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Helper or parasite

I thought of you and now I am richer

[ 5 minute read ]

For a couple of days I have been in a somewhat one-sided conversation with one of the local shop-keepers in the neighbouring village. I remarked that my young tomato plants are bigger than the ones he sells for the farmer next door to his shop. He, the shopkeeper, wanted to know what kind of tomato plants I have, 'Bush tomatoes?' I told him about the varieties I am growing. It turns out he wants vine tomatoes; specifically, he wants to have 'tomatoes on the vine', because he thinks they taste better than when they are not on the vine. I told him that tomatoes gain very little once the plant has decided to let them ripen and sealed them off at the node just before the stalk on the tomato and prevented nutrients in rest of the plant from reaching the fruit.

As they do, the shopkeepers suddenly vanish when another customer comes in and the next day he was replaced by his wife (also 'the' shopkeeper). I am used to that, so I just carried on as though they are the same person. 'It is likely that in the 1980s', I said, 'a buyer for M&S went to Italy on a tomato buying expedition and approached a farmer. It is faster, and better for the tomato, to cut the vine with the tomatoes on it than pick them individually, so when the buyer tasted the vine tomato variety, they were impressed with the flavour. Back home, they might have gushed, 'We simply must buy tomatoes on the vine; they taste wonderful.' When they should have said, 'Vine tomato varieties taste better than other tomatoes.' Since then, we, the housekeepers and home cooks and home sous-chefs, pay a premium for tomatoes that are picked in a fashion, not for flavour, but because it is logistically imperative to pick a crop quickly and efficiently without damaging the crop. One snip of a vine collects ten or more tomatoes in one go. Individual tomatoes are more expensive to pick and process than tomatoes left on the vine, I propose; not least because they are washed (note there are no stalks on the tomatoes). However, no stalks could also mean that those tomatoes were picked before they were ripe and the node above the stalk was not the 'break-off' point of the plant it should have been. In other words the tomato left the plant at the weakest point, the tomato/stalk junction. 'It ain't natural, I tell you.'

I needed to collect something from B&Q, the DIY superstore chain, but lack the appropriate transport, so I suggested trading some of my tomato plants with the shopkeeper in exchange for him picking up the item in the city. He was not keen and rinsed the conversation away with silence and reasons for not going to the city during weekends. Essentially, over the last few days he wanted to grow tomatoes on the vine but not if he had to put any effort into the project at any point in the process of attaining free tomatoes on the vine.

The shopkeeper in my own village has previously asked me to fix a bicycle for him. I freely did it and replaced one of the tyres with a slightly worn 'spare' tyre I had (no charge). Incidentally, because I use donor bicycles to keep two of my choice bicycles going I don't really have spare anything. Now, if I need a tyre it will cost me at least £20. I found it a bit curious that the shopkeeper asked me where to get some tyres for another bicycle he has. He has a SmartPhone so google it, I thought. No, that is not what he wanted. He said he would bring it in and I might take a look at it and then be able to help him. It transpires that he wanted me to give him tyres. I suspect that he had said to someone that he knows someone with tyres and he will give them a deal to have the tyres replaced. I, of course, would just be creating more future cost for myself while he reaped a financial reward. As it turns out, I have already given away all my 'spare' tyres to anyone who needed them.

A long time ago, I had a conversation with Sally, my next-door neighbour that revolved around her fetching a couple of baking trays / roasting dishes (Sunday Roast size) for me. I left  her some condiment for making salads on her doorste as a 'Thank you'; she had told me that she eats a lot of salads. I mentioned, in the following conversation, that the cost of Olive Oil prohibited me from including that in the gift package. I have always hated myself for not including it. This morning, I left a bottle of Filippo Berrio Extra Virgin Olive Oil on her door-step at 6:00 am.

Just as I was getting off my bicycle outside my home yesterday, a neighbour pulled up behind me in her car. 'Excuse me, have you got a moment?' I thought, 'Why are you being so formal?' It turns out that she wanted to thank me for letting her daughter ride my bike through a flood to save her feet and shoes from getting wet and muddy, about three months ago. She told me that her daughter was delighted with my chivalry and went about my bike being really big. My bicycle isn't big at all. It is really too small for me. She is about fifteen so she is not particularly small, and I had let the seat right down for her. Since then, this particular neighbour has been trying to thank me as I passed her house, but she said I cycle too fast for her to attract my attention in time.

I much prefer the last two interactions than the previous two. The shopkeepers for all their feigned community spirit are first and foremost money-gatherers.

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Give me an Idea

Arm Dancing

[ 3 minute read ]

When you have something to do and when you can't find a solution and need a strategy to make the plan work, is the time when many of us might 'sleep on it' or 'put it on the back-boiler'. These two expressions are, of course, idioms that smack of our parents advice. Many of us may feel so threatened by a deadline that we worry at the problem and cannot relax. I have been in just such a situation. The EMA (End of Module Assessment) is done; not as well as I would have liked but I still have a few days to re-submit a revised version. I made sure to get that out of the way. I ran out of vitamin supplements and started eating them again three days ago; for me, it is a fools errand to worry about finding a solution to a problem without at least trying to feed my brain properly.

I have been waiting for an idea; an idea that I have been hoping would just jump out of the hedge of confusion as I pass by. In that mental world, ideas have abounded, all sharp and jagged, and smooth, in all the wrong places. But each one never behaves as I like. They jump from one side of me to the other as they walk along beside me, chattering nonsense and reason alike in short staccato bursts. Then they ape my walk behind me and make their mocking clear by doing it ahead of me. I turn and make my thoughts change direction but the ideas change their style. Stifling smiles, they pretend to show remorse and act out listening poses to my responses as though they are compliant and care. But, I know that my questions on what I have failed to understand are mere gimcracks compared to their palace of priceless gems. My reasoning, oh so essential for progress, binds and circumvents brain-storming. My creativity needs to be unruly and wild. It needs to have free-rein sometimes, but if it comes up with nothing, I have to stop the crazy ghost-train, and erect sticky scaffolding for thoughts and concepts to stick.to.

Still bubbling away on the back-boiler in the kitchen of my mind is, of course, what drives me; what I am interested in. On occasion, I come across something out of the blue that just tickles me. Yesterday, I watched a YouTube video of Alanis Morissette performing 'Uninvited' at the Woodstock 1999 festival. She made an exceedingly good impression of Joe Cocker's arm-dance at the original 1969 festival during his performance of 'With a little help from my friends'. No, I mean, apart from the obvious physical differences, the song, and the voice, Alanis Morissette was Joe Cocker. I used to emulate Joe Cocker's Woodstock arm-dance on stage when I went to see local bands. Other people would try to get on the stage and would be stopped by the bouncers. I only did it to get the crowd dancing. Bands play better if they feel appreciated. As soon as a lot of people had put aside their embarrassment (they can't be as bad as the weirdo on stage) I would get off the stage and be normal again.

The arm-dance. If you imagine the tendons in your arms have tightened and bent your hands at the wrist and your arms flail around trying to play a stretchy guitar that moves from mid-thigh to in front of your chest while you are hamming up a death scene from poison, you might be able to make a good go at doing Joe Cocker's, Alanis Morissette's, and my local-stage arm-dance. Oh I forgot, you have to stagger a bit as though overwhelmed and stunned too.

