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Songs / The Common Understanding
The Common Understanding is the fund of knowledge into which we are born; from which we spring on our journeys through human consciousness.
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Thank You For Your Service
No one can dispute your courage or disparage your self-sacrifice as you offer yourself up for months of gruelling training, and then on directly into the firing line wherever it might be on the surface of the globe. No one can remain unmoved as you return, often with shattered limbs and...
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CofEQ "Sin"
It stands to reason that, when it comes to Sin, the CofEQ is not interested in anyone’s beliefs. Instead, we seek clear statement of underlying assumptions in place, brief representation of the grounds for making/holding those assumptions, and intelligent revelation of the logic springing therefrom.
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Lost Innocence / Secret Societies
Secret societies are often considered a phenomenon of the past and no longer significant. However they still exist, and exist in varying degrees of visibility and wielding varying amounts of clandestine power.
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Lost Innocence / Intelligence Services
How runaway intelligence services dominate world government.
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Unified Theory (...a Work In (slow) Progress)
Trying to provide a digestible narrative in an effort to throw some of the emergent patterns into relief for readers disinclined to delve too deeply into available research. (Updated 3/11/23; especially Section 2.3 and the Brand New "Unified Map")
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Songs / Enemy Within
The days of idiot thatcher and her idiot cronies, as the scene was being set for the ascendency of corporate values and the destruction personal freedom.
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Songs / Radiation Cloud
1984 - reflections on 150 million tons of manmade radiation floating around in the atmosphere for about the next 25,000 years.
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Songs / Oh Jeremy
Scruples by the wayside........................abandoned without thought / by ambitious petty dickheads... .............and their backers from without / while creeps inside the Party..................stabbed us in the back / our own MPs and officers.......................joined the vile attack
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Ma Mère Est Décédée
Mari-Ann, my mom, was born in Sweden in May of 1924 and has died September 15th this year.
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The Root Cause of Human Demise
What is at the heart of all the planetary bad news and disasters we keep seeing unfold before our helpless and anxiety-ridden eyes? Is it that we are naturally violent and destructive creatures? Is it that we are too dumb to see where all this is heading?
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Lost Innocence / Runaway Corporations
These are the people to whom, by virtue of their rise to the top of these non-empathic organisations, we’ve entrusted virtually everything – including the introduction of genetic modification and now, artificial intelligence. Even the management of scientific research is now in the hands....
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Lost Innocence / Whodunnit
But in the end he refers to the slowly emerging shock, horror, and outright fear grinding in the pit of his stomach that he experienced as the patterns began to emerge. He talks about all but losing his marriage until his wife, gradually, on her own journey, began to see the patterns.
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Lost Innocence / September 11 2001
But, strangely, there appeared to be a hiatus on investigation. There didn’t seem to be a command and control in place at the scene of the crime; no czar empowered and placed in charge of getting straight to the heart of the matter and deep into the examination of the known facts. In fact, the....
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Lost Innocence / Vietnam
The logic was inescapable. Our taxes were being used to protect our rich by pitting our poor, armed to the teeth with advanced weaponry, against the poor in another country. But the incessant narrative coming from McNamara and the other people orchestrating this shambles was still somehow that....
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Lost Innocence / Virginity
How could that be? In the land of the free and the brave, we all stood on our hind legs and fought to rid the world of “commies” because we knew that they inveterately and systematically lied to and manipulated their own people. We knew they did this through tightly controlled media and....
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Mother Lodger
I later discovered that he regularly threatened his mother with violence – throwing furniture and such like. Sometimes she would cower in her car outside the family home rather than go indoors and confront him.
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from A Squandered Life / Highway 1 Pacific Coast '68
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Am I Anti-Semitic?
In the light of the recent and ongoing castigations of Jeremy Corbyn MP – in my view easily the most principled and least racist man currently in parliament - as an anti-Semitic, I felt impelled to re-examine my own standing in this context. With this in mind, I found myself making a series of......
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 15
The story of one man's love/fear relationship with motorcycles....
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 16
The story of one man's love/fear relationship with motorcycles....
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The Lives of Kittens
His shining eyes dimmed, fixed on that far away place, and he was gone. As he went over, my stoicism broke....
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JetSet Child Trafficking
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 06
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Songs / Oh Donna
I had a girl....
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Songs / Why Are We Here
Is it so much to ask.....?
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Songs / In Uniform
Heavy, macho, boys..... In uniform
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Songs / The Law
The Law don't belong to you. The law the law don't belong to you The law don't belong to you, because it belongs to the ones who......
