Tuesday 30 August 2011

A view from the inside looking out

There once was a time,

The misbegotten did chime,

The Devil did rise,

Before the innocent realised,

He was foul,

He was cruel,

He was cunning,

Greedy men did he fool,

Out of extreme incredulity,

Forced the world into slavery,

Resistance diminished,

Humanity was finished,

Nothing left but faceless drones,

No imagination only clones,

Subjugated, dominated,

Altruism obliterated,

The wise and clever castigated,

The dumb and the stupid obfuscated,

The wicked and evil celebrated,

Rejoicing the hellish world they had created,

Lobotomised automatons,

Walk the planet unaware,

They are slaves to this disease,

Can someone help them, please?

Sunday 28 August 2011

Man

How do you solve the conundrum of man?

As complex as an infinite maze,

An emotional bag of lost confusion,

Driven by desires,

He can constantly improve,

Surrounded by insecurities,

He can cause devastation,

For good or bad,

Happy or sad,

Sane or mad,

He lives the unknown quest,

Some seek out its purpose,

Others exploit its weakness,

He is the anomaly,

The exception to the rule,

He strives for happiness and peace,

Yet causes so much destruction,

He wants a brighter future,

Yet creates a hellish nightmare,

He is either black or white,

He is left or he is right,

Blinded without true sight,

Can we unfurl?

The confusing swirl,

Or is it too late,

He's walked through the gate,

The experiment has failed,

Our Universe cries out in pain,

Will there ever be another chance to shine again.

Friday 26 August 2011

Nobody Somebody Everybody

Nobody cares,

Nobody listens,

Nobody wants to know,

Nobody bothers,

Nobody worries,

Nobody wants to show,

Nobody likes,

Nobody fights,

Nobody wants a go.



Somebody cares,

Somebody listens,

Somebody wants to know,

Somebody bothers,

Somebody worries,

Somebody wants to show,

Somebody likes,

Somebody fights,

Somebody wants a go.



Everybody cares,

Everybody listens,

Everybody wants to know,

Everybody bothers,

Everybody worries,

Everybody wants to show,

Everybody likes,

Everybody fights,

Everybody wants a go.

Friday 19 August 2011

Is 2012 a self fulfilling prophecy?

This is not what I was going to write about, but in thinking about what I wanted to write about, it became apparent that there are definite similarities.


Originally I was going to be quite sarcastic by suggesting that anyone who suffers from depression should avoid watching the news at all costs, as they may feel the need to blow their heads off. Then again if you are a real depressive you will just shrug your shoulders and say I told you so.

I watched a fascinating though very scary documentary called “Countdown to Zero”, about the myriad of ways we can use our massive collection of Nuclear Bombs, to destroy the world forever.

They showed how easy it is get to highly enriched Uranium, or HEU, and the fact that blind luck, has somehow stopped this valuable element from ending up in the hands of terrorists, or despotic governments, or worst still mad men. They then said they could be bought and that many countries had tried to buy Nuclear Weapons illegally. Finally it was the good old by accident; supposedly the US has hundreds of war heads on hair-trigger readiness, to be launched in sixty seconds. One minute for all hell to break loose, and the guy being interviewed and ex lieutenant who was the guy whose job it was, to turn the key in the silo that launched the nukes. He said that you didn’t need to be a General to launch the ICBM’s, you just needed to change the coded letters to all zeros and way hay, let’s destroy the world today.

It ended by telling the alarming statistics of devastation and carnage, when one of these despicable devices goes off inside a city. The devastation is total; it obliterates everything within eleven miles or so, by heat, wind and fire.

They say countries like North Korea and Pakistan have Nuclear Weapons, and that Iran wants them also. Their president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responds to the west’s plea for Iran to not go nuclear, his response is very clever and an argument closer. He said, “If it is good then we must have it, and if it is bad then why do you have it?”

After watching this and the depressing Newsnight, I had beforehand, seen a doc about the Riots in Britain, that was equally depressing, seeing the way some people behave today. The lack of education, the growing underlying distrust of society, the resentment, the animosity, the loss of respect for authority, it all seemed as if no one cared anymore, they were sick to death of being degraded, and forgotten, left to rot in a shit hole, shit existence, nothing but misery to look forward to. That is what I thought caused the once innocent people, to turn into mindless, thoughtless, selfish, violent thugs. If you take away humanity all you have left is an intelligent, selfish, greedy, violent animal, unlike any other animal on this planet. And we in the west are breeding them like rabbits, through poor education and capitalistic consumerism, based on exponential growth and profit. The difference between the have and the have-nots is becoming like it was between the wars.

