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Shred, blend and rewrite books

[ 8 minute read ]

From a selection of 'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman; 'Locke' by Michael Ayers; 'The Pattern on the Stone' by W. Daniel Hillis; 'Trainwreck' by Sady Doyle; and 'The Devil and all his works' by Dennis Wheatley.

I rearranged my bookcases yesterday and ended up giving myself a whole bunch of books to read 'urgently'. Once again, I feel like I would just like to plug myself into a digital stream and assimilate the words; but that is all I would do, absorb the words. I might just as well as read a dictionary, which would be a great deal more fun. And there it is. Actually experiencing the words and the definitions in a dictionary is preferable to just ramming words into my brain. Without real-time processing, I would understand nothing because I do not have a computer's operating system in my head. My brain does not compartmentalise everything it experiences, ready for close attention of only designated information at its own leisure.

Still in my head from yesterday is the crazy marshall at a fun-run who waved two cars through a red traffic light when I was crossing the road on my bicycle. I had to leap out of the way with my bike because she distracted the drivers by so wildly gesticulating that they didn't see me crossing. Still in my head from yesterday, is her marshall friend who, once I had leapt back from the cars, came over to me and said, 'Excuse me, there is a queue.' On the pavement / cycle path were a bunch of cyclists. I, however, was on the road; a road-user. I had arrived at my position on the road by using the road. Once the cars had passed there was no queue on the road. Some people are merely hazards to the rest of us. I forget, though, that not everyone can see the world as I do. Oh yes, it seems I am arrogant and merciless. However, we all believe that what we perceive is the same as everyone else perceives; and we are all certain that what we believe is the same that everyone believes, and when we find out that this is not so, we are puzzled, and I suggest, a little scared.

Absorbing the information in the books I want to read now, I think, would be absorbing it through a lens of resentment for me. I am so self-absorbed that I want blinkered people to just leave me alone. Of course, I must admit to also having tunnel-vision. My microcosm of existence is in a macrocosm we call the world. It really is incumbent on me to make sure that everyone else's happy microcosm is not negatively affected by my jaded attitude. Hence, I shall be reading the book, 'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman. Most of the time straplines and sub-headings do nothing for me, but 'Why it can matter more than IQ' really sings the right tune to me when I consider how the marshalls were weirdly important to themselves. They will never understand what really happened because they pat themselves on the back for doing an entirely different task. 

Michael Ayers, a British philosopher and professor at Oxford University, on writing about the philosopher John Locke (1632 - 1704) in his first chapter, 'Ideas and Things' writes, 'Locke's epistemological thesis is that the ways in which we conceive of the world, including ourselves, are determined by the ways we experience the world.' Although I started reading the book some years ago, I really must read it again with new insights. (That is why I never deface books with dog-ears, highlighting and annotations). Apparently, there is a YouTube video of Professor Ayers talking in 1985 about Locke and Berkeley. I think it is Bishop George Berkeley (1685 - 1783) of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland, who was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, writer, and clergyman and is regarded as the founder of immaterialism.

Dennis Wheatley in his 1972 book, 'The Devil and all his works', begins with a statement, within which he posits a loose, though considered, opinion that 'To many Christians...the doctrine of the Trinity is no longer fully acceptable. God the Father has faded into the background, and most people find the role of the Holy Ghost somewhat difficult to understand' He then goes on to offer an idea that, using words that were ?acceptable? at the time, [Africans] 'prefer Allah, as the one, indivisible God', for this same reason. I might have to ignore any inference to levels of mental acuity that Dennis Wheatley has inadvertently created with his statement. Reading on, I cannot find that Wheatley was racist, but that may be because it is not important to me. He seems to be able to separate his point from his attitude, and that is enough for me.

 I am not really concerned about inappropriate language, my interest lies firmly in why modern Christians favour 'Jesus' over the 'Father'. I have no care for the Christian God being male or female, because I don't think that God is limited to only one gender. If I believe in a Christian 'God', I also believe in omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. If I also believe that males and females are equal, yet do not believe they are the same, this does not conflict with the language that was used to talk about any Christian God, or the language that will be used to talk about any Christian God. If I believe that males and females are the same, then 'Father' is the same as 'Mother', and it is only semantics that troubles people. Perhaps a nod to modern attitudes on gender equality by modern Christian churches has exacerbated the state of confusion that Dennis Wheatley talked of.

Likewise, W. Daniel Hillis, in his 1998 book, 'The Pattern on the Stone', which has the sub-heading, 'The Simple Ideas that make computers work', makes an assertion about how computers may, or may not solve, the 'Travelling Saleman' problem. I believe it is a Maths problem, which is given to students as, 'Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each city exactly once and returns to the origin city?' Hillis makes note that the time grows exponentially with the size of the problem, 'No-one knows any algorithm that is order n² or even n³, or n to any power, that will accomplish this. Yeah, I am confused by 'n' too, but I think 'n' is the number of cities in this problem. Welcome back to those happy days of algebra! Hillis wrote, 'If we add ten more cities to the salesman's itinerary, the problem gets a thousand times harder'. I don't know about that because I only think in ways to solve problems using my analogue brain. A bit further on, Hillis, writes, 'No predictable technical breakthroughs in computers will help solve the travelling salesman problem, since even a computer a billion times faster will still be stumped by the addition of a few more cities. 

What I find interesting about Hillis's statements is his complete lack of realising that just 28 years later, his belief is tested by A.I. I don't pretend to understand whether he is now proved wrong; it is not really my aim to do that. I am interested in how something we believe to be true today is false tomorrow. I suggest that, no amount of studying in 1998 that Hillis may have undertaken might have led him towards building A.I. assistive technology. Just as John Gall, the Systems Theorist, said, 'A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked'. Likewise, It is the evolution of understanding that fascinates me.

'Trainwreck' by Sady Doyle, in her 2017 book, with the sub-heading, 'The women we love to hate, mock and fear....and why', writes about the shaming of Mary Wollstonecraft (and a lot more else). Doyle finishes a paragraph with: 'Even if you believed in the brotherhood and equality of all mankind, you didn't want to march into battle calling yourselves the Crazy Slut Fan Club'. Doyle continues her point with, 'The only way for a woman to engage in feminism at all it turned out, was to actively participate in the shaming: Harriet Martineau, one of the few to carry the torch, declared that. "Mary Wollstonecraft was, with all her powers, a poor victim of passion, with no control over her own peace, and no calmness or content except when the needs of her individual nature were satisfied". Doyle finishes with her own alarm that there was an idea that real feminists were entirely unlike Mary Wollstonecraft and allowing her into the movement set it back. She quotes Harriet Martineau again, '[Their] advocacy of Woman's cause becomes more detriment, precisely in proportion to their personal reasons for unhappiness, unless they have fortitude enough [...] to get their own troubles under their feet, and leave them out of the account in stating the state of their sex". Doyle goes on to say that Wollstonecraft was considered to be a whore, a madwoman, an idiot and a joke, and most of all, responsible for setting women's rights back and so was 'wrecked'. I think today, we might say 'cancelled'; except that by modern standards, women today might consider Wollstonecraft as being nothing less than a free woman.

I have never read about Mary Wollstonecraft in the same light that Harriet Martineau casts on her. My interest is not in feminism and whether it is right or necessary or who advocates for it best. My interest is how opinion changes according to the information we are given, and importantly, the environment in which we receive it.

I selected the book 'Emotional Intelligence - Why it can matter more than IQ' (1996) by Daniel Goleman, because it fell open, after a few previous openings, at the chapter, 'Pandora's box and the power of positive thinking'. After Pandora had let almost everything out of the box, she was just in time to stop 'hope' flying away. Daniel Goleman mentions a study by a University of Kansas psychologist, C. R. Snyder, in which the psychologist found that hope is elemental in recovering from disappointment, and thus achieving higher grades after a setback. People with low hope levels just gave up and plodded along believing they could do no better and like a self-fulfilling prophesy continued to get low grades, while people with high hope levels accepted the setback and studied harder, which invariably meant they achieved higher grades than the disappointed 'plodders'. Goleman's book contains a whole lot more on EQ.

My task is to mesh all my chosen books together; to find parallels and connections and attempt to portray how I understand the world, myself and others. But not portray it to all and sundry. No, I need to portray it to myself.  I need to be able to 'see' the invisible whiteboard with pithy statements on it that fit my mind. And this needs to be in a format that, if I ever want to, I would be able to explain to others. If it cannot be explained to others, I feel that it is of no use to me, since it would suggest to me that I have lost my way, and fabricated an illusion of the world and all that is in it.

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[ 8 minute read ]

My mind is an incubator

'All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity' Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

I randomly opened one of the books on my floor; the place reserved for 'Books to randomly open at any page' or for ones that are likely to be referenced often, like my Roget's Thesaurus and 'Simply Psychology'.

The quotation above, by Samuel Johnson is under the chapter heading, 'Is Mysticism a Kind of Schizophrenia in Disguise?' in 'Zen and the Brain' (James H Austin M.D., 1999, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT)  I have long been fascinated in our febrile states when we dream, and the reasons given for why we dream by 'sleepologists', or at least people who have studied sleep and dreaming, as being so we can process the day's, and prior events, in our lives. I see it as a fountain of data thrown into the air and the brain catching bits as they fall in an attempt to make a coherent pattern or shape while using templates it has made in a similar way before; a bit like the old video game Tetris.

Anyone with a mental disorder, temporary or otherwise, I suggest, claims it as their own, and as it being a part of them. To make any statements on a specific mental state is likely to offend anyone who suffers from any of a myriad of mental illnesses. The chapter title I found in the book is as much an irritant to many people, as it is smack bang in the middle of my intrigue. I haven't read it yet, but I definitely shall. 

I suggest that just as a mental illness or disorder is claimed as being an integral part of someone, so are the templates or heuristics we make as a result of our febrile dreaming. If I am exposed to radical ideas in my days, my dreaming will shake up this information and other information stored in my head, and my brain will process it it like the old game 'Tetris' with falling (or suspended) pieces that need to be aligned and placed securely with no gaps between them. if there are any gaps they have to be thrown into the air again. Wake up before this has happened and we are not rested.

When I was about sixteen I had a fever. It lasted for at least three days. I had nightmares and lay in bed for those days and nights. One night I had a dream in which there were hundreds of wires that needed to be joined. There were an equal amount of red, blue and yellow wires (primary colours you might note) that needed to be joined to corresponding red, blue and yellow wires. The problem I faced in my lucid dream was that I could not test to see if the wires were joined to the right wires until I had joined them all up; then, and only then, could I test it, or 'turn the circuit on'. It seemed that I was 'doing' this for hours. If it was a real physical task it would have taken years. However, there is nothing so quick as the human brain, and dreams, lucid or not, are scripted to take a specified length of time so we can understand how we got to a result and formed a corresponding template, or new premise or heuristic, so it could have been only a minute; but I think my bedside clock told me it was actually three or four hours. 

