Weltschmerz

Last night, for the first time ever, I actually felt physically ill on reading the news. Not some bombing, some mass murder, the gang rape of a child or something. But the news that I am ‘represented’ in Europe by the BNP.

Well, this goose-stepping psychopath does not represent me. I care little enough about Euro-politics, not because I don’t think that they are important, but because in the grand scheme of things I think it has little overall effect on my life. Some might say that is naive; rather, I live my life in a way that so far as possible I let many things wash over me with a quiet acceptance that the alternatives are probably not that much different.

He also does not represent me because I simply reject his representation for who he is. For what good that will do me. Sadly, he does represent a large portion of my country, and certainly the 120 000 and odd bigotted and ultimately ignorant fools who voted him in.

Weltschmerz is a German word, translating literally as ‘World-Sorrow’. It can mean a simple dismay at the state of the world, or a feeling that one’s own weaknesses are a result of this. It is also associated with the Romantic Poets, and a feeling that the state of the world is counter to ones own freedom of thought and mind.

Which sums up how I feel today.

The familiar argument has of course arose, about freedom of speech, and how comments of violence makes one as bad as the object of one’s violent expression.

This state of affairs shows that we are not mature enough for freedom of speech. Of course this is a paradox, as to disallow freedom of speech places one in a situation where someone tells someone else what they can express. But does the state of the world mean this must be so? There is probably no answer to this, save the anarchist-influenced informal regulation that might only be a pipe-dream.

What this also shows, is that once again ‘democracy’ has failed. I have joked that the thing that has pissed me off most about this whole fiasco is that I have been forced to break the habit of a lifetime and vote. I have never voted in a general election. My main reason for this is that I will not vote for someone who does not represent my views. Which no political party ever has. I nearly voted in 1997, after growing up under Tory rule. I would be ashamed to have voted in such a disfunctional government. I considered voting for Greg Mulholland in the last general election, based on his good record as a councillor in Headingley. Again, I would have been ashamed, after his vote on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, reputedly because of his own Catholic beliefs.

But this failure of ‘democracy’ is the worst. Pop Will Eat Itself sang: ‘but if the answer isn’t violence, neither is your silence’. I have not been violent, and I have not kept silent. And I am now saddened.

I am sometimes an idealist. I have largely held reservations about violent responses to fascism. Partly because I think dangerous egos can take hold, and even people who will stand up and fight are often not mature enough to justify their means. Also, because although ideologically I am not anti violence, I refuse to succumb to allowing violence to be the answer, as I am, by nature, a gentle person. But where are we now? 120 000 people in Yorkshire and The Humber is too many to ignore. And this poison will grow and grow.

This is not some call to arms, or statement of intent to join Antifa. But the time is coming when many of us will need to make the choice whether we sit back and allow this to continue, by our posturing and faith in good nature and The System. Or whether we will be forced back to a time when human evil cannot be controlled in any other way: the ultimate recidivism. World Sorrow, indeed.

A small lesson in Pragmatism.

The Moor, once again, is the latest issue for Hyde Park Busybodies to throw a wobbler about.

As you will all know, when the weather gets hot, people flock to the park, many of them using those pathetic tin-foil barbecues and burning huge holes in the grass. Which is pretty fucking selfish and irritating, I agree.

So the Council, in one their rare bursts of sense have come up with the idea of sinking barbecue slabs into the ground to provide a means to do this with less damage. Which seems to me a sensible idea.

But of course, for some, this is not good enough.  People feel that this will spoil The Moor. That Money should be spent on enforcing the present By-Laws. That Barbcue smoke is Toxic.

Lets look at these, one by one. I’ll start with the last. Barbecue smoke may be greasy and nasty. But you can’t stop people having a barbecue in their garden (at least not in Hyde Park, at the moment). I’m also guessing a fair number of people opposing this on the park will be lucky enough to have a garden.

Spoiling The Moor:  I’m inclined to say that stone slabs set over a small area will spoil The Moor considerably less than the current mess caused by people who don’t use them. The Moor is not some ancient burial ground that is defiled by building facilities on it. Or maybe it is, and that’s why after ten years we still don’t have any lighting.

So lets look at the last one: Park wardens technically have the power to remove people from parks. It’s in the By-Laws. But they don’t. And those who will ignore the By-Laws clearly ignore the wardens as this letter suggests. So personally I resent paying for someone who doesn’t actually do their job. I fail to see how more wardens will help.

So the Police then? Well, the only time I’ve seen the Police do very much on the park is hassling people sat there in the mornings (because staying up all night and sitting on the park at 8 o’clock on Saturday Morning is oh so much more of a social evil than burning holes in things). The Police say it is the councils repsponsibility, the Council say it is the Police’s. Like Noise, that old chestnut. I’d be very suprised if the Police would ringefence the money that would have been spent on barbecue facilities, if it were to be given to them.