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Songs / 1984
The song of the year....
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Songs / Red Berries
For that time of year.....
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Songs / Mr Memory
A song about where did it all go?....
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from the FPG Chronicles / Random FPG Feedback
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Barcelona
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Limoux
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Paris
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Molesworth
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / London Demos
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Elephant Fayre
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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From the FPG Chronicles / the Dutty Babylon
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / The Acoustic Stage
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Glastonbury
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / the Resonator
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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Songs / Marsh Farm
Marsh Farm is a housing estate in Luton, aboout 30 miles north of London, England.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Genesis
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from the FPG Chronicles / Bath 70s
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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from The FPG Chronicles / the Festivals
From the diaries of the Flying Patrol Group - the world's first rough terrain band.
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What Went Wrong - 2019
Open Letter to & Subjective Analysis for the Parliamentary Labour Party. A work in progress....
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Co-operative Offshorism
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Contract - the Modern Battleground
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Guidance for Government - a Constitutional Guard
Democracy is a fragile institution. As has been seen time and time again, it is very very easy to destabilise. This is even more the case where mass media and sources of information are in the hands of fewer and fewer corporate entities. Spain in the 1930s was a classic example of.....
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Mari-Ann
Over the years I slowly realised what a treasure I and my siblings had. She was so different from other mothers. I now know that much of this stemmed from the fact that she and Henry were essentially Europeans. They had subtle but sophisticated tastes which .....
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Arable Land Entitlement
When a Human is born, there is every reason to consider that he or she should have a natural entitlement to the wherewithal to stay alive. In modern times, enough acreage for “hunting and gathering” seems no longer practicable. Which leaves agriculture. Conceivably, every Human should have the....
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Legal Recourse vs Combat
We’ve come a long way since the Dark Ages – sort of. Nowadays, we don’t need an armed warrior class to protect us from the ravages of bandits and Robber Barons. This is because the Robber Barons got fed up with having to defend their privileges and estates on a day to day basis and.....
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Trying To Make Democracy Work 01
Democracy, rightly or wrongly, is considered by the bulk of the population to be a tedious, time consuming, and stultifying process. Many jokes are cracked at the expense of its sometimes complex procedures and mechanics. It is a rich playground for comedians, cynics, capitalists, and, let's face it
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 14
I’d just finished having coffee in a little wooden roadside cafe, complete with passing logging elephants, when I came across this guy waving me down by a gaggle of local people bunched up by the side of the road. I stopped and he asked if I could give him a lift “past the snake”.
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 13
I suspected I would end up indulging in stupid things and die cartwheeling across a road somewhere.
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One Man's Madness / Part 18
The continuing saga of one man's 60 year love affair with 2,5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 17
The continuing saga of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 16
The continuing saga of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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Elections, Brexit, and Social Media versus the Screaming Rags
As we sink deeper into this brexit mire, led by privately educated morons and idiots the like of which The Commons has not seen post Cromwell, we have to be alert to the dangers. Despite the onset of social media and the side-stepping of the drain stream media that this has created for huge.........
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One Man's Madness / Part 15
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 14
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 13 - The Return
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 12
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 11
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 10
The continuing story of one man's 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 09
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 08
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 07
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 06
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 05
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 04
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 03
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 02
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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One Man's Madness / Part 01
The continuing story of one man’s 60 year love affair with 2.5 acres of Essex countryside.
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From the Curvature of Certainty / The Wail
....all the lost time, all the lost life, all the desertion, all the failure, all the isolation, all the indifference, all the deception, all the duped-ness, all the suffering body pain
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 03
What else could I ever need? What else need I ever be doing? We cruised down those roads and lanes in a state of grace and perfection.
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 02
Somewhere in northern Wisconsin my endurance gave up. I stopped outside a combined roadside diner and 2 story clapboard motel and tried to pry myself off the bike.
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The Motorcycle Diaries / Part 01
The story of one man's love/fear relationship with motorcycles....
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Penny Padoodle 01
The adventures of Penny Padoodle are based, loosely, on the adventures of a girl who wished to escape the national grid and plant trees. She was very concerned about the destruction of the planet.
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the Noble Interviews / "Sir" Philip Green
A series of interviews with be-knighted servants of the UK ruling class who reflect, through their lives and actions, on ennoblement in particular and on the imperial UK honours system in general.
