Roseberry Topping in August

I was out and about yesterday - went up Roseberry Topping to do some filming. I always like these posts, as all I really have to do is share pictures. It's nice and easy.

(click to enlarge)

We're blessed with some beautiful landscape. I went on Twitter this morning to find debate about the potential pollution that will be caused by the government giving the green light for more housing. The sort of people that scream most about damage to the environment often tend to be the same people demanding hundreds of thousands more in net migration - which obviously requires more housing to be built. Not to mention the added roads, sewers and services.

There are arguments both ways, and I feel a little bit selfish saying I want to keep this landscape for myself. However, I wish the people screaming would be more honest and a bit less muddle-headed. You can't have it all ways. You have to strike a balance. If you want more people that means more incursions into nature.

Gold Standards Don't Work

The other week I had the flu - well, a cold - but it was enough for me to sit around for a few days doing nothing. As it happens it was something of a blessing, as in my lazy, snotty boredom I ended up watching videos about the history of money. This clarified in my mind why gold isn't a good currency, and why gold standards aren't a good idea.

A currency is something that helps lubricate the economy. An oil that helps people trade their time and goods.

So a good currency isn't just something that gives people confidence that it's a good store of value. It also has to be readily available enough that everyone has access to it. The peasant paying his landlord, the old woman buying her loaf of bread, the businessman making his trades.

It's something that balances these two things. Rare enough to be worth something, but common enough to be readily utilised.

This is why gold isn't good as a currency. It's too rare. Too precious.

It's a great store of value, but not a great currency.

It's similar with Bitcoin. That too, like gold, is more a store of value than a currency. It is scarce, therefore people value it. Therefore people are reluctant to let go of it.

An Example

For instance, let's say you're someone who owns gold and/or Bitcoin, and you want to buy something that costs £10. You'll be more than happy enough to spend £10 in pounds sterling to buy it, however if someone suggests you use your gold or Bitcoin, you'll balk at the idea. As you believe over time your gold will increase in value relative to other things, and you believe your Bitcoin is "Going to the Moon."

So as gold is a very, very good store of value, you're very, very reluctant to let go of it. You'd much rather use something less precious for daily transactions.

Gold, Silver and Copper

Historically it was generally silver that was used as a standard, not gold. This makes sense as silver is less precious, and it's a natural intermediary between gold and copper. People would generally use copper and silver coins for normal trade.

Supposedly, gold only really began being used as a de facto standard around 300 years ago by Britain. It probably worked quite well for Britain because Britain was the ascendant power, and the rest of the world still used silver - so it was a luxury position. However, when everyone else jumped on the gold standard in the 19th century that appears to be when things started going a bit haywire, and when gold decoupled from silver.

This makes sense, as pegging an entire economy to one commodity - especially the most precious and rare commodity - is asking for trouble. People are always going to want to hold on to gold, and especially so when things start looking dicey. How can you lubricate everyday trade with something no-one wants to let go of?

Again, even in the days of silver standards, things were much more organic, and people used multiple other things as currency too. They had a degree of freedom to trade and barter without every transaction being watched and taxed by government - and the tax needing to be paid in the specific state issued currency.

The modern world with its monolithic governments, taxes and standards is really the straightjacket that's locked everything in to one universal money measure - whatever form it takes.

Fiat-philia

Personally, I actually like fiat currency. This won't be popular, but as an actual currency - an oil for trade - it's much better than something pegged to a specific commodity. Of course, they're open to abuse by governments and banks that are in a position to inflate them, but this also makes them flexible enough to function. If you want a store of value get some gold, but if you want a gold standard then you want something that simply won't work. Appreciate gold for what it is, not what you want it to be.

Masks and Hygiene ..Bad Hygiene

We've entered full fathom five. I've finally finished my work of fiction. I still have a few tweaks to do, plus I'll have to revise it a good few times, but all that can come at leisure. It's a labour of love, so I'm not in a rush. The main endeavour was getting it down - from brain to page. Now that's done I can leave fiction and focus once again on reality. Posts on here will now become more frequent.

Today it's masks. There seems to be a flurry of calls for masks and mandates at the moment. It's like the communists have decided now is the time for another counterinsurgency into normality.