So, what will happen, is as usual nothing. And the park will continue to be burned.

The local resident bigmouths say ‘why should Hyde Park be any different?’ Because Hyde Park is different. Like it or lump it, we have a large population of students and young people. That’s life.

I have lived in Hyde Park 15 Years.  I am not an incomer student. But I agree with a pragmatic response to a problem. God I’m such a misfit. This shows, once again, two characteristics of ‘community’ in Hyde Park.

One: it is self-serving, parochial, and serves a small group. Two: these small groups of people who claim to be the ‘community’ quite clearly have their heads up their own ar, sorry, firmly in the clouds.

Giving them drugs, taking their lives away…

I should be writing my dissertation, but this requires comment. Finally, in peer reviewed journals, sensible discussion on the risks of drugs is coming to the fore.

This is something that the late Nicholas Saunders commented on nearly 20 years ago, though his statistical assessment put the risk as similar to that of fly-fishing. Whilst it is true that there is ‘no safe dose’ of ecstacy, as it can kill unpredictably this is also, as the Cheif Constable of North Wales suggested a year ago, the same for many over the counter pharmaceuticals, or other drugs consumed everyday.

Caffeine, a drug with an LD50  estimated at between 3-10g orally (a single packet of the US brand pep-pill No-Doze is reported to be possibly fatal)  is a key component of many peoples’ “morning stimulant” and present in many energy drinks and in pills such as Pro-Plus or the aforementioned No-Doze. Nicotine, a drug which provokes similar withdrawal effects to Opiates and Benzodiazepines is a major consumer product, yet still smokers may be refused coronary treatment. The list goes on; the argument about the criminogenic effects of alcohol consumption is well known.

Incidentally the risk of an unpredictable reaction from pure and unadulterated MDMA, taken safely, is very very low.

What is perhaps most problematic about this affair is the National Drug Prevention Alliance calling for Professor Nutt’s resignation. For what? presenting accurate statistics. If he did indeed present his ‘opinion’ as the NDPA suggest, I would agree that he should resign, as there is little room for opinion in the dissemination of medical fact. But it was statistical analysis he presented, and it is encouraging that this has been presented in an academic setting.

And now, Home Secretary Jaqui Smith has demanded and received an apology. This is perhaps most concerning.

Whatever one’s personal opinion on the morality or safety of drug use, Prof. Nutt has published an article, based upon statistical analysis of the dangers, in a respected peer review journal.

It is often argued that hiding debate around drugs serves a contrary purpose to the management of the drugs ‘problem’. Furthermore, to demand an apology for publishing a valid scientific argument is tantamount to censorship of scientific knowledge. Jaqui Smith has done both these things.

Community Plods

The other day I swear I saw Herr Flic walking down the street. OK the leather coast had been replaced by orange hi-vis, but the sour unrelenting face and demeanour, the purposeful walk was the same. This was on Moorland Road, walking off down towards Hyde Park. I then swear down I saw him again on Campus.  Who was this strange fellow?

He was a Local Authority Enforcement Officer, or rather I am guessing two of them, but the uniform and face were of course indistinguishable.

These pseudo police, along with their brethren the PCSOs are the champions of community cohesion in Britain Today.

I become more and more concerned by this as time goes by. Zygmunt Bauman talks of community as The Agony of Tantalus, something so desired, but so out of reach. And my question here is about how the hell this can enforce community.

These fellows were issuing parking tickets. Now parking is something that kind of gets my goat, but one of these was placing them on about 2 cars in the otherwise empty resident’s parking on Moorland Road. The other, on Campus. OK the first, maybe fair enough. The second, although a public highway, should really be the Universty’s look out. But my main issue here is this for me just highlights a little over regulation. Where was he dealing with the blocking royal park road so the buses can’t get by; the cars permanently so close to junctions that their arse end is blocking the entire pavement?

It also amuses me that it is highlighted now that Police must trust the public more. Far be it from me to comment about whether police are “more concerned with the rights of perpetrators than victims” of course, but we have all these people aimed to promote “community” dressed up like the Gestapo, and probably as unpleasant. How is that going to promote trust. Or community? I fail to see.

Community, or “Social Capital” to use Labour’s buzzword cannot be enforced. “Respect” cannot be enforced. Yes the Police do need to trust the public more, listen more. Help people to look after their areas, collect their trash and they won’t tip it, make sure there are places to park that don’t cost a days wage and they won’t park where they shouldn’t and so on…

Two grumpy old men

Well, Jamie Matthews got back to me. Actually had quite a constructive conversation which was good. Though it is a shame it took a complaint to make this happen.

From this I have had contact from the local police too… Predictable though. Police responses are reactionary (no shit, Sherlock) and of course officers cannot be expected to understand issues from all areas they Police. The Inspector dealing with the complaint got back too: He has discussed the issue with the officer concerned and “advised him”. What that will do I do not know, but at least he listened. We’ll see if I encounter that officer again when I am pissed and get harassment. Of course that will never happen.

