Theme

Slowly over the last year or so I have been starting to think that this website needs a refreshed look. The current format was developed during June 2011, as can be evidenced by my use of the WordPress2010 theme here. It might be time to change and accept the size of modern monitors and displays.

This will be a major shift for me. The issue is that I still really like the layout I have. The header picture, the side bar, the menu etc. I am not sure what the new one will look like but there are some designs I know it will not copy.

I detest the newer sites out there which are designed for tablet viewing. These seem to have whole screen pictures with text over the top and then, when you scroll down, the next picture scrolls into place with more text. It’s like each “page” is actually the next vertical shot. I’m old and so would prefer my layout more newspaper like. Maybe that’s what I was working for with the current look of the site.

I will also never have auto-starting video. Who the fuck does that? I honestly thing it’s a generational thing. Being, mostly, old compared to the huge number of web consumers out there, I like things a certain way. I don’t like memory waste, I don’t like videos starting without my say-so and I don’t care for instant gratification like some hyperactive monkey. For instance, I don’t “watch” YouTube. It’s not my thing. I prefer to “watch” things on a large screen. I’ve slowly come around to the idea that YouTube is just the same as another single TV channel where the shows are all for teenagers hiding in their rooms watching things on their phones. YouTube has enough content, mostly stupid in my humble view, to keep those poor teenagers entertained. At the same time these kids aren’t learning to get bored or concentrate on a single thing for a decent amount of time. It’s messing them up.

As I have taken around six months just toying with the idea of changing this site, it could take a fair bit longer for the reality to kick in. Let’s see.

The text with a strikethrough doesn’t really belong here. It needs its own communication. Someday soon.

January 13 2018January 13 2018

President – Season 45

The ebb and flow of the tide continues as I watch the latest season of President, the virtual reality television show. This ground breaking production has, over 44 seasons, had its ups and downs. Here’s a small review:

I first became aware of the world of President during season 39. The scriptwriters had been slogging out the device they called the Cold War but the ratings must have dropped so they decided to fill the lead role with someone who was a washed up actor, it was considered as good as the genius of Birdman in its day. Hollywood just loves stories about Hollywood and actors.

Season 40 saw a thawing in the Cold War story and, when viewing figures dipped, the writers orchestrated an assassination attempt, borrowing from some of the highlights of seasons 16, 20, 25 and 35. As a brave turn the writers wanted to include a line about the decay of mental abilities in old age, raising awareness and so had the development of a President in early stage dementia. In a meeting about diversity the writers had created a strong female character but had her only as a senior world leader elsewhere, they didn’t believe the viewership was ready for the idea of a strong woman in the main part of their story. Using the internal rules of the series developed somewhere around season 33 they had to change lead actors and so the next President Season 41 was produced.

A war abroad wasn’t enough of a revolutionary choice to keep Season 41 alive but their special effects of burning oil fires encompassing a whole desert deservedly won awards and helped create a new industry. The audience was tired of wars overseas and the ratings dived. The woman leader of a small island was replaced by a grey, dull man and there didn’t seem to be anything special in the pipeline.

A change of writers saw a new team take the helm of USS White House [the studio’s nickname for the show]. What happened during Season 42 was the creation of a few long burning story lines to arc over many seasons. These initial moves were complete sideline plots. A story about banking regulation and development of a terrorist organisation from the past highlights of secret CIA funding in a sandy country.

These slow fuse stories were kept ticking over while they used the salacious details of sexual abuse of power in the White House to keep the ratings up. They even had 42 in court and accused of lying. Another peace keeping mission in a foreign country kept the gun-nut viewers happy with newsreel shot showing camouflaged men shooting.

The genius of this season was to place the lead character as a caring democratic fan while at the same time writing in an economic boom giving the opportunity for easing of the financial rules and sucking up to big business. The internal struggles of the writers to create a person who could brag about helping and caring while ruining the regulation that keeps the populous safe and licking the dicks [and clits] of rich people showed as they tore themselves apart and a team of new writers was brought in.

The original writers moved to another studio and set up the show “PM” where they created a leader of a small island who, during a financial boom, broke down regulation to allow more financial flexibility for business. Brilliantly, being Hollywood, they created a vain man obsessed with his image in the media. As I said earlier, Hollywood loves stories about Hollywood.

