piccadilly and the corned beef salad sandwich

Apologies for typing this with my mouth full but you know how it is when you come through the other side of a fever you have a ravenous appetite. I'm finishing off the last morsel of a corned beef, coleslaw and fresh salad sandwich made with home-baked bread, still warm; the dog, who disapproves of humans eating unaided, shows her objection by resting her drooling jowls on the closed lid of my laptop; in a short while she would ensure there's enough dog saliva to endanger life and laptop either by short-circuiting or fatal electric shock; I would have to put down my plate and remove my laptop from my lap thus giving her an opportunity to remove the sandwich. It doesn't work. I'm feeling right as ninepence after being far too unwell to eat a thing and now I'm far too hungry to play dogs' games.

Yesterday, I viewed the BFI playlist, The Big Smoke: London on Film. I've a soft spot for any old films showing ordinary goings on, especially up and down streets. London has a particular interest as it's where I'm from. The first clip, Old London Street Scene, 1903, I found truly incredible. Just how many horses were there in London at that time, and what did they do with all the shit? There's none to be seen in the film yet it only takes a couple of girls trotting by on ponies up our way and there's shit for miles! (I did a bit of reckless Googling and estimated over 100,000 public and privately registered nags by 1900 - and it was a much smaller place than now. When the oil finally runs out, and they find there's not enough minerals to make batteries for everyone to have a G-whizz, we'll be in the shit, again.

Moving on, I found this one interesting. It threw up some more questions. I liked the way the colour changes with the scenes, sepia for the interior of the Limehouse boozer, cyan for the street outside, but how would this have been done in 1920s; in the processing, post-process coating of the frames in each scene, or by coloured filters during projection? I don't know why I'm curious, I just am. I'll bet it's the middle one.

It's only an extract from a longer film, and I wouldn't mind watching the whole thing. It's a strong subject, racism, which with all isms isn't going away fast enough, and soon there'll be horseism and shittism to boot, mark my words.

pants!

Obviously the women of Sudan wear the trousers - both literally and metaphorically. I don't know what definition of indecent appears in the sudanese dictionary but I wouldn't have expected to see a picture of a pair of trousers!

Apparently, it isn't a part of Sharia law and I can believe that, so what do the men fear about the gentle sex, I wonder. Trousers today, tomorrow the world. And why not?

remembering fountains

''Parents aren't stupid.''

Are they not? That's a relief. Remember, children, don't be stupid; have kids!

I don't know much but surely someone has to be responsible for the mess we're in: 60 billion and rising. I saw a middle-aged man in a suit waiting for train, drinking a can of ''Red Bull''. His fly was undone. Not that I'm in the habit of observing a man's crotch but on this occasion it was all too obvious: part of his blue shirt was clearly poking through the hole. By chance I had notice him leaving the gents before entering the station shop. Despite his open disclosure, there wasn't sufficient evidence he'd fathered children but why wouldn't he?

I remember drinking fountains in parks - and in school playgrounds. They were refreshing. Especially during long summer days, I remember how cold like brass the water sometimes was. We learnt the knack of sucking from the vertical spurt without letting it dribble down our chin. In parks, there was even a little trough near the ground for dogs.

Things appeared more civilised then. Now, evidently, we prefer Coca-cola, Red Bull (I don't even know what that is), and much worse. Consumerism. Choice. Stupid, we are.

sciatica II

The answer to last Tuesday's quiz was; (b) Osteopath.

From a patient's perspective, I'm still unsure what the difference is. Last time I had a body part requiring expert tweaking I was sent to Physiotherapy. As I recall, they didn't do very dissimilar things to my leg. Chiropractors, I think, are almost wholly an American invention; there they are permitted to adopt the title of ''Dr.'' which can be misleading especially as they're associated with human physiology and therapy. It can be open to abuse; probably why I was thinking quackery.

The osteopath was very good; in fact, it was better than going to the doctors. I had to pay ''at point of use'', mind, a thing that we British don't have to do in the NHS. Of course, we still pay but not ''at point of use''. As a result, without going into the politics, it's hard to know if you're getting ''value for money'' with the NHS, whereas you do know, almost immediately, with ''at point of use''. And I think I got it.

