The Journal of an Ex-Philosopher

How President Obama Can Win The Affection of His People and of The World

2009-01-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

I decided to add my own voice to the many that have made a contribution to the Great Barack Obama debate. With his official term of office about to begin soon, now seemed an appropriate time. Some might argue, why bother to say anything? With all the billions of words that have been written about him, how can there be anything left worth saying? At least, until his government has properly begun to do whatever it is going to do.

Others might say, what right have you to say anything, as you are not even American. Well that's true. But being not entitled to say something has not stopped me from talking in the past. And the same could be said of many other people too. Besides, the things the US President does affect all of us, don't they? So I DO have a right to speak about him.

My first thought is, how absolutely splendid it is that a black person has been elected to the White House. I heard that Jesse Jackson had complained that he wasn't black enough, which seems a rather absurd thing to say, if he really did say it. I think Jackson must have meant that Obama's mother is white, so the president is of mixed race. Or he could have meant that Obama's father is from Kenya, and therefore is not a son of slavery; in this case, "not black enough" would mean he had no ancestral background in the struggle of blacks for recognition in the USA.

It certainly does seem that Obama has inherited a lot of problems to sort out, both at home and in the wider world. A lot of people are hoping that he will roll his sleeves up, and start dealing with these problems right away. Each one of these people of course assumes that the only right way to do this is to do exactly what they would do. Or anyway, what they dream they would do... But they all seem to be looking for Obama to take a strong and active line on many current issues. They want him to be filled with reforming zeal.

I'm actually hoping for something different. After all, the US president has many teams and committees of advisors and experts in every possible field. He has the greatest economists, political thinkers, federal bank officials, military strategists, police experts, lawyers and all the rest. These people are perfectly capable of sorting out the problems, as long as they are given some clearly defined guidelines and parameters to go by. So let them get on with the job. All the president really needs to do is oversee the whole thing, and make the occasional stirring speech, something that Obama has already proved himself to be very good at.

This kind of approach in a Head of State can be described as "masterly inactivity". In my opinion, it is by far the best way to govern a country. The people will love him if he does that. Despite what the theorists say, most people have an intense dislike of change. Ordinary people really are as conservative as cats. I don't mean they are political conservatives, I just mean they don't like change. They like things to carry on pretty much as they are, even if those things are not exactly perfect. They are reluctant to try repairing anything if it's working reasonably OK. They are happy to try making constant small improvements day by day. They just don't like the kind of root-and-branch reforms that we see all the time these days. There's a saying in Spain, The best day is when nothing new happens. If you scratch the surface, you will find that most people all over the world would agree with that.

Most of us have had it up to the ears with "strong government" in the past few decades. Politicians seem to feel it is their duty to change everything, to turn everything upside down, to introduce radical new measures, to interfere with everything, to make their mark.

What we really do need now is a president of the US who will set an example to other world leaders. Someone who will just run the country, and keep things ticking over.

All Roads Lead To Home

2008-10-12T04:14:00.000-07:00

It seems appropriate here to update my many fans with an itinerary of my recent travels.

I have decided to settle now for a while back in dear old Blighty, that beloved land of my forefathers. Regular readers will know that I refer to England, and I think I have already explained that its nickname of "Blighty" comes from a Hindi word, bilayati, meaning "foreign land." The name is occasionally used, in a jocular sense nowadays, by Brits to refer affectionately to their own country. It seems odd doesn't it, that they should use a word which means "foreign land", but that's only because most of them don't really know what it meant originally. Certainly to me, as I look across the rolling acres of the land in which generations of my fathers tilled the soil, I can never think of it as foreign, and sometimes, as I recall the "green and pleasant land" I have to wipe away a tear, wherever I happen to be, in the Brazilian rainforest, or the mighty steppes of central Asia, or the Australian bush, or the Sahara desert.

I left Normandy on a cold, wet, dreary day several weeks ago, and I shall probably never return there. The full story of the final farewell has yet to be told, but it WILL be told in the fulness of time. Of my travelling arrangements I say nothing. It will suffice to note only that I have been in Belarus, and found it delightful. After this, I then fulfilled a lifelong dream of visiting downtown Ulan Bator, which regular readers will know is the location of the World International Headquarters of the Ex-Philosopher Fan Club (EPFC). I was made very welcome there during my all too brief stay.

The intention is to provide, over the coming weeks, more detail about the many adventures enjoyed by your correspondent, but for today the foregoing will have to suffice, as I must dash, having an urgent appointment for which I am already late. Please feel free, if you do not want to miss the excitement of future posts on this blog, to use the RSS subscription feeds, they are very easy to operate.

Bye for now!

(Airplane image from http://www.dotolearn.com/)

A Reply To The Arrogance of an (Anonymous) Critic

2008-10-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

If you are able, or you have time to read the previous post on this blog, the post entitled "Was Jesus a Poor Man?", you may or may not find it interesting, and you may or may not disagree with the opinions expressed therein. I am happy either way, the opinions are mine, the speculations are mine, I happen to think they are reasonably sound, and I am happy to stand by them. But I am also happy to allow others to disagree with them if they wish. They are just opinions.

