Light & Enlightenment

When I was a child I was convinced there were snakes hiding under the bed when I went to bed. I searched every night. When I switched the light off I thought that they were there in the dark, but they couldn't get to me. No idea why.

At this dark time of year religions have festivals of light - Diwali, Candlemass & Hanukkah for example. Buddism is based on the path to Enlightenment. Shetland has a Viking fire festival, Up Helly Aa, in January. Lamps, candles & fireworks are used to bring light to the world. Light is important symbolically, metaphorically & in reality. 

Without light we simply could not exist & without enlightenment we as a species will descend into darkness.

The Age of Enlightenment in the 17th - 18th centuries was an intellectual movement championing reason, individualism, and skepticism over tradition, superstition, and blind faith. Applying scientific methods to society to promote liberty, progress, and human rights. Fundamentally shaping modern democracy, government, and secular thought.

It seems to me we are in desperate need of a second age of enlightenment now. Reason seems to have flown out of the window. Tradition, superstition & blind faith are dragging religions back to the dark ages. Rational thought & scientific enquiry, which should be the backbone of how we manage our lives & our societies seem to be denigrated in favour of gut reactionism & complete lack of logical thought.

We, who are so blessed with intellect & the tools to find the truth backed up by empirical evidence, ignore these & are led into black holes of belief unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. We listen to leaders & influencers with an agenda based on their own aggrandisment & power. We allow ourselves to believe utter rubbish. We seem to have lost the ability to discriminate, to think even.

 

In the way a plant needs light to grow & fruit, people need the light of truth & understanding to be the best that they are capable of being. We seem to be light years away from achieving that. But there is a chink of light. We all have choice. We just each need to make the right one. 

 

Helping Out

There are things I simply can't do now. I can't kneel down, if I do I can't get up again. Even bending down to pick things up from the floor isn't easy. It's all part of wearing out, of ageing. So I sometimes have to ask for help. Mostly I pay for it. I'm very lucky that I can. Currently one of the small, but irritating things I can't do is replace the battery in the christmas lights on my front door wreath. I just can't open the box the batteries are in. Fortunately at some point one of the family will come & do it. Again, I'm very lucky to have family nearby.

We all need help of one sort or another at some point. The corollary to that is that we can all help others too. Human decency means that we should be able to ask for help & give it. 

Examples of the decency & willingness to help of many people are always there. Unfortunately it doesn't necessarily get as much publicity as the opposing tendency to ignore people who need help. To be isolationist & self centred. Me first, my family first, even my country first. 

 

Christmas is a time when charities ask for donations, hoping that the christmas spirit will encourage us to give a little of the money we spend on the festivities to others who aren't so lucky. But helping out isn't simply a question of donating cash, useful though that is. Often practical help is much better. A truly visible sign that you do care. Giving cash is relatively easy. Personal involvement demands more. 

One of the best volunteering things I have done was to help an organisation prepare the food for a free mass Christmas lunch in Oxford. They fed hundreds of people who would probably otherwise not have turkey & all the trimmings. Prepping huge amounts of veg that had been donated with a crowd of other volunteers was really uplifting. To me it said far more about the real meaning of Christmas than anything I had ever done at this time of year. 

Yes we should enjoy Christmas with friends & family. Simply sharing a meal & enjoying eachothers company is wonderful. But to my mind our way of celebrating Christmas, & also weddings today, has got completly out of hand. We are losing sight of the meaning of events like this. They have become a feast of over indulgence & spending.

The huge gap between the haves & the have nots is becoming unacceptable. Studies are showing that there is a shift in attitude. Pople are questioning how they celebrate in the context of circumstances both here in the UK & worldwide. I'm not alone in being a paid up member of the Bah Humbug club. 

 

Talent

I went to a concert in the Sheldonian in Oxford last night. I didn't know any of the Music, but am a fan of Mozart. We were in the cheap seats, no legroom, bench seats, the knees of people behind in your back... But the music transcended the pain. 

I watched the orchestra & marvelled at the skill of playing an instrument, reading the music, following the conductor, keeping pace with the singers & eachother - supreme multi tasking. Then there was the sound of a mass choir. I think there are about 150 of them. It is transporting. You feel the music in your whole body. A live performance is nothing like listening to a CD. You, the audience, are involved. 

It made me reflect on the talents, skills & capacities of human beings. Every form of human endeavour requires not just talent, but practice, determination, application. Those people didn't get to be there without a combination of talent & effort. Together they produced something sublime. 

The same is true of any field of endeavour, sport for example. Even learning skills like driving & cooking. In order to maximise the talent you have been born with you have to apply yourself, often for a very long time. You have to be prepared to practice. 

Not everyone can play an instrument or sing, but I do believe that we all have something special we are good at. Some of us build on that & hone it to excellence. Some allow it to lay dormant & do nothing to improve it. 

If  there had not been individuals who recognise what they have & work at it we would not have the wonderful music of the Mozarts & Haydens. We would not have the scientists who change the world. Or the entrpreneurs who set up companies. 

Society needs everyone to maximise the talent they have for the benefit of humanity as a whole. Even if the individual contribution is small, it is important. Everyone has value, we all just need to do what we can. Even if we fail, we should try. 

  

Homelessness - Pod Scheme Solutions

In the run up to Christmas I am thinking about the discrepency between the Christmas myth & reality. The happy family, roaring fire, traditional dinner, presents under the tree of the big stores adverts is the myth. People on the streets in sleeping bags, people sleeping in cars, people sofa surfing or living in a single hotel room is the reality.

We must be capable of solving this. Why don't the homeless go into shelters you ask? Many reasons;- 

• The shelters are unsafe or have strict rules
• Fear of theft or violence
• Mental health & addiction issues
• Desire for independence
• Shelters are not a long term solution
• Shelters are not available to certain immigrents
• After getting people off the streets in Covid many shelters closed.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/rough-sleeping-everyone-in-covid-pandemic-homelessness/ 

I do not believe homelessness is a lifestyle choice. It is a state brought about by numerous factors. There has been a 21% increase in acute homelessness in England since 2022. Rough sleeping increased by 10% on any given night. Various charities will give you an informed picture, rather than the provocative & unbalanced view from some quarters.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/media/press_release/at_least_354000_people_homeless_in_england_today_ 

There are successful & innovative schemes in Europe that provide relatively safe shelter at relatively low cost. For example in Germany, the UK & the Netherlands. Crucially they also provide privacy. I saw something about an innovative idea of putting lockable garden sheds in a big warehouse. 