With the GP, no matter how nice they are, you get the sense of time-urgency. Sure, they have so many patients stacked up in waiting, they need you in and out in around nine minutes flat. I don't know what that costs you per hour but ''value for money'' you sense about 50 pence a pop. The Osteopath gave me a full 45 minutes. In that time we discussed my recent medical history, a brief explanation of sciatica, a physical and diagnosis, the therapy itself, including deep massage, a practical instruction in stretching exercises, a look into a totally unrelated complaint (as I had time left on the clock), a discussion on the recession, job opportunities, allotment gardening, being an osteopath, keeping active, and where I could park my bike safely if I ever needed his services again. If he'd offered to make us a nice cup of tea while we sat down to listen to a long-playing record, I couldn't have felt less rushed.

Don't get me wrong; I think the NHS is very important to a civilised society. But you can't help wondering if it's really working all that well.

nerve centre

My continued falling out of love with the WWW is recently exacerbated by a bout of sciatica. I find sitting upright the least comfortable activity at the moment. This appears to be a green ailment as cycling seems to offer relief whereas driving is agony, compounded by the sense of feeling hopelessly trapped and helplessly confined. And as far as walking goes, the poison is in the dose.

Looking it up on the WWW, as you do, I find I need the services of a physiotherapist/osteopath/chiropractor for a bit of leg pulling. What the difference is I don't know but I fear one of them might be a quack. However, my main concern is if they have somewhere safe to chain the bike.

The causes of sciatica are varied, the most likely being sitting awkwardly in the same position for too long - the old WWW again, probably. It's a relief that I'm not in regular employment right now or I'd have to take time off as most of modern office life in the knowledge sectors requires the worker to sit all but motionless in front of a keyboard and screen. I recall earlier times as a trainee/apprentice engineer working pretty much exclusively on a drawing board and being able to vary the height and inclination which enabled me to spend some time sitting and some time standing, at will. Not to mention the stretching and twisting which occurred unconsciously as I moved around the large board, and between board and desk to pick up and replace instruments. Okay, I was younger then but I never suffered a work-related illness in all those days.

What have we done to ourselves in the interest of progress and efficiency? The whole thing's a cock-up from beginning to end. Not to mention the fact that when the computer system fails, either by system crash or power failure, productive work stops immediately and we all look to each other like lost little children in a shopping mall.

Computer dependence will spell the death of civilization. Ouch! - now really I must go stretch my sciatica...

on pensions

The BBC commissioned a survey which suggests half the UK are not putting ANY money into pensions, and on the BBC news yesterday, it was further suggested that a person aged 50+ would need to put £1000 every month into a pension scheme in order to acquire a pension income of £10,000 (by today's value, I presume) from age 65 onwards. So that's,

(65 - 50) x 12 x £1000 = £180,000

According to this article, again by the BBC, the Office for National Statistics reveals longevity for men in the UK in 2006 to be 77.3 years. Let's call it 78.

(78 - 65) x £10,000 = £130,000

Is there something wrong with this maths? What happened to the average pensioner's other £50k? Okay, this is a gross simplification: investments could go up - or down; inflation could go up - or down; interest rates could go up - or down. Based on recent trends it's down, down, down all the way. Notwithstanding the potential effects that peak oil, climate change, and population growth will have on all of this. Is it any wonder people aren't climbing over each other to give fund managers their ''hard-earned'' wonga?

People forget how new this extravagant pension idea is; my grandfather's father never had one and I doubt my grandchildren will. Our generations have been living in a cosy bubble of prosperity and it's about to be pricked. We really have to rethink our old age plans.

town & country

I have to say, half-way through and Small is Beautiful isn't as good a read as I thought it would be. I think the overall spirit of the book is sound but the message often suffers from emotional and wayward composition. Maybe it's because it was written over 36 years ago - hmm, not a great while ago - or maybe it's just me.

However, every now and then a familiar truth will stand out. I'm more certain than ever now why I had to get away from London, and why, when I eventually settled down to family life, we chose Hertfordshire, and why that wasn't far enough and we eventually moved to rural Wiltshire, and why now, living in Ciren, even though we live closer to the open countryside than the town centre, and it's a small town, a pleasant town, it reminds me too much of suburbia and I ache to move again.

