Category: Social

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The Cosmic Dead – Electrowerkz

Smith and I went out to find some noise. Our initial heading was to the World’s End pub in Camden and the Underworld venue where a Japanese band were playing a two hour concept album. Can you believe it, the place was full. We weren’t allowed in. That was a shame so we went in search of food and ended up at a terrible Chinese buffet place. It looked ok from the outside but Smith couldn’t find much food that he liked. I liked nearly all of it. After that we returned to the World’s End. The Underworld club night was due to start at 23:00 but the music looked a little popular and boring. They were going to play some Arctic Monkeys FFS.

So, we decided to walk to Electrowerkz in Angel. It was about a 40 minute walk. It’s alway nice to walk around London, it feels more organic and natural compared to hopping onto a tube train. I guess I should have been surprised at how many people we saw standing around in parks playing Pokemon.

Now, we knew there was an event on at Electrowerkz, we just didn’t know what sort of music it would be. The current music taste of DBL-MF is industrial electronic. Almost everything else doesn’t matter. But, as we walked down Torrens Street we could hear noise and it seemed good. GBP15 lighter after paying to get in and we went into the downstairs music room. The band playing were called Bad Guys.

 

So, as you can see, two double guitars, no bass player, a drummer and a singer. It was rock type stuff. It was tolerable although the vocals were shit. After they had finished we had some drinks and pondered the nature of the post-referendum country [we are fucked] and what the next band could possibly be like.

 

Pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs were on stage at 01:00. Two guitarists, bass player, drummer and singer [who also played a synth which I couldn’t hear]. They weren’t great. They were energetic and played well but it was screamy shouty music and it bored me.

The two bands that we saw were ok. Nothing great. Nothing special and not my current taste in music. It’s quite difficult to find aggrotech on a usual night out in London, Slimelight is almost the only club night and that’s fortnightly on a Saturday. The crowd was a metal crowd. People dressed in denim and dark t-shirts. It was like being in a house that you’ve just sold and are waiting to move to your new home. The furniture was normal and in the right places but your new home awaits and it’s more exciting and a fresher place to be. I much prefer and feel more at home with the “alternative” crowd who attend AC and Slimelight.

Thank goodness there are trains every hour from Victoria towards Gatwick. That meant we could get home. There’s something quite wonderful about walking through the capital early in the morning, it doesn’t ever sleep.

 

Added 12:09 18 July:

It struck me that this communication is titled “The Cosmic Dead”. Well, they were the band on at 02:30. We didn’t stay that long, we didn’t think it would be worth it. All of my gig communications have been titled the Headline band so this one did the same. I’ll do similar with Mesh when I see them because I’m really going to the gig to see Aesthetic Perfection.

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God Reaffirms His Commitment to the UK

Last night I had a few drinks at The Red Bull, a pub in my village. I say “my village” but really I mean the collection of dwellings in which I reside. The pub is nice, except it was expensive. I say “expensive” but I don’t really know, I don’t often drink in pubs although £8-50 for a wine and a bottle of beer seemed expensive.

Just as the sun was going down a very beautiful double bowed rainbow appeared in the east. It looked fantastic. I took some photos with my phone but they don’t really do it justice. I wish I’d had a better camera with me and time to play with the settings.

After a while it went weird. It looked as though the two rainbows had merged for form one large rainbow. I should point out it wasn’t raining and I couldn’t see any around so maybe it was cloud stuff or ice?

Covenant
Covenant

 

As I said, this picture doesn’t really do justice to it. The rainbow looked wonderful.

Closing In
Closing In

 

As for the west. It also looked truly wondrous.

Just Lovely
Just Lovely

The person I was with said that the rainbow was god’s covenant with Noah for the future of mankind. Well, that’s a nice little story. I’m not convinced he can do a great deal about the UK because we seem pretty much fucked.

I have seen that the titles for the last two posts seem a little like Daily Mail headlines and so I promise to change back to something more my style soon

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For God’s Sake Man It’s Only A Weather App

I recently saw that the Met Office had a new weather app. I think it popped up on the front page of the app store. I was interested as I’m quite fussy about my weather apps. Once you get used to one and the information it gives you it’s quite hard to change. Much like buying a new wallet, which I have to do soon and it fills me with dread. By the way, I don’t like the term “app”, I’m not particularly fond of the term “application”, to me these are programs and always will be.

Here’s the front page of the new app:

The new app had embedded video forecasts from the Met Office – these are not needed, I’m too old to care for video forecasts. Also, video on a phone is antisocial and useless, I can get the same information without the noise and movement. I think this may be a generational thing. I don’t need sound and people to inform me something that I can see in a diagram or map. It could possibly be why I also don’t like the news that is broadcast into our homes all the time [hint: change channel, which I do].

