Respect

As a small boy, I stood in awe and wonder at the sight of an aircraft starting up its engines.

A symphony of sound, smoke and movement. The sound and amount of smoke varied between the life-giving rotations of a Rolls-Royce Merlin and a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp because the Rolls-Royce, as I well understood, was a V-sixteen, in-line, liquid cooled engine and the Pratt & Whitney was a twin bank radial engine of some eighteen cylinders that was air cooled.

I did not, at that stage, understand the workings of the engines nor did I understand the concept of ‘hydraulic-ing’ on the lower cylinders of a radial engine. All that was to come much later.

Imagine, then, my awestruck little mind when I first saw a Fokker F27 equipped with the very latest engine technology that I should come to know as the Rolls-Royce Dart turbo-propeller engine.

There was no spluttering, there was no loud banging, there was very little smoke.

Just a smooth whine followed by a solid ‘whump’ and then brief resonance as the engine and propeller spun into life.

I could hear the propeller. Amazing.

My respect for aero-engines grew apace after that. The rest of the aeroplane was little more than an attachment—something to put the engines onto to give them an excuse for being there.

I still have respect for engines. I have great respect for the damage they can do to us humans and to me specifically.

Propellers are dangerous if you cannot see them. It means they are spinning and will remove parts of your body with ease. Jet engine intakes, similarly, will remove your life if you wander too close, especially if you wander too close wearing baggy clothes that will fill like a parachute dragging you into the engine where the engine will separate you from your life.

Helicopters have main rotors and tail rotors that will, with equal ease, spoil your whole day and render your wives into widows.

Even the back end of jet engines will not be safe because the temperature of the gas coming out will damage your lungs, skin, eyes and, possibly, melt your clothes to your body. This is a bad thing.

Respect. Even after working on aircraft for over fifty years I still have great respect for things mechanical and electrical. Things that will hurt if you test for them using parts of your body.

I also have respect for people who are older than me. Such people are, obviously, becoming harder to find yet they exist—in ever-smaller numbers, true, but they are out there.

Most of them are infirm and frail. They totter from minute to minute hoping, sometimes beyond hope, that they will be granted another minute of existence before death swoops in unexpectedly and rips their soul out of their bodies.

This respect is dying like fruit rotting on the tree of life. Only today a young lad tried to push me out of the way in his busy desire to accomplish something far more urgent and exciting than I could possibly be purporting to achieve.

He was, I think, a little surprised when he bounced off. I am inclined to the view that he expected this elderly gentleman to be just brushed aside.

There is an arrogance in modern youth. Perhaps it is that they believe that they shall never become old. It may be that us old people are just an irritation in their exciting schedule.

Not so long ago a young neighbour was having trouble with his motorcycle. I could, from my vantage point across the fence, perceive the problem quite clearly. It was equally clear that he had no idea what to do or how to do it.

“Might I offer some advice to you?” I queried.

His upper lip curled in rank disdain, his words reeked with disbelief, “What on earth would you know about motorbikes?”

“Nothing,” I assured him, “Absolutely nothing,” I reiterated over my shoulder as I walked off.

He never got it running properly again.

Respect.

Very recently there has been a newsworthy event. It is not necessarily an interesting event but it has filled the news media and the social pages on my computer.

It was a ‘Royal Birth’.

Much has been made of this. Now there are, I am told, bets being placed on names for the child.

A hoo-haa has raged on for some time that looks as if it will take a while to subside. There are ‘Royal Watchers’ out there who are swooning with bliss at this birth.

The baby will be, of course, my great nephew twice removed so he joins ‘The Family’.

It is nice that people gain pleasure from this moment. Their lives are improved by it even if only momentarily.

The sad part is that there are those who choose to disrespect the event. They use it as an excuse to ‘have a go’ at the ‘Royal Family’ in some form or another. From ‘benefit scroungers’ (which they are, largely, not) to the anachronistic titles they hold. There is also the idea of having, as a result of these titles, to call someone ‘Your Highness’ in this day and age.

It is part of our ancient tradition. It is British. It is the mainstay of our ‘Britishness’. If the Royal Family goes or is abolished then a huge slice of our tradition goes with them. Our ‘Britishness’ will be decreased drastically. We shall have no standard around which to rally as we have done since time immemorial.

Yes, we take the ‘mickey’, yes we sometimes sneer and scoff but the fact remains that we need them. We need this in our lives to give us something to cling to when all around us is decaying and falling apart.

