Religion and critical thinking don't mix

There are - or have been - hundreds, if not thousands, of different religions.  They are mostly mutually exclusive, and almost every one of them claims to have the unique singular Truth and that all others are lies, misunderstandings, or misdirections by some evil counter-deity, and failing to observe this Truth will inevitably lead to an afterlife of suffering or torment.

Let's consider this as a vague probability hypothesis.

In the mid 1600s, Blaise Pascal, one of the earliest contributors to probability theory, proposed what has become known as Pascal's wager.  Loosely, Pascal's conjecture was that that given the two possibilities "god exists" and "god does not exist" and the two human options of alife subserviant to religious strictures to conduct one's life as if god exists or instead leading a life ungoverned by religion, the safer option is to conduct one's life in the belief in god to safeguard the rewards of heaven and avoid the punishment of hell.  On the face of it, sensible, and practical.  The problem is Pascal was already a Catholic, and was limiting his scope to that frame of reference alone.

Now, in the light of the huge spectrum of all religions and schisms that exist or ever have, using Pascal's appeal to probability his conclusion is surely set on its head.  If only one - or even a small sub-set - are true that means that the majority of religious believers must, de facto, be deluded.  Seems unlikely, then, that any particular one of them is true.  Choosing the "right" one is a small chance in countless.

It is rather more probable that it's all just a scam commonly repeated over the millennia since pre-history to create a cushy gravy train for an elite priesthood and a tool for the would-be elite to keep everyone else under the thumb and behaving according to the rules they set forth.  It's a wonderful model.  Officiants demanding benefits now for a price they will never be called upon to pay.

Religion, as a general concept, really is not compatible with critical thinking.

But don't get too comfortable

Yup.  The Conservatives, and the recent self-interested corruption that followed them around the last 10 years are finally gone from UK government, at least for now.  Superficially this is a great result for the country.  Anything (well anything aside from a Reform majority - providence forfend) would have been preferable to continued Tory tenure.  Labout's tagline was simple: "Change".  Hopefully it will prove to be change for the btter.  It's not a given, though.  I'm not a Labour supporter, especially the fluid modern Labour movement which seems to drift with the currents of popularity and doesn't seem to hold to principles so much as anchor-points in public opinion.  I'm hopeful that they will bring something new, that is infused with hope and compassion not fear and greed, and workable, and sustainable.  So, yes, superficially a fine result. 

Let's not get complacent about this.  It's a quirk of FPTP.  The subtext of the stats is that Labour didn't so much gain a victory, as the Tories lost one.  If Reform hadn't been there to split the vote, things might have been different.  In some seats the vote fleeing the Tories scattered equally among the other options, but in some it was very definitely either a migration to the LibDems or to Reform. 

What concerns me is that if the Tories truly crumble, Labour having sidled toward the middle, the vacuum will be filled by Reform and British politics will be dragged further and further rightward.  (We've already had gibberings about boats and borders from Labour, even post-result.  )

This is a welcome reprieve, but it may be all too brief.  As some pundits have been saying, Labour now have a lot of expectations to live up to, even ones that actually go counter to what they committed to in their manifesto.  Labour never committed to increased public spending despite fluffy words about "supporting" this and "improving" that leading to an unspoken expectation that they would.  Conversely, Rachel Reeves has already stated, even before her expected appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the private sector needs to do the investing.  (Isn't that what caused the whole PFI problem for the NHS last time around?)

I feel this is very much a "watch this space".  Starmer's honeymoon is going to be short.  Very short. 

And who defines "better"?

I look at the careers some of the tech people I've known for 20 years or more, some who I first knew in entry-level jobs, and I see "global" this, "group" that, "head of" the other, and I wonder could I have done better for myself? Meanwhile, apart from the very first 5 years of my career where I had "A Plan" and hit every milestone I have never really had a direction.

I never renewed The Plan after phase 1, and I have simply been happy to go with the currents; mostly coasting along, making sure I was always interested by my work.  Usually - not always, but predominantly - I have delivered results that consistently garnered plaudits and respect, but little career advancement.  I've often had significant trust placed in my integrity and my ability, but because I have (save for one relatively brief team leader-ship role which, to be fair, I hashed) shied away from anything smelling even vaguely of people-management my advancement plateaued.  I got known at board level in some competetive places, but never actually climbed far.  I spent some of my time deeply unemployed, scraping through and surviving on the fruits of prior financial successes, and lately I ventured back into higher education.  Overall, though, I can't help but wonder if I've done right by myself, or should I have pressed harder, and made more effort to drive my career upward? Would life be better? Would I be better? And what would "better" look like anyway? Who decides the metric?