As soon as the 'circuit' worked, meaning all the hundreds of unlabelled red, blue and yellow wires were correctly connected (in my dream) I fell asleep and woke much more rested than the previous nights of the fever. During the day, I improved as I moved around my home. The next day I was fine, just as if I had never been ill. Of course, as a teenager not eating for a day or two didn't really have any noticeable affect my energy levels, so things were good.

Anyone would have a hard time convincing me that I was unaware that my body was attacking a virus or whatever it was. I am convinced that different antigens were stuck to T cells that were marched out to battle and messages were sent back with intelligence on the enemy invader. My brain, I am certain, made changes to the antigens and stuck them to new T cells and mass produced a weapon that eliminated the virus threat. Because I was interested in electronics at the time my dream was of the complex and seemingly ever-changing conundrum of how to connect electronic circuits. (My understanding of biology and chemistry is sadly much limited and so no-one should believe that I know what I am talking about when it comes to immunology).

Because I fully believe I was prescient during the final battle in my body I cannot turn from considering that the chapter title, 'Is Mysticism a Kind of Schizophrenia in Disguise?' as being wholly relevant.

Many people believe different things. I believe that people are limited in what they believe, because they either lack mental acuity or the ability to focus it; because their mental development is still undergoing significant changes which require more shake-ups and vivid dreaming; or because they have formed a set of templates that negate either disparate or opposite suggestions. In a group this is an hegemony (Link opens a new window on my post about hegemony and doctrine) in that even the articulation of alternative ideas is inhibited.

I am disruptive; I can set aside my emotions in most scenarios. I am ruthless because in setting aside my emotions only reason and the truth is measured. People don't like this in me, and they don't like it in anyone else.

Imagine if an adult enters into a game that three, four and five year olds are playing. The adult may introduce ideas on mortgages and loans, and work, and fitting kitchens or fixing cars or booking flights and holidays and might try to get the little kids to play their own game but with the adult's rules and experiences. I strongly suspect that the kids will be confused and the enjoyment of their game will wane until it becomes only a boring bane to them, if the adult won't let them leave.

I forget every day that everyone is the centre of their own universe. I forget about 'Sonder'. (Link opens a new window with my post on sonder). I forget every day that everyone needs to feel secure in their thinking; that they are confident that they made the right choices, and confident that they listened to the right people. There are, however, persons who set themselves up as superior in knowledge and understanding who seek to create 'thought progeny' in others.

I might claim to be the first person to put 'Cool', 'Calm' and 'Collected' in a sentence decades ago. I might claim to be one of the leading persons who first put 'kind' before 'regards' at the end of letters. I might also claim to be one of the leading persons, if not 'the' leading person who thanked recipients of my letters 'for their patience and understanding in dealing with this matter'. Certainly, I had never heard or come across any of these devices prior to me inventing them in my personal world. Certainly, modern customer service follows this line of obsequious thinking but is not really clearly evinced. The 'Cool, Calm and Collected' I came up with when I was sixteen, and walking to the top of my road tossing the idea about that I should test my environment so I could understand it better by being 'prickly' that day, and then I thought, No! Cool, calm and collected might be a better approach to protecting myself my mental anguish.

It doesn't matter if I am correct in believing this. However, let's say I am correct on all three counts of being an initiator of consequent common action in the modern world. These actions that come from how people think in the modern world would stem from my 'thought-progeny' and a certain amount of pride could be felt and shown, if only that I happened to mention it in a paragraph, above.

Yet, everyone affects the world in some fashion. We just don't get to see it unfold because it takes decades, at least it did.

We should be mindful that a lot of people want to be influencers. What does this mean? 'Think like me!', and by inference, buy what I buy so you can be like me. This is, as I have mentioned a few times before, seeking validation. Someone's thoughts or understanding, no matter how many people share the same thought, either because it was born by immaculate conception as a leap of innovation, or a particular assembling of pieces of the day falling down in dreams; or through insemination by someone else's strong idea or belief, are not necessarily correct.

Once upon a time, the Romans thought it was a good idea to crucify people. They weren't the first to do this though. Today, Romans and their fellow country-people might not be so keen to nail people to wooden crosses. Yet, some people might consider it to be not good practice only because, to them, realistically, it is unhygienic, and some rotting fingers or toes might fall on the kids playing below. This is a prime example of weighting our thoughts.

When someone is in a position to influence my understanding of the world, I, like everyone else, hold hard to my own carefully considered beliefs. They are part of me. Tell me I am wrong and you insult me at the very core of my existence. To this end, I eschew strong opinion. I will listen to anything and adjust my thinking accordingly and appropriately, but zealots are brutes who seek to plants seeds in other people in a deliberate attempt to hatch thought-progeny. The action of seizing someone else's mind, throwing it to the ground and spearing an idea or thought or belief into it, is something that they are proud of. When they see the change in a person who has been thoroughly abused in this way they are pleased, and if there are enough of these changed people, zealots are able to confirm their own bias. 

'All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity' Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).

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.

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[ 11 minute read ]

No Thanks

Just quietly do your job

While the world seems to want to be more closely linked in personal ways, I vehemently eschew such interaction. There is a strap-line for a Google SmartPhone that goes something like this: 'If someone asks you a question and the answer is on your phone, why not let your phone answer for you?' When the world got widespread availability of mobile phones we all wanted to talk, to share our experiences in real-time. It was fun and fine to do this. I liked it. Then we got social media in which we were able to make artifices of ourselves; we could pretend we live in a big house or near a white sandy beach when we really live on a council estate in Manchester. 

It is okay to lie because we all seemingly do it even if we don't recognise we are doing it. 'I don't have time to do that' You probably do. 'I did the best I could' No, you didn't.

Now though there is a drive towards the personal approach in business and business entities. This came about decades ago when after-sales care became interesting for businesses, largely in the USA. It transmuted itself into the UK and now the personal approach is making itself known in the government bodies in the UK.

I received a text message on my phone. It used to be until quite recently that my phone was not a SmartPhone with internet capabilities. However, the government practically overnight took away our hopes of privacy by mandating that the 3G network be discontinued. DumbPhones worked on the 3G network and as we know, they are dumb because they have no internet capability. That is precisely why I had one. I have a whole gamut of procedures to prevent my personal information escaping from my devices. The most important one is that I never let my SmartPhone go on the internet, not even to update itself. It is a phone, not a media device, to me. I have laptops with internet capability that have manual switches or manually inserted dongles to access the internet, if I want to play.

It is no secret that I am an Open University student; A.I. established that long ago; before I even realised it did. Here is an example of why I never let my SmartPhone go online:

My local council sent me a text that said that they are updating their records and that I should use the link (in the text) to access an online form. Of course, I could allow internet access because I have 20Gb data allowance with my SIM plan, but I didn't. Instead, I very carefully typed the link address into the website bar in one of my laptops. I received a default message, ostensibly saying that there was a problem and access is not enabled. I am used to coding and recognise that the tiniest error will result in absolutely nothing happening. The address though is very simple and I rewrote it and treble checked it; same result. I phoned the council and told them that I could not access the online form. 

     'Let's fill out the form over the phone then, Mr Cadwell'

     'Okay'

     'What is your date of birth and national insurance number?'

     'Why do you want to know that?'

     'I don't know.'

I did not announce who I was when I phoned, but because they have my telephone number on record they knew who was calling. I explained that I would never click on a link on my SmartPhone, which is what prompted the offer to fill out the form over the phone. I knew that by allowing my phone to go online all sorts of interrogatory software would be downloaded and everything on my phone would be uploaded somewhere. That is a matter of course. Samsung, the phone manufacturer, wants to know how we use our phones. Does it have expanded memory? for example. Google want to know who we are and what we do and like, and who our contacts are. Remember, if it is on your phone and someone asks you a question, why not let your phone answer for you?

We all know that a government body can use our national insurance numbers to ascertain our tax position. My council, if I tell them what my national insurance number is, would be able to place me in a socio-economic band. Why do they need to do that? Even credit reference agencies can do this with our national insurance numbers. As an ID it is not as good as a passport or driving licence so asking for this information is not for the purposes of identifying someone, in itself.

The reason the link in the text from the council didn't work when I typed it into my laptop website bar is because the link goes to a site that expects a SIM to be in a SmartPhone with the appropriate operating system. My laptops do not use any SmartPhone operating systems. That is why I use them for internet use; because practically everyone else uses their phone to access the web, it makes my web fun safer since there is a reduced chance of phishing software accessing my data; simply put, it is inefficient to write software to also deal with computer operating software when data can easily be garnered from people's phones anyway.

Just as the person answering the phone at the council office can see on their screen who is calling if they have recorded a number associated with a  person; the web form where the link would go would interrogate a SmartPhone and find the telephone number associated with the SIM, and then be able to present a personalised form to the user. That is fine, except that it demonstrates that interrogatory software is being used. What is your date of birth and national insurance number and what is your email address? It takes me no time at all to recognise that I would willingly and with full permission be creating a profile of myself using an online form, or over the phone, without knowing what the information would be used for. Why would anyone want to have an identifying profile of me? Why would anyone be foolish enough to say, 'Here is my profile, do what you like with it.' ? I presume that if I ask the council they will tell me that they want to personalise their contact with me. And that, is precisely why I never want personalised contacts. That whole idea is merely a way to garner personal information for a profile to be built. I happen to know that our bank accounts can be accessed by Government bodies. In the past, I have signed into my Experian account and been able to see my bank balance in real time. I expect the council for would ask for my bank details. Where do I spend my money? Is there a repetitive amount that denotes a gambling or alcohol addiction or do I have a lot of insurance or a loan, perhaps. In my case, I pay for a website. Might be worth a look to see if I post subversive content, eh?

