Day 629, Home Installation Team

A new start.

And a new life.

A new husband.

And a new wife.

A new street.

And a new footing.

A new kitchen.

And new cooking.

A new dishwasher.

And a new drainpipe.

A new front door.

And a new cookie-cutter, pour on boiling water, instant, ideal home centre-spread lifestyle type.*

* Just call the John Lewis Home Installation Team.

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Day 628, Budget Portmeirion

It's a discoloured, borrowers sized, cut-price version of Rover from The Prisoner.

I didn't see any micro-McGoohan either running away or being incapacitated, but I don't doubt that Number 6 is somewhere in the vicinity.

This is the reality, don't deny what you see, you know it's the truth.

Whose side are you on?

That would be telling.  We want information.

You won't get it.

Etc.

Be seeing you.

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Day 627, Philosophy 101

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody witnesses it, is Nigel Farage still an arse?

That's a non-sequitur, in that the conclusion is not a necessary consequence of the premise.  Both the premise and conclusion may be true (the conclusion definitely is in this case) but the truth of the conclusion is independent of the truth of the premise.

The statement could also be considered to be an ad-hominem argument, one where it attacks the character of the person making the argument rather than the substance of the argument.  However, as NF is clearly an arse it is not an ad-hominem.*

When a dog whistle is blown on broadcast media without being identified as such, is that an example of bias, balance, or irresponsibility?

As has been happening for years there has been a strong desire to create a false balance between any two points of view of an argument.  A leading expert is invited to discuss a particular point, and an opposing person is brought on to provide the 'balance' - i.e. someone from NASA and a believer in a flat earth.  It matters not that the overwhelming body of evidence suggests to us that the world is spherical, the flat-earther has an equal amount of broadcast air-time to put their point of view that they believe the earth is flatter than unprimed beer.  This can lead to accusations of bias.

In the example of the flat earth believer above this 'balance' is just mildly annoying, but in the case of the dog-whistle blowers on immigration, and other subjects that the far right seem to like, it is irresponsible of the broadcaster concerned to give an equal weighting.

That's obvious you would think, wouldn't you?

There is some movement to try and remove this false balance, and maybe it will succeed.  But until then let's content ourselves with another consideration of a problem of unperceived existence.

If Nigel Farage leaps off his leadership perch in a forest, is he still an arse?**

* This is clearly a joke and not philosophically correct, whatever the outcome however Nigel is still an arse.
** We all know the answer to that, as it is a rhetorical question.

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Day 626, The Irish Rover

On the fourth of July twenty sixteen we set on the brief walk to work
And all of the day it was hard not to say that this tune was not once in my head
er, etc...*

On the Fourth of July 1806 we set sail from the sweet cove of Cork
We were sailing away with a cargo of bricks for the grand City Hall in New York
'twas a wonderful craft, she was rigged fore and aft and oh, how the wild wind drove her
She stood several blasts, she had twenty-seven masts and they called her the Irish Rover

We had one million bags of the best Sligo rags, we had two million barrels of stone
We had three million sides of old blind horses hides, we had four million barrels of bones
We had five million hogs, and six million dogs, seven million barrels of porter
We had eight million bails of old nanny-goats' tails in the hold of the Irish Rover

There was awl Mickey Coote who played hard on his flute when the ladies lined up for a set
He was tootlin' with skill for each sparkling quadrille, though the dancers were fluther'd and bet
With his smart witty talk, he was cock of the walk and he rolled the dames under and over
They all knew at a glance when he took up his stance that he sailed in the Irish Rover

There was Barney McGee from the banks of the Lee, there was Hogan from County Tyrone
There was Johnny McGurk who was scared stiff of work and a man from Westmeath called Malone
There was Slugger O'Toole who was drunk as a rule and Fighting Bill Tracey from Dover
And your man, Mike McCann from the banks of the Bann was the skipper on the Irish Rover

For a sailor it's always a bother in life It's so lonesome by night and day
That he longs for the shore and a charming young whore who will melt all his troubles away
Oh, the noise and the rout swillin' potin and stout for him soon the torment's over
Of the love of a maid, he is never afraid an old salt from the Irish Rover

We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out and the ship lost it's way in the fog
And that whale of a crew was reduced down to two, just meself and the Captain's old dog
Then the ship struck a rock, Oh Lord! what a shock, the bulkhead was turned right over
Turned nine times around and the poor old dog was drowned I'm the last of the Irish Rover

* Lazy.

