Show The Working

My maths teacher always told me to show the working.
I couldn't.
I could see the answer, but not how I'd got there.
I'm older now.



It's only fair of me to say that the opinions I have on things are partly based on a lot of reading over the years. I'm not in fact that big a reader, it's just I don't really read novels. I prefer something that's going to tell me something I don't know.
I like to see something in a whole new light when I've finished.

But more importantly, my opionions are based on my own experiences and observations, on my own thoughts on the questions I have found myself asking.
I'm only relatively young still. I'm sure several of my opinions will alter in time.

My childhood wasn't awful, but it was stifling.
I was never an overacheiver at school. I was considered gifted but lazy, as well as a disruptive influence.
I thought school a complete waste of time, and I still think most of it was.
Ironically, it wasn't learning I hated. I'd skive school to stay at home and read Spenser and Malory as a teenager.

Going to University was the best day of my life. For me, it really was the first day of the rest of my life.
I pretty much broke with my family, only to see them at Christmas and Birthdays, and I don't really regret that decision. There have been occasions when I had to return to living with my parents for odd spells, but we don't see the world the same way.

At University, I led a sort of double life.
I lived it up. A lot.
I didn't do a lot of studying.
For three years I slept from 6 AM to 1 PM.

But I was also active in a political party for the first and second year. At one point I even had a position in it.
I was pretty good on the doorstop, wearing a Rosette. That bit I enjoyed.
The meetings bored the hell out of me.
I understood the arguments we spouted, to the degree of how to use these tools in debate.
But I never thought of the issues in human terms.

Hell, ultimately, I supported them because it was my favourite colour...

Well, three years of wasterdom left me pretty ill equiped for working eight hours a day, five days a week, even with a bit of paper saying I had a degree.



I ended up in sales, because I wanted a job that I could get paid for without working too hard, and still have money to get completely trashed on Pills on a Friday night.

This lack of a plan, did get me into a hell of a mess over the years. I drifted blindly through relationships, sold a variety of different products and experienced a lot of things, good and bad, that many people never do.

I had a pretty mispent youth, but I also suffered through it. I went through a few Hells.

I suppose I really began to become very thoughtful in my late twenties.
I found myself questioning so much of the world we live in. I couldn't help but ask, do these things HAVE to be that way?
Why are things that way?

I found myself applying my own observations to political and economic lines of thought.
I think you have to truly go through Hell, to truly question.

One thing I could say for sure, there wasn't much constructive I had acheived.
But that in itself raised a problem. Whilst this was certainly all my fault, it didn't alter the fact that my making zero contribution to society WAS a loss to society. Even if I had little talent, it was some talent of some sort, and society certainly hadn't received it.
And then I saw the deeper problem. Individualism cuts both ways. I had used my individualism to get an easy life, without really giving anything.

And let's be honest, that's what I do now, except I'm better at it.
But only because I'm better paid, have a stable life, don't take drugs every weekend, and therefore, can make it work.

I'm paid, but trust me, my social contribution remains ZERO.



The problem with Individualism, is that it leads people like me to structure their lives in a way that pleases them best. They always will.

The society we live in, basically rewards me better for contributing nothing to its overall well being, than anything socially useful.

I'd love to write for a living, but no one would pay me.
So I work as a salesman.

I lead a cushy life. Do I deserve it?
Not a jot.
I'm just benefitting from living in the right part of the world, and having found a way of making the system work for me without trying too hard.

I'd love to make a positive difference- but I'm not paid to.
I actually hate the concept of selling my labour. I often feel no better than a prostitute.
I just can't get excited by the corporate drivel one talks day in, day out.
It's Newspeak, all of it. I feel positively soiled by it.

And I loathe the crap we all pretend about the virtues our society pretends to have.
So many of the accepted values of our society, the orthodoxies of our time are some of them, completely ludicrous.

And if you publically question them, they'll shout you down. They won't let you be heard.

These are the reasons why, I FEEL crushed by Ingsoc.

Interest- The Demon that Drives

Ed has challenged me to explain what he calls my dislike of Capitalism.
So I shall.
Actually it's not a dislike at all, it serves me well. I live in a rich country. I live very comfortably.
I make hay while the sun shines.

