Tuesday Titter..

When you can't decide whether to go on a killing spree or do a bit of skateboarding..

 

Bank Holiday work-out

Spent most of yesterday (Monday) at my Mum's house near Farnham (Surrey) clearing out her garden shed (it's more like a garden "chalet") of boxes of "life-stuff" that had been accumulating for the last 30 years and when my Dad died in 2019 were kind of forgotten about. Anyway, some of it was really only fit for the dump and most of it was e-bay fodder but we did uncover some old gems that bought back floods of memories, and will be reabsorbed into the family. It was back-breaking work, moving heavy items back and forth and loading up cars for runs to the council refuse centre etc. 

Anyway we finally finished around 6 pm and I decided that on the way home we should drop into a great little Farnham pub called "The Alfred Free House" for a pint to quench our thirst and a well earned sit-down to recharge the batteries. I snapped a shot of their beer list which had some banging craft beers, particularly note-worthy was the Verdant pale ale (hardly ever seen outside of London or Cornwall) and the Keller Pils from Bristol firm Lost and Grounded, one of the best lagers in the country at the moment IMO. It's great to see this kind of quality in a local pub, long may it continue!

 

Sunday Smile

An unusual twist, but absolutely correct..

 

20 Watt Moon

Tasty beer last night while making dinner, from those Cornish masters down in Falmouth, Verdant. Called "20 Watt Moon", delicious combination of Citra and Strata hops giving tropical fruit flavours with a classic smooth Verdant mouth-feel and delightful lingering finish.

 

Sacrifice

Watching an old movie on TV this morning, in one scene it has a man talking to an Aztec about how his gods are wrong because his gods offer sacrifices, and the man (a Christian) says that his god isn’t wrong because he says we should live, oh really?  

Clearly this Christian hasn’t read his Bible! Sacrifice (of the human kind) would seem to be at the very core of the Christian narrative? Throughout that book there are many examples of different (& weird) kinds of sacrifice, with animals (demon infected pigs), Abraham's son Isaac (even though that was a cop out and a test god already knew the answer to), lions dens etc.. Even today missionaries go into remote tribes and get killed, they see it as a noble to sacrifice for their god’s cause!

It seems to be a human constant that when the clergy class (or any ruling class) need to assert their power and get control of the unruly masses (for the purposes of harvesting resources) they often resort to violence, and excuse it by claiming that it's divinely inspired, they do the same when they need money. We have seen this throughout history in all societies and with most religions. Pagans, Aztecs, Christians, Muslims et al, acting out violence against "witches", Women, people of other faiths, other skin tones, and more recently gays, albinos and non-believers in the name of their gods, ancestors or even space aliens. It's all the same thing, violence in order to make people more submissive and mailable to exploitation.

Special kind of person..

My daughter had a mishap in the gym last night, tore a couple of tendons in her shoulder while working out, consequently we took her to A&E in Reading (Royal Berks Hospital) to get checked out (just in case) fortunately nothing that some ice and ibuprofen won't fix but better to be on the safe side! While there, I was amused to see the box above outside the main hospital building. It's the Reading festival this weekend and, according to the nurse there, that department is gearing up for the expected deluge of visitors, mostly young, mostly drunk (or worse) and needing of some professional help. Rather them than me I thought, you have to be a special kind of person to do that job, that's for sure..

 

Wine shortages?

 

As I mentioned in a couple of previous posts, we spent last weekend in a hotel in the Cotswolds, enjoying the birthday celebrations of a good friend. I did however notice a rather ominous trend as we worked our way around several of the restaurants in the area, the object of my concern was wine. In the restaurant at our hotel (4*) there was a tidy little wine list, nothing too extravagant but adequate for an informal dinner. I ordered a Chianti to partner with some Italian inspired meat dishes but after a couple of minutes the waiter came back to the table to inform me that they had run out of the Chianti, ok, no drama, I'll have the Primitivo instead. A few more minutes passed, and the same thing happened, sorry no Italian wine available, I jokingly suggested that perhaps it would be quicker to see a list of the wines they actually did have! Anyway, third time lucky I opted for a Crianza from Spain, bingo! they had it and it was lovely. Having enjoyed the wine we decided to go for a second bottle (between four of us), guess what, they'd run out and offered an off-menu (inferior) choice (Rioja), shit happens I thought, but not ideal.

