Christmas Thoughts 2008

I begin again to write the first of three days. I will report first my experience of Christmas Day 2008. The day commenced with Midnight Mass, which had already commenced at 11 pm British time, celebrated by the Pope at St Peter’s in Vatican City, and it ended for the purpose of this writing with The Messiah by Handel from the Barbican Concert Hall in London. The morning commenced with Carols requested by listeners.

The event of unique importance for me and for everyone was an investigation spread over two hours by Channel Four by an academic religious and cultural historian trying to establish if any part of the Christmas story had a historical basis. Such a programme will have been enjoyed by Jew and Muslim theologians and some believers, and would have been banned in parts of the USA. It will have horrified evangelical churches throughout the world who base their beliefs and teachings upon scriptural writings. However while the programme raises major questions about historical accuracy which could lead top some questioning and losing their faith, it is not a programme about faith or the power of faith and the mind over the physical and the material.

Had such a programme been about Mohammed and the Muslim faith all those connected with the programme would have been declared enemies meriting immediate elimination.

I forgot the time difference between here and Italy and when just before midnight I went in search of midnight mass on the box and caught the last part of a live red button relay from St Peter’s on Sky channel News. I watched to reflect on the lives of my care and birth mothers and their faith, and on decisions regarding my approach to aspects of their lives in the future.

Christmas Day, morning commenced with Classics FM carols while I decided how I was feeling and what kind of day I should experience given the great cook after the great defrost the previous day and a refrigerator filled with plates of cooked but, cold chicken, slices of beef, salmon fish cases and breaded fish.

God Rest you merry Gentleman I bringing you tidings of Joy; Joy to the World.

Away in a Manager for William aged 4 years. Hark the Herald Angel’s Sing.

Twelve Days of Christmas for Patrick aged eight years from Ireland.

Sleigh Ride but is it a Carol?

Christmas Carol John Rutter.

Overture French Carol. The Holy and the Ivy.

Ding Dong Hosanna in Excelsis Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Bach -Christmas Oration

Sussex Carol-Kings college.

Hallelujah-Handel.

Winters Snow, Oh Holy Night.

Mary’s lullaby John Rutter,

Jingle Bells.

It was time for other things and for lunch. I had bathe, shaved, did my hair, put on fresh clothes and shoes. I was not expecting callers but it was Christmas Day.

In the evening there was a choice of viewing, not the unlimited choice one might have expected with such a captive audience for one day of the year when everything everywhere providing entertainment was closed.

I had marked down as priority the latest Robert Beckford demolition of the academic historical basis for the Christian adherence to the scriptures. Robert Beckford has provided similar programmes over the past four years with Who wrote the Bible in 2004 and attempted to show that what is known as the Bible, especially the New Testament has been the subject of selectivity, including some early texts but excluding others, and was also written by those who often not contemporary witnesses of the situations described and overall was rewritten according to changing needs and circumstances of those controlling the religions. The film appeared on Christmas Day

Two years later on Christmas Day Channel Four showed the second programme which provided the evidence that Jesus was created to John the Baptist and that his family unit consisted of four brothers and two sisters and that his Ministry passed to his eldest brother James and also covered his actual relationship with Mary Magdalene

Last year the Christmas Day programme investigated the historical evidence for aspect of the story of Jesus in earlier religions.

In addition in 2006 Channel Four showed a programme called Ghetto Britain and the BBC also showed programmes on colonial history from the Afro Caribbean perspective, and also in 2006 there was a film about religion and the cinema entitled The Passion: Films and Fury.

Earlier this year a film, the Secrets of the Disciples showed how Judas became demonised and the role of the female Apostles. I obtained the following information about Robert from his official site.

“ Dr Robert Beckford is an educator, author and award-winning broadcaster. An educator for most of his life, he first taught adult literacy at Bournville College in Birmingham in the early 1990s and progressed to become the first ever tutor in Black Theology at Queens College, Birmingham (1992-8) where he taught trainee priests and ministers for the Anglican and Methodist churches.

