[sir james beiggelschwarz] forgotten 45th anniversary

Yvette Carte-Blanche negotiates the price with Beiggels

Squadron-Leader Sir James Beiggelschwarz of Straf-Jerry was born in May, 1899, in Lucknow, India. He joined the Rifle Regiment at 17 but realizing it was a pratty thing to do, instead joined the Royal Flying Corps.

Flying the Sopwith Camel, he distinguished himself as a right nutter, including tap dancing stunts on his right wing in top hat and accordingly was awarded the DSO and MC which prolonged the period before his demise as the latter gong may not be awarded posthumously.

Speaking fluent French and German, he fell in love with the femme fatale Marie Janis, later infiltrating the former SU to rescue her, speaking fluent Russian and Ukrainian, discovering she had expired in the year 1962, it transpiring that she had written a scathing series of stories about his alleged affairs with his cousin Algy and Ginger Rogers - these allegations being substantially untrue.

Beiggles in prattier days

Affaires were the stuff of life to Beiggels, working his way through a string of fictional lovers, the majority female, including the eccentric French Resistance deserter Yvette Carte-Blanche, who caused severe bruising to his cheeks owing to her idiosyncratic lovemaking positions.

Thereafter accused of a "plummy", autocratic manner of speaking, he never had the heart to set the record straight and "did a Coleridge", running off to join the maqui-de-sards but took the wrong turn and instead found himself highly placed, within two months, in the milice, revelling in the sobriquet Haut Milicard, to the bemusement of his fellow nazis.

Largely through the efforts of Jean Moulin, who went on to coordinate the CNR, he was spirited out of France but not before an affaire with the grocer's daughter Margarita Hilde de Chaumiste who spoke fluent English and later anglicized her name around the time of the Guerre des Malvinas.

As she walked away from him following a flare up over yet another rendezvous with Algy and Ginger, she was reputed to have snapped, over her shoulder: "The lady's not for turning," a strangely pointless utterance and one which had been rehearsed for some weeks.

His rejoinder: "If it's good enough for Kim and Guy, it's good enough for me," simply confused the plot and brought this short Wiki bio to an abrupt end.

Resistance leader Margarita Hilde de Chaumiste in later years

Isn't the Blogosphere wonderful? There's a follow up here by Jocko which really must be perused...

[diplomacy] the art of getting your own way

In every altercation between the two species, men and women, it could all surely have been avoided with a few carefully chosen, genuine words of conciliation.

Your task is to choose the best variant from below. None of the variants might be your first choice so choose the least worst from what's on offer:

1. He has some friends around to watch the ball game on TV, forgetting he'd promised to take her to the opening of the new furniture shop. How should he respond to her concerns?

a. [Takes her aside] Look, I'm sorry. The game finishes at four and I'll get rid of the guys then and we'll go straight there then we'll eat at the new Chinese which opened in the centre. Would that be OK?

b. Don't you have some laundry to do or something?

c. It's my turn for the ball game. You had your turn last week. We agreed.

2. He wants to go to the game, she has shopping plans but he digs his heels in. What's her best tactical gambit?

a. You're always wanting to go to the football. Why can't you think of me for a change?

b. [Moves up close] Could we video record it and watch it later today? By the way [staring straight into his eyes], do you have any ideas how we might … er … spend the evening after we watch it? I have this strange feeling coming all over me.

c. Look, I already have two children. I don't need a third. Don't be such a baby.

3. She's just got the place looking good for the study group she's hosting when he comes home and traipses dirt across the carpet. Which is his best response?

a. You know, you’re so cute when you’re angry.

b. [No response - takes off the shoes, goes for the vacuum and gets cleaning.]

c. Sorry.

4. She's upset and wants to talk about his faults - numbers 27 to 46 from her 100 point list. What's his best strategy?

a. Oh, my stomach [clutching at his belly] ohhh I have a stomach ache something awful. Have to go to bed, darling.

b. Is there any way we can do this via e-mail?

c. All right. We'll do this the once. [Sits her on the divan and takes her hand]. You say what's on your mind then we'll try to find a compromise. If we can't, we'll come back to it tomorrow but not today, all right?