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Notice To Blairites 3 / Think Tanks
"Our greatest achievement was Tony Blair." Thus spake reviled ex Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 2002.*
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Notice To Blairites 2 / Revolving Doors
"Our greatest achievement was Tony Blair." Thus spake reviled ex Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 2002.*
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Notice To Blairites 1 / Greatest Achievement
"Our greatest achievement was Tony Blair." Thus spake reviled ex Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to a gathering of her oily 1950s throw back acolytes at the now infamous gathering at the Botleigh Grange Hotel in 2002. We are reminded of this by...
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Is Questioning Conspiracy / Part 4
Follow the Money
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Is Questioning Conspiracy / Part 3
Having raised Questions, I've asked whether raising questions qualifies as “conspiracy theory”. A question is, after all, neither: “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful”, nor “a supposition or a system of...
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Is Questioning Conspiracy / Part 2
In Part 1 (here), I suggested the “Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth” online video as one of the most reasoned, studiously neutral, and compelling arguments for re-examining the supposed facts of 9/11. In Part 2 I wanted to point to...
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Is Questioning Conspiracy?
30 seconds is not always enough time to grasp complex subjects....
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Left/Right vs Populist/Elitist
One of the ways in which the “establishment” and the drain stream media continue to confuse and bamboozle the voting public is through their use of the terms “left” and “right”. Even those of us who should know better fall into this...
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Scottish Widows ?
Are they simply charlatans and mountebanks....?
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We The Grunts
What is a grunt? Well, it's a bit of a technical term, but in essence, a grunt is someone who: earns less interest then s/he pays, and pays more tax than s/he avoids. In terms of hierarchy, grunts appear below “snouts” (as...
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Lost to Scientology
The science of preying on the vulnerable....
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from the Curvature of Certainty / After Henry
That I happened to be a son to this father came to have little meaning for me. I feel we could have just as easily ended up playing these roles with completely different partners.
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Demise of the Co-operative Group / Supplemental 1
So, Barry Tootell (former Co-op Bank chief executive) and Keith Alderson (former Co-op Bank head of corporate and business banking) have been thrown to the wolves. According to the Bank of England’s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation...
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Bottoms Down
Sincere apologies to all those offended by the image to the right which appeared in my article "Demise-of-The-Co-operative-Group-Part-7-Where-do-we-go-from-here?". I had no idea this image would upset readers more than the content of the article...
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The Parallel Economy - there IS an alternative
There exists in the world today a complete economy, nestled within the mainstream economy, but separate and different in many ways. It has its own companies, corporations, factories, distribution networks, retail outlets, offices, banks,...
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A Second Coming
A couple of years ago, after much agonising, I decided to “come out”. At the time I said: “I know many of you have had your doubts about me; that you sense something else in my life influences the way I act, think, and write. I know that...
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from The Curvature of Certainty / Return Curve
I first met you at that music festival in the Forest of Dean. I had that spoofy church stand up routine mixed with a sort of skanked up blues musical act. I never got very many groupies, but, always the optimist, I spotted you in the audience, drawn...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / All In One
By popular demand from people with Attention Spans longer than mine, here, in one go, are all eight parts of "Demise of The Co-operative Group". Good luck.
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 8 - Finale
Should the loss of The Group trigger a mass exodus? Should we all, on a chosen day, abandon it to the stuffed shirts, hedge funders, and banksters and proceed to generate the resources to sue them for the mis-use of the term “co-operative”? ...
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Bottom Liners
Well, it is really two closely related things. The first is a variation of “corporate man” (see "The New Mutants") - a person who holds a slavish adherence to “the bottom line” (profitability) as the only means for measuring success. The...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 7 - Where do we go from here?
Assuming we have not already lost The Group, what should we be doing? Do we wish simply to outperform Tesco? In fact we have, to a large extent, become the victims of our own success. Our unique selling point (USP) used to be fairness. But things...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 6 - The Implications
Will the loss of the flagship of the UK co-operative movement impact anybody but a few Involved, Interacting, and Influencing Members? Well, none of this really matters if neither co-operation nor the co-operative economy matter. So, do they...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 5 - The Trust
Throughout all of the foregoing, there is a constant, mollifying sub-text being trotted out and re-emphasised at every opportunity by our newly non-elected leaders and betters. “Trust us….” “We know what we're doing (better than you ever...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 4 - The Recourse
Apparently not. Legal recourse? I happen not to be a millionaire. Nor do I have access to the bottomless pockets of a corporate legal department. So I, personally, don't have a hope in hell of purchasing justice through the market-driven UK...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 3 - The Urgency
Not only were the Members being told that their democracy was at fault and had to be rectified. We were also being told this had to be done within a very tight time frame – effectively, less than a year. For most of us, the earliest indication...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 2 - The Accountability
Where does the blame lie? Who was responsible for driving these programmes forward? Who was overseeing the “Due Diligence”? There can be no doubt as to the complexity of the situation. But, likewise, there can be no doubt as to the apparently...