A flurry of romping thoughts and absorption in music; ecstasy.

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I am better at cheating than you are!

I have no identity

[ 7 minute read ]

A few years ago, I contributed to a forum which required at least some substantiation from other sources. I am fairly lazy in that I probably spend only about an hour researching each point, or premise for any argument, I make. On this occasion, I was crass and found only a single reference and ran with that; I agreed with it (confirmation bias). It was a reference to a Wikipedia listing. When Wikipedia started up, anyone quoting its content was viewed with the same amount of skepticism that was also applied to the Wikipedia site and its contributors. 'Yeah, anyone can make stuff up and call themselves a contributor!' was the default cry of contempt, though this was also somewhat suppressed. These days, I have come across academics who have lightly referenced Wikipedia; perhaps they know the contributor in those instances. When I referenced Wikipedia a few years ago, there was a responding comment from a scornful and defensive person on the same forum. I say defensive because the commentator had contributed on the same forum without providing any references at all. I suspect that they were using a phone to make their forum contributions and it is, I presume, much more difficult to spend hours searching online for suitable content; copying and pasting it; and comparing numerous saved documents for common areas. This is how I fact-check, anyway. Of course, direct similarities mean that any obvious plagiarism must negate the documents as invalid. Defensive came across as an accusatory attacking approach, 'You used Wikipedia!' I did. I did because I already knew the subject and just needed to anchor it.

It is disappointing that, as an Open University student I have to ignore everything I know on a subject; that I learnt at school; that I learnt from books; that I learnt from exploring with my parents and grandparents; because I cannot include our knowledge in essays without referencing it. I had tutor feedback that included a statement that I should have cited and referenced the author of one of the chapters in an Open University book, because I included deductive reasoning and then induced a supposition from that. It was the same as the chapter writer's opinion; someone with a doctorate in their field. It must have seemed to my tutor that only someone with a doctorate would be able to come up with an opinion that I had independently formed without first reading any Open University content. I have been assured that while I didn't lose any marks for not citing and referencing appropriately, I also failed to gain any credit or credence for my perspicacity.

I am fortunate to be able to control my own work schedule and that means I can spent a great deal of time online. I watch quite a lot of YouTube videos; not the conspiracy theory types, or gain-saying opinion videos. I avoid them. 

I watched King Charles' speech at Congress this morning. I found it fascinating that the Congress-people kept giving him standing ovations throughout his speech every three or four minutes. In Britain, and I think, all across the world, we listen to what is being said, store it and compare it to what is subsequently said. We induce and deduce and extrapolate and test our understanding against further declarative statements, and then, and only when the speaker has finished and we are sure we have understood the message(s) we applaud and give standing ovation. If the speech was eloquent we applaud that. If the speech was penetrative, we applaud that. We spontaneously laugh at jokes and quickly calm down to allow the speaker to go on. We are all aware that speakers have timed their speeches.

After the King's speech at Congress, I drifted to clicking on one or two of the suggestions, as is my wont. I suggest that viewing a single video creates no structure for the forming of an opinion. Soon, there was a video suggested by  YouTube that was about how Britain has helped Ukraine. There were subtitles; I sometimes leave them on to check for A.I. generative software. Sure enough, the number 1,300 was speech synthesised to be 'one three hundred'. The comma in 1,300, trips up weak A.I. systems. Instant turn-off in my book; next video. Supposedly, this was Bill Clinton commenting on how Trump was infuriated by King Charles' speech at Congress; a still picture of Bill Clinton and a voice similar to what a impressionist might use to simulate Bill Clinton's voice. That one got only three seconds before I stopped it and moved on. YouTube, by the way, regards any video that plays for at least 30 seconds as a view of that video. The algorithm also punishes videos that are started and then left within those thirty seconds; the probability of being suggested is reduced.

It has long been an irritation to me that I recently read an oblique question on an Open University Forum on whether the use of A.I. generative software was allowed at any point before submitting an assignment. I know that the Open University has notices that say, 'No!' What really troubles me is that someone, more than one person, wants to get some kind of accreditation without being worthy of it. That is most definitely cheating. If, for example, I pass a Maths test and cannot even do addition, I must have cheated, right? My concern went on; and this really gets my goat, or gets my gander up, or gets on my wick, or just irks me until I am so miffed that I am spitting feathers; there were responses to the oblique question on using A.I. generative software. One of them said something like, 'Oh no! I have been using A.I. generative text for years at work.' I was gobsmacked for two reasons. First, the commentator is inadequate for the task they are employed to do; and second, that this person, by openly admitting to using A.I. generative software had no inkling that they are a fraud. Cheating is entirely normal for them.

I don't know anyone who uses Grammarly. If I did, I would instantly 'un-know' them. How dare people pretend to be something they are not? Charlatan! Fraud! Cheat! Away with you, ponce!

I suppose it is because I have spent tens, or hundreds, of thousands of hours learning my language that I am insulted when averaging software tells me I am wrong. There is something about homogeneity that makes my blood boil over and burn on the flames of rage. These days, any average person is indistinguishable from any other average person. In fact, people's IQ and EQ (emotional quotient) are now obsolete as evaluation metrics in, I suggest, most fields of existence. Even though I could have used dictionaries and thesauruses this morning I have had no need to. It saddens me that I am only as good as the person who cheats (There is no shame in using dictionaries and thesauruses to learn. The shame is in never looking in them.) It disappoints me that cheating is wholly and firmly positioned in the current hegemony as being not only normal and acceptable, but immeasurably desirable as a character attribute. 

The whole thing, to me, denigrates people with disabilities (which A.I. should, of course, be assisting). It is walking up wheel-chair ramps because we are too lazy to use steps; it is parking in disabled parking spots because we are too lazy to walk across a supermarket carpark; it is never bothering to pay attention in school because there is the internet and A.I. to instantly gives answers that do not make anyone understand anything. It is acting as though we are dyslexic. It is acting as though we are blind and using speech synthesis to read pages on the internet.

A long time ago, I used to get stoned. I didn't like it and stopped doing it and lost all my childhood friends by saying, 'No.' At that time, like many stoned people, stray ponderings would emerge. One of my former friends said, 'One day we will evolve so we only have to think about where we want to be and we will be there.' I immediately responded with, 'We are already there. Everything about a human serves the human brain. If we want to be somewhere we make our bodies take us there, it just takes a while to get there.' No-one responded. Today, the question of intelligence would never arise. Today, we are concerned about how we can cheat more effectively than we cheated yesterday and how we can show how more effectively we cheated today than we could demonstrate yesterday.

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Awake, awake!

Wake up, you drunkards and weep...

[ 9 minute read ] - 2150 words

Why is it that persons abbreviate words to their initial letters. I have seen Creative Writing written as CW by students of creative writing. For goodness sake, how can anyone studying creative writing be too lazy to write 'creative writing'? I had an idea to revise a bit on Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperatives. I went to Stanford's 'Encyclopedia of Philosophy' which tellingly has a caveat at the top, 'First published Mon Feb 23, 2004; substantive revision Thu Oct 2, 2025'. Kant lived from 1724-1804, so I doubt if he has changed any of his ideas since 2004, so it must be a person who has come across the original publication of 2004 and decided to add their two penn'orth to it (a small or insubstantial contribution or opinion). 