5. He's stopped looking after himself and that paunch is turning into a beer belly. How should she approach it?

a. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror today? When was the last time?

b. Would you go with me to the fitness club for ten sessions? I'm not comfortable going by myself but I really need to get some weight off. I'd feel better with you helping me there.

c. Big butts and beer guts are fashionable this year, I hear.

[blogfocus saturday] seasoned bloggers all

One year this blog has been going and how many blogs have we seen falling by the wayside in that time, coming back with a flourish and then fading away again? What's it take to keep at it, to be consistent and never give way to the blues? These eight bloggers could tell you.

1] Mr. Eugenides, the Golden Greek, is in love or else on the substances:

Reader, I have a confession. I am in love [with] Wendy Alexander. No, wait, don’t go. I’m serious. One sight of that diminutive figure is enough to send me into raptures of delight that I blush to describe on a family blog such as this. How shall I count the ways? Eyes, wide and bright like saucers of champagne, yet also dark and passionate as goblets of ruby Buckfast. A neck, slender and playful like a faun’s, framed by hair delicate yet supple, like silken ropes of song. Her mouth – the mouth that launched a thousand policy discussions – a mouth that seems to defy the laws of physics, that exists in four or even five dimensions, curving space and time around it into an exquisite event horizon of pure sensuality.

2] Jonathan Swift reflects on the passing of Antonioni and Bergman:

It's bad enough that so many of his films were in black and white and had subtitles, they were depressing, too. Taking a brave stand in favor of easy, pleasurable films Podhoretz declared, "You can only tell people to sit down and eat their spinach for so long," no doubt hearkening back to that life-changing moment in his childhood when he threw his bowl of spinach on the floor and demanded that his mother, Midge Decter, give him some ice cream instead.

3] Melanie Phillips has never been one to mince words:

And the idea that Hamas is not ‘ideological’ is ludicrous. Its aim is the Islamisation of the region. Its ‘grievance’ is the existence of the Jews. Has Sir Jeremy never read the Hamas charter? For that deranged document is straight out of the Nazi nightmare, stating in terms that the Jews are a cosmic conspiracy behind every single event the authors regard as bad (such as capitalism, communism and the formation of the UN). How does any civilised person ‘engage’ with that?

4] Stephen Pollard puts the real reason behind the killer kids and the ASBO generation:

There are a variety of causes behind such behaviour. Children without a resident father. Parents unwilling or afraid to discipline their children properly. Teachers unwilling or afraid to discipline their children properly. Police behaving as a branch of social work. And police and CPS refusal to back those who stand up to thugs, rather than prosecuting them.

5] Clive Davis thnks there are two sides to the NHS:

The treatment I had for a nagging shoulder injury bordered on the farcical – three ops, lost notes, contradictory diagnoses, an ever-elusive consultant and, towards the end, an encounter with a house-doctor who insisted that one of operations I´d had couldn´t actually have taken place because my shoulder didn´t show the “right” marks. (My notes had been lost again, so he had to go with his instincts.)

On the other hand, our GP is very good, my wife received excellent ante- and post-natal care with our three sons, and one of them has had brilliant treatment for a heart condition.

6] The Devil's Kitchen not only turned 30 but he is instrumental in a production up that way. Best of British or is that English? No matter. Here he clarifies that anyone with the word Higham embedded in his name is a fine fellow indeed:

Fitzhigham is one of those great English eccentrics; one of those people who enjoys undertaking lunatic stunts; such as travelling 160 miles down the Thames in a paper boat or rowing a bath across the English Channel. He is infectiously enthusiastic most of the time: when recounting the achievements of his hero he is irridescent, his ever-orotund tones and manic eyes emphasising his points. In short, he was jolly good as usual, and he elaborated on Burton as we had a drink afterwards.

