a circle who do generate ideas. They can then use their perceived status to broadcast those worthy ideas more widely, ensuring a faster pickup and a greater chance of entering into the public conscious.
Which idea gets picked up, and which idea, though intellectually far more profound or relevant, is cast aside, is another aspect of this almost sub-conscious sensing for the common ground. Our expectation is that the strength of the argument, or the higher moral ground, or overturning a gross injustice, or a razor sharp insightfulness that cuts through the fog of confusion is what inspires these new ideas. Occasionally it is one or another or combination of these worthy ideals. More often it is just timing. Some ideas just hit the right note, at the right time, making relevant comment, about something that is on the surface or is bubbling away just under the surface of conscious thought. It is just ripe to be picked up. It is not necessarily an amplification of, or bringing clarity to, something already out there. It often is but it can be an entirely novel idea that just happens to ripen at that time when people are ready for it. There is no better explanation.
We are beginning to discover that the thoughts that we hold in our minds are not direct products of the conscious and therefore logical thought sequences but are a meld arrived at though sub-conscious processing of sensory imput, past experiences, memories and anticipations of social reaction. We justify the logic after the thought becomes conscious. Until that moment we have no conscious power to control the internalised processing.
There rest is all down to momentum. If broadcast widely the greater the chance it will be picked up, enter into the common domain, to be tested and balanced against all those social interactions, looking for concord, to be adopted or rejected. But from time to time a good idea hits the right or needed note, or offers a solution out of an impasse that is immediately picked up and reverberating in harmony becomes magnified and you get what we now might call a viral idea. It spreads like wild fire, it is just right for the moment.
So our would be leaders and other shapers of public opinion are all trying to plant seeds to form public opinion and swing consensus their way. We, the public, sway this way or that, trying to pick up signals from all our social interactions which way is the wind blowing today. We are the spontaneous consensus, unpredictable, contrary, perverse, whimsical, irrational but always with the majority behind us.
That said, the consensus wraith does not just materialise out of the ether, the thought, the idea, the spark, the argument position is seeded. Seeded by a leader, a very lowercase leader. Just one that thinks for them self. Most people follow received ideas, just a few have, from time to time, that original thought. But then it has to be broadcast, to be put it out there, no point just being internalised. That separates the little player from the bigger player, how socially connected and the potential sphere of influence one is against another. We are not talking here about the greatness or otherwise of the 'original idea', just the social connectivity and how potentially fast it can spread out. The capital letter Leaders do not necessarily have to have original ideas, but they do need to be connected with a circle who do generate ideas. They can then use their perceived status to broadcast those worthy ideas more widely, ensuring a faster pickup and a greater chance of entering into the public conscious.
Which idea gets picked up, and which idea, though intellectually far more profound or relevant, is cast aside, is another aspect of this almost sub-conscious sensing for the common ground. Our expectation is that the strength of the argument, or the higher moral ground, or overturning a gross injustice, or a razor sharp insightfulness that cuts through the fog of confusion is what inspires these new ideas. Occasionally it is one or another or combination of these worthy ideals. More often it is just timing. Some ideas just hit the right note, at the right time, making relevant comment, about something that is on the surface or is bubbling away just under the surface of conscious thought. It is just ripe to be picked up. It is not necessarily an amplification of, or bringing clarity to, something already out there. It often is but it can be an entirely novel idea that just happens to ripen at that time when people are ready for it. There is no better explanation.
We are beginning to discover that the thoughts that we hold in our minds are not direct products of the conscious and therefore logical thought sequences but are a meld arrived at though sub-conscious processing of sensory imput, past experiences, memories and anticipations of social reaction. We justify the logic after the thought becomes conscious. Until that moment we have no conscious power to control the internalised processing.
There rest is all down to momentum. If broadcast widely the greater the chance it will be picked up, enter into the common domain, to be tested and balanced against all those social interactions, looking for concord, to be adopted or rejected. But from time to time a good idea hits the right or needed note, or offers a solution out of an impasse that is immediately picked up and reverberating in harmony becomes magnified and you get what we now might call a viral idea. It spreads like wild fire, it is just right for the moment.
So our would be leaders and other shapers of public opinion are all trying to plant seeds to form public opinion and swing consensus their way. We, the public, sway this way or that, trying to pick up signals from all our social interactions which way is the wind blowing today. We are the spontaneous consensus, unpredictable, contrary, perverse, whimsical, irrational but always with the majority behind us.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
All Joined Up
First reaction was a worried concern at the news that HMRC records were to be used for the first time to track defaulting fathers failing to supporting a child. The more I thought the more rational it became. We are all required, on penalty of imprisonment, to submit all sort of our personal details to various branches of government. Income Tax is one obvious, but passports, car tax, bm&d certificates, various benefits, the list just goes on. Previously each of these records would be been laboriously penned by clerks into the respective department ledgers and then closely guarded by them. However the information you were legally required to lodge was and still is accessible to any other department with a legitimate right to know. You as a citizen had and have no rights on the use the government makes on any data that they require you to submit. Better, much more efficient, then to have one central source of government held data about each of us, rather than duplicate entries and an increased scope for them to get it wrong or have to justify the same issue multiple times.