 

Here’s another view of the new app:

I’m not sure I like the days across the top. I think that’s mostly because I the older app [which is still available] had the days going down the screen. The worst part of the new app is the weather alert screen. This screen used to be a map with colours over it.

This is a good weather warning map. It tells me what I need to know. The new app just has text to read. I can’t be bothered to read it. The text is broken down into regions. I can be even less bothered to find my region and then decode the words. Oddly, I do like listening to radio weather broadcasts so maybe I’m just weird here.

One last thing. The new app has done away with proper weather charts. These actually mean something to me and I like them. They give an overall impression of what is really going on in the weather. Here are some examples of good stuff:

Day by day and then lovely extra information if you need it. There’s a page that will give hour by hour predictions too.

Look at these maps. Aren’t they pretty and lovely. They let you know what’s going on. The new app doesn’t have this. Which is a shame. I do get the feeling that sometimes things are “improved” to include lots of new functions but the reality is that they just fuck them up.

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Going Underground

Spent an hour under the Kent countryside one afternoon as I dived into the world of Chislehurst Caves. They are man made caves in the chalky hills. They are also quite impressive and a good place to go when you want to escape the summer heat and humidity. The tour guide was a bit cheeky but funny in the right way and he was knowledgeable, he was just the sort of person you want to show you around.

According to the guide Hendrix and Zeppelin both played the caves, which would have been amazing to see but I guess the sound would have been terrible. Although this was the late 60s and early 70s so you would have been smashed out of your head and not notice.

I would recommend this tour as it was good value and interesting.

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Don’t Be A Dick

I am going to be hypocritical here. I am going to lecture about not being nasty and trying to keep the discussion calm and then I am going to rage about things on my most public of forums.

The big message and thing I try to remember is that when tackling the issues that I disagree with or know are wrong then it’s very hard not to be a dick. It’s too easy to get angry and want to shout at people. I have written about this before, I follow some people on Twitter and various other internets because I want to know the sort of things they are saying. I want to try to listen to their points of view and to see where they come from.

Don’t Be A Dick started with Phil Plait giving a talk at TAM:

Phil Plait – Don’t Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

I often have to remind myself of this. My instant response when reading tweets like these below is to scream FUCK OFF at these arseholes. I don’t think I am made for being nice when such hatred and misinformation is spread.

Ken Ham is currently building an ark in Kentucky.

Answers in Genesis use confirmation bias to “prove” the bible.

Matthew Lawrence is religious and believes hell is expanding.

The pope continues to seem reasonable until you realise that he won’t endorse contraception, gays or hand over kid-fucking priests to the police and justice system.

“Pastor” Alex Rivas should be all about love and forgiveness, unless you are gay or LGBT.

Lifeforce claim to cure many things using a method that doesn’t work.

Dana Ullman talks bollocks.

All these people are cunts.
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Psychic News

As part of Bullshit Saturday I went to a psychic and holistic fair. I have written some information on the linked communication. While I did not verbally interact with anyone at the fair I did pick up a copy of Psychic News and offered to pay, but was allowed the copy for nothing.

Psychic News Front Cover
Psychic News Front Cover

I have read this. I have to say, obviously, that I’m not impressed. It’s full of bullshit. I was going to spend time breaking down individual articles as this would give me plenty of future communications. I may still look at a couple of them and a few of the adverts. It is a fascinating read as I enter the world of people who really believe this stuff.

One other thing for now, this is issue 4138 and assuming that they number sequentially and in base ten then these guys have been publishing for over three hundred years!

Oh, the church of spiritualism was started after two sisters made shit up and didn’t back down about their lies. They later confessed but the church was already unstoppable. This is much like the Miracle Of The Sun. The moral shouldn’t be that god or the afterlife exists but more that “kids make shit up”.

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Bastille Day

You know me. Always going to the cinema and this weekend there’s quite a good choice. There are definitely three films I fancy seeing and so I will spread them out. First up was Bastille Day, which was watched at the Cineworld Cinema in [not] Rochester. As usual I have rated the film on IMDB and tweeted about the result.

Now, this seems harsh according to the scale I have explained previously in this communication. To be honest this film wasn’t that great. It wasn’t a funny film, it lacked a chemistry in the buddy-buddy aspect and the action scenes were too long. The roof top running got boring. Nope, just terrible and potentially the whole thing was in bad taste.

Perhaps I was struggling to cope with made up stuff after having spent an hour in the delightful environment of mystical stuff. I’m not sure but this film didn’t deliver.

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Indigo

This is Part One of Bullshit Saturday.

Two weeks ago a flyer dropped through my letter box. It advertised the Indigo Spiritual and Holistic fair. I decided to go. This may seem a surprising decision given my very clear declarations here that religion is bollocks along with alternative (not) medicine. I thought it would be a good idea to try the dark side and visit, to see what actually happens at these events.