Wherever the words 'Categorical Imperative' should be written, instead we have 'CI'. I understand that 'Categorical Imperative' will appear many times in an article that starts with 'Kant [...] argued that the supreme principle of morality is a principle of rationality that he dubbed the "Categorical Imperative" - and no-one really wants to keep typing the same words over and over again. But, so do computer software businesses recognise this which is why we have 'copy and paste'. Reducing these rather important two words to their initials is, in my mind, plainly done by someone with no respect for the subject and values only their own 'precious' time. Of course, I am somewhat biased in that I don't access the internet with a phone or send text messages using a tiny on-screen keyboard. I sometimes fail to understand that there are actually people who do not have a lap-top or home computer at home and use a phone to do their University studies. I can't quite believe that they write essays on them too, do they? Surely, there is no person who would revise an article on Immanuel Kant on a phone  and upload it from there, is there?

Of course, I have come across the odd one or two emails sent from a phone to me, in response to one I sent written on a lap-top. I feel insulted when I send a lengthy email and get a text message-length response. I won't be emailing that  person again. It is disrespectful to give a lazy response born from the problems that we have created for ourselves (not using a home computer or lap-top) by believing a phone will do. That is a poor attitude that has crept into every aspect of society I have the displeasure of experiencing...'It will do. It is boring and I have other things to do. It will do.' 

I believe in meritocracy. If you can't do the job then move away; don't apply for it. If you hate your job, get a different one. Just get out of the way of capable persons, I say. When I say 'capable' and 'apt' I mean that these attributes exist in a person who actually gives a damn about their job and other people, especially other people. Something I learnt, both by studying Customer Service and just because I picked it up because it is important to me to reciprocate good manners, is that if you get an email that addresses you by your first name, and the sender's first name is evident, you should reply using the sender's first name. If you get an email that addresses you by your last name....you get the picture (lazy me couldn't be bothered to finish the sentence. Actually no. I recognise that continuing the explanation would cause people who habitually read from phones to skip the ending anyway.) But just to over-egg the pudding, this reciprocation also applies to the signing off or closing salutation, 'Best Wishes' or 'Regards' or 'Cheers' or whatever. These are expressions that the sender is keen on and familiar with. Of course, they are also cultured to give a specific impression too. I notice a lack of reciprocation in emails and texts from habitual phone-users. 

From studying Business Administration, I recognise an hierarchy of communication (Somewhat bumpy and disjointed sentence, eh?).

For emergencies and for time-critical messages make a phone call.

For directions and pointers send a text.

For explanations send an email.

For legal and personal purposes send a letter. 

One should reciprocate in kind unless the circumstances become critical; time, personal or legal. 

Essentially, if we extrapolate from what I have been saying. If you get an email of some length, respond to it with an email addressing the points that were made, at some length. Never send a text message-length email unless it is either a correction, an acceptance or a refusal. Above all avoid being rude by thinking, 'That will do.' Just because it fits you it does not mean it fits the circumstance and especially the recipient. My sister used to send me a 'Happy Birthday' text. She actually held her phone in her hand! How rude! She was fulfilling her duty to send her regards and showed her displeasure in doing it. How rude!

The Open University provides Forums for its students. All OU students know this. I had a discussion with a tutor a while back. He expressed his desire to see more student interaction in the forums. I  also had the same tutor respond to one of my forum posts with a comment (on the forum) that I should expect more traction if I write shorter posts! It's a forum, not a dating site or social media snippy chat site. If you want more forum interaction ban the chatterers! There is only an expectation of rudeness delivered by persons posting text messages on forums; it is dismissive and disrespectful of contributors efforts. Contributors should make an argument with, of course more than one premise, and the responses should address the argument with either additional premises to support the argument or premises to discredit the argument. Yet, there are persons who just put their emotions in a comment and make no logical sense. In Rome, these people would be removed as drunken fools, back in the day. Yes, but this is not Ancient Rome. Things have changed. Nowadays, anything and everything will do. How could I tell the tutor who desired more student interaction in forums that he supported 'It will do' tactics that are only beneficial to persons using little to no logic and have no respect for the art of communication, or valid and fruitful discussion? Social media sites are not the same as academic study sites. It, of course, is quite impossible to convince tutors that their own inputs are detrimental because the tutors, it seems, have allowed the parameters of digital communication to blur and blend to make homogeneous messes. But that is hegemony for you; tutors must comply, and must do so without steering social change.

There is an exponential growth (I use that term tentatively because it is a term used by mathematicians and it may be as irritating to them when it is ill-used as it is to me when important words are reduced to their initials); there is an exponential growth in supporting a good work-life balance, even going so far as making sure everyone is happy at work. No, I mean joyous. It started with 'dress-down Friday' when office workers could wear casual clothes to work on Fridays. Many offices now don't insist on smart clothes. It will do. Where there was once a separation of attitudes and behaviour between social life and work, or corporate life, we have practically no such separation left in the rich Global North countries (I suggest). We no longer learn to curtail our feelings and get on with the job we are employed to do. We have our phones with us at work, for goodness sake. Why? people should be going to work to work, to do the very best they can in their role, to actually earn their wage. I suggest that the casual attitude we take to work has produced the 'It will do' attitude that is so prevalent in society. 

Every blooming business wants to build a personal profile of me so they can, presumably, better attend to my needs. I studied Marketing, Logistics and The Supply Chain, so I actually know what they are doing, or at least were doing. If a business sells ladders, for example, they are unlikely to stock many in an area where there are very few practically minded residents; only trades-persons buy ladders there, and because trades-persons only buy their tools infrequently they will travel some distance to buy them. No point in a business wasting shop-floor space with poorly selling products. Instead canny businesses apply the Pareto Principle (80% of profit or revenue comes from only 20% of the products sold, so they stock the fast moving products). In the case of mobile phone service and device providers, then want to know what my usage is and where I go online. 

I had a phone call from one of my mobile service providers to offer me a deal on a new phone or 'a reduction on my existing phone'. Whatever could he mean? Why would anyone reduce their phone? Did he want to make it smaller or deny me access to some of the software? I own my phone. I bought it outright with money from a shop. I don't rent my phone. Why would I pay to have a phone to do stuff that is entirely irrelevant? If I want to take photos I will buy a camera that does not access the internet. If I want to browse the internet I will use a device that I can restrict from uploading my voice pattern and contact list (a lap-top). This mobile service provider salesperson was working on the principle that I subscribe to the 'It Will Do' attitude as being a valid and useful position to take. Further to that, he made an assumption that I am stupid enough to continually pay to continue to live in that pigswill lifestyle. Everyone updates their phone! Not me. No need. I have maintained the separation of appropriate action that is essential for good living. My phone is for phone calls and texts; it never goes online or updates its software. One lap-top is for business use and studying. Another lap-top goes online for internet searches, including for study purposes; a third lap-top is a back-up device that I only really use to play DVDs (it never, ever goes online because I don't want the operating system to be corrupted by A.I.) I never take photographs of people or locations. 