What sort people are we the human race, that we find it acceptable to let someone die because it will cost too much to save his/her life or because they have not paid into some insurance scheme? Why should society think it is appropriate to base an economy around growth and rising house prices, and the market fluctuation, so that it is better to allow people to be sick and ill, because it makes more profit? It is better to not make our schools the best, unless you have the money to pay for the privilege, why should some get this privilege and the rest do not?

What sort of world have we created where most of its inhabitants are allowed to live in poverty, misery, without basic essentials, because it is more profitable for large corporations to keep them that way, or tyrannical governments to steal the valuable resources for its own gain and not its people’s.

It’s like the football fan that backs the rival team to beat his own team so he can win a bet.

This is what causes dreadful situations like the recent riots to occur, add into that our wonderful media and we all know after the recent findings about News International and the hacking scandal, what a bunch of two faced charlatans most of them are. They increase tension by their extreme ideologies which are deliberately created to increase sales and sell more advertising space, so more of their rich friends can sell more mobile phones, holidays, cars, TV’s, you name it. Worst culprits are the tabloids, and as we know from recent history, stupid deluded nations, shut off from reality, will believe anything they are told. But what are more dangerous are stupid deluded nations, which have internet access, who believe what they read, (I slightly fall into this category I suppose at least on some things, but I try to keep an open mind).

It doesn’t help that all these factors are happening at once and so my thought that we are in some way subconsciously creating a 2012 scenario, creating a self fulfilling prophecy, does not seem so bizarre, or farfetched.

What would have happened if those rioters had been lead by someone with intelligence and charisma, we could have created another Hitler, ready to incite and inflame hatred and disharmony? It doesn’t bare thinking about, but it could have happened, and the policies of our country and many others over the last 15 – 20 years at least, maybe up to 50 years could end up bringing us to an ‘Armageddon situation’, which some lunatics actually want to see happen. And through the force that runs through every human binding us in ways we cannot understand, we are slowly bringing the world closer to destruction. Negativity is all over, covering the planet, like super thick continental quilt, suffocating everything turning it to shit.

As I have said before it is hard to know how to stop it now, it seems like we are in a ‘James Bond situation’ at present, waiting to see if we can survive this latest catastrophe, will we cut the red wire with only seconds to spare. We may do it this time but, can we keep doing it? I sadly feel if things don’t change very soon, we will eventually cut the wrong wire, which we won’t survive.

The most poignant part of the ‘Countdown to Zero’ doc was when Robert Oppenheimer tears in his eyes, said his immortal line, which he quotes from Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita.

"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds".

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Overcoming fear

I always used to think I was not very good at overcoming my fears. Yet after some careful thinking, I realised it wasn’t that I was poor at overcoming fear itself, it was that I was poor at overcoming a fear which was of imagined high importance to me personally. It seemed to me that jumping out of a plane with a parachute, caused a large amount of apprehension and in some ways a fear, but the thrill of jumping out of a plane overrode the fear and made it seem unimportant. So in my mind this was an imagined fear of little to no importance, so easy to overcome.

As I have now thought about this further I can add another scenario. I recently went down a Lead Mine with a group of friends, about a month ago.

Whilst standing in a tunnel of the man-made part of the mine, waiting to enter the mine properly, the guide was talking telling us do’s and don’ts, the usual stuff. My anxiety and claustrophobic fear was rising like mercury in a thermometer. I did not want to be in that tunnel surrounded by people, standing in a foot of water, I wanted to get out. But my thrill seeking side did not, it could not wait to get inside, but unlike the plane it was not winning the battle. What made me calm down and be able to control my anxiety, and reclaim my composure was logic. I reasoned that this mine was safe as houses, since the guides came down here every week. I thought of it as a ride at a theme park, terrifying but also very safe, as soon as my mind logically formed this belief, I was fine.

We walked through the narrowing tunnel into the mine itself, shorn out of solid rock it gave me an incredible buzz, I was scared stiff and fearless at the same time. When we reached one of the narrow sections of the mine, so narrow you had to shuffle through your face spiting dust from the gravel and small rocks, covering the floor. If anyone overweight had been in there they would have not got through, but it felt great. We then went through an even tighter crack in the bedrock, memories of the film “The Descent” sprang into my mind. The gap was so tight my arse cheeks were touching the ceiling, as I slowly shuffled through first, inch by inch.

