Call it Karma that shortly after Donald Trump pulled America out of the Paris Climate Agreement citing Climate Change to be a conspiracy dreamt up by the Chinese, Texans being are told to clamber up on their roofs and wait for rescue from floods as Mother Nature flings a catastrophic hurricane at his country.
'This event is unprecedented and all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced. Follow orders from officials to ensure safety' tweeted the National Weather Service and the Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, said conditions were: 'bad and growing worse' and damage was in the billions of dollars.
Of course one devastating hurricane does not show proof of Climate Change, a warming climate would actually make hurricanes less likely as there is less extremes, but when you do get them they are catastrophic because as any schoolkid paying attention will tell you, warm air holds more water and more water means more rainfall and more rainfall means people being told to climb up onto
their roofs as flood water rises.
This may not prove Climate Change but as Mother Nature takes what's there and ramps it up, this is exactly what Climate Change looks like and as America is a regular recipient of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, they may have to get used to horrific scenes like these and worse for decades to come.
It is only unfortunate that one of the direct victims is not on top of the White House waving his little hands waiting to be rescued because as his nations sinks, he will be the driest person in the country.
Sunday, 27 August 2017
Saturday, 26 August 2017
Killer Robot, Android or Cyborg?
Isaac Asimov's 'Three Laws of Robotics' has long been held up as the golden rules that would stop robots overthrowing us humans and keeping some us in cages for their amusement but nobody seems to have told the military as they steam ahead creating killer robots which has resulted in over 100 of the world's top robotics experts asking the United Nations to ban them.
The Russian's have recently revealed the Kalashnikov's neural net combat module which can make its own targeting judgements without any human control and if the Russians are doing it, you can bet your Cyberdyne Systems series T-800 Model 101 Terminator doll the rest of the World's military are at it also.
Good that the top robotic experts have our backs as Asimov's three laws all depend on a human programmer defining what a human is so far too easy to get around so better we don't rely on them but the world of artificial intelligence and robotics is moving so fast that it isn't only robots that we should be wary of, but also androids, cyborgs and bionics which until last week i thought was all the same thing so boy would i have been embarrassed if something came back from the future to eliminate my son before he become a saviour against machines in a post-apocalyptic future and i called it a robot.
According to the nerds at Tech Republic.com, a Robot is a machine designed to perform a task while an Android is a robot which is designed to mimic human behaviour and appearance while a cyborg is an organism which has synthetic hardware which interacts directly with the brain and Bionic is an organism which has mechanical or robotic hardware designed to augment or enhance the human body.
All very useless if you are being pursued by a heavily armed part organic, part synthetic life-form but no need to make them even more angry by getting their classification wrong.
The Russian's have recently revealed the Kalashnikov's neural net combat module which can make its own targeting judgements without any human control and if the Russians are doing it, you can bet your Cyberdyne Systems series T-800 Model 101 Terminator doll the rest of the World's military are at it also.
Good that the top robotic experts have our backs as Asimov's three laws all depend on a human programmer defining what a human is so far too easy to get around so better we don't rely on them but the world of artificial intelligence and robotics is moving so fast that it isn't only robots that we should be wary of, but also androids, cyborgs and bionics which until last week i thought was all the same thing so boy would i have been embarrassed if something came back from the future to eliminate my son before he become a saviour against machines in a post-apocalyptic future and i called it a robot.
According to the nerds at Tech Republic.com, a Robot is a machine designed to perform a task while an Android is a robot which is designed to mimic human behaviour and appearance while a cyborg is an organism which has synthetic hardware which interacts directly with the brain and Bionic is an organism which has mechanical or robotic hardware designed to augment or enhance the human body.
All very useless if you are being pursued by a heavily armed part organic, part synthetic life-form but no need to make them even more angry by getting their classification wrong.
Thursday, 24 August 2017
Not Treating Man-Flu
Poor hubby hasn't been very well for the past week but luckily we are inundated with health facts so we have been able to work out how to treat that awful case of man-flu.
Self-diagnosis on the internet is better than going to the Doctor's surgery because the internet tells us that the Doc's is the main place that viruses and colds end up, all those ill people coughing and sneezing in the waiting room apparently.
We won't be using those bottles of hand sanitiser either, the internet again explains that squirting dollops of the stuff on your hands not only creates wrinkles because it dries out the skin but it also contains chemicals which can be very harmful if used frequently.
We have been told on numerous occasions that taking Antibiotics is helping to create resistant bacteria so lots of rest and water it is then only not the filtered or bottled kind which the bottled water companies filter out minerals that we need to be healthy when they purify their water.
I could give him painkillers but apparently some are not only addictive but can cause the onset of dementia and anti-histamine's are not much better as prolonged use can lead to a significantly higher risk for developing Alzheimer’s.
Maybe some healthy eating will ease his pain but off the menu come fish as some types of fish contain mercury, which can cause serious issues if ingested and we can cross off Margarine as it is full of trans fats, the worst of all fats so we are told.
Maybe a bit of exercise then but jogging is bad for the joints and swimming causes strain on the heart.
Oh well, just leaving him to lay on the sofa whinging about not feeling well it is then.
Self-diagnosis on the internet is better than going to the Doctor's surgery because the internet tells us that the Doc's is the main place that viruses and colds end up, all those ill people coughing and sneezing in the waiting room apparently.
We won't be using those bottles of hand sanitiser either, the internet again explains that squirting dollops of the stuff on your hands not only creates wrinkles because it dries out the skin but it also contains chemicals which can be very harmful if used frequently.
We have been told on numerous occasions that taking Antibiotics is helping to create resistant bacteria so lots of rest and water it is then only not the filtered or bottled kind which the bottled water companies filter out minerals that we need to be healthy when they purify their water.
I could give him painkillers but apparently some are not only addictive but can cause the onset of dementia and anti-histamine's are not much better as prolonged use can lead to a significantly higher risk for developing Alzheimer’s.
Maybe some healthy eating will ease his pain but off the menu come fish as some types of fish contain mercury, which can cause serious issues if ingested and we can cross off Margarine as it is full of trans fats, the worst of all fats so we are told.
Maybe a bit of exercise then but jogging is bad for the joints and swimming causes strain on the heart.
Oh well, just leaving him to lay on the sofa whinging about not feeling well it is then.
Sunday, 20 August 2017
Take You Where?
Imagine you are sat in your garden one summer evening enjoying a Pimms and lemonade when over the trees and into your garden looms an interstellar spaceship and from it's bowels, a light shines from which a strange form is gradually lowered down and you find yourself face to face with an alien.