 

Ulmer Nest

 

Solohaus

 Amazing Grace pods

None of these solve the root problem, but at least they are a start. It cannot be beyond the wit of an intelligent species to solve homelessness. We should not be tolerating individuals & families who do not have a safe shelter to live in. We lucky ones who have homes should remember the story of Christmas & a baby born to a family in a stable. 

Over 2,000 years & very little has changed.  

Childhood & Christmas

Whatever you think about the immigration issue I want you to consider another perspective. 

When I was a child we didn't have sleepovers. We played in the street or the back garden. But we did play. We played with marbles, balls, water, sand. We had swings & parks. I lived in Birmingham, but I could walk to grassy open areas, two of which had rivers or canals. So it was like being in the countryside. Children were connected with both other children, adults & their environment in a way that they aren't now. We didn't have TV, but we listened to the radio & read books, which sparked our imagination, made us concentrate & think.

My childhood shaped me.

I'm not going to dwell on childhood today in the UK. You all know what it is like. It's light years away from what I remember. In some ways better, but in many I think children have lost something important.

I do want you to think about children in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, Somalia & the DRC. Children who are living in war zones. I doubt that you can imagine what it's like to constantly be surrounded by death, destruction, shooting, bombs & noise. I can't. What sort of a childhood do these children have? Even survival is not guaranteed - Theirs or their friends & family. The risk of life changing injury is even higher.

Then there are the children living in countries where humanitarian law doesn't apply. In Nigeria for example, mass child abduction is fairly routine. Children in many countries do not have a childhood, they work, voluntarily or not, from a very young age. The family needs them to work in order to be able to survive. Children are sold & trafficked. It's a form of modern slavery in every country in the world, including the UK, the US & Europe. In Africa children are sold for as little as 15$ - 70$.

 

I'm going to stop there. It's too harrowing.

My point is today is the start of Advent - Leading up to the "money fest" of Christmas. We are sold a tinsel & Santa image of happy families. The projected spend on Christmas in 2025 is £41.6 - £46.6 billion. 

More & more I find that unacceptable. Just think of the good, even a small part of that money could do, for the children & their parents living in the conditions I have described. Where is our humanity? Why are we demonising refugees & immigrents? 

Life Lessons from a Squirrel

There is a squirrel in my front garden this morning as I work on my computer. It is industriously dashing back & forth across my front garden, presumably burying or unearthing nuts. It is so fast I'm not sure which. It needs to work to survive. It buries food to be able to survive the winter when there isn't much around. The squirrel plans for the future & works hard to survive. It has no support mechanism other than itself, no family, friends or community to provide for it. It has to be self reliant. 

I think there is a lesson there. 

We have just had a budget. Personally I cannot imagine the complexites of being chancellor of the exchequer or a member of the treasury team. Simply managing my own life is sometimes a challenge. I cannot rationalise "quantitative easing" or running a country on massive borrowing & debt. None of it makes sense to me. I don't think I have ever been in debt apart from a mortgage. I certainly don't keep a running total of debt on my credit cards. If I can't afford something I don't buy it.

I believe in fair wealth distribution. I believe that the wealthy & the poor should be taxed in a way that means a similar proportion of their wealth should be taxed. That is not the case in the UK today. I think the most the very wealthy pay is 35% some pay 30% & some as little as 10% while the poorest pay 48%.

It's relatively simple. Our adult population needs to work in order to live. Adults need to pay taxes in order to fund all of the infrastructure of life in a society. The work individuals are capable of doing varies hugely according to age, skills, experience & capacity. Some people are not able to work because of ill health or disability. Unless we all do contribute to that equation, society as we know it cannot survive. 

We are now in complete imbalance & our system is failing. Demographically we have an increasing retired population & a decreasing birthrate. We also have an increasing population on benefits - The number of working-age adults (16-64) claiming disability or incapacity benefits in England and Wales grew from 2.8 million in 2019 to 4 million by March 2025. This represents a rise of over 1 million people, or about a 38% increase. That is not sustainable.

In simple terms we need more young people to be workers to generate taxable income to support all of the infrastructure & pensions for the old that we all take for granted. We cannot go on borrowing money to get us out of trouble. The interest on the debt is crippling & our productivity is lower than France, Germany & the USA. Our growth is half of the Eurozone. 

Unfortunately I don't have the solutions to this. Fortunately I am not the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do think that our tax system is ridiculously complicated & needs complete reform. No one, even HMRC, really understands it. I do think that if we reformed it, so that at the very least the rich & the poor were treated equally & fairly it would be a start.

  

Politically that is a nettle no government has been prepared to grasp, fearing it would make them unpopular & unelectable. But there are countries in Europe that have far simpler & better tax systems than we do. The Netherlands, Austria, and Sweden are often cited for providing a good balance of extensive welfare states, solid infrastructure, and reasonable tax rates. The simplest and most competitive tax systems are Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania. Surely we can learn from them all.    

Pointlessness - Kuzozu Art

Kuzozu is Buddhist art showing 9 images of the decay of a corpse, (usually female for reasons I don't want to think about), left outdoors until it rots & turns into a skeleton. Death is one of the most cmmonly depicted subjects in art throughout history. Buddhist beliefs urged followers to meditate on the temporary nature of life and the physical world. It is arguable that our life span is so short & we are individually so inconsequential that our lives are fairly pointless. Earth to earth & ashes to ashes.

When you reach my age you do think about life and death & what the point of us is. Especially, as has just happened, when a good friend dies unexpectedly. 

We human beings want to believe that there is a point to our existance. We want to believe that we are, individually, important - Our lives are meaningful. I wonder how true that is. How much difference have I personally made to the lives of others? How much difference have I personally made to the universe? Has there been any real point to my life, other than to a very small number of close friends & family?

I think the point of us individually is as part of a whole. Part of the family we belong to, part of the community & country we live in & part of the the world everyone inhabits. We need to divest ourselves of self importance & see ourselves as a small part of a whole something. We have agency to achieve as a community. Power to the people is not just an empty phrase. It is a slogan for collective influence. It represents the idea that a group of individuals working together can achieve significant influence or effect change. It is often used in political and social contexts, from protests and elections to local community initiatives.  

Taken in isolation I think my life has had a little meaning. It hasn't been completely pointless. There have been achievements. I have tried to behave well & work for good. But in order to really effect change for the good I have realised two things;-

• If you have more money than you need you should use it to benefit others. You shouldn't waste it on pointless unnecessary posessions & grandiose schemes. The mega wealthy today do not give enough money away to those in need. 
• If you don't have more money than you need, you need to use your voice to lobby for change. We each have the capability to demonstrate & act in concert with others, who care about injustice & unfairness, to force wrongs to be righted.