Unfortunately for us, what seemed like a one-off unlucky evening turned out to be something of a trend! A similar story was repeated in every single restaurant we visited, i.e. at least one or two of my choices weren't available (can't just be me!) One waiter said that they were having "supply issues".. 

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I think I'm beginning to smell a Brexit rat..

God on their side?

Imagine being the wife, brother, husband, daughter or parent of a peace-keeping soldier who died in Afghanistan yesterday, just when you thought we were out, boom, another statistic in the clash of civilizations! Words cannot describe their feelings this morning I'm sure. It beggars belief to me that forces like religion, mythology and tribalism are still, in the 21st century, capable of motivating people to strap bombs to themselves and to wander into packed crowds and detonate. It simply confirms the claim that the main victims of Islamic terrorists are Muslims, how ironic! No doubt there are many in Kabul at the moment who feel that their god is with them, they have won after all and driven out the infidel. But then again I guess when you believe without question, reason or logic that you have "god" on your side then you are capable of any atrocity without empathy or conscience.

 

Friday Smirk

Quality J&M pointing out the phenomenon of "confirmation bias", i.e. when someone only looks at evidence that supports an already established belief and ignores evidence that contradicts that belief. Of course everyone does this to some extent as we cannot avoid bias, but, it's worth pointing out sometimes that some of us don't base our whole lives on the principal (or pretend to).

 

Problem of Evil

The "problem of evil" (i.e. the existence in the world of suffering, slaughter, pain, exploitation etc.) has always been one of the most solid and best arguments against the kinds of gods that people actually believe in (i.e. today it's the Abrahamic ones). It's an argument that's been around since the ancient Greeks from 340 BCE (Epicurus) and applies to most concepts of "god" that have existed since that time. It's a very simple thought process and if your particular god is supposed to be all powerful, knowing and loving then you have to square the following circle. 

Evil exists so you have to ask if your god can prevent it, if not then he's not all powerful, if he can then why doesn't he? Perhaps he doesn't know about the evil, if so then he's not all knowing but if he does then he can't want to prevent it, in which case he isn't all loving. Even if you think that evil exits to "test us" somehow then you have to then ask how, if he's all knowing, then how didn't he know how we would react to the tests, if he does know then there's no point in testing us? If you think the answer to this is "free will"  then you have to ask, if god could have created a universe with free will but without evil, if not then he's not all powerful etc. Which ever way you skin it, this kind of god cannot exist.

The philosopher David Hume put it best in 1779 when he summarized the argument as follows,

"Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"

 A question that most honest people would argue is still on the table...

Time-Series Data

(Especially data on educational performance)

 

Rural Beer

As I mentioned in a previous post, we spent a couple of days in the Cotswolds this weekend celebrating a friends birthday. I was looking forward to (among other things) take the time to try some local beers, but, try as we might, I totally failed! I have to conclude that the Cotswolds is a (relative) craft beer desert! We only visited a couple of pubs in a couple of different villages but none sold anything remotely non-mainstream, not even a local real-ale. It was Carling, Tribute, Peroni or Guinness et al or nothing, very disappointing. I must admit I find it rather odd that you can walk into a pub and order from a selection of over 50 gins but there's only 3 beers on tap (brown, yellow and black!) based on the number of customers that consume these drinks, surely it should be the other way around? I'll leave you with a photo of some local Barley in a field being the closest we got to a local beer! I'm sure a more dedicated and intrepid explorer could have found something interesting somewhere, but the rest of us are getting used to the pervasiveness of good craft in and around larger towns and cities these days, still, I guess it's a business opportunity for someone; it's not as if the good Berger's of Chipping Campden are short of a few bob after all!

