Yesterday, delightfully trumpeted by the BBC, came the news that a serious row had broken out on the daily lunchtime talk show Loose Women between one of its regular presenters, Coleen Nolan, and a deliberately antagonistic and quite disturbed guest, Kim Woodburn.

It turned out that there was a beef between these two; both had appeared on the 2017 edition of Celebrity Big Brother, and had fallen out at that time over something likely quite trivial.  Furthermore, it also transpires upon further investigation that Ms. Woodburn had not only fallen out with Ms. Nolan, but she had additionally fallen out with almost every other guest on that particular show.

One way of putting it is that Ms. Woodburn loves a row.  I saw a number of videos on YouTube in which Woodburn called her fellow housemates names that were, even to my hardened ears, vile.  She shouted, swore and spat her way through 21 days, or however long it was, on the show.  If the producers knew that including her would lead to fireworks on a show where everyone is couped up together for three weeks, they hit paydirt with Kim Woodburn.

Another way of putting it is that Ms. Woodburn is suffering from a number of issues.  For the most part, it was obvious that she was acting like a cornered animal; nowhere to go, nowhere to run, so all that was left was to spit verbally at her perceived ‘attacker,’ and to try to fight back.

During her ‘interview’ on Loose Women the other day, a tearful Kim Woodburn detailed a great deal of sexual abuse that she had suffered as a child, and when fellow presenter Linda Robson tried to comfort her, she violently pushed her arm away and told her to leave her alone.  This was a classic reaction, I thought: leave me alone, get off me, I feel ashamed and I don’t want your ‘comfort.’  No doubt about it.

It would appear that Ms. Woodburn has fought and fought her entire life.  She has been angry at the world for what she suffered as a child, and she is making everyone she comes into contact with pay.  The sad thing is that, when she was offered counselling after the show, she refused it, saying she didn’t need it.  I think the world and his dog could see that it was very much needed, as would other forms of therapy.

Unfortunately, the regular ‘Loose Women’ of the show rather let their anger get the better of them, one of them shouted out that Ms. Woodburn had ‘no talent’ whatsoever; which, whatever the case may be, was extremely inappropriate to shout at anyone on live TV, let alone in a heated argument.  Janet Street-Porter, sitting in the middle of them all and clearly enjoying every moment of it, was asking all the ‘provocative’ questions, knowing it would push Ms. Woodburn’s buttons.  She was absolutely aware of the media attention this would get, being the most experienced broadcaster on the panel, and wanted to nab some of it for herself.

In the end, I felt very sorry for Ms. Woodburn.  In shouting her rage at Ms. Nolan, and indeed the world, in crying over the abuse she suffered as a child, she cut a very sad figure indeed, and it was clear she needed help.  She needs help.  But the fact that she refused it shows that she is not in full possession of her faculties, she believes she doesn’t need it, and she is going to continue to make the lives of those she comes into contact with much poorer as a result, and that is her responsibility to do something about.  She is a fighter, and a lone fighter at that; she doesn’t want any help or even comfort from anyone.  God only knows how her husband of 39 years copes with it; unless she is entirely different at home.  Perhaps she is.  Maybe this is all an act; her schtick for the cameras and the newspapers.

But maybe it isn’t.  Maybe, at 76 years old, Kim Woodburn really is in a deep emotional crisis for which I believe it is her duty to seek help, her age should not be an obstacle in the way of that.

Putting all of that aside, the fact that she appeared on Loose Women, the fact that the producers of the programme lied to both Ms. Nolan and Ms. Woodburn (they said to each of them that the other wanted to apologise and draw a line in the sand to get them to agree to appear on the show together), and the fact that it was clearly a staged media event knowing Kim Woodburn’s emotional state, gives you a large clue as to the first reason why I do not watch television anymore.  I hate it.  It’s all loud noise and shows like this – cheaply made reality TV shows with some tenuous hook, mostly nicked from American television at that.  In the U.S., there is a talk show called The View, which began on ABC in 1997, while Loose Women began two years later in 1999.

I haven’t watched regular television in maybe seven years; we have a TV, we pay a licence, but the TV is not connected up to the aerial or satellite dish, or cable.  We don’t watch Netflix or Amazon or any of thoe online delivery services either.  We do occasionally watch BBC’s iPlayer for drama or comedy, and I watched some of the World Cup games online in June, but telly?  Nah, it’s all smelly. x

People admire a prodigy.  As a musician, clearly I have more knowledge of prodigy within the discipline, but of course, they can come in any field, in any part of life.  So, as a musician, first of all, let me mention the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in 1756 to a musical father in Salzburg, Austria.  Now, there was a prodigious talent.  He was already composing simple melodies at three; at five, he composed his first published work, an ‘Andante in C major’ for the piano, or harpsichord at the time.  It is just ten bars long, and although a very simple composition it demonstrates stuff that a five-year-old should not know – an understanding of phrasing, harmony and of the Baroque style, not to mention other stuff like how to finish a piece of music, cadencing and so forth.  It is short, it is simple, he was five.

Mozart lived a very short life; he was dead before his thirty-sixth birthday.  Yet his musical career lasted for thirty-one of those years.  He was that rare creature; a child prodigy with enough musical ability to take his fame into adulthood.  Many prodigies today cannot do that.  We’ve all seen those videos on YouTube, uploaded by proud parents, of little Johnny, aged just two, who can play all the Rachmaninoff ‘Preludes’ backwards and from memory.  Great stuff, but what have they got to offer going forward?  Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is an exception, as was Yehudi Menuhin.  Generally speaking, though, nada.