No one's life should be pointless. Life is a gift that should not be squandered. We should not be a silent majority.

 

    

Disfunctional

My hearing aids were disfunctional, so too, as it turns out were my ears. That can all be sorted. The hoses to my water softener leaked onto my kitchen floor, disfunctional after 3 years. Obviously cheap plastic tat with built in obsolescence. That isn't what I am talking about. Life is full of things that go wrong & don't function properly. 

I just had a replacement Amazon Echo Show & discovered, having seen the excellent John Lewis tech advisor, because I'd already complained about the first one, it had the same software fault. The setup was not intuitive or even logical & there was a choice early on which disabled everything if you clicked on it. That was very time consuming & irritating & Amazon with all it's tech expertise should have sorted it by now. But even that isn't what I'm talking about. 

Individuals, countries, companies, all make mistakes. No one is perfect, we are all human & while humans run the world there will be mistakes. 

When I talk about disfuntion I basically mean systems. 80 years of life have shown me that there are ups & downs. There are errors & mistakes, inadvertant, careless or deliberate & self serving. I doubt we can change that. Utopia, Nirvana & Heaven actually don't exist. 

But what is happening now is caused by us. Our world is being devastated & decimated by man made climate change. We are creating mountains of rubbish & polluting our landscape, rivers & seas. Plant and animal life is going extinct at a rate never seen before because of us & the way we decimate habitats & landscape. We pollute even the air we breathe.

Our blind & heedless pursuit of profit proves the old adage "money is the root of all evil". 

Our vital societal systems, justice, education, health, food, water, housing....are all failing abysmally. We are overwhelmed with population imbalance & polpulation movements around the world caused by war, persecution & disaster. We are reaching a point where we may not be able to put all of this right. We may already be at the tipping point.

It's no good just blaming politicians, useless & corrupt though some are. We live in a world where there is evidence based information accessible to all. Where we can fact check the accuracy of information to help us make good choices. 

The only way we will be able to solve the fundamental disfunctionality of the world we have created through greed & wilfully ignoring reality is for everyone to work together to find real solutions.

 

It won't be easy, but there really is no choice. 

Owning Up

When I was at primary school I collected stamps - life was much simpler in the 1950's. It wasn't anything to do with the value of the stamps, it was because I wanted a complete set, or because I loved the design. Children then compared eachother's collections, whatever it was, from cigarette cards to stamps. I have to own up to taking a stamp from a friend because it completed a set. It wasn't particularly beautiful or worth anything. But I took it & I never owned up. I don't think my friend even realised. The memory & the shame has stayed with me for 75 years.

"Losing Face" is a concept is deeply rooted in East Asian cultures, where "face" is a crucial part of social order and reputation. It means to be publicly humiliated, lose respect, or have one's reputation damaged, a loss of social standing, prestige, or honor. 

If we do something wrong, or if we fail to do something we should have, there are consequences. Owning up to mistakes or failures can be very difficult, but it is the right course of action. However individuals ability to own up is determined by their moral compass & their self interest. A big factor is also how serious the misdemeanor is. It is harder to admit to something with serious consequences for others and / or ourselves. 

We seem to be living in a less morally responsible era. People with a lot to loose seem to be less able to take responsibility for errors & failures. Particularly people with power & wealth. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it does seem to me that there are sometimes collusions in keeping major failings hidden. Particularly politically & in commercial companies. I have blogged about that before, so I won't repeat. There is a worrying pattern though. 

 

I doubt I'm likely to commit a major sin & given that I have short term memory problems associated with age, owning up to failures, omissions & mistakes isn't hard. But I really do wish that those who do fail in consequential ways had the balls to accept that failure openly. 

The only way we become the best humans & the best societies is if we learn from our mistakes. We can't do that if we don't own up to them.  

 

Forgiveness

Blues music is full of "you done me wrong" songs.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzlHw5lNTt0&list=RDVzlHw5lNTt0&start_radio=1

The human condition is prone to blame rather than accepting that the balance of probability is that it takes two to make a quarrel. Misunderstandings & arguments are normal in relationships. The important thing is how we deal with them. Do we react emotionally or rationally? Do we feel hurt in some way & let that determine what we say & do, or do we look for reasons and solutions? I know what I think.

I can't do the god thing, there are so many things you need to believe that I can't accept. But I do think that there are things beyond our current understanding & we should all try to live according to the basic tenets of all religions. So we should try to be forgiving & accept that we ourselves are not perfect, we all make bad choices & behave unacceptably.

There are two diametrically opposite ways of thinking & behaving, blame & forgiveness. We seem to have become a blaming society. When individuals are able to forgive, even huge wrongdoing, we are quite surprised. But holding on to anger & hatred does so much harm to the person doing it. Anger has physical, emotional, and mental effects on us. It increases the heart rate & muscle tension & contributes to negative emotional states & relationship problems. 

Our expectations of what others can & should do have become unrealistic. This is particularly evident in politics. Watching parliament in action & political commentary is now completely unedifying. Our parliament is a bear garden of an almost complete lack of realistic & honest discourse. It is point scoring, yah booing & is unlikely to solve any of the deep problems we are facing as a country & as individuals. 

There is an almost complete lack of honesty & willingness to take responsibility for errors of judgement or failure to act appropriately. Goodness knows why anyone would want to become a politician. Possibly we have reached the point when the people we would want to be in charge look at the way we run this country & think why on earth should I do that? There is an almost complete lack of trust in politicans or belief in what they say & do.

Someone needs to get a grip & I can't see any evidence that we have many people in any of the UK political parties capable of doing that. So it's up to the public to force their views to be listened to. Where are the real changemakers, the moral leaders who put what is right above pure self interest? Mandela lived this & really understood about forgiveness. 

 

He isn't a lone voice, but infortunately there are not many charismatic & selfless people whose voices are heard. So maybe we the populus have to shout louder & together to force real change & more understanding. 

Sick Society

Approximately 9.1 million people of working age (16-64) are not working in the UK. That is the unemployed and the economically inactive. The majority, (9.11 million) are economically inactive, meaning they are not actively looking for or available to work. That includes students, those who are retired, stay-at-home parents, or people unable to work due to long-term sickness or disability. This represents a total non-working rate of around 25% of the working-age population.

