1786 Moral imperatives v Government Responsibilities

I want to write about sport and some good things but instead I feel duty to record the new horrors in Iraq which appear to have arisen directly from the withdrawal of USA forces to their basis and handing over responsibility for internal security to the Iraq government. Thus the US, the British and the rest of world that is opposed to terrorist states and terrorist religions have been outmanoeuvred again through a combination of media and public ignorance and sentiment. Of course it is horrible that young American and British soldiers are dying in a foreign land where a percentage of the population does not want them there. and it is no more horrible that the slaughter of Iraqi by Iraqi and the deaths of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of Iraqi non combatants who have died during the former regime and a direct consequence of the USA British intervention.

However as I head one young sounding Muslim woman say on the radio while I got myself ready for the day, we are in the era of the Muslim inquisition such as was experienced by Catholics over the world until some enlightenment came to the Catholic church and to the countries where it had become the dominant force in government and society. There will be some Catholics who even today would welcome the return of the Inquisition in relation to their faith, just as there are closet racists and white supremacists who will hold and pas on their prejudices what action government take. Intervention in Iraq may have been motivated by oil interests, perhaps capitalist interests, or political gesturing abroad to cover political inadequacy and incompetence at home and such like reasons but for me it was about opposition the religions and political inquisition.

Once the British and USA troops were restricted to a presence behind bases, the religious and political fanatics of Iran and Pakistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world saw the green light to organise terror in their efforts to achieve their aim of a fanatical Muslim state. There was an added problem because according one expert on the situation. the US government had been paying up to 100000 individuals around $300 dollars a month to provide them with information and keep on their side, that is $30 million month and $360 million a year.

I have started to read a history of the CND movement in Great Britain and the work commences with a chapter about what are nuclear weapons and what happened followed the detonation of two atomic bombs on the civilian population of Japan in 1945. It shortened the war and significantly reduced the number of allied casualties fighting an enemy that saw death in battle as honour and surrender and defeat as meriting suicide. It was the Japanese that made honourable the suicide bomber.

The insurance company who provided replacement money for the lost glasses asked if I had a criminal conviction so I said I had and they asked for an explanation which I then had to repeat to a senior officer so that it could be accurately noted to the database which is shared by insurers world wide. I explained what I did, the element of choice and that while I hated every moment of being in prison I did not regret having expressed my opposition to the use of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and such like whether aimed exclusively at a battlefield army or indiscriminately at a population. There is no moral justification, as there was no moral justification with sending millions of men over the trenches in the First World War knowing that the majority would be slaughtered or injured for life, or fore the bombing by the allies of German cities out of revenge. I accept that there no such thing as honourable combat and I have always accepted that Governments have duties and obligations and that these will cause them to do all kinds of things which are morally unacceptable. This does not negate my belief that ends and means are synonymous and that the majority of those who live by the sword also die by it.

I was also interest by the proposal, I am not sure where, that those writing on the internet about political, religious and such similar matters should be required to put all sides of any argument is much the same way as public broadcaster are required in the UK or at least signal that the writing is biased in favour of one religion or anti religion one party or against one political party. I am in favour of the latter but only if it applies to everyone all the time. This means that the media should also disclose on the internet the original piece of writing or script and the editorial changes made and the political and religious affiliations of all those contributing to the final work published. It is all very well having principles and policies but applying them effectively every day is more an art.

So to sport and Durham Cricket and weather permitting the game against Warwickshire at the Riverside could be the one that effectively settles the championship for Durham. The day did not look promising weather wise until after lunch when the sun came out in long burst and the temperature was hot. I had unintentionally timed my arrival to coincide with the umpires coming to the wicket and the news that Warwickshire had elected to bat.

After two overs Smith changed the bowling bringing on Thorp for Davies. In the early afternoon I was standing at the boundary fence when I was joined by a regular member just as Davies was coming over and who he greeted obviously having spoken to him before, he explained that her had a problem with his bat and although he could bowl again, he was not required given the performance of his colleagues. Thorpe took five wickets for 49 runs an amazingly former captain Dale Beckenstein who came on when the third pair had put on close to 70 and looked if they were settling in had Ar Botha caught when he was 23 and followed this up with Frost for 19 and Surrey for 0. Warwickshire were quickly doomed and despite some resistance by Tahir for 10 were all out for 135 with Sussex who followed Surrey in the batting order. Getting top score of 35.