But I look ahead in alarm.
As does anyone in a position of power who is staring with alarm at the inevitable.
Trust me, this is what the Bilderburg Group REALLY discuss.
They discuss what to do, when they just can't control the demon anymore.
And they arm themselves against the riots. That's why they want a Police State now.

It's us they fear.

If the debt was all called in, the world would be in the red.
That day is doomsday.
Because then, the whole global economy sits on a house of cards.
But that day must come.

Lets just explain for a second, how the economy works.
In a pre-monetary culture, the value of everything is relative.

When cows are plenty, you get less turnips for a cow than when cows are scarce.

Silver being easier to carry around then cows, working out the value of everything relative to little lumps of silver is a good idea for people who seek to take the exhange of goods thing to a new level.

By watching when things are scarce or plenty and taking advantage of those cycles, they end up with more possessions.

So silver coinage becomes a facet of organised cultures.

In such culture, usury can be useful to an individual, but overall it is a social nuisance, unless kept to absolute necessity.
If I borrow ten silver coins and promise to repay you eleven, it stands to reason, I am looking to find some way of making twelve.
Whatever way I choose, means someone else being down two silver coins.

In a finite community, this sort of thing can spiral out of hand, because there really are only a finite amount of silver coins. In those days, money didn't just grow on trees. It's value was fixed.

So in this sort of culture usury aids those with lots of silver coins to profit from someone's misery, even if it isn't the borrower, but someone further down the line.

Monarchs and Rulers could benefit from it, and thus it survived.

But the advent of world trade changed that. Now usury had a purpose.

Usury was reinvented as a positive. Now it could provide funds for speculative ventures which would of their very nature, bring dividends. It was used to create the money tree which financed the plantations, the tea schooners and the slave ships.

And then people saw what the money tree could do.
And it did some pretty amazing things.
It powered the industrial revolution, it taught the common people to read and write, it built railways, steamships and telegraph lines.

Because there were always new markets. You borrowed ten thousand, promised to repay eleven thousand, and made twenty thousand through trade.

This was the miracle of free trade.



There is of course a problem.
Silver is finite. There is a limit to what is in the world. The world is finite.

Everyone can't borrow AND repay for ever. What are they going to repay with?

Now in a silver currency, you can have deflation as well as inflation. If someone finds a silver mine, the value of silver drops. Inflation.

If a fleet of Spanish ships sinks, deflation, The silver is worth more, there's less of it.

But a system used to perpetual growth gains a new dynamic. A continuous pressure on prices. The only brake on this is the fact that the coinage really is finite. There is only a finite amount of silver. In fact, by this time, most countries had adopted the gold standard, linking coinage to value in gold ingots.

The pressure is simple. With so many people in debt, if there is a hiccup and trade goes bad, they owe money they can't repay. Not only that, with goods being scarce, traders are tempted to put their prices up.
Both these problems mean that those not in debt want wage rises, just to put things back on a level.
These times were hard times, but eventually trade would pick up again.

Inflation on a modern scale was only seen in countries with 'fiat' money. This is money which is worth what people say it is. It isn't tied to anything. You CAN make as much as you like. So it keeps inflating.

But when the growth really did slow down for good, when it really did stop, there was a problem.

The banks were the mainstay of the world. They lived on interest. The world was driven by the motor of profit.
But it was a demon that needed feeding, and there was no more for it to eat.
Infinity is an imaginary number.



And since the war, it has continued.
Eating money that isn't there.
The imaginary debt figures rise, but who would repay it, if it was called in?

The Credit side goes down, the Debt side goes up.

And no one knows how to stop it.
In a sense it doesn't really mean too much. The world won't end when the crash comes, but the economy as we know it will.

Ed, I don't hate it, I can just see that it's an illusion, a growth spurt phase in the history of humanity.
And the last few decades the growth has been an illusion- fuelled mainly by the illusion that people were 'buying' their own homes, rather than taking out loans for life.
The Economy doesn't really grow any more, it's just the Interest is still fed.

When it can't eat any more, the system is f**ked.

The Last of The Class Battles? You Decide

Monogamy won, by sixteen votes to seven.
Hey, I could have rigged it, if I wanted to!