Imagine this. In its beneficial clothes, personalised contact can make age appropriate information available. If you are young, you might want to be made aware of an upcoming music event; if you are older, you might want to hear about a new lawn bowls green, or vote on one being built. However, the young person will not hear about the new bowls green and the old person will not hear about the music event. Even if neither party cares not for the preferences of the other, the opportunity to search for what interests us is diminished, even if we do not become marginalised by our supposed physical and mental ability or supposed preferences.  Let me elaborate: If I want an ice-cream and an ice-cream van comes along, I am unlikely to walk past the ice-cream van to the shop nearby. My opportunity for satisfying my want is increased by the arrival of an ice-cream van; but it really isn't. Having an ice-cream van immediately before me will stop me going into town to a shop and buying a bowl of ice-cream in a cafe; it will stop me going into Lidl or Marks and Spencers to buy ice-cream and a few lollies as well. So, personalising messages reduces social interaction, just as if your phone answers a question for you. It really is a case of, 'I can't be bothered. In any case, I have done enough, and I have done my duty to interact with you by allowing my phone to answer questions and make decisions for me.' (the settings on the phone being a conduit for suggestions from business entities).

I suspect though, that the council has a hidden agenda. If an empty form came up on my laptop when I typed the link in, I would have been able to enter my name; which is a far safer way of accessing and filling out forms. What the council thought appropriate is that my personalised telephone number should be accessed and sent whizzing through the air as data, that data is in a form that can be harvested (hence the resultant personalised web form). Not a good idea yesterday, today or tomorrow! I can only guess whether the pictures of my garden would have also been harvested from my phone. Of course, there are no pictures of my car or my family or of any persons, or even a pet on my phone. All of these are absolutely part of a highly personalised profile if they ever exist somewhere else.

       'We only wanted to establish a personal way to approach you. How do you want to be approached?' This seems evident because the person who took my call at the council actually offered to only send letters to contact me. That is weird in itself because no business wants to use paper, that has a cost attached to it, to contact anyone. So, it seems highly likely to me that the council has completely got things wrong in that people actually want to have a personal relationship with them as though they are friendly and listening. This is merely a limping alternative to just doing their job. 'I am sorry you are not satisfied, we understand your frustration...' Just do your job!

On education with he OU: I absolutely do not expect to need to ask any tutor for advice while I am an undergraduate. If I cannot understand the text books it is because the OU has failed to supply adequate and appropriate material. Just supply the information in the first instance. End of story. 'Actually, Mr Cadwell, we don't know how to any more. We recognise that people have different needs and so we propose to treat everyone on a personal basis by getting to know them.' That is no doubt due to the current weird way of educating people in UK secondary schools wherein the strongest are compelled to hep the weakest and so the weakest feel empowered and think they can later do a degree - hence the need for tutors being friendly and approachable. Instead of people recognising their limits they have been sold a lie. I have already written on why not everyone can be what they want.

I understand how to build a rapport with someone because I have studied it. One can 'pace' and 'mirror' someone when you are in their presence, for example. If this is not do-able, then sharing common values is a good way of building rapport - 'agreeing', in other words. However, in agreeing with me the tutor gets to tell me about themself. Here is the rub, for me. A tutor is not part of the subject material. I never need to know what a tutor likes or does not like. I never need to know what their preferences are or how they interact with the world. I only need to know the subject material. I absolutely do NOT want to store information with a hook that is associated with any person who is not part of the subject material. Just mark the assignment and say where I went wrong. You know what? Even though I despise A.I., give the task to an bunch of algorithms and let the feedback be emotionally arid.

But this attitude I have is not normal in the UK today. It seems that because people are so connected with their digital devices they have become augmented by their digital devices to such an extent that removing the digital implants from them would likely bring on a mental breakdown that doctors would foolishly diagnose as PTSD, when all it would really be is acute anxiety. 

I worry that world conflict may inhibit me completing the current module I am studying, so I shall jump to the End of Module Assignment, due in May this year, because even with an amazing score for all the Tutor Marked Assignments throughout the academic year, without a pass for the EMA by the deadline I shall fail the whole module. This means that I shall skip at least one TMA, but I have achieved a high enough score at Level One to not need more marks for TMAs.

I cannot imagine beyond being incredulous what people would be like if the phone network breaks down even a little bit. I rather think that most people would die if they were washed up marooned on an island, not from lack of food or water, but from severe anxiety because they have completely lost their personal contacts and reliance on 'how to' advice from the internet. 

In today's climate my reluctance to share my personal information makes me seem hostile. No, that isn't me. I simply loathe personal service. As far as I am concerned, personal service is an excuse for not doing the job right in the first place; that is excepting establishments such as expensive restaurants and hotels that were originally built on the novelty of offering personal service.

Of course, if I had been sold a lie when I was younger and actually believed that I can do anything if I am in a team I would never have noticed that the Council are trying to harvest information.

My tutor means well. He simply doesn't realise that I never believed anything about myself that I didn't discover by myself. 

My degree is my degree. It is not going to be a team degree. Unfortunately, the Open University seems to award degrees on the basis that undergraduates can't do a degree by themselves. Part of my degree, it seems, will be based on social interaction, or teamwork, or a deep reliance on tutor assistance. I vehemently discard such notions as being a valid position or qualification to aspire to.

Thanks, but no thanks.

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I am not on YouTube or social media

WARNING! Contains how squid and octopi eat

[ 6 minute read ]

Languid Squid

I am not really sure what 'languid' means. I have never heard anyone say it out loud. Rarely, have I read it. Yet, I have used it a few times. In fact, I used it as recently as yesterday.

Words change over time and the meanings much more frequently than the spelling. For some people, a word means one thing, and for a different set of people in a different cultural milieu, or generation, another. Many people use words metaphorically, if that is even the right word. James O'Brien, an LBC radio presenter, will use the word 'strong' for a solid argument that might stand a series of robust attempts to destroy it; he is not unusual in doing so.

The word 'languid' troubles me because I want to use it, but cannot. It is much the same as when I bought a Collins Pocket Thesaurus when I was sixteen. I felt misunderstood so I bought a book of words hoping that someone would recognise one of them and then nod when they heard me use it. I would then have felt that at least I was communicating in the right language and someone understood me, even for a moment. Of course, I had PTSD by then, so there really was no hope of that. My words were the same as everyone else's but I had attached different weight to many of them. When I said. 'I want to talk to someone' others heard me say, 'Let's have a conversation about nothing in particular.' I meant I want to throw up and vomit all my feelings and then feel better - that is what 'talk' meant to me.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativity, suggests that we are influenced by the language we speak; the words in our language and the meanings we attach to them influence how we think and perceive our environment. Of course, I can't leave it at that, and there is criticism of it. I am not particularly interested in what the criticism is. In my life, I only need seeds for which to crystalise my thoughts on. The danger, of course, is believing that what I think is true or realistic. Largely, I am able to avoid shelving any thoughts as complete so they remain as jig-saw pieces that I like to try to fit into the puzzle of life.

I can guess many people would argue that it is our environment that influences the way we think and perceive (paradoxically) our environment. I suppose we could look at a picture of a scenic place while trapped in a cave and attribute different thoughts to the environment in the picture, to if we saw the same picturesque scene in a picture when we are lounging on a beautiful yacht moored in a magnificent tropical bay. I suppose, then, we might choose different words in our conversation. In the cave, I suppose the conversation might be about a rescue, so there is a notion of a geographical transition albeit a small distance. On the boat, the conversation may be about lunch or whether to titillate ourselves with a shore visit, or on deciding whether to up-anchor and feel the wind in the sails and the bump and shove of waves.

I listened to the dawn chorus this morning and was glad that it is now Spring in the UK. Some of the migratory birds have come back and are claiming their place with their loud voices. It made me feel lighter and better able to face the little problems that we all trip over in Winter when the sounds are different. I thought about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Well, I remembered the words 'Sapir-Whorf' and remembered their hypothesis is about language and environment and perception. Each of the birds is speaking its own language, which although I can't understand it, I do understand from what wildlife people say, is a shout that says 'I am here. This is my place. Find your own. I might fight you.' Of course, none of them are a threat to me because, although dinosaurs they may be, they are not big enough to hurt me, by themselves. 

I initially thought that it is the cadence as well as the sound in a language that makes me feel or perceive my environment differently. If I never understand any French words and no German words and I heard them in precisely the same environment would I perceive the environment differently? I rather think I would. 

I have long been fascinated with how people speak, and by extension how I speak. With all the love and respect I can give to the Germans I much prefer the sound of the French accent and the less staccato word formation. It is to my ears. I think like the German language, my speech, although it is English, is sort of German. My speech is functional. We only have to go back and remember that I bought a thesaurus to assist me in ramming my point across. It never entered my head to entertain someone in conversation back then. If I had bought a book on love, as well as the thesaurus, my language today would be entirely different. The intent then, had I have bought both books would have indicated that I was keen to be focused on becoming a good conversationalist. 

I have no idea what I would have done with a book on love and a thesaurus. It would only take a mean streak and, ironically, I might have become a con artist; a manipulator of people. 

In hindsight, I should have bought more than just a thesaurus. I should have made my speech interesting and compelling. 'Ah! Now you can hear what I am saying, because you like the sounds and the feelings that the words invoke in you.' It never happened though, because I wasn't interested in you or anyone, including my own health.

Languid - 

The Cambridge Dictionary online gives this: 'Languid means moving or speaking slowly with little energy, often in an attractive way.

Merriam Webster online gives this: 'The meaning of languid is drooping or flagging from, or as if from, exhaustion.' 

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WARNING!

This is a comedic take on air travel safety. If you are about to fly do not read this.

[ 4 minute read ]

Let me have a go

I discovered, a few days ago, that much of the landing of an airliner at airports is handled by the autopilot. This is even when passengers are onboard. For example the approach speed is monitored and the autopilot makes sure it stays within safe parameters; too slow and the plane drops out of the sky unflyable and too fast and it won't stop on the runway. Autopilot also finds a homing beacon to align the plane with the runway. You can imagine a radio signal extending at a perfect angle from the runway and the plane flies down the strongest part of it. There have been crashes because the pilots were not trained to fight the autopilot or work with it when something went wrong.

Across the sky a privately chartered Gulfstream G650ER streaked.

     'Right. Autopilot is on and we have seven hours of tedium to fill.' said Mark the captain.

     'What shall we do?' Crumbs sprayed from Mark's mouth and fell to his bloated belly. He eyed his co-pilot, Bill, as he munched another Custard Cream. 'Well?' brushing the crumbs from his shirt.

     'I-Spy?' suggested Bill. His eyebrows formed a quizzical arch on his flushed face. Once again he had had too much too drink before boarding, and it showed in his wavering hand movements as he stabbed a fat finger at a button. 'Music anyone?'

     'C', called the flight engineer laconically.

     'Would that be clouds, Brian?' asked the captain humourlessly.

     'Sod this!' Brian blurted. 'I'm going to string one up.' He quickly rolled a joint. 'Mark? It's Lebanese.'