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Demise of The Co-operative Group / Part 1 - La Débâcle
I am part owner of a very large co-operative corporation which in January 2013 was valued at £81,999 million. One year later, in January 2014, it was valued at £8,623 million. What in the name of heaven could have gone so spectacularly wrong? ...
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Deacon Martin's Guide to Understanding Music (for Guitar) / Part 4 (Finale)
At this point you should really stop reading this guide. I've done what I set out to do - passed on to you the full extent of my guitar expertise and musical knowledge. My job is done. You are on your own. Don't worry. You'll be fine. Just keep...
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Deacon Martin's Guide to Understanding Music (for Guitar) / Part 3
Now here's the breakthrough you've been waiting for. If you're playing with some one else in the key of C, you can get away with playing any of the yellow notes in the chord necks, in whatever random order you choose to play them, and sound more or...
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Deacon Martin's Guide to Understanding Music (for Guitar) / Part 2
Confusingly, western music also has “keys” of the same name, A through G. Even more confusingly, it even has “chords” of the same name too (A through G). So, theoretically, you could find yourself referring to the note of C in the chord of C...
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Deacon Martin's Guide to Understanding Music (for Guitar) / Part 1
Music is a mysterious place. It is close to being mathematically perfect, but not quite. Although the original western scales devised by the Greeks were simply multiples of certain lengths of vibrating string, many factors have conspired to make...
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Messages From The Pre-Life
It took me a while to get over the staring phase. I sensed that she could pick up on my staring and that this could be unsettling for her at some level. So I tried carefully to manage the staring process such that what staring I couldn't refrain...
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Space Bass Mix 1.01
Electro swing is a mix of modern techno beats and swing band sounds from the 30's and 40's. In the same way that techno takes favoured clips of contemporary musical sounds and loops them, so electro swing does with those big band sounds. The...
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Levels Of Conversation
A number of contemplaters and commentators (including the infamous George Gurdjieff) have taken the liberty of defining levels of conversation. Generally speaking, these fall into three main categories, to whit: a) Talking about people b)...
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from A Squandered Life / Watford '78
When Sharon left I began to re-think the whole Watford Social Education Project programme. She had always fought the notion that we were a dumping ground for kids the schools couldn't handle, but this seemed counter-productive for WSEP as we...
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from A Squandered Life / Grunwick '77
Our commitment to anti-racism peaked with the advent of the strike by 137 Asian women at the Grunwick photo development plant in Cricklewood, north west London. The women, led by the indefatigable Mrs Desai, came out on strike as a last resort in...
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An Introduction to Deacon Martin and the "Sermonology" tours
East Coast Road Productions is looking for bookings for Deacon Martin's UK and US "Sermonology" tours. Visit www.ecrp.co.uk or Email ecrpuk@gmail.com or vrd.martin@gmail.com
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the Noble Interviews / "Lord" Rothermere
A series of interviews with be-knighted servants of the UK ruling class who reflect, through their lives and actions, on ennoblement in particular and on the imperial UK honours system in general.
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Emotions and Emotionalism
In his work throughout the 1960's and 70's, anthropologist and psychiatrist Paul Ekman proposed that there were six facial expressions readily recognised fairly consistently across all human cultures. (Emotion in the Human Face, ed. Paul Ekman,...
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from A Squandered Life / Juan '78
As I was now left in charge of the flat, I had to find someone to share costs. One of the candidates was a big looming Argentinian guy called Juan who sort of hung around on the periphery of Stan's music shop gang. Juan was known to be morose and a...
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from A Squandered Life / Good Cop Bad Cop '75
The only cop I ever liked was one called Dave. He introduced himself as that instead of as PC this that or the other. And he would always take his peaked cap off when he wanted a chat. He had replaced the other little shit on the local beat who...
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from A Squandered Life / Great Leighs Mushrooms '75
My involvement with “magic mushrooms” goes back a long way. I first discovered them whilst living in a truck in the fields of Essex. The charming indigenousness of these tiny plants.... They actually grow straight out of english ground. Some say...
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from Farewell To Bluefields / Fat Man Drowning
At Holywell there’s a big pub by the river. His friend Florence lived near there with her daughter. He used to canoe down to visit and help out in the garden. Occasionally they had little get-togethers down there. A bunch of the gang from upriver...