Obviously, I'm wholly against masking. This time my line of attack on Twitter has been:

"Masks are smelly!"

I've been arguing that the people who wear masks tend to have poorer hygiene in general. It's a little bit underhanded - and also mean. However, I think there's a large element of truth to this idea. Here in the UK the only people you really see wearing masks now are very elderly people - who have presumably been brainwashed (read terrified) by their TV screens and carers into doing it. Or teenagers - usually of the mosher or activist variety; black hoodie, tattoos, piercings, rainbow-coloured hair, body odour, face mask.

Added to this there's also the random neighbourhood oddball you often see still masking-up.

In fact, there's a guy who sometimes gets on my bus. He always wears the same face mask - the only person on the bus wearing one ..and he always has really bad body odour. You think, "..please, not next to me." It's a horrible thing to think, and I would never complain or raise the issue in real life. Nor would I mock someone for it. After all, not everyone has the same degree of personal competency. Plus, you never know what an individual's circumstances are. "There but for the grace of God go I," as they say. However, in the round, we all understand that some people have higher hygiene standards than others.

Public transport (that is, communal transport) gives a good education in this.

It's no surprise to me that masking would be associated with poor hygiene. If there are two people and one is happy to allow the government to overrule them in matters of personal hygiene, and the other is fastidious enough to balk at that thought, then you'd suspect the former to be more slob-like.

Communism means everyone eating at the same trough. Capitalism allows you to go off and prepare your own meal.

After wearing a mask for a few hours, and experiencing the damp, the warmth, and the discomfort, a basic disgust response kicks in. You have to be pretty docile (or very zealously invested in the narrative) to not be aware of this.

Imagine how dumb someone must be to want their government to be able to force this upon them. How poor must the instincts of that person be.

Three years ago I had the logic to understand this would be the case. Now three years later I have the real world evidence to back it up.

All the covid measures have made people poorer and smellier.

[It's also worth noting that we once again see the results of the conflicting ideologies I mentioned in my last post.

These people have filled the world's oceans with face masks in their quest for 'public hygiene'.

Yet, these are also the same people telling you to shower less to save the environment.

They're very, very confused people. It would be funny were we not constantly held hostage to them.]

Half-Man, Half-Machine - All Monbiot

Yesterday we had this article in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com

Where George Monbiot once again argued for the reintroduction of wolves to the British landscape. I'm not going to discuss the idea itself - I think it's quite silly. What I do want to comment upon though is the mindset that led to this.

The mindset of the educated elite class is quite a confused one; and at the heart of it is a fundamental contradiction.

On the one hand their progressivism leads them to chase technological progress - see their worship of Science with its capital "S", and their technocratic tendencies.

On the other hand, however, they have their environmentalism. With its belief that man is a destructive force upon the earth. That nature is best left "unspoilt" and completely untouched by the selfish presence of man.

Obviously, these two worldviews don't quite meld.

And instead of tempering these ideologies to find some kind of harmonious balance, they've hit upon a novel and zany solution. A solution that only a schizophrenic mind could come up with.

That is:

Humans will live in Star Trek-like cities, where we'll have all the things the technocratic mind can dream of: big data; mass surveillance; AI; advanced medicines and therapeutics that extend the human life span - perhaps indefinitely; virtual worlds; the metaverse; robots and Judy Jetson.

Meanwhile, outside of these cities, we'll have nature completely untouched. Rewilded. As it once was. Before man turned up and ruined it all. Replete with wolves and every other savage beast that once roamed it. Humans (except for the chosen few) will be forbidden from entering these vast zones of Earth sans man.

Two worlds, completely segregated, completely different.

Something akin to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, - or Hunger Games, or Logan's Run. That is, something akin to fantasy and science-fiction. But this is what these people believe. They want to have their cake and eat it, and their minds are so entitled that there is zero room for compromise.

George Monbiot wants his face masks and free Covid tests. He also wants his wolves.

He wants nature untamed by man. Yet he also wants all flu viruses to be eradicated.

Net zero to preserve nature from deadly man. Zero Covid to protect man from deadly nature.

Two forms of ideological extremism, that can only be accommodated in the mind by literally drawing a line across the muddy earth and saying, "On this side nature, on this side man." It's obviously barmy. I don't know why they don't just go the whole hog and advocate bringing back dinosaurs. We can all live like the bubble-boy in our pods as raptors roam Yorkshire.