While the anti-climactic ending of this season developed the writers went for familial connections and had President 43 be the son of President 41. He came along to finish the work his daddy had started in season 41.

Only a few months into Season 43 the writers, with the stable old white man in the big job, went brave. They destroyed a group of iconic buildings on the New York set. They killed thousands in a highly rated episode for its terror and horror. These scenes would be played over and over raising so much money for the studio. At the same time they embedded their lead in the place of innocence, a primary school. This superposition garnered many awards, especially with the written reaction of the President, we can see his brain unable to cope with the news that his country is under attack. This story line had started with Season 41 and the war in a sandy place. His daddy’s war.

Now, the audience seemed ready for a long and messy overseas war. The writers worked hard on creating the evidence from past seasons but they just didn’t have the excellence in the team and they fell short. None of the claims made by the lead characters in President or PM [now running a joint storyline] held up to scrutiny when looking at the back story. The public were annoyed that new plot lines just appeared and hadn’t been developed within the franchise. Hollywood was accused of making-shit-up. This is, to be fair, their job but the public still moan about the lies told within the President universe and the way many smaller characters were written out of the series through deaths in those wars in more sandy places. Filming in deserts seems easy enough.

The last ditch attempt to overcome this viewer anger was to create unrest in the President universe by using a new plot device on the actions of financial de-regulation of earlier seasons. A western world financial crash towards the end of Season 43 caused massive personality hardships for the lead characters and a new approach was needed to get the ratings back.

Season 44 was ground breaking. A black actor was cast as President. The writers had discovered a seam of pure viewing gold. Having 44 working tirelessly and seeming to do good in the world, balancing intelligence and humour while being photogenic helped. They even created a lasting, genuine bond between 44 and his second lead, who, to keep the racist viewers happy was white. Keeping the soap opera theme going they brought back the wife of 42 giving the senior characters oestrogen along with colour. Every now and then the racist-side characters would mimic the accusations of some of the viewers and pipe-up in the calling for proof that this man was eligible for the main job. They kept this theme running using ingenious plot devices of stupid business leaders and a dodgy news channel called Fox, because it’s one letter away from Fux, created as an internal joke a couple of seasons ago.

The writers plan was to have the economy improve over time and the wars to end slowly. There was still some torture and wrongful imprisonment, but they figured that it would only raise the viewing figures as people wondered whether the new black demi-god would fall from grace. Unfortunately the viewers don’t like characters being nice, they don’t like stable. The audience wanted scandal. The writers tried to raise figures by killing the leader of the terror attack from the beginning of Season 43 but the studio declared it wasn’t enough.

There were hints of the crazy to come as Season 44 marched towards the now standard season ending climax when the next lead character is revealed. All along the discussion process they had placed a well qualified woman against a fucking moron of a woman-abusing racist. This person had been a low, rarely occurring character during previous seasons best known for excluding black people from his properties during Season 38 and then more recently as an horrific television host with a glamorous wife whose show was glimpsed on the screens in the background of family discussions moving forward the main story line. He had even had some role in the undermining of 44’s leadership as a habitual user of the newly developed plot device of social media.

Only history and the release of minutes of meetings will determine who the fuck ordered the JUMPING SHARK. Someone ordered the writers to appeal to the dumbest arseholes in the viewership by having the orange monkey win the competition to be the next lead in Season 45.

The whole world of viewers, followers, and critics alike raged at the placement of an idiot in charge of the USS White House in the current season. Suspicion is abound that the writers had been meeting with the rival team over at PM and had used their idea of a shitstorm of plots where the small island votes to leave a community and club worth much in financial and social terms to themselves but they were too short-sighted to see it. The PM writers had gone with a script of chaos and the ratings just leapt.

So, now we have Season 45. After jumping the shark the writers are working hard keeping the crazy going. Now, the whole world is watching and the viewing figures are higher than ever. All the talk around the world at the water-cooler, or shared kettle, is about what will happen next in this crazy universe of President Season 45.

To list all the crazy so far would be impossible but having a lying, sexual abusing, bullying racist as their lead means the writers can do whatever they want. The only limit is their imagination. They’ve had the President say that racists are fine people, the President accuse his accusers of lying, a whole range of actors brought in to some senior roles, a dick-size battle played out internationally, collusion and collaboration with a foreign power, speeches of ramblings and unintelligence, bragging of power and general fuckery.