     Nah, I'm good. I got this', brandishing a half-emptied bottle of Black Label Whisky. Air ascended as he swigged and swallowed, swigged and swallowed. He closed his eyes as the sweet aroma of cannabis met his pitted nose, masking the smell of hot metal and melting plastic.

Bill's head was already nodding and drool was forming at the corner of his mouth. He mindlessly rummaged down his trousers.

In the passenger cabin Sandy Shaw, world-renown author of twenty-six thrillers, pulled her laptop from her bag and began to type, sure in the knowledge that there were several hours of relative peace now and the plane was in safe hands. 

A few hours later she addressed her Personal Assistant, Theresa Green, 'How about a snack, Theresa? Hungry?'

     'Ravenous!'

Sandy closed her laptop and left Theresa playing Royal Kingdom but pretending to be applying herself to her spreadsheets, and made her way to the galley. She returned with sandwiches on a tray. Theresa eyed them thoughtfully, took one, bit into it, and looked thoughtful again. 'What's in them?'

     'Tinned mackerel, cheese and Marmite.'

     'All in one sandwich?'

     'Yup.'

     'Riiiight!'

Sandy smiled. 'They're for the lads up front. I expect they are hungry.' She made for the cockpit, while Theresa jealously admired her long, slim legs. 'Money' she thought.

     'Sandwiches!' cried Brian, the navigator. He put down the spoon he had been admiring his face in, grabbed a sandwich and wolfed it down. Snatching another he spoke around it. 'They're great!'

Sandy gave the tray to Brian who kicked Mark's chair and then Bill's to wake them up.

     'Something is burning.' murmured Bill suspiciously.

     'It's fine. Have a sandwich.' said Brian.

• End

Of course, pilots are tested for drugs and alcohol in their blood before they fly but I am not sure if they are tested after the flight. Sometimes things go wrong with the autopilot because information it receives is somehow corrupted and it tries to make the plane ascend when it should be descending, and that is when the pilots can turn off some areas of control that the autopilot has. It is then that the pilots can find themselves fighting against the mighty hydraulic forces that are available to the plane's computers. Thankfully, most pilots haven't blagged their qualifications and are in fact real and certified. 

I am aware of the problems that Customs and Border control personnel have at airports when passengers have unusual items in their suitcases and they have to discover the reason for the passenger's quirky habits.

     'Mr Cadwell, whenever you come to New Zealand from Australia you never have any clothes with you and only have a single suitcase with an inflatable dinghy in it. Yet, whenever you make an internal flight you have hand-luggage with fire extinguishers and a crash helmet in it. Can you tell me why?'

I might just as well pack my clown outfit with the big shoes instead of the safety devices because they are equally indicative of my stupidity. There is no person more foolish than I when it comes to safety. In order to learn to sail I bought a sailing boat in Kent (UK), motored out of the Medway River and then ran out of petrol so I had to sail off the Southend coast, in enough wind to heel my boat so far over that water spilled over the side a bit. I had never sailed one bit before then. If I can do that, we might all just get on a plane and hope for the best. Sometimes it works.

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[ 4 minute read ]

Now where was I?

I think I lead a better life without me being there sometimes. At least, my memory is never invited to the events of my better or more interesting life. 

A while ago, I needed a Phillips screwdriver, you know, the one that some people call a cross-head screwdriver, and is also the one that almost every one uses for the screws that have an 'X' in the head (some people use flat-head screwdrivers or knives). I looked in the usual places for lost things in my home: in all the kitchen drawers; behind the chairs; behind the microwave oven; in the bathroom; in the bookcases, behind the books; and, of course, in my toolboxes. I even tried a spell - 'Who stole my screwdriver?'. That spell usually leaves me feeling sheepish when I find a lost item within twenty seconds of evoking it (usually the right one). I still didn't find the screwdriver. Nowhere! Eventually, I bought a new cross-head screwdriver.

A while ago, I needed some screws. I usually have packets of them in the 'compartmentalised screw, washer, whatsit, and thingammy-bob container'. I could not find the right size screws there. This time I didn't look in all the usual hideouts for lost things. I had a half thought, 'I have used them....' The rest of the thought should have been furnished with my memory of where I had used them. My memory had nothing. Puzzling.

I use the same once expensive office paraphernalia back-pack at least twice a month (I bought it cheap in a charity /thrift shop). Like most backpacks it has compartments for stuff. This one has a laptop pocket and those little loops that hold pens, so unless I am going to my Westminster office or the one on Wall Street, I don't use it. In truth, my office in the UK is called the toilet, or when I am in the US, the bathroom  (I have never been). All I use my special office paraphernalia backpack for is a bit of light shopping that goes into the main compartment; until yesterday when I attended an event. Someone gave me an A6-sized card and I had to put in somewhere. I found the Phillips / cross-head screwdriver and three packets of screws of three different sizes.

Where had I been and when? I often find that I am at a specific time and place that should have a link to a part of my past, yet I don't know what it is. They are kind of like when someone comes up to you as though they know you and gush a bit, and you are struggling to remember their name or why they like you so much.

     'We must catch up more often!'

Not going to happen!

Newly found screwdriver and screws ahand (sic - but you will struggle to find the definition online - 'in hand'. It is a bit like 'afoot' and 'abound')

(Newly found screwdriver and screws ahand) I thought 'Spooky!' Clearly, I had used the screwdriver and screws somewhere outside of my home, and not locally, otherwise they would have gone into my pocket. If I put them into the office paraphernalia back-pack I probably also put something else in the main compartment. Since I use the backpack fairly often and have done so many times since I lost the screwdriver and screws, either the tool (if it was a tool) is back in the toolbox or a cuckoo clock (If I ever had one) is on someone's wall.

You know when optimists say, 'Never say never!'? At this stage in my critical thinking, I am going to say, 'Never say I never had a cuckoo-clock'. I might have had more than one but like the screwdriver and screws disappearing and appearing a while ago Cuckoo-clocks or jars of honey (no screws needed) might also have done so. Did I go with them?

I have recently been thinking about whether mass can cross from one plane of existence to another, and haven't reached a conclusion on that. However, I am fairly certain that it can't. This leads me to understand that I have done a job nearby but have absolutely zero memory of it. Although I do remember when I could not find the screwdriver; from which I extrapolate, I probably last used it two years ago. 

I just really hope I had a good time when I fixed something somewhere some time ago. Did anyone come up to me and gush a bit and say 'Thanks'?

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[ 12 minute read ]

Accident or Designed for Change?

In 1988, I made a huge amount of money by winning 46 consecutive horse races that I had bet on. It started with my friend coming over and he finding me watching horse-racing on channel 4 on the television. In those days, there really wasn't much else to watch on the 'telly'. He suggested we put some money on the races. We chose a horse in a race that had a start time that was after the time it would take me to cycle two and a half miles to the nearest betting shop. My horse won and his lost. He went home and I made another choice, cycled, bet and won. 

This started an interest in gambling that never became an addiction. I told myself that I would stop betting once I lost, and I did. But that loss was on a different type of horse race. In that Summer, I had been betting on 'flat' races with the horses never having to jump fences. Track conditions remain pretty much the same ('firm' and 'good' and not 'heavy' or 'soft') and the horses form and jockey weights can be read by anyone.

Word got around that I always won and friends and acquaintances gave me their last money and told me to make a bet for them. They always got a good return, of course, and had a good night in the town that evening.

I lost that 1988 Autumn because the horses went over the 'jumps'. In Autumn, the flat (no fences) horse racing stopped and the Autumn and Winter races had fences for the horses to jump over. The ground conditions were changeable even on the same day and became a variable that could not be relied on, but there was a factor that I had not recognised before. It is quite difficult for a jockey to slow a horse down without some protest being made when they race over the 'flat'; people can see what is going on. When a horse jumps over a fence it 'might' jump badly. A horse could be in the lead as it jumps and then by the time it recovers after it has landed, is fourth or fifth, even seventh. I also noted that it was much more difficult to find horse races with less than seven horses in it. But I was intrigued by how a horse jumps and lands and recovers.

Anyone who has seen the Grand National can see for themselves that horses with no jockeys still jump but not nearly so well that they get to the lead, even without the weight of the jockeys on them. Quite obviously, a jockey can guide a horse to jump well or not. This is a variable that is not openly quantifiable, in that not many people know if the owner or the jockey wants a horse to perform well. 

I realised that I had been paying close attention to the odds of a horse winning over the flat, and knew that if a horse performs badly enough times, the odds of it ever winning could become quite large indeed; 33-1 and 60-1 were not uncommon. This meant that in a fantasy horse racing video game, as an owner I would instruct the jockeys to 'pull' my horses (hold them back when they jump) for a while, knowing how good my horses really are and then place a million pound bet for it to win a race when the jockey was instructed to win.

I have made more bets on horses and F1 but only with pence and only after decades without betting. It is too easy to lose by not recognising that we can't see all the 'opportunities' of serendipity likely to become 'opportunities' of failure and loss. I heavily hedge my bets when betting on the Formula One races these days, quite simply because it is much more difficult to see a pattern and so I would never make a large bet on a single racer or team.

All the above is entirely true, in that I hedged my bets but always returned a significant profit; and so I lost as many races that I ever won, apart from the first two in 1988. The tiny losses I make these days are because I don't hedge my bets and I only spend pence so it is really to check for the same things i could see forty years ago.

What follows is a work of fiction based on how my imagination works and real facts. The race results and events in Formula One are accurate; the boxing and football are all true, but whether I made any money on them, or why, is based on imagination inspired by my earlier days of betting on horses. The Swiss Cheese method is absolutely real.

Incidentally, it is true that I have been able to apply the same mental tactics of hedging my bets with betting strategies in horse-racing on Formula One races and always come out on top. A good story should always make the audience believe it is true; sooo...I leave it up to you to pick out the fictional parts or make your own 'guesses'. 

Accident or Designed for Change?

In 2007, Lewis Hamilton narrowly missed out on becoming the Formula One World Champion. In the final race, at Interlagos, Brazil, he only had to finish third; he was set to do so, and then mysteriously, and suddenly, his car developed electrical problems and his position slipped to seventh. (Wikipedia states that it was a gearbox problem but I remember Murray Walker (it wasn't him) saying it was an electrical problem -it also states that Hamilton needed to be second or better to win but I heard the commentators say it was third). Mysteriously, Hamilton's race car, once he was safely in seventh position, started running at race pace again. He had no chance of improving his position and remained in seventh for the rest of the race. He lost by a single point to Kimi Räikkönen; so seventh is where Hamilton needed to be to not become World Champion. Had he have won the World Championship he would have been the first rookie (first year of racing at that level) AND the first black F1 Champion. While Michael Schumacher was winning his World Championships, Formula One races were widely seen as representing merely a procession of highly tuned, and very expensive, race cars; people were getting turned off from watching the races at home and, I suspect, there was something else more interesting to watch on the television. This meant that, although I can't be sure, revenue from TV rights to air the races was dropping or negotiations were showing a lessening of interest to show them. 