As for the bins. That has been reported to the council. Apparently they will deliver four new bins, in four to six weeks time. What a fucking joke! They did say that they will provide some green bags, though it is of course the householders responsibility to clean up the mess (personally I think this is a bigger blight than graffiti and posters which seems to have plenty of money poured into their removal, but anyway…) No sign of the green bags I was promised, so with the general lack of bins from not getting the increased number I was promised 6 months ago I can see even more mess… Am tempted to say sod it as I am moving down the road and so it will no longer be my binyard (though the new one looks just as problematic…)

It’s kind of the same old story really. Empty promises and excuses. Of course if you believe half of what I have been told none of this is paid for by the council tax, so I cannot use that argument, and doubtless rattle on about Thoreau like all apprentice disobedients do (usually the ones who pay it off when it gets tough). I disagree with the council tax for many reasons, for many reasons, house size not being an indicator of income being a main one, and much as I comment often on the benefits of a more mutualist society where this may not be needed, poor service is not a reason for not paying it. This may strike you as odd from me, as I am committed to actually getting value for what you pay out in the consumerist transactions we all are slaves to and frequently complain about how our taxes are spent, but the simple matter is that not paying does not solve anything, oppressive as that situation is.

I heard a great one the other day too: students do not use the majority of services paid for by council tax (education, social services and so on), this is why they should not pay it. True, but neither do I. And a fair proportion goes towards the “gentrification” that the University then lays claim to. What do we do, give up on Welfare as a bad job, so everyone pays for exactly what they use? Anyway, I digress.

I am going to continue. Be an angry young man (or maybe a grumpy old man, now) and become the thorn in the side of local services. And incidentally the new neighbours, looking at the state of the binyard for my new house…

The power of recourse…

Following the incident with the “builders” across the road, (and I use the term “builders” loosely, looking at the quality of the work) I have been active.

It’s amazing what a complaint can do… or is it?

The Police got back to me in the end. An ageing Sargent came round and repeated largely the same rote, though at least he listened. The Noise Service wrote to me and made the point that they are not obliged to run an out of hours service and that they do not have the funding to run it any later.  Apparently there is an agreement that noise issues are down to the council, not the police. “Responsiblisation” as David Garland puts it – shifting the ownership of issues that are essentially crime out of the policing sphere into the community

What a surprise. I guess here we see the key flaw in Garland’s terminology. His observation is valid, but I cannot see this responsibility anywhere… But I guess that is his point.

It took a complaint too, for one of the local councillors (Jamie Mathews) to contact. He asked for anecdotes – so he got them:

Hi Jaimie,

Further to our conversation the other day, here’s a bit more detail about some of the issues that I feel the Council needs to be addressing in a more proactive way. As I said when we spoke, this is the main issue – problems obviously are going to happen, and it is what resources are in place to deal with them.

The background to the incident that lead me to try and make contact was as follows – basically there is a house opposite mine which is currently under renovation – I believe for Deu Estates, who seem to be on a mission to buy up half the street. The burglar alarm on this house had been fitted, but not isolated and started going off at about 3am – I called the “out of hours” noise team, which was closed as it was after 2 on a week day. The Police of course claim to be able to do nothing (I did suggest that maybe if nothing was done they may need to come and arrest me for removing it with a lump-hammer, though that didn’t seem to sway them). So I was stuck with this (which sounded not unlike a dial-up modem at 150dB) until the builder appeared at about 8.30. This incident escalated somewhat when as I was trying to arrange to get the builder’s number one of his mates decided to start giving me a load of abuse about this, and when I went back inside and said if this couldn’t be resolved I’d just get the council to deal with it tried to kick my door through. The police attended this, and overall were extremely dismissive of my concerns – something which I am making a formal complaint about.

So really there are two issues here – firstly the Noise Service line. One has to ask exactly what is the point of an “out of hours” service that does not operate out of hours? I have been in contact with them, and received the standard reply that they do not have adequate funding, and the service is provided as an extra, which they are under no obligation to provide. They also informed me that it was agreed with the Police that the council held responsibility for noise problems, but if the council is not providing that service who does? At the time the Noise service did nothing, other than contact me back and put me under pressure to provide the builder’s number, despite my informing them that as I had just been threatened by one of the builders I felt that acting at this late stage would just exacerbate the whole issue.

So this brings me to the side point point here – I don’t know how much input local councillors have into the policing of the area – but it is clear that that police have very little understanding of how this area works – the one who attended when I called them about the builder certainly seemed not to have any idea how much of an effect the continual issues in South Headingley affect people. The Police seemed happy to step in, in force, with the party in the Hessles last year, in a way which caused an incredible amount of tension for both local residents and students, both in terms of increasing the general feeling of persecution that students feel but also as they seemed to not realise that a fair few local people were not overly happy about meeting a line of aggressive dogs preventing them from getting to their homes  – it seemed almost as if the police had this lip-service idea of helping the community, but treated the area concerned like a little enclave where every resident was a student and therefore under suspicion.

