It's best to hospitable to guests.To neet their needs, the host needs to know a little about them: their likes and dislikes: be it the kind of food or drink, the music or entertainment, the conversation or whatever.Hosting means having a well rounded set of knowledge, not specialised, but well rounded.
[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song. Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself. A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]
The Song: Born Joyful (based on 'Born Slippy' by Underworld) Life was intended to be a joyous thing, but somewhere along the line, we might occasionaly forget this. We might be tempted by someone who offers us a fantasy, a pipe-dream, a 'pleasure filled life', the proverbial 'streets paved with gold'. This is what drug pushers do. It's what advertisers do. It's what low grade philosophers and 'life coaches' do. It's what the perverters of 'The American Dream' do. All of them promise you over-whelming joy, but unlike Gods unconditional love, they promise it to you 'on a condition': so long as you go over to 'the other side of the valley'. But this promise of greener pastures is just a nefarious ploy, a plan hatched by an evil schemer to suck you in and turn you into an unwitting slave to your own pleasures. Once you've realised that the promise of 'a better life' was a lie, you're neck deep in the shit. You've been sucked into a quagmire, you need to get out of it, and one way of doing that is with brute force: sheer bloody mindedness. You need to smash the schemer, the drug-pusher, and force your way to freedom; back to the joyous world that your once knew. Then you can live the life that you wanted: the joy-filled one.
Play the song, and if you can make sense of the lyrics (by the way, the original lyrics aren't coherent eitherLINK) then sing along in your head (or out loud if so inclined):
This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.
John Cowperthwaite
John James Cowperthwaite was born on April 25 1915 and educated at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh. He went on to study Economics at St Andrews University and Christ's College, Cambridge, before joining the Colonial Administrative service in Hong Kong in 1941. During the Japanese occupation he was seconded to Sierra Leone.
Returning to Hong Kong in 1945, he was asked to find ways in which the government could boost post-war economic revival; but he found the economy recovering swiftly without intervention, and took the lesson to heart.
[..]
Cowperthwaite was a classical free-trader in the tradition which stretched from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill and Gladstone, rather than a modern monetarist. He was also a seasoned colonial administrator, with a strong streak of common sense. But his achievement in Hong Kong was hailed by Milton Friedman and other free-market economists as a shining example of the potency of laissez-faire when carried through to its logical conclusions in almost every aspect of government. The Right-wing American commentator PJ O'Rourke called Cowperthwaite "a master of simplicities".
Cowperthwaite himself called his approach "positive non-intervention". Personal taxes were kept at a maximum of 15 per cent; government borrowing was wholly unacceptable; there were no tariffs or subsidies. Red tape was so reduced that a new company could be registered with a one-page form.
Cowperthwaite believed that government should concern itself with only minimal intervention on behalf of the most needy, and should not interfere in business. In his first budget speech he said: "In the long run, the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralised decisions of a government, and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster."
[..]
Cowperthwaite summed up his part in the colony's success over the decade with some modesty: "I did very little. All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might undo it." The measure of that success was a 50 per cent rise in real wages, and a two-thirds fall in the number of households in acute poverty. Exports rose by 14 per cent a year, as Hong Kong evolved from a trading post to a major regional hub and manufacturing base.
[..]
Cowperthwaite himself had a Gladstonian sense of obligation towards the least fortunate: he rejected the notion of tax relief on mortgage interest because it would have benefited the better-off and might have prejudiced "our maximum housing effort at the lower end of the scale".
This is one man who had a significant role in the growth of Hong Kong from a small trading post to a prosperous manufacturing city. He gave the population freedom from excessive government interference and allowed them to get on with their lives, meaning that the government was really in a subsidiary role, a supporting role rather than the leader of the city-state.
This stanza is the last part of a short mini-series in which Odins tells of his struggle to, ahem, 'get his end away' with the daughter of Billingr: in verse 97 Odin first sees the maiden; in 98 he converses with her; in 99 he's well and truelly smitten with desire; in 100 he tries to break in to her house, but is met by the men of the house who were waiting for him; and in this verse he finally gets into the maidens sleeping quarters and only has the dog to get past.