Amazing.  Pre-school kids who can play the piano better than I’ll ever hope to play.  I can’t even imagine playing the piano that good.

But what about the ‘slow release’ talent; the kind of talent that takes decades to develop properly, and might flower later on in life?  This could be for any number of reasons; ability and circumstance are most likely the two major factors that can cause or contribute to the ‘slow release’ talent, just as they can the prodigy.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that I can or could ever be able to play as well as some of these pre-schoolers.  But my own musical ability – and indeed, abilities and interests in other areas outside of music – are now developing so quickly that I can barely contain them.  And I’m 51, almost 52.  Jesus, when you write it down, it’s almost as though you are writing about someone else.

In the last, oh, ten years or so – let’s say since I turned 40 – I have written almost 2 1/2 books, a movie screenplay, a lecture, part of a sitcom, countless (well over 1,500) songs and song ideas, maybe a huge variety of ideas concerning books, plays, screenplays, songs, more books, data and, of course, countless rants on Facebook.  That’s in addition to having recorded 26 albums’ worth of music, and I’m just about finishing off my 27th.  In twelve years.  That’s in addition to having spent almost a year in California and Utah, researching the life and work of the Hollywood composer Max Steiner, composer of the music of Gone With the Wind, King Kong, The Informer and about 250 others.

So, I think I am well justified in claiming that mine is a ‘slow release’ talent; to some, it may not appear that much or any of it that good, but as I turned forty it just began to pour out of me.  I couldn’t stop it.  Perhaps it was my way of letting the ‘mid-life crisis’ express itself.  Who cares what the reason is, it just happened.

That’s in addition to the fact that, in 2007, while living with my mother in Cornwall, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, (or Fobromyalgia, because it kind of ‘fobs off’ itself as many other conditions), a chronic and debilitating condition that, while it doesn’t kill you, it makes your life pretty miserable most of the time.  I’m on almost 30 painkillers a day, which turn my head into a dulled, dopey mush, and I’m barely mobile.  Pain is an accepted part of my life, of our lives (myself and my dear, patient and loving wife Jane).

That’s in addition to the fact that, over the last ten years or so, my dear wife Jane and I have set up Musiclusive, a non-profit organisation that tries to give a voice to the voiceless; to enable communication through music and F.C. (Facilitated Communication).  This is a subject which I plan to write about sometime in the future, too.  Meanwhile, you can learn more about them here, and join their Facebook group here.  My dear wife works all the hours God sends and then borrows some from who knows where, to give a voice to those who, for one reason or another, are silent; or who find it difficult to express themselves in such a way that their true feelings can be identified and understood.  I have to say that I admire her tremendously for this; it could well be her greatest achievement, one which she must be careful to maintain according to the vision that she has.  But she is working towards it, and I am so proud to be her ‘Technical Advisor,’ and I suppose a ‘Musical Advisor’ of sorts – I can usually figure out what key songs are in – and just to be there for her every step of the way.  Good for you, Mrs. B!

I don’t think I’ve done too badly, under the circumstances.  And yes, I blow my own trumpet a little bit because nobody else is going to do it for you, especially if you’re not that good.  I believe I have an ego the size of Milton Keynes, but not the talent to match.  An ego that wants to be massaged, but not the talent to give back.  So, I want to be the Voice of the Talentless; the Spokesman of the Mediocre.

There’s still plenty of stuff that I want to do: I have ideas for all sorts of things – YouTube channels, channels on other video and audio sites, blogs like this one, and more music.  I write down as many ideas as I can, good or bad; I can sift out which is which later.  I’ve written about 250 songs since April.  I sometimes have dozens of browsers, programs and apps open at the same time; I’m sure my dear wife can testify to that.  My mind is complete chaos most of the time.

I guess I’m just trying to justify why it is that I can be such a darn fool sometimes.  Perhaps, that, too, is slow release.  No, I’d say that was ‘fast release,’ especially since I turned forty.  Idiocy has poured from me for a decade and a half, almost.

You know, I look at these blogs as songs, poems, albums.  Sometimes they have a lot of ‘verses’, sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes they are about me, sometimes not.  Sometimes they are a proper rant, at other times not so much.  But what they are is a demonstration that the sleeping giant that is my creative desire (I try not to use the words ‘ability’ or ‘talent’ too much, more a desire) is very slowly beginning to awaken.

That’s in addition to the fact that I continue to develop interests in areas that I thought would never happen: astrophysics, cosmology, theoretical physics are the big surprises for me; I enjoy them very much, and I continue to learn about what is a very complicated set of subjects.  Mathematics is not a strong point of mine, and given that so much theoretical physics is based on maths, you can imagine that this particular discipline is super slow for me, so I am forced to give it extra time when necessary.  What surprises me is that I am happy to do so.  I guess the mid-life crisis makes you take up these weird and wonderful topics – at least, weird and wonderful from my perspective as a musician.

But, being a musician, I should have a sound (ho, ho, ho…zzzz) knowledge of certain aspects of maths and physics, and sometimes the two subjects combined.  The music itself is very solidly based on mathematics.  In a four-beat bar, you cannot have five notes unless you begin to manipulate the lengths of notes in order to fit them in.  If you end up with sixteen notes in the bar, and you want them the same length, you must make sure they are the correct length notes (semi-quavers, and not quavers, for example).

