Nights, rights and fights...

And after perusing his rhyming dictionary, the Beard yet again comes up with some vague and puerile ideas of a tedious yet irrelevant subject to partially write about.... but there we are... now, a lot is said about the rights of the community and of the individual... and lets be honest, it doesn't matter when i'm writing this, there's bound to be something in the newspapers about this, even if just in the Star and the Mail... but i digress...

the point is, as anyone who even vaguely has an awareness of the Beard knows, the hairy blogger is in fact an anti-rights campaigner... yup, that's right... the Beard is actually a firm believer that rights actually muck everything up big time.... now, my biggest problem with rights is that it seems totally impossible to give someone a certain right without it either impinging on someone else's or being impossible to enforce....

for instance, gay people (and I have nothing against them) apparently have the right to get a full and proper Muslim wedding.... but the Muslims (and again, i'm not anti muslim...) have the right to freedom of religion and conscience... and their religion and conscience tells them that homosexuality is wrong.... so, whose rights come out on top? Well, seeing as both groups have the right to fair and equal treatment, it leaves us with a sticky impasse... we can't enforce the gay rights without stamping on the islamic ones, and verse visa..... and this is the problem.... and that's just one case... how about the supposed right of everyone to have enough food and sufficient shelter.... that means that no one should have to pay for food and housing, if followed to its logical conclusion... then there's the right to.. and so on... the sort that affects us most often though is the one where a person exercises his rights to the expense of anothers... for instance, a man's right to smoke in the park versus another's right to breathe unpolluted air... the right of someone to play loud music opposed to the right of another to have a peaceful kip... the right of one to cut down a tree opposed to another's right to enjoy the shade... and this is where rights really fall down....

So, what is the solution.. if indeed there is one...?? well, i firmly believe that what we should do is get rid of rights altogether... and introduce a system of privilege and rresponsibility... did i say introduce?? Well I should rather say reintroduce... after all, that's what we used to have, before those with the privileges turned them into rights in order to keep those perks without having to exercise their responsibilities.... now, it should be pretty simple to make up a code of conduct that fits our society.. or indeed any society.. lets be honest, a bunch of six year olds at my Beaver Colony can manage it, so you'd think so called adults could... we could start with "It the responsibility of a person to respect the wishes of others and consider the impact of his or her actions on other people..." that's pretty easy, and possibly obvious.... and would lead to a lot less antisocial behaviour.... tied with this, a list (almost certainly longer ) of the privileges that go with keeping to the code.. for example, the privilege of being paid in exchange for work, and the privilege of free movement throughout the world, or the privilege of eating sufficient food to sustain life...

Now the crux of the matter.. we make it the rule that if anyone in society reneges on their responsibilities, they automatically lose all their privileges... not just a few, but all.. this is not a pick and choose exercise... now, that may strike some as harsh.. but it may encourage people to think a little more about others rather than harping on about themselves... and it would lead to a better society.. if people know that responsibility is a part and parcel of life, it can't be a bad thing....

But I hear you all say, doesn't this bode badly for victims of the abuse of human rights?? Well, not really.... because the rulers will be bound by the same responsibilities as their subjects.... which means that if they forget those responsibilities then the people will be able to take the rulers' privileges away.... with a lot more ease and freedom of conscience than they have now.... which must be a good thing....

Now a natural adjunct of this would be the reintroduction of outlawry.. and lets be truthful, this does not mean running about in the woods looking glamourous in tights... no, better than that, it means that if a person breaks the law, then the law in return refuses to give that person its protection.... now, imagine the consequence.... if a person obviously and provable breaks the law, then that person can be trated in any way shape or form.... so, if you catch a burglar in your house stealing, then heaven help him, cos beating him up will not be an illegal act.... in fact, the victim would actually be perfectly allowed to take stuff off the burglar in recompense... sound good?? well, the only thing that stops us having a society based on personal and societal responsibility is our insistence on having rights.... so it should be obvious to all what we should do....

But on to lighter topics.... for instance the growing length of the days and the Beard's hair, mainly due to his having left his hair clippers in Solihull... but these things are indeed like circuit judges... sent to try us.... but I digress.... but it would seem that at some point our inaccurate measuring of days and nights will one day catch up with us... and hopefully when it does, it'll be good news for some, if not for all....