'I am an ambassador for Clor the Mighty of the 8th Grand Galactic Intra Demarcate' says the alien 'who would make it known to the natives of this world, that they are to be put on trial at the Sovereign Earthly Nations Court of Justice for crimes against the Universe so take me to your leader'.
'Blimey' you may say and wish that there was some sort of protocol for when aliens turn up unexpected and demand to be taken to our leader.
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society have been pondering the same thing and they think that World governments should be preparing a co-ordinated action plan in case alien crafts land on Earth.
They think the responsibility of acting on behalf of Earth should fall to the United Nations and a branch set up for 'supra-Earth affairs' to establish protocol structures.
The discussion is still on-going so no decision yet of who exactly the leader is that we should be directing them to but if they are holding an anal probe then there are a few World leaders you could direct them to as long as they promise not to bring them back afterwards.
'I am an ambassador for Clor the Mighty of the 8th Grand Galactic Intra Demarcate' says the alien 'who would make it known to the natives of this world, that they are to be put on trial at the Sovereign Earthly Nations Court of Justice for crimes against the Universe so take me to your leader'.
'Blimey' you may say and wish that there was some sort of protocol for when aliens turn up unexpected and demand to be taken to our leader.
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society have been pondering the same thing and they think that World governments should be preparing a co-ordinated action plan in case alien crafts land on Earth.
They think the responsibility of acting on behalf of Earth should fall to the United Nations and a branch set up for 'supra-Earth affairs' to establish protocol structures.
The discussion is still on-going so no decision yet of who exactly the leader is that we should be directing them to but if they are holding an anal probe then there are a few World leaders you could direct them to as long as they promise not to bring them back afterwards.
Harking Back To A Better Time Musically
I was too young for the Sex Pistols and Ramones in the 70s but was perfectly placed age-wise in the late 80s and early 90s for Guns 'n' Roses and Nirvana who continue to be celebrated on the chests of teenagers today in the form of t-shirts.
I regularly see T-shirt's of all four the previously mentioned bands who were doing their thing long before most of the wearers were even born which leads me to think that either these four in particular had such a profound effect on music that almost 40 years later in the case of the Pistols that they are still being listened to or that with the bands around today, the kids just don't have an equivalent.
I come down on the side of the latter because as a teenager i was one of so many teenagers who would sit in a garage with a guitar, practising the riffs from Blitzkreig Bop or Sweet Child o' Mine so who would teenagers try to emulate from the charts today?
Nobody i venture which is why even if they were too young to have experienced the band, decades later Nirvana, Guns 'n' Roses, The Sex Pistol's and The Ramones are still more of a household name as there are no bands or artists around today with the musical impact whose name will be sported on the t-shirts of kids 30 years from now.
I would also throw into the ring the fact that all four of these bands had huge characters with as front-men and today's bands don't, more likely to give a hotel room a bit of a going over with the vacuum then trash it.
The truth is we just don't make rock superstars anymore. The superstars of today, the ones who are sold as personalities, are carefully controlled Simon Cowell type identi-kit pop stars dishing out the standard ballads or cover versions.
Punk came along to replace bands like ABBA and dislodge Disco and Grunge booted aside the Stock, Aitken and Waterman puppets such as Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue so we can only hope that in the pipeline is something to rudely push aside the Adele's, Rhianna's and Little Mix's of the current pop world who will be long forgotten and not appearing on the chest of anyone in 2047.
I regularly see T-shirt's of all four the previously mentioned bands who were doing their thing long before most of the wearers were even born which leads me to think that either these four in particular had such a profound effect on music that almost 40 years later in the case of the Pistols that they are still being listened to or that with the bands around today, the kids just don't have an equivalent.
I come down on the side of the latter because as a teenager i was one of so many teenagers who would sit in a garage with a guitar, practising the riffs from Blitzkreig Bop or Sweet Child o' Mine so who would teenagers try to emulate from the charts today?
Nobody i venture which is why even if they were too young to have experienced the band, decades later Nirvana, Guns 'n' Roses, The Sex Pistol's and The Ramones are still more of a household name as there are no bands or artists around today with the musical impact whose name will be sported on the t-shirts of kids 30 years from now.
I would also throw into the ring the fact that all four of these bands had huge characters with as front-men and today's bands don't, more likely to give a hotel room a bit of a going over with the vacuum then trash it.
The truth is we just don't make rock superstars anymore. The superstars of today, the ones who are sold as personalities, are carefully controlled Simon Cowell type identi-kit pop stars dishing out the standard ballads or cover versions.
Punk came along to replace bands like ABBA and dislodge Disco and Grunge booted aside the Stock, Aitken and Waterman puppets such as Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue so we can only hope that in the pipeline is something to rudely push aside the Adele's, Rhianna's and Little Mix's of the current pop world who will be long forgotten and not appearing on the chest of anyone in 2047.
Saturday, 19 August 2017
General Lee And The Nazi's
Being away on my holidays, i haven't been following the Charlottesville protests and its aftermath very closely but from what i have seen, a bunch of extreme right wingers were protesting over the removal of a statue of an old pro-slavery General and another group of anti-racists and anti-fascists, who have been labelled as left wing for some reason, clashed and one deranged right winger drove his car into the protesters and killed a female.
Trump, a man so stupid you wouldn't trust him to face the right way on the toilet, sent out a tweet refusing to condemn the right wingers and even equated the anti-fascist protesters with the likes of the KKK and the Nazi flag wavers.
In the resulting furor over his refusal to condemn the people dishing out Nazi salutes, he did the old trick of throwing a dead cat onto the table in the shape of a sacked Steve Bannon to change the conversation away from his support for his base of right wing racists.
Trump, a fan of Adolf Hitler according to his ex-wife who revealed he was an avid reader of the Nazi leader and kept a book of his speeches next to their bed, has been widely condemned by most people who made the point that if you find yourself on the side of fascist Nazi's, you are probably on the wrong side.
To me, General Lee was the name of the car in The Dukes of Hazard but he was also a General in the American Civil War who fought to maintain slavery so you may ask who would want a statue of a nasty old racist in their city anyway but that is an ongoing discussion over statues of hideous men who in the cold light of the 21st Century are seen in a very different light from previous generations.
The problem with having statues, especially of military personnel, is that the person involved is celebrated for the slaughter, or in the case of Lee the violent subjugation, of other people.
If we are going to celebrate anyone with a likeness in our towns and cities, it should be people who are genuine heroes who have helped mankind, not conquered, enslaved or killed as many as possible of them.
