The World Is The Case

On television (and in every other medium)
the world seems as big as they tell you it is,
but no media will show the world
as being bigger than the medium itself;
the world will always bigger than any medium
that tries to present itself as the sum of all things. 

Leadership, What Leadership?

The line between being an autocrat
and a dictator is a thin, but important.

A dictator allows no official opposition
and no other party to be form itself within his state.
Trust me, the history of female dictators is a short one.

An autocrat allows opposition to form itself
against his government, but undermines that opposition
at every turn, making effective opposition towards him impossible.

What they share
is that they both hate leaving power willingly, or alive.
Both see the idea of a democracy
where the end does not justify the means
as a weakness that is beyond unforgivable, 
and last, and far from least, they see accurately reflecting
the will of the people as an unforgivable weakness.

What democracies, autocrats, and dictators
all have in common is that they all need to be voted for,
and they are all reliant on buoyant economies for their support
when they all know that economies are inherently unstable.   

Even Rumour Mills Can Experience Disruption

and rumours will thrive on cynicism,
so it will seem entirely correct
that the authorities should seek to make
their cynicism the most accepted form
of popular disbelief.  

 

The Old Declension

 Refusal will not always invite respect,
particularly from those who are refused
when they see their offer as irresistible.

But it will help you respect yourself.    

Making A Choice Out Of Having Less

Humans have a history
of proving to each other
how much more disposable
some of them are, over others.

And how other species matter less 

when they are seen to be
beneath human consideration.

The way to be ahead of the trend
is better prepared than the unaware
are to depart this life on Planet Earth
with the least amount of ceremony.

But as you prepare be aware
that competitive types will dislike you
for 'wanting to drop out'; it diminishes
the value of them wanting more
and shows up how cheap
the competitive ego has to be
as it forcibly diminishes others.

Carefully choose the terms
on which to live on less,
through which to detach calmly.....

How To Prove When Too Much Is Too Much

If I ruled the world (I obviously don't;
if I did I'd be far harsher on conditional statements).
one of the more important rules that I would make
would be that people had to redistribute their wealth
well before they died, such that well before their last 'Goodbye'
all they have in reserve is enough to pay for their parting ceremony.

I am sure that many poor societies have done this
in the past when poorer societies were more the norm.
The change it would make in more wealthy societies
would be to expose more efficiently how much is too much
when the matter is about how to live well with what we have.  

Hindsight is An Uneasy Thing

A friend of mine recently admitted that much
when he attempted, and failed,
to start to write his life story.

He wrote his first draft,
of a just a few of the facts
and so hated what he wrote
that first he hid it from himself
then he burnt the paper
as if that would destroy the past,

and then he told me after.

What he wrote down
must have been very unhappy
for it to trouble him so;
he was always such a cheery soul.

Amend that title;

hindsight is an uneasy thing
for an optimist to contemplate

when their optimism
is built on ignoring
everything they have lived through.

  

The Vanity Author

I am used to the idea of 'the vanity publisher',
the business where manque writers
are taken for a ride on their own vanity
as they pay to see their work in print,
and then have to work out
how to get famous enough through the media
to recoup the money spent on publishing.

I am also used to some politicians
having a gift for writing fiction
that meant to merely entertain
and is a sideline on their career.

What I have hitherto been unaware of
is the political vanity author,
who wants to be known for writing a book,
makes notes and does interviews
for a ghost writer to make sense of,
and publishes the result as if they
had something to do with how it was assembled
when privately they don't read, much less do they write.

But then these politicians believe
in the power of extemporised speech,
which has no dept of reason
with which to convict anyone of any idea
-there is just their charisma
to persuade their listeners
that there are hidden depths
of wisdom in their nonsense.       

Ontological State Sponsored Personal Insecurity

First they came for the free press
and I was happy to stop buying newspapers
that I no longer read; I trusted the government.

Then they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not in a trade union.

Then they came for the gypsies
the homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses
and I was pleased; none of them was 'me' 

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then the government came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

When 'Me Too' means 'Us Too'

The 'Me too' movement emancipated
several wealthy American actresses,
who after years of fame were the first to cry 'foul'
about the tactic of the casting couch,
even though said chaise long
had long been there,
ever since Hollywood started.

But these privileged people were only the start
of breaking the grip of male sexual values
built on male secrecy, humbug, and hysteria
from those who controlled all the money
who had to get what they wanted
without ever having to ask for it.

Many ordinary middle aged men and women
who were abused in their youth also found
that they now had the voice to complain
about their former abusers when previously
they did not, and the sense of being wounded
seemed fixed, as permanent as was secretive,
for lack of language to describe it.

And now as we raid the graveyards
of the institutions of the past
in which was invested morality and power
once again we find the skeletons of abuse past.

Payback for these crimes against the self
of the powerless has a long way to go yet. 

For Sale; One Pre-used War; One Previous Careless Owner

I have heard it said
that the tragedy in Afghanistan
is that trillions of dollars
were spent by America
but as the invaders
they 'had no long term plan'.

The money got frittered away 
because long term developments
required a domestic consensus
of determined the long term aims
where the war started.