Now, on the subject of good news and of course good olds, last week saw a lovely trip in the hot sun to Dovedale, and the heights of Abraham, where the Beard and the Future mrs beard rode a cable car to the summit, went down a cave, and did other such Derbyshire related malarkey.... and a good time was had by all.. Beard Junior and future younger Step-Beard have been doing well in their respective examinations, and beard Junior has been gaining useful and paid employment as a general labourer... which is nice, as the idiom goes.... but the hour is not late for a change, so the Beard has not the advantage of a mind about to fall asleep, which may account for the budget deficit... lets be honest something has to... but there are things to see, places to do and people to go... so until we all have our rights revoked and our responsibilities evoked, Wisebeard Salutes You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mills, Hills, Polls and Lols.....

Now, it so happens that the Beard has been exercising his democratic rights in the past week or so, and as a result, we now have a government which, although the same as the last one, at least has different faces.... In the Beard's homeland we have managed to get someone local to represent us, who at least has good taste in certain things (he eats at my local chippy, and drinks at the Beard's favoured watering hole, the Robin Hood of Swannington... of which more later...) although to be honest his taste in shirts does leave a little (but only a little to be desired... but i digress...

The previous weeks have unfortunately seen a dearth of Beard related blogginess, mainly down to the active lifestyle led by the said hirsute one.... a week in Anglesey with the FMB, Beard Junior and soon to be step -beard led to much fun and mountain climbing, as 3104 feet were gained.. but luckily not at the end of our legs... a close encounter with a low door beam at Beaumaris resulted in slightly pained hilarity, and other such malarkey....

Also on the menu was a trip to Manchester (of which more later...) and a weekend of Bank Holidayness and random Hotelery... including a stay at a very nice albeit almost empty hotel close to Keighley, and a less inspiring Travelodge.. but then, Travelodges are what they are, and at least clean sheets and a shower are guaranteed.... en route to said Hotel, a slightly circuitous route was followed, leading to a lunch stop at the excellent Deerplay pub on Burnley Road, Bacup in the lovely county of lancashire... stet among lovely moors, with thankfully no whiff of a chain and a lovely line in food.. the beef rag pudding especially... godd food, good scenery, good beer and cider, good friendly staff... good all round... try it...

And on the subject of food, any visitors to Nick Griffin's ex stamping ground could do a lot lot worse than visit what is possibly the best Thai restauant in the North of England, the Thai on Aire... Now, Skipton Road Keighley is not necessarily a place yopu would asociate with Thai food.. but it should be.. after a plate of mixed starters, a fantastic curry and other such delights, the Beard and the FMB were ecstatically happy and rather full.... and get gone from your mind the ides of the pack em in chuck em out Thai place... the relaxed atmosphere, the genial host (whose wine knowledge is really quite good, to say the least, make this possibly one of the best eateries the Beard has had the pleasure of noshing in.... a tip.. try the Chenin Blanc/ Riesling blend.. exclusive to the restaurant, along with lots of other top class wines.... you won't regret it.... trust me.....

Now, food was definitely needed over the weekend, as it usually is.. but even more so as Bank Holiday Monday saw the Beard and FMB, along with one of that beautiful personages work colleagues in Yorkshire, at teh 40th anniversary celebrations of one of the Wise one's favourite films, The Railway Children.... now, all should by now know of the Beards predeliction for the divine Jenny Agutter, and of his liking for trains.... mix the two, and it becomes an explosive love fest... I was especially glad to see an Austerity 280 8F running along, as well as the BR Standard 4... but was slightly disappointed that 957, star of the film, was absent due to brake failure... but the beard did still get a tour of said locomotive, which would have been impossible had she been running.. plus a waiting room encounter with Sally Thomsett, a BBC film crew and a Boom was an eye opener for the sheltered Beard.... but I digress...

A short lunch and a long, twisty drive followed, including the beard following a sheep for two miles (no comments, please) until the very picturesque and slightly picaresque Gayle Mill in Wensleydale was reached, where the beard had the honour of watching a newly restored water powered sawmill cut its first plank.... which was nice.... then it was back down the M6, leaving the FMb in North Yorks with the prospect of four more days at work ahead of her....

now, as you may recall, I started with the election, and I was actually attempting to make a pont, or even a point, but said sharp object got lost along the way.... suffice it to say that coalition, cooperation and cohabiting all have their advantages and disadvantages, and that until we all get as many elections as we can comfortably handle, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clock Radios.... or the Radio Times...

