It’s all a load of cobblers.

I have been reading what promised to be an interesting book on science. It promised to broadly, but clearly, answer questions about weighty matters, in simple terms. And for the most part, it has done so. But what it has done above all else, is to show how the mystique that has surrounded some of the ‘stuff’ that sets physicists apart from mere mortals, is not justified. Take quantum physics. There is a body of physicists who study quantum mechanics, who try to explain ‘stuff’ in terms of quantum physics. The concepts are so complicated, the equations and theories so involved and multidisciplinary, that these quantum disciples are held in awe, are held up as being the smartest, most intelligent beings to have ever lived.
I started reading the simple explanations about the things that quantum physicists believe, and which they use to explain previously-unexplained phenomenon. It took less than five minutes for me to realise that here was just another big con, another case of talking things so big, that people will simply believe it, because a quantum physicist said it. Like the notion that an atom, for example, is nearly always in three or more places at a time, and that it is only observation that places it in a distinct place. So said atom, call it George, can be here where I am, there where you are, and also somewhere else, all at the same time, and only when I look at it, ie, observe it, will it actually be here, where I am. If no-one looks at it, it will be in multiple places, all at the same time. And so on.
This type of childish drivel is what the quantum physicist believe in. Parallel worlds that exist, side-by-side, with the same things and people in them, but different in small ways. Like a sliced cake. So in close proximity to me and my little world where I am sitting and writing, is a parallel world, where I am also sitting and writing, where my cup of coffee is also on the desk, and the messy pile of papers on the desk also exists. But it is different in small ways, that will only be seen by my mate Andrew, when he barges into my office at looks at me. If my wife Carol barges in, she’ll see me in a parallel world to the one that Andrew saw, the same, but different.
This type of nonsense is what the intellectual physicists around us, come up with in their ‘research.’ A load of cobblers. They make up gobbleygook nonsense when they can’t come up with credible science, when despite the millions that they spend, they fail to answer fundamental questions. They fall into the world of science fiction, but sell it big, so that gullible people will believe it. Take the Higgs boson particle. In theory it explains things that the physicists can’t explain, so they built a multi-billion dollar piece of kit called the Large Hadron Collider, to find something that can be described as follows. “Despite being present everywhere, the existence of the Higgs field is very hard to confirm. It can be detected through its excitations (i.e. Higgs particles), but these are extremely hard to produce and detect.”
So even when they find it (stop-press – they think they’ve found something that behaves like it, but they can’t be sure) they won’t know that it is what it is.
What a load of old cobblers!

British Values

An Australian Prime Minister is on public record of having said that foreign immigrants who comply with the rules of immigration, are welcome in Australia, provided that they live and act according to Australian, not foreign social norms and values.
In past months, a furore has erupted in England, in which Muslims have staged clandestine and insidious take-overs of schools, with the view to promoting Muslim, not English, values and beliefs. Now the so-called leaders of the country, Cameron, Gove, et al, are saying what the Australian PM said many years ago, namely, if you live and work here, and go to school here, you should do so under British norms, and with British, not Muslim, values. They are correct in saying so.
Surely these so-called leaders aren’t so naive that can’t see obvious problems, that are right under their noses, and have to wait for a crisis to arise before they start to take their country back? Surely they can’t endlessly hide behind the inane excuse that ‘lessons have been learnt,’ as their reasons for being out of touch and ineffectual in maintaining British Value?

Mythbusters

The somewhat naive and immature beliefs from my childhood have taken a serious battering in the last four or five years. Take British politicians. As an impressionable young boy living in a British federation in Africa, Westminster and the politicians who stalked its halls and corridors, were people whom I admired and looked up to. How wrong I was. The beautiful buildings that house the seat of government are still impressive and unique, but the politicians are not. They are the same as politicians everywhere, self-serving, not vaguely interested in the people who vote them in, and they have been shown to also be corrupt.