But the political cycle in the USA
is two years between elections
that serve to sharpen the narcissism
of minor difference between the two parties
as they brandish their ignorance
via misbegotten foreign policy.

But then again the aim of all the wars
that America has set up, or joined in on,
is less to make peace among nations,
and more to give the U.S. arms industry 
a reason for selling weapons 'safely' -
that 'keeps the peace' the home country.   

Crime Does Pay

But it only pays for the few;
the documentary makers
who work in radio and television 
whose work fills the broadcasting schedules
with the narrative depictions of those
for whom crime did not pay, the criminals.

After watching many of these series
the plots get disturbingly familiar.
Step one an observant member of the public
spots weak security in the transfer
of huge amounts of money
and sets out to make a plan that exploits
the weakness that they recognise.

The planner does not know it
but the weakness in his system
will be who he compromises over
when choosing his gang members.
Every gang has it's weakest member,
the person makes simple mistakes
after the robbery seemed to be a success.

That the police and FBI rely
on mistakes made after the robbery
and rarely recover all the money stolen
and the criminals lose it too
is the cliche turned truism
that the viewer can rely upon
to complete the story.  

Divine Closure?

In the pasts in which religion was a given,
and doubts were kept private
and kept out of the history books
Heaven seemed like a very real place,
where we were assured that suffering
would be no more.....

Cut to the modern world, cut to pieces
by Marx, Freud, and Adam Smith
and doubt is the currency of this age,
where the best cure for grief and doubt
is 'closure', and it is a rare experience indeed.

If Heaven was supposed to hard to enter
though many supposed they should be there,
then how much like Heaven is closure?

Both are conditions set up by mass expectation,
neither state con be objectively confirmed
for any longer than very short periods of time.

To make the past meet the present, in terms of belief
Heaven should be renamed Divine Closure,
since both are states of relief beyond expectation.  
  
   

With Thanks to Michael Rosen

Hints on the pronunciation of English
for foreigners by Anon....

Beware of heard
a dreadful word
that looks like beard
and sounds like bird
and dead is said like bed
but it is spelt like bead
for goodness sake
don't pronounce it deed.  

Life Is Less

a matter of 'things are not what they seem',
and much more that what things seem to be
is rotten and wrong where the source of the rot
remains beyond the reach of our vision.  

Is There Life Between Polarising Gender Ideals?

If men are from Mars
and women are from Venus
then who makes up the stars
that fill the space between us?

Those whose mental health
makes them neither one thing,
nor the other. Those who are divided
by the labels that 'stronger people' give them
as they go through life without a sense of kinship. 

In this vacuum of misunderstanding
being gender fluid, or transgender,
means accepting the non-recognition
of more tightly defined people around you, 
which leads to the hope of non-existence. 

Godwin's Law Of Public Discourse

We know an argument has decayed
when those arguing for compassion
invoke the name of Adolf Hitler,
as if, bad as he was said to be,
even he would not do 
what the other side were arguing for. 

This is said in spite of how
Hitler's brand of Fascism
was fuelled by an infinite narcissism
which made it infinitely incompetent
which made it highly overconfident
and gave it little compassion
for anything other than its reputation,
which it barely recognised
amid the heightened propaganda.

'Godwin's Law', attributed to Mike Godwin
was a comment on the American media,
early on in it's new digital forms 
a mere four years after the requirement
of simple standards of objectivity
in analogue news reports and bulletins
was dropped by central government,
and the shock jocks started taking over.

Phrases like 'Hitler was a guy with some good policies
who was misunderstood' were their secret weapons
with which smear their opponents as 'worse than Nazis'
for their opponents 'terrible' ideas of enforceable equality.

Thirty years after this media hall of distorting mirrors
comes the final insult; praise for Hitler from Donald Trump
As a liberal who general resists crass comments
am  I allowed to say 'Hitler deserves better than that'?   

On Keeping A Diary

The thought that comes
when I think of it
is different from the thought
as it is written down.

The journey from first thought
to the last at the time of writing
is the real life,
inside the mid of the writer.  

The False/True Memory That Repeats Itself

I can understand how Jews felt
when as citizens of many countries
they had no country of their own,
and under the political isms of the 1930's,
Communism, Capitalism, and Nazism,
they were caught short with nowhere to go
except where they once came from
where getting there cost them far more
than ever they expected it to.

I still don't understand is why the Jews repeat 
the divide and rule with which European governments
carelessly divided and reduced them in the 1930's
on the previous carers of the promised land, the Palestinians.

Desperation Seeks....

Wanting to be wanted
is far worse than having to had,
by somebody, anybody,
as if life  itself was built on it.

Proving that you can do without
the neediness of others
has it's price; our sense
of our own desperation
has to be managed calmly. 

My C.V.

Been there, done this, fucked up that
until nobody wanted me to, any longer.

What else would anyone need to know? 

Changing Madness/Changing Sanity

In the 1970s it was considered humour
when one person overheard another
muttering to themselves
when they thought nobody was there
and the other person said
'Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness',
assuming that the other person was listening.