Never mind the income the Royals gain for us as ‘Great Britain plc’. The tourist income from people wanting to glimpse the Royals is huge—far more than the pittance we pay out of our grossly inflated taxes. The employment figures would increase dramatically if the Royals were to be abolished and that, dear hearts, would be a greater strain on the economy than the so called ‘Leeches in State’!

We are losing respect. This is not just a British thing it is global. We are losing respect for each other, for each other’s feelings, beliefs and our place in the society in which we live.

Worst of all, we are losing respect for ourselves. We no longer stand ourselves in good stead. Our confidence suffers and we become less.

Being disrespectful is not being more manly it is being less so. Being rude is not clever it is boorish; being a bully shows weakness. A weakness of spirit because we do not respect ourselves and so we cannot respect others.

Because we have lost the ability and knowledge of respect. Society is rapidly failing and we are letting it slide away from us.

Without resisting.

Acorn

 

As you have, no doubt, already observed I have many theories. One of the least obvious ones goes rather as follows:

Imagine that this planet, Earth, is a particle. Which, in essence, it is certainly no more than that. But think of it more as a ‘sub-atomic’ particle.

The Earth orbits around the Sun in much the same way as sub-atomic particles orbit whatever it is that they go around. Then the Sun orbits the centre of the Galaxy—the ‘Milky Way’ Galaxy.

For the Sun to go around the centre of the Galaxy once takes millions of years. We are out there along the Orion Arm or, at least, a part of the Orion Arm a long, long way out from the galactic centre.

That one orbit is known as a ‘Galactic Year’. It has been 61 Galactic Years since the ‘Big Bang’ so this is a clue as to how long one Galactic Year takes—about 230 million years. The estimates are between 225 million years to about 250 million years and this orbit is happening as the Solar System is travelling at an average speed of 828,000 km/h (230 km/s) or 514,000 mph (143 mi/s) relative to the galactic centre, which is about one 1300th of the speed of light. If you could travel at that speed in a jet aircraft along the equator, you would go all the way around the world in approximately 2 minutes and 54 seconds.

We are definitely going around the Galactic Centre.

But, then, the Galaxy is going around as well. It is going around something. We are told that there is an expansion in progress. Because of the ‘Big Bang’ the galaxies are all heading outwards into even deeper space. Yet some of them are getting closer to us. Our ‘neighbour’, ‘Andromeda’, is getting closer and closer so that, one day, it will collide with the ‘Milky Way’. Fear not. That day is a long, long way away yet.

The stars in the galaxies are so far apart, particularly at the periphery, that it is entirely possible that the collision will have little effect upon us unless we hit the centre of ‘Andromeda’ in which case it will be necessary to draw the curtains.

I believe that the galaxies are all orbiting something. Somewhere in that deep, deep blackness there is a centre point where the ‘Big Bang’ is said to have occurred. It may be the biggest Black Hole ever or it may just be a mass of dark matter about which we know nothing.

Whatever it is, we are going around it.

All those little sub-atomic particles whirling around in a huge sphere at vast speeds and yet taking billions and billions of years to go anywhere.

Now step back.

Step back far enough to see that whole spinning sphere.

Now step back far enough to see other spinning spheres. They would be other universes. Some are older and, maybe, some are newer than us. They are there.

Keep stepping back until the gap between those universes becomes smaller and smaller.

Eventually you are far enough back to see the universes coagulate into a definable shape. Those universes are atoms. The galaxies are the sub-atomic particles. Their star systems are the quarks and electrons that spin interminable around inside those atoms.

A few more steps back, the shape gains colour and substance. If you step away far enough you will see that the universes all combine into a shape.

It is an acorn.

A small girl is peering at it. She is wondering if there is life inside that acorn that is so small she cannot see it.

We are here, but she will never know and we shall never know of her.

There is so much that science does not know that we should always question it.

This is just a surreal theory borne of a bored mind when I was a child.

Or is it?

Me and Jim Should of Got They're First

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?”

Kurt Vonnegut said that.

He also said, “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”

Kurt Vonnegut was a great writer and a great storyteller. We mourn his passing as we also mourn the likes of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Jules Verne, H.G.Wells and many, many others.

But, just sometimes, he trips over himself. Like the time he said, “All those who believe in telekinesis raise my right hand.”

Funny, yes. But not quite accurate. Those who believe in Jesus are, generally (I am told), unable to perform miracles. There are people who believe in nuclear power but they are unable to control atoms.

The phrase ‘transvestite hermaphrodites’ caught my attention, too—as, no doubt, it did yours. Love those word bites, do we not?