The Swiss Cheese Model

In high-risk and complex systems, such as in aviation, healthcare, and manufacturing, it is incredibly difficult to establish what when wrong when there is a failure in the systems or when a lot of people suddenly die; was it human error or did something in the manufacture or amalgamation of a non-human system break?

In 1990, British psychologist James Reason developed The Swiss Cheese Model of accident causation. His model has been 'widely adopted to help identify and mitigate risks by emphasizing that accidents are often the result of multiple, smaller failures that align like holes in Swiss cheese.' (Michael Matthew, 2024).

Essentially, if we imagine some slices of Swiss cheese (lots of holes) taken at intervals in the cheese (random slices), not all the holes will line up. If we take a pencil and stab at these slices there will be almost no chance the pencil will pass through the slices by only moving within the holes (in other words not damaging the slices). While we can understand that not all complex systems are designed with random Swiss cheese slices in mind, we might understand that John Gall, a systems theorist told us in Galls Law that a complex system must first start from a simple system; so there is always in the development of complex systems, significant opportunity for 'slices' of the system to be aligned in order that no 'pencils' can pass through any aligned 'holes' in the complex system. In aviation and space travel particularly, there are as many as two redundant systems just for vehicle control, such as for attitude, direction, and elevation. If one of three systems breaks there are still two that are available. There are often three computers that do the same job in complex systems. At least two of these computers must agree as to what is taking place, and/or agree as to what to do next, just for normal activity.

Moving the slices

What if we wanted to generate an 'accident' or perhaps more generously, someone or an entity wanted to manipulate an environment for some reason. That may come across as sinister, but there is a common term for this, 'moving the goalposts'. Most of us will understand this to mean that if we interacted with a system, it used to be easier than now to benefit from it. Those of us who do not understand the common term; imagine that goalposts in a game of football (soccer) are 4 metres apart today and 3 metres apart tomorrow, it would be harder to score a goal tomorrow than it is today.

The football match (soccer) is a good example for showing that something can be made easier to do if the 'goalposts' are moved or the 'slices' are moved so more holes line up. A while ago, 'Match' footballs (soccer balls) used to be made of leather and were quite heavy (even heavier when wet). It was difficult to score goals from far from the goal-line simply because it was heavy. Moreover, footballers had less control of the ball, it didn't bounce much, and no-one really wanted to head the ball. Later, 'Match' balls were vulcanised rubber covered in leather panels; modern technology and innovation was the primary drive towards this. These were still pretty heavy due to the leather component.

Ultimately, Adidas, who had the contract in 1982 for making World Cup match balls, started the process of changing the scoring rate in football, by moving the 'slices' so a favourable event, a goal, became more likely simply because their 'Tango' football, although still having leather panels, were coated in polyurethane to make them water repellent.

In the late 1980s, the World Cup match ball had no leather and instead had a latex bladder and synthetic outer panels; way lighter and did not get significantly heavier when wet. Sometimes we see footballers dry the ball on their shirts when they 'thrown in' the ball from the sideline to one of their team-mates. We can guess that they want the ball to be as light as possible, by removing the water (which also creates drag) so the receiving player can control it better and thereby increase the chances of scoring a goal. Football became much more exciting and new generations of talented footballers became stars with their clever ball manipulation; 'Bend it like Beckham'. A talented footballer can take advantage of the drag on a football moving through air, simply by making it spin for longer than a slightly 'furry' leather panelled ball.

Slices of Boxing

Floyd Mayweather Junior, by my understanding, is undefeated in all his fifty fights. In 2015, he fought Manny Pacquiao and won (obviously). That was a while ago. BBC news, on their website, has reported today that Pacquiao and Mayweather are to agree to another professional match. Pacquiao is 47 and Mayweather is 48.

Here is the thing. Many people say that Mayweather is only undefeated because he never faced a good challenger. Well, Pacquiao was a very good fighter; he won twelve world titles across eight weight classes. So, why did Pacquiao lose? And why is the BBC reporting that Pacquiao saying he will only agree to fight Mayweather if the two fighters come to understand one another? Doesn't this imply Pacquiao has always been upset by how Mayweather has remained undefeated?

Slices of Formula One

In 2007, The results for the final race were:

1. Kimi Räikkönen
2. Felipe Massa
3. Fernando Alonso
4. Nico Rosberg
5. Robert Kubica
6. Nick Heidfeld
7. Lewis Hamilton 

(https://www.formula1.com/en/results/2007/races/824/brazil/race-result)

In 2008, Lewis Hamilton in the final race of the season, in Brazil, only needed to come in the top five to become 2008 World Champion. On the chicane immediately preceding the finish line Hamilton was running sixth behind Timo Glock. For no apparent reason Glock went wide on the bends and Hamilton overtook him, to become F1 2008 World Champion.

I won a lot of money on Hamilton being the 2008 F1 World Champion because I understand how holes in Swiss cheese can be aligned; and he developed engine problems in 2007. I think Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather know their sport exceeding well. My large bet in September will fully, and firmly, be on Pacquiao winning. I shall also bet on the fight (of however many rounds it will go), as being, going right to the very end. It will go the whole distance for full excitement factor for the fans. I can't decide on which rounds either of them will be knocked down, nevertheless, it will be really close to the bell for the end of the round; for both of them. Perhaps, I shall instead hedge my substantial stake on who the winner is, by betting on both of them being floored twice, as a very safe bet!

You can lose more than just your money if you gamble.

References

Michael Matthew, 2024, 'What are the key principles of The Swiss Cheese Theory of Accident Causation?', SAFETY.INC, https://www.safety.inc/post/what-are-the-key-principles-of-the-swiss-cheese-theory-of-accident-causation

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[ 8 minute read ]

Fight like a General

According to The Art of War, attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, in the section on Cowardice, there are five dangerous faults which will affect a General. Here are four of them explained.

I like to consider that we, in the modern Global North, are all Generals in that we have to navigate our own ways in more and more individualistic settings. There used to be a family way which had family values, and shame could be showered down on the whole family if a single member was naughty or rude. Now, it is every man and woman for themselves. Well, it seems so.

Bravery without forethought

Ts' ao Kung said this causes a [person] to fight blindly and desperately like a mad bull. Chang Yu offered that such a person must not be encountered with brute force, but must, instead be lured into ambush and trapped (slain). 

Does anyone know how to set an ambush? I think in the modern world we are looking at people who just blindly attack with words and only sometimes we come across a person who thinks that punching is a solution. Attacking with words is just so easy to do. On the road: 'You naughty monkey! You cut me up. Why didn't you just wait your turn. You make yourself so angry!' might be a polite way of saying that someone is an idiot and should not be allowed out without their parents or care-giver, but it gives us no clues how to set a trap. 

Consider this: When we are affronted, it is often because we have been in a verbal confrontation. If the perceived attacker is in a work environment or is a 'professional' a written complaint can be made. I have an example of a complaint I am still setting up as an ambush: In an interview setting, the interviewer admitted to be still under training. My suspicions had been aroused because the interviewer's technique was dated and not at all conducive to following a pattern of open discussion. It irritated me. I asked to speak to a manager to highlight the problem. The manager re-enacted the same scene to see if I was triggered by that environment. My actual point was on the choice of words that caused people to feel as though they had no choice. Having no choice triggers my PTSD. My complaint about the manager must not include any reference to why I was annoyed at being put through an enactment of the original interview. I need the investigators to ask the manager, 'Why did you re-enact the environment to which you think he was complaining about?' Remember this: I was merely suggesting that the interviewers stop using the word 'must' and instead use the word 'should'. 'Should' is softer and implies that there is a choice of action. I was not complaining about the interviewer or the interview in itself. I need the manager to answer the investigators, 'I wanted to see if his PTSD was triggered by the interview technique.' Bingo! The trap is sprung. The manager knows I have PTSD and 'must not' deliberately trigger it or act in a way that is known or suspected to trigger my PTSD for any experiment. If I include in my complaint about the manager that I suspect my PTSD was deliberately triggered, there will be no expectation of inadvertent admission of guilt by the manager because the manager will not use it as a reason for re-enacting the original interview.

Because my PTSD relates, in a lot of ways, to being physically, psychologically and verbally attacked, I perceive verbal confrontation as an attack and the prelude to a battle. According to Chang Yu (above) I should not engage in a 'to and fro' argument with ever rising voices and loss of logical control. In other words, I should withdraw without letting my emotions control my actions.

Ssu-ma Fa, summarises it thus: 'Simply going to one's death does not bring about victory.'

Cowardice which leads to capture

Ts' ao Kung defines cowardice here as: '... being of a [person] whose timidity prevents them from advancing to seize an advantage'

Of course, we have to understand that in the modern world in which we are not attempting to acquire someone else's land or treasure we would consider someone who seeks to take advantage of a situation to destroy another person to be a monster. Here though, is the modern world as it really is.

     'I see you have an item for sale for 1,000 monetary units. Would you take 500?'

This is someone trying to take advantage of a situation. The item is for sale. There are generally two reasons for this: flipping it to make a profit; and selling it to cover a debt. Let's look at profit. The seeking and acquisition of wealth is a drive that is shared by persons who have no other way to satisfy themselves. They are weak and are no different to drug addicts whom, let's face it, most of us despise because they are 'weak' and probably treacherous. They are not. By the way, drug addicts don't despise other drug addicts solely on the basis that the despised person, is an addict.

The other reason for selling is to overcome a debt. Someone selling property to overcome a debt is plainly a person in a weak position. Selling property is often a loss to a person's wealth since more is usually paid to purchase it in the first place. There is however, the third position; selling an item because it is no longer needed.

     'No, I will take 850 monetary units, though.'

There are a couple of things that may be going on that rankle me. I loathe negotiating a price for these reasons: The seller's price is higher than the value of the item to the seller. The much reduced buyer's price is much lower than the value of the item is to the buyer. Looking at both positions I call both the seller and the buyer cheats. Game on, then. Let battle commence. They deserve to destroy each other. If I buy something from someone I always ask why they are selling it.

Continuing - Cowardice which leads to capture:  Wang Hsi said, 'who is quick to flee at the sight of danger,' T'ai Kung said, '[They] who let an advantage slip will subsequently bring upon [themself] real disaster.'

