Jim Stewart's Blog

We talk about seeds of hope. This week I saw some in an unexpected place. I watched a competition which was run where all the participants were US Air Force. They were all trying to win. But what was different was the way each of them supported each other in order that they all could achieve the best. It wasn’t about winning at all costs, it was about seeing who could achieve the best and supporting each other to achieve it.

With all the politics going on at the moment I saw this as a hopeful example. So much of our politics seems to be about winning by knocking the opposition – by attacking your opponents. So it was interesting seeing people from the USAF who were in the business of war that took a different approach.

Well done USAF, good example to us all. Very socialist of you.

It is therefore, the interest of all, that every one, from birth, should be well educated, physically and mentally, that society may be improved in its character, — that everyone should be beneficially employed, physically and mentally, that the greatest amount of wealth may be created, and knowledge attained, — that everyone should be placed in the midst of those external circumstances that will produce the greatest number of pleasurable sensations, through the longest life, that man may be made truly intelligent, moral and happy

A Development of the Principles & Plans on which to establish self-supporting Home Colonies (1841).

It all started with the last Scottish Indy referendum. Somebody in their wrong mind decided to make 50% the winning vote. To do this creates an anti-democratic system.

But surely, I hear you say, 50% is the will of the people. Almost, I quip, it is actually the will of the people who voted at that particular point in time. Unfortunately you can create one way gates in a referendum, decisions that are hard to reverse.

Take BREXIT for example. For years old Nige called for a referendum to leave. So we had one and the majority decided to leave. We triggered the leave clause. First, is Nige still asking for another referendum – no – he has got his answer – he doesn’t want people to be asked again. Even if the will of the people at this point in time is different there is no system to test it – there is no political party of significance pushing for another vote. And anyway – there is no re-entry clause, so a vote to re-enter would not simply depend on us.

This is why I predict we would be required to take the Euro and drop our hard earned exclusions from parts of the treaty if we ever did re-enter Europe.

And what about the SNP call for yet another referendum, if they got one and won then would they accept another one 5 years later just in case people changed their mind. Of course they wouldn’t – because it isn’t the will of the people they want to follow – they only want to follow the will of the people if it matches their will.

This is why sensible countries that have legislation governing how to run a referendum set the “pass” criteria way up at something like two thirds of those voting. They recognise the need to have a large majority so that there is little chance that a reverse would be called for in a few years.

A referendum can be an important tool, but it those that continually campaign for a referendum until they get one that gives them the answer they want are not interested in democracy or the will of the people – they are interested in getting their way at at any cot – even the cost of democracy.

And if you think that is a bit strong then go check on why referendums were banned in Germany after 1945.

But then I don’t often see him smile. I wonder if he has become the Labour party version of John Major? The grey man. I wonder if he tucks his shirt inside his underpants (spitting image fans will understand).

Whether you like them or not you have to agree that Trump and Boris have presence. I think back to people like John Prescott – definitely a character. But it seems that the Labour party have chosen a leader that does not stand out.

And that is one of the things about politics – it is really hard to win without a little bit of character. Is that good? Most despots have had a lot of character.

Seems a middle ground is good, but Keir isn’t that.

Yes – there comes a point with weight loss when the wardrobe starts to fail you. My trousers are definitely feeling a bit loose.

The good news is that I have no problem adjusting them by putting in a dart (or two). I could use my sewing machine to do it, but I always think hand stitching a dart makes a better finish – I never think the machine works well at the narrow end of the dart.

Yes, I know how to sew. Yes I have a sewing machine. I also prepare food from scratch. All of those “women’s” jobs I can do. I was encouraged to learn how to sew, knot and bake when I grew up.

I also know how good Swarfega is at getting oil out of your hands. I learned how to work on car engines, how to change bearings on wheels, how to paper and paint. All of those “men’s” jobs I can do.

I also learned the wrong way to work on electrics – there were scorch marks on the wall next to a socket that proved this.

This was nothing to do with gender neutral issues – it was simply learning how to live as a person. In fact the concept of gender neutrality was not acceptable. I was a boy, I was raised as a boy and I am happy to be a man.

Now in this era where people support the idea of gender neutrality I see so many families that agree with it where men do men things and women do women things. It sometimes seems to me that the more people try to adopt a gender neutral approach to life the more they fail.

But more than that, calling the approach gender neutral can sometimes actually re-enforce the concept that there are men jobs and women jobs in my mind. And I disagree – my sewing has nothing to do with my gender. It is about me being able to live life (and save money on clothes).

It’s the latest thing to protest about. The government have decided to H2O to our water supply. We need to get on the streets to stop it. Evidence has shown that people die from H2O on a daily basis.

Yes this is an old one, I know. But I wonder about how social media is affecting us in terms of issues. I have become increasingly aware that people have signed up to issues because of social media rants, albeit from people they trust.

It strikes me that few people actually dig in to the facts, but simply take it on trust. I have been pleasantly surprised by one or two people that have looked into issues for themselves, but in general I have been disappointed. Protests seem to have become almost self-congratulatory – we are cool for protesting this.

The edge seems to have been dulled by social media sound bites.

So tonight I am going to leave a test for people. The latest “in” issue is “Kill the Bill”. One item that is supposed to be a problem is the noise requirement. So here is the challenge:

• What does the Bill prohibit in terms of noise?
• What will this change?

Over to you….

Watching Sully, the movie. The response to the accident looked amazing, and my guess is that the film was not too far from real life. The public responded quickly and so did the emergency services. Over 1000 first responders where apparently involved – and involved quickly.

The other night I took my car out for a battery charge – on my way I passed an accident – a car overturned. Blue lights everywhere.

