DATA THEFT - AGAIN!

First it was customer details from a large high street bank. The loss occurred months ago but the bank only divulged the incident recently. Today the salary details of a half of the metropolitan police force are revealed as having gone walkabout. Now there is no reason to suspect that either of these thefts was intended to steal the data that have gone missing. Both of the "victim organisations" assure everyone who will listen that identity theft is not possible using these data. The bank goes further and guarantees that none of its customers will suffer financial loss as a consequence. But those reassurances are rather beside the point.

I am assuming that you spotted those irony marks around the phrase victim organisations in the preceding paragraph because they were no slip of the finger and they are there to indicate my disgust with the organisations involved. Their assurances do not wash for the simple reason that not in either case did they address fundamental questions that nobody seemed to be asking - and questions that need to be asked.

Both thefts were of laptop computers and laptop computers are notoriously, almost definitionally, portable. Much more portable than say a mainframe or a big server. Now every book I have ever read on data security, and every article that I have ever written on the subject, addresses physical access as the first line of defense in a secure environment. The less secure the physical location of the data the more secure the other protections should be. Laptops left in any IT organisation that I have ever worked for have been securely padlocked to desks for that very reason. Now given that the stolen laptops all had very sensitive data loaded onto them one has to ask why they were not physically secured. Neither of the thefts appear to have required forcible removal of locks or chains and perhaps if they had then the thieves might have walked off with something a little less obviously problematic.

As we have just explained if the computers themselves were not physically secured then it stands to reason that the data upon them should have been electronically more secure than the original datasets but before we get to that issue let us first ask what to me is the key question here: what was live data doing on those machines in the first place? And why so much of it? Back in 1985 when I was working for a very large insurance company if I had wanted access to even a single live customer data record I would have had to have had a very good reason and then to fill in a form in triplicate to be submitted to and cleared by our data protection officer. And this under the 1984 Data Protection Act (repealed by the Data Protection Act 1998). So how is it that some employee of the Nationwide has the live customer records of possibly 11 million customers downloaded onto a laptop and slung in the back of his car/sofa? Where in these cases is the Data Protection Registrar (or is it commissioner these days?) in all this data theft? Strangely quiet, if not entirely absent methinks.

Turning now to the question of electronic or non-physical security of sensitive data it may come as a surprise to some of you to realise that in this, the 21st, century the customer data in most financial computer systems or databases and probably most government databases too - this is your data we are talking about - is in clear form. And when I say that your personal and financial information is stored in clear form I mean it is not encrypted. If you can find it you can read it without any extra effort or processing - it is not encoded at all! And it should be! It should be encrypted where it is stored and it is not. It is not difficult technically. It is not unduly onerous in computing terms. But it is not done. If it were stored in encrypted form then it is most likely that whenever it were transmitted or transferred then it would be encrypted until needed.

Now you may be wondering what extra security could have been applied or should be applied when data leaves its home location (preferably a data vault) and is loaded out onto something as inherently insecure as a laptop. The answer is fragmentation. Only parts of any live record should be made available to any insecure device or location. Ideally, all sensitive data records should be both encrypted and fragmented in the data vault and access to them only granted through a specific application or system and only at secure locations. Customer data downloaded to insecure devices or locations should be both incomplete and encrypted. End of story. So why isn't it? And why does nobody ask why it isn't?


‽

Synthetic velcro

It's just gone half past midnight.
Outside it is cold and clear.
There is next to no moon.
Here inside it is warm.
The tiles have warmed.
The stove has been fed its last logs of the evening.
The house is snug.
And I'm just settling down in bed.
Warming G's side.
And then it begins.
The three note bark of Molly.
Repeating and repeating.
Bridey joins in now and then.
But only desultorily.
Molly begins to squeak her high pitched hedgehog squeak.
Distinctive and piercing she only uses it when hedgehogs are at bay.

G plods downstairs and pulls on her boots and a fluffy jacket, she switches on the outside lights and steps into the chill.
Both terriers point at the offending creature.
Moll squeaks and Bridey barks.
G goes to retrieve the whisk broom.
Clomping around in the ankle high oxalis, damp with dew already, she finds the hedgehog.
It rolls into a ball.
Spikes outermost.
And as she sweeps it it sticks.
Its spines dig firm in the undergrowth and the damp earth.
The dogs go noisily mad at G being frustrated by this creature.
They want to kill it.
With firm resolve G moves it on only a few metres and
pots it tidily behind the dog-shit bucket.
Masking it from view.
Masking its scent.

The girls fall silent.
On the tip toe of anticipation.
But mute.
They wait.
For the hedgehog to re-appear.
G hopes that it will vamoose.
And goes back indoors -
to warm herself by the stove -
before retiring at last -
to the now warm bed.

"A hedgehog in oxalis is like a natural form of velcro" she says
before I drop off
not really bothered
by the prospect of a return visit.

And Molly starts up again
twenty minutes later ...

LOG LAD

Good grief that Shem is one helluva clever feller. Plug in my power tools and call me the logman cuz I've got a tale to tell - a shortun admittedly but Barry Bucknell would love it.

Last weekend, as you know, we had massive rainstorms and me and Eddie spent some time mopping up. There was thunder and lightning too and we went off grid for a couple hours. At that point we all realised the value of the old photovoltaic system - the light in the cellar toilet is DC powered direct from the batteries upstairs and so with that and the gas lamp we were fettled until DEH got the grid back to us.

The day after the power cuts Shem got me to replace the mantle on the gas lamp (shoot, I didn't know what was inside one of those babies until Shem told me). And then he started going on about how we needed more DC lamps.

Two days later he had dug up a busted old desk lamp that had also blown its transformer and then he started sketching out ideas for us ( for us read me- Shem wouldn't be getting his hands dirty - he's strictly an ideas man) to make a new DC lamp. The problem was finding some way of housing the bulb holder and between us we turned up a few candidates in the boxes of crap we keep in the carage. But not a one of 'em suited him.

Looked fur a while there like it was another project on the backburner -after all the gas lamp was newly fixed - but no, Shem was just thinking. What he's looking for - it turns out - is something to blend in with the middle floor - natural and invisible he said it had to be.

Come Friday and G has cruised on into Xania to get some translation done and ketch up with her white witch coven and Shem turns up with a log in his hand - this is it he says and hands me this mother log that he's just selected from the log pit where Eddie's doing stove duties for the day. A big fat olive log with one end square and the other angled. That will make a great uplighter says Shem - and it'll blend perfectly. And then he goes on to explain how it's going to work.

Scoop out a hole in the angled face for the lamp head and fittings ( I used a hole saw and a chisel and mallet and a lot of elbow grease); drill thru from the scoop-out to the bark on the long side to take the cables (interesting angle to drill at); set the lamp head into the scoop out and fix- bring the cables thru to a cigarette lighter plug; file off a couple dimples in the ally; cut a piece of perspex to the exact contours of the log and fix over the top of the lamp holder (junior hacksaw required plus surform, files, and sandpaper).

And now it's all done and it looks great.

Job jobbed.

The love and pain that cannot speak their names.

Yesterday's piece was very supportively received and I thank you all for your sympathies. Now let me let you in on why I wrote it.

I was listening some time ago, maybe a week maybe a month to a radio programme where Louis Wolpert was talking about his depression. It was Radio4, courtesy of the internet broadcast of their "It's all in the mind" (or was it "A Good Read") programme, and the thing that caught my ear and started me to puzzle was Wolpert complaining that despite the fact that many authors have suffered from depression, and especially Virginia Woolf, and yet not a one of them has written about depression. He also brushed very briefly around the impact that living with a depressive can have on partners and family of the sufferer.

It can't have been months - I know that because I had just buggered my back - it must have been weeks. The forced inaction of the back injury allowed me focussed time to think. And when the pain was at its worst I tried to write about it. And couldn't. And wondered why. And spoke to G about how I was when I was in deepest pain. And I filed it all away.

Yesterday I found that I could write about it at last. Sitting achingly drinking coffee in Xania both before and after my painful session with our osteopath the thing began to form itself lucidly at last. It formed but it was immediately clear to me that what I could write was a washed out version of the reality. A word picture wherein the gamma correction of distance had faded it all out - focussed but undersaturated. And there I think is the key to the glaring omission that Wolpert bemoans: you cannot write at all when you are in the thing, the mood, the moment. You cannot write until you have a certain subjective distance from the thing, the mood, the moment. And then, what you can write is a pitiful shadow of the thing itself. Almost an insult to the subjective reality. Perhaps it is some kind of protection mechanism that the mind has. Perhaps it is the thing, be it pain physical or pain existential or pain psychological, is so foregrounded in the actual experience that there is not enough of you left to write it.

So yesterday's piece was actually about the unwritability of certain realities. A concrete demonstration if you will. That and a paean to the forebearance of G and the triumph of the will.







Lewis Wolpert is Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology of University College, London. His research interests are in the mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo. He was originally trained as a civil engineer in South Africa but changed to research in cell biology at King's College, London in 1955. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980 and awarded the CBE in 1990. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. He has presented science on both radio and TV and for five years, as Chairman of the Committee for the Public Understanding of Science.

His book Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression was published by Faber in 1999.

Back pain back

What can I tell you? How do I explain? It isn't possible for me to share it: not with you, nor with anyone. Internal states cannot properly be communicated. I can tell you no more about my pain than I can tell you how I see green. These things cannot be shared.