I’m going to write further rants – sorry, blog posts – on the subject of YouTube, but let’s just say for the moment that it is a wonderful resource for any subject you care to mention.  That, and Wikipedia; Wikipedia has gained a bad rap because it is freely editable by almost anyone in the world.  It is a good idea, when using Wikipedia, to make sure that any reference you are using can be verified elsewhere, and to double-check that source at first-hand.  But as a general rule, it is fabulous and I must admit that I have contributed my own data and corrections to it.

I watch a lot of YouTube because my mobility has, in the past, been very limited and, although pain and anxiety and depression and everything seem to get worse before they get better, there is that slight point of light at the end of a very dark tunnel; the light of hope.  I watch videos about people who watch a lot of videos.  Documentaries on every subject you can imagine.  Idiots uploading videos of their cat licking their six-month-old child; I’ve watched them all.  Why?  I’ve explained above.

But I cannot just sit and do nothing.  After all, something is better than nothing.  I plan as I said earlier, to write about YouTube, Wikipedia, and the rest.  As I always say: so many rants, so little time. x

How sadly ironic that yesterday of all days, as we discussed the anniversary (or not) of the death of Elvis Presley, that date should also claim the life of another Memphian, the incomparable Aretha Franklin.

How does one even begin to discuss her legacy?  How can one even understand the measure of the impact that she had on the world?  It’s not easy.  There is no way, for example, that average joes like you and me could get inside her head and know the feeling of having such a massive impact upon the world.  And it was enormous.

In terms of chart success, one could argue that there was, certainly in the 1960s, a disparity between the races in terms of chart success: Ms. Franklin had 20 US Number One hits, but they were all on the R&B chart, not on the mainstream pop chart.  Elvis, although part Cherokee considered a “white” artist, had 18 mainstream Number One hits during his lifetime (Elvis’ “lifetime,” for the purposes of chart accreditation, continued on through the final release that Presley knew about during the planning stages, ‘Unchained Melody’ in February 1978).  Ms. Franklin never topped the pop charts as a solo artist.

It took her until 1987 before she could top the pop charts, a duet with George Michael ‘I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)’.  In those 21 years since her first hit, had she broken down racial barriers sufficiently to give her that chart-topping success?  Or was it simply down to the fact that she ‘crossed over’ by enlisting the help of George Michael to gain that elusive chart-topper?

In truth, that debate doesn’t really matter to me, these things are for journalists with nothing better to write.  For me, she was a great, great artist like few others that have ever walked this Earth.  A singer whose voice was instantly recognisable, whose artistry manifested itself in every note that she sang; indeed, her voice was truly an instrument, her mind a truly musical one.

Great performers are always several steps ahead in their minds to the notes that you are hearing from them.  Aretha Franklin was such a performer, and she knew it.  You will be hard pressed to think of many in her league; Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby – let’s face it, she was up there with the all-time greats.  In terms of the entire history of recorded music, from 1900 on, Aretha Franklin would most likely make the top five.  What a voice that was silenced yesterday – coincidentally, as I said, on the anniversary of the death of another all-time great, Elvis Presley.  At least, when she reaches the great recording studio in the sky, they will have something to talk about. x

Today, August 16, is always a difficult day for me.  On the one hand, Madonna is celebrating 60 years of life; on the other, Elvis Presley is celebrating 41 years dead.  We celebrate anniversaries – both good ones and bad ones.  Last year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles; this year, we ‘marked’ the 50th anniversary of the assassinations of both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.  Naturally, we celebrate anniversaries to a greater extent where round numbers are concerned: 10, 20, 25, 50, 100 and so on.

Thirty-four years ago today, on what was then the 7th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley (Madonna was not yet famous enough to worry about her birthday), I began to ponder this very issue: why do we celebrate anniversaries?

I think that the principle of the celebration of anniversaries – at least, the public acknowledgement of same on a large, even worldwide, scale – is a relatively recent phenomenon.  Up until, oh, the end of the Nineteenth Century, people didn’t seem to care that much about them.  After all, it was only as recently as 1752 that the British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar, replacing the Julian one that had been the basis of the recognition of dates for almost 600 years.  The net effect of the adoption of the new calendar was the loss of 11 days – 2 September 1752 was followed by 14 September 1752.  So, what happened if, say, your father had passed away on, say, 9 September 1751 – when did you mark the anniversary of his passing in 1752 and in consecutive years?

That, however, does not affect us, because both Madonna’s birth and Elvis Presley’s death occurred under the adoption of the same calendar.  We know that today is the anniversary of both events as they occurred in their respective years.  Or are they…?

There’s something we forgot to mention.  It’s the Leap Year, that extra day every four years that is attached to the end of February to give us 29 days.  So, your uncle died on the 2 March last year.  Do you mark the anniversary on 1 or 2 March this year and, whichever you choose, is that the correct one?  Or, are we simply picking dates and saying, well, this date is the anniversary because the numbers match up, even if calendars are jumbled up and the ‘new’ anniversary is just 30 days later or something?  We adopt a new calendar, for example, which means we lose 11 months, let’s say, so August now becomes July – and how do our minds look at this?  Are we losing 11 months or gaining 11?  Losing one or gaining 11?

