Underdogs....

Now, the Beard, as you may or may not know, and why should or shouldn't you, has always been a champion... well, more of a supporter of the underdog against what we shall call for no good reason other than the law of opposites, the Overcat.... This may lead you to the illogical conclusion that it would please the Beard greatly if equality were to prevail, and the underdog were to become a thing of the past, with each man's responsibilities and privileges (if you recall my stance on rights...) becoming the same as any others, and each of us being listened to and given the same opportunities...

But you'd be wrong (as I say, remember the Beard's stance on rights...)

The Beard is, as I say, a great supporter of the underdog, right up to the point where he defeats his opponent ( the underdog that is, not the Beard) and joins the Overcat society, thus enabling himself to create more underdogs.. and this is a good thing... because by creating underdogs we assure our survival...

How so, I hear you gasp... quite simply... it is the underdog who struggles, who strives, and makes the world a better place by doing so... the overcat of course doesn't have to struggle... and it is the strugglers and strivers who create the new... it is their belief against the odds that their idea, their viewpoint, their ideal, is worth so much that they can take on insuperable odds and somehow super them that does so much for the world at large... and to promote that struggle and advancement, we need more underdogs, not fewer...

Of course, in a society such as ours today, that will never be a problem, designed as it is to ensure that people are either elevated beyond all reason or pushed down into the dirt... Now, it doesn't take a genius to work out what the scene is... oops, slipped into a bit of Kirsty MacColl there... no comedians, please.... but it doesn't take a genius to work out that the Beard, (who famously asked who Andy Murray was the other day, believing that when the Future Mrs Beard mentioned such personage she was referring to a facebook friend... of which, more later...) is not a big fan of the whole celebrity thing... personally I can never see myself as being the sort of person who doesn't read the "i" because it didn't mention what Cheryl Cole or Jordan were up to... you know who you are...

Now, the Beard, being a minor celebrity himself (so minor, in fact, that he has slipped out of the far side of famous, and is rapidly approaching the top of the pile from the other end, in a relativistic, quantum sort of way) knows just how fleeting such status is... and hopes that eventually we go back to being the sort of society where it becomes fleeting again... famous for fifteen minutes I can stand... but when some of these people who, quite honestly, deserve four minutes and fifty seconds at the very most then cling on with their fingernails to the duration of fame formerly reserved for quite good actors, or clever physicists, or war winning generals, then I believe that it points at a rot deep deep in the heart of society.... And it's unfairly robbing some of you of your own fifteen minutes.... which may be grounds for suing Jordan... or maybe not....

And that heart, lets be honest, is not all that deep... without wishing to overuse the honesty bit, well, lets be honest, society is all we've managed so far... civilisation, at least in so far as we would want the word to mean, has passed us by for millenia.... of course, we and the Romans, and the Greeks, and the Sumerians, and whoever there was whenever, all pretended to believe that we had achieved civilised status... but to be truthful all we as a race have ever achieved is bigger tribes than anyone else... and this has been so successful that the big tribes have split into smaller sub tribes, admittedly with flexible membership, but with a big big problem... unable to really see themselves as part of the big super tribe, and with liited space to carve out their own territory and break from the big group, they are left alienated, confused, and almost certainly tempestuous, if not positively warlike.

We would all like to think of ourselves as civilised, of course, but we're not.. one small scratch reveals the animal beneath... and it's only going to get worse... humans aren't supposed to live in big groups, nor is any animal... we've done our best to make sure that there are resources enough to feed us and so on, in an attempt to quell internicine strife, but it hasn't really worked.. as usual, the bigger, more advanced tribes have ganged up on the weaker to withhold the stuff of life... and have attempted to channel any violent, tribal urges into apparently safer pursuits like the football, X-Factor loyalties, FaceBook feuds, bullying and limited warfare... but it's fooling no-one guys... and one day, it's all going to blow up in our faces.... perhaps it already has...

Unfortunately, the Beard has to hope that this scenario is true... after all, his "Gaian Man as antibody" theory relies on it... if you are not aware of the theory, a quick synopsis... man is not a cancer, destroying the environment, but an antibody whose purpose is to raise global temperatures etc and then get wiped out, with the satisfaction of a job well done, so that the good old earth can safely enter the next stage of its life cycle.... which is a comforting thought, possibly... or possibly not...

But the hour is getting short of minutes, the Beard's cold is wearing him down, and bed along with the Future Mrs Beard beckons... so it remains to say, that until fame is as fleting as it deserves to be, Wisebeard Salutes You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Climate Change....