She sat opposite him and felt for him. His suffering was making her sad. She wanted an in on it. And he was not being very forthcoming. She sipped her coffee and spied on him: he was aware of her sly gaze. She knew he was. He leant forward and she caught a glimpse of a wince. It had been going on for more than a week now - more like a fortnight. It was tiring her. She wondered briefly to herself whether watching somebody that you love in almost constant pain could itself be worse than dealing with it oneself. She would take his pain if she could. She mentally slapped herself and berated her selfishness - how could it be worse for her? And yet he did understand - he had said so and she believed him. He squirmed a little to the left and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes tightened. His smile straightened out. He reached forward and took another cigarette. Lighting it, perhaps his 30th of the day, he plastered a smile on as he leant back and closed his eyes involuntarily. At last, he relaxed. He'd never been a complainer: many things he was but a complainer was not one of them. Try, she said. Please, she said.

It's just that I'm tired: tired of dealing with this all of the time. Tired of every day repeating itself in the same way. It's not the pain as such - its' more the relentlessness of the thing - the constancy. The consistency. From the moment I get out of bed, or try to get out of bed until after I'm back in bed. It's always there one way or another. It tires me, dealing with it, coping just saps all of my energy. Handling the actual pain and the anticipation of it. Sometimes the anticipation is more difficult. I even make it hurt me sometimes just so I don't have to anticipate it anymore - just twist where I know it will tweak me - take that jab, that pain in the leg, the numbness even. You know - on Sunday I was in tears just pulling my socks on? Saturday too. I'll make you laugh though: I was trying to explain it to Phi the other day - imagine being wrapped in a cast iron corset studded on the inside with sharp spikes, I said. In other circumstances, he came back immediately, you'd have to pay good money for that. Laugh? I nearly wet myself - literally. I coughed - a sharp pain shot up my spine. I sneezed - another ran down the front of my right thigh like a hot needle. The belt of muscles just below my waist cinched tight and squeezed hard against my bladder. Like I said - I nearly wet myself. Nothing is without pain for me right now. There is no peace while I'm awake - no rest.

It was the first time that she properly understood that it really wasn't the pain itself. A man who has had nerves removed from his teeth without anaesthetic has a high pain threshold. A man who lives with a broken finger for days and on one occasion a broken toe for a week without seeking attention is not too bothered by pain itself. And when he had nearly sliced his finger tip off with the angle grinder? It was a strange and unexpected insight but it explained the way he looked these days - older, more tired, a little grey around the gills - but it didn't stop her feeling his pain. The way that it interfered with their day to day life was a nuisance but they could cope. The fact that it stopped him doing so many other things was annoying - no more. The fact that she hated to see him in pain - even if he was coping - hurt her deeply. She pushed his cigarettes toward him and he winked at her. One more and then I'll pay and we can go. He lifted his left leg with his left hand and crossed it over his right leg. His back straightened in a reflex and that ugly wince wound itself across his face again. He smiled wanly and lit up.

At least now we know what it is. She'll sort it out. It's better already - not great - but better. Third and fourth vertebra misaligned - that explains the pain in the front of the thigh. Twisted sacro-illiac that's the underlying problem. Another week or so and I'll be back to normal. Christina will fix it. And we'll save money on the brufen. Maybe I'll even cut down on the fags. I'll be OK. Don't beat yourself up. It's OK - there's light at the end of the tunnel.

He drew deeply on the butt, collapsing the thing, and ground it out in the ashtray. Leaning on the arms of the chair, rocking slightly forward and grimacing deeply he raised himself to vertical and leant back to adjust his spine.

OK - lets go. Shit I'm glad I'm not driving.

EXAMINATION

"The unexamined life is not worth living." said Socrates (Apology 38a) and I have always agreed with him on this. But what did he mean by an "unexamined life" ? One has only to have a cursory knowledge of Socrates' life to know that his dedication to questioning and logical nit-picking on matters moral and truthful led to his own death, and to realise that it is this quest for truth and morality to which his use of the word "unexamined" refers. Not truth or morality in and of themselves but the quest for them - the active quest.

And your point is?

Well, it has seemed to me lately that governments worldwide, and their electorates, and sundry lobby groups, and religious bigots, and, or sometimes it seems, just about everyone who has a voice these days seeks to put more and more issues of vital importance to society beyond Socratic examination. It seems as though they, the people who should be promoting and or directing examination, are instead constructing a set of strictures that ensures that we shall all live, at least in public, an unexaminable life.

Like?

Religion? Can we seriously "examine" any religion logically to determine its truth value? Not if the UK government has its way. Race? Can we "examine" racial difference without being locked up if we expose dilemmas between truth and policy in so doing? The holocaust?

Warfare - its declaration and the ways of waging it? The invasion of sovereign territories? Forced regime change? Can we "examine" these things? If the British parliament is not allowed to, then how can the electorate consider it?

And so?

And so - what is the point of it all? If Socrates was right then Blair and Brown and the archbishops of the Anglican church and the militant feminists and militant animal rights brigadiers who all want to shut us up and ban discussion beyond their own boundaries are living lives not worth living. And if that is true why should we all follow them? If it offends their sensibilities or sensitivities the that is a shame. If the "examination" is designed simply to offend then that is morally indefensible. But ...

But what?

But it is the price that we pay for "examination": the price for the quest that make our lives worth living. No subject should be taboo - no subject or action beyond examination - and anyone who suggests otherwise is attacking our right to a life worth living. We need to grow slightly thicker skins in order that we are not so easily offended and that we might grow as humans. And bigger logical faculties that we might "examine" things more closely more rationally.

In 2006 the words and actions of a man who lived in a polytheistic society 25 centuries ago makes more sense than the monotheistic god bothering people who run the world today. Perhaps we should pay more attention to Socrates.

Automatic rifle by Kalashnikov - fly swat by Philippe Starck

The river is rilling gently. A light breeze rustles what remains of the bamboo imitating some half arsed wind chime made by the tone deaf. Somewhere in the valley a valiant hunter in search of small mammals and birds lets loose a burst of automatic gunfire sending Molly skeetering around her run: Bridey stands firm - and barks. From inside the house comes a regular, metronomic splatting.

At this time of year, in this season, under these conditions, we are beset by flies: swarms of them. Plagues of flies bother and bite everyone. Flies on light fittings. Flies on computer screens. Flies warming themselves in sunlight as it broaches window sills. Flies laying like raisins on the tiled floors - quick and dead alike. The biblical proportions of this plague, every year, and without fail bring out the beast in Gill. Gill the most gentle of people.

Gill is on the hunt with fly swatter in right hand (an Alessi Dr. Skud fly swat designed by Philippe Starck and wrought in a pale green) and a wadded sheet of kitchen towel in the left. She is counting under her breath, keeping toll of the casualties she has inflicted on the enemy. At 42 she stops and scrubs dead fly blood from the head of the swat with Zoflora hyacinth disinfectant. She glances up and sees another hundred clustered on the standard lamp stem. Slowly, methodically. she dries the head of the swat, drops the kitchen towel that swaddles the sanguine husks of the 42 and resumes her quest by stalking across the kitchen tiles now cleared of corpses to take the unsuspecting flies by surprise.

Only when her toll reaches triple figures will she stop. Only then will she have made a discernible impact.

Flies - what are they for?

BLOG FAQ UPDATE

Originally this blog referenced a FAQ written in mid-2005 - recently we have had a new influx of readers who have not read every single episode and who are too lazy so to do and who are too tight to buy the paperback and get up to speed that way. Some of them deserve a FAQ. some don't. Here is the updated FAQ anyway.


BLOGFAQ Updated 10th November 2006


Q. Is there really a lavender farm behind all this rubbish? A real one?
A. Part lavender farm, part circus: all fun and mayhem. A poundemonium if you will. What do you want? A map? No chance!

Q. Do I have to read all of the entries to make any sense of this thing?
A. No you don't, and if you did read all of the entries, which is, of course, highly recommended you would not necessarily understand any more than you do now. If you are a recent subscriber you may find particular difficulties as the different contributors pop in and out - such is life. As to whether anyone could make any sense of this well that is a moot question - we hope, in perpetuity.

Q. Is the background to all this confusion explained anywhere?
A. Explicitly, no. Background has been supplied in an obscure and ad hoc fashion without any obvious rationale - a drip feed if you will. If you continue to read and especially if you read back issues you will learn more. The whole picture however shall never be known.

Q. Is this blog a journal, or a novel, or a soapbox, or something else?
A. Yes. Seriously though, it is all of those things and also the emergent form that comes from combining those elements.

Q. When Farmboy refers to The Boss, and Shem refers to the guv'nor or l'auteur are they talking about the same character?
A. We think so.

Q. Is that character Papalaz?
A. No, Papalaz hosts our blog but does not himself contribute - thank heavens. Nor does Mamalaz. They are mostly active in the fora around the WWW where other strange people can be located. .

Q. Is the blog fact or fiction?
A. You think we could make this much rubbish up as we go along? It's fictional but it is true.

Q. Should the entries be read in the order they were written?
A. Unless you have inside information it would not be possible for you to read them in the order they were written. In any case, the order is optional - as is any order.

Q. Have you ever thought of classifying and indexing all of the entries so that for example we could search for all entries by Farmboy, or short stories by Shaun, or entries that mention the farm and the lavender?
A. Yes we've considered it but it sounds like a job for the winter months and our will power and application couldn't support it at present. One day perhaps - we shall see.

Q. Why don't you use more hyperlinks?
A. Nobody here has worked out how to put HTML into the blog entries yet. OK, that isn't actually true but it's not a bad excuse is it?

Q. Does Farmboy really sleep in the carage?
A. Not as far as we know although where he and Eddie actually sleep is an abiding mystery - like so much else here.

Q. Who takes all the brilliant nature photographs?
A. Gill is the resident photographer. Shem crops and compresses them ready for upload.

Q. What sort of camera does she use? What's her favourite lens/exposure combo?
A She uses a Fuji Finepix 6900 Zoom. As for the rest of your question - stop being a geek.

