South Bank Revisited..

As I'm off work this week and I had nothing much to do today I thought I'd have a little walk to South Bank. Back in 2020, during lockdown, I had a wander down there and took some pictures. With South Bank being in the news recently following the A66 crash I thought maybe I should revisit.

The biggest thing that struck me was just how long Normanby Road is.

It puts the roads in the town centre to shame. It's almost like a hidden high street. I don't think I've ever walked the full length of it in one go. Normally I only walk down the half that goes past Eston Cemetery. It's actually quite a nice road too, with some nice houses, framed perfectly by Eston Hills. Though the South Bank end is somewhat rundown.

There's no reason why this shouldn't be a beautiful place to live.

I took some pictures this time too. Constantly stopping in the street, holding my phone out like a tourist, even though I live barely a mile away. My hoodie covering my damp hair in the rain.

I hate photographing the decline, but these are the things that fascinate me. The things that used to be. Buildings in many ways like gravestones. Marking a former culture.

First though, I saw a nice poppy display on one of the churches. Well done to whoever did this.

A small section of the ever-so-long road..

This grey-blue building caught my eye. At one time library and workmen's institute.

Another faded sign. Erimus, the Middlesbrough motto, meaning 'We Shall Be." This is more 'What Once Was.'

This one was the most depressing, as you can imagine it looking quite beautiful. The little balcony on the top right. The blue doors and white walls beneath the brickwork higher up. The charming and colourful swinging sign.

She's hanging in there. In fact, she looks like the perfect representation of the stoic Brit watching on as everything falls into disrepair. Watching on disapprovingly as the latest headline that "Britain will pay billions in reparations for slavery" comes across the TV screen.

This last image I pulled from Google Street View. It's a large building, near one of the churches, that's fallen into ruin. The exposed roof I'm guessing the product of fire damage. I should've taken a snap myself, as it's the perfect illustration of the disrepair, but it lacked romance. Plus it didn't feel right. It felt like photographing a homeless person.

The thing is though, these are inanimate buildings, they're not humans, so we shouldn't be so sentimental. In previous posts I've talked about our derelict highstreets, and how, thanks to shopping and services being increasingly online, we just don't need the shop space anymore. Normally I'm pretty cavalier in saying we should just be knocking stuff down. It's a bit harder to say that when there's a bit of sentiment attached though.

Yet it is reality. We don't need as much shop space. People don't go to pubs and churches as much. So it is time to get the bulldozers out I'm afraid. People don't want to live near derelict buildings and boarded-up shops. It looks like a dying civilisation. There are too many big old buildings that serve no purpose anymore.

People often instinctively say that some of these buildings should be converted into apartments, and you can see the initial attraction. However, people generally don't want to buy leasehold. Plus, in communal buildings it only takes one drug addict or problem family to turn a beautiful and expensive renovation into another sinkhole that no one wants to live in. Individuals and families need safe homes where they have a degree of insulation from the worst amongst us.

The Princess Alice building pictured above could probably be turned into some cute little homes, but the big behemoths. The huge empty relics of a culture that once was probably have to go. We have to look at our highstreets and town centres and decide what we really, really want to keep and what we don't. Like a hoarder being forced to choose what to throw out. It isn't easy, but we can't have a civilisation that looks like the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome. Only uglier.

Again though, for balance, as I said at the start, there's so much beauty. We're not a million miles away from having somewhere that looks really pleasant to live.

The Clock of Gloom

The clocks went back today and the experience has confirmed my view that it causes depression.

I remember as a child often feeling depressed around this time of the year. (I've mentioned this before, see here: Clock-Shift.) Back then I didn't realise it was a consequence of the clocks changing. Still, even at the time I was mindful that it was something seasonal. I would think, "Oh, it's this feeling again. I felt like this last year. Why do I feel like this?"

I particularly felt it in the evening time. Half-four, five o'clock, six o'clock time. The cartoons were finishing and the news was coming on TV. It felt dark and it was dark. The window of the living room a gloomy black between the curtains, reflecting the artificial light from inside.

