A New 'New Year's'

“This year, I resolve to... make no resolutions.”

I have made this New Year’s Resolution for the past several years and, since doing so, my success rate at keeping New Year’s Resolutions has soared dramatically.

To be perfectly honest with you, I do have a certain pragmatism about this New Year business.

While I have no objection to people abusing themselves by becoming drunk, diseased and pregnant over the passage of one night it occurs to me that the notion of the celebration is somewhat vague.

The grandiose celebrations that are lavishly spread around the World to welcome in a New Year is something that affects, not just our pocket, but our psyche.

Let me explain.

A few hundred years ago some itinerant monk or mathematician—possibly one man with two hats, decided that the calendar that was currently in use was inadequate. It failed to allow for the idea of the Earth’s orbit around the sun was not three hundred and sixty five days at all. A year, it was demonstrated, was perceptibly more than that.

Sadly, there was no way of dividing a day up into small parts. We could not, at eight o’clock in the morning on one specific day, say that we had had enough of that day for now and that it must become midnight immediately.

As a consequence, the addition of an extra day every fourth year was the way forward to make up the extra time consumed by the orbital wanderings of our planet.

Brilliant idea. There is no doubting the wisdom involved in this decision. There is also a staggering astonishment at the will to adapt to this new system by the current ‘Powers That Be’ knowing, as we do, how resistant ‘Powers That Be’ are to change.

We are also aware of how resistant everybody is to change. To adopt this new system was a paradigm shift of the first water!

So. What happened?

Somebody, somewhere, in the halls of power made a decision.

“A week Monday it will be January First of the New Year,” came the edict from above.

And so it was.

The first of January for the new calendar was an arbitrarily selected date. It could have been any day at all. We could well be celebrating our New Year on what should have been August 14^th but for the whim of a ‘Power That Be’.

And so we fix our eyes to the television to see that first array of fireworks over New Zealand that marks the first moment of the New Year creeping across the Pacific and into our lives.

After only a short while, can it be only a week? We are plunged into yet another festivity.

Vast sums are spent once again but, this time, on fireworks and alcohol. Alcohol that lowers the inhibitions and enables us to dance like disjointed marionettes whilst becoming increasingly louder and incoherent.

Thus there are so many who greet the dawn of the first day of the New Year in a parlous state of despair, wishing that the pain rummaging around in our heads would go away; others not yet knowing that they have obtained some social disease and others that they are now pregnant with a vicarious gift from the New Year Fairy.

But, hey! It was fun. For a few hours, that we can recollect, we have had a wonderful time. Now we can spend the next eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours until the next New Year’s celebrations asking everyone if we had a good time. Or not.

Of course, the ‘knock on’ effect of this is:

Astrology. This randomly applied day, this day that was nominated by the ‘Powers That Be’, is the basis for the astrological forecast that we avidly soak up from each edition of the Dailies.

You may be pregnant from the festivities but, at least, you can comfort yourself with the idea that, were it not for the spin of a capricious fate, you could still be a ‘Virgo’!

Christmas? Bah! Humbug!

I have mentioned before this that I have an antipathy to Christmas. I have no argument with those who wish to believe that there is a religious, and highly spiritual, meaning to Christmas. My hackles tend to go up at the vast largesse that is expended.

The people that spend vast sums on Christmas do so because they are bent on celebration. It is not enough to have a multitude of lights or enough food to appease the appetites of a marching army. A celebrant has to spend vast sums on gifts that will, very likely, be less appreciated than the anticipation of receiving them.

It is those sums of money that will oppress the borrower for another twelve months—perhaps more. If they are lucky, the debt will be cancelled in time for another splurge next year.

So the cycle goes on.

Those that are celebrating will tell you that they are validating their belief in the birth of the baby Jesus; that these sums represent a sacrifice that they are prepared to pay in order to show that their hearts and intentions are pure for the coming year.

Is that so? Is it really a sacrifice?

The stress of preparation, not just in the realms of purchasing but also in the work involved in decorating, cooking and wrapping, is just a small sample of the sickness that is the festive season.

