Time For The Leathers

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Something exciting has happened today. Well not really but we bought a scooter for the pizza takeaway. In reality after the initial excitement of starting up and being the only takeaway here open, we have quietened done a bit. Apparently though this seems to be a common thread for all the takeaways in the village. The rumour is everyone heard we were doing well and decided to open again too but now we’re all just fighting over the scraps and surviving. Even the local caravan site has started selling pizzas, interestingly enough with similar prices to ours but a fraction cheaper. They do though put hardly any filling on and charge quite a lot for extras which we don’t bother charging for at all. It’s interesting this business thing, I can see why people allow it to take over their whole life. It doesn’t mine and I only intend on doing it until the end of the summer once these mythical tourists disappear but still it’s an interesting little experiment. I’m all about the experiences. I’ve dropped the anti-capitalist and become an entrepreneurial money maker, or at least attempting to become a money maker. I’m still not sure I’m taking it quite seriously enough to go full madman and that’s why it’s all a bit of fun. I want to make it a collective but my non-anarchic friends are refusing to countenance such a thing. Can’t quite make it a collective of one and I suspect they would have even more to say if I actually tried.

Anyway the important thing and the reason I started this piece was that we have bought a scooter. My friend who does the deliveries is not keen on it unfortunately and is refusing to drive around the village on it, he’s a car man. That means it’ll be down to me to put our logo on it and become that comedy idiot looking silly on a scooter. I can’t wait. I find scooters ridiculous, probably just as my mate does, but I’m always fine with looking silly. Secretly I’ve always wanted a motorbike and have resisted this far as I suspect I would probably have killed myself but I’m older now and arguably slightly more mature. If I resist my more ridiculous instincts I should be fine but certainly I see this as the first step on the road to buying a motorbike. A cool one mind, not some racer, something that looks a bit beat up and simple. My ego is picturing the intellectuals motorbike whatever the hell that is. I’m also happy to start at the bottom though, and by the time I’m ready for my midlife crisis I should just be good enough to drive an actual real life motorbike. In the meantime I can’t wait to make that ridiculous noise scooters make. Ah village life.

The Evolution Of The Elders

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Apparently one in five girls born now can expect to live to the age of one hundred. They will see the twenty-second century. For someone born in the twentieth century that is something I struggle to comprehend without my mind going all sci-fiction. Imagining it will be similar to what was expected in the year two thousand by those in the sixties is probably the easiest way to give you an idea. I could now go into wandering through the realms of possibilities but will resist the temptation. This is more about an ageing population.

We already have ageing populations in many parts of the world. If memory serves me then I think a populace needs two point one children born per couple for the population to maintain an average age capable of working, paying taxes and keeping society going. The idea of per couple sounds like a strange one considering relationships don’t quite work in that traditional way anymore but those statistics were perhaps created when it was more relevant. An ageing population is seen as a sign that in the long term a country will have serious problems but I wonder if this isn’t the wrong way to look at things.

The three phase life that has been the cornerstone of how people lived in the last hundred years is starting to look like a part of the past. The three phases are childhood education, working life and retirement. Childhood education is something that seems to be stretching into our twenties now. People seem less inclined to finish education and settle down into adult life instead waiting until they get into their thirties. Work life is no longer about working for one company your whole career or even one field the entire time. It is now far more common to jump from company to company as well as being possible to change careers in some cases multiple times. These two parts are I believe pretty obvious, people know this because they are living this. I am sharing no groundbreaking ideas.

What is worth addressing though is retirement and the role of people in society as they age. If populations are getting older, one thread that goes around is that the elderly are a drain on society. Does that miss possibilities though? We can’t afford to pay their pensions is a common one. The retirement age in the UK has gone up in the last few years and I imagine if we carry on like this and I make it that far it will have gone up a few more times before I become eligible. Modern medicine, improved diets and understanding of healthy living will keep people alive longer but we need to think about their quality of life. What this doesn’t mean though is improve their quality of life and flog them in the workplace until they – we – drop.