7] Unity is the scourge of the right but one thing undeniable is that he does his homework:

There have been reports into the [7/7] bombings. None of these have been independent. And as time has gone on it has become obvious that much of what we were told was untrue. For instance, we have gone from being told that the bombers were unknown to the authorities (”clean skins”, as Charles Clarke, the then Home Secretary said in the wake of the bombings) to finding out through the “Crevice” trial that at least two of the bombers were known prior to July 7 ^th 2005 and that one of them, Mohammed Siddique Khan (the Edgware Road bomber) had been followed home by the authorities.”

8] From Voltaire to Dawkins, Vox Day shows that stupidity takes many forms:

I have no objection whatsoever to the hostile tone in which Dawkins and Harris have framed the debate. (They're saying very little today that Meslier didn't write in 1729.) I love that bright lines are being drawn. What the New Atheists don't understand is that the derision they experienced before will be as nothing compared to what is coming. They will not be able to take the heat that is going to come at them from a thousand different directions, not with all their easily demonstrated logical errors and verifiable factual inaccuracies.

See you, hopefully, on Wednesday evening.

[fred thompson] iowa move - an indicator

CityUnslicker , he of the bouncing baby son, is a member of the financial community and therefore not given to wild speculation on matters such as those presented below:

Well I won't believe it until I see it; not too say it ain't true seeing the links, but still CFR are a bunch of right weirdo's as I am sure we would all agree.

A fair statement and thus, in the interests of accuracy, I invite readers to point out, using only statistics and neutral documentation, as distinct from rhetoric, where there are any actual errors of fact in the following article.

Thank you:

Non-visible member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, specializing in national security and intelligence and therefore approved and perfectly placed chosen son to push the agenda for the emasculation of the U.S.A., Fred Thompson, should not be dismissed from speculation:

… after a less-than-stellar summer marked by a campaign staff shake-up, reports of lobbying for a family planning group and fundraising that failed to meet expectations …

He did the minimum required:

Unlike Democrat Barak Obama, who a day earlier plunged into crowds and eagerly sought out state fairgoers, Thompson raced through the jam-packed fair, stopping only to shake hands and chat with people who recognized and stopped him.

… after all, who's interested in the little people? Instead, he deals with those who count and the issues which count:

The man who spent some 20 years as a Washington lobbyist also proclaimed himself the only candidate willing to deal with what he sees as a looming fiscal crisis for the nation.

As a CFR, he would know precisely what's coming and this statement places him way ahead of Obama and Giuliani but neck and neck with the Lizard Queen, who also would know exactly what's coming. He was absolutely right in speaking of:

"The beginning of the discussion is to get everybody to acknowledge we've got a very, very serious problem,' said Thompson. "We haven't gotten to that stage yet.' He said Republican candidates are largely ignoring the issue. "Other than giving lip service to it ... I don't know that anybody is on the campaign trail," said Thompson. He ducked, however, when pressed on specifics.

Of course he can't give specifics, as the American people would riot if they knew the truth about Fred's facilitation of the SPPNA, which he must follow, by definition, as a CFR. Lord Nazh for example, appears blissfully unaware of what's going down, Matt is aware of the SPPNA but seemingly not yet of the financial collapse which appears to be on the way and I'm trying to warn as many as I can.

If you won't believe a little blogger, will you at least listen to the Republican Presidential candidate on this?

[inaugural blogpower round up] via matt

The inaugural Blogpower Round-Up is at Matt Murrell's Insomniac site and a goodie it is too. To read a review and see the creator of this banner, click the pic.

[emission] more than meets the eye

What is the significance of this picture?

The next most important source of greenhouse gas emissions is methane, particularly from natural gas leaks and off-gassing from rice paddies and flatulent cows (believe it or not). The remainder is a mixture of trace gases, including oxides of nitrogen. [Daniel С Esty and Andrew S. Winston, Green to Gold, How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, Yale University Press New Haven and London]

[mr. eclectic] a fellow magpie, methinks

Given the nature of my site and my mind, I was always going to find Rob Jongschaap's eclectic site interesting stuff - never knowing what's coming next. Well worth popping back to, methinks.