We understand that a ‘hermaphrodite’ is a creature, including humans, who possess the genitalia of both sexes. It is suspected (among certain people) that the ‘Virgin Queen’, Elizabeth I, was a hermaphrodite. We shall, perhaps, never know for sure.

One does wonder, though, if a hermaphrodite can be a ‘transvestite’? Golfers change clothes to go to do their thing without anybody’s eyebrows being raised because they change from male’s normal clothes to male’s strange clothes. They are adjusting to a different social or working theatre.

But if you are a hermaphrodite you would be merely changing from your male persona to your female persona. This would be entirely natural were it not for the attention given to it by a society that is steeped in bias. Even Queen Elizabeth I kept her persona constant—as far as we know.

So it is with semicolons. They were conceived, as with all other punctuation marks, for a purpose. You may, if you wish, do without them. That is your prerogative.

According to the posts on the social media many people do without punctuation of any kind. Of course, this turns their comments, by and large, into gibberish but, then, many people speak fluent gibber.

There are lots of rules that are claimed by ‘experts’ to be the ‘way to go’ in creative writing. Not unnaturally the rules for writing official documents, essays and learned papers are somewhat different—they are more, necessarily, precise.

For fiction these rules need not be adhered to quite so much.

I shall give you a couple of examples:

Never use ‘very’.

Well, fair enough on this one. Unless you use it within a dialogue there is really no need for it. There are lots of words out there that will substitute nicely for it.

“He was very tired” becomes “He was exhausted (or drained, wilting).”

I am fond of, “I am a husk.”

“Their destination was a very long way” becomes “The distance to their destination seemed interminable.”

‘Very’ is a poor descriptor for an adjective. Best left alone in the text.

What about ‘never use an adverb’?

This is a bit strong. Adverbs are fine if they are used correctly.

“He looked at her haughtily.”

She obviously has an attractive ‘haughtily’. Not sure what that is; perhaps it is another word for cleavage.

Along similar lines, “He gave her a haughty look,” would make a nice present for anyone—providing that it was nicely wrapped.

It is possible that it is not the words—or types of words, that you use that are the problem. It is more likely to be the syntax or the way that the words are grouped or arranged.

Example: “His eyes ran up and down her body,” then they returned to his head, presumably.

Certain rules are certainly there for a reason. Usually because they make the sentences clumsy or they lack grammatical sense.

Never end a sentence on a preposition

“For” is very popular in this regard. Why? Because the word ‘for’ has so many uses. Let’s look at what ‘Wiktionary can tell us about it:

Towards.

         The astronauts headed for the moon.

Directed at, intended to belong to.

         I have something for you.

Supporting (opposite of against).

         All those for the motion raise your hands.

Because of.

         He wouldn't apologize; and just for that, she refused to help him.

         (UK usage) He looks better for having lost weight.


Over a period of time.

         They fought for days over a silly pencil.


On behalf of.

         I will stand in for him.


To obtain.

         I am aiming for completion by end of business Thursday.

         He's going for his doctorate.

         Do you want to go for coffee?

         People all over Greece looked to Delphi for answers.

         Can you go to the store for some eggs?

         I'm saving up for a car.

         Don't wait for an answer.

         What did he ask you for?


In the direction of: marks a point one is going toward.

         Run for the hills!

         He was headed for the door when he remembered.


By the standards of, usually with the implication of those standards being lower than one might otherwise expect.

         Fair for its day.

         She's spry for an old lady.


Despite, in spite of.

Used to indicate the subject of a to-infinitive.

         For that to happen now is incredibly unlikely. (=It is          incredibly unlikely that that will happen now.)

       All I want is for you to be happy. (=All I want is that you be happy.)


(chiefly US) Out of; used to indicate a fraction, a ratio.

         In term of base hits, Jones was three for four on the day


(cricket) used as part of a score to indicate the number of wickets that have fallen.

                                     At close of play, England were 305 for 3.

                  Finally (grammar) A phrase, consisting of a verb and either or both of a preposition or adverb, that has idiomatic meaning (phrasal verb):

            For crying out loud!

            For heaven’s sake?

Difficult, isn’t it, to keep all this in your mind while you are writing a story? At the same time trying to keep basic grammar in your head and not commit terrible sins such as:

“Me and Mary went to the cinema.”

‘Me’ is object while ‘I’ is subject so, “Mary and I went to the cinema.”