If people have worked for forty or fifty years, they may not physically be capable anymore but they offer something people of younger generations don’t have. There once was a time when communities looked to the elders for understanding and wisdom. They weren’t always viewed as a drain who should be put in nursing homes to wait for death. If we are going to have ageing populations, and people living longer who are unable to work and who after forty years have earnt the right not to, we need to find ways of including these people in a way in which they’re not viewed as a burden. To do this we need to stop viewing peoples worth and value through economic eyes and instead through community based compassionate ones. People of all ages have something to offer. The young can learn from the old just as the old can gain vitality and life from the young. We can see the differing values but first we must learn how. Maybe if we had less old people and more elders we may see a way how.

The Final Cries Of Empire

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Let’s be honest you’ll struggle to find many complaints from me about the toppling of a statue in honour of a slave trader in Bristol or the latest vandalism of a statue in honour of Winston Churchill, the aptly entitled ‘complex character’. I was chatting with someone today who seemed to agree with me on those points but who also mentioned that war memorials had been vandalised and that she disagreed with attacks on these as they honour people who fought for our freedom. This exhaustively well worn and manipulative word makes me cringe but I can understand why she felt it unnecessary. To understand why people may damage memorials then we must look beyond the obvious surface rational for these protests.

Clearly black lives do in fact matter and the police are responsible for excessive violence. This violence which comes in many forms only serves to exacerbate a systemic racist imbalance within society. This alone is worth rioting over. It’s abhorrent and urgent change has never not been required. The issue of how we are in this situation though relates to our imperial past as a nation. While the Americans may have been conquering the world for the last eighty years, Britain got there long before those upstarts from over the pond even existed. The statue in Bristol celebrated a slave trader who operated in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Britain used slavery in the same way modern corporations and their national protectors use Asian sweatshops and cheap African labour in mines. These modern corporate empires are built on the back of the economic descendants who died on the sugar plantations. They also mined the lithium for the battery in this laptop I’m writing on which mustn’t be overlooked even if I inevitably will with any tangible actions beyond sentiment. While war memorials honour those who fought Nazi tyranny or were massacred in the trenches of Verdun, they are also emblems of an imperial past, one which relied upon the extortion of other nations and played upon the notion of a supreme race of white Britons. While they may represent your Grandfathers, as they do for me in many ways, for others they’re nothing more than a constant reminder of the injustice inflicted upon their ancestors which is still being felt in communities across the country and the world today.

There will be narratives pushed on these issues, the Conservative MP’s making an embarrassing self serving show of scrubbing the graffiti from Churchill’s statue doing just that. This concept of freedom means nothing if it doesn’t apply to all, people need more than sentiments. Once you believe, even unconsciously, that there are a deserving free and an undeserving then you’ve already lost the argument. I’ll leave you then with the quote made by the previously mentioned ‘complex character’ in 1937 to the Palestine Royal Commission;

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may lain there for a long time…I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

What Could Have Been

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The one important thing to remember when we’re worrying or being down on ourselves is that we’re not alone. While our lives are unique there are similarities with others; we’ve all loved or hated someone, worried about something that has been fine or has been a complete failure, regretted doing or not doing things, enjoyed our own company and been painfully bored, and so on and so on. Emotional similarities are easier to point to because we can all say we’ve experienced a moment of happiness. This happiness is comparative to less happy moments in our lives and we’ve all experienced happier and comparatively less happier moments. I imagine me running down the beach is not unique but also not everyone has done this. We can always shape a feeling to fit.

Today then I experienced the emotion of regret. I regretted an inaction in my past and the course my life has taken as a result. I was listening to a podcast with a chef and a restaurant owner discussing cooking, food, techniques, food as art etc and I remembered a desire I had when I was about sixteen to become a chef and open a restaurant in Dublin. That was my plan. I’ve persuaded myself that the only reason I didn’t do it was because I was persuaded against it, that life as a chef is volatile and hard work. In reality there are an infinite number of reasons life didn’t take that course, one of them being that I just did something else. But I felt regret, that I should have done that instead of whatever I did do. I can admit this because like I said, we’ve all experienced the same emotion and probably a few out there over that exact scenario.

The truth is though that the mind plays many tricks on us and in this case I craved an idea. It is nothing more than an idea, and worse than that it’s a fantasy of an idea. We imagine this situation, what could have been and it’s always perfect. Life isn’t necessarily bad, I have it good in many ways but like everyone we have days which vary in degrees of satisfaction. In times like today we fantasise, but that’s all it is, it’s a fantasy and it’s not real. I then later dreamt of being a writer and after that an actor.