The marketing and advertising people have a field day—it is the time when they can sell almost anything to anybody just by telling you that it is necessary to have it for a successful Yuletide.

Buy the festive detergent that will make the stocking you put out for Santa brighter than anyone else’s.

An element of one-up-manship never goes amiss in such situations.

How can your child possibly live another year without the ‘Miley Cyrus Twerking Kit—complete with Robin Thicke Doll’ the lack of which will make your offspring a laughing stock at school?

It is nonsensical.

The degree of debt that people will rack up in order to satiate the demands of the credit companies is staggering.

It is a ‘must have’ culture for people who don’t have. People who are struggling to pay their day-to-day bills and feed the children.

Keep up with the Jones’ or be mocked.

Spend or be damned but, then, be damned anyway.

In all this, what happened to the spirit of charity? Real giving; that tenderness and sympathy for the less fortunate?

All over the World there are people being killed and mutilated; there are children dying of starvation and disease.

For a few days, every winter, we stuff ourselves with all the good things that we can lay our hands on. We drink to excess.

We sit back to watch the Christmas programmes on television, that are yet more recycled dross and mental pap, with stomachs stretched and bloated.

We kill ourselves with excess.

Is there any thought to stretching out a hand to help those who are desperate for help. People, human souls, who yearn for something—anything, to eat. People who could be saved with minor medication that we think nothing of; things that are taken for granted.

People—persons, who yearn for clean water instead of sipping what they can get from filthy streams, from the liquor that forms from rubbish tips that stink with the foetid odour of decay and those who have no water at all.

Christmas is really a time for thinking of others.

I do not believe that Jesus was born on the 25^th December; I do not believe that he was born in a stable or that his birth, and start in life, was viewed by shepherds and wise men.

I believe he was born and that some day should be set aside to recognise that idea.

I believe that the pagan festivals attached to Christmas should be set aside and recognised for what they are.

Christmas trees and lights are fun. They are pretty. It is nice to give presents and it is nice to receive presents. It is wonderful to have friends and family visit as it is at any time of year.

But we have forgotten what it is all about.

We have forgotten what is at the root of the celebration.

We have become victims of the corporate desire to make profits. Santa and his bag of presents has hypnotised us into a divergent belief.

The Reindeer are as mythical as our good will to all men.

What’s In A Name?

A few weeks ago, before I became immersed in lots and lots of work, somebody asked me about names.

At first I was puzzled, there was no clue as to the context of their query and then it became clear that the question concerned ‘making up names’. Names used in stories.

Where do authors get names from for their characters? Some writers look at the telephone directory; they search through or they open at random and stick a pin in the listings.

Sometimes they will scan the credits at the end of films and shows on TV but that can get you unstuck!

For example: there is a show currently on TV starring Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu called ‘Elementary’. It is yet another spin-off of the great Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ tales but set in New York. This is because everything happens in America and Americans are unable to associate with anything from anywhere else. The point here is that there is a name that appears early in the credits, it is a ‘Jill Footlick’. I do hope that she will forgive me for not knowing what her function on the show is although ‘Google’ now informs me that she is the Unit Production Manager and so her function is still a mystery to me.

That is, it seems, her real name. Yet if I, or any other author, were to make so bold as to use that name in a story then the story should, very likely, lose credibility.

The trick is that the names of our characters have to be realistic. Even aliens need to have names that smack of reality. Calling somebody ‘Sptzlk’ might look good on the back of a soccer player’s jersey but it bodes ill in the text of a novel.

(NB: There is a fellow who plays for Liverpool FC called Skrtl. No, really. I know of no other player who lacks vowels so emphatically!)

Apart from telephone directories, where else can we go? We search among our friends and, sometimes, family. We refer to words from other languages and cultures.

It is sometimes a twist on things we hear. A comedian called Russell Peters was making fun of Tamil names because they are inclined to be very, very long. Something he said clicked a word in my head that, after massaging, became ‘Desrabreshanyanay’. How did it happen? Who knows.  But the character in one of my novels is now called ‘Jer Desrabreshanyanay’; I have to say that it rolls off the (my?) tongue quite nicely!