In order to provoke what I hope will be a lively and fruitful discussion, I posted the article on Qassia. I should say that I think Qassia is a very good site in its way, apart from one or two faults. The principal of these is the practice of screening. When an article is submitted by a member, it has to be "screened" by at least 12 other members before it can be published. This involves giving a grade fron 0 (awful) to 5 (outstanding) and then these grades are averaged out when the article is published. Thus the article for ever after has that grade on Qassia. The article that I mentioned ended up with a grade of 3.50 which I suppose is not bad, and seems to show that 6 voters went for a 3 (average) and 6 went for a 4(good job).

The reason I mention this in such detail is that it gives very ignorant and dogmatic people a chance to have an influence on events. Another feature of the screening system is that you are allowed to click on a statement that will give feedback to the author, supposedly designed to help the author of the article, but most often used by said ignorant, dogmatic people to try to show off their feeling of superiority. To cut a long story short, one reader flagged the article for, and I quote, "Some or all of the information is not true."

What information? The article doesn't give any information. It's pure speculation from beginning to end, it's a statement of OPINION. How can this be helpful feedback? Well, of course, it isn't designed to be helpful at all, but to be spiteful. What the critic is trying to say, is that they don't AGREE with the article, and if they had come right out and said so in a comment, they would have made themselves more worthy of respect. To say that someone whose opinion they do not agree with is, by definition, not telling the truth, shows a deep vein of arrogance, which, however, they are not prepared to back up by putting forward in public their own counter-opinion.

It's possible (and again, this is pure speculation LOL) that the person thought the article author was trying to undermine Christianity in some way. But, as was said in the footnote to the original article, nothing could be further from reality. The author of the article is actually trying to work to strengthen Christianity by moving away from fundamentalist dogma, and from useless myths perpetuated by careless reading of the text.

Another user, whose (very interesting) article I read last week, told us that her article had been flagged as having grammatical and/or spelling mistakes. This was preposterous. We all went throught the article carefully and could find nothing wrong. No errors of grammar. One word ("focussed") had a British spelling, which, given that the author herself was British, was hardly surprising. Our conclusion was that the person who did the flagging was self-important and a bit loopy.

So, all in all, Qassia is a good idea, but it suffers from its policy of allowing the idiot element to have too much power.

Was Jesus A Poor Man?

2008-10-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

We tend to assume that Jesus was a poor man, but why do we do this? Well, it's really only on the evidence that we read in the Bible. But what does the Bible actually say about the poverty of Jesus the man? If we look closely at the key texts we will see that the whole question is a lot more uncertain than we think. It may be that the idea that Jesus was poor may be more the result of "reading between the lines" than in reading the actual words themselves.

Let's look at some examples.

Most people know the story of the birth of Jesus, how he was born in a stable in Bethlehem, and his mother had to lay him in a manger because there was no room in the inn. This is a very attractive story, and millions of people delight to hear it retold every year at Christmastime. Being born in a stable has surely got to be evidence of poverty, hasn't it? Well, yes and no. It could certainly mean that the family were sleeping in a stable because they could not afford a hotel room, but the text states quite clearly that they were there because there was no room in the inn, in other words, that the inn was full up. The implication here is that all the hotels in town were full, and that this one was the last they tried, where the kindly innkeeper, having regard to Mary's plight, let them use the stable to sleep in.

The holy family had journeyed to Bethlehem, along with a large number of other people, because it was Joseph's home town. The terms of the census required this to happen, and this would seem to be a logical requirement, although very inconvenient for the population. We read a quite detailed account of it in the Gospel of Luke, although it has been impossible so far to find independent evidence of this census in contemporary Roman records. It can be assumed though that Bethlehem, then as now quite a small town, was full to bursting with visitors, who filled all the available hotels. Possibly Mary and Joseph arrived later than many others. This would make sense, given the condition that Mary was in. Mary's pregnancy might also explain why they might accept any lodgings that were offered, to save having to search all over town, especially after a long journey.

Having to sleep in a barn when everywhere else was full could happen to anyone, not just a poor person. So it might have been because they were poor, but it also might be for a variety of other reasons.

Another event that appears to imply the poverty of Jesus is when he had to ask someone for a coin so he could show the head of Caesar on the coin. This is the story containing the line, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." If he had to ask someone to bring him a coin, surely that is a sign that he was too poor to have even one coin in his pocket? Possibly, but such a thing is just as much a sign of, for example, royalty than of poverty. Monarchs are frequently fabulously wealthy, and so do not need to carry cash. The Queen of England is one of the richest women in the world, and she famously carries no cash. If she wanted to look at a coin, she would have to ask one of her courtiers to bring her one. Pretty much the same as Jesus did, isn't it?