A good guide is if the people who want to keep the statue are chanting Nazi slogans, draping themselves in Swastika's and are driving their cars into groups of people, then the statue is probably not of someone who should be celebrated.
Trump, a man so stupid you wouldn't trust him to face the right way on the toilet, sent out a tweet refusing to condemn the right wingers and even equated the anti-fascist protesters with the likes of the KKK and the Nazi flag wavers.
In the resulting furor over his refusal to condemn the people dishing out Nazi salutes, he did the old trick of throwing a dead cat onto the table in the shape of a sacked Steve Bannon to change the conversation away from his support for his base of right wing racists.
Trump, a fan of Adolf Hitler according to his ex-wife who revealed he was an avid reader of the Nazi leader and kept a book of his speeches next to their bed, has been widely condemned by most people who made the point that if you find yourself on the side of fascist Nazi's, you are probably on the wrong side.
To me, General Lee was the name of the car in The Dukes of Hazard but he was also a General in the American Civil War who fought to maintain slavery so you may ask who would want a statue of a nasty old racist in their city anyway but that is an ongoing discussion over statues of hideous men who in the cold light of the 21st Century are seen in a very different light from previous generations.
The problem with having statues, especially of military personnel, is that the person involved is celebrated for the slaughter, or in the case of Lee the violent subjugation, of other people.
If we are going to celebrate anyone with a likeness in our towns and cities, it should be people who are genuine heroes who have helped mankind, not conquered, enslaved or killed as many as possible of them.
A good guide is if the people who want to keep the statue are chanting Nazi slogans, draping themselves in Swastika's and are driving their cars into groups of people, then the statue is probably not of someone who should be celebrated.
Wednesday, 16 August 2017
Look At The £3bn New Shooty Thing
Look everyone at the new shiny ship we have built.
No don't look at the £3 billion bill, just wave your little British flags and puff your chest out with pride that we may be skint and not have a money tree to fund the wages of police or nurses and have food-banks, cutbacks, closing facilities for the old, a criminally-underfunded NHS, social deprivation, high levels of homelessness and the highest levels of child-poverty in Europe but can still take billions from our dwindling tax coffers and spend it on a piece of massive military kit.
Rule Britannia and Britannia rules the waves and all that and a huge British aircraft carrier coming to an oil rich Muslim country soon (or as soon as we get our hands on some aircraft).
No don't look at the £3 billion bill, just wave your little British flags and puff your chest out with pride that we may be skint and not have a money tree to fund the wages of police or nurses and have food-banks, cutbacks, closing facilities for the old, a criminally-underfunded NHS, social deprivation, high levels of homelessness and the highest levels of child-poverty in Europe but can still take billions from our dwindling tax coffers and spend it on a piece of massive military kit.
Rule Britannia and Britannia rules the waves and all that and a huge British aircraft carrier coming to an oil rich Muslim country soon (or as soon as we get our hands on some aircraft).
Sunday, 13 August 2017
Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism In A Nutshell
Of the three well known Russian Revolutionaries, Leon Trotsky is probably the least well known apart from the fact that he was name checked in a Strangler song and was killed by an ice pick.Now that Tony Blair has come out as a former Trotskyite, interest has grown in the man and what he stood for and how it differed from Marxism explained here.
Fact is, Marxism is the idea put forward by Karl Marx of a community (hence the name Communism) which is ruled by the people for the benefit of all while Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism are the interpretations of the ways of achieving Marxism.
A quick review of the Russian Revolution is required so we have Lenin, Stalin and Trotksy at the head of the Bolshevik Party who disposed the Royals and found themselves in charge and wondering what to do next.
Lenin was the boss and he, Stalin and Trotsky decided what was required in order to achieve Communism would be the need to set up a ruling Party, named the Vanguard, to oversee the installation of Communism and which would then fade away in time to leave the workers in charge.
So far, everybody on the same Marxism page but now comes the difference because Marx said for Communism to succeed, it would need to spread around the capitalist nations of the World but Lenin wanted to ensure Communism was settled in Russia before spreading the ideal out to other countries, this is called Permanent Revolution as in a domino effect where there would always been one country following another into Communism.
Trotsky didn't want to wait and wanted to strike while the iron was hot and spread it far and wide while Stalin wanted to keep it only in Russia and to turn the vanguard party into a permanent Government.
Lenin and Trotsky therefore were together for the Permanent Revolution but Stalin was against the idea but they managed to keep the far more authoritarian Stalin subdued until Lenin died in 1924 and Stalin grabbed power, exiled Trotsky to Kazakhstan and executed almost all of the Party's Trotskyists in what become known as the Great Purges and effectively removed all of Trotsky's influence.
Stalinism took over and to stop Trotsky's continued criticism of Stalin's rule, after several assassination attempts, he succeeded and he died in his Mexican home from a pick axe to the head in 1940.
Trotskyism then is the idea by Leon Trotsky that the Marxist theory should be spread around the World rather than only one state.
Thursday, 10 August 2017
UK To Join Another Misguided American Conflict?
In recent history Great Britain has made several wrongheaded decisions to join American Presidents in their military adventures, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are sores that refuse to heal and Britain could easily have stayed out of.
Now that easily the worst US President in living memory is threatening to unleash fire and fury on North Korea, the question to ask is will Britain be joining in the mass slaughter of North Korean's?
Britain, also known as America’s lap dog after Blair's pandering to GW Bush, could formally refuse any call for help in waging war against Kim Jong Un as membership of NATO does not automatically oblige it to participate in a conflict as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which states that an attack on one NATO member is an act of aggression against the entire military alliance,
is limited only to attacks on member states’ territories in North America, Europe and the Atlantic.
Britain itself found this out when Margaret Thatcher attempted to invoke NATO’s collective self-defence provision over the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands.
The US, however, could exercise pressure to ensure Britain’s support in any military confrontation with North Korea as Britain is planning for an extensive trade deal with the US to soften the blow of Brexit and wouldn't want to jeopardise that by not backing America in yet another military adventure.
As Britain has been at America's side at every ill-conceived conflict since 2001, it is likely that Britain will need no pressure and we could be heading towards another misguided American led conflict that we have no business, or need, to be involved in.
Now that easily the worst US President in living memory is threatening to unleash fire and fury on North Korea, the question to ask is will Britain be joining in the mass slaughter of North Korean's?