He began teaching at the University of Birmingham in 1999, working first as a Research Fellow with black offenders at Birmingham Prison and then moving to the faculty as the first Lecturer in Black Theology in 2001. He spent two years as the Reader in Black Theology and Popular Culture at Oxford Brookes University, and is currently teaching as an associate lecturer at Cambridge University.

Robert is the author of five academic texts in the field of religion, culture and politics, including a study of Rastafari and Pentecostalism (Dread and Pentecostal 2002), Gang Culture in Birmingham (God and the Gangs 2004) and a Theology of Reggae-Dub (Jesus Dub 2006). His current research explores the role of documentary film as resistance to the bewitchment of black British Christianity by a-politicism and anti intellectualism (Documentary as Exorcism, Continuum 2010).

A firm believer in teaching for social change, Robert has retained a commitment to teaching outside of traditional contexts, including community groups, care homes and male prisons. An extension of his organic approach to intellectual matters led him into broadcasting in 1999.

Robert has presented a plethora of documentaries on radio and television and made his debut in the Trevor Phillip’s series, Britain’s Slave Past. He quickly moved on to work on number of programmes with BBC 4 including Ebony Towers (2001). Robert presented his first mainstream feature length documentary in 2002 for BBC 2 on the story of Jamaican Independence (Blood and Fire) and earned a BAFTA for diversity in educational broadcasting for a six part series for BBC Religion (Test of Time 2002). He began working with Channel 4 in 2003 and struck up a dynamic partnership with the commissioning editor, Aaqil Ahmed.

To date Robert has averaged an impressive two films per year with Channel 4, becoming a regular fixture on the prime time television slots of Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. He even found time to present a weekly BBC West Midlands Radio Show in Birmingham 2006/7. As one of the most prolific black documentary presenters in Britain, his credits include God is Black (2004), Empire Pays Back (2005), The Secret Family of Jesus (2006), The Great Africa Scandal (2007), The Secrets of the 12 Disciples (2008) Decoding the Nativity (2008)and The Dark Ages and the emergence of an English inclusivity(2009).

His films for channel 4 have earned him a ‘controversial’ label which he interprets as, ‘a cultural field that can only locate black men as athletes, entertainers or problematic.’

Secure with his modest success, Robert has worked to develop talent within the African and African Caribbean community, including Andy Akinwolere (Blue Peter)and Jazz artist Soweto Kinch. Robert is currently turning his hand to TV drama and is currently collaborating with playwright and actor, Kwame Kwe-Armah on a gritty but redemptive urban series.”




The Wikipedia article give the impression that he is still the Reader In Black Theology and popular culture at the Oxford Brookes University, based on the former City Technology college and which became the alternative University in the City and for the County, on Headington Hill having taken over the estate of Robert Maxwell at Headington Hall which was opposite the former technical College during my first year at Ruskin and then when I lived for just over a year at Headington.

In the present programme there is not much of the present Christmas Nativity story which remains unchallenged. I spent the greater part of Saturday morning two days later trying to view the programme again using the Channel Four player in order to ensure that I was able to follow up the programme with other research

Who was Mary and where did she live is the first question behind this programme? The first problem is that Nazareth does not appear to have existed as place until several hundred years after her death but there is the remains of what would have been the largest urban area in Galilee at that time and which was the scene of much trouble between the local inhabitants of the Roman occupiers which much rape of young women and boys.


This brings to one of the central beliefs of Catholicism but a lesser extent of other Christian faith except the Evangelical: The virgin Birth. The programme presents the issue that as an orthodox Jew given that the New Testament indicates Mary, Joseph and Jesus were, had Mary become pregnant outside of marriage because of a loving relationship she and her lover would have been stoned to death. The programme argues that the more likely option was the she along with others was the subject of rape by Roman soldiers and there is recorded references to Jesus being the son of particular Roman soldier and that the child was accepted by Joseph as his own.