Much is made of the story that Jesus was a carpenter by trade. Surely this shows him to be poor, or at least, of a solid working class background, making a workman's wages? Again, not necessarily. Jesus was accepted by all the people, even his opponents, as a bona fide rabbi, a teacher of religion. On the evidence of his deep scriptural knowledge and insight, added to the evidence of his masterly teaching techniques, we can infer that he was very likely a trained rabbi. Whether he was or not, it is a fact that is not often acknowledged that teachers at the time were encouraged to learn a practical trade as a second string, so that they might not be a burden to society during hard times. It is well known that St Paul was a tent maker by trade, and this is an example of the practice. There seems no reason why the same should not apply to the carpentry trade of Jesus.

Another story is of the man who said to Jesus, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Is this a complaint about Jesus' own personal financial situation and lack of a roof over his head? Given the type of man he was, it seems highly unlikely. I think it is more likely a poetic comment on his chosen mission as an itinerant preacher, and also an indication that he knows he will not be accepted by his own people.

It is true that the mission of travelling from town to town would have involved Jesus and his disciples in some austerities, but that does not imply that they were poor men, only that travelling, at any rate in those times, could be hard. However this may be, the mission of Jesus does not seem to have been lacking in financial support from wealthy benefactors.

The author believes that there are certain notions that have arisen from an over-interpretative reading of the Gospels in the past. This article is intended to suggest some preliminary ideas towards a reappraisal of them, and to point to other possible interpretations, which may help us in living our Christian life. The author is a practising Christian, who is not wishing to criticize or call into question the Gospel message - far from it. The intention is to try to work for a clearer understanding of that message, so that we may be better able to apply it.

The Truth About Stonehenge?

2008-09-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

There are thousands of speculative theories about the origin of Stonehenge, the ancient stone monument on Salisbury Plain in England. Some of them are interesting, some are downright stupid. Judge for yourself on this latest addition. But we know what we think about it!

I found this report very hard to believe. Do these people think we are really so credulous as to believe such twaddle? Where it's coming from I don't know, either it's in the reporting, or worse, in the research, but it is such an overblown speculation, I wonder they don't shrink in embarrassment from it.

Simply because people in the past may (or may not) have used a monument because they believed it to have healing qualities does not, most emphatically does not, mean that the monument was designed for that purpose.

You might just as well say that the Blarney Stone in Ireland was designed to give people the gift of the gab. Or the many statues of the Madonna, that people touch in the belief they will have good luck, but they certainly were not designed with that purpose in mind.

This theory for the origin of Stonehenge is quite simply preposterous - and deplorable.

Change Is The Only Thing That Never Changes

2008-09-25T05:56:00.000-07:00

Bonjour, mes amis!

I have a lot to tell you. Indeed, I may not be able to relate all the facts and events of the last few days before I run out of time, and have to spill this post over into another day. Ah, the suspense!

Well, to begin. You may (or possibly may not) know that there are, and have been for several weeks now, no less than TWO versions of this blog. No, no, I hear you say, isn't one enough, or even more than enough. I do sympathise, dear reader, but que voulez-vous as the French say. This is how it all started.

The original blog was entitled "How I Became A Zen Catholic" and those of a perceptive disposition will still be able to discern the abbreviated username style version "zencath" in all kinds of dodgy, and even occasionally not-so-dodgy, places on the web. That blog was inaugurated on a snowy day in early 2008. Later the name was changed, for reasons which I actually can't remember, to "That Reminds Me."

That blog was on Wordpress. Anyway, after a while I decided that it would be better to move the whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel, to Blogger. The main reason was, because in some ways Wordpress seems, you know, a little bit too serious? a bit earnest? or is it just me? Secondly, you can't use Java on Wordpress, and I had a deep yearning to paste on to my blog some of those jolly looking adverts that flash on and off. Also the ones that guess what your visitors would like to have, you know, AdSense? I love to see what they'll do next.

I should add that I didn't want the adverts in order to make any money from them. So if you see one on this blog, whatever you do, do NOT click on them, or else I will end up with far too much money that I will not have ANY idea what to do with it!

So anyway I decided to move to Blogger. After protracted negotiations with the Zencath International Fan Club (as it was then named before the change), working out of its World Headquarters in downtown Ulan Bator, the move was made, and I set up this blog where you now are, under the name Journal of an Ex-Philosopher. I put up a "WE HAVE MOVED" sign on the front door of the Wordpress version, and there I thought the matter would end.

However, I noticed that the people were still going to the old place to read my ancient articles from former times, notably it seems the article "Normandy - Some Interesting Facts" was still a consistent success. Considering it does not contain any interesting facts about Normandy or anywhere else, I found its popularity puzzling. The title was actually meant to be an ironic joke. Those who have followed my adventures will know that I occasionally sojourn in the fair land of Normandy, and that I have been inspired sometimes to write of my experiences there. These stories have included the strange antics of mon voisin francais and his girlfriend, that formidable woman, and his blasphemous budgerigar, Claude. There are one or two examples of them in THIS version of the blog. Anyway, "Normandy - Some Interesting Facts" was actually a rather insipid, vapid, and unspectacular episode in that long running saga. Why it continues to hog the popularity ratings is beyond me.