Among myriad things, he treats the view of the earth from the moon … and the levitating lightbulb which makes its own way to your ceiling [or wherever].

[smart money] where in 2008-10

I was having afternoon tea with a futures speculator and the latest crisis came up. Essentially, it's generally agreed the Fed baled the banks out this time:

… with the help of world banking 'super-friends', but stock-watchers are divided on the wash-up …

… and:

The Fed promised to provide whatever funding was needed to ensure that banks were able to continue lending to each other at its desired interest rate of 5.25 per cent and pumped $38bn (£18.8bn) into the system in three separate open market operations.

However, in 2006, at the October 25th FOMC it was noted that:

The President recently signed the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act of 2006, which gave the Federal Reserve discretion, beginning October 2011, both to pay interest on reserve balances and to reduce further or eliminate reserve requirements.

Have to admit I didn't really think through the implications. I'm going to ask Tim Worstall, Chris Dillow and CityUnslicker if they'll comment on this and tell me if the following thinking is faulty:

1. By eliminating reserve requirements, I presume that means the statutory reserves with the Fed, i.e. the funds to bale out defaulting banks;

2. By eliminating this requirement, obligation is also eliminated, i.e. a defaulting bank goes down on its own, the 1929 situation;

3. A bank going down can either recover funds or close its doors but whereas, in 1929, this mean a run on the bank and therefore closures, in this situation it would mean calling in of credit and other debt on a proportional basis.

4. In other words, the reason there was no major crisis this time was because the Fed baled out the economy. But according to the already signed new regulations, they're not going to assist next time.

This is one way the credit squeeze can begin.

The other thing I want to know is, given this scenario, where is the smart money going to be put in the next two years?

[bag's lament] sorry for eating you

Bag read this:

The descendants of cannibals in Papua New Guinea, who killed and ate four Fijian missionaries in 1878, have said sorry for their forefathers' actions.

And wrote this:

Of course it then works out that a British ancestor revenged the killings by killing several tribesmen and torching some villages. Wonder if we are expected to apologise back? It's only polite you know.

Now, I wonder if we could get Welshcakes to whip up something to go with it? Prune Consomme?

[hewlett packard latest] их новости

Just been sent this by an economist friend [yes, I do have one or two of these strange individuals as friends]:

Чистая прибыль крупнейшего в мире производителя персональных компьютеров американской компании Hewlett-Packard Company за 9 месяцев 2006-2007 финансового года выросла на 13,3% - до 5,1 млрд долл. по сравнению с 4,5 млрд долл. за аналогичный период годом ранее.

Выручка за отчетный период увеличилась на 13,2% - с 67,1 млрд долл. до 75,99 млрд долл. за тот же период годом ранее. Такие данные содержатся в опубликованном сегодня отчете компании.

So, now you know. At least Ubermouth can read it. Even more interesting is that when I typed "hewlett-packard 2007" into Google, the first few pages were almost entirely in Russian. What is it with this company? Aren't the Americans remotely interested?

[stephen king] a town like alice

Alice Springs is a sleepy hollow in the middle of Australia, made famous in a now long forgotten novel by Neville Shute. It's a little hard to describe.

It's the only metropolis for a thousand kilometres either way, stuck in the middle of the vast exapanse of the country and gets it's trade because it is on the road from Adelaide north to Darwin, as well as being not far [in Australian terms] from Ayer's Rock, the great red monolith. I decline to call it Uluru.

There are a number of little surprises in this story.

Bev Ellis is apparently manager of Alice Springs' Dymocks Store, a large book chain. I'd like to know why a major chain would have an outlet in this tiny town anyway?

Next surprise is that Stephen King chose to be there and if on holiday, why, when Bev Ellis was:

"… in my office ... he came in and started signing books and one of our customers thought he was writing in them."

