thelogicalview.co.uk

Category: A Blog

  • The House of Lords: another Labour MP climbs the Stairway to Heaven

    A new Imperial Dynasty begins after the fanfare of the Starmerian just two years ago, and the usual highly personalised deposition in Labour Party processes. This time the new Emperor comes not from Rome, sorry London, but Manchester, the once industrial power house of factories and rail and canals and very hard working people. And just as when Emperors came not from Rome anymore but Leptis Magna in North Africa, Syria, or the brute force of the Illyrians of our present day Balkans, Serbia, Slovenia, and still those eastern Europeans are big tough people, because the Empire was big and complicated, so the Labour Party extends its control out of London to try and answer, and solve, the complications of the ‘UK’.

    And just as some Emperors who achieved the glory of that title did then make things very good for their friends with estates and gold and roles not at all related to their ability, so the Burnhamian dynasty has set off in the right direction.

    Sir Kier Starmer ‘successfully’ emptied the House of Lords of its 92 remaining hereditary peers with the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 which ensured when the Parliamentary session ended on April 29th 2026, so did they. So did their combined inestimable knowledge, context, lack of ego and personal glory, understanding of what service is, understanding of history, understanding of geography, understanding of constitutional power, understanding of the importance and role of the House of Lords, oh the list could go on…Their departure left a good number of empty seats, but not for long.

    Only a few months after emptying the capabilities of the remaining hereditary peers, the new arrivals appear. Prime Minister Burnham, talking much about devolution, about the economic growth which will come to each and every city, town, village and hamlet under his policies, has started off in as polar opposite as could be, and offered the chameleon leader of Labour in Scotland the chance to climb that Stairway to Heaven, there to sit with the increasing number of Labour appointees or gift arrivals. It is quickly forgotten that Anas Sarwar himself called for the HoL to be abolished. The House of Lords looks more and more like a Labour slush fund, and the question raised over this lack of respect from Labour towards the present governmental level, which is Westminster and the HoL, the court system, the police, the Armed Forces such as they still exist, and the present devolved powers, is where is governance going to exist under the Burnhamian era?

    If further devolution actually becomes a race to the bottom instead of this glorious new era we are about to enter, where is the constitutional power held? The constitutional crisis caused by Tony Blair’s devolution policies just gets worse and worse, more questions which cannot be answered and more problems which require an urgent solution. Now another Imperial Prime Minister with the charismatic rhetoric and a big story, speaking directly to ‘the people’, taking them ‘with him’, with the crumbling constitutional edifice filling the backdrop behind him.

  • Farage -v- Count Binface: That week was a long time in politics.

    A week in the ‘UK’ can be a long time in politics. This does not mean that the week has been longer, i.e., more than 7 solar turns, or sleeps in child talk. Each week of 7 calendar days has been exactly the same length as any other, because life on Earth is dictated by the facts of the Universe, which are not a mystery cult with enlightenment at the end, but time marked by the gravity of Helios, Sol, Grian, holding Earth in orbit, with the spin of Earth creating light and dark, from which we measure our time. Fortunately each week is exactly the same length as any other and we hope this will continue for a long time to come. But it is a different matter in British politics.

    That a week is a long time in politics is the British way of speaking slightly tangentially, slightly ironically, slightly understating which then creates the serious statement but someone would have to speak or understand native English to get the point rather than take it literally. It was Harold Wilson who spoke the phrase ‘a week is a long time in politics’ during the sterling crisis in 1964 and we know what it means.

    That week of July 7th 2026 was one such. After the roller coaster of political extremity in the ‘UK’ of last few years and the left’s hatred of elites (especially males), and rich (Richie Sunak was seen as not understanding daily life even though people who build businesses do very much understand daily life and work 20 hours a day hard graft) and the left’s creation in the new far left of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’ in Your Party, a very, very democratic party amidst the collapse of err democracy, a fairly horrible scene unfolded in Clacton-on-Sea. The name Clacton-on-Sea is as English as could be, and lovely for that, in the decades of the pleasant Angles, cheerful and funny, fish and chips in newspaper, the restored Victorian pier with all the traditional amusement arcades and rides from the times when such things were amusing (before the digital disaster), and the lovely sandy beach for summer sunbathing and swimming, and winter brisk walks.

    Yes, this horrible scene in British politics has ended political continuity for good. A new battle line was drawn, and an entirely new contest is ahead between the earthling and the independent space warrior. For the ‘UK’ this is seen by many, ‘at home and abroad’ as the saying goes, as the final proof that politics has run its course, had its day. And who could imagine this situation happening in any other national Parliament anywhere on the Earth’s surface? It does not look good for those who wish to spread the light of liberal democracy to all mankind.

    And yet, in Nigel Farage’s egotistical and thuggish rant on ‘putting two fingers up to the establishment,’ he not only short circuited any credibility he might have had, but put himself out of any social discussion on who are the people and who are the establishment? Because he is the establishment, he has a long political career, and has a lot of money. He must be thinking of himself as ‘the people’, but the problem is that ‘the people’ don’t act like this. Who is the establishment and who are the people has long since dissolved into confusion in the last decade or two, but Farage was in the EU from 1999-2000, during which time life in the ‘UK’ has collapsed. The two-finger sign, or the V, means ‘F*** Off’, and why that two-finger sign should mean F*** Off is hard to see, but it did. It did… not now. No, life has become much simpler in recent decades on one thing, and that is the versatile and multi-function of the F*** word, and really no longer is it rude. It is very, very useful, and a major component of linguistic expression up here in northern reaches of England and often 75% or more of Scottish parlance. So for Nigel to threaten the two-finger sign to the establishment just sounds dated really. And to position the people and the establishment against each other in a one liner, it just does not exist.