Britain, also known as America’s lap dog after Blair's pandering to GW Bush, could formally refuse any call for help in waging war against Kim Jong Un as membership of NATO does not automatically oblige it to participate in a conflict as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which states that an attack on one NATO member is an act of aggression against the entire military alliance,
is limited only to attacks on member states’ territories in North America, Europe and the Atlantic.
Britain itself found this out when Margaret Thatcher attempted to invoke NATO’s collective self-defence provision over the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands.
The US, however, could exercise pressure to ensure Britain’s support in any military confrontation with North Korea as Britain is planning for an extensive trade deal with the US to soften the blow of Brexit and wouldn't want to jeopardise that by not backing America in yet another military adventure.
As Britain has been at America's side at every ill-conceived conflict since 2001, it is likely that Britain will need no pressure and we could be heading towards another misguided American led conflict that we have no business, or need, to be involved in.
Another Problem With Electric Cars
We are starting to see more and more electric cars on our streets but i came across a previous unthought of problem this afternoon while crossing the street, they are silent.
I got to the crossing just as the lights were turning back to amber and there sat a car, i looked at the driver, the driver looked at me and i thought that as his car was not making any noise, he had broken down or stalled at the lights.
Assuming i would have time to cross as he would have to re-start his engine, i stepped out just as he pulled away, silently.
I jumped back, apologised and waited for the next green man to flash but apart from me trying to cross roads, i can see silent cars being an issue, more so for pedestrians, especially visually impaired ones, and cyclists who rely on hearing approaching cars.
With the Government recently announcing that petrol and diesel vehicles are to be consigned to history on British roads by 2040 and the price of buying an electric vehicle tumbling, a tonne of metal travelling silently at 30mph around our streets is already causing problems with a report from the Guide Dogs charity found a 54% increase in pedestrian injuries in accidents involving quiet cars.
The EU have ruled that car builders must incorporate artificial sound generators in their cars by 2021 but 4 years seems quite a way in the future when people are being injured now.
Guess for the next few years when i cross the road i will just have to adhere less to the 'Listen' part of the 'Stop, Look and Listen' mantra we had drummed into us as children.
I got to the crossing just as the lights were turning back to amber and there sat a car, i looked at the driver, the driver looked at me and i thought that as his car was not making any noise, he had broken down or stalled at the lights.
Assuming i would have time to cross as he would have to re-start his engine, i stepped out just as he pulled away, silently.
I jumped back, apologised and waited for the next green man to flash but apart from me trying to cross roads, i can see silent cars being an issue, more so for pedestrians, especially visually impaired ones, and cyclists who rely on hearing approaching cars.
With the Government recently announcing that petrol and diesel vehicles are to be consigned to history on British roads by 2040 and the price of buying an electric vehicle tumbling, a tonne of metal travelling silently at 30mph around our streets is already causing problems with a report from the Guide Dogs charity found a 54% increase in pedestrian injuries in accidents involving quiet cars.
The EU have ruled that car builders must incorporate artificial sound generators in their cars by 2021 but 4 years seems quite a way in the future when people are being injured now.
Guess for the next few years when i cross the road i will just have to adhere less to the 'Listen' part of the 'Stop, Look and Listen' mantra we had drummed into us as children.
Factually Wrong Song Lyrics
I recently read a blog post where the author lambasted Alanis Morissette for her use of the word 'Ironic' in her song, pointing out that rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you've already paid or good advice that you just didn't take isn't ironic at all as irony is 'using language that normally signifies the opposite'.I pointed out in return that he was 22 years too late as she was suitably hit over the head with it back in 1995 when the song came out to which the reply was that the author was only 22 which is fair enough as he would have been preoccupied with filling his nappy and dribbling at the time and missed the whole thing.
There are some song lyrics which do make you wonder why nobody fact checked them before they were released, U2's 'Pride' has a line about Martin Luther King getting shot: 'Early morning, April 4/Shot rings out in the Memphis sky' although he was shot in the evening.
The Band Aid signal 'Do They Know It's Christmas' is a charity single which raised millions for drought striken Africa so it feels churlish to point out that the line sung by Paul Weller, Sting and Boy George that 'there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time' is wrong unless Morocco is no longer in the continent as it snows every winter in Morocco.
There is also 'Where nothing ever grows/No rain or rivers flow' when the continent has the second longest river in the Nile winding through it along with the Congo river but as it was for charity we can let them slide .
Unfortunately we can't do the same for RUN DMC who rapped: 'There's three of us, but we're not the Beatles' in their King of Rock single which shows a real blind spot either for counting or the most famous four-peice in music.
Pink Floyd singing 'We Don't Need No Education' in their song ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ shows that in using a double negative they badly do need education and it probably wouldn't be wise to go orienteering with The Who as who knows what sort of crazy compass they were using when they came up with the lyric 'The north side of my town faced east and the east was facing south' in their
song 'Substitute'.
The song 'Catch a Falling Star' tells you to not only catch it but to then put it in your pocket although the next line should warn you that as it has just reached a heat of 3,000F or 1,650C falling through the atmosphere, it will probably burn straight through your leg if you did.
Such disregard for all thing astronomical is also present in 'Save the Best for Last' where Vanessa Williams tells us 'Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon' which it doesn't and Christopher Cross in Arthur’s Theme tells us what to do 'When you get caught between the moon and New York City'. He suggest fall in love but as the moon is about 240,000 miles away which would put you 120,000 miles out in space if you are caught between New York and the Moon, i would suggest screaming while you fall to your death as more appropriate.
Lions are nocturnal and sleep during the day so 'In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight' is misleading, as is Sade's Smooth Operator song which contains a blunder obvious to anyone with a map of America when she says: 'Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago' although 'Coast to somewhere just past the middle' probably doesn't have the same ring to it.
Napoleon didn't surrender at Waterloo, he was captured by the British weeks later trying to sneak off to North America so you shouldn't trust Swedish singers with British and French history and literacy lessons from Sam Cooke should be avoided as in 'Another Saturday Night' he describes being set up with a girl who: 'had a strange resemblance to a cat named Frankenstein' so unless he meant that she looked like the mad scientist Dr Frankenstein who created the monster, he got that wrong.
I'm sure there are many more inaccuracies which have slipped through the net but Wang Chung's 'Dancehall Days' with 'Take your baby by the wrist/And in her mouth an amethyst' and Oasis's 'Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball' in Champagne Supernova
always leave me wondering.
Wednesday, 9 August 2017
Happy Birthday Global Recession
Today seems to have been chosen as the tenth birthday of the sinking of the global economy with collapsing banks, unemployment soaring, governments going bust and ushering in a decade of austerity measures.