Daft question, I suppose.  I've few of my career years left.  Maybe I should just be content to find a job that pays well and just continue the pattern of the past - delivering quality, and gaining satisfaction from a job well done.

I may be overthinking this, but - and I kid you not - I just got home to find someone had pushed a Christmas offers price list for one of the local pizza outlets through my door, and the letter box flap was lifted all the way up completely exposing the slot as if someone *might* have tried to reach in.  I wondered why anyone would be delivering anachronistic pizza leaflets, then a thought occurred to me: other than a postman, who has an ideal opportunity to approach and test every door on a street without a casual observer thinking twice about it?

Any media which exhorts the consumer to read/listen/watch to the end is worthless time-devouring bait that can be conscienciously dumped immediately.

The damage being done by deliberate under-resourcing

Yesterday I called NHS 111.  It took me 40 minutes to get through to someone.  After assessment they referred me to a medical walk-in centre at a small hospital 8 miles away out of borough, because my own GP had no remaining appointments, and they determined I needed attention within 6 hours.  I drove the 8 miles to the walk-in centre, who turned me away because they were already at capacity (at 5 in the evening) and taking NO FURTHER APPOINTMENTS FOR THE DAY, despite the forward notification.  I sat in the car and called 111 again, and took another 40 minutes to get through, before being able to explain the situation.  Best they could offer was that I should go to A&E at my large borough hospital.  I didn't consider my situation warranted taking up A&E time, so I went home leaving the 111 call open.  I was woken by a telephone call at 4:50AM, and again at 9:00AM at which time I was referred to my GP (with just two referral slots remaining), who finally called me at 11:00AM.

Do I blame the call centre?  No.  Do I blame the walk-in centre?  No.  Do I blame anyone in the NHS?  No.

This lies firmly at the feet of the Tories who have, for decades, deliberately under-resourced and under-provisioned our public health services to hold back on pennies in the pound taxes for the highest tax-payers and to underwrite a private health economy, the profits of which benefit those same people and their business pals.  Don't blame the sick.  Don't blame the strikers, who are over-stretched and under-paid, and fed up.  Don't blame immigrants - many of whom actually staff the stretched service we have.  Blame the people responsible - the Tories.  The "get your nose in the trough; profit above consequence" Conservatives.

Incidentally, I'm fine.  Once I spoke to the GP everything was sorted out quickly.  But were I, say, a parent with a sick child and cash in the bank I might be driven to spend that money on attending a private walk-in.  It should not be necessary.  This is deliberate privatisation by stealth, except it isn't very stealthy.

Facebook spends advertisers' budgets on advertising to people who expressly don't want to see them.

Would it seem logical that if I block your page I have no interest in it and hence don't want to see your adverts?  Yes?  And yet Facebook repeatedly spend advertisers' budgets on showing me adverts from pages I clearly don't want to see.  Let's just re-iterate that: Facebook continue to show me adverts from pages I have blocked, and implicitly do not want to interact with, in order to get their "impression count".

If not outright corrupt that is very very bent.

I have thought for decades how miserably depressing it is to think that the notion of "soul mates" means that out of all the ever-increasing billions on the planet there is one perfect soul to match with; that there is one perfect partner jigsaw piece in all the world.  I don't like those odds.

But if you reject that notion, and instead take it that there are many, many, many different matching pieces throughout a changing life, it also follows that as you change as a person so will your matching piece(s).

It seems so unnecessarily tragic to mourn never having met "the one", or worse having met and lost them again.  Instead we should celebrate when we find the ones that walk the path with us when they do.  Some may stay with us throughout the rest of life.  Some may stay within reach, never quite walking the same path but staying close.  Some are there for a while and then gone for evermore.  Some, even, may walk our path repeatedly, and then find their own at other times.  Just be glad that they do, when they do.

The basic assertion that "my choice only affects me" is only true if you assume each individual outcome is completely separate of all others.

It isn't.  This is a pandemic disease, not a personal injury.  The spread - and mutation - of the virus is dependent on the transmissability between every single pair of individuals that interact.  It cannot be treated as isolated incidents.  Vaccinated people are less likely to suffer severe outcomes from infection, and are also less likely to either contract or spread the disease.  Not immune, but significantly less likely.  The cumulative effect across the population as a whole is what matters.  The more people unvaccinated, the easier propogation paths for the disease, and the higher the risk of further mutations.