I suppose that if nothing else we can humans can take comfort that even Gods (whether one considers Gods as spirit beings or as archetypes) with all of their wisdom and power suffer from base human desires/temptations.
[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song.Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself.A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]
The Song: SWPL Life (based on Park Life by Blur)
We all know SWPL's, we all roll our eyes at SWPLs 'cause they're so predictable: love of foreign cuisine, quaint cinema, clique jargon, one-up-man-ship, et cetera ad nauseum.
SWPLs are not a new phenomena, they are just a 21st century model of the 'social climber' who've existed since at least Medieval times.Even Leo Tolstoy in 'War and Peace' written in the mid-1800s records the SWPL mentality in the character of the (minor nobility) Berg's who loved throwing evening soirees, 'just like everybody else in St Petersburg' (emphasis added):
After Boris came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the Rostovs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other evening parties. Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it, especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilya Rostov, who was next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with the old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere else.
SWPLs are predictable, smug, fake, and engage in prolific cultural-recycling. Cultural recyclers are people who go round and round and round doing the same thing, time after time, eg wearing the same clothes fashions as 20 years ago, singing the same songs as 50 years ago, doing the same activities as 100 years ago. Alas SWPLs will intellectualise this process by calling themselves post-modern, thus avoiding any negative thoughts that would arise from considering the fact that they are wholly uncreative. This song is full of those themes, and is thus dedicated to them!
Follow the link to the song by the well-known Brit-Pop era song, sing along in your head or out loud if so inclined
# SWPL Life #
Oi!
Pretense is a preference for the social-climbers of what is known as..
{SWPL Life}
One up-man-ship cannot be avoided if you want to live a life of what is known as..
{SWPL Life}
Zac's an Anti-Fascist member, he gets intimidated by the White Nationalists, they love a bit of it.
{SWPL Life}
Who's that herb-ette marching?You should cut down on your fem-life mate, be more masculine!
All the SWPLs.
So many SWPLs.
And they all go round and round.
Round and round.
Through their SWPL life.
{Know what I mean}.
They get up when they're told, except on Bank Holidays when they are truely grateful for the lay-in.
They put their scarves on, have their latte's and dream about 'life in Tuscany'.
They feed the niggers, they sometimes feed the yellows too, it gives them a sense of enormous superiority.
And then they're smug for the rest of the day; safe in the knowledge that there will never be a bit of their heart devoted to anything.
All the SWPLs.
So many SWPLs.
And they all go round and round.
Round and round.
Through their SWPL life.
SWPL Life, {SWPL Life}
SWPL Life, {SWPL Life}
It's got nothing to do with your creative-forward-moving life you know,
It's all about your cultural-recyclers who go round and round and round.
This is a continuation of the last few verses telling of Odins unsuccessful attempts to woo Billingr's daughter. In this verse it seems like Odin has been rumbled and the men of Billingrs household have been ready and waiting for Odin to turn up, so that they can give him a good talking too, or a good beating.
This verse reminds me of a cliched movie scene about a teenage boy who climbs up into the bedroom of a teenage girl he's courting/dating for a couple of nights, only to be rumbled on the third night by the father and mother who are waiting in the girls bedroom to give him a good telling off. If anything it's a reminder of what can happen if a man let's his carnal desires get the better of him, especially if the woman he covets is married: he ends up recieving a beating.
100 Svá kom ek næst at in nýta var vígdrótt öll um vakin með brennandum ljósum ok bornum viði svá var mér vílstígr of vitaðr
When I came next,
the able [3] warriors [2] were [3] all awake;
with burning lights
and brands raised high,
so was my wretched path marked out.
This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.