It wasn't a clinical depression or anything massively serious, and it never lasted too long, but it was a depressed feeling nevertheless. A sense that things were dark and pointless and boring. I used the word ennui in the previous post, but that was only half-right. It was kind of a boredom mixed with sadness, but the sadness lacked a specific cause or reason. Again, a mild depression with the thought, "Why do I feel like this?"

Today I had that feeling once more. Around half-four I was sitting down to watch the Sunday football. I'd already watched one game earlier. I like football, but two games in a day is pushing my boredom threshold. So the boredom was already setting in. I'd just been for a walk to freshen my mind - or freshen my threshold - but that hadn't quite lifted me. It felt a bit "Uh" and gloomy. Then I remembered, "Oh yeah, it's actually half-five, not half-four going by yesterday's clock."

"The clocks went back today."

It wasn't a huge downer. I didn't feel like taking it to the bridge or anything. I don't want to overplay the sense of gloom. However, it was useful to have that feeling as confirmation of the phenomenon - even if just a mild version of it. The last few years I've generally been in work when the clocks have changed and I work lates, so I haven't really experienced that jolt from light to dark evenings. At the moment I'm just beginning a few weeks' holiday though. In fact, part of the reason I was bored is that I'm trying to relax and chillout a bit.

I normally always have this feeling that I should be doing something, so I'm trying to learn how to be a bit more laid back. When I was a kid I could play Sonic the Hedgehog for hours without the guilt that I was wasting time doing something frivolous. I guess I felt that important things could wait until adulthood. Now, in adulthood, it's went all the other way. I'm much happier typing this blog than I was when I was forcing myself to sit and watch a second football match. (I know what you're thinking, "This blog post isn't exactly important, is it?" However, in my mind it's all part of some grand analysis of the cosmos. So it feels like doing something, to me at least. Certainly more so than idly watching football.)

I was planning on making spaghetti after the football, but now I'm doing this. I should really go and make the spaghetti.

Only An Intellectual Could Believe It

Today we have something so stupid only an intellectual could believe it.

(Reader beware: This is anti-intellectual content, from someone with an almost pathological anti-intellectual streak. It's my forte and guilty pleasure.)

Any-hoop, yesterday my friend was telling me that another friend of his is reading a book about how society is becoming more illiterate thanks to social media. I first saw this topic pop up about a year or so ago on UnHerd. My friend's friend is a Guardian-reading lefty-type person, so I'm guessing the discussion's now filtered into the wider mainstream.

(Having done a quick Google search it appears a book has just been released by the very same writer that appeared on UnHerd. The AI overlord, sorry, overview, tells me that it's bestselling, so this must be the very book. Oh, how predictable. It's also interesting that someone left wing is now, unknowingly, consuming content that's a little bit right wing coded, but we'll leave that for now.)

My friend - who doesn't read books, nor the Guardian - said he thought what his friend was telling him was nonsense. He pointed to social media itself - where everybody, from granny to bratty teenager, is commenting and arguing and communicating in text.

Of course, he's correct. It's a self-evident truth. People have never been more literate.

(As my friend doesn't read books he isn't as easily brainwashed by the ideas they contain. As I've said before, half tongue-in-cheek, books should only be read by anti-intellectuals like myself - i.e. people with the inherent ability to withstand their ideologies.

And I am only half-joking. Just look at religions. They all have their book(s). There are few people more dogmatic and detached from reality than book-readers. Whether it's the Quran or the Communist Manifesto. Or the latest bestseller. This reverence for words on a page. That somehow if something comes from a book it has more authority. It's very backwards. The scientific revolution - the focus on real world observation - should've put a stop to this, but it's barely made a dent. The book remains God.)

Returning to real world observation. How many illiterate people do you know in everyday life? And I don't mean people that have bad grammar or that are a bit dim - but actual illiterates. Be honest, it's basically zero. Every dimwit is on Facebook or Twitter spouting their opinion in English words and letters. As my friend pointed out.

Now, the people making the point will say, "Ah, it's not so much that people aren't reading, it's that they have reduced attention spans and aren't reading books anymore."