There is also the matter that one of the writers of the New Testament scriptures which were accepted into the Catholic and subsequent Christian Bibles goes to great length to demonstrate the Joseph was 27th generation descendent of King David of Bethlehem, and important thing to do because of the Old testament prophecy that the Messiah be a descendent of Davis and would be born in Bethlehem. Given the evidence which Beckford collated for his earlier programme that Jesus had brothers and sisters, the argument that Joseph was in fact the normal father must also be considered a strong possibility.

Just as December 25th is the day of a pagan festival, the year of broth remains debatable for reasons related to the reign of King Herod and the reference to the reason for the trip to Bethlehem was the census. The census took place when Jesus was about ten years of age and there is no evidence that Jews would have been required to move to their ancestral home places assuming that they knew there these were. The whole Bethlehem nativity is a theological creation to show that the prophecy had been fulfilled.

Moreover of the two scriptural reference one refers to Jesus born in a house/home and the other, presuming the tie in with Bethlehem that there was no room in the Inn. The reference to Stable and feeding troth (manger) are only in one scripture and can be argued as part of fitting the birth into the Messiah prophecy. If one examines the houses used by Jewish citizens at that time then the birth warmest have taken place in the best and warmest room within the property and which would have shared animals.

The Nativity as performed by children in schools throughout Christian based countries provides a picture of a birth with Joseph, Shepherds and visiting kings. However the reality that for a birth at time the men would have played no part until the cleansing ritual would have been completed. The Shepherds represent the the ordinary Jewish people at that time who in fact only grazed their sheep between March and November. There is also only reference to wise men from the East who later became kings and one black. This was a later addition to reflect the development of Ethiopia which a Christian country several centuries later and the largest and second most powerful country at the time. Most Catholic and Christian theologians regard this part of the nativity as a development, flowering one put it, which became a picture with the Renaissance.

Robert then produces the conclusion from with which eh started. The story of the Nativity as it has come to be handed down through the Christian church is a theological creation to help the development on what became a new religion in the centuries following the death of Jesus. The writers of the New Testament scriptures about the birth were not historians or contemporary witnesses but they were writers recording their beliefs and their faiths to be passed on to others. For Catholics and Christians there is the divinity of Jesus through his birth and his resurrection after human death offering eternal salvation.

To understand the power of this concept listen to the Handel’s Messiah as I did on Christmas Day evening with Sir Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra for the last time before becoming its president, a position which has not been filled for close on two decades. But if one really wants to understand the nature and power of faith then I reflect on the years, the months, the weeks and the days and then final moments of the death of my mother

Philosophy of Time and Space

The most important issue facing the United States of America is not who will become the President but how soon will alternative heating, lighting and motor energies enable the recreation of the economy as China become the mass production centre of the world. Watching John Snow as he travelled the 1000 miles of West Coast America this evening he suggested ways in which the nation might be changing to maintain its economic edge over China and compete profitable with the Europe and remain the world's greatest capitalist economy once the recession is overcome.

The first was a sustainable population base which included a sufficient stream of talented young people who formed the creative entrepreneurial force fuelling the economy, and surprisingly suggested that in addition to providing a competitive work in the lower paid service industries, the Latino migration might need to be stimulated as well as controlled. There are parallels with the arrival of about 1 million people from Poland to the UK since the extension to the E.E.C and the concern being expressed that their departure will have adverse effects on the British economy unless there is a significant change in the level of education and the approach to work of about a fifth British school leavers each year. John Snow visited a school in a poor neighbourhood gang ridden area which had its own police security services but was being transformed with a million dollar decorative make over which was hoped to change a situation where only a fifth left school with the basics of education attractive to employers. own police force. A key element of the Barack campaign is the need for a programme which addressed the costs of higher education which disabled sections of the community with potential for contributing to economic growth.

His visit to Seattle underlined that positive nature of the relationship with China as the total export from Washington State was greater than the imports and where people of Chinese and Asian origin now formed fifteen percent of the population and where one recent governor was of the descendent of third generation who had come to the America to be a servants and to wash dishes while learning the languages and lifestyle. However the problems as with the rest of Europe that the trade involved the exporting of production jobs to China, India and other developing economies and will consequential impact on the jobs and lives of the workers and their families displaced. Interestingly Senator McCain is more committed to free trade and Senator Obama to Protectionism.

