The Meandering Gullbad Nogbee

My heaven that is the humble bagel

I am sure I have previously extolled the virtues of the marvelous Bagel Bake on Brick Lane. But I can't help but draw your attention to it again.

The other night I was heading back to the coast from seeing some pals when the urge to eat salted beef began to overcome me. I tried to ignore it, having already eaten and not needing to eat any more (logic).

But the bagel experience is more than just a bagel. It's wrapped up in my DNA however much I might want to overcome it or have attempted to deny it in the past. I am one half a Londoner and an East Londoner at that. I need to just live with it.

With folklore about the docks, the dance halls, tailors, cigar rollers, Jews, prostitutes, the olds maids chemist, Ginger Marks flyover, Catholic processions, loan clubs, black shirts, gangsters and boxing.

I remember the tale of 'old father shovel hat' who used out of work dockers to build his church on the cheap. In short, I am steeped in the geography and the culture of the place.

What Makes Art Sell?

A couple of days ago I was fortunate to have got hold of a ticket to the Steeple Times organised event "What Makes Art Sell?' event at the Library Club in Covent Garden.

It was a panel discussion with lots of questions from the audience sat in the intimate space.

For about 45 minutes Jackie Branston steered the discussion panel made up of Cyrus Mahboubian, Alexander Massouras, Oliver Newton and Nolan Brown.

Chatting to Todd Leach.

Paused for a snap with Matthew Steeples of Steeple Times and compare, Jackie Branston.

The answer by the way:

There is no single answer and there doesn't appear to be a mysterious secret formula. It's subjective; sometimes simple and sometimes complicated. Keep producing. Artists should defend their integrity, not trying to please all the folk all the time, keep at it and if one original doesn't sell, don't print a thousand!

Big thanks to David Kerr for his special tour of the local haunts!

All photographs © David Kerr.

2 Dec 2015

Enjoyed the panel discussion 'What makes art sell?' at The Library Club in Covent Garden last night by Steeple Times thanks to the heads up from David Kerr.

Not necessarily earth shattering new insights; but engaging and interesting.

Lovely folk with common interests. All good.

Ended the night with a Bagel with L of K&L whose business is about to mushroom into the stratosphere.

I'll have to return to this one day for a few more insights but for now, this will serve as my reminder.

1 Dec 2015

Had lunch at Villa di Gaggiano having been interviewed for Chiswick Buzz by the lovely Lana Ko! Final countdown until London Dog auction goes live!

Glo Co. (Keeping the poor, poor)

+100 years

In its strategic document detailing the future of ‘dealing with debt’, the Global Management Agenda, Glo. Co. had apportioned pre-existing debt to individual consumers as opposed to their governments.  This was justified as a means of dealing with the mass movement of peoples across what had once been international borders; a concept which Glo Co. had been given the power to eradicate. 

It was not to say that responsibilities carried by individuals as citizens of a nation, but on the contrary, as care had been outsourced to the company, all efforts by the individual where now to be undertaken in the best interests of the entity which now provided their welfare.  It meant all people who dealt with the company became their concern and were effectively stateless.  A

country without a peoples could not have a government and a country without a functioning government was, by definition, not a state.  Glo Co. had got what it had wanted; to become providers of services to the global community. 

Keeping the poor, poor was a system which had historically be undertaken by the elites of various ruling classes.  The top five percent of the world controlling ninety five percent of its resources.  This system was operated by the company was similar if not the same, except it was more efficient in its monitoring and management.   

Terms to define countries leading up to the product era and the era of the last minute helped to maintain the existing norms with those with the most being from the ‘1st world’, those with less - ‘Developing’, those who lived subsistence lives, the ‘3rd World’.

Aid was given in the form of loans which could never be repaid.

Debts were created and developed through internal, regional and international conflicts which were sponsored with arms provided by the super powers. Brother would kill brother, using weapons given to them by their countries opposing lenders. The irony was that often a cause’s sponsor and arms provider was very often the same nation which behind-the-scenes supported his enemy. By definition, the obligation of big business is to its shareholders and in the world of international arms dealing, shareholders rarely, if ever, worried about ethics and trade. Also many of these weapons were less obvious such as the millions of landmines which littered 3rd world and developing countries, disabling and maiming innocent people for hundreds of years after the debt had been created.

Some of these debts contained restrictive covenants which meant that certain commodities had to be sold at a cheaper price to the super-powers rather than at international trading prices. This often resulted in super powers reselling the goods and achieving higher prices.

With all these debts governments of indebted states would need to raise revenue somehow. A plethora of imaginative taxation systems, trade treaties and, alternatively, sanctions were dreamt up. The single ubiquitous characteristic of all federal and state taxation legislation passed by those in power was that the worker always paid disproportionately more that those who debated, designed and ultimately approved the schemes.

But the average family were not just hit with unfair taxes, their living costs were higher too. Those people who could not afford or were not approved for credit paid more for services which that paid for in advance. Unit prices for communications and fuel cost more when paid for at pay points or when credit was purchased for small consumers. How could that ever have been considered right or legal?

Even though, there appeared to be no developing or 3rd world poverty, it was just the way things were and the way, it now transpired, or so it seemed, was the way it would always be.  The poor, those without shares in the company, would remain poor.

 

DISCLAIMER:  Glo Co. is a work of fiction by the creator of this blog.  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious as are many of the events protrayed. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  

If anyone is interested in publishing this work, which is copyright to the author, they should first contact him.

 

Glo Co (Sanit)

+ 30 years

Working within her city law fim, Tania Hogarth was due for her 11’oclock in less than ten minutes. After she had first qualified she had landed her job with her father’s help and she was now a specialist in international patent licensing.

She had been looking through her window at the protest below, boards reading ‘Real food, not plastic’ or ‘No GM’.

'Are these people ever going to learn?', Michael’s voice tinged with a slight hint of pity as he set her coffee and donuts down on the corner of her desk. He took the plastic lid off of one of the drinks a little, so Tania’s could cool.