Returning to the noise issue – I have had a similar issue with noise from an alarm in the house next door, again owned by Deu Estates. This was a faulty fire alarm, which went off again all night. I initially contacted Mr Singh from Deu on the number he provides for out of hours contact when he wishes to let a house. His response was that he lived about 10 miles away and it was too late for him to come out and deactivate the alarm. The noise service did attend on this occasion, and called Mr Singh on the number they had for him as key holder (and his home number from the phone book) – he had taken both phones off the hook. They said they could do nothing further as they could not arrange to have the alarm de-activated. So the response to this was a letter to Mr Singh and no sleep for me.

A further problem with this house is an extractor fan, which is loud enough to wake me when all 6 tenants come in pissed at 3am and troop to the toilet. The noise team’s response to this was that “I would have had the chance to object when planning permission was applied for” – the planning notification I got was for two dormer windows. Not extractor fans or (incidentally) converting the premesis to a 6 bed HMO with the associated lack of facilities for rubbish, loss in water pressure (the water on these properties coming through the other houses). So again, the noise team and the associated planning issues seem to be totally ignorant of the reality.

It is my understanding that to gain a licence for a licensable HMO the owner must be a “fit and proper person”… One wonders how someone who has seemingly not applied for full planning permission for the premises, and has needed to be reprimanded for noise problems is a fit and proper person.

The other major issue which it seems that the council services have no understanding of is refuse. A year or so ago I called to report that a large amount of building waste had been fly tipped in my shared bin yard – giving a description and number plate of the van I had seen doing so. The response was that this was the resident’s responsibility to clear. When I commented that I had no means to do this, I was told that as they had my name connected to the binyard and I had effectively refused to arrange removal when asked,  I would be prosecuted. I think my response was something along the lines of “just f-ing try it” and at some point the waste was removed. A couple of months later however a letter was posted through all the doors threatening action about the state of the binyards. This time, as I have actually on more than one occasion I pointed out that there were insufficient bins, to get the standard response that one bin per household is provided and that is all. We have four bins, for 6 houses, one of which is a 6 bed HMO. I have raised this with the HMO team and been assured that this would be looked into and if appropriate a trade bin provided due to the large HMO using the yard. about 3 months later there is no sign of this, and the bins are still often overflowing.

I have notice this morning that all our green bins are now a pile of burned plastic, so doubtless we will have no recycling facilities for weeks on end, and the same argument about whose responsibility it is to clean up the mess.

So there are a few anecdotes, I have plenty more, but these illustrate the key issues – that, as we discussed, there is no one size fits all policy.

The refuse team need to realise that one large HMO on a street can seriously unbalance the way a service needs to be run, and be prepared to make changes to the standard service.
The Noise service needs to operate out of hours, and be able to access properties to deactivate problem alarms when the key holders refuse to.
Landlords need to be denied licenses for properties unless they can show that they have a record of addressing problems – issuing a licence and then worrying when they do not comply is not enough.
The police need to understand the concerns of local residents.

There are a number of minor issues of concern too – we all know there is a problem with litter in the area, but walking from my house to the University I pass a total of two bins – both of which are always full. There are permanent parking issues – but where is a permit scheme, preferably limiting the number of permits issued, while managing to allow visitors of local residents somewhere to park…

Unfortunately I think the  issues are clouded by the supposed student/local binary – this seems to be the only issue addressed and then vast resources seem to be spent on placating students and reassuring locals, without looking at the micro issues – I know some people are galled by the idea that money is spent dealing with problems that they feel would not happen if students were kicked out of the area, but that is not the solution, nor will it happen. But money needs to be found to address the actual tangible problems…

I hope these examples are useful – an apologies that I did feel that I needed to go through the complaints form to try and make contact – At this point I was feeling very unlistened to…

Thanks for Listening

Christian Bodden

We’ll see what happens. Nothing I suspect.

Idiocracy

The quarterly waste of paper that is About Leeds, the council’s pathetic effort to convince us that they have a use, has just come through my letterbox.

I guess for many it serves it’s purpose of instilling a sense of civic pride, taming the bewildered herd, as Chomsky (very tongue in cheek, citing Walter Lippmann) puts it. It tells us all the wonderful ways that Leeds City Council are spending our rising council tax, over a million doing up Albion Place so we get more tourists and (the businesses) of Leeds benefit, for example. They even have a family, Dave and Sue (bit of a milf to be fair) Dawson who’s exploits quizzing their local councillors and accepting without question their rhetoric have been noted for the last 2 years.