I don’t say any of this in a bad way, as I write this I don’t feel sad. Of course what ifs are not always fun and don’t always signify positivity but they’re just examples of one version out of an infinite versions of possible realities. We also don’t know whether we would have survived in that version, perhaps I would have had a heart attack by now from all the rich restaurant food I was eating. I would probably be much fatter than I am, but as a chef I would also be on a steady diet of amphetamines so that would have probably cut my appetite considerably. It’s fun to explore these moments but also not worth taking them too seriously. There’s a reason we never made it happen then and despite the fantasising now, there’s a reason we’re not rushing off to do it anytime soon. And it’s not likely because we can’t.

A Tangent Of Change

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As I struggle to think about anything to write today, scrolling through Facebook and the news channels for inspiration I am left with the feeling the world is falling apart. We seem to have moved on from the virus pretty quick to the virus of racism. Prior to that of course we moved on from the virus of power and corruption in the form of Brexit. I wonder what we’ll move on to next, a second wave of infections perhaps? I know someone who drives a lorry and apparently the word going around is to prepare for a second lockdown in November, this is what they’ve been told and apparently lorry drivers know stuff so I should believe this. I have seen memes online suggesting this is the worst year ever and what terrible things are going to come next. It might be the worst year ever but that is simply because typical issues which many in poorer parts of the world have to deal with year after year are finally landing on our doorsteps. Face to face with the uncertainty of catching a virus, a hidden bullet we can’t see. Deaths we are impotent from preventing. Is this the new-normal the politicians were talking about.

The unknown is scary. We are scared of the dark because we don’t know what is there, all is unknown. We fear change because we don’t know what it is or what it could entail. We are quick to want to conserve our current way of life if we view it from the standpoint that it works for us and has got us this far. Why change it. Clearly something out there is not working though because we still have violent systemic racism, we still have ideological approaches to saving lives in a pandemic, we still have people manipulating a population for their own personal benefit and greed. So it’s time for society to take that collective step into the unknown and as one step out of that bubble we live in. We don’t know what is going to land on our safe little doorsteps next. We’ve flirted with working together throughout this virus which means we’ve shown we are capable of it. Much of what we’ve heard has been feel good propaganda but we’ve all seen people at some point at least thinking about others before themselves. Some change might need a few generations of social reeducation which sounds ominous, but some we’re clearly capable of. Maybe there is hope for deconstructing the state, decentralising decision making and creating the opportunity for people to achieve self-determination, autonomy and respect. Maybe that’s just me going off on a hopeful tangent but then that is all today seems to be, what life has now become.

BR#Seven – Waves

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It was only a few days ago that I wrote about the last graphic novel I had read and it appears the theme has very quickly continued. The same night I finished Red Rosa, while looking at others books I stumbled upon a story called Waves about a couple struggling to conceive a baby before losing it when they finally do. It seemed liked an interesting concept for something that is ultimately a comic. It’s a very short novel. I thought I would have a quick look at it before going to work, but had read it before I’d even finished my coffee. It is eighty six pages but this is a graphic novel so that doesn’t really mean anything. Like plays I enjoy the satisfaction of not taking weeks to read something. There is certainly an importance to committing time and effort to a good book of prose but I am prone to getting distracted by other books and wishing I could get stuck into them. I love reading but it can still take discipline. To read this whole story then in twenty minutes was probably a little too quick but then that’s not the point. Time should never be a denominator for appreciation with a book in any form, or at least the appreciation of whether it was worth it.

Waves deals with the trauma of losing a baby and the author at the end explains that the story was based upon her own experiences. Whenever you discover something is based on real events it adds another layer of appreciation for what you have just read. She explained that writing the story was in itself part of the therapy required to process the trauma. She is ordinarily an author of children’s books and this was her first attempt at the graphic novel. I imagine there will be an element of short text and pictures in her children’s books too though. It’s a powerful introduction to the genre to say the least and knowing the emotional importance of what you’re reading, knowing this is someones personal journey; adds an immeasurable value. I have read three graphic novels now and all three seem to be based in different ways around women and femininity. This is entirely accidental but also a theme which I suspect may continue in some form and quite revealing to see that graphic novels are not just story books revolving around superheroes. There’s certainly a lot to be said for language and art being combined as one. When the story and the book itself has an emotive quality it’s not something to be scoffed at.

