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Starting jigsaws from the inside

Monday 14 September 2026 at 13:34
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Tuesday 15 September 2026 at 05:56

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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

 

Starting jigsaws from the inside

Opinion 

[ 2 minute read ]

You know, I sometimes get how weird I truly am. Many people when faced with a problem or new task just put their head down and plough through it, sometimes not even caring for the mess they leave behind them. If I consider someone studying a new module at an university, the detritus might include highlighted and underlined words in text books or even novels. I like my village; it is clean and litter-free, except today I noticed a discarded polystyrene fast-food container at the road junction of one of the lanes and one of the roads leading out of the village. Marking books is just the same as chucking litter in my  village or anywhere else really. Even dog-earing pages is like breaking branches off from trees; there will always be a scar, a sign that a vandal was there.

Some people are racist or sexist, I am 'vandalist'. If I was browsing your library in your home and I pulled a book from the shelf and it had annotations or underlining in it, I would make my excuses and leave the romantic first-date of a 'candle-lit-dinner-with-a-promise', and not even kiss your cheek on the way out; and I wouldn't even give your cat back if it was hiding from you in my house.

Male, female or alien, I won't associate with vandals, and I include mind-vandals too, who are like donkeys to me; stubborn and unimaginative beasts that they are. I suppose in the wild, swathes of donkey herds might have a lot of fun romping across more than one dry panorama but individually they just want an apple. 'Job Done! I got an apple today!' That is how some people are, trapped in a world of immediate gratification.

(more than one panorama - panoramas?, panoramum?, panoramata? - archaic plural)

I think there is a difference between a study plan and working to a schedule. Most Open University students are familiar with 'weeks 1 through week ?' with each week having a set plan of action. Even though I hate prep-work for home decorating, I have been spending hours learning the definitions in the glossaries in four OU text books. I am supposed to close-read some novels and then answer questions. I know if I do not know the terms in the glossary I will have to read the fourteen books all over again to seek literary devices and techniques that I might somehow learn about in the OU text books later in my module, but I need to express my knowledge in the next few weeks.

Just reading the set books will litter my mind and then someone (me) will need to gather all the mess and file it all correctly in the new drawers with the new labels that are the words in the glossaries.

No, I refuse to be a mind-vandal. 'Everything ship-shape and Bristol-fashion'. Otherwise it is like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle from the inside without knowing where the edges are! Crazy!

I have to be honest. It was the chest of drawers that was outside one of my neighbour's house with a sign that said. 'Free - take it away' that made me think of having a metaphorical apothecary's cabinet to put words in. Of course, I bunged a fiver in an envelope as a token of my respect for sharing the item and lugging it onto their drive (a soft hammer and a noxious bonfire would have been another option). Wow! How an unfinished sentence can be misrepresentative of someone! They could have smashed the item and burnt it; not me keeping the fiver and finding a strange alternative method to signify I recognise the effort they put in to donate the chest of drawers. 

       'Gor Blimey! At least I saved the chest of drawers from your house-fire!'

What really did it for me was that I cleared things up from my living room floor and put it in the chest of drawers and still had the same floor-space available. 'That's strange.' I thought, 'It absorbed the stuff but made no difference to the room capacity.' The room is neater now with each drawer having a new label' 'odd sock'; 'two slightly broken mice'; 'art supplies'; 'security device for bank card'; and 'shorts with hole in right rear pocket'. Order is evident. Happy days!

Tags: jigsaw, vandal, vandalist, panorama, village
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Milk me

Tuesday 24 March 2026 at 07:07
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Friday 1 May 2026 at 20:04

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[ 6 minute read ]

Parasite or milking Farmer?

It doesn't seem very long ago that I had a strong standpoint on promoting oneself. (I was about to continue the sentence with 'in public' because the sentence, to me feels incomplete, but it isn't). Social protocol and introductory salutations were always a problem for me; do we say what we do, or are good at or not?

     'Hello. Pleased to meet you. I am a doctor in Physics'

     'Oh, yes. Hello. I am a plumber.'

     'Ah. Interesting. Do you work locally?' (No doubt I shall have use of a local plumber one day)

     'Yes, I live around here.  (I doubt you can help me with anything).

There is an imbalance. The physicist is useful, but not directly to their community. The plumber, on the other hand, is eminently useful. I am in complete agreement with myself in thinking that all tradespeople should promote themselves and be proud of what they do. They are builders, while many other people are merely hangers-on; but not to the coat-tails of the tradespeople or fabricators of society.

I think in West Germany strangers when they met would introduce themselves by name and profession. I may be wrong. It may have been a twee idea I read in a picture book on learning German. You know how some of the phrases are stilted. In truth, when I worked in Germany, I never met anyone who told me what they did. There is a part of me that wouldn't mind if people in the UK did state their job as part of their introduction. Fat lot of chance of that happening; I have had conversations with strangers for over an hour and not even learnt their name. Asking someone's name is like asking for someone else's telephone number if you are attracted to them. It means I hope we meet again. It no longer means, if we meet again I should be pleased to be polite and use your name.