Where did the likes of Harka’aani and Murekko’aani come from? Who can say? They are names that just popped into the head. The same with Ritta’aadu and Bimmana’aadu. Eventually we discover, from the second book and from the ‘prequel’ that Ritta’aadu was, originally ‘Rhittach’ until Harka’aani renamed her.

Who knows what aliens really call themselves? Fictitious aliens have to be called something that humans can connect with. That is why we have Luke Skywalker and Han Solo—not to mention Yoda!

Having a name that is, at least, almost realistic is an imperative. Using names that sound comedic in an otherwise serious situation is not going to sound convincing.

And yet we see names all the time where we definitely say, “What is that? Did somebody really call their baby THAT?”

Reality and fiction are far apart. Fiction just has to sound more real.

To Infinity - and Beyond

Most of my friends are intellectuals. Many will scoff at that and declare themselves to be otherwise but the fact remains that they are ‘thinkers’.

It may be that, sometimes, I disagree with their views on life but the idea that they are able to form an independent opinion is refreshing.

It is of no consequence, to me, if they read the ‘right’ books or that they see the ‘right’ films. It is of even less consequence if they appreciate the ‘finer’ arts. It is of no consequence whatsoever what their personal beliefs might be.

In a brief and light-hearted exchange with a friend of a friend of mine an image lurched into my head that needed careful consideration.

His idea was that I had, potentially, conceptualised ‘God’ as a small girl. This idea came from a ‘Blog’ that I wrote on the 24^th July, this year, called ‘Acorn’.

Interesting thought and not the one that was intended.

It made me realise that, however carefully one writes, there is always latitude for interpretation.

We shall set to one side interpretation in the books that are considered ‘Holy’ as being too sensitive an issue for the purposes of this ‘Blog’ and, instead, look at other ways in which the World can be seen.

From the previous ‘Blog’ entitled ‘Acorn’ the idea was one of scale.

When we look at something we are seeing what is, to us, an item of substance. Whatever that substance might be it is manufactured from molecules that are made up of atoms. Then the atoms are made up from electrons, protons, neutrons that further resolve down into quarks and all sorts of other things that the likes of the brilliant Neil deGrasse Tyson would be able to list in detail.

But what are those smaller things made up from? Will we get down to the point where we look into a microscope and see universes? Galaxies?

Is there, somewhere out there, a giant eyeball peering down at us from far removed orbit?

Infinity is fantastic. ‘Fantastic’ really means that the human mind is unable to grasp it. For this reason I cannot fathom how Britney Spears and her ilk might be regarded as ‘fantastic’ since it seems that grasping is...

We shall let that die.

We cannot imagine infinity. It is beyond the scope of the human intellect to do so.

What is beyond infinity? There is, by definition, nothing beyond infinity. If it is circular then what is it that is outside of that circle?

There must be other universes. There cannot be an infinity of blankness beyond our universe. The idea that this universe, our universe, is the sole island of matter in an unlimited ocean of vacuum is preposterous. Worse, it is extreme arrogance.

Universes are limitless; they are infinite. As is, almost certainly, life. In many forms.

Let’s look at something else but we will return to the previous thought line.

Mayflies are ephemeral. Many insects and small creatures are in existence for a blink of an eye.

Some give us great pleasure in their brief lives and others less so.

There is a theory (mine, really) that everything on the Earth has the same number of heartbeats. Once those heartbeats are used up then it is time to draw the curtains and hold a wake.

Of course, there is a flaw in this theory; it does not allow for diseases and the fact that I am not medically qualified to form such an idea. Nevertheless, I hold dear the right to consider all concepts no matter how churlish, childish or pathetic they might be to ‘normal’ people.

Elephants’ hearts beat at around the same rate as ours so they live about the same span as us. Giant Tortoises have a slower heartbeat—they live longer.

Humming birds have short lives, their hearts beat at an alarming rate.

Does this heart rate coincide with a concept of time?

Consider that a fly will remove itself from the place where your hand is about to strike in ample time to prevent it dying of shock. Birds will flap into the air in a trice—well ahead of any impending danger that you may threaten them with. The only way we can compensate for that is with some sort of weapon.