Then watching the events at Man U over the weekend and the aggression toward the police – the police who were simply doing their job – unacceptable.

Yes there are occasions when the emergency services step out of line (four have just been found guilty of an offence in this village), but the majority are people that are willing to put their life on the line for us. They are the people that run in to danger to bring us out of it.

I wonder how many of those people showing the aggression we could count on in an emergency, and I wonder how many of them would demand the emergency services help them when they are in trouble.

One of the things I have seen recently is an increase in property damage as I walk around. One of the benefits of the pandemic has been keeping a lid on unacceptable behaviour. Maybe we need to speak out to show people we will not accept it any longer.

I’m going to sleep well tonight. According to my fitness tracker I have done a total of 14 miles “exercise” today (and another 3 on top of that between my exercise periods). I also moved about half a ton of bricks.

I had a long walk tonight and for most of it there was a quiet like I have not experienced for weeks (of course the village pubs where packed). A fox wandered across the road in front of me it was so quiet.

Between moving loads of bricks I sat in the garden relaxing, and that robin really sang loud. And there was a birds nest I watched. Even though I exercised a lot today I have to admit it was nothing like those adult birds feeding their young. They were non-stop backwards and forwards.

It has been a good day. Just watching nature can be so relaxing.

And then there is the village – with people cramped into bars. Have we learned anything?

I remember working in a high rise building. First they fitted restraints on the windows, then eventually locked them closed. They were apparently afraid that people might jump to their death. Of course nobody considering suicide would ever think of breaking the window glass to get out. And no burglar would ever think of a way to open locked windows (except the ones that stole all the memory chips from the computers).

One of the first things Florence Nightingale did for patients was to get fresh air into the wards. Dr Kellog (yes the one responsible for cornflakes) insisted on the patients in the sanatarium getting plenty of fresh air.

Today the naked scientist on BBC breakfast started to talk about the fact that we might need to look at the idea of not recirculating air as much in buildings. All of those locked windows might be making the air unhealthy.

Interesting idea – but not a new subject. Aircraft have been working on recriculated air for a long time. There have been lots of arguments about the effect on people. Some studies have shown there is no effect in terms of respitory infection as a result of air recirculation – but it does have an effect on fuel use. But it may have missed a point. It may not be the recirculation of air that s the problem, but the amount of air.

I remember one hot day in the office when we all complained that the aircon was not good enough. An engineer came and measured the air coming out and said “Look the air is really cold”. Of course there was very little air – to cool a room you need air that is cold and enough of that air to be pumped out. There was not enough air being circulated.

Pumping more fresh air through aircon systems results in an increased power usage, and if we choose to go down that route we might find our carbon emissions increase because of the need for more electricity.

And that is where my long term campaign becomes important. The Campaign for Opening Windows, or COW for short. We have partly designed ourselves into a pandemic by the way we have built sealed boxes for people to work in. Fresh air is good, we have a long history of seeing a positive benefit from it.

Yes it might mean wearing cool clothes in summer and warm clothes in winter. But in my view fresh air is worth it.

Will you become a COW supporter?

I won the lottery tonight. At least I won according to one of my friends methods. What he said was pick a set of numbers and then never play them. Then every time your numbers don’t come up you have won the price of a ticket.

The lottery costs £2 a ticket and there are 100 or so games a year, so you can only win £200 this way – but the big advantage is that you can play any number of times. The chances of winning any prize in the UK lottery is just over 10%, so actually you will win only £180 for each set of numbers.

There is a technique for roulette (best for wheels without a double zero) where you bet both odd and even. You double the bet on the one you lose. If you win then you go back to your initial stake. You are guaranteed to be able to win almost nothing and lose almost nothing. The only problem is that if you have a long losing streak then you need a lot of money.

But people don’t work that way. The people running the games depend on greed – we want that jackpot prize. Success for those running the games relies on one of the seven deadly sins.

I was thinking about the seven deadly sins. One of the interesting ones is envy. Apparently it is about feeling sad (about the success of others). Another is sloth, which might actually have meant depression originally – and many depressed people can find it hard to get motivated so you can see the link.

What it sounds to me is that the seven deadly sins as a concept included things we would now never think of as a sin.

Seeing depression as something people are doing wrong would be strange today. You don’t expect people to “choose” not to be depressed.

There was an Italian case (Forzano et al., 2010) where a judge accepted there was a genetic predisposition to murder. Will the future mean some of the crimes we believe in today will be seen as conditions in the future. I heard a talk by somebody recently that effectively said our lives are psychologically pre-determined when we are born.

There are a couple of songs I like. The first is John Mellencamp – Hotdogs and Hamburgers. A song about choosing right or wrong – and how that fits in to history. I hope we never see the near extermination of a people group as anything other than wrong.

The second is a song by Alice Cooper. He wrote it about the Columbine school shootings. Essentially it is the same message – we choose between good and bad. Many people have the same influences but react to them in different ways.

It may be old fashioned, and maybe the idea will become sneered at in the future, but for now I believe people can choose right or wrong.

But what if society moves on from that? Would it change how we treat a murderer? Well if somebody has a genetic predisposition to murder (or anything we currently see as wrong) then we have no hope of changing them – there is no rehabilitation possible. The only answer would be to exclude them from society for life.

And that is the other side of believing people can choose wrong – it means we can believe in redemption – that people can change.

This is one reason I find it hard to condemn people for text messages they sent 10 years ago. I don’t believe how you acted 10 years ago needs to have any relevance to who you are now. I mean, a jail term of up to 6 months for a crime means it is considered “spent” after 7 years (you don’t need to declare it), but a text message or a tweet seems never to be “spent”.