    However Nigel has possibly unwittingly opened an altogether new avenue for British politics, given the amount of time and money and resources and research and development and ambition and futuristic talk that has been given to Life off Earth, on the Moon or possibly even Mars. And that is that in this brave saviour of democracy, Count Binface, who stepped forward to save the day and give a proper contest in Clacton-on-Sea, that it is exactly the time in history to prepare for human-extra terrestrial dialogue, and who else but Count Binface? When he is elected as the MP for Clacton-on-Sea the Westminster Parliament will be the first Parliament in the world able to land running on the Moon or Mars, for Intergalactic Summits and the signing of contracts for all the valuable minerals and metals required to prop up the digital consumption on planet Earth. The small problem of surface radiation will easily be overcome from his ability to speak with the far reaches of galactic linguistics, able to get underground works going, arrange to get water – from somewhere, food, medical systems, good cheap transport to and from Earth, maybe a high speed rail link HS3 on the Moon and HS4 planned for Mars, goods sent from Earth as gifts to keep the inter galactics on our side in case another country realises this new development arising from the ‘UK’ Parliament, and soon every civilization in the universe will see the logic of democracy.

  • England -v- Norway in Miami 26’N: A long way from home

    As England and Norway play the quarter finals of the World Cup 2026 in Miami, this blog was wondering if 2026 is the year to call it a day on international sports competitions. To ‘call it a day’ means not to call it this day of 11.07.2026 but to call it the last day, or at least to start the winding up process.

    Miami is included in ‘the topics’ although being just outside the Tropic of Cancer, and another reason the human definitions of Earth and the universe and the natural world and climate science and human health are all too exact in western science. Apart from the night and day created by Helios, and land and water, and life and death itself, most things are in gradiated increments and the climate in which England -v- Norway fight it out is tropical, give or take a latitude degree or two. It’s far too hot for northern Europeans to be exerting themselves in this manner, and far too hot for thousands of people to be flying around the USA between locations, and far too hot for the teams and the fans to then jet off back in all directions from the USA when the 2026 World Cup has finished.

    This blog was thinking as it saw the photo of the Norwegian team restoring proper Viking life of the waterside gathering in appropriate attire of tunics, leather, shields, and a few long spears, with longboat ready behind to take the warriors over the seas. Similar scenes would have been in 793 when the Norse Vikings set off over the North Sea to raid and destroy the Christian monastery on the island of Lisdisfarne (just one Farne Island but holy to the Christians and a major medieval centre of that religion). It is complicated, because the Kingdom of Northumbria were both Anglo-Saxons (which race were under the government of Norse gods but who had turned away from the true gods) and native Celtic peoples of Britain (native for over 1,000 years anyway and who had turned away from the true gods of Celtic Britain and Ireland) and all were devout Christians.

    But the photo of Norwegian Norse warriors preparing to set sail on their longboat was only a photograph, not reality. Instead they boarded a plane to join the 2026 World Cup in the USA and Mexico, in the most terrifying heatwave on planet Earth. Pretty much all of the Norwegian team are Northern blood line and much has been made of the striker Erling Haaland because of his Norse warrior appearance – which for humans is made up of height, hair colour, skin colour, physique of muscle and bone length, eye colour, etc. He is a ‘social media sensation’.

    The Norwegian fans who have flown to the USA, and those who live there already, have also stated the Norse identity with their Row, and ‘the Row’ in Viking context also means warfare. Team and fans are bonded in image and intention, tonight being not to cross the North Sea to end the Christians on Lindisfarne but to end the English football team in the quarter finals of the 2026 World Cup. The English team because they are ethnically more mixed, and because England is now a very complicated concept, do not have one clear performance to fall back on. It could be a pint of beer, a folk band singing maybe, but really there is no clear national or cultural identity to bring out on such an evening.

    However, the fact of two national teams from up here in northern Europe and Scandinavia battling it out in Miami heat and in this heatwave, it is a valid question to ask whether global sport has had its day. ‘Has had its day’ is more general than ‘let’s call it a day’ but still refers to time passing and maybe our present activity should not continue through many more turns of Helios. If sport were returned to where it became relevant again, which for Europe is alongside fierce nationalism, as probably it is for every region on Earth, then climate would begin to correlate with activity, less air flights would be taken, FIFA would have less ability to put prices in the £1,000s and Boston would still have some alcohol in pubs to serve its local inhabitants.

    The events of heat in summer 2026 are scary, and Spain at present is battling devastating wild fires. The next World Cup, in 2030, or the one in 2034, is going to be in climatic disasters of which we are only seeing the beginning. The modern world in all its global links has no get out clause but maybe the physical necessity now of learning to live in unknown heat will bring up a list of a few activities that are not essential to survival and best left to regional battles as of olde.

  • Football World Cup 2026: Ability or Ethnicity? Someone has to ask this question.

    It is a busy July of 2026 in the human activity of organised sports. This takes place on Earth, the spinning mass of rock held in place by the gravity from Helios, Sol, Bran, the Sun, and without this, and without the delicate zone within the atmosphere, there would be no organised sport taking place. These are facts and it is logical to state the obvious. However, so fortunate are we that gravity exists and the atmosphere permits activity, and organised sports have developed from the ‘western world.’

    July 2026 is surely one of the busiest months in sporting history. Wimbledon courts are playing, so far no downpours have stopped play, here in middle Britain the Commonwealth Games are due to take place in Glasgow in a few weeks time, but really all focus has been on the World Cup 2026, which is football, and in Canada, the USA and Mexico. This is written in that order because Canada is the furthest north, then the USA stretching over a long geography, and Mexico the furthest south. Mexico is not on the equator but still, its southernmost point is only 14’N, which is pretty damn hot.

    It occurred to this blog in hearing bits of news here and there on the airwaves about ‘the World Cup, that there are several strange things about global sport.

    One is how it shows the strange constitutional situation of Scotland and England as different football teams, and only those two because Wales did not quality, but if they had, there would be the three as rivals over the pond (the vast Atlantic Ocean). Northern Ireland neither did qualify, and neither did Ireland as in Eire, so the media have only had Scotland and England to comment and commentate on.

    Another strange thing is how the Tartan Army, travelling to coincide with its national team playing in the World Cup 2026, has no leader. No General, no Commander, no bugle call to charge. Instead the Army descends like locusts on the alcohol, drinks it dry, the media finds this funny, the Scottish media give much airtime to its Army without a leader, and the English roll their eyes, because that’s what Scots do. The English team are ‘still in’, and the Scottish team ‘out’. And the strange thing about the Army without a leader is just how much time the airwaves in Scotland gave to the criticisms of those troops on the disappointment of the manager Steve Clarke. How he ‘hadn’t delivered’ for them after they had travelled that far (and paid the extortionate costs as hostages to FIFA). What the Tartan Army expected is clear, that the Scotland team would win every match, and win the Football World Cup of 2026.This is not the way it went, and Steve Clarke made a clear public statement that he was resigning. The airwaves in Scotland were full of indignation and let down, while the airwaves in England merely noted it.