Durham did not have it all there own way in their first innings with Di Venuto going with Stoneman when the score was 43, Di Venuto was looking exceptionally dangerous having thumped the first three balls on the innings for 4 and was 40 when dismissed with Stoneman getting the other 3. Smith went the score was 87, and Chanderpaul who still one of the great batsmen in the world playing today still finds the English County Game difficult and after scratching around was out for a zero thus taking Durham to 97 for four. It was at this point Benkenstein took on his main role as a batsman and took the score past that of Warwickshire before the day closed, He was joined by Ian Blackwell and both reached their fifties the following morning. The game started 45 minutes late because of rain and there was only about 40 minutes with lunch taken early. Durham had progressed the score to 219 for six with both Beckenstein and Blackwell out. It will be surprising if the lead does not progress beyond 100 so with Warwickshire unlikely to get over 200 in their second innings, only continuing bad weather will prevent Durham having their 7th victory of season getting 18 or 19 points and taken them to 185 points. Hampshire, second from bottom in the table are going exceptionally well at second from the top Notts so even if Notts get a draw this will widen the gap with Durham further. Sussex are nearly 500 for three weeks against Somerset so that game looks like a draw given the pitch or a Sussex win who are again no threat to Durham whereas Somerset are presently third. This only leaves Lancs with outside chance against Yorkshire savouring their first win batting carefully to reach 236 for 7 by this morning when rain has stopped play, so a another draw looks the likely outcome leaving Durham almost impossible to catch up. However I still remember the 12 point lead of Newcastle at the top of the Premiership which Manchester United overcame to take the title.

Newcastle also had a win at home the previous evening. Shola Ameobi scored his fourth goal of the season early on and but for goalkeeper would have had two more. However Newcastle’s frailties are still there and they were lucky to avoid an equalizer for as the second half progressed Sheff Wednesday looked more and more likely to gain the honours from the match, Newcastle held on and finished the evening equal 1st with 7 points and fourth because of goal differences. The interesting fact is that there was a bigger crowd at Newcastle over 43000 than at Sunderland to watch their defeat against Chelsea 41000. This confirms my belief that the people appreciate it is better to watch a team fighting for the Championship than trying to avoid relegation in the Premiership.

The event of the night was Burnley beating Manchester United 1,0 at their first home game at Turf Moor for over three decades. I think I shall say that again. Burnley beat the champions Manchester United by one goal to nil last night. There was dancing in the Kings Road.

I have watched one film, The Human Jungle made in 1954. A policeman passes his law exams and looks forward to spending more time with his wife and avoiding the periods of his job. He is persuaded with little difficulty to take over a precinct where the force has become inward looking allowing the local crime organisation to flourish. The death of one of the girls from the local strip joint 50’s style is the focus of the film and it is inevitable that the police solves the crime, despite the efforts to blacken the name oft he force by the crime boss and obtain his removal.

I enjoyed a previous edition of Torchwood having been interested by the recent series called the Children and which is a cross between the X files and Dr Who. In this episode a number of children are time and dimension disappeared into a rift, it was not explained why it was children and not all ages who disappeared in this way. The female member of the team discovers that her boss knows what has happened and is caring for those who have returned. The focus is the son of a woman that the Torchwood woman is asked by her policeman friend to investigate . The former children are being cared for in an old dilapidated underground wartime facility on an island. Although the boy has only been missing for months he has aged 40 years and is grossly disfigured. Against advice the Torchwood member brings the mother to meet her son who at first cannot cope with his appearance but then realises it is her child and wants to take him to look after him. Then the two realise the impossibility as the former child lets out an ear shattering scream which continues for the greater part of each day. The mother presses the girl not to put other parents in the same position. The truth is not always the best solution for everyone.

There was an element of this about the final Do you Think you are? Present series. Martin Freeman is an actor who starred in the comedy series the Office which brought fame to Rickey Gervais. I did not think he or the series was funny, amusing or entertaining. I can understand why the investigation of the paternal background of Martin Freeman is included in this series but not as the final episode unless it is to give a further warning to family historians that there are skeletons in more family cupboards than heroes and heroines.

The interest was his great grandfather and mother. His grandfather had died at Dunkirk as part of the Ambulance service and Martin was moved to find a plaque at the regimental Headquarters as well as documentation on the incident which caused the death. He was interested how the great grandparents came to Hull and discovered that the great grandfather had been an Organist and blind from birth and attended one of the national schools placed their by his parents who wanted him to have a better life than they could give him and their other children.