I argued last night that the terror threat exists largely in the minds of politicians for the express purposes of exploiting Islamophobia, in the time-honoured traditions of Elizabethan England, Nazi Germany and McCarthyite America.

This isn't about Religion.
The hatred of the islamic world for the West has a logical basis.
In our global society, there is no longer a concrete class structure.
As Tony Blair said, we're all middle class now.
But to be middle, someone has to be below.

Because now, the class structure is a global one.
Globally, Whites are the bourgeouisie, non-whites the Proleteriat.

The anti-colonial struggle and the class struggle have become one.
And in spite of our pretence at having ended Racism, the fact is, it's a world run by whites.

That's the real battle.

They are fighting their lands being turned into playgrounds for the amusement of the wealthy white global elite.



They resent their culture being polluted by McDonalds and all the other trappings of their Burger munching, Big Brother Watching White conquerors.

Because the world belongs in the main, to western money.
In socio-cultural terms, we can class the Pacific Rim countries, as being part of the west. Japan, Singapore and Malaysia at least, get away with not being white.

That's what these brown people, who happen to be Muslim are fighting. They unite behind the banner of their faith, because lacking the weapons, they need something to drive them.

But it certainly suits our rulers to blame their religion.

Jenny! has kindly passed on a meme award, which saves some emarrassment because there are a couple of bloggers I should have given one to previously.

Helen, Electro-Kevin, Phishez,



Obviously, you three get to pass it on to three more deserving bloggers.
Those are three blogs worth checking out.

Back to the subject of the Terror Threat, I've bored you all now with what I think, It will be good to hear the consensus view here.
The Poll is on the right in the sidebar.

Have Your Say!

War is Peace- How the Terror Threat Works

It's very simple really.
The balance of power isn't in any real danger. There is no Mutually Assured Destruction. One side has all the bombs.
You are being deceived and encouraged to fear the muslim under the bed.
Trust me, he isn't there.

So how does this work, and what purpose does it serve?



Basically, in 1929, something earth shattering happened.
That permanent exponential growth that Capitalism needs to carry on, hit a plateau.
There was no more room to grow.
There were no consumers to find. The whole world was a world of consumers.
No more fresh markets.

The system began to give.

The World of the Thirties was a world seeking a way out of that crisis.
And it a found a strange way.
This is summed up pretty admirably by Orwell in the 'book within a book'.
Basically, it is the ONLY way you can actually make Keynesianism work.
Yes, you CAN spend your way out of a recession.
But only by deliberate waste of produce and energy.
This is best acheived by a perpetual war economy.

But to prevent it being truly damaging, its best to keep it a phoney war.

I think Hitler would probably have been quite happy bullying small nations in Eastern Europe, rather than fighting real wars.
The same is probably true of Stalin.

But no one was very good at the phoney war game, it was quite new.
The Britsh aim was just to keep playing the two dictators against eachother, whilst strengthening their own government against the left and the right, by uniting the people through fear of the ogres abroad.

It went badly wrong with Nazi-Soviet Pact, which panicked the government into taking Hitler on, in a war caused by clumsy attempts at Machiavellian politics.

After six years of war, and fifty five million dead, they learned better next time.

Because, this war sentiment worked a treat for getting people to surrender their liberties, for fear of a nebulous foe.
If only we never really had to fight.



And so forty years we had the war that would never really have happened.
No one was ever that stupid, that they'd have pressed the button.

But the fear acheive what our masters wanted, on both sides of the curtain.
We knew as little of real life in Romania, as the Romanianans did of England.

I'm not saying life in the Soviet Union was Utopia. It wasn't.
The threat was real, in the sense, that they theoretically COULD have beaten the west somehow.
But it was never likely.
Mutually Assured Destruction.

But it sustained a failing system.
The West survived on a war footing.

And then the Berlin wall came down.

And a new world was born.
A world without armed camps.

But then people started wanting change.
Murmurs of an end to exploitation in Africa, equal treatment for all.

Before the Berlin Wall came down, it was understood that Apartheid was propped up, Israel supported, right or wrong, Ulster Loyalism justified, by its cold war setting.
We backed the 'good' guys.

But now that was gone.
The armed camps were needed.
The demon of blame was needed.
Just as Hitler needed the Jews.
And Kennedy needed Kruschev.