"They're not reading big books, like me, an intellectual."

(It's funny that these self-satisfied people are reading a book about how other people aren't reading books. They must have one hand turning the page and the other patting themselves on the back.)

Even this attention span argument is nonsense though.

Firstly, most people were never reading books anyway. Even the minority of people that actually owned a copy of War and Peace never actually read it.

(We still see these people every day online - in left and right wing circles:

"I'm going to read [insert philosophy book]"; "I really want to read [insert ancient text]."

A lot of time talking about books, and having pretty books sat on bookshelves. Not so much actual reading.

"If only I had more time I could read more.. 😢")

Secondly, before the advent of the Internet we had sixty-odd years of television, lol.

People sitting glued for hours. Passively. Zombified. All audio-visual. No text whatsoever.

Just look at TV today. Ant and Dec - essentially children's TV presenters, presenting shows for adults. So tell me again about dumbing down.

(I don't like slagging off TV too much. It can be good and bad. After all, it's just another medium. You can't seriously tell me the Internet is a step backwards for reading though.

In fact, marrying the two, I'm currently watching an old BBC series about chess called The Master Game. I'm rubbish at chess, but I do enjoy watching and playing it. Undoubtedly TV has made some brilliant and informative content, but at the same time I only have the opportunity to watch these old shows from the 70s and 80s because of YouTube. Likewise I can play chess (badly) against people from all over the world thanks to the Internet.)

(A visual illustration of this article for those

that can't read - courtesy of ChatGPT)

Thirdly, (and finally - I don't want to make this too long, quite fittingly).

It's a total myth that people used to have the attention span for long books. It's a romanticised notion that people are projecting back onto some idealised past. Even in the 19th century people would generally read stuff like Dickens in instalments. They'd get Part I of Great Expectations delivered to their home as part of some weekly or monthly magazine, then they'd wait for the next episode the following week. A bit like TV.

No one wants to sit for twelve hours reading something. Not now, not ever.

You can get a sense of this if you read Shakespeare. Again, like TV, plays would've been an evening's entertainment. They were short. So when you buy a paperback version of a Shakespeare play they're really tiny - way tinier than a novel - and over half of that is the introduction and commentary on the text. If it was literally just the play it'd be a pamphlet (a quarto).

So the long novel is something of an aberration. It's not suited to the natural human attention span. Plus, long-form text is generally junk or waffle anyway. Like the long guitar solo. The beard-stroking intellectual may feign some appreciation of it, but most other people have better things to do.

The true Shakespeare is in the three-minute pop song.

Now yes, I get it, when you watch young people endlessly flick through TikTok videos it's a bit despairing, but they're basically just flicking through the TV channels looking for something to watch. It ain't much different to that.

They're certainly not as brainwashed as intellectuals that believe they're entering a "post-literate" age ..as they sit there surrounded by humans that are texting each other constantly.

Oh, it's bigger than Mr Manchester

And here was me thinking it was just about football and Mr Manchester.

I've had one of those, "Oh, I might be ignorant" moments.

The truth is, I don't really know that much about the UAE. I just kind of assumed they were the good Muslims. Islamo-capitalists, not Islamo-communists. But beyond a stereotypical view of Dubai as the wealthy place where expats go I don't really know that much.

So if we're talking purely football I'm right and everyone else is wrong. Manchester City should be able to spend whatever they like ..you destructive communists. However, if we're talking geopolitics, I'm out of my depth.

Should a foreign state effectively own a British football club? I don't know. I don't know much about the actual state in question, so I'm clearly not qualified to judge.

Obviously, the UAE is just across the strait from Iran. So it's that part of the world. It's going to be a bit muddy.

I tend to operate on instinct. In the course of my Twitter debates on the topic I've noticed a heavy overlap between hating Man City and having a Palestinian flag in your bio. (One guy even had a terrorist-looking Palestinian as his profile picture, lol.) Given Palestine flag-wavers tend to lean to the communist side of things, and given those demanding punishment for City are basically advocating anti-capitalist Premier League rules, I naturally assumed it was black and white.