Q. Is Eddie coming to stay?
A. Wait and see, like everyone else. Wow - that's an old question - Eddie has become a permanent and much valued member of the commune. So long has he been such that when I first saw this question just now it shocked me to realise that he hadn't always been here.

Q. Finn McEskimo, your northern correspondent - where does he come from?
A. Read it dummy.

Q. Is the Old Git family or friend?
A. Old Git is both friend and family. He is also a co-conspirator against all known world religions and a professional curmudgeon.

Q. How do you arrive at the odd titles that your entries sport?
A. Shaun has ultimate veto on titles. Everyone who writes invents their own title (that's the name the file is saved as on this machine) but when they get posted Shaun gets the option to change them. Shem has a penchant for doubly allusive titles. What he tells us he tries to do is to have a reference into the content of a piece and out to a literary, or cinematic, or musical piece or somesuch.

Q. Why is the blog posted in 3 separate places and are they all the same?
A. Different layouts are used for the different constituencies. Mostly the contents are identical but only mostly. The only way to know for sure is to read all 3. All the time.

Q. You published the early years that you spent blogging as a paperback book with LuLu. Are you planning another volume? "The Broadband Years" for example?
A. We have no plans so to do but we are willing to listen to entreaties from the audience. This winter we will be working on a paper based version of the post modern, shock horror,mystery Blogella published in the blogs earlier this year. Don't hold your breath though - it is much more difficult than we had imagined. Professional typesetters have been seen pulling out their hair and running swiftly away from the farm in recent months.

Q. Could we please have a dramatis personae? At least the regulars?
A. The regulars are: the author or boss; Shem and Shaun (actual twins but with different birthdays); the farm twins, who aren't actually twins - Eddie and Farmboy or Frambot or Ceddie (take your pick) - sometimes known only by their signature red overalls. G never writes although she is a constant inspiration to all of us. That's the lot - for now.

Q. Are all of the apparent visitors that you receive at the farm real people?
A. Is anyone real people? Are you? Does it matter?

Making oil - no not olives - yet!

Its bin cold here the last fewdayz. Theres snow on the whitemountains and also on the ones behind u (south). Me an CEddieve been soritng out the stove and logpile and chimmeny nd stuff. and enjoying the results - luxsuriating in the warmth of n evening with a DVD. Full moon last nght and a clear sky saw the temp dropping to baout 3ºc - it was amazing but the winterweight duvet went on today. We were also out of mains water for the weekend which was interesting to say the least. Since it was so overcats until last night we werent missing out on any hot water but today when we got sunshine and water back almost similtaneously we took our window and got washing and ablootions up to date (last shave today for all of us blokes). G's bin working down the lav patches picking and clearing out runoffs and stuff, planting koukia and trimming the hall veras.

High point of the weekend was going to Modi to see Babbis and distill lavender oil from G's 50,000 flower heads. Low point was hanging around trying to get Betty's electrics fixed - again! This is getting boring. ANd if the Boss hadn't had the windowscreen wipers changed we wouldntve even nown that they hadnt fixed them propply the day before - only hydraulics leak to fix now and then well see if shes fixed for winter. Ceddy put some silicone along the roofgutter the other day to tryan stop it raining inside the car but dont know yet ifn itll work we shall see (ha ha ha). The distillation party was amazing - six hours of boiling up steam and parsing thru the lavender flowerheads and then on thru a fridge unit (least I think thats what happens). Wile we were waiting Babbis - he used to be a cook chef - russled up a great meal of pasta and meat with a ggood red wine and some local cheeses. Just us and him - Maria cooldnt make it. Me and Ceddy got to have a good look round his sheds and storrooms befor it got dark - fascinating stuuf hes got stuffed away. Want me some of that! Wood metal everything! When it got round to six hours in we all trooped out to the stills (600 liter capacity each) and stood under the tin roof where it was cold and blowing and sleeting and watched while he drew of the ditillate - absolute magic - first the light oil and then the heavy, sliding down the side of the retort thingy - clear at first but changing to light green and then a blue overtone - beautiful and clear - I cant describe it I dont have words it was incredible. Never do that again - not for the first time like that. 760 millilitres. Result. Now its got to sleep for a while. Cant wait for to sniff it - wonderful.

Democracy, knowledge, and wisdom

So Tim Berners Lee is worried about the future of the web - original BBC article . Welcome to the fold Tim. His major concerns as raised in this particular news item seem to be summarised thusly: "it could be used to spread misinformation and "undemocratic forces". Tim, I've got news for you - the web has been used to spread misinformation almost since the day it ceased to be the domain of physicists. And it isn't getting any better. But, and it's a very big but, the two halves of your concern are not the same thing at all: in fact one half is the way in which the other half gets spread.

Early commentaries on the nature and potential of the WWW praised its ability "to democratise" the world. What exactly it was that was going to get democratised somehow got passed over in the initial enthusiasm for the very notion of democratisation: as if it were in itself admirable. And, as more and more people piled onto the WWW as contributors rather than consumers this dreamed of democratisation duly took place.

It is the democratisation of data that has given rise to the spread of misinformation that so alarms Sir Tim because somewhere along the path, at some time in this short process, information and misinformation became, to the WWW at least, one and the same thing. Well, that's the downside of democratisation. Opinion gets passed off as information. Without peer review as practiced among the scientific community - and bear in mind that a scientific peer is not the same thing as a common or garden, day to day, democratic, peer - all information and all opinion posted by whomsoever on a particular topic on the WWW is equal. The opinion of a dolt is not, on the WWW, obviously different to the well-researched and argued opinion of an expert in the field.

Moreover, as the WWW attracts more public attention and praise as a source of information (and very little attention or publicity for the sheer volume of simple opinion passing itself off as information) the less discriminating the younger generation of web users seems to become. My own generation knew, or at least were taught, that text books could, by and large, be trusted as fairly authoritative, if potentially flawed, source of genuine contemporary knowledge. Does the average browser or surfer of the WWW know a "text book" type source when his or her search engine turns it up and presents its content? Do some of them even understand the very notion of an authoritative source? Or is that, in itself, an undemocratic and therefore invalid idea in this day and age?

And what is Sir Tim's response to these fears? Thankfully, it is not a technological fix: that most popular response these days. Technology cannot solve this problem - these problems. It is however, another social science, Web Science. "The Web Science Research Initiative will chart out a research agenda aimed at understanding the scientific, technical and social challenges underlying the growth of the web."

Well I would like to offer 3 items for the research agenda:

the rise and spread of "Creationism" being willfully passed off as a scientific explanation by religious bigots

the recrudescence of holocaust denial in spite of legal prohibitions

and most recently

the appearance of a broad based effort to a) deny human involvement in climate change, and simultaneously, b) promulgate a belief that only a concerted and completely worldwide effort is worth considering even were a) not to be true.

There are, I am personally convinced, common mechanisms at work. Whether all of these efforts have been concerted and organised would be a subject of worthwhile scientific study. As would the manner in which the flawed argumentation methods that they all share and the way in which contributing articles get linked together into a resilient web of deceit. Such research might provide a crib sheet for WWW users as to the characteristics of such intellectual scams and so might be more than academically valuable and that could potentially be enshrined into software that could warn against contributing sites in the same way as current software "sniffs out" possible pornography .

Imagine a day when along with the anti-virus software that you run as a matter of course and the net-nanny software that you switch on when your children are using the computer link to the WWW you also switch on the anti-anti-intellectual software that not only warns you when you are about to enter a site that contains scientifically or intellectually bankrupt or worthless opinion passing itself of as valid. Imagine the graded warnings: from "This site may contain erroneous logic" to "This site contains lies (as defined by current scientific knowledge and or concensus). Now that would be something that would be worth doing.



PLEASE BE AWARE - this particular page is an opinion piece. It contains novel and untested hypotheses. It has not been peer reviewed. It has not been refereed by a learned journal.

GROUND COVERED

Rain is forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday. The clocks went back today and so we woke "earlier" to sunshine and stillness. A dew yet clung to the leaves and the ground-covering oxalis (green now, without its signature yellow flowers, brim packed with poisonous oxalic acid, it is easily mistaken for clover). The grove, dust dry and almost white two weeks ago, glowed green in the low sunshine and shimmered, gently contoured in its autumnal splendour. A transformation almost complete.

The log pile is covered now. Some logs are stored safely by the dormant stove beside the fire-lighters, matches and kindling resurrected from their summer grave. A fire is laid and ready in the grate. We are prepared. One razor blade remains: stands between we boys and our winter growths. Lavender cuttings are sprouting and G has cleaned out and deepened the run off channels around the plots. She has mounded and moulded, replanted and tidied. Putting the plots to rest for a while - only final pruning remains.

After a morning of preparing for winter, of putting summer behind us, of relaxing into autumn, we went to sit in the sunshine and to drink frappe. We sat and we planned. Planned and plotted out our futures when at once Georgos, the owner of Bellissimo came in: a huge grin on his newly clean shaven face and a sack on his shoulder that was marginally bigger. He tipped the sack and emptied a cascade of peanuts onto our table. Fresh peanuts. Wet peanuts as in wet walnuts. The peanut crop is ready.

Where Bellissimo stands now. And where the whole strip development that is Kavros now stands there used to be peanut fields. Plantations of groundnuts almost to the sea. Tourism for farming. Hotels and swimming pools and tennis courts for ground nuts. A new ground cover crop. A transformation almost complete. But still there are peanuts here and there. A past not quite eclipsed by a present reality.

Life imitates art

The tale of the painting that features in our recent Tabblo is worth re-telling.

We have been close personal friends of the celebrated artist Inge Clayton for many years now (last time we checked we also held the largest private collection of her works). We met her in 1998 and within a year or so we were posing for hr as models. And so our friendship grew through her work: we attended here exhibitions and we all met regularly for riotous, albeit decorous, social functions.