Dogs live short lives. The thing is that their lives may be seventy years to them. They may see time as moving much more slowly than we do.

We are aware that, in times of great stress, the rate of the passage of time will change for us. We understand that a week can take a month at work but that the weekend is gone in a flash. Clearly time is flexible.

Do the ephemeral creatures of the World see their lives as being seventy years? Do they see us as great, slow, lumbering beasts with deep booming voices?

This idea is just for us on Earth. The difference in size may be miniscule compared to other creatures that form the bulk of the unknown universes that comprise ‘infinity’.

To them it may be that our entire galaxy is just a mere flash as the energy release from splitting one of their ‘atoms’.

How do we know?

How will we ever know?

Vicious Generalisations

Just have a browse through these few photographs. What is it that comes to mind?

Yes, indeed. These are all oppressed Muslim ladies who live in constant fear of being dragged off to a crowded football stadium where they will be executed by a single rifle shot...

Nonsense, isn’t it? These women are scholars, Aircraft Engineers, Senior Managers, Teachers, Maintenance people, Police Officers, Journalists.

Every one of them plays an active role in society; they all contribute to the economy through their skills and dedication to their task. They are, as one, independent, strong willed, competent, intelligent and often highly qualified.

They also have family to whom they are equally, if not more, dedicated.

What about these photographs, then?

Are they terrorists? Eager to do the ‘right thing’? They are all Muslims even if they are not quite as hairy as the ‘Duck Dynasty’ people!

No, they are Shopkeepers, Policemen, Aircraft Engineers, IT Specialists, Managers, Ground Equipment Engineers, Photographers.

Just like Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, et al, they are interested in earning a living, supporting their families and having a good life.

Just like Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, et al, they go to their Mosques, Temples, Synagogues, Churches and pray, quietly, to their God(s).

They do not assemble to concoct plans to overthrow anybody and turn the World into a death trap for others.

Apart from the Police Officers I know of nobody that possesses a gun and only one person who knows how to use one should they be given one. Indeed, given a matchbox-sized piece of plastique it is I who could do the most damage!

So what is it that they all have in common apart from being Muslims? They are all peaceful, law abiding people who get on well with their neighbours irrespective of the neighbours’ religion.

There are no arguments on the street or across boundary fences.

There are rarely arguments about anything anywhere.

There have been, recently, virulent statements made about sundry people.

Most of these comments are ill informed vituperations formed, one imagines, in the gut out of a sense of hatred. They do not, for certain, arise from a considered, researched basis of truth.

Quote: “All Muslims should eat sh*t and die.”

Note: ‘All’.

Please refer to the photographs above and see, again, the people that you wish to consign to an early grave.

Do you really imagine that these innocent people deserve to die at all—let alone some horrible, slow, painful death?

I have said before that if you are a writer or an author, you need to get your facts and ensure that they are correct.

Believing everything that you see on the Internet is not a sure way of obtaining facts any more than reading newspapers.

Journalists have a duty of care to tell the truth—whether they like it or not. Often they do not.

You have a duty of care to ensure that what you write is truth—whether you like it or not.

Writing does not apply only to fiction or learned tracts; it applies to you who write on ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’. If you write, anywhere, you have a responsibility to everyone else.

If you are stating an opinion it is a good idea to justify that opinion and not just say, “Tomatoes are hazardous to health and should not be eaten off pewter plates*,” without a justification.

We are, as one, very quick to generalise and point fingers. It is a way of bolstering our own inadequacies. Surely, showing someone else up in a bad light is the most effective way of demonstrating our own higher qualities. Sadly, extinguishing another person’s light does not make our light burn any brighter.

Kind words are more effective.

Stay positive: I will not attend an ‘Anti-War Rally’ but I will go to a ‘Peace Rally’.

*In the Middle Ages those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Sixth Sense or Non-Sense

We have five senses. More than enough for the likes of us. Each of those five senses report to centres in the brain where the input is processed and, some of it, stored.

The storage procedure is not very efficient for most of us and so memory becomes fallible. We mostly remember things in the way that we expect them to be rather than how they actually were.