The article continues:

Mr King had left the store by the time she came out but when Ms Ellis was told about the man's strange behaviour she assumed it was the writer himself.

"Their books are like children to them and they look to see how they are going."

She adds:

"I saw him go to Woolworths and he was in the fruit and veg section. I was very polite and I asked him how long he had been in town

... He just smiled, I don't think he wanted people to know he was here but I told him that if I knew he was coming I would have baked him a cake."

The next thing which puzzles me is:

The six copies of the book signed by Mr King will be donated to various charities concerned with literature.

Surely they'd keep one for themselves.

And lastly, was there anything wrong with him just walking in and signing his own books? Is that defacing them - should he pay the costs? Is the man strange or just in permanent autho-drive?

[silly really] niggling little thing

Sometimes we can forget that a blog is a public forum and anyone can come in and look at your business. I understand that but would like to write this anyway.

There are bloggers with real issues just now and my heart goes out to them. There is one at least with a joyful issue. Then there is me, with almost nothing to complain about, nice readership, nice discussions and yet I go to bed sad this evening.

You'll possibly call it self-indulgent but there's something niggling me.

There's a girl I'm corresponding with just now and though we write of many things, she has someone else on her mind. She'll read these words and I know she thinks something's gone wrong. It hasn't. I like her so much. I'll write tomorrow morning.

This doesn't niggle me.

There's a girl who had arranged to visit me last evening. She didn't arrive. No matter. She phoned today and said she'd come this evening. She didn't. No matter. Now she says she'll come tomorrow evening. We'll see.

This doesn't niggle me.

I miss my little car I sold the other day. We went through a lot together for years and she was idiosyncratically mine. The new owner apparently has some troubles driving her.

This niggles but not a lot.

There's a blogger who used to visit me a lot and I had pride of place on her roll. She had a plausible reason to drop me but still, it niggled. She's been busy and hasn't visited for a long while. Again I can understand that. It's holiday time.

Then, this evening, I began the move through the rolls as I usually do and was surprised to see her back on someone's site. Great, I thought and clicked into mine. Nothing. So I continued through the sites, commenting here and there, including hers and she kept popping up here and there.

I went back to my site. Nothing. You see the way the mind's ticking over?

OK, I have no reason to be unhappy. I don't own her, I have no claim, she's jsut a blogger; even if I did I can't do much from the fSU. She does as she wishes from her part of the world. I just get this feeling though she doesn't really like my site any more.

Again, so what? People come, people go. You can't please everyone. There are readers who come here and stay and they are the most important people and then there are those who visit and don't come back. Big deal - doesn't worry me.

She worries me, don't know why. Maybe it's something I wrote. I think that must be it. She has her own issues, of course. Yes, that's it, I think.

So, time to go to bed I suppose. The good thing is I know she'll never read this post so that's all right then.

Goodnight all.

[the prunic wars] between a dick and a dale

If you find the humble prune a little hard to stomach, why not compose your compote of apple and rhubarb?

As Mrs. Albert Forrester said, in Maugham's Creative Impulse:

Since it's occurred to me lately that perhaps I've exhausted the possibilities of the semi-colon, I'm going to take up the colon.

The colon, so beloved of those who would hang, draw and quarter - is indeed not to be poked at and as Medicine-dot-net rightly observes:

Prunes and prune juice have been used for many years to treat mild constipation. There is no evidence that the mild stimulant effects of prunes or prune juice damage the colon.

There you have the origins of the conflict - prune juice and the decision whether to utilize the health-giving properties of either the French, Imperial, Italian, or Greengage variety in the cleansing of the colonic tract.

Indeed, so controversial is the issue that in the United States, an effort to rebrand "prunes" as "dried plums" began in 2000, to appeal to a younger market who associated prunes with elderly people.