The 9th August 2007 was the day that a French bank admitted it pulled the plug on investments in US property which sparked a recession so deep that it continues to reverberate on the 9th August 2017.
The crisis ripped a huge hole in the many nation's finances and in Britain severe austerity measures followed but are now on the brink of being abandoned as the total debt pile is still rising and currently stands at a whopping £1.7 trillion, almost 90% of the UK's total national income and double the amount of debt when austerity began.
The argument is that the decade of austerity has actually weakened the economy hence the u-turn now but with recessions being a constant part of Capitalism, that the politicians, regulators, and financiers are trying to put a sticking plaster over it so they can carry on as before rather than find ways to stop a similar catastrophe befalling the system should be a cause for concern.
The experts are saying that in 2007 the economies of Australia, Belgium, China, Canada and South Korea avoided the worst of the crisis and helped to steady the World's economic ship but even they can not avoid the next one which is being talked about as we are still suffering from the last one and we know is coming because it is inevitable that another devastating collapse is coming because the system used collapses with such alarming regularity and consequences every decade.
The 9th August 2007 was the day that a French bank admitted it pulled the plug on investments in US property which sparked a recession so deep that it continues to reverberate on the 9th August 2017.
The crisis ripped a huge hole in the many nation's finances and in Britain severe austerity measures followed but are now on the brink of being abandoned as the total debt pile is still rising and currently stands at a whopping £1.7 trillion, almost 90% of the UK's total national income and double the amount of debt when austerity began.
The argument is that the decade of austerity has actually weakened the economy hence the u-turn now but with recessions being a constant part of Capitalism, that the politicians, regulators, and financiers are trying to put a sticking plaster over it so they can carry on as before rather than find ways to stop a similar catastrophe befalling the system should be a cause for concern.
The experts are saying that in 2007 the economies of Australia, Belgium, China, Canada and South Korea avoided the worst of the crisis and helped to steady the World's economic ship but even they can not avoid the next one which is being talked about as we are still suffering from the last one and we know is coming because it is inevitable that another devastating collapse is coming because the system used collapses with such alarming regularity and consequences every decade.
No Nuclear WInter Coming Soon
One of the concerns when Donald Trump because President was that he would have access to the American nuclear arsenal but the thought was that even he wouldn't be so moronic to actually get his little hands near the red button but in a moment of typical Trump ego stroking he has escalated a crisis with nuclear armed North Korea.
Within a couple of hours of Donald Trump's warning not to make any more threats, on penalty of 'fire and fury', North Korea made yet another detailed threat that they were carefully examining plans to strike the US territory of Guam.
Seems he is plenty stupid enough after all to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war and scarily the decisions are being made by two imbeciles posturing and putting many lives at risk in defence of their own ego's.
As Kim Jung Un justifies his nuclear ambitions as defending his nation from a rampant United States who go around bombing nations to bring about regime change, Trump's infantile bluster has made his point for him as it is exactly what he is saying he will do.
In his deluded mind, Trump probably thinks that by ratcheting up the rhetoric and threatening to rain down fire and fury will bring the Communist leaders begging for talks and renouncing its nuclear ambitions.
Except they won't but neither will either send the World into a nuclear winter as as dumb and foolhardy as Trump and Jung Un may be, both know that if things escalate beyond the current shouting match, everybody loses.
Donald Trump knows that minutes after the first missile lands in North Korea, South Korea, Japan and the western seaboard of the United States will be devastated while Kim knows that attacking Guam would be suicide for him, his regime and his country which would be swiftly annihilated.
The Mutually Assured Destruction that did so much to keep the Cold War from turning Hot is back in play but the rhetoric is good for both leaders as it justifies the young Kim's view and by Trump cranking up the North Korean threat to eleven, it distracts from his ever increasing problems at home.
Within a couple of hours of Donald Trump's warning not to make any more threats, on penalty of 'fire and fury', North Korea made yet another detailed threat that they were carefully examining plans to strike the US territory of Guam.
Seems he is plenty stupid enough after all to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war and scarily the decisions are being made by two imbeciles posturing and putting many lives at risk in defence of their own ego's.
As Kim Jung Un justifies his nuclear ambitions as defending his nation from a rampant United States who go around bombing nations to bring about regime change, Trump's infantile bluster has made his point for him as it is exactly what he is saying he will do.
In his deluded mind, Trump probably thinks that by ratcheting up the rhetoric and threatening to rain down fire and fury will bring the Communist leaders begging for talks and renouncing its nuclear ambitions.
Except they won't but neither will either send the World into a nuclear winter as as dumb and foolhardy as Trump and Jung Un may be, both know that if things escalate beyond the current shouting match, everybody loses.
Donald Trump knows that minutes after the first missile lands in North Korea, South Korea, Japan and the western seaboard of the United States will be devastated while Kim knows that attacking Guam would be suicide for him, his regime and his country which would be swiftly annihilated.
The Mutually Assured Destruction that did so much to keep the Cold War from turning Hot is back in play but the rhetoric is good for both leaders as it justifies the young Kim's view and by Trump cranking up the North Korean threat to eleven, it distracts from his ever increasing problems at home.
Political Traveling Wilburys
Two things Great Britain needs more than anything is a new Government and to stop the barnstorming crazy that is Brexit.
Handily, with one stone we could brain two birds as the call for a new Anti-Brexit Political Party goes out and calls for the best of all the main parties to come together to 'stop Brexit catastrophe'.
The former chief of staff to the Brexit Secretary is calling for a new political movement to oppose Britain's exit from the EU, and he has called out Labour's Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasy, Rachel Reeves, Pat McFadden and Tory MPs Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan, Nicholas Soames as well as the Liberal Democrats leader, Vince Cable.
Cable seems well up for it, tweeting that he agreed and the public should have a chance to shift away from Brexit but no news so far from the potential supergroup of MP's.
Tony Blair has already made some of the same noises and has even began looking into potential funding streams for the new party which could prove to be the Achilles heel, because if Blair is involved then it will be very hard for the newcomers to attract supporters willing to find themselves on the same side of the man they have been hounding as a war criminal for the past decade.
As we are pencilled in to commit the ultimate act of financial stupidity on 29 March 2019 and as the Conservatives are hanging onto power by their fingernails, they had better get a move on if the political equivalent of the Traveling Wilburys want to step in and save us from our own stupidity.
Handily, with one stone we could brain two birds as the call for a new Anti-Brexit Political Party goes out and calls for the best of all the main parties to come together to 'stop Brexit catastrophe'.