In battles, there are usually two opposing forces. In an office environment a single statement can serve to cause the whole office to decide on taking and defending opposite standpoints. A cry of 'sexist!' will usually work to encourage more supporters to the accuser's side than the accused's. Most of us can weather that, if it gets to a decent manager's attention and we can show the claim to be out of enmity, vicarious animosity, or vindictiveness. However, if the claim is quietly made among co-workers there is a potential that anyone in the same camp of agreement by dint of being gullible and persuaded by a  good orator, will perceive the accused as less effective in their work and as a manipulator and a bully. A general air of resentment will permeate the workplace and no manager will recognise the source or effect, and so it will remain like a foreign agent 'sleeper' in a spy film, waiting to assassinate the accused. Time to advance methinks, before the 'sleeper' gets into a good sniping position behind the curtains. The cheat or liar or vicious accuser needs a bucket of fluorescent paint thrown over them so they can be easily seen for what they are.

Meng Shih said, '[the person] who is bent on returning alive; this is the [person] who will never take a risk.'

A hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults

It is not really difficult to imagine someone who shuts themselves away from a fight and is then so incensed by continued insults that they rush out ill-prepared and attempt to fight. Of course, in the modern world, a sustained barrage of insults is definitely bullying, so this 'hider' if they are canny will never come running out with a blunt sword. However, if they did they would be a bad General of their own self. It is a bad fault for a General to have a hasty temper, that can be provoked by insults.

A delicacy of honour which is sensitive to shame

A sense of honour is not the bad thing. Honour and integrity must be sought, valued, and guarded against attackers. Sun Tsu condemns an exaggerated sensitiveness to slanderous reports. If we return back to the slanderous claim that someone is sexist, a bad General will act in a desperate manner because they are immediately thrust into making decisions from within an emotional cul-de-sac.

Indeed, we have moved on from being able to shame our families in the modern world so this is not a consideration that bars inappropriate behaviour anyway, so there is a reduced chance of having such a delicacy of honour as is proposed to be susceptible to shame in the same way as it would have been only a generation or two ago.

Personally, I have an ongoing situation in which I made a suggestion as to how some language and written approaches could be enlivened and at the same time made less provocative. My suggestion has been taken to be an emotional response to a single comment. I am allowing this scenario to unfold as such. The responders are basing their responses to me from their emotional standpoint in the hope it connects with my own emotional standpoint. Yet, I did not use my emotions to declare a fault. I have a greater plan; but it will take time for it to unfold. It is vital that I do not have a real time conversation in which I may lose track of my original point by being distracted, or worse, providing tools to undo my original point.

Sun Tsu: 'an exaggerated sensitiveness to slanderous reports, the thin-skinned [person] who is stung by opprobrium, however undeserved.'

Mei Yao: 'The seek after glory should be careless of public opinion'. Which is somewhat paradoxical because glory is played out in public. I think it means that public opinion should not be a reason not to seek glory.

Reference

Giles. L (trans). Gutenberg Press (2024). 'Sun Tsu on the Art of War', 1910. Available at: https://www.gutenburg.org/files/132/132-h/132-h.htm

Accessed 01 December 2024 - Now no longer available 

Try this available site: https://suntzusaid.com/book/8/12

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[ 8 minute read ]

The knee of emotion

Logic makes open challenge

P1:

P2:

C:

If I write a sentence by stating my opinion and follow it with a sentence that seeks to qualify it as valid in a wider community what am I trying to do?

Let's look at this from the position of someone who is making a knee-jerk reaction to something.

First, I need to explain what I mean by 'knee-jerk'. If a doctor hits your knee in the right place with a little hammer your knee will reflexively jerk and your foot will flick forward. It is uncontrollable, and is a reflex action. Ducking your head, in order to avoid injury, when you perceive something moving towards it, is not a reflexive action. It is a movement that is both learnt and controllable. Neither is it instinctive; babies and infants will not move out of the way of items that are about to impact them. However, babies will blink and jump if you blow hard into their faces; this is a reflexive action and is an act of self-preservation.

With this in mind, someone who has determined that a particular belief is worthy to be embraced and nurtured as either their own or as a subscriber to a wider view of something, often makes that belief integral to their daily life and how they deal with the world and its complications. We, as humans have a need to feel that we belong to a group. We also have a need to recognise that we wear a lot of hats; mother, father, boss, politician, doctor, drug-dealer; whatever position we find that allows us to imagine that we possess some degree of usefulness. It is an 'ego' thing. I shall not elucidate on what I feel that 'ego' means since my interpretation of it is clear from the 'wearing hats' thing.

I am however, going to use 'ego' as a coin in the game of life. My mum used to play board games with me and lose. Her ego was not dampened by being bettered; she deliberately lost to me. Her 'mother' hat allowed her to take a lower competitive position as an individual in order to boost my confidence as someone who can win; she took 'ego' from her individual bank, deposited it in her mother bank, and then transferred it to my individual bank completely without me noticing. She made logical decisions.

Ego is controllable but it takes a conscious decision to recognise ego and position it in an hierarchy of values. In the case of my mum beating me at board games; she did not actually spend any ego, she merely reshaped it. 'I am doing the right thing by not quashing his confidence (and ego) by not consistently thrashing him at every game we play'. Her ego remained intact. What this means is that ego when controlled in the right way can pay dividends. Unfortunately, if the dividends are not passed on we have an overblown personality. 

An example of an over-blown ego, or as I just mentioned 'personality' is someone who has paid dividends from their personal or individual ego into their public role by wearing a hat of responsibility. Believing oneself to have the right idea and promulgating it as concrete and infallible is someone with an overblown ego or personality. Often, though, these persons need to belong to a group of like-minded thinkers, such as a church. Now, I am using the word 'church' as a short-cut because it has connotations that most of us are familiar with; that of a group of like-minded people gathered together to support each other in maintaining a belief system. A family is a church in the same way. I am using the word 'church' because it has a recognised structure to it.

They need to 'belong' because their belief and indeed their daily life is based on their emotions. As far as I can tell, emotions need to be topped-up and stroked and individuals need to frequently talk to their emotions to re-assure themselves that they have chosen to believe the right things. This is beyond mere companionship. Unfortunately, there are occasions when individuals barging through life with their emotions as a banner presented as themselves, come across an incident, that taken from their emotional standpoint, is an antithesis to their carefully cultured ego, even though they have not consciously shaped it. 

     'Oh no! This person has views that are contrary to my own. I must drive a wedge between the value of this person's opinion and that of my group's belief.'

This is when a sentence starts with 'I' and is followed by a sentence that includes 'we'.

     'I believe that taxes are too high. We don't want high taxes.'

Firstly, the individual has every right to state how they feel. It is freedom of speech, which is valued throughout nearly all of the English-speaking countries. Here I have intentionally poked the sleeping tiger in many people. Some will think of the United States of America; some will think of countries in the United Kingdom; a few people, I believe, will think of Canada, Australia or New Zealand. People who thought of African countries or India are thinking of the spread of English through imperialism. In all examples there is room for debate since there are different views and an opportunity to introduce and share nuances within the scope of the argument. Viewpoints should be offered as premises in an argument; almost inevitably they are not, because people have over-blown egos. Perhaps an argument could be made for quelling free-speech, or an argument could be made for shaping free-speech.

Canny people will recognise this post as a loose argument for shaping free-speech.

     'I believe that taxes are too high. We don't want high taxes.' This is a rallying cry. It is a trumpet calling troops to a battle. It is a fox-hunters horn to draw other warriors and hunters to quash a rebellion or have some 'sport'.

I read somewhere that most people find conversations more interesting when they have done most of the speaking. Loosely: Mental stimulation is greater when we have to form sentences rather than absorb them. Many domestic arguments occur in homes that have stale marriages and mundane daily activities simply because domestic arguments are mentally stimulating. 

Calling our 'brothers and sisters' to arms either for sport or to attack a contrary belief has its own reward. Many people feel that they are supported by belonging to a group. However, many people are not content with belonging to a film-lovers group or a tennis club. Many people see themselves as warriors for a cause. These are dangerous people. They enter environments with their egos and emotions, not only exposed but honed, before any sense of logic gets a chance to raise a hand for permission to speak. Emotions are not polite.

Knee-jerk reactions thrive on raw sensation. In the real world, in the doctors surgery, it is the nervous system that is tested with a little hammer gently knocking a knee. In the mental world, it is logic that knocks the knee of emotion.

Devoid of emotion, logic does not care for individuals. It espouses politeness. It tears down belief systems. However, logic is not a weapon used for destruction; it is an equaliser.

     'Taxes are too high. We don't want high taxes.'

This is a rallying cry that demands a division of persons. A line is drawn. Everybody who agrees go to the left (or right - this is not politics); everybody who disagrees stand on that side.

Many people will support one view and many people will support any opposing view. Logic tells us that the statement above: 'We don't want high taxes' can only belong to one of these groups. Hence, it is only valid if it is supported by at least one other person ('we'). In this way, it calls for at least one other person to stand behind the banner of its meaning. Consequently, it is without doubt, a rallying cry to a specific group of people.

Here is the problem: If there is only one person with a logical view or approach and there is a call to arms of a group with an opposing view; one that is emotionally charged, we have an opportunity for subjugation of an individual. A person using logic cannot make any calls to arms on an emotional level. Hence, logic is overwhelmed by an emotionally charged majority group.

In my head, logic is a referee in a fight between emotions. In other people's heads it is an enemy to their ego.

Here is a good and valid argument:

P1: All quadrupeds have four legs

P2: A cat has four legs

C: Therefore, a cat is a quadruped 

There must be at least two premises to make an argument, so the argument below is not valid. Moreover, the premises may not cancel each other out or negate any other premise.

P1: Films and documentaries about firefighters allow boys to imagine becoming firefighters

C: Therefore, films and documentaries about firefighters are good

Interestingly, an emotionally charged person may feel that this is a sexist opinion. It is not. It is an invalid argument AND it does not present itself as gender exclusive because no premise excludes girls.

This (below) not a good argument because there is no premise that tells us what good is:

P1: Films and documentaries about firefighters allow boys to imagine becoming firefighters

P2: Films and documentaries about firefighters allow girls to imagine becoming firefighters

C: Therefore, films and documentaries about firefighters are good.

This (below) is a good and valid argument:

P1: Films and documentaries about firefighters allow boys to imagine becoming firefighters

P2: Films and documentaries about firefighters allow girls to imagine becoming firefighters

P3: Firefighters save lives and property by extinguishing flames and with rescue operations

P4: Imagining becoming a firefighter helps to drive people towards becoming a firefighter

C: Therefore, films and documentaries about firefighters are good.