 

Plus ca change

When will we ever learn. A story in the news today tells the tale of a sexual deviant vicar who, in 1985 was convicted of abusing a 14 year old in Kent, but went on to work as a vicar for a further 25 years with the approval of the Church (of England), his boss at the time is now retired (2003) but became a Bishop and did a stint in the House of Lords (nice work if you can get it!). It transpires that he also abused other children in that time (no shit sherlock!), on Monday he was convicted of assaulting two boys in the 1980s and, let's face it, who knows how many others!

This is the problem when a group of people become convinced that they hold the moral high-ground over everyone else and allow themselves to believe that they have insights into Human behaviour and ethics that are "unavailable" to the rest of the population, it's a delusion and an obvious recipe for disaster. Psychopaths and sociopaths exist in our population according to statistical norms, if you brain wash them as children into thinking that "god is on their side" and protect them when they get caught then the emotional and physical harm they are capable of doing to others over many years doesn't bear thinking about.

Cotswolds

Nice weekend in the Cotswolds to celebrate a friends 60th birthday, we were lucky with the weather yesterday so did a nice 6 km walk around a small loop within the Cotswold Way, phew!, lot's of up and down but we certainly worked up a good appetite for a swanky meal in the evening.

 

Jobs

As I posted on a while back I've been recruiting new staff at my company recently and have just about filled all the vacant slots now, it's been an entertaining journey! I had one guy who aced the interview, seemed keen as mustard, accepted the role and joined the company. On his first day he turned up to the office and sheepishly wandered over to the HR managers desk and told her that since he accepted our position he'd been offered his "dream job" working for a computer games company and was resigning! I think that's a record for us, 3 hours in position and then quitting, some people hey..

 

Dog-day Thursday

 

They're called "mans best friend" but in my experience dogs are a mixed bag. I went for my normal daily walk yesterday (Thursday) and it turned out to be a very doggy experience. I'd only got 100 yards up the road from my house when I encountered two Women hanging onto leads for grim death at the end of which were two little dogs yapping, scratching and biting the crap out of each other. The problem was that this fight was occupying the whole pavement, I crossed over to the other side of the road, much to the horror of one of the Women, who seemed to be intimating that I should do something to help? I took one look at the flashing gnashers and razor sharp claws and concluded that the only thing I could usefully do would be to recommend a good dog trainer.

A little further around my route I observed another Woman coming in the opposite direct with what looked like a ball of white muscle on the end of a rope. As we got closer I noticed her tensing up, she gripped the rope tighter and tighter as I approached, finally when we were a few meters apart the dog went absolutely ape, barking, snarling and bearing it's teeth, it was the most she could do to hang onto it. Wow, some people, I could barely believe that, what looked like a pit-bull, could be allowed at all, let alone one so vicious and under trained, a disaster just waiting to happen, luckily I'm quite nimble on my feet and swerved out into the road to avoid trouble.

About another 100 yards up the same road there is a Vet's surgery, as I approached it I noticed a rather large van parked up outside and on getting closer I noticed that the back door of the van was open and it was full of little cages. In each cage (a five by five square of them) was a dog and as I passed by they all simultaneously opened up, the cacophony of barking made me jump out of my skin, my pace quickened and I felt like someone, somewhere was challenging me to find my inner dog.

Into the last three kilometers of the walk and I was just beginning to relax again, I turned a corner and there was a middle aged Woman and what I presume was her young Son, I didn't think anything of it as I sped up to pass them. Once passed I slowed back down to a relaxing pace only to be startled once again by a shrill screech from behind me. The kid was screaming something at the top of his lungs, bloody kids I thought but didn't think too much of it. Twenty seconds later the same thing. I looked back this time and realised they were out looking for a lost, yes you guessed it, DOG! At this point I thought to myself that I'd probably shake them off at the next turning as it was a side road leading to a path into a wooded area, but no, they followed my precise route at a distance of about 20 meters with a broken voice teenage screech and cry every 30 seconds, they stuck to my tail for about 2 kilometers (20 minutes of walking), I finished my walk far from relaxed, in fact I was glad to get back to work to chill out a bit!