The former chief of staff to the Brexit Secretary is calling for a new political movement to oppose Britain's exit from the EU, and he has called out Labour's Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasy, Rachel Reeves, Pat McFadden and Tory MPs Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan, Nicholas Soames as well as the Liberal Democrats leader, Vince Cable.
Cable seems well up for it, tweeting that he agreed and the public should have a chance to shift away from Brexit but no news so far from the potential supergroup of MP's.
Tony Blair has already made some of the same noises and has even began looking into potential funding streams for the new party which could prove to be the Achilles heel, because if Blair is involved then it will be very hard for the newcomers to attract supporters willing to find themselves on the same side of the man they have been hounding as a war criminal for the past decade.
As we are pencilled in to commit the ultimate act of financial stupidity on 29 March 2019 and as the Conservatives are hanging onto power by their fingernails, they had better get a move on if the political equivalent of the Traveling Wilburys want to step in and save us from our own stupidity.
Tuesday, 8 August 2017
Top Posts Ever
Ten Years and 3304 Posts ago i sat down and began Falling On A Bruise, a blog mulling over things going on in the World.
Some posts sink without a trace and some seem to hit home so here are the 21 most viewed posts out of all that i have posted.
Anders Behring Breivik
Brits Doing American Accents, And Failing
Frank Carson And Linda Nolan Mystery Solved
Magic Spells
Marxism In A Nutshell
Michael Moore: Guardian Angel
Nicotine Fuelled Nightmares
Paralympic Viewing Figures
Proof That Nicholas Cage is One Of The Undead
QuickQuid
Quitting Smoking With E-Cigarettes
Solving The Piigs Crisis
Thatcher Jokes
That's A Shame
The Lost Copenhagen Post
Tony Nicholson: The Right Decision
Whinging Pom Eggs
Why is It Raining So Much In UK This Summer?
Why Nobody Believes John Terry
World Turning Vegetarian
Zombie Conspiracy
Some posts sink without a trace and some seem to hit home so here are the 21 most viewed posts out of all that i have posted.
Anders Behring Breivik
Brits Doing American Accents, And Failing
Frank Carson And Linda Nolan Mystery Solved
Magic Spells
Marxism In A Nutshell
Michael Moore: Guardian Angel
Nicotine Fuelled Nightmares
Paralympic Viewing Figures
Proof That Nicholas Cage is One Of The Undead
QuickQuid
Quitting Smoking With E-Cigarettes
Solving The Piigs Crisis
Thatcher Jokes
That's A Shame
The Lost Copenhagen Post
Tony Nicholson: The Right Decision
Whinging Pom Eggs
Why is It Raining So Much In UK This Summer?
Why Nobody Believes John Terry
World Turning Vegetarian
Zombie Conspiracy
Monday, 7 August 2017
Enjoy August As September May Not Be So Good
Luckily we are off on our holidays shortly which is lucky because come September there won't be anywhere left to go as the World will no longer be here according to conspiracy theorists who are convinced it will all come to a grinding halt next month.
Admittedly they have said that many times before but this time it is definitely, absolutely no doubts about it going to end and it's all down to a mythical planet, Planet X.
The planet will collide with the Earth and bring about the end of days around the 21st August and no apocalypse would be a real apocalypse if the Bible wasn't involved somewhere.
David Meade, who is a self proclaimed: 'Stargazer and Christian numerologist' has been looking at the charts and various Bible verses which have lead him to predict that there will be a a great sign from heaven as written about in the Book of Revelations and then Planet X will slam into the Earth.
NASA have come forward to poo-poo the Bible holding Stargazer as they pointed out if something that big was cartwheeling it's way to smash us to smithereens in a fortnights time then they would have spotted it by now and it was predicted to come our way in 2003, 2007, 2012 and 2015 and they are pretty certain it never happened then either.
I will stick my neck out and predict that if you have a holiday booked for after August 21st then you shouldn't be asking for a refund just yet.
Admittedly they have said that many times before but this time it is definitely, absolutely no doubts about it going to end and it's all down to a mythical planet, Planet X.
The planet will collide with the Earth and bring about the end of days around the 21st August and no apocalypse would be a real apocalypse if the Bible wasn't involved somewhere.
David Meade, who is a self proclaimed: 'Stargazer and Christian numerologist' has been looking at the charts and various Bible verses which have lead him to predict that there will be a a great sign from heaven as written about in the Book of Revelations and then Planet X will slam into the Earth.
NASA have come forward to poo-poo the Bible holding Stargazer as they pointed out if something that big was cartwheeling it's way to smash us to smithereens in a fortnights time then they would have spotted it by now and it was predicted to come our way in 2003, 2007, 2012 and 2015 and they are pretty certain it never happened then either.
I will stick my neck out and predict that if you have a holiday booked for after August 21st then you shouldn't be asking for a refund just yet.
Booing Gatlin
All eyes were on Jamaica's Usain Bolt to win the 100m gold medal but he was beaten into third place by America's Justin Gatlin and Christian Coleman.
Gatlin, who has served two doping bans, received boos and jeers both after winning the race and then again as he was presented with his gold medal on Sunday night.
The treatment by the crowd has received equal amounts of condemnation and approval from former athletes and Gatlin himself saying that he feels he's done his time and should be welcomed back to athletics.
Once possibly you can explain away but to be caught cheating twice and then to try and claim you shouldn't be jeered for it is a bit of a nerve.
I understand the argument that once he served his bans, he fulfilled his sentence and should be free to continue but i don't agree with it, to my mind if you are found cheating than you should be out for good.
If i was an athlete and i was slogging away for years only to be beaten by a former drug cheat i would wondering if the advantage they have over me was due to any permanent physiological changes as a result of their drug enhancements.
Are their muscles bigger, stronger or in a better condition due to a lifelong advantage after taking growth hormones or other body-changing drugs?
Nope, Gatlin for me deserves all the jeers and brickbats thrown his way.
Gatlin, who has served two doping bans, received boos and jeers both after winning the race and then again as he was presented with his gold medal on Sunday night.
The treatment by the crowd has received equal amounts of condemnation and approval from former athletes and Gatlin himself saying that he feels he's done his time and should be welcomed back to athletics.
Once possibly you can explain away but to be caught cheating twice and then to try and claim you shouldn't be jeered for it is a bit of a nerve.
I understand the argument that once he served his bans, he fulfilled his sentence and should be free to continue but i don't agree with it, to my mind if you are found cheating than you should be out for good.
If i was an athlete and i was slogging away for years only to be beaten by a former drug cheat i would wondering if the advantage they have over me was due to any permanent physiological changes as a result of their drug enhancements.
