‘cors …

… cleaner skies will mean more immediate climate heating, oh dear. And my previous post and link for Sam Carana ie Arctic news blogspot focus on the huge release of methane from what looks to be an earthquake in the Arctic. Yuck.

Driving thro my nearby town tonight (NE UK) was a trifle upsetting considering how we still mingle for shopping and for instance many small businesses such as car repair seem to still have human interactions; I cannot help but feel pub and restaurant closure ie trifling but valuable human interactions will create a whole bundle of frustrations and eventual anger. I’m okay, I pretty well live the exact social distancing lifestyle that the Government would so wish us all to pursue, but I’m not sure the average person would wish to live as I do. In fact I know they would not and could not.

Boris has promised vast amounts of citizen wage aid, but be warned he will want his price ie stringent shutdowns as and when he thinks fit.

My heart bleeds for front-line Doctors and nurses … despite the pure lies and blindness of Government Press Briefings … we hear several times over each day from NHS frontline workers that the correct PPE is not present and is pathetically unsuitable, short of the decent minimum.

And where is TEST-TEST-TEST which we were implored to pursue? Its a bit like UK ‘Foot and Mouth’ in that all the hard lessons learnt from the experience of 1969 were ignored thirty years later.

A term seemingly forgotten is bio-security, quite handy actually, its what we all should aim for. Something else we should aim for is NOT to excessively stockpile, methinks there will be much waste, lots ending up in the bin, after all … its difficult to get excited at the prospect of yet more pasta based meals. Luckily I’ve started to get into Indian and Pakistani cooking, I’ve a couple of excellent charity shop books here and once you are ‘tooled up’ ie have the necessary herbs and spices you are able to create so much beautiful taste and often without using meat of any form. Heres so far my rock-bottom must have …..

mustard seed and fennel seed.

olive oil.

cumin seed with hot fried sweet potato ‘twiglet sized’ pieces.

fresh coriander.

try supermarket jars of Indian sauce (try Saag Masala) … you can use red onion, leek and broccoli for an instant meal. Garam masala is part of the toolkit as well as additional coconut milk. I also make my own chapati and Peshwari nan … all v quick and simple.

Besan flour too can make a simple bhaji or vegan burger which is wonderful with say an onion chutney.

I also use Ajiwan seed in my trad brit suet crust or for my nan bread mix.

I also enjoy a sea food pilaf (ie white wine, smoked haddock, mussels, chicken, rice, chicken stock).

a beef skirt casserole with chopped parsnip and carrot for flavour, don’t forget a couple of cloves, also Kalo beef stock ie low salt.

as a treat, crushed chilled raspberry with carnation, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg.

try to add fresh garlic and ginger wherever possible, fresh diced fig also fine chopped red onion, leek, spring onion; fresh ground black pepper and sea salt. This is all as can be termed ‘Natures Medicine Chest’.

The nonsense we are told.

bbc r4 this morning devoted a few minutes to some top medical bod telling us we mostly all carry too much weight (yes I agree) and need to look at calories and not particularly look at fat or sugar content (I don’t agree). There was no mention of sedentary tv and i-phone lifestyle, that kids seldom if ever play outside, that so many are hooked on the battery chicken Disney lifestyle, browsing, never making or doing much in particular. Particularly there was no condemnation of off-the-shelf meals, an over-reliance of frozen as opposed to fresh and the resultant lack of good quality nutrition.

My immediate reaction to this un-thinking piece of low grade journalistic nonsense was how unquestioning the interviewer was. As the famous Mr Meatloaf was quoted recently all you need do is look at sugar and fat….. to which I would add get into home-cooking and some vigorous walking exercise. The latter is so now desperately needed that a few weeks previous again bbc r4 ran a piece that Docs are desperate for pre-op patients wherever possible to get into exercise and a healthier lifestyle. This I concur entirely. It must be hellish to have to deal with raw material ie patients that are so tragically unfit.

I personally do not enjoy eating out whatsoever to the extent I would dread such an invitation. Surely its more fun to cook and learn at home, the beautiful aromas, the tweaking and experience gained in getting something ‘just right’, a friend and a drink surely what more could you want … and think of the money saved! Yes it takes time but at least we are not sat in front of the tv or dreaded I-phone and are somehow active and building a skill.