The programme revealed that after this education he had become a piano tuner in the Worthing area and played the organ at a local church, He had also become a supplier of piano and organs, married and had a large family of seven children. For some unstated reason it appeared he had been asked to leave the church although the implication was some kind of scandal. There was a gap in what then happened to him although it is then established that he was married two further times, having a child by the second wife and then a dozen children by his third wife six of whom had died in early infancy in succession. This led to the revelation that his wife had inherited a sexually transmitted disease from her father and that one consequence is that it affects the birth of children with miscarriages, followed by death in infancy and then early childhood from inability to thrive. This explained that the couple then had six more children. The great grandmother outlives her husband by several decades being twenty years younger than he on their marriage and she went on to marry twice. To reassure that the revelation was not as special as might be considered, the programme was at pains to point out that in Victorian days one in ten of the population were believed to be carriers of the disease which tends to raise questions about the emphasise suggesting that people had become more promiscuous and prone to sexually transmitted diseases as one outcome of the swing sixties.

I cannot end this piece without also mentioning that there was a lack of appropriate concern on the part of officialdom about the abuse of female blind young people in specialist institutions in the past and by specialist workers in the community. Hopefully the failures of the past have been remedied.

1280 Political speculation

I had intended to experience the film Mission to Mars in 2002 in theatre but the reviews were negative and space technophiles slammed the technical inaccuracies and improbabilities, but this may not have been the reason then why I did not see the film, but the use of subsequent knowledge applied to the past. On Friday February 8th I devoted my full attention to the film which was thoroughly enjoyed and much thought provoking, and where I also looked for relationships with work undertaken before.

The premise of Mission to Mars is a credible tale in which millions of years ago Mars was a living planet inhabited by a colony of advanced humans living a vast distance away from their home planet but with the means to return and to travel elsewhere. When the colony faced destruction they returned home or went off to settle in new worlds but in relation to our planetary system they took two decisions. The first was to launch human DNA potential onto the one planet which also had the potential to sustain similar beings, hence the comparatively sudden evolution of humankind on earth, and secondly they left a construction on Mars which comprised a hologram explanation what happened to the colony, the decisions then taken and the early development of beings into human kind on the earth. Given the proximity of the two plants one query potential story flaw is why some of the being did not immediately settle on the earth, or why it was necessary for the new races of humans to have to evolve in the way we have, reaching only a limited way along the journey of knowledge and enlightenment of the beings in the film, although one explanation for this latter point could be their knowledge of human evolution and that beings needed to advance to the development of having a world space station before deep space exploration becomes possible. The evident weakness of the film is that it is an American enterprise when anyone with any understanding of the way nations develop and then fall away understands that it will be a Chinese domination mission perhaps with Indian, Russian and a token American if such a Mission was to become a reality.

In fairness while the film does not go as far as stating that humans are the superior beings within the universe, the former Martian colonists have taken precautions to prevent non humans or humans without a level of knowledge and understanding, from being able to access the record fo what happened to the plant and its inhabitants. The film story also provides one craft to enable the humans to travel back to the home world/planetary systems. Or home galaxy. The film therefore has a more positive feel akin to Close Encounters of the Third Kind than The War of the Worlds or the Day of the Triffids. The film also has something of the pace of 2001 and 2010 which influenced me greatly at the time they were first released, then more recently because of their black monoliths, which was one inspiration for my concept of creating black monolithical constructions, large black four drawer filing cabinets with welded fronts to enclose the volumes of confidential material included in my 100.75 artman project.

It was purely coincidental that the film arrived within days of talking about the mind boggling endlessness of space and the possibility of individual human life existing in different dimensions. Increasingly I am of the view that although human beings have existed in their billions, speak different languages are of different skin colours and appearances their behaviour is remarkably similar at its core, There is the endeavour to create clones when is seems to me we are cloned already and given the collective sub conscious and collective memory it is understandable that we come to believe we have existed in different times.

This morning I awoke for the third time of the night having a dream where images have bee b retained. I was with a group of survivors rescued where the rescuer was requesting payment from what we had on us. The source of this aspect may have been the news that two sisters aged 106 and 104 and been robbed of cash kept under a settee by men posing a workers from a water company needing to make a check on their system. It will be evident from the report that the two men would have had prior knowledge fo where the money was located and that they kept such an amount of cash, although the amount was not stated. It reminded of the situation before I took over some responsibility for managing the affairs of my mother and her sister and where they kept all their day to day money fro making payments in envelopes in two metal boxes in their respect wardrobes, but as the illness of my mother progresses she commenced to spread the envelopes around he house until I was able to persuade that most of the income was paid direct into bank accounts which they agreed to open and for direct debits for the standing payments for services. They were particularly vulnerable in that they would give gratuities to any and everyone who visited or performed any service to them.

