Ryan Larkin

Only just found Ryan Larkin, and this short film fits in so well with my blog theme "Musings on where we fit in to the overall scheme of things, if there is one... And occasionally writings or music which seem to illuminate it..."

A long coffee break

Sun in the piazza
Blank paper awaits my words
Gets only shadows

Sports Gear and a Coffee Break - Serendipity!

Surfing around for activity gear (yes, even me!), I came across a company in Cardigan Bay and Carnaby Street called howies®.

Their sports gear looks good and their website is amazing, with beautiful photos and loads of thought provoking pages. Thought provocation - now there's a thought...

Today is Republic Day

Back in March, I listed the English royal succession, pointing out that Miss Zenouska Mowatt was only 40 little accidents away from becoming Queen Zenouska.

Today being Republic Day, I thought I would check whether anything has changed. And hallelujah, one of those little accidents has happened! The Lady Marina-Charlotte Windsor, previously holding position 25, has apparently become a Roman Catholic, thus renouncing her already distant claim to the throne, pulling Miss Zenouska up to position 39.

The new Number 40, the one below Zenouska, is the Earl of Harewood, descendant of the Lascelles family who made their fortune in the West Indies through customs positions and the slave trade. That was in the late eighteenth century of course, when slavery was seen as a Good Thing.

I went back to the Royal website, to check once again what they contribute, and I couldn't find a single thing that couldn't be done as well or better by an elected president, a vice president or a former president (like the USA's President Carter), someone who had been chosen by the people.

Change can happen! The new government in Nepal has declared a Republic and asked the deposed king to hand over the keys of his palace so that it can be turned into a museum. No doubt there will be some conflicts and even violence before it settles down, but the major change has happened.

And closer to home we have the example of the Republic of Ireland. Until 1948 King George VI still had the title of King of Ireland, and it was unclear who was really the head of state - the English hereditary monarch or the democratically elected President of Ireland. This was settled in the Republic of Ireland Act in 1948, and Ireland formally became a Republic on 18 April 1949, the thirty third anniversary of the the Proclamation of the original Irish Republic.

It is only a small thing, I suppose, but my deep Irish roots tingle with pride when I see the President of Ireland, Mary MacAleese, like her predecessor Mary Robinson, walking out to meet the players at an international rugby match. What a comparison to the fusty, dusty, ceremonial encrusted Mountbatten-Windsors and their hangers-on.

Time for a Republic here too. But as it will replace the so-called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", what on earth are we going to call it?!

Keeping sane in an insane world

According to Gwyneth Lewis, National Poet of Wales in 2005-6, we should expand our concept of what is healthy to include depression, because it is "an important corrective mechanism for keeping us sane in an insane world". Gwyneth was talking on the BBC Radio 4 programme You and Yours today - here is a deep link to the talk - hope it is still functioning when you click it!

The programme invited several well-known people to talk about What disability means to me. Gwyneth was resistant to considering herself as disabled, even though the symptoms of clinical depression are indeed disabling while they last. On the contrary, despite dreading any signs of a possible impending attack, she looks at the positive effects depression can have, of getting things into context and escaping the tyranny of expectations that we should all be "high-earning, athletic-looking, brand-wearing consumers".

I have a number of good friends who are, like me, recovering depressives (or should that be depressives in remission?!) and sometimes we sit in a coffee shop and watch people rushing by, and wonder how many of them are in touch with their souls and how many are quietly desperate but haven't yet faced up to their problems or even realised they have them. Depression is not something to be wished on anyone - except maybe the idiots who say "Pull yourself together and get on with life" - but it does indeed have the upside of helping us see the world as it really is. That could be depressing in itself, but we know that we aren't the crazies - the crazies are the people who rush around in "the insane world" without ever finding out what life is for.

If someone in your life has or seems to have depression, I strongly recommend Gwyneth Lewis's book Sunbathing in the Rain, a cheerful book about depression!

Messages from India

India escaped from the British Empire on August 15th, 1947. The event was referred to as "the granting of Independence", though I find it hard nowadays to understand how a country the size of India, with such a wealth of ancient culture, religion, science and philosophy could ever have been "dependent" on Queen Victoria and her successors. Subjugated by ruthless military force and cunning diplomacy, yes, but "dependent"? Never. One of the big what-ifs of history is where we would be today if the colonial powers had developed honest open trade with the Indian sub-continent instead of behaving like pirates and attempting to subjugate the people. A Hindu friend tells me that bribery and corruption were not a serious problem in India until they were introduced by the British as part of their scheme to divide and rule. Whether this is true or not, he certainly believes it.

Back in 1947, I was a six year old schoolboy at a Catholic school with a mixture of gentle Irish and Jingoist English teachers. I learned that the Empire was a Good Thing, and its gradual transformation into the Commonwealth was a Good Thing too, because all the peoples still recognized George VI as their King, even if he could no longer stamp IND IMP (Emperor of India) on the coinage. And our wonderful missionaries would eventually convert all the benighted Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs to the one true Catholic faith, Amen. No mention of Buddhists, Jains, the ancient Christian Churches in Kerala and all the other traditions. Missionaries have to keep their view simple.

Since then, I have met many people from different countries of the sub-continent here in the UK, and as I am interested in religion and politics I have had many fascinating discussions which washed away my earlier indoctrination and replaced it with respect. However, there is also an uneasiness here about the way that large parts of the population of India live in extreme poverty and degradation, while other parts are enormously rich. I'm not a missionary, so I don't try to do anything about it other than contribute to Oxfam, but I do watch news reports from India with interest.

News reports, unfortunately, are biased and filtered. Not deliberately, but because the news corporations are interested only in the sensational, so the daily lives of real people are not covered. Therefore it was a breath of fresh air to come across Didi Seena's blog, Humming Leaves. Didi Seena describes herself as a hopeless romantic, but her writing brings a strong sense of what the real India of real people is like now. Many thanks, Seena, I'll keep reading!

Catalytic converter recycling?

Up to now, I had thought that SUVs (Chelsea Tractors) were just conspicuous consumption vehicle one-upmanship, except for the few farmers and country dwellers who really need the power and all-terrain capabilities. However, I've just read a news item from the USA which has made me think again.

Apparently the combination of a high wheelbase and a catalytic converter gives an opportunity for redistribution of wealth. A couple of minutes under the vehicle with a rotary saw, and the cat converter is free and ready to go for extraction of the platinum and palladium it contains. So the owner of the car has the problem of shelling out a few hundred dollars for a new converter and the labour to fit it, small change for someone who can afford such a hugely expensive auto in the first place, while the person with the saw has a nice addition to his income.

Just imagine the delight of a 'recycler' looking down a leafy suburban street with catalytic converters lined up under their over-sized vehicles just waiting for his saw! Or her saw, of course. Miserable incomes which drive people to crime are not a male prerogative.

Of course, it is not just SUVs and their cousins which are at risk. Ordinary cars have converters too, but their exhaust systems are less easy to get at without a jack or lifting tackle. In terms of capital investment and potential income per hour, the SUV wins out every time. And an SUV exhaust system is bigger - more platinum and palladium.

So many trends cross here. The failure of our not-quite-democracies, in both the US and the UK, to deal with the growing problem of the income, health and education gaps between the very very rich and the chronically poor. The failure of legislation to limit the growth in use of fossil fuels. The severe under-funding of research in renewable energy sources and incentives to apply them. The demand of the emerging economies for raw materials that we in the west have exploited them for in the past. The articles of faith that growth is good and we must always outperform our neighbours and even our friends.

Some thought provoking material on a blog post here .

Know any good tunes to whistle while Rome burns?