Now, there’s a lot of talk (again) about not changing stuff…. The clocks and the radio to be precise…. It seem swe may be facing a trial period, backkd by those who call themselves the main political parties, of not changing back from British Summer Time…

As is to be expected, there is a lot of opposition to this move, not least from Scottish farmers, but also from the beard himself… however, on this occasion at least, our oppositions tend to have different bases….

The farmers bemoan the fact that keeping to BST will lead to them not being able to start their day midwinter until12pm, due to the mornings being darker; the Beard simply thinks that we have far too much reliance on artificial time keeping methods…

Now, the farmers’ objection itself begs two questions… first, what did they all do prior to the First World War when the clocks were never changed at all, and secondly, why, when farmers are supposedly more in touch with nature that the evil city-folk, do they insist on eing welded to this artificiality….

Now, to the Beard it would seem that the problem all started with midnight.. rather thnm at miudnight… specifically with when it was decided that the day would begin and end at an artificial point sometime during darkness… prior to this of course, men (and women of course) marked the day using easily identifiable markers… it either began with sunrise, or more logically (to the Beard anyway) with sunset…. After all, the world began in darkness, so it follows that the day should… but I digress…

So, in the Beard’s favoured system the daty begins when the sun goes down (and generations of teens and other merry makers I’m sure would agree…) now, you don’t need a clock to tell when that happens… now midnight on the other hand… unless you know the stars quite intimately (as Tristan almost certainly does… Stardust, anyone??) how do you know when midnight happens…. Midday, on the other hand… well, that, supposedly, is the time of the day when the sun reaches its highest point…. Again, an easily recognized marker… or is it??

Well, when it comes to GMT (as opposed to GMTV of course, with the lovely Penny and Lorraine… of whom, more later…) which as close as we get in this country to proper time, then yes, it is… nearly... but under BST, it is closer to 1300, or 1 pm to those who can’t count as well… when the sun has already started going down… now we know that messing about with time causes problems, and not just for Dr Who… jet lag, anyone…?? So why not keep the country on its nearly natural time… good old GMT…

Now, as fro farmers working in the dark… well, its an old profession, predating clocks and artificial time keeping…. In distant time, farmers (and indeed anyone else) got up at dawn, worked during daylight and packed up at dusk… then came the clock…. Which destroyed all this.. which in the beard’s opinion is not necessarily a good thing…. Now, I know that due to Eastenders and Basil Brush people think they need to live their lives by the clock, but surely for some it would e far better to keep to the natural rhythm…. After all, the cows don’t know that it’s five o’clock…. And yes, it woulds mean working longer hours in the summer, and shorter in the winter, but then who wants to be stuck out in the cold and damp, apart from possibly the Beard…

After all, the clock only came about due to the desire of a few to regulate the many… and the changing to BST was due to factory owners et al attempting to save money and valuable gas during the war… The beard suspects that many people’s unhappiness with working hours stems from this artificiality…. Especially with younger people, who we are told seem to have the entirely unreasonable attitude that as long as a job gets done well and on time, who cares about the actual time you get to work…. And I hasten to add, it’s not the Beard who thinks it unreasonable….

What is unreasonable in the beard’s eyes is the assumed fact that this move with BST is only being proposed to get us in line with the rest of Europe…. And that means that in a few years we will find that we use BST only in the winter, and that in the summer we will again put the clocks forward… so that, for instance, what counted as 1400 hours today (that is, 1300 hours GMT) will actually be 15:00 hours…. So, in august, when we are used to the sun rising at about 6, it won’t be up until 7… which, to those of us who want to live by the natural markers won’t actually matter… but I can see a lot of people (especially those blighted by Seasonally Affective Disorder) not liking it much…

Now, we all live in the middle of a digital revolution… broadband wireless internet and digital TV are here…. And the choice we now get is astounding…. I myself have digital freeview, and instead of not watching 5 channels, I can actually not watch nearly eighty…. Which is progress of a kind….now, the digital switch over in TV I can understand, to a certain extent… most people have bought into digital already… the stuff available on analogue is duplicated on digital… so why bother wasting energy and resources on the old, less watched, less choice system.?? True, in some areas reception was not as good as it could be, and there was the problem with recording something while watching something else, a problem now basically solved… but the radio seems to be a different matter….