The next part of the dream was that on being rescued, by boat and brought ashore, I found myself in Wallington, but not of today but before I was born, moreover I met someone who had come forward and where trhere had been an article in a the local newspaper about someone with a vivid recollection of things past, which suggested that there had been some form of rip in time at particular place, themes of science fictions TV series and other films and where the concept of time travel and the ability to intervene in time and change the outcome, or not is also a common theme in series such as Dr Who and the Star Trek series.

While my interest in science fiction and the possibility of space and time travel continues to interest me as well as the philosophical and scientific questions of the nature and dimensions of space and time, I am more interested in the present day capacity to view, record and manipulate what we do and say at anytime and anywhere with the appropriate technology, from one computer to another and from satellites in space as well as from planted sound and vision devices and which in terms of my work and I believe the work of any creative contemporary artist should mean that what they do and the way they do it should be available at anytime to anyone anywhere with the technology although with the important caveat of separating that which can and should be public from that which should remain private.

I rarely miss the late night shown programme This Week in which the highlights of the previous political week are discussed by a regular participants chaired by Andrew Neil and former Ministers Ms Abbot and Mr Portillo together with an assortment of studio guests some more articulate and of substances than others. On Thursday of last week one subject which appeared to unite the regulars and those who appeared on Question Time beforehand was the disclosure that conversations between a Member of Parliament and a constituent had been monitored on the authority of the police. The sense of shock outrage by the politicians was not that this was being done in general, but it was being done to them, as many still cling to the belief that because they have become politicians they are exempt from the laws which govern everyone else. It was also evident that some politicians did not understand that the power to bug telephones is different from the power to exercise monitoring and surveillance, or the extent to which we are all now subjected to surveillance by different authorities and agencies officially as well as unofficially.

It is customary for those who operate in business for example or other areas of official and public life to arrange for their premises to be routinely checked for surveillance devices as well as maintaining surveillance system of themselves.

In Thursday evening's programme a studio guest made the accurate point that the controlled work of the official British Security Services was only a fraction of the extent to which public and private agencies were empowered to monitor and collate information and although this was said in defence of the official security services with the argument that because surveillance involved bureaucratic procedures and was time consuming in manpower and processing, its use was restricted to situations of special situations and therefore the Services and Governments could be trusted not to misuse or two widen to everyone. In this programme or discussions on the Daily Politics show the example was given of the situation in one former communist country, I believe East Germany, where it was established that one in every, a small number was involved in providing information to the authorities, a situation which existed to some level with the Communist counties in general, in Nazi controlled nations and dictatorship but not of course in democracies where the rule of law is supreme.

What surprised me in the media discussions is that no connection was made between the news that it was the police who had been empowered to bug the Member of Parliament and the granting by government of the power to monitor and collate information to hundreds of authorities and agencies, thus bring widespread surveillance of all us within the law. These powers often protect and therefore restrict the use of information gained to the particular authority and agencies without permissions. When I was shown around the surveillance system at Newcastle Football club which covered every seat within the ground, we were told that they were only empowered to monitor movement outside the ground within a define radius. I also had the experience of being shown around a different kind of surveillance system which arranged for surveillance both of private sites such as business premises and public car parks for local authorities, so that contact could be made with the those paying for the service and the police or the emergency authorities if a situation arose. There were audio visual records by every camera. In the United Kingdom there are now more surveillance cameras in operation in public and private places than anywhere else in the world. It does not take a genius to work out that it is not necessary for the official British security services to undertake most of the surveillance themselves as they can rely on any and all of the other empowered bodies to cooperate in relation to particular individuals and situations, or to draw attention to particular individuals and situations arising in the course of their day to day work. This however only covers official and legitimised surveillance from within the UK and there are two other sources which are additional to the accumulative and quantitative extent covered so far. The first is illegal surveillance conducted by competitors, the media and villains with the celebrated instances in recent decades involving member of the Royal family. However there is also the work of other security forces conducted from outside the shores of the UK and from space.