This is, quite frankly, cruel. Prunes appeal to people of all walks of life and states of constipation - just look at their properties to start with:

The beginnings of the Greengage prune

Calories in Prunes:

1 prune = 20 calories

1 cup prune juice = 180 calories

Closet prune eaters have existed for years - witness this poor girl:

It was just a bag of prunes, but I behaved as though it was crack. Knowing how closed-minded people can be about certain foods -- I still bear the scars of a childhood of raw green peppers in my lunch -- I thought it best to eat them on the sly.

On the sly? The mighty prune! Dick Madeley sets us straight:

Some prune facts which everyone should know before they start spreading the juice around. Did you know that in some parts of South America the stones from prunes are placed in the ears to enhance the effects of cannabis?

Prunes are also high in vitamin D and can help you tan more easily. The downside of this is you’ll spend more time on the toilet and, all things being equal, the prune / sunbathing ratio cancels each other out. You might even look paler, though not down the backs of your legs.

Big Chip Dale, sadly, is not a prune man. With his exposure it's probably as well but I can't help feeling Chip went a little OTT when he not only accused Dick Madeley of something I can't quite fathom but accused me, in virtually the same breath, of Prunica Fides - breaking the faith.

I might have gladly confessed to breaking wind, as the Carthaginians were wont to do to power their galleys away from the pursuing Romans but the faith? Never! I am a staunch prunist, I tell you.

So there it is.

The First Prunic War may have ended a dull time of flagging stats and flaccid colons but let the final word be Sir Winston's, at a moment when the very future of the prune eating world looked its darkest:

Now this is not your end. It is not even the beginning of your end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning when colonic irrigation is seen as some sort of substitute for the imbibing of the humble prune.

Next week - baked beans and their effect on Australian leg-spin bowling.

Here it is - the offending item that the hot air is all about

[mopsa] aw, shucks

Thanks, Mopsa, he intones, head bowed, eyes averted and shyly kicking at the sand with his left sandshoe.

[dale watch] quiz and post

First the quiz - who is the odd one out and why?

Now the post - Iain Dale refers to the new Blog Watch Police:

A project by the COI’s Media Monitoring Unit is considering how to add blogs to its regular summaries of government coverage in mainstream press or television. The summaries are used across Whitehall from ministers to departmental communications teams, often as an early warning service on issues rising up the public’s agenda.

Bull s--t!

You know the thing which galls me the most? It's not so much the surveillance and shut down tactics or the paranoid fear that bloggers can say what they wish, it's the lying hypocrisy of pretending it's for another purpose.

[sane values] there'll still be cakes and ale

The Christian ethic has underpinned western civilization for millennia, building on the Jewish ethic, with one purpose in mind - to put the relations between humans into some sort of order and to provide an ideal which, though seldom attained, could still be aspired to.

Though parts of the text of the scriptures were constantly, cynically hijacked and twisted by the intergenerational western leadership to justify wars and all sorts of human misery for eons and though hardly anyone observed the ethic as it really was, nevertheless it was there. It was taught in schools and at home.

Even the Kray brothers helped old ladies across the street and slipped them a quid or two.

Vader - the lure of glitz, power and exclusivity - come join us.

The whole basis, the true basis of Christianity has now been successfully suppressed and children are self-taught [in lieu of any values] to worship the bitch goddesses Success, Avarice and Me-centredness; the divorce figures, credit card debt and general weariness with everything in life skyrockets, as there is less and less leisure time, despite the new technological advances and because of the necessity to work two jobs and plunge into debt.

The whole basis of the other side is to ape and twist values such as compassion and tolerance and to apply them to all sorts of deviance from the norm, desperately rushing into legislation measures against any who would speak out but true compassion and tolerance, that is towards one's neighbour, is swamped in the the other side's maxims "Me, me, me", "Do as you will" and "I can do anything".

Humanity, who very much "can't do anything" without food, water, shelter and a system of social and moral mores to regulate it's dealings with each other, is now running around rudderless in palaces of expensive glitz, its mooring lines to values which really do produce an orderly and happy society severed and perverted doctrines instead consuming schools and colleges of higher learning, the arts, law and medicine [the multi-billion dollar drug pharmaceutica, for example].