Are their muscles bigger, stronger or in a better condition due to a lifelong advantage after taking growth hormones or other body-changing drugs?
Nope, Gatlin for me deserves all the jeers and brickbats thrown his way.
Thursday, 3 August 2017
Coming To A Planet Near You Soon
I'm sure that NASA are trying to play it smooth to avoid a panic in the general population but three recent stories when taken together point towards something spectacular heading our way.
First the hacking group Anonymous uncovered documents that showed NASA have evidence of alien life after years of the space agency probing far flung galaxies and solar systems searching for beings that did not originate on planet Earth.
NASA issued a hasty: 'No we haven't' statement and the story faded away.
Then news broke that astronomers have spotted what may be a giant megastructure orbiting a distant star, a Dyson Sphere, and such a thing could only be the work of advanced aliens, capable of engineering and building on such a scale that it becomes visible from light years away.
Then shortly afterwards a hush-hush document was leaked that the US Government had created a new department called 'The National Space Defence Centre' who were responsible for training special forces in a secret location near the Colorado's Rocky Mountains in space warfare and gave them the silly, macho name of Space Aggressors.
Hmmm, we said, so why would the Americans be training for conflict in a space environment in a hastily created department?
We could brush all the incidents off as a coincidence but now news that NASA are advertising for a 'Planetary Protection Officer'.
The advert for the $187,000 per annum job states the role involves: 'safeguarding Earth from extra-terrestrial infection' and creating policies to ensure 'the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration'. The role’s security clearance level is 'secret'.
The truth, as they say, is out there but it may very soon be here and it's probably 8ft tall, green and has a ray gun.
First the hacking group Anonymous uncovered documents that showed NASA have evidence of alien life after years of the space agency probing far flung galaxies and solar systems searching for beings that did not originate on planet Earth.
NASA issued a hasty: 'No we haven't' statement and the story faded away.
Then news broke that astronomers have spotted what may be a giant megastructure orbiting a distant star, a Dyson Sphere, and such a thing could only be the work of advanced aliens, capable of engineering and building on such a scale that it becomes visible from light years away.
Then shortly afterwards a hush-hush document was leaked that the US Government had created a new department called 'The National Space Defence Centre' who were responsible for training special forces in a secret location near the Colorado's Rocky Mountains in space warfare and gave them the silly, macho name of Space Aggressors.
Hmmm, we said, so why would the Americans be training for conflict in a space environment in a hastily created department?
We could brush all the incidents off as a coincidence but now news that NASA are advertising for a 'Planetary Protection Officer'.
The advert for the $187,000 per annum job states the role involves: 'safeguarding Earth from extra-terrestrial infection' and creating policies to ensure 'the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration'. The role’s security clearance level is 'secret'.
The truth, as they say, is out there but it may very soon be here and it's probably 8ft tall, green and has a ray gun.
Wednesday, 2 August 2017
Why Brexit May Not Happen Afterall
I guess some people thought pulling out of the EU would be straight forward but the more we look at it the more problems we see and i am beginning to think that it may prove to be just to difficult, expensive and detrimental to the British economy that it may not happen after all.
As well as the tens of billions divorce bill, experts expect the British economy to drop by as much as a third and even if we did deals with every major trading country, it wouldn't plug the gap of the World's largest Single Market.
Politically, we have to cuddle up to some of the Worlds worst regimes in fear that if we criticise them, the trade deals will be canned and the border with the Republic of Ireland and British Northern Ireland is political dynamite.
Businesses have began relocating to EU countries and taking tens of thousands of jobs with them and Britain has been stripped of its triple-A credit rating.
Then there is the future of the British Union, with not only Scotland looking to declare independence from the U.K. and serious questions are being asked in Northern Ireland, which like Scotland, voted to Remain.
With only a few by-elections reversals standing between a Government with a wafer thin majority and another general election, Brexit is looking to be more of a headache then the Brexiteers thought and the Government should be brave enough to hold their hands up and just say it would be too detrimental for the UK and they will not be pursuing it any longer.
The Brexiteers will bleat but the alternative is Theresa May going down in the history books as the Prime Minister who willingly oversaw the breaking up and economic suicide of the UK, a mistake that would take a generation or longer to correct.
As well as the tens of billions divorce bill, experts expect the British economy to drop by as much as a third and even if we did deals with every major trading country, it wouldn't plug the gap of the World's largest Single Market.
Politically, we have to cuddle up to some of the Worlds worst regimes in fear that if we criticise them, the trade deals will be canned and the border with the Republic of Ireland and British Northern Ireland is political dynamite.
Businesses have began relocating to EU countries and taking tens of thousands of jobs with them and Britain has been stripped of its triple-A credit rating.
Then there is the future of the British Union, with not only Scotland looking to declare independence from the U.K. and serious questions are being asked in Northern Ireland, which like Scotland, voted to Remain.
With only a few by-elections reversals standing between a Government with a wafer thin majority and another general election, Brexit is looking to be more of a headache then the Brexiteers thought and the Government should be brave enough to hold their hands up and just say it would be too detrimental for the UK and they will not be pursuing it any longer.
The Brexiteers will bleat but the alternative is Theresa May going down in the history books as the Prime Minister who willingly oversaw the breaking up and economic suicide of the UK, a mistake that would take a generation or longer to correct.
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
Not Following On From Hugo Chavez
Only the more ignorant and misinformed amongst us would say that Hugo Chavez was anything other than amazing for Venezuela and its people but things seemed to have taken a sharp turn for the worse in the South American nation since he died.
Under the guise of continuing the great mans work, President Nicolas Maduro has gone on a rampage of what looks like for all intents a drive towards dictatorship.
Following a controversial vote to give himself sweeping new powers, political rivals are believed to have been arrested and the military has been deployed to quash protests.
Despite international condemnation, Maduro is planing to plough on with his rewriting of the Constitution which will give him unlimited powers meanwhile the protests from all sectors including the Chavez supporters will continue and the violence looks likely to escalate.
Chavez may have been an impossible act to follow but Maduro seems to have made a magnificent pigs ear of the legacy left by Chavez and is said to be driving his country off a cliff, especially ironic when you consider his job before politics was driving a bus.
Under the guise of continuing the great mans work, President Nicolas Maduro has gone on a rampage of what looks like for all intents a drive towards dictatorship.
Following a controversial vote to give himself sweeping new powers, political rivals are believed to have been arrested and the military has been deployed to quash protests.