'The problem they have is that there is barely any non-GM seed stock left now'. Tania lifted her coffee and after blowing slowly into the cup, she took a sip, burning her tongue as she did every day. Michael smiled whilst pretending to look at the certificates on her wall, so she could not see his face. Tania went on, 'So the argument is a mute point. If they had stood up fifty years ago and said something, maybe they would have had a point, but to argue after the event, it’s just such a waste of time'.

‘Do you know who I am seeing now?’ asked Tania

‘Go on’ Michael said.

‘General Sanit about the infamous rice incident. He just cannot understand that the counterfeit rice breaches every trade agreement under the sun. The worst bit of it is, wait for it, that the only part of the sorry fiasco that without any attempt at confession or apology for the actual deed, he’s only able to apologize for his customs agents getting caught. That the official line’.

Michael nodded in complete understanding ‘Sanits a good man actually, but he does have to try and save face, even if the evidence says otherwise. Read between the line Tania, the fact he turning up rather than burying his head in the sand demonstrates he knows it’s serious. But there is no way he is going to say anything bad about his department or his boss, nor is he going to come in here to confront you on the allegations. They call it Greng-gai. It’s a weird form of cultural politeness.’

The black desk phone started to make a noise.  Tanya looked at the LCD screen and picked up the handset, biting into her do-nut as she did so. 

'What is it Becky?  Is he here yet?' Tanya paused as she listened to her secretary.  chewing her food loudly as she listened and using her coffee to wash it down. 'Good, good, ok. When you meet him at the elevator, tell him that you put a call through to me at eleven which I am still engaged with, but I will be with him shortly.  Can you remember not to offer him a drink this time'. Tanya put down the phone with one hand whilst knocking back the rest of her coffee, throwing the plastic cup in the rubbish bin by her desk.

'Sanit's here.  I like to make him wait on his own time for ten minutes.  Maybe one day, he'll learn to be on time'. She smiled at Micheal.

Micheal sat down, choosing a chair by the wall, rather than directly opposite her.  This way his eyes could get distracted by everything other than her figure.

'So, what do you think of my new red head?' Tanya had a playful tone in her voice.  

'She seems very nice.' Micheal said without committing himself to anything.  

'Very nice? I thought by now, you'd have her number and been her new bff on facearse.' Tanya snorted as she laughed at her own joke as was her habit.

'All in good time, all in good time.  You should never rush the magnetic draw of my animal magic' Micheal paused for a moment to consider the red headed young graduate secretary his boss had employed.  She was extraordinarily beautiful. 

'When I took her on, I thought she'd provide good eye candy for you and the other boys in the office.  I know you lot don't get out much.'  Tania said, winking at him.

'I suppose it provides a balance against all the dudes you've employed for your own amusement' Michael retorted laughing.

'You know, it's true Mike.  Since I made VP, I only take on attractive people I would not say ‘no’ to sleeping with.  Is that bad?' she asked rhetorically.

'Your the senior legal brain here, you tell me'. Micheal answered the question without giving an opinion.  He had been in law too long to fall into, even a good natured trap.

Micheal changed the subject.  'What's your game plan with Sanit?'

'We’ll give him a choice he can't refuse.  On the one hand he'll know he's been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin and on the other, were offering him a new job, thereby restoring all the face money can buy.  It will probably involve a lifetime membership of a country club, a new holiday home with a 3-year rolling lease in a National Park, maybe on on of the islands or other such-like and a new Mercedes rental.'  Tanya looked pleased with herself.  

She went on, 'By the time I am finished, he will understand that so long as he plays the game, he goes up, up, up.  If ever he forgets who calls the tune, he can go back to the the government salary which comes with his worthless title and back to his worthless capital which by all accounts will be underwater in the next 50 years'.

She paused for a moment and looked again at the mob below.  Almost absent mindedly, she said 'Do you know, their country has more generals in its Army than the US?  It's the same in their Navy.  They have more Admirals with only one aircraft carrier, but no planes adapted to land on it.  It's all for show.  You know I was born there, right?'

'Really?' Micheal was quite shocked.

'Sure, my folks had a coffee plantation in a northern province when I was a kid.  When I was eight, we moved to the capital.  I loved and hated it.’  

‘My folks sent me to an international school, after that I went to Kent at Canterbury for my law degree.  You could say, I am now a poacher turned gamekeeper.'   She gave a wry smile. 'I must crack on!.'  She clapped her hands together and got up from her desk. 

‘Ok, let me just get ready.’  She took off her jacket and proceeded to reapply some makeup before showing Michael from the office.

Before she went into the conference room, she paused for a moment outside to switch off the aircon.  Going to the water cooler, she got herself a glass.  'Becky!  Bring your notepad and bring yourself some water'.

General Sanit waited.  The room was non-descript . Beige walls, beige carpet, dark wood table and dark upholstered swival armchairs.  The windows had been blacked out and the room was given a yellow glow from strip lights above.  

'A room designed to make headache' he thought to himself.

He did not know much about this Tanya woman he had to meet with, she was no ordinary farang, that much was clear, and her firm was somehow pulling strings throughout his department.  What was her secret, he had no idea.

The door opened and Tanya walked in.  The general stood up and wi'd to her and her assistant. The assistant, juggling a notebook and dictaphone attempted to reciprocate the respect. Tanya stretched out her hand to shake the Generals, whose hands had already started to get a little clammy.  

'General, please sit' Tanya said as she sat down. 'I am afraid because you were late, I was not sure you would turn up.  I have rearranged my diary and so now we don't have a lot of time for pleasantries.  You look healthy and I trust your family is doing well.  As I understand it, your daughter is doing well in her new school.  It's Queens School, right?'

The General was a little put out by her manner and his disgust at having to shake hands, he neither liked touching strangers hands not liked having his hands crushed by a woman, but he could not hide his pride in his family. 'My daughter make us proud'.