Now, I have to say that if I was ignorant enough to parade my lack of knowledge about simple things like council tax (why doesn’t it go down ‘cos house prices are dropping) or landfill (I KNOW how to save money, only collect one bin), I guess I would believe everything some councillor said. Apparently her hours have been cut and she has three hungry mouths to feed obviously does indicate she lives a hard life and her fella’s a lazy lump. But hey, she’s a Yorkshire lass and she won’t give up.

But aside from these paragons of salt of the earth Leeds-ness, and the fact that Leeds, like much of the country is going down the pan, we have the best quote ever:

“…everyone can have a say in how the city is run…”

Yes, boys and girls, that bastion of civilisation… Democracy.

Da Da da Daahhh!

Lets return to Chomsky. Chomsky manages to paraphrase Lippmann in such a brilliant way that I am going to type it out verbatim:

…in a properly functioning democracy there are classes of citizens. There is first of all a class of citizens who have to take a role in running general affairs. That’s the specialized class. They are the people who analyze [sic, we will forgive the American spelling] , execute [no pun intended?], make decisions, and run things in the political economic and ideological sphere. That’s a small percentage of the population. Naturally anyone who puts these ideas forth is always a part of that small group and they’re talking about what to do with those others. Those others, who are out of the small group, the big majority of the population, they are what Lippmann called “the bewildered herd”. We have to protect ourselves from “the trampling and roar of a bewildered herd” Now there are two “functions” in a democracy: The specialised class, the responsible men, carry out the executive function which means they do the thinking and planning and understand the common interest. Then there is the bewildered herd, and they have a function in democracy as well. Their function in democracy, he said, is to be “spectators”, not participants in action. But they have more of a function than that, because it’s a democracy. Occasionally they are allowed to say “We want you to be our leader” or “We want you to be our leader.” That’s because it’s a democracy and not a totalitarianism. That’s called an election. But once they’ve lent their weight to one or another member of the specialized class they’re supposed to sink back and become spectators of action, but not participants. That’s in a properly functioning democracy.”

So who are those specialised classes in Leeds..? Lets look at a recent motion in council.

85.

White Paper Motion -Vote of No Confidence in the Administration

“This Council deplores the inefficiencies and ineptitude of the Conservative led coalition.”

B ATHA

Minutes:

It was moved by Councillor Atha seconded by Councillor Taggart

That this Council deplores the inefficiencies and ineptitude of the Conservative led coalition.

An amendment was moved by Councillor Finnigan seconded by Councillor Grayshon

DELETE all after “of the” and replace with “Labour led Government”.

The amendment was carried and upon being put as the substantive motion it was

RESOLVED – That this Council deplores the inefficiencies and ineptitude of the Labour led Government.

If you want to see the whole 50 pages of script and from what I can work out from the minutes the best part of two hours of conversation, have a look at the verbatim report, from about page 38. It’s hilarious. OK, no doubt the Tory Coalition and the Labour Administration both deserve little confidence, but what the fuck does that do for Leeds.

Jack. Shit.

I recently tried to call upon some of these specialised classes after an incident with certain builders. This was mainly because I was pissed off, had consumed 4 double bourbons to calm down and wanted to whine at someone. However if the specialised classes are really executing in Hyde Park they fucking deserve it. I left a message with the office, and on two of their personal numbers as advertised on leeds.gov.uk and so far have heard nothing.

Of course if I was living the other side of Royal Park Road it would be a different story, as Kabeer Hussein obviously cares and looks after his ward residents, even taxi drivers who commit assault. If one wonders if this is part of the great LS6 Asian network I will be called a racist, no doubt, (by the way if you choose to, go fuck off and look up the meaning of the word racism please), so lets go with Hussein’s story that Shafiq Aziz is his friend. So either he is plain stupid, and doesn’t know that his friend had criminal convictions for assault, or he is a bare face liar when he claims he did not. Does he also know that Aziz is reputedly a relative of one of the biggest lot of con artists in Leeds, the very people the council claim to be trying to deal with? It’s not in his declaration of interests.

If we must succumb to the need for this “specialised class in Leeds”, is it not reasonable to ask that they are slightly more than inadequate, ineffectual, blustering, posturing, lying, porn peddling, arrogant, useless idiots?

Obviously not.

—–

Cited:

Chomsky, N (2002) Media Control. New York: Seven Stories Press.

Hole in the Head…

Once again, I am astounded by the plain stupidity rife on the BBC website comments. One day I’ll stop reading it, but I guess I’ll lose a large amount of my entertainment. But honestly…

So what is it this time. Don’t you know, the world was due to end today? A black hole was about to swallow us all up when they switched on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

As I am still sat here writing this, I think it’s safe to say this hasn’t happened. Now if we are to believe the scaremongers that it was gonna blow the moment they switched it on, I guess this is probably easily explained by the fact that it was actually switched on quite a while ago. If you believe the ones who reckon it’s gonna create a mini black hole then the lack of oblivion might just be accounted for by the fact that they haven’t actually collided anything yet…

Don’t get me wrong, pushing the boundaries of physics is dangerous. I’m sure the City Fathers of Hiroshima would be able to tell you that if they weren’t ripped apart to their constituent atoms half a century ago. My personal fear is, like Einstein’s reputed despair about the Atom Bomb that knowing more about the fabric of the Universe will enable us to learn to commit atrocities of a Stellar scale if we ever survive to leave this ball of rock – have a read of Greg Bear’s Anvil of the Stars for a pretty scary moral explanation of what knowledge of the fabric of spacetime could enable us to do. But that’s down to how we use it. I can hope we might just manage to control our violence one day.