Mirror Images

Yep, about right..

 

Friday Mirth

Another great J&M cartoon this week. 

Knock, knock

Who's there?

..Jesus and I'm here to save you.

From what?

..From what I'll do if you don't let me in..

 

Misinformation

Listening to a radio four programme this morning, in one segment there was a Woman living in Milton Keynes being interviewed about the current zeitgeist there. Various topics were covered from Brexit to Covid-19 vaccinations via "mental health" etc. It particularly peaked my interest because her answers and reasoning were chilling (and depressing) to my ears, jaw-droppingly so.

From her accent and background (a refugee from inner London in the mid-60s) I'll assume that she hails from a working-class background (probably not dissimilar to mine) based on the dates I'd also assume that she's in her 60s at least, probably slightly older. Just taking the three main topics of conversation, Brexit, Mental Health and Vaccination her answers were as follows,

• She voted leave
• She claimed her mental health was poor, similarly her family
• She is anti-vaccination

Of course it's not possible to draw any conclusions from a data sample of one, but I think we can justifiably pose the question, are these positions linked in some way?

Her justification for voting leave was confused and inarticulate, this isn't uncommon in my experience, people typically quote something to do with "control", something to do with "immigration", something  to do with straight Bananas etc. Interestingly, it became clear as it progressed that all the reasons quoted were simply a regurgitation  of the slogans of the long discredited pro-Brexit campaign (NHS £350 million bus etc.) Also when asked how she might vote today on Brexit she said definitely "stay", her reasoning being that Boris is "messing everything up" (presumably she believed there was a "good" way to navigate Brexit?). She said that lock-down had been particularly tough, nothing to do, lack of socialization etc. She claimed that because of this, i.e. personal inconvenience, she was anti-lockdown. On the vaccination front she was against it, claiming that the vaccines were "experimental" and too dangerous, she has not had one, the reasoning seemed to come straight from the propaganda anti-vaxxers on Facebook or Twitter, I won't bother to explain why this view is false but suffice to say vaccines have been used now for nearly 300 years now, hardly "experimental".

Of course, I'm not suggesting for a second that someone can't hold all of these views if they wish, freedom of conscience insists on it, but it's clear to any observer that all these positions have a key ingredient in common and that is misinformation. They are all based on a determination to ignore and/or misunderstand facts and to formulate opinions on simplistic, lowest common denominator propaganda from uninformed, malicious or manipulative sources (i.e. people like Cummings). Credulity seems to be the thread that joins many such people, a willingness to believe (selectively) the things that suit a parochial self-interest whilst ignoring facts that don't, a lack of skepticism, an unwillingness to fact-check or investigate claims, especially when they agree with an established position.

I'm sure that this "condition" is a Human constant and seems to be an ever popular one to aspire to, the rise of social-media, the dumbing down of society or the prevalence of powerful and pervasive misinformation on the channels that the mass of the populous consumes. It's something that's a common theme in the battle between secularism and science on the one hand and religion and supernaturalism on the other but it's clear from this radio programme that there's a more general problem at large, i.e. how may we (i.e. our society and our institutions) convince more people of the value of evidence and reason over emotion and self-interest.

Midweek Mirth

A couple of weekends ago we all walked into town to our favourite local bar, beers for the boys and fruit based drinks for the ladies (Mojitos!) Anyway, we didn't know it but in the little square where the bar is situated there had been erected a stage and sound set and a band was warming up to play. At first this seemed quite cool, a free concert essentially, but as the evening wore on it became apparent that the style of music favored by this particular band wasn't entirely conducive to a quiet Summer evening drink. I think I'd call it "grunge", Nirvana in aspiration, but nowhere near as good. After an hour or so it was starting to simply get in the way of our conversation and not good enough to grab our attention, we ended up leaving early for a fish and chips supper. I guess it's the thought that counts with these things and you have to take the rough with the smooth, anyway, next time we go I think we'll check who's on first!