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From a Squandered Life / Expo '67
So, home again, and no job, again. It was a hot summer and bubbling with the excitement of the Expo '67 World's Fair. I was enjoying the city centre location of our new home on Lincoln Avenue. It felt so cosmopolitan being able to step out the...
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from A Squandered Life / London '68
I utilised this freedom to the full as, my trusty "A to Z" in hand, I got to grips with London and the Underground and the differing parts of the great sprawling mass. Apart from Carnaby Street, I didn't go looking for the usual tourist sights. For...
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the Noble Interviews / "Sir" Andrew Witty
A series of interviews with be-knighted servants of the UK ruling class who reflect, through their lives and actions, on ennoblement in particular and on the imperial UK honours system in general.
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the Noble Interviews / "Lords" Browne and Howell
A series of interviews with be-knighted servants of the UK ruling class who reflect, through their lives and actions, on ennoblement and on the imperial UK honours system in general.
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the Noble Interviews / "Sir" Norman Bettison
A series of interviews with be-knighted servants of the UK ruling class who reflect, through their lives and actions, on ennoblement and on the imperial UK honours system in general.
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The Tappers - Examples
A response to requests for examples arising out of the original "The Tappers" article....
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The Tappers
Tappage is a process engaged in by the Tappers. The Tappers are a group of performance artists / strategists / tacticians / subversives who hold the view that building enormous Engines of Confrontation to deal with the enormous Engines of...
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from The Curvature of Certainty / Rennes le Chateau
From years ago, when I still lived by the river in my wide-windowed, centrally heated flat, I have a vivid memory. I awoke, sweating, from an intense dream. I had a clear vision of distinctive low lying hills and stone buildings over which I was...
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from A Squandered Life / Road to Calgary '67
The work in Winnipeg finished and there wasn't any more. It was getting much colder and the little Volkswagen didn't have a heater. I dreamt of a big american car with a heater and seats wide enough to sleep on. I eventually found a dealer who took...
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from A Squandered Life / Ohio '67
I crossed the border into the US at Detroit. I encountered a particularly nasty border guard who asked me if I was prepared to serve in Viet Nam. I said I was only visiting and didn't think that should amount to a commitment to fight a war....
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from A Squandered Life / Bucky
One of Henry's main claims to fame was his strength as a “networker”. His appetite for blagging stood him in very good stead for this. He was a very entertaining guy and never at a loss for words. In his capacity as “design consultant” for...
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from A Squandered Life / Competitive Swimming '66
The other upshot was that Drinkwater had spotted me swimming (before I was engaged in perpetual pool battle) and approached Donny to sound me out about trying out for the swim team. I initially poo-pooed the idea, but sometime after the christmas...
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Corporate Football - an introduction to economics
English football has provided an extraordinary opportunity for working class people to glimpse how global speculation can blight whole areas of the economy and aspects of their very day to day living. After all, vast chunks of housing, utilities,...
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Aspects of Life on the Turkey Farm
She was like a wee flower, carefully unfolding almost for the second time. I was so careful. I was oh so careful. I was so careful not to tamper, not to bruise, not to put her in a place in my mind where she mightn't want to be, not to interfere...
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from A Squandered Life / Shooting Mice '66
One night, on one of my infrequent visits back from university, I was up late and sitting in moonlight in the kitchen after everybody else had gone to bed. All the lights were off because I was simply having a quiet cup of tea and absorbing the...
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from A Squandered Life / Doyle Revolution '65
In the real world outside the residences, the university was going through it's lugubrious “freshers' week”, another stupid set of conventions adopted, I guess, from stupid American universities whereby first year students or “frosh” were...
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Creeping Socialism
Ever stopped at a traffic light? You're a socialist. Traffic lights serve a common purpose without reference to a users' status or wealth. Ever pulled over for an ambulance? You're a socialist. You've acknowledged that whenever another human...
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the Noble Interviews / "Sir" James Crosby
A series of interviews with be-knighted servants of the UK ruling class who reflect, through their lives and actions, on ennoblement and on the imperial UK honours system in general.
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from A Squandered Life / Bay Talk '65
In the course of the next few days and weeks I learned that everybody who came from St John's, Newfoundland's provincial capital and home to all it's rich and ambitious, were “townies”, and that everybody else was from “the bay” - the...
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Anticipating "terror"
In the age of information it seems we have it all at our finger tips. In fact, of course, what we have is a virtually impossible-to-manage overload of information at our finger tips. And, ironically, the application of the old adage, “a little information...