So the upshot is that I decided to re-open the Wordpress version, but I didn't have the heart to close up this one. So there are now, and probably ever shall be, not one but two versions of this blog. I hope you're keeping up with this. You know you really should pay attention; I shall be asking questions later!

Incidentally, I posted one of the Normandy experiences on the new Qassia website, which is a kind of social network/forum/search-engine/article-submission site. My post came in for some criticism from a couple of people who said that they hadn't a clue what it was trying to say, they couldn't make head nor tail of it, it was so coming out of left field, it should be given a complete overhaul etc etc. Fair comment. It was so rambling! It seemed, to start with, that it was to be about Spain, and my Spanish vacation, but really it was a rather lengthy account of the singularly dramatic events that followed the disappearance of Claude. Some of my other efforts that I contributed to Qassia have been a bit more successful at cracking the nut, cutting the mustard, putting the icing on the cake, and so on.

The Worpress version of this blog is now called Everything Is Radio for reasons which you will find out when you go there.

A bientot!

Your Own Micro-Climate

2008-09-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

news, extreme weather, normandy interesting facts, hurricanes, micro-climate, climate, english channel, people, life
As some of you may already know, I have two homes, separated from each other by only about a hundred miles or so. That hundred miles contains within it a rather wide and stormy stretch of water though, in fact it's the English Channel, or La Manche, as the people on the other side call it. This water, scene of rather more than its fair share of historic events over the years, takes a bit of negotiating, but I'm glad to say I have landed safely on dry land. Ah! it's great to back in the dear old country again.

However, I have to say that the ancient land where my forefathers tilled the soil is looking a trifle bedraggled and soggy these days. Where can all this rain be coming from, I wonder? I know that British weather is something of a standing joke, but this is getting ridiculous now. Mind you, the French have not been entirely free of awful weather this year, and I gather that it is currently none too pleasant for our esteemed cousins across the Big Water, that marvellous people with whom us Brits share so harmoniously a common language.

I will not digress. My intention today was to write a serious piece. I hoped this would in some small measure counter-balance the slightly frivolous tone that seems to have lately crept into the confines of this blog, entirely against my wishes, I assure you. This serious piece anyway was to have its inauguration today, but looking out of the window at the weather, I thought I just couldn't hack it. I mean, it's pouring down out there and I would be wrestling with serious concepts? Nah, I don't think so.

So I decided instead to say a little word about the weather and leave it at that. Anyway from all accounts there has been some pretty severe weather around - storms in most parts of England, accompanied by floods; and there have been hurricanes and tornados in America, I hear. But I'm glad to say that the place where I am staying is one example of those places that are rarely enough to be found on Earth - a micro-climate. Whatever is happening everywhere else, the weather in this town is always a milder version of it. Don't ask me why it is, perhaps it is the particular configuration of landscape features, or a powerful spell cast hundreds of years ago, but the chances of extreme weather in this town are about the same as for winning the lottery jackpot three weeks running. I'm serious.

I'm not saying we don't have some weather, of course we do, but it is never as bad here as it is elsewhere, even only ten miles away. Furthermore, when it rains the water drains away very quickly because the hills are composed of chalk. What's that you say? No I'm not going to tell you where it is. We have quite enough new people moving in as it is. I'm sorry but you'll just have to find your own micro-climate.

Do you live in a micro-climate? Or know someone else who does? Why not tell us all about it, in the comments section below.

Addicted to Sex?

2008-09-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

This news item caught my attention, because it gives an example of a common misconception about sex. The people who are being discussed in the news article are actually not addicted to sex as such. If a person were addicted to sex pure and simple, there is a pure and simple solution to their problem. Get married - have all the sex you want.

However, many of these people are married but, as the item shows, they do not find sex satisfying in their relationship. Their addiction is to the HIT that sex gives them, not the sex itself. This hit is the rush of chemicals in the body that is released when the seducer makes a conquest, when the hunter traps his prey. The sex itself is secondary to that. Some would say that it is an instinct, but this would be wrong, these are learned behaviors. The fault lies in the expectations of our society, which places too much emphasis on winners and losers, and too little on cooperation. In marital sex, there is no conquest, no pay off, no prize to be won.

The idea that people learn a stimulus-response behavior to associate sex with objects is very interesting. My own view here would be that it is not so much the learned behavior that is the cause of the problem, but the fact that certain modes of behavior, such as building relationships, are NOT learned. And once again, this is the fault of our society's thinking, with too much emphasis on the acquisition of, and pride in the ownership of, objects.

Council Recruits Vigilantes aged 8

2008-09-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

My attention was caught by this item of news today. I would love to know what my readers think about it, so please post a comment without delay.

Two thoughts spring to mind for me. The first is that although I deplore the indiscriminate scattering of litter, as does any right thinking citizen, the recruitment of very young informers seems a highly dubious and dangerous move. It is however no surprise and seems to me entirely typical of life in the nanny state that is the modern UK. One is reminded strongly (yet again) of a similar practice by the fictitious (but oh so near) government in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. And yes I know I keep mentioning that book, but it really is quite astonishing how prophetic it is turning out to be.