It was difficult to accept the generalizations being made based on single interviews John Snow also visited a church which meets in a school assembly hall and where the pastor criticised the way George Bush had identified one form of Christianity with his party, suggesting a moral superiority in addition to economic. This church prayed for a global Christianity among a world of different faiths and expressed concern at the way Christianity had been hijacked by politicians in a particular way. Until then he had not found evidence of any significant change in lifestyle required in an economy over dependent on externally supplied energy and needing to reduce the overall level to combat the effects of global warming. He visited I believe in Portland a growing community in Portland who are attempting a major qualitative lifestyle change on a large scale although the extent of this project was not spelt out and there have always been small communities attempting to live according to different values from the mainstream. Such projects are important but there are two development which could make the difference, the first is the alternative to oil for use with the combustion engine and he visited an enterprise who have developed a sports car able to travel from 0 to 60 within a few seconds operating on a battery giving a mileage of 250. However the firm are in the process of developing a saloon vehicle with a greater range which could be start of the change from the combustion engine to battery and eventually solar power. One feels that no significant change will be made until batteries can be charged as they are driven given the usual recharge time required.

His other visit, which in my judgement was the most significant, was to a firm trying to develop solar energy receptors and converters which could provide the heating and power source energy on the kind of scale and at a price which not just reduced dependency on overseas oil but changed the balance in energy use and impact on the environment. For me the future of humanity on planet earth is presently finite and its future will depend on space travel, and possibly the existence of intelligence at higher level of development than human.

This brings me to the substantive Wikipedia article about the Philosophy of Space and Time and which involves questions such as do space and time exist independently of the mind and whether they exist independently of each other. And to questions of dimensions other than the four of breadth, depth, width and time, and about individual identity especially the nature of identity over time.

For a long period of time during my life I was in disarray because I thought that that proponents of diametrically opposed propositions were right, and I had no means of explaining this to myself or anyone else. I was more inclined to idealism than scientific realism. Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason which I attempted to read and understand as part of my Ruskin Diploma course in Politics and Economics before I changed to Public and Social Administration, argues that things like space and time are mind created systematic frameworks to enable us to understand and make sense of our experience but question their existence independently of individual perception and individual understanding.

At the time I was much affected by the problems of number and how number was also a construction to help understand the world perceived as external to ourselves. If you divide 1 by 3 you get .3333333 recurring, but if you multiply .3 by 3 you get.9, you multiply.33 by 3 you get .99 and so on indefinitely. So where is the missing .11111? Number is therefore a concept we can communicate to others and which we can use to count and to measure but is only an approximation and device to explain and work on aspects of external reality. Yesterday I talked of the reality of a box and raised whether it exists independently of those who perceive it, arguing that it did because I could see and describe and move away and forget my knowledge of it, but others could continue to view that experience throughout eternity if it was projected/transmitted at the same time as when I viewed and continued after I ceased viewing, or was recorded and subsequently transmitted, or because others could establish that the box continued to exist in the form I had seen and touched and where their description at different times was identical to mine.

I have become a realist by thought and experience, believing that time and space not only exists independently of my own mind, and of all other human minds, but have always existed and will always continue to exist as they did before human beings on earth evolved and after they do not exist on earth.

I also accept that the way we presently understand the extent of the universe within the totality of space and the position and the movement of components of the universe has only been described by human beings, and that it is irrational to presume that there are no other beings existing or who have existed or will exist who possess greater understanding and ability to explain and describe the nature of the universe, and its space and time, or to assume that we will not be able to communicate with such beings because of their ability to travel through space and time, or our future ability to do so.