It’s easy to sort out; just delete ‘Mary’ (temporarily) and see if your sentence still makes sense. Clearly, “Me went to the cinema,” is non-sense. If the sentence can convert into ‘we’ then it will be ‘Mary and I’ but if it is ‘us’ then it is ‘Mary and me’.

There are other pitfalls easily fallen into by the unwary:

‘Their, there, they’re’ are common as is ‘two, to, too’ and ‘loose and lose’ but the most common are ‘your and you’re’, ‘should of’ instead of ‘should have’ or ‘should’ve’ and ‘more better’ when just ‘better is enough.

And never start a sentence with ‘and’.

Circles

Life is full of circles.

We could reasonably stick the pointy bit of a compass into our house (heaven forfend that you should climb on the roof and thrust something large and pointed into it—my intent was to stick the point in a map!) and draw circles around it to represent the distance we can comfortably go in a day or a week, for example.

We might add more circles to show how far we can afford to go every month or year for breaks and holidays.

In these modern times we should be able to travel farther, and much more cheaply, than people could go even a hundred years ago.

Also in modern times we have increased our capacity for social circles. In the past our friends were, very likely, drawn from the immediate area where we worked and lived but now we have extended that circle to international levels.

This is courtesy of the Internet, of course, where social media sites abound and friends are almost endlessly available. Naturally, some are less friendly than others; to this end we may well be inviting people who are out to argue with you or try to bring you down to their level (whatever that might be) into our lives. It would, in this instance, be entirely reasonable to use the ‘unfriend’ facility with appropriate alacrity.

While we are thinking about social circles we should consider another circle. That is ‘social responsibility’.

This is entirely different from a ‘social circle’ in that it now implies that we have a duty of care towards other people. This duty of care must be indiscriminate or it doesn’t work, it becomes a selective duty that is not circular.

The size of the circle of responsibility varies with wealth and our individual state of honesty.

Criminals have no circle because they have no sense of responsibility; they care only for themselves and nought for others.

Politicians, likewise, give lip service to the care of others but their main focus is upon their own glorification rather than the upkeep of the population for whom they profess to care.

There are poor, honest people for whom the care of others is paramount. Mother Teresa typified that individual; her care crossed all sorts of boundaries, it disregarded race, caste (in India), religion and material belongings.

Such people as Mother Teresa have a vast circle around them—possibly, even, boundless.

Wealth brings its own responsibilities. Some people are generous and care but others are less generous and even less caring. Perhaps the incursions of the criminal classes upon their wealth makes them more cynical and more cautious.

Then there are defensive circles. These are well known to many of us because, in the old days, we should watch cowboy films in which there was, invariably, a cause to form the wagon train into a circle to defend themselves from hostile tribesmen.

These defensive circles are not necessarily physical ones. Many of them, in modern times, are formed in the mind as a result of attacks by others via the social media of which we spoke earlier.

One of my contacts, who possesses a considerable intellect and is forthright in his views, posted a comment about ‘apologists’. I asked him what that meant in the context in which it was posted. His response was as follows:

“R*** R****n: Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their faith against critics and recommended their faith to outsiders were called apologists.”

(NB: I have put asterisks through his name because many people are sensitive about their name being used in contextual issues with which they may not agree. Not that I suspect this particular person is ‘sensitive’ but...)

Striking response. We accept, now, the word ‘apologise’ as being the same as ‘I am sorry about that’ in the sense of seeking forgiveness.

It does give rise to the thoughts about defensive circles. Such circles are highly variable in size. Unlike other circles that tend to be more fixed, these are quite flexible and depend entirely upon the foe that the ‘enemy’ seeks.

Suppose somebody threatens you. Your thought is ‘defence’. Just you. Nobody else is involved. That is your defensive circle.

Perhaps they threaten your immediate family. The circle now includes others of whom you are fond.

The circle widens considerably if that enemy now regards your Church (or Synagogue, Masjid, Temple, etc) as something to be attacked.

The attack may not be physical, it may be verbal in written or spoken form.

Either way we shall rally to the defence of our beliefs.

There might be an attack on our town. Now the circle widens so that even people we dislike, from other faiths, perhaps, will join us in our defence.

The defence does not have to be about our spiritual beliefs; it can be acts of civil terrorism, war or the spread of criminal activity.

So the circle widens until we get to a point where we believe that our Nation or our society is at risk. Thus are wars born. We all pull together in the ‘common cause’ to vanquish our foes.

During the Korean War it was a struggle between dogmas. Communism versus Capitalism—two major circles involving most of the World came into conflict to sway the people into their way of thinking.

Which one was right? That is up to you to decide.

You and your immediate circle.