Living In The Ice Age

Well what the hell is there to this number - 2008?


I'll tell you. Nothing at all. There is nothing to this number at all:-

no blossoming oak, no muddy field full of young leaves, no rippling water sipped by lambs, no tumbling beech, no lime hanging in the breeze, no river scudding on in the long wind, no mallard skipping the current, no robin copping an eyeful on the nearest bare branch.

There is nothing here you'd care to see: no hands slipping out of touch, no missed glances, no desires shaping into the clouds, no love unspoken in stones, no sighs given by thrown twigs or rocks, no resentments that a stranger hasn't supped in his breath as he walks past.

What is there to your year?

There is nothing.

Nothing at all.

Explanation

If you didn't get my previous post.

One of those things that haunts the memory.

But if you are too young...this is it:





Or you might know it like this:





Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

Life goes on.

So they say.

Clipper Maid of the Seas

Fucking hell.

It is my greatest fear.


And it did actually happen: to 249 people. So many of them found to be scratching the seats or holding hands or holding crucifixes.

I remember the newsflash. Michael Burke: the helpline number: the Christmas tree in the corner of the room.

This is why I hate horror films: they are the worst of what humans actually do to each other - they are not fantasy.

Ghost by Robert Harris

The Shorter Version:


I have a real sneaking admiration for Blair, despite everything, but I really, really hate his wife; and I don't think much of the Ham Shanks either.


End of.

Liberty Still Alive

A good story from Europe at last, for all those who believe that simply being arrested should not make you a suspect in all future crimes.


Needless to say, however, just as the government refused to add the amendment voted through by the Lords last month to the counter-terrorism bill, they are disappointed that individuals should remain free from suspicion and that citizens should not have their personal details routinely sifted through by police whenever a crime happens anywhere. They don't really intend to change the law.

Well...what can you say? Are you surprised?

Liberty Prorogued

Oh well, no revolution. A mildly interesting speech by the speaker, calling to order interventions on his own interventions - for the maths devotees among us, an interesting example of recursion - but other than that, the same old same old: questions, no answers, the governing party and the independent police in curious lockstep.

The idea, among the intellectuals, that the police have the right to uninterrupted action, whereas the democratic representatives of the people don't (if they belong to the opposition, crucially).


And the PM? Presumably, the strongest, most passionate democrat in the land?

He does not give a fuck. Instead he wants more powers for the state to demand things from innocent civilians.

Do not rely on the most intelligent: in times like these, their genius is put to the service of evil, which makes tenth rate minds like mine sit back and say, time after time, when liberty after liberty is killed, and even the right to oppose finally attacked, say "oh, well, I guess...if _they_ say it's reasonable, then it must be: after all, they write independent reports/are the police service of the people/are the local authorities/are the independent authority....". Genius and reason can, and are, used by evil.

That's when the only response is silent rebellion, to live as you wish to live.

And that's when they decide to come for you too: because they realise that when visible rebellion has gone, they need to seek the other sources of rebellion.

I'd give it 25 years.

Then, if I were you, I'd learn Newspeak.

By 2050, at the latest.