Certainly everyone should have a choice over whether or not to accept medical treatment.  It's a basic human right.  But with choice comes responsibility and consequence.  One thing frequently overlooked is that freedom of choice is not freedom from consequence.

One can choose to drink and drive.  The consequence is that society treats the driver as irresponsible and may end up chucking them in jail.  The choice is there, but so is the consequential social response.

Similarly one can choose not to be vaccinated for your own reasons, with the consequence that society takes measures to reduce its exposure to the elevated comparative risk posed.  Just like drink driving that choice remains, but so do the consequence of making it.

Both are perfectly valid socially responsible responses.

A middle ground liberal, looking in on the maelstrom in the Labour party

An unusually directly political post.  Perhaps I should post more.

The question is do you want a Labour party which appeals to the polar left of the membership, or one that is capable of being elected and mounting an opposition?  Appealing to the malcontents and idealogues is fine, but then you end up with a party of no practical influence.  It just becomes the contemporary SWP who have always made a lot of noise and achieved fuck all.

This country is a democracy (skewed by FPTP), and the awkward part of that is that to appeal to sufficient votes to achieve stable power in parliament you have to compromise.  Corbyn is a great guy - I know because I met him, but politically he was a sheep in wolf's clothing.  Impotent.  And as a leader certainly not going to sway an electoral majority.  You may not like where Blair stood, but he got Labour into government because he understood how to bring a sufficient swathe of the population along with him and work with the wheels of government, and Starmer is cut from the same cloth.  The alternative is a Labour party so far to the left it will never have a hope of a parliamentary majority - let alone a stable one - and permanent Tory government drifting ever rightward into the hands of isolationists, profiteers and shysters, because that is who the Conservatives now stand for.

So, the question to answer is whether the future of the Labour party is a purist and perfect nothing, or a functional something?  That is the choice its supporters face.

Disappointingly pervasive misinformed protest and agitation

Even on platforms not appropriate for politics for some reason COVID attracts special attention.  I see posts rejecting vaccination as totalitarian, and some sort of conspiratorial threat to individual freedom.  And should one attempt to challenge or correct the blatantly false assertions the protestors bleat about invasion of their "safe spaces", which is ironic.

I have seen it expressed that since the vaccinated can still contract COVID, regardless of vaccination status they (and I quote) "are in effect not immunised at all and are still potentially lethal themselves".  It is introducing absolutism to a situation where it simply does not belong.

*Over 90% reduction in the chance of an individual contracting an infection is not "unvaccinated at all".  A significant reduction in the chance of passing on any infection they do carry is not "unvaccinated at all".  A vast reduction in the chance of hospitalisation as a result of the disease, or need of intensive care is not "unvaccinated at all".*

Polio and small pox were not wiped out because their vaccines were 100% effective.  They were wiped out because vaccination meant the disease disappeared through attrition.  It took decades of concerted global effort.

To treat anything as ineffective merely because it is not 100% effective is false logic.  It is like expecting seat belts to eradicate all RTA injuries, or carrying an umbrella to means one will never get wet in the rain.  A ridiculous argument.

And the argument that natural immunity may be more effective than induced immunity, is utterly fatuous.  The risk attached to gaining that natural immunity by catching the disease is potentially vastly more catastrophic.

I shake my head in disbelief at the supposedly smart people who I see getting caught up in tangled and convoluted logic to support what appears to be an emotional prejudice: being too afraid on a deeply subliminal level to acknowledge the real threat that this disease poses to life, and a sheer repugnance at society dictating any individual behaviours.

Certainly - international human rights charters enshrine the individual's right to choose in the matter of medical procedures.  But choices come with consequences.  There is nothing in those charters enshrining the right to ignore the evidence that the medical advice is predicated upon, or by making that choice to put others in society at risk.  Make your own conscientious choice, by all means, but don't try to shirk the responsibilities coming with that choice.

Be on your guard folks - the news report below is from Norfolk and Suffolk at the beginning of 2020, but I have heard reports from reliable friends of their being targeted by this scam right now in September in different parts of the country, presumably with the run up to winter in mind.

• Never let strangers in who have no good reason to be there.
• Don't be afraid to say "no!"
• Never give out bank or credit card details to unsolicited callers (in person or over the telephone).