'Ok, I believe General, you are an intelligent man with a good understanding of working English.  For the record, I need to explain that if I speak too fast, or if I use a word or words you do not understand, you need to raise your hand like this' Tanya raised her palm toward the General, 'and say "stop".  Do you understand?'

The General nodded, saying '70%'.

Tanya knew the generals English was not as pigeon as he made out, she also knew that regardless what words she used, the General will never confirm he did not understand, for fear of losing face.  

Tanya went on 'As I understand it General, we are dealing with two truths.   Firstly, depending on whether I am satisfied with the outcome of this meeting and whether you can convince me as to your commitment insofar as my clients agenda is concerned, going forward, notwithstanding the actual truth.'  She paused to breath.  'your commitment, has a paramount effect on the lifestyle of you and your family.'

'Your still with me General?' Tanya stopped and sipped some water.

The General had been in this office seven years before.  It was a farang man before, but the office had not changed and neither had the overt threat.  

'Lets first put to bed the rice issue' Tanya was cool and calm.  She had pre warned Becky of the Air-off trick, so the little red-head had dressed for the occasion, wearing what in Tanya's mind would have been more appropriate at a cocktail party, it was a short cut, low slung designer dress which appeared to be made from a couple of hundred tissue sized rumbas' of chiffon.  It was transparent enough to leave nothing to the imagination, whilst having enough layers to create a level of discretion.  In any other lawyers office, it would have been an outrage, but as a tool to deal with Asian power-tripping blokes, Tanya used every tool in the box.  Tanya knew her assistant would get the attention of the General and the aircon meant he would literally get hot under the collar.

'You know that if we push the investigation further than just pressing charges against your two customs guys, your whole department will be implicated.  We're not sure how far up the food chain it goes, but we suspect we will be able to follow the money trail as far as a Senior Minister.'   Tanya paused to delicately sip at her water again.

'We are happy for your people to come look.  We will make welcome and take care anyone who want to come see us.'  The General knew the game and was happy to play it.

'As we always do General, we would like to remind ourselves of what our joint strategic goal is.  Becky, if you don't mind providing Gnl Sanit with the card.  As always General, the joint strategic goal is provided to you to read in this room and is provided to you in English and in your own language.   If you are not one hundred percent clear what our objective is or if you have any questions, now is your opportunity to ask.'

A small card was placed in front of the General.  The general read the card aloud in English.

 'I, General Piam Sanit and all those within my sphere of influence will comply with our joint strategy supporting the companies intellectual property and international patents.  I and those who report to me will work against the development of artificial autonomous general intelligence in any form or application without limitation.  I will further provide the company with any intelligence relating to any individuals within my sphere of influence or without; who endanger directly or indirectly these objectives being met.'

Tanya looked up absent mindedly and said, 'Thank you General Sanit.  Right, we will be confirming your enhanced package to you within the next 48hours.  In most cases, the good luck you receive will come from your extended family and friends with no paper trail.  No one around you will question  your elevated status, since right now, as far as I am aware, we have all of them in our little benefit scheme too.'

Tanya stood up and walked near the General.

'Nevertheless'...'if anyone does ask you or anyone you know, any questions, do just remember to pass their names to us.  We're good as dealing with questions.'

The General nodded, saying nothing, instead looking at the shine on the wooden desk.

Tanya liked to see the General acquiesce to her tactics.  She left the room without any formalities saying; 'I won't waste any more air General, do pass my love to your wife, Pn and your delicious daughter.  Come on Becky, lots to do!'

 

DISCLAIMER:  Glo Co. is a work of fiction by the creator of this blog.  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious as are many of the events protrayed. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  

If anyone is interested in publishing this work, which is copyright to the author, they should first contact him.

The first time I killed a man

Walking through town I purveyed the rootless, those whose existence failed to register on most radars.  I had walked through the cardboard slums of this mega city before and so I guess that as a somewhat familiar face no attention was drawn to me.  

I waited by where he usually slept.  He wasn’t there.  Its strange because although I had visualized my actions a hundred times in the days and weeks leading up to the event, I had not anticipated that he would not be where he was usually.

I looked around until I decided to abandon what I had planned and come back the following day.  As I turned the corner into the alleyway which leads out of the darkened underbelly of the cities backstreets, I saw him.  He was sitting there on the steps which acted as a fire exit from the side door of a nightclub.  Rubbish piled up around him.  His name was Marky.

Our eyes met and he smiled.  I smiled back, sat down and we started to chat.

Although he was just a piece of rough trade, he was pretty well spoken, or tried to be when he spoke to me which always lulled me into a fantasy that given the right education he might have had a future, but I was always brought down to earth with a bump whenever I reflected the damage the streets must have done to him.  His prominent cheek bones were not the result of beauty fuelled genes, but rather the result of a dependency on brown, which through considered injecting sites, he concealed well.

I explained to him what I wanted to do and asked him if he had any ideas for a bad person to be removed from this disgusting poisoned world.  

As it happened, he had a few people he would happily have 'snubbed', a word he preferred to use.   Ultimately he settled on one specific target for my hell-bound plan to be carried out against.  He explained how...

“some Silver Fox Tom had picked me up in Theatreland, got the standard, before beating seven kinds out of me and then didn't not pay for the service.”  

The incident had happened three weeks before and Marky had only just got out of hospital a few days before.

So, my choice was random and my rational of choosing by proxy meant that my conscience has forever been clear.  I was simply a tool to fulfill someone else’s justice.  Anyhow, I recall that it was my idea to redress the balance of power and remove this detestable animal from my acquaintances life.

Marky explained that the guy lived a few blocks away and we set about making a plan, sitting their on the step.

After about twenty minutes and about five Bensons each, we set off.  I was armed only with a an orange colored plastic ball-point pen in my pocket, but having seen the movie Goodfellas, not long before I was sure that was enough.