What I find bewildering is that I got a text message on my phone from my doctor's surgery with a link to an online site that showed me the content of a digital letter that had the form of a real letter, including my name and address where it would be seen through the plastic window on an envelope. I never received the real letter, and there was an expectation that it is safe to access anything online with your name, address, and NHS number by entering your date of birth as a security password. Ridiculous and wholly irresponsible. What, pray, is the most secure way to send information? Yup! Through the post. The digital letter was prepared as a postal letter but never sent! I mean, really? What is wrong here? I am expected to use a device that is similar to the devices that almost everyone has their personal details on (family photos, contact numbers, recordings of their voice - oh yes! and internet history) to access a digital file that has my name and address on it. I bet you can guess that I carefully typed in the link on one of my lap-tops to access that letter online. You know what? I couldn't just read it. I had to download it , for goodness sake. That meant that my name and address is on my lap-top. Sure, you can delete it the download. But it isn't actually deleted, it is simply not recognised by the operating system as existing. It can still be accessed by bad actors. You have to move it to a removable device such as a flash drive to get it safely off your system. What a palaver! But sending a letter by digital means from a level of cyber-security incompetence will do. It will do.

Just like the salesperson who assumed that I rent a phone, all businesses seem to believe that we are stupid enough to open a link sent to us by text message. Do we know who actually sent the text message with a link in it, now that A.I. has ALL our details? Well, maybe not all my details.

What I am saying is: we should only be using passive devices; cameras that do not go online; SatNavs that only receive data from GPS sources; and phones with a duplex system (talk and listen at the same time) that have no internet capability. You know when you sometimes hear weird noises when people talk on their phones. Those phones are owned by people who have never switched off or denied automatic downloads and updates and have multiple apps on their phone. Convenience for them is the reward they get for having a 'That will do' attitude.

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

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I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 6 minute read ]

Something can see something in my home

Yesterday, I found the PIR (Passive Infra-Red) solar-charged security light I hid away two years ago. My neighbour gave it to me when I moved in ten years ago; no explanation and no conversational preamble. Certainly, I had never expressed a desire to light up anywhere when someone came near to somewhere. It's haunted. Well, it  isn't haunted; it just picks up hauntings or maybe aliens. I think it might have picked up Harrari, the abandoned alien who helped me when I lived in some woods for a Summer, or maybe it was Hakim, my personal avatar protector, whom I created when I was sixteen and severely brutalised by my brother. In any case, I have had some suspicion that there were movements in my home ever since I moved in.

Thanking my neighbour for the security light, I wondered what to do with it. I had never considered that any persons would approach my front door and needed to be illuminated to prevent them doing harm to me or my property, so I just tucked the light away. I suppose it was a few weeks later that I had the idea of lighting up my front garden when the badgers or foxes turned up. At the time, I didn't know there were strolling, now marauding, Muntjac deer around. I left the light laying among the flowers and heavy rain made sure that mud splashed back onto it. It has quite a long wire between the solar panel and the actual lamp (Think of the size of a small portable digital radio for each component connected by about twelve feet of wire) so I rapidly grew fed up with untangling the muddy wire and cleaning everything. Project failed; if it could be called one since I was still just fooling around with something I had no need for, or want of. I brought the light inside and after testing it in a random fashion grew bored of it. Then one evening, I have no idea why, I set the solar panel, which is also the detector part, in the hall and the lamp in my living room, and shut the door. Any movement in the darkened hall, it has no windows and all the doors were shut, would be detected and I would be alerted while the warm-bodied person would be unaware of being 'seen' by their heat signature or any light source they had with them, or was reflected from who knows where. 

After half an hour the light came on. It was about nine in the evening in Autumn. Something was outside my living room door. Swiftly, I leapt to the door and opened it; nobody there. An anomaly, I thought. After about an hour the light came on again. I crept to the door and opened it; nobody there. I gathered the whole device and barricaded the door. At the same time, I was aware that Harrari sometimes moved invisibly through my home. She is out of phase with our world and we can't see her, or hear her for that matter. In fact, nobody knows she is there unless she wants them to know. She does, however, 'guide' people's thinking; not as a guru or philosopher or something, more as an entity that directs thinking, such as, 'Turn around and walk the other way'; making people forget what they were about to do; and in my case on one occasion, soothing my troubled thoughts. I supposed that the PIR security light somehow picked her up as she moved around in the hall, bedroom, bathroom and up and down the stairs. Quite how she passes through shut doors is beyond me so I sometimes hold them open a bit longer than is necessary for me to pass through, in case she wants to sneak through after me.

Hakim, my personal avatar protector, with me since I manifested 'him' when I was sixteen, can pass through doors and walls and simply 'arrives' wherever he or, I suppose 'I' decide he ought to be. His role is to look out for threats to me. He would move around my home as part of his surveillance strategy. I make things easier for him and Harrari by never having visitors, hence there is no trace of their scent or any wisps of stale presence, so, like a camel thirsty in an arid desert, Hakim and Harrari can 'smell' people like the camel smells water.

I wasn't entirely sure that the security light was picking up friendly entities or not, so I put the whole thing away. Knowing that things could be super-safe or about to be ultra-ugly didn't help me relax. Having recently found the device, I am not about to test whether there are things that go bump in the night again. The chill of finding out too much and discovering I am ill-equipped to deal with whatever is happening is just too much for me. It is recharging on my bedroom window-sill and the reactive lamp is switched off.

In the bedroom, there are three tomato plants that I over-wintered. They are bearing fruits already; early in the year, no? I use an artists paintbrush to act as an insect to pollinate them. I think it works but I never see any pollen on the brush. Every day, I have to feel the soil or feel the weight of the soil to make sure the plants are properly watered. Because the soil originally came from outside and has been mixed with cutting compost there are, inevitably, creatures in the soil. Mostly, I come across the prehistoric wood-louse. I think it has not evolved any further from hundreds of millions of years ago. I suppose one climbed on my fingers and I touched my head shortly after. Usually, I wash my hands after playing with plants and soil and especially when the water in the bucket outside my front door for the outside plants gets on my hands. Yesterday, I must have just touched the soil and then came back to my lap-top to write or fill in spreadsheets. A series of tickles on my head drew my hand to the areas affected. Eventually, after about six visits by my hand the woodlouse, crushed, stuck to my fingers. I had killed it and repeatedly smeared it across my forehead.

If you are like me, you enjoy the satisfaction of removing a splinter for a lot longer than the moment of realisation that it has gone. I even look for more, hoping I will find one. The knowledge of the smeared woodlouse stayed with me until the afternoon, some hours later. I am no stranger to insects and creepy-crawlies; living in the woods for six months is a good way to get introduced to insects that bite, sting, tickle and scratch. I have even been bitten by two spiders (think mild bee sting or fifty ants).

I suppose I am waking up again after a quite long period of mental and spiritual slumber. The awakening has been brought on by having to consider the real world more often and for longer in the most recent days. If I could bottle the motivation from this, that is really instinct, I would make millions and I could go back to sleep. Hakim and Harrari would prowl around and insects would crawl on my face and I wouldn't care.

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[ 3 minute read ]

Court Me

Go on, have a good sniff

I have pieces of A3 and A4 paper stuck to three of my four living-room walls. Some people keep a diary to set their thoughts down and I suppose read it again one day. 'Oh Wow! I had forgotten her' or 'I was so unhappy then.' and 'I am glad I met......and went to .......' My walls do not speak to me in that way. They make dry comments about marketing and business strategies. 'Did you know, Martin that if you do this and this you can expect this?' My walls watch me disapprovingly with their arms crossed. The subtext is always the same, 'If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times.' They scold me for being a lump.