    However this blog was thinking, there is an unspoken and undiscussed strangeness here, and that is ethnicity. A World Cup has humans from lots of regions of Earth all playing on the same pitch in the same city in the same climatic zone. Can it be said that the elephant on the pitch question of recent years, in football and other sports, has now become so obvious in the World Cup of 2026 that it must be stated? This blog is about facts, and it is stating here these facts.

    Firstly the heat. Say the temperature in Miami, as Scotland lost to Brazil 0-3, was 33′ C, that’s 91 F, that’s hot. We here in mid latitudes of Britain have been suffering horribly in this heat wave, and certainly not running around. Only mad dogs and mad Englishmen and Scotsmen would go out in Miami heat, and certainly not play football. Further north, up from Stirling, of course it got a little cooler, but all up Britain, because of the abnormal heatwave no one was playing global football competitions. The Tartan Army (the Army with no leader) was much in the news with the effects of that alcohol, the sun, and the excitement of being at World Cup 2026. Many were ill, from the usual Scottish pastime of the drinking but in the heat (the French and Spanish sit calmly with a glass of wine and a glass of water in summer heat) but also from sunburn. We ancient Brits do not take the direct rays of Helios well in tropical latitudes, because we are designed to absorb those life giving and very beautiful rays of Light from way up north where Helios is never overhead.

    Apart from the matter of different skin types, those with much melanin from Africa, middle East, and central Americas and those of pale complexions, which cause such different degrees of wellbeing in heat, there is also the simple bodily structure of different ethnicity. Now, this blog is well aware this gets into dodgy legal territory, it is very difficult to refer to ethnicity without raising some problem somewhere and wondering when the policeman’s hand on shoulder will come (in parlance of 50 years ago). However this blog deals with facts, and facts of the natural world, therefore real facts. Not social sciences facts. And when it comes to competitive sport there is a very big different between different ethnicities in bodily structure, bone length, muscle strength etc., even apart from that extremely difficult (but extremely basic fact) of skin colour and Sunlight. The match in which the Scotland team ‘failed’ its drunk Army supporters, and from which the manager simple said, ‘that’s it folks, I’m quitting’ (and quite right too because who should have to put up with such drunken opinionating?) and lost 0-3 to Brazil, has not been discussed in any real facts. The real facts are that a team of mostly black players, we’ll use the general term there just like white is a general term, were both more muscular than white football players, and – and – more bodily equipped to play in heat because of melanin in the skin and bodies way more comfortable in above 30’C heat.

    Now it comes to England, awaiting the game against Mexico. This blog feels it necessary to raise this question because the England team has more mixed ethnicities with black players playing and white players playing, as shows the population of England. The heat is comfortable for black people, and the melanin in the skin protects against sunburn because it is designed to protect against Sunlight in order to balance life, health, and survival of its people. In Mexico the altitude has been the question, that those of any ethnicity not used to living and definitely not playing football, are severely disadvantaged. Unsporting tactics by Mexicans of drums, shouts, and all attempts to keep their opposite awake all night is easily solved by ear plugs. However this matter of humans from all over Earth playing extremely strenuous football in now worryingly unsafe climatic and altitude conditions, and in so many different physics playing together whether other sports clearly show the advantages like Ethiopians winning marathons, this blog is thinking that some kind of handicap needs to be in place. If the Scottish team had been awarded a handicap to Brazil of 4 goals at the beginning for Brazil to start on -4, then Scotland would have won the match, Miami would have been drunk dry, and the manager probably not resigned. For England to play at altitude, a handicap to Mexico could be also 4, so they start on -4, but with the superb strength and sporting beauty and fitness of black players in the English team, deduct 2, so Mexico start on handicap of -2. The match has not yet started, and the new variable of a big storm has so far not changed the kick off or prevented the match at all. In this year of 2026 at the Football World Cup this is a very good time to address that elephant on the pitch, and FIFA to set the precedent of the referee whistle to begin the match at England 2, Mexico 0. This is the year to address the facts of global sport.

  • The heat wave: How do the humans keep cool around Earth?

    This heatwave in western Europe this week has been very bad. Spain, France and Italy suffered the worst with upwards towards 40′ and here in Britain because of the curve of Earth towards the North Pole the Light of the Sun is a little less intense. We were in the 30-37′ temperature bracket, and it is not good. Because of the strange geography of Britain, London and the southern lands are horribly hot and worryingly dry. Above 54’N the breezes blow a little more freely and there is more green. The vast concrete expanses of Manchester and the ‘northern’ industrial mid part of Britain, now a mass of modern student housing, bigger transport, the destruction obvious in the HS2 building site on approach to Birmingham, and the miles of new housing developments merge the once small villages with towns and cities, all into one huge concrete swathe. Up here the modern horrors of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Bradford are left behind and the mountains and moorlands, rivers and dales can breathe what air is left without a few feet of concrete on top. Traffic queues of summer tourist cars are still on the roads, and the increasing housing developments have not yet covered every blade of grass or chopped down every tree, though this is the government’s ambition. Concrete creates heat, does not absorb rain, and leads to all sorts of other temperature and climate impacts, in the making of it, the transport, the energy required, just like the humans in their cars, the paved gardens, the heated homes, the luxurious student accommodation, the airports, and the planes which fly overhead.

    This week has been very horrible all over the ‘UK’ and Eire and public talk has been of ice creams, air con and lack of it, and what the “government should do”. As the heat moves east to traumatize eastern Europe it is worth asking how humans survived difficult temperature conditions before the ‘UK’ in the last few decades expected every mod con in a dwelling.