Joseph Whitworth
Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887):
Joseph Whitworth was born in Stockport, then a small manufacturing satellite of Manchester. His father’s work as a frame-maker for the cotton industry must have given the young Whitworth early experience of industrial machinery. He was apprenticed to Manchester companies building mill pumps and textile machinery. At the age of 21, Joseph Whitworth had decided to seek employment in London. He travelled by barge, and along the way fell in love with and married Fanny Ankers, a bargemaster’s daughter.
Once arrived in London, in May 1825, Whitworth joined the works of Henry Maudslay. Maudslay was the father of the modern machine tool and his engine-building factory was a hotbed of engineering talent. Bryan Donkin, Joseph Clement, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and James Nasmyth all served time there. Whitworth worked in the relatively humble position of bench fitter because ‘he wanted to attain perfection’. Maudslay’s tools were then as close to that state as an aspiring engineer could hope to get.
Whitworth added to his experience with Holtzapffel and Company in 1828 and Joseph Clement in 1830. In five years, Whitworth had managed to serve the best machine makers that London could offer. Clement especially was far in advance of his commercial rivals and hi work on constructing Charles Babbage’s ‘Difference Engine’, or mechanical calculator, was the most intricate and difficult commission then given by the Government. Whitworth worked on components for this farsighted, but ultimately doomed project. For the aspiring engineer, it must have given profound insights into the levels of precision that might be attained.
Joseph Whitworth returned to Manchester to set up business on his own in 1832. He took premises in Port Street, then created a workshop at 44 Chorlton Street. The works began well, with Whitworth’s first independent patent lodged in 1834 – a machine for turning and screw cutting studs and hexagonal bolts. Before this, nuts and bolts were threaded by hand, an inaccurate and relatively expensive procedure. This patent set the pattern for a series of inventions and improvements to machinery and tools which would revolutionize manufacture.
Whitworth’s work built on that of Maudslay and others, but introduced far more fundamental thinking into the problem of producing accurate machinery. A good example was his work in making a true surface by scraping and comparing three matching planes. From these apparently simple ideas came the accuracy and method for which Whitworth became so famous.
In succeeding years, Whitworth built his business on accuracy and measurement, the gathering of engineering data and the standardisation of Whitworth Company output. It had been stated in 1830 that a fitter who could work to one sixteenth of an inch was a good workman. Whitworth’s measuring machines were capable of accurately measuring up to one two-millionth of an inch. These machines allowed him to produce standard measures and gauges. Uniformity was extended to the still famous Whitworth system of thread screw threads, commenced in 1841 and universally accepted in Britain by the 1860s. His machines for drilling, planing, slotting and shaping metal eventually formed part of the 1851 Great Exhibition displays, where over 20 of his machine were judged to be ‘of first rate excellence’.
As a result of this recognition at the Great Exhibition, the British Government consulted him on means of improving army weaponry. During the Crimean War, British army guns had proved hopelessly outdated. From 1854 Whitworth experimented to determine the best form of weapons and ammunition. Using a shooting range in his garden at Fallowfield, near Manchester, he eventually settled on the use of .45 inch elongated ammunition of rapid twist fired from a hexagonal rifle barrel. The War Office rejected the weapon, but many of its features became a standard for accurate small arms.
He was no more fortunate in the production of heavier weapons. By 1862 he had developed artillery with a range of over six miles. Again, the War Office rejected the improvements. Whitworth had much more success with his manufacture of guns for private use – even Queen Victoria was induced to fire a Whitworth rifle. The work let to Whitworth perfecting the process of hydraulic forging of gun steel.
In 1856, Joseph Whitworth became the fourth President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He was by now widely respected and influential, and he lost no time in promoting engineering standards within the Institution. Membership rose rapidly under his guidance and he was elected for a second term of office in 1866, the first individual to have served two separate terms as President. His great gift to the nation, £100,000 to found the Whitworth Scholarships for engineering, was announced at an Institution meeting in 1868 where it was acclaimed as ‘meeting the wants of the present age’. More than a century after his death, Whitworth’s legacy continues to meet the education needs of succeeding generations.