I decided to pass on this information to others before writing something of this which was intended to be put online through myspace last night but through tiredness did not do so and therefore could have incorporated the row which developed yesterday, but which because I was out for the greater part of the day and more interested in football than the news, until the ten pm news before Match of the Day, that the Oppositions leaders were calling for a major enquiry following the disclosure that police had operated a comprehensive surveillance of conversations at a maximum high security prison accommodation both those held or imprisoned in relation to security matters and other major criminals. The programme pointed out that an official statement did not deny the practice and a well known human rights lawyer argued that if this was correct then it had implications convictions where information obtained by such means had been used without the knowledge of the individuals and their legal representatives.
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It amazes me, and it also does not that Members of Parliament, especially those in the Commons, have only recently appeared to understand the law of unintended consequences as it applies to government, the making of or amending of laws and their administration. The subject was also recently covered in an exchange on the Daily Politics Show. It has been my experience that most politicians, the media and most of the general public take no interest in the implementation of new legislation and monitoring its effectiveness and usually the interest is only aroused when something goes wrong. Most legislation is not in fact implemented as intended by the Government or those within Parliament who scrutinise and debate. Sometimes the government does not introduce specific changes, although this usually happens when governments change, or change their minds with the most effective way of achieving inaction is not to subsequently approve the finance and the staffing required. Usually however the problem is that insufficient attention is given to unintended consequences. This is typical of bureaucracies especially those led by politicians. In business before any new plan or development is given the go ahead there is a detailed investigation into things like potential markets and costs and options available, but also to what can go wrong in relation to materials, and government and trade union involvements, hence the wisdom of moving production to countries with loss cost and fewest regulatory controls and that most companies aim to spread their interests between countries so that no one country can have a disproportionate influence over the direction and profitability of the company. I find it difficult to believe that governments of recent decades do not undertake an analysis of unintended consequences whenever legislation is brought before the Parliament in relation to new legislation, This used to be the situation and I retain the vivid memory on a visit to the House of Lords where I was monitoring the passage of legislation and had access to the visitors area on the floor of the House, where the Commons stands for the Queen's speech at the state opening of Parliament, to be advised that following representations by an interest over a good meal the Minister had instruction a new amendment which meant that an independent person had to be appointed in situations where a young person in what had been an approved school and which became a community home with education on the premises has been resident for three months without a visitor. Previously the responsibility for visiting such children had rested with the probation service and there was anxiety in some quarters about child care workers undertaking this role. However the amendment was introduced and passed in the lords, reported to the Commons who also agreed and the matter became law. Now here is the rub, when the matter came to be implemented it was discovered that no one in the approved schools/community homes with education on the premises qualified for the appointment of any independent visitor who had to be selected, trained and worked organised and monitored. However it was then discovered that the legislation did apply to special schools where overall responsibility rested with the Education Ministry.

This was clearly a good thing although it was an unintended consequence. The obvious way to avoid such situations is to ensure that before any new legislation is introduced or amended an analysis is undertaken of likely unintended consequences, Ever since attending the Henley Management college twenty years ago it has been my understanding the upper echelons of the civil services included creative intellects as do businesses of any substance and therefore I assumed that by now government, at least at national level would be automatically including an analysis of unintended consequences as part of the drafting and implementation planning process. I now suspect given the way the cost of some building projects have escalated from the Dome to the Scottish Parliament and the 2012 Olympic games, and the way in which collated data has being going astray, that this is not the situation, although the decision of the Prime Minister to initiate some fifty reviews hopefully indicates that this will now become the situation.

This brings me on to two other examples of the law of unintended consequences occurring over the past 48 hours or so. The minor one is the decision of the Premier League Chief executive to announce that consideration has been given to extending the league by one game a season to be played outside the united Kingdom, and this follows the decision to play one regular season American Football game at Wembley which was sold out. There has been almost universal horror expressed that this is a bridge too far, from the Prime Minister, top sports commentators and fans. What a lot of hypocritical baloney.
Some twenty years ago Professional football in Britain was in terminal decline, with grounds appalling and unsafe, attracting the foul mouthed, racists and bigots, breeding grounds for violnce in and outside the stadium. We were rightly kicked out of European competition. It has taken two decades and the involvement of Sky and other commercial TV interests to produce the situation today with all seater stadiums with a wide range of facilities to cater for most pockets except the poor, in safety, freed from violence, racism and swearing, enabling everyone to see live some of the best players in Europe and from further affield, whether they go to the stadium or on television, terrestrial, digital, satellite and cable and the internet in their homes or places of entertainment. The ambition of most premiership clubs and their supporters is also watch their team compete against other teams in Europe and when this happens there are always sufficient supporters willing and able to meet the costs of doing so at home and away, as well as for game played away from the home ground. The amount of games shown live with repeated viewings has been increasing and it is also possible to experience games from other European leagues particularly those in Spain and Italy which also compete for the best players and managers. It is not accident that some of the proven great managers now come to England, and that one of these has become our national manager or that clubs are being bought by individuals and consortia from around the world. It is inevitable that there will be development from a European to a an international scale. There have been and will be unintended consequences for all this.