How long, one asks, before these pint-sized vigilantes start accusing us of crimespeak or crimethink?

The second thought is that it seems perfectly plain to me that, in allowing themselves to be recruited for the purpose of spotting people who are breaking the law, these children may well be putting themselves at risk. One assumes that their surveillance will be conducted in their local area, where it is entirely possible that they might be spying on wrong-doers who know them and who know where their homes are. It seems that reprisals would be a likely outcome. Children as young as 8 cannot be expected to be able to gauge when the situation is dangerous, nor to take appropriate measures to disguise their activity.

And anyway, what in heaven's name are these children doing out and about on the street without their parents?

This is a crackpot scheme, intrusive and dangerous. It should be shelved at once.

Or am I perhaps the only person who feels that way about it? Comments please? (By the way, if you're reading this in America, you are still entitled to have an opinion about it, so I would welcome your comments as well.)

The Canoe Man Appeals

2008-09-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

Whatever may be the rights or wrongs of the John Darwin canoe drowning case, and one tends to assume there is more of the latter than the former, there can be no doubt that the affair has piqued the interest of the UK population. It is noteworthy that, for several months after the news broke, sports and equipment shops in the UK were reporting record numbers of enquiries from prospective buyers of canoes.

While many of us would deplore the action of defrauding an insurance company of large amounts of their cash, at the same time, we cannot help but nurse a secret wish that we could get away with it. Most people, it seems, are deeply resentful of the amount of money the insurance companies take from us each year. So when an adventurer like Darwin comes along, it is hard not to feel a sneaking admiration for his audacity. And to make it even more interesting, we find that he was not caught by the police; he gave himself up.

A fascinating aspect of the case is that, as the prosecutor pointed out, the original crime was committed in order to avoid the "shame and embarrassment" of falling behind with debt and mortgage payments. Surely only an Englishman would commit a crime as serious as this for such a motive, merely to avoid embarrassment!

One is reminded of those marvellous episodes of "Fawlty Towers" in which Basil twists and turns, willing to do anything to avoid being embarrassed, only to find that all his efforts have only made the embarrassment worse.

Ukraine To Join NATO?

2008-09-05T06:14:00.000-07:00

So now we learn that Ukraine is about to become a member of NATO, along with Georgia perhaps, and that its admission will be supported by the Americans. Who would have dreamed, twenty years ago, that we would see this one day? A former state of the old Soviet Union, and a powerful one at that; a nuclear power, don't forget, and the site of the infamous Chernobyl power station.

Ukraine has been making energetic attempts to free itself from the shadow of its mighty neighbor, Russia, and is clearly succeeding gradually to establish itself on the world stage.

For me, the interesting points about Ukraine are the truly awful entries it puts in to the Eurovision Song Contest, and a splendid novel (in English) which I read last year, entitled "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian."

Change All Around I See

2008-09-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

Those readers who have been here before will probably have noticed the change of name for the title of this blog. This is no way intended to cause confusion, to reduce the search engine visibility of this blog, or anything of that technical nature. The purpose, if that is the word I want, is merely to change for the sake of change and also to enrich the reading experience of my visitors. As you know, the That Reminds Me World Official Fan Club, now with 29 members, working out of its headquarters office in downtown Ulan Bator, has, under the terms of its Charter, to approve by a straight majority vote any and all such changes. I am happy to announce that approval was granted by a unanimous decision taken at 01:16 GMT today.

Due to a technicality in the Club Constitution, the Fan Club was under obligation to dissolve itself and reform again under the new name Ex-Philosopher Fan Club (EPFC) and I am pleased to announce that this was achieved during class break, which took place at 10:30 local time.

Meanwhile here in Normandy, there was uproar when it was discovered that my neighbour's pet budgerigar, Claude, was missing. This has apparently never happened before since Claude is generally the most home-loving of birds. While my neighbour was out combing the streets and alleys of old Rouen for his errant feathered friend, I was given the somewhat irksome task of calming his girlfriend. She is a formidable woman, who entered into the tragic spirit of the occasion with a gusto of the intensity that can only be achieved by a Frenchwoman. I decided it would be safest to keep my own counsel in the matter.

My neighbour's girlfriend and I have indeed hardly been on speaking terms for the past six months. This is how it happened. The budgerigar had somehow, I don't know how, learnt some very choice English swear words, which it delighted in bringing forth at the most inopportune moments, such as when there was company. Since I am the only Englishman who comes into regular proximity with the animal, the finger of suspicion naturally pointed at me for teaching them to him. It was useless to protest that it was more likely the fault of the television, where every other word begins with F these days. My neighbour's girlfriend was most vehement and voluble in her denunciations of your correspondent, so I told her frankly that I did not care for her attitude and tone.

The matter was left there, but since then there has been some tension in our dealings. For example, there was the incident with the onions, which I consider to be trivial and petty beyond description. But we pass over that.