But not content with telling us that Islam is The Beast Incarnate, that paedophiles should all be forcibly castrated before their hanging and so on, the panic merchants are now telling us that physics is the end of the world. Most of them hail I’m sure from the Bible-belt of the Mid-West and of course have their ulterior motives. But it seems some people are daft enough to truly believe them.

“I cant believe they would put our lives at danger!
They could have had a world wide vote to see what everyone thought just like they did for england with terminal 5.They put billions of lives at risk more lives then how much money they spent one the experiment in the first place ? Why the world is gonna stop anyway so whats the point on spending the money when other people need that money to survive.What went through their heads i do not know but next time is there is one STOP & THINK AGAIN!” Holly Burton, benissa/spain

This experiment has a potential of duplicating Big-Bang. But,we know that the matter was created from”Nothingness”and it started expanding thereafter.Collision of Zero Particles might start another expansion process capable of colliding with “God Particles’. Important question is,do we know beyond doubt if this experiment will not violate nature in a”Big Way”starting a collision course of “God Particles” with Man-Particles expected to ultimate destruction?

Muhammad Saeed, Islamabad, Pakistan

Worse than that are those who show a complete inability to constructively manage their fears, and hide behind those of their children. This goes a little off my main point, but these are two gems from the BBC

“My 2 daughters aged 10 and 8 are absolutely terrified of this experiment…”
Marc, Lanarkshire”

Hmm… So what you are saying is that you do not have the ability to explain to a child of that age that sometimes people talk shite. Or is it that you are scared, and blaming your children.

And the classic…

“i think its stupied, my children are scared bye this and i am not happy about it”
stacey, nottingham

If one can get past the atrocious spelling and understand what the fuck you are on about, this is stupied [sic] because you believe evryfing that people tell u and so they shouldnt do it cuz you are an idiot who lets ur kids watch tv all day wile ur smoking rocks?

Ok, maybe I’m being a little cruel. I feel for another commenter on here who said he needed to sit all night with a “mentally handicapped” friend who was upset by this. But the idiot responses to this are akin to scaring the shit out of kids telling them they will go to hell if they are naughty (haven’t most of us realised that threatening children in the name of discipline is a bit last century..?) – this is the church breeding ignorance.

This I don’t get… Not that I consider that Vatican to be the paragon of Christian Virtue. But it’s certainly pretty vociferous. Last I heard, the Pope had abandoned the Inquisition and accepted that much of our theory of Physics was entirely compatible with creation, Big Bang included. Having turned my back on the majority of the Christian Church a long while ago for its abject hypocrisy, I don’t know how the rest of the Church sees this, but my feeling is that the majority of rational (i.e not American) Christians in this world agree that discovery and progress is a good thing. Most rational, thinking people do not think that X-rays, Semiconductors, MRI scans, The Internet and so on and so forth are a threat to all humanity.

Or am I wrong…

…. I believe God has sent us a message already. Have you seen four earthquakes in different parts of the world happened in one day? Ed Li, Vancouver, BC, Canada

For fucks sake…

OK, some people baulk at the cost, while happily accepting the latest military behemoth to protect us from the evil Arabs. OK I’m sure many millions of starving children could have been fed with the cost of this… But lets face it while we sit in our capitalist bubble (which looks to burst soon, guys) that’s not gonna happen.

But back to the point. The simple thing to learn from this is use your fucking heads. The simple fact that the eschaton brigade have chosen today to portent doom shows us clearly how daft it is. Why today? Why is it going to happen today, when all they are doing is sending the first test beam round the whole circuit? Not switching it on. Not colliding things for the first time. No-one making these claims has said it’s gonna be today, but everyone is prattling on about it.

Because today is publicity day. Today is the day when people can see something going on in the news that they don’t understand. And because they don’t understand it (which is fine, it’s complex, not many people do) instead of learning about it, reading the facts and making an informed assessment, they hide behind the first scare rumour they can find.

I’m sounding like the scientists now, sticking up for the idea, which was not my plan, but I can’t help it. I’m fascinated by all this, though it’s well outside my field. Like most people. Maybe it will all go horribly wrong, and in a few years time we’ll realise it did create a mini black hole and we are fucked. If you are a conspiricist you will doubtless believe there are many more potentially dangerous things going on. To be fair, I think I do. But we’ve more to gain from this than Trinity and Enewetak. Even if the risks are real, people in power risk the future of this planet on a daily basis, often for little more gain than their sense of pride.