If people are voting with their pockets in favour of digital tv, the opposite seems to be true of digital radio… first, sales of such seem to be slow, where sales of normal radios are steady… and its not due to lack of availability or advertising…. Signals (in my experience and that of others) are patchy and inconsistent, and the amount of interest not shown in many digital only stations is apparent mainly by the rate that said stations are closing down… and lets be honest, most people seem to change their tvs fairly regularly for one reason or another, but rugged radios are seen as a product that you buy and replace only when necessary…. Especially car radios…. And there is also the fact that digital radios use a lot more power than normal ones… just stick some batteries in a digi radio and see how long they last….

Now, as I say, switching off something that most people apparently don’t want is fair enough… that’s just business, and its why you no longer see Fry’s chocolate Sandwiches, and Cresta pop…. But switching off something that people obviously do still want seems to be a cynical attempt to force them to buy products that they obviously don’t want…. For if they did, surely they’d be buying it already….. apparently this desired closing down of analogue radio is to give greater availability of bands to the mobile phone people…. Which is pointless, because, lets be honest, everyone wants better signal on their mobile, but no one wants a phone mast near them.. so regardless of how much airspace is available, we still won’t be able to get a signal where we need it most…. But enough of that… I’m sure we all know where the Beard stands on NIMBYism…. So the less said the better.. (unless you insist, of course…)

So until we all get the reception we deserve at the right time for us, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the big stir....

So, last week fiound the beard and beard junior at a parents evening... as happens to the best of us... and during said evenoing, as often happens, also to the best of us, a long wait was had by all... now those of you who know the beard (and some of you who don't) will realise that other people have a problem with me waiting... mainy due to the fact that i talk to people.. even those i don't know... well, i got to talking with that strange type, the physics teacher... as all know, the physics teacher is a rare breed... in more ways than one.. but of that, more later.... anyeway, two such were discussing the recent Horizon programme, that asked if what we knew about the universe was in fact wrong.... and of course, the Beard butted in...

Now, as is the way of these things, the main question was why do some things happen that shouldn't... which is possibly a metaphor for life too... but I digress.... in the end Fred Hoyle and the steady state was mentioned, mainly down to its lack of mention in the programme, and one of the teachers admitted that they had a problem with the big bang.... struggling to avoid the obvious answer, the Beard opined that he too had a problem with it... so much so in fact that i don't actually believe it happened... and as for dark matter.....

To give you all a little background... I won't try to claim to be any whizz at physic.. I got a perfectly bad A level in the subject, and read New Scientist, etc... and thats about it... but sometimes it does a discipline good to have partly informed outsiders messing around... I mean, look at politics.. or possibly not....but anyway... dark matter seems to me to be a bit of a cop out... and if it exists we should maybe be looking for it closer to home... i mean, why does all this strange stuff have to be parsecs away?? the point is though, that I really have trouble with the idea that one uber particle exploded and caused the universe... my problem is not so much the usual "where did that come from" creationist stuff (although I am, to be fair some sort of Creationist.... creationism and science are not mutually exclusive...) no, my problem is that there is a much simpler explanation.. that does not need a particle turning into lots of particles... cos it would have to be a bloomin' big one..

So let the Beard introduce you to the Big Stir theory.... which has several advantages.... which i will come to later.... simply put, the theory is this... once upon a nontime (don't you just love stories) there was a load of stuff... and i mean stuff... according to this theory stuff is important.... now surrounding this stuff was other stuff... it took up no space, because there wasn't any space yet, and it lasted no time at all, because there wan't any of that yet either.... it didn't move, because movement implies space and time.. but it did have an analogue of motion.... and it was "moving" about.... eventually it "moved" about in such a way that it did the analogue of swirling.... and the stuff then became arranged in such a way that it made space and time... as some of you may well remember, the Beard is a great believer that time is not the stage upon which we act, merely another of the players.... and so, as they say, the universe was created...