Anyway, in the manner of a true English gentleman (which I should say that I am most certainly not a gentleman) I attempted to console the poor woman in her hour of distress and tribulation. All's well that ends well though, as some time later my neighbour, smiling broadly, reappeared with the prodigal parrot. He had been discovered perched on the topmost pinnacle of the local pub, whence he had been retrieved with some minor assistance from the Fire Brigade.

My Visit To Salisbury Cathedral

2008-09-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

If you enjoy visiting cathedrals, as I do, and you have not been to Salisbury yet, then you really should try to get there as soon as you can. It is a truly magnificent example of English church-building.

In this article I am not going to give you a guide book version (you can get that in the - er - guide book) but this will be a purely personal view.

When I first saw Salisbury cathedral, it was at night. My girlfriend at the time, whose name was Susan, and myself had made a bit of a mess of our travel arrangements, and also there had been a minor domestic dispute. I won't go into all the details - in fact, I cannot remember exactly what they were, but suffice to say that it involved a lot of drama of the kind that will be all too familiar to anyone who has had any dealings with people of an "artistic temperament."

Anyway the upshot was that we arrived in the charming little city of Salisbury at about 7 pm, and we still had to find a hotel. This took up some time, but at last we were ensconced in a delightful little guest house, at a very reasonable price. (Incidentally, this in my view is the best way to get a hotel. Just arrive and then find one. You may think it is risky, but there is always a hotel to be found, and because it is probably not in the major guide books, it will almost certainly be nice and cosy, and incredibly good value for money.)

But I digress. Once we had secured our accomodation, we went off to explore the city. By the way, I should say that in England, the word city is not an indicator of the size or population of a place. Any town that contains a cathedral is properly designated as a city, so there can be some very small cities, and on the other hand, some quite large towns that are not cities.

Anyway, we arrived at the cathedral about 9 o'clock. It was a dry, clear, dark and bitterly cold evening in February. The cathedral building was bathed in light from floodlights all around it. It looked like it had just landed, like an enormous mother ship, which I suppose in a way is exactly what it is.

The building was closed of course but we were able to stroll around the grounds. This was marvellous though freezing. We also had a bit of a shock. In the grounds is a famous piece of modern art, called I think, the Walking Madonna, which we didn't notice until we were almost on top of it. Quite a fright. It's not exactly beautiful, and the overall impression is rather more ghostly than was perhaps intended.

Anyway, next day we were able to get inside the cathedral and look around. As I said, I won't give you a guide book tour, but if you like church art and architecture, you won't be disappointed, I assure you. I was amazed by the spire which soars high, very very high above the surrounding countryside. This enormous weight of solid stone is made to look wonderfully light and graceful - an incredible achievement. When you stand inside under the spire and you look up, you can see that the main pillars of the transept arch have been twisted into a long snake-like helix shape by the huge mass they are supporting.

Another notable thing about Salisbury is that it is one of the few cathedrals, or indeed churches of any kind, in which the architecture is all in the same style. Anyway if you have some free time, it's well worth seeing.

This article was first published by me on Qassia

A Film Called "Tyger"

2008-09-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

When I first saw this film a couple of days ago I was amazed by it. I had no idea people were making movies like this. I do recommend you to watch it, it's quite a short film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LsMoUtBlDk

How To Cook Perfect Rice

2008-09-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

Here's how to cook rice perfectly every time.

1. Wash the rice in cold water.

2. Put the rice in a saucepan and add water so that the water surface is about 1cm above the level of the rice.

3. Put the lid on the saucepan, and do NOT remove during the following process. This is very important.

4. Place the saucepan on the stove and set the heat to medium for about two minutes until you hear the water begin to bubble. Now turn the heat down to the lowest possible setting for exactly 10 minutes. Do NOT remove the lid for any reason.

5. At the end of the 10 minutes, turn the heat off, and leave the rice to cook in its own heat for exactly another 10 minutes. Again, do NOT remove the lid.

6. NOW you can remove the lid! If you have followed these instructions carefully, you will now have perfect rice, ready to serve, or to fry, or whatever you want.

This article was first published by the author on Qassia

The Qassia Intelligence Engine

2008-08-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've just been putting some intel on to the Qassia site. It's what they call an intelligence engine. I've been enjoying it tremendously, in the two or three days that I've been a member.

The idea of it is that you add intel (that is, intelligence) to the site. It can be anything, like an article, or a snippet of information, an experience you had, or just anything really. In return for posting your intel, you get two things. You get a backlink to your website or blog (this blog, in my case) which is what they call a QUALITY backlink, a backlink that the search engines will follow - in the jargon, it is not a nofollow backlink. And you get your account credited with a currency called Qassia dollars, Q$. Those users with more Qassia dollars end up with their intel appearing higher in the tag rankings, so they are more visible.

I'm really enjoying it, because you are allowed to post anything you want to, just as in a blog post (obviously subject to the usual guidelines against porn, spam, and blatant advertising).

If you want to take a look at Qassia, I will be most grateful to you if you click through my link here. This is because if you go through my link I will get 100 Qassia dollars if you do sign up with Qassia, so I am being honest with you about it.