Whatever follows in the next season is going to be a downturn. They can’t maintain this level of crazy for ever. The viewers will get tired of it and this critic looks forward to the next season of President being humdrum and quiet with a return to social caring.

January 9 2018January 9 2018

QTWTAIN

The heading of this communication means:

Questions to which the answer is no

This applies to pretty much every newspaper or news headline which is a question. Suggesting something real by using a question is a weasel way out of getting sued for libel or defamation. The news organisations can use the “just asking questions” defence. Here are some potential favourites:

Did Aliens Build This Structure?

Does MMR cause autism?

Is The PM a paedophile?

and so on. You can see how this works. Headlines like this plant an idea in people’s brains and then, as you may or may not know, bad ideas get reinforced more and more as they are explained as wrong [see religion].

Here’s one I saw from the BBC:

If you want a question then it should really be:

Are Superfoods Real?

The answer to this question is NO. There are foods that are better for you than plenty of others but there aren’t really any foods that work wonders on your body. The rule with food is to eat a balanced diet and to then exercise regularly and maintain a HEALTHY weight.

So, the article goes into statistics. They performed a study on 94 volunteers, split them into three groups and fed them either butter, olive oil and coconut oil. These were not blinded in any way so the people knew which oil they were eating. Also, it’s quite a small number of people to be involved and so any findings would need much further study.

The measurements of LDL and HDL afterwards seemed to indicate that the coconut oil did have some positive benefits. This is interesting but not conclusive. There was no correction for type of person, exercise or general diet and health factors. To make this science more rigorous a study needs to be completed with many many more participants controlled for many other factors.

This study is a good start, but it needs much more work before anything conclusive can be suggested. Really, this article is an advert for the TV show in which these results are “exposed”. As it says at the bottom of this article:

The new series of Trust Me I’m a Doctor continues on BBC2 at 20:30 GMT on Wednesday 10 January and will be available on iPlayer afterwards.

So, I fixed the headline for the BBC:

ADDENDUM [added 5 minutes after publishing]:

Radio 4 is RIGHT NOW now running a segment on this food. They have a professor in from Cambridge. They are leading with the “celebrities are eating this stuff, should we”. I would argue that celebrities are the right people to tell us what to be eating, unless they are a registered dietitian. The scientist is now saying they were surprised that the coconut oil seemed to increase HDL “three times as much”. It was 15% compared to 5% and while that is three times as much it’s actually only going from 1.05 to 1.15 and so that is an increase of 9.5% which would be more appropriate as a measure rather than 3 times which is 300%.

Conflating absolute increases with relative increases is dangerous. It’s why we have health scares. As an example let’s suppose something goes from affecting 5 people in a thousand to 10 people in a thousand. The headlines would say that the risk doubled as it went from 5 to 10. The actual answer is that the risk has increased by 2%. It went from 0.005 to 0.01. Doing the sums the wrong way gives you bigger numbers which look scarier or better depending on what effect you want to achieve.

The end of the interview has the presenter saying this is early days and so we shouldn’t really change our eating habits yet, we should follow the official guidelines. WHICH IS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT RUNNING THIS AS A NEWS STORY ENCOURAGES.

FFS.

</anger>.

December 30 2017

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

I took a trip last night to see Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle last night. I had flip-flopped about going for a good hour or so earlier in the day but decided to get out and stop playing Gran Turismo. I pay money to get to the cinema and so I should go, even if there aren’t really any films I’m that bothered about, December was a bleak month for films on my list.

I don’t recall what the tide was like but I have sought out that information online and let me tell you, the sine curve is lovely.

I know this doesn’t show the actual day I went to the cinema but just work backwards. I think it only changes by about an hour per day.

So, on to the film. As is custom within these pages I rated the film on IMDB. See this communication for an explanation of the rating system.

I rated Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) 8/10 #IMDb https://t.co/5kwI3lDnRC

— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 29, 2017

So, I really enjoyed this film. It was enjoyable, funny and well written. It was a little one-dimensional and obvious, but really it’s a kids film so I can let that pass. I do like the fact that the kids in the original film had the surname “Parrish”. They even get a shout-out in this film.