    ‘The Earth’ is this celestial body on which the humans live, spinning in space in a non-negotiable system of the centre of our being and existence, Sol, An Ghrian, Helios, the Sun. The names are ultimately irrelevant, we are dependent on these facts whether we like it or not. Earth is also earth, the soil of organic matter, minerals, some leaf mound, all biological matter returned to what it really is, oxygen, water and a million zillion bacteria to keep things going. Within earth, clay forms where the hydrous aluminium phylosillicates have been left as other soil constituents wash away, like along old water courses, and even where water is still flowing, the clay along the banks is used by potters in Britain, as over millennia all over this spinning planet Earth.

    In India the indigenous peoples use local clay to make matkas, the terracotta pots, unglazed and porous from being unglazed. Terracotta in Latin, terra cocta, in Italian terra cotta, is merely earth cooked. It is still earth, terracotta looks earthy in its redness from 5-8% iron content. Kaolin clay, as found in Devon and Cornwall is white, because it has no iron, but feldspar. For millennia Indians, the indigenous humans in India, have cool water without a refrigerator but from a matka instead. The evaporating water through the porous clay pot takes with it the heat, leaving cooler and cooler water, and filtering it at the same time. Terracotta pots large and small are part of Indian households to cool water, and hot chai tea is drunk which paradoxically cools the body, such are the realities of biology. https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2525701/world

    The Chinese traditionally keep cool by the sort of combination expected of Chinese peoples, the inward and the outward. Bamboo or reed sleeping mats allowing just that little movement of air around the body rather than the memory foam of the west, cooling foods of cucumber and mung beans and a little umbrella or a hand fan. Lying out in the sun to tan is not an eastern practice, and the medical expertise in tea means as with so many cultures around Earth, certain teas are used in bodily cooling . The People’s Daily online this week made a quick historical snapshot. https://en.people.cn/n3/2023/0710/c90000-20041955.html

    This blog is not an advert for anyone or anything, but the following is an article on societies who built for the temperature https://louisaneill.substack.com/p/the-pre-ac-age-how-did-buildings and the ‘ac’ in there is of course air con, or air conditioning to give it its full name, which means cooling the air not heating it. With air con available in many countries now, and the aim to get survival by air con, it did raise an enquiry for this blog in just how many buildings of the past were constructed with such basic requirements in mind of either warm or cool. Old medical infirmaries and cottage hospitals in Britain before the catastrophic NHS swallowing up of health and medical matters were built of sandstone, or granite in a granite area, and built facing the east to get morning light, the fresh air, the rising of Sol, (not east like churches in ad orientem – orientating towards the Christ to come again which will likely be a long wait) but east because the human body is a biological body and sunlight and air and heat and cool are vital parts of life. The old infirmaries are often sited up a little to get the best breezes, but not on the top to get the gales, and have a fresh springwater supply. Primary schools also, they were designed for open windows in summer and thick stone walls to keep the heat in during winter, such were the practicalities of construction in Britain until the modern way took over.

    All hot countries wear loose long clothing to let air circulate and the Light of the Sun off direct skin. At the other end of the heat spectrum, we in the Norse ancestry know about keeping warm, obviously with not a vegan in sight https://thevikingdragon.com/blogs/news/surviving-and-thriving-how-the-vikings-conquered-the-cold?srsltid=AfmBOopxhk4GSkn9OeLL-flIudCugeWLjnhD05kPmvPhU2e2YdIXu0Ac

    In Namibia where, as in all hot countries, the indigenous peoples have a high melanin content in their skin so do not burn like a Brit, and as in all hot countries where the usual behaviour is justu to avoid the heat of the day and lie low and quiet, the cheerfulness about the heat can turn to recipes and pleasure of fruits, and this blog writer has been in Namibia and did know the searing 40′ degree heat of the sand dunes and the pleasure of a fruit under a shelter – https://www.namibian.com.na/the-fresh-fight-against-summer-heat

    Something very interesting indeed however appeared to this blog’s eye in thinking about native cooling, and it is in Tahiti that the true renewables do appear. That a hospital has demonstrated the use of seawater for air conditioning, and that Tahiti is in French Polynesia, therefore Paris is the overall governmental power with Tahiti highly devolved, is probably why such news has not appeared in English language newspapers or to the ‘UK’ government because although London and Paris are very very near geographically, not a lot of communication on real matters goes on. The ‘UK’ talks big on renewables and ending fossil fuels, though has not utilised the technology available for flexible tidal power, nor apparently known anything about using seawater as air cooling, air con in modern parlance. With the geography of the ‘UK’ and the part of the ‘UK’ on Eire surrounded by so much seawater there could not be any more, why can we not revert to ancient technologies here as well? https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/focus/20230202-hospital-on-french-island-of-tahiti-uses-seawater-for-air-conditioning This worrying week of heat is forecast as becoming the norm, and yet, and yet, here we have no sense of looking to what is there already, or advice on the loose clothing and food/tea use.

    Neither do we in the ‘UK’ have any public health information on salt, that essential part of bodies. Anyone connected with animals health knows how the larger animals need a salt supply in hot weather, and they lick it https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/animal-lick-saltpptx/251452759 Likewise, humans living in hot countries know also that humans need salt, and adjust their diets for that. British humans going to work overseas in the tropics, diplomatic, church or education, they are advised on salt tablets and maintaining health in the unnatural climate (for them). Now the climate is collapsing everywhere, and the humidity last week here in Britain was so bad that many people were ill, the government has no public health advice for people on such realities, and if it was doing its job, the Dept. of Health would give funding to each local Council to ensure a public salt lick be put out for humans to lick several times a day to balance the internal composition after humidity has sweated out the vital body salts.

  • The British and Water: The River Wye and South East Water Ltd.

    We Brits, and probably we Ancient Brits did as well, always talk about the weather. Why is this? Because if it isn’t raining, or drizzling, or spitting, it soon will be. And when it isn’t raining, or drizzling, or spitting, or drenching up on the Atlantic seaboard of Cymru or Eire or Gall-Ghaidheil all the way up the west coast of the many islands, rocky shores, seaweed, sandy bays, rugged ancient rocks, the Light is very beautiful, and the many dark rain clouds make the possibility of seeing a rainbow. And there are some lovely clear sunny days too, or a few anyway.