Despite international condemnation, Maduro is planing to plough on with his rewriting of the Constitution which will give him unlimited powers meanwhile the protests from all sectors including the Chavez supporters will continue and the violence looks likely to escalate.
Chavez may have been an impossible act to follow but Maduro seems to have made a magnificent pigs ear of the legacy left by Chavez and is said to be driving his country off a cliff, especially ironic when you consider his job before politics was driving a bus.
No Trump Chaos Amidst The Trump Chaos
We all remember Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saheed al-Sahaf and his dizzying refusal to admit that everything was falling down around his ears.
Comical Ali may have gone but his stubborn commitment to accept that everything is going to hell in a handcart is by no means extinct as proven by Donald Trump.
The Orange One took to to Twitter to brazenly blare: "No Chaos in the White House' as yet another employee, the 12th in six months, was handed his P45 and made his way out the Exit door after a little over a week of beginning the job.
Every bit as chronically dysfunctional as expected, he may be doing irreparable damage to America and it's reputation, but it is fascinating to see just how far he will drag his country down before events bring his tenure to a premature end.
The links to Russia will probably prove to be his downfall, the enquiry seems to be turning up more lies and cover-ups the deeper it digs, but that may be some time in the future and the country he said he would make 'Great Again' could be on it's knees by the time the men come to drag his bloated carcass away.
It may be a great time to be a journalist with such a loose canon in the White House but as long as he sticks with embarrassing himself and his own nation and doesn't take the George W Bush route of sending his military on far flung adventures, it is fascinating to watch him implode so fantastically
Comical Ali may have gone but his stubborn commitment to accept that everything is going to hell in a handcart is by no means extinct as proven by Donald Trump.
The Orange One took to to Twitter to brazenly blare: "No Chaos in the White House' as yet another employee, the 12th in six months, was handed his P45 and made his way out the Exit door after a little over a week of beginning the job.
Every bit as chronically dysfunctional as expected, he may be doing irreparable damage to America and it's reputation, but it is fascinating to see just how far he will drag his country down before events bring his tenure to a premature end.
The links to Russia will probably prove to be his downfall, the enquiry seems to be turning up more lies and cover-ups the deeper it digs, but that may be some time in the future and the country he said he would make 'Great Again' could be on it's knees by the time the men come to drag his bloated carcass away.
It may be a great time to be a journalist with such a loose canon in the White House but as long as he sticks with embarrassing himself and his own nation and doesn't take the George W Bush route of sending his military on far flung adventures, it is fascinating to watch him implode so fantastically
Waving Goodbye To Sick Stan Kroenke
Stan Kroenke is Arsenal's biggest shareholder and owner of My Outdoor TV, part of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, which has launched in the UK which has programmes named 'Cast & Blast', 'Miss Wildgame' and 'Hollywood Weapons' which show hunting and blood sports.
As an Arsenal fan i'm beyond disgusted that the man who owns our club is also involved in glorifying the sick and brutal killing of wild animals and will be using the proceeds from such a disturbing channel to run Arsenal.
There will now be renewed vigour behind the call for the Russian billionaire and second largest shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, to take over the club although he is being locked out by the Arsenal Board due to his close ties with Vladimir Putin.
I would hope that my fellow Arsenal fans will be vocal enough to leave Kroenke and the Arsenal board in no doubt that we want our club to have nothing to do with such a nauseating and disturbed individual as him.
As an Arsenal fan i'm beyond disgusted that the man who owns our club is also involved in glorifying the sick and brutal killing of wild animals and will be using the proceeds from such a disturbing channel to run Arsenal.
There will now be renewed vigour behind the call for the Russian billionaire and second largest shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, to take over the club although he is being locked out by the Arsenal Board due to his close ties with Vladimir Putin.
I would hope that my fellow Arsenal fans will be vocal enough to leave Kroenke and the Arsenal board in no doubt that we want our club to have nothing to do with such a nauseating and disturbed individual as him.
Princess Diana And 1,299 Others
The country is currently in the grip of Diana Mania due to it being the 20th anniversary of the Princess dying in a subway in Paris.
Undoubtedly an awful event and a matter of deep, deep sadness for Diana's family as when someone you love dies it goes without saying that the sadness is all encompassing but every day we hear about the deaths of people unrelated to us and in comparison it barely registers once the news item moves on or we turn the page and it doesn't begin to compare to the death of a loved one.
Grief is not the normal response to the death of a stranger because if it were we would all be in a permanent state of grief.
Of course we empathise with those who have lost loved ones, but that's not the same thing.
We sometimes reflect on those who touched our lives from afar but in the scheme of things 1,300 of us die in the UK daily and for each of those 1,300 deaths someone, somewhere is mourning.
As tragic as the Diana death was, or David Bowie, Nelson Mandela, Whitney Houston, George Michael or Prince, when a celebrity dies i don't understand the outpouring of grief about someones death that we never actually knew.
The last few years has seen the death of so many talented individuals and it is right that we reflect upon their lives achievements and discuss it but we do that with anyone who dies, most importantly following the death of someone close to us but as they don't get top story slot on the news or a pull-out souvenir section in the newspaper doesn't make their passing any less sadder and especially not for those of us who didn't know them.
It is fine to feel sad about Diana and for her family but there was an average of 1,299 people who lost loved ones that day also who went without mention.
Undoubtedly an awful event and a matter of deep, deep sadness for Diana's family as when someone you love dies it goes without saying that the sadness is all encompassing but every day we hear about the deaths of people unrelated to us and in comparison it barely registers once the news item moves on or we turn the page and it doesn't begin to compare to the death of a loved one.
Grief is not the normal response to the death of a stranger because if it were we would all be in a permanent state of grief.
Of course we empathise with those who have lost loved ones, but that's not the same thing.
We sometimes reflect on those who touched our lives from afar but in the scheme of things 1,300 of us die in the UK daily and for each of those 1,300 deaths someone, somewhere is mourning.
As tragic as the Diana death was, or David Bowie, Nelson Mandela, Whitney Houston, George Michael or Prince, when a celebrity dies i don't understand the outpouring of grief about someones death that we never actually knew.
The last few years has seen the death of so many talented individuals and it is right that we reflect upon their lives achievements and discuss it but we do that with anyone who dies, most importantly following the death of someone close to us but as they don't get top story slot on the news or a pull-out souvenir section in the newspaper doesn't make their passing any less sadder and especially not for those of us who didn't know them.
It is fine to feel sad about Diana and for her family but there was an average of 1,299 people who lost loved ones that day also who went without mention.
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