There were a few times when I thought the action was a little over-the-top, but then I realised this is based on a computer game and those things are what you would do in a game. I mean, flying a helicopter forwards at 90 degrees of roll!

I’m happy to say that I really enjoyed this film.

November 5 2017November 5 2017

Nachtmahr – Electrowerkz

Last night was one of those events I had been looking forward to for quite a while. Nachtmahr were playing a gig to celebrate 10 years in business and it was happening at Electrowerkz. I really like Electrowerkz, it’s a dingy little club in Angel with a small venue for concerts. I’ve been here before. This time I travelled with my niece and met Smith there.

Outside the door is a sign saying Hadley’s Hope. Inside it’s black and reminiscent of the landing site in the film Aliens, called Hadley’s Hope. There’s a bar decorated in a very Giger way.

Bands playing were:

Drakenwerkz
Biomechanimal
DKAG
Nachtmahr

We arrived near the end of the set for the first band so I shan’t comment. The Biomechanimal set was . . . not marvellous. They had a keyboardist pressing buttons on a bass guitar looking device, the bassist was busy but I couldn’t hear what she was playing and the singer was screaming so I couldn’t really hear what he was saying. I would say they were an industrial dance band with heavy overtones but I’m not sure they were any good. Fair enough if some people like their music but it didn’t really do a great deal for me.

Third band on the bill were DKAG, who I’ve seen before a couple of times. It’s very dance. Well constructed but a little boring with no lead singer to interact with. We went to the bar.

Finally, Nachmahr were on. I saw them at M’era Luna a few years ago and was slightly underwhelmed. This time though they were great. One “programmer” and the lead singer is all it took. The music was hard fast beat Austrian industrial and it was great fun. Really enjoyed it.

Some songs are in German, some in English. Rainer spoke in both. This was well worth missing a multitude of fireworks and bonfires celebrating the state sponsored death of a Spanish Catholic. Over all this rated about an 8 on the official scale of 0-10. I thin kthe Combichrist gig a few years ago got a 9.9 from me and so using that scale gives this gig an 8.

After the final song the venue was shifted around a little to be turned into the Slimelight club. The bar downstairs was opened and the BBQ started. I took a picture of the full moon glowing through the roof:

Finally, here’s a picture of three people at a bar:

October 5 2017October 1 2017

Nominally

I have become a vegetarian [nominally]. This decision took about a half a year from first thoughts about it to actually doing something about it. So first I’ll explain my reasons and then the process.

Firstly, I’m not that fussed about the conditions in which animals are kept or treated. If you want mass production to feed the human race then you have to accept that it’ll be done at the cheapest. While the conditions would probably affect me if I was to see them, it is poor regulation and market forces that has made all this possible. You don’t become vegetarian to stop poor treatment of animals, you become a politician or farmer.

I don’t have any issues with eating meat because animals might have souls or are sentient. Once it’s dead it’s dead and the remains may as well be eaten or used for the common good.

My reasons are split roughly between health reasons, feeding the world and environmental reasons. Cutting out mammal meat is a good thing to do for health reasons. Now, there’s no real reason to go in to details but at one point I had high cholesterol and although I thought my diet was largely healthy looking at advice certainly made me think about giving up meat. That was March time this year and giving up meat germinated in my mind.

It seems largely strange to me that I can go to the supermarket and buy pretty much any amount of food and whatever type of food that I want. I can even buy some to purposefully throw away. And yet, too many people in this world go without food, or are severely ill from not enough food. This is fucking disgusting. We can produce enough food to feed the current population of this planet but we don’t have a global distribution system. Except, we can globally move food around to get to my supermarket but we don’t care about those poor fuckers dying or malnourished.

If we transferred the food we grow to feed animals to feeding humans we could easily support everyone on this planet with plenty spare. We use field space for animal feed. That just seems crazy to me. Also, the field space used for tobacco is a disgrace.

The production of animals for food has a huge CO₂ impact. We use / produce more CO₂ for meat production than we do for just growing vegetables and corn. It would be very easy to argue that it’s immoral to continue to do this given the effect that CO₂ has on our delicate planet. Now my argument is seeming a little vague because as I said earlier if I wanted to change the world I should become a politician or a farmer. I guess I like to think I’m doing my little bit. Anthropogenic Global Climate Change is going to fuck this planet over. I have zero confidence politicians will do anything about it until it is way too late.