It is just a matter of trust. And there is the rub. None of us trust the government any longer. The skilled, experienced pragmatic clerk with discretion to waive or redefine rules occasionally lapsing into the bumbling buffoon has been swept aside by uniform absurdities. Rules to be adhered to without reason, without sense, keeping to a strict interpretation, no matter how inappropriate, thus, keeping the nose clean, without the least risk of criticism, has become the mantra. That is the new wave of inexperienced, mind-numbed data bashers who cannot see the tree, let alone the wood, for the chance of a canker on the leaf. Civil service declining standards and ineptitude is not the only point. Government are on record for abusing the data they gather about us. Selling them on for commercial gain, taking too relaxed a view of our need for privacy about our close personal details and affairs all the way to being too incompetent to guard the data they have either by preventing hacker access or 'leaving' data files for others to pick up.
Paranoia? No, the key details that enable your access to this electronic world and which are the summation of you as a electronic identity are very few. Add a few choice pieces of additional data, either a PAYE number, or employer, or NHS number, or benefit category and it becomes incredibly valuable to large numbers of commercial interests. Which is why they are keen to entice the government to give away our private data with irresistible largess.
If only the government could act responsibly, safeguard our data and be frugal with who has the right to access specific tiers of information with challenging accountability then a joined up government data bank would be the most sensible and logical step. No longer having to prove your identity to Revenue, Housing Benefit, NHS and so on each time. A one-stop shop makes practical sense on this C21. If only. In the meantime a pseudo identity for government purposes but keeping your real electronic self invisible. I dream.
It is just a matter of trust. And there is the rub. None of us trust the government any longer. The skilled, experienced pragmatic clerk with discretion to waive or redefine rules occasionally lapsing into the bumbling buffoon has been swept aside by uniform absurdities. Rules to be adhered to without reason, without sense, keeping to a strict interpretation, no matter how inappropriate, thus, keeping the nose clean, without the least risk of criticism, has become the mantra. That is the new wave of inexperienced, mind-numbed data bashers who cannot see the tree, let alone the wood, for the chance of a canker on the leaf. Civil service declining standards and ineptitude is not the only point. Government are on record for abusing the data they gather about us. Selling them on for commercial gain, taking too relaxed a view of our need for privacy about our close personal details and affairs all the way to being too incompetent to guard the data they have either by preventing hacker access or 'leaving' data files for others to pick up.
Paranoia? No, the key details that enable your access to this electronic world and which are the summation of you as a electronic identity are very few. Add a few choice pieces of additional data, either a PAYE number, or employer, or NHS number, or benefit category and it becomes incredibly valuable to large numbers of commercial interests. Which is why they are keen to entice the government to give away our private data with irresistible largess.
If only the government could act responsibly, safeguard our data and be frugal with who has the right to access specific tiers of information with challenging accountability then a joined up government data bank would be the most sensible and logical step. No longer having to prove your identity to Revenue, Housing Benefit, NHS and so on each time. A one-stop shop makes practical sense on this C21. If only. In the meantime a pseudo identity for government purposes but keeping your real electronic self invisible. I dream.
Friday, 27 January 2012
Managing Waste
Once, not so long ago, your local authority was obliged to weekly collect, free of charge, all your rubbish, baring just large items of furniture. Now what rubbish you can put out and when is limited, often subject to challenge and other categories of waste are not collected at all and have to be taken, by you, to your local re-cycling tip where it may not or may be accepted or is subject to a charge.
This issue of re-cycling of our waste has somehow got itself aligned with saving our planet and the climate change agenda. Apart from, a proportionally small, discharge of methane, re-cycling has nothing to do with climate change but has to do with an entirely different issue. Landfill as the only option for getting rid of our waste will run out not too far ahead, we have to change tack. No problem. We all have to re-evaluate what we put out for disposal. No problem. With some two thirds of the world still just surviving hand to mouth and yet to benefit from our assured consumer society. The World's resources cannot furnish ever increasing demands. We have to re-cycle what we have already taken out and not just bury it away, un-useably. No problem. We, the producers of these mountains of rubbish need to be schooled in new ways of sorting it into various materials which can be re-cycled. No problem.
Having spent time in a third world country I am only too aware of how someone there can make an existence from finding a second use from the most unlikely rubbish we discard here without a thought. Old paper cement bags, bent nails, old beans tins, nothing is discarded, in the third world there is always another secondary use. Back home I am shocked, each time I go to the 're-cycling centre', at the enormous quantity, on a daily basis, of quality rubbish we deem only fit for burying underground. Truly shocked at our profligacy. So really I am all in favour of re-cycling. I do get the message, loud and clear. What then is my beef?