Previously the highest rate of unemployment in the UK was 11.9% in 1984, peaking during the economic recession of the early 1980s. Another major peak was in 1993, at 10.7%, during the recession in the early 1990s.  

At the risk of being politically incorrect I just don't understand this. We are not currently in a recession. Long-term sickness is the reason for 28% of all economically inactive people. More than 1.35 million people who are inactive due to long-term sickness report depression, bad nerves, or anxiety as their primary condition. So I have to ask are we a sick society & if we are why?

I remember working when I was quite ill with bronchitis & even pleurisy. I certainly remember working when I was overwhelmed & depressed. I'm not saying that is a good thing, it isn't. Not least because you will undoubtedly infect other people with contageous diseases & you can't function well if you are depressed. But teaching & being a headteacher means that you are in a caring profession & you tend to put the job first, even if that is misguided & supply teachers were difficult to get.

Having had a lifetime of co morbid chronic conditions I am a believer in distraction technique & the benefit of socialising. I can be in pain or feel significantly under the weather, but if I can take my mind off how I feel I do feel better. For me swimming or meeting friends & family is the best cure. If you are diagnosed with something there is evidence that the expansion of disease definitions and advanced technology contribute to overdiagnosis. I'm not saying that it is good to ignore symptoms, it definitely isn't, but mental health diagnoses have grown exponentially. The rate of common mental health conditions in 16- to 64-year-olds went from 15.5% in 1993 to 22.6% in 2023/24. The elephant in the room is Covid of course.

However I do think that my generation & previous generations were more resilient. They coped with massive problems & the NHS only came into existance in 1948. If we over medicalise we are almost conditioning, especially the young & impressionable, to not be able to cope. 

 

We must not become a sick society. We are better than that. We all need to live full lives & meet the challenges. 

Extinction

Extinction is the complete disappearance of a species, either naturally or due to human activity. Given the announcement this week that Russia has developed a nuclear powered missile that NATO calls Skyfall, which flew at Mach 10 for 8,700 miles & can pierce any defence shield, it seems that we are in another dangerous cold war, with unstable, undemocratic, leaders in charge of several well armed & powerful countries. This obviously threatens mass extinction.

Human-caused extinction rates are currently thousands of times higher than natural rates, driven primarily by habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and over exploitation. Darwin showed that variations in a species may make some individuals better suited to their environment, while less-adapted individuals may fail to reproduce - survival of the fittest. So extinction is, to an extent, normal. 99% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. Challenges like habitat fragmentation, climate change, natural disasters, disease, or competition for resources may outpace ability to adapt. But you can't adapt to nuclear weapons.

The geological record shows five major mass extinction events in Earth's history. The first was 443 million years ago. The fifth was 55 million years ago. Many scientists believe the planet is currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction event, driven largely by human activity. This extinction rate is estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background rates.  

A 2019 report by the IPBES found that 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction. There is a knock on effect of an extinction. The loss of a species, particularly a keystone species, can unbalance an ecosystem and trigger a cascade of further extinctions, that could take millions of years to recover. 

We humans are literally fighting a battle on two fronts to stop extinction. We need to stop unstainable exploitation of the earth & seas. We also need to learn how to co-exist with other nations & not use devastatingly destructive wars to settle disagreements over territory & culture.

 

Unfortunately I can't see much evidence of that happening. Essentially we humans are selfish rather than altruistic. Historically there are 10 civilisations that have gone extinct due to environmental changes, internal strife, warfare, or a combination of factors. This time we are talking about a world mass extinction. 

We don't seem capable of learning the lessons of history. We are in serious danger of being the agents of our own destruction. 
  

 

Reasons to be Cheerful

One of the pieces of music I have on my funeral playlist is "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". I'm nothing if not eclectic, I also have the "Dies Irae" chorus from Verdi's Requiem mass, which is the choral depiction of the day of judgement. If I'm ever at the pearly gates I'm really not sure how the scales of justice will fall. But then I think heaven & hell is within each of us, not an ultimate destination.

At the moment I am finding it quite difficult to focus on the many & varied reasons I have to be cheerful. There are so many things happening in my small world, but mainly in the world generally, that do not generate cheer. I don't think I need to enumerate them.

But in order not to sink into gloom I think that we all need to try to focus on the positive. 

Yesterday I wrote the draft of this listening to a playlist of the most beautiful piano solos. I was sitting in my study, in my home, looking out onto a street bathed in sunlight shining from a clear blue sky. Two of my neighbours boys popped over to give me a huge box of apples because they are all going on holiday. That means I will bake an apple cake & pass most on to my daughter who is a better cook than me. We went to a ceramic fair in Oxford in the morning which showcased the most inspiring collection of human creativity in clay. That was just one day in the life of.....

 

My point is that hopefully most of us can find reasons to be cheerful because if we are really honest there are always people who are much worse off than we are. If I feel in the least sorry for myself when I am in pain or very fatigued, I can think of people who have far worse medical conditions than I do. If something goes wrong in my life, generally it isn't drastic or life threatening. I dread house maintenance issues, it's never easy to sort them out, but I have a comfortable house that I own. 

I've had 80 years of a really interesting & productive life. Happiness is a gift to be appreciated & acknowledged. I'm not given to joy, but I do appreciate contentment. Each new day is a bonus & a blessing now. 

That's a reason to be very cheerful. 

 

Opinion

You may well think that I am very opinionated. You would be right, I am. Over the 14 years I have been posting Blogs, "Senile Sealion" has become a commentary on the world today as I see it. Since I am not yet at the stage of senility when I talk to myself, this is my outlet. In the absence of a husband to bore with my opinions, I put them into print & publish them. Over the years my audience has grown from a handful of noble friends to a high of approx 6,500 in a week. So someone somewhere is interested.

But what is an opinion? Its a belief, perspective, judgement, sentiment, thought, attitude, feeling, conviction....  We are all allowed to have opinions, a right to freedom of expression, on anything. Free speech is important. But are we also allowed to voice those that are derogatory or offensive to others? No, unlawful harassment or unlawful incitement to hatred or violence, for example, does not constitute free speech within the law and is not protected.

I try to be careful what I write & what I say. I have no wish to offend. The difficulty is that speech or the written word are both open to misinterpretation. For example, however careful I am with emails or texts, sometimes what I mean is interpreted differently by whoever reads it. I cannot be responsible for the thought processes of my reader, or listener. They may be emotional or irrational or suffering from some sort of mental disturbance. They may just have a different perspective. I know what I mean, but they can read or hear it completely differently. That's life. It's out of my control.