Tell The Truth Partisan

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I was thinking about Donald Trump today. I don’t like talking too much about American politics because I’m not American, it’s not my country and the world focuses on it enough already. The problem is that American politics plays such a large role in influencing what happens in other countries that to not take an interest in it risks potentially not understanding politics on a global scale. In that case then it’s also important to understand the situation in China, Russia, Iran and Australia. I threw in Australia there because it’s good to focus on a country that isn’t in some kind of battle with the Americans and also because their politics is so unbelievably corrupt and owned by corporate interests that it’s a warning not to be missed. That doesn’t mean we’re not corrupt and owned in Britain but at least the politicians keep up some kind of pretence.

American politics is just so unbelievably entertaining at the moment that it’s hard to keep your eyes off it. I appreciate of course that my enjoyment of politics and power as entertainment completely ignores the suffering of those who it affects. But the truth is it affects us all. And we have Boris Johnson, he’s not known as “Britain Trump” for no reason. But it’s always more than one man even though they may be desperately trying to convince you otherwise.

The thing with Trump though is that he is used to working in the entertainment industry. He understands ratings but not from a politics perspective, hence why politics has devolved into reality television. I was thinking today though that I’m starting to get bored of the constant criticism of him. That seems like a strange statement to make but it’s more that I’m just tired of hearing such completely biased and partisan news stories. It’s not that I necessarily disagree with them but I want real news, I want to know what’s really going on, not some version of events that fits a narrative and a political position. People are not idiots, they are capable of making up their minds for themselves but the left wing and the right wing seem to write such blindly ideological stories that nobody gains anything. If what you believe is right and really the best way to approach life and power then you should have nothing to fear. If the other side are full of shit and wrong then surely their argument will unravel eventually. Maybe there is something naive in this thinking, to control the narrative is to control the story but why are we so scared of being scrutinised if what we believe is genuinely the best approach.

I broke habit and voted in the last elections, and despite being bitterly disappointed Jeremy Corbyn didn’t win I will not say everything is good about him, what he thinks and how he acts. It is the same for Trump or Boris, not every single thing they suggest is bad. I may disagree with large amounts but they will have some good ideas, maybe not many but they will. How are we supposed to evolve in a mature developed society if we are unable to see moments and ideas for what they really are. Nothing is perfect, but I just want to know the truth. I want to see the world for what it is not how people want me to see it. I know I’m not alone in this and that’s only going to continue.

Social Media Salesmen

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One particular bonus of delivering bread is that you get the opportunity to listen to a lot of podcasts. This week I discovered a new one called The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread which aims to prove or, more likely I suspect, disprove the claims behind certain fads and those made on behalf of products. They discuss things such as noise cancelling headphones, teeth whitening and 24-hour sunscreen. The two episodes I have listened to so far have been on CBD oil and caffeine shampoo. It turns out the claims made on behalf of them don’t quite stack up. The caffeine in the shampoo is apparently supposed to stimulate the hair growth but these claims it appears are not sufficiently backed up scientifically, the benefits if any are from the act of massaging the scalp and follicles. The oil was interesting because I have bought it myself in the past and was sure that while it was very subtle, there was certainly a more relaxed and calm feeling to my mind after a few weeks of use. It turns out it may have been a placebo of sorts but not that CBD doesn’t actually have that affect. Apparently to get the benefits made in the claims such as easing anxiety, depression and even heart disease you need to take a lot higher doses than the bottles can possibly prescribe. So the claims while being accurate to a degree are slightly misleading.

I heard first about CBD in random conversations, although at that point people were still talking about oils which contained both CBD and THC, the ingredient which provides the psychoactive qualities. In the last few years, coinciding especially with legalising of hemp and marijuana in the United States, CBD oil has gone viral. In the episode they discuss CBD chocolate, effervescent bath bombs and even infused leggings. I can imagine uber-hipsters wearing them while doing yoga and feeling all kinds of good about themselves. I bought some oil about eighteen months to two years ago just when people were really getting excited. I was most likely convinced to buy by all the positive stories I read on Facebook in articles, memes and others comments. Ultimately we were sharing advertising with each other, we were unconsciously doing the advertising; being both the process and the recipient. While it does provide useful services, social media is more and more becoming little other than an advertising platform. We spot the obvious sponsored posts but the smart ones are those which manage to integrate themselves into all the real ideas, science and news going around. This is just another front of the Fake News concept which in itself already feels like a tired old trope. It seems obvious and it is but sometimes it’s worth seeing and understanding social media from another angle. We’re not just selling ourselves but everything and to everyone.