Likewise other moans today, American propaganda in general and specifically the downed airliner. I am increasingly highly sceptical of any intel or pronouncements offered from the Americans, particularly anything with the taint of trump attached to it. I personally think it was truly shameful that trump upped the tensions in the Middle East with the assassination Soleimani. And as the third article suggests, its probable the Americans can fool enemy radar into mis-identifying the data they see on their radar screens.

Heres some brain food ….

I Helped Sell the False Choice of War in Iraq. It’s Happening Again

Remember Iran Air Flight 655

https://limitlesslife.wordpress.com/2020/01/14/iran-jet-disaster-setup/

The term ‘existential impasse’.

When a seasoned, experienced no frills highly regarded Scientist (and many like him) use the term ‘existential impasse’ and stresses the absolute need for real world CO2 draw-down and which entails developing the technique and then implementing practical solutions with apparatus (huge apparatus) on a multi-scale Manhattan Project style venture around the globe and that these things we know are not happening in any forseeable large scale venture, then we know our days as a species are numbered. At least of those that are of ordinary means and not of obscene and excessive wealth who for a time will be able to bypass the inevitable (I’m thinking methane release, East Siberian Ice Shelf). Remember trees are no good, once increased CO2 hits as well as the methane the trees will shrink from the task, a question of timescale too, but never mind, pretend, its good for planetary sanity.

Here is a regular ‘must-see’, which you can see prompted my title of using the quote ‘existential impasse’. https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/12/planetary-arson-and-amplifying-feedbacks-no-alternative-to-co2-drawdown.html

Look at the multi lane freeways, look at the adoration of huge personal vehicles, dinosaurs on wheels, can anyone detect a lessening of this fixation? No, men still want their big toys and outward success still has the same talismans to display. Of consumption, red meat, food waste, far too many airflights merely for leisure, diesels idling needlessly whilst the other person shops, everything spun and tumble-dried when the washing line used to suffice, food flown in from across the world, excessive lighting when not needed, the American burger culture, hubris and ego. No wonder we are struggling as a species and throwing all the others into jeopardy.

This year theres no short-eared owls to be seen here in NE UK, therefore we can assume vole populations are down (their food chain also) and how is the earthworm faring as chemtrail aluminium wreaks whatever destruction is unseen by most people. Already we know insect populations are much reduced hence songbird food sources are much scarcer, bees are critical, its supposedly dementia, again another nano-particle aluminium tie-in. By the time we get it as confirmed peer-reviewed scientific findings it will all be too late.

And heres a little idea of mine, living and spending much time so close to agricultural land, the landscape, a century ago stone walls were much commoner, we even had ‘hemels’ dotted around the agricultural landscape here in the North of England, ideal habitat / housing for small mammals and nesting sites. These days the vogue is for wire fencing and often with wildlife margins allowed, but its nothing near like the value of a stone wall, or winter protection for sheep for instance. Another example of how ‘we’ are trying so hard to be clever but absolutely missing the point. No-one observes, no-one evaluates, no critical thinking, what at one time would be termed the umbrella term COMMON SENSE.

I’m using a Mark Gertler painting below as what I perceive as the Merry-go-round of consumption, they all look hell bent on enjoying themselves, noisy and blind. The year 1916 and how very observant of Mark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry-Go-Round_(Gertler_painting)

Mark Gertlers merry-go-round of greed and stupidity.

Mark Gertlers merry-go-round of insanity and greed, of vested interest, of human stupidity.

Those clever bbc r4 people.

Greta Thunberg was Guest Editor this morning on the bbc r4 ‘Today’ programme.

Does everyone know this? I was very impressed, I only caught the last half hour but is available to listen again and download over on the bbc radio website. Only drawback is that these days we have to perform the dreaded ‘log-in’; this I shall in this instance do. At one time it was merely click and play; everyone every organisation wants their stats. ‘The Cloud’ I read is running at 4% of annual electricity consumption and of course is set to rise!

I’m v impressed with Greta, she is erudite in English, has a v good brain and implores everyone note EVERYONE to read the science. We would hope a certain donald trump and his crooked coterie would likewise read the science but of course we know of his unshakable inability to read, inability to accept experts and inability to learn.

Science we know can be achingingly slow at coming back from the ‘front line’, we now have to stay on the up-curve, work hard to be near the crest of real-time feedbacks and data. Science too is full of vested interest, funding sensitivities, viewpoints and stances of all forms of regard and hue.