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Day 625, Lines, metal, road rage

Nobody expects Gary Numan to pull the wings off a duck no matter how much road rage he has when he's in his car.

That's just daft.  Don't do it Gary, the duck meant no harm.  It just isn't in your character, chill man.

What is it with the modern popular beat combo, and other performance artistes, that they have these obsessions?

Like that silly sandman character that the Metallica got all worked up about.  Keeping one eye open at night, and holding on to their pillow tight, like a bunch of horror-film obsessed girl guides.

Come on the Metallica, get your act together, anyone would think you were a bunch of religion obsessed, gun loving, paranoid Republican fruit cakes.  If you go on the duck hunt as well you might end up just like Gary, driving his little dodgem car around,* and without any friends that don't require constant access to the national grid.**

* Here he is in his dodgem car.
** Apropos of nothing.

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Day 624, There to watch over us

The basket of vegetables has been upturned, someone took a step back and squashed a courgette with their size 9's, turnips roll out into the street.

Sometimes chaos ensues for no apparent reason.

There's always a reason.

I blame Have I Got News For You for giving a platform to one of these fuckwits reasons and making it appear dippy and a bit cuddly.  There's the 'common sense for common people' sloganeering approach too, it appeals to people's wish for simplicity, for easy answers, and desire to blame.

Rather than being governed by what amounts to little more than a collection of vegetables who play us for fools we need to make a change.

So with that in mind what I propose is this.  That we get invaded by an alien race who will give us a common focus to aim our displeasure with the world.  That this alien race enslaves us and keeps us occupied, giving us the simple answer of our desire to blame, and thus making our lives easier.*

What could go wrong, we wouldn't need a stock-market, we wouldn't need to spend money, and assuming the aliens couldn't tell us apart there would be no sexism, racism, etc, etc.**

A benign (-ish) presence to give us common focus in our lives.

Obviously there's a problem with all of that, if we had a common focus then any rebellion could actually be effective.  Imagine that, humans gathering together with a common cause with the aim of overthrowing those that subjugate us.

I suspect the aliens are way ahead of us though.  They would create a more complex world where we would work for their ends without recognising that they are squeezing us like lemons.

There'd be jobs very like those we have now, events for entertainment such as sports, concerts, and plays.  There would be aspiration, there would be trends and fashions for us to follow.  There would be industries whose sole aim was to persuade us to do things we hadn't considered doing and to buy things we hadn't considered buying, and the people working for them wouldn't be aware that this was all part of the great machinery of distraction.  Education, industry, business, all part of the facade, painted into our psyche from birth.

Comprehensive and complex.

And all rather how it is now.***

Time to roll the turnips into the street.****

* Rarely is the word 'thus' needed, why then does my phone never suggest 'this' when accidentally hitting the U instead of the I?
** They can't tell us apart, I've decided that's the case.
*** What suckers we are.
**** Vive la révolution, let's man the barricades - just let me watch F1 qualifying first, and finish this beer, and have a bit of a lie down.

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Day 623, Something, something, mumble

Thoughts, drifting.

A boat.

Grey.

Cloud.

Incoherent.

Rumbles, clicks, beeps.

Knock, knock.

Anyone in?

Recollection of anaesthetic return.

The room rotates, moving rapidly to the right.

Is that right?

Fallen off the chair.

Wake up, wake up.

Hearing through eyes.

What's that?

It's the floor, what's that doing here.

Star gate.

Accidental image.*

* These things happen.

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