So I am concerned to see the trend, in the press & media, to speculate wildly, to voice unsubstantiated opinions without any evidential context, to react over emotionally to situations, to not be balanced. It's even worse than that because we have become the post truth era, where half truths & lies are routinely published without challenge. 

The big problem is you can't know what someone is going to say until they say it. You do know what people have said before & can anticipate their opinions though. You also do know what someone has written before. So surely the public need to be informed if an opinion is questionable.

Humans are very diverse. Our intelligence varies hugely.

 

The press & media are there to inform, accurately. But they can manipulate & influence opinion. It is important that we all realise that & each take steps to verify that what we are reading or hearing is accurate. Unless we do we will forfeit democracy & choice. We need to be selective about the voices we listen to. 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/public-opinion/Mass-media-and-social-media 

 

Thoughtlessness - Cause & Effect

I once had a house with wood burning stoves in 3 rooms. We burnt all sorts of wood. It was in a very rural area & wood wasn't difficult to come by. We were very prone to power outages, which often lasted days, so the wood burners that had a hotplate were very useful. We thought we were being very eco.

Now we know that burning the wrong wood risks a fine, the life of your stove, or even a house fire if you burn irresponsibly. https://www.hetas.co.uk/consumer/advice-hub/advice-articles/16-things-you-should-never-burn-in-your-wood-burner/  The main thing to understand is the emissions can be very  harmful, releasing greenhouse gases. Burning wood releases more CO2 for the same amount of heat or energy than fossil fuels like oil or gas. It is not carbon neutral because trees take decades to regrow and absorb the carbon they released during combustion. 

It's cause & effect rather than thoughtlessness. The big problem we have in decision making, whether it's micro / individual, or macro / political & philosophical, is that we need to engage our brains before action. We need to try to look to the whole question of what our actions today might mean for the consequences down the line. But we tend to make decisions that are expedient.

We need to develop creative thinking skills. We need to effectively gather, analyze, & evaluate information to solve problems, make decisions & achieve goals. People need critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, and reasoning in order to understand, apply, and create new knowledge. These skills are crucial for navigating the complex tasks the world today presents us with. 

In order to become people who make good choices & societies that do not push humanity towards oblivion, we need to first recognise that we have made poor choices in the past. Then we need to learn how to be more thoughtful & try to predict the outcomes of our actions & inactions.

We understand what cause & effect means, both individually & societally. But we are not yet prepared to take responsibility for outcomes & change in ways that are difficult. Until we do, thoughtlessness & expediency will take us down a path we really don't want to travel.  

 

 

Are You Transactional Or Altruistic?

On a micro scale a transaction is typically when money is exchanged for goods or services. But the meaning is wider than that. It can include when we do something in order to gain some sort of benefit for ourselves. So I might help you today expecting that you might eventually help me in return. "Quid pro Quo". Or I might do something in order to make me seem a better person. Life is often transactional, there's nothing innately wrong with that. The economy depends on transactions.

On the other hand human relationships also need altruism. The selfless concern for the well being of others. Helping someone at a cost to oneself without expecting anything in return, usually stemming from empathy and compassion, or a sense of duty and moral obligation. For example donating to charity or volunteering. 

In order to survive societies need both. There needs to be a balance. There are always choices between self interest & the good of society as a whole. The choices we make affect not only ourselves, but also others. That is at the level of family & friends, but also our society as a whole & even the wider world.

We each have intellect & an inner instinctive voice of right & wrong to guide our choices. But we also have self interest & the temptation to do something that could harm others but benefit us personally or someone close to us. These micro moral dilemmas happen in macro form on the world stage & have untold capacity for good or harm. 

There is a tendency to be blind to the impact the wrong choices make. There is also a protectionist tendency to convince ourselves that our individual choices make no difference in the "grand scheme of things". We deliberately ignore the impact of cumulative not "putting our head above the parapet". 

On the other hand we can make our voices heard today in ways that were impossible a few years ago. We can affect change. I am old enough to remember taking part in the Ban the Bomb marches & the protests at Greenham Common. We didn't have mobile phones, computers or social media, but we were a force to be reckoned with. 

Now there are so many easy & immediate ways to participate in politics & decision making. There is the possibility of every voice becoming a cumulative groundswell of opinion.

We must use it or it will be taken from us. "1984" is not just a novel, it's a real possibility. 

 

 

 

Trumps Behaviour & the Nobel Peace Prize.

I can dislike your behaviour intensely, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I dislike you, or think you are a bad person. Why am I thinking that? Because of Trump, the Gaza ceasefire & the Nobel Peace Prize. In actual fact, in Trumps case, I do dislike him - a lot. I certainly don't think he is a good person. But I can only judge him on his behaviour, because I am never likely to meet him. 

I was quite surprised at the 1895 criteria for the Peace Prize - "the person who, in the preceding year, shall have done the most, or the best work, for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". This seems to me to be surprisingly narrow. 

There have always been controversial winners - Shimon Peres who developed Israels nuclear capability & was arguably a war criminal, also Henry Kissinger who was notorious for his devastating bombing campaign against Cambodia for example. 

 

There have also been notable omissions - Mahatma Ghandi & the Dalai Lama stand out. 

This years winner Maria Corida Machado is a Venezuelan opposition politician & activist who played a leading part in organising demonstrations against Maduro's dictatorship, which is characterised by electoral fraud, serious human rights abuses, rampant corruption & severe economic hardship. Opposing Maduro in a country like Venezuela takes balls. She is in her 40's & has 3 children. In my view that makes her very brave.

So where does Trump come in the list of those bidding for recognitian as peace makers?  According to the White house he has brokered peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Cambodia and Thailand, Israel and Iran, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India & Pakistan, Egypt & Ethiopia, Serbia & Kosovo & the Abraham Accords. According to BBC Verify those claims really don't stand up. A ceasefire isn't lasting peace as the Palestinians & Israelis may well discover. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y3599gx4qo 

He actively lobbies to get the prize & is so narcissistic that he thinks it's a done deal. He didn't actually write the current ceasefire agreement between Israel & Palestine. The proposal was first drafted by mediators from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, accepted by Hamas on 5 May 2024, and presented by U.S. president Joe Biden on 31 May. On 10 June, the United Nations Security Council supported it as Resolution 2735. He's a bully too.