I wish Greta the greatest good luck and good health in maintaining ‘the message’. She is much too valuable to go back into a schoolroom, it would horrifying for me to see her having to plod along at dated quite needless material when her real task is elsewhere ie the whole world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na1aHtv0OKI

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z/episodes/player

For a ‘no punches pulled’ instructional overview on climate change and what we need do, the best I can think of is anything from Prof Kevin Anderson, full of intelligent content; it is a no waffle, pure condensed informative and knowledgeable overview. He speaks with the directness and brevity of a top class experienced engineer.

My own ethos is, in my own immediate little world:-

no more long drives out into the countryside, I walk and ramble much closer to home.
make clothes last, wear them out.
cook quick meals, seldom any longwinded oven cooking (and for me certainly no baking).
I wash everything by hand, wring dry and use a bamboo pole across the kitchen ceiling and/ or my washing line outside. No tumbler, no spinner.
get rid of the SUV…. and something that particularly irritates me, forget about letting the diesel idle pointlessly in the supermarket car park!
forget about airflights.
pester the Council, some carriageways are far too overlit at night.
eat less red meat; move away from ready-bought ‘burger culture’ its a con !
I actually prefer a £15 Melissa bench-top oven, the main oven hasn’t been used in twenty years.
slim down web posts, keep it brief, therefore reduces charging and ‘cloud’.

We need to hear this (AOC) …

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks her conscience when many turn aside and would rather not voice any criticism. A fine incisive mind, that can detect crusty old nonsense, unthinking bigotry and perpetuated un-earned privelige from a great distance.

Anyone that has a small asteroid named after them has to be worth knowing !

This world and particularly America needs clarity of thought, to ask for actions to be justified, for people to be held accountable for misleading and less than honourable intentions. Its was a fine moment to witness AOC make it plain and clear when questioning Michael Cohen a few weeks ago that trump deliberately misled and knowingly falsified figures, knowing how it would increase his financial positon with phoney over-valued assets and property for insurances purposes and wifully undervalued assets by huge amounts so as to minimize and falsify his tax position.

Well done Alexandria for making this plain and clear to us all.

We need role models, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an exemplary role model, donald j trump is not, yet the USA is saddled with him, literally saddled, he is riding America.

Thank goodness she is entering her prime, I extend my greatest heartfelt wishes to her continuing good work. A real person with real abilities and life experience, AOC majored in International Relations and Economics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez

Arden of Faversham…

Sunday night bbc r3 from 19:30 GMT I was utterly enthralled with this play. A most creditable presentation, all players to be commended and most perfectly produced and paced. Intelligent, alive, vital.

And frightening!

The original work and here its modern day production a trove of talent and intelligence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arden_of_Faversham

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00022p3

postscript; just about all of Shakespeare ‘loses me’ yet this play hits the mark precisely.

Climate change… a worthwhile hour.

I would normally never cope with / tolerate / be bothered with an hour long vid but this treatment is most worthwhile. Its a good vid and needs to be required viewing for many many people on this planet.

For instance telling us…

… 03:35 Arctic temp rise is now six times faster than global average not times two as per outdated IPCC presentations.

… of the ‘stiffs’ at the IPCC I mean non-functioning bods (it was a charade actually) that as we are told are twenty years behind the times ie current thinking at 05:20

IPCC = a misleading impression. These two men will tell you the IPCC is laughable, a joke amongst the Climate Community. Twenty years behind the time.

*What I’ll do in the next day or so is work up the salient points into a buletted list, hour long vids as much as they are welcomed are difficult to fit in to my schedule and need to get lots done.

What can we do about general media, Fox News and other such unthinking yet biased populist nonsense? Realise that my own interest of chemtrails has been so entangled unfortunately deliberately with nonsense theories that its v difficult to get the average person to take on board that aircraft trails in the sky warrant a suspicious eye. For newbies : some trails stay around and haze yet oldtime conventional trails merely evaporate, turn to nothing. So what is going on when we get hazy obscured skies ? Please think, please question.

Fox are clever, they medicate their product with a reinforcing populist viewpoint that is engineered / premeditated to draw viewers to their bosom. Its all agenda, increasingly is so, to be on message, to promote a viewpoint. Choice is often now not to learn but to receive reinforcemnt of ones own viewpoint. Retro retarded bigots just love it …..