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from A Squandered Life / Telephone Poles '68
Somehow or other, I guess through the Labour Exchange, I got a job measuring distances between telephone poles. There were six of us working in teams of two. We were issued with orange implements which looked like snow shovel handles attached to a...
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From a Squandered Life / Robere '60
The principal of this school was a dark squat tubby man called Mr. Robere. He wore heavy black rimmed glasses which added to an air of menace whenever he appeared. The full extent of the man's evil was thrown into horrific relief when, one day, at...
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from A Squandered Life / White Rock Horse '68
Stuart's family had two horses and, one day off, he asked me if I could ride. Feeling semi-pro after my experiences in Alberta and at Younberg's I said “Sure.” He then said that one of the horses was slightly mad but that he would ride that one....
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from A Squandered Life / San Feliu '69
San Feliu de Guixols was a charming little coastal resort with an exquisitely curved beach laid out before a semi-circle of rocky hills sparsely clad in stoney pastures, rock walls, and Mediterranean pine. The man I was looking for was called Juan...
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from A Squandered Life / Barcelona '69
Somewhere near Toulouse I encountered a young South African guy. We got to chatting and, as his planning was easily as vague as mine and he was heading for Barcelona, I offered him a lift. He was a blonde surfer type guy who I initially thought was...
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from A Squandered Life / Norton Commando '70
That summer seemed a particularly long one. It may have been the one in which I spent the most time down on the Vermont farm. It also meant I got to know some of the neighbourly assets a lot better - prime among whom was Dan. Dan was the son of...
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from A Squandered Life / The Battle of Scoot '66
My friend and accomplice from the previous year, Scoot, and her equally wayward room mate Mary had rented a small flat in town and me, Dave, and Donny used to visit them there. One dark winter evening we went down there with our Doyle House...
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from A Squandered Life / The Strap '58
I seemed to have a succession of teachers conspiring to protract my misery and to bring about my downfall. I simply couldn't get into the rhythm of work, play, work, play. There always seemed to be an overwhelming imbalance in favour of work time,...
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from The Curvature of Certainty / Letter to Hazel
I think I’m slowly getting over the staring phase. I sense that you can pick up on my staring and that this can be unsettling for you at some level. And I’m careful to try to manage the staring process such that what staring I cannot...
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from A Squandered Life / Carol '69
As winter came on I carried on riding the 650, freezing as I rode through snow and ice, driving slowly and carefully, refraining from ever touching the front brake. Not quite the same experience as blasting down warm roads on sunny summer days, but...
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from A Squandered Life / Eberhard '52
One day Mari-Ann announced that we were going around to visit some people called Mortons in the village. For some inexplicable reason she wanted us to scrub up and put on some clean clothes, but she happened to mention that there was a boy there who...
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from A Squandered Life / Re-finding Roger '80
It was at about this time that I re-crossed paths with my old friend/adversary Roger from the Doyle House era. Like me, Roger had been away travelling and sampling the essences of counter-culture elsewhere on the continent. His hair was longer and...
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from A Squandered Life / Disneyland '68
Some time and some rides later, I found myself just outside Los Angeles when I got a lift from a chubby bearded guy in a Porsche. He was very friendly and super chatty. He asked if I was hungry and took me to a diner not far from Malibu Beach. We...
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from A Squandered Life / Little Ron '70
Strangely, Roger's next side-kick was another Ron. Unlike the other Ron (of Doyle House) who was relatively fit and good looking, this Ron was a plump little American whom I first met in a sociology seminar at the university. He was a sour little...
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from A Squandered Life / Paris '69
The day came when, with my worldly goods, a sleeping bag, and a waterproof poncho strapped on to the chrome rack of the BSA, and wearing a pea jacket and a leather jerkin, I said my goodbyes to Maria and one or two others who happened to be around...
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The Real Economic Underpinning of the 60's
"Free love" undermined and almost destroyed the Prime Economic Driver. The PED is the commercialisation of the Prime Male Directive. The Prime Male Directive is - "inseminate". Human economies have been driven since Babylonian times by the channelling of...
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from A Squandered Life / Portugal Cove Road '70
In the course of wandering around I bumped into my old second year Doyle roomie, Cal, his booming voice and character intact and unchanged. He was in the company of Anne, his loyal companion through blunder and buss, who years later became his wife....
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from A Squandered Life / Music '68
In between times I began to spend a lot of time in the multiplicity of second-hand record shops on the Portobello Road and Notting Hill Gate and Camden Market and Brick Lane, trying to piece together some musical history to fill in the gaps created...