'Get out of bed and seize the day,' I say to myself in response. 'Make a list. Look at where you are and where you need to be.' 'Go and get some love, for goodness sake'; well, for my own sake, obviously. It isn't that easy though. 'Did you know that my wall told me that.....' doesn't make anyone swoon. Do people swoon in the 2020s? I can't help thinking of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in which Orsino's hard and thrusting determination to make Olivia swoon never worked. In my mind, if ever the passion was mutual between the two, when they meet only Olivia would swoon and while Orsino might be almost overwhelmed by her presence, he would not need to loosen his corset to breathe and let his racing heart beat freely. He would not swoon. So there; nobody swoons anymore. I sound almost wistful to myself, I think. I hope I am just a romantic and not instead wanting to notice women falling over when they spot good-looking and charming men and women. I would be aware that they never fall over when I am the only man in the room. In the modern day, thankfully, the 'room' does not join in with my penetrating walls at home, with their facts poking me in the eye every day, urging me to do better. Selfishly, I am so glad women no longer wear corsets.

I have just realised that it would be difficult for a woman, or indeed a man, in a corset to pick up a handkerchief because they can't bend their backs.Certainly, they cannot bow and so they must curtsy. I also happen to know that men at dances would stuff their own handkerchiefs under their armpits to absorb their sweat. At 'appropriate' moments they would flourish it in the air under the nose of a fancied woman to release their pheromones, in the hope of attracting lusty attention. I say I know that. It was a Morris Dancer who told me that. You know, prancing dance steps, waving handkerchiefs and clashing sticks. The striking sticks, she told me, were to scare away evil spirits. 'Morris Dancing is all about fertility, in farming and husbandry, as well as human procreation,' another one said. I suppose I am imaginatively wistful for the days when everyone signaled their feelings; waving handkerchiefs and swooning women. Of course, the people in the villages-past didn't need such accoutrements to signify their attraction for one another. It is no mistake that I used a French word there. Perhaps, I am egregiously conflating country bumpkin paganism with refined courts. I think the healthy, robust and strong farm-girl never said, 'Court me' to the bulky farm-lad. If she did, she was most certainly a lost spy in the countryside.

How about I do what my walls tell me and make lots of money? If I wave around my debit and credit cards instead of a handkerchief will I attract anyone? It doesn't take me long to recognise that I would rather 'court' a farm-girl than impress a courtesan. In any case, who likes plastic these days?

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[ 3 minute read ]

Eye the road

When I look out my window, I see in my neighbour's little pillar-box-red car. It is clean and bright but only after it has rained. Under the veneer of its shell I know it is fading. Parked over a grass and weed-ridden gravel drive the floor will soon give way. It never moves though. They hand-brake is pulled hard on and if someone one day starts the engine there will be instant wear. If it could talk, it would say, 'I tried, but you stopped loving me.'  It might then jealously eye my neighbour's black BMW next to it. The BMW is used; I can tell because the ruts in the drive where the gravel has been scraped away by its wide tyres get deeper and fill with muddier rainwater after every few times my neighbour aggressively brakes to a sudden stop.

The Ash tree on the other side of the road is only remembered to have been alive before the Summer of 2022. The people in the house want time to go backwards so they can water it at the right time. While they fruitlessly wait for magic to get lost and knock on their door, they are slowly realising that the thick, chunky, and heavily over-pruned smooth limbs will never again sprout small green twigs. Deemed to be too expensive to remove, it is a monument to despair.

Each weekday, four-year-old helmeted Hugo peddles past with his dad following on his bike. Hugo is so happy and curious, and thinks that everything I leave outside my house is for him alone. His parents have to police his free hands. One day, he saw that I had some toilet roll in my basket. I had just bought it from the shop. He thought that I should have shared it with him. Sometimes, I have to hide from him because I don't wear a helmet when I cycle, and he always asks me why not. He thinks I have a really bad memory.

If the right window is open I can hear a distant neighbour let his small motorbike tick over to warm it before he speeds past my house. Old ideas about engine oil seem stronger than recent knowledge of modern mineral oils to him. He often tries to menace me with his stormy face, by holding my nonchalant stare. If I was a woman I would fancy him. Except for his age, I am jealous.

At the bottom of the road, there lives a man blind in one eye from 'arc-eye'; he thought he could weld without a mask. At Christmas, he and his wife were the only ones in our road to have decorations on their lawn, Now, the elderly chap opposite them, with the new picket fence, and active middle-finger when he sees me, has some too. It is easy to forget what analogue candles and lanterns once looked like these days. I don't offer any contrast.

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[ 2 minute read ]

Nonsense

I am left only with nursery rhymes

I woke up really lonely today. I had been having a dream that I was lonely and the caretakers and janitors who work in my mind were careless today and left some litter in my playground. I used to wake up and laugh, deliberately to chase away the demons still lunching on my past. They would just sit and chatter and occasionally reach down for another morsel that fell off a dream. My mind, once I had belly-laughed would be clear and I would greet the morning and the morning post with vigour and fortitude. 

     'Ah, here is one...brown envelope...plastic panel with my name and address showing through...what does it say...let's see. Oh! Look at that! The sky is going to fall in. Chicken Licken did you write this? You Rascal! Bit stinky though. Did you write this in the chicken coop again?'

     'Hello neighbours! Yes, I am intoxicated again.' They don't know what happy is.

Not today though. I have been deserted. My care-takers have gone run away or gone on strike and there is just one crumpled elderly one holding his scrawny hand out, 'Change! Change! I won't leave you. Change! Change!'

Maybe you will. Do they all want me to change, or just need me to provide a few more scraps of meagre succour to feed themselves with? More vitamin and mineral supplements perchance?'

I have been knocking the vitamin and mineral supplements on the head lately in case I was poisoning myself. It seems I am not. All the little creatures that make up my creativity are nestled under dry leaves and shed-fur burrows trying to enter hibernation. Well, we will see about that! Arise! Stand to order! Up! Up! Up! Let's be having you!'

Realistically, it takes about a week to rouse them all and get them in line and awake enough to pass a thought along and add to its value before it is packaged, sent and delivered to my consciousness.

Oh look! Another brown envelope on my doormat. 'Let's see!' 'Thomas Dolby told us to say to you: Give [us] your shoulder, [we] need a place to wait for morning... Please don't ask questions. [We] itch all over. Let [us] sleep.'

     'Hmmm. Thomas Dolby, Airwaves. You tapped into my memory.' I will trickle feed them.

Fortunately, I have a million pounds to live on. Which is the same million I have if I also have ten Level 3 qualifications and one of them is on hallucinating that I have nine others. My horse fell over on Saturday in the Grand National and I watched the riderless horse keep merrily jumping. Well done, horse. You are as much use as a Bitcoin account with a lost password. I am going to have to work again today, aren't I?

I shall just have to plant some flower seeds this week. Flowers are pretty and are good for the insects and for others to look at and smell. What's that, Naked Emperor, I should have a bath and wash some clothes? Cutting! Especially from you!