Rates of change and alterations are expotential, ie not a linear response. This is the quite frightening interconnectedness of the climate system on the planet ie jet stream, arctic temperature, water temps and movements and leads to methane release which will sky rocket the whole system onto another more horrible level. My loose terms here are intentional using ‘horrible’ meaning theres nothing we can do, the numbers self reinforce and all egg each other on into an unknown scenario ad infinitum. Think of crop failure, altered rain pattern, the limit of human sufferance due to heat (hence trump and his need of a wall indicating he does recognise climate change) … loss of human cognisance, reasoning and will, unable to function … or question.

Greta Thunberg …

Go for it!

I’m so happy to see this activism.

The problems we now face are beyond anything we could ever have imagined fifty years ago or have contemplated would ever have to be grappled with in any ‘modern’ society. As if by our modernity we are above such things. But it is precisely our so-called twentieth / twenty first century modernity that has brought about such things ie the burning of fossil fuels. So God we can assume never meant for use to insist we all have a pick-up or an SUV or jet around on holidays and timeshares and family villas in other countries. God I mean as the final arbiter, the sense of knowing we are fckd.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/im-striking-from-school-for-climate-change-too-save-the-world-australians-students-should-too

https://www.mail.com/int/entertainment/celebrity/8881628-latest-teen-climate-activist-blasts-absent-politic.html#.1272-stage-ss1-1

Its like being in class, no-one individually wants to sit upright or exercise endless silence during lesson BUT as a corpus a body we must. I’m not at all sure we’ll get out of this, its do-able but means a step back two (or three) generations in comfort and convenience. We now have the ‘me’ and the ‘I want’ mindset, particularly among those with a little bit of financial advantage. How shall we wean them from their burgers? Or more specifically – you can only eat what you grow yourself !!! This would mean our ancient ancestors were so much cleverer than ourselves. Yes we have dumbed own. Imagine, instead of ‘all you can eat for $10’ we changed to ‘all you can eat in 12 months’ of horticultural activity. We wld be lithe, slim, alert.

Seriously though, these now are problems beyond anything we have encountered previously.

Its a new urgency. And therefore bullshitters the like of trump need to be put in their place.

Postscript … https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/84273524/posts/2090916514

How useless we are ?

Ever thought how useless we are?

Ancient man would look down at us and think … ‘He cannot catch his own dinner’

… or that we cannot make our own tools.

We would be a laughing stock as the term goes.

Yet we think we are so slick, so modern on our keyboards and buttons. And yet know nothing of what far brighter and wider minds have left to us on the printed page from decades and centuries in the past, of art, architecture, engineering and how things are made. These last two decades have seen the loss of so much human achievement, silicon and the electron have put paid to that ! And yes, accessibility is wonderful, but also there is a slower more human dimension we are losing, particularly younger people need to re-set their priorities, their values; they never will. In some ways they ‘undersell themselves’. So little is transferred from generation to generation, as if they are mocking their parents, their ancestry.

postscript … How lucky I was growing up, skilled working class household, ended up at a quite remote off the beaten track village but with some books, encyclopedias, workshop full of tools and garden front and back, decent countryside, stunning coastline. My Dad was a practical man I am glad to say and going out into the remoter parts of the county at weekends for his job gave me a view I’d never have achieved otherwise. With a clever Auntie (who made the effort to correct a late reader, school much like the GPs ie blind to my situation) and a grandmother who was a wonderful cook and generally of high standards. My Dad was the right man for me, grounded, intolerant of pretence and silliness; praise was scant but he expected a manly authentic effort. So basically I was self reliant at occupying myself and achieved lots by age eighteen which is when he died if cancer and the house sold and me into digs; which actually wasn’t all bad, I could get the bus into the local city and visit bookshops! One thing that has taken me forty years to realise is that I should have actually taken my so-called mother to Court; she always did tell me she wished she never had me or that I should / could be put into a home, likewise forty years to realise she would not say that in front of my Dad. I should have told him.

I’m baffled when I visit a house and books are not to hand, I was always dipping into the fantastically illustrated Caxton Encyclopedias of the late sixties and seeing the best of World Art (still do occasionally) … this is what bugs me about the web, the paucity ie lack of new and interesting images and knowledge that is served to me. I have to go seek it. Viewing the web through our little pinhole is not all its cracked up to be, too much is ephemeral, too little of what has stood the test of time. Kids today are blind to so much, as young adults can barely use their hands, struggling like infants.