The atmosphere at individuals games has changed and has at times to be organised, such as at Newcastle with the provision of free scarves to wave, or the issuing of coloured cards to create ground wide visual effects, whereas fans would congregate for an hour before game started now the majority take their seats within ten minutes of the start. This is sometimes bemoaned but was an inevitable consequence however unintended. If the majority of seats are season and controlled then families, friends and groups cannot chose where to congregate within the stadium seating so they meet up beforehand around the bars within and outside grounds. Another moan is that the time of games used always to be at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon with only international games played midweek and domestic cup replays games played midweek. Now games are not only played every day of the week but at weekends there are midday games early and late afternoon and early evening games played in addition. This is because of the increase in competitions and the commercial logic of not holding live televised games at times which could affect crowds at other games particularly the other league games using the traditional 3pm start. Doing this, far from adversely affecting the number of those buying tickets, travelling awayr or buying into viewing systems has had the opposite consequence and the only reason why fans stop going to games is when their team plays badly over a long period although some clubs can drop divisions or play badly for years and still command great support as with Sunderland and Newcastle who can fill 100000 seats although neither club has won any competition for thirty years and more, or at regulated Leeds or Manchester City before the arrival of an overseas coach.

For me with an interest in the creation of a European and Earth World order all moves which superimpose internationalism on nationalism are to be commended especially if there is appropriate analysis in advance of unintended consequences and planning to deal with these if the consequences are adverse to the extend that they will undermine the effectiveness of the desired change.

This brings me to the Archbishop of Canterbury and his statement part of a the world wide move by religious leaders that state law should take account of religious fundamentals as part of the growing awareness that the common ground of Godliness, morality and spirituality between religions is of great significance that the differences when it comes to confronting the ungodly and those without any morality or spirituality. Time has run out for me to day so I will refer again tomorrow.

1274 Matter, Time, Space God

I do not understand the true nature of matter, or the nature of our ability to measure, quantify, and define matter, and which in turn raises issues such as what is reality and do we only exist in one dimension at any one time, as well of course what do we mean by time and place?

I was stimulated to write this after staying up to watch a BBC 2 programme on the nature of the atom, its discovery, with that of anti matter, and the implication if matter and anti matter come into contact, the subsequent discovery of the composition of the atom into particles and the subsequent understanding of the existence of sub particles and the attempt to provide one unifying and coherent construction of the nature of matter, with what we know about the apparent absence of matter in terns of endless space and the concept of black holes, of gravity and light, in others words to understand the universe and therefore God. The main point of the programme was to make the case for the existence of different dimensions in which different versions of each of us exist.

There were three subjects arising from the programme that fitted in with my own thinking and understanding but also much which I need to study more and attempt to grasp the concepts.

This will be impossible without grasping, learning the language of mathematics and physics, and of philosophy and language itself and where I know that time has run out for me because of the difficulties I have in sustained learning. There have been subjects where I learnt the theory, the knowledge and the practical application, of psychology and psychoanalysis, of criminology, of child care social work, generic social work, local authority social services management, local authority management, general management and more recently art. I also know something of the histories, of logic and philosophy, of religions, of literature, drama, music and dance and I know that I can move from ignorance to understanding and enlightenment quickly if I have the interest and give my time and attention.

However there are some things which I have always find difficult to impossible and on of these is language, There was a brief period when at school I grasped the concept mathematics whereas now I cannot explain what algebra and trigonometry are. At the time the maths teacher spoke of me as having great potential as I had moved from the C to the B and to the A stream and became friends with a small group who were the brains of the class. I was handicapped in a way I or others did not fully appreciate or understand. I had been kept back at St Elphege to repeat the penultimate year and when I moved to the John Fisher School I had been placed in the third stream of the year for my actual age thus missing out all the basic learning of what should have been my introduction year, from playing cricket and football, to physics and chemistry, Latin and Greek, and French and not having been given the basics I was never able to catch up but managed to proceed with religious instruction, history, English Language and Literature and Mathematics and it was on the basis of these subjects that I was awarded the B form annual prize. Whether my experience would have been different had not lost that year and had reached the grammar school, I strongly doubt because of the way I had been brought up and the problem I had with learning the language of things and then remembering quickly enough, especially at examinations.