    Rain is water falling out of the sky when a cloud gets too heavy. Water on the ground is rivers, ponds, streams, burns, lochs, lakes, springs, tarns, dewponds, waterfalls, tributaries, fjords, rockpools, and puddles. Human society uses man-made reservoirs, farmers have iron drinking troughs for the animals or a big farm bucket, domestic households used to have a water butt, and there is an elaborate network of purifying and pumping stations, and the water pipes serving households and businesses. There is also an elaborate network of ah-em, the sewerage.

    In the last few weeks water has been much in the news here in Britain, and for polarised reasons. These increasing hot and dry periods in the south, especially the south east, are hitting the headlines in the most basic way because humans need water to survive and without it we only last a few days. We are not a Saharan Euphorbia or one of the many native cactus plants of the southern landmass of America. Humans need more than a few drops of water every few months, as does every mammal, large or small.

    To have 1000s of households without water, and in hot weather, and in a modern society where a household runs on water is disastrous, and the 1000s of customers of South East Water Ltd. have experienced days of outage. In a modern household in Britain of today water is used for flushing the toilet, the shower, the bath, the washing machine, probably a dishwasher, and running kitchen taps. Those with a garden, and who do things in the garden, often run a hose over plants and some even over the lawn.

    The average use of water per head each day in the ‘UK’ is c.150 litres. That’s a lot. Lined up in 5 litre large containers that’s 30 of them, and then it looks like even more.

    South East Water Ltd. is Ltd. because it is a private company, under a parent company (such is the appropriation of biological terms which the modern world uses) of HDF (UK) Holdings Limited. The name (UK) would suggest British owned. But no, the parent company itself is owned by the Utilities Trust of Australia 50%, the NatWest Pension Fund and Desjardins which have 25% each, and then an assortment of international investors who believed a water company in the south east of England was a good move. It was Mrs Thatcher who in 1989 pushed through the privatisation of the water industry in England and Wales. Water continues to fall as rain over the ‘UK’ without heed to its devolved jurisdictions or county administration, or privatised or public utility companies.

    So far so difficult for the household in south east England. Individual consumers blame the company for executive pay, not fixing leaks, and not preparing for hot weather. The company says there was simply not enough water, which there wasn’t, and – and – consumption went up in the very strangely hot weather, thereby emptying reserves even quicker. All this happened without any major electrical failure, on which the entire human water system relies in Britain.

    Head west about 200 miles and on Sunday 24th May the River Wye was granted a legal charter at the Hay Literary Festival. This legal status means the River Wye is the first ‘UK’ river to gain charter status. The charter gives legal rights to flow the water from source to estuary, to biodiversity, to be free from pollution, amongst a few others.

    The launching of the charter at a Literary Festival, albeit Hay (on Wye), which is the original heavyweight of Literary Festivals, and its location of on the Wye, nevertheless, it is a Literary Festival, not a legal or political conference. Avara Foods campaigners say have majorly polluted the river in its mass chicken farming business, and that Welsh Water have failed to act over sewage spills. Apart from the unnatural nutrients from intensive farming which are choking waterways over most of Britain, the matter of sewage is a difficult one because all mammals, chickens and humans, produce the by product of what is termed sewage in modern Britain.

    Giving a legal charter is a little confusing for the River Wye. It flows down the ‘UK’ borders of England and Wales, and it also is subject to the rain falling from the sky. In wet weather the flow will be fuller and faster, and may even flood, as in 2021 after Storm Christoph, and no human would be able to bring a case for damages against the river, because it has no money, no corporate structure, no offices, and no telephone contact number. In very dry weather the flow will be much reduced, though unlikely never to flow because the catchment area is such that it is a watery area and springs and small tributaries are enough to gather water into a river.

    If the granting of a charter will stop the intensive chicken farming (done to provide the very cheap supermarket and takeaway food the ‘UK’ citizens crave) that would be very good in a few decades time for all the delicate life forms injured or killed by the human activity, when the river has adjusted again. If it doesn’t stop the chicken farming, what is the point of a charter? A river cannot represent itself in court, and legal status means a legal standard to adhere to. If neither regional council on either side of the river, nor the devolved government of the Welsh Senedd or the Westminster Parliament Dept. of Environment have done anything, nor Severn Trent Water on the English side, when they do have statutory power, what is a literary collaboration between those same regional councils and environmental pressure groups going to do? To do to actually change anything?

    It is not possible for humans to stop producing sewage and the ageing water network cannot cope with processing the now c.70 million humans by products. When the networks were constructed the population was about 20 million and domestic household water consumption was hardly anything. Water butts were the norm in outside spaces and wet wipes and other pipe clogging throwaways had not been invented.

    In the south east, the water company is blamed, and in the west, the River Wye has been granted a legal charter to flow free from human damage. Other countries have done similar, in Canada and New Zealand, but therein lies the difference. Humans around the world are generally more respectful of the reality and necessity of water in the whole of life. And coming further down the modern political scale, the societies which really worship and revere water are those who live from that water. The pan African reverence for water Mami Wata, Nyami Nyami of the Zambezi, Oshun, and the once world over gods and goddesses of springs and rivers who guarded the flow and appreciated the respect and honour given by the humans. The vast life giving source to ocean of the Ganges for half a billion people will also be suffering from modern existence no doubt, but the psychology, the spirit and the survival of the people who live from a river as their only water source is about as polarised as could be from us spoilt people in the ‘UK’ who blame everyone except looking at the societal and household relationship with water.

  • The Westminster Bubble: Has it burst?

    Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Tories, (the Conservative and Unionist Party in the ‘UK’ Parliament) said yesterday that with the carrying on in the Labour Party there is no governance in the ‘UK’ at the moment. She also said recently that it is a surprising change (those two words are this blog’s but she said words meaning that) from the election of the Labour Party in the huge majority in the last election (which was not even a blink of the eye ago in geological time) and the sycophantic adorers of Sir Kier Starmer to now everyone fighting amongst themselves. The word ‘sycophantic’ is the definite one she used, the others are an approximate exact, if there is such terminology.