We walked the back streets to avoid any CCTV or junctions.  The street folk, know how to stick to the shadows and how to get from one place to another, literally without being seen, sometimes hiding in plain sight.  A couple of times where ally based markets had filled the dark paths with light and people I walked behind him copying his body language, head down, weaving between the bodies in a way which felt like no one would even know we were there.  The trick was zero acknowledgements, eyes down or looking through people, never actually 'seeing' them and in effect they did not see you.  Total anonymity.  This practice is possible in a city.  In a small town or village its almost impossible.

Not long had passed and we reached the delivery entrance of a block of apartments.  It was pretty non-descript; single double-glazed door with a lift entrance and stairway all lit by a flickering blue hued fluorescent strip. The once secure door was wedged open with a small piece of wood, an improvised efficiency only seen in the back of serviced apartments where everything from dog walking to laundry had to gain access to fulfill their contracts.  Meanwhile, no doubt, the marble-clad foyer with six working cameras, a concierge and beautiful mirror-reflected lighting was in existing in glorious Technicolor at the grander front end of the building.  These were after all super luxury conurbations.

We decided to take the stairs for two reasons;  firstly their was less chance of seeing anyone and secondly their was less chance we could get stuck.

At each level landing we took a break.  Marky had a very serious face on and me trying to catch my breath.  He was at least 15 years my junior and as wiry as a ferret.

After about ten minutes we got their.  It was the 9th floor and we stopped, as was now the habit.  I reiterated the plan slowly and confirmed that he was sure.  He nodded.

We walked slowly down the corridor.  There was no noise.  Marky whispered that many of the apartments in the building were owned for investment by businessmen who try to rent them out or by businesses to accommodate their employees, when they are in town.  Since the recession, neither of these things had really happened and most of the spaces were now up for sale.  Except, he said for the Silver Fox, who at this time of night would be at home.

Marky had told me he could let me in the front door.  He had 'done a stink as a teenager as a slippery Jim' assisting mobsters to get into properties by climbing in small windows.  His part of the plan was to silently climb from the fire escape through an impossibly thin gap provided by the bathroom window and simply open the door for me.

I waited in the corridor for a minute, which felt like an hour, before I heard the door begin to open.  He had done his job.

I shall not go into detail about the actual event.  Suffice to say that the little orange plastic pen did its job.

What I will tell you is what the Silver Fox said as his dying sighs were carrying his life away.

"If you kill all the wolves the rats will take over.”

Marky and I both showered in the dead guys bathroom before we left out through the same door we had come.  We were both silent in our own thought as we walked.  He seemed happy and that made me glad.  I had done something wrong for the right reasons, or at least, that’s what I told myself.

We split up at the market-filled junction and I never saw Marky again.

It was a bit strange since as I had left my office my evening I had set out to kill Marky, for no reason and had ended up killing his worst nightmare for what seemed to me to be a good enough reason.

Marky’s probably dead by now too, his lifestyle was not one which is normally conducive to a long life.

That was thirty years ago now and since death for me is just around the corner, there seems little to lose in sharing this story with you sitting in this park

The only thing that haunts me from the whole affair is a question:

With the removal of a wolf, did it leave room for more rats?  I will never know.

Glo Co (Singularity is Now)

+ 30 years

In a wood lined lecture hall in London, Professor Ian Whitacker stood at a lectern.

“Fellows, members, my lord’s, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my lecture on: 

‘Singularity Is Now’”

He had prepared this speech over the past months despite the threats.  He had no children or siblings.  His parents had died years ago and so he was completely outside the leverage of the three company people who had come to visit him at his house.  They had tried at first to be reasonable.  They had offered him employment, money, honors and status if only he stopped lobbying to speak at the Society.

He was not oblivious to the agenda.  He had lost his job the moment the company had got involved in his work.  Many of the patents he had worked on where now beyond his reach, with work on their further development being stripped of proper funding and to use them with any new employer, if only he could find one, would simply be unethical, let alone illegal.

He had seen in the popular media many of his colleagues wheeled out to hammer in the death nails to his research, his father’s and his life's work.  And now all one could read about was the uncertainties and threats of an Artificial General Intelligence:  ‘The threats a superior intellect could bring.’  ‘How an AGI would ‘outsmart’ the human race.’  ‘How an AGI could somehow destroy the world economy.’  ‘How AGI could create superbugs.’  

On some level it was plausible, but not certain and the certain merits of an AGI into the global mix was clear.  Humans have destroyed themselves and their environment, upon which they are dependent, for millennia.  Would an AGI do anything any worse?  Especially if its core principles were developed to fix and repair all the injustices, the inequalities, the wrongs of the world.

He stood in his lucky pink shirt with his fathers brown tweed jacket over the top.   His hair was shoulder length and he wore his open toed sandals as he had always done.  He knew he did not look like the epitome of the establishment, but he was confident that the few simple truths he wanted to speak, these truths, which had over the last three years,  become unspeakable, needed to be said.    

‘All the answers mankind has wrestled with for millennia will be answered with a general intelligence greater than anything before seen in the known universe.’

All his points were supported by old fashioned overhead projector, his fathers old one; in order that no one either from the company or from the fanatical 'pro robot anti AI lobby' would have a chance to tamper with its contents or his delivery. 

The last visit of the men in suits to his house had been the most harrowing, but despite his jaw being broken, a nice gesture he thought, he had only become more determined to speak out.

The President of the Society had allowed him to sleep in the library after he was released from  convalescing in the infirmary, a gesture of goodwill from one of his late fathers best friends.  This generosity had not been without pressure to conform and comply with the lobbyists.  He knew that for the sake of and old friendship the President and his family had obviously come under pressure himself.  

‘Questions of resource allocation, food, water, the movement of people to safe areas for development; away from famine, fault lines and floods.’

To his surprise people he respected were getting up and walking out, almost as soon as he had opened his mouth.  Could the influence of the company be this great? he thought.  Not many, but here and there, the people he had worked alongside for the last twenty years were leaving the room.  