However, since P1 and P2 can be combined as:

'Films and documentaries about firefighters allow children to imagine becoming firefighters', it is possible to backtrack and assume that by missing out either P1 or P2 in the argument above, the argument IS gender exclusive because if either of these premises are removed the argument is still good and valid, yet this is not necessarily so. However. the reason given as premise P3 above: 'Firefighters save lives and property by extinguishing flames and with rescue operations'. or any other premise that acts as a qualifier in this argument that has a conclusion that states it is good, MUST remain because 'good' needs to be either qualified or quantified. Where there is no qualifying or quantifying premise there is no good argument and unconnected statements remain only personal opinion. In countries where there is free-speech, opinion may not be attacked. There should not be a call to arms because there should not be a feeling of one's ego being dented. However, be warned; there are monsters out there which approach everything with an emotional lens which they use to analyse everyone else's statements. They have no, or eshew, manners and seek to overwhelm reason with sentiment.

The only thing that can be said in response to a bad or invalid argument is, 'That is your doxy.'

My understanding of LOGIC should not be considered to be entirely correct and I advise and encourage everyone to choose a course on, or read about, Logic, Negotiation and Social Interaction for themselves.

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[ 2 minute read ]

I love Puddles

Wet and Warm

I am fed up with how technology is offered to the people in the form of games, and presents itself in the form of devices that entertain idle thumbs. We all have Smart Phones now, which are neither phone or computer. Even I have a Smart Phone; which I charge every few days but never use more than once every nine or ten charges (a month?).

Most of us don't like poor weather. I like puddles but these days modern technology and wisdom has got us all to stop leaking petrol, oil and diesel onto the roads so I no longer see the iridescent film over the puddles in Summer sunshine. I think I also miss seeing the odd crisp packet, that used to tell me that there was a passing person earlier in the day; or better still - was it a month ago? Oooh! a mystery! Then again I really don't want to see litter after all. I suppose writing murder mystery stories is much harder now that there are no cigarette dog-ends with lipstick on them; a woman killer or a gender-fluid assassin?

     'No idea, Ma'am' the sergeant murmured, scratching under his wig.

No, I think technology should be used for more practical purposes than just toys and telling us about micro-particulates in our food. I want a machine that can roll up puddles, now that they are no fun, and package them to be sent to dry and arid places where they can be digitally restored. If such a machine or puddle transporter ever gets invented I shall set up a travel company for tourists to go to the hot countries to take selfies next to a newly unrolled puddle. I would also give them a complimentary 5ml of oil to drip onto the puddle so they can also get swirling colours on top of them. Of course, I would have little boxes of sunshine to sell them and tripods on which to mount the sunshine, with special analogue tools to make them experience the whole sunshine - puddle - oil 'thing'.

     'Oh my goodness! Is this what grandad and grandma had to do after it rained in Summer?'

     'I think so. Where is the 'on' button for this caterpillar?'

     'Oh wait! I think you have to put it in the puddle and rescue it. Hang on. Let's see what the instructions say...'

     'I've got it! You roll up the puddle, put the caterpillar on the ground and then unroll the puddle on top of it.'

     'Like it just suddenly rained!'

     'Wow! Imagine not knowing it is going to rain. How did caterpillars ever survive? Turn it on.'

     'Ready?'

     'No, wait. We've got to hang these clouds up. We gotta make the picture look realistic!'

     'But then there will be no light reflected from the puddle.'

     'That's what the boxes of sunshine are for! Put the caterpillar there. Oh No, there's a fly; chase it away. Our poor grandparents!'

Later, they might go to my museum where they can see an old crisp packet with mud on it, and a Coca-Cola ring pull that hit someone on their ear.

The tab can be broken from the ring, turned 90 degrees and pushed into one of the little slots either side of where the tab was attached to the ring. When the ring is pulled back and released the tension in the tab launches the ring up to 30 feet or ten metres.

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[ 9 minute read ]

You break me

Passive voice or passive aggression?

Is it possible to hate someone just because they hate you, but having never been the recipient of their distaste?

Well, I can hate every mobile telecommunication business I have yet to be a customer with, based on my experiences of their competitors, with which I have been a customer. That though, is like hating my wife's brother because I hate her other brother; isn't it? Not in this case, I think.

Heuristics and forecasting would allow us to make judgement calls on who or whom to leave well alone, and who or whom to allow some time to prove themselves. However, I propose that this is not so with mobile telecommunication businesses. When you set up a contract with one, you open yourself up to confusion and chaos. Why? Because they want you to change the contract and/or because they have an expectation that you, the customer, wants to change the contract; you know, weirdly, the customer has decided to upgrade or downgrade their prior decision, or decisions. 

So, this is an example of a relationship based on distrust or more accurately, based on a probability that you (the customer) will be unreliable and capricious in the relationship. 

     'Can I pay for the whole two year contract upfront, please?'

     'No.'

Well, their 'no' means because they don't have a system that can deal with an honest person who knows what their needs are, and will be for the duration of the contract, and we, meaning them and also most of us, are certain that no such person exists, so we will never implement such a system.

Money-minded people might think, 'Why would you pay £720 (£30 x 24 months) and not want to get the interest on some of it instead? Quite simply, because you don't get interest on money you don't have. Many of us run our bank accounts dry and so there is no £720 minus £30 every month for interest to ever be applied. If you think about it: saving up the £720 at £30 per month over two years would actually allow interest to accrue (not much though).

Incidentally, I pay a total of £28.80 for two SIMS with different phone numbers on separate contracts; one of which is 'Unlimited Everything', and the other 'Unlimited Texts and Calls and 20GB data'. I don't phone Premium numbers. If my needs change, the balance in my bank account should not. It may be surprising to some people, that my SIM with Unlimited Data never gets used for calls or texts, and my SIM with only 20GB data but with Unlimited Calls and Texts, never gets used for data up and down loads; unless something goes wrong. I never need to change any plan though, because I have a contingency plan. Shock! Horror! Scream! 

I hate telecommunication businesses because they insist on Direct Debit payments. If something goes wrong and there is no money in the account that month (financial scam or digital glitch or even illness), the phone bill does not get paid. What could go wrong? Nothing, if you fall within the group of customers wanting to upgrade or suddenly go roaming because you are the target customer the telecommunication businesses are constantly talking to. They don't want people like me, who just pay to be left alone. No modern business wants customers with no needs to fulfill between one contract and the next.

They hate me. I am an irritation to them. 

Modern 'business' means implementing marketing strategies that are progressively suited to individuals. It is no surprise to me that the UK Government wants everyone to use A.I. or that they will implement Facial Recognition technology in the High Street. It's a bifurcated approach; catch criminals through both their physical and digital presence; and allow British businesses to profile UK citizens and apply targeted marketing strategies, the use of A.I. assistive technology.

The British Government hates me, because my voice on one SIM contract is not available on my other SIM contract. Likewise, my online digital footprint is not matched with my voice or texts or any of my two phone numbers. Worse, I don't even use the same device to send and receive emails as the one I use to look at YouTube or any other web site. I am not hiding from any Governments; I am merely not mindless. You would be right to assume that I also do not use a SmartPhone to access the internet or for emails. And you would be right to guess that I have a spare device for accessing the internet AND an emergency phone.

Why? You might ask, do I go to such lengths to obfuscate any profiling of me? Because almost everyone allows themselves to be profiled; that is why modern marketing relies on profiling - because it can! 

Of course, businesses need to follow a strategy of averages. The average person changes their phone quite often, I think. The average person consumes more and more data, I think. Newer phones do things for you. My phone, which is fairly old, tells me how long it will remain charged, according to my past usage. Thanks - I already know. 

I 'hate' most people even though I haven't met them. I have to set up security protocols that get destroyed by the new safety protocols that businesses set up to protect their customers because their customers have no security protocols of their own. An example: I don't store passwords on any digital device so I need to type them in whenever I go to some websites. The two step security check of sending an email with a security number in it, means I have to type my password for my email account. (This is why I have a different digital device for emails than the one I access websites with - 'cookies!') There are cookies on websites that can read your password as you type it on another website because they tracked you there.

My laptops have microphones on them that can detect not only the speed at which I press the keys but also my typos and that means which keys are pressed. Realistically, this means that I can demonstrate that I know a complicated password because I am not reading it as I type, proving it to be me typing. I digress. The password can be read by the sound of the keys being pressed because they each have different sounds according to where they are on the keyboard AND the speed they are tapped. The quickness between two key strokes and the similar sound of the double 'e' in 'speed' will indicate a repeated letter AND the frequency of the sound in this post reveals it to be the most commonly used letter in the English language 'e'. So, the two-step security protocol reduces my level of security if I use only a single device. Hence, my password for my email account is entered on a device that has not yet downloaded any cookies (fresh start).

It is tremendously worse than that: The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has recently personally informed me that despite the GDPR stating that only personal information pertinent to actually carrying out a task should be requested or passed on to a third party, a business is not in breach of the GDPR if they request an email address and pass it on to a third party delivery business for the delivery of a tangible item. No-one needs an email address to send, carry, or deliver a parcel. However, it has become the norm for businesses to email and text recipients of 'parcel and tangible packages' to tell them where their parcel is. Many people accepted this breach of the GDPR as normal business practice; in fact it is an 'Added Service' (economic value added service).

Your personal details should never be given to a third party without your consent under ANY circumstances. If you order an item to be delivered, your phone number and email address does not need to be known.

Why do businesses want to tell you that they will deliver your package? So they look like they are being friendly and helpful (added value), but importantly, so they don't have to return the next day if you were away. 'We told you we would deliver at this time and date - tough on you if we didn't come back, or it got stolen!' In terms of policing, there is no case to answer.

     'I am sorry Madam / Sir, but by agreeing to receive a text message or email you agreed to accept responsibility of the package once it was delivered.'

Thanks a bunch everyone! I never agreed!

Why did the ICO find that this routine breach of the GDPR is not a breach? Practically every business in the UK would be in court and be fined. If it was a criminal case - 'It is not in the public interest.'

Is it possible to hate someone just because they hate you? Maybe not, but our personal defences utilise any available hormone and enzyme in the body to elicit a similar response to hatred; perhaps 'begrudgement'.

Is it possible to hate people you have never met? I might hate the motorway workmen who build a motorway that just goes over a cliff and have never provided any signs that say so, absolutely! If I tail-gate the driver in front of me, I might not see the cliff edge. If the driver in front of me brakes hard, I will hate that driver for spoiling my journey. Hate the driver who suddenly stops? No, I can't hate a cautious person who responds to a threat by stopping their actions that drive them towards danger.