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/scam-calls-warning-loft-insulation-suffolk-1-6514455

Money for old rope, or even less

Applying for an EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) in the UK has always had a loophole for a "legitimised" scam.  The card itself is free to apply for if you do it yourself online, but companies can legally offer the "service" of applying for you. They need all the same information, which you input online through web forms just as you would applying for yourself, following which they take a payment (for their services, *not* for the card, although they only make that clear in the smallest of small print and try to imply differently) and submit it just the same as you would. So what are you paying for? Nothing. You still have the same inconvenience, just paying for the privilege.

Anyone who has had an EHIC before - even if you applied yourself direct - will have been bombarded with mail by at least two of these companies nearing its expiry date, because the Tories mandates that the NHS had to make the data available for sale.  They bombard you with dire warnings of expiry, and strongly advise you to renew through the web site they give you, all very formal and business-like never once reminding you you can do it yourself for free.

Now, in present times it gets worse still.  With the end of their gravy train looming, they're pulling out all the stops to try to wring every last penny they can out of the scam. They are once again exhorting people to renew before the end of this month (which is nominally when the NHS will stop issuing cards), but now they are spamming everyone they have an address for, regardless of whether the card is due to expire. And here's the real kicker: if you hold a valid card you CANNOT renew, but still they want to charge you for the privilege of applying.  And of course, even if you do get a new card now, there is very little chance a UK issued EHIC will carry any merit come January 1st.

If you want a card before September is out, and don't have one, get it yourself: https://www.ehic.org.uk/

Something I have noticed in the last few weeks: there are some really militant voices out there - anti-mask; COVID-hoax; little-Englanders - but in most of my interactions in the last few weeks people have shown a good deal more consideration than was normal in this part of the world.  I don't just mean necessary avoidance, I mean a general rise in thoughtfulness and courtesy, even on the roads.  For the most part I see people taking a greater interest in things and people around them, being more considerate, and fundamentally less selfish.

I rather hope that this will be a good thing out of a bad, and it remains permanent.

When I was a kid, Mum taught me that "you can always trust a policeman". Well she was white, from an honest family in working-class Lancashire, and not surprisingly that held true for her. But life taught me it was not true for me. With no disrespect to my friends who were or are police, some are utterly despicable. The constable who dealt with us when I was beaten up at a disco for pre-adult teens was every bit the closet racist, asking me why I had bothered going and what did I expect if I went to a white kids disco, and essentially reluctantly taking my statement whilst at the same time victim-blaming? And he wasn't the only one I have encountered over the years. I have been stopped because I was "the wrong colour to be wearing a biker jacket", or I "looked out of place driving that car".

But some of my friends also want me to learn that all police are total villains, willing tools of oppression and nasty pieces of work. Life has also taught me this is also not true. I remember the great contrasts. The career sergeant who came round when Mum called the police when, aged 11, I was stalked by a weirdo on a bicycle was every bit the caricature of the kindly red-faced evuncular bobby, very sympathetic and very soothing and patient.

You have to take them as you find them. Some rotten. Some diamonds. And most - like the majority of other people - somewhere in the middle, imperfect, making bad judgement calls sometimes, but basically well-intended.

I don't ever want to wake up in a world where I have to hate someone just because they carry a badge.

Dangerous garbage is putting us at risk

Jeez there is so much nonsense about SARS CoV 2.  People so scared they are clinging to ridiculous notions for comfort.  Ridiculous notions which detract from the simple truths, and are therefore dangerous.

There is no easy way out.  There is no magic bullet discovered so far (because for sure the medical profession would be using it if there were), and some of the wives tales out there are downright lethal in themselves.  "Take white iodine."  (WTF is 'white iodine'?  Iodine is purple/brown in crystal form and brown/amber in solution.  And it is toxic, which is why it is used a disinfectant.)  "Drink warm water."  "Take hot baths."  "Drink bleach."  (There's a Darwin award waiting for someone in that one.)  And NO the UK didn't pass the peak of deaths 2 weeks ago.  We might have reached it, and plateaud for a week so far - which coincides with slowed rate attributed to the massive reduction in social interaction starting 3 weeks before that in mid March - but we did not pass it.  The rate is not yet falling significantly.  There might be just the slightest hint of a declining trend, but that can not be determined yet.  It could just be a minor ripple in the daily figures.