There have been fifteen leap years since Madonna was born.  So, with each leap year, that anniversary, in terms of actual 365-day timeframes that we define as a year, goes back one day.  So, in 1960, Madonna’s birthday should have gone back one day to August 15; August 14 in 1964, and so on.  Therefore, fast-forwarding all the way to the most recent leap year, 2016, Madonna’s birthday should have been on August 1, which is the day it should be this year.  In 2020, her birthday should become July 31.

Or am I wrong?  Is it merely the number of the date that matters?  If I decide to make tomorrow September 17, is it then my birthday (assuming I had the power to make such calendric decisions)?  Dates to me are like car crashes – I can’t help but look even though I am repulsed by them.

Elvis Presley, for his part, was completely obsessed by dates – indeed, by numbers in general.  He lived his life by a book called Cheiro’s Book of Numbers, published in 1926 and issuing directions to its readers to take their life’s path based on numerological principles.  When, in January 1977, Elvis decided to propose to his then-girlfriend Ginger Alden, he went to that book to find the date on which the engagement should take place; after consulting it, he settled upon January 26.  The name ‘Cheiro’ sounds like some ancient mystic handing wisdom down through the centuries; in reality, Cheiro’s name was Bill Warner and he was born in Dublin in 1866.  I presume that Elvis knew that.  Indeed, Elvis considered himself an ‘8’, because January 8 was his birthday, and of all the ironies, Cheiro himself died on an ‘8’ – October 8, 1936, in Hollywood, California (where else?)  Elvis had just turned 42 in January 1977, and his girlfriend was 19.  From Cheiro’s book, he chose January 26 – two plus six equals eight, you see.  That was Elvis Presley’s entire reasoning for getting engaged on that day.  Despite this, and despite the physical evidence of a huge engagement ring, many ‘fans’ over the years have come to wonder if the engagement ever took place; in his will, which was filed on March 3, 1977 – i.e., after this engagement took place, Presley left her nothing.  Not a red cent. Yet, according to legend, he was going to announce their engagement from the stage at Memphis’ Mid-South Coliseum on August 28, 1977; which, of course, never happened.

Of course, Presley’s choosing of that date, or any other date, was of no consequence at all because he was destined to die just seven months later anyway.  By the Leap Year Logic that I used earlier, the 41st anniversary of Elvis’ death should have been on August 6.  As human beings, though, we always look for the easy way out.  Things have to be labelled, compartmentalised; but not too much mental brainpower must go into it.  August 16 is the date that an event occurs, and therefore August 16 will forever remain the anniversary of the said event.  Added to the list of complications is the fact that, in some parts of the world – New Zealand, for example, is seventeen hours ahead of Memphis, which means that the events of Elvis’ death – and, indeed, Madonna’s birth, occur on August 17.  If I read a news report now on Madonna’s birthday, and I’m in California, then Auckland is 19 hours ahead, and the time is the following day, what is the date of that anniversary?  Elvis died on August 16, 1977, but part of the world is remembering it on the 17th because from their perspective, that’s when the actual events took place.

We presume that decades, or centuries for that matter, begin with the year ‘0’.  The big ‘millennium’ party, crossing over into the 21st Century, took place on December 31, 1999, when it should have been on December 31, 2000, according to some thinkers.  Decades and centuries should begin with a ‘1’, they say.

And yet I find myself irreversibly drawn to numbers, and to anniversaries.  I hardly know what today’s date is (I always have to look at my desktop for that), yet I can rattle off dates of people’s birthdays, wedding anniversaries and so forth.  I can’t understand that, and I hate the fact that when someone talks about some event or other, my mind is automatically drawn to the date of its occurrence.  I like to ‘play’ with dates.  One of my favourite games involves Microsoft Excel: by entering the correct formula, you can work out days of the week for any date for the next eight thousand years.  Any date at all.  For example, barring any further change of calendar, I can tell you that December 31, 9999 will be a Friday.  I hope that there may be someone reading this or something like it eight thousand years from now, trying to see in to the primitive minds of the 21st Century, wondering how we survived, and themselves about to come up to that magical date when New Year’s Eve, 9999 becomes Saturday, January 1, 10000.  If so, I have a message for you:  you’re probably wrong, but I don’t blame you for clinging on to the anniversary.

x

I don’t know…maybe it wasn’t built properly? x

Oh my dear, sweet Jesus.  This morning the BBC News leads with the story that the owner of Sports Direct, Mike Ashley, has bought out the struggling store chain House of Fraser for what is, in corporate terms, a pittance of £90 million.

I don’t pretend to understand why it is that companies buy out other companies when the chips are down, so to speak; what is it that the buying company gains financially if they do that?  Anyway, that’s not the point.

The point is that Ashley, boo hiss, is the current owner of British Premier League soccer club Newcastle United, a club of which I counted myself a fan of until he took over – no, more accurately it was when he put 20,000 of his employees at Sports Direct on zero hour contracts.

Zero hour contracts take us back to the dark ages of 18th & 19th-century factory employment; the days when workers had no rights, children were sent down mines, all that sort of thing.  No notice period, no sick pay; there’s the famous story of a female Sports Direct employee forced to have a baby in the toilets at work because she was too frightened to take the time off in case she was never allowed back.