or to give it its usual misnomer Global warming, has reared its ugly head again, and the selfish part of me wishes to thank it for giving the Beard some lovely weather for his holiday.... which, strangely enough took place in two places, if the repetition may be forgiven.. and I'm sure it will be... first of all, a lovely few days in Anglesey, within Roman Legion swimming distance of the North wales Coast, courtesy of a certain young lady.... the holiday that is, not tthe swim...and a good chance to meet the elder of her two sons, who proved to be delightful, intelligent and incredibly fair minded.... and i'm not just saying that because of who reads this..!!! A morning of birdwatching at South Stack, a paddle in the sea with the young lady in question, a trip to the sea zoo ( one of Beard junior's favourite attractions) and a view of some gorgeous paintings at Oriel Ynys Mon (the Great Orme sky thingies.. breath taking.. wish I could remember the artist's name...).... time for home came too soon, but luckily for some, a trip to the ancient city of Jorvik followed.. my young lady's first ever.... and a very good trip it was.. Kudos to the Cavalier guest house..... although the less said about the sherry the better..... ACYL was impressed by the Jorvik centre, entranced by the Castle Museum, and absolutely gobsacked by the Minster.... so much so that we returned the next day and climbed the tower.... a cruise on the Ouse, a bewildering walk through York Dungeon and an anoraking expedition to the Rail Museum followed, with the Beard becoming a slight celebrity due to his once having ridden on Tornado's footplate.. and if you don't know what I'm talking about, why not???? the food was lovely.. good breakfasts at the Cavalier, and I would recommend to everyone El Piano, a fantastic vegan and gluten free tapas bar.... the only restaurant the beard can recall where he could order anything at all from the amazingly good menu... and they offer a discount to holders of a York pass.. of which more later... but I digress.... I was going to make some wise or otherwise statements about limiting the popoulation in order to help the environment, but instead I've waffled about my holiday.... suffice it to say, York was a big hit, and so was the Beard..... on a sadder note, a friend of mine, Simon Grant, fellow scout leader and giver of sun glasses, unfortunately died aged 44 last week... he'll be sorely missed by all.... especially Jim Muller if he throws up in his tent porch again.... "Gone Home," as we in Scouting would say....but with reference to the old adage, our Cherie has brought new life into the world as we always knew she would... and if my judgement is good (and it often is...) she'll be a fantastic mum.... but I digress again.... i'm sure Simon would have wanted the Beard to stay upbeat, so until all our gobs are smacked, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I just didn't like to hear.....

But i still can't believe Speed Racer is dead,.... or so Tori Amos attests in her excellent "Cooling," one of my absolute favourite Tori songs (along with Honey, Almost Rosey, Silent All These Years, Yes Anastasia, and many many more....) And cooling has been on my mind for a while.. firstly, the line "this is cooling faster than I can" reminds me far too much of my last relationship, and secondly due to the continuing realisation and acceptance that we are still leaving an ice age.... and that therefore global Warming may just be a normal, expected, necessary thing.... remember the Jurassic period? Well we had real summers then... nowhere near as cold as now.. then we cool a bit into the cretaceous, but still hot compared to today...then the ice ages come along, and everything chills.... now, correct me if I'm wrong, but surerly on average the earth's dominant temperature is higher than it is curently.. so global warming could just be the planet getting back to normal..... aahhh! I hear yu say.. but global warming seems to be unnatural, man made, artificial.... to which i say, why does man made mean unnatural? We are just as natural as a grass snake, our skyscrapers just as natural as a birds nest.. not as pretty possibly... but we are part of nature... but we have grown so used to thinking of ourselves as being apart from nature, that we have no problem in thinking of ourselves as something different, strange, destructive, unnatural.... well, let me publicise some theories held by scientists who don't get the airtime.... firstly the idea that global warming is a good thing... most models show that the temperatur increase will lead to greater evaporation of sea water, and lots more rain in Africa... this coupled with the higher temps would lead to the tropical and equatorial regions being able to support two or three harvests a year... and europe could manage three every two years.... helping solve the food shortage.. true, there would be casualties... the gulf stream would possibly switch off, leaving us Brits with the climate we should have.. similar to southern alaska.... but thats no hardship... and as for the ice caps.. well, if the northern one melts, the sea level will drop... ice, being less dense than water, takes up more space... work it out... and if we get the thirty or forty degree rise it would take to melt the southern one, then the 70 degree celsius summers around the equator, with all the petrol nearly boiling, will probably cause more trouble than a twenty foot rise in the sea level.... which brings me to the most controversial of the theories.... to illustarte we need to go back millions of years to when the CO2 levels were much higher... (now what does that remind me of...).. we had back then many mat-like organisms that inhaled CO2 and excreted oxygen.. they became so successful that they spread and spread, and produced so much oxygenthat they poisoned their own atmosphere.... and died off, leaving the path open for things that had adapted to the oxygen rich atmosphere... now, couple this with a version of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, that the earth is a self regulating organism, and instead of jumping on the "man is a cancer" bandwagon, start thinking logically... warm planet... planet cools... for next stage of development planet need to warm up.... best way to do this is increase CO2.. so allow development of creatures best able to produce CO2 in large quantities.. true, that very thing will destroy the creatures that produce the CO2, but hey, thats life for self regulating organisms the size of planets... look at the mats... so the theory says, in brief, that we have sprung up so that the warming of the planet is ensured, and our efforts towards this will lead to our extinction, and open the way for the next wave of development... just as the mats, the dinosaurs, et al moved aside.... in other words, global warming is our purpose, and by attempting to save our race, we may also be attempting to doom our planet... but i digress..... the truth is we don't know one way or the other... lets be honest, we're still divided over whether cancer is a nasty disease or evolution at work... so what chance do we have.... and, asa Tori said, "if that doesn't impress you much, come board this lunatic express..." until we all chin up, put on a pair of rosies and raise those blinds, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!