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from A Squandered Life / Graham '71
Graham also owned a very sporty muscle car - a pristine white convertible Pontiac GTO automatic - which was his absolute pride and joy. Thing was, he couldn't drive. I don't mean he simply didn't have a license. I mean he couldn't drive and refused...
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from A Squandered Life / Scuba '71
At this time the university was also sponsoring scuba diving lessons and Don and I decided to give it a shot. The instructor was a slim unsmiling bearded guy by the name of Caldwell. He was attached to the relatively large and well funded Marine...
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from A Squandered Life / St John's Harbour '70
Jonathan, true to his word, set about looking for a flat, eventually found one, and came to find me at Don and Nellie's to see if I wanted to have a look. It was on a contour hugging road near the top of the extended slab of hill overlooking the...
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from A Squandered Life / Acid '70
At about this time my urge to experiment with LSD was becoming an obsession. Lenore had already done some and advised, if not entirely against, at least caution. So, one quiet Sunday, we resolved to drop together and began our journey in my bedroom...
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from A Squandered Life / My Dog Ben
I did a lot of tramping through the woods with Ben. There was a beaver pond on the north east edge and we would go up there as silently as possible and then just lie down at a vantage point to see if they would come out. I never saw those beavers...
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from A Squandered Life / Bicycles
At some point I learned that I had a “god father”. A man called Philip Rosenthal had been a close friend of Henry and Mari-Ann's back in Switzerland. He was a tall loud confident swaggering man with a hearty laugh who would occasionally appear...
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from A Squandered Life / Berlin '69
The road to Berlin in those days was a “protected” corridor through East Germany. Plenty of traffic coming and going but at no point were there any identifiable points of access or egress. Just one long run from the East / West border to the...
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from A Squandered Life / Prologue
We were supposed to be the generation of hope, the boomers, the babies who sprang from the wombs of mothers enjoying their first freedoms from the terrors and constraints of war. This feeling was perforce more pronounced in Europe where those...
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from A Squandered Life / Chomay '65
High school Physical Education (PE in the UK, but referred to by us simply as “gym”) was a whole order above anything we'd experienced in elementary school. Everything seemed so “professional”. There wasn't just a single PE teacher; there...
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from A Squandered Life / Motorcycles '69
The centre piece of my less than brilliantly conceived plan for the year in Europe was to buy the British motorcycle of my dreams and to prove to myself once and for all that I could be a proper biker without falling off at every opportunity. The...
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from A Squandered Life / Birchfield '69
I returned from christmas in Lincolnshire to start work at my auntie Martha's nursing and Christian faith healing establishment near Tunbridge Wells. I was issued with some “whites” and set about familiarising myself with the institutional...
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from A Squandered Life / Bush Pilot '65
Opposite the end of our drive on the Lakeshore were our neighbours, the Schornhursts. He was a small but strikingly handsome man with a very friendly disposition; she was taller and slightly distracted and a bit unpredictable. She must have been a...
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from A Squandered Life / Snow Sculptures '66
As christmas approached I had two major worries. One was that I had no desire whatsoever to go home but couldn't think how I could get out of it. The other was that I'd promised Les that, if there was enough snow, I would help him to win the winter...
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from a Squandered Life / Hitching '66
That first summer after university I took it upon myself to hitch-hike home rather than simply jump on a plane. Two reasons. First, I hadn't hitched before and fantasised about the promise of independence and adventure. Second, I had no summer job...
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from A Squandered Life / The Tobacco Fields '66
True to his word, my truck driver dropped me just the other side of Toronto, and I carried on south and west. I'd been told to head for a town called Tilsonburg at the heart of tobacco country. It wasn't long before I found myself trudging up its...
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from A Squandered Life / Motorcycles '66
Around this time my obsession with motorcycles was escalating. I had a few hundred bucks set aside for this. I recall being mesmerised by dreams of unfettered personal mobility - plus the attraction of looking cool. My family were fairly...
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from A Squandered Life / Flight Out '68
While I was working in Jerome's crusty dusty cellar, he happened to visit with Irene and a woman friend of hers. I could see them peering through the swirling clouds of aerial debris, clearly aghast at the mess I appeared to be making. As I stood...
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from A Squandered Life / Alberta Mental Hospital '67
Sometime after I'd given my notice, I was out and about with one of the kids and turned around to find myself confronted by Jimmy, the allegedly prescient boy from Cedar Ward. How he'd suddenly got there I still don't know, but this time he wasn't...
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from A Squandered Life / the Grannies '57
We had two grannies – one in Great Leighs, Essex and one in Loughton, north London. Loughton Granny was the one who lived in White Cottage with Gaffer. We discovered they were quite well to do. The “cottage” was actually a massive house and...