It emerged in July 2013 that Ashley had 90% of his workforce, around 20,000 people, on these zero hour contracts. Furthermore, many were working below minimum wage and it took the intervention of a programme made by Channel 4, Dispatches, to highlight it and force the company to begrudgingly make some of the changes.

I cannot in all conscience support this man or anything he is involved with, much less anything he owns.  He only improved some of his employees’ working conditions because he got found out, and even then the changes were so tightly and temperamentally made that it was obvious there was no interest or love for his workforce.  What a dreadful human being.

Thus, I no longer support Newcastle United until the day he and his cronies are long gone from that club, and his continued efforts to drive the club into the ground are investigated and dropped.  I do not, and will not support any other club in its place, but I do look for a ‘guest team’ each season to support, usually a club local to me and struggling in its own way.  The day Ashley is gone and the rotten smell he has left behind is cleared, trust me, I will be back with Newcastle.  But until then, and for this season at least, my ‘guest team’ is Cheltenham Town, currently 17th in the S** B** League Two, for alphabetical reasons.  I won’t mention who the sponsors of Leagues One and Two (the old Third & Fourth Divisions), but they are sponsored by another evil corporate swine.  Cheltenham lost their opening fixture of this new season (2018/19).

Another team I still look out for, despite not having lived there for more than a decade, is Boreham Wood, the Hertfordshire club who play a pre-season friendly with Arsenal every year.  Ironically, “the Wood,” as they are known locally, made it to the second round of the F.A. Cup in 1999, only to lose 2-0… to Cheltenham Town!  Life is funny that way sometimes.  The Wood hover about in the National League, one step below the main four divisions of the Football League – last season they were defeated in the play-off final at Wembley Stadium to make that league.  What a day that must have been for the players, despite the loss!  A game at Wembley Stadium!

But…

Mike Ashley is evil.  He is a billionaire, and a typical one at that.  All he gives two shits about is making money for himself.  Today he bought House of Fraser for £90 million but is still quibbling with employees over pay rises totalling less than £10 million, that were supposedly awarded in 2015.  Furthermore, the 20,000 or so employees were not included in the pay rise.  As the late, great Rik Mayall would have no doubt said, Mike Ashley is a total bastard. x

This week, former ex-Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, made some comments about Muslim women who, adhering to traditional Islamic values, still wear burkas in public.  Almost immediately, there was a public outcry, but more importantly a further, widening of the rift between members of the British Conservative Party over this most trivial of matters.

Most trivial of matters?  How dare you, sir!  I argue that it is.  The other day, I mentioned that free speech is the most important thing we have in this and other democratic nations, and as long as hate speech is not involved, we should adhere to that.  But does Mr. Johnson’s comments cross the line into hate speech?

Well, here’s the thing: it depends how you interpret the comments.  Is it a simple insult to the women that wear them, in describing in less than flattering terms what they look like?  Or is it, as I suspect, more of a veiled (ho ho ho!) comment on the bullying tactics of Muslim men within the religion who make women wear them, having already stated in his Telegraph column that they are made to do so on the basis of no scriptural evidence whatsoever in the Qu’ran. 

It’s more a case of “why are you making your beautiful women look this way without any authority from your holy book?” than hate speech.  Therefore, in the spirit of free speech, I see no reason for Boris to apologise for his writing, although I would expect him to offer some sort of explanation to that effect if indeed that is the effect.

But the biggest fallout from this most trivial of matters is within the Conservative Party itself.  Most are demanding that he be thrown out of the party!  Talk about not having a sense of humour!  Only Jacob Rees-Mogg, who else?, has leapt to Johnson’s defence.  I don’t think even Rees-Mogg gets it, but at least he has realised that Johnson was not criticising the women, but the religion that demands they wear them – basically so that other men don’t drool over them.

Please, both of you, don’t begin demanding that I am a racist and I should remove my comment.  Please don’t begin accusing me of being a Tory.  I am neither of those things, but I do leap to the defence of anyone who is being denied their right to free speech, Tory or not.  This world would be a sad place indeed if we all agreed. x

Dear Reader(s):

It has come to my attention that certain social media and video platforms, namely Facebook and YouTube, have taken to banning a certain individual and his channel accounts, accusing him of hate speech.  That individual is Alex Jones, who runs a current affairs channel called InfoWars, and is already well known for spreading conspiracy theories, and other ideas that are, at the very least, wacky.  I’ve watched a number of the videos he has made from his studio in Texas, and I couldn’t agree with less if he didn’t say anything at all.

But, I like to think we live in a spirit of free speech.  In other words, everyone gets a go, even if the content is nuts. Jones, known for saying ‘just what he thinks’ in a particularly gruff accent, is a dyed in the wool conservative, and he has one especially well-known fan: “President” Donald J. Trump.  Indeed, Jones was a supporter of Trump’s right from the word go, and earlier in the week, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., wrote on Twitter that a senior Democratic Senator had admitted openly that media outlets are being shut down for the simple fact that they are conservative, and Trump wondered how long it would be before “Big Tech & their Democrat friends” purge other right-wing outlets such as Breitbart News and The Daily Caller from their platforms.