You hide your heads in the sand. One day, if you’re lucky and we’re feeling altruistic, we’ll come and show you the secret of fire.

To protect and to serve…

This is a rant about the police. Plain and simple.

I have never really had much respect for the majority of West Yorkshire Police. They seem to have a great effect of generally disturbing the peace, hassling people about their business, and generally being a bunch of ineffectual pussies.

Look at the “Hessles incident”, or the Aspire raid of 2002. What a prime fuck up they were. OK, this party in the Hessles was out of control, down to naivety and lack of thought. As for the Aspire raid, this was not really causing any trouble at all. Both police responses were a show of power.

On our way to Solfest, we pulled up in the taxi at Leeds station to be greeted by about 6 coppers and a sniffer dog (who seemed quite interested in my coolbag… …note to the wise if you have dope on you try hiding it in a pack of lamb-chops…) which was sent over the taxi like a rash. I would have expected a grilling ourselves, two oddly dressed festival heads. But no, a middle aged taxi driver obviously quite keen to finish his shift and go to bed is the new suspect drug mule. Or maybe they thought he had a bomb.

The mind boggles.

Recently though I have had a couple of reasons to try and get the police, and also the council, to do their fucking jobs. Ha-bloody-ha.

The other night I was woken at about 3 in the morning by a burglar alarm. And not a steady wailing siren that you can just about go and block out. This sounded like a dial up modem connecting. At about 150dB.

Skirting over the fact the the council’s “out of hours” noise service does not operate past 2am (not that this makes much different ‘cos they need a magistrate’s warrent to enter and shut of an alarm, which cannot be obtained out of hours. Anyway, somewhat unsurprisingly I was pretty pissed of when the builder turned up at about 9am, and made this fact quite clear.

He, however was fine, and obviously had the sense to understand why someone who has had no sleep and listened to that noise for about 6 hours might be a little stressed. However as I was imploring him to get t shut down, and to leave a contact number so we could get hold of him if it went off again, one of the roofers working on the project got out of his can and starts screaming it me to “chill the fuck out”. I pointed out to him that it was a little hard to be chilled out when one has been kept up all night, and that in any case it was not really any of his business and I didn’t want his fucking abuse. I went back inside.

Next thing I know, he is trying to kick his way through my door and screaming threats at me.

At this point I called 999.

I do not call the police lightly. Well ok, when I would like to make a point, for example about the fact that bonfire night in Hyde Park is like a war zone, or ask an explanation as to why sitting on the park early in the morning is considered suspicious behaviour and seems to give the police a right to take everyone’s details. However in this situation I called the police because I was concerned that I could not defend myself safely or within the Law.

And what a fat fucking load of use this was.

Despite, or maybe because of, the fact that this roofer shouted at the policeman as he arrived “tell him not to come out here again and cheek me”, the self important idiot of a copper had obviously decided that this whole thing was beneath him, and gave the distinct impression that he had made his mind up about the situation before even speaking to me.

“It’s just a door and I can’t see any damage what you so upset about, if he’d have wanted to he’d have got through it anyway” was the main gist of the police response. Aimee asked the reasonable question “can he not be asked to leave the area to give everyone a chance to calm down?”. Apparently a number of witnesses (and in fact an admission) is not sufficient evidence to act on a public order offence. Now I guess that the police are indoctrinated into the idea of retributive justice, as this officer’s tiny mind did not seem to comprehend that I did not want this person arrested and charged, merely that I was not happy with someone who had attempted to kick my door through working outside my house for the next day. Apparently the roofer “just wanted his days wage”. This of course is at the expense of mine as I will probably have to take this as a days leave, as there was no point I was leaving the house until I had got some sleep and this gentleman builder (which is what he seemed to have now been elevated to) had fucked off.

I contacted Horsforth Police Station about this, and talked to a very sympathetic desk sergeant. Sympathetic that is until she had spoken to the attending officer, when she called me back and generally repeated by rote the attitude he had taken with me. My recourse if I was unhappy, she said was to make a complaint to the IPCC.

The Victor Meldrew in me actually is quite happy with making complaints, when I feel they will have any kind of constructive effect. However at this point I really cannot be arsed with the bureaucracy. However I would quite like a police officer with enough seniority to possess more than a lone brain cell (possibly an oxymoron I guess) to explain to me, as an intelligent adult why it is not reasonable for someone who has issued threats and attempted criminal damage to be asked to leave the area, for the well being of another person.

I was not going to check my door for damage while this person and the remainder of the cowboys working on the property were sat outside my house taking the piss. However a couple of days later is became obvious that in the cellar step, which is admittedly eroded, there is now a hole the size and shape of a steely boot where a chunk of step had been forced with some velocity into the cellar.