So a cynical game of join the dots is played.



Dot One. A fanatical terrorist group, consisting of a handful of nutters in a cave in Afghanistan successfully hi-jacks a plane and flies it into the Twin Towers.
Shocking carnage. Easier to portray it as far more organised and less the result of sloppy intelligence and pure luck on behalf of the bombers, than it really was.



Dot Two. There is a regime in a country that happens to be Muslim, which the US don't like. It also has the majority of the world's oil and holds everyone bar Russia, France and China to ransom.
(Don't think France or Russia voted on principle at the UN, either).
The dictator has a SECULAR SOCIALIST ideology (of sorts) and persecutes Islamic fundamentalists, but hey, Rupert Murdoch will help out.



Dot Three. Poverty causes social alienation. Of all the non white communities in the UK, Poverty is most felt amongst British Muslims. The Hindus who came from East Africa brought much wealth them. Most Muslims were imported to do the lowest paid work.
They have higher unemployment than the white population. Young socially alienated males tend to espouse militant, even violent causes which target opposing socially alienated males.
In the poor white community, these young males join the BNP.
the socially alienated young Muslim male, further alienated by his different culture, joins similar groups.
The same hate from the same causes, but different skin tones.

Three separate problems.
One common cause.

It's easy then to jump to the conclusion that all the worlds problems can be solved by eliminating Islam.
And the great thing about this foe is he isn't real, and has no nuclear weapons.
It truly is a phoney war.

But they'll have your liberties all the same.

And when they have killed every last Muslim, who will be next?

The Chimney Sweep- One of the Best

I'm not rich, I'm not married to Tyra Banks (yet), I do not have a high flying career and I'm a fairly average guy, really.
But in one sense I am very lucky indeed.

Many people don't have anyone at all in their life who truly cares.
A person who they can always rely on, who they never have to hide things from, who they can talk to about everything.

I have three.
All of whom matter to me in a very important way.
One is my flatmate.
The other two have been my friends for ten and nine years, respectively.
The Baker and The Chimney Sweep.

We all originally met at university. Myself and The Baker lived in the same halls in the first year and we got to know eachother through potsmoking, put bluntly. We did a lot of it back then. We weren't the only ones in our little group of wasters.
But after a while, we found we were generally the ones that were still conscious after several hours, having long, in depth discussions over the causes of the Cold War.

In the Second Year, we met The Chimney Sweep, who was doing his MA, and was a couple of years older- The Baker is between both of us, because he had a gap year.
As I say, at this point there were others in the group- the 'lads', in it's widest sense, as in 'All the lads are going', was about fifteen of us.
But there cliques within cliques, and some of the fifteen hated the guts of others, whilst some sections formed tight knit circles within.

The last time I saw EVERYBODY, was at a party to celebrate one of the 'lads' going off to join the Marines.

During the third year, the 'lads' were really three interconnected groups. We all lived in separate houses. The Chimney Sweep had become part of our little group by then.
And he was a great housemate.

He has a heart of gold. This really is a guy who is one hundred percent malice free. He will do anything for you. But not much common sense.
And, most people agree, he does talk an unbelievable amount of crap. Not as in, it's not true, merely, it's just drivel for the sake of drivelling.
The Chimney Sweep will not tell you in two sentences what he can tell you in fifty.
Sometimes the only way to stop him, is to tell him to shut up.

Not much tact either. I have taken train journeys with him, where the loudness of his wittering, aided by much lager, has completely destroyed any credibility I hoped to have with other passengers.

In fact over the years, he's done a lot of pretty stupid things, because he doesn't always think things through very far. His logic can sometimes be scarily childlike.

But the intent is always there. He puts the important people in his life first. He's just the nicest guy you could hope to meet.
And I'm honoured to consider him one of my closest friends.
Like with The Baker, we've never lost contact, never gone long periods of time without spending time with eachother.

If you're wondering why I refer to him as The Chimney Sweep, the reason is, we do sometimes call him that. The story behind it is pretty lame.

He was standing up drivelling on about something, and for some unknown reason, was holding a broom.
No one quite knows why.
Someone said 'Shut up, you chimney sweep.'
That's it.

Possibly the most boring story ever of how someone acquired a nickname.