    The word sycophantic is absolutely spot on, and again, she is the one to say the obvious. (Is this writer a member of the Tory Party? No, it is not, (however it always does vote under its civic duty). That the Labour Party arrived in Parliament to their new seats as not opposition but ‘in power’ and spent the first year with the many female MPs openly adoring Sir Kier and adoring their new power, and alongside that having apparently nothing to say other than everything is all the Tory’s fault, an approx. two-year in power reality check is a useful timespan.

    Many Moons have come and gone, and the Earth has nearly completed two whole circles around Sol in this vast unfathomable universe in which we spin.

    Has the Westminster bubble burst? It would appear so. And before we ask if it has burst, we have to ask what it is in the first place. It is a term which loosely floated around in the 1990s to describe the growing network of humans in and around the Parliament of the ‘UK’ like advisors (special), lobby correspondents, researchers, civil servants, no doubt the Today programme journalists were right in the centre of that bubble, those who were coming into Parliament via Universities (real universities and real subjects like PPE or History) not via err work, probably the rise of the intern, and helped in its bubble formation no doubt by the increasing lack of intelligence in the House of Lords as Prime Minsters of both colours, red and blue, squeezed as many of their cronies into the House of Lords with its blurred boundaries which operated when everyone knew what they were doing but not when they don’t.

    The Oxford English Dictionary in 2016 included the Westminster Bubble in its entries, thus making this bubble a fact of life in the ‘UK’. It was around the time of the Brexit vote, and in such confusions as went on in the lack of government jurisprudence it was easy to see how such a term as the Westminster Bubble would be formalised. And it is apt, because the Bubble in and around Westminster did show so totally removed from the general British public who when it goes to vote does so knowing which box it is putting that cross in, and why. Or it did back in 2016.

    A bubble does exist in the natural world. It is a little bit of gas contained in a little film of liquid around. It is the opposite of a drop and a drop especially in these parts of 55′-56’N is usually a big drop of rain and many of them, but it can be a drizzle drop or a medium drop, and they can last a short time or a long, and if we still spoke native languages above 55’N then we would have about 99 words for rain like the Eskimo’s used to for snow (before the western consumer destroyed their environment).

    A bubble also arises upwards, from fish blowing bubbles, snails blow bubbles to deter predators and this writer’s life long fascination with snails and spiders has seen many of these wondrous mechanisms within the life force, bubbles appear and disappear in running streams, waves as they break and as they lose momentum on the beach, in volcanoes, the Argyroneta aquatica, the diving bell spiders who expertly manages his life and bubbles, and the big mud baths in Rotorua in which this writer has sat a long time ago and experience, and smelt, the primitive sulphuric mud bubbles rise and burst, and which it acknowledges the site as sacred to the Maori tribe and offers its gratitude here for being allowed to enter.

    Then there are the western bubbles, the soapy ones. They arise when washing up with Fairy liquid or any of the new other detergents available, or when blowing through the hoop of fun bubble liquid and blowing slow to get a big bubble or blowing fast to get many small ones. The point is to watch their beautiful (Sun)light catching dance and wonder how long they will last, because everybody knows it is not going to be long. And thinking about it, there is also the western bubble gum bubble and it could be a way less damaging to health and the environment to have developed a nicotine bubble gum and legally prevent the viral growth of vapes, and to have made a special bubble gum bag for disposal because it is annoying to walk over a discarded one, but that would be the job of a Health Secretary.

    The reason this blog asks Has the Westminster Bubble Burst, is because it apparently has. There is no Health Secretary performing the role of Secretary of State for Health. ‘The State’ is a fairly serious matter in the ‘UK’ at the present time since the inception of the totally un-thought out National Health System of the Labour Party, and here in 2026, it is the Labour Party which has abandoned the governance of health. Kemi Badenoch is 150% right that there is no governance in the ‘UK’ at the moment. She does not put inverted marks because the Conservative Party is the Unionist Party.

    The Radio 4 journalists speak of civil war in the Labour Party, and seem very excited by this. The different contenders begin their positioning for …. for what? For a battle which seeks to replace Sir Kier, by a Health Secretary who has resigned the role, and by a regional mayor (set up under Tony Blair’s idiot and chaotic legislation on devolution) who has yet to win a by election in a region which strongly voted to leave the EU yet the Labour hopefuls state they will bring the ‘UK’ back into the EU.

    The constitutional chaos is extraordinary, almost impossible to believe, unless you live in a bubble. Funny how the term ‘Westminster Bubble’ arose from the rising of a group of people all engaging with themselves (as the rise of the social sciences allows, or encourages even) and the greater distance between the common man and those in SW1, or related through the airwaves, and the very bubble that was created is now sought by those who do not realise its burst! In the rapidly distintergrating constitutional structure of the ‘UK’, what exactly are they fighting over?

    Would it not be more honest if an interim government were brought in from some other part of the world, like the UN peacekeeping troops goes off to various areas of the world to impose western values on what a society should be? And the ‘UK’ would not have a choice of where the peacekeeping troops came from? That would be a big shock to all left leaning citizens. Or if not that solution, then repurpose College Green into what it already is, the place where journalists interview MPs, and where much of the bubble business is carried on, turn into a jousting arena, put up tents with flags and ribbons, provide much beer and ale, and wait for the contest to begin. Contenders for the Crown of the Labour Party would have a three stage contest, the joust, on horseback with spear and shield, the arm wrestle, and the problem solving which is 25 fairly difficult scenarios and equations to work out on paper with no i-phone allowed. And if none of the contenders, at the moment there appears to be Sir Kier wishing to stay, Andy Burnham, and Wes Streeting, if they do not survive the contest or simply cannot manage it, then it’s open for anyone else wishing to enter the jousting ring and lay down their challenge. Some of the Reform folks would be big and strong, and as in times of genuine civil war in this country and all round the world and in the past Roman Empire and in our Kings and Queens, might was right, so are we back to that?

    Given that governance has collapsed, the many new parties have no ready internal structure to step in, and democracy prevents any quick solution anyway, what is the alternative but an enjoyable day out on College Green, having a beer, watching the contenders make their case. The weather is heading into drier days, less raindrops falling from the sky, a local folk band could come and play, a hog roast be put on, just like the days of olde. It would be far more civilised to do it openly and transparently, and it’s worth a go.