Two hundred million people, refugees an' all, crammed in a dome-covered London. whilst the rest of Britain is like Jurassic Park. The irony is George Monbiot probably sees himself as Jeff Goldblum.

"God creates Man, God creates wolves. Man destroys wolves, Man destroys God. Man creates wolves."

The House of Lords - The Nation's Editor

Reform of the House of Lords is a recurring theme. I've mentioned it before on this blog even. In fact, over the years I've given my own opinions about what should be done. However, as with many things, with age I'm beginning to reach a point where I think it's best just to leave things alone.

The biggest criticisms (apart from of the general cronyism) are that it's unelected, and also that, as the House of Commons can overrule it, it's somewhat redundant and powerless anyway. Not too long ago I would've shared this viewpoint, but now I've come to realise that both these things are actually good.

It's like the relationship between a writer and an editor..

A writer writes a book. They then send it to an editor who makes some changes and suggestions. Who has ultimate power in this relationship depends upon the circumstances. If the writer is self-publishing, then they're in charge. So they can choose to overrule the opinions of the editor.

"I've listened to your advice, but I disagree with it, so I'm going to publish without your amendments."

Whereas if the writer is working for a larger publisher the editor may have the power.

"We're sorry, but we refuse to publish your book, unless you make these changes."

Ultimately, someone has to have the final veto on the decision. Either way though, whoever has the power, it's still good to employ the services of an editor. Their feedback and opinions are useful. They can take the time to thoroughly inspect the work. They may spot things that you didn't spot when you were toiling away writing it.

The House of Commons is like a person who can self-publish..

They have the final power of veto. Given that they're the elected chamber, then this is how it should be. They should be able to overrule the Lords when push comes to shove.

Again though, that doesn't mean that it isn't useful to have the House of Lords. The back and forth between the Commons and the Lords - like the back and forth between an editor and a writer - provides valuable checks and feedback. They can take the time to debate and inspect legislation. They may spot or foresee things that the Commons didn't see when they were creating it.

If we had an elected House of Lords it would just create confusion over where ultimate power lies. We'd have a constitutional crisis if there was disagreement and some impasse was reached.

So, I've come to the conclusion, that personally, I'd just leave things be.

(As I re-read this back, looking for errors and spelling mistakes, I'm acutely aware of how valuable an editor or proofreader would be.)

Beauty, Self-Image and Gender

I've been reading back through some of the posts on here. It's always a bit cringe-inducing, but what struck me more was how feminine it all seems. At times it's in the mould of Morrissey or Mark Twain (obviously without the wit or talent). I'm a straight male, for the record - so that's not what I was going for (lol). However, I think there's something about writing that lends itself in this direction. Especially when it's this daily, journal-style blogging. I think you have to have a touch of the effeminate to even consider doing it. I suspect this is why many right-leaning commentators overcompensate with the edgy memes and fashy takes. It's an attempt to eek out some respect and manliness as they sit with their little gay quills.

To some extent we all care what others think of us, but I think I tend to care a little less than the average person. For me I tend to worry more about misrepresenting myself than I do about how I'm judged. I don't like the idea of giving a false impression, but if I give a truthful account, and people think the less of me, I can live with that. I'm a straight male, but I'm not an especially manly male. I have some of the flowers of the female aspect. This is just the truth.

(The Knight of the Flowers

- Georges Rochegrosse)

I think the modern left and the modern right both go wrong on this. The left have their 67 varieties of gender, but in doing this just force humans into boxes. The right reduce everything to the binary extremes of uber-male and trad-wife. There's no nuance. I think history and storytelling have much better archetypes - the knight, the troubadour, the poet, the mad scientist, the witch, the maiden, the Amazonian woman. The balance of the biological dials gives rise to all types of humans.

If you watch Star Wars you might relate more to Han Solo than to Luke Skywalker if you're a more blokey bloke (or to Princess Leia if you're a bossy madam). We tend to gravitate towards the characters that reflect our own personality settings, or self-image. This is why successful things often have an array of characters to choose from. Going back to the 90s we had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If you were a smart, geeky kid you probably wanted to be Donatello. If you were a bit more cheeky your favourite was probably Raphael or Michelangelo.