We have ultra-short term memory that retains information for up to two seconds—except for the visual cortex that stores iconic memory for about half a second.

Then we have short-term memory that we hold on to for about ten to twenty seconds. Some of those memories might get transferred into long-term memory but that is more likely to happen with rehearsal.

Usually we can remember between five and nine ‘chunks’ of memory for a short time so splitting things up into small pieces is better but the most effective method is making a short note.

A short note is far better than a long memory.

There are people who tell us that there is a sixth sense commonly regarded as a ‘non-sense’.

Yet there are uncanny things that occasionally crop up that make you think about this.

All examples of this sixth sense can be pooh-poohed quite easily, for instance, people will say, “How often have you had the feeling that you were being watched, you turn and there is someone watching you?” This is easily countered with, “How many times have you thought you were being watched, you turn and there’s nobody there?”

Yet there is one startling effect that was documented by researchers; several days before the WTC towers were hit, we are not going into all the conspiracy theories about this, there was an upsurge in the feelings of fear by people. The recording of this was made before the event so it was not something that was noted after the event.

Shall we look at some ‘odd’ things that have been written about ‘after’ events—these things are, obviously, less reliable but sometimes there is no smoke without fire, as they say.

On Friday, October 21, 1966, a mountain of coal waste, perched above the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, broke loose and came flooding down onto the village.

It rolled over a tiny cottage about halfway down the slope, crushed Pantglas Junior School, wiped out 20 houses - then finally came to rest.

A total of 144 people, 116 of them were children, were crushed or suffocated to death in one of Britain's most horrific, peacetime, tragedies.

But for one family the grief was even more acute. One of those killed, ten-year-old Eryl Mai Jones, had predicted the catastrophe.

In the days prior to the atrocity Eryl had told her mother that she was 'not afraid to die'.

Eryl said, “I shall be with Peter and June.”

Eryl's mother offered her daughter a lollipop and thought nothing of it. Then, on October 20, the day before the disaster, Eryl said to her mother, “Let me tell you about my dream last night. I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it!”

The next day Eryl's horrific premonition came to pass and she was killed with her school friends Peter and June. They were buried, side-by-side, in a mass grave—just as Eryl had predicted.

Of course, the premonitions of disaster prior to the WTC collapsing were many and varied.

One of the most clear examples was that the aircraft used had very many fewer seats occupied than would be typical on any other day.

The Boeing 757 that crashed into the Pentagon had only 64 of 289 seats taken. The aircraft that crashed into the twin towers were 74% and 81% empty.

Studies have shown that in a major disaster there are usually (but not always, of course) less people involved than might have been expected.

Not just humans are affected. Before the tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004, the flamingoes in Sri Lanka’s southern coast fled and monkeys stopped taking bananas from tourists and began to scream.

A woman reported an incident where her cat jumped off the back seat of her car and bit her—causing her to stop; seconds later a tree crashed onto the road in front of her.

I just have an odd feeling that lunch is on the way.

If you are interested in such things, try:

http://sixthsensereader.org/about-the-book/abcderium-index/premonition/

Prostitutes, Lovers and Mistresses

 They say that prostitution is the oldest trade in the World. It is, quite possibly, a unique trade.

Why?

Because you’ve got it, you sell it—you’ve still got it!

Must have been invented by Jews.

An idea sprite hit me while I was thinking of something else. Actually, I was thinking of someone else but we shall work on the precept of ‘no names, no pack drill’, eh?

The sprite nudged my head towards the words ‘double standard’ and ‘hypocrisy’. I did enquire of the sprite what the root of this was but, as usual, it just laughed and backed off.

Further thought came to me that this referred to sex.

We think about sex a lot, don’t we? Yes, yes. Do not act the innocent with me. I have run into those wide eyes before, they don’t work now.

We are told that a man will think about sex every fifty six seconds on average. Women? I have no idea but I imagine it will be along similar lines in spite of protestations from the female population to the contrary.

We are all human with the same urges to procreate, after all. Add ‘fun’ to that idea and the thoughts begin to be irresistible.