She had seen photographs of us on holidays, at functions and at other peoples' weddings. One day she phoned us clearly very excited and told us that her previous night's sleep had been disturbed by very graphic dreams of our wedding. Having re-assured her that we had no intention of marrying until my 70th birthday we passed the event off but 3 weeks later she rang again to tell us that she had painted one of her images of the wedding. Did we want to see it?

We saw it and we bought it - the idea of anyone else having such a very personal image was unthinkable. It is a large piece - perhaps half life size if not more - one of our largest - and is executed in oil on board. It hung in our London flat until we moved here in 2002 when it relocated with us (it now graces our bedroom - just behind the bath). It is an image that we have lived with for many years and one that we have looked upon daily. How strange then that it was so prescient, that she was so prescient.


Life clearly imitates art.

NO!

October 28th is a holiday in Crete. It is a holiday throughout Greece. It is a day that celebrates, unlike so many holidays in Greece, not a religious feast day but an event that changed Greek history and possibly European history. An event that reflects a massive national pride.

October 28th is OXI day: the day the Greeks as a man said "no!".

On October 28th 1940, at dawn, the Greek government (a dictatorship led by Ioannis Metaxas) was presented with an ultimatum made be Benito Mussolini and delivered by his ambassador to Greece.

Mussolini demanded that the Axis powers be allowed to enter Greece and to occupy "strategic locations". The particular locations were unspecified. The response came as a single word - OXI (No).

By morning the populace had taken to the streets shouting OXI and cementing among themselves a solidarity and spirit of resistance that would cost the Axis powers dearly. It would cost the Greek people themselves more dearly still.

As is the case with Russia the contribution that Greek resistance made to Allied victory in World War 2 is often glossed over or underestimated (certainly by comparison to the perceived value of the contribution of the USA).

The Greeks said NO and they are proud of it. They celebrate their national identity and character through OXI day in a way that they do not in their religious festivals and holidays.

Force of nature? Force of destiny?

You might have heard of the flooding here in the last days. Major flooding that started on Monday night was done by Wednesday and Thursday, although wet, was more promising. Friday dawned bright and dry with few clouds in the sky - just in time for the big event.

With hindsight, Tuesday was the big weather day: the day when cows were washed out to sea: the morning when the local petrol station forecourt turned into a lake nearly two metres deep: the day when topsoil washed off of hillsides and sloping land by the hundredweight; by the truckload: the day when roads disappeared under foot deep mud slides; mud that used to be field banks; the day that rivers burst their banks and reverse tsunamis flooded beaches and the sea.

Through Thursday lakes were to be found in fields and on roads: lakes were everywhere; a waterworld. Basements were being pumped: fountains of water exiting buildings and trying to find somewhere to run but simply settling for raising levels in extant temporary lakes. Boats needed where only trucks were to be had. Standing water everywhere. And pumped water meeting still water. A lake in front of the town hall and over to the bakery on the other side of the road that looked like a little simulacrum of Mont St Michel.

People and animals died. The damage is huge - and expensive. The area has been declared an emergency zone - a disaster zone. The people however have their chins up and we go about the process of cleaning up - temporarily and permanently. For now it is houses and commercial building being cleaned up. The beach - that looks now like the aftermath of a war - will have to wait.

And for us? How was it? Six continuous hours of mopping staved off all but the most minor, trivial, minor of depredations. But the farm? Another matter. Now that the ground has begun to dry we have been able to venture out and down to the river's edge. Or where the river's edge used to be. It is clear, at first sight, that some devastating force of nature has been at work here. The river that is our boundary kinks at the eastern limit of the fields beyond the olive grove, beyond the lavender plots. And it performs the same kink in reverse some 170 or 180 metres to the south of us 3 fields further up the valley. The sheer volume of water rushing down from the mountains, at some point ignored these kinks and flushed across in direct line. Judging by the clothing and debris in the mulberry trees a wall of water perhaps 2 and a half metres high came through the field ignoring the existing river bed: going its own way.

Bamboo plants have been ripped out: mature bamboo, and flushed who knows where. A carpet of boulders covers the alluvial bed that covers the area. Boulders from the river bed we presume: thinly covering the soil in our field; more thickly next door and thicker still, hiding the earth completely, where the breech began, in the field where they willfully cleared the bamboo bank cover last winter. Plegma fences have bent at 90 degrees in the horizontal plane before giving way and being flushed away, sheets of plegma hang on the trees and in the river bed: irretrievable. Branches and roots and uprooted plants have woven themselves around the bases of the olive trees and the geodesic dome which itself is a displaced structure. Beneath the boulders a fine light sand bed sits, showing in the wonderful swirls and tracks the path that this force of nature drew across the field.

Along the boundary moving north this wall this very torrent must have undercut the bank - quickly we think, for a chasm has opened where a huge stand of bamboo and a walnut tree stood as recently as last weekend. A yawning emptiness gapes now 12 feet down into where the river bed has disappeared under horizontal bamboo and perhaps one third of the land that slipped out of our field and back to nature.

Tomorrow the clean up has to begin. Before the next rains. Before the sheep come through and eat the lavender. Makeshift repairs for now. And in the long term? We do not know.

VOTING - GREEK STYLE

Over the long years we have been coming here we have witnessed many elections. Almost biblical in their nature: hundreds of thousands of Greeks transport themselves back to the villages of their birth to exercise their franchise. Planes and ferries are full. Transport systems creak and many local businesses close completely to allow people to vote. Among Greeks voting is seen as a civic responsibility rather than as a right and you must remember that these are a people who have, in recent history, been denied the vote.

And so this time around being entitled to vote ourselves felt something like a privilege. How different to the meaningless (in terms of required outcome) process that voting in the UK had become. To vote or not to vote had been a difficult decision for us. As relatively recent full time arrivals we were anxious to understand both the system itself and the perceptions of locals as to us voting. On the latter point we were surprised: every local Cretan we spoke to applauded the idea. Some even went as far as to say that it should be mandatory: as part of the community it was important, almost mandatory, they said, that we vote.

Registering to vote was, as are all things bureaucratic in Greece, complex and form laden but register we did: with 3 days to spare. Trying to assess what was on offer and from whom was more difficult but suffice to say that last evening we had a phone call from one of the mayoral candidates asking whether we wanted any part of his programme explaining or expanding!

After a week of rain, today dawned dry and with the sun playing peekaboo throughout the morning it seemed as though the old gods were smiling on the election. As in London our polling station was the local school - if only education and politics were more regularly linked than just at election time. And so - although the polling stations are open, literally and biblically, from dawn to dusk we drove off up to Kournas around one this afternoon (the local school is a good few kilometres away - and up a mountain).

We parked up by the church and as we left the car we noticed that everyone was in Sunday best rig. The smell of roasting lamb filled the nose. A middle aged man dressed head to toe in black stood on his drive. We had parked opposite his drive and when we checked politely whether it was OK to leave the car there he assured us that it was and enquired whether we were going to vote. Our answer clearly pleased him and he pointed the way down a steep path toward the school but not before telling us who we should vote for.

As we reached the foot of this steep and precarious descent the smell of roasting lamb grew more intense and a background hubbub of voices came to greet us. Men and women stood beside the path to the school talking in properly animated Greek fashion. Voices were raised and hands flew hither and yon in making points political and personal. Friends and acquaintances popped out of the huddles to welcome and congratulate us. Someone offered lamb - another a slice of pizza. Much shaking of hands and slapping of backs: much advice on how to vote and for whom.

Our names symbolically lined through on the very short page of xeni registered to vote and, our passports returned only after casting our secret votes, we left to much good humour and more congratulations. And somehow it felt, for the first time in a long while, as though we had done something both politically meaningful and civically responsible.

Lifting the veil - or not

I was listening to Radio 4 this morning to a program about the wearing of the veil in Britain. It has been raining all day today after a spectacular show of thunder and lightning most all of the night. Purple flashes were bursting their light through closed shutters way into the early hours and thunder crashed around all night. Lightning out to sea - lightning over the mountains - lightning over the crest of the valley lighting the whole tapestry of olive groves, bamboo, mulberry and plane trees that is our diurnal vista like some pyrotechnic stage director.

A muslim woman interviewing women and girls throughout Britain about the veil and all done without pictures. Initially it occurred to me that this could not be communications as there were no faces on show - literally, it's radio remember - according to Jack Straw. The voices of young, predominantly working class women, nasally droned about Britain being for the British and veils weren't (and I recalled in parallel the numbers of women who wore veils on their hats when I was young). British muslim women with Black Country accents droned on about the religious necessity of not showing their faces (and I and I recalled in parallel stories of tribes that would not let early travellers take their photographs for fear of losing their souls). The phone rang half way through to interrupt and I did not communicate with our friend Chick because I could not see her face despite spending half an hour talking to her and even arranging to meet up as well as passing on information about our health. When I tuned back in there was a professional muslim woman speaking in a cultured, slightly northern voice, of the visible kinship and solidarity that she assured us that the veil connoted in public among muslim women (and I recalled in parallel the Orthodox Jews I mingled with daily in Hatton Garden -their long dark ringlets and big black hats and coats marking them out - and I then recalled the images of Jews in pre-war Germany in black and white contemporary photographs with their distinctive star of David armbands).

No answers.

ADSENSE

It has this really intelligent sounding name does the google program for generating ads to put on your blog or web site page: google adsense. The idea is that it "reads" the page that the ads are to appear on and tailors advertisements from appropriate advertisers on things mentioned in the text of the page. Sounds good huh?

Well not so fast. Slow down, I wrote a blog entry a few days back that expressed my cynicism about the value and contribution of charities to the well-being of the world. To be fair I came down pretty heavily "agin 'em". Next day and what adverts are appearing on my blog? Adverts from charities that's what.