Trump has a point – a partial one, at least.  At first, I wondered why it would be that Big Tech would have so many “friends” in the Democratic Party, and indeed what Big Tech was at all.  However, I soon managed to console my fevered mind when it occurred to me that a) it doesn’t matter what party you are from, as soon as you get to Washington, you become soiled with money.  Politicians from all sides become slaves to the dollar, so it’s not really surprising that the likes of Google, YouTube, Microsoft et al get in the pockets of the politicians to increase their influence – nobody gives a f*** what party whoever is in, anyway.  Oh, and b), Big Tech is the conglomeration of companies that became the giants of the internet era, especially in the social media age which we are currently in.

But Twitter – seemingly alone among this bunch of reprobate social media giants – refused to ban Alex Jones either as an individual, or as a representative of InfoWars.  Why?  Well, it was really simple: he had not violated any of their rules regarding hate speech.  I have not seen that many of Jones’ videos for a long, long time; or indeed followed him on Twitter, therefore I could not tell you from personal experience if any of his speech or writing would be definable as hate speech.  But I do understand that his views are extremely right wing; and he is one of many who seem to think that the primary virtue in life is to be able to “say what he thinks”.  But, as long as he is not violating these laws in any country in which he broadcasts, why not let him?  As someone wrote on Trump’s Twitter feed, you should have the right to say what you want within the bounds of the law, but also you should be prepared to take the consequences.

For example, Jones is being sued by three sets of parents of children that were killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre of December 14, 2012.  You know the routine: teenage nutjob arms himself to the bollocks, goes into a school or college and just starts shooting.  Adam Lanza, no relation to Mario, managed to kill twenty children under the age of seven and six teachers.

Probably in part because the subsequent inquiry found no real answers as to why the young man targeted that school in particular, and because so many young children died, a number of conspiracy theories quickly arose; the whole thing was a hoax, that the government was involved, that it was a Jewish attack on Arabs, and so on.  Alex Jones, two years after the event, came firmly down in the “hoax” camp.  He called it a “false flag” event by the Government of the time, lead by recently re-elected President Barack Obama.  Jones had evidence: the town in which the massacre took place, Newtown, Connecticut, reported no deaths by murder that week.  Jones’ claim used the back-up that the children killed were in fact child actors.  However, Jones’ evidence was quickly debunked as a classic example of adding two and two and coming out with six.  No murders were reported in the town statistics because the investigation into the massacre was being handled by the Connecticut State Police, and the deaths subsequently appeared on the state’s statistics.

In November 2016, some of the relatives wrote to President-elect Donald Trump and asked him to denounce Alex Jones and officially recognise the deaths of the twenty-six victims.  Trump did not do so, and indeed actually appeared on Jones’ broadcast a couple of months later, so the parents took the only course of action left in the U.S. legal system: they sued Jones for a lot of money.  A million dollars.  Each, presumably.

The upshot of all of this is that Jones’ channel has been shut down on all of the major social media platforms bar Twitter.  This, I do believe, is a denial of free speech.  I don’t like anything that Jones says, inasmuch as the amount that I have read or seen.  From the available evidence, he seems to be a right-wing blowhard who can’t stand liberals.  That’s mainly what it boils down to in the US: conservatives vs. liberals.  But, in what is increasingly looking less like a free society, you cannot and should not deny him the right to his free speech.  He denies any and all accusations of hate speech, and I have to take him at his word.  It is for the social media giants to pore through the evidence of that, if any, not me.  As I wrote earlier, Jones can say what he wants, although it is he who must take the consequences.  I have spent years happily ignoring him with no adverse side-effects that I know of, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to carry on doing so.  I advise others who think he should be shut down to do the same.

Still, my personal opinion is this:  I never listen to someone who thinks they have an answer for everything.  Someone who never says, “Shit!  I have no idea!” is of no interest to me.  Life is for learning, not being a smart arse.  I think I would have a little more respect for religion, for example, if they said, you know what?  This stuff is mental, but somehow I believe it.  But they don’t; they always try to get the last word, they always try to have an answer for everything.  Not that I have any idea about the afterlife myself.  Haven’t a clue.  I have some ideas, some theories, but I can’t possibly know any more about it than the next person.

A group of people for which I do have a considerable degree of respect are theoretical physicists.  They work on the basis of what we know and postulate further debate among themselves and devise still more complex theories from that.  There are plenty of them to choose from throughout the history of ‘modern’ humankind: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Dalton, Hertz, Einstein (of course), Hawking (of course), Kaku, and many, many others.  Astrophysics is a further topic that fascinates me, although I cannot claim to know that much about it or theoretical physics.  However, I am certainly enjoying the learning process.  Theoretical physics is more mathematics-based, while astrophysics places more emphasis on the physics.  And chemistry.  Two areas of science at which I failed miserably at school.  But as I get older I find my interest increasing, I don’t know why.  Perhaps it is because my late Mother was a scientist; she taught all the sciences at a comprehensive school, and had a great interest in it for the rest of her life.  She also loved Frank Sinatra, but that’s a whole other blog, I think.  x

This, I hope, will be a regular feature of my blog in which I conduct a sort of a ‘rant round-up’ of various events around the world that may not justify a rant of their own.  First up is something that occurred overnight (August 4) in Venezuela – an attempted assassination of President Nicolás Maduro in the country’s capital city, Caracas.