For years a remaindered bookshop was my main source, latterly a couple of charity shops are useful hunting grounds for £1 gems. I even spent £50 on a dozen Time Life boxed sets of classical recordings, merely to get the notes and booklets that accompanied them, photographs I’d never seen and playlists of the best; to own them as objects.

We need Art …

Not as some clever trick to deceive but as works of artistic creation of what we ourselves possibly could never devise, visit or speculate upon; the work of talented and clever people than ourselves, of adepts. To provide a reprise from the idiocy of a nasty windbag known as donald; as with an irritating teenager he wastes the time of the grown ups.

Art and books associated thereof, I mean to be able to see back into times past, spanning generations and witness ideas developed from cleverer people than we ourselves, to see how they created and recorded beauty. Blimey, that IS INDEED a staggering statement, creating beauty …. something few individuals are capable of particularly nowadays; kids finish school and many are clueless with their hands, their minds or mouths. Rhetoric one of the most valuable subjects to command as a citizen is reserved for the privately educated.

Art can be a snapshot, a time capsule, can contain great beauty, warmth, human love and virtue, or alert us to problems and why should it be crowded out because of tv, texts and twitter and other such junk?

So where does Art count in our so-called ‘modern’ lives?

Why is it so few people use Art Books to connect with a wider world and pantheon of human endeavour they are ignorant of ? We must include books on archaeological finds, of ancient artefacts, for a hundred thousand years all that remain are tools of flint to tell us how we occupied ourselves, of more recently in a mere tenth of that timespan the hidden ancient hearth, the buried cremation urn. I often wonder at how we interacted, the bonds, the human feeling empathy and communication in those distant days. Useful idea for some role play. To perhaps assume the role of the out of family visitor, stumbling upon an established camp.

In many ways and sadly now due to our sucking upon the papp of the much lauded information superhighway we have denuded ourselves of so much of human accomplishment; as if becoming the donald j trumps of culture ie seeing and knowing so little, existing merely in the here and now and kidding ourselves we know it all. The web should (and can) allow us access to an array of clever and talented minds.

So lets go get it.

https://www.leonardodavinci.net/benois-madonna.jsp

That is a most ravishing image. If it does not sing to your mind and your heart then indeed you are dull.

Below reminds me so much of a favourite place, a now deserted coaching stop from 150 years ago.

David Cox watercolour sketch burdock and drainage tunnel.

In a mad fancy of accomplishment I would think that in my last twenty years were I to capture such beauty and interest with ‘simple’ brushstrokes then it would be time well spent and probably best spent. I have my work which is ongoing but also need recreation less energetic than walking miles with my dog. Years ago I would often visualise and work out how to capture cloudscape, distant horizons, thinking of toned grounds, overlays, colour or warmth. My problem is that I can only paint when I’ve had a drink, or maybe need convincing something worthwhile will result from sober effort. Perhaps if I paint with the intention of conciously keeping it all private it will free me up to make me ‘go for it’. In all my travels in all the pastoral settings I can honestly say I have never once encountered an artist or enthusiast of merit wanting to lay down on paper the form, tones, beauty displayed to them, not one person out of doors enthusing of their activity. Maybe I should? I dunno. Realise too that Lowrys work often mostly is a low-cost set of negatives from Boots; look closely. That explains it all, my own insight.

If we are on David Cox then we have to see the famous one…..

whoops to follow as somehow unfindable ….

My idiocy, i had forgotten its Cotman I need to ask for!

http://www.leedsartgallery.co.uk/gallery/listings/l0042.php

or ….

john sell cotman ploughed field and scarecrow — John Sell Cotman

I think I need to go looking for specific books for them both!

Its a bit like the contracted term ‘poetry’ or ‘books’, what we really mean is all that is contained therein ie viewpoint, experience, memory, mindset, knowledge, a way of seeing; so thank goodness for Art, the nourishing kind. I wonder of todays activities of installation, performance and often are grant aided events and as how they will be regarded as of any merit (whatsoever) in one hundred years from now (when possibly we have ceased to exist as a species anyway).

For instance free your eye up … http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2007/british-continental-paintings-w07701.html