The Old Git wrote a strong anti-religious piece in his blog at around the same time and guess what? Yup, he got ads from religious organisations on his blog the next day.

So it looks as though we can both end up hosting ads for things that we disapprove of simply by writing harshly about them. So tell me google tell me do - where's the "sense" in that? Adsense or nonsense?

I wonder whether I'll have ads for adsense tomorrow?

Betrayal

I wrote recently about betrayal and the appropriate response to it. I did not talk much about the act of betrayal or its motivating forces in people and that was because I did not feel as though I had much insight into that side of things. Yesterday however, I came across the following in a recent book by Philip Roth that seemed insightful and thought that I would share it with you.



"... and then the torrent of betrayal. Every soul its own betrayal factory. For whatever reason: survival, excitement, advancement, idealism. For the sake of the damage that can be done, the pain that can be inflicted. For the cruelty in it. For the pleasure in it. The pleasure of manifesting one's latent power. The pleasure of dominating others, of destroying people who are your enemies. You're surprising them. Isn't that the pleasure of betrayal? The pleasure of tricking somebody. It's a way to pay people back for a feeling of inferiority they arouse in you, of being put down by them, a feeling of frustration in your relationship with them. Their very existence may be humiliating to you, either because you aren't what they are or because they aren't what you are. And so you give them their comeuppance.

...


Of course there are those who betray because they have no choice.


...

There are even those who have the brilliance of mind to practice the game of betrayal for itself alone. Without any self interest. Purely to entertain themselves."

RI

The last thing that almost got me banned from an online forum was thread that I started calling for an end to religious tolerance. The venom and insults that it unleashed were frankly quite surprising to me. Self declared xtians and muslims heaped disdain upon both my person and my ideas. Not entirely surprising in retrospect- having been an atheist since 10 or 11 years old I am used to being abused and cursed by these "tolerant" people who demand my tolerance and have managed somehow to get such tolerance written into law. They do not have to respect or tolerate my views but I have to tolerate theirs. My views, you see are or are not religious, according to them as suits their needs. Asymmetric argumentation? Nothing new there then.

What seems to be lacking these days is an understanding that respect, and not just lip service to it, is, as our cousins in the US would say, a two-way street. Respect has to be reciprocated for it to be meaningful and so it is no use the Pope apologising to muslims about offense taken if a) the offended contingent do not accept a respectful apology and b) he uses the opportunity to take an intolerant and bigoted swipe at the shared enemy - the atheists - just to cement things. But of course the legislation that "guarantees" religious tolerance and the social compact amongst religions just do not apply to atheists.

Now it seems to me from my limited reading of the holy books of a couple of major religions that one of the reasons for this lack of tolerance in behalf of any religion to any other is that a fundamental part of its defining or "holy" text (no matter which religion you choose) will state categorically and incontrovertibly that it is the one true faith and that all other faiths are in error. Most will also prescribe, and in some cases will actively exhort followers to act out. quite hideous behaviour toward any and all unbelievers (atheists).

From this it follows, as Exodus follows Genesis, that the reciprocal tolerance that we were looking for in our second paragraph will not be forthcoming from religious adherents. It is simply beyond their defining principles. And as this is so self evidently true then I should like to propose a solution to this intractable problem. I would like to propose that we remove religion from public life altogether and move it firmly into the private domain where it rightly belongs (it is after all a mater of personal faith, and or belief). And, safely ensconced in the private domain the adherents of such personal faiths can mix with others of like mind or potential converts. They would then never be called upon to pay lip service to an ideal that their religion forbids them from living up to.

With religion a taboo subject in the public domain there would be no more politicking regarding superstitious beliefs. There would be no place for discussions as to whether religious law should replace the laws passed by elected government. There would be no place for special pleadings in behalf of religious beleivers. The law would once again become beautifully indiscriminating. And like sex, when confined to the private realm, anything should go amongst consenting adults and in any numbers. Atheists would for once no longer be subject to public excoriation and all religious believers would be free to say what they really believe about other religions.

We would need to make some fairly important adjustments to remove religion entirely from the public domain and public life. Taking religion out of education would be a very good place to begin. Abolish all faith based schools. Remove religion from the school curriculum. Abolish morning assembly and prayer. If parents wish to indoctrinate their children in their own chosen belief set then that becomes their private responsibility.

Some of the rather deeper and less obvious impingements of religion into the public domain would also need to be addressed. It occurs to me that we would have to abolish the act of succession, replace oaths with affirmations across the legal and judicial systems, remove all non binary references to religion in official documentation and statistics (are you religious) - with religion in the private domain there would be no useful purpose served by such information as is currently gathered.

In fact it seems that we would need a very careful nit combing of extant statutes and practices to achieve the true separation of faith and state that we purport to hold so dear but surely it is worth the effort?

Enver Straw

I remember as if it were only last year calling round to my mother's house most every day on my way to work to check the post. It was the early seventies and I was waiting for a visa. In those days you needed a visa to go anywhere even vaguely interesting. And this was a seriously interesting place that I firmly believed was about to grant me a visa. It was a place that I had only ever read about. It was a place that no person I had ever met had been to - or even thought of going to. It was a place that, to be perfectly frank, nobody outside of my immediate circle would ever want to go to.

I had read of this place in the Soviet Weekly. I had seen the lists of endless political treatises churned out by their illustrious and stalinist leader Enver Hoxha. The place was Albania. The first and only officially atheist state in history. Cold war Albania: an independent and isolated state at the edge of Europe. Albania fascinated me. I wanted to see what life was like there. Enver and his buddies were not issuing many visas i those days but they were issuing some, and my political affiliations should put me in with a fair shout . And so I kept checking and continued waiting. Returned to my childhood home to check the post almost every day.

One day it turned up. In a thick brown envelope stamped all over with customs permits and bearing a coat of arms of some description of the Albanian state and postmarked Tirhana. Inside was a thick, folded sheaf of roneoed papers with that odd chemical smell so familiar from schooldays and that strangely purple text on shiny paper. The bulk of the papers were either about the latest 5 year plan and how the workers were ahead of target already or alternatively about what you could not bring into the country. I searched in vain through this litter for my visa. There was no sign of it but I did finally turn up a hand written letter addressed to me personally and signed by an under-secretary or vice-consul or some other embassy luminary.

This personal letter informed me that the visa I had requested was issued but was being held for me at my local Albanian Embassy awaiting authorisation. My heart rose. And then sank as I read the final paragraph. The authorisation of my visa depended on me turning up at the embassy, in person. And why? I had, at the time I applied for the visa, they informed me, had a beard. I would be aware, this functionary opined, that beards were forbidden in Albania and rather than have to shave me when I arrived in Albania it would be less problematic for all concerned if I were to present myself to the embassy "sans barbe" as it were.

I didn't go to the embassy and I didn't go to Albania. I symbolically spat in the eye of Enver Hoxha and his state and if Jack Straw asked me to remove my beard, for example, before he was happy to carry out the job that I pay him to do I would spit in his eye - for real.

Elaboration

Last night's piece brought varied and odd responses so let me immediately clear up a few issues raised by people commenting on the piece.

It was not my intention and at no point did compare the American system with any other, favourably or otherwise. The idea that I was somehow praising the UK system would be laughable if the commentator knew me at all well. The UK "safety net" has been, sadly, allowed to deteriorate in the past 30 years and you have only to talk to any of the poverty stricken pensioners scratching their last years out over there to confirm that it is a sorry and ineffective safety net these days. Were it subject to Health and Safety legislation it would surely be closed down. Under the Sale of Goods Act one would be able to claim ones money back. So - no I was not comparing the US system unfavourably with the UK system. They are both clearly inadequate.

It was most definitely not my intention to solicit charity for poor Ric and his wife - charity is not the answer to systemic problems - not in the US nor in the UK. It is often the case that charities spring up in response to such systemic failures but there is no convincing evidence that they do anything to address the causes. It can, however, be convincingly argued that they actually salve sufficient numbers of consciences and alleviate the consequences of a sufficient though small number of cases to ensure that the causes themselves are never addressed. Has Oxfam solved the problem of famine once and for all? How is it that cancer research in the UK is funded from charities (there are 620 cancer charities in the UK alone)?

And if charities are private responses to systemic problems as I conjecture then consider the following from the Guardian: There are more than 185,000 registered charities in England and Wales. The number is rising by 5,000 a year. As you read this, another charity will be created somewhere in the country. So - no I was not soliciting charity for Ric.

Once more however, the man that hit the nail on the head was young Liam. The thing that irked me most about Ric's situation was not that it happened - as our friends across the pond often say "Shit happens". It was rather that Ric blames himself for this failure, these circumstances. That personal sense of failure is the dark flip side of the American Dream. It is a fundamental of the dream - if anyone can be anything in the American system then it follows that if your life is a mess that it is your fault. And as Liam so perceptively points out "As it is, he sees himself as a failure - but that is misplaced, and he must ignore all such negativity otherwise it will completely immobilise him, mentally and physically, making his plight worse." Nail on the head" prize of the day goes to Liam.

Just for completeness my own take on Ric's situation is that a solution would be to get a court order to ensure that his ladlady accepts his monthly rent in weekly or fortnightly installments. When I was last living in the UK I believe that the Citizens Advice Bureau could have arranged such action - in the US I have no idea as to how this could be organised but surely one of my American readers does. Barry?

Looking the beast in the eye

I am constantly griping about the evils of American free market capitalism: its effects both domestic and international. I know about the lack of a safety net. I know it intellectually. Today I came upon it eye to cold, uncaring eye. And it scares me shitless. I have known Ric online for some years now and he is as we say in the UK "sound as a pound". His life has been spinning downward for a while and there seems to be nothing to stop him and his lady from bottoming out. How in the name of humanity can we applaud a system that gives rise to this? How can we fund armies to bestraddle the world and impose this system on anybody else? How can we aspire to such depths.