The Baker, I refer to as The Baker, because he works for a bakery.
Though not as a baker.
He's the Pilsbury Dough Boy.



The three of us were together the night the Chimney Sweep met his future wife- a year ago tomorrow- it was his birthday. Tomorrow I shall be at this year's birthday.

Her sister was with her, and I'll be honest, her sister is about as attractive as a woman can get.
Keisha Buchanan, only darker, and with long, slender, inviting limbs.



We ended up all meeting in a pub. We discovered they were from Zimbabwe. The Chimney Sweep always thanks me for this opener- even though I didn't have him in mind at the time, but we impressed initially, because I correctly guessed they were Mashona (Yes, I have done an extensive study of African women).

From that time on, their love blossomed. And the future Mrs Chimney Sweep continually aided the coming together of her sister with myself.
This was what aroused my initial suspicion.
She knew exactly what sort of person I am, The Chimney Sweep would have filled in the blanks for her.
Hardly the sort of person to encourage your sister to seduce.
To me, it screamed ulterior motive.

Or it did when I allowed blood to pump back into my brain from where these girls seemed to want my thoughts to be controlled.

The Chimney Sweep doesn't know this, but I confronted his future wife about her intentions.
I stated point blank, that the right to permanent residence at least had to be icing on the cake, were she to settle down with my mate.
I simply wanted to know which was the icing, and which the cake.

I asked her if she encouraged her sister towards me in the belief I had money. I don't.
I think at this point, she believed I was offering a deal to turn a blind eye and/or help get her sister into the country.

She didn't keep her eye on the ball here. I had her, I'm sure.
I said 'Basically, I just want to know that we're both on the same side here. Do we both want what's best?'

Now here's what she missed. The question is ambiguous.
HOW you take it, depends on what conversation, you thought you just had.

A girl with no ulterior motive, thinks the question is 'Do we both care for X in our own way?'
A girl with an ulterior motive thinks the question is 'Do we have a deal?'

The response to both questions is 'Yes'.
The mode of delivery is different.
The first question gets a comfortable smile and a handsqueeze.
The second gets a knowing eyeflash.

I know what I got.

I kept this to myself.

Then at New Year, after much excess, The Baker and Myself got to talking. I was trying to speak positively about The Chimney Sweep and his future wife moving in together.
And The Baker voiced his frank opinions on the subject.
Turned out he'd done a similar thing as I had, and got the same result.

So yes.
Both myself and The Baker are going to have to watch ourselves tomorrow. Because we're both feeling very protective right now towards our friend.
And we don't trust her an inch.
And I know damn well we're right.



She is screwing him.
And don't think I'll let it go.

Shock Weddings, Persecuted Smokers and Rocking Bloggers.

This post is a bit like the Trinity, one post, three topics (I could have done three short, separate posts, but what's the point?

Firstly, I may have hinted recently that at the moment a lot of demands are being placed on my time.
You know what they say about buses, none come for hours, then three come at once?
(I have actually seen this happen with the Number 15 bus in Brum).
Well, it's like that with birthdays. Three of the next four weekends I lose to Birthday Parties. Not that I mind, but it the question of whether my body can physically take the challenge is an important one.

And then we received a bit of shock news on Wednesday. What I feared has come to pass.
On September 9th, The Chimney Sweep will marry his girlfriend in Zimbabwe.
I suspect she decided the location, and I expect reducing the likelihood of myself and The Baker being present, played a big part.

Because there is only one free weekend left for myself and The Baker before that date, that weekend is now marked for the stag do.
And no, we aren't going to lap dancing clubs in Prague.
Blackpool will do nicely.

But of course, I'm very apprehensive.
I almost feel like he's been diagnosed with Cancer.
He's my brother. Not in a blood sense, but he's my brother.

He might come and stay with us for a bit before the wedding.
I hope so. I need to be reassured he's going to be OK.



Not smoking in the pub is still not feeling right.
Still, the government have just created more criminals out of otherwise law abiding people.

Little secret. My landlord does this little lock in once a month. It's really a private party. He boots those out at half ten he doesn't want and then runs the pipes through (this should be done monthly). The Beers that is actually in the pipes, is distributed free to the happy few.
But this month, it felt even better.
Because the ash trays came out of retirement.