Now, the Beard is the first to admit that this theory has its own problems, but less so if you can get your head around acausal stuff.... and the Beard happily admits that he has, many times.... but to me, it seems to fit as well as the bang does... it explains the motion of matter, it explains the expansion of the universe (its not expanding, just moving towards the edges like the whirlpool in your tea cup appears to... oh, you don't have awhirlpool in your tea cup... well, I apologise.... but really, you should be blaming those who put the tea in Britain.... and I always suspect that they put it in the wrong place... but I digress....

As I've said, I refuse to accept that science and religion are mutually exclusive and incompatible.... in fact, or indeed even in fiction, it has always been the belief that the two are not even two sides of the same coin, but are in fact just different parts of the design on the obverse...look at the two... one attempts to explain the unknown, evokes powerful emotions, has leaders seen to be nearly infallible, sees itself as the only route to the truth and has millions of followers around the world.... the other is religion, which .... well.... does the same.... and if, as teh Beard believes (ssshhhh! don't use that word if there are scientists about!!!!!) religion is simply another version of that magical teaching aid "Lies to Children" then it seems to do almost as well as science in explaining stuff... because, lets be honest, most peopel don't understand how their washing machine works, let alone quantum mechanics.... and for most people knowing that God did it is just as satisfactory as knowing that a force we don't actually yet understand but is invisible and very powerful but definitely not God did it.... ad as i've said, the Bible itself agrees with most Darwinians, at least in the order that things happened....

But suffice it to say, I'm a fan of the Big Stir because not only does it seem to work scientifically, but it seems to satisfy most religions too.... to take the biggest, Judaism/Islam/Christianity (which are all the same, sort of...) they believe that in the beginning was chaos (the beards notime nospace of stuff) and that the face of God moved them (the stir...) as do the Japanese, and several others.... and if we can reconcile the two sides, all will benefit.... especially me....

But, as the Beard's mother has said, or maybe hasn't, enough of all that.... the Beard has been approaching things from angles this month, mainly because they are easier to draw than curves.... wardrobes beckon, as does a fancy vacuum cleaner, and the spectre of Maria Whitaker has reared its head... as it occasionally does.... and the spring is coming along (except where the autumn is) and the Beard's thoughts turn to the Future Mrs Beard, away in the land of haggis, kilts and bonniness.... and indeed of Bonny Ness.... entertaining the unwashed yet strangely spray-deodoranted masses..... and the Beard must confess a love for Scotland, despite having not been there for a long while.... in fact, last time there I may even have been Wisestubble.... but again I digress....

And for those who are wondering, and indeed for thsoe who aren't, the Beard is still struggling to see the movies that he fancies watching.... the Book of Eli and The Road have passed me by, and I'm assuming that the remake of Clash of the Titans possibly will... and try as a beard may, the Wise one is struggling to drum up any enthusiasm for Avatar... now, I'm sure its as good as everyone says, but the whole thing is leaving me cold.. I'm not sure if its the hype (which the beard never believes!!!) or the fact taht everyone I know keeps telling me how good the effects are without ever mentioning the plot, script or acting, all things far more important in my opinion.. but then I liked Blakes Seven, so who am I to talk.... but regardless, I sit here now feeling that if i do miss it on the big screen, I won't be too upset.... which must be wrong in some respects.... but anyway, the Beard grows tired, and feels it prudent to leave some for later... so until we all end up Big Stirrers, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, the beard was defending one of his favourite films the other day.... the magnificent 8Mile, which is, to be honest, not the sort of film that many would associate with the Beard... but then, most people would prefer not to associate with the Beard.... and who can blame them...but I digress... for those who have not seen the film, suffice it to say that it stars Eminem, who I've always had a certain respect for, despite not being into this hippity hop stuff... but anyway, the rapper plays a would be rapper called rabbit, who can't rap due to stage fright.... now, I went to see the movie grudgingly, expecting a gang filled rap fest... really i should have known better....

as I say, I've always respected Eminem... from the little i've seen of him, he seems to be a quite intelligent and humourous man, with an eye for satire and irony... to my mind the film sends a valuable message to the yoof.... because, contrary to the general run of similar films, our hero's life does not change when he gets a pretty girl and becomes a rapper... no, it changes when he realsies that the girl he wants is not worth it, that some of his no hoper aquaintances are just that, and when he decides to grow up, and figure out what really matters... and that that is not bigging himself up to other rappers, but making sure that he looks after his family, and knuckles down to some hard work... and the main trigger for this, subtley and subliminally, is getting a job stamping car panels... during which he gains the respect of his immediate superior by knuckling down... and therefore gets enough self respect to overcome his stage fright.... also the film has great views of the unfortunately late Brittany Murphy in a leather mini skirt.... but of that, more later....