Of course if you prefer to go to the main page at Qassia.com, that is OK by me. I know some people prefer to find their own way, and dislike using affiliate links. But anyway, please do leave a comment on an intel of mine just to say hello!

I'm going back there now to post some more intel. Maybe see you there!

The Secret Number Of Sergeant Pepper

2008-08-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

One time when we had not very much to do, and we were feeling very bored, and we REALLY wanted to know just what the answer to it all was, all of a sudden someone turned the album cover of the Sergeant Pepper album upside down.

With the cover in that position, it was easy to see that the word BEATLES when viewed upside down, made a seven digit number. The number was 5371038.

A couple of the digits had to be fudged a little bit to make them be numbers but don't forget that at the time we were quite used to the idea of trying to interpret strange shapes and colours and configurations of patterns which might or might not contain some cosmic message relayed from another dimension. It just went with the territory. And also, as you can see from the picture of the album cover, the word is constructed in a flower bed so the letters are not too rigid.

The next logical thought was that it might be a secret telephone number which you could call and get the lowdown on all the Beatles mysteries, such as, was Paul really dead, who was the walrus, does Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds really stand for LSD, what is the meaning of number 9, and a host of others.

But not only those mysteries. What if the secret number was channelled in some way, perhaps from a neighbouring galaxy, or from a non-physical dimension of the space-time continuum. In such a case, the Beatles and their album art designers might be unaware that they were being used as a medium. What if you could phone up and get the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything?

Naturally we tried London first, since the flower bed looks like it might have 01 next to it, which at that time was the London area code. No luck. Then we tried Liverpool, of course. Then New York (the Big Apple) and then Los Angeles that centre of fantasy. All drew a blank.

Which was a pity, because it had seemed such a great idea, and it might have been cool to know every secret there was to be known! Incidentally, numerologists may like to know that when you total the digits, you get 27, and when you total those digits in turn, you get the number 9. How amazing is that?

We couldn't help feeling that there might still be an area code out there, and that it might still be available to reveal its secrets to those who find it.

Reflections Of Spain From Somewhere Nearby

2008-08-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

Good day to you, gentle readers, no matter where in the world you are. Welcome to another zencath post by me. This one will not greatly presume on your patience or your time, because I have to confess to being a trifle fatigued, having only recently returned from Spain. I was on vacation there, and in the course of that vacation I visited every one of the autonomous regions, except the Basque country.

Let no one try to fool you into thinking of Spain as a small country. It may not look all that big on a map, but when you are inside it, you realize that it is truly enormous, full of deserts and mountain ranges. You may not know this, but it is a fact that Spain has mountains over a greater percentage of its land area than any other European country, except Switzerland. The land of Spain has many many towns, and I feel like I actually visited every single one of them during my stay.

My neighbour has declared, with typically Gallic logique, that such a thing is impossible, the adundance of the cities it is too great in order that one might visit to them all with much of ease. My reply is to try to patiently explain that he, being French, has too rigidly scientific a mind to comprehend the English love of hyperbole.

I toy with the idea of pointing out that the ancient Romans recognized this, since their name for us was the "Hyperboleans" (the lovers of exaggeration) but this would not be strictly accurate. They actually called us the "Hyperboreans" (the people from the back of the north wind).

I am sure that my neighbour and most of his countrymen believe that the English are crazy. However, I KNOW that the French are crazy - splendid fellows though they are.

For example, there are more tight rope walkers from France than from any other country. Also, the hot-air balloon was invented by the French inventor, Montgolfier. Need I say more?

Incidentally, when they made the first flying balloon, they had to put sandbags in the basket to hold it down on the ground. When Montgolfier was asked how he would fly if the balloon was full of sand, he replied that, in order to fly, why of course they would throw out the bags of sand.

So how would he get back down again? Montgolfier answered, But naturally, it is very simple, monsieur, we will just put the bags back in the balloon again.

LSD - Has It Got A Future?

2008-08-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

I wrote an article about the drug LSD some months ago, which unexpectedly became popular. The present article looks at some of the issues involved and paves the way for more discussion of this fascinating topic.

Those readers who have been closely following the fortunes of this blog "That Reminds Me", intrepid band of heroes that you are, will probably already be aware that this blog exists in two different locations on the web. There is a Wordpress version and this new improved version on Blogger.com.

Both of these free hosts are amazing in many ways, but both are also in different ways, deeply annoying, and for the most baffling of reasons. I do not intend to go into these reasons at the moment. Perhaps I will at some later date. Users of these hosts will no doubt know what things I am referring to anyway.

My main reason in writing this post is to talk about how my LSD post got on. I first wrote it back in April this year, because I had happened to notice by chance that it was the 65th birthday of LSD on April 7th. More correctly it was the 65th anniversary of the invention of the drug by Hoffman in Switzerland.

I thought at the time that there would be very little interest in the topic, but I was wrong. In fact, the LSD birthday post is one of the most popular posts on that Wordpress version of "That Reminds Me". So I intend to post some more articles on the subject for the benefit of those readers, and there are many of them, who have shown interest. I have no anxieties that you will be able to find my articles in this new location, since the keyword LSD seems to be an exceptionally buzzy one for some reason.