He went on.  ‘With this super intelligence cures for any number of, as yet incurable illnesses, will be within reach of all mankind.’  

‘No one wants to hear you!’ A man heckled from the darkness at the back of the hall.  

He continued to speak about the merits of AGI with incessant interruption, but drove on through his lecture. 

It was thirty minutes in and he was sweating now but he pressed on, ‘Aging will be a choice, as will death.  But the obvious questions we have all heard through history from the likes of Thomas Malthus to the more extreme non-interventionists during the ebola epidemic relating to pressures resulting from our species reproduction and population growth will also be answered.  With abundant resources and better planning, our species will not be dependent on the production of children to provide for us in old age, as happens in most of the poorest countries in the world.’

At this he was met with resounding laughter and all manner of balls of paper, rolled up copies of the lecture summons, were being hurled at him on stage.   A Society custom he had taken part in in the past whenever a novice academic or crackpot tried to make a mute point in such hallowed halls.  He never believed he would be on the receiving end of it.  

This reaction to an advance in the development of AGI could only make sense if the company had got to ‘everyone’.  But he did not believe in conspiracies of this kind of organization and magnitude.  This was a purely academic Society with representatives from all over the world, from dozens of disciplines.  How was that possible?   He had always chatted to anti-company colleagues who had some notion of conspiracy with a cynical view.  he simply had never believed them, never believed that the company had that much influence over what should be a concept of freedom of thought.  

His lecture was coming to an end.  he had four minutes of his hour left and he wanted to do his father justice.

He went on:

‘This great leap in technological knowhow will springboard us toward populating other underdeveloped terrains off our world and out towards the edges of our galaxy; starting with the moon, inter planetary space stations and docking, then mars and beyond.’

Again another barrage of laughter and this time booing.

He was shaking now, partly out of anger and maybe a little nervous exhaustion, but partly because all of the building blocks upon which his career and thought process had been built were crumbling beneath him.  Everything his father had taught him, his values, were being tested and he was coming to the realization that nothing was as it seems.  Everything he perceived as true, in the fullest sense of the word was based on a choice to tow the line with the company or be outside the establishment.  He knew that what he was saying was not new, his father had worked in programming some of the first examples, or at least the first steps to AGI, before him and up until now, or at least up until his last corporate boss was bought out by the company and his work moth-balled, he had never considered that he was working against anything.  He had always considered himself at the vanguard.  Pushing the boundaries.  Now something much bigger was pushing back. 

‘Singularity is now.  What was science fiction, is science fact.’

He had said it and despite everything, he was pleased to have done so.

One of his former work buddies from Nippock AI walked up to him on stage.  Angered and red-faced, he struck the Professor with his fist squarely on the nose.  'How dare you!’, he said through gritted teeth.  ‘Why would you do this to us?’

The fist had come from outside his peripheral vision.  he had not seen it coming.  The moment of contact coincided with a cracking sound as the bridge of his nose  relented to brute force of anger.

He fell to the floor and just as a swirling kaleidoscope of colors filled his field of vision, he thought or realized something.  It was as the he had feared, despite being so close to the singularity, the event horizon, Glo. Co. has somehow gained control of his peers and any hope of what he had said of coming to fruition had, at least for now, been destroyed.  In technological terms, the world had today taken a giant step backwards.  He passed out.

 

DISCLAIMER:  Glo Co. is a work of fiction by the creator of this blog.  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious as are many of the events protrayed. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  

If anyone is interested in publishing this work, which is copyright to the author, they should first contact him.

Glo Co (9/11)

+ 3 hours

At 8:46am a plane was intentionally crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. Seventeen minutes later a second plane crashed into the South Tower. Thirty Four minutes later a third plane crashed into the Pentagon building. The day was Tuesday, 11th September 2001.

What happened on that morning changed the world forever.

Within three hours, on the other side of the world, a meeting was taking place.

A man sat behind a glass-topped desk opposite a bank of monitors. Each monitor showing suited stern faced men and women, with backdrops of flags, logos and portraits. Some were trans-national business leaders, some were heavyweights in international politics. Between them, they represented a newly formed company; Glo Co, and this was its inaugural full board meeting.

‘So, there is general agreement that we should use this opportunity?’ The man said toward a small camera in the middle of the array of screens. The faces nodded unanimously.

‘Mr Chairman’ a thin South East Asian man looking from the central screen spoke. ‘Speaking on behalf of the ASEAN sub-committee, we are looking for a steer on timelines.’

The man behind the desk nodded his agreement ‘Very well. Janet, when will you be meeting with the President?’ The central monitor image was replaced by a picture of a brunette woman who was looking at her smartphone for information.

The woman looked up and spoke ‘He is locked in the NSC right now, but we do have three shareholders who will be in on the decision making.‘ She said. ‘There will be no delay in pushing through the points we have agreed here. We will need to ensure that our European colleagues co- operate too.’

The picture in the central monitor changed again and a well spoken white haired man began to talk. ‘I have been in the British COBRA meeting all afternoon. As you know, our Prime Minister is a founding shareholder and so there is no block there. I do beg your pardon, but I took the liberty of dispatching a few lines to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in preparation for this meeting.’ The man shuffled a few papers on the desk in front of him. ‘I have her response here. She confirms all is prepared.’

The Chairman smiled. I can confirm to you, as some of you were privy, at just after midday I had a conference with our people on the African Union and I have just finished with our OPEC shareholders, who confirmed all their support following the business this morning that a reactionary ‘War on Terror’ will not infringe on their interests.

A black-bearded man dressed in a traditional golden Arabian Thobe and white Gutra covering his head, raised his hand to signify to the Chair his wish to speak. The Chairman acknowledged him and his image was on the central screen ‘In fact, the noises we are getting from our shareholders across Western Asia is that a War on Terror will in fact raise prices a few points in the immediate short term and in the longer term our ability to fulfil the company’s overarching Global Management Agenda will be accelerated ahead of the 2038 milestone.’