Then we have the ‘Church,’ that institution that I once believed to be where people with high morals served god and his people. Wrong again. At the highest level, the moral leaders have sexually abused young people who were entrusted to them. And the religious leaders who are meant to be role-models, and representatives of their god, have covered up the abuse. Another myth busted.
And what about the likes of Rolf Harris, that clean-living, somewhat cheesy figure who charmed us, and who had the temerity to stand in Buckingham Palace, in the presence of the Queen, talking to her, painting her image, as an abuser of young girls. He lusted after, pursued, and had an affair with a girl who is the age of his own daughter, one who was her friend. What a sick man he is.
Tony Blair talked confidently, projected a positive and polished image, but he is, in reality, a war-mongering liar, one who without thought, sent his soldiers to die for a cause that he lied about. And he’s still lying about it. Bared-faced and without remorse.
Every day we hear about how rotten the world has become, and I, for one, feel ashamed about the abuse of young kids, about the treatment to which women were subjected by the men of my generation, and I hang my head at the shattering of my beliefs, and at the type of world that we are leaving behind for our children.

National Novel Writing Month now a sham

Writing 50000 words in 30 days is always a challenge. NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, was dynamic and fun, and for three years I, like tens of thousands of other writers, took part in the fun contest.
Then along came a new CEO, and new staff, and suddenly it was no longer about writing, but about money. Every communication from NaNoWriMo was accompanied by a plea for donations. Every page or posting, or e-mail, begged for donations. Even the reply from the CEO when I complained, had a plea for a donation attached. I threatened to withdraw if the donations persisted. They took no notice. So I have resigned. It is now a sham.
So come November, I’ll still try to write 50000 words in 30 days, but it’ll be my own challenge. Why not join me?

Nelson Mandela – Hero or Villain?

Opinions are divided on whether the god-like status of one-time military activist Nelson Mandela is a hero and peace-maker, or a villainous terrorist who has been ‘sanitised’ by the international community.

An article in a local UK newspaper, by columnist Seamus Milne, makes some telling points to support his own view that under current US, UK and European laws, the leaders of the present ANC hierarchy, including most ministers in the South African Government, would have been jailed for supporting the armed campaign against the Nationalist Government of South Africa. They would have been jailed as terrorists.

It is a little-known fact, that even after his release from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela remained a supporter of the armed struggle against the SA Government, and that he knew, and supported, the illegal importation of weapons into the country to be used against the government. It is for this stance in the modern world, that Nelson Mandela would have been branded a terrorist  by the UK and USA. Yet such were the double-standards applied by the myopic and selectively self-serving politicians of the world, that they turned a blind eye, and once again supported a terrorist into power. Shades of Gadaffi!

No less a person than Margaret Thatcher branded Mandela a terrorist, and the current PM of the UK, David Cameron, attended pro-apartheid events that vilified the armed struggle by the ANC.

There is no longer consistency in how morals are applied on this messed-up planet, and today’s hero rapidly becomes a villain, becomes yesterday’s hero.

It’s Christmas time !

2013 has been a busy and difficult year, and an expensive one! It is our fifth year in the UK, the year in which we can apply for indefinite leave to remain here, a step that will leave us one year away from being able to apply for full citizenship. I arrived in the UK some months before my girls, and I was granted my ILR status in October. Ongoing problems with migrants to the UK, and the open-door policy of the previous (Labour) government, has prompted the present government to change the rules on ILR and citizenship since we landed in the UK, and applications for Colleen and Lynn were stressful. Now we wait for an answer.

Tonight the stress was forgotten. Carol and Colleen and Lynn and Adam and I, went to Arundel, my most favourite of UK towns, and celebrated the start of the Christmas season with local ales and spiced cider, hog-roast rolls, German sausages and twisted chips, as we listened to a soprano singing in a small square in the town, a steel band, and a choir. The little town was buzzing, happy, and even the cold air couldn’t dampen the spirits of the people. What fun it was to wander the streets of the ancient town, with the 10th century castle staring down on us, and the town-crier mingling with the crowds.