Consider this:

     'You, yes, you, take my bag, would you?'

     'Yes, Guv.'

And this:

     'Hello again, I believe we met some time ago.' (You were so insignificant to me I didn't bother offering my name to you, or accord you any civility in asking you yours.)

The latter greeting is no more polite than the former. But why? In both cases the initiator is in need of something, physical labour in the first, and mental stimulation in the second. An attitude of greater-than-thou, or mightier in some way, is clearly evident because names are not considered to be important and so there is no personal approach. In both cases the meeting has an element of parasitism. We are all parasites in many respects. I can heat my home because someone else has done some work and thinking in the past. But that is a result of people specialising in a job role, and is indicative of a former meritocracy. Someone, long ago, in the dark Winter nights, when no more fieldwork could be done due to the darkness, made an extra pair of boots by candlelight, and their neighbour liked them, and because they were better made then anyone else made in their community, bartered for those boots. Blacksmith, thatcher, cobbler, they all arose through meritocracy.

Do we expect that the tanner in the same village would give away the best pieces of leather to the cobbler, so the whole community could wear good boots? Did the blacksmith shoe horses and forge iron for nothing so the village could thrive; so farmers could get to markets, and tools could always be on hand? 

No, that is communism or, more kindly, altruism, and thriving would only mean self-sufficiency, because if it means thriving in a competitive market there is going to be a metric of some kind, and I strongly suspect it would be in the form of banking; either a harvest, storing fat on the body, or a universal currency; money.

     'It takes a village to raise a child!' Yes, the hunter teaches basic rabbit-skinning skills; the farmer teaches basic food production skills and how to predict weather; and the potter teaches basic clay manipulation skills (removing air pockets before firing).

Modern life in 2026 has the internet and YouTube videos to teach us those basic skills albeit in a classroom and not 'in the field'. When someone introduces themselves as a teacher of young people what should we do? Give them all the knowledge we have despite the possession of that knowledge being the only thing that makes us worthy of a wage? Despite having spent years honing our skills and distilling information down to useful and pithy tips, we should give it away to teachers? Schoolteachers today are paid the same universal currency that we all are. If we could see into the future and see the financial damage we might do to ourselves if we give away material that should have been copyrighted, would we, when we meet a schoolteacher suddenly clam up about what we do? Are schoolteachers parasites that will take knowledge from people they meet and sell it to someone else, albeit with the payment coming indirectly? Those questions, I feel, are a clapper on a cracked bell for many people. They are discordant and terrifying.

     'Hello. My name is Martin. I am writing a book on inventions that have not yet been constructed or implemented. The book has a section on good ideas too.'

     'Hello. I am an inventor. I have some ideas and inventions that no-one has heard about. Would you like me to tell you about them?'

     'Oooo, yes please!'

     'Will you get some kind of reward, money, fame, or something when you publish your book?'

    'Well, yes, I will be considered by my professional community to be eminently useful and I shall make some money.'

     'What will I get?'

     'You will have helped society, of course. It takes a village to raise a child, you know?'

     'Do you consider yourself to be a milker or a parasite?'

     'Good day to you. I feel an important appointment is looming elsewhere.'

     'Well, that is what happens if you moo a lot. You should expect to be milked.'

Like I said, many philosophers state that altruism only exists when it comes to raising our own children. Sacrifice, that is.

If a schoolteacher DOES NOT reveal that they are a schoolteacher, are they being deliberately false, because they intend to parasitically milk information from unsuspecting others and use it for their own advancement?

It is only a thought-experiment that has no resolution in my mind today. It is however, a child of considering cyber-security and fraud.

Tags: thought-experiment, teacher, village, greeting, parasite, milking, milk
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Can the village fix my bike?

Sunday 8 March 2026 at 09:59
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Sunday 8 March 2026 at 19:09

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I am not on YouTube or social media

silhouette of a female face in profile

You just can't rely on guesses anymore

[ 8 minute read ]

There is always something going on in my village and groups to connect with other people. On the back page of a frre A5 sized booklet we get each month, in colour, is a notice that the 'Men's Shed' group will soon be recommencing meetings at the Recreation Ground Pavilion. It really is that type of village that calls the playing fields a recreation ground.

I am thinking of taking one of my bicycles to the 'Mens Shed' on the 18th March; they have a little note on their page saying if you have a small item that needs fixing, bring it along. I know that my bike is not small, but it isn't a washing machine, and I have all the right tools to fix it but don't seem to be able to make any progress. The thing is, this particular bike is so old that it seems the gear-set has sort of bonded to the spindle.

I am fairly certain the men in the shed will simultaneously raise their hands to their chins and as one say. 'Well, if you have tried all that and it didn't work, maybe you should think of buying  a new bike.' Even the old men these days are consumers and not fixers, I feel. I shall, if they do this, not tell them that I have four more bikes just the same, because I believe in experiencing bikes and not just throwing things away when things get ugly. Of course, I may be wrong, but I am familiar with my village and its residents. When I helped one of them with a puncture on his bicycle he offered to pay me! You know, I am a villager so let me monetise it!'