I will confine myself here to the observation that, when it was first studied, LSD was hailed by many authorities to be a wonder drug, which would have far-reaching consequences in the cure of many mental illnesses. Yes, you did read that right, in the CURE of mental illnesses.

Perhaps now may be the time for a reappraisal of this remarkable substance?

Auspicious Dates

2008-08-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about auspicious dates. The idea is to choose an auspicious date to begin an enterprise, or to start a course, or declare war - for what reason? In ancient times, one chose a date that was auspicious in the hope that one or other of the gods would smile on one's endeavours.

The ancient Romans had a way of deciding if the time was right for some enterprise to begin. Their soothsayers would watch the flight of birds. Depending on how the birds were flying, they could tell if the time was good or bad. In Latin, avis=bird, and specere=watch, giving us our word auspice. So the bird watchers were the experts in Rome, and even the Emperor would do nothing without consulting them.

There has been much interest in recent years in numerology. This is the idea that a number can be somehow associated with some type or principle. Thus it is now well known that the Chinese believe the number 8 to be a lucky number. This is apparently because their symbol for 8 is almost identical to that for "wealth". And they believe the number 4 is unlucky because, apparently, it is similar to the symbol for "death".

Incidentally, the number 8 is sometimes called the Forger's Friend, because every other number can be changed without being detected into an 8 by adding a line or a curve in the right place.

The number 7 has been widely held to be a lucky number in the western world. It is a number that is beloved of crap shooters, and their game is based on the curious fact that 7 is the most common total that can be obtained when two dice are rolled.

But I'm digressing again! My point in writing this article was to make the observation that it seemed very strange that the Chinese organisers of the Beijing Olympics should have chosen August 8th 2008 as an auspicious date to begin. One would have expected them to choose a date based on the Chinese calendar. Instead, they chose a date that is the 8th day of the 8th month after the Western New Year, and in a year that is 2008 years after the birth of the founder of a religion that is not widely followed in China. Furthermore, this birth date is now generally acknowledged to be inauthentic. Some authorities put the birth of Christ at around 4 BC, which would mean that this year is not 2008, but 2012. What if the actual birth was in 4 AD, then this current year would be 2004, most unfortunate for a Chinese soothsayer!

To make matters worse, the date of New Year is fairly arbitrary in the western calendar. The Roman New Year was in the month of March, so the 8th month would be October, as you can see by its name - "octo" means 8.

Suppose these arbitrary factors had combined to make the start date, which the planners believed so lucky, to be in reality, 04-04-04, that would be terrible, would it not?

But it was not terrible, it was very auspicious. Why? Because superstition, auspices, auguries, divinations, fortune telling, all take place in the MIND. The mind has a power that none of us yet fully comprehend. Some people even believe that nothing actually exists that is not the mind. But that is for another day. Suffice to say that I think it was the firmness of their conviction that the date was auspicious that in turn made it BE auspicious.

If you believe and do not doubt, you will say to this mountain, Go, and throw yourself into the sea, and it will be so.

After The Olympic Games -The Final Standings

2008-08-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

During the Olympic Games, one of the things that interested me was the debate about the medals table. Some people were saying that the method of publishing the rankings so that gold medals were counted first, then silver and so on, led to a distortion of the achievements of each country. Thus, as one commentator pointed out, a country with only one gold medal would be higher in the rankings than a country that had fifty silvers.

Clearly this would be wrong, but this absurd situation is perhaps unlikely to ever happen.

The organisers of the Games, as they were Chinese, would naturally go along with the system as it currently stands, since they beat every other country in the number of gold medals by a healthy margin.

I have found two sites that give slightly different rankings for the final standings. The NBC report ranks the countries on the total number of medals, while the report from BBC Sport adopts the more official line. Is it merely a coincidence that the NBC version puts America at the top, while the BBC, being British and moreover the only major TV channel that is ad free, remains more impartial? Could it be that the NBC reporters could not tolerate the idea of the USA coming second in the final rankings? It is undeniably true that America won more medals of all colors than any other country, but can it really be right that a country should come first in the rankings through the fact that it achieved more second places than all the other countries?

Some might say that the USA in the next few years is going to have to get used to being second in many other ways than in sport. I would not presume though to have any opinion about that, since I have no expertise and little interest in economics or politics.

It was suggested that there should be a points value assigned to each medal, thus Gold=3, Silver=2, Bronze=1. The idea being that you would be including ALL the medals in the count (not only the golds), but recognizing that the medals have a different relative value. I spent a happy five minutes or so calculating the outcome of this system,and I found that the positions of the top 6 countries for 2008 was identical to that given in the BBC report, and the same thing happened when a Gold medal was given a points value of 4. I have no idea how all the countries places would be affected, since I lost interest in calculating after the top six.

So I think you'll just have to accept the fact, China won. But after all, they should do, they have a population in the gozillions. If Jamaica had had the same population as China, then the gold medal tally of Jamaica would have been 3600. Who said the Jamaicans were laid back?

Happy Days!