Read it and weep

SOCIO - ANTHROPO - ETHNO - NONSENSE

Some months back my curmudgeonly old pal Liam sent me some papers, academic papers that is, that an ex-colleague of his from university days, had written on the socio-anthropological aspects of British ex-pats in Crete. Despite being a work shamefully thin on genuine insights or revelations it did pique my interest in the topic. I looked out other works on similar topics but was again disappointed.

By this time I had a great deal of experience of online communities under my belt, having immersed myself in online communities for more than two years and the dynamic of such communities fascinated me too. Truth to tell, it was in fact on one of these communities that I met Liam - a community that we both watched deteriorate rapidly.

Some friends of ours who live here part-time had told us of an online ex-pat Brit community that they had come across and a couple of jigsaw pieces suddenly dropped into place. I had a new project. But I couldn't tell anyone. Stealth would be key. I would undertake an ethno-socio-anthroplogical study of British ex-pats in Crete and their interaction online. (OK all the jargon is there for fun - who knows what is really was or is?). This way, I figured, I would not have to meet them in the flesh and spend face to face time with them: something I had studiously avoided so far. My knowledge of things Cretan and British should provide as much or as little cover as necessary to observe undetected and my writer's skills would complete any necessary or desirable deception required, likewise undetected.

The initial online community helped me to discover another online community and, since they (the other community) had set themselves up as an ostensible opposite to the initial site, provided a broader spectrum than I could have hoped for - or so I thought. I spent several months learning the ways and mores of these communities before designing and inserting characters into the forum sections there.

And now the experiment is coming to an end. I have a third and final character running in one of the communities of whom I expect little save confirmation of some existing findings. Over the next weeks and months I shall share with you all of my findings as I write them up. It may not be academically valid research but I hope it will be more than simply entertaining.

4x4

A four legged three lettered animal
comes into our farm every day
and shits

A four legged three lettered animal
comes into our farm every day
and annoys our livestock

A four legged three lettered animal
comes into our farm every day
and digs among the crops

A four legged three lettered animal
comes into our farm every day
and breaks down the tender seedlings

That's four four legged three lettered animals
in all -
if not more

A two legged five lettered animal
encourages the entry
of these four legged three lettered animals
into our farm every day

A two legged five lettered animal
silently and smugly applauds the entry
of these four legged three lettered animals
into our farm every day

That's four four legged three lettered animals
and two two legged five lettered animals
in all
that are pissing me off
on a daily basis

The locals say:
poison
or
shoot them
and I shake my head and demur


For now!

I wish I'd said that ...

The internet is a wonderful thing.

Gill picked this up from Newsnight:

Jeremy has been talking to the scientist Richard Dawkins - whose new
book "The God Delusion" is set to be as controversial as his previous
ones.

Here's a taster: "I am not attacking any particular version of God or
gods. I am attacking Gods, all gods, anything and everything
supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be
invented."

A quick Google found this: Dawkins speaks to Salon

My how I wish that I had said that!!

Welcome the the Pleasure Dome

The dome ... See my Tabblo>

THE BIG TOP

Today's blog is made possible by the genius of the man on the left.For those not familiar with his photo this is Richard Buckminster Fuller. The real thing. You might want to take a glance aside at his Wiki entry before you continue here. Bucky invented or dicovered or designed the buckyball and in doing so he made possible the goedesic dome which he spent a lot of time refining.

Well, our two intrepid men in red have been building a geodesic dome, or buckydome as they prefer to call it, over the past 3 days. It was Shem's idea but needless to say when it came to hands getting dirty he enlisted the willing boys: Eddie and Ceddie. Under Shem's watchful eye the boys have been cutting bamboo into lengths and wiring 5 and 6 way joints together never knowing what came next or how the whole thing was supposed to work. My own opinion is that Shem rather than keeping them in the dark didn't know himself how it all worked. Shaun now and then popped out to hypervise and picked up the odd error that had to be corrected. Shaun can "do" multidimensional imagining but I suspect that Shem cannot.

It must have been unsettling for the people next door to see the work progressing and not to know what to expect. Nowhere near as entertaining as were the trellis sagas for us but then where their bizzare behaviour regularly attains the Everestian heights of strange ours wanders constantly around in the foothills of the odd. And the killer is that the final stages of assembly were carried out beyond the gaze even of their binoculars. Far from prying eyes. The completed dome now sits proudly and happily down by the mulberry trees where G intends to use it as a meditation and recueration centre.

How wonderful to see the glint of joy come into G's eye as she mentally traced the buckydome from its humble founding pentagon to the point where she pleaded to have the completed thing for herself. A genuine pleasure to oblige. She has become like a child with a new and much anticipated toy. She is happy and we applaud that joy and happiness. Aching backs and blistered hands are a bagatelle by comparison.

Note for Mick and Chick - it's OK I didn't let them use your bamboo - that is safely stored to one side!

Silence is poison

Dateline: September 9th 2009 - Athens


Today at twenty minutes past midnight the world fell silent. In a phenomenon believed to be unprecedented in human history nobody has now spoken for almost 6 hours. Some had predicted this silence, most notably the organisation known as Freethinkers and Rational Scientists (FARS) but most people had poo poohed the idea.

At midnight GMT new human rights legislation came into force worldwide and the biggest database ever built was opened for business. The Global Offence Database was receiving 20 or 30 registrations per second within 2 seconds from internet connexions all over the globe. Within 3 minutes the transaction rate to GOD had ramped up to hundreds and then thousands per second. By the time the database system collapsed 7 and a half million notifications of offence taken (NOTs) had ben permanently registered on the database. A fail over clustered database system came online immediately at the United Nations and while the UN is saying nothing we are led to believe that close to a billion NOTs are now registered and transaction rates have steadied to 3 thousand per second.

And while all of this computer activity was underway a concerted police presence worldwide was arresting thousands of people in city centres around the globe. Prisons and police cells are widely believed to be full in all major capitals and metropolitan centres.

The new human right bestowed upon the world's citizens by this particular legislation can be simply stated: "The right not to be offended by anything that any other human might speak, write, or signal by whatever means." Railroaded through the UN by religious bodies and minority rights organisations it was widely understood that this new human right would produce a climate of peace and harmony - only FARS predicted a deafening silence.

As far as we can tell this text is the only language based output from the planet for close to 6 hours. We will not be silenced. We expect the knock at the door any moment but we repeat our message of the last year "Your rights are my gags". Stay tuned - we may be back.

FE FI FO FUM

OK kids help me out here I know I'm not the brightest star in the heavens but this latest thing has got me all flummoxed.

So, the way I read it there's this old guy who used to be a member of the Hitler Youth but who now spends his entire life peddling superstition and dread and lecturing on those subjects makes another one of his ridiculous speeches and in this one he quotes from some other old guy who 7 centuries ago subscribed to the same superstitious nonsense as this one does. I don't know maybe 7 centuries ago believing that sort of rot was normal. Anyways this 14th century guy said something pretty unpleasant about a bunch of differently superstitious people and the new guy quoted him. Well it turns out that those differently superstitious guys are still around in a similar form (so that's two bunches of superstitious peoples in the 21st century - where is all this progress I keep reading about?)) and they suddenly get all upset and go off crying to the teacher with - "Miss, Miss he said something nasty about us! Tell him off Miss. Make him apologise!" So Miss says "I cannot make him apologise (and I wouldn't if I could because I believe he's right)" and the second bunch of differently superstitious guys start rioting!!

You are putting me on - surely? In the 21st century? After all that "progress"? We still have so many people who not only believe this tosh but actually get upset about it to the point of rioting? Perrrrr- lease! Like I said up front - I'm not Eisenstein but this is stupid.

a) If these people are allowed to believe this nonsense and talk about it openly why does another bunch of people get so upset about it?
b) what's it got to do with the rest of us who use our minds that it should get air time?
c) are we heading back into the bloody dark ages?

That's my two penn'orth

Apricot, dead, imagine

There is an apricot shaped hole in the garden tonight•

Those of you who have followed the progress around here over the years will be familiar with photographs of the apricot tree in blossom/ of the fruits of the tree• Tonight there is only a desiccated trunk - a stump of a skeleton of a tree•

For the past two seasons - 2004 and 2005 this beautiful tree has graced us with magnificent shows of blossom and huge crops of sweet fruits tasting of early sunshine• The first of the fruit trees to wear the mantle of spring/ she has signalled the end of winter for us• This spring though the cherry trees heralded spring for us - she was late/// we thought• The wild plum came into blossom - pink and fulsome - and still she showed us nothing - no buds / no leaf. Still// I had pruned her hard last October and so we waited. In vain it transpired/// no leaf bud// no flower blossom// no suckers even. Our hearts sank but still we waited on.

And all through summer we waited for signs of life that never came. She became more brittle, creaking in any wind• She began to rock in her root• Insects invaded her bark/// small boring things took up residence• And all the while she dried•

Today I took the saw to her/// carefully sawing through one of her three main boughs• Sawdust• No moisture.• No sap• Nothing to cling to the blade and hold it back from its fearsome duty• Dead• And now gone•

We shall miss her spring gown• We do not know what killed her• Perhaps she died of old age•

Unless someone wants some of her dried wood for turning she will feed our stove this winter• And her final legacy will be the wonderful scent of fruit wood burning• Earth to earth and ashes to ashes• The ashes will feed next years tomatoes and the circle will close•

There is an apricot shaped hole in our hearts tonight•

FRENCH

French harvest began today• G started by picking type 1s and 2s and then progressed to the french harvest. E&C erected the big drying rack over the past couple of days and it now hangs suspended in the carage• Decked out in a shroud of autumnal smelling sacking it now also hosts the first pass trim of the lavender known as "sofa" and is completely covered• How long the french harvest will take we know not yet but this year the drying will be accomplished more quickly than last what with the new drying technology and the earlier start• We shall see•

Shem and Shaun have meanwhile been doing their creative best and playing with www.tabbo.com / their latest toy. Trawling back through the digital archive of digital photographs Gill has taken here they have selected wildlife and nature shots and offer you the following: Cretan flora and Fauna • They have also been working on the LibraryThing catalogue (Beckett today) - tracking down books and tagging entries to create order from the chaos// pushing back the entropy day by day// book by book• A long job. Scanning spines continues and may go on even longer than the french harvest.