The first and best example of this is the assumption usually made that we can only move forward in time. At present my movement between Newcastle and London is governed by the known maximum speed of flight as is my potential movement to the Moon or to the Planet Mars. If I develop ways to escalate the speed of travel to better than a second a second, to say two seconds a second and I travel up and down over the same spot for a period one hour, then I will arrive back 30 minutes into the future of everyone who has not travelled. In theory therefore if I travel up and down for one year at the speed of two seconds a second, I will return a year ahead in time of everyone else and theoretical I should also be to travel back in time, as when we film an event we can then play it backwards whether with a traditional tape film or a digital DVD and we can do this endlessly and if something falls and breaks we can witness it being reassembled. However in our present direct experience we cannot recreate a once broken glass, a feat accomplished by Merlin in the film yesterday when he spilt the contents of a container and used magic to reverse what happened. We will not need magic if we travel back as well as ward faster than the present measurement of time
At the present time we can remember what has happened in the past, individually and collectively but we are limited in terms of predicting the future, although as with weather forecasting, tide tables and other phenomenon previously considered beyond prediction significant progress has and is being made. We have also been able to measure the age of things going back thousands and hundred of thousands of years. So while we now think of time as only having a forward movement in terms of unknown things about to happen and measuring what has previously happened, it is irrational to suppose that human or other being will not devise ways of both predicting future behaviour with increasing accuracy and of proving such predictions by moving forward in time and moving back.

I have touched on the question of perception and consciousness but not the subconscious or the main questions about the nature of individual identity and changes in identity.

I converted myself to the view that in addition to our immediate self awareness and memory we retain an awareness and memory of everything that has gone before in our lives and that these memories govern our immediate thoughts, feelings and actions as much. and at times significantly greater than we are able to recall. I also believe that the genetic coding which we pass on, as others have passed on to us, contain memories of the experience of our ancestors and their ancestors accumulatively. I again use the similarity of the computer hard drive which has a maximum capacity which once reached overlays areas with new information and it is the overlaid information which can be recalled by current programmes, but it is also possible to detect what has been overlaid. I believe that this is also so for the human brain and where the individual composition of storage, retrieval and reproducing information varies because of different histories and external stimulation as well as variations in construction and programmes.

It is presently possible to clone animals where the evidence is they are physically identical and physically behave as the master creature. Will this also apply to the human being? If the physical clone is absolutely identical with no variation will the depository of ancestral knowledge and experience also be precisely identical and how much variation will occur because of differences in time, with the clone commencing their existence after the master and consequently l possess a very different set of external influences and information to the original. Both being are physically identical but they can be said to operate in different dimension.

For me it is factual that human beings now operate in different dimensions with the most important the dimension of external reality which others can describe in ways which confirms an existence separate from individual perception. The same individual also operate in a dimension when their perception is influenced by conscious and stored data which can distort the perception of time which can appear slower or faster. The same being can also live in the dimension of his and his ancestral past and which may or may not be identical or similar to the external reality and internalised perception at the original time. The same individual can live in the different dimension created by the mechanism of waking dream where individuals have some awareness and some memory. It is known that the internal visual and audio memory also continues when the individual is asleep and is not self aware and this is observable by others when a subject sleep walks, speaks and acts. And similar even when an individual is static and asleep it possible to measure ongoing brain activity to demonstrate the likelihood that the internal visual and audio motor is continuing. It also known that the organs of individuals can shut down all or part for short and long periods and return to full self consciousness and awareness even if they are not always able to communicate this. These are all separate and different dimensional states.

It I also theoretically possible for individuals to be propelled forward and backwards at a faster rate than time is normal measured and therefore they will arrive at a different time point before or after their journey commenced depending on the speed and it is also theoretically possible for the two states to continue in parallel just as when a human being is cloned it is the same human being in terms physical structure and this should or may also include identical ancestral information and memory projected into the present, but subsequently a clone will experience and respond to a different array of stimuli in a different external environment. This presently explains why identical twins can think feel and behave in similar ways of they are brought up together over the same period of time and in the same environment and they can also possess significant similarities but also differences if they are brought up by different people in different environments.

The description of an identity is the inherited physical and psychological structural which in my view includes all the accumulation of ancestral information and memory which has been transferred together with the accumulation of stored inputs as a life progresses. Therefore aspects of the identity change with the accumulation of information and experience and which occurs in different dimensional condition.