It’s Christmas time!

Summer days and Birds.

A great English summer has descended on us for the past three weeks, with clear skies, sunshine, and birds calling all around us.

It is the latter that I miss most from life in Africa. Birds. There just aren’t as many species here as I have been used to seeing. But those that are here, are trying hard. It has been fantastic to hear and watch Swifts every evening, and to see and hear small flocks of House Martins chirrupping overhead. The Blackbirds have been in full breeding mode, shouting the odds from the roof-tops, chasing other birds from the breeding territory, and even attacking the dozy cats as they lay in the shade trying to escape the heat.

The tiny, but striking, Goldfinches, perch on the TV aerials every evening, and sing their little hearts out. They have become favourites, and I see them almost every day now.

There have been more Barn Swallows over West Sussex this year any other year since we moved here, and they have been great to see as I drive to work each day.

Magpies are found in all environments, and are bold and successful – the top of the pecking order in most cases, and not averse to robbing nests of other birds.

The biggest thrill still comes from looking up at a passing falcon, and knowing that it is likely to be that iconic species the Peregrine. Before moving to the UK, I had only ever seen Peregrines five or six times in my whole life. I now see them regularly, they breed in Chichester close by, and hunt over the farmlands that surround our village.  Their successful recovery from the DDT poisoning now seems to be a memory.

An iconic bird of a different kind held my attention two weekends ago. The superb Supermarine Spitfire, that war-winning aircraft, displayed over Littlehampton Harbour here in West Sussex, leaving us breathless at the spectacle. The occassion was Armed Forces Day in the UK, and the display brought home how much we in the west owe to men who flew the Spitfire.

Review: Stop Dead by Leigh Russel

This is the first of Leigh Russel’s novels that I have read, and it will probably be the last.
The story was pretty average, the plot struggled to remain credible. I really struggled to keep on reading this novel.
The characters are unremarkable, and Geraldine Steel, for all her success in climbing the police ladder, is pretty boring. The book irritated, because it had to showcase the woman DCI who has succeeded despite the odds, the female sergeant Sam, who, in my opinion, was only in the story to provide the lesbian interest, the inane pathologist, the rather scatter-brained Police Chief, the anti-lesbian colleague, the stolid sergeant from the old patch. All characters who have been done before, and done better. Sam, the sergeant, brings nothing at all to the story, and left me with visions of a petulant child, rather than a professional police person.
The capture scene is rather amateur, the heroic police officer entering the killer’s home against her better judgement, no longer washes, especially since it is not how the Met. would do things.
The mutilation of the victims provided a twist of sorts, but could have been dealt with in a way that shocked more.
The positives were the way that the story moved away from the first suspects, by-passing them as their relevance waned and died. This was realistic, it is how such investigations proceed, and it was well handled in the book.
The most irritating thing about the book was the formatting. The use of the block method for starting new paragraphs was really disconcerting, and on more than one occasion I thought that a new chapter or section was starting, when all that was happening was a new paragraph. On a number of occasions I put the book down in irritation at the poor formatting.
The prose was average, there were a number of grammatical and language errors, all of which should have been caught in editing.
Overall, a very ordinary, unremarkable and stereotypical murder mystery.

E-Books not the answer

The excitement that e-books generated amongst aspiring authors has pretty largely proven to be unfounded. And it could be thanks to the organisations which supposedly support the new author. To get market share, Amazon, amongst others, promotes the notion of free e-books, and tells new authors that giving their books away helps to promote the author to the reading public. In reality, readers now don’t buy e-books, don’t support new authors, they simply look for the freebies. Amazon looks good in this process, and very few new authors see sales of any significance.

When I Was Five I Could Fly

My newest book, a memoir called “When I Was Five I Could Fly” is now available to sample and buy on Smashwords by clicking on the following link. My newest book, called “When I Was Five I Could Fly” can be seen and downloaded on Smashwords at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/256289