 

Sean Lock

Saddened to hear that Sean Lock the comedian has died today. I wasn't aware that he was ill but unfortunately has had cancer for a while now, he was 58 years old (the same age as me) I've watched him perform many times on TV shows and various stand-up sets over the years, he was always one of my "go-to" comedians, very rude, very funny but most of all completely left-field. You could just tell that a lot of his comedy was spur of the moment and improvised (it was just too random to be scripted) but never the less utterly original and eye-wateringly amusing, I bet he was a really fun person to know.

Tuesday Titter

Love this cartoon, I find it so accurate for many modern, corporate workplaces I've experienced. Places where people are simply "acting" out a role all day, a façade, pretending to be energetic, happy and enthusiastic whereas in reality their work is mind crushingly boring, the management terminally incompetent and where insecurity rules, the only way to get through the day intact is for them to virtue signal their little hearts out celebrating the mediocre and not to raise their heads above the parapet for a second too long. Still, Christmas soon..

 

Engine Oil

Tried a very special beer from Siren at the weekend, an imperial stout called "Waltzer" (after the fairground ride of the same name) This beer, already pretty "big" in terms of high ABV and lot's of dark chocolaty malts, then had premium roast coffee beans added to it and was aged in old rum barrels for months! The beer has the highest rating on Untappd of any Siren beer ever (4.41), and I'd been keeping it for the last 8 months, waiting for a special occasion to drink it. Luckily, one of my best friends had a 50th birthday this Saturday, which provided just the thing, and so we popped it open.

Reminiscent of engine oil in viscosity it was as smooth as you like, creamy and boozy with a delicious red cherry/berry character while the coffee, rum and chocolate back notes made it much like I would imagine a liquid Black Forest Gateaux would taste! At around 13% alcohol though the single 330ml bottle was more than enough, even to share but wow, what a beer, the guys at Siren are really taking their barrel aging experiments to the next level with this beauty.

 

Dire

Sad day today, all that money, blood, tears and sweat not to mention the tons and tons of equipment now in the hands of the Taliban who used it to release hundreds of terrorists from Bagram airbase earlier today. Such a waste of time, energy and potential just to end up in exactly the same place as we were when we started. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan, I loath repressive theocratic regimes and support free speech along with equal rights for Women and other minorities oppressed by these Islamic nutters, so the news that any progress made in the last few years has now been swept aside is simply dire.

 

Workday Walk

Had a leaving drink with a colleague today (Friday) and she'd organized for everyone to meet in a pub on the outskirts of Bracknell, Berkshire which is next to the town I live in. Rather than drive over there I decided to kill two birds with one stone and incorporate my daily exercise into the event, so I walked the 4 km each way! We're fortunate in that the space in between the two towns (to the North at least) is still undeveloped and essentially countryside. The walk to the pub was mostly on footpaths through open meadows and even though the weather today isn't particularly great it was lovely to spend quality time strolling through the flower strewn fields and past glorious old oak trees. I can imagine that in 10 years time these open spaces will be gone, the housing developments are encroaching ever closer seemingly on a daily basis; even in the 20 or so years we've been living here the countryside surrounding the towns has shrunk considerably, such a loss, we've all got to live somewhere I suppose but I do hope it's all worth it.

 

Workplace expectations

Been interviewing for staff recently, it's an interesting activity in this "post-Covid" world (I realise it's not really over yet!) People are starting to expect a "reset", what I mean by that is a new set of rules and norms that apply to the workplace, things that would have been unheard of only 2 years ago. Perhaps it's because I work in the IT industry (which tends to lead in terms of employment gimmicks) or (as I suspect may be the case) this is just the result of the dissonance caused by 18 months of lock-downs and home working that has reset everyone's ideas about what's possible and what's acceptable. Here's a list of the major changes that I'm seeing WRT people's expectations as they relate to working environment and benefits etc.