  • Trump -v- Iran: The road to Hell?

    To break this down, who is President Donald Trump? Who is Iran? What is Hell?

    Donald Trump is the elected President of the United States of America (identifiable in international politics by a flag and a national anthem). At their (this writer is neither American nor in America) last election it was all hands for Trump, meaning the overwhelming majority of both Houses and a wide diversity of humans and genders. Political commentators call this a landslide victory but this blog does not appropriate such terms for the use of modern politics.

    What is Iran? Iran is the land definition of the Islamic Republic of Iran, right central in the east-west historical complications arising from Christianity gaining power in the Roman Empire and disrupting the natural course of events. President Masoud Pezeshkian, only in leadership less than a year after the USA killed President Rainsi, is a heart surgeon and even though being President means he could not also be working as a heart surgeon, he would still be able to perform a complicated operation if needed.

    What is Hell? Hell is the place formalized by the Christians and their text, where non-believers will spend eternity while the believers live in heaven, but as with all of Christianity, it was constructed by appropriating all various aspects from contemporary Greek and Roman, and surrounding cultures, and all native cultures have our own particular beliefs about life on earth and the cosmos, and the humans within that. As yet there is no evidence of the Christian’s Hell, although there is abundant evidence of spirit life after death, and there is no evidence of their heaven either. Hell on earth however is now a reality and the stakes only get higher and higher.

    Why the title Trump -v- Iran? Should it not be Trump -v- Pezeshkian? A previous ‘post’ did ask of the difference between leader of land and leader of ideology, with the very simple demarcation of the leader of a land has nowhere else to go. They could be given a place in a friendly country, but they would still be the person of that land, not of their new living place. Running that line through present day leaders of the human world, it is a quick check on what exactly conflicts are about.

    Tribal conflicts are as olde as the hills, and took place and still do in and around hills, rivers, moorlands, equatorial forests, mountains and icy lands, but not as icy as Eskimos because they are too busy for such things and too desecrated by film crews arriving to film the last polar bear and in the process melting the very ice flow the polar bear needs, paradoxically. No, true tribal conflicts are a normal part of life on Earth. Each tribe has a leader, the people do not have much choice but because they are all so busy the folks don’t really make a fuss because they know the leader is doing his or her (Boudica a good example here) job and would be the first to die in conflict. That’s an honest way to live.

    The leader of a land however, is not that much difference to a tribal leader, only the scale is larger. They are still speaking for the land and the people of that land. The USA killed the previous Iranian leader but another one quickly stepped in. Some of the citizens might not like it, but the leadership continuity was fairly simple, and very continuous when compared with err… current events in the ‘UK’.

    That Donald Trump was elected by so many, so hoping for a simpler era and even the radio news had interviews of American citizens openly saying they would go through harder times willingly, just to get to that simpler state of affairs, where goods bought and consumed within America had been made in America. That is the equation of leadership to citizen, and the massive majority in the USA to end the hot air of the lefties and get back to something functional, well, there were a lot of folks who quietly said how they wished for something like that here. Such things have to be said quietly in the ‘UK’, such is the political conflict and the risk of being prosecution for having been radicalised for speaking facts.

    To take out a President not too far from your own centre of power is within the margins of reality and possibility, as Venezuela found earlier this year when the USA removed their President and took him away. But conflict far from geographical reality, on matters of religion – the Christian west -v- Middle East Islam, trade and energy – the blocking of just one small waterway on the planet of Earth has already resulted in global crisis, and the methods of warfare – now nuclear arms conflict, drones, warships in the Gulf region, all the various conflicts going on around Iran and which this writer is not entitled to comment on, and the supply of weapons and who is funding who, these three points could be said to constitute Hell on Earth.

    There would be a worse Hell, if Sol, Helios, Ghrian, throws a solar flare on the scale of the Carrington Event somewhere back 150 years ago, all electricity will fail on this spinning mass of rock in space. If Campi Flegrei in the Phlegraean Fields erupts that will change the course of events in 2026. And the ‘UK’ is facing a big Hell with its dwindling food and water resources and not a lot of friends left. But in this equation of the present Trump -v- Iran, where the President of Iran speaks for a land and yes with the Islamic religion on that land but with the long history of Arabic science and philosophy still intact, and Donald Trump speaks for military might and the USA resuming its global glory, where will this end?

    This blog has a useful suggestion which could be considered. It has already suggested that a new Nobel Peace Prize be hastily convened, that of Nuclear Dismantlement. If the model of France was followed that nuclear turns to heating homes and businesses then that reduces the need for oil at all then those Middle Eastern countries who have been destroyed by western need and greed might have a little more respect than is due at the moment. If there is no nuclear weapon as the overall threat then Iran might not be so keen to enrich their uranium.

    If all warfare was further reduced to no manufactured armourments, which includes drones, guns, warships, submarines, war planes, all remote surveillance and all arsenal in the smaller bombs and bullets what would be left?

    Archery would be left, a fine method of defence, hunting, and all round societal fitness. Knowing how to find the wood, make a bow, sharpen a flint for an arrowhead, these things are good for young people to learn. Hand to hand combat separates the men from the boys (as the phrase goes, and it had better not continue with the gender terms because it is illegal in the ‘UK’ to talk of function nowadays).

    Arm wrestling is a clear winner and loser, and can be observed by onlookers for any foul play. The armies at the frontier in centuries before air and digital warfare took its hold, that was horrible for those in that frontline, but it was clear at least. Or, clarity in the other direction could also be considered, that somebody with the power to approach that button, put their finger on the nuclear and just press. That would end Hell on Earth and the plight of the natural world which through no doing of its own finds its habitat disappearing, its food and survival just running out, and the changing temperatures forcing it to migrate into places it was never designed to exist and survive. Or maybe Sol could throw that solar flare, a strong overarm flare to reset reality on Earth if the leaders of the Protestant west cannot stop this progressive disintegration. If a poll was held with citizens obliged to vote, what would the citizens of the USA vote for now, so caught between the rock and the hard place they are?

    And where does it leave the population of Iran, also caught between a rock and a hard place with democracy having got its foot in the door? Where and what is Hell in 2026?