I struggled a little bit because I had to pay to get in the fair. This money would go towards organising more of these things, but my paltry GBP1.50 entrance fee probably would be much among the total takings.

I was actually excited about this. I wanted to see what manner of stuff is said and sold here. I also find it utterly fascinating just how much the human brain can deceive itself.

This fair took place in a small village hall. There were stalls and talkers in the main hall, the healing room was off to the side and there was also a room where talks were taking place. I will point out now that anything I quote in this communication will be a direct quote form a leaflet. I did not have the guts to actually talk to anyone, next time I will. I felt as though I had a massive arrow above my head saying UNBELIEVER or worse SCEPTIC. I was an explorer in a strange new world.

Workshops

There were four workshops planned for the day. They were titled:

  • Aura drawings
  • Colour Therapy
  • Guided Meditation
  • Tropic Skin Care

These seemed quite awesome. It would have been brilliant to attend some of these but not this time. I felt like a fish out of water. Next time maybe. However, a few words on each might be worthwhile. Aura drawings – bullshit, colour therapy – bullshit except that we each like certain colours, guided meditation – possibly bullshit, need to listen to the claims they make, tropic skin care – seems ok apart from some of the website claims.

Tropic Skin Care

Their website makes the following claim:

Our products contain the purest naturally derived ingredients and are free from harmful toxic chemicals.

ALL make up and creams are free from harmful toxic chemicals. It’s the LAW.

Colour Therapy

Maz provides information about colour therapy. I didn’t go to the talk but I did pick up a leaflet and I will quote from it now.

Did you know . . . . . Kylie Minogue painted her bedroom pink – the colour of love – to aid her recovery from cancer.

Now, I’m not sure I am surprised. A woman paints her bedroom pink. I would be interested to know how many women with pink bedrooms or who wear pink clothes or pink anything had died from cancer. Kylie also had a load of proper medicine. Also, pink is the colour of love. How very fortunate. How do you find out what colour represents which thing? Is it tested over time with a control group? How much pink do you need in your life? What shade of pink?

Here website is here, I have read it. Maz has an advance colour therapy diploma from the British School Of Yoga, not a basic diploma. Perhaps she knows more colours. Also she reckons she defeated her breast cancer through giving up medicine:

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 it was a major turning point in my life. My decision was to refuse all surgery and non-naturalistic treatment. I had previously worked as a Script Supervisor for TV and film, but when I was told of the ‘dis-ease’ in my body I immediately started to look at my life and make significant changes.

Note her use of the term dis-ease, alternative practitioners love it. I am glad she is cured but I question her choices. I would also like to know more about the extent of the cancer and what her physicians thought, we only have her word for it. I am now about to get inot full on rage mode having noticed something on her website.

I clicked on the tab that said read more about colour therapy.

Colour is simply light of varying wavelengths, and thus each colour has its own particular wavelength and energy. Each colour of the rainbow resonates with the seven main chakras in the human body, and understanding these colours and chakra relationships can be used to restore the balance of energy within the body according to where it needs it most.

Not quite rage yet, but if you invoke chakras then you are talking bullshit. It’s the next bit that is most disturbing.

What is colour therapy used for?

  • Treating cancer illness and disorder

This is wrong more ways than I can count. It is illegal to claim to cure cancer and she does not claim that. She does claim that colour therapy can treat cancer. I wonder what evidence she has to make those claims? She can fuck right off. Even more so that at the bottom of her page it says the following:

Marilyn Humphreys makes no claims to diagnose, treat, prevent, mitigate, or cure diseases  with any advice or product(s). Any health related information for educational purposes only. None of the information should be misconstrued as medical advice. The ultimate responsibility for your choices and their effect(s) on your health are yours and before applying any therapy or use of herbs, supplements, etc. you should consult your health care provider.

She has just told us that she refused medicine and cured her cancer. She makes claims that colour therapy will treat cancer. She can stop saying this shit for her own financial gain. I’m going for a breather before writing any more on here.

The Stalls

Here are my impressions on the stuff being sold at this fair. I walked around twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Again, I didn’t ask any questions, maybe next time. Also, I didn’t buy anything. I did have a cup of tea, but I bought no products.

Here’s my notes from wandering and writing what I saw being sold:

  • Crappy stone/semi precious stone jewellery
  • Motivational quotes on place mats
  • Pictures of unicorns, angels and wolves howling (lots of purple)
  • T Shirts
  • Hippy hair braids
  • Angel statues
  • Incense
  • Angel mugs
  • Minerals
  • Runes
  • A “real” witch selling herbs and stuff
  • Broomsticks and models of witches and wizards
  • Clocks
  • More angels

Lots of people had their faces painted, mostly because there was a face painter there, but this did add to the hippy atmosphere. Also, quite a few women had flower loops in their hair, it must have special properties or something.