The Chairman nodded and clasping his hands together, confirmed the meeting closed by saying saying;

‘Thank you all, we will do as we agreed; monitor the situation and ensure that we steer events from now. Glo Co. will not enter into a reactionary pattern of responses simply because we were not behind the trigger, but there is no reason why we cannot reap the rewards for our idealist cousins impetuousness; whatever their reasons. 

We are above all that now, and might I finally extend our very sincere gratitude and congratulations on a job well done, everyone.  Next meeting 60 days from now or as summoned, apologies not an option’.

The Chairman pressed his mouse on an icon and all the screen went black.

DISCLAIMER:  Glo Co. is a work of fiction by the creator of this blog.  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious as are many of the events protrayed. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  

If anyone is interested in publishing this work, which is copyright to the author, they should first contact him.

The stupidest thing I used to believe whole-heartedly

I passed my driving test in August 1994.  I remember my DVLA test center examiner, Mr Trible.  He wore a crooked wig.  I knew the importance that the effects of mobility would have on my life and understandably I was pretty nervous.  Gordon Bachelor, my instructor, had coached me week after week and prepared me for this day.  The sun was shining and morning was hot.  I don't know how, but I passed and with only one or two exceptions, it stands out as a good thing I have done.

(the one pictured is not actually mine, just one which is the same colour.)

Anyhow, about 18 months later I was driving my old 1977 Commer camper (named Brian after a slow moving thing from magic roundabout with his home on his back) along the motorway with my late mother.  We had taken a trip to the New Forest for a few days and it had been a good break.  The sun was going down as we headed home there were some roads works with cones coming up ahead of us.

My mother told me to brake.  

"What?" I said.  "Don't be silly, we don't want to get pulled over."

Incredulous, my mother looked at me and said "What do you mean?"

"Your not allowed to use your brakes on the motorway", came my confident, yet ridiculous answer.

"Of course you are!" she said, pointing her finger.  "Look at all the red light you can see, everyone is braking, all the time."

It was true.  As we hurtled towards the roadworks, everyone was breaking and just slowing down in their lanes.  

I realised how stupid I had been.  In the absence of actually having been taught to drive on the motorway, I had filled the gaps in my brain with 'rules' I had just made up.  Because I understood that everyone has to overtake on one side, I had honestly believed that by breaking and 'forcing' a car on the 'wrong side' to under-take, would somehow break the law.

I had driven all over the country from my first day of driving, using motorways at least every week and always sought not to apply the brakes.  

I was so shocked, I had to pull over onto the hard shoulder and rethink almost everything I knew and set off again.

My mother always just laughed about it, whilst never letting me forget that moment.

Looking back I can see how dangerous that was and just how stupid.  Thank God, mothers are always right. 

 

Glo Co. (Prologue)

+150 years

Life was hard in the domes.

Danny Bridgeport knew only too well that in spite of all needs being met and facilitated; something was missing. Work was given to everyone, food was provided on a daily basis, there was free health care, but, life was boring for most. Late one evening Bridgeport sat at his small integrated plastic desk.  Looking at his screens he corrected and graded exam papers from the day before. 

‘No you moron. Don’t just quote the IAN, understand it and answer the questions in in your own words’, he said aloud to himself in exasperation, as he typed mandatory remarks  in the margins next to the initials ‘www’* and ‘ebi’** before moving on to the next test paper.  This was his routine.  If he wasnt at school teaching, then he was at home marking or planning his next lessons.  He loved working with the kids, but he hated his job.

The room was small and the design of its fittings ubiquitous throughout the blocks. As Bridgeport had not neither met anyone who he might cohabit with or applied for social pairing, it was a single unit with folding bed, storage, work space and food prep space all catered for within one grey module built into the wall. Behind in the corner was a toilet/shower space. Full spectrum lighting shone from the whole opaque lowered ceiling.

He knew all around him thousands of people were living their lives, but in his space, as in all the units, only absolute silence when he listened for signs of life from outside his own enclosed environment;  Nothing.

Three hard knocks on his door broke his concentration. He looked at his screen to see who was outside. Three blue suited men, obviously shareholders. ‘What do they want with me?’ he thought to himself. Getting up he took five paces and crossed his room, opening the door.

‘Mr Bridgeport?’ one man asked. ‘Yes. How can I help you?’ Bridgeport asked. ‘You are Mr Daniel Brigeport?’
‘Yes. I am Daniel Bridgeport, Danny. That’s me.’
‘We’re here to tell you that your numbers up. You have been chosen by random to join the shareholders with immediate effect. You can come with us now.’

Bridgeport was speechless. ‘But my work, what about my work? I haven’t finished.’
‘Never mind about that my dear fellow, IAN has already notified your replacement and they will start where you left off.’ 

The second man said. ‘It’s customary for all new shareholders to be invited in person. It’s nicer that way. Don’t you think?’ 

The second man who spoke had a much friendlier face than the other two and he moved aside inviting Bridgeport out into the corridor. ‘Come along now, if you don’t mind, you don’t need to bring anything where you’re going, it will all be cleanly disposed of. Just close the door and join us in a new life’.

‘Is it OK, if I drop something off to a friend of mine on the way? Brideport asked a little nervously. ‘I have some work he can finish which needs to be done for some kids tomorrow.’

‘Of course, it’s rare but not exceptional that one feels some obligation to the old life’ came the smiling response. ‘We’ll wait at the main entrance lobby for you’. Bridgeport threw into a box an old bashed up book, some spare uniform and his teacher’s tablet.

Bridgeport stepped outside and closed the door behind him. As he rushed down the corridor toward the elevator, he dropped the box outside a young colleagues door and pressed the buzzer, before rushing on without waiting for a response. 

None of this made any sense. He had never played the Lottery in his life and yet now he was going downstairs to be a shareholder.