So I struggled with half baked questions and half baked knowledge until in my first year at Ruskin, we were invited to attend a series of weekly lectures at the college building in the centre of Oxford which attempted to explain the level of knowledge and understanding of man and he university in the early sixties. The lectures were a revelation as they answered so many of the questions, as well as identifying the issues where the questions remained to be answered. I became aware of what there was to know as well of what I did not know. I wanted to go on and take a degree in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford where the college had a special arrangement which meant we could bypass the first public examination and which then involved a paper in Latin, if I remember accurately, but I could not grasp economic theory to my satisfaction although I obtained Alphas and Beta's double pluses from my tutor who was the deputy of the college much to the disbelief of the main economics tutor who knew that I had failed to work at the language and the building blocks to the subject and was hopeless when it came to quantification and statistics. So I opted for psychology and criminology and had the good fortune to be able to do this by stating I intended to become a social worker, a probation officer which seemed rational although the idea of being involved with prisons and adult criminals had little appeal, and it was again fortunate that that practical work involvement with the Family service units, which in turn resulted in my spending a long weekend with a group of young adolescents and I found I could communicate and this led to placements involving child care and the switch from probation to child care. Meanwhile I had been allocated a leading experimental behavioural psychologist as my tutor for psychology and he was to influence me to two very different ways. It was he who invited me to be a guest at a small university dining club of those who were not members of colleges and therefore were unable to enjoy the top table dining with influential guests and who created their own monthly occasions of several course quality meals with a variety of wines. Into days terms I am talking of £100 plus per participant. This opened up one doorway. The other was his attempt to persuade me to abandon the idea of social work and be considered for the other Oxford degree course where if selected one went straight on to the studying for the second public examination honours degree, philosophy and psychology. However I found incomprehensible the books which he game me to read and which required an understanding of the basic language, and this only reinforced my sense of limitation and the rightness of the course I was set on following.

I had these two experiences very much in mind last night when very tired I listened with an increasing of wow to the issues raised in the programme The first issue was that of the possibility that we exist in more than one dimension at any single moment. The following notes will only demonstrate to those with the knowledge and its language how much I have to learn and understand but I write it down as a means of seeing in the future where I was to when I have then reached

First the theoretical conceptual point that if everything, me, the rock beneath me and the plants and stars above me at this moment are all made of the same substance which exists as matter and anti matter but in combinations which result in the human form that can ask the question of why does one collection of the same material result in me and another as rock and more still as a planet and a star, and that each and every collection of matter exists with its anti matter but inhabits dimensions which if brought together would release all destroying energy that we exist in at least two dimensions at the same time, something explored in programmes such as Dr Who and Lost, the X files and the Star Trek series. What one leading British Physicist and philosopher attempted to explain last night is that the issues which have emerged through the find of sub particles to the particles of the atom and the discovery of a subsequent series of presently unconnected particles is the theoretical possibility of existing in an unlimited number of dimensions and which in turn raises important issues about the nature of reality. I have previously written about my mother and those with severe memory loss and clinical psychosis in which they believe in the reality of where they are and the time they are, so that parents, childhoods, and past experiences are as real to them as writing this at my desk is to me now. . One of my favourite dreams is when I can fly by propelling myself off my feet into the air. I am in my bed when this happens, and although I fall asleep on the settee or at this desk, I cannot remember ever dreaming, except when I am in my bed. However in the dream I am elsewhere and this is reality to me so I exist in two places at the same time and often in several places more comparable to travelling at the speed of light that than by conventional means or through my ability to fly without any energy as a propellant other than my will. Who needs substances Baby? (I use the Baby in salute to Mr Savalas whose comedy film with James Mason and Robert Culp entertained me over lunch).However the point of the programme was not to argue that we exist as one entity in different dimensions, as clones, but that different version of us exist in each dimension although we do not necessarily exist in every dimension. I hope that was he point being made.

Until tonight I have often speculated about the relationship between the emptiness of parts of space as well as the concept of its limitlessness. Brought upon the Catholic concept everything having a beginning and end, the concept of endless space has always been mind boggling, The concept of space has also been of emptiness as much as of matter, helped by the concept of the black hole and of the vacuum

What I learnt last night is that it is not correct to imply that at any point between measurable matter, including in the creation of a vacuum there are no particles of matter with their energy and the programme explained how this theory kept quite because the individual thought it would lead to ridicule was subsequently proved through experiment which if I understand involved two inanimate plates suspended motionless in space but where over time there is measurable movement.
In those lectures of 1961/1962 the one concept which lingered in temporary was the concept of number as a fixed reality based on what happened when you divided one by 3, 6 7 or 9. At one point the programme explained the ability to experimentally prove a definitive measurement but then went onto argue the limitations of all measurement, even through formulae, as this is only an approximation of the substance in its ever changing forms and to demonstrate the point went through a mock up what happens to a cat in a special box contained with internal apparatus which releases a lethal substance in such a way that in theory the cat is alive and dead at the same time but we can never know this because one the box is opened the cat is dead, a bit like trying to work out what happens to human beings before human being immediate before and after death from their perspective and experience rather than objectively monitoring what happens to them before and after death.