Giving up beef will reduce carbon footprint more than cars – The Guardian

Potential contributions of food consumption patterns to climate change – American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Going vegetarian halves CO2 emissions from your food – New Scientist

The age-and-sex-adjusted mean GHG emissions in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per day (kgCO₂e/day) were 7.19 for high meat-eaters ( > = 100 g/d), 5.63 for medium meat-eaters (50-99 g/d), 4.67 for low meat-eaters ( < 50 g/d), 3.91 for fish-eaters, 3.81 for vegetarians and 2.89 for vegans. – Dietary greenhouse gas emissions

So, my reasons are colonic health and greenhouse gases. I have called this Nominally because while I have given up meat, if there is no other alternative I would eat some. I also had to eat all the meat in my freezer after I made the decision. That took about six weeks of occasional meals. My decision was made after returning from the M’era Luna festival in the middle of August.

I have had two moments where I just forgot! One day I went to the cinema after a run and my plan was to have a hot dog in the auditorium. I was queuing when it dawned on my I was vegetarian and I couldn’t have a hot dog. Well, my reader, bollocks to that. I ate two. The next “slip” was a week ago when a work friend brought in a pork pie to school and I just cut some and ate it. It took about five hours before I realised that I had eaten meat, when I kinda don’t. Oh well.

I don’t expect friends or people to make extra effort for me. If I go somewhere and there’s no alternative then I’ll eat meat. I’m not that fussed. It’s more a thing just for me.

One further, minor reason, would be that when going to music festivals it is best to spend as little time as possible in the portaloo. They tend to be smelly, dirty and quite horrific. A vegetarian diet over the course of the weekend contributes to reducing time spent in the cubicle. Eating meat extends the sitting time required.

October 2 2017October 22 2017

Saints Win and Huntsman

Well, it may have been a boring match but it was good fun anyway to spend the day with friends at Wembley Stadium. I was quite excited as I was seeing my NFL team play for the second time. The first time was 2008. Now, 9 years later I have seen them again. My dream is to see them play in the Superdome one day.

I do like the atmosphere in the stadium for these matches. It’s friendly and good fun. I’ve never seen any form of trouble.

I think I have written about the actual games in the past but I can’t really remember. There were some interceptions and two touchdowns. Will Lutz missed the first field goal attempt. The first two drives took more than the first quarter so it was quite a slow paced game.

The Saints won the match 20 – 0. The cheerleaders were nice. It was pretty good to see Drew Brees and others playing.

Before the match I went to Savile Row to see where they filmed part of the Kingsman movie. Nearby was a street called Cork Street and so I took a photograph of that.

The Huntsman tailors is the shop where the secret service agency is based within London. Next door is a wine merchant in the film. Here are the shots I took.

Another shot:

Finally, just for fun, here’s a photo of colour material hanging in Regent Street.

September 25 2017March 13 2020

I Don’t Get It

By THOR – Summer Sky in Southsea England, CC BY 2.0, Link

So, how does that make you feel?

It doesn’t do a great deal for me. In the past it has made me feel proud (?) or occasionally tingly but now it mostly leaves me cold. I’ve written about patriotism a few times before such as here, here and here.

As I don’t understand what it means to be British I looked up the official British Values in Google and there was lots of stuff that is accepted as Fundamental British Values for teaching in school.

Fundamental British Values

democracy
the rule of law
individual liberty
mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.

Democracy – yep, we allow people to vote. But democracy is ruined by the political playing done by those in power who further themselves rather than act in what is best for the citizens of this country. I think Blair, May, Johnson, Rees-Mogg [cunt] and most of the so called “political elite”. See, there, that name “elite”, it reinforces that some are meant to rule and others should be subservient.

Rule Of Law – unless you are rich enough to bend that law. If you are wealthy then you can bend the rules and pay people to do that for you. You can find ways around tax and citizenship so you can play but don’t have to pay. Most of society is forced to behave in a way you find detrimental to your power. We’ve fought two wars recently, most likely based upon personal revenge and lies rather than for any humanitarian purpose. Oh, humanitarian war sounds oxymoronic but war to produce a better society fairer to all is probably the only legitimate reason for war. Politicians can lie and still keep their jobs or accept new jobs.