In previous writings I have also suggested that recent developments in the ability to experience and record the behaviour and speech of others at a distance via digital transmission presently between the earth and points in space and back via orbital satellites and manned projectiles reveal the possibility that everything we do and say can be experienced anytime, anywhere and by anyone with the technology to do so in so far as human beings based on planet earth, but this being so why is not possible by other human type being or intelligent and self aware beings across the universe and given the infinite nature of the universe then what we say and do can be said to continue top exist for eternity as well as in out individual memory banks as well as in the memory banks of all those with whom we shared experience.

I have also argued that in addition to the accumulated information and experience stored in individual brains there is the accumulation of interactive experience which has a totality greater than any individual combinations and becomes more than the total; of the separate contributions, and that this takes the form of accumulated banks of goodness and badness which can effect what happens with a society or between societies for varying periods of time depending on how the individuals and societies then respond.

It is also my belief that some individuals because of the nature of their brain and the way all or parts of that brain functions, and because of the way they have been raised or because of what happens to them are able to draw upon their individual memories and experiences and those of others in such a way that there are physical manifestations are created. Is my contention that the power of the individual brain can affect the actual physical world external to them as well as the perceptions of other to the external world. There is whole area of minds being controlled and manipulated via audio and visual interventions and by external drugs as well as by internal; mechanisms. These powers lead to ghosts an other apparitions and to communications with ancestors in a direct way as well as to other living beings which those being may not be aware of.

For the moment and I suspect the rest of my being I am content just to explore the four dimension within my brain with occasional forays to places previously experienced and meetings and contact with others known at different periods of time.

There was quite a lot of sport on television today with two Premiership football matches, an NFL match played at Wembley and the second warm up cricket match in the Stanford 10 million twenty million dollar series playing in the West. Indies and which I watched part of the England innings and that of Middlesex who came within a few runs of winning on a difficult wicket where everyone has been putting down catches.

I was surprised to find a second Antiques Road show coming from Southwell and I relaxed with a new Frost which had one twist. I enjoyed watching a Bergerac which I have seen at least twice before, I cooked a whole chicken for a late lunch with the some roast potatoes which were crispy and more enjoyable together with the remaining carrots and peas which I had with two pork chops yesterday. This was followed by a par and this evening I had two mini apple pies with custard after an olive salad. I had a toasted tomato sandwich for tea.

1409 Contemporary Primitivism

On Wednesday evening I watched the first of what should become six interesting programmes contrasting living in a 21st century "advanced" democracy with living in a contemporary primitive society. In this instance the individual, all will be female, has a comfortable middle class existence as a single person living on her own, filling her life from just after dawn until just before midnight but with a self aware sense that she was filling in her day to mask the void within herself.

She lived for a month on a small island one mile by half a mile with a community of 800 whose life appeared to revolve around each other as a nuclear and extended families and with a shared culture which involved the form of dress and personal appearance, daily activities and routines and special events, over one month of the stay with the initial assistance of a male interpreter and a cameraman/camera team whose gender/s was not disclosed.

The importance of this programme and one can assume the series is its focus on the personal impact of immersing oneself as much as it is ever possible to do so in a very different culture over an intense but comparatively short period of time.

The first thing that has to be said is that it is possible to gain the same level of insight and perspective in a number of ways such as a retreat as part of a religious order, and which has previously been covered by TV, and is something that has been undertaken by individuals for varying periods of time through the existence of religious communities. Another approach is the short established educational experience which in my instance involved a one month management course amongst individuals whose way of life and daily experience was vastly different from my own. The basic ingredient therefore is living alone or within a nuclear family and then living in a communal environment in which you are required to sacrifice your individuality and freedoms to conform to the requirements of the group or large community. The experience becomes an effective examination of yourself as well as of the group although most people will need help to place the experience in a proper perspective and not get things out of proportion. By all means go off on holiday and indulge in the holiday romance or whatever but they are rarely experiences upon which to base a marriage, adopting a new language and culture and abandoning everything in your life until then.