The guide then told us that in one group, a man trying to get through ‘The Hobbits Revenge’, I think the tiny crack was called, started to panic and tried to rip all his clothes off, refusing to move. These are the types of reasons why I like to either be first or at least near the front. Then we were taken to a small room sized opening, and we all had to switch our lamps off, it was pitch dark, you could hear nothing, you could see nothing, it was an eerie sensation, like being suffocated in black paint or inside a dark, sound proofed, room, or worse still, alone in the deepest void in space, where no light has ever reached. The guide lit a candle, it was sinister light. He told us that this tiny candle was all the miners had to see with, as they worked their long shifts. He then snuffed it out once more and we sat in silence. I hated that part, it was spooky, and made you feel like you were stuck in limbo, between two worlds. Eventually I was relieved when he said we could put the lamp’s back on, and we headed towards a part of the mine the guide called Neptune’s playground. I reasoned this was the moment we got wet, and I hoped whatever Neptune’s playground was, it was worth the plunge.

We reached a small hollow and below I could see the water, it was so clear, it looked so pure. The guide jumped in and the water went up to his neck, I was horrified. Not thinking I jumped into the water, holy shit, it was cold, bloody freezing, my head was just above the waterline and I had my arms in the air, as we started along a passageway. The passageway was just above my head, and as I bobbed along I did not care, I could hardly get my breath, the water was so cold. Finally after about 50 metres, we entered Neptune’s playground, what a disappointment it was just another room sized opening, just this one was nearly full of water. It was so cold, my balls had migrated north, and I was wishing I had not been at the front of the queue to get into this bloody water. I have to be at or near the front, especially in small cramped spaces as I mentioned earlier. There is no way I would’ve wanted to be behind a bloke, screaming his head off, refusing to move, and trying to take his clothes off, in a space no larger then the width of your body. Especially if you are in the same tight crack in the bedrock and someone is right behind you and it is impossible to turn around, no way, José.

Finally we left Neptune’s playground, drenched through, trudging wellies full of water, freezing cold, yet exhilarated, and as we all left the mine, you could feel a sense of, “we did it” attitude. But the true thrill hit happened later, when you felt a strong buzz, like you were high on drugs; there is no feeling like it. And the more we talked about the whole experience, the better it became in my mind. And then I realised a weird thing, it was that imagining the experience was far, far more terrifying than the actual experience itself. And I really hope I can learn a valuable lesson from it, about my important fears and anxieties, and how to overcome them.

Nazi terror never forgotten

There were two excellent documentaries on last night on the brilliant BBC4, the first was ‘Surviving Hitler: A Love Story’ and the second ‘My Father was a Nazi Commandant’. Both tales are about the same war, both are about German’s, both involve Jews, yet one tale left me feeling a sense of joy and optimism, the other left me feeling sick and slightly traumatised.


‘Surviving Hitler: A Love Story’ is quite an incredible tale, the story of a Jewish teenager Jutta, and a wounded soldier Helmut, who are deeply in love yet are ripped apart because of the evil regime of the Nazi’s. When you listen to the story you actually feel like it is a film. As if it could not be true, firstly how a German Jewish family lasted so long without being carted off to a work, concentration, or death camp. The fact they helped to save other Jews from a fate worse than death, how they were involved in the plot to kill Hitler, called Valkyrie. Then there is a soldier, he did not want to be a soldier, he wanted to go to university, yet he ended up near Stalingrad, before being wounded and sent back to recover. He was so disillusioned by what happened he openly sought to find a way to help the resistance.

I feel it is good to see stories like this, that show that many German’s were not Nazi’s, were not evil, and did not want Hitler. It shows the terrible fear they lived under every day, and how they coped with it and tried to do something about it. When finally Jutta’s family are caught by the Gestapo, and she is left alone, the plot to kill Hitler has failed, her love Helmut is imprisoned basically waiting to be humiliated in a Kangaroo Court, then brutally executed. Jutta makes her mind up to not give in, and to walk with her held high right into the Lion’s Den, (although this is unfair to Lion’s, I should say Hell’s pit of Evil) Gestapo headquarters.

Jutta never expected to see her family again, she found out her mother was in a concentration camp, her father she did not know about, and her German Soldier boyfriend locked away for his involvement in attempting to blow up Hitler, she assumed was executed. And as the Russian’s took their revenge on the obliterated nation’s capital, Jutta was set free, she found out her mother was also free, and then her father and finally Helmut. It was a happy ending to a terrifying tale, which unfortunately many others were never lucky enough to receive.