Fortunately, as far as I am aware, nobody – not President Maduro or anyone else – was seriously injured or killed.  However, after the attack, President Maduro – without a shred of evidence to back his claim – proceeded to blame neighbouring Colombia for the attack.  And, naturally enough being a politician, further claimed that Colombia and the U.S. were somehow collaborating in a ‘right-wing’ plot to kill him.  One of Mr. Maduro’s ministers went ahead another stage and blamed the right-wing attack as a support gesture after losing Venezuela’s election (another election in which accusations of vote-rigging were made) in May of this year.

However, the fact is we do not know who carried out the attack, or why.  An opposition group calling themselves Soldiers in T-Shirts (!), possibly one of the best monikers ever devised for a political group, claimed responsibility, but this has yet to be proven.

But ridiculous names for political groups is not the funniest – or let’s say, most ironic – fact about this news story.  No, that honour goes to the knowledge that the event at which Mr. Maduro spoke, and was televised live nationally, was an event to mark the 81st anniversary of the formation of the Venezuelan military in 1937.  And, being a military event, we see a number of long shots of them, all standing in neat rows along the main street.  When the programme cuts to them after the explosion, we see a few seconds of disorder among one of the groups, followed by the entire parade running away en masse from the scene of alleged danger!  Ah, a military to be proud of, folks, when there is a weapon-imposed danger on your doorstep, your army – designed and trained to keep you safe – will run away in a completely disorganised fashion yelling for their mummies to keep them safe!

BREAKING NEWS:  One of the Chuckle Brothers is dead!

Many of my fans from Facebook will be aware of my stance on Brexit.  While the EU – like anything created and run by human beings – is not perfect, it is still infinitely preferable to the chaos and disorder faced by the United Kingdom by leaving it.  And since the U.K. voted more than two years ago to leave, our Conservative government has been debating, arguing, summit-ing with senior European politicians over the best deal that Britain can get for itself after they leave the E.U., sometime next March, I believe.

I believe in democracy, and – assuming there was no demonstrable intervention by the Russians or anyone else – since the U.K. voted by a majority to leave, we ought to do so.  The Government is there to exercise the will of the people, in my view, or at least the majority if there is disagreement.  That’s my view and if you disagree, fine.

We vote for our politicians to act on our behalf in important negotiations to get the best deal for us as citizens of the United Kingdom, but unfortunately our current Conservative government are too busy being self-serving and inept to actually provide or even care about anything that could be beneficial to us as a collective (population) or as individuals.  Our Prime Minister, Mrs. Theresa May, is our most incompetent this side of Gordon Brown.  O.K., there’s only been David Cameron in between, but still, she’s fairly bloody useless.

As far as Brexit is concerned, one of Mrs. May’s ministers, Liam Fox, wrote in The Sunday Times this morning that the chance of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit is growing considerably as the days go by.  This, says Fox, is down to Brussels’ rejection of the idiotic proposals came out of the infamous meeting at Chequers, the PM’s summer residence, some weeks ago.  So, Liam, Mrs. May’s incompetence and a load of clueless Conservative cockups running about the place have nothing to do with it then?

Britain’s main problem is that those who voted for Brexit did so in the main because they believe that too many Europeans are getting into the country, taking jobs, stealing benefits and getting on buses first.  They saw the Brexit Referendum as a great opportunity to do that.  Other than that, people want everything just as it was before; trade, money, silly little rules about using metric measurements ought to be the same.  The European Union, quite rightly in my view, are saying, no, you can’t do that; if you want to leave the E.U., then you’re going to have to do it properly.  Even some of Mrs. May’s own party – Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel among them – are saying that to anyone who will listen.  Of course, the Tories are not worried one bit about the welfare of the citizens of the United Kingdom, are they?  Oh, no; they’re more concerned about the loss of trade and, as so many MPs are company directors, the money.

Religion.

This is a topic that I think about frequently; and it is one that has been on my mind this week, for no particular reason than it has been a topic of discussion to which I have been paying attention in my daily forays into the murky world of YouTube, in its context as a news/entertainment source, and in its context as a social media platform.  Of course, logic tells you that it cannot be both news and social media.  Once it does that, it crosses the line into what we now call ‘fake news.’  Never mind the fact that television, radio and the internet have all been presenting themselves as more or less all three for decades.  Political discussion programmes such as the B.B.C.’s Question Time or A.B.C. in Australia’s Q&A are all fake news by this argument because their primary purpose is entertainment, right?  Yes, they discuss current events, but they do it in such a way as to provide entertainment – guests who fundamentally disagree with one another, pre-approved questions from the audience, and so on.  Wouldn’t it be dull if they didn’t do that, eh?

But, I digress – a common feature in my rants, especially now that I an not encumbered by space or disagreeable guitarists.  Religion.  I think about it a lot.   Am I spiritual?  Probably.  Am I religious?  Absolutely, definitely, one hundred per cent not.

I disagree with religion, its principles and practices, fundamentally.  If there were ever a Question Time featuring myself against religion, it would make for great entertainment.  I do not deny anyone their right to believe in an afterlife, a god, even a messianic figure who came to Earth and was then publically humiliated and hung out to dry by a controlling, dictatorial spiritual being.  Fine, if that’s you, have a nice life.  But don’t expect me to believe it or I shall suffer eternal damnation, or to think that I am not exercising my free will.  One of the most humorous facets of religion is that it makes the believer feel he or she is ‘saved,’* or that God gave humans free will when religion is one of the easiest methods by which humans can be denied free will, is astonishing.