So what is it that is a ‘double standard’?

We shall take just one but others exist, of course.

If a man goes into a female student’s hostel and has his way with every one of the women therein he will be labelled a hero. He will be ‘Jack the Lad’!

Of course, the probability of his being able to accomplish this task beyond the first few is minimal because he will be physiologically incapable of such a performance in spite of what your friendly neighbourhood Romeo will tell you.

Let us now switch sides.

A young lady strolls into the male hostel and has her way with each of the young men in that dormitory.

This is far more possible.

Allow us to leave aside the enormous pleasure she has just given any number of young men and consider the choice epithets that will accompany her life into the foreseeable future.

‘Slut’, ‘slag’, ‘whore’, ‘cow’, ‘slapper’ are just a few of the labels that this, now, loose woman will be anointed with.

Why? Both the fellow and the young lady did the same thing but the results, in the mind of the observers, will be different.

Confucius said, “One key fits many locks—good key; one lock opened by many keys—bad lock.”

One wonders at this double standard. It is fine for a chap to have a good time but not a woman.

Men are almost required to be ‘experienced’ before marriage but a woman must be a virgin. Virgins are, it seems, good but non-virgins are evil.

So if the girl is required to be ‘pure’ before marriage where does the fellow get his experience?

Some girls must be permitted to be impure to enable men to be capable of performing adequately on the wedding night.

What of these girls?

Prostitutes?

How strange it is that a man will ‘sleep’ with a prostitute, who has had many clients, with impunity. He has no regard for those that have gone before.

But (there’s always a ‘but’).

If he finds that the girl he is currently dating has had some previous experience with a male he will be shocked—offended, perhaps. She is shown the road. Suddenly his precursors are important.

Double standard and hypocrisy rule.

Shall we return to the young man and the young lady who appeared in the first scene?

Odd, is it not, that the young lady who has been so acerbically criticised for her low morals will now be the subject of close male attention. All the fellows will wish to ‘date’ her.

Why?

Because if she will allow herself to be bedded by those other chaps then, surely, she will let him do the same. This makes her eminently attractive but not in the long term. She is only there for dalliance and fleeting pleasures.

You may well not be aware of this but women are the same. They are attracted to men who have ‘experience’. Elephants, too, are like this; the young cows will gravitate towards the older males when it comes to breeding because the older guys know what to do without a lot of ‘messing around’!

Men who appear to be inexperienced are less likely to attract a date irrespective of their physical appearance.

Double standards and hypocrisy.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of years ago the World of humans was divided up into small villages for those who were not nomadic. Even nomadic tribes had a common grouping that had, at its head, a leader.

The leader would be male. He was strong and capable. The defence of the group was in his hands as was the potential to track and kill prey with which to feed the group.

Such a man would be an attraction to the females in the group. He would be seen as someone who could protect her and, more importantly, their offspring.

The more pro-active female will win and breed with the leader. Having bred she will now be focussed on bringing up the children and caring for the home whether it be tent or hut. She will allow her looks to fade.

Over in the corner is another young lady with designs on the leadership; she will flutter her eyelashes at the leader but, unless she is more direct, he will not notice her because he is busy looking after the group and hunting, etc.

She becomes more direct and he notices her. She is winsome, young, firm, shapely and shows clear interest in him. He is tempted. His ‘wife’ is tired after a busy day at home and looks it.

The youngster becomes his mistress.

Whose fault is it? His? Hers? He will get the blame and rightly so in modern times because he has made a promise to his wife that he will ‘cleave only to her until death do they part’. But she, the mistress, knows the risks; the blame is also to be laid at her feet; the desire to get a man who is wealthy or successful overcomes the fear of discovery.

What about the wife? At the beginning we noted that women also want sex. Women also have desires and needs. So it is that there is a market for the male prostitute—the ‘Gigolo’, if you will. Wives will also take casual lovers on the side. They do this more often than people notice.

Why do people notice women less?

Because when a man is discovered to have a mistress he risks losing everything. Home, family and even his job, quite often.

Woman with a mistress? Yawn...

Double standard and hypocrisy.