Humanity is excreting and polluting it's way to some sort of heady dystopia.

There is no satisfaction for anyone.

The real Darth Vader, behind the mask

Though you've made deals and devoted your life to self-fulfilment and by extension, to your chattels, the more and more you acquire, the less and less satisfied you become - the law of diminishing returns.

Middle-aged ladies doggedly stick to feminist humanism and assure themselves they're far happier alone. After all, all the current literature assures them, through surveys, magazines and the internet,that it is so. Self justification and rationalization are rampant. Young couples break up all over the place, incapable of holding the family together in their "onwards and upwards" mentality and when one part of "me", their partner, acts independently of the "me" they have in mind, the conclusion is foregone.

Single people are everywhere, telling themselves it's far better than with an understanding, respectful, compassionate and supportive partner.

How we'd like it to be

Unfulfilled longing and being let down are the core values of the new religion, this non-religion of Self; jealous competitiveness and ambition, strutting about like a peacock and defining itself through one's BMW, Mercedes or air flights for the calendar year is one of the criteria.

"Only the little people pay taxes," intoned Leona Helmesly, New York, 1989, as she showed precisely what the new values represent.

Into this, young ladies are in shock when the man they pinned their faith in turned out to be a cheating ne'er do well. Not six months ago there was such a lady, a friend of mine and the two of them made a big deal of the atheistic, swearing f--- and c---, self-fulfilment thing. Yawn. There's one girl, a friend of mine, now doing just this.

Fine but why the huge surprise when the relationship falls apart? What else could it have done? And what are my friends left with? Bitterness. Gall. The girl six months ago wrote that she hated all men and trusts only hats. The current friend writes that she trusts no one. Same thing.

When sex becomes the end goal

And him? Looks great for him, bedding all the women in the city, except that inside his empty shell he is getting meaner and meaner and less and less satisfied, demanding greater and greater kicks to stay "satisfied". As the Emperor in Star Wars wanted Anakin to do, he's given way to himself, the baser instincts run riot whilst he himself thinks he's aspring to higher things [the Grand Babel Delusion] but the truth is he's let his moral core become as soft as butter, despite what he might look like on the outside.

Drink takes away a lot of it for a time - plus the substances. Nothing wrong with either when they're just an adjunct to a summer's afternoon with friends but when they become the day to day life - there's trouble on the horizon.

I don't ask why it is so. I know exactly why it is so and I'm no guru or adept in these matters. I'm just one little man. Anyone with half a brain can step back from life and see it for him or herself, if willing to do so.

So, where to?

All right, continue to reject the core values spelt out in the Sermon on the Mount and in other places and continue the inevitable downwards spiral, as sure as night follows day [though they're working on that too]. There are values waiting on the shelf for you, right at hand, entirely free, no strings attached and if you adopt them - sharper enjoyment, comfort, fulfilment and rest are the consequences.

And another thing - adopting sane values does not mean there'll be no more cakes and ale, no more bawdy jokes. The notion that sane values equals high morality is a furphy. "Capital M" Morality does not mean the same as "small d" inner decency.

If you think this, then you've been hoodwinked by the vocal high-moralists of the Christian Right who love to mix politics and religion in a lethal cocktail which inevitably will lead to a godless, humanistic over-reaction, which was the idea in the first place. You've been hoodwinked by the drip, drip, drip of cruel, cold decades of corrosively stuffed values of the left as well.

So, having been rejected equally by the writhing serpents of the godless pagan left and by the high moralist Christian Right, where does that leave me, your humble blogger here? Undefended? Does it hell!

Read Ephesians Chapter 6. Though I'm not crazy for the guy who wrote it, there are some good ideas in here, particularly verse 12.

If that's a bit gung-ho for you, no matter. This excellent piece by Wolfie puts the matter in perspective for the miserable sinners like you and me.

Into the sunset, with nothing but our values. Take no thought for what you'll wear ...