Source: http://heritage.imeche.org/mecheng/JosephWhitworth
Before Joseph Whitworth invented standardised screw threads, all screws were threaded by hand which meant that no two screws were the same.Imagine what this would be like for engineers or manufacturers who wanted to make something: they would have to go to a blacksmith to get a number of screws and then wait as they were made.And if they wanted to get a replacement nut for a bolt then they would have to wait a long time for it to be produced.Standardising screw threads thus allows manufacturing to become a lot simpler, cheaper and faster. So despite our occasional grumblings about uniformity (albeit cultural uniformity) in the Androsphere, there is much to be said that is good about uniformity and standardisation: it allows processes (be they manufacturing or communication) to flow a lot quicker than they otherwise would.
The power of carnal desires and carnal pleasures amongst mammals are well known (just look at the proliferation of male and female pornography in the world, and the well known experiment of the lab rat that chose sexual pleasure over food [LINK]), but it seems that carnal pleasures are so strong that they can even drive some Gods to their wits end.I suppose this could provide some comfort to anyone struggling with the proverbial ‘pleasures of the flesh’ to know that even Gods can suffer from the same problems.(BTW, if think I’m a little loony for thinking that Gods are real then consider them as a sort of cross between AbstractJungian archetypes and Emotional experiences, as that’s the way that I tend to think of them.)
[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song.Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself.A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]
Introduction:
When writing any works of fiction, like songs or stories, I often find that the words seem to write themselves and I simply act as a conduit for them. It's only after the bulk of the text is written that I set about refining & rewording the text. This is probably because Intention (a sub-conscious desire to do a thing) preceeds Awareness (conscious awareness of the desire to do a thing). The structure of the human brain could be used as an analogy for the development of thought processes because they both start of as sub-conscious events and then slowly develop to become fully conscious events which we can then shape according to our own Will. If you've forgotten about the structure of the brain, then here's a quick reminder:
1. The brain stem: The brain stem contains vital structures including the medulla oblongata which controls breathing, heart rate, and digestion and the cerebellum which coordinates sensory input and maintains muscle movement and balance.
2. The mid-brain: It consists of a number of interrelated structures that regulate temperature control, hormones, and emotions.
Anyway, that's how I believe that creative acts often occur: firstly as sub-conscious intentions and then as thoughts that we are consciously aware of (and can consequently shape).
The Song: Still hasn't Accomplished All he Set Out For (based on 'Looking For' by U2)
The song is about about man, generally speaking, and his endeavours on planet Earth, about how he has struggled, about what he has accomplished, about what he has become and about what he has yet to accomplish.
Some of the terms in the song you might be unfamiliar with so will need some explanation:
- 'en-grippened' refers to a mental state much like possession, which is when someone is possessed by a spirit being.
- 'Void' is the Void that some people who have had Near Death Experiences have reported.It's a place devoid of any warmth, light or anything.You are not even permitted to own your own body; it's a terrible experience, going there.
- 'Kingdom to Come' refers to the future.
Play the music video in the link above and sing along with the alternative lyrics given below.
# Still hasn't Accomplished All he Set Out For #
Man was born.
Into the darkness
He has risen.
to the greatest heights, to the greatest heights,
to the greatest heights.
He has engrippened.
He has cried.
He has affirmed
the steepest mores.
The steepest mores.
Only to ascend with you.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
He is king.
He is priest.
He is scientist.
He is beast.
Heart burns like fire.
With his burning desire.
He loves.
Like the eternal Gods.
He has fought.
The damnable devils.
Who was cold as the void.
As cold as the void.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
He believes in the Kingdom to Come.
When all the Gods will accede as one.
Accede as one.
With he leading unto them.
He broke bonds.
Unloosened Wills.
Precipitated the heralding,
of the New Age.
Of the New Age.
You know I believe in him.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
But he still hasn't accomplished all he set out for.