There were people giving readings and I should do this next time. It seemed to be about GBP20 for the cheapest option but I am utterly fascinated with what they might say. The readings ranged from a psychic to someone reading runes, another with tarot cards and another with a computer telling you your life plan from your date of birth. This is all clearly bollocks but I am intrigued.

Another stall was offering aura photography and interpretation. Maybe next time but it is pretty interesting. Oh, by the way, you would think that if these people can capture the “aura” then science and medicine would use it so much for diagnosing and treatment. Hold on, what’s that you say? My doctor has never asked about my aura? Of course he hasn’t because your doctor knows bullshit when he sees it (or doesn’t). If your doctor mentions an aura to you, get up, leave, say “thank you” and never go back.

Leaflets

I am going to mention some of the leaflets I picked and ridicule appraise them.

Angels For You

This lady has psychic abilities and is priced “very reasonably”. Her leaflet claims she can perform “reiki” and use “Angelic oracle cards” along with her being guided by the “Angelic Realm”. Her website is no more. She doesn’t really make any specific claims in her website but she will:

answering questions with my pendulum

Such power should only be used carefully I am sure. Oops, I just found something amazing:

We also offer Crystal Healing; we place crystals on different parts of your body, corresponding to chakras, constructing an energy grid, which will surround you with healing energy.

I love the idea of an energy grid. It sounds like the National Grid, mini pylons spread over your body to align your “energy”. So, if you want to impress people explain what the actual definition of physical energy is:

The capacity for doing work.

This means that anything that has an energy can be used to power something, however small, and, more importantly, it can be measured. See that, MEASURED.

Chakras:

reiki_chakra

Souls Intention

This woman was giving readings from her computer. I expect that she has a program that spouts loads of saved Barnum statements once you enter a date of birth and where you were born. Apparently this format of soul reading originates from “The numerology of Moses”. I am not going to look this up.

Your soul plan is a blueprint for your life, a map to guide you on your own life path. Later the leaflet explains that our

Soul contract which, on a deeper level, we chose before conception.

So, before your father’s sperm entered the egg inside your mother your soul contract was in place.

This woman also offers reiki. Of course she does. But more importantly she offers the

Usui Skiki Ryoho Technique

I don’t know how many types of reiki you can have but apparently there is more than one. Not only all this but also Mindset Therapy.

Here’s an idea of her costs:

  • Souls Intention Reading 1 hour £40
  • Souls Healing Session 1 hour £30
  • Full Souls Intetion reading 2 hours £75
  • Mindset Therapy 2 hours £50

Perhaps I am in the wrong business. But then at least I have measurable outcomes.

Hags Hollow

This chap is a witch. Yep, full on witch with spells and shit. He will undertake a reading and include a spell for GBP30. If you want just a spell then that’s GBP15. He also offers apprenticeships, for £140 you can enrol in the full course that covers the following:

  • Introduction to Ancestral Magic
  • Protection
  • Witch Lore & Craft
  • Spell Craft
  • Healing
  • Prosperity & Abundance
  • Cursing & Dark Casting

Because nothing says caring that learning how to curse. Luckily this man will also remove curses. He also goes no to explain what witchcraft is and offers the following disclaimer:

Both of these belief systems crossover into one another and there is no right or wrong way to practise the craft. These are both general explanations and in no way a reflection of anyone’s personal beliefs.. Simply follow your heart and be open to anything that the universe presents.

So, no right or wrong way to practise something that has no measurable outcome. I’m glad about that.

I have so much material I will spread this over a few communications. I also hope to attend some more of these fairs in the future. They are enlightening [but not how people there would think].

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28000

Stansted Airport, 24 April 2016.

POTUS departed for Germany. I feel quite privileged to be in a position where I was able to be there and see everything.

28000
28000

It was interesting. The airport was quiet for about the hour that I was there. No flights in or out, I wonder if that played havoc with the airlines’ schedules? The photos taken here are from the closest I could get without being shot by the snipers on top of the buildings or the Met Police Helicopter constantly circling around above us.

Stansted Map
Stansted Map

This map has three numbers drawn on it. Number 1 was the position of the C-17 parked, I didn’t see that move. Number 2 is where Air Force One was parked and number 3 was the closest I could get. Fortunately I was reasonably aware of the layout of the old side of the airport.

It was quite exciting knowing I had seen the President but in all honesty all we saw were figures go up the stairs. It was also pretty damn cold and we had hail/snow at one point! I believe Stansted was chosen because it is the go-to airport for hostages and hijacking along with having plenty of space to put important planes.

I will note that events from the film London Has Fallen did not occur.

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