So again I called the police. Once again this is not because I wish to get this person in trouble. In an ideal world this would have resulted in perhaps an apology and slapping a bit of concrete over the hole. But I rent my house, and if I need to report damage caused by a third party to my landlord, I need a crime number. Of course this all fell on deaf ears. The policeman said he could not report that as a crime, claiming there was no evidence it was not just simple erosion.

In contemporary Britain it is not considered appropriate to take matters into ones own hands. Yet those there to deal with things have no teeth. Personally I would have liked to climb the scaffolding and knock that fucking alarm off with a lump-hammer.  Maybe had I opened the door to the abuse with the kitchen cleaver in my hand Mr Big Boy would have realised I wasn’t worth the effort of taking out his bad day and the late arrival of his foreman on.

Two things are clear. The council is simply a politicised waste of time. They want to show lip service to tackling issues affecting local people, but when it comes to the crunch I could not get anything from them. It is also noticeable that not one of the three local councillors for the area who do not, it seems, run any kind of surgeries have replied to my messages left on their numbers or with their offices. And what fucking use is an out of hours noise service that does not run out of hours.

Secondly, the legal system in this country is a waste of space. Of course this is something I know very well, but this illustrates is very well. Kids are hassled on the street for being kids. Yet an abusive builder, or for that matter, students who should by now know better are left to act like twats. The ones who stole various of my plants, which were then found (along with many other items from their night out) planted on their windowsill were left be as “there was no evidence”.

I’ve recently been in court with Aimee to support her giving evidence. This was interesting, especially the defence counsel who seemed to think he was in Ally McBeal. I guess I’d hoped, for the sake of sense that the general bullshit of a trial was exaggerated. The defendant’s main defence was that it was not her wot done it, based on the witness giving a 90 per cent certainty that it was her in the ID parade. I will be interested in the result of this one. I have no interest really in the result for the result’s sake, but I would be intrigued if with all other evidence pointing to this person, except a 100 percent certain identification she can worm out of it.

Going back to builders, I think I will make a complaint to the IPCC. Not because I think it will do jack shit, but if the police are made to trawl through and respond to a complaint it keeps them off the streets, where to be fair, they do more harm than good – less through their attitude, but just via their inability.

Everybody must get stoned?

It’s happened. The Pakis have taken over. No-one is safe, all our daughters will be raped in their beds (as of course, “every rape in this country is committed by a Paki”, as we were informed by some gentleman at the Car Boot the other day), and the while our women will be stoned to death for glancing at a man and not wearing the Hijab.

Seriously, you would think this is the truth, looking at some of the reactions to the suggestion that principles of Sharia Law could have a place in the British legal system.

Yes, the informed an considered opinions of the moral entrepreneurs on the BBC comments page are at it again.

The blatantly xenophobic are one thing. But it is some others that concern me the most:

If it’s not in conflict with any existing laws, then why need it?

We mustn’t allow there to be different laws for different sections of society. Moreover, laws based on backwards religious doctrines have absolutely no place in this country. Let’s move forward for goodness sake.

Tina Cakesniffer, Manchester, United Kingdom

Recommended by 300 people.

This is a classic.

Now to be fair, I don’t know a huge amount about Sharia Law. What I do know a certain amount about is the failings of the Anglo-American Legal System.

The Law in much of the “Western” world, is not some democratic social institution. It is based on a retributive system designed to better initially the interests of the feudal lords, then later The Church, and in modernity the Capitalist system. Why does a fine go to the state, not the victim? Why (until moderately recently) did one have to swear on the bible in court…? You can take this further – Peter Fitzpatrick (1992) argues Modern Law is based on nothing more than myth.

Now whether Miss Cakesniffer’s view is simply ignorance, the racism of a genuine belief that Islam is a “backwards religious doctrine” whilst Christianity is not, or the ravings of someone who is obviously fucked up by their addiction to a drug that doesn’t exist, I do not know, but (although I could not resit the pun in the title) my point here is less to do with Sharia Law, and more to do with ignorance.

Ignorance, and the vehicle of its dissemination.

Ok, I understand that the BBC should be independent, championing free speech and personal opinion. But if I had posted the opening paragraph of this ‘blog, even as it is here – as a parody of a viewpoint I have no doubts it would be moderated for bad taste. Whilst many of the “I’m not racist but…” brigade would secretly agree of course. But in any case it would be fairly obvious that I was either racist or taking the piss. Hopefully the latter, but after a couple of personal comments on my suggestion that the issue of wearing a veil was as much a control issue as one of racism I don’t know…

But what is happening here, is someone looking like they know what they are on about, when they obviously know jack shit. And yet plenty of people “recommend” that comment.

The BBC instead of wearing its heart on its sleeve, like the Torygraph and the Mail, leaves that to its readership. Thus allowing itself to promulgate idiotic views whilst appearing the bastion on impartiality.

Cited:

Fitzpatrick, P (1992) The Mythology of Modern Law. London: Routledge.