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from A Squandered Life / White Rock '68
....the unexpected immediacy of this beautiful woman's relaxed attention fired me into a zone of maturing acceptance of my place and my worth, even for someone as patently stupid as me, in the unravelling cosmos.
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from A Squandered Life / Epilogue
So, as we destroy the only island we have in a dark non-communicative firmament, I still find myself saying, to fellow humans and to anything else that might be listening, “Well, not bad considering....” .....considering we've only been...
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The New Mutants
"They have neither soul to save, nor heart to feel, nor body to kick." Thus spake Samuel Adams (1722 – 1803) of the then newly emerging corporations. Adams was an American politician and philosopher who, as a founding father of the United...
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from A Squandered Life / Watts '68
I had no idea really where Laguna Beach was in relation to anything else and soon found myself trudging through the outskirts of Los Angeles. I wasn't having much luck with rides, but I found a phone booth and made a return call home to tell them...
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from A Squandered Life / Orange County Jail '68
I found myself dropped off at Laguna Beach. There were a few travelling people like me loitering around where the coast road overlooked the beach itself. I got talking to a young beardy guy called Freddy. He turned out to be slightly in the know...
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from A Squandered Life / First Spliff '68
Somewhere on that coast road, near the state line between Oregon and California, I got a lift from another older hippy guy, in what was clearly a working van, who told me he was a carpenter. He talked quietly about the joys of working with wood and...
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The Fall of English Football as a Lesson in Economics
Years ago I was an avid follower of ice hockey. I couldn't watch English football in those days because it was too godforsakenly slow. There were too many people standing around doing nothing for too much of the time. But then I had to do a bit...
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Thought For the Month 2 - February 2012
The energy game is hotting up... Having seen how bankers and investment racketeers are prepared to gamble entire economies on short term gains, we are now seeing energy corporations gambling on the very lives of the poor, the infirm, and the...
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Thought for the Month - February 2012
Oh dear. They took his knighthood away. Poor Fred Shred. No longer Sir Fred Shred. I believe this is the very first instance of responsible use of the "honours" list. Who but the servile English could still be lingering longingly on with such...
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Thought for the Month - January 2012
As we accelerate our way towards species oblivion in the eternal pursuit of "growth", it might just be worth remembering that this year is the UN International Year of Co-operatives (IYC). Last year it was, apparently, the UN International Year...
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The Dawn of Consciousness or The Lonely Flickering Light
Even as the curtains draw on this world, on this species, on this flicker of consciousness in the infinite, unknowable, and indifferent cosmos, you have to feel some admiration. Considering we've only been here for about ¼ of a billionth of the...
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River Nations
Humans have fought over territories since before consciousness. The chimpanzee in us won't easily let go of the territorial imperative, especially in the male of our species. There are many factors which continue to contribute to this primitive...
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The Pocket History of England - Provisional Conclusions
Of course, time moves on, and we begin delicately to discover that all these distinctions are meaningless. Peasants, Barons, Lackeys. We are all the same. Every Baron knows, to himself, that he is nothing but a Lackey in Baron's clothes. Every...
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The Pocket History of England - Part 5
The Pocket History of England Part 5 After the second enormous debacle, the second swindle, the second great conflagrating confidence trick, many people became wary. Many people, Peasants, Representatives, and even Professionals, began to be...
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The Pocket History of England - Part 4
The Pocket History of England Part 4 For Barons, enough was never enough. Even though they had everything going for them; even though all the advantages were on their side, the Barons were still very rattled by the efforts of some of the...
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The Pocket History of England - Part 3
The Pocket History of England Part 3 The problems in communication between the Peasants and their Representatives grew. And so, therefore, did tensions. The unwieldiness of the Peasants as a force for deployment created misunderstandings among...
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The Pocket History of England - Part 2
The Pocket History of England Part 2 Over the generations, the Peasant Mobilisation continued. Their Combinations, now becoming known as Trade Unions, began to be accepted by the Robber Barons, their Lackeys, and the Parliaments they tended to...
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The Pocket History of England - Part 1
The Pocket History of England Part 1 The Queen is Queen by a complicated and convoluted consensus. People kneel because, historically, it was the only way the Robber Barons could agree to stop trying to kill each other and each other's Peasants....
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The Pocket History of England - Introduction
Introduction to 6 following Parts. Political will is the determination to apply attitude through the deduction of purpose and the employment of strategy. Flagging political will is the tendency to use family and/or domesticity as an acceptable...