No I am not qualified in epidemiology, but I am well enough versed in formal subjects (not least statistics) to know that the direction of what those who are say makes a good degree of sense (and certainly is not counter to what the majority of experts suggest).  There may be questions, with the benefit of hindsight as to whether the tactics of association could have been better or more delicately handled, but ONLY with hindsight.  Right now the human world is one big biochemistry experiment, and no-one knows for sure what the outcome will be until there is one.  The biggest simple failure that I can see is not the lock-down (damned silly name, but there is no better available), but that the government chose - and indeed continues to choose - to work with less than complete data (and specifically no accurate baseline) about the population's infection status rate by not investing in broad testing procedures sooner.

Idiocracy responds to a public health scare - and it's not pretty.

Just been out.  My own local little supermarket is stripped of all sorts of silly things, even stuff which is perishable.  Bread; fruit and vegetables; all the meat and fish; most of the dairy products; most of the tinned goods; crisps; soup...  I mean what are people doing?  Refrigerating their spare bedrooms?

And people on the front line at the pharmacy, trying to be as courteous as they can and serve people as quickly as possible despite being suddenly overwhelmed - they are unprotected, in close contact with hundreds of people a day, and getting abuse over things they have no control over.

People, people, people... settle the FUCK DOWN.  This behaviour is only making things worse than they need to be.  The supply chain would be fine if 10% of the population wasn't strip-mining every store they can find.

And people wonder why I have a love-hate relationship with the human race, and such a cynical outlook...

It's all a bit Dunning-Kruger

Some common, preventable, vaccinatable diseases are on the rapid rise again, because anti-vaxxers are compromising herd immunity.  Meanwhile they have a new conspiracy theory to justify their reticence to vaccinate: programmes are just a vehicle to inject us all with tracking devices.  (Where's the eye-roll emoji.)

OK, let's get with some basic biology, and physics here.

First, the medical: The smallest implantable RFID tags at present are slightly larger than a grain of rice, so they ain't going down any intraveinous needle.  They have to be implanted with a hugely over-sized needle subcutaneously.  And even if they WERE injectable into a vein they'd instantly cause a thrombosis.

Second, the physics: The existing RFID tags can only be activated from very short range (i.e.) with the sensor touching, or practically touching, the skin.  The power comes from the pulses emitted by the reader, and the interaction comes from interfering with those pulses sufficiently that the reader can sense them.  It's a proximity thing.  Anything smaller simply wouldn't have the capacity to interact with the reader.  As an alternative, let's suppose the things are not passive and that somehow (say glucose reduction) they are able to power themselves in the body, and transmit actively.  There's this thing in physics called the inverse square law which can easily be demonstrated that the detectable signal from a given emission drops off by the square of the distance from the source.  That means that these tiny nano-trackers - with miniscule radio emissions - wouldn't even be detectable at the skin surface, let alone remotely as a trackable signal.  And that same inverse square law means that the signal strength required to activate passive tags emitted remotely from fixed tracking points would have to be trillions of times stronger than at the skin surface - strong enough to cook everyone in the vicinity.

Third, the Hollywood: The idea of injectable trackable nuclear isotopes is a pure Hollywood fiction.  It's a trope used in a number of stories, but it isn't practical.  Anything emitting sufficient radiation to distinguish a human body from incidental background radiation, especially from some remote monitoring perspective (like aerial drone or satellite) would be lethal to the person in question and those around them.  Furthermore, nuclear decay only produces three types of radiation, it does it purely randomly so there's no fixed pattern of emissions, and there is no way of tuning or codifying the emissions individually.  You couldn't label an individual if you tried.

In short - it's complete bollocks, believed only by those who fail to understand even the most basic science but want to think they are cleverer than they are.

I'm guessing that this is going to get me some flak, particularly from people misinterpreting the intent.  So be it.

I'm generally all for people having the freedom to wear, or not to wear, what they please (with limited caveats purely for the very least of public decency).

However, humans are social creatures, and we are hard wired for facial recognition as a mechanism of identity.  I consider it no more (or less) appropriate for a person to be wandering the streets in a niqab or burkha than that they should wander around in a hoodie with a full-face scarf, or a bike-lid with an obscured visor, except when conditions actually warrant it (blizzard or actually riding at the time, for instance).  Or the EDL in their branded full-face balaclavas or George Cross facemasks.  It's not right.  Any of it.  As much as some people prefer to shy away from the subject, to deliberately hide from any possible recognition is overtly - and very literally - anti-social behaviour.  It is an act of separation from the people surrounding, and whilst it does not indicate nefarious intent, per se, it doesn't harm the prospects of escape if any is planned.  Unnecessary full face coverings that actually obscure recognition - not by technology, but by your average person - could, and I'd readily say should, be banned quite reasonably, provided it was applied equally across the board.