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[ 2 minute read ]

Lateralism

How to be even more boring, or not

I may have just discovered why some people think I am stupid, some people think I am clever; some people think I am mad, and some people think I am educated. Most people think I am tedious.

Many people cannot add a lot of anomalies in an environment together in a cohesive manner to then be able to use it as a premise in an argument; it seems I can. I am hyper-vigilant. I think that is a necessary requisite; and I have some spare brain capacity.

Yet, none of this would, I suspect be outside of how detectives operate. I am reminded of a couple of TV shows from way back when; Columbo, with Peter Falk;  and House, with Hugh Laurie.

It is the way I talk and describe things but not necessarily write. I find it extremely difficult and perhaps impossible to just plain say something. I consider all the points to be of equal importance, no matter how tenuous or peripheral they may also appear to be. I suppose if I had really thought about it, I may have independently come up with the, now not unusual, idea that not all dinosaurs were grey, or a single colour all over. But here I am merely highlighting the same thought we have all had at some point in our lives; 'Why didn't I think of that?'

Lateralism, despite not being in the online OED, is related to lateral thinking, which is the process of approaching a subject from multiple sides. How can we switch that on and off? If yours is switched on and mine is not, will I think you are waffling? If I am a professional in a mental health position, would I ever think that what seems to be the tiniest and weakest premise is so tenuous that it is highly improbable, and so may be thinking, 'Just focus, patient'?

I think I almost recognised my affliction, if that is what it is if it cannot be turned off, when someone said, 'Why do you talk like that?' and some other people agreed that they could recognise me by my distinct voice. In the former situation I tried to abridge my explanation as a response to questions, but in the latter situation, I considered that it is an auditory thing. It turns out to be, I think, just long spoken sentences.

On two occasions I asked questions of two PhD graduates on their field of study and received similar responses; 'I can't put it in layman terms', and 'It is so large as to make it difficult to summarise.' Thinking back I might rudely consider that they were poor conversationalists but that might be because I am familiar with Professor Brian Cox, whose voices rings in my head with his humourous, 'Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are. Well, actually, we do know what you are...' and then launched into one of his public lectures.

I need to tame the wild beast that is my mind. I need to learn language skills and good conversation skills. What's that? The answer to why I talk like that is because I need to get out more?

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[ 4 minute read ]

Lucky

You thought you were lucky when you found a four-leaf clover, didn't you? You thought that you had to be young, care-free, and in love in a field of buttercups to be able to find a leaf that tells you that you are lucky. Just think about that for a second; I would say you are pretty lucky to be carefree and in love in a field.

Well, old people don't need to bend down or lie on buttercups to be able to find a lucky leaf. They can find an ash tree leaf instead. Well, actually it has to be a leaf with an even number of divisions on each side if it to be most valued. They are the rare ones.

Ash leaves and the tree they grow on, according to the 'Encyclopaedia of Superstitions' by E. & M.A. Radford, 'were formerly thought to be lucky, and were used in charms and divination'.

In the West Country, if you found an ash leaf with even divisions on each side it was usual to say:

'Even ash, I do thee pluck,

Hoping thus to meet good luck.

If no good luck I get from thee,

I shall wish thee on the tree.'

(Encyclopaediea of Superstitions, 1974)

Quite what the plucker is wishing back on the tree is a bit unclear. To wish the leaf onto the tree is surely to unpluck it, yet it may be a sulky curse, as in, 'You gave me no good luck so I wish no good luck on the tree.' A bit entitled isn't it? What right does a tree-vandal have to expect good luck? None today, I would say, but fifty something years ago and more, maybe quite a bit. After all, the only way you might get rich, for example, was by betting on which pig wins a race at the annual fair, or by winning 'the pools' in the 1950s - 1980s, which was predicting which football teams would draw with which other football team in a Saturday match. That was a time of silence across the UK when the TV announcers would read out the scores in the early evenings.

I can't help thinking that all superstitions belong in the medieval years, which is why I thought of pig-racing. 

If the finder of a special even divided leaf 'wore it in his hat or buttonhole, or carried it in his pocket he could expect success and happiness, or at least, safety from mishaps and the effects of ill-wishing, for some time to come.' (Encyclopaediea of Superstitions, 1974)

I wonder what we might make of someone wearing an ash leaf at work. I can see in my mind some leaves in a hat band, but pinned to a dress or jacket? I am not sure I would want to stand near to someone wearing an ash leaf; I mean you wouldn't get any work done, would you. If the ceiling fell down it wouldn't land on the people wearing leaves, it would land on you. One glance around the office or building site and you might be running to the woods because you are the only one without an even-sided ash leaf. Worse, if your nemesis was standing at the office entrance handing out even-sided ash leaves to everyone except you, you might need to invent a dentist appointment 'toute de suite'. Run for your life! Hopefully, you would hear something similar to this in the background as you run away:

     'Morgana! To my office now!'

     'Yes, what is it?'

     'Morgana, Your strange hats are one thing, but when you turn up for work with bags under your eyes I know you are not going to be much use to us today. Take the day off. And take those silly leaves from around your neck; you look ridiculous.'

Next day:

     'Has anyone seen Morgana?'

     'She fell down the stairs as she left early, yesterday morning.'

     'I think I saw her slip in the street and bang her elbow.'

     'I saw her crying at the bus-stop because she had lost her bus-money at the bookies.'

Nobody wants that, do they?

I think back in the 1960s and 1970s losing your evenly divided ash leaf would be like losing your phone today; you would be constantly checking to make sure you have it, because you don't know if everyone else has one in their pocket, or even a four-leaf cover leaf. 

By the watercooler:

     'Got any leaves, Jim?'

     'No, but I've got guns, drugs and fighting bears.'

     'Nah, I need a leaf, man'

     'I have a dead cert at Sandown in the 3:30, will that do?'

     'No good without a leaf, is it?'

Back in medieval times, there were no dating apps and sites and speed dating meant walking ten miles through mud to the market and arriving wet and bedraggled. No matter, a girl in Northumberland back then could find a husband if she put an even-divided ash leaf in her left shoe after casting this spell:

     'Even, even, ash,

     I pluck thee off the tree,

     The first young man that I do meet,

     My lover he shall be.'

The first man she then met would be certain to marry her, no matter how improbable this might be. That is putting a lot of faith in love isn't it? No matter how the man looked or how poor he was, he was the right one for her. Of course, ever other man had to be temporarily in the pub drunk at these times to make sure they were out of the way and magic could place the right man in the right place. So, is he sober because he doesn't drink or because he is poor?

Leaves, they can be really tricky to deal with. Don't take your shoes off near an ash tree and check the inside of your shoes if you do.

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[ 8 minute read ]

Spitting

Spittle, I recently read, 'has genuine soothing qualities, and in folklore it has strong magical properties, especially when used fasting.' (Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, E. & M.A. Radford, edited by Christina Hoyle, 1974, Book Club Associates [ 1964, Hutchinson and Co. (Publishers) Ltd ] )

When I was growing up, teenagers used to spit on the pavement but no-one ever asked them to spit onto the little pieces of chewing gum stuck near them. Instead, people would write letters to the Council to tell them of their disgust and exasperation. Every now and then, the Council would unstick the chewing gum.