Individual Liberty – as long as you know your social limit I guess. This is something that people should have. They should have the ability to do what they want within the framework of a liberal legal and law system. You can’t have the liberty to break the law but by and large the state shouldn’t tell you how to behave or what to believe. As a humanist I can get on board with this one. I think the UK does this well. Although we have bishops in the Lords and the hereditary house of lords anyway. The law still states worship everyday in schools, but no school conforms to that. The people should be free to do as they wish. There are still politicians who don’t think that. There are still politicians who are anti-gay. They get elected by a population that is slowly becoming more tolerant, I hope, but occasionally I walk down the high street of my local town and see the intolerance in people and their attitudes.

Respect and Tolerance – sure. Sounds lovely. I’m not sure that’s the reality. So some people will always be scum and act horribly to anyone different. I think this country treats them as they deserve, we largely ignore them. Those who spout hatred and violence go ignored. Unless you are a MP for the DUP, in which case the more you shout the more likely you are to be elected.

So, I think that I am meant to be proud of these values and accept them as British, as part of the fabric of this country. But when I think of this country I think of the following and I am ashamed:

Imperialistic past
Pretensions of being a “world” leader
Incompetent politicians
War mongering industry
Iraq war
Slavery
Riches through stealing
Racism and xenophobia

I find it very hard to identify with the flag and the country. I am well aware that at least I live in a country where it is OK to say that. I live in a country with mostly liberal and progressive laws where freedom is cherished. But stand without and look upon the face of this bullish country and it makes me feel sad.

I tried explaining recently to a group of friends why I don’t stand for the national anthem. It was not easy to elucidate my reasons but I tried. I think they possibly forgave me and let it pass knowing what sort of person I am. Trump would, of course, have me sacked because he is very obviously an idiotic bully.

…our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

If it was the law that we had to stand I would like to think I would still stay seated. What does showing respect mean? Why do I have to stand for it? I struggle with this all the time. Oh, how I am a tortured soul [I write ironically].

My friends replied that even if I don’t like the government I could stand for “pork pies and picnics”. Yes, I could stand for that I think, even though I don’t like either. But where in the list of things this country has done is that subsection called “quaint English things to do when it doesn’t rain”?

To be honest I am also struggling with forms of address. Why, if we are all people do I have to call someone else something specific. I am very willing to listen but just because someone does a specific job I have to call them something special? This is reinforcement of the ruling classes over everyone else. It confers a level of respect that possible isn’t due to that person. As an extreme example lets just consider all those parts of the Catholic Church, including the fucking pope, who have covered up / defended / NOT TOLD the police about all the kid-fucking.

I have my moments, when I think, “Wow, that was cool, look at what we can do as a group of people”. But I will not accept this as becoming because of the country. The UK has borders clearly defined by the sea, the parts of Earth where humans can’t live. We should be proud of Newton and Watt. But, they were only born here by chance, others would have worked those things out. Claiming people for your country is weird. Da’Vinci was Italian? Nope. Italy didn’t exist then. But they claim him now don’t they? Just because he entered this world geographically within their imaginary lines on this Earth. See, what does it matter who was born in your country?

I think I started thinking about this when I started work at my current school. On Speech Day we would sing the national anthem and also the school song, Gaudeamus. I found that the national anthem made me feel anger. It doesn’t stand for what I believe. Whereas the school song resonated more with me, even though it is a terrible song. I’ve a feeling this is about the level of community offered by both of these. The school community is more measured and tangible than what this country offers. I know the values and people of this place of work more than I do this country. I know what I sing for when I sing the school song, although that is changing towards a worry about the problems of indoctrination.

So, I do not feel proud to be British. I consider myself a person first and therefore part of humanity. I accept things that fall into the category of “being nice to people”, I reject things that miss that category. Nationality is a label and divides us, much as religions, class and sports teams do. I think this flag stands for dislike and internal-ism, it stands for selfishness and exclusion. It does nothing for me.

Note: This communication was started in February 2017 and thought about a lot. I will miss points I want to make. I have struggled with this problem of identity for a long time and the Brexit vote made me feel it even more. I do not recognise what this country or its people stands for. The current government is inept. The rise of hatred and general xenophobia horrifies me. I write as a stream and much like my lessons I lurch from one thing to another. It is me.