BR#6 – Red Rosa

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Dr Rosa Luxemburg, what a woman. She would have definitely put me in my place. I mentioned about a week ago about revolutionary left wing men in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century all looking like intellectual accountants, well this was her time, and these were her men. Rosa Luxemburg was of Jewish Polish decent but it was in Germany and the Revolutionary Socialist movement of the time in which she is most remembered. This was a remarkable time for change while also being a frustratingly impotent one too. It’s littered with the ‘what if’ moments that seem to be a constant in social movements, and which ultimately suggests they failed in their objective of removing the bourgeoisie from power and liberating the workers in the process. It is also important though to remember we’re not working fourteen hour days, for what it’s worth we have a vote and although it’s not perfect we do seem to have gained a certain degree of liberty and protection under the law. On the other hand that liberty and that protection can be taken away from us at any time, as the late great George Carlin said;

“Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges“

But enough of that this is about Rosa Luxemburg and the graphic novel on her life I have just finished called Red Rosa. She was a fighter, and she had a profound understanding on the nature of capitalism, imperialism and power. She was a revolutionary but had she lived long enough would likely have been horrified by what unfolded in Russia in the name of communism and the people. She also challenged the ideas of Marx which was for many a major taboo, although others saw her as adding to and evolving his ideas. She spent virtually the entirety of the First World War in prison because of her anti-imperial beliefs and was murdered shortly afterwards as the new faux-socialist SPD Party, of whom she had once been a leading member, cemented it’s position in the new republic by removing those who challenged it’s power and tried to bring about any real change.

The graphic novel itself is aesthetically impressive, the images expressive and the ideas put forth insightful. This is not just a picture book but one telling the life of someone justifiably revered. Her beliefs and ideals are explained in an easily understandable way, as is a general explanation of anti-capitalism and social movements generally as well as in relation to modern times. I imagine it would probably be a great book for a teenage girl as it has the potential to be incredibly inspiring. As I don’t know any I’ll put it in my book stack and give it away when the moment comes. The graphic novel is an incredibly enjoyable format and this a powerful and important story to tell. Neither are let down here.

A (Future) Learned Techie

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I’m attempting to become a techie. I think that’s how you spell it, I don’t think that’s the word that describes someone who lacks patience and can be a bit pissy. The English language is so confusing sometimes and I have such sympathy for people who try to learn it. Why ie for techie and y for pissy? I’m going to either expose my lack of knowledge or show off but I’m going to say there isn’t a reason it’s just another example of the bizarre and unruly nature of spelling and the English language. As a now retired English teacher I know there is some truth in that but as I’m painfully aware much of my teaching involved winging it so really the true answer could be anything. As I was saying though, I’m going to become a techie, and hopefully not a tetchy one.

A few months ago I started learning how to code. It’s both a mix of frustrating and satisfying, and in that way that you can’t have one without the other. As you get better it probably becomes a little less about working out what you’re supposed to be writing and more about formulating all the knowledge you have in a working way. I’ve heard it said that coding is slightly like learning a language and there is truth in that. Just like successfully asking for and understanding directions to the local train station, seeing your code creating the outcome you’re after, results in pat yourself on the back levels of satisfaction. Admittedly I am still not far beyond the Hello, my name is… and I am from… but we’ve all got to start somewhere.

Fun though it is making pizzas, doing home renovations and driving a bread van around I suspect I will need something else at one point. I seem to have a constant desire to learn new things and with an equally strong one to go to new places, having a way to make money with just a laptop from anywhere in the world seems like an appealing necessity in a way. People would certainly be happier I’m sure if they could find an existence that suits them and how they want to live. I doubt I’ll ever be a nine to five, five days per week kind of person. As I’ve mentioned previously we do have an incredible ability to adapt as a species and while I don’t doubt I could adapt to that way of life I don’t think I really want to. There’s too many other things to do. And do from interesting places. Learning something new again. Always learning something new.