We think that we live in enlightened times and things work more efficiently now than before. I might disagree. Lots of people were disgusted by the spitting youths. They were told to be upset by everyone else. You see, the awful behaviour of teenagers gives other people things to talk about. The Councils, when I was growing up, actively ran a social interaction policy to make up for chopping local trees down and clearing derelict sites. When everything was manicured and trimmed they discovered that neighbours started to spend less time talking to one another; there were no cars stuck in hedges on a Saturday morning after a good Friday night piss-up; the local kids no longer ran away from home to doss in the derelict 'haunted house', and milkmen, postmen and busy housewives no longer needed to clamber over fallen tree branches in gardens. 'It's unsafe...got to go!' the Council said. Suddenly, electric milk-floats could go everywhere!

Once the roads and lanes got cleared up, local village shops grew quiet. Without constant mental stimulation from conversations on the way to the shops, people grew dimmer and more forgetful; they started making shopping-lists just for something to do. Many people were loathe to throw them away and because their walk to the shops was in a zombie-state they needed to refer to them in the shops. No-one was interested in hearing how other people were.

     'Hello, How are you?'

     'Fine. There was a clear route from my house to here and nothing happened along the way.'

     'Yeah. Me too. Let's see. Ah! I need carrots. Bye.'

Recognising that the Council had messed up people's lives by clearing up the streets, in an attempt to re-invigorate villages and small towns, they covertly hired tourist businesses to bus in visitors. They figured that an insertion of new homeowners, those who were idle and were impressed by clean towns and villages from bus windows and short walks to a dirty river and back, might provide some much needed stimulus. The result however was terrible.

     'You're not from round here are you?'

     'No'

     'Looks like rain. Goodbye.' This on a day with clear skies.

The local pubs went suddenly quiet when these 'foreigners' disguised as locals entered. The barman, local of course, would reluctantly break off the weak but long conversation with a 'local' customer about how nothing happened that day.

     'What?' to the unrecognised new customer.

     'What bottled beer do you have, please?'

Silence.....

The clocks ticked loudly on and eventually, 'Er...Pardon?'

Invariably, the Council's plan went wrong. Many of the visitors had ideas. This was a completely alien concept to the locals. The visitors bought houses locally and before long the roads and lanes got even tidier. The cows returning to the farm to be milked no longer splattered their khaki poop over parked cars, and front lawns were levelled. Many moles recognised that times had irreversibly changed and they moved away leaving the worm population to explode. Because there was a new desire for weird garden plants; ones that the locals had never seen or heard of before, but the new people had seen in books, libraries and garden centres opened in towns. Shops started to sell more than five different types of seeds. This was part of the Council's plans to hide their mistake of clearing the trees and derelict houses away which had resulted in local zombies. No-one suspected that granting planning permission for garden centres instead of leaving the fields and meadows fallow for dogs to run away from their owners would further devastate the conversational and financial environment.

     'Hello. How are you? Hello Bonzo! chased any rabbits lately?'

     'We're poor! He just follows me home these days. Eating us out of house and home, he is. We are going to have to sell up and move to Wales at this rate.'

     'I know! Have you heard about reading? It's quite new.'

     'How Odd! You used to be fun to talk to. Bye'

Gradually the ground improved in people's gardens from both heightened worm activity and the compost from the once potted shrubs leaching into the soil. Newcomers, those that had moved into villages less than thirty years ago, planted flowers. The Council spotted an opportunity. They recognised that the happy years of bumbling chat was forever in the past. The future was about to be permanently set. By now the 'foreigners' who looked like the locals, and spoke like the locals, and to all effects were indistinguishable from the locals except when they ordered bottled beer in the pubs, had gotten jobs in the Council offices. These were people who had gotten used to complaining. 

     'That blooming farmer has a cockerel that wakes me up every blooming morning!'

     'Do you know, I saw a car with an area of rust on it parked outside the shop today? I think I will get on the parish council and put a stop to the locals just quietly living.' 

     'I quite agree. It is just plain ugly to see. Better still, let's make it universal that the locals' noses are put out of joint.'

     'That will teach them to play dominoes and darts and drink draught bitter.'

When a man in a long overcoat and a trilby hat knocked on my parent's door to speak to my father, I answered, age twelve. 'Punks and American Rappers.' I told him. 'Forget about the rappers for now though; we are just not ready for them just yet. It will come, but wait a while.' That advice is not what he had come for, but he remembered it

It was natural then that many Councils embraced the idea of employing a crack team of disruptors who 'individually and creatively' came up with punk rock. Soon, the UK Government passed a secret Act that Punk Rock would be given the 'green light' to displace disco music. Queen Elizabeth ratified it immediately; she and her sister, Margaret, had already tasted excitement outside of the Royal castles, shaking their heads and jumping around.

The Councils actions didn't work out well though. True, I made a lot of pocket money from envelope drops in the woods from Councils to hire young lads to spit on the ground. I also employed teenage girls to stick their chewing gum everywhere just like in 1950s movies. Unfortunately, spontaneous kissing became a thing of the past. By the time I was fifteen I almost always had to wait for someone to get rid of their chewed blobs. No-one wanted to swallow because it stays in you forever, they thought.

My expectation was that the spitting youths would with magic saliva undo the Council's efforts to dash the wonderful life that generations had always lived. The Councils, however, were convinced that complaints would enliven local communities, since normal and friendly chat was frowned on by the 'foreigners'. It never occurred to me that there was another force at play. Someone had realised that mass unemployment could be alleviated by cleaning up the litter and chewing gum. But first Punk had to go. 

     'There will be a cute girl in 'Neighbours' played by Kylie Minogue we might be able to use.'

     'That will take a least a decade to engineer. We shall have to invent Indie Rock and dilute the record companies hold on new artists. Keith, go and make some small record companies. Take Branson there with you. Sorry, Richard is it? Scott, Aitken, Waterman, you will be at the forefront of this, Okay?'

The overrun from Punk Rock and Rock Music lasted well into the 1980s and the invention of New Wave and the Romantics just ended up producing sullen figures dressed in black. Conversation might have picked up because many kids missed school and ran away from home but, interest in them soon fizzled out.

     'Hello Sarah. I haven't seen Mopey for a while. Everything okay?'

     'Dunno. I haven't seen her for weeks. She might be in her bedroom.' Parents had caught the mood from the general attitude on the street.

In the end, the streets got cleaner This was largely because Goths and Emos hid themselves away to avoid getting tanned skin and they avoided eating their greens to bring on anemia, and only girls with bunches played in the streets with their television-fashioned brothers sporting expensive hair cuts that they didn't want to ruin by trying to give themselves headaches from heading footballs.

But there were some people working for the Councils, who had been tucked away in broom cupboards who never got the memo. They still worked on providing situations for people to complain about. To them, conversation was all about complaining. People were encouraged to write indignant letters to the Council, by stooges and plants at the bus stops and supermarkets that suddenly cropped up. These closeted bespectacled denizens wedged into cupboard that had clean mops regularly replaced with mucky and smelly ones by a special contractor, invoked misery by following the movement set up by a prominent woman in the 1960s and 1970s, who had been specifically trained to moan.

Teams of workmen drilled small holes in roads and waited for Winter to freeze the water in them to make pot-holes. At the Councils, one hand never knew what the other hand was doing.

