A Guide to the Contents
Alcohol is central to British culture, true you wont find an alcoholic on a postage stamp, well not until they privatize the post office. Anyway, everyone knows that a lot of expert drinking occurs in this fair land but few really understand the product and how fooling around with it could lead to spontaneous combustion. (June 2010) (Dec 2010)
State apologies, that is, sentiments of regret long after the moment's gone, when the public are a bit hazy about the reason for the apology and most of the affected are dead and no compensation is due. (Oct. 2010)
In the Gutenberg Galaxy the messages get lost in the media, the medium becomes the message. Hence, honesty, validity and accuracy are devalued as the media creates images, brands, celebrities, and myths, and then employs armies of people to breathe life into these artificial creations, to spin, exaggerate and distort.
R. D. Laing once observed that the deluded man finds his delusions so obvious that he can't understand why the rest of the world doesn't want to share them. Frequently, however, people do share the delusions of mad men, they believe things are as they are because it's obvious and then, they call it common sense - a shared understanding of the way the world is. The key question to be answered is: how did the world get that way. (April 2010)
Cars are not toys - this may come as a blow to the three man-boys on the BBC's Top Gear - they are tools, they provide a means to an end, i.e., the journey from A to B. Cars should be considered as 'tools of conviviality', objects that enhance human existence not machines that will add a shine to dull wits. (July 2011)
"Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine....... (June 2011)
The Duke of Wellington: back in 1872, is registered as owning 15,800 acres. Today the Land Registry has no record of his holding. The BBC asked the current duke how much land he owned. He declined to tell. The Duke is not alone, his chums are not keen to let on how much land they own either, just in case someone starts asking how they came by it. (Feb 2011)
World Wide Web, provides virtually free access to a vast store of information and resources, a fast means of communication and self-publication. Big business uses it to ply its wares but it doesn't like its openness and freedom. Governments publicly applaud its openness and secretly draw up blueprints to use it as a controlling mechanism. (April 2010)
Social Networking, well that's what happens when people that don't have any friends create a technology that allows citizens to go 'virtual' into a place where people who don't have friends make some and so-called celebrities stay in touch with the fragility of their own sa existence and people die without consequence and yet, occasionally, the technology becomes a positive force... e.g. the elections in Iran or the scandal of Trafigura and the collusion of our justice system. (July 2009), (Aug 2010)
Eritrea, could this east African nation become the next flashpoint for a popular uprising? (Feb. 2011)
Islam, some might argue that Islam is a philosophy, a political ideology but definitely not a a country. True, Islam is definitely not a country. However, at root Islam is more than that because it imagines a nation of Islam, fundamental to its core philosophy. (May 2010)
North Korea, not so much a country, more a comic book fantasy world, unfortunately the Koreans have to live there? (Feb. 2011)
Wilberforce spent decades raising the barbaric practice of human slavery in Parliament. Today's politicians hardly ever utter the word slavery. Yet, slavery is a fact of life for millions of people in this 21st Century. Two hundred years on from the Parliamentary vote to end slavery the situation is worse today than it was when Wilberforce wept tears of joy. (June 2011,)
Water, Water, everywhere, etc., makes a bloody mess of the carpets when the tank in the loft springs a leak, and gets on your nerves famously, when it wont stop falling from the sky. And contrary-wise how marvelous to soak in the bath or feel the revitalizing effects of a hot shower. Without it there would be no life - so why are we not looking after our water supplies - Capitalism, that's why. (April 2010) (Dec 2010)