- People no longer expect to work in an office every day (max 3 days a week)

- People feel they no longer need to live anywhere near the office

    - (overheard in an interview) I'm moving to the Canary Islands, is that OK?

- People expect more money (normal I suppose but salaries seem to have been hiked up)

- People expect company supplied equipment in the office AND for at home

- People expect strict work-life balances to be the norm (no working after 5pm!)

- People expect their employers to be uber-altruistic (i.e. community support, charity days and ideally carbon-neutral!)

- People expect no hint whatsoever of discrimination, sexism or racism. Of course no one would want these things either but the difference now is that people expect their employers to continually "virtue-signal" about them or the implication seems to be that there's "no smoke without fire" etc..

- People want explicit development plans for their own education and advancement, it's almost like people expect work to be a continuation of school/university..

A lot of requirements here for firms that may be experiencing a squeeze due to stress on the general economy, pandemic restrictions and Brexit mayhem, interesting times ahead!

 

Friday Smirk

Excellent J&M (as usual) - I hear that you can't really appreciate Shakespeare unless you hear it in the original Klingon..

 

Pious-Pic of the Week

In this one we appear to have Jesus looking like a cross between a 30 year old baby and an extra from the Halloween films? Perhaps he's been a naughty boy and crept out to get a Botox treatment, his mum looks pretty cross about it at least..

 

Active Imaginations

On one of my regular lunchtime walking loops I pass a bunch of allotments, it's always interesting to note what's going on, how things are growing (or not) etc. Today I noticed that the owner of one of the smaller plots seems to be aiming to draw attention to themselves by planting crops inside something that looks like a painted model boat/yacht! Not only that they've erected an elaborate (fully dressed) scarecrow on the fence complete with a pair of welly boots filled with soil (and presumably flowers!) pretty good going for a piece of ground about ten feet square, some people do have active imaginations!

 

Free lunches..

Decided to wonder into town and have a cheeky half at our favourite bar this afternoon, so far so good! Whilst there I noticed that on the chalk board advertising the beers on tap this fine evening, was a little note suggesting that logging 25 check-ins on Untapped (a web app for recording beers drunk at venues) would be compensated with "rewards"! 

Fortunately for me I've recorded over 50 check-ins on this particular app at this venue over the last couple of years but only just read the notice! I enquired about the so called "reward" to see what it was? Turns out that 25 check-ins gets you a free pint and as it transpires, the number of check-ins I have accrued (over 50) is therefore worth 2 free pints! Luckily my Son and I were quite thirsty after walking into town at quite a lick, and two (free) pints were just the remedy! We went for a couple of hazy IPA's from NZ called "Idaho Haze" (see above) citrus fruit, tasty and hazy as feck, just the job for a rainy Saturday afternoon/evening! The philosophical lesson is clearly that there is such a thing as a free lunch, you just have to diligently record your pints on social media to get one!

 

Fry'd

Love this exchange on Twitter between LDJ and Stephen Fry.. ouch, must burn..

 

Pre and post dinner beers

My Son and I tried a new Siren beer last night while preparing dinner for everyone (actually full disclosure, it was Chinese take-away, so I was just making some rice!) A classic West Coast IPA called "Okay I'll Bite" with more grapefruit, pithy citrus and lingering bitterness than you can shake a stick at! Delicious, but at 7% ABV we wanted something less powerful afterwards so we shared a 440ml can of Wild IPA from The Wild Beer Co. After food we all watched the Danish film "Another Round" about the ups and downs of middle aged men and their associated relationship with alcohol, a very good film indeed starring Mads Mikkelsen (Le Chiffre in Casio Royale) but it made you feel a bit sheepish about booze and what it does to the unwary (no spoilers) so we both limited our consumption to the two cans!