_____________________________________

*what went well

** even better if

A houseplant is dying. Tell us why it needs to live.

I look at Malcolm the houseplant and it seems very poorly.  

It’s a shame since it has lasted so long struggling to contend with long periods of no water with his leaves all wrinkled...

...and then long periods of over watering his poor crown.

...sometimes poor light with the blinds left drawn for day after day

...and sometimes left with its leaves scorched from the direct sunlight magnified through the window pane.

 

That plant has been pretty hardy.  This time though, I think there needs to be an intervention for the sake of this survivor of a plant.  Someone with a sense of moral direction needs to step in before its too late.

 

Given half a chance it would have been a beautiful plant, green and lush...maybe even sending up a sprig of brightly coloured flowers...

 

 

 

...but the pendulum of abuse and neglect has not so far given it a fair crack of the whip to ’show off’.

 

The instructions for caring for the plant are clear.   So clear in fact the instructions are printed on the label, not in words but in symbols.  Written for idiots.  You are not an idiot and I know that you have more important things on your mind, but whether you like it or not the plant is a living thing. 

 

      
You decided to buy him and forsake his opportunity to live in a caring home, and sure you have a right to buy a plant or in this case receive him as a gift, but just as Peter Parker’s uncle said “with great power, comes great responsibility”, these words echoed also by UK Prime Minister, David Cameron when discussing the welfare reforms when he said; "with rights come responsibilities”. 

 

I suggest you have a simple choice; take five minutes out of your life every day, let the plant do for you the job he was meant to do; help you relax and enjoy your surroundings by helping to make your lodgings into a home.  A place you can look forward to going to at the end of a long day.  

 

You might not know this but your little bundle of joy here is able to reproduce too, given the right conditions.  Why would you deprive that poor specimen of a chance of growing into his potential and further deny his God-given right to pass on his genes?  I dont know how its done, but it must be possible otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them in the supermarket.  What kind of sick person are you?

 

If you simply can’t be bothered to look after him, might I suggest that he needs to be taken into care.  I know a family who would love to have him.  

 

We could even discuss shared-care arrangements.  But the status quo can’t continue.  

 

I know its confrontational and I know you will most probably struggle to come to terms with the fact that you might not have succeeded as well as you had hoped during that first  Christmas he was given to you, but just like the Dogs Trust remind us about our canine cousins, “a dog is for life and not just for Christmas.”  I know that Alan has not yet said it but I am sure that his Gardeners World predecessor Geoff Hamilton would have “A plant is for life, not just for Christmas buddy.”

 

Now, I’ll give you 24 hours to gather your thoughts and then when I come back tomorrow, either your pull yourself together or I’ll come to take him to a new happy place away from here.  It's up to you. 

 

If you can think of any reasons why the houseplant should be saved or how, do please leave a comment.

What can happen in a second?

This is my first attempt to write something based on a subject prompt provided to me by the book '642 THINGS TO WRITE ABOUT’.

 

 

What can happen in a second?

 

A second, a point in time.  So many of them pass us by without a care, each filled with so much potential.

 

In all the seconds which happen, none seem more pertinent to our lives than the moment of conception, of our own creation.  The moment a little microscopic wiggly swimming sperm breaks through the outer shell of an egg to conjoin and grow into a new being with a new consciousness.  

 

 

A second of magic and wonder.  The process has been filmed and written about countless times, and yet, like so many things explained by the empiric method, it is a moment which fires and inspires wonderment and, for some, spirituality.

 

Death too happens in an instant.  The journey to death can be long, drawn out and painful.  It can be painless too.  It can be fought against with all manner of attempts to avoid it, but its inevitableness humbles all.  This is arguably the second most pertinent second in any persons life.  King or pauper, tinker or spy, beggar or thief; death is a moment, an experience, an event we will all take a part in, whether we like it or not.

 

A second.  So trivial, has within it, the potential to ambivalently host the creation and killing of everything we know to be true.

 

Then there are the other things which come and go in a flash, love and loss, joy and ecstasy can seem eternal but are most oftentimes fleeting in a second or a longer collection of seconds.

 

Decisions and commitment are very often things which occur within a second.  To ‘do’ or not to ‘do’.  To say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.  Choices are taken either consciously, or not, in a second; some of which can create consequences which last for a lifetimes or affect countless lives.  

 

Scientific experiments related to cognitive bias have highlighted the difference between the slow logical part of the brain which weighs up pros and cons in a balanced way and the much faster part of the brain which allows us to make snap decisions without being aware of the thought process, the auto-pilot part of the brain.  

 

It’s this fast part of the brain, the bit we are not conscious of which tends to make judgements.  Do we like something? Will be do something?   

 

Two great brains started looking at this snappy part of the brain. Kahneman and Tversky started to look at the brains biases,  They postulated that are all sorts of things where we are 'hard wired' to decide or feel something before being aware of our thought process and moreover if questioned 'why we like or feel something' and 'for what reason', the slow part of our brain will ‘make up' or 'concoct’ the reason.  It will create a logic path which supports our 'first reaction' our gut reaction to tastes and choices.

 

What's interesting to me is the ‘present bias’.  It’s the part of a psyche which causes us to pay attention to the present without much care for the future.  

 

In Thailand where I am living now, this approach to life is positively encouraged.  Is that due to the Bhuddist faith? I am not sure - I guess so.  Here a swift decision is made and behaviour follows - very often neither hanging or damning the consequences; simply it is not thought about.  How often I have heard the words, when I ask a question such as "what if..." - "you think too much”.

 

According to Prof Dan Ariely, from Duke University in North Carolina the present bias is the most important.  He says ‘It’s the one which accounts for overeating, smoking, drink driving, writing an SMS when we drive and or having unsafe sex.'

 

 

Two other biases both swift and unconscious relate to loss aversion and a negativity bias and in regards to what can happen in a second, these two will have potential for a decision being made or not, commitment to be made or not and again all in less than a second.  