Fast forward fifty years
and Google and Alexa are here now, 
less to overhear us 
(though some are unsure about that)
more to make our madness 
more consistent than we can make it
without their help.

Living In A Difficult World

 Fifty years since it's original release George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' is getting the full bells and whistles treatment with an epic remix/re-release programme that we will never hear the last of when it's actual release date comes.

But what of the original musicians who played on this 1970 album? There were no tracking records kept by the studio at the time to say who played and which tracks they played.....

First the musicians who are now dead

George Harrison, writer, vocalist (died 2001)
Phil Spector, producer (died 2021)
Carl Raddle, bass (died 1980)
Pete Ham, guitarist (died 1975)
Mike Gibbons, guitarist (died 2005)
Tommy Evans (died 1983)
Billy Preston, keyboards (died 2006)
Pete Drake, pedal steel guitarist (1988)
Bobby keys, saxophone (2014)
Mal Evans, percussion (1976)

Those still alive but in prison; Jim Gordon

Those alive and free to speak about their role in the making of the album,
memory willing, but they may have little memory left
with which to recall who played and on what track.

Eric Clapton
Alan White
Ringo Starr

Those with better memories who have been sidelined from speaking
about the project.

Bobby Whitlock
Dave Mason
Klaus Voorman
Jim Price
Gary Brooker
Gary Wright
John Barham

and the engineers Ken Scott and Phil McDonald.

All this leaves that much passed that there is only the writers estate
left to look after the work which was a milestone in recording history
but the making of it seems so long ago now.   

'Nothing To See Here..... '

I have enjoyed attending church
in Northern Ireland for many a year.

Nothing engages with me more
than seeing the vicar squirm
when he is given the reading
where Jesus says to those present
'Let him who is perfect cast the first stone',
particularly when that text comes up
during 'The Marching Season'.

It is a fascinating time for such a text,
a time when those who are not stirred to march
whilst playing intimidating military 'music'
often choose to riot instead,
until calm is restored much later. 

That is 'community' here.
The point that fascinates me most
is to check how quickly the sermon 
will seek to move the congregation
well away from the life around them
because it embodies a local politics
that they know selfish and disruptive
sufficient for Jesus to disown them.

Good Medicine Does Not Have A Party Political Label

When an Englishman talks to an American
about the healthcare that they have experienced
in their country the level mutual incomprehension
goes nearly totally uncomprehended.

When the English talks with humility and pride
abut the now historic public service values
behind their NHS, where treatment is free
at the point of asking, though some pay later.
Such sharing is the bedrock of that society.

The American will sneer 'socialist medicine'
as if division by wealth, though raw Capitalism
indifferent towards those most afflicted,
is the healthiest sickness they could imagine
inflicting on those with the least in their country. 

Fact, Opinion, And Truth

It is a fact that in America
nobody can be sued for their opinion
when what they say is labelled opinion,
or it is called fair comment from the start.

But this how conspiracies begin;
somebody asserts as fact
what is merely their opinion
and other person add to it.

The opinion grows arms and legs
and wanders around the media,
releasing itself like a virus
through people who like to talk
but don't listen to their speech,
in a media that breeds speakers
who revel in the sound of their own voice.

To test the opinion that dresses itself up as fact,
the bearer of opinion has to be taken to court.

There, under the pressure of money and law
the holder of 'the fact' usually retreats
and admits that all along what was said
was just their opinion, in addition
they express a late and miserly regret
that nobody was ever hurt by what they said.

And nobody knows whether the truth
will come out in the very last wash;
nobody who has been to eternity
has ever returned, as they once were,
to share how well they scrubbed up. 

If Ever My Country Brings Back Hanging

for certain political and criminal acts,
then they might have a small problem;
It remained on the statute book for treason
but as a punishment it became redundant
when the people it should be applied to most
became the government; nobody stopped them.

But hanging for other crimes was banned
over half a century ago. If it were reintroduced
then I can assure you that the psychopath
will not be the one on the end of the noose,
they will be the one who opens the trapdoor
underneath the feet of the condemned man
who by his weight will see his life flash before him.

The bigger psychopaths will be the men in wigs,
who presides over the courts
by the power of  their old school ties, 
and who pronounce the sentence.

So by all means bring back hanging, 
but know this much; the hanged man
will always be the wronged man.

What should be put in the dock
is the process that put him
in a noose to begin with

Unimportant Messages

Stood outside in the evening light,
I notice afresh the telephone wires,
and wonder at how they carry my words.

The message that strikes me more
is the song of the pair perched on the wire;
the birdsong that carries on the evening air. 

Pictures Set Of The Month - July

'Marrowfield Worcester' as painted by 
Scottish painter Robert Colquhoun (1914-62)
who was also known for his prints and stage designs.

 

'Church Lench'. Robert Colquhoun who was as prolific
as was profligate with his painting talent.

'Tomato Plants (1)' painted in 1942
by Robert Colquhoun (1914 who formed a lifelong
gay relationship in the 1930's with fellow painter
Robert Macbryde (1913-66).

'Tomato Plants(2)' as painted in 1942 by Robert 
Colquhoun whose life seriously shortened by the
misuse of alcohol. For more by this artist click here.