Perhaps it's more complicated than that though. Perhaps the UAE is a bit statist too. Perhaps destroying the Premier League with communism is in the national interest after all.

I've made my point about free markets in football, so now I'll sit back. It's reminiscent of the ousting of Abramovich from Chelsea. I didn't like that either, but I likewise had a poor grasp of the geopolitics at the time too.

So, is it purely a football issue this time round? Is it a national politics thing? An international politics thing? I don't know.

Again, going back to instinct, all the right (or rather wrong) people seem to be gunning against City. All my natural enemies ..Palestine flag-wavers, Irish Republicans (there are a lot of Manchester United fans in Ireland, so that's probably coincidence), bureaucrats, Piers Morgan, Terry Christian (another United fan, also a remainer - the whole Premier League spending cap thing is a bit of a UEFA/Euro-coded import), lefty football writers that want the "fans to own the club," lefties in general. It's a long list.

(They're not really my enemies. I love them all really ..they're just wrong about everything.)

You can't rely solely on vibes and instinct though, you do need a bit of knowledge. Which I'm lacking. Plus, I've kind of found myself on the side of Andy Burnham on this one too, which should be something of a vibe check. Though, to be fair, I think he probably knows even less about what's going on than I do.

Oh, it's about Mr Manchester

And here was me thinking it was about football.

The Manchester City imbroglio is now being used to put pressure on Andy Burnham. In a "Did He Eat Cake?!" ousting Boris sort of way. What did he know? Who did he meet?

Man City, Manchesterism, Number 10 North, it's all in the same place. (How did I not see this one?) As mayor of Manchester he must have had some dealings with the very naughty City owners. So it looks fishy ..but in that way that always looks fishy whenever you put politicians in the same room as billionaires. They could literally be doing something as innocent as eating birthday cake, but when you're looking for an axe to grind that's generally enough. Next all you need is some kind of technicality - an uncrossed t or undotted i. Better get the fine tooth comb out.

It's hard to imagine yet another prime minister being made to walk the plank, but it is the land of eternal clownery at the moment, so I thought I better make a note of it.

It's a slightly odd one, as you'd think people on the right would be more on the City side of the argument. I've commented elsewhere on the rules that City are being hoisted by. 'Smashing A Beautiful Blue Sportscar' It's all a bit communist. (Actually, I shouldn't say communist, that's very lazy, I'm not on Twitter. It's more just general lefty overregulation type stuff.) Either way, I've had a bee in my bonnet about it for a while.

I think they should just let clubs spend whatever they want. Like in the old days.

There's an argument for socialism and "fairness" when it comes to important things like healthcare. However, no one's going to die if a football club goes out of business. It's just football. For a start, even clubs that do go into administration rarely crash out entirely. Usually some wealthy saviour steps in. Even when they do hit the rocks they don't truly disappear, as if there's a catchment area for support that void will always be filled by a club one way or another. Look at Darlington.

I mentioned in the above linked-to article that these rules were originally brought in to stop clubs going out of business (wrongheaded in of itself), but have since become about imposing "fairness."

"Man City cheated, they spent too much money! It's not fair!! 😢😢"

It's barmy.

What on earth is wrong with these people?

How can you not have unfairness in the world?

If Arsenal play Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup it's inevitably going to be unfair. One is a title-winning Premier League side with a global brand, the other is Accrington Stanley ("Who 'r they?" - Exactly). But so what? As long as the referee treats all the players the same and they're playing by the same rules on the pitch, what's the problem? It's part of the fun of football. That the underdog might beat the giant.

Likewise, if Elon Musk decides to buy Accrington Stanley and then takes them to the Champions League, what's wrong with that either? Are Accrington Stanley fans not even allowed to dream of that happening?

You can see I'm still more concerned about the football than the politics, lol. Although I care about the football so much because it's a perfect illustration of the politics. English football is incredibly successful. It's competitive. It's entertaining. It attracts investment. Yet, here we are, potentially ejecting a successful club from the league, just like we eject our prime ministers. All to satiate the same silly activists that ruin everything with their endless bureaucracy.