I think what helps make the story so compelling and heartfelt is Jutta’s telling of it, she is quite a woman. You have to respect and admire people like that and it is surprising it has taken so long to hear her story. How many other stories of equal heroism, bravery, fear and actual terror, have never been told, are locked away in traumatised minds.

The story shows how some people, some humans can overcome adversity and somehow go beyond what a normal person in a similar situation would do. It shows we can be great in spite of evil.



The second documentary is more disturbing and upsetting, it is the tale of two women, the first Monika, having to deal with the fact her father was the Nazi Commandant Amon Goeth, the psychopathic controller of the Krakow Ghetto, and the Płaszów Concentration Camp infamously immortalised in Schindler’s List. The second is Helen Jonas, who was fourteen when she was picked to be one of Goeth’s Jewish house slaves.

Monika’s awful mother Ruth never told her what her father was, but in a moment of spite, insinuated she would end up like him. And this made Monika want to find out. Imagine having to find out that about your own father, this was made far worse for Monika after she saw Spielberg’s film, she said she hated Spielberg for a while, and you can imagine why in a strange sort of way.

As with all traumas, she needed to know, she needed some kind of closure. So she bravely sent a letter to Helen, the Jewish house slave of her evil father at the Płaszów camp. Helen agreed to meet, in Krakow, at the place where it all happened. It seemed to me that when they met Helen found it difficult to cope with the fact a family member however innocent, of the man that had obviously ruined her life and tortured her in her nightmares, was standing beside her. You could sense the hatred, and fear, it was not your usual confrontation with evil as we see when two soldiers of opposing sides meet or even for that matter when other Jews have met other German children of Nazi leaders, as seen in documentary series, Hitler’s Children.

It must be hard to deal with especially someone in Monika’s position, the guilt, the devastating emotion she felt when she met Helen. It seemed a very difficult moment to go through; it was a very difficult moment to watch if I am honest. Yet equally it must have been even harder for Helen.

I often wonder how people who went through the Second World War especially, deal with it all; it must be an insurmountable amount of nightmarish terror, when one closes one’s eyes at night. It still to this day and every time I see anything involving the war, and especially what happened to the Jews and the barbarism of the Russian Front, staggers me it was allowed to happen.

Coincidentally it makes me think of a line from Planet of the Apes, the original Charlton Heston version from 1968, which I think sums up people like Amon Goeth, Hitler, Stalin, Himmler and every other greedy evil twisted human from the mists of time.

“Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.”

Tuesday 16 August 2011

The future is never clear

The pain that never leaves you,

The traumas of the past,

The guilt for just existing,

Forgiveness will it last,

Suffering for something,

Out of your control,

Blameless to a fault,

But the nightmares take their toll,

How could it all be true?

How could they be so cruel?

Disjointed, dysfunctional,

Unaware of the harm they cause,

Unrepentant, unapologetic,

Undeserving of one’s trust,

Diminished responsibly,

No one cared, no one fussed,

Forgotten and lost forever,

Like a candle lost in darkness,

There is nothing left to fear,

All that pain you can now harness,

Will you shed another tear?

Maybe yes, maybe no,

So everything is still uncertain,

And the future, well who knows.


Saturday 13 August 2011

Force Fields and Free Energy

Ah it’s always good when the old mind starts ticking over again thinking of crazy concepts and ideas, which may or may not be possible, but are fun to comprehend. Well I have thought of a couple involving force fields and free energy.


It all starts with the atmosphere, and all the other sphere’s we have above it, troposphere and the like; when the shuttle or the old fashioned survival capsule re-entered earth’s atmosphere. As we all know it creates heat as the object leaves the vacuum of space and enters the gaseous part of our planet. I am sure it is not possible at the moment, but in the future there might be away of harnessing this change, this simple act of moving from a vacuum to a gas. Then again maybe we already use it and I am not aware but it seems a probable way of creating energy, if we could find a cheap way of harnessing it. Also the atmosphere itself can generate billions of watts of electricity as seen in thunder and lightning, surely over time someone will figure out a metal or alloy compound which can create and generate the energy required until we figure out Nuclear Fusion.

Anyway it was just a thought.

Force Fields are something we see in sci-fi movies, highlighted in films like Star Wars and Star Trek, its seems like an impossible task to create such a field. Here is where we need to take a leaf out of nature and the natural way of the world. We have too invisible force fields surrounding us doing various excellent shielding jobs, one being the atmosphere, and the other being the electromagnetic field, both keeping life alive on planet Earth.