But my opposition to even considering him for a Noble peace prize is even more than that. He was impeached for inciting a mob to storm the Capitol building because he lost the election to Biden saying: "if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore". He has never conceded that Biden won. Incitement is not a crime under the First Amendment unless it meets certain criteria. So he got away with it. He uses aggressive, divisive, and dehumanizing language, which is hateful against racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.

I rest my case.  

 

Blame & Grievance

I think we all have a tendency to blame someone or something when things go wrong. It's easier to feel that someone or something is more responsible than we ourselves are. It's a defence mechanism. We avoid negative feelings & try to stop feeling anxiety, Or, conversely, we try to feel a sense of superiority. This may temporarily provide a sense of control or self-protection. Blaming is typically a cognitive distortion that hinders personal growth, prevents emotional regulation, and can lead to resentment and damaged relationships. Basically it's not good for us.

Grievance stems from a real or perceived wrong, hardship, or injustice suffered in life. Something we feel is unfair. I've just been watching "The Count of Monte Christo" by Alexander Dumas. Not a classic that I have read, but perhaps I should. It's an epic tale of suffering, betrayal, escape, adventure, and retribution. The thing is, however the justified the "hero's " grievance is, does it validate the repercussions of his actions on people who had no part in the original heinous act? Also is the effect of harbouring the grievance on the "hero" worth the outcome?

Negative emotions, e.g. anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, guilt, jealousy, apathy & disust, can have negative effects on us. They can eat away at us & cause physical harm if they don't motivate us to change our situation or find solutions to problems. We need to address the underlying causes of negative emotions in order to develop better coping strategies and grow personally. 

Emotions are complex physical and mental responses, involving physiological changes, thoughts, and behavioral reactions, created in the brain. Healthy expression of emotions improves interpersonal communication. The problem is when people aren't able to communicate well & express emotion appropriately. 

All too often we see inappropriate emotional reactions to situations. We seem to have lost our filter, that inner voice that tells us when we have overstepped the mark. When we have gone too far & done more harm than good. 

What we say is as powerful & can be as harmful as what we do. We all need to pause & think before speaking & acting.

 

  

In Sickness and in Health?

I've got a torn tendon in my right hand & I've had to do a lot of chasing to get anything done about it. It seems that hand clinics & much else have all been outsourced to a private company called CORA. After waiting nearly 3 weeks for an appointment & trying to navigate a dreadful website, I finally phoned them. The woman I spoke to was really helpful & emailed me a "choose & book" form. The Oxford clinic had no appointments at all, Bicester & Banbury had 6 month waits. So I've had to choose Reading which has a 3 month wait. That's despite the GP saying the referral was urgent. I'm right handed, so the impact of the damage is difficult to deal with.

It brought home how the NHS is struggling. This isn't life threatening. Fortunately it isn't excruciatingly painful any more, but I can't put any pressure on with the palm of my hand & the hand is permanently at an angle & very stiff. So washing & dressing, making the bed & washing up for example, are really difficult. When I swim I have to have it splinted & dread someone knocking my hand. My osteopath thinks it might need surgery.

The median wait time for planned hospital treatment in England is 13.3 weeks, according to the latest NHS data from June 2025. I'm assuming that means the first consultation, not actual treatment. The pre-pandemic average was 7.3 weeks in 2019. Apparently trauma & orthopaedics has the highest number of patients on the waiting list, with over 800,000 people waiting in March 2024. So I'm not alone.

I'm doing what I can, I can afford my osteopath who is very good. Swimming helps because I do back crawl which means the water resists the hand & pushes it back a bit. I've bought a gel fidgit ball which feels like squeezing a silicone boob! But my concern is what sort of movement will I be left with after such a long wait to be seen, never mind actual treatment. I need an ultrasound scan to see exactly what the damage is.

But everything needs to be put into context - people are not being diagnosed in a timely way, they are  suffering a lot of pain & disability, some must be dying needlessly, because our health service isn't as good as it should be.

If we want the care we deserve the NHS has to improve the way it operates, (excuse the pun). But we too need to make clear that we want to fund it properly. The UK generally spends less per person on healthcare compared to other high-income European nations, such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. This is because other countries are wealthier than the UK, some make better political choices about health care & some make more efficient use of resources. 

There is room for improvement in the NHS, but it needs political will, taxpayers to pay more & the NHS to put it's organisation in order.

 

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/blogs/comparing-nhs-to-health-care-systems-other-countries 

 

Price & Value

The price of everything has gone up over recent years;- Food inflation 5.1% - (e.g. beef, butter, milk, and chocolate) / Housing costs - mortgage interest and property maintenance, rental costs up 6.2% / Motor fuels / Services 4.7%. Inflation is caused by global demand & supply chain issues, high energy prices, & wage growth & labour costs. We all know what price means, it's literally the cost of living. The UK has had price inflation for all of the time that its price levels have been officially measured and reported. Between 2021-2023 inflation was historically high, reaching a 41-year peak. 

Inflation has significantly affected poverty in the UK by raising the costs of essential goods, particularly for low income households, who spend a larger proportion of their income on food & energy. This disproportionately impacted them, leading to a significant drop in their real incomes, increased material deprivation, and a rise in food insecurity. 

What is value though? The regard something deserves, it's importance, worth or usefulness? The estimate of the monetary worth of something? Our judgement of what is important in life - e.g. principles or standards? What value do you put on a human life?

Currently there are major conflicts (wars) in Ukraine / Russia, Israel / Palestine, Yemen, Sudan & Myanmar. The cost of those wars is counted in global military spending, direct financial suport & supply chain disruption costs. But there is more than a simple monetary cost. There is also the cost in terms of loss of life & injury, displacement & health, and the psychological & cultural cost for both sides of any war. On top of all of that there is the infrastructure damage, environmental damage & serious curtailment of civil liberties. 

As an example the monetary cost to Ukraine is thought to be £524 billion to the end of 2024. For Russia it is thought to be $450 billion, with Western sanctions estimated to result in $1.3 trillion in economic losses by 2025.

What on earth are we doing? We certainly aren't thinking logically. If we were we would be counting the cost in terms of human life lost & environmental damage. According to the British Ministry of Defence, more than one million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022.

What is the point of it all? In the end there will have to be negotiated peace - until the next time some leader decides that he, & it is always he, wants more territory & more power. 

I can only conclude that some human beings simply have an apocalyptic death wish. 