*Please note I am addressing, in the main, the Christian religion, although many facets of other religions such as Islam or Hinduism can be applied to my statements; where there are ideological or practical differences, I hope to be bright enough to point them out.  If not, please comment and I shall do my best to make the necessary corrections.  But be nice.

So, there is a God, and that God created everything that there is in the Universe in just six days.  On the seventh day, he rested.  What did he do?  What was there to do in a Universe that, in many parts, was created so recently it was still drying?  Science has discovered a great deal in recent centuries.  But there is still a great deal that is unknown.  If we were to draw a graph, and a line from the beginning of human existence through to now, we would see a line with a slow incline for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years, as we discovered (or invented) the wheel, fire, fashion and makeup (not necessarily in the correct order), followed by a sharp, almost vertical line during the last couple of centuries as we found trains, cars, planes, the internet and electric guitars.  Oh, and space.  The discovery of space is a big one, because, with our massive telescopes, we can see not only out into the darkest Universe but back, back, back in time almost to what scientists would call the Big Bang, while religious folk would refer to it as the Creation of the Earth.

You see, folks, if you have no idea what I mean, light travels at 670,616,629 miles per hour; and if the distance is so great that it takes light four years to get to you, say, then whatever it is you are looking at is the object as it was four years ago.  It’s why scientists say that something is four light years away rather than 2.351e+13 miles away – much longer and more difficult to understand.

The discovery of the Universe – or, more accurately, how mind-numbingly big it was – led to a branch of physics we call astrophysics, a side-project of physics, if you will, that uses physical and chemical principles and practices to come up with solutions to some of the greatest mysteries and puzzles of the Universe.  Theoretical physics, where mathematics and other models are introduced, also made its way into the equation, if you’ll pardon the pun.  Anyway, the point is that physics looks for answers and uses scientific and practical models to find them.  Religion uses faith and guesswork, none of which can be proven, and expects its followers to believe them unquestioningly while giving that religion lots of money.  That goes for all major religions.

Human beings are one of the Great Ape family.  Religious people don’t like that, humans were created by God to be special, but that aside, humans evolved as one of the lucky branches of the Great Apes.  Look at us against chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas, for example, and while you will see some similarities, you will also detect decided differences and count yourself lucky that you have an unbelievable level of intelligence compared to these animals.  Our brains are infinitely more complex, but there are some things we do in which we can spot similarities with these animals.

Watch a chimpanzee for a while and you will soon see that it will do anything for food; it will trick a fellow chimp, fight with it, or learn simple tips and tricks in order to get food.  Some have tried to prove that chimps are more intelligent than we thought.  They can be taught to eliminate numbers in sequence or to open and shut a series of doors to get to food that has been locked away.  But these scientists seem unaware that it is the food that is the primary object.  They learn that, if they do this, that or the other, whatever that is, they will get the food.  That’s all they care about.  They are not smart enough to know that what they are performing is a complex mathematical equation, or a specific series of doors in a specific order to get to the food.

Humans do the same thing.  Sorry to break it to you, comforted religious folk, but we do, and none of it more clearly explained that in the context of religion.  All of us, every one of us, I don’t care who you are, are or have wondered at some point in your life about where we have come from and, more importantly, where we are going.  Eventually, groups started to form and once it became clear that people would do anything to further those groups that seemed to express their own views on their ultimate destiny, the groups became religions that used the most fascistic methods to implement those beliefs on everyone in their society.  You will believe this or die.  And when you die, you will burn in eternity.  Wow!  Just like medicine show performers, or magicians, religious leaders realised that there was money in this.  Lots of it.  All they had to do was tell people that they must believe a certain set of tenets that they had drawn up, and they were home and dry.  One of the reasons that the 9/11 attackers were so willing to die for their cause was that they were told that if they did this deed, if they became martyrs, they would spend forever in eternity in the company of virgins.  And do what to them?  Exactly, despite not being human, with 70 virgins and 70 wives!  I mean, talk about the ultimate human male fantasy.  How can that possibly work in eternity?  I’m sorry, Islam, but that is utterly ridiculous.  And, of course, to make sure many of its millions of followers don’t think too long about this, Islam preaches very loudly that you are not allowed to question it, and you are taught not to like it if others – regardless of their religion – write about it.  Although there is a fascinating article on the subject written in a book review not long after 9/11 in the Guardian, reproduced here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5

So, chimps solve the meaning of life without realising it simply to get a piece of fruit; humans, who have developed a far more complex way of bartering, will do anything, without any thought for the consequence, to get money, which will, in turn, get them whatever they want.  There is no difference in my mind, whatever the religion, or fantasy, it’s all the same.  There is so much I could write about religion that this rant could in theory almost literally go on forever, but out of deference to you, dear reader, I won’t.  Religion is a racist, sexist, derogatory to others, murderous, violent fantasy, and I won’t have anything to do with it, no sir.  Although I would not insult a scientist by claiming to be one, I certainly pay a fair amount of attention to astrophysics and similar, its conclusions based on as much scientific fact as is possible.  I enjoy conversations with astrophysicists that I know personally and much of the music I am making at the moment is along astrophysical lines.  Check out my album Piece Time III:

…and, furthermore, my latest work with the band Spiral Planet – like the Universe itself, an ever-evolving band of heavenly bodies – here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ-PEbs5M_5vcr6K3Fy93ZA

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