The french harvest will yield oil/// the toils of Shem and Shaun will yield only order. Both will yield beauty.

Two for one special offer - today only•

THINGS YOU DON'T NEED IN CRETE

a washing machine - you have the time to wash by hand - it isn't a fashion parade - you clothes last longer - most things dry the same day

an iron and ironing board - see above - it's too hot anyway and life is way too short

a dishwasher - come on you didn't ever really need one

central heating - the sun warms the water free of charge - a wood burning stove works when there is no electricity - chopping wood is good exercise and warms you up in the winter - who wants to look at boring radiators?

a big fridge-freezer - you can shop every day - and you get fresh produce and seasonality back in your life - 5 portions of fruit and veg is easy to achieve

laxatives - see above - with 5 portions you're kidding right?

a hoover - tiles and rugs prefer a Ewbank - it's good exercise and it works without electricity

broadcast TV reception - a TV for watching the free DVDs from the weekend newspapers yes - broadcast TV, forget it, life's too full and if it isn't you aren't doing it right - if you must watch sport go to the taverna/bar and socialise - this way you don't get one of those hideous satellite dishes on your roof (bonus)

all those grisly pharmaceuticals that are prescribed to help you sustain a life in he fast lane that you hate - you are in the crawler lane now - let them all overtake you, you don't care

all those nice non-prescribed pharmaceuticals that help you relax or ratchet up or sleep or hallucinate - life here is good enough not to need chemical assistance - alcohol and nicotine are allowed

the daily lie sheets they call newspapers - an ADSL connection can put you in charge of your own news gathering and propagandizing - cut Murdoch and Black adrift, you never needed either of them

insurance - go with the flow and accept what happens instead of fearing the future - you haven't got that much to lose anyway - remember the car insurance though, they do insist

Drop it a cog and give it some throttle•

Downshift |ˈdounˌ sh ift|
verb [ intrans. ]

change to a lower gear in a motor vehicle or bicycle.

• slow down; slacken off : well before the country slipped into recession, business was downshifting.

• change a financially rewarding but stressful career or lifestyle for a less pressured and less highly paid but more fulfilling one : they want to downshift from full-time work.

Alexei was talking about the first definition but I'm talking here about the last definition• It's what we did and so/ I suppose/ we must be downshifted now• After all this time // who knows? Perhaps we are in bottom gear? Or/ neutral?

I'll agree to the "less highly paid"/// shite/ we aren't paid at all! I'll certainly concur with the "more fulfilling"/// but career? No• Lifestyle? Yes! We used both to have "stressful careers"• We used both to have "stressful lifestyles"• Now/ though/ we have lives and carers. I care for G and she cares for me and everyone else around us cares about us two too• We have lives that we live rather than the lifestyles we had and that ran us• And ran us ragged at that•

But it is a full-time thing• It takes up all of our hours• And isn't that the difference? That/ and the fact that we do it from choice? Day in and day out? From choice• And with nobody telling us what to do. And with nobody checking up on us/ or setting deadlines for us?



Culture shock

noun

the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.

And/ do we or did we suffer culture shock? Not a bit of it• But then we had been dry-running the life and the place for 3 months of every year for ten years before we finally dropped the cog - or two - or three• That's not to say there were no surprises. Had there been no surprises I would have been surprised• Most of them pleasant/// some frustrating/ but now that we are rich in time and poor in cash being in a place where money will not speed things up and patience is the only thing that saves ones sanity it all makes eminent sense• Suddenly/ and unsurprisingly/ it all fits like a glove.

SPINAL STENOSIS

Using a second hand scanner donated to the cause by a stranger I have been scanning spines on this overcast and cool day• The feel of books/ the scent of books/ evoke memories• Memories flood back/ the book in my hands tingles• A patina of dust and tobacco smoke sticks to the pads of my fingers• A fine dust lingers in my nostrils. A smell I have known for most of my life• And loved•

I know these books intimately. Some of them have been with me since I was a callow youth - like the ones in the picture here• A nice little run of Faber paperbacks/ humble bindings that hold precious work/ from the late 1960s• Faded and scuffed now they sit with the same pride on their shelf as they did when first I bought them with precious pennies in the days before ISBNs and the decimal pound•

I keep them because I shall re-read them at my leisure• I show the spines because they are the face I see most often/// that I am most intimately familiar with• The spines even show the wear and tear and love that these fine volumes have received• And yet, they are/ in some odd way and like myself/ orphans• For they have no ISBN and without an ISBN a book scarcely exist these days• Search engines for books and book sites prefer/ or offer exclusively/ ISBN access• And that is a shame• Many books are extant from pre-ISBN days but they seem to slip further and further from public gaze• Hence my reference to orphans• Many of my beloved volumes are orphans destined to invisibility•

Will/ one day/ pre-WWW and pre-ISBN/ or LCC or any other coding structure/ artefacts simply disappear from view? I hope not• I would not wish to become an antiquarian guardian for 20th century artefacts. These things are contemporaneous with me• Am I destined to become an antique in my own lifetime as opposed to a legend in my own lifetime?

Aphoriso

If a man has to hand:
a good woman;
a good book, and;
a good dog;
then he has everything necessary to perfect happiness
and,
he might be a good man

If a woman has to hand:
a good man;
a good book, and;
a good dog;
then she has everything necessary to perfect happiness
and,
she will be a good woman

RED THATCHERS

The relentless slog of summer appears to have relented/ if only temporarily• It has been hot and dry for months now but this week we saw/or at least heard/ it was nighttime/ rain. Blessed rain• And with the rain came a gradual easing of the blanket of excessive heat that has enveloped us for the past weeks• Mornings are now bearable and sleep/ so recently a rare commodity/ plentiful• Or at least it would have been• Could have been•

Here though we have other drivers and they have ensured that the dearth of slumber continued• As many of you are all too aware/ yes I know we go on about it a lot/ we are chasing paperwork at present and that has meant a flurry of trips to cities and post offices, lawyer's office and consulate• Relying on the buses is none too sensible but since the Betty has been temperamental/ flashing odd warning lights at the driver at odd times/ of late we have been thrown onto the none too tender mercies of KTEL• Suffice to say that we have spent long sessions at bus shelters - almost as many hours/ we suspect/ as in those offices where rare and precious stamps are issued and where legal formalities are transacted and affadavits are sworn•

Mind you/ do not for one moment imagine that the farm has suffered from our neglect• Oh my word no. The demons in red have been busying themselves with all manner of tasks/ and G has been industriousness itself• Eddie and Ceddie have cleared the brambles from behind M&B's run and would/ were this live TV/ be only too happy to display their scars and scratches despite wearing full prophylactic clothing• They have also extended the thatching on M&B's run in preparedness for winter and are/ as I write/ filling drainage runs with gravel. G has weeded out all of her dead cuttings and continues to take the 2nd harvest - slowly• We now have samples of her lavender oil and very fine and invigorating it is too• We hope for more this year and perhaps some relaxing oil too from the type 1 flower heads• We shall see• Shem and Shaun redesigned last year's drying rack to suit an earlier drying session and the red devils executed the new design with some aplomb• I now have a semi permanent drying rack suspended not 15 centimetres from my carage roof/and thus out of my way in the normal course of events/ and/ when required/ it lets down to hang at waist/working height• Another triumph of recycling for the Felia crew• Needless to say the red brigade picked up a few extra scars during this exercise but they are nothing daunted/// they wear their war wounds with an insouciant pride.

A Mouthful of Air

The book itself

I am currently reading /or should it be mining/ an amazing treasure trove bequeathed to us by the late lamented/ hugely talented/ Anthony Bugess• In it he introduces/// a smattering of grammar// a mouthful of phonetics// and a whole host of his own ideas about linguistics• Published in 1993/ his commentary on Chomsky's generative grammar is insightful• His views on the monoglot propensities of the English speaking peoples is amusing• His critique of language learning books and tapes is corruscating• His inquiries into the orthography of the English language is spellbinding•

We could all (monoglots especially) benefit from a better (or even a superficial and initial) understanding of how language works• Our own especially• And a smattering of phonetic knowledge would certainly help with the acquisition of a foreign language• A full knowledge of phonetics would be a significant helper in such a project•

Burgess's work is aimed at the amateur but is by no means an easy read• It is/ however/ a particularly rewarding one• I recommend it unreservedly•

And so/ this winter/ I shall be teaching myself/ or learning/ the international phonetic alphabet• After I have that firmly under my linguistic belt I shall be resuming my study of demotic Greek with renewed vigour•

Now/ I ask you all/ how many TV programmes or films could have done that for me? None/ I suspect• Long live literature• Long live the book•

Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress

Okay boys and girls, the sharpest knife in the kitchen drawer in Felia is back. No arguments. Shaun may be more thorough but the incisive quality of this tool is without peer. This blade is like the finest Japanese steel - takes and holds an edge better than any other. Self promotion over.