 

Joy, Happiness & Contentment

Of these three I find it really difficult to decide which I experience. I'm not sure that I have truly experienced joy at all. I think that the closest I have come is travelling with my husband & walking in wonderful landscapes. What is joy? Supposedly it is great pleasure & happiness. A deep, internal sense of well being & contentment, independent of external circumstances, which lasts longer than fleeting happiness. It is rooted in an authentic life aligned with one's values, meaningful connections, and a profound inner sense of purpose or fulfillment, even in the face of suffering. 

That's a lot to ask of life. The obvious response to the question "when did you experience real joy", is the birth of a child or ones wedding day. For me, for very different reasons neither were joyous. 

Then there is happiness - a state of mind characterized by positive emotions, a sense of purpose, and a feeling of fulfillment, deep pleasure. Well, yes. I have felt those things. It has usually been relatively fleetingly though. I always mistrust people who seem to be overly happy with their life. In my experience life is a bumpy road, full of surprises & challenges. You have to grab happiness when it happens, because you always have to deal with sorrow & heartache too. I don't think that it is possible, in this world, to feel happy all the time. 

So that leaves me with contentment - being satisfied with ones life & circumstances. A sense of inner peace with what you have without constantly wanting more. A lasting feeling of fulfillment that is distinct from fleeting happiness, an appreciation for the present and a sense of completeness. I can live with that & be immensely grateful for it.

 

The main point of life, as I see it, is to try to do no harm. We all have an ego, a sense of our self esteem & self importance. Self esteem is important, we need to value ourseves. Self importance can be the route to all sorts of problems. Maybe if we thought of ourselves as a grain of sand we would get some perspective of our real importance & be more content with what we have.   

Who's In Charge?

I have long thought that if there were a more representative balance of the sexes in governments around the world, we might avoid much of the catastrophic power, testosterone, territorial & personal aggrandisment, decision making we have to tolerate. Worse, the repercussions of poor decision making, that seem to lead more and more to aggression & war. 

Women’s voices are simply not heard in the same way as men's. Women are told that they are too too assertive or organised. The word "too" is actually putting them down. We all have an "Inner Critic" voice, but I think it is louder in women. We tell ourselves that we are "too" something. We try try to adjust / adapt to other peoples expectations because we have “overstepped” them. Our other voice, the "Compassionate Friend" is silenced, because we want to be accepted as equal. Women can be too ready to accept other peoples opinion of them. Including other women, who aren't necessarily supportive. 

Women are, to a great extent, silenced by Capitalism & the Patriarchy. Many feminist & socialist analyses argue that capitalism exploits womens labour & devalues their care work. It creates a system that reinforces patriarchal norms & inequality. Capitalism relies on social constructs like gender to divide workers and generate profits, often pushing women into low-wage jobs while assigning them the unpaid burden of domestic and care work. Furthermore, the system's focus on profit can undermine social safety nets and access to essential services, leaving vulnerable women even more exposed and with fewer avenues to speak out against exploitation. Patriarchal societies often limit women's opportunities and decision-making power, resulting in gender-based discrimination and inequality. This can lead to feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem, and anxiety.

This can make women “less than” in the pecking order. Assertiveness is not tolerated, it's called aggression or an emotional reaction. The result is under representation of women in decision making. The hierarchy determines that men are in charge & set the rules. 

 

Women are more consensual, they actually listen & are prepared to change & give way. The question is, do we give way too much? I'm beginning to wonder whether it is possible to set group rules, which are determined by members, with no one as titular leader. 

 

The big difficulty is that once a leader is in control & has power, they are very unwilling to loose that. I do believe that organisations need limited terms of office. They need fresh blood, with different experience & new ideas, in order to change, as our world changes. Without that they become bogged down in a morass & are impossible to move or change for the better. 

 

Women have different experience & skills. We silence their voice to the detriment of everyone.

 

 

 

Duplicity & Cheating.

Human relationships are endlessly fascinating. We all have so many different motivations & ways of behaving. I sometimes wonder how well we understand ourselves & our own behaviour. But introspection is possibly not common to all. Many people simply react, emotionally, or just in their own best interest, regardless of the impact on others. If that were not true we wouldn't have wars. In order to be prepared to fight you have to be able to "other" the people you fight with. You can't see them as human beings.

Similarly in disagreements. If you can't accept that the person you disagree with has a right to their opinion, or possibly even a valid point, then you are arrogantly "othering" them. 

Duplicity is deceitful behaviour, speech or thoughts. Saying or doing one thing to one person & something different to another. It is "contradictory doubleness" of intent. In simple terms it is being "two faced". Cheating is deceptive actions to gain an unfair advantage. In relationships it is infidelity, not necessarily sexual, emotional too.

The older I get, the more I believe that we need to be more open & honest in our dealings with eachother. It seems to me that people are becoming more & more dogmatic about their beliefs & end up in "bunkers", often religious ones. Religion generally has a lot to answer for. But more & more, our behaviour & beliefs are being determined by the press, the media & social media. They are the new "religions".

  

How did we get to this point? I think that it started in 1979 when Thatcher came to power in the UK & Reagan followed in America in 1981. Thatcher was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. She presided over a social revolution in which nationally owned industries were privatised and the welfare state was drastically reduced in size. She famously said "they (people) are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families".

To my mind, that gave rise to the instant gratification, self centred, outlook we see so prevalent today. People are social animals. We need to find a way of working together for the good of all. There needs to be fairness & real justice, not the sham democracy we accept today. Everyone for themselves, if not checked, will lead to the complete breakdown of society as I have known it.   

Is Britain Working?

I seem to spend a lot of my time firefighting. Not literally of course. But I have an ongoing list of things that have gone wrong. There are three main issues - Firstly that tradespeople  / manufacturers don't do the job properly in the first place. Secondly getting something done about that in a timely fashion takes huge commitment & wastes a lot of the customers time. Thirdly communication is really bad. When there is good customer service, & it does happen, I am truly grateful & surprised. 

But it really should not be like that. Why isn't good customer service the norm?

I have an issue currently with my car. It had a major service & MOT at a Nissan dealership & quite a lot of expensive work was done in order to pass. I've had Nissan cars for years & always had them serviced at the same dealership. Afterwards there were a couple of intermittant faults, the brakes squeal & there is an odd noise when reversing. The car is going in tomorrow to have the rear suspension done - at quite a high cost again. In order for the service people to check out the intermittant noises they want to charge me well over a hundred pounds on top. I think that is unreasonable given the circumstances, but they won't budge. It used to be the case that I had an informal chat with the service engineer & there was no diagnostic charge when the car was in for something else.