There are reports of (presumably) women facing some pretty disgusting forms of violence as a direct result of their wearing a veil, and I certainly do not advocate that.  However, whilst these reports garner perfectly warranted sympathy for the victim, they still do not justify the wearing of the garment itself.  It is not an either/or situation.  Both are, in my view, wrong.

The argument is occasionally offered that if these full face coverings were banned in public spaces, these women would be effectively imprisoned in their own homes.  As true as that may be, it would not be society at large imprisoning them, it would be their male extended family and peer pressure.  That tells us one thing - there is another problem to address.  The fact that one problem exists is no justification to allow another to slide by.

And finally, justification is sometimes offered by way of comparison between western wedding and funeral veils and the niqab.  That comparison is specious and disingenuous.  Firstly, those veils are temporary, and (literally) symbolic of a separation during an accepted social ritual.  Secondly, they very rarely actually obscure recognition of the face.

Seriously?  You followed a link here?  Who clicks on something like that?

There's no small irony that being in an "uncommitted" ongoing relationship requires a good degree of personal committment.  It requires patience.  It requires trust.  And it requires emotional strength, because it can be taxing.

It is a very long time since I posted a SatScene.  Longer still since I posted here on MoMM.  Here is the view from the Eastern Walkway of London's Tower Bridge, through the modern glass floor, to the road, pavement and River Thames 42 metres below.  Dizzy yet?

See the Tower Bridge web site for more information.

What is all this nonsense about "cultural (mis)appropriation"?  Has exchange and influence of styles suddenly become toxic?  Should white Anglo-Saxons stop eating curry and Chinese?  Are people with non-white heritage no longer allowed to eat fish and chips, and Irish stew or Lancashire hotpot?  Am I suddenly obliged to wear pyjamas and sandals?  Seriously?  Where does it stop?

Get a bloody grip.  Cultures shift and change.  Fashions have always been influenced by the adventurous and exotic, and that's always been true around the world throughout history.  Whichever way you look at it this concept of cultural appropriation is just a nonsensical expression of a chip on the shoulder, and an absurdly racist concept of cultural purity.

Remember the basic rule about offence: it is taken, not given.  It is the choice of the offendee, not the offender.  Certainly, there are people who go out of their way to cause offence, but they still have little actual control over whether they succeed or not. When someone says "I am offended by..." what they are really saying is "I have decided to infer fault", and it does not need to be in any way dependent on an intent to offend.  Every one is free to be offended, for sure, but it's their own choice and conditioning.  To my mind - and I say this as someone who has suffered, particularly in childhood, the pain of racial abuse and racist treatment - this "cultural appropriation" is nothing more than people aching to play the racist card deliberately seeking out reason to.  No more, no less.  The only thing I find offensive in the whole sorry mess is their deliberate attempt to find it.

How does a white woman (or indeed a bloke) wearing their hair in dreadlocks and corn-rows, or a sarong on the beach, or even (as my Mum did occasionally under certain circumstances, but some girls are now doing purely for elegance) a sari, detriment the culture that invented them?  And how come the different tribes aren't up in arms about claiming the original source?  And how come it's perfectly dandy for them to "appropriate" jeans, and t-shirt and trainers?  Why is it OK for culture to spread as long as it doesn't cross racial boundaries, or rather as long as it's not spreading TO the caucasian?

It's just racism, pure and simple, albeit a brand of racism that seems to have disguised itself as acceptable, and even hoodwinked the fervent anti-racists.

My last article/blog entry/musing/scribble - call it what you will - was over two years ago.  Two weeks after I wrote it, my mother died the day after arriving to holiday in Spain.  My world changed.  Not necessarily in ways you might expect.  I always expected that when the inevitable happened I would be overwhelmed with a tide of devastating grief.  I'm a deeply emotional person, and often affected by things others consider trivial or nonsensical, and I fully expected to be in pieces.  I'm still waiting for the tsunami. 