Every time I go to take my sorted waste to the re-cycle centre I feel intimidated, harassed, insecure, almost threatened by the men on guard duty. Clearly there has to be monitoring of what actually goes into the various separated wastes so the easy option of landfill is not the first choice. Not a nice task standing there all day, all weathers poking into other peoples rubbish. No surprise then that it is largely a male role for those short on academic achievement. Nor that they come to rely on a macho display to enforce their presence. They do of course have to respond to their managers and their managers have to achieve the targets set by their Councils. This is where my problem begins. My Council, but not just mine, you hear stories from around the country, where Councils, taking different tacks, are similarly antagonising their ratepayers. Councils seem to have totally lost sight of the need to encourage and re-educate. Instead their eyes gleam on the huge savings made possible by this government change in policy and the chance to generate even more money. Forgetting the basic principle you have to take your willing users along with you all the way or risk a backlash. Which is right where we are now.
I really want to co-operate and want to be compliant. I believe in sorting my waste and get a boost when I manage to re-cycle something that previously would be buried. But I also get confused. Why is a bulk oil tin, yes regular valuable tin, with plastic removed and washed out, rejected? Why is paper separate to cardboard and why is this paper ok but not that. Do I really have to remove all the plastic envelope windows, but then what about staples and tapes? That is before we get onto the subject of all the various types and forms of plastics. Some which are, some which are not regardless of whether they are claimed to be recyclable. Why oh why is that paving slab unacceptable and either I have to pay to re-cycle it or put it in with the landfill waste. That is just not right. Then the necessary regular trips the the re-cycle centre to dispose of all that product now deemed to be non-collectable at the kerbside. All those extra car journeys willingly undertaken only to discover the Site is closed. Shut to save money. That really does engender goodwill and co-operation! Fly-tipping in the backwaters of our life is the entirely foreseeable and predictable outcome to all. Apart from those selfsame Councils who maintain the party line. Fly-tipping is routinely monitored and there is no evidence of any increase. How is that for officalise horseshit. Encouragement, information, education and listening are the only routes to succeed in reducing our landfill burden.
This issue of re-cycling of our waste has somehow got itself aligned with saving our planet and the climate change agenda. Apart from, a proportionally small, discharge of methane, re-cycling has nothing to do with climate change but has to do with an entirely different issue. Landfill as the only option for getting rid of our waste will run out not too far ahead, we have to change tack. No problem. We all have to re-evaluate what we put out for disposal. No problem. With some two thirds of the world still just surviving hand to mouth and yet to benefit from our assured consumer society. The World's resources cannot furnish ever increasing demands. We have to re-cycle what we have already taken out and not just bury it away, un-useably. No problem. We, the producers of these mountains of rubbish need to be schooled in new ways of sorting it into various materials which can be re-cycled. No problem.
Having spent time in a third world country I am only too aware of how someone there can make an existence from finding a second use from the most unlikely rubbish we discard here without a thought. Old paper cement bags, bent nails, old beans tins, nothing is discarded, in the third world there is always another secondary use. Back home I am shocked, each time I go to the 're-cycling centre', at the enormous quantity, on a daily basis, of quality rubbish we deem only fit for burying underground. Truly shocked at our profligacy. So really I am all in favour of re-cycling. I do get the message, loud and clear. What then is my beef?
Every time I go to take my sorted waste to the re-cycle centre I feel intimidated, harassed, insecure, almost threatened by the men on guard duty. Clearly there has to be monitoring of what actually goes into the various separated wastes so the easy option of landfill is not the first choice. Not a nice task standing there all day, all weathers poking into other peoples rubbish. No surprise then that it is largely a male role for those short on academic achievement. Nor that they come to rely on a macho display to enforce their presence. They do of course have to respond to their managers and their managers have to achieve the targets set by their Councils. This is where my problem begins. My Council, but not just mine, you hear stories from around the country, where Councils, taking different tacks, are similarly antagonising their ratepayers. Councils seem to have totally lost sight of the need to encourage and re-educate. Instead their eyes gleam on the huge savings made possible by this government change in policy and the chance to generate even more money. Forgetting the basic principle you have to take your willing users along with you all the way or risk a backlash. Which is right where we are now.
I really want to co-operate and want to be compliant. I believe in sorting my waste and get a boost when I manage to re-cycle something that previously would be buried. But I also get confused. Why is a bulk oil tin, yes regular valuable tin, with plastic removed and washed out, rejected? Why is paper separate to cardboard and why is this paper ok but not that. Do I really have to remove all the plastic envelope windows, but then what about staples and tapes? That is before we get onto the subject of all the various types and forms of plastics. Some which are, some which are not regardless of whether they are claimed to be recyclable. Why oh why is that paving slab unacceptable and either I have to pay to re-cycle it or put it in with the landfill waste. That is just not right. Then the necessary regular trips the the re-cycle centre to dispose of all that product now deemed to be non-collectable at the kerbside. All those extra car journeys willingly undertaken only to discover the Site is closed. Shut to save money. That really does engender goodwill and co-operation! Fly-tipping in the backwaters of our life is the entirely foreseeable and predictable outcome to all. Apart from those selfsame Councils who maintain the party line. Fly-tipping is routinely monitored and there is no evidence of any increase. How is that for officalise horseshit. Encouragement, information, education and listening are the only routes to succeed in reducing our landfill burden.
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