It was evident that in this instance, the programme makers had gone to considerable trouble to match the subject with someone who would provide, however briefly, the maternal care she had missed in her life as what we saw concentrated on a relationship between a grandmother and the subject, although it was also evident that the grandfather also took considerable interest in promoting the welfare of the young woman who they treated as a daughter and in fact the programme suggested that the subject was able to fill the void in the life of grandmother as her own children had grown up and had their own lives, and indeed the programme made the point that the sons were no longer living on the island.

The core story was that at the age of thirteen the young woman's parents had divorced and that she had been asked in confidence which parent she wished to live and had then been asked to repeat her wishes in the court. She had chosen her father and on return her mother had said that she never wished to see her again and walked out of the house the following day and they had not had contact since. She had felt she had been rejected by her mother, although the reality was she had rejected her mother, although it has to be stressed it was an impossible situation for any child especially a thirteen year old and the greater responsibility rests with the parents who could not find a way of healing their relationship to the extent of providing a good family umbrella for their child. Nor do siblings necessarily fill the gaps, providing the relationship and the comfort when there is more than one child in the family and so much depends on the rest of the family structure of grandparents and uncles, aunts and cousins.

Although they could not communicate through language and although their educational and social experiences were so different, a close bond developed between the two women and it was the islander who appeared to quickly understand the predicament of the modern westerner and suggest meaningful remedies On being requested to assist with the daily chores the young woman had thrown herself into task with such prolonged enthusiasm that it was evident the community and the woman feared that their roles and daily lives were being misrepresented and she was effectively ordered to slow down and to sit for hours at a time, undertaking precise needlework. The best observation was when the grandmother commented that the young woman was constantly laughing but this was a cover of the real mixed feelings beneath, although this did not prevent the headman and the grandmother selecting a community name which meant of sunshine. The insight was also demonstrated by the seriousness with the grandparent couple took the disclosure that the young woman was having nightmares which involved violence and death and where at one point the concern was such that the grandfather went off to the mainland to collect "medicine" to prevent the bad spirits from continuing to threaten their adopted, albeit temporary, daughter.

The programme was not a social documentary or study as such with much overlooked, intentionally unstated, or if it was covered it did not register with me at that the time, such as the economic base of this community, the education system and the impact of that system on the younger generation especially in relation to the fundamental question of spiritual beliefs and religion. There was no reference during the programmes to God or Gods but to good and bad spirits. The community had a large number of carved wood images, good spirits who came to life and protected them while they slept and who would be aroused by blowing the smoke of burning cocoa beans on to them. When it was evident that someone was being troubled by bad spirits, such as the young woman, the priority was to find the right defences to stop them doing the subject real harm. It did not matter what was actually done but the extent of concern and willingness to put oneself out to help came across as the most effective medicine.

There were warning signals that the experience was acting like a Pandora's box for the young woman. In order to mark her departure the community put on a social in which men and woman got drunk separately in a kind of boys and girls night in a separate bar in the Bigg market or Quayside in Newcastle, at the end of which the men joined in and carted off the women to their hammocks, that is the women's hammocks, for a night of passion. The western young woman appeared to be sufficient concerned at this possibility that although she drank the special home made brew and smoked the pipe to enhance the effects she did not give herself to the dancing frenzy, (on camera at least) nor were we shown the men carrying of the women to the night of passion. There is no doubt however that without the camera's and chaperones the eligible young men some who appear no more than teenagers would have competed for her, egged on by the community elders of both sexes. The programme did not mention what happens when individuals become seriously ill or give birth, although she was taken to visit the burial ground of the family ancestors. The usual mode of travel to and from the island was by canoe

This of course was only half a programme. The other half should be made five years afterwards about whether the retreat had any lasting effect on her and on her temporary mother surrogate. Will they keep in touch and would she ever go back? Hopefully the world will not now descend on this community and they will be left to continue as before, if that it was what they wish although I have so many questions such as do they have divorce and who looks after the children? Are the children given any choice in the matter? Is here crime on the island and how is this dealt with. Can you remain part of the community without accepting the authority of the elders? Who owns the island and the individual properties?

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.