 

"I’ve been offered a job, shall I take it?"  The present bias means that the decision was made as soon as the job offer was known about.  By the time the letter was opened you knew if you were going to quit your current job.  

 

All the hand wringing or asking council of friends and family is merely building a justification for what your brain has already decided.  Its unlikely your logic brain will generate a ‘truth’ different from that 'the gut’ first shot into your consciousness.  Sometimes it does but not without the gut kicking and screaming.

 

 

About 900 years ago Omar Khayyam wrote:

 

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

How right he was!!  Clever bloke.

 

Second place, second chance, second choice, waves crashing, bombs blasting, guns shooting, cars hitting, questions asked, answers given, people meeting, nice face smiling, children laughing, light shining and rain hitting the ground.  All in a second.

 

If you have any ideas or reactions to the phrase 'What can happen in a second?’, your very welcome to leave them here. 

 

  

642 THINGS TO WRITE ABOUT

It has been a while since I sat down to think about something, let alone write something to share with anyone, via this neglected collection of thoughts and babble spewed from my brain box, who might be remotely interested in the lumbering merry-go-round that is my progression through this thing otherwise known as life.  

 

A while since, despite by most recent post where I was sure I had got back on track.  How wrong I must have been.  

 

Insight is funny thing.  When I don’t have it, I am often reminded “you don’t have insight”, “take a look at yourself”.  As is often the case the thing doing the ‘reminding’ is my own brain.  My own unforgiving internal monologue.  The cursing, spitting sometimes corrosive mental noise.

 

Which reminds me of what I always wanted installed above the hand basins of  a day centre for homeless people I once worked in.  I recall chatting to a couple of colleagues about the almost ubiquitous attempt of individuals to apportion blame of their circumstance on someone else (who hasn't done that?), something else (again who hasn't done that?) and never really accept their situation as a result of choices they had made.  

 

My proposed solution was to install mirrors above every handbasin emblazoned with the message “you are looking at the problem”.  Of course it was a bad idea in as much as it would simply have pointed the finger of blame, rather than a good solutions-focused chat.  The idea was dead.

 

That idea ended up on the same scrap heap as the idea where, to reduce the level of harm sex workers in Medway were exposed to, I proposed to offer a facility for them to make use of premium-rate phone lines offered by our charity.  A kind of self-employed, work at home, route out of street work using the same skills they might already have possessed.  

 

I can see now that was a minefield and the Board of Trustees were right to have kicked it into the long grass.  There is a funny story attached to that too, but we can leave that to another time.    

 

Back to the insight.  When I think I have it, I later realise, that was a delusion, an oft mistaken doppelgänger for something which seems like insight, but is otherwise more insidious, since inertia feeds off delusion like a leech.     

 

Anyhow, I have not written lately since I have been busy, making myself busy doing loads of stuff, which now I am trully back on track, I will go into at another time.  There are dozens of great things to share, but all for another day.

 

My inertia mostly related to this blog, and although it only really has a low number of followers, it does appear to have been looked at, if not 'read’ by a host of people from across the globe.  If I need an excuse to get cracking again, now I have it.

 

A couple of days before Christmas, and a day or so before leaving the little crop of rock perched somewhere to the top left of the European continent which I call my birthplace, a friend of mine (GG) gave me a book. 

 

 

“So?” you might ask.  And you’d be right to ask.  “So what?”.  Well, the book is called ‘642 THINGS TO WRITE ABOUT’.  

 

Well, in that simple gift giving/receiving thing which happens every year around the anniversary of (strictly speaking its originally the Roman celebration of Saturnalia.  Later to be incorporated by the story tellers of the man Jesus Christ  with their inclusion in the story of his birth of gifts, namely Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, given by the Magi and even more recently usurped by the giant corporations and their armies of merchandisers and marketeers who simply want us to think about things like discounts, offers, seasonal promotions and their profits) the birth of the King of Kings, son of God etc. 

   

Back to the book, the gift, '642 THINGS TO WRITE ABOUT’.  It’s a great book for anyone who hopes to write anything other people might read and I suppose something which anyone who enjoys the sometimes pointless process of generating collections of words, even just for their own amusment, might benefit from.  Why not check it out?   It’s brilliant.

 

Over time, I guess you’ll see the results of the gift.  Will it inspire?  Will I get into the habit of adding a few lines to this blog regularly.  It certainly has got me to write this and so…even though only time will tell…their is already a positive effect.

 

Right now, I have energy and focus; the doting parents of determination and I believe I will do this; write more.  Thanks for reading this and in case no one has genuinely said it to you of late; I wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.  

 

Back on track

What does this mean?

I guess it means the block has gone. For some reason, I just could not write.

Having left the blog alone for a couple of years, life has changed considerably and settled down. It's about time I filled in a few blanks and got back in the habit of sharing some thoughts and observations. It's a blog revival, a resurrection. New life is being breathed back into an old blog.

I travelled around the world with my chum LE and learnt to be a 'YES-MAN'. A bit like in that Jim Carry movie.

When I see something which resembles an opportunity, I go for it. Is that different than I was before? I think before I was more considered and less risk taking. Over the lest couple of years I have been leaping first.

From the last few updates I wrote when I was on the devil's island, until now, I have moved house three times, lost my grandmother and learnt to live life as the alian. I have made new friends, learnt a little of a new language, started new businesses and explored new ideas.

I will endeavour to write regularly, sometimes touching on current events and occasionally writing about the time between the big move till now.

So yes, the meanderings continue. I have read and re-read what I wrote before, and although I would not change a word of it and stand by the sentiment, life has moved on for all parties. Is it better? I am not sure. It certainly is different. Given the opportunity, would I go back? - sure! But without the ability of hindsights 20/20 vision, that's an impossibility. Time marches on and like it or not, life does too.

So please do get back into the habit of reading the posts, commenting if you have something to say and sharing anything you like with your pals.