Over time you would like to think that some bright spark will find a way to harness the power of electromagnetism to create a shield that can deflect harmful objects from hitting say a space ship going to Mars. It seems probable that this could happen; at least it does to me.

I am not sure why these ideas popped in my head but I always find it fascinating thinking of such stuff, even if it is a flight of fancy and likely just my vivid imagination working overtime.


Thursday 11 August 2011

The World is up shit creek

The world is up shit creek,

And it hasn’t even reached its peak,

No money, no jobs,

Just violence from YOBS,

How can we change this mess?

When big conglomerates want more for less,

When the billionaires have taken everything,

And the rest of us are left with nothing,

Governments are useless,

Not in power to help the masses,

Debt rising faster than a rocket,

Leaving everyone out of pocket,

Our world is slowly collapsing,

Like the Titanic it is sinking,

Will anyone survive?

So we can sort it out and once again thrive.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Uneducated, Poor and Lacking in a Future

I feel like we are back in the 80’s, riots every week through the summer was the norm back then. In a way, why should anyone be surprised, it was bound to happen sooner or later. The right recipe has been brewing up for quite a while now; it’s a mix of a poor unsatisfactory education, no money, and no prospects for the future. Add a little bit a tension and hey presto you have all the makings of a riot.


The only thing that surprises me, is that it has taken this long for the thugs to start hitting back in large numbers. It is a disgrace, not only because of the wanton destruction, fear and misery it causes, but also the fact that our governments over the last ten years have allowed it to get this bad.

It all goes back to my argument last year that we never learn from our past, and there was a brilliant documentary on BBC4 last Monday showing this very fact. All we seem to do in this country is go from one extreme disastrous situation to another, the pendulum swings, it is unyielding.

You cannot condone people for charging around the streets, drunk, throwing fire bombs, looting and causing violence and mayhem, but you can understand why it has got to this stage once more.

When you have taken everything from a person and all they have to look forward to is a life off worthless misery, then what should we really expect.

How you change this pattern of self destruction is unknown, because any concept or idea that may work, and many have worked, at least for a short time, eventually get abused and taken advantage of. The greedy and the powerful, use and abuse, until any good that was gained is lost.

Until we improve the education system and give young people some kind of optimism, then unfortunately riots will continue.

Saturday 6 August 2011

The Loss of All

Had I known for a fact,

That the spine was not intact,

That it wobbled and it quivered,

That it shook and it shivered,

Slowly falling to its knees,

Begging aimlessly,

Full of pleas,

Distracting the essentials,

Cajoling false potentials,

Leading down a hidden path,

Consequences aftermath,

Until the obvious was clear,

Sent a tingle, edged in fear,

Could this all really be happening?

Was it likely seen a blessing,

Yet, when finally it did fall,

Could that really be it all?

No one heard the deadly silence,

Or realised its reliance,

Until eventually the dust did settle,

Nothing stood in the end,

Apart from twisted metal.

Friday 5 August 2011

The Antichrist - Market Economy Beast that will not be tamed

If ever the crazy words of that John bloke from the end of the bible in Revelations could come true, then it seems to be happening in this day and age. In Revelations John is talking about Nero being the Antichrist, 666 the number of the beast. Yet in this day and age the beast in a different animal altogether, its name is the market economy, and it’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are; greed, debt, profit and exponential growth. They create a miserable society of consumerism, and all they are interesting in doing is devouring everything until nothing is left.


These hellish beasts will take, and take, and take, until it has everything and you have nothing left, and finally when it has gorged like a fat pig, it will take your soul as well.

That said, the beast is clever, it makes you think you need it, it makes you crave and obsess, it makes you addicted, it makes you desire more and more, so much so, that even when you have sorted out one mess, you quickly fall into another.

Until now, the beast has been feeding for quite a while, but there is less and less for it to consume, so it takes more and more of what you have. And as it takes more, it takes longer, and longer, to recover, until you do not recover and you fade away and die.

This may seem melodramatic and fantasy, but it is true and the sooner we admit to it, then the sooner we will get better. You cannot recover from a deadly, dangerous, addiction, until you admit you have a serious problem, until you stop running around the houses, finding excuse after excuse, as to why you have the problem in the first place.

We are all in deep shit, and it is not going to get better, it may do for a little while but it is only a short lived reprieve. Until it returns and the next time it will be far worse than it is now, and whether we survive will be decided on whether we can change our ways now.