Eventually, spitting was outlawed by mutual consent. Many people had found that they simply could not work up enough saliva anyway, because ever since a Government Minister had made a crazy suggestion that UK citizens should drink a pint of beer a day to ward off de-hydration during the drought of 1976, and cheap, cold, and rapidly-brewed lager filled in the gap left by the sudden and unpredicted shortage of real beer, everyone was dehydrated during the days and years that followed, and could not gather good spittle in their mouth. Soft-drink ads on the TV were used to help viewers at home drool. 'Lilt' was born.

Spitting these days is largely left to the honest gypsies who spit on their hands when they shake on a deal, to ward off evil or draw magic to their agreement - I don't know which.

Almost nothing is true in this; but if it was a film it would surely have a message saying it is based on real events and it would then become part of our history.

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[ 3 minute read ]

Negating the Influencers

Creative Writing

The people who like your work are the one's who you impress the most. You can continue as you are and they will be your future target - market, or if you want more fame and fortune you can pick any target market and adapt your work to match what they like. Knock-backs are only knock-backs because we haven't decided what to do. We all have a natural bent towards our own style, though.

I have been spending quite a bit of time looking into the technical side of Creative Writing. But, I don't do things in a linear way and I find directed study to be a bit constraining sometimes. 

I believe that Creative Writing should be freeing and I write posts on the OU blog site almost daily. A blog post is usually 'free-writing' which means that the writer can suspend a good deal of the rules and technical side of writing. It is good fun and good practice for more serious writing.

Free-writing often throws up interesting scenarios, settings, characters and relationships. I keep the bits I like and combine those chunks to build a more focused approach to creative writing. Any Tutor Marked Assignments  (TMA)s, or the upcoming End of Module Assessment (EMA), gets a technically written re-write of stitched together blocks of writing and concepts that I have learned, saved and realised from both free-writing (blog posts essentially) and OU study. Technical includes proper grammar and appropriate phrasing, along with more precisely placed literary devices.

I need to be a bit ahead of The Open University Tutor Marked Assignment (TMA) requirements. To do this I have fun with loose research such as viewing videos on YouTube by voice coaches for singers for example; that way there is lots of music and interesting facts. This, currently, is so I can understand how best to write effective speech. Realistically, it takes about twenty hours to learn something that could be taught in ten minutes, but I am a strong believer in needing to be immersed in a subject in order for the subject to be suffused throughout our lives, much like I don't need to consider where to put a full stop (Am. period) in a sentence; well, I didn't, but I do now ( , ; . : ) they all have their places and they are all crucial for making a sentence sensible.

The difficult part about seeking information in one discipline for use in another is the selection and transformation of the content. However, there is some safety in cross-discipline study. If the information does not fit a paradigm it is discarded. Essentially, new information has to pass a lot of tests before it should be accepted.

The Four Pillars of Artistry (below) is something I have only just come across and I need it to explore to ascertain the efficacy of understanding it. For now, it is just a list. I will see if I can make use of it somehow.

The Four Pillars of Artistry

(according to Beth Roar)

Emotion

Technique

Creativity

Storytelling

From Beth Roar's (voice coach) video on Alison Krauss:

‘Her tone is bright, yet, it's really emotional, and she has such an interesting balance between the two pillars of technique and emotion. It's really interesting with people who lean into the technique pillar, but yet, have that emotional attunement; that emotional drive. It means that the emotion doesn't necessarily come out in a big, extravagant way, but gets moved through that technical precision, and it's transformed into something magical and beautiful. And this is what's happening here. Emotions don't need to be baked to hit you in the gut. They just need to be present and truthful.’

I firmly believe that Beth's comments apply to both singers and creative writers of stories and words, lyricists, and even comedians who write their own jokes.

Beth Roar believes that 'artists' need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses; which of the four pillars of artistry they are stronger in and weakest in and then they need to work on the weak ones. i am still unconvinced on that because I don't know enough about pillars of artistry. It is something I need to look into and find some new voices. That focused approach is very much in line with my study approach in conjunction with what the OU wants me to do.

My concern is that the more I learn about creative writing, the more I am equipped to manipulate others. The easiest way to manipulate is through other people's emotions. That is why I need to be able to understand the technical side of writing, so I can understand and control the impact I may deliberately, or inadvertently, have on others. Effectively, anything I publish, and importantly anything anyone else publishes, I need to be able to un-write, undo or negate.

I am not studying for grades, fame, accolades, or money. I am studying because I need to understand influential writing, good and bad.

Something I have learnt very early on is that there is a mass-manufacturing approach to teaching degrees. Millions of identical train carriages are made to be pulled by controlling and driving engines in the real world. The problem is, if any of those carriages do not comply with the plans, and fall off the track, they are never promoted to be engines in the real world, or returned to the factory to become blueprints or templates for better or improved models to be built. 

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 3 minute read ]

Just let me pay

I have a website that is hosted by IONOS, a German company. I chose IONOS as the site host because they are German. 

From my IONOS web site hosting account:

'Your sovereign workspace, hosted entirely in Europe

Email, word processing, spreadsheets, chat and more:

IONOS Nextcloud Workspace contains everything you and your team need for your work – with full control over your data, completely independent of US corporations.'

A while ago, I discovered that the EU was considering passing personal data to the USA when EU citizens fly to the United States of America, supposedly for visa-free travel. That same personal data is, due to the extent of the GDPR, not available to EU businesses. Make no mistake, the USA wants everyone's information, if only for targeted marketing purposes, but also, like every country around the world, for security purposes. We thought that China was a bit strong in banning certain persons from shops and areas by using facial-recognition technology. That attitude, I suggest is pretty widespread now. The IONOS statement (above) deliberately mentions US corporations as though IONOS expects its customers to know how gossipy US companies are.

I am reluctant to close my we hosting account with IONOS because they do appear to be sound. But I recently missed a payment and it developed into a real problem for me. Their policy is to have the account holder change the direct debit payment to a re-iterating card payment. As we know, you can't stop card payments and any entity that has out 16 digit long number and the three digit security code along with the expiry date can take any amount of money whenever they like. I balked at this and all hell broke out. I could not pay the arrears because IONOS had no other way to accept payment that actually worked. Their own security protocols prevented me offering my card details. I suppose that is a good thing. I had already checked with my bank that it was not the bank disallowing a single card payment to IONOS. Eventually I used my PayPal account to directly pay (from my card) directly to IONOS. 

Now, even though my web hosting account is free from debt and the content is accessible I have an invoice for £0.00, which replaces the £13.20 that should be taken by direct debit later this month. I think IONOS may be doing the usual thing and, recognising their mistake in not realising that UK citizens may not be able to pass their EU card payment scrutiny (which EU citizens have passed elsewhere in the EU), have decided not to charge me for this month. It just goes to show that card payments in the EU seem to be far safer than in the UK.

I shall have to make another PayPal (American) interim payment (in converted US dollars that IONOS have to pay to reconvert into Euros) just to make sure I don't run into problems with arrears. I don't think it is safe to make any online card payments, and I loathe having to do so. I really prefer entities to just stick to the rules and abide by the agreed contract details. Instead, I have had to have lengthy conversations that ultimately results in more confusion and potential card fraud.