The guv'nor told me not to do this. Shaun counseled against it. Both vehemently. Eddie and Frambot are in favour though I have to ask would I take their advice if they disagreed with me? Of course not.

I am going to show you a part of how my pieces are conceived, gestated, and finally born. There is nothing altruistic about it. It just appealed to me and since the piece in question is unlikely ever to see a live birth I am not really giving anything much away. This is a piece that has consistently failed to mature - it will not gestate to term. It is incomplete and fundamentally damaged. I cannot bear it to term.

This particular piece has suggested itself to me three, no four, times in as many weeks. And each time a little more substance accretes to it but as yet not enough. Every time it refuses to lend itself to a final and complete form. So let us begin our exagminations.

The germ or seed or kernel or spore is as follows: how does the almost universal adherence to the Greek Orthodox religion in Greece jibe with contemporary Greek lifestyle: with its anarchistic, relaxed, and almost animist beliefs?

Let me show you what I have so far, here is a roughly organised list of materials that has accreted on this topic:

Greeks: religion 98%,
no orthodox fundamentalism,
the great schism.
trinitarianism,
tritheists,
East vs West - politics and power,

Religious intolerance,
lived under the yoke of Islam,
Armenian genocide

the excessive interfering nature of Catholicism brought on reformation,
Orthodoxy therefore escaped Protestantism,
avoided industrialisation.

Separation of state and church?
democracy and the plebiscite,
if democracies express the wishes of the people then India?

anti-intellectualism
papas as wise man
a married priesthood

cohesive
shared past and values


OK, that's enough of the grist. You can see how the topics and points have clustered into usable groups (not necessarily in the correct or final order) that can lead each onto the other. There must be 2 or 3 thousand words in there. And a few very sharp insights and lateral thoughts but ...

The big but is that it doesn't actually go anywhere that makes any salient point. And it is that alone that dooms this thing over and again. It's annoying but that is how this calling sometimes treat with its practitioners.

Lima and Eddie

Hi kidz didger missme? Wherve you been you ask and well mightyou. Well thats what they call a shaggydog storey and I carnt tell you exactly where weve been coz its a state secret (no honest it is).

Look - it all started when the Boss was chatting with one of his pals on the interwebthingybob - you know the one the scotch bloke he calls McGudgeon. Anyways they were chewing the fat about guvermunt outsourcing and stuff and the scotch bloke (his name is Lima I found out) said he had answered a advert from a guvermnet department as a joke and had been awarded a contract to supply security services to a minister during the parlimentry break. They laughed themselves sick and then Lima said he was going to do it but he needed some muscle to back him up and then the Boss said I could help out if I was ameenable. And that's how it all began.

It turns out that Lima's a bit of an old geezer (understatement - he a real silver surfer it turns out) but he got the job because he does caravanning and that's what the minister does for holidays so he'd be a perfect undercover agent. Everyone knows that caravanners always go about in bunches. You know me I'm always up for a laugh and the idea of a jolly sounded good to me - it'd been too hot here for a while to do any proper work around the farm so I said yes and before we knew it it was time to beetle off to meet up with Lima and his delightful lady wife at Britelingsea that I got to on a boat or two. I was a bit worried about going back to the UK but Lima said the twats at GHQC would never pick me up if I was working for the guvermnet so I went with it and took my chances. Turns out he was right anyway.

I'd been told it was a woman called Margret and I'd thought it was that Chatter woman that used to run the show but no this turned out to be some old biddy with a face like a fiddle and teeth like a horse. First time I saw her I thought it was a joke. Still Lima and hi bride were smashing company (he's a lively old sod - bit like the Boss's grandad I guess) and I only got clostrophobia a bit at first - I got used to it in the end and Lima let me out pretty regular - we had to keep stopping because the Margret woman's hubby has to stop every so often, pretty often actually, to pee - seems he's older than Lima or looks it at least and he was doing all the driving.

Like I said I can't tell you where we went but some of it was familiar from my trip down to Crete the other year and they weren't speaking English. It sure was more comfortable in the Hairstream as Lima calls it than it had been kipping under bushes and hedges and nicking eggs for brekfats. Mrs Limas a neat cook and they had Marmite! And proper bacon! I reckon I'll be laying off the booze for a bit though - it got a bit heavy once or twice out there.

Suffys to say I had a bramah time and made two new friends. And I helped Lima stretch his pension a bit further. And I got a few bob too. As the Boss would say - result!

Good to be back though I'll miss the McGudgeons. And its still hot!!

RAGE

What is the appropriate response to betrayal? Rage? Anger? Sorrow? At the traitor or to oneself?

Rage, that is inextricably blind, and similarly mute? No that is not the way.

Alphabetically rage and anger are close. But a letter away. And anger is alphabetically close to danger. Another letter further. Sorrow is a long way off comparatively and if rage transmutes to danger so easily then perhaps sorrow is the proper course.

Anger is more articulate but speaks itself in grunts and expletives. Anger that burns but cannot cauterize the wound? Anger that turns so quickly to danger? No, that is not the way.

But rage and anger come most readily and refuse to leave easily. And sorrow is too readily turned inward. How then to expiate?

I can feel the Gitane stained breath of Genet on my neck laughing gently to himself and whispering under his breath " ... but betrayal is all there is in this life. It is the only thing. Betray before you are betrayed". His words are wise, and knowing, but lacking in hope and a certain humanity.

The memory of Genet jogs my mind. Jogs me toward Iscariot. At bottom it has to be pity: pity for the traitor. Who could read of Genet's life, a life spent in betrayal, and not feel pity for him? Pity for the self hatred that every betrayal, petty or grand, stokes and that is the wellspring for all future betrayals past and future. The self hatred that stops their mouths and eats their souls. Who could not feel pity for someone who trades inestimable treasures as friendship and loyalty for such shoddy trinkets as an easy life or a metre or more of land? Who could not feel pity for that person knowing that the self hatred that they carry within them serves only to fatten them as final strange fruit for Judas Iscariot's lonely tree in Akeldama?

Dead or corrupt?

A short one today.

Why is it that when one of my online friends goes missing for a week or so I start worrying that he might be dead? Is it my age? All I know for sure is that it isn't pleasant.

Google this: Cheney tamiflu or Rumsfeld tamiflu - fascinating results that a pal of mine whose brother's butchers shop has been hit hard by a slump in sales of free range chickens pointed me at.

BIG BAD JOHN!

Having almost dismissed the bruiser in last night's blog the big boy is back! In typical boisterous mood he has apparently been somewhat more forthright in private than he has had the nerve to be in public and has designated US government and Geo W Bush in particular as having been "crap on the middle east road map".

SHOCK HORROR - a politician speaks his mind.

DOUBLE SHOCK HORROR - a senior New Labour politician has a mind of his own.

And he isn't wrong either. Look at the facts and you'll come to the same conclusion. Bush allowed Israel, under the undead Ariel Sharon, to simply rip the roadmap up and write their own. Crap is mild! It's a bit like calling a vindaloo a masala. Olmert seems to believe that he has a "green light" to do just as he likes. And while the cowboy currently in charge sits on his hands in the White House he has.

It is worth reading Big John's supposed "denials" if you get a chance - the one thing he doesn't deny is the thing that he was actually reported as having said rather than those things the red tops suggested that he said. He' not entirely stupid.

BIG JOHN?

Can someone explain to me why every time I turn on Radio 4 these days the only UK politician I hear, with the exception of the odd and minor political lickspittle, is that fascist bully John Reid? Looking like a grown old skinhead and sounding as though he could hardly care less about the civil liberties of the electorate, this man, who cannot distinguish between "regrettable" and "regretful", bombasts his way through every performance. He oozes the same kind of certitude as does his boss Tony - unthinking, beyond logic, beyond the wishes of the electorate.

Why do we get this Scot speaking for Britain? Rather than the other greasy Scot? The one at number 11? Supposedly the next prime minister? Why not the official deputy prime minister who is supposed to be running the country in the absence of the actual prime minister? Big John?

Is Tony setting him up to oppose Gordon Brown? And shifting one big John off to the side for another big John? Does the electorate get any say? I think not.

There is a solitary upside to this substitution: For a week or two I do not have to swallow my bile as the hideous image of Tony Blair's shit eating grin is flashed onto my internal projector, as happens whenever I hear his sincere and self certain religio-political prognostications.

The Eve of St Agnes

Ninety palm thatched sum umbrellas in 5 rows arranged back from the shore to the bars and tavernas. All occupied. Three, at least, sun beds beneath each one. All occupied. Six and seven beneath some - whole families sheltering from the heat of the sun. Two bars. Two tavernas. Full to overflowing from noon onwards. All seats taken. Primarily Greeks.

In some modern emulation of biblical stories Greeks have returned to the villages of their birth. It happens at general election time. It happens in August. Every year. To be back home on the 15th is important. The mainland, what there is of it, empties and the islands fill in August.

The mood on the beach is hot and bubbling. Conversations, loud and passionate take place beneath each umbrella and at every table and bar. They talk of politics. Of football. Of fashion and music. They talk of family. Heated and meaningful, their conversations never descend to violence and anger. Alcohol is consumed. But only enough to lubricate the minds and tongues of this voluble people. Laughter is everywhere. Joy too. Amazing amounts of joy. Amazing at least to the outsider or the unpracticed in the ways of the Greeks.

They eat and they repair to the shade: or they wade into the sea to cool down and continue their conversations. Like Cubans, talking in the sea. Hats on heads very often but no cigars here. Affable and amicable. Ages from 6 weeks (newborns are not allowed out) to great grandfathers and grandmothers: generations of them all together.

How sensible to arrange your family oriented festival for when weather conditions coax you (or force you) out of your houses and away from the idiot box. Force you happily out into the joys of nature and the shoreline and into the company of like minded people looking to enjoy themselves and their lives.