No, my world changed because there were so many practicalities to deal with.  Mundane things like clearing out her office, and her wardrobes, and shutting down her electronic online life, which outlived her by weeks, and in some cases months.  And whilst the sense of appreciation she taught me still remained, her death triggered a fundamental re-assessment of values and priorities.  I loved words, and I still do, but for a long time nothing inspired me to write, or if I did, it was thrown into the mire of noise that is social media.  With everything else going on, although there was nothing actually stopping me, the motivation to sit down and compose articles - even on potent topics - was not strong enough that it overcame the basic convenience of posting to Facebook or Tweeting a facetious remark.

Hopefully that has changed.  A new job with a continuing learning curve, and renewed interest in old pursuits (primarily field craft, now inexplicably termed bushcraft), and a healthy (or perhaps unhealthy) appetite for beer and music now mean that demands on my time are very different from before.  Nevertheless, hopefully I'm back, and the words will flow once more.

Possibly repeating a rant of old

It's incredible how much sites are relying using Javascript to get your browser to do their work these days.  It's astounding the sheer quantity of this crap your machine is having to process just to assemble what should be a simple web page, for things like Facebook, Google, YouTube; in fact pretty much every major site around these days.  But what is truly shocking is just how much of it is appallingly broken code.  I'm sitting watching the errors (that users do not normally see) streaming up the console as I simply reload a Facebook page, watch a YouTube video, or post a Tweet.

[Warning: nerdy bit.] I'm not just seeing simple unimportant unassigned values.  These are user functions which return inconsistent values and cause errors to be thrown.  Or clear syntactic errors which the interpreter is doing it's best to second-guess and correct.  By the look of it, these days even run-testing your own code is considered a step too far and the words "Quality Assurance" don't belong in polite society.

Case in point (and this is just a tiny fragment from one Facebook page update):

JavaScript strict warning: https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/yj/r/mmNmKx1moAp.js, line 45: anonymous function does not always return a value
JavaScript strict warning: https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/yj/r/mmNmKx1moAp.js, line 20: reference to undefined property this.props.staticNotifs
JavaScript strict warning: https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/yA/r/Xh9cjdeWTbX.js, line 43: reference to undefined property this.props.className
JavaScript strict warning: https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/yj/r/mmNmKx1moAp.js, line 44: reference to undefined property v.lazyonload
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If you ever wondered why some pages seem to take a glacial age to finish loading, or some just get terminally stuck, odds are it's the fault of some crap second-rate programming by a clueless monkey.  It looks like some of these "developers" couldn't even complete a newbie's assignment.  I don't write JavaScript, as a rule, and even I could fix some of this shit.

Socks drying on the radiator, Chessington

I don't expect many people to get the gag...

A night at the Fighting Cocks, Kingston

Beer, loud music, and the Dirty Dozen on the pub TV.  Well it's one way mark a birthday...

A final farewell - Kingston

For several decades, now, the Peel (once the Sir Robert Peel) has been known throughout the country (and even, to some extent the world) as one of the prime live grass-roots London venues on a tour itinerary for proper working bands, as well as having rehearsal facilities in the basement.  It was also, when bands were not playing, known at weekends as a local rock music spot, where Fridays and Saturdays often heaved.

For the last 5 years or so it has been in decline, and Saturday saw that experience relived just once more before the pub closed its doors for the last time, after being sold by its former owners to be redeveloped.  It would be hypocritical to get too teary eyed, because I was as guilty as anyone else of abandoning the place, although the place faltered partly due to the recent economic difficulties and partly as a result of style and management changes.  Too late to worry, now.  It's demise was often rumoured, and then proven false.  Not this time.

Brunei is returning to the medieval standards of barbarism in its new royally decreed penal code.

Last October, the Sultan of Brunei announced he was introducing a new penal code broadening the reach of Sharia law.  Other than a brief mention in a BBC web article it warranted barely a mention in the UK press.  Only last week the UN human rights office expressed major concerns over the code which included the death penalty for a number of offences, including blasphemy and insult to the Quran, apostasy, and in particular a return of stoning for rape, adultery, and homosexuality.

As of yesterday, that code is now supposedly in force, although some regional reporting suggests that implementation has been delayed, because the Sultan - a supposedly well-educated, modern man, and one of the worlds last remaining ruling monarchs - is not in the sultanate to make the appropriate official declaration.  Narry a peep in the mainstream British press.  On the rare occasions he does merit attention it is always in the context of him being one of the wealthiest individuals in the world and usually charming some visiting dignitary or other.  For all his wealth and education the man is a barbarian, and a provides perfect example of why absolute power should never rest in the hands of just one person.

Military surplus (and more) in Redhill