  • Constitutional collapse in the ‘UK’: May 2026

    Democracy? What does it mean?

    Thursday, May 7th, 2026, some citizens in the ‘UK’ are going to the polls. This means either sending in a pre-arranged postal vote, or going to a local centre which acts as a polling station for the day. The local centres could be a school, a church (but not a high church, more usually a Methodist church or similar), a leisure centre, also a synagogue in areas with a high percentage of Jewish inhabitants, but mosques are not used as polling stations.

    So complicated it is between the old and the new in the long standing county councils, borough councils, the newly formed ‘Parliaments’ of devolved government from New Labour, and the new mayoral position of London, now expanded into mayoral elections by the people for large cities, like Manchester, that 2026 would be a good time to take stock of this electoral chaos.

    The range of devolved governmental categories (societal functions which require governance) range through health, education, energy, transport, oh so many, and all fundamental to life in the twenty-first century. The range of political parties standing in each election is also oh so many, all with their own views on all the different functions of society. The range of voting options from lifelong supporter to protest vote, also so many. And the option to vote or not vote at all, also skews any coherent outcome. The voting turnout for all the different devolved ‘Parliaments, the county councils, the local councils, and the Mayoral elections varies in percentage, but nowhere will be 100%. Possibly overall, if an ethnic-religious-politics poll were taken, Muslim voters and those voting for Gaza would form the highest respondents to the jewel in the Crown of the ‘UK’, of democracy.

    By electoral event, is the elections to the Welsh Senedd going to have the highest turnout? And will Plaid Cymru be elected over Reform, or Reform over Plaid? Either way, Wales is where the traction is. Wales is where the citizens are speaking Welsh (a beautiful language) and returning their landscape to native names, and the schools to being Welsh speaking, regardless of any individual student or their household. You just have to be on board with the governance. And that is governance. Yes possibly the Welsh polling stations will have the highest number of participants, which means the fewest number of those refusing to put a cross on a paper.

    Back in 500s BCE Athens, where Cleisthenes established the first model of democracy, things were a little different to today. The unexpected revenue from a silver mine, a nice climate, and a manageable size of central Athens for just a few. It is the phrase ‘being roped in’ which this blog wishes to point out, after listening to days of news items on just how many people in the ‘UK’ are disillusioned with politics and not intending to vote at all. In Athens 2,500 years ago, to be ‘roped in’ meant literally that, and for the reason to ensure that all those within democracy voted.

    This was not citizens of the whole world, because the known world was very small to the Athenians of the 500s BCE, and only male citizens of Athens, not women, metics (foreign tradesmen), or slaves. Voting was direct on policies, as was the requirement to serve in the government roles, there was no voting for someone or something, it was all direct, and all carried out in the surrounds of the city state of that ancient Mediterranean lands.

    To ensure no young men were hanging around in the agora (market place, the centre of life in the ancient world), slaves would pass a long rope around dipped in red dye to round up those young men and herd them towards the Pnyx Hill to participate in the Assembly, whether they liked it or not, and many didn’t. Anyone found with red dye on their clothes or arm would be fined.

    So, is that democracy? Well, yes, from the original. And if not the original, then what is there?

    So in this catastrophic collapse of all things governmental and societal in the ‘UK’, what simpler way of restoring some clarity than making voting compulsory? How hard is it to put a cross on a paper? Or even to ‘spoil the vote’ which here in the ‘UK’ means putting a rip on the paper or a line through it to show the human is voting for no one? If the Labour government, while it is in power, wished to restore some electoral clarity, in times where there is none, then why not pass a law that every citizen is required to make some mark on the ballot paper?

    Or if that is not possible, or seen as too onerous for the citizens of Britain, why not abolish democracy altogether? What is the alternative? With the disintegration of the established parties looming, and the many new parties rising but with no governmental coherence, now would be the time to rethink this fairly awkward situation where the ‘UK’ Parliament looks global and believes it can bring democracy to the world, yet its own electoral scaffolding is collapsing.

  • Constitutional collapse in the ‘UK’: Devolved elections 2026

    Tony Blair: Architect of Chaos

    Tony Blair, previously a barrister specialising in employment and commercial law before arriving at his destination of Prime Minister, leader of the Labour (labour = work in normal talk) Party, won the 1997 general election under the promise of, ‘New Labour, Britain deserves better.’ ‘Better’ was to decentralise power in the ‘UK’ and begin legislation for a Scottish Parliament of its own, and a Welsh Assembly of its own. The 1998 establishment of this new chaos in Northern Ireland was even more chaotic but the Stormont Parliament was put together. He did not stop there. Big cities were granted their own ‘constitution’ too in direct elections for their own mayors, thus creating many, many new constitutional arrangements within the ‘UK’. (Nothing for Cornwall or the Kingdom of Galloway though).

    Why Wales would have merely an Assembly and Scotland a Parliament was already a constitutional conundrum of the highest order. Why big cities would have a mayor, (maybe to emulate the completely different societal history of France, only added to the constitutional conundrum of the ‘UK’.

    This blog is about the societal arrangements of the human under the governance of Grian (old Irish), howl (old Cornish), Helios, and beyond any names, the physical facts of Earth as a spinning mass of rock in a vast space, held in place by Helios and gravity. How does the function of governance work technically, for survival of a species, as compared with all life forms within the atmosphere on Earth and human societies since the last Ice Age?

    All life forms on Earth apart from the human still adhere to the same requirements and responsibilities for their societies. The human shows as the extreme divergence from reality in the devolved powers elections of May 2026 in the ‘UK’. The fact that it was a commercial and employment lawyer, who would have had to read the fine technicalities of a contract or a scenario, set in motion such a monumental collapse of structure is beyond rational belief. The meeting of the Cult of the Personal, the Cult of the Individual shows in the starkest relief. To ‘give’ power to the regions and the cities (apart from Cornwall and Galloway) in the expectation that ‘they’ would ‘love’ Tony Blair and his team of Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, and love the Labour Party is the constitutional proof that the ‘UK’ on exists in inverted commas, ‘Westminster Parliament’ only exists in inverted commas, and in Britain and Eire (geography so no inverted commas needed there), there is no coherent government or governance to be found.