 

Summer walks..

Summer walks in the UK be like... 

 

Different strokes..

There are some really horrific stories coming out of Canada at the moment, tales of abuse, cover-ups and the murder of innocent children, truly disgusting. Lot's of people are rightly angry about this and want their Government to take some positive action, unfortunately, as is the way of things it seems, religion (i.e. Catholicism) is being given some special "untouchable" status. This is not unique to Canada of course, we have seen the same thing here and in other European nations (Ireland for example), it seems that there is a glaring blind-spot in our broader ethical thinking going on! For example, Canada is happy to pass laws to compel speech, i.e. mandate certain "words" be used by people around minority transsexual issues but seems reluctant to prosecute, investigate or even prevent child murder, can anyone else see the problem with this picture?

Change.org have a petition going at the moment on this, they suggest three simple steps that the Government could take to help focus the attention of the Catholic church on their lawful responsibilities, these are..

1. Stripping any preferential status that Catholic Institutions have under law

2. Banning all Catholic institutions from receiving public funds to deliver primary or secondary education. 

3. Terminating all Catholic institutions tax exempt station until they surrender all records associated with current and past crimes related to the abuse and murder of children. 

All of these measures seem perfectly reasonable to me, if this were a secular organisation we were talking about, say a company or charity, then no one would blink an eye, but because the organisation in question is a religion then some people seem to be reluctant to follow the same ethics, why?

Navigating our age..

Love this illustration, for me it sums up the zeitgeist of our time very well. Both my teenage children spend (IMO) an inordinate amount of time looking at their phones, in fact the phone has become the go to device for almost every single interaction with the world that they have to the extent that I often get a text from my Daughter from upstairs asking "what's for dinner"! Is this something we should worry about? Well, I think parents, like politicians instinctively fear change but, like many people today, I worry about where the boundary lies between productive use of technology and abuse/addiction, if indeed there is a line? I had a long Dad-Son chat with my 19 year old the other day on this topic and although we started with different view points, after a while it became clear that he was just as concerned about it as I was and we did in the end find lots of common ground. 

Our (optimistic) conclusion was that digital devices are here to stay, they can't be un-invented and probably shouldn't be anyway, however, parents will never "reason" their way to persuading teenagers to spend less time on them, the best way to do that would seem to be to offer more attractive experiences. Teens are also Humans (obviously!), and at the end of the day we are a social species! When you think about it middle-aged parents (like me) are also insular in many ways too, for example we spend a lot of time on work and hobbies, we tend to socialise exclusively within our peer group and we're probably a little anti-social at times as well (especially when there's a good bottle of red involved!) Part of the solution here (I think) is to try to work out how to involve everyone in whatever is being done rather than allowing people to channelize themselves around their own parochial interests. So, for example (spoiler alert, not my idea!), eat together a few times a week and make a concerted effort to talk to each other! 

We got into the habit a few years ago, when the kids were younger, of putting the TV on while eating meals, pretty soon it became a habit and guess what, conversation dried up! The strange thing is that it became an "elephant in the room" kind of thing (especially when Blue Planet was on!) i.e. everyone recognized the downsides but no one wanted to take positive action to change for fear of upsetting the apple-cart. We now have a little rule in the house, at least 4 nights a week we eat together, no TV, and we start each meal by going around the table with each person having to say one thing that day that they've enjoyed or succeeded at and one thing they haven't. It sounds like some horrendous social-engineering project but surprisingly it nucleates really enlightening and interesting conversations that sometimes outlast the meal itself! Everyone wins. Of course, some nights we just stick the telly on and veg-out over a Chinese take-away but hey ho that can be enjoyable sometimes too!

 

Friday Smirk

Ah yes, logical fallacies! Might as well be "Greek" to the irrationally/emotionally minded in my experience.