I hate 'them' because I am reminded of my faults.

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[ 6 minute read ]

Now you see us, now you don't

I met a wonderful woman in ALDI yesterday, whom I could meet every day and never be bored. She is excited and pleased to be alive in a very strange world.

In the frozen produce aisle, Marion had apologised for leaving her basket on the floor next to the frozen fish cabinet, which she thought was in my way because I was leaning sideways over it while I rummaged for Basa (a South-East Asia type of catfish).

       'Oh! No!' I said, 'I was avoiding standing next to that couple moving away there.' I pointed at two people at the end of the aisle near the baking products. 'They were standing the other side of your basket and I didn't want to be too close to them.' I thought I had better explain that. 'The man pulled all the boxes of washing-up liquid off the shelves looking for something and then just shoved them all back all higgledy-piggledy. I thought they might do the same to the fish, so I didn't want to get too near.'

Marion nodded approvingly. 'What? I hate it when people do that! 'Why?', and then fell into telling me how invisible she felt she is sometimes. 

       'People just bump into me and then look straight through me as though I am not there. She gestured with her hands, moving them away from her face, indicating tunnel-vision.

       'I'm sorry! Are you talking to me?' I said. 'I was just talking to myself and then suddenly here you are!'

She smiled, but wasn't quite sure if I was serious. She looked confused, bless her. I immediately liked her, and feeling sorry for putting her off balance, I said. 'They probably don't drive.'

She nodded profusely. 'Probably! They are so selfish and just carry on as though you are not there.'

       'Well,' I went on, 'If they do drive, it will be a black SUV.' I smiled but knew I had messed up. I don't know her at all. Maybe she drives a black car. At the same time I thought black SUV drivers need to know how despised they are by other road users.

      She picked up on my mistake. 'Mine is parked in the car-park,' she frowned at me.

I had it coming. 'Of course.... you would,' I said and went on, 'As soon as I said it to you I just knew the ironic probability was just too high.'

       'Not really.' She said, and smiling, wandered coolly off.

Touché, I thought, touché!

Feeling chastened by recognising my mistake, I picked on a young couple to cheer them and myself up. They had to go a little bit around me, while I watched Marion walk away.

       'I'm sorry,' I said, 'Was I in your way?'

       'No, no. You're fine.' The young woman said.

       'I'm practising getting in people's way to get my own back.'

They laughed. Part of me hoped they drive a black car; I was laughing too.

One of my favourite times in supermarkets is when I keep meeting the same person in each aisle. It is so awkward. Both of us have agreed that our conversation earlier has fizzled out and now we have to ignore each other or nod, or wave, or blow raspberries at each other or something. We both feel foolish and embarrassed. I sometimes wish I had never spoken to them earlier. Maybe we might hunch our shoulders at each other to say, 'Who would have thought it?' or 'What a surprise!' I usually just play it safe and leave it at 'Hello'. Most of the time I can see they think the second meeting is awkward, the third uncomfortable, and the fourth excruciating. That's when I turn around and go back to the first aisle, chuckling to myself.

After I had stopped weaving through the busy supermarket I went to pay. There was only one till with a person open. I joined the queue. Marion had her back to me, right in front of me, so I carried on our conversation to her back as though we had not parted.

       'Crikey! For a moment there you just disappeared and I was talking to myself.'

She smiled, 'Oh Hello again.' She seemed okay with more conversation. She seemed very relaxed, even pleased to see me, and that is when she told me about the leopard people.

       'Have you seen the people who come in here every few days and look like leopards?'

       'No, I only come about once a week. They look like leopards?'

       'Yes. They have spots of different colours, and just walk in and load up their baskets, and then walk out without paying; every few days!'

       'Leopards? Black and white?' I was thinking of vitiligo, which is a lack of pigment in the skin, most obvious as patches of white but healthy skin on black people, and is an auto-immune disorder which can be worsened by stress or environmental conditions.

       'Like lepers, not leopards. They have lumps and bumps all over their faces and hands. Nobody stops them.'

       'Yes. Patches of decaying white skin falling off.' By now though, I was checking to see if she meant pustular psoriasis. I only know it as psoriasis, which I have seen. It is not contagious. The 'pustular' bit I had to learn about this morning.

I have only seen leprosy in an old film on the telly, 'Papillon', in which a convict escaped from Devils Island and shares a cigar with a leper in the jungle. 'How did you know I have dry leprosy? the leper asked in the film. 'I didn't,' is the reply.

I, like many other people, heard about leprosy in history classes at secondary school in the UK. Bits of their bodies deteriorate and fall off, I heard. Of course,  I also heard that medieval monasteries and convents took in and cared for lepers in Europe and the UK, so I understood it was not confined to jungles and damp, warm places, and it is contagious. I didn't learn in school that it can be dry leprosy and not contagious. My school did not tell us about syphilis.

In my head these people had vitiligo or psoriasis, not leprosy, and maybe wore leopard skins but the lumps and bumps, when she said it, chased away the notion of them actually looking like cats and wearing cat-skins.

       'Would you stop them?' I asked amused. This conversation has potential, I thought?

       'No.' she accepted. 'The security don't search them.'

       'Would you search them?'

       'No.'

       'I don't think they should be stopped.' I said. No-one treats them as their equals so we shouldn't expect them to act as our equals. In fact, they are turning our disability into their ability. Maybe the police won't search them either.'

In my head, these 'leopard people' are immigrants that have come from a country where they were ostracised and pilloried, and they have no idea that they might be treated differently in the UK by the health service, even if not by the public. I haven't seen them, but it sounds as though their affliction is quite severe.

Even though they are plainly more visible than other people once we have noticed their skin, they walk in a strange liminal place, somewhere between physically visible and unsightly to us, as in us not wanting to see them. They are so sensually visible, that we try to eradicate their visage from our perception.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a Customs Officer at Immingham docks near Grimsby. I asked him how he can tell if someone should be stopped for questioning and searching. He told me they have a formula and what the formula is,  but added that they do use experience and just pick the right persons mostly. (Customs staff knew me quite well because I would play pranks on them, and they did the same to me and their colleagues. Frequently going through customs with a van can be great fun if you let it happen).

       'One time,' he said. 'I tried to stop an African man, but he wouldn't stop walking and kept telling me that I couldn't see him.  Later, we found he was smuggling heroin, and discovered that he thought that a witch-doctor's spell made him invisible and he would be able to just walk through customs without being stopped. Unfortunately for him, because he wasn't holding up an EU passport we, of course, stopped him.'

The thieves that Marion told me about are in the same strange category of visibility, but diverse within it. What a wonderful world!

'We are the leopard people. You can see us, but you don't want to.' To them we all drive black SUVs. Even though they are there we ignore them and pretend they are not.

Vitiligo (Wikipedia)

An example of sensually inappropriate is: I used to enjoy Rollmop Herrings; loved them. One day, my mum told me that they are raw just as I was chewing on one. I can't look at them now. Rollmops, to me, are sensually inedible.

The woman on the till told me she was pleased to have a conversation with me. She said it lifted her and set her up for her shift. From the looks of disdain from the customer behind me; he couldn't afford a black SUV but would definitely buy a smaller black car, even if it never left his front garden.

Now you see us, now you don't.

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Is this the real life?

[ 3 minute read ]

Following on from the post earlier today at 06:03 am, o'clock, Three minutes past six in the morning, 'Languidly Slumping' (tag: Dog Day). Opens as a new page.

Player 1

It was my turn on stage in ALDI during the 'Grab a mike session'.

       'ALDI has a sign near the entrance that says 'PRODUCT RECALL CHRISTMAS ITEM 'Mozzarella Sticks in Blankets' What's that? You're way ahead of me!'

Such bad grammar these days. 'to' not 'in'. The elderly couple just said 'Probably.' as they came in. They didn't want me to open their day up for them, so they hunched their shoulders a little more, stared at me, looked at each other and grabbed a basket. I think the bloke had been given the Bumper Joke Book for Christmas or had pulled too many crackers for that one to work on him. But, from starting with a woolly head it was to be expected that I was going to be snatching at straws for a time.

A while ago, I met a marvelous woman in the ALDI car park who told me that she was told off for going to the till with a checkout server, when she had only a few items, instead of going to the self-service tills. 

        'Shocking!' I said.

       'I don't want them to take my photo,' she moaned.

       'Quite right too.' I agreed.

I told her then that I consider the people like the couple who rightfully ignored my poor joke, to be Non-Playable Characters (NPC) in a video game. They only have a series of set responses. What I should have said to them was: 'Give me the key!' 

        'First, you must answer three questions correctly.'

They were never going to say that. They were thinking about Colin next door and how his car won't start in the mornings.

Things don't come alive for them like they do for me. If they write about a tiger, it won't scratch at the words and walk off the paper. There is something to be jealous of what they have and I do not. The beans in the tins of Baked Beans don't grow anywhere; they just get in the tins by themselves. They don't realise that Persian people are actually Iranians who live in tents in sand-pits outside of Iran and eat Fry's Turkish Delight when they are not riding their camels. Theu do not realise  that Chinese spies had to work in Chinese restaurants and takeaways in the UK until they managed to get a job elsewhere in the UK. It would never occur to them to use the self-service tills only when they are wearing fancy dress costumes and make-up, and then ask for a copy of the photograph from the manager for their Instagram page.

Katy, at the checkout till, nudged the needle resting on my record, out of the scratch it had got stuck in. She had an opinion on citing, referencing, Shakespeare and literary classics.

       'When are you ever going to use iambic pentameter? ' She sceptically asked. 

       'When I am a politician or spokesperson,' I haughtily replied. 'The stressed and non-stressed syllables make sentences more sing-song.'

She raised an eyebrow at me and looked at the woman behind me who had earlier been eavesdropping on a conversation I had had with a woman from the Caribbean, on how I was going to try using Worcestershire Sauce as an alternative to Soy Sauce to reduce my addiction to it. 

She just laughed.

My days aren't always like this. I rehash them when I get home. The conversations are all real. I really do talk to shoppers and supermarket workers. When I write or tell people about my days, I highlight a few dots and make a point of joining them up differently to how they actually played out in the real world. I did say, today, I shall add Worcestershire Sauce to my vegetable bakes instead of Soy Sauce, to reduce my addiction; and a woman did laugh when she overheard our conversation. Katy, the checkout woman did ask me about iambic pentameter and I did make a joke of the recalling a Christmas product called 'Mozarrella Sticks' to an elderly couple.