I forgot just how at peace you feel standing at the bar, fag in one hand, pint in the other.
You took that away from me, Tony.
God may forgive you, I won't.

And now for something, completely different.




The lovely Crashie nominated me for the blue one, guessing rightly, that I'd prefer that one.
Isn't she a sweetie?

I think there might have been some meme mutation going on, because I'm pretty sure when this one started, it only involved passing it on to one.
But the good thing is, it appears to be five now, which is great, because one would be very hard.

So I'm going to nominate five bloggers who deserve recognition of some sort, just for being cool bloggers.
I would have nominated Ruthie, but she's already got one, as has Welshcakes.

First up, Pommy, because he should have had a Schmooze award really, so I hope he likes this one!

Then we have Ed, who is branching out now and tackling the serious issues. Ed, stick the blue one up and tell Verity where SHE can stick it.

Eve rocks and is a girl. What more is there to say?

Raffi is going through blogging blues right now, but I hope he still likes the blue one better.
It goes better with the colourscheme of his blog.

My last choice is a little different, as it is a blog I only read for the first time the other night.
It is Blogpower's newest member.
And a great fresh perspective it is.
Kizzie is a Sudanese girl and adds a new dimension to BP that is not only liberating, it is enlightening.

This blog provides a great opportunity for rich white people, living in the world's richest sectors to see how an intelligent person living in the world that we ignore, views things. I think it's great that blogging gives us treasures like this.

So, same as before, if you're one of the five, remember to take your pressie with you- but give one to five other quality bloggers!

If you aren't, go check out those blogs!
You won't regret it!

The Artefacts That are Part of Us

It occurred to me recently that each of us has a small number of items that never really leave us, are always within range and without which we would feel as if we had lost maybe not always a limb, but certainly a digit.



With me the deepest level, is certain items of jewellery. I never remove either my crucifix or my Claddagh ring, and I only take my watch off to avoid contact with water, so the naked Crushed, is never as naked as nature intended.

Beyond that, if I'm even half dressed, my keys and wallet are almost certainly in my right hand trouser pocket. The only other place they'd ever be, would be on the bedside table. Or on the desk I'm sitting at now.
If I'm ever wondering round the flat looking for my keys, it's a sure sign we had a party at the weekend.
And they're in the sofa.
By and large I never lose track of them.

My mobile phone is another object that is unlikely to leave my sight, except when I'm in the bathroom.



I hate tiny little phones, they're useless when I'm trashed, so I have the largest still on the market, as you can see.

In the flat, it either sits beside the bed, on the left arm of the sofa, or to the left of the PC. Odd, because I'm right handed, but I tend to sit on the left of the sofa (it's more central to the room), and the housephone is to the right of the PC.

Few people ring on the housephone. It's strange how people always diall the mobile even when they know your home number.

Otherwise, my phone is generally in the right hand pocket of my jacket, though at work and the pub, it sits in front of me.
Where it has company.

These are two items which I always make sure I have immediate access to.
Twenty Embassy and a lighter.
At home, this isn't a problem, they are dispensable items, and if lost, can be bought from the shop nextdoor.
So I frequently lose packets and lighters, can't be bothered to look for them and just go and buy more.
And then the missing ones turn up.



But if I'm out, the cigarettes are generally in the left jacket pocket, the lighter in the right.
I think this is probably because I take the cigarette out of the packet with my right hand, holding the packet in my left, so I put the packet back in the left hand pocket. Since I light the cigarette with my right hand, I put the lighter in that pocket.

The last item I always have on me outside of the flat, apart from personal documentation, is my sunglasses. I'm quite sensitive to light and need them most of the year. It really annoys me when I hear people deriding people for wearing sunglasses in the Winter.
I point out that they protect you from too much sunLIGHT, not too much sunHEAT.
The time of year is irrelevant.

Anyway, I pretty much can't be outdoors in the daytime for much of the year without them. I'd get knocked down by traffic.

So my shades are always in my left inside pocket, with my passport, driving license and pretty much everything that is me, and yes, I'm always getting told off for it, and yes, my best mate always insists I empty my pockets before we go out on a Friday night.
He's right of course.

Maybe it's just me, but don't we all have objects we just can't do without?