I sometimes pass some women riding horses, and I am on speaking terms with one of them. Well, I asked her how fast her horse goes. She said she had a pick-up car drive alongside her in a field and her horse reached 30 miles an hour (48 kph).

I think she might know someone with a Shire Horse or Percheron or Suffolk Punch, or something to pull the gear-set off. I will try anything, because the project to renovate the bike has gone on for over three years now.

St Mary's Church and the Baptist Church Centre is a good place to have some light fun. At St Mary's church there will soon be a 'Music Cafe' on two Saturday afternoons. It is free but seeks donations. I always keep the booklet page open to remind me of places and events I want to go to and attend, but never go because something distracts me. The Church is looking for local musicians to play music while tea-drinkers carefully and smoothly sip. In my village there will be no slurping. On the booklet page there are images of a clarinet and a guitar. One can't help imaging that we might hear 'Strangers on the Shore' by Acker Bilk and possibly 'Take Five' originally by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, but we have an academy, and not a secondary school in our village, so perhaps it will be something by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov or Brahms.

I doubt there will be anyone wrenching a guitar to mimic Jimi Hendrix, but maybe we might get 'Sunrise' by Norah Jones or 'Cavatina', the theme tune to 'The Deer Hunter', composed by Stanley Myers, or maybe just a cavatina.

I just 'YouTubed', 'clarinet music' and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra arrived with Mozarts, 'Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622'. How kind of them to scour the island to find so many classical musicians from a population of only about 349,000; nearly 70,000 of which are immigrants.

At Customs:

     'Hello. What is the purpose of your visit? Business or pleasure?'

     'I can play a musical instrument.'

     'Wonderful! Would you like to live here...please? '

     'Thank you. I can chant at important international football matches too.'

     'Marvellous! Would you consider running for mayor?'

Surprisingly I have met a few Icelandics, and they are great fun and not at all a subject for disrespect. I am just following a comedic line based on the low population. I once remarked on it and joked with an Icelandic man and asked him if he had met everyone there. He said, 'Probably'.

I somehow doubt that a clarinet and guitar will be paired to play Gypsy Jazz in St Mary's church, but I have heard Dr Seuss quoted in an Anglican church by a lay-person in my birth-village.

Do you want to know how your grandad lost the family estate in a card game? Because when he threw a used match in the ashtray after lighting his cigar or pipe, someone else threw in another match that landed cross-wise over your grandad's. That is how to cross out luck, according to the book on Superstitions I have. We just never know how we came to be so poor.

If I told you that I am not superstitious and take such nonsense with a pinch of salt, would you think it much different to me saying I am not superstitious because I think it is bad luck to be superstitious? There are fourteen separate pages on salt in the Superstitions book. Be careful what you do with it; even pinches.

However, I have just had a thought on how to fix my bike. I might 'manifest' it fixed. 'Manifesting' is something I think I used to do when I was a teenager and wanted to borrow some money from my mum. I was pretty much left to my own devices when I was sixteen and lived in a house with my nineteen year old brother as my guardian. Think Cinderella for boys, and me never going to the ball, and you will get the picture handsomely. Back then, I read in a book titled 'Mind Games', that if you want to borrow money from someone you should, before asking for the loan, think about the money at every moment in the conversation preceding the request. As far as I know it worked, because my mum, who lived a three hour cycle ride away, never refused me.

I know that I have, in the past, accidentally cast a 'spell' by saying aloud. 'Who stole my...(whatever it is I cannot find)' and whatever it is appears right away, just a few feet away from me. I think things only reappear in order to make me feel foolish, and clumsy in my attempts to hunt properly. I suppose I should learn from that, but I also know that I often get tricked, just so someone or something gets a laugh at my expense. Nonetheless, it always works. Maybe there is a supervisor who slaps the imps down and says, 'Leave him alone!'. I have never stretched the way of it by saying aloud, 'Who stole my fortune' with a hope that a huge amount of money will suddenly arrive on my kitchen worktop and spill onto the floor. I know it won't. Years ago, I did my Chinese Horoscope, and it quite plainly told me that I will not be able to accrue any savings, so there is no fortune to be found. Incidentally this is the Chinese Year of the Horse. I think I might try saying, 'Who broke my bike?' and accuse the world, but I actually know the answer to that, and if there is a 'supervisor', so do they.

     'Oh, I say, dear spirit, would you be a dear and fix my bike. I simply must break my fast with chickpeas, egg and rice.' (I have run out of bread and Baked Beans).

I think if I really wanted to, I might be able to cheat and bend the edge of the spirit world over my bike for a time, but I am afraid that the bike might try to kill me one day by letting one of the brake cables snap at a vital moment when emergency braking makes me squeeze the calipers firmly shut. I am pretty sure that I only need to loosely tie a limp piece of string to the front gear set tonight with the other end tied to another bike, and I would be woken by a loud 'clunk' and tomorrow the gear set will be on the floor. But I would have to 'pay the piper', as they say.

There is a lot going on in my village; maybe the garage owner can help me.

Tags: spell, bicycle, village, superstition, magic, guess
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