Schumacher says the spirit of man is not meant for urban living and yet James Lovelock, in Revenge of Gaia, says 90% of us now live in urban environments. Both say we have problems because man has divorced himself from nature, and from the Earth. Towns are the problem, the countryside is the solution, I believe that.

troglodyte nation

It's hard to write this post now. Yesterday, as I walked the dog along the Monarch's Way, the faint sound of traffic finally petering out until only the wind and my squeaky left boot filled me ears, it seemed an easy task. The words came readily as I imagined them being typed into the blog. But in my room, in front of the laptop, I feel despondency clouding over my thoughts. I want to be outdoors.

Being off ''work'' I've learned a few things about myself. I'm obviously an outdoors guy. It began in January when I dug the soil over in my coat, and through until May when I'd gradually stripped down to the waist. I have been in the rain and not minded, I am learning to read the weather, I have noticed the change in wild flowers, and I have developed a bronzed look without going through the redness and pain phase. Working on the allotment, being around to witness and experience, constantly, the outdoors, just seems so astoundingly natural to me. Is that ironic; being in nature being natural? Not really. So what happened?

I am aware it'll be necessary to return to ''work'' for financial reasons, and this would mean office work, ''business as usual''. This saddens me. I wish I was a farmer but that's not likely to be: I was brought up in ghastly suburbia. I'm not kidding myself farming isn't harder work than most urbanites would know but there is the knowledge and I don't have that, not just the ''how to'' knowledge but the all important instinctive and spiritual knowledge that country people have through generations. Whereas, I am urbanite. Like 90% of all humans, I live, work, and think indoors. I am a member of the great troglodyte nation.

Maybe I could become a postman...

People Matter

I began reading E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study Of Economics As If People Mattered, today. I requested it from the new library; it was in central storage and took some time to track down, I don't expect it gets much of an airing. It's a book I think I should have read in the 70s but I didn't know of it then. The writing is of that period, quite text-bookish, not the chatty, let-me-explain, easy style of most recent books on ''serious'' issues. I find myself going over paragraphs again, getting into the style; often it seems to be written for economists: there's jargon and terms I can only guess at the meaning and he has an annoying habit of putting many terms in inverted commas.
Despite this the overall message so far is familiar. There's even parallel sentiments I recognise from The Ragged Trousered Phil. Just how far back does this wisdom go? And why hadn't I noticed then, and why are people not noticing still? The so called ''Business As Usual'', I guess.

on the future

Listen to James Lovelock talking to Oliver Norton of Nature.

This is the first occasion I've heard his voice. I don't know why, he must have been on YouTube before. I suppose, generally, I would only check out the dubious loons I come across in print, and their manner in person, on video, usually supports this first impression. It didn't apply to Lovelock when I read him and hearing him speak now confirms that opinion. And he seems like a real nice guy to boot, despite his message.

(i got the) home town blues

James Lovelock's informative and thought provoking Revenge of Gaia ends with a sober vision of desperate human survival in a hot, post climate change planet. Reading the book it's hard to get a handle on whether he's optimistic or pessimistic about the outcome of this crisis. In a newspaper interview he remarks he's an optimist; he knows climate change is going to happen. Enjoy life while you can is his advice. We may have as little as two decades left.

Enjoying life while you can means to me appreciating our world more. Not just nature, or what passes as the natural world in a man-made environment, but civilization; art, science, literature, and history, especially. I was looking for a site on Cirencester 21 - which I think is a local movement involved in transition, peak oil, energy etc. - and ended up on a BBC film archive watching 28 minutes of A Day Out in Cirencester, part of a series made in 1979. I don't know if there ever was a ''Golden Age of Television'' but programmes certainly looked gentler and more quaint in those days. But less superficial maybe. I can't imagine even the Beeb making a series like this today. It's all ''reality'' now, only it isn't really that real. Whereas A Day Out is.

Anyway, this has been my adopted town for the last eighteen years. Recently, I've been feeling an urge to move on to new pastures - maybe further west, or Wales. This little film has made me feel I belong here. I shall have to give it a little think.