Valentines day has of course been and gone... and the Beard found himself watching a great concert with the FMB, after an incredibly lucky train related incident enabled him to actually reach the greta metropolis of Birmingham on time, despite everything conspiring to prevent this... and the Beard is not ashamed to say that he shed tears when he was presented with a beautiful poem by said beautiful young lady... a lovely chinese take away (with the almost obligatory crispy seaweed) and a fantastic night later, and the pair were shopping in Tamworth, and watching romantic movies together... well, Mama Mia and Zack and Miri make a naughty film anyway.... which was nice.. and later in the weekend, a stroll around a lovely privately owned country park where one would least expect it led the Beard to ruminate on the nature of nature... but yet again I digress...

talking of trains, a while back the Beard was waxing lyrical.. well, waxing anyway.. about the reasons that trains were preferable to women.. a view which hee has severely modified in these more modern times.... but in the interests of the non advancement of sexism, I have been working on the reasons why men are worse tahn a certain item.. of which more later... but it grows late, and sleep beckons... so all I will say now is that I hope your weekend was a s good as mine was, and that until all our valleys are blythe, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1984..... possibly....

now, the other day the Beard was in touch with the other side.... well, radio 2 anyway... still possibly my favourite station, despite the almost demise of a certain Terence Wogan, Knight of the Realm... but I digress....

anyway, the point is that Jeremy Vine (not to be confused with his ersatz cousin, Jeremy Kyle... many have...) was holding a discussion on what you would like to see the back of on the date of the ending of teh decade... and what the beard and several others said they'd like to see the back of was people saying that it was the end of the decade.... after all, its simple maths folks... there was no year 0, so the end of the first decade was obviously 10AD.... so unless somewhere we added a year, or had technical difficulties and weree stuck with a decade of nine years at some point, it would follow that the end of this decade is in fact the end of 2010... just as 2000AD was the last year of the 1990s... honestly... and 2001 was both the first year of the century and the millenium.... but as i don't actually follow the Judaeo-Christian based Gregorian calendar, this is all academic to me.... after all, i have 13 months in the year.... but again i digress...

but it did get me thinking of dates, and one date in particualr kept coming to mind, the eponymous date of Orwells second most famous novel.... the most famous being of course the one with the pigs.... now, 1984 has been one of my favourite books since i did it at high school in Eng Lit... which is usually a sure firer way to turn people off any book you care to mention... but 1984 was a breath of fresh air after The Outsider by Albert the Camel.... a controversial book, not least because it was french, and was written in french by a frenchman.... which technically isn't a crime, but does beg the question as always of why it was being studied in English Literature.... after all, does a translation into Deutsch make Lord of the Rings German Literature??? personally I doubt it.. but again, I digress....

1984 was, if I remember rightly, the first time i argued with a teacher over the content or meaning of a book.... a thing that i did more famously with the ever lovely Mrs Degg nee Davenport when studying Hamlet... and yes, she accepted the validity of my argument, especially when i showed he rthe reference to "nunnery" in my dictionary of Elizabethan slang... but there we go... anyway, i got fed up with everyone saying that 1984 was some view of a future dystopia, when i was sure (and still am) that Orwell was being a damn sight cleverer than that....