Similarly, for girls, you may have been more of a Baby Spice than a Sporty Spice.

Even these archetypes from art and pop culture can never perfectly reflect the nuance of real life though. In fact, often we find ourselves pulled in multiple directions.

Beauty vs Attraction

In fact, one of the problems that can arise is when notions of beauty come into conflict with the desire to appeal to the opposite sex.

For instance, if you're a straight male you'll naturally see the female form as beautiful.

Take long hair as an example.

We all want to be beautiful. So if your notion of beauty is long flowing hair, you'll then see yourself as being more beautiful with long hair. In essence your admiration of women can lead you to imitate them.

This is an issue I have. I much prefer the way I look with long hair. When I have short hair I find it very ugly, angular and dull. So naturally I've always tended to have long hair. However, it's only as I've aged and developed a bit more self-awareness that I've realised that what I find attractive isn't what other people will find attractive - and that my notions of beauty are skewed by my own personal preferences.

I wish someone would've explained this to me when I was younger: "You might like having long hair, but girls like men - that look like men. They might not want a boy who looks like a girl."

Once you realise this then you understand that you have to make a choice (or at least some type of compromise) between appealing to your own aesthetic tastes and appealing to other people's.

(Of course, in reality these things aren't straight forward - some women may like long hair, so it's complex. Plus, what is sexual beauty, and what is true aesthetic beauty? Is there even such a thing as true objective beauty? If you're an intelligent or arty person it may be that you care more about the ideal than your love life.)

I think this is one of the problems that some male-to-female transgender people have, especially the ones that tend to be on the autistic spectrum. People will say these people fetishize being a woman - which I'm sure is true for some of the adults. However, for the children and teenagers that get sucked into it I think it's much more an admiration or idolisation of the female, that then gets confused with desires about self-image.

This is why it's so dangerous to push these ideologies on to children. It's far too easy for children to become confused, and for the lines between role model and crush to get blurred.

A Very Masculine Morrissey

In fact, as a good example of how children often get the wrong end of the stick we can bring it back to Morrissey. I'm a huge Smiths fan, however, I was introduced to the Smiths long before I was fan. I was born in 1982, and the Smiths arrived in the charts not long after. My uncle and my mam were both huge fans, so as a toddler I was immersed in the music. Along with nursery rhymes it's the earliest music I can remember. Certain songs still bring back recollections of being at my nanna's house as a small child even now.

It was only when I was about fifteen/sixteen that I rediscovered the music for myself, on my own terms.

Anyway, as a child I was aware of who Morrissey was, but only in a very vague way. Much like I knew who Margaret Thatcher was, or Nelson Mandela. I'd heard grown-ups talk about them, and I'd seen them on TV, but was more concerned with Thomas the Tank Engine to actively pay much attention. I knew Morrissey was a singer, and in the images I'd seen of him he was always either completely bare-chested, or had some loose-fitting collared shirt; and he had short hair with a quiff.

So naturally I just viewed him as a very manly figure. In my child-like mind he sat there in the same subconscious space as He-Man, Mr. T and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Again, short hair equalled man in my basic shape-sorter way of demarcating the world.

When I was sixteen and I listened to the music with a slightly more adult understanding I remember being like: "Why did I think Morrissey was like He-Man??" 😅

Even at sixteen though I still didn't understand half the references. A few decades later things are clearer still. Thank God I grew up in an era when such misunderstandings weren't pandered to and preyed upon by ideologues.

Descendant of Immigrants - What Does It Mean In Reality?

Immigration is a big topic at the moment, and from the left we constantly get this refrain of, "Everyone in Britain is a descendant of immigrants."

Of course, in the strictest sense this is perfectly true. If you go far enough back then everyone's ancestors arrived here at some point. That isn't really what people mean when they use the term in common parlance though. What "descendant of immigrants" means generally is someone whose immediate ancestors arrived here relatively recently ..and relative is the key word.

We can't strictly define what recently means. It's always going to be relative. Some people's ancestors have been here for "a long time," but naturally, something can only be long relative to something else. Four hundred years might be long in comparison to forty years, but likewise it's short compared to four thousand. (The Huguenots can be both ancient and recent depending upon who's framing the argument.)