However the aspect which excited me most was the attempt to some to try and unify all the questions and available answers in relation to the atom has its particles with those in relation to gravity, and light and energy thus we have substance and the positioning of everything in relation to each other form of substances, the distance between substances and the ability to travel between substances, especially those at the furthest distances of our present ability to measure and to understand. That is the nature of universe and life and the nature of the reality of God once we jettison the concept of God as a human entity and accept that individual men and women are capable of understanding something of the nature of God and of communicating aspects to others and therefore can be considered to posses characteristics more like God than man, but this is not the same as being God or being especially chosen representative with the power to determine humans should live and not live. I had considerable sympathy with one contributor to the programme who argues that we should not devote time to trying to answer questions where we know we cannot answer and may never be able to answer but use our present knowledge to answer questions which can be resolved and which in turn will help secure and progress the future of humanity. However I also had sympathy with the programme author who reminded of the Spanish Inquisition which attempted to persuade Galileo to modify his position that the earth revolved around the sun into something which would enable the majority of believers to continue with the notion that the sun revolved around the earth with the concept of heaven above and hell below. I will reports on my progress from time to time

For the greater part of yesterday I was with my mother as I looked at the photographs taken during the four and half year she was in residential care, deciding on those to print to complete an album I had started at least a year ago, if not more. Nearly 100 were selected to add those already printed, a total of 116, two a sheet, leaving several pages for a version of the events in her life, which I will write later in the week.

I had planned to go out as the sky was blue and it seemed warmer but I decided to complete wok from yesterday, photographing the work and then a volume which was partially completed of large print descriptions of photographs and large print events in her life which she could read without glasses.

Because of the time needed to print photographs I was able to watch TV and after lunch of a large fulsome soup and a roll a great piece of nonsense in which Telly Savalas joined forces with James Mason and Robert Culp and others to break into a maximum security prison in Berlin holding a former Nazi who had been responsible for hiding gold for Hitler. Take him out for 24 hours while they persuaded him that Hitler was still alive and wanting to know where the gold was hidden and then returning him to the prison, only to find that the gold was hidden in what was East Germany when allied office could travel through the Wall blockade only to find that a new property had been built over the shelter when the gold was hidden, but a small explosion would enable them to reach the treasure and this then required the help of as former Nazi comrade of James Mason who in turn alerts the Communist authorities whose leader is open to corruption for a share arranging the building and neighbourhood to be evacuated to deal with an unexploded bomb, and who then attempts to take all the hoard but is fortunately thwarted and they are able to return to West Berlin, return the imprisoned Nazi and after some other potential disasters, get away with it. Which is unusually for Hollywood. This reminds sometime I must write about James Mason and his some 130 films made between 1935 and 1984 the year of his death, with the last film released in 1985 which is a rate of more than two films a year for half a decade. Amazing, what is also interesting that I appear to have seen at least one hundred of them.

Later in day as I printed pictures I was diverted by a good family film staring Johnboy of the Walton's Richard Thomas Winner for the Wonderboys who had become so preoccupied with his father's business that he had stopped listening to his daughter who was unhappy in college wanting to become song writer missing mother, just as her grandmother approaching the 50th anniversary of her marriage was missing her husband. Grandmother persuades grand daughter accompany her on 2000 miles road trip to the former home built with her husband to retrieve a lucky gold coin (one film flaw as it would have never been left when they moved or retrieved sooner to the church where they had married, arrested en route for skinny dipping in a private pool and then breaking out of the local jail ( also a credibility flaw(then winning at Vegas in the last throw of the dice so to speak, having used the pawned proceeds of the gold coin, then retrieved and handed to her son, who sees the light and rejoins them for the disbursing of ashes at Annie's point where they had hoped to buy land and build their ideal home at one point in their lives together, having shortly before the ending reunited with a brother separated for years because of differences. Despite all the sugar and story flaws it was an important film for me on what proved to be a significant day.

It had opened with a documentary profile on the Estafan's with that incredible moment of one day meeting the US President and the next day involved in an accident which threatened to make her chair bound and which nearly killed their son. They all survived to become influential figures in the music and entertainment business as well as leading Cubans in the USA.

The reality programme of the day was the third episode of Ross Kemp's tour of Afghanistan with the Anglian regiment and which ended with the circumstances of he death of one of their number and an interview with the mother and father, and that memorable moment she explained that he said he wanted her to be proud of him and bring her back a medal, and she had replied that she only wanted him to return unharmed.