you see, behind the one dimensional characters and thin plot lies the essence of the novel, and of the warning, if such exists.... not a warning against some evil totalitarian state, but a warning that the apathy of the proles (us!!) would lead to the perpetuation of the current system of government... yes, that's right... Orwell in 1984 gives us a picture of a world where there used to be three layers of society... the High, whose aim is to stay where they are, the Middle, whose aim is to become the high, and the low, whose aim is to survive... every now and then, there is a revolution of the middle against the High, using the low as foot soldiers... the high are got rid of, the top end of the middle take the place of the high, and the rest of the middle and the low stay where they were.... until the middle revolt again... and again.... the only strata which experiences basically no change is the low.... now, in 1984 Ingsoc, et al, have achieved something greater.. they have ousted the High without replacing it.... so there is now no new High for the remaining middler to expel.... the low of course have stayed where they were.... but the place of the high has been taken by a faceless, non existent character, Big Brother.... and as he does not exist, the middle rule, by a committee that, since it does not allow individualism, is perpetual.... the revolution has finally succeeded.... the middle know that the way to stop new rebellion is simply now to keep the middle in fear, and make sure that the low are preoccupied with an endless war, popular songs, novels, and are only taught what they need to be taught.... all that remains is to alter the language.... so far so totalitarian, yes??

but no.. take any totalitarian state yiou choose, and you will see that the High still exists... there is only one system in which the high has been ousted or marginalised, and a faceless middle rules perpetually... its called democracy at the minute, and its alive and well here... think about it... as teh great Winston Churchill said (and i admit this is a bit of a paraphrase) we always have the same Cabinet.. only the faces change.... in other words (hock!! shorror!!) the system outlined by Orwell is our own system... just as in Oceania in 1984, if several members of the ruling committee die, it doesn't matter, as it is the body that is strong, not the individual cells.... and just as in 1984, the proles are kept happy by slight increases in rations, the X Factor and popular television, novels and songs and films churned out in machine like fashion, and kept in fear of bombings and wars that actually exist mainly by agreement with the middles of the other nations... so there will be no revolution ever again... the system is forever, unassailable....

but don't take my word for it... read 1984 again, and ask yourself.... does the governmental system depicted remind you of Nazism, Faascism, Stalinism, with their real dictators countermanding their cabinets.. or is it more like the good old mother of parliaments.... I know waht I think.... and I'd be very disappointed in orwell if i was wrong.... but I'm going on a bit much for this late at night.... so, all I'll say is that New Years eve was a good one, and I'm off to bed.... so, until the future does lie with the proles, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

its christmas...

and what a Christmas... now, the Beard has never been one for christmas, as most of you may or may not know... and as for the rest of you... well.... but in the end, I suppose it all comes down to one thing... which is unfortunately the thing that escapes me.... but I digress...

now, last week the Beard was waxing lyrical about instruction books, and the reasons why those given them should at least read them.... I'm a great believer in the parable of the football team... for those of you who have never heard it, it goes something like this....

three men wanted to play football for a famous premiership team.. which one possibly is unimportant, but if not, then feel free to make it your favourite one.... anyway, to cut a long story short, the manager gives them all a copy of the rules of footie, tells them to familiarise themselves with it, then come back next day for the trials...

player one, lets call him "player one" for the sake of clarity, decides not to bother.

player two ("Steve") reads the book, decides that some of the rules are stupid, and thinks that he can do better...

player three (who we will call on the telephone) reads the book, and decideds to keep to the rules....

on the day of the trials player one does so many fouls that he is sent away quickly... Steve goes on the pitch equipped with a hockey stick and catches the ball, only to be sent home... and player three plays according to the rules and gets on the team...

the moral of the story is, I hope, obvious, but to be honest I very much doubt it... but substitute yourr favourite religion for football and you may get the point... which I am determined not to make myself...

now read the rules for yourself.... you may be very surprised....

but it is allegedly the season of goodwill, so the point will be mercifully unlaboured....

other than that, another month has gone by, with the death regrettably of Brittany Murphy, another quite attractive and fairly talented actress who had totally unneccesary plastic surgery and suffered as a result.... but will her death halt the alarming rise in cosmetic surgery.... ??? now, I understand some people's need for such procedures... a cousin of mine, for example, who suffered serious burns, or women who have had mastectomies... but I fail to see why anyone would risk death and serious injury to change the shape of their nose... especially when, without exception, most of them look worse afterwards.... but then, I have always been very happywith the Beard's body, unshapely as it is... but we all live in a world of dissatisfaction, forced on us from above by those who can profit from us... but the sooner we can all just accept that we are who we are, then we'll probably all be a lot happier... or possibly not....

anyway, the only other thing to say on the subject, is that the Bhujon Tandoori in Coalville does a lovely curry, and that my goose will tomorrow be well and truly cooked... so, until we can all be as goosed as the next man, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11