Human Reservoirs

I'll try to keep this quick, as I just want to make some notes, but don't really have the energy to pen an entire article. Though, saying that, it takes real effort to be concise and lazy writing tends to wander.

(Oh no, I've already wrote a paragraph and still haven't said anything.)

Focus.

Unemployment - Three Points

The First.

We need to start accepting it as a reality - a natural part of the economy - not a cancer upon it. In the modern world there will always be a wedge of unemployed people. It may be bigger, it may be smaller, but it'll always be there. Its existence isn't the consequence of some moral failing on the part of government or society at large. It's a feature of modern economies, not a bug. And it doesn't care about your moral or political arguments, be they from the left or the right. Yes, these things will affect the size of the wedge, but they will not remove it. The wedge doesn't exist because people on the other side of the aisle have done "bad things" to bring it about.

(It's similar with our empty highstreets. The simple reality is we don't need as much shop space anymore. It's a consequence of technological change. It's not someone's fault. Town centres aren't half empty because someone did something immoral. It's just the way it is now. Accept it. Knock one third of the high street down and plant some pretty flowers or something.)

So, anyway, we need to view that unemployed wedge as a resource; a blessing. A reservoir of untapped potential. Something there if we need it. Not, "Oh my God, what a curse it is to have all these feckless people milling about."

Point Two.

If we're going to lower immigration we need to pre-emptively make it clear to employers that there'll be a dividend to tapping this natural reservoir. For the last 30 years companies have grown dependent on immigration, so haven't needed to train, entice and retain native reservoir workers.

"Look, there are people there, you just have to go and get them."

Yes, it's a bit harder, but it'll be harder still when the tap of immigration is turned off and your company hasn't adapted to this.

Point Three.

This is slightly more abstract, but it needs to be added to the conversation.

Imagine two situations.

Sit. 1

There are two 23 year olds. One works 40 hours a week, the other is unemployed. The employed one has self-confidence and self-worth. However, as they have little spare time they don't take part in other aspects of society: local politics, charity and community work, etc. Whereas the unemployed person has the time, but they're so demoralised and lacking a sense of purpose they don't use it. "How can I help others when I can't even help myself?" they think.

I don't really need to illustrate the second situation. Obviously, what I'm getting at here is that if they both worked 20 hours instead, you'd have two much more productive people. As each would have the self-confidence and spare time to contribute to wider society in other ways, on top of the combined 40 hours of work.

Yes, this is idealistic. People generally work 40 hours a week because they need the money. Plus, you'd have to train both people to do the job, etc, etc, etc. There are countless practical holes. Still, if people are genuinely concerned about living in a society where half the people work to support the other half, we need to start envisioning something different. Even if we just make baby steps towards such ideas.

We need to start looking for the upside. The opportunities that are presenting themselves. A glass half full view of what's on the horizon. We can't go into this viewing vast swathes of humans as valueless. There really is the potential for a better world somewhere in this. A better quality of life. We just need to orientate ourselves better.

I really am meandering now. These definitely aren't bullet points. I'm lost in grey clouds, but at least reaching for the light.

[This is what chatgpt came up with when I asked it to turn the post into an image. It looks fittingly communist lol.]

Goldilocks and the Three Metals

Just over a week ago I did a post titled: Why Gold Standards Don't Work (refresher)

It was the capstone for a little PDF I've put together. Basically a collation of all the articles I've posted on the topic.

The pdf can be downloaded for free here: Goldilocks and the Three Metals

I'll list the links for the articles as well (including a couple of extra ones that weren't included in the pdf). Effectively making this the home page for the topic.

Gold Standards Don't Work

Gold Standards Don't Work: Part II - Goldilocks Knows

Anything Can Be Currency In A World Without Tax

I'm Off The Gold Standard

Why Gold (and Silver) Standards Don't Work: Part III - Human Meddling

Why Gold Standards Don't Work (refresher)

Metals, Markets and Digital Jewellery

Bitcoin: Currencies Are Backed By Cultures

A Money Tree on a Desert Island

The two unincluded ones:

Note To Self: Buy Shares In Stonehenge

Invest in Our Culture