The left tend to be quite disingenuous on the topic. When they make the technical argument that, "Everyone is a descendant of immigrants," they're trying to discredit the fact that there's been a long (again, relatively long) continuous chain of people living here going back centuries. They understand perfectly well what "descendant of immigrants" means in a general sense - the term would be utterly pointless if it just meant everyone - but they feign that they don't. They falsely appeal to the technical definition of words, ignoring the spirit of the words and their context.

(Think the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law, and lawyers trying to catch people out on technical infringements.)

However, by the same token, people on the right can be just as disingenuous. Insisting on the reality of some pure-in-blood English nation, when they know in their hearts that even settled peoples have a medley of ancestors, and a peppering of immigration.

So, how would I define "descendant of immigrants" ?

I kind of have my own way of looking at things. Personally, I like to root things in the real, lived world. So, for me, it's all about intergenerational experience.

Most humans tend to have a limited knowledge of their personal antecedents. You have direct experience of your parents. You also tend to have direct experience of your grandparents. If you're lucky you might also have known your great-grandparents first-hand. Very few people get to meet their great-great-grandparents however.

Of course, as you live alongside your parents and grandparents you may hear stories - second-hand - of older relatives you never got the chance to meet, which adds to your knowing of them, but that tends to be the extent of it.

Consequently, if you ask a random person in the street to name their great-grandparents most will struggle. This is perfectly natural, as we live in the here and now, and without first or second-hand experience we simply won't know this stuff without appealing to written records of some sort.

So, after about three generations there's a natural dislocation, where our personal history disappears into a general fog of culture. Therefore, I would say that after about three generations of living in one place you can discard the "descendant of immigrants" tag.

(As an aside try to imagine how much this would've been the case before written records. For instance, Jewish people have one of the oldest written records. The biblical genealogies may sound a bit dry and boring to the modern ear - so-and-so was the son of so-and-so, this person begat that person. However, imagine you live in a tribe where you only have first (and perhaps second-hand) knowledge of your personal ancestors, then someone comes along who can reel off a list of their ancestors going back centuries. It would be quite impressive.)

My Recent Ancestors

Sadly, my family history is a little too boring to provide a good example, but it might serve for one final illustration. As far as I know everyone on my family tree is British, however within that there is Scottish as well as English, so we can pretend Scotland is a truly foreign country for the sake of argument.

My grandmother was Scottish (my other three grandparents English). She died when I was about seven years old. So for that first seven years of my life she was a direct influence on me - I heard her Scottish accent; was exposed to her Scottish cultural mores. It no doubt had some effect on me. Likewise her Scottish-ness will have left an even bigger imprint on my mother, who lived for forty odd years in her presence - and that, in turn, through my mother, will have influenced me somewhat too.

On top of this I have the countless stories about Scotland, and about Scottish relatives, regaled to me by my mother.

So, even though I've never lived in Scotland I'm a bit Scottish through this direct experience. How much is impossible to say, but it's enough to register as something significant.

However, if all four of my grandparents were English born, and instead, it was one of my great-grandparents that was Scottish born, this influence would've been massively diluted. I'd have never known a Scottish born relative first-hand, and the drips of family lore about Scotland would be third-hand, not second - if I even received them.

If we pushed this Scottish born ancestor back a further generation still, I might not have even been aware of the Scottish ancestry at all. I'd have just assumed that I was wholly English.

Of course, things would be quite different if a multitude of my recent ancestors were Scottish, and not just one. Plus, things would be much more pronounced if these Scottish people had a language, religion and culture that was significantly different to that of the English people they'd came to live amongst. Still though, as far as place is concerned, once you get removed a few generations from the people that had first-hand experience of living somewhere else you're gonna be fairly rooted.

As ever, it's the integration of different cultures that's the tricky problem. Not so much the rooting of people to the geography.

(As a final aside, though it's good to pass down written history, it can also be a huge barrier to integration. Once cultural values get written down - as religious texts, for example - it becomes easier for them to be retained and passed down - as with the genealogies. It makes that culture more rigid and less flexible, so when it comes into contact with other living cultures it's harder to blend or assimilate. So historical knowledge can be a burden to people, as well as an advantage.)