I had solar panels installed by Octopus earlier this year costing thousands. The Enphase gateway went wrong relatively soon afterwards. There was nothing wrong with my wifi & the App procedure didn't work. Eventually they admitted it was their fault & it was rectified remotely. Weeks ago it went wrong again. Same problem. I went on a forum & got advice that was well beyond my skill set. So I referred it to Octopus & got a ticket. Nothing has been done & I keep having to chase. It is ridiculous.

I re-did my LPA's recently. My solicitor forgot to put one document in when she sent it off to the OPG. We notified them & they agreed she could send it separately. Several telephone conversations chasing this, with different people, which we ensured were logged on the system, I got a letter saying my LPA's couldn't be registered because of missing documents. Despite the fact that the OPG had acknowledged receiving the document. I still haven't had my new documents back months after they were sent in. 

To my mind these are major failings. I could go on. They simply shouldn't happen. 

So I ask myself why? Is it the systems the companies have in place? Is it that they don't employ enough staff of the right calibre & experience? Is it that their personnel training isn't good enough? Is it that they are cutting costs? Is it that they simply don't care? 

I don't know. I suspect all of the above are true. 

The main issue, as I see it, is that Britain isn't working. When I say that I mean it isn't functioning adequately. Until we put this right we won't increase productivity, we won't achieve growth, we won't be a country in which people want to invest.

It isn't my micro problems that matter. It's the disfunctional country we now live in that will affect everybody. We all need to do something about this. 

  

Fitting In & People Pleasing

Most people want to belong. To a family or a friendship group or at work. It's normal. Most of us want people to like us. We want to be able to work co-operatively. We need to be able to express our opinion, but also we need to listen to the views of others. Sometimes we need to accept that we disagree, without trying to force our opinion on them. Occasionally we also need to stand firm if we feel that an opinion is wrong. Everyone has a right to their view - We personally just don't have to accept it. 

It's a delicate balance because it's important to retain a sense of self. To some extent most of us adapt our behaviour to the situations we are in & to the people we are with. Adaptive behaviour is fine until it becomes maladaptive. 

Humans are unique & varied. It isn't possible to agree with everyone. It isn't possible to enjoy the company of everyone. What really matters is how we deal with disagreement or conflict. Both are normal in human relationships & we do need to accept that. What we shouldn't do is accept someone who is trying to manipulate us or force their views on us. We can see that so clearly in the international situation today. But we need to be able to recognise it in our personal relationships too. 

I think most people have several personas. Different aspects of our personality that we bring out for different occasions. Trying to fit in, not rock the boat. Actually that's a useful tool to avoid conflict. We are social animals living in various communities. It wouldn't work if we were all egotistical & dominant. That causes conflict & even aggression.

But no one should abase themselves or alter their core values in order to be people pleasers. Submissive dogs roll over on their back to dominant ones. People are intelligent, thinking entities who use education, experience & information to think. 

We need to be true to ourselves. Sometimes there is a cost to that which we have to accept.  

 

Post Lunch Fatigue

Just as night follows day I struggle to stay awake after eating lunch. I usually sit for a bit & maybe play mahjong or solitaire on my tablet, or read a book. Even if I'm doing something on my computer, my eyelids drag themselves down & I do start to drift off.

My calvanistic upbringing decrees that my days should be productive, so sleeping isn't an option. I have to get up & do something. Things need to be crossed off my "to do" list.

However, I've been talking to someone who told me about "post lunch fatigue" - post any meal actually. But it is more of a thing at lunchtime for me. The scientific name is postprandial somnolence. Apparently it's caused by high-carbohydrate meals that cause a rapid blood sugar and insulin spike, or by high-fat meals that are harder to digest and divert blood flow from the brain. Blood flow to the digestive tract is increased.

We know so much more now about how our body works & how complex a system it is. High-carb meals lead to a surge in insulin, which can cause a subsequent drop in blood sugar, resulting in a feeling of energy loss. Eating triggers the release of serotonin, a hormone that promotes sleep. More blood being directed to the digestive system to process food, can lead to reduced blood flow to the brain, so we are drowsy.

Apparently the solution is;-

• Eating smaller, lighter, balanced meals
• Being hydrated 
• Light exercise to re-energise the body & increase concentration
• Mindful eating

Who knew?

I thought it was simply an ageing thing & I fight it. I don't want to waste the time I have left alive by sleeping, except at night time. On the other hand my nights are very disturbed & I wake a lot & don't get prolonged restful sleep. 

So I'm now thinking I should look at time differently. Just follow my circadian rhythm. I should listen to my master clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the brain. 

 

I don't think my body likes the current routines my brain has created.  

 

Dumbing Down - The BBC

Radio 4 "Today" & "PM" bookend my day for reliable news & informed comment. This morning "Today" closed with Taylor Swift singing a song to mark the fact that she has announced her engagement. Really? Is this appropriate use of broadcast time. Especially as they often cut interesting interviews short because their timetable is so tight. 

Whatever were programme producers thinking? Personally I really couldn't give a toss that she has become engaged, let alone listen to minutes of a whole song. Had they just run out of real news? Similarly, is a serious news & commentary programme the place to trail other BBC programmes?

Possibly they thought a happy song & event would be "good" news. Serious miscalculation. We do need positive news, but not pop culture ephemera. We need genuine good news about things that are working, innovations that may mitigate climate change, political moves that might really impact the dire international situation.

My family didn't get a TV until after the coronation of queen Elizabeth, but we did have a radio. There were nothing like the number of stations & channels to choose from until relatively recently in my lifetime. The BBC & "public service broadcasting" was & still should be a lifeline of truth & relevance. 

Change is unavoidable, we do need to move forward as technology & the world changes. But do we really want to pander to the soundbite generation with the attention span of a gnat? Should public service broadcasters be forced into the mould of other providers?

 

I don't know how much research there has been into the capacity of the public to listen or watch content driven, fact checked, programmes. Maybe it is a niche market. But, I'm sure that, today, more than ever, it is necessary that the BBC provides it. Because, apart form a few excellent factual / documentary programmes across UK channels, we are being drip fed reality rubbish. Just look at the Radio Times if you don't believe me..

Reality programmes & sport are the modern day Roman gladiatorial equivalent. Relatively cheap to produce & engaging big audiences. That is the key to success - audience numbers. Especially for the channels that have advertising. 

That is what has always & hopefully will always make the BBC unique. We value it enough to pay for it. 

If that ends we will follow the USA into the oblivion of ratings driven, advertising heavy, mush.