 

Pious-Pic of the Week

I love old maps and this one looks like a doozy; some spooky giant is emerging from the sea to grab an unsuspecting ship (as they do!) What value this added to navigation I'm not sure, perhaps previous voyagers found an island at that location full of bronzed beauties with wonderful coconuts and wanted to keep it to themselves, who knows. I can imagine that ancient sea voyages were a bit like space travel today, in that you simply didn't know what problem or challenge will befall you next, living on the edge of survival where nature seems hell-bent on killing you at every moment, and the ever present fear of the unknown. Those guys back then certainly had some dubious motives but also some serious cajones that's for sure!

 

Liberty and harm..

I thought this was a good metaphor for the current angst some people seem to have about wearing masks in crowded public places. To many of us (majority?) this seems like the *least* intrusive and yet most effective (i.e. best bang-for-buck) safety measure we could take to help prevent the spread of Covid? To many others it apparently feels like some kind of infringement to their personal liberty. 

I am a liberal myself, I believe in the idea that people should be free but I don't understand this particular and apparently selfish feeling, or the motivations behind it. It's not a new problem of course, I'm reminded what J. S. Mill said about doing harm and liberalism (and he wrote the book on liberty!) he said, "people should be free to act however they wish unless their actions cause harm to somebody else". Shame more people don't live by this principal, it would be a much fairer and less lethal world if we did.

 

Just when you think it's safe...

When people tell you that "religion is harmless", remember to point out that that view is a matter of perspective and not objective fact, then back your claim up by quoting a few of the instances where religion is causing real harm in the world. Here's another example for you. Mubarak Bala, an atheist from Nigeria is the president of the Humanist Association there, an innocuous past-time you would have thought, perhaps even suggestive of a desire to do good works in his community. The religion soaked Government in Nigeria however decided that he's deserving of a few years in the slammer for, wait for it, "blasphemy", yes Mr. Bala's "crime" is that age-old chestnut of criticizing Islam. Under the state law in his home district this so called "crime" is punishable by two years in prison, under Islamic Sharia law it's punishable by death, that's the great thing about religious "laws", there are just so many to choose from, it's almost like they're just a bunch of parochial, made-up, BS..

 

Art

Came across this "work" today on my lunchtime walk, it was on the side of a building in the town. It made me think of a debate I saw on a TV program the other day about graffiti. The presenter was interviewing some people about city centre wall paintings (aka graffiti) the question on the table was "is it graffiti or is it art?" my response was another question, i.e. "is that question a false dichotomy?". One man's graffiti is another man's art; art must be something that's in the eye of the beholder and can therefore be both, surely? (anyway, still not sure what the pink pigeon is supposed to represent)

 

The common good...

An excellent analysis by Otto English of the recent, and silly, "freedom" rant by historian Neil Oliver (off the telly) I mean really, who does Neil think he's kidding? TBH Most of the Brexit crowd probably! My Grandfather actually fought the Nazis on three continents, and he also fought Polio. I can guarantee he would understand perfectly what public health measures are for and how they work for the common good against attention seeking shirkers like Neil Oliver! As the analysis concludes, Neil is one of many people these days whose logic is flawed and "war analogies" warped beyond all recognition by self interest. Not a good look for a so called "historian" if you ask me! I'm going to take his musings about Vikings on Coast (tv show) with a much bigger pinch of salt from now on!

I would walk 500 more..

 

So, I've been tracking my general fitness/exercise with an Apple watch (version 1) for quite a while now and one of the things that it does is give you daily targets. These targets relate to different things you do like workouts, calories and steps etc. Each thing has a coloured circle that gradually gets closed as you approach your daily goal for it so at any time you can see where you are with respect to what's left to do that day. The watch app told me that I'd reached a milestone on Saturday, 1000 days of hitting all my exercise goals! I'm pretty chuffed with that, I never thought I'd keep the faith for so long, anyway, onwards and upwards to the next milestone, three years!